Two Weekend Demands

Two things you must do immediately:

1.)  Click this image & read everything that pops up as a result:

2.)  Click this, buy it, & let your ears take in great music:

I can think of few things that would be a better use of one’s time this weekend.

Instrumentalizing the Incarnation

Recently i briefly explored a common pitfall i see in much theological work (especially in evangelicalism): using the doctrine of the incarnation as epistemological window-dressing. 

As i have thought more about this, it seems fitting to me to describe this trend as “instrumentalizing the incarnation.”  Basically, the incarnation is one’s tool of choice to justify a larger (or more foundational) theological commitment in a theologian’s work.  The key word often associated with this tendency is “embodiment.”  Simply stated, in this view the incarnation serves as more of a moral imperative to value the physical world.

It is likely evangelical theology has to some degree realized the lack of a robust theology undergirding their conceptions.  Since incarnational/trinitarian discourse is in vogue at the moment, it seems expedient to show how the incarnation provides a rationale for one’s real agenda to be furthered, & since all hobby horses can be construed as connected to the physical realm somehow, the way is paved for the incarnation to be used to justify the “embodiment” of the theologian’s real agenda.

This may not be done with malicious intent.  In fact, i would guess that such efforts are meant to recover a robust Christology, but if the incarnation is merely instrumentalized, then Christ’s humanity merely provides a moral impetus to value anything “embodied.”  But this actually cheapens the incarnation by ripping the moral imperative from the substitutionary nature of the incarnation.  Thus, despite good intentions, the incarnation is merely ethical; it is not a belief with ontological implications for one’s doctrine of God or theological anthropology.  We often, to use a former professor’s language, enjoy the “embrace” of the incarnation, but resist being “displaced.”  One must value physical realities while simultaneously displacing the central role our deeper agendas play in understanding these realities.  Christ, in his incarnation, does both.

To reduce the incarnation to the ethical imperative of valuing physicality is to do violence to the humanity of Jesus, who is still alive.  He is not merely a doctrinal corpse who we can perform an autopsy on in search of  justification for our agendas, no matter how noble.  In his humanity he does more than merely affirm true embodiment; he also judges all false understandings and the “alien principles” the misunderstandings are born out of.  This substitutionary dimension moves us beyond mere instrumentalizing  into the ontological depths of being, a necessity for a robust Christology.

Required Literature Reading

Time for an informal poll: As a theology student, what literature should i be reading?  I am looking to garner resources, so please assume i know nothing (you might be right).  So if you have suggestions, please comment & include:

• name of book/author 
• brief explanation of why they matter/why i should read them

A proleptic thanks to all!

The Passionate Intellect: An Initial Concern

Today I started reading Norman Klassen & Jens Zimmerman’s The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education.  So far, the essence of their argument is that the university is in crisis because it has lost its formative dimensions, succumbing to the pragmatic drive in the West to provide for “pre-employment” training.  This is due to the loss of a genuine humanism stemming from the influence of what they call “Enlightenment dualism.”  An “incarnational humanism,” which they will flesh out near the end of the book, is the key to revitalizing the university & will provide resources for the student to flouish therein.

While I have enjoyed the book so far, i do have one major initial concern.  A couple quotes to set the stage:

university education is primarily a call to self-knowledge.

Yet we will have to undertake this tightrope walk-and argue that the student must similarly brave doing so-if we want to recover humanism as the guiding light for the university and for the character formation of future citizens and civic leaders.

I fear that for Klassen & Zimmerman humanism is more important than the incarnation.  I worry that the incarnation is merely serving as epistemological window-dressing, a mere justification, for their greater desire for a recovery of an authentic humanism.   Whether or not a genuine humanism is only possible within a Christian “worldview” is irrelevant, since methodologically the Incarnation cannot become instrumental to a greater principal, even one as noble as “Christian humanism.”  Karl Barth’s warning against the word “and” comes to mind in the opening pages of Klassen & Zimmerman’s book.

Despite these concerns, I am hopeful Klassen & Zimmerman are going in a different direction than these quotes might indicate, since there is so much of value already.

What Happened???

To John Zizioulas month, you ask? A few things:

1. The two staff members of my church who provide oversight to the ministry Jesus has me serve in are moving on.  One in January, & one (who was my immediate, day-to-day person) the 1st of September.  Neither was completely unexpected, but the extra amount of work & stress was.
2. I set the date for my GRE (November 17th).  After a practice test, i was encouraged by my results, but still have a long way to go.  With a clear “judgment day” in view i find myself wanting to focus more time there.
3. Recently, I have been meeting with a former professor.  We read a work together, then meet & discuss over lunch.  It has been infinitely helpful, & learning with someone has been a great encouragement. 
4. Related to this, since he is willing to do this consistently with me, I am hopeful that this will help me start to think through future areas of long-term interest.  I am becoming increasingly sympathetic to T.F. Torrance, & this is my professor’s specialty.  In fact, much of his research & writing seeks to further explore the implications of Torrance’s doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ.  So it seems likely that in meeting with him I can further delve into T.F.T’s thought, & in doing so hopefully preparing for the future well.
5. I am lazy.

So, for now, the event is off.  The content of future posts will probably be related to #3-4 for the foreseeable future.

Update

Tonight i have finished Zizioulas’ recent publication, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics.  Unfortunately I am a bit behind, forcing me to turn immediately to his classic work Being as Communion.   I hope to sneak in another post or two from the Lectures, but at this point ATP will mainly be engaging Zizoulas’ definitive work, starting tomorrow.

Book Review: The Joy of Ministry

Thomas W. Currie III.  The Joy of Ministry. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008. xiii+126 pgs.

In this work Thomas Currie skillfully weaves theology, spiritual formation, and pastoral insight in a work with a title that many would consider an oxymoron.  The proposal of this book is that “nothing is more crucial to the future of the church’s own life and ministry that the recovery of the gospel’s gift of joy (3).”  The possession of the disciple according to Jesus, Currie sets out to show ministers how joy can be their possession, or perhaps more accurately, possess them.

The fundamental thrust throughout most of the work is the rejection of gnosticism in the work of ministry.  Much joy-sucking frustration pastors experience can be blamed, according to Currie, by not taking the physical nature of the church seriously enough.  The church is made up of real people, who often fall dreadfully short of the gospel’s ideal. 

Rather than seeking to find the perfect church, the minister instead should realize that an ecclesiology than is grounded in Christology is not mired in shame over it’s shortcomings, but rather finds even in its filth an occasion for joy in their salvation, made possible by the Son who “for the joy set before him endured the cross . . .”  Thus Currie argues that both the sin and hardships that accompany embodied life, real ministry, can be occasions for gratefulness and to help people focus on Jesus Christ and not themselves. 

Currie draws heavily on the work of Karl Barth & Fyoder Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov to urge pastors to lead their congregations away from their preoccupation with busyness & the loathing of their failures to take time to bask in the glow of God’s “irresponsible grace.”  This book, regardless of one’s theological sensibilities, is a treasure to both scholars and pastors in its call to stop taking ourselves so seriously, in both our achievements and failures, and to instead find joy in our salvation.  This is message sorely needed today. 

Zizioulas on General Revelation

In the previous post I argued that for John Zizioulas, doctrine is formed in the context of the church.  Thus, forming doctrine has social and experiential dimensions.  For Zizioulas the fruits of biblical interpretation & cultural analysis is subjugated under the experience of the community of faith.  It is helpful to further explore the roots of this “ecclesial epistemology” by unpacking how Zizioulas conceives of how one possesses knowledge of God. 

There is no such thing as “general revelation” for Zizioulas.  Knowledge of this “common” sort is only possible with “things,” which can be understood by identifying what they are on the basis of how we relate to it & on the basis of attributes that are given in the context of time and space.  We relate to a thing in three interrelated ways: (1) We first rule out all that an object can’t be, & (2) subsequently say what it is, (3) describing it by attributing to it different characteristics.  We know what a table is, Zizioulas illustrates, by relating it to ourselves, defining it by what it is not, followed by identifying what it actually is on the basis of it’s characteristics.   

The problem Zizioulas sees is that such a procedure, while helpful with a “thing” like a table, cannot be applied to a “person,” which God is.  The above criteria all fail when trying to understand God because:

(1) the method of negation is untenable when applied to God because it presupposes either a prior or concurrent context.  For the God who created ex Nihilo, this creates obvious problems.

(2) In connection with (1), it is clear that this negation and subsequent identification requires God to be within space and time.  While not all theologians would find this unacceptable, Zizioulas does.  God exists outside of space and time and so

(3) any abstract attribute, when applied to God, inevitably involves another attempt to build the Tower of Babel.  If an attribute comes from our experience, Zizioulas argues, then we violate the transcendence of God.

So then any knowledge has to come from God, from revelation.  Thus for Zizioulas, where God reveals himself is where knowledge is found.  In Zizioulas’ thinking the location is limited to the church.  What this knowledge is will be explored subsequently.

Zizioulas on the Nature & Purpose of Doctrine

Zizioulas’ edited compilation of lectures begins with an exploration of the nature & purpose of doctrine.

Zizioulas argues that theology issues from the worship of God & in the Church’s experience of communion with God.  Out of this communal and experiential matrix theology is born, and subesquently ”sets out the teaching of the church (1).”  However, in order to interpret the teaching of the church, one must attempt to understand both the original biblical context and the teaching of the church on the one hand, and the contemporary situation on the other, an engagement that takes place on several levels of inquiry.  Zizioulas argues that we must seek to relate the doctrines of the church to the most pressing issues today.  The teachings of the church have a perennial relevance.   

This does not mean that the church’s doctrines are up for sale to the highest cultural bidder, because the authority of doctrine is grounded in the doxological experience of the community, not cultural relevance.  Thus, preaching is truly doctrinal only when the worshipping community endorses it as truth.   While acknowledging the normative character of the New Testament, grounded in the experience of it’s authors physical communion with God, “it is the task of the church to judge how to understand the teaching it has received in Scripture and doctrine and set it out in each new situation (7).”  The issue is one of priority; the church dictates how to best “understand and set out” its convictions as it worships God, which may take forms that are either pleasing or abhorent to the ears of broader cultural sensibilities.     

From this cursory overiew, it is evident that Zizioulas’ beliefs about the formation of doctrine is experiential, grounded in the authority of the worshipping community.  Although exegesis and cultural analysis both are valid enterprises in the interpretation and application of doctrine, the ecclesial community serves to check any emerging individualism in these tasks.  This is one obvious benefit Zizioulas offers in this initial section to our hyperindividualistic culture.  Also, the experiential and doxological approach to doctrine seems more at home within a view of reality where act and being aren’t torn asunder; careful exegesis, cultural analysis, and worship do not exist on separate levels of reality, but are all faithful tasks carried out by the body of Christ.

Despite these benefits, it is worth asking:  How can the body of Christ serve as the locus of authority rather than it’s “Head”: could this potentially imprison the knowledge & freedom of Christ within ecclesial traditions, despite the intent to interpret dogma with an eye on the times?  Does the church have a complete monopoly on God?  To better answer these questions, and to begin to peer more deeply into this model for understanding the nature & function of doctrine, but this is already too long of a post.  To be continued . . .

Quick Update

Don’t worry, my dear readers, if John Zizioulas month is still on.  It is!  I had to first get through the rest of Thomas Currie’s The Joy of Ministry before Friday, since i am meeting my former program director and another pastor to discuss it on Friday.  I decided to finish it first, and then solely concentrate on Zizioulas. 

So, tomorrow i start my reading of/blogging on Zizioulas’ Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, interacting with Chapter 1 entitled “Doctrine as the Teaching of the Church.”  Feel free to join in!