Marginal Christianity

Our culture is often likened to whitewater rapids - ever-changing, unpredictable, dangerous. It would be hard to gainsay the analogy. Experienced rafters know the key rules for successfully negotiating the whitewater rapids. I suggest these rules give us some critical guidelines for navigating our cultural/social rapids. I've tried to translate them into biblical/theological guidelines for just such a purpose. The Nature and Purpose of Theology Theology is the work of the church that evaluates and directs its journey into and through the unpredictable and treacherous rapids. According to Karl Barth this means that theology -is contextual and conflictual : an instrument of the “ ecclesia militans” (Church Militant) , theology guides the Church of a specific time to address and/or contest the needs and hopes of that time. ( Church Dogmatics 1.2, 841) -is communal and missional : “...theology . . . can be put to work in all its elements only in the context of the ...

Karl Barth, in my judgment, best describes the heart of theology and its work. According to him, theology is - contextual and conflictual : “theology is expressly an instrument of the  ecdesia militans (Church Militant) ,  in the conviction that the Church of a specific time cannot be anything but an  ecclesia militans,  i.e. the Church of a specific time with its needs and hopes. (CD 1.2, 841) - communal and missional : “...theology . . . can be put to work in all its elements only in the context of the questioning and answering Christian community and in rigorous service of its commission to all men.” (HG, 63) - scriptural and critical : Under the rubric of the  Hearing Church,  theology's role . . .   is to invite "the teaching Church to listen again to the Word of God in the revelation to which the: Scripture testifies" (CD 1.2, 798). - contested and tempted : After all that has befallen it, church dogmatics will not become "chu...

In the second edition of  Karl Barth and Radical Politics  (2017), Dr. George Hunsinger provided a helpful summary of Barth's severe criticisms of capitalism, and in one quote, Barth calls capitalism "almost unequivocally demonic." In CD III/2, Karl Barth said true humanity is "Jesus, a man for other men" (CD III/2), and in the following quotations, Barth explains that the capitalistic person, is one who lusts for themselves, and a capitalistic system establishes a small group of capitalistic people (i.e. the 1%) in a position of oppressive self-seeking power, that debases culture, and removes the dignity of the other 99%. George Hunsinger summarizes Karl Barth as follows, "Capitalism, Barth argued, exacerbated some of the worst propensities of human nature. It fostered a revolution of empty and inordinate desires. It promoted 'lust for a superabundance,' 'lust for possessions,' and 'lust for an artificially extended area of power ov...

Spend a few minutes pondering this magnificent statement: “We will now try to give the briefest possible outline of what the love of God is which is the real basis of our love to God, determining its character. One thing is certain, that according to Holy Scripture it has nothing to do with mere sentiment, opinion or feeling. On the contrary, it consists in a definite being, relationship and action. God is love in Himself. Being loved by Him we can, as it were, look into His ‘heart.’ The fact that He loves us means that we can know Him as He is. This is all true. But if this picture-language of ‘the heart of God’ is to have any validity, it can refer only to the being of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It reminds us that God’s love for us is an overwhelming, overflowing, free love. It speaks to us of the miracle of this love. We cannot say anything higher or better of the ‘inwardness of God’ than that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and therefore that He is love in Him...

Ch.7: The “Christian Life” is Way Harder than It Should Be We’ve Misunderstood Forgiveness There are two primary reasons why our experience of living as a Christian seems way harder than it should be. Three, actually, but we’ll focus on only the first one here and the others in the next post in this series. One is what we talked a bit about last time: we continue to think of ourselves primarily as “redeemed sinners.” I want to reflect some more on that here. And the second is that we’re living in the wrong story.           Okay. We keep on thinking of ourselves as redeemed sinners. Though this seems humble and pious in truth it is a heinous disregard for what God has actually done in forgiving us. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that “ in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” Did you hear that: “not counting their tresp...

The Book of the Twelve for Lent 2016 The Dynamics of Life with God and as his People - Hosea (6) Lent 4           I hope you can see from the soundings we have taken in Hosea so far how rich and supple its thought and dynamics are. And how appropriate it is that the editors of this collection of prophetic books put it at the head of the collection as an introduction.           The template Hosea presents is one of repeated overtures by God to the people, repeated (partial) responses by the people followed by relapses into idolatry and disloyalty, followed by further overtures from God and less than faithful responses by the people, ending with a promise by God to do what the people cannot or will not do for themselves, forgive and restore them by grace and out of love for them.           Hosea seems to lack a tight structure instead openi...

“It is certain that we all have reason to ask ourselves each of these questions, and in every case quickly and clearly to give the answer: “No, the church’s existence does not always have to possess the same form in the future that it possessed in the past as though this were the only possible pattern. “No, the continuance and victory of the cause of God which the Christian Church is to serve with her witness, is not unconditionally linked with the forms of existence which it has had until now. “Yes, the hour may strike, and perhaps has already struck when God, to our discomfiture, but to his glory and for the salvation of mankind, will put an end to this mode of existence because it lacks integrity. “Yes, it could be our duty to free ourselves inwardly from our dependency on that mode of existence even while it still lasts. Indeed, on the assumption that it may one day entirely disappear, we should look about us for new ventures in new dir...

God thinks of you as the royal priest he created you to be serving in his temple-palace of creation. God has never thought of you as anything else. Even in rebellion against him, denying or ignoring your royal priesthood, he has never accepted or thought of you in terms of what you have become, sinners, but always in terms of who he made you to be. Of course he knows you have gone wrong and that this has to dealt with. And God has done that in Christ – once for all time! And having done it, he never thinks of us in terms of sin and failure again. Only as his beloved children, children of the Great King, royal siblings, those to whom he has entrusted and equipped for the protection and care of his creation. When you next look in the mirror, behold there this you – not whatever other you you may believe yourself to be! For this is the true you, the real you, the you God created you to be. And if you don’t believe me, maybe these wise words of the great theologian Karl Barth wil...

          To open the Bible is to open ourselves to all manner of the strange, unexpected, and even bizarre. The tragedy is that we have misread it so ham-fistedly that we’ve driven all that out and domesticated the Bible’s message to the bourgeois and conventional nostrums of the religious, therapeutic, and political demands of being Americans. No wonder few want to read it or hear its message today. -The right celebrates the Bible’s supposed valorization of what they consider virtuous and the left follows suit from their perspective. -Others prize its inspiration and instructions for daily life. -Yet others turn it into a rule book or ethics manual supposing the Bible is about defining and enforcing conduct. -Some find in it a system of truth that gives them intellectual purchase on the issues of the day. And on it goes. The Bible endlessly subjected to the indignities of our misuse and our seeming inability to read it o...

          To open the Bible is to open ourselves to all manner of the strange, unexpected, and even bizarre. The tragedy is that we have misread it so ham-fistedly that we’ve driven all that out and domesticated the Bible’s message to the bourgeois and conventional nostrums of the religious, therapeutic, and political demands of being Americans. No wonder few want to read it or hear its message today. -The right celebrates the Bible’s supposed valorization of what they consider virtuous and the left follows suit from their perspective. -Others prize its daily inspiration and instructions for daily life. -Yet others turn it into a rule book or ethics manual supposing the Bible is about defining and enforcing conduct. -Some find in it a system of truth that gives them intellectual purchase on the issues of the day. And on it goes. The Bible endlessly subjected to the indignities of our misuse and our seeming inability to r...