THE ONE IDEA … that can change history

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I have a love/hate relationship with history. On one hand, I love to study it because I get to meet people, learn about their story and what fuel it. On the other hand I hate it when I find out what people did to each other. I wish I had a time machine, go back and act like a referee. But wait, I don’t need no sticking time machine to catapult me in the midst of fighting, blood-shedding, wars or animosity between people. History is repeating itself! Nowadays I see the same hostility ranging from ruthless wars (yes, wars still rage on even as I write this) to more “civilized” wars like the cultural wars of the recent decades, to more subtle (sometimes not so subtle) segregation of groups living in anything but harmony with each other. Is there’s something we can do to change this history and its bloody trajectory? Is there hope to end the suffering we cause each other? What would make us live together in harmony and enjoy each other’s lives? The following is my shot at answering these questions.

History is simply the stage play of ideas. So we need to find out what are the ideas that could have fueled the animosity, the bad blood between groups of people and the suffering and blood shed these groups inflicted on each other. As I pondered this, I realized the answer lies at the intersection of metaphysics, epistemology and anthropology. Let me explain.

Metaphysics deals with questions of ultimate reality, of truth. Everyone has a metaphysic (aware or unaware of it). This is what anchors us and provides us with an operating system. In this arena I find an idea, we hold dear, that relates to our discussion: THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUTH (about whatever particular aspect of reality is in question). Epistemology deals with questions of knowledge, of how and what can we know about reality, about what is true. In here I find the following idea: WE CAN KNOW THE TRUTH. This is a fundamental concept we ascribe to in order to justify our metaphysics, which in turn we need to navigate our way through reality. Here’s how I see these two ideas play out in history and today. Since there is only one truth and I can know the truth, if you hold a different view of the truth than mine, we can’t be both right. I know I am right, therefore … you must be wrong. Since I know the truth and you obviously don’t, I need to convince you of the (to be read “my”) truth and if you don’t embrace the truth I either need to eliminate you or, if that’s not possible, try to isolate myself from you. You are a distortion, a malady that is dangerous to me and society. Now, this is my observation of what transpired in history. My question is: is it possible to hold these two ideas yet have different results? This is the route I want to take, so if at all possible I don’t need to mess with these two ideas.

The only satisfying solution (and trust me, I am very happy I could even have found one) is in the field of anthropology. In short, anthropology deals with questions related to our view of man (or women for that matter), of us as human beings. This is where both the problem and the solution lie for the hostility between people. I now believe that relationships, specifically harmful ones, are caused, at the root, by our view of our own capacity and abilities when it comes to the knowledge of truth. Enlightenment just exacerbated a high view of man, but this has existed ever since there were people. There’s something in us that makes us think higher of ourselves than we really are. It makes us believe we’re more capable than we really are. This is a delicate issue as it springs from our desire to not underestimate ourselves, which we definitely don’t want to do. There is however an idea we need to embrace as we wrestle through all this: THE FINITE NATURE OF HUMAN BEINGS. As much as it’s healthy to believe highly of ourselves, we need to come to grips with our limited nature. We’re just not infinite. Here’s how this is helpful in our discussion. While there is only one truth and I can know the truth, due to my limited capacity I will never know the truth fully, completely, in its entirety. We’re just not capable of this. We’re not God. We’re human, not divine. We only know of the truth as much as we’re allowed by our circumstances, sources of information, historical and cultural context we find ourselves in. The truth is we’re making baby steps in our quest of truth discovery. We all have found ourselves, as we grew up, being wrong about things we were convinced at the time we are right. And that’s ok. The fabric of our beings refutes a relativistic way of approaching reality where everything goes. We (for ourselves) need to know something, to hold to something that can take us to the next step. But as we go through life we should be open to change, to incorporate the new found reality into our matrix of truth. When this is not possible we should consider tweaking or even changing our matrix to allow for the new “data”. But I am going farther here than needed for our discussion.

Even if there is only one truth and I can know it (and I should strive for knowing it), due to my finite nature (determined by inside and outside factors) I have to accept the fact that I might be wrong, incomplete. So when I meet someone who sees things differently than I do, I should not immediately assume he/she is wrong but … and here is the key … try first to understand the other’s “truth”, his/her perspective. Then have an exchange of perspectives on the respective topic and see what we can learn from each other. AND THAT’S IT!!!

If I might be wrong, there is no need to force my “truth” on the other’s throat. Let’s not forget that we don’t learn by coercion, but by our own choice.

This idea can fuel harmonious, active and generative relationships with people of different beliefs (be it political, religious, economical, etc.). This can actually help us all in our ongoing quest for truth, as this way we can complete each other. If I don’t view the other as being wrong, there is no animosity that can grow between us and respectively no bad blood, no fighting and ultimately no suffering.

This is the one idea (the proper understanding of the finite nature of human beings) that can change the course of history … if we embrace it.

And now your thoughts …

The sacred Scriptures vs. SOLA SCRIPTURA

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In writing this I find myself torn with much frustration. I have tremendous respect for those who helped shape this doctrine, yet I feel compelled to question it, led by the same spirit that animated these great reformers.

Sola Scriptura was birth out of displeasure with the arrogance of some to suppose that they, either because of status, position or power, are self-sufficient to construct their own doctrines and practices without the need to check them against what others had to say on the subject (particularly, in this case, the writers of the sacred Scriptures). Something had to be done. The prophetic spirit could not be kept quite any longer and Sola Scriptura along with other declarations became the voice of this cry.

It’s important to note that Sola Scriptura has emersed from a particular set of circumstances and it was penned as a reponse to those times. So we can’t take their response and just canonize it (which is what pretty much happened in the past five centuries, particularly in the protestant and evangelical circles). We need to carefully peel off its various layers, analyze it and see what we can learn from it in the 21st century.

In their reaction to the abuses of the church, reformers plastered to the Scriptures some concepts that just don’t fit them that neatly. To combat erroneous interpretations concocted by the Church the reformers forcefully oversimplified the nature of Scriptures. At the core of Sola Scriptura is this idea that anyone who reads the Bible will have no difficulty understanding it. That’s why, we don’t need anyone’s help in interpreting it; we don’t need the church to tell us what to believe and how to live; we can figure that on our own.

While that sounds good and liberating and it does have bits and pieces of truth in it, it does great injustice to the complexity and depth of the biblical text. First of all, Scriptures were not meant to be read in isolation, just me and my Bible (and the Holy Spirit).

They were meant to be read and understood in community.

We need the insight of great minds (past and present) to help us wrestle with the text. Yes, if we pick and choose there are plenty a verses that are pretty plain and easy to understand. Anyone who reads understands the basic ideas that run through the sacred texts. But that’s the problem; the Bible contains much, much more than that. If we assert that the whole Bible (not just some passages or some books) is inspired than we definitely have to, in all honesty, admit our limitation in understanding it and the need for external help (and lots of it!!!). I find it ironic that the great reformers who upheld highly the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture could not agree on what it means and so Luther, Zwingli and Calvin had to split on doctrinal lines. And the history from then on was one of many, many sad fragmentations in the Christian Church.

While Sola Scriptura is made to be understood not as a dismissal of the Church tradition, in reality it inevitably makes the incorporation of it in its hermeneutics more of an optional activity. As a result we find nowadays very little interest (if any) toward the great writings of the Christian church. Why should there be any interest? If I can just pick my “name engraved” Bible and have no difficulty understanding it, why bother knowing what others have said about it? But even this is so hypocritical. Because what we find is a multitude of denominations and seminaries (holding dear to Sola Scriptura) trying to convince us that their interpretation is the “right” one. What the individual is being effectively told is to read and familiarize himself/herself with only the materials and books within the particular tradition he or she is part of. Any writing from outside is deemed heretical and therefore to be avoided.

So slowly but surely, today the proponents of Sola Scriptura have developed the very arrogance the reformers were trying to fight against, but in a more disguised fashion. We have come up with practices and doctrines that while unbiblical, strangely enough are “supported” by the biblical text. It seems history forced us to change our strategy. We can’t just use our clerical position as a case for their theology, but find ourselves forced to use the Bible as support. We can quote verses out of memory but have little understanding of the depth of biblical message. We know our Bible and yet we have missed it. We don’t come to the Bible to have our theology challenged, but to find support for it. Sola Scriptura means today: my interpretation or the highway!!! To which we cry out: as we wrestle with the text, let’s not jump too quickly to conclusions; let’s listen to what others have to say, others from outside our tradition. It might help us see clearer.

Sola Scriptura is not exactly accurate. Prima Scriptura is not helping either, because while it starts with the Scriptures they are soon left behind. What we need is simply the centrality of Scriptures in our theology and practices. Not arrogantly (and dishonestly) say we need “just” (SOLA) the Scriptures, but to make sure they are part of the mix. They need to be the filter for our thinking. We need to let them do their purging job. But let’s allow ourselves to wrestle with its meaning as a community. Let’s allow more and more voices to help us see its beauty and depth.

Let’s never reduce its complexity in some encapsulated statements of faith that in turn block the Scriptures from continually challenging us, repositioning us, refreshing our soul with a new word from God.

What is the Gospel?

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What do you mean ‘What is the Gospel?’? Isn’t it clear what it is? Are you somehow, by this very question, trying to redefine it? Are you asking us to go back to the drawing board? These are some of the reactions you get when you ask this. Asking such a question does, I have to admit, reveal an emergent bent. The question is not, ‘Isn’t it clear?’, because it is indeed clear. If you go out more (i.e. you talk or read outside your tradition), you find people who are “clear” on this, yet they don’t always agree on their answer. So probably a better question is: what does our understanding of the Gospel reveal about our theology?

The gospel is but the tip of our theological iceberg.

No wonder people don’t want to “touch” the gospel, especially when Ap. Paul makes such strong statements about holding tight to the right gospel and not swaying a bit from it (Galatians 1:8, 9). But precisely because of this I see very fit to assess the Gospel we believe in. The way we answer this important question will determine how we define missions, ecclesiology, Christian life etc.

Bound by our modernistic approach we try to find the answer by using the Bible as an encyclopedia. So we take a concordance and find all the texts where the word Gospel appears and see if that gives us a clue. Inevitably we land on 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 where Paul seems to explicitly state what the Gospel is: it is Christ’s death and resurrection for our sins (the appearance part seems to be the validation of His resurrection). At which point we proceed to fit this into our already pre-determined theological system and the task is done. I am wondering, though, how much weight do we give to “according to Scriptures” that Paul seems to emphasize? It seems to me that what Paul says here is that the Scriptures are the context that gives meaning to Christ’s death and resurrection. And by this I don’t mean cherry picking, but considering all the Scriptures. Isn’t it interesting that, as it has been pointed out, if you start in Genesis 3 you get a quite different Gospel than if you start all the way at the beginning in Genesis 1? The first two chapters of the Bible are really foundational for everything else. If we skip the beginning story we can totally misunderstand what the Scriptures are about, can’t we?

With that in mind I would like to make some propositions and get your input on that. God set out to create something and as it should be expected, it was good (that is the repetitive theme in Genesis 1 – maybe to tell us something!?!). The God of the Scriptures is not a God who creates something only to “find out” later that there is a better way to do it and so He scratches out everything and starts all over again. In other words either what He does is good or is not. From God’s perspective there is no “better” or “improving”. That’s our reality. If Genesis 3 is to be understood in this context (which it should – there is a reason the writer placed it there and not at the beginning of the story), than what has been called the “fall” or “sin” can only affect and not annihilate the “good” God created. The way we say this is …

the “good” that God created has redeeming value in it.

This is the only way the rest of the Bible story has any sense. What is the Bible but God’s redemption story? We all believe in redemption, but do we stop for a moment to think that it implies that something is redeemable, that there is still something good?

The Gospel, when stripped down of its theological charge to its initial Greek word, is simply good news. What is the good news but the fact that there is hope for creation and for humanity? If, as some Christian traditions have it, sin has affected what God has created to such a degree that there is nothing that can be done about, it cannot be redeemed, that God is “forced” to start all over again with “new havens and new earth” (wait a second, isn’t that what the Bible clearly states, some would say?), then all we have is bad news, at least for us, who are part of this creation. This view gives preeminence to sin over God. God created something good, but not good enough to withhold the “power” of sin. That makes God impotent or not powerful and creative enough. If that’s the case how can we trust God that if He starts all over again He will not fail again in the face of SIN? Sin will always be a possibility; it will always be dormant, latent. It is just part of the fabric of how God created things and let’s not forget, it is the best of all possibilities. The beauty of God’s creation, specifically the human race, is that while we know we can say no to God, we choose to say no to sin instead. This is somehow interconnected to Christ’s death and resurrection in ways we can’t really comprehend but have to embrace by faith. I would venture to say that God created us and everything else around us for that moment of choice where though we have the power to say NO to God, we choose to say YES!!! What life really is, but a series of choices and their subsequent consequences?

What is the Gospel? It is the good news that, because of Christ’s death and resurrection there is hope for our planet, for our world, for humanity, for life as we know it. Sin has been defeated, it has no lasting victory. And so we are called to join God in the redemption of His creation (which by the way, is happening right now, at a Blockbuster – neighborhood – near you).

We are called to identify, encourage, embrace and celebrate what is good and beautiful wherever we find it.

That is the kingdom of God at work around us and inside of us. The Gospel is not the “good news” (?) that if we accept Jesus Christ into our heart we will one day go to haven. That is the gospel of the abandonment, in which God has given up on His “good” creation in pursuit for something better. No wonder people resist such a gospel, no wonder they find it hard to believe in a God who is willing to destroy this world with so much good in it. If God is good why would He destroy that which is good? It is a valid question people ask to this portrayal of God. No, the Gospel doesn’t make us wait for the future, but brings the future in the present. And as we do that our present melts into the future of God’s final redemption.

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY: objectifying God

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When you’re hungry for knowing God a “good” Systematic Theology (from here on ST) seems to be a “God-sent”. Though the knowledge is buried usually in a thick book (sometimes several books) it has the promise of delivering neat, organized information ready for consumption. The theory goes that by reading the material one can have a better, maybe even more accurate view of God. But is it so?

Most ST claim to be introductory, just a start and not exhaustive, but the very nature of their formulations pushes them in the realm of propositional truth, producing statements that bear the mark of absolute truth.

[It is argued that Scriptures contain propositional truth, therefore supporting the legitimacy of such statements in ST. Without going here in details, I would point first to the context in which such statements are made and to how that shapes their meaning. Secondly, they represent a small portion of the whole body of biblical text. Thirdly, isn’t it assumed in these circles a supremacy of Scripture in rapport to other human writings? If so, shouldn’t it be expected – propositional truth - in the biblical text but nowhere else?]

Herein lies the problem.

ST inevitably becomes a “nice” crutch replacing the continuous grapple with Scriptures and the journey of knowing God in the intricacies of life.

The problem gets worse when ST’s claim to truth becomes the foundation for entire systems that in time become rigid and intolerant to outside input. As a result people go to the Bible not to verify the ST statements on a particular topic (since ST has established “itself” to be true, there is no need for this, right?), but to find support for it. Since somebody (an expert after all) has already done the work of extracting the “truth” from the Scriptures, why reinvent the wheel and go dig again? This way the Scriptures have effectively and realistically become a reference book, supporting material.

What we need to ask ourselves is how does one get to know God? What does it mean to know God? How do you know you know God? Is the knowledge of God the same as any other knowledge we acquire or is it a special kind. ST turns, openly and unapologetically in some texts, the knowledge of God into a science where God becomes the object and we are the subject. No doubt this is our natural tendency. We want to examine, to figure out something or someone before we initiate a relationship of some sorts and allow it/them into our life. It is our instinct of being in control. So it is expected to be no different when it comes to the reality of God. We feel we need to be able to explain Him. Before we give Him a place into our life and our thinking we need to create a category for Him, to build a home for Him, so to say, into our life. And though He takes anything from us as long as we open ourselves to Him, it is, ironically, precisely this category/categories we create that will later hinder our knowledge of Him. Time will come when we are faced with the decision to either hold dear to our intellectual box or let go of it and venture into the “unknown” holding tight to God’s hand. ST will make this decision more difficult, because on one hand it gives us a false sense of certainty and comfortability with the acquired knowledge and on the other hand it will trick our minds to think departure from its statements means departure from the truth.

The problem with this scientific approach to knowing God, though it may be in sync with philosophical reasoning, lies in the fact that it betrays the biblical narrative. In the Bible knowing God is not an abstract/intellectual exercise, but the result of a life of faith. John goes as far as to say that if we don’t love we don’t know God. The litmus test, it seems, for our knowledge of God is our love for one another. In other words,

the sphere of human relationships is the medium in which we can get to know God.

You can study love, but you will never really know it until you will experience it, until you give yourself to it and you are taken by it. That’s a different kind of knowledge, one that transcends words, linguistic constructs or logical categories. This gives us some idea of the kind of knowledge the Scriptures talk about when it comes to knowing God. Paul says, “The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” (1 Cor 8:2) and then he says, “who loves God, is known by God” (8:3). This shows a different kind of knowing, one in which both parties are intimately engaged. Simply put, knowing God is the result of more of an interaction with God, than an analysis of Him. The head knowledge makes us proud, says Paul, but our experiential knowledge of God makes us more loving, John would say.

The Scriptures are meant not to provide us with the knowledge of God (as it is trivially believed), but to invite us and persuade us into a dynamic relationship with God which in turn constitutes the context in which we get to know God. Words are extremely limited (as rich as we believe them to be) when it comes to speak of God and so can only point us into the direction of the knowledge of God, but CANNOT contain it.

Jesus made it pretty clear that everything revolves around and springs from love: love for God and love for one another. The more we love the more we know God and the more we know God the more we love.

THE GOSPEL and the unconscious mind

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Regardless of one’s description of the Gospel we can all agree that in order for it to invoke a response (refusal or embrace) it has to be first grasped, it has to be correctly understood. I often wonder if people respond negatively to the Gospel message because they misunderstand it. So, they don’t really reject the Gospel itself but our stinky presentation of it. Now, by this I don’t at all mean to imply that the Gospel once clearly understood inescapably receives a warm embrace. What I am saying and emphatically so, is that many a times I am afraid our communication of the Gospel does injustice to its message causing people to reject the wrong thing, leaving them with a bad taste for the real thing.

Now, probably your reaction to what you just read is not: “Never thought that how we communicate the message of the Gospel is just as important as the message itself!” So I am not going to bore you with the same old, same old stuff (though I think this still is an important aspect that is neglected to often). What I want to draw attention to is a side of communication that is mostly overlooked and as a result leads to a bad experience of the Gospel.

In recent years there has been an increased interest in rapid cognition, i.e. the workings of the unconscious mind. This could be due to the larger post-modern posture our society finds itself in reacting to the supremacy of the conscious mind so strongly advocated in the modern, enlightenment era. This relatively recent research has brought to our attention the fact that the unconscious mind is just as important if not even more important than the conscious mind. The evidence brought by extensive research makes a compelling case in this direction. One book that has popularized these findings – a must read – is Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: the art of knowing without knowing.

Gladwell shows that our decisions come as a result of both the conscious and the unconscious mind, with the weight tilting toward the unconscious (the area Gladwell calls “access denied area”). To illustrate this one of the many examples he gives is that of a 7up product. When the company changed the label to a more yellow color leaving the beverage intact the public protested against the change in the beverage. They could swear it has been changed to a more lemon taste. It was so evident to them. Yet, the only change was in the label color. How come? Gladwell explains that the taste buds message sent to our brain is just one of the many sources our complex brain uses to make a judgment (in this case, how a beverage tastes). Another very important source (used in this example) is our vision. Our brain takes snap pictures of the reality it is faced with and then it searches through past experiences associated with this image stored in its “hard-drive”. So instead of going through the process of learning afresh, it first looks to see if it has already learned it before. Our usual association between the color yellow and lemon taste is so strong that our brain ignores the message it receives from the taste buds. It’s kind of saying: “Yeah, yeah I already know how this taste, I don’t need to pay attention to the taste buds stimulus again”. At a conscious level we might disagree with this, but the evidence the research brings is overwhelmingly compelling. Again, just read the book and you will see for yourself.

Now why is this relevant to our discussion of the Gospel presentation? I hope you have seen the connection already. The Gospel message has been in circulation for some time now (well, more than 2000 years to be more precise). Our society has been bombarded with this message in so many ways. People already have associations made in their mind for the Gospel and the various words associated with it. One such example is the word “Christian” usually associated with it. A recent book, Unchristian, shows this very powerfully and so gives us food for thought, it offers a great example of a kind of framework to address this particular issue. So, what can we do about all these natural associations people have made when it comes to the Gospel message?

We need to share the message thinking about the various associations people have made and try to either bypass them by being creative whenever possible or addressing them in a strait forward manner so as to disarm the automatic brain firings.

What I am saying is that being aware of this we (those who cherish the Gospel and its impactful message) need to be extremely careful of the ways we present it. Maybe we need to retire some overused words. Maybe we need to re-imagine the package. Maybe we need to tweak the concepts employed. I am writing this not to provide a solution (as that would defy the very point I am trying to make here) but to hopefully raise awareness out of which new energy is spent on better and more effective ways to convey the timely message of the Gospel. My solution might be different than yours, in your context, with your personality, within your relations etc. The Gospel in North America might look/sound different than the Gospel in Europe (or Romania, for that matter), in Asia, in Africa and other parts of the world. We might put collectively a lot of energy to come up with an effective presentation which once used it needs to be taken off the table and replaced by a new one. This is and has to be an ongoing process.

Each generation has this exciting responsibility to take the Gospel and communicate it well. It’s ok if people reject its message; it’s not ok if they reject the message not on its own merit but due to our bad presentation of it. Time will tell how well we fulfilled our task.

GOD DOES NOT CHANGE: believing in Aristotle’s God

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It’s amazing to me to see how easy it is to claim to be biblical, yet not embrace its cosmology, its theology or any of its other “ologies”, but adopt a Greek worldview and in turn interpret the Bible to fit this.

One such example is our view of God (or as it has been called “theology” or better yet “proper theology”). Aside from the overtly Greek terminology and notion of “omni” used to talk about God (omni-present, omni-potent, etc.), the Aristotelian concept of God in particular has had the deepest and most enduring impact on Christian Theology to this very day: God does not change (“Unmoved mover”) .

Since this is not the place for an in depth analysis I’ll just make some observations and comments.

The issue I personally have with the idea of a God who does not change (in theology, God’s immutability) is that it does not hold water in light of biblical revelation. Now I know that for some reading this makes them laugh. They would say that precisely because of the Bible they are compelled to embrace this concept. Isn’t the Bible pretty clear that God does not change, that He is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow? etc, etc,. To those I just want to say: don’t forget those passages where God is clearly changing (Exodus 32:12; Jeremiah 26:2-3, 12-13; to name just a few). I know… I know those biblical passages that speak of God’s unchangeableness. When looked at in their proper context, though, it becomes apparent they don’t depict the Aristotelian God, but a God who does not change in the sense that He is not restricted or bound by the laws and principles our universe works by (hence, miracles maybe super-natural for us, but for God they are as natural as anything else He created).

• The God of the Bible is not a transcendent, static, distant, uninvolved God; on the contrary He is very intimately involved in His creation. The Bible does not paint the image of a God who created the universe and once set in motion has removed Himself from it. Sadly, many Christians look at the universe in this light and accept, without much thought, a naturalistic view of the universe whereby it is sustained by some intrinsic laws that supposedly governs it. The biblical narrative depicts a God who actively sustains His creation to the most minuscule particle.

• In the Bible story I don’t find a God who’s made up His mind well before creation in eternity past and is unaffected (unmoved) and firm in that. On the contrary I see a God who interacts so deeply with people, His image bearers, that in His love He’s willing to accommodate and yes, change. The Scriptures don’t present God as a puppeteer and we are just puppets. It is more of a dance in which both parties have a say into each other’s rhythm and moves. We are working with God and God is working with us.

Now this would be all fine had we not been exposed and bought into the Aristotelian concept of God. Aristotle was a profound thinker and used brilliant logics. Since we value logics to asses reality it is very hard to resist embracing his view of God. So to do that and, ironically, still be biblical, Christian theologians through the ages have come up with various hybrid notions (or call it doctrine) of God whereby He can be unchanging (Aristotle God) and yet change (biblical God). Now trying to grasp how exactly God is outside of our realm of experience (His essence or sorts) has little if any value for us. Really! Our concern should be our view of God as we know Him and He has made Himself known to us in our human experience. Otherwise we’re attempting to step beyond our territory. Do we really need to go there to validate our own trust in Him? Deuteronomy 29:29 is pretty clear: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us”. Has He not shown himself clear enough and is He not doing plenty to earn our trust? We trust and believe in God not because He is unchanging and so we can depend on Him. We trust God as a response to His amazing love He has and continues to shower us with.

God doesn’t have to pass our qualifications for Him to be God. He is God after all! He exists outside of our metaphysical constructs.

That’s the problem with doing “Systematic Theology”: trying to talk about God in philosophical format and trying to squeeze Him and the biblical narrative to fit into that. We have figured what is necessary for God to be God and we have effectively told Him He needs to be that way if He is to earn our trust, otherwise we can’t really believe in Him. How ridiculous !!!

Millard Erickson puts it well when he writes: “The God we find in Scripture is not a static being, as is Aristotle’s God. He is rather an active, dynamic being, at work in the world. This dynamic activity, however, is stable, not unstable. His actions are in keeping with His fundamental nature, with His values, plans, and decisions.” In other words God does change, but not randomly, chaotically, haphazardly, but according to His internal criteria. The beautiful mystery about God is that God can change and adjust in working with people and yet remain God. Whatever it is that He is doing will always be characterized by love and goodness.

God’s incarnation in Jesus is the supreme example of change and adaptation God is willing to go through in His love for us, his prized creation. Isn’t Phillipians 2:7, “he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” pretty clear? Thank God He has undergone this change; because of this there is redemption and hope.

What does it mean to be Christian? (continued)

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While there are points of intersection in how Christians respond to this there’s hardly a unified and agreed upon answer to this important question. Why is this? Isn’t it remarkable that you get almost as many answers as they are Christians? Maybe a better question is: should there be a one size-fits-all answer for what it means to be a Christian?

At the very core, a Christian is a follower of Jesus. The gospels give us a helpful narrative of what it means to follow Jesus in the lives of His disciples. What we see in their lives is more of a journey of slow (sometimes we would say, way too slow!!!), ongoing transformation. Instead of Jesus trying to make them all look the same, He allows for their own uniqueness, their personalities, and their backgrounds to shape who they are as his disciples. It was a process that started with three years and even at the end of these years, one wonders if there was much of a progress. I mean Peter, of the closest circle, denies Him. The rest of the disciples loose faith in Him after His death. They don’t take Him seriously that He is actually going to rise from the dead, as He clearly told them in many occasions. Even after His resurrection, upon personally seeing Him some believed and some still had doubts. They didn’t all believe the same thing; they were all over the board! And yet Jesus was not bothered to call them His disciples and even more, commissioned them to be his representatives.

Now, does that mean that what we believe, our theology does not matter? Of course not. Our belief system determines who we are and what we do as people. But IT has not been and IT should never be our identification as Christians. If you could have interviewed Jesus’ disciples about their theology most likely you would not have gotten a unified, clear answer. Jesus Himself said His followers (Christians) will be recognized by their love (not by their theology). What do Christians believe in? Well, all kinds of things, depending on where they are on their spiritual journey.

You are a Christian not by what you believe but by
who you are following.

Now what should Christians believe is another question. This assumes you are a Christ follower and as such you should seek to embrace a certain way of looking at life and the world you live in, you should have a belief system, you should believe certain things. This, however, is more of a transformative process than an entry point.

You do not get to know Jesus by believing certain
things; you start believing certain things by knowing
Jesus.

Paul wrote most of the New Testament theology to Christians. He didn’t tell them what they needed to believe to become Christians, but what they needed to believe because they were Christians. Some got it, others didn’t. To some he had to repeat over and over. The Corinthians, for example, were Christians who were wrestling with the idea of resurrection. Yet he did not see this as an inter-faith dialogue, but a conversation inside the family (see how he addresses them in 1 Cor. 1:2).

Christians, before anything else, are people and as such they are diverse, each with unique stories and backgrounds. Inevitably Christianity will look, feel, and be different depending on who you’re talking with. So Christianity does not annihilate our humanity but emulates it and boosts it. Jesus said he came so we can have life and have it abundantly.

What does it mean to be Christian? What does it mean to follow Jesus? Well … for me it is different than what it means for you. I have my own distinct set of circumstances (geographical, ethnical, cultural, theological tradition etc) that determines what kind of Christian I am. Can we interact and help each other in following Christ? Definitely! Should I make you a Christian in my own image? God forbid! We all find ourselves at different stages in our life and we have our own pace. God has designed us like that and it is a beautiful thing. Let’s not mutilate each other but embrace the kind of people God has made us to be.

What does it mean to be Christian?

To follow Jesus in your own shoes.

Emergents vs. Penal Substitution?

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As I have pointed out in another post, emergents have set to unpack the tradition passed on to them, leaving nothing untouched, not even the foundational Christian doctrines.

NOTE: they have not discarded them (as is often the charge) but, exactly because of the fresh look, found richer meaning that has been lost in the annals of history.

One such example is the doctrine of the atonement.

[the work of Christ in dealing with the problem that has been posed by the sin of human beings, and bringing sinners into a right relationship with God]

The theory of Penal Substitution

[PS from here on – simply put, Jesus was punished (penalized) in the place of sinners (substitution) thus satisfying the demands of God’s justice in forgiving our sin]

has been the privileged view of Atonement for much of the Christian Church history. As a result, to believe in atonement one, has been thought, has to embrace the theory of Penal Substitution. And this is where difficulties have started.

First, the PS theory is but one of the many expressions of the doctrine of atonement found in Scriptures and throughout the Christian tradition. Both the Old and New Testaments reveal many truths about Christ’s atonement, so it is hard, if not impossible, to find any single “theory” that fully encapsulates or explains the richness of this doctrine. Emergents would love to see the PS theory dethroned (not eliminated!!!) as the supreme expression so that all the different facets of the doctrine of the atonement diamond can shine and so enrich this profound truth.

Secondly, there are various caricatures of the PS view of the atonement that are not biblical. N. T. Wright says it well here:

“When people present over-simple stories with an angry God and a loving Jesus, with a God who demands blood and doesn’t much mind whose it is as long as it’s innocent. You’d have thought people would notice that this flies in the face of John’s and Paul’s deep-rooted theology of the love of the triune God: not ‘God was so angry with the world that he gave us his son’ but ‘God so loved the world that he gave us his son’.”

Unfortunately emergents have not always been very clear in dealing with this, so they need to pay careful attention to what Wright continues to say:

“The biblical (emphasis mine) doctrine of God’s wrath is rooted in the doctrine of God as the good, wise and loving creator, who hates – yes, hates, and hates implacably – anything that spoils, defaces, distorts or damages his beautiful creation, and in particular anything that does that to his image-bearing creatures. If God does not hate racial prejudice, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not wrathful at child abuse, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not utterly determined to root out from his creation, in an act of proper (emphasis mine) wrath and judgment, the arrogance that allows people to exploit, bomb, bully and enslave one another, he is neither loving, nor good, nor wise.”

So, Wright aptly warns

“to throw away the reality because you don’t like the caricature is like cutting out the patient’s heart to stop a nosebleed”.

You can’t be against PS without having to explain away a good portion of the Scriptures. We should be against the various caricatures but fully embrace the biblical doctrine.

“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and all because of the unstoppable love of the one creator God. There is ‘no condemnation’ for those who are in Christ, because on the cross God condemned sin in the flesh of the Son who, as the expression of his own self-giving love, had been sent for that very purpose. ‘He did not spare his very own Son, but gave him up for us all.’”

What are your thoughts on all of these? Questions?

Your comments are needed to enrich this conversation.

What does it mean to be Christian?

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I will start off by offering a sample of two Christian leaders talking about this. I selected these two in particular because I think they are illustrative of how differently this subject can be approached. I strongly encourage you to listen entirely through each podcast.

Ed Stetzer on the Nick & Josh Podcast said:

I believe certain things are settled. There are 5 fundamentals to my understanding of Christianity that are not negotiable. When we dialogue about these it is an inter-faith dialogue. How far can you go and still be within orthodox Christianity? How far is it still a church conversation and at what point is it an inter-faith dialogue?

Rob Bell on Catalyst podcast, interviewed by Gabe Lyons said:

When we look at Jesus life we have to radically revisit our notion of what it means to be Christian. In Ephesians 2 Paul talks about how formerly the Jews and gentiles had antagonizing and divisive relationships, but in Christ they have been reconciled. The phrase he is using has been translated: through Christ there is a “new humanity”. Often what religion does is giving people a whole set of criteria for dividing us. When Jesus speaks of loving our neighbor, he is calling us to the primal bonds we have as human beings. So being Christian means to be a good human being. It means recognizing that all human beings are image of God bearers, that they have the divine spark.

So on one hand you have someone who encourages setting parameters to delineate who is in and who is out and on the other hand you have someone who is looking at what unites us, at what we have in common not our differences. One might say one approach is exclusive and the other is inclusive.

The first approach presumes clarity as to who is in and who is out. The second approach simply refuses to think in these terms and concerns itself with a totally different way of looking at people. BTW, wasn’t it Jesus who warned us not to concern ourselves with who is in and who is not (see Matthew 13: 24-29, 36-42)?

Then, what does it mean that certain things are settled? Do you have to accept them “blindly” without careful examination? And if they are true, shouldn’t we expect them to be the logical conclusion of anyone examining the Bible and the available data for themselves? Why the need to lock certain truths? What’s the fear?

Does being a Christian mean adherence to a set of beliefs? Isn’t it interesting that Jesus asked his disciples to follow him without first grilling them on what they believe? When eventually (after years of being together) He asked them about their view of Him (which would be considered a central doctrine) isn’t it notable that only Peter volunteers an answer? What’s up with the rest of them? Jesus doesn’t say: ok, I have heard Peter’s response; now what about the rest of you? Or don’t you find it puzzling that even though not everybody among the 11 believed in his resurrection (see Matthew 28:16-17), another important tenant of the Christian faith, He still commissioned them to go as His representatives?

Doesn’t being a Christian mean to be what God has created us to be? Isn’t it the story of the rehabilitation of people into what they were initially meant to be? Have we given in to our tendency to complicate things? Have we forgotten James warning to not make it difficult for those who are interested in God? (Acts 15:19)

To be continued …

CHANGE: the catalyst of life

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You can’t live for too long on this planet without realizing that change permeates everything. Life breeds change and change breeds life. They are so inseparable that it’s hard to imagine one without the other.

Science has shown so vividly how much change is part of the physical reality. One notable example is our body. From birth to death we are constantly morphing. They say that every single cell in our body changes in the course of seven years. Isn’t it fascinating that cells need to change to keep us alive? Death puts out those things that don’t submit to change, that want to be stagnant. It is just how things are.

Our spiritual/immaterial being can’t escape this principle of change either. We’ve got this internal mechanism that makes us continually respond to what we’re exposed to. We just can’t stay indifferent. We have to react, adjust, adapt, relate, align and as we do we’re faced with change. Now, while change in the physical realm is inescapable, oddly enough we have the ability to resist it in this spiritual realm. It is an odd choice because when we choose to resist change we can’t escape death. It is the divine blueprint woven into our being to warn us from self destruction. The way this plays in life is that when we are stagnant (i.e. we refuse to change in a particular situation) we get bored, we don’t experience excitement and so feel death making its inroad into our being.

This principle can be seen at work in our social constructs and networks. When a great social arrangement (church institution, political party, economical philosophy etc.) that works well at one time does not change to adapt to new circumstances and realities, it inevitably dies and becomes a relic.

As good and as true this is, we have a love/hate relationship with change. There is something in us that loves stability, steadiness, and constancy. We link all of these to reliability. We want to be able to depend on something. Predictability helps us take control of our life, set its course and determine its outcomes. And so in our desire for stability and firmness we tend to resist change. Change brings the unknown. We fear that which we don’t have control over. When things work for us, we don’t want change.

Yet, if we believe in a God who created life and everything that surrounds us and yes, a God who engineered change into the fabric of life, we have to stop putting our trust in the citadels we erect; we have to stop falling in love with them and trust God, accepting His invitation to continually discover what is the new assignment He lays in front of us. It is an invitation to recreate and re-imagine our past experiences in the light of the present. We need not live in the past, but visit it so as to learn from it in our ongoing creative process we’re involved in along with God.