Category: Spirituality

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Spirituality

Where are the Monasteries?

Reading early church history, it’s interesting how important monasteries always were to the life and mission of the church in all its different forms. Local churches administered sacraments and tended to the daily needs of the community, Bishops adjudicated disputes and sometimes produced substantial theological work, and monasteries sustained the overall enterprise through prayer, charitable work, and often substantial intellectual reflection. I often wonder if we would benefit from a monastic movement in the evangelical world. Yes, I know of the new monasticism, but that seems to be a sort of social activism — maybe a good thing, but it doesn’t seem to be what I have in mind.

It seems to me that our seminaries and Christian liberal arts colleges are the closest thing we have to filling this bill. But often, with some notable exceptions, these institutions seem insulated from the broader world of learning, and mostly concerned about protecting a particular denominational / doctrinal identity. Those that dare step out of the box often seem to get hammered.

Even when there is a robust institutional commitment to real engagement with constituent support — I think of places like my college alma mater, Gordon College, or Fuller Seminary or Regent College — it’s difficult to maintain a fluid connection between those institutions and the local church.

I would love to see networks of broadly evangelical academic institutions and study centers that understand their mission in some ways like the monasteries of the middle ages — taking in the best of “Greek” learning, preserving the best of the Tradition, practicing hospitality towards lay people, scholars and others who might visit and reflect for a while, and facilitating the flow of that quieter and more humble way of practice and thought back into local churches and from there into the world.

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Spirituality

Campus Ministry and Sustaining the Faith of the Young

On Jesus Creed, “RJS” — a frequent Jesus Creed poster who is a scientist at a major research university — offers some good thoughts on campus ministry.  This seems to me to be a vital question for us today:  how can we help young adults who have grown up in the church develop a mature faith that can thrive outside the safe walls of the home and church? 

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Spirituality

Thomas a' Kempis on Truth

I think Thomas a’ Kempis overstates the matter a bit here, but nevertheless this warning in “The Imitation of Christ” is a helpful reminder for many of us:

HAPPY is he to whom truth manifests itself, not in signs and words that fade, but as it actually is. Our opinions, our senses often deceive us and we discern very little.

What good is much discussion of involved and obscure matters when our ignorance of them will not be held against us on Judgment Day? Neglect of things which are profitable and necessary and undue concern with those which are irrelevant and harmful, are great folly.

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Ecclesiology Spirituality

Emerging Fractional Streams?

Interesting post by Mark Sayers about the growing distinctions between different versions of “emerging.”  I think I identify with aspects of all the different streams Sayers identifies, but mostly with the “Neo-Missiologists.”  The real desire behind all of these streams, though, I think, is for a fresh restatement of the real center of an evangelical faith in contexts that still had not gotten past the fundamentalist-modernist controersy.  Each of these streams Sayers identifies can be seen as somewhat different locations around this center.

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Biblical Studies Lamentations Spirituality Theology

Lamentations: Introduction

These are some materials I’m putting together for a study on Lamentations.

Introductory Questions:

What places, institutions, etc. might we think of as holding a symbolic place in our hearts and minds as did the city of Jerusalem to the Judahites?

Why do you think “the city” occupies such a central place in Lamentations? Can you think of other places in scripture where “city” is an important concept? Why do you think this might be so?

Have you ever felt “deserted,” “betrayed,” or “bitter”? Why? How did you express and deal with those feelings?

What do you think about the role of public lament in our culture? For example, what would a “service of lamentation” look like in one of our local churches? Why don’t we like to talk about or practice lament?

Some important background:

Lamentations is comprised of a group of poems concerning the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians. It is unclear who wrote these poems, although most scholars agree that the writer or writers probably had been left behind in the area of Jerusalem after its destruction. It has traditionally been held that the writer is the prophet Jeremiah.

Jerusalem had been seen as the spiritual, political and economic center of the kingdom of Judah. It was the location of a magnificent temple to God built by King Solomon. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians was the devastating culmination of a long war. Those of Judahs’ “brightest and best” who had not been killed in the war were deported to Bablyon (we get a glimpse of this practice in the book of Daniel). Those who remained in Judah after this “Babylonian exile” had been stripped of everything — their incomes, their dignity, their loved ones, and symbol of their national faith, the Temple.

These events were particularly devastating because of the history that preceded them. The nation of Israel had been united under Kings Saul, David and Solomon. After Solomon’s death, his sons divided the nation into two kingdoms, the Northern (Israel) and the Southern (Judah). An immediate reason for this division was that the tribes in the North rejected the heavy taxes levied by Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Scripture also tells us that the division of the kingdom was God’s judgment for Solomon’s failure to rid the nation of idol worship. (See 1 Kings 12:30-43.) The Northern Kingdom, comprising ten of the original tribes of Israel, regularly engaged in alliances with other nations in contradiction to God’s commands. It was conquered by Assyria in 722 B.C.E.

The Southern Kingdom was comprised of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah. King David was a Judahite. God had promised that David’s kingdom would endure forever. In 2 Samuel 7:11-16, God spoke through the prophet Samuel, and gave this promise:

“Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel.  I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth.  And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you:  When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.  He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.  But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.  Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’

Judah’s national identity, therefore, was as the chosen remnant of God through whom the Davidic kingdom, and with it the blessing of God, would endure forever. In this light, the destruction of Jerusalem by the pagan nation of Babylon was an inconceivable calamity. It seemed that God himself had forsaken his promises to his people.

Some Helpful Resources

F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations, “Interpretation” Commentary Series (John Knox Press 1989)
J. Andrew Dearman, Lamentations, NIV Application Commentary (Zondervan 2002)
The Baker Atlas of Christian History (Baker 2005)

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Spirituality

The Coming Evangelical Collapse?

Michael Spencer, aka, the “Internet Monk,” writes about The Coming Evangelical Collapse in the Christian Science Monitor, in an article that’s making the rounds on blogs and email lists.  Mark Galli interacts with Spencer in a Christianity Today post. 

I think Spencer makes some good points.  He’s right, I fear, that the religious and spiritual culture we are passing on to our children in “mainstream” evangelical churches often is shallow and banal.  He’s also right that mainstream evangelical culture has too closely attached itself to “conservative” American politics.

I also think he’s probably right about the depth of theological roots among average evangelical church-goers.  But here I think part of the problem isn’t, as Spencer suggests, that we lack orthodox foundations.  If anything, I think it’s because a couple of generations of our leadership have been reared with a theological framework that is too narrow in its supposed orthodoxy.  Our theology is often obscurantist because it lacks contact with the broader world of knowledge and scholarship.  If we become a ghetto, I think it will be because we have made ourselves an into an intellectual ghetto.

At the same time, Galli is right:  “Evangelical” is a term that describes a particular historical / sociological moment.  That moment will surely pass, though not in ten years as Spencer predicts.  Yet there will always be movements of people called by God to be “evangelical” in the sense of living the good news of the inauguration of God’s Kingdom in Jesus Christ.

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Spirituality

Ryan Bolger on the Emerging Church

Ryan Bolger’s page on the Fuller Seminary site offers some good thoughts about emerging church communities.  Even more importantly — darn, I wish I could grow hair and a beard like that.

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Chrysostom Historical Theology Spirituality

Quote of the Day — the Offense of John Chrysostom

It wasn’t long before John [Chrysostom was condemning the extravagances he witnessed among the upper class of [Constantinople].  He preached that the earth was common property and that inequalities in wealth were tantamount to theft from God, who intended all to have access to the resources of creation.

The range of those in the city whom John offended was quite wide.

Irvin & Sundquist, History of the World Christian Movement, p. 190-91.

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Interviews Science & Technology Spirituality Theology

Nature's Witness: Conversation With Daniel Harrell: Motivation and Reception

Following is the start of my conversation with Daniel Harrell, author of Nature’s Witness (things in italics are my questions).

1. What motivated you to take on this project?

Theological integrity demands that whatever we think about faith and life correspond to the way things actually are as opposed to how we want or wish things to be. God is the God of reality. If evolution is real, then to reject it presents difficulties for Christian faith and theology. A proposed alternative is to assume that ultimate truth resides in the heart and mind of God and to assume evolution to be part of that truth (“all truth is God’s truth”). Based upon confirmed scientific data, a flourishing, robust Christianity stays faithful to the Biblical narrative as its source for theological reflection, while at the same time heralding scientific discovery as an accurate description of the universe on which theology reflects.

2. What sort of responses / reactions did you encounter from other Christians as you were exploring your approach? To the extent there were positive responses, how did they encourage you? To the extent there were negative responses, how have you manged them?

Overall, I have a received very positive responses. This may be a result of living and working in Boston with so many universities where people of faith are motivated to find areas of convergence between their beliefs and their academic interests. The most encouraging responses are those form people who are excited about being able to think theologically about evolution. The most negative from those for whom evolution=godlessness. Inasmuch as those folks are open to discuss, the conversations have been excellent.

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Interviews Science & Technology Spirituality Theology

Nature's Witness: Conversation with Daniel Harrell About Evolution and Faith — Why Do This?

This post introduces a series in conversation with Daniel Harrell, author of “Nature’s Witness:  How Evolution Can Inspire Faith.”  Daniel is a long-time Pastor at Park Street Church in Boston, MA.  Park Street is an historic evangelical church.

Some readers of this blog, or other friends, colleagues or fellow church members who might stumble across it, might wonder why I’ve been diving into this topic.

First, let me say that I hope I can discuss the relationship between Christian faith and the natural sciences without being divisive.  Obviously, many people within the evangelical tradition, which I claim as my own, including some friends and family members, hold strong views that differ from mine.  I don’t write to dismiss those people, whose fellowship I greatly value.

At the same time, I understand my calling, training, and life’s work to be about exploring Christian faith and culture.  This involves dialoguing with people oppose or are indifferent about the Christian faith concerning the truth and relevance of the gospel, as well as contributing to the spiritual and intellectual vitality of the Church, as God enables me.  If the Church is failing to live up to some of the cultural challenges presented to it, or is not engaging questions of truth with integrity, I believe it’s part of my calling to offer whatever small contribution I can, relating to areas God has prompted and enabled me to study, towards reforming how we as the Church contextualize the gospel and represent Truth.

I hope it doesn’t appear that I have some delusion of grandeur about my own role in this process.  It’s easy to come across as condescending when one has developed strong opinions after a period of careful study.  There is a great array of Christian scholars and writers who are far more diligent and capable than I on any faith-and-culture issue you might name, some with perspectives different than mine, from whom I hope to continue learning.

Yet — I do believe that the evangelical tradition I love so much is facing something of a crisis of legitimacy because of the natural sciences.  Our posture towards truth discovered in the natural sciences has too often been defensive, disingenuous, and dishonest.  These are obviously strong words, and I use them, as we lawyers like to say, “advisedly.”  But I think we need to be clear-headed about what is at stake.

As Christians we believe in Truth, with a capital-“T”.  We should, of course, be appropriately chastened in our epistemic claims about what we think we know of ultimate Truth.  Indeed, I think the “strong foundationalism” of some kinds of evangelical theology is part of our problem.  Nevertheless, we are not after mere existential fantasies or illusory emotional states.  We believe and proclaim that Jesus Christ is the center of a reality created by God, not of our own making.  If we tie that proclamation to untruths about the nature of the material creation, we at best dilute our message and at worst make ourselves into hypocrites and liars.

Moreover, particularly in the global North / West, we live in an age that craves authenticity.  Anyone under age fifty today in North America can smell dissembling a mile away.  I believe our failure to accept truth from the natural sciences, and our apparent inability to reflect in a theologically robust and mature fashion on such truth, is a significant reason why Christianity has become more and more marginalized in North America.  Is it any surprise that people suspect us of pulling a fast one when they realize that, in exchange for the warm comforts of faith, they have to check their brains and education at the church door, deny the reality of natural history, and buy into an incoherent alternative pseudo-science?

Finally, I think the 800-pound gorilla that is faith-and-science is unsettling to many faithful evangelical Christians in ways that represent a significant failure of pastoral care within our tradition.  A reasonably smart and informed person who digs in to the stock “answers” he or she is likely to receive regarding these questions in an evangelical context will find them lame.  For many — and I can testify that this was true for me and for many other people I’ve met — this can prompt significant spiritual and emotional turmoil.  This gorilla cannot be ignored or it eventually will squash many fine Christian people.

The good news is that, in the best tradition of evangelicalism, increasing numbers of evangelical scientists, pastors and theologians are beginning to discuss evolutionary science openly and clearly.  Daniel Harrell, I think, is one such person.  These conversations actually have a significant history in evangelicalism, going back to some contemporaries of Darwin who did not think his theory an inherent threat to faith.  Even so, church history demonstrates that it can take hundreds of years to develop a robust, widely accepted consensus on challenging questions.  There are some significant theological challenges inherent in biological evolution, and there is not yet a clear or simple solution to every challenge.  These challenges shouldn’t be feared, because retreating from Truth is not an option.  Rather, we need to try to meet them humbly with every grace God provides.

Next post:  starting my conversation with Daniel Harrell.