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Written by jesse james deconto
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Tuesday, 08 December 2009 |
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The December issue of The Atlantic has a cover story on the prosperity gospel, "Did Christianity cause the crisis? " The author quotes our friend Kate Bowler, a PhD student at Duke studying prosperity. Kate makes a cameo appearance. (The writer Hanna Rosin liked her alliterative quote, "prosperity is proliferating" but paraphrased the rest). Rosin cites Kate's research showing that around 20 percent of the nation's largest churches embrace prosperity theology -- that is, they believe "wealth will be granted to the faithful." Having hitched my wagon to the failing newspaper industry, I find myself NOT believing this with a sort of grim resignation. Anyone else wish Joel Osteen were right?
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 January 2010 )
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Written by Tim Conder
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Wednesday, 18 November 2009 |
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The last two weeks in our Sunday dialogues, we have been discussing "the otherness of the church" (to borrow the phrase from theologian John Howard Yoder) and its link to being a spiritually forming community of disciples.
This otherness is easily seen in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) where Jesus' teachings turn many of the norms and assumptions of our societies and communities upside down. Blessed (literally "happy are") the meek? At what elite university or Fortune 500 company? Blessed are those who mourn? Are you kidding? Blessed are those who are persecuted? Are you crazy? But all of these prescriptions come in the strange, counterintuitive context of Jesus' kingdom — a present and future reality where one submits all our personage (our bodies, or dreams, our relationships - all of it) to goodness of Jesus' redemptive vision.
Last week, we expanded this discussion by looking at the echoes of the "Jubilee" (the 50th year in Israel when debts were cancelled, domestic slaves were freed, and land sold for debt was returned to its original owners in addition to allowing the soil to rest as was done on every 7th year) in Jesus' sermon. In his prayer, he asks that God "forgive our debts as we forgive the debts of others." Later, in the famous words on anxiety (you can read them at Mt 6:25-34) we see the confidence in God's provision and grace given to those who embrace his "Jubilee Kingdom." The grace of God in our lives, the kingdom of God was foreshadowed in the strange practice of the Jubilee as it gives us some portrait of participation in Jesus' kingdom.
But, at this point, I would love to hear your thoughts?
Thinking reasonably, there are many concerns about "otherness."
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Does this mean disengagement with society and its needs? There are so many negative examples and huge consequences of communities of faith taking this path.
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Otherness in our experience is often the beginning points of comparison, dangerous competition, prejudice, racism, abuse,...What about these fears?
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When we studied 2 Corinthians this summer, we looked at its focus on reconciliation. On several occasions, I made the comment that when Jesus is center of lives and communities, there is no "other." Does this reconcile with our thoughts on the Sermon on the Mount?
I would like to hear more?
- What are your thoughts about "otherness?" What does it look like? What are some of its practices?
- What additional concerns or fears do you have about this idea.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR PARTICIPATING IN OUR DIALOGUE!
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 January 2010 )
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Written by jesse james deconto
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Thursday, 27 August 2009 |
Yesterday I started a class in systematic theology at Duke Divinity School. This morning I read a textbook chapter where theologian Colin Gunton contrasted church fathers Irenaeus and Origen on how each related Greek philosophy to their theological work. Iraneus was more suspicious of the Greeks because they celebrated the mind and denigrated the body, as though the two were separable. Irenaeus had a “vigorous orientation to the fact that the Son of God became flesh” (The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, p. 14) and therefore saw the “goodness of this material world” (p. 15). Gunton then laments how Origen’s embrace of Greek philosophy came to dominate Christian theology through Augustine and Aquinas. (I wrote on a related theme in December).
Yesterday I also read an e-mail from a friend to whom I had recommended Doug Pagitt’s recent book “A Christianity Worth Believing.” I had suggested Pagitt because my friend had mentioned another friend who had begun to see clearly God’s goodness in people outside the church and to question the theologies of total depravity and exclusive salvation that she’d inherited. Like Irenaeus, Pagitt wants to preserve the Hebrew thought patterns that fell out of favor over the course of church history. For the Greeks, Pagitt writes, “God was totally insulated from outside knowledge, for God needed nothing. God was characterized by timelessness, immutability, and rationality. Contrast this with the Hebrew story of a God who creates in God’s own image, a God who is present and active in the world. It’s pretty clear that one view was going to slide into the background” (p. 46-47).
For Pagitt, the church suffered great loss because the sense of God’s intimacy with the world slid into the background. Pagitt had decided to become a Christian as a teenager after watching a Passion play, the last days of Christ enacted on stage. But some older Christians led him to a sinner’s prayer using the popular sketch of a canyon between people and God, with the cross bridging the gap. It made little sense to him, though he complied. “I had never felt separated from God. I didn’t know much about God, but I had always been sure God was there, waiting for me. In fact, it was the clarity of God’s care, the steadiness of God’s presence in my life, that drew me into a life with God that night” (p. 97).
In the view of many Christians, such experiences are suspect. As with Origen, the important thing is whether one’s beliefs correspond to a rational view of reality. But for others, like Pagitt, the substance of faith is the experience of God in the concrete circumstances of earthly life. It’s living redemption with the sweaty, bloody Jesus of Nazareth. My friend was disappointed with Pagitt, saying he had written “nothing new.” Maybe that’s just the point. Irenaeus lived almost 2,000 years ago. His ideas are nothing new. But the image of God in the created world is a mystery always worth pondering.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 14 January 2010 )
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