Free books for the eating

My bookshelf is stuffed like a holiday bird – and everyone knows the only grateful way to steward excess wealth is to eat it, give it away, or burn it spectacularly in true Potlatch fashion.

Of course, the burning of books has fallen out of favor in recent years, so these volumes are yours for the taking. One, ten, twenty, or the whole lot. Just name your titles.

If you’re in Southern California, shoot me a message and you can come pick them up. I’ll even throw in a cuppa coffee and a friendly chat, if you’re so inclined. If you hail from out of town, send me your address and the shipping fee and I’ll hurry them off (sans latté).

Most of these are assorted nonfiction Christian titles (we’re donating the fiction to our local library). Several are course books from my MAGL program at Fuller Theological Seminary, if that sort of thing interests you.

UPDATE: Titles already claimed are listed in strikeout.

General Theology & References

Who Needs Theology? by Stanley Grenz & Roger Olson (John Chandler)

An Introduction To Ecclesiology by Veli-Matti Karkkainen (Josh Hopping)

Portraits of God by Allan Coppedge

Desiring God by John Piper

From Eternity To Here by Frank Viola

Unprotected Texts by Jennifer Wright Knust

Reading Scripture With The Church Fathers by Christopher Hall (Josh Hopping)

Manners and Customs Of The Bible by James Freeman (Josh Hopping)

The New Ungers Bible Handbook

The Gospel of Matthew, Sacra Pagina Volume 1 by Daniel Harrington (Thomas Lyons)

New International Commentary on James by Peter Davids (Thomas Lyons)

Thru The Bible With J Vernon McGee (4 hardcover volumes) (Julie Mnaion)

Missional/Emerging Church

Church Next by Eddie Gibbs

The Good News Of The Kingdom by Van Engen, et al (Aaron Henderson)

The Church Between Gospel And Culture by Hunsberger and Gelder (Geoff Hsu)

The Missionary Congregation, Leadership & Liminality by Alan Roxburgh (Brandon Becker)

The Missional Leader by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuka (Brandon Becker)

God’s Missionary People by Charles Van Engen (Aaron Henderson)

A Credible Witness by Brenda Salter McNeil (Josh Hopping)

Transforming Power by Robert Linthicum (Jason Evans)

The New Global Mission by Samuel Escobar (Brandon Becker)

The Local Church, Agent of Transformation by Tetsunao Yamammori (Josh Hopping)

Announcing the Kingdom by Arthur Glasser (Josh Hopping)

The Power of Place by Dolores Hayden (Geoff Hsu)

The Continuing Conversion of the Church by Darrell Guder (John Chandler)

The Shaping Of Things To Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch

The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch

Exiles by Michael Frost

A Christianity Worth Believing by Doug Pagitt

The New Christians by Tony Jones

Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna

A Theology As Big As The City by Ray Bakke (Brandon Becker)

God So Loves The City by Van Engan, et al (Aaron Henderson)

Treasure in Clay Jars by Lois Barrett, et al (Jason Evans)

Permission Granted by Graham Cooke and Gary Goodell (Julie Mnaion)

Theology & Family

The Family Handbook by Anderson, Browning, et al

Theology and Families by Adrian Thatcher

Authentic Human Sexuality by Judith & Jack Balswick

Men at the Crossroads by Jack Balswick (Josh Kerkoff)

Beyond Sex Roles by Gilbert Bilezikian (Jason Evans)

Marriage and Modernization by Don Browning

Family Ministry by Diana Garland

On Justice

Justice, A Global Adventure by Walter Burghardt (Josh Hopping)

In Pursuit of Justice by James Skillen (Stephanie Struck)

With Justice For All by John Perkins (Josh Hopping)

Churches That Make A Difference by Ron Sider, et al (Thomas Lyons)

Leadership

Character Forged From Conflict by Gary Preston

Barnabas, Encouraging Exhorter by Bobby Clinton (Brandon Becker)

Connecting by Paul Stanley & Robert Clinton (Brandon Becker)

The Foolishness of Preaching by Robert Farrar Capon (Jeff Bassett)

Called to Holy Worldliness by Richard Mouw (Josh Kerkoff)

Lectures To My Students by Charles Spurgeon (Aaron Henderson)

Spiritual Formation

The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard (Thomas Lyons)

The Little Flowers of St Francis by Raphael Brown (Josh Hopping)

The Year of Living Like Jesus by Ed Dobson (John Chandler)

The Mystery and the Fullness by Jennifer Abel

Jesus Brand Spirituality by Ken Wilson (Aaron Henderson)

General

Reinventing American Protestantism by Donald Miller

Under The Overpass by Mike Yankowski

Heaven by Lisa Miller

Generation Me by Jean Twenge

People of the Lie by M. Scottt Peck

A View From The Back Pew by Tim O’Donnell

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker

Technorati Tags: Books, Christianity, gifts, Giveaways, Theology

‘Leaving the Church to find God’: an excerpt from Tin House’s conversation with Paul Harding

Former rock-band-drummer-turned-author Paul Harding shocked the hell out of lit-types recently by winning the Pulitzer Prize for his debut novel Tinkers. Published by an indie, non-profit press at the NYU School of Medicine (no joke), Harding’s fictional account of a dying man’s hallucinatory meanderings has become the darling of struggling, art-minded authors everywhere.

My review of the book is on the way. In the meantime, take a moment to enjoy this surprising quote touching on theology, atheism, and quantum mechanics from his recent conversation with Tony Perez from Tin House:

TP: There’s a quiet spirituality to your work that I think is lacking in a lot of contemporary fiction (your old teacher Marilynne Robinson being an obvious exception) and I’ve heard you’re a big reader of theology. I wonder if you could talk about how your work or your thinking is influenced by people like Karl Barth, or Martin Luther. Or even someone like William James?

PH: All the people you’ve just described I think you can sort of line up in parade formation, they all come out of the same tradition—reformed Protestant thinking. I grew up here in Boston kind of a neutral atheist. I read my Nietzsche and what not, but I wasn’t a dogmatic atheist—I wasn’t doctrinaire; I didn’t have anything against religion. And then after having studied with Marilynne Robinson for a number of years, it occurred to me that if I asked her where the source of her aesthetic, and intellectual, and soulful kind of integrity and sophistication came from, she would tell me that it was her religion. She would tell me that it came out of her reading in this tradition. Given that I respect her so much, I would be inclined to respect her answer, her own accounting of herself. So I just started to read these things and I found them to be incredibly beautiful— deeply concerned with narrative and cosmology. It was so much more than the popular sand kicking you hear in the press between Richard Dawkins and Creationists—the crummy little cartoon versions of these things. The more deeply I read into them, the more I realize that if you isolate yourself from these traditions of thinking, you’re isolating yourself from most of Western intellectual history, up until, almost post-World War II thinking. It almost feels like a type of censorship, like “religion’s bad for you, don’t bother looking at theology.” I read someone like Karl Barth and it’s just the most beautiful, aesthetically pleasing human thought I’ve encountered. In Tinkers, since it’s fiction, I’m not under the obligation to engage in apologetics or offer proof, but I can explore things. I can play around with them dramatically and aesthetically, and sort of see how these people account for themselves in terms of spiritual conceptions of who they are in the Universe.

If you look at Emerson, he was a Unitarian minister and he left the church. The common rap about that is, you know, he left the church for greener pastures. But if you look at the tradition out of which he came, there’s a strong argument to be made that he left the church to find God. That’s the Protestant tradition—at least the writing and thinking with which I’m familiar. There’s a built-in anti-authoritarianism, the presumption that the institutional church is a human construction; it’s always going to ossify, and it’s antithetical to truly pious thinking. For them, really what it comes down to, is you and scripture. The Unitarians broke away from the Calvinists; the Calvinists broke away from the Lutherans; the Lutherans broke away from the Catholics; the Catholics broke away from the Jews; the Jews broke away from the Babylonians. That’s a beautiful tradition, and seems hardwired into this understanding of what pursuing religion and that kind of thinking is. The best theologians, for example Karl Barth, view the Bible as a work of literature, and that does not demean its normative or holy authority. He’s a close reader of a text. It’s a much more sophisticated use of the imagination and the intellect, and just makes you think about what we talk about when we talk about God. When you go back to someone like Dawkins, he just perverts all that stuff by saying, “if you believe in God, you believe in an old man with a white beard sitting on a throne.” Of course that’s ridiculous. But then you realize that people like Dawkins have never read a word of theology, they rely on popular prejudice—or all this material positivism that they misheard in their, you know, Wittgenstein 101 class. If everything is made of matter, and there is no such thing as the spirit, then all that means is that we have no idea what the nature of matter is. I’m perfectly willing to grant that everything is made out of stuff, but that just means that we don’t really know what stuff is. To me, theology and poetry and art go hand-in-hand with physics. That version of materialism is totally antiquated, out-dated, Newtonian mechanics. They’re always complaining that it’s not testable, it’s not falsifiable, but the most sophisticated quantum mechanical experiments only make the nature of matter more ambiguous than it ever was before—it’s all observer dependent. If you’re a writer, there’s a very cool anti-realist strain in quantum mechanics. Supraluminal influence and observer dependent reality—all of that speaks to the experiential and participatory nature of human consciousness. When translated into fiction, it’s part of character. There’s a passage in Tinkers where Howard is walking through the woods, and when he turns around to look at his wagon, he’s certain that every time he turns his head, everything behind him disappears or changes. In a way, that’s just fooling around with quantum physics, just in a narrative sense.

Love, love, love that bit about Wittgenstein 101. So funny. Seriously, read the whole article. And the book.

Technorati Tags: art, Church, Culture, Paul Harding, Physics, Theology, Tinkers

James Smith roughs up Brett McCracken a bit for lacking a theology of culture

There’s a reason James K.A. Smith (right) is a rising star in the Christian intellectual world: Aside from being brilliant – which isn’t all that noteworthy in academia – he’s an immensely effective and even entertaining communicator – a quality that is frustratingly rare in academia. Smith brandishes these gifts ferociously in recent books like Desiring the Kingdom and Thinking in Tongues.

It hardly seems fair, then, when Smith turns his critical attention to populist fare like Hipster Christianity by Brett McCracken, concluding he “lacks a theology of culture.” It’s nothing less than brutal.

I link to it, and quote from it, here because the mindless bashing of Christian movements en masse that continues to flow from from the conservative evangelical camp has swelled to such a ridiculous volume that it nearly deserves it’s own niche publishing category. I think Smith does a fine job of calling McCracken out for his lack of depth and thoughtfulness.

That Smith has at least one foot solidly in the Reformed camp makes his critique all the more refreshing. Here are my favorite parts:

While McCracken’s analysis perhaps pertains to a bunch of suburban kids who have adopted hipster as a style—just as they might have adopted “urban” as a style—his analysis doesn’t even touch those students I know who, from Christian convictions, have intentionally pursued a lifestyle that rejects the bourgeois consumerism of mass, commercialized culture. They shop at Goodwill and Salvation Army because they have concerns about the injustice of the mass-market clothing industry, because they believe recycling is good stewardship of God’s creation, and frankly, because they’re relatively poor. They’re relatively poor because they’re pursuing work that is meaningful and just and creative and won’t eat them alive, and such work, although not lucrative, gives them time to spend on the things that really matter: community, friendship, service, and creative collaboration. And despite McCracken’s misguided claims about autonomy and independence (192-193), the Christian hipsters I know are actually willing to sacrifice the American sacred cow of privacy and independence, living in intentional communities as families and singles, working through all the difficulties and blessings of “life together” as Bonhoeffer describes it. In short, the lives of the Christian hipsters I know are a gazillion miles away from being worried about image or trendiness; they live the way they do because they are pursuing the good life characterized by well-ordered culture-making that is just and conducive to flourishing—and this requires resisting the mass-produced, mass-marketed, and mass-consumed banalities of the corporate ladder, the suburban veneer of so-called success, as well as the irresponsibility of perpetual adolescence that characterizes so many twentysomethings who imagine life as one big frat house.

And:

The Christian hipsters I know are pursuing a way of life that they (rightly) believe better jives with the picture of flourishing sketched in the biblical visions of the coming kingdom. They have simply discovered a bigger gospel: they have come to appreciate that the good news is an announcement with implications not only for individual souls but also for the very shape of social institutions and creational flourishing.

Also:

If McCracken is lamenting the fact that Christian colleges are producing alumni that are smart and discerning with good taste and deep passions about justice, then we’re happy to live with his ire. The fact that young evangelicals, when immersed in a thoughtful liberal arts education, turn out to value what really matters and look critically on the way of life that has been extolled to them in both mass media and mass Christian media—well, we’ll wear that as a badge of honor.

And last, but not least:

It turns out [McCracken is] just worried that young Christians might be (gasp!) smoking and drinking a bit too much and have not sufficiently considered injunctions about dress in 1 Peter 3. Well, yes, indeed: those do seem like quite pressing matters for Christian witness in our postsecular world. By all means, let’s get our personal pieties in line. For as McCracken sums it up, “the Christian hipster lifestyle has become far too accommodating and accepting of sin” (200)—and by this, he means a pretty standard litany of evangelical taboos (did I mention sex?). It’s funny: my Christian hipster friends think conservative evangelicals have also become too accommodating and accepting of sin, but they tend to have a different inventory in mind—things like the Christian endorsement of torture and wars of aggression, evangelical energies devoted to policies of fiscal selfishness, and lifestyles of persistent, banal greed.

Emphasis most definitely added.

Technorati Tags: Brett McCracken, Culture, Hipster Christianity, James K.A. Smith, Theology

The Parable of the Hungry Girl

This parable is dedicated to John MacArthur, who at a recent conference said, “You can get Jesus mostly right and still go to hell,” and to Rick Holland, who at the same conference said, “Right doctrine is the litmus test for your life.”

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Once there was a little girl at play in the garden when suddenly she realized she was hungry. Immediately, she went looking for her father who was at work in the fields.

“Father,” she said, “I’m hungry. Will you give me something to eat?”

“First you must tell me why you are hungry and how I am able to feed you.”

“I’m hungry because I need to eat, and you’re able to feed me because you’re my father.”

“That’s only partly true. Go to your room and come back when you know the whole truth.”

So the little girl went away a little hurt, confused and still hungry. Later that night while her father ate dinner at a table filled with deliciously prepared food, she came to him again.

“Father,” she said, “I’m hungry. Will you please give me something to eat?”

“First you must tell me why you are hungry and how I am able to feed you.”

“I am hungry because my stomach is empty, and you are able to feed me because you grow food in our fields.”

“What you have said is more true than before, but there is still much you do not understand. Go to bed and come to me when you know the whole truth.”

Every day the little girl grew hungrier and weaker than the day before, and every day she begged her father for mercy. Yet she still did not fully understanding why she needed it, or how he was able to give it. So every day he turned her away.

Several weeks passed and eventually the little girl died of starvation. At her death bed the father lamented, “If only you knew that your hunger wasn’t a temporary problem, but that you were born without the ability to sustain yourself. If only you knew that your food came by the seeds of the earth, the rain from the sky, the rays of the sun, and the work of my hands. Then, you could have admitted your brokenness and weakness in full humility, and truly realized your utter dependence on my work and sacrifice.

Then, you would have been worthy of my mercy.”

Technorati Tags: Parables, Soteriology, Theology

Bumper Sticker Theology: Coexist?

California is a rich repository of odd theological statements encapsulated in pithy sayings on the back of people’s cars. Today I saw this popular bumper sticker on a Lexus:

Underneath this peacefully enlightened plea for inter-religious civility was a license plate frame which stated:

Come over here…

So I can smack you!

Sort of changes the tenor of the sticker doesn’t it?

Technorati Tags: bumper stickers, Coexist, Culture, Peace, Theology, Violence

Pick My Spring Seminary Classes For Me

UPDATE #2: Sadly, while I was able to get into MC535, all the other classes were full. Some of you are thinking, “That’s what he gets for waiting until the last minute!” but believe it or not, I’ve always waited until the last minute and never had any trouble before. (Sigh.) So, my second class is now “CN568: Theological and Pastoral Perspectives on the Contemporary Family,” which I’m still excited about because the professors – John and Olive Drane – are stellar.

UPDATE #1: The people have spoken! According to your votes I will be taking “MC535: The Emerging Church in the Twenty-First Century” and “TH550: World Religions in Christian Perspective” (see vote totals below). Thank you for voting, classes start tomorrow!
______________________________________________________________

I need to take two Fuller Seminary courses this Spring and I’m having a hard time choosing. So, I thought, why not let my friends pick for me? You can skip to the poll below to choose two classes for me, or take a minute to read the course descriptions:

MC535: THE EMERGING CHURCH IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Identifies characteristics of churches in postmodern and post-Christian contexts. Examine and consider how these communities embody their faith and what value it has for the broader Church. Explore the dynamics of the sacred/secular split, forms of community, contextual forms of apologetics, hospitality, new forms of participation, creativity, leadership, and the spirituality of everyday life. Theologically, the class will explore how the reign of God might manifest in worship, in formation, and in witness in postmodern cultures.

• Upside: I already know a lot about this subject, it’s highly relevant to my mission, and it’s taught by a friend, JR Rozko.
• Downside: I already know a lot about the subject : )

TH550: WORLD RELIGIONS IN CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE
The purpose of this course is twofold. First it will provide an overview of the world’s major religions–Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and Sikhism–focusing on their emergence and history, core beliefs and practices, religious texts and interpretations, as well as contemporary influence and expressions. Second, this course introduces various approaches on how Christianity relates to other religions and religious pluralisms, technically known as the “theology of religions.” We will critically discuss Catholic and Protestant proposals and responses and attempt an outline of Evangelical approach. Case studies will be conducted regarding Islam-, Hindu-, Buddhist-, and Sikh-Christian encounters.

• Upside: New material for me, plus living in SoCal, this should be highly relevant : )
• Downside: I don’t know what to expect from a Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen class.

OT502: THE HEBREW PROPHETS
The course studies the contents of the Former Prophets (Joshua to Kings) and the Latter Prophets (Isaiah to Malachi), their possible historical backgrounds, different approaches to their interpretation, and their significance for us today.

• Upside: I’m really into the OT lately, and it’s taught by Fuller legend John Goldingay, whose Writings course I very much enjoyed.
• Downside: I’ve had plenty of OT and NT classes in my life. At this stage of my education it’s nice to take more specialized courses, like…

TC530: THEOLOGY AND FILM
This course will consider a theology of culture by focusing on one particular aspect: theology and film. The course will (1) view, discuss and analyze a multicultural and global selection of films, (2) provide the student methodological and critical perspectives for engaging culture, both from the humanities and the social sciences, and (3) explore theological and biblical perspectives foundational to theology and film criticism.

• Upside: This fits the “Theology and Culture” focus of my degree perfectly, and I very much enjoyed the Theology and Contemporary Literature course taught by the same professor, Rob Johnston.
• Downside: I’ve already taken a film course (Engaging Independent Film), and this would probably be somewhat redundant, as that course drew heavily on Johnston’s work.

So, those are your (my) choices. Please pick two in the poll below before Sunday afternoon:

Technorati Tags: Culture, Emerging Church, Film, Fuller Seminary, John Goldingay, JR Rozko, Old Testament, Rob Johnston, School, Theology, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen

After SVS 2010: Steven Schenk, Examining The Contradictions Between Theology and Praxis

After SVS 2010 is an extended dialogue with presenters from the first annual Society of Vineyard Scholars conference, held Feb 11-13, 2010. Monday through Friday until March 26th we’ll profile an SVS presenter and dialogue with them around their paper. Click here for a brief intro and link directory of the series. Full text of papers are available to SVS members.
_____________________________________________________

Steven Schenk: “Power and Purpose in a Cross Shaped Community: Examining the Contradictions Between Theology and Praxis”

Abstract
We are haunted. In spite of literature, conferences, and personal exhortations to ‘administrate yourselves into mega-churches;’ we cannot shake the nagging suspicion that God’s Church could be revolutionary in beauty and purity.  In every denominational stream are those who have grown weary of a Church that feeds on high-dollar advertising, well-funded ministry teams, and the greatest technologies.  We are haunted by suspicions that our notion of ‘success’ might be an idolatrous distraction from God’s true purposes. This suspicion is fueled by the disconnect between theology and praxis.

If you want to know what someone holds to be true, attend to their lives instead of their words.  The unfortunate truth is that our carefully crafted statements of theology say less about our understanding of God than our everyday decisions.  In the area of Church praxis this is most unfortunate, because our practices communicate a theology that is simply unorthodox. We will define Kingdom power and purpose as seen in the Cross, and then move to a more practical and more important purpose: calling Church practitioners to account for our complicity in ‘better business practices’ that largely ignore the implications of the theology we espouse. While practitioners give some thought to the implications for individuals, we are often ignorant of the ecclesiological implications of kingdom theology, and specifically the Cross.  The Cross reveals an approach to power and justice that threatens to shift our paradigm. We need this shift to happen in theology, but especially in praxis.  The implications of a cruciform Kingdom theology include:

• Power for Others
• Equipping Leadership
• Sending Leadership
• Outward Ministry
• Redeeming Trades
• Personal Transformation
• Deep Community
• Multi-Cultural Expression
• Social Justice
• Christian Storytellers
• Eucharist
• Carrying the Cross
• Identification with the Broken
• Necessary Failure

The Church crafts our praxis in ignorant contradiction to these Kingdom implications. Specifically, basic praxis, as simple as the language used to define terms and practices, how we measure success, what we prioritize, and what we display as our models for health.  We cannot continue moving forward with such an ill-conceived project. The ultimate subject here is praxis; others are better suited to exploring Kingdom theology, or the implications of the Cross on that theology.  Others will give a more comprehensive treatment to application. The aim of this paper is not to exhaustively detail the theology, or practice; rather to highlight the fact that our theology is contradicted by our practice, and few seem to notice.

Interview With Steven

Q: How did you become interested in your topic?

Technorati Tags: Praxis, Society of Vineyard Scholars, Steven Schenk, SVS, Theology, Vineyard Community of Churches

New Series: Dialoging With The Society of Vineyard Scholars

Scroll down for a link directory of all profiles in the series.

Some of you know that last month I was privileged to present a paper at the first annual Society of Vineyard Scholars conference in Houston, Texas. It was a terribly rewarding experience for me, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. There were a total of 18 papers presented in a variety of panel categories including Bible, Culture, Theology, Mission, Religion and Science, and The Vineyard. The Plenary speaker (and the respondent for my panel) was Ron Sider, which was an amazing opportunity to have an outside voice speak into the Vineyard movement.

As one of the presenters, Jason Clark, recently pointed out on his blog, Vineyard USA National Director Bert Waggoner set the tone of the conference well with his observation of “4 Things The SVS Is Not:”

• Smart: We are not the smartest people in vineyard showing each other how smart we are.
• Critical: This is not a venue to show the vineyard it’s weaknesses, and to give the leaders a list of things that we think it needs to change.
• Position: The papers and discussions are not necessarily the position of vineyard churches. The work here is not an official expression, unless later approved by the movements leaders. It’s a creative space and time, for an honest exchange of ideas about the vineyard movement and theology.
• Elitism: This is not a place to develop an elite smug intellectualism. We are a group of Christians wanting to be submitted to Christ and be real with each other. Let’s keep it real, to have earthly engagements on subjects of interest to us and hopefully to God.

This reflects one of the wonderful characteristics of the Vineyard: it creates gracious space for freedom and exploration. SVS was no different. Even though it was a “scholars” conference, it was full of diversity and humility. Most of the participants (myself included) weren’t professional academics; they were first-and-foremost practitioners of ministry, whose experiences in the field have ignited and informed their theological imaginations. I’m grateful to the Vineyard for creating a space where young leaders can be encouraged in their pursuits and nurtured in their theological thinking, and it was thrilling to see people pushing their own boundaries in an environment where ideas could be presented and challenged in a dialog of grace.

I would like to extend that dialog here at Pastoralia and invite you to join it. I think the SVS presenters will benefit from ongoing dialogue concerning their ideas, and I think the Vineyard at large could benefit from more voices joining that dialog, including voices from outside the movement.

Starting Monday, March 8th, I’m going to be profiling a different SVS presenter every day, Monday through Friday. There will be an abstract of their paper along with a little Q&A from me to open the dialog. Then, I’d like to invite you to join in by asking questions and providing thoughts. The presenters themselves will be available to interact with you in the comments.

One important request: I work hard to maintain an irenic and civil space here. Some of the presenters are intentionally advancing ideas and topics that are edgy and challenging because that is part of the learning process. Again, the presenters views do not represent official Vineyard beliefs and doctrine and none of them are proposing conclusive doctrinal perspectives. Hence, this is not the place for condemnation. Feel free to ask (on topic) questions;  feel free to challenge. But do so with grace and respect. Otherwise, your comments are subject to my moderation.

So, I hope you’ll join the dialogue starting next week. We’re looking forward to your contributions!

Schedule:

3/8 – David Kushner: “Echoes in Scripture”
3/9 – Steve Hamilton: “Signs & Wonders: Wisdom & and the Reign of God”
3/10 – Jason Clark: “Consumerism, Social Imagination, and Ecclesiology”
3/11 – Jason Coker: “The Begging Bowl: Toward a Kingdom Economy of Gifts, Power, and Justice”
3/12 – Elisa Berry: “Beauty and the Practice of the Kingdom of God”

3/15 – Orion Edgar: “Justice and the Kingdom of God: Atonement and New Creation”
3/16 – Ryan McAnally-Linz: “The Problem of the Contested Center”
3/17 – Jared Boyd: Naming Injustice: “Doing Theology That Does Something”
3/18 – Jonathan Rutz: “The Case For Creation Care as a Defining Paradigm For the Vineyard Movement”
3/19 – Naomi Forrester: “Science vs. Christianity: A Battle To Be Won or Lost?”

3/22 – Cathy Zellmer: “The Divine Perichoretic Mission of Love”
3/23 – Steve Burnhope: “Culture, Worldview, and the Cross: Penal Substitutionary Atonement and 21st Century Mission”
3/24 – Steven Schenk: “Power and Purpose in a Cross-Shaped Community: Examining the Contradictions Between Theology and Praxis”
3/26 – Jon Bialecki & Jamie Wilson: “Surprise, Return, and Futurity: Social Science Analysis of the Vineyard’s Temporal Imaginary of the Kingdom, and a Theological Rejoinder”

3/29 – Doug Erickson: “Advice to Vineyard Theologians (and Philosophers and Scholars…)”
3/30 - Matt Croasmun: “The Cross, Eucharist, and Imitation in the Gospel of John”

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Society of Vineyard Scholars, SVS, Theology, Vineyard Churches

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

Vineyard Churches at the Crossroads

Yesterday, we all seemed to agree the Vineyard is alive and well, but in a period of stabilization that has resulted in some decline. We also agree this has been a healthy and necessary period of “house cleaning,” regrouping, and redefining in the wake of some damaging fringe elements (i.e. extreme pentecostalism) and the loss our charismatic founding leader.

This weekend I’m participating in a small round table discussion with a few other Vineyard leaders who are experimenting with a variety of alternative approaches to ecclesiology. Most of these folks have been shaped in some way by the sojourn that was the Emerging Church (though most probably wouldn’t identify with the EC). This gathering won’t be prescriptive. We’re hoping to learn from each other. I’d like to have a parallel discussion here on the blog for those who are interested.

First, one observation about why I think the Vineyard is both well positioned to reach our cultures and simultaneously at a variety of crossroads.

While the Vineyard is solidly orthodox, unlike other traditions it doesn’t have an entrenched theological heritage. Wesley was an Anglican; various Reformed traditions trace allegiance to Luther or Calvin; Baptists, I would argue, are so deeply entangled with the American exceptionalism of the era in which they were birthed that their entrenched dogma is a libertarian brand of Christ-driven patriotism (thoughts Caleb?). Even Calvary Chapel – though less so – is fairly strictly governed by the strong theological dogmas of its own charismatic founder (who is still alive, though reportedly ill). And so on.

But the Vineyard’s only strong theological heritage is the recent trajectory of “Kingdom theology” famously developed by George Ladd (via C.H. Dodd), and later expounded upon by a diverse group of theologians including Beasley-Murray (Baptist), Gordon Fee (Pentecostal), N.T. Wright (Anglican), and Scot McNight (Anabaptist) just to name a diverse few – and teased-out by highly influential thinkers like Dallas Willard and J.P. Moreland (both in the Vineyard). There is now a near consensus among the aforementioned traditions that Kingdom theology is true.

Consequently, both because of the absence of a firmly entrenched dogmatic heritage and a commitment to a theological foundation that is fairly ecumenical, there’s a tremendous amount of freedom for Vineyard churches to explore what it means to be the people of God, embodying a foretaste of the Kingdom in our local contexts while valuing and cooperating with a variety of other Christian traditions. This is one of the reasons I’m convinced the Vineyard – as Jason Smith put it yesterday – is well positioned for a “post” culture (post-Christendom, post-evangelical, post-denominational, etc.).

Having said that, I think there are a number of crossroads facing Vineyard leaders as we depart the decade of the the “Emerging sojourn.” Those include:

Missional vs. Attractional
The Emerging conversation has very much given way to the Missional conversation, and now every church in the West wants to be seen as missional. Some see this as a polarity, but others see it as a continuum. In my observation, those who define missional as “outwardly-focused” see this as a both/and continuum, whereas those who define missional as “following God into a foreign culture” see this crossroad as an either/or polarity. I’ll tip my hand and say I see this as a polarity, and think it’s more accurate to refer to this choice as “Missional vs Christendom,” where the former is necessarily marginalized, subversive, and decentralized and the latter is necessarily empowered, enthroned, and centralized.

Institutional vs Organic
How is the structure of church best expressed in your area and culture? How are you handling the pitfalls inherent in hierarchy and professionalism? Are you committed to professional leadership or are you leaning ideologically toward some kind of bi-vocational or volunteer status as a leader? A related crossroads is liturgical vs. non-liturgical (I know, everyone has a liturgy… but you know what I mean), especially in light of Todd Hunters recent comment that he see’s a “revival of religion” coming.

Pentecostal vs. Reformed vs. Anglican vs. Anabaptist
Obviously this is a huge oversimplification, but these represent some of the dominant streams of theological thinking within the Vineyard, and Kingdom theology can happily coexist with each. You could include Catholic and Orthodox as well, but I think those are more sources for perspective and inspiration than genuine options for Vineyard folks. In some ways this is the first crossroads, since a pre-disposition here will heavily determine your ecclesiology.

So, what roads you are traveling and why? Do you feel the broader Vineyard leadership, either at the national or local level, is pushing in any particular direction on these? What other crossroads do you see?

I’ll be sharing your responses with the other Vineyard folks I’m hanging with this weekend.

Technorati Tags: Anabaptist, Attractional, C.H. Dodd, Christendom, Dallas Willard, ecclesiology, George Eldon Ladd, Institutional, J.P. Moreland, John Calvin, John Wesley, Liturgy, missional, N.T. Wright, Organic, Pentecostal, Reformed, Theology, Todd Hunter, Vineyard Churches