Marginal Christianity

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...

This is the last chapter. We've looked at the trees in the forest. The next post will try to give a picture of the forest with a synoptic summary and sketch of the whole of Root's argument. Conclusion: practical steps to consider as the household of ministry The Church “As the household of ministry, the church is the place where we experience the real presence of Jesus as minister . . . the church is a gathering place to receive the ministry of Jesus through the embrace of others.” (4959) “The church’s job is not to fight for space in Secular 2 but to be the outpost of ministry in the world. The only thing the church offers the world is ministry! And this only thing, as we’ve seen, is everything.” (4966) Core Dispositions of church: -gratitude -giftedness -rest Gratitude “The church is first a community of gratitude; receiving the ministry of divine action and experiencing the very being of God through the unveiling of God’s ministerial being, we ...

8. What is Faith? Through the cross of Jesus Paul finds a new divine transcendence emerging from this negation. Faith is a transcendent experience born out of this negation. “Faith for Paul is something ever strange to our modern ears. Faith is actually to enter into Christ; it is to have our own being taken into the being of Jesus.” (2901) We are tied to Jesus’ faithfulness, his ministry. “’Faith’ then, for us, ‘is a complex human experience, and Paul preserves this complexity while giving it a unique twist. While affirming its character as trust and conviction, Paul connects faith to the experience of Jesus as God’s faithful Son. Faith is more than trust; it is also fidelity, or loyalty.’” (2920) Dreaming of Phinehas Phinheas is Saul’s model of righteousness. Only he and Abraham are called righteous in the Old Testament. “He was a young man with a robust, consequential, vital faith—with a personal religious commitment brimming with adjectives. He saw the Israelites...

I have defended the ministry of women in the church in public for a while now, including on this blog. I don’t think I can do it any longer. Not because of any lack of calling or gifting in their ministry, but because of a lack in mine. Take Phoebe Palmer. She began to be involved in leading a Bible study in New York around 1830. She soon received invitations to preach across the USA and in the UK. Something like 25 000 people were converted by her ministry. 25 000 people. Converted. Does that need defence? Really? She visited prisons regularly, ran a society helping poor people in need of medical attention, and was involved in an ambitious project to challenge the new problem of urban poverty through the provision of low-cost housing, free schooling, and employment. She had a particular concern for orphans throughout her life. Challenging injustice on a grand scale. Do you want me to defend that? In The Promise of the Father , and 20-odd other books,...

May 24, 2017 by Michael F. Bird 0 Comments A central tenet in New Testament proclamation is that Jesus Christ has won a victory for his people, the famous  Christus Victor theme of the atonement, where sin, death, and the devil have been defeated. You find this view beautifully enunciated by Paul in Col 2:13-14: 13  When you were dead because of the things you had done wrong and because your body wasn’t circumcised, God made you alive with Christ and forgave all the things you had done wrong. 14  He destroyed the record of the debt we owed, with its requirements that worked against us. He canceled it by nailing it to the cross. However, I’ve been wondering of late, how does this express itself in practice? What does it mean to live a victorious Christian life? Does it mean having sin conquered, success in your ministries, a fruitful spiritual life, healthy relationships, onward and upward all the time? What is it? What does victory look like when worked ou...

The Book of the Twelve for Lent 2016 “Give Careful Thought to Your Ways” – Haggai (1)           Haggai lived and prophesied during the time of the Persian empire after Cyrus decreed the return of all Jews who wanted to return to their homeland. A chief issue for the returnees was rebuilding the temple that the Babylonians had destroyed at the beginning of the Exile. The rebuilding started well enough. But the difficulties and the prospects of the rebuilt temple’s lesser grandeur than Solomon’s temple dimmed enthusiasm and the project lagged. A major burden of Haggai’s preaching was the people’s renewal of the temple’s rebuilding.           Haggai sets the temple’s rebuilding in the context of God’s covenant with David (that a son of David would always rule in Israel) and God’s promises for a great future of the nation and its temple. Post-exilic Israel lives between this covenant and t...

Success as we know and are taught it in North America has no place in God's kingdom work. Instead, “conquering” is the appropriate biblical lingo. What's the difference between the two? The short answer is Jesus. But Jesus, the risen One, gives us a more detailed profile in his messages to the seven churches in the book of Revelation. Each of these messages are addressed to those who hope to “conquer” and the gifts such conquerors will receive. Only two of these churches receive no censure from Jesus; the others all have something going on that provokes Jesus' ire. So our profile of conquering will involve extrapolating from the sins of five of the churches to their positive correlates and compare and contrast them with success in our culture. First , conquering is other-directed. Whether the “first love” from which the Ephesian church had fallen was love for God or love for each other, in either case the one who conquers is focused away from him or hers...

http://www.crosswalk.com/church/pastors-or-leadership/5-reasons-your-church-should-be-smaller.html Tim Suttle TimSuttle.com 2015 13 Mar                                              For years it has bothered me that, although the majority of churches in America have fewer than 300 people, most church leadership advice comes from pastors of huge churches. The assumption that bigger is better pervades the church leadership culture. What if that’s the wrong tack? Here are five reasons your church might be better off focusing on faithfulness instead of success… even if it that means it will Shrink . 1. Faithfulness, not success, is the goal of the church The church’s job is not to grow, multiply, or expand. The church’s job is not to take back the culture for Jesu...

http://millennialpastor.net/2013/11/21/7-reasons-church-isnt-for-you/ November 21, 2013 Rev. Erik Parker 8 Comments As a Pastor, a lot of people tell me their thoughts about church. My parishioners, my friends, my family, strangers, young, old and everyone in between. People tell me what they like and what they don’t like. People tell my what should be changed and how to do things differently. They tell me what they are looking for when they ‘church shop’. People tell me why they aren’t attending as often and when they plan to get back in the habit.   Like just about everything else in world, Christians and non-Christians are consuming church. More and more, churches and pastors feel pressured to attract and captivate people – code language for entertain the people into the pews.   Well… maybe I am the first to say, out loud, what a lot of pastors would like to say: Church isn’t for you.   Here are 7 reasons why church isn’t for you: ...