Resolved, Not To Think Too Rigorously About Jesus

I’ve interacted with literally hundreds of people at Resolved and I have to say that everyone has been wonderful. People are kind, upbeat, and demonstrate a singular passion for learning about God and worshipping fervently – and I appreciate the hospitality that has been shown by the event crew.

Saturday afternoon’s speaker was Steve Lawson. I’d never heard him before and I was anxious to shed my frustration from the morning session with Al Mohler.

It was not to be.

I’ll admit up front that Steve’s rhetorical style bothered me from the start. He’s an old-time preacher that likes to build a crescendo by saying the same thing, sentence after sentence, in a slightly different way in order to drive a point home. As in:

“Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The trinitarian ikon. The divine logos. The incarnated deity. Fully God and fully man. Not 50% God and 50% man. Not 100% God. Not 100% man. 100% God and 100% man!”

You get the picture. It’s like listening to a live version of the Amplified Bible. I can’t stand the Amplified Bible. As my friend Jason Dougherty once said, “It’s a poet’s nightmare.”

But that’s just a matter of taste. Some people like that style, and as far as that style goes, Steve is very skilled. His topic was “Who is Jesus Christ?” and his approach was to rifle through the various claims made about Jesus in scripture. Not a bad approach. And, honestly, I wholeheartedly agreed with everything he said about Jesus – until he decided to get defensive about challenges to Jesus’ divinity.

Steve offered the following 5 irrefutable “proofs” of Jesus’ divinity:

• Divine attributes: Jesus possesses the incommunicable attributes of God
• Divine works: Jesus performs the works that only God can perform
• Divine names: Jesus is called by names reserved only for God
• Divine worship: Jesus receives the worship that only God can receive
• Divine quality: Jesus is doxologically referred to as God by the NT writers.

Let me be clear: I believe each of these statements constitute genuine knowledge about Jesus and I believe they are true. However, they are not facts and they do not constitute “proof” of anything other than a certain measure of internal consistency in Christian scripture. Yet, Steve Lawson postured them as irrefutable proof that Jesus Christ was and is, in fact, the incarnate God of the universe.

There are a few problems with this kind of foundationalist approach to preaching. First, it imparts a feeble epistemology – which could explain why so many college-bound evangelical Christians lose their faith. If you’ve been told your whole life that Jesus is God because the Bible says so then you’ll be unable to compete in a marketplace of ideas steeped in the worldview of empirical data. Christendom is over. The Bible is just another book as far as the world is concerned, and there’s no compelling reason to take its claims at face value.

In response, fundamentalism attempts to play the empirical game by dressing up doctrinal beliefs as empirical data. The exact opposite is needed. We must openly admit what any rational person can see – that faith claims are not facts – while faithfully demonstrating that empirical data is not the only valid form of true knowledge. Just because faith must be subjectively tried and tested doesn’t mean it isn’t genuinely powerful knowledge.

And therein lies the cruel catch: the power of faith is found in its ability to liberate people toward a life of divinely ordained possibilities, but that power cannot be experienced without being tested – a process that involves stages of frustration and doubt. Yet, most people won’t risk this if they’ve been told – under threat of ridicule, ostracism, and eternal damnation – that they must unquestioningly accept faith claims as irrefutable facts. By doing so, we impose constricting limitations on people rather than create horizons of freedom and possibility.

Author and organizational consultant Peter Block speaks to this in his excellent and provocative book, Community. speaking of the power of stories in our lives, he says:

The stories that are useful and fulfilling are the ones that are metaphors, signposts, parables, and inspiration for the fullest expression of our humanity. They are communal teaching stories. Creation stories, wisdom stories, sometimes personal stories that have a mythic quality, even if they come from a person sitting next to me [...] Limiting stories are the ones that present themselves as if they were true. Facts.

What Peter Block is describing here is the difference between how law and grace work in the imagination of a community. Law tells stories that restrict us; stories of fear and the need for boundaries in order to be safe. Grace tells stories that liberate us; stories of possibility and assurance that inspire us to take risks. Often the difference is not in the content, it’s in the telling. Even though all his content was true, Steve Lawson told a story of fear, restriction, and law rather than one of grace and freedom.

I was beginning to think the whole weekend would be an exercise in frustration…until C.J. Mahaney took the stage. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Foundationalism, Fundamentalism, Jesus Christ, Knowledge, Peter Block, Resolved Conference, Steve Lawson

Does It Matter If We Know Jesus?

I’m going to interrupt my series on Dallas Willard’s book Knowing Christ Today with this brief interlude:

In Evangelicalism we talk famously about “Knowing Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior.” What is generally meant by that statement is that salvation is the result of knowing Christ in an affective way, not just knowing about him. That is, it doesn’t matter if you merely accept the tenets of the faith (“even the demons believe”), and it certainly doesn’t matter if you merely do the good works of the faith (that would be either a works-based righteousness or *gasp* a “social gospel”), what matters is whether or not you have a discernible, personal connection with God. That is what “saves.”

A classic passage for supporting this notion is Matthew 7:22-23:

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

This is, I think, the most frightening thing Jesus ever said. It imparts the sense that one could work very hard to do what Christ said we should do, but in the end never really know him. Frankly, for those who struggle with self-acceptance, this passage plays into their very worst fears.

But notice two things: First, Jesus utters these words directly after saying that what really matters is what we do:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

The issue is not that the “evildoers” were focused on doing, but that they were focused on doing the wrong things. I think there are strong shades of Matthew 6 here (prayer, fasting, and alms for the sake of public recognition). Second, Jesus doesn’t say the evildoers didn’t really know him. Quite the opposite: he said he didn’t know them:

Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

What if the soteriological question isn’t “Do you know Christ?” but rather, “Does Christ know you?” What if salvation doesn’t depend on our knowledge of God, but on God’s knowledge of us? Consider this question from the perspective of a related passage, The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Jesus here is directly answering a question about the end of the age and judgment (Matt 24), and part of his answer is three parables, each of which successively interprets the one before. Who will be saved at the end of the age? Answer: The Parable of the Ten Virgins (Those who are “watchful” will be saved). Who is watchful? Answer: The Parable of the Talents (Those who are “good stewards” are watchful). Who are good stewards? Answer: The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Those who care for the poor and needy are good stewards – an idea explicit among certain OT prophets). All three parables ask and answer the same question, “Who, in the end, will be saved?” and the ultimate answer to all three is, “Those who cared for the poor and needy will be saved.”

Again, the key isn’t who knows Christ, but who Christ knows (an idea mentioned by Christ again in The Parable of the Ten Virgins, 25:12). In fact, it’s interesting to note that both the “righteous” and “unrighteous” seem quite surprised at the prospect of having in some way encountered Christ on earth (moreover, it seems to be that this sense of having encountered God without knowing, or being known by God without knowing it, is a frequent pattern in scripture). The bottom line is, we are known by Christ by virtue of having served him (often unknowingly) according to his will. 

Of course, many will point out (rightly) that all this still depends on a certain kind of knowing on our part. Namely, that we know the will of Christ. But that’s my whole point. Christ appears to be holding people disastrously accountable for knowing his will but not doing it (and Paul seems to make it clear that everyone, to some extent, knows his will). By failing to do his will, we are not known by him. The unrighteous seem to be banking on “knowing Jesus,” when, in fact, they were never known by him – and it is the latter knowledge by God that saves.

That, to me, introduces some interesting questions:

1. How is it possible to know Christ, but not be known by him? (Which is abundantly clear in these passages)
2. Is it possible to not know Christ, yet still be known by him? (Which seems to be insinuated)
3. How is this knowledge of us by God through our service to him still a function of grace? (Which, it absolutely must be)

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Jesus Christ, Knowledge, Matthew, Theology

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 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