Some Trinitarian Thoughts
As I dig into the Torrances and Anderson, I have a few insights about my own version of Christianity. Namely, the use of the gifts in the building up of the church (God’s people) and how they are used towardsd non-believing people.
The primary role of the Spirit is to draw the church into union with God the Father (reconciliation and redemption). i.e. the building up of the church. This was Jesus’ goal on earth and it is the Spirit’s ongoing goal. Anderson calls this Christopraxis. It’s what Jesus was doing, is doing and will keep on doing. His telos.
The gifts (charismata and pneumatica) are available to God’s people to build them up, draw them away from distractions and idols and deeper into communion with Him, and comfort them (Paul’s 3 uses in 1 Cor. 14). For Paul, the gifts also intelligibly give testimony to the reality of God. They should turn non-believers into believers, because that is what the Spirit does. And, in the process, needs get met, especially for the poor and helpless. (1 Cor. 16) This is where the focus of the Emergent Church seems to lie right now. Progressive social justice.
In the late 20th century, the gifts were used as a method or a strategy by men (and women). The goal of such methods was “growth.” This is still a primary focus of much of the American church. (Giftedness, represented through relevance, which leads to numerical growth. This actualizes itself as good music, good teaching, good programs, etc.)
It appears in the NT, that growth or addition of people to the Way or the church, was a by product of Christopraxis. i.e. Pentecost resulted in redemption and reconciliation for more and more people as the Gospel spread.
The contemporary focus seems to put the cart before the horse.
In my humble opinion, the way forward for the church that is a Christo-centric Trinitarian faith. A church that is Missional in Christopraxis. The church is the body of Christ that uses the gifts to “domesticate” (Anderson’s driving metaphor for the NT church) all people. That is, welcoming the homeless into God’s home - the kingdom.
The person(s) being received into the kingdom might spend a lot of time resisting this reception before they experience it, accept it, live in it. Conversion is just that, receiving the reception of God, into a perfect communion, through Jesus, by the Spirit.
A church that is living this way, cannot remain silent when justice is at stake. It, by definition, has to grow. Whether that growth looks like multiplication or addition, it is still a by product of the transformational growth of many conversions.
Truth
Truth is something that comes out of hiding. It is revealed. It is discovered.
Therefore, it is progressive. It happens in a process, or in relationship, if you will.
Tacit knowledge is the way of the Bible. We learn by doing. Knowledge is not seperated from action.
That is, we become more like Jesus by living like Jesus. A part of that is studying him and gaining knowledge of him, but most of it is by building a relationship with him. Investing time. Learning to hear the sound of his voice and respond to it.
It is on-the-job training.
So for someone to tell me that the Bible is a book of propositions to be believed, I chaffe. Propositions do not engage me, unless I have a prior relationship with an activity that pertains to the proposition. i can not determine truth vs. lie if I have not encountered it, interacted with it, and experienced the truth or lie of it.
The bible is a living and breathing thing. It cuts away sinew from bone. It interacts with me. Each time I open it up and enter into relationship with it, I am confronted with the TRUTH, but it is revealed to me. It comes out of hiding.
And, usually, it effects me like the cat that hides in our trash dumpster at night when I go to take out the trash.
I jump out of my SKIN…
Is Truth Really Plural? Postmodernism in Full Flower – AlbertMohler.com
Is Truth Really Plural? Postmodernism in Full Flower – AlbertMohler.com.
Confession: I have not read Franke’s new book.
I guess I’m up for some deep thinking this morning.
Dr. Al Mohler has written the above review and criticism of John Franke’s new book. Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth
It is a subtle smack at EmergentVillage and all those authors you might be tempted to read, but shouldn’t, because they are dangerous.
How is it subtle? In that Mohler kind of likes Franke’s book and spends 3/4 of the post showing how Franke is exploring the “positive” aspects of the postmodern turn. But, the rest of the article is a demonization of Franke’s position and therefore, the position of all Emergent voices.
Mohler struggles with Franke’s vision of “plurality” as based on the trinity’s plurality. Mohler thinks the opposite is the historic position of the church – that is, the unity of the Trinity. (An obviously dualistic position – i.e. can the Trinity be both unified and plural? Hmm…something to think about.) And, Mohler doesn’t like Franke’s description of the interpretive responsibility of the church in the power of the Spirit. After Mohler points out his disagreement, he says:
This means that we are not actually bound by the words of Scripture. Instead, the church is to engage the Bible, trusting that the Holy Spirit will lead the community into a new understanding. Thus, the emerging church would be freed from accountability to the actual words and propositional statements of Scripture. The community can simply claim that it is being led by the Spirit into a new and different understanding.
Ultimately, Mohler paints Franke as a re-packaged theological liberal – the nail in the coffin of evangelical debate.
Franke’s point is that the historical testimony of the church’s interpretation of scripture in the power of the Spirit is diverse. Therefore, plural. You can not argue that point. It is evident.
Mohler claims that Franke’s point assumes or presupposes a freedom from accountability? This is absurd. Franke is not hoping for freedom from accountability. He is challenging the definition of accountability. And, pointing out that Mohler himself or at least those in Mohler’s camp are themselves dependent on this same thing.
Mohler, with the main stream of Conservative Evangelicalism, claim that their version of truth or interpretation of truth is un hindered by a plurality of truth. In his version, the accountability he points to is not plural. It is singular.
Post-Modernism exposes this as blindness.
What do I mean? The very historical testimony of the church is a communal interpretation of scripture. Systematic Theology and Biblical Studies are a communal experience. They are by their very nature, pluralistic. No one interprets free from pre-suppositions. If this were not true, we would all be members of one church with one interpretation of doctrine. This is obviously not the case and THAT IS FRANKE’S POINT!
Interestingly, Franke’s self-defines as a believer in truth – and propositional truth at that. He does so by stating clearly his own truth claim:
“Of course I believe in truth. I believe in God. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.”
If you do not recognize the above, Franke is stating his agreement with the Nicene Creed.
It is interesting to me, because Mohler seems to esteem the humility of postmodernism and yet, by the end of the post, he stands on the same ole argument of Evangelicalism – which is an arrogant tunnel vision. I would paraphrase the “ole argument” as this:
“there is an objective truth we can understand
the bible reveals that truth
the protestant/evangelical interpretation of the bible and of truth is the right or true truth.”
This is neither humble nor honest. And by honest, I don’t mean Al Mohler is a liar. I mean, it does not express an integrity concerning the narrative of church history. Especially post-reformation church history. “Evangelicalism” is a philosophy or an overarching system. It is neither Christianity nor Biblical Christianity. It is an interpretation of the bible and the Christian message. Whether or not it is a true interpretation or even a helpful interpretation is exactly what is up for debate in this “post-modern turn.” Mohler wants to hang on to evangelicalism as the defining philosophy, Franke wants to move into a new definition. (Interestingly, I think Franke’s vision is an ancient vision, not a new one).
In my view, Franke is pointing out the plurality or diversity of truth claims in church history. Mohler doesn’t want to concede this point, because it might open evangelicals up to the same theologically liberal slippery slope he abhors.
For Franke, there is a guiding boundary for truth. It appears to be found in the Creeds, not in the Evangelical Statement of Faith.
For Mohler, there is a guiding boundary for truth. It appears to be found in evangelicalism (no matter how much he throws around the term “biblical Christianity.”)
Mohler is claiming that the evangelical interpretation of truth claims sets the proper boundaries for orthodoxy. That is, a kind of UNITY in the essentials and a PLURALITY in the non-essentials. In Mohler’s view, Franke is challenging a clear UNITY and clear ESSENTIALS.
My point, which I hope is clear, is that Evangelicalism should not be the defining boundary or demarcation line for the truth. The bible should. The Creeds attempt to be as minimalistic as possible but still define propositional truths concerning the biblical narrative. Evangelicalism is not minimalistic. If seen as a creed, the Evangelical Statement of Faith, is too expansive to offer an inclusive demarcation for all Christians. In other words, if we require people to articulate an agreement with the Evangelical Statement of Faith.
For the sake of definition, the following would be the claims of Evangelicalism (as taken from Scot McKnight’s blog):
To define “evangelical” we need to pay attention to those who have made it their life study to come to terms with this movement, and two scholars have done just that: Mark Noll in the USA and David Bebbington (The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon And Moody (History of Evangelicalism)
) in the UK. They agree on this: an evangelical is a Christian Protestant for whom the central ideas are the leading authority of Scripture, the necessity of personal conversion, the centrality of the death of Christ on the cross as a substitutionary atonement, and the importance of a life of active following Jesus, seen in such things as Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, and deeds of compassion and justice. That is the standard definition of evangelical. This definition summarizes those who care about getting this term accurate. It is not a definition designed to exclude some of whom they are worried. It’s big tent definition, but it bears no ill-will toward others.
The proposition Mohler is hanging on to is the “leading authority of Scripture” one. For Mohler, Franke’s interpretation of truth is not based on a view that understands Scripture as innerant, infallible, or authoritative.
I will say this, here we find the heart of this argument. Franke understands scripture as authoritative but wants to consider or give a higher position to the community or church’s role in how that authority is interpreted and enforced.
Mohler is essentially saying “You don’t think scripture is authoritative enough.”
This is like Bill Clinton saying, it depends on what your definition of is is.
There are several questions left for me:
Can truth be known in such a way that we define a universal set of propositions?
If so, can we ever accept boundaries that demarcate the truth from the non-truth?
I would argue that this demarcation might be found in the Creeds and not in Evangelicalism.
Thus, my interest in the Thomas F. Torrance and Ray S. Anderson. This idea of “paleo-orthodoxy” is attractive to me and I am hopeful this is the direction the post-modern turn will take us.
For me, the hope of the future of the church is a renewed Trinitarianism, not an entrenched Evangelicalism.
James B. Torrance
There is a legacy of theologians that trickles down from Karl Barth, to the Torrance brothers (Thomas and James), to Ray Anderson. I am heading down a rabbit hole with the thoughts of these men, all dead! Ray Anderson passed away last year and I am wondering where this legacy is being continued now. (I was told today that Dr. Andrew Purves is a contemporary.)
I think “trinitarian theology” is the salve for the sore Western Pragmatic Christianity has inflicted the church with in the last 100 years – but maybe more. Here is something to think about from James B. Torrance’s “Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace”:
It is significant that the older individualism grew out of a belief in the objectivity of God – the Creator of natural and moral law, who created the individual, with rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (the American Constitution). But what happens in a secular culture where belief in the objectivity of God and of moral law recedes? Then, as Allan Bloom has argued so powerfully in The Closing of the American Mind, everything goes into flux (Heraclitus), and we witness a closing of the (American) mind, with a resultant collapse into narcissism, a preoccupation with the self – my rights, my life, my liberty, my pursuit of happiness. Religion then becomes a means toward self-realization. All the interest is in self-esteem, self-fulfillment, self-identity, the human potential movement and possibility thinking, lead either to the nihilism of post-modernism or to the neo-gnosticism of the New Age movement which identifies the self with God. Know yourself. Realize your own identity. Then you will know God in the depths of your own spirituality. Hence the cry for new images of God to express our own self-understanding and sexuality. We shall return to this later.
What is the Christian answer? Is it to go back to Plato’s Republic, as Allan Bloom suggests, to recover the objectivity of truth, beauty, goodness, justice? Is it to revive the older notions of natural law and moral law discerned by the kindly light of reason, with their concomitant individualism? Or is it not rather to return to “the forgotten Trinity” – to an understanding of the Holy Spirit, who delivers us from a narcissistic preoccupation with the self to find our true being in loving communion with God and one another – to hear God’s call to us, in our day, to participate through the Spirit in Christ’s communion with the Father and his mission from the Father to the world – to create in our day a new humanity of persons who find true fulfillment in other centered communion and service in the kingdom of God?
Ray Anderson
This is from pages 152 and 153 of Ministry on the Fireline (I’ll let it speak for itself):
While loading their guns for the “Battle over the Bible,” some theologians may have actually turned their backs on the mission of God with its power encounter with the forces of evil and oppression for the sake of a better aim at other theologians. They are like the Pharisees, who were so intent on discrediting Jesus for the sake of thier own orthodoxy that they were blinded to the messianic power of Jesus in healing the eyes of the man blind since birth (Jn. 9). Paul’s own evangelical theology came “not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1Thess. 1:5). The truth of the gospel, Paul reminded Peter, was not a human determination of God’s law but the divine determination of human reconciliation and liberation, such as was represented by the Jews and Gentiles united in Christ at a common table (Gal. 2:11-12).
The word evangelical may best be understood as a mission term before it is used as theological jargon. It is time once again to recover its authentic theological content by assigning the task to the mission theologians in the vanguard of the missionary people of God, the church under the power of the Holy Spirit.
But this cannot take place if those who have experienced the mission of God through the Spirit are not encouraged and enabled to occupy primary theological chairs in the church’s institutional and educational life. Would Paul, the missionary theologian, be permitted to teach theology in our foremost didvinity schools and theological seminaries? Would his DPT (Doctor of Pentecostal Theology) earned through the Extended Education Department of the church in Antioch qualify him alongside the academic doctorates earned in residence under the divinity faculty at the University of Jerusalem? Or would he be assigned to teach in the missiology department, with Bible and theology taught by others who have earned their degrees through academic study and research?
It is a standing joke among theological faculties that the apostle Paul would not stand a chance of a tenured faculty appointment, or even, for that matter, a call to be pastor of a local church. But then, all joking aside, the faculty and the church go right ahead with business as usual, following the acepted and established criteria!
If I am to love my wife as Christ loves the church…
Than, I must follow the example of Christ:
- Wash her feet. I have an issue with literally washing feet, even my beloved’s, but I will do it literally and metaphorically.
- Time. Does she get the best of it? I think Jesus’ disciples got his best.
- Breaking social and religious convention for her sake.
- Healing (sight to the blind, health to the sick, favor to the unfavored). Do I do that for my wife?
- Forgiveness of sins. Do I let stuff go?
- Wage War against Enemies. Am I willing to battle for her heart?
- Sharing the Father’s Thoughts and Words. Do I seek the Father’s perspective on her and share it with her? Cause he loves her – A LOT!
- Death – Am I willing to die to myself and my project for her sake?
Just off the top of my head.
DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: This is Not Good
DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: This is Not Good.
I really love these young, restless, and reformed guys. Kevin DeYoung can’t really help himself. He has gotten himself in several tussles with “emergent-ish” folks over the last few years.
Here, Kevin goes after Rob Bell’ answer to the question, “Are you an Evangelical?” in a recent interview by the Boston Globe. I’ve been sitting on this for a while. I don’t think Rob Bell has in mind to snap off the National Association of Evangelical’s Statement of Faith. I’ve never met Rob Bell, but I don’t think he is trying to liberalize contemporary evangelicalism.
Rob is a preacher in the mold of Robert Schuller (Crystal Cathedral), Rick Warren (Saddleback) and Bill Hybels (Willow Creek). Reformed folks get squimish at the mention of any of these guys. Schuller has been in the news lately for firing his son b/c he preached from the bible too much. Case in point.
Why are the Young, Restless and Reformed so upset?
Because they don’t REALLY preach the “true” Gospel. The true gospel is that Jesus died a bloody death on the cross to atone for your sins. You have to affirm that as the purpose of the cross to be a Christian and to be Evangelical.
Tim Keller helped me understand this in his new blog. Go check it out.
Rob has claimed to not be emergent. I think he is a new version of the Kingly guys. Rob is not primarily concerned about getting everyone to align with doctrine. He wants to see more people get on board. The near-sightedness of the Reformed crowd is the perspective that if you don’t get the Gospel right or Doctrine for that matter it doesn’t matter, b/c those people are not true Christians.
Interestingly, I saw Rob Bell do his, “The Goat has Left the Building” sermon in Denver once. It was the best Gospel sermon I’ve ever seen, heard, or heard about. Powerful. And, focused on the Substitutionary Atonement of the Cross. An exposition of the OT sacrificial system and how Jesus fulfilled the requirement’s of God’s wrath for us. Therefore, the “scape” goat has left the building. You sin is atoned for. All of it.
And, another big issue for the Reformed is God’s sovereignty. Have you seen Rob’s new Nooma video? It is Rob walking down an airstrip quoting Job 38/39. Probably the bible’s best image of God’s sovereignty.
I think Rob gets it theologically. I just think he is willing to give up some Christian language to reach more folks with the Gospel.
Should Multisite Campuses Be Church Plants Instead? | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction
Interesting set of “social-media-like” quotes from pastors.
I sense they need to define multi-site, when they make Bob Hyatt look like he is pro-multi-video venue by not clarifying there is a difference between multi-site and video-venue.
I think I am pro multi-site if it is about being the church. If it is about being a new venue for the “great communicator” to get his message out, that spanks of consumerism.
