On Getting It Right: Doctrinal Confession Gone Wrong

Three quick postlude items from my recent series blogging through Dallas Willard’s book Knowing Christ Today.

First, I recently conducted an interview with Dallas Willard on this book for Christianaudio.com. If you’re interested, you can download the interview for free by clicking here (registration is required).

Second, Dallas will be speaking at a conference in Anaheim CA called “Knowledge For Life,” on these same themes. The date is April 17, and you can register by clicking here. I’m planning to attend, so if you are too I’d love to connect, so shoot me an email!

Finally, in my recent series in Dallas Willard’s book, Knowing Christ Today we discussed what he calls “soft pluralism” or “inclusivism.” There was an excellent footnote in Chapter 7 that didn’t fit my post on that day, but is important enough that I want to quote it here and open it up for discussion.

Willard is talking about recognizing that other religions may indeed contain true knowledge about God that we can respect, saying:

“This “pluralism” might well concede that all of these features of religions involve important aspects of truth and goodness and should be respected as such. Those dead set against pluralism in any form would of course deny that. But disciples of Christ certainly would not have to do so. [...] outstanding spokespeople for Christ in the Bible have been more generous toward other religions than that and have held that the God of the Bible and of Christians deals lovingly and justly with those who fall far short of “getting it all right” in their understanding and in practice.”

This is where the footnote begins, and where it really gets good:

“In any group the vast majority of those in “good standing” do not believe many of the things the leaders of the group teach as “necessary.” More often than not they don’t even know about them, and if they did, they would not be able to understand them. An example of this would be what is stated about salvation it he Athanasian Creed. After laying out extremely subtle points about the Trinity, it is declared there that “he therefore that will be saved must think thus of the Trinity,…neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance” of the Trinity. The issues in this creed are extremely important. But if one must “think thus” to be saved, 99 percent of professing Christians are not going to make it. Try this creed on and see what you think. Groups and their institutions tend to confuse what they need to teach with what one must believe in order to be saved. This leads to their members professing lots of things they neither believe nor are committed to – indeed, do not even understand. That, in turn, makes it inevitable that they will not “live up to what they profess,” for they actually do not believe what they profess. The effects of this on genuinely trusting and following Christ is devastating. They can be abundantly observed in most Christian groups.”

What do you think might be the “devastating” effects of pressuring people to profess what they don’t actually believe and do you think they’re readily observable?

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Chapter 8

(This is the 9th and final installment in my series on Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today. Previous Entries: Intro | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7)

Pastors as Teachers of the Nations

Of all the chapters in Willard’s latest book, this final one surprised me the most, starting with the seemingly outrageous title, “Pastors as Teachers of the Nations.” Isn’t that arrogant? Imperialistic, even, in a post-Colonial sort of way? Still, it is the logical conclusion of Willard’s line of thought regarding the central importance of spiritual knowledge in general and knowledge of Christ in particular:

“Who is to bring the knowledge that will answer the great life questions that perplex humanity? [...] The primary responsibility to teach falls upon those who self-identify as spokespeople for Christ and who perhaps have some leadership position or role in Christian organizations.”

He makes it clear that he is not speaking exclusively to those who hold official leadership positions, but he is speaking especially to them and in so doing he addresses Jesus great comission to”make disciples of all nations,” and says something perhaps challenging to us pastors:

Above all, perhaps, we must not think of the task as making adherents to a particular brand of Christianity now current. If we do, we will then lose the cosmic viewpoint and see the task only in terms of religious organizations and political realities. Jesus, however, did not send people out to make Christians or start churches as we understand them today. He set them to make disciples (students, apprentices) to him and, supported by his presence, to teach them all that he had taught by word and deed. That is a very different enterprise!

Here Willard stresses, again, the central importance of genuine knowledge for teachers of any kind, but particularly Christian teachers. It is not enough to know about Christ, or scripture, or theology proper. Our task is to know Christ and make him available by that knowledge to others. This, of course, means that we must actually be people who possess such knowledge of Christ and be able to demonstrate it; and this leads to another challenging point – Willard says we should ask for and expect no priviledge accoriding to title, but rather be ready to demonstrate the truth of the knowledge we profess:

True spokespeople for Christ need no special advantage and seek none. It is one again – but now on the worldwide stage that comes with “globalization” – a question of the God who answers “by fire” (1 Kings 18:24).

Are pastors really ready and willing to be tested in that way? Being willing to have one’s knowledge tested and demonstrated as true in real life speaks to a level of confidence we don’t often see in Christian leadership. Instead, what we tend to see is endless defensive bickering and accusations aimed at belittling the competing dogmatic thoughts of others (usually other Christians). Entire ministries and churches are now built on that foundation. Willard has something to say about that as well:

It is not knowledge, but nervous uncertainty, that makes people dogmatic, close-minded, and hostile – which spokespeople for Christ must never be. Paul wisely said to his young pastor friend, Timothy” “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth” (2 Tim 2:24-25).

Of course, because we live in a time when all religious thought – and the status of Christian leaders along with it – has been relegated to the scrap heap of mere opinion, pastors will have to repeatedly, and under tremendous external opposition, present the basic tenets of Christianity as knowledge and be ready to defend and demonstrate it. This is largely not the case today, where pastors as seen as teachers of what Christians are supposed to believe, not of what is known and can be known as true by anyone through fair inquiry.

Finally, all this discipleship is an activity that happens not in the church, but in the world – for that is where people live their lives and that is where God is at work. Raising people up to serve in the church is ultimately a dead-end. “Discipleship is for the sake of the world, not for the sake of the church.” Willard ends the Chapter and the book with this exhortation and encouragement:

The most important thing that is happening in your community is what is happening there under the administration of true pastors for Christ. If you, as a pastor, do not believe that, then you do not understand the dignity of what you are supposed to be doing. Whatever your situation, there is nothing more important on earth than to dwell in the knowledge of Christ and to bring that knowledge to others.

Questions:

1. What’s your reaction to Willard’s claim that pastors are to be the “teachers of the nations?”
2. How do you feel about the idea that our claims of knowledge about Christ must be testable and provable as true?
3. What other thought or questions are you left with as we finish this book series?

Technorati Tags: Books, Christianity, Dallas Willard, Jesus Christ, Knowing Christ Today, Pastors

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Chapter 7

(This is part 8 in my series on Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today. Previous Entries: Intro | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6)

Knowledge of Christ and Christian Pluralism

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

How can a Christian claim knowledge of Christ in a pluralistic society, where there is an increasingly hostile posture toward any religious claims to exclusive truth?

First, it simply cannot be avoided that knowledge inherently excludes by nature because, again, knowledge cannot avoid being about what is true – a state which, by necessity excludes all contradictions. If the car is out of gasoline, then declaring it so is true, a fact that logically excludes other statements such as “The car has gasoline” and “the car is not out of gasoline.” Such knowledge cannot be avoided in real life (in fact, we couldn’t survive without it), and any discipline that seeks to avoid the trueness of genuine knowledge relegates itself to the realm of the absurd, irrelevant, and possibly even the dangerous (untruth in medicine and rock climbing, for example, can get you killed). There is no plausibility for a pluralism that either denies truth or claims truth for every proposition.

However, Willard states there is an important sense in which a certain kind of pluralism is vitally important and it begins with the humble acknowledgment that even if we are convinced we are right we know we are not infallible. This is nothing less than the Christian ideal of loving one’s neighbor:

“This distinctively Christian imperative is precisely based on the knowledge of God, Christ, and right and wrong that we claim as Christ followers. It concerns respect for the sincere efforts of human beings to do what they believe to be good and right.”

Willard spends some time exploring the difference between what he calls “weak pluralism,” the position that all religions may hold some reflection of the truth about God, and “strong pluralism,” which insists that that there are no real differences at all between religions. He says there is no reason for a Christian to reject the former, but that no serious thinking person could hold to the latter. A cursory examination of the major religions reveals there are too many contradictions between the faiths. More often than not, strong pluralism is simply a veneer for polite agnosticism.

Is Christ Exclusive?
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father but by me” (John 14:6). What does this mean? Willard points out the obvious dilemma: If no person can be accepted by God without personal knowledge of the historical Jesus then billions of people are denied access to God by simply being born in the wrong place at the wrong time.

However, Willard maintains that Christ’s words about himself as the exclusive way were not a reference to himself in the historical sense, but in the cosmic sense, that is, himself as the Logos, the eternal Word of God. This, he says, is demonstrated by the fact that in that very moment, even though the disciples knew the historical Jesus of Nazareth personally, they still did not know him as Christ (John 14:7-9). In other words, it’s not the historical Jesus of Nazareth that is “the way,” rather, it is the eternal person of Christ (which, of course, certainly includes the incarnate Jesus). This Christ, says Willard, is always “the way” to the Father, even if it is without knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth:

“Where there really is a way to God, where there really is truth about God, where there is genuine life of God, Christ is there.”

What Willard is saying here, very simply, is that anyone, anywhere, at any time can have a limited measure of true knowledge about God, and even respond in faith to the saving grace of God, without ever hearing about the historical Jesus, and that whenever this happens it is always via “the way” of grace made exclusively by Christ.

Perhaps more shocking to some, Willard is careful to say this is not the gospel (no surprise to those who have read Willard’s previous works). A minimum cosmic acceptance by God (the “ticket to heaven” form of salvation) is not the good news. Indeed, Willard says it is not very good news anyway, since we’re still left here on earth to deal with the horrors and injustices of life. Rather, the gospel is that the Kingdom of God is readily available now to those who will become disciples of Christ, and that gospel does require knowledge of the historical Jesus and his teachings for it is only by following his teachings that we can be apprenticed into an eternal kind of life that partners with the Kingdom rhythms of God by the Holy Spirit and overcome to the evils of this world.

Questions:

1. What has been your position on the exclusive nature of Christ? Has it changed over time?
2. What are your thoughts on Dallas Willard’s separation of the gospel of the Kingdom from the possibility of God’s acceptance of us? Is this the first time you’ve heard of an “inclusive” view? If not, where else have you heard it?

Technorati Tags: Books, Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Chapter 6

(This is part 7 in my series on Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today. Previous Entries: Intro | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5)

Knowledge of Christ in the Spiritual Life

Those who really do know Christ in the Modern world do so by seeking and entering the Kingdom of God. Everything else we have discussed here is meant to lead up to that.

Hence, in Chapter 6 it is Dallas Willard’s desire, above all else, to convince us that Christ is a living person, contemporary with each of us, and available to each of us in an interactive relationship amid the daily activities of one’s life. This is what it means to know Christ: to potentially have a real and dynamic sense of personal connection and communication with Him at any and every moment.

The reason so many people don’t have this knowledge – this actual connection – with Christ is because, fundamentally, they don’t believe it is possible. The cultural climate of Modernity and it’s Enlightenment prejudices have convinced many people that true, reliable knowledge of God (much less Christ) is not really possible.

But much of Christ’s work on earth was to inaugurate the present availability of this real spiritual interaction with God and His Kingdom. This is critically important because knowledge about a thing/person is not knowledge of a thing/person. One of the very important thing Jesus does in the gospels is demonstrate that fact, and immerse (or baptize) his disciples into that God-bathed reality. This kind of first-hand interaction with Gos is our source of knowledge of God by Christ and through the Holy Spirit.

In this Chapter Willard spends some time interacting with ways in which Christ can be said to have been demonstrably “present” in Modern society. There is a nice discussion of how Christ breaks through all barriers, including those of science, religion, and culture, and some interesting engagement with modern writers who have come to independent conclusions regarding the uniqueness of Christ.

There is also some brief interaction with Willard’s understanding of the role of the classic spiritual discipline for learning to come into regular contact with Christ. If you’re familiar with Willard’s writing at all, there’s nothing new here. If you’re not, you would be well served to read The Divine Conspiracy and The Spirit of the Disciplines.

Willard also spends some time addressing what some have called the “new atheism.” This is a helpful portion of the book, mostly because Willard affirms that Christians have much to learn from the arguments of atheists. The fact that Christ breaks through as a person in the persons and structures of our society doesn’t mean that those who proclaim him are correct in their beliefs, ideas, and assumptions. Willard does not see them as a threat, mostly because these people “do not long for there to be a biblical type of God or to be a part of His life.” Hence, they are predisposed to miss God (there will be no “seeking and entering”) and there is no sincere engagement with those who practice genuine spiritual lives.

(Two asides: 1. I don’t agree with Willard on this last point. Some of the atheists I’ve encountered are atheists, in my estimation, precisely because they do long for what God supposedly stands for – such as righteousness, peace, and justice – but they cannot reliably find that God in the world around them, and 2) It occurred to me that there are many self-proclaimed Christians who, apparently, “do not long for there to be a biblical type of God” either. Indeed, a few go to great lengths to explain away that God and replace him with a God more suitable to their liking. Some, in their own way, have even embraced the term “atheist” or stated flatly that they’d prefer atheism to the God of the Bible.)

Unlike most contemporary Christian authors (conservative or liberal) Willard makes a rather interesting and unique claim: Christians must demonstrate a verifiable form of spiritual knowledge. I think this assertion is one of the boldest claims of the book, and in this chapter he states that those who genuinely come to know Christ will:

• Discover remarkable changes in their beliefs, fundamental attitudes, and emotional conditions. For most, if not all, this will come as a surprise, one which they will most likely readily “confess” or “own up to” (One gets the sense Willard has been reading Roland Allen).
• Receive communications from God. Willard is careful to state that most will come from the Bible, and that all such communications from God will be in harmony with scripture, but he is clear that God will speak in a multitude of ways, persons, and circumstances that will – and this is key – “be testable against the realities of life and the insights of others.” Willard is trying to subvert an understanding of faith that necessarily pits it against other forms of knowledge, including science, traditions, classical wisdom, and common sense. He really does think that many people’s faith has been debilitated because their understanding of faith contradicts everything they know to be true about life.
• Discover the reality of the “light burden” and the “easy yoke.” This is closely related to the second point above. What Willard is getting at here is that Christians who know Christ will discover that their burdens are being significantly lightened by some other agent, assisting them and carrying them along. Christ is “acting with them.”

Questions

1. What do you think of Willard’s characterization of knowledge of Christ as being personal and intimate?
2. What do you think of his assertion that our knowledge of Christ must be “verifiable?”
3. What are your thoughts on the idea of “communication” from God outside scripture as a normative form of life?

Technorati Tags: Books, Christianity, Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Chapter 5

(This is part 6 in my series on Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today. Previous Entries: Intro | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4)

The Miraculous, and Christ’s Presence in Our World

In Chapter 4 Willard laid the foundation for establishing the logical existence of a god, that is, “a vast non-physical being underlying – perhaps also interpenetrating – the reality of the physical universe.” The fact that many either don’t know this, refuse to know it, or refuse to acknowledge it has no bearing on its truth. Indeed, people frequently refuse to believe what they know to be true (gambling or smoking is a prime example).

This, as Alex right pointed out in the comments on Chapter 4, merely leaves us with Deism – which is a far cry from the Theism of Christianity. To be a Deist gets you halfway there, and puts you in company with virtually all the Founding Fathers of the United States, as well as many Christian scholars (I’m looking at you Marcus Borg) and some of the proponents of liberal Christianity today. As Willard points out, this is no secret. To say that some Christian scholars are Deists is generous; some are plainly atheists.

But it is the peculiar claim of historic, orthodox Christianity that Christ was the divine incarnation of God; that such gave witness to the frequent intervention of God into this world, and that such intervention continues to this day. In other words, the faithful witnesses of historic Judaism and Christianity have always made the claim, beyond Deism, that God is often breaking into this present world to make contact with people and change their lives.

This amounts to Willard’s second argument for the existence of God and his source of particular knowledge about God: For millenia people have been claiming to have encounters with this God, they are remarkably consistent, and they constitute a genuine body of knowledge.

There is, in this Chapter, an extensive conversation about the miraculous and a logical defense of their validity. As with his treatment of the Cosmological argument for the existence of God – and in similar logical fashion – here Willard feels he has established the logical necessity of the possibility of the miraculous. From there he goes on to apply this same logical method to the question of the resurrection of Jesus – the central claim of the historic Christian faith. Again, Willard concludes that there is no other logically plausible explanation other than that Jesus indeed was raised from the dead.

(Again, there is simply no time or space in this kind of overview to rehash Willard’s arguments. If you’re interested, you have to buy the book. Obviously, I recommend it.)

He concludes:

“The established possibility of resurrection, resting upon the openness of the physical universe to a nonphysical source of creator of it all, opens the door to consider fairly the evidence that strongly favors the resurrection of Christ as an actual event and favors his continued presence in this world. So the factuality of a major miracle in this world can be known by those who would like to know and who are willing to give adequate consideration to the available evidence. Perhaps the main responsibility for knowing it lies upon those who believe it. A reasonable next step would be openness to God’s intervention in other contexts and, especially, in the events of their own lives today. Thus they could come to know the reality of a “spiritual life” for ordinary human beings (see the next chapter).”

Question:

1. Have you ever experienced what you believed was the intervention of God in your life? If so how?
2. How can you know it was God?
3. If not, has that been a source of frustration for you?

Technorati Tags: Books, Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today, Knowledge

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Chapter 4

(This is part 5 in my series on Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today. Previous Entries: Intro | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3)

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20)

Can We Know That God Exists?

Willard states that when it comes to knowing whether or not God exists we need not start from scratch. The ancient scriptures of Judaim and Chrsitianity describe a non-physical being of personality, a person of immense proportions, self-dependent, all-powerful, and loving. Furthermore, that character of love makes God-self available in covenant relationships with human persons. He then points to Christ, saying,

In a manner unique to Jesus among all among all teachers of the earth he tells us we can, right now, right where we are, rely upon the “kingdom” of this God – upon his rule, reign, or governance – and that we will then, by experience, find that “kingdom” to have the character of a loving family in its most ideal form.

This is nothing less than Jesus’ gospel, and it is nothing less than the testomony of all ancient Judeo-Christian scripture that this God is available to people, primarily through the art and practice of prayer, and that this God intervenes in peoples lives from time to time. If this is true, it has massive consequences for people’s lives. If it’s true, some will receive it as very good news, while others will find it to be very bad news indeed, and resent the very idea of a creator being interfering with their lives. The good news of Jesus is not good news to everyone.

However, not everyone believes this kind of God exists, or even that the existence of any kind of God can actually be known (a common position even among Christians). Contrary to this popular opinion, Willard says knowledge of God’s existence can readily be known. Indications of the existence of God come from two main classical streams of thought: 1) Observations about the natural world (or, the Cosmological argument), and 2) Certain kinds of experiences people have. In this chapter Willard deals exclusively with the first.

There’s no time or space here to rehash his arguments – and I would rather you buy the book anyway – but suffice it to say that the Cosmological argument has a long and robust tradition of being espoused by a great many thinkers who stand well outside the Christian tradition, and therefore must at least be dealt with seriously, even by those convinced of their error. Willard’s main points in outlining this argument are:

• “That knowledge of the non-physical source of the physical universe is possible to those who will invest due diligence concerning the matter.” In saying this Willard refuses to relegate quite sure knowledge of some kind of non-physical cosmological entity to the realm of opinion. He flatly states that such knowledge is widely known (and increasingly so in the sciences), even by those who refuse to acknowledge it. Indeed, he says, we can now move forward to investigate particularities of this entity, saying “Those who reject the existence of God or the possibility of knowledge of him now have a haunted universe in their hands.”
• That even the Cosmological indications alone represent more than merely generalities; they affirm, over a great expanse of time, space, and culture, some particularities about the person – that is, the work and character – of the entity commonly called “God.” For example, God is rather large and powerful, possesses a will to act beyond a mere causal system, possess an independent intelligence.

For Willard, like Paul, this knowledge is rather self-evident – although, admittedly, largely obscured by the convoluted musings of Modern philosophers who are largely lost in an epistemological wilderness. Still, he claims with confidence that such knowledge is sure and propels us forward, saying,

“Our argument thus far does give us a magnificent “Creator,” though not yet a personal presence in human history and in individual lives – not a perfectly good God of love. However, we say once again, do not underestimate the importance of what we’ve gained. Now the entire cognitive landscape has been changed, and with it real possibilities of knowledge of such a personal presence in the world in of a spiritual life for human beings in union with God the creator.”

Questions:

1. Are you more comfortable with the idea of faith as a form of knowledge or as a form of belief in spite of knowledge?
2. What are your thoughts on the proposition that the existence of God can be known logically?
3. If you’re familiar with the Cosmological argument for the existence of God, what do you think are it’s strengths or weaknesses?
4. If you could be certain that God existed, how would it change your life (or, how has it)?

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today

MFEO Twitter Giveaway Winner!

Last week I announced my first ever MFEO Twitter giveaway. Today is the day to announce the winner!

First, I want to thank everyone who participated. Many of you jumped on board to retweet the giveaway. Thank you! Sadly, we did not reach the 1000 threshold to kick in the extra audiobook and DVD giveaway (not even close). But, it was fun for me and hopefully for you too.

We do things the old fashioned way around here, so every entrant was listed on a uniformly sized, folded piece of paper and placed in a glass jar, which was vigorously shaken (not stirred). The drawing was conducted by my 8 year-old daughter Alannah Belle. And the winner is…

Geoff Hsu! (Twitter @geoffhsu)

Geoff wins a copy of Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy and Clarence Jordan’s Sermon on the Mount. Congratulations Geoff, these two authors are, in my opinion, Made For Each Other : )

For those who didn’t win this time around, don’t fret. I’m planning to do MFEO giveaways on a semi-regular basis, so stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: Clarence Jordan, Dallas Willard, MFEO Twitter Giveaway

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Chapter 3

(This is part 4 in my series on Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today. Previous Entries: Intro | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2)

How Moral Knowledge Disappeared

In the third chapter Willard is concerned with helping us understand how we have come to a place where religion is no longer viewed as a valid source of knowledge.

He begins by reinforcing that for centuries Christ was known primarily through his moral teachings, and that this moral teaching was reliably passed along and used for the general good of everyone – believers and non-believers alike – until very recently in Western history. Specifically, he says,

This knowledge was available to the public through the institutions of society recognized as sources of knowledge, primarily, of course, churches and schools (of all the various levels). Then, over a period of time, less than a century, the knowledge institutions of our society ceased, for various causes and reasons, to represent traditionally recognized moral values and principles as constituting a body of knowledge. They took it to be an area in which knowledge was not possible or not possible to the extent it could be taught as knowledge. This is the disappearance of moral knowledge that has actually occurred in our recent past.

Willard then lists several causes for this disappearance. They are:

1. The failure of the visible Christian church to apply the principle of Jesus to the appalling conditions of European humanity during the 1700′s and 1800′s. When the church was still the public custodian of morality, it failed to speak for Christ in the face of horrible abuses.

2. The simultaneous advancement of knowledge by the sciences that called into question many of the founding documents, events, and personalities of the Christian traditions and institutions. According to Willard, the cause here was not so much the advancement of scientific knowledge itself, for that knowledge never really succeeded in showing a non-Christian foundation for moral knowledge. Rather, the failure was on the part of Christan institutions who, under secular pressure, capitulated to the abdication of moral knowledge as actual knowledge.

3. The emergence of many different kinds of moralities through the anthropological research of non-European cultures. As the moral systems of other cultures was studied, there grew a common academic consensus that no morality was necessarily true, as such, and that Western (Christian) morality was merely another cultural form of morality.

4. The disappearance of the human self at the hands of psychological research. The concept of the unconscious emerged, rendering meaningless the idea that the human self was something that could be formed intentionally and consciously. The conviction grew that we are shaped and formed largely beyond our own control by forces inside and outside that are neither moral nor immoral.

Over and against this trajectory of relative morality and cultural opinion, Willard states that Christ’s version of morality is clearly unique and superior to anything else found in human history. To be sure, there are reflections of it in a variety of cultures and religions, but Christ stands alone in his radically teachings about love.

Particularly, the way Christ applied the rule to love neighbors, which includes strangers, aliens, and enemies. This kind of love pervades every level of life – especially the ordinary – supersedes any and all laws, and becomes the basis for a revolutionary society that successfully cultivates such neighbor love among others, beginning with the early Christians.

Questions:

1. What are your thoughts about Willard’s four causes of the disappearance of moral knowledge? Do you find yourself in some ways agreeing with those conclusions (the church is not a moral agent, science has dis-proven Christianity, all moralities are equal, and the human self cannot be intentionally formed)?
2. Do you feel the church has at any time demonstrated a heritage of successfully cultivating genuinely Christlike people? If so, when?
3. Are you comfortable with the idea that Christ is superior to other spiritual figures?

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Dallas Willard, Jesus Christ, Knowledge

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Chapter 2

(Part 3 in my series on Dallas Willard’s latest book. Previous Entries: Intro | Chapter 1)

Exactly How We Perish For Lack of Knowledge

Willard begins this chapter with a discussion of “worldview” and it’s importance for understanding how failures to appropriate genuine knowledge can have disastrous affects on human life. As an example, he cites the parable of the rich fool from Luke 12:

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ‘

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

According to Christ, says Willard, the rich fool suffered from the wrong worldview. He thought the center of reality was his possessions and consequently, he wasn’t prepared to deal with the hard realities of the Kingdom when they came to bear.

In this way, and many others, our largely unconscious worldview is a body of knowledge – often unconscious – that affects everything we do. As such, possessing incorrect knowledge has a biological affect by dictating a range of life choices. Furthermore, we have no choice: “We cannot opt out of a worldview, we can only hope to align ours with what most accord with reality.”

Fundamentally, Willard says everyone’s worldview is based on four basic questions that all humans and all cultures throughout time have inherently attempted to answer whether they realize it or not.

1. What is real, what is reality?

2. Who is well off, or blessed in life?

3. What does it mean to be a good person?

4. How does one learn to live well and become good?

If you’re familiar with Willard previous works (especially The Divine Conspiracy) you’ll recognize these. They are classic philosophical questions (Willard is a trained Philosopher, after all), and he says the disasters of humanity are directly related to how individuals and societies answer these questions. For example, the utter vacuum of reliable knowledge in these areas has led to a life in the U.S. that is based largely on sensuality, in response to the belief that we must “pursue happiness.” We no longer ask these questions overtly, we simply assume that everyone is more or less good and that we’re free to find blessedness ay way we can. By contrast, Willard says this wasn’t true of the classical moralists:

“They [the classical moralists] were acutely aware of the importance of finding an answer to the fourth question, and they thoroughly understood that the well being of a society depends upon the predominance of a genuinely good people. That is one reason why the thinkers of the ancient world turned to Christ in the early centuries of the Christian era. They became convinced that he was the key to human transformation toward goodness.”

It turns out Jesus answered these four questions in his teaching. Willard says his answers are:

1. What is real, what is reality? God and His Kingdom (John 4, John 10, John 16). That is what you can count on and what you must ultimately come to terms with. Jesus claimed to know this reality on a firsthand basis, and people believed him because he demonstrated a kind of power and authority that others did not.

2. Who is well off, or blessed in life? The answer to the first question naturally answers the second. Those who are well off in life are those who live in the reality of God’s Kingdom (Matthew 5, Luke 6).

3. What does it mean to be a good person? Likewise, in such a reality there is no linger any conflict between living well and being good (that is the classic dilemma of morality), for Jesus reveals that reality and being good are actually aligned in the Kingdom of God because being good means to love, and God is love (Matthew 22, Luke 10, 1 John 4).

4. How does one learn to live well and become good? You put your confidence in the one who knows reality first-hand and learn from him how to live. You become his apprentice in life (Matthew 28:18-20).

There is a fifth question that Willard says in this chapter is the critical question of our age: How do we know whose answers to these questions are true? We live in a time when every religious tradition, including the historical center of Western civilization – Christianity – is being doubted as a source of reliable truth about reality. This now routinely occurs in every institution of learning, government, family, business, and even church.

Most nowadays are convinced, or at least suspect, that science is the place where we find the answer to that question. However, Willard points out that science cannot answer the broader question of reality by its very nature. It can make specialized observations about what is true and factual, but it cannot identify the whole that ties everything, including humanity, together. “No science is omnicompetent.” For that, some other source of knowledge is required.

It’s interesting that earlier today Rex, an atheist, commented on my previous post. In it he lambasted the church, the Bible, and Christians in general (including Hillary Clinton!), but he had this to say in the end:

The good news I see reflected in your point of view and that of your other comments before mine is a desire to be more Christ like. That is a good thing.

What’s most interesting to me is that all his indictments essentially boil down to, “Christianity doesn’t represent reality,” but then he acknowledged that Christ, somehow, does. What is it about Christ that even atheists widely regard his life and teachings to be a superior way to live? Could it be that there is genuine knowledge within his persona that is widely recognized, even by those who refuse the yoke of his Kingship?

Questions:

1. Which do you think is the hardest of the four questions to answer personally?
2. Which do you think is the hardest question for religion to definitively answer?
3. What do you think of Rex indictment (as I’ve interpreted it) that Christianity doesn’t represent reality? Does he have a point?
4. How do you answer the fifth question?

Technorati Tags: Books, Christianity, Dallas Willard, Knowledge

Why The Bible Is Insufficient For Mission

“Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

For about seven months last year I worked as a project manager, creating branding strategies and building websites for non-profits and social enterprises. The business was built around code-writers, SEO engineers, and content writers, most of whom were basically the postmodern equivalent of pagans. They all knew my ministry background, which made for some really interesting interactions. One of the things I discovered there was how much I enjoy pagans.

So fun.

The owner, a Christian, brought in a local pastor to act as a “corporate chaplain.” He’s a great guy – young, warm, and very approachable. He has a Bachelors in Bible or music, I think, from a Christian college. He’d come by every Wednesday and chat it up with people.

So painful.

When our chaplain was introduced to the staff there was an awkward moment that basically determined his future there. After briefly introducing him, the owner turned the meeting over to the new chaplain. He very sensitively articulated his open availability to anyone who “just needed to talk” through any kinds of issues; depression, grief, anger, etc. He was there to listen and help. Everything would be confidential. Then he looked to the staff,

“Any questions?” he asked. People sort of looked around the room for a moment until one young woman raised her hand.

“Uh, yeah,” she said, “Do you have any actual training for this sort of thing, like a psychology degree or grief counseling courses or something?”

“Well, no,” he said, “but like all of you I’ve lived life and as a pastor I have good experience helping people with…”

It really didn’t matter what came out of his mouth after that. He was done. Being a pastor meant nothing to them because as far as they’re concerned the Bible has little or no bearing on the actual knowledge required to help people deal with psychological pathologies. There are professionals for that. The chaplain is a great guy, but he has an impossible task if he relies solely on his credentials as a pastor.

This is the dominant cultural we enter as post-Christian missionaries. We cannot rely on an inherent respect for Christianity as a body of actual knowledge (a major point Willard makes in Knowing Christ Today). The Bible is generally seen as a collection of opinions – most of them hopelessly archaic.

That’s why it’s pointless to keep using Reformation debates as a distillery for producing the gospel we offer. Those are Christendom debates. Nobody in post-Christendom cares about the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism. Nobody really cares what you believe about Hell or the nuances of God’s sovereignty (unless it gives them a convenient excuse to dismiss you), because most of them don’t believe in Hell or a sovereign God in the Calvinist sense, and they couldn’t care less what a book of ancient opinions has to say about it, except from maybe an historical-literary perspective (and as T.S Eliot said, to take the bible seriously as literature is a sure sign that you don’t take it seriously at all). None of them cares about a grace vs. works debate because, quite frankly, despite what Reformed preachers and theologians say, nobody outside the church is trying to earn their way into heaven. Hard-core Reformed folks have an absurd habit of turning every human thought into Pelagianism because that’s what must be done to justify an archaic theological construct. If your orthodoxy depends entirely on a particular kind of heresy then your first task is to convert the world to your heresy before you can convert them to your gospel.

You have to condition people to care about this stuff. For most regular folks who don’t believe in Christ, seeing churches and Christians stake out rabid territory on these topics is like watching two Phrenologists fight for customers by arguing the finer tenets of their trade.

For people who haven’t been doctrinally conditioned yet, all they really care about is this: are you competent to help me solve my problems. If you’re a mechanic, can you really fix my car? If you’re a teacher, can you help me understand something in such a way that my life is better equipped to deal with the actual reality in which I live?

Who in Christianity today, has consistently demonstrated they possess a body of knowledge which produces people who actually resemble Christ himself? I’m not asking who is the most articulate preacher, or the most venerated scholar, or who leads the biggest church, or who writes the best books. Those accomplishments may constitute competency in leadership, logic, prose or marketing, but not necessarily competence in Christlikeness.

So, merely pointing to what the Bible says or being able to articulate the nuances of a theology are largely useless skills for a post-Christian missionary. That’s not the kind of knowledge people want or need. And yet, one of the curiosities of a dying Christendom is that entrenched factions are getting increasingly louder and more shrill about these very issues as they fight over a dwindling market share. The huge missiological problem that results from such public bickering is that it actually undermines our claims of authority in the very kind of knowledge people desperately do want and need – and which our grasp of the Bible is supposed to foster.

Ironically, then, the Bible alone is insufficient for this task. We can’t keep pointing to it and shrugging our shoulders as if to say, “Hey, I’m not the one who said it, He did.” We have to take responsibility for actually becoming competent practitioners of the vocation to which we have been called through the person we claim to have found within those sacred pages. This is why Jesus’ comments about the truth “setting us free” came not after a discourse on education or theological savvy, but after an exhortation to follow him obediently.

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

Knowing and following Christ is the knowledge that liberates because it actually brings us closer to the Kingdom reality of God in which we live, much like a mechanic’s knowledge liberates us by fixing our car.

Who then, like Paul, is willing to look the world in the eye and say, “Imitate me. I know how to be like Christ,” (1 Cor 11:1) and then go out and prove it? Whoever does will have no trouble being taken seriously.

Technorati Tags: Bible, character, Christianity, Christlikeness, Dallas Willard, Jesus, Knowledge, Paul, Pelagianism, Reformed, T.S. Eliot