Marginal Christianity

PROPOSITION 2 The End of History Has Already Begun Camp’s first proposition is that history has a goal, a teleology, a future. Christian faith is an interpretation of this history with a future. This sets Christianity apart for some other philosophies, spiritualities, and religions, but not all (e.g., Marxism). What sets it apart from all others is Proposition two: the end of this history has already begun. If Christianity sees history going somewhere, it also believes that somewhere has already come forward to be present in the history that is moving toward it! That a bit mind-binding, I know. That why it will be important to pay attention to Camp on this point. It   is Jesus and his resurrection that creates this new situation. And since this newness is a real change in our world it represents a new political possibility (neither right nor left). Jesus’ resurrection “ ushers in the end of history, vindicates the way of Christ, and inaugurates a new political pos...

From Letters and Papers from Prison (Kindle edition) “The Christian is not a homo religiosus but simply a human being, in the same way that Jesus was a human being—in contrast, perhaps, to John the Baptist. I do not mean the shallow and banal this-worldliness of the enlightened, the bustling, the comfortable, or the lascivious, but the profound this-worldliness that shows discipline and includes the ever-present knowledge of death and resurrection.” 6211-6219 Bonhoeffer is famous (or infamous) for his calls for a secular or non-religious Christianity. He makes it clear in this passage that he is not recommending that the church simply join in and go with the flow of wherever the prevailing cultural winds take us (though he has been [mis]interpreted to mean that). He characterizes that way of living as: -“enlightened” -“bustling” -“comfortable” -“lascivious” Or what we might call a middle-class or above way of life give to business, busy-ness, consumerism, and pleasure....

From Letters and Papers from Prison (Kindle edition) “Being able to face dying doesn’t yet mean we can face death. It’s possible for a human being to manage dying, but overcoming death means resurrection. It is not through the ars moriendi but through Christ’s resurrection that a new and cleansing wind can blow through our present world . . . If a few people really believed this and were guided by it in their earthly actions, a great deal would change. To live in the light of the resurrection—that is what Easter means.” (Kindle loc.4352) The rest of the week will be devoted to explore some of Bonhoeffer’s observations about Easter and resurrection in his Letters and Papers from Prison . Coming to terms with dying is a noble human venture, no doubt. It certainly beats the denial of death so rampant in our culture. Yet that is merely a capitulation to the powers of the old age that hold the world in their deathly grip. As Bonhoeffer notes it is “overcoming death” that brings...

“The crisis of the church in present-day society is not merely the critical choice between assimilation or retreat into the ghetto, but the crisis of its own existence as the church of the crucified Christ . . . for only by Christ is it possible to tell what is a Christian church and what is not. Whether or not Christianity, in an alienated, divided and oppressive society, itself becomes alienated, divided and an accomplice of oppression, is ultimately decided only by whether the crucified Christ is a stranger to it or the Lord who determines the form of its existence . . . As far as I am concerned, the Christian church and Christian theology become relevant to the problems of the modern world only when they reveal the 'hard core' of their identity in the crucified Christ and through it are called into question, together with the society in which they live . . . Faith, the church and theology must demonstrate what they really believe and hope about the man from Nazareth who...

Jesus’ Resurrection (Mt.28:1-10) On the day after Sabbath the two Marys, witnesses of Jesus’ burial, trek to his tomb. To “see the tomb” is how Matthew puts it (v.1). And that’s what they expect to see. Yet what they do see is completely unexpected!   Before they can “see” anything, however, an earthquake strikes. And a great angel appeared to roll away the large stone sealing the tomb. “ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow” (v.3). So terrifying was the sight of him that the Roman guards were struck as if they were dead (v.4). Angels, earthquakes, and open tombs are often biblical symbols for great acts of God. And that seems to be what Matthew wants us to get here. A great act of God has occurred in this place. And not just a miracle, as if Jesus’ resurrection was simply another proof that God can do things beyond our ken and power. Again, Matthew’s not doing apologetics here. He’s proclaiming that God has brought to completion the gr...

A Parable about a Wedding Banquet (Mt.22:1-14) The issue of Jesus’ authority, his political authority as Messiah of God’s heavenly kingdom continues to be at issue here. Ancient peoples, Jews among them, did not know the separation our modern world has erected between religion and political. For them everything had political significance and everything had religious significance. Jesus had occupied and announced the destruction of the temple, disputed with the Jewish leadership over his authority, and retold Israel’s sad history of default on their calling to be God’s Abrahamic people, which had finally led to this moment of final crisis with Jesus. It was him or the Jews as other than this Abrahamic people given over to bearing God’s blessing to the world. And Jesus’ authority as God’s agent in dealing with the Jews bookends this section (21:23-22:46). Within these “authority” bookends Matthew tells two sequences of three: three parables (the two sons, the vineyard and a ...

Exposition A faithful priestly family, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were living faithfully - “righteous before God” (v.6), that is, within the story line that governs Luke’s account. He carefully situates them in this story within the history of the world going around them. God’s work is this world, in this world, and for this world – “in the days of King Herod of Judea” (v.5). “Righteous” means living in right relation to God and for right relations in the world God created. Far from a stuffy, priggish, rule-keeping fetish, righteousness is the freedom to live for God and from his good order and intentions for his world. Just one problem: Elizabeth was barren! A curse from the world’s point of view, though from the story line of divine promise from which Luke worked, just where she needed to be. A barren “mother” of Israel, Elizabeth takes her place alongside Sarah (Gen.11:30), Rebekah (Gen.25:21), Rachel (Gen.29:31), and Hannah (1 Sam.2:5), as those who received from God new l...

The Sadducees are up next to challenge Jesus. They don’t believe in the resurrection. They were conservative both religiously and politically not liberals as we might imagine their disbelief in the resurrection would make them. -Moses didn’t teach it and Sadducees regard the five books of Moses the most authoritative   part of the Bible. -It was politically risky, as N.T. Wright explains. “It  had become popular particularly during the revolutionary movements of the second century BC, as a way of affirming that the martyrs had a glorious future  awaiting them, not immediately after death, but in the eventual resurrection  when they would be given new bodies. This belief was based on the fundamental  idea of God as the maker, and therefore the remaker, of the world. People who  believe that God is going to recreate the whole world, including Israel, and even  including their own dead bodies, are much more likely to do darin...

A couple of days ago Michael Bird wrote what I take to be the most important post I’ve seen in a long time. It’s titled “Living the Victorious Christian Life?” ( http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2017/05/living-victorious-christian-life/ ). It’s a no-holds-barred, no-quarter given expression of that “not much loved” tradition (Moltmann) of the theology of the cross. Scrubbed free of sentimentality and false expectations (“Does it mean having sin conquered, success in your ministries, a fruitful spiritual life, healthy relationships, onward and upward all the time?”), Bird takes the cross as the “means and model” of victory in the Christian life and then claims that “victory looks like defeat, it feels like despair, and it smells like death.” He follows with a litany a la 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 closing with a echo of Leonard Cohen that “Victory is a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.” In the midst of all this living for God that “doesn’t  look  like victory . . . doesn...