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.

Money – the GPS of our soul

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For centuries, navigators and explorers have searched the heavens for a system that would enable them to locate their position on the globe with the accuracy necessary to avoid tragedy and to reach their intended destinations. On June 26, 1993 the U.S. Air Force launched the 24th Navstar satellite into orbit, completing a network of 24 satellites known as the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

The widespread of all kinds of GPS systems today shows our obsession with having a sense of positioning and direction. This doesn’t stop in the physical realm; it goes into the spiritual, immaterial realm of our soul. There is, in all of us, a deep desire to get a pulse of our soul, to get a position of where we are and the direction of our lives. As a result, we’re looking for anything that can offer us a clue into our soul.

Of all things out there probably money is not something we think about when it comes to taking a pulse of our soul. Yet, as always, Jesus comes with an unexpected thought: where your treasure (money) is, there your heart will be also (Mat 6:21). In other words, if you want to know where your heart is, check where your money is going. Our finances are a great picture of our soul: loyalties, priorities, passions, values etc.

So next time we want to do a soul check-up (recommended regularly BTW), we need to take our checkbook, our bank statements and track our money. We will be amazed how much they speak. Money goes only where we tell them to go and what we tell them says a lot about us.

How is your soul?

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – A modern Ikon of reconciliation

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I saw fitting to write today in sync with the spirit that animated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On the 3rd Monday of every January the whole nation celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. That is just one of the many ways the life of this young man has become a megaphone for God’s ideals of justice and reconciliation. And so today I ask you to reflect on God’s dream of reconciliation, not between God and us, but between us and other people.

We tend to reflect on reconciliation as a “between God and us” kind of deal, forgetting the horizontal dimension of reconciliation. May I state as clear and bold as I can that the two sides of reconciliation – our relationship to God and with one another – are inextricably connected into one single whole. Scriptures are unambiguous on this. Jesus states that our reconciliation with God is dependent on our reconciliation with our fellow human beings (Mat 5:22-24). John explains the logic behind this: if you cannot love (be reconciled to) your brother, whom you see, how can you love (be reconciled to) God, whom you can’t see (1 John 4:20-21). At the heart of the Gospel is the message of reconciliation.

Simply stated, reconciliation means to be at peace with, to not hold anything against, to be in a friendship relationship. We as Christians should be the champions of reconciliation. We should not allow our differences to separate us. We should not allow

the color of our skin,
the social class,
financial condition,
political party,
immigrant status,
belief system,
sexual orientation,
theological camp,
religion,
nationality
and _______ fill in the blank,

break the primal bond that unites us, because after all before anything else we’re all precious human beings created equally in God’s image.

Yes, Tony Jones is right in championing: ”Friendship should trump doctrinal differences” and calling it an issue of sin. He aptly writes in his latest book: “Emergents believe that an envelope of friendship and reconciliation must surround all debates about doctrine and dogma” (page 78). The emergents should be known not for adultering the message of the Gospel but for upholding it in the highest esteem. For if we don’t reflect reconciliation in our lives without boundaries and limitations we show a profound lack of grasp of what Gospel is really about.

May we, once again on this day, be inspired to pause and seek reconciliation? Would you join Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in fulfilling God’s dream?

Can I get a show of hands (comments)?

A case for civility

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Os Guiness, a leading voice in evangelical circles, is bringing up courageously an important issue in his latest book The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on it. In it he is making a case against “the sacred public space”, where one religion is given “a preferred place in public life” [p. 88] and “the naked public space” where “all religious expression is inviolably made private and the public sphere inviolably secular (p.116). He concludes by pleading for a “civil public space” which he defines as:

“one in which everyone – people of all faiths, weather religious or naturalistic – are equally free to enter and engage public life on the basis of their faiths, as a matter of “free exercise” and as dictated by their own reason and conscience” (p. 135)”

I believe strongly in the need for such civil public square and in staying away from the two extremes. I salute in this respect the publishing of this timely book. We need, however, to be careful and self-examine ourselves as we approach this important issue. What is it that motivates us to encourage such a public forum? What is our attitude entering this public square? How do we view the “other”? These are questions that determine how we behave publicly. Are the mistakes “the Religious Right” have made and against which Os Guinness is speaking so vehemently just a matter of discourse, of bad tactics or are they an issue of message and of beliefs we need to re-examine? Do we, as Christians, believe we have got it all figured out and everybody else is wrong?

Here are a few points in the book I want to interact with. In this public square “There is no common core and there is no all-inclusive identity” (p.147) Guinness writes, hence our irreconcilable differences he’s concluding. He also writes “ ’The right to believe anything’ does not mean ‘Anything anyone believes is right’ ” (p.155) and yet “Differences need to be debated” (p.148).

Personally, I wish Os would have used another word. Debating involves two or more parties coming to the table with the assumption that they are right and the other is wrong. This is not the kind of discourse we want in this public space. We’re not trying to convince each other of our ways. Debates don’t really bring people together; they have a tendency to segregate, to create points of conflict. Who wants to be shown they are wrong? Who wants to loose? Maybe a better atmosphere to be encouraged in the public square is that of a conversation. The essential difference is that the parties involved come to the table with the assumption that they might be wrong (which Guinness alludes to when he says “we have a responsibility to be right, but with modesty; for we, too, may be wrong” p.156). We need to come together with humility willing to listen to each other so we can learn together and thus create a common platform that allows us to live in peace even if we don’t agree on everything. This seems to be a better posture in bringing people together than that of a debate; it shows authentic respect for each other and truly encourages participation. Do we believe people of different religious backgrounds have something valuable to offer, that there is good everywhere and we need to come together and celebrate this? This is an issue of belief that is critical if we are to approach this civil public square with hope.

If there is no common core that unites all of us, as the author seems to suggest, than how can we come together? How can we even talk about a common good unless there are ideals that unite us all. If “not everybody is right” than who is? While the subtitle of the book may seem to be encompassing the whole society, Os Guinness explains in an interview, that by it he refers to “the freedom of followers of Christ to be faithful to him in every area of our lives, including our freedom to enter and engage public life”. Are we to create this public square so that we (i.e. Christians) can push our message out? Is it only our freedom that concerns us?

As important as this issue of civil public square is, it is just as important to be prepared to enter it with the right attitude.

What are your thoughts?

WHAT IS TRUTH?

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It is the old aged question that has stirred the minds of many, many people. While much has been written in response to it I venture to say it still continues to linger in our minds beckoning us to discover it. The more we know the “truth” the more unsatisfied we are with what we know and push further in exploring it.

Truth is very much like coca-cola: it quenches your thirst temporarily, leaving you thirstier.

People have tended to gravitate toward stressing either the absolute or the relative nature of truth. I’ve come to realize truth is both absolute and relative. These two dimensions are inextricably connected. They are mirrored in the relationship of theory to practice. A theory has no value unless or until it is applied. The absolute dimension of truth has no value unless it is relative to a particular context or application of it. So when you analyze truth in its application you will have to concede to its relativity, because it does look different from person to person, from situation to situation, from one context to another. Yet the application points inevitably to an a priori absolute that is applied.

Another way to look at this is to say that truth is RELATIONAL in nature. Truth doesn’t exist unless you have at least two realities related somehow. You can look at any statement of truth and see that it always represents a relationship. We can, therefore, further say that truth is that which connects everything. When we say, for example, “God is love”, love has meaning only in as much as there is another reality that can receive that love. All the qualities or attributes of God point to a relationship, hence we say God is a relational God. This laptop I am using right now to write this post has meaning/truth only because of its relationship to me. If nobody is using it, it has no value. In short everything that exists is connected to something or else it cannot exist. The way we say this is that everything is interconnected.

Those that say truth is absolute are both wrong and right as they are those that say that truth is relative. Only when we embrace this dual dimension of truth will we really start to taste its richness.

What is truth? Is a question we are all called to answer individually, not by regurgitating and adopting some “universal” statements of truth but by wrestling to find our own truth, what is true for us, in our unique story.

The paradox of parenting

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Parenting is a great parable God has given us to live in to teach us some of the deepest truths of life. In dealing with our children we have a glimpse into understanding God’s dealings with us.

Have you been in situations where you thought God (at least your understanding of God) just doesn’t make any sense? That life (at least in that moment or chapter) would rule God out, that in light of that God could not be explained? It seems totally incomprehensible to me that God would actually plan these in our life regularly so as to fortify our trust in Him, to make us live by faith not by sight. These are defining times when either we loose faith or build it even stronger. But why, why would He take the risk?

Like children who don’t understand their parents, yet they are “forced” to live with them because they don’t have an alternative … this is their family, while it may not make sense at times they feel a strong sense of belonging there, they feel at home, they feel good there, so is with us in our relationship with God. We may run but we can’t deny our soul cravings that are satisfied nowhere but at home, with God. In times like these trying to understand or figure God is a recipe for disaster. The only way it seems we can live with sanity and enjoy life is to trust God.

If your God makes perfect sense all the time you may want to check if He’s real.

A question we all ask

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Sunday around noon after we got home and settled in our comfortable couches, what seemed to be a familiar sensation has suddenly overtaken both of us. My wife is usually doing a fantastic job in taking care of this basic need but today it was all on me and it didn’t look good. As we lazily looked at each other there was one question that was surfacing effortlessly: what do we eat?

Here’s our “difficulty”. Ina wanted to take a much deserved break and while I wanted to help … I don’t really cook (except for … well … ok, I don’t cook!). We had food in our refrigerator; it just needed to be “prepared”, you see. And now I had to go through this painful decision time. Are we going to go out? If no, I need to go out and buy something. The problem was intensified by the fact that we didn’t want to eat the same thing we had last time. So, we went through the regular routine of the different options we have. As we grew tired of choosing, we decided to just go Chinese (Panda Express, in case you know what I am talking about). While I am at the restaurant I have to call her to see what exactly she wants (she has her preferences, right?!?). On the phone I tell her that for just $1.25 more you can get three entrée instead of just two, so we decided to go for that. After we’ve finished eating (on our comfortable couches, watching TV) we looked at each other and said: we should have taken just two entrée … that was too much!

In another place both very close by and very far away other people ask the same question. For them the question has a different rating of difficulty. If for my wife and I and probably for you (if you are reading this) the difficulty lies in choosing between so many options, in getting off our comfort … for other people it lies in not having anything to eat. When you ask yourself “what do I eat?” and your crisis springs not from a lack of food, you need to know:

1. YOU ARE RICH !!!
2. Someone right that moment just died of hunger

Same question, everyone ask it, such radical contrasts. It made me think … I hope you do too.

We can end poverty and we can do it in our lifetime!!!

You’re either the one who needs help or the one who needs to help.

So … ???

Emergents: the new Bereans

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There have been many efforts to describe what an emergent Christian is. Each attempt inevitably analyzes them from a certain angle and so inevitably produces various portrayals. This is further complicated by the fact that they are not a monolithic group. They come from different walks of life, different theological persuasions, different traditions, different geographical locations, each one has his/her own story and so on. I would say they are as diverse as the individuals that make up this group. Yet they feel a bond with each other. There is a thread that unites them all: they want to be the architects of their lives. They don’t want to blindly or “in faith” employ someone else’s design for life; they want to create their own customized blueprint.

For way too long there has been the assumption that Christians ought to be a homogeneous group. That they have to look the same, feel the same, think the same, believe the same, act the same, smell the same … pretty much made from the same matrix (ok, I am exaggerating, but you get the point). The way this has played out is that there is a Christian “tradition” that is to be passed on from one generation to the other, passed on faithfully and accepted without examination, i.e. “in good faith”. The emergent Christians have broken this chain and said: we can’t just take this in blindly; we need to examine and we need to examine EVERYTHING.

There are some people who may like to call themselves emergent or are referred to as emergent by others. Ed Stetzer’s three streams of emergents is a prime example. Here’s my paraphrase of what he said and it is believed in general. Some “emergents” want to rebrand the Christian tradition so as to be relevant nowadays. Everything stays the same, we just change the face. These are the relevant emergents. Then there are those who are willing to take a stab at how we do church and change it as needed. These are the reconstructionists. The last group are those that want to re-examine everything and are ready to undergo a system wide overhaul. These are the revisionists.

Laying aside the labels with their negative connotations let me just say that the last group represents the true emergent Christians. In order to pass as an emergent you’ve got to have the guts to re-examine EVERYTHING. If you’re not ready to examine everything why examine anything? [I really don’t get this pick and choose kind of reexamining. What is the criteria by which you figure what to examine and what not to? Really !!!] Now, does that mean that everything will be changed? Not necessarily. It is simply an honest re-evaluation of the Christian tradition that has been passed on to us: practices, doctrines, ecclesiology etc. What are we to be afraid of? If we sincerely love God, have the Bible as a guide and are committed to follow Jesus then we should be fine, right?

The true emergents have always existed. They are those who want to examine everything before they adopt it and make it their own. They are the Bereans in Paul’s time who did not think that just because you are Paul we should just gullibly accept everything you’re giving us. That is the right posture, one that will save us of many harmful human traditions that want to creep into our paradigm. It is the task of each generation to take a fresh look (not with a closed eye to those that have come before) and re-imagine what does it mean to be Christian, to follow Christ in his or her context. It is much easier to just replicate a passed on tradition then to redesign a fresh one. But to be true to our internal compass, to the God we love, to the Bible we hold dear, to the world we find ourselves in and to Jesus whom we want to follow, there is no alternative. To be Christian is to be emergent.