Greetings from lovely George Fox University in Oregon, at the annual meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation, where I’ll be presenting a paper and visiting one of my college roommates.
Author: David Opderbeck
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One Man's Journey
An amazing post from the iMonk. Wow, can I relate on so many levels.
Like I said before, Sister Rosetta rocks — here timing, her swing, her showmanship, and her spirit — wow! This is from the early ’60’s.
I’m putting together some materials for a small group that will be studying 1 John. Here’s a wonderful quote from Augustine, found in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume that includes the Johanine epistles:
This book is very sweet to every healthy Christian heart that savors the bread of God, and it should constantly be in the mind of God’s holy church. But I choose it more particularly because what it specially commends to us is love. The person who possesses the thing which he hears about in this epistle must rejoice when he hears it. His reading will be like oil to a flame. . . . For others, the epistle should be like flame set to firewood; if it was not already burning, the touch of the word may kindle it.
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The Bluesman
This is a picture from the Gordon College Talent Show, circa 1987. I’m performing my biggest hit ever, “The Major Minor Concentration Undeclared Blues.” Ah, the bright lights, the applause, the groupies — at least that’s how I remember it.
Thomas of Everyday Liturgy and I have run out of steam on the “postmodern apologetics” series, so we’re starting a new one on “Reading the Text(s) of Scripture.” Thomas and I both were educated in (he: Philadelphia Biblical University; me: Gordon College), and worship and fellowship in, the evangelical world, so we’re both aware of the hornet’s nest any discussion of the doctrine of scripture can stir up. We’re hoping, though, that this will not be taken as another set of broadsides in the “battle for the Bible,” or as picking fights, but rather that it will represent the reflections of two textual scholars from outside the theological guild (he: literature and literary theory; me: case law, statutes and constitutions), with a missional sensibility, on the nature of the Biblical texts.
We’ll approach this as follows: we’ll first offer a quote from a systematic theology text / book / article on the doctrine of scripture and/or Biblical hermeneutics, or a passage directly from scripture about scripture, and then we’ll offer our personal reflections on the quote.
As a lawyer, I often feel compelled to append disclaimers to everything, so let me add one here: we are both very imperfect, but serious, Christians, and so we both take the Bible to be “scripture.” Whatever precise statements, definitions, qualifications, and such we each might feel comfortable with concerning the doctrine of scripture and hermeneutics, at the end of the day we both seek to submit to and be transformed by God as He speaks through scripture. If there are any elements of “deconstruction” of any of the definitions we discuss — and I’m not prejudging that there necessarily will be — that is only for the purpose, we hope, of understanding more fully, expressing more articulately, and representing more faithfully and truthfully the power and majesty of the scriptures.
Coming up next…. the first quote.
I just read about Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Guitar Player magazine. This performance is from the late 1950’s. This woman rocks!
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Glory Days
This is my brother and I on our college baseball team, when I was a senior and he was a freshman — 20(!!) years ago. The school has a Facebook page for the 20th reunion and all sorts of old photos are showing up there. Was I ever that young, skinny and fresh-faced? Too bad I never learned to hit a curveball.
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Pete Enns Moving On
Peter Enns and Westminster Seminary issued a joint statement that Enns will leave WTS effective August 1. I’m glad the statement acknowledges that Enns’ “teaching and writings fall within the purview of Evangelical thought.” It will be interesting to see where he ends up. The detailed official WTS documents expose a deep rift in the WTS systematic and biblical studies faculty. I suspect that this reflects a set of fault lines in Evangelicalism as a whole:
- between systematic theology, which offers a coherent system of doctrinal statements, and biblical theology, which has to wrestle with the diversity of sources that make up the canonical text;
- between systematic theology and practical theology, which has to relate the theological system to the plurality of circumstances that confront us in the real world; and
- between systematic theology, and pastoral / theological leadership, and the realities of professional life in a globalized, pluralistic world.
This isn’t meant as an indictment of systematic theology as a discipline. It’s important that the Church articulate propositional content about the Christian faith and maintain a sense of the tradition that runs back to the Apostles. But, I think we’re seeing a much better educated, much better traveled, much more socially aware generation of Evangelical Christians asking questions about things like how our understanding of ancient near eastern history, or the natural sciences, or the enormous diversity of cultures in the world, stretches our system in some places. In my view, that’s a good thing, but as the Enns situation illustrates, it can be difficult.
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