Charismata

Interesting... as I have been myself thinking a lo...

2012-05-15T21:04:34.645+01:00

Interesting... as I have been myself thinking a lot about death recently. I think no one thinks of death seriously until they are personally faced with it. Death and life are united...It caused Jesus Christ death to bring us life. Phil Ryken observes in his book, Loving the way Jesus loves, "Death is the most fearful and the last enemy as it separates us from those we love. Yet, at the same time it unites us with Him who loves us beyond understanding. The divider has became the uniter"...Amazing how God works...beyond our understanding indeed. Yet, as Christians I believe we should have the right understanding on death and grieve and then allow ourselves to grieve properly and thus live.

My clarifications may come in dribs and drabs, so ...

2012-05-15T20:17:17.252+01:00

My clarifications may come in dribs and drabs, so I'll start with this:

This is, to some extent, christian theology, or at least it can be rightly critiqued as an (admittedly syncretised) expression of it. The film opens with a quote from Genesis, and two central objects are the Tree of Life and the cross (shaped by the light in the door).

Also, while I may have come across like I was looking for a clear "Jesus has been raised!" message from the film, that's not at all what I was looking for. But just like The Tree of Life framed its central death within a context of life, that's what I would have wanted from this work that aims to be truly hopeful given the reality of death.

For me, however, "death as an act of creation" or "death as the road to awe" doesn't cut it. I can't but see death as the enemy of creation, the nothingness that must not be harnessed, but defeated. So while there is merit in some of the finer points of the film, I think overall it is severely lacking in terms of what it presents as the story of the universe (i.e. its theology).

This is MI:4 all over again. You just don't li...

2012-05-05T17:59:42.061+01:00

This is MI:4 all over again. You just don't like movies... :)

I indeed came to a Hauerwasian conclusion but I ap...

2012-05-03T11:35:39.605+01:00

I indeed came to a Hauerwasian conclusion but I appreciate the collaboration!

Utter brilliance. Thank you. I shared it on Twitte...

2012-04-22T21:17:29.585+01:00

Utter brilliance. Thank you. I shared it on Twitter.

Thanks Declan its nice for once to be included in ...

2012-04-21T12:23:48.473+01:00

Thanks Declan its nice for once to be included in the "CREDITS". Hope you enjoyed what is truly an "EPIC". I remember many times in the past in "one TV households" you took any chance you got. Would watch it again anytime. Of ourse I'm pretty good at watching "PAINT DRY" Regards John

I guess I would just say it slightly differently b...

2012-04-09T22:42:15.776+01:00

I guess I would just say it slightly differently by saying that exposition serves the true goal, which is for the congregation to be confronted by the living, speaking God.

My fear, however, is that much exposition tends to blunt the force of this confrontation. Explaining, understanding, and grasping the text is often a way to control the God of the text and the response he desires of us, but to invoke Augustine and therefore make my argument iron-clad, "if we understand it then it isn't God." If that's true, then perhaps preachers should be aiming at having their congregation understand less than what they understood when they walked in, not more.

Welcome back, Declan. The internet missed you. A...

2012-04-09T11:36:26.187+01:00

Welcome back, Declan. The internet missed you.

Am considering your proposal that confrontation is the goal of the sermon. I would have said the goal was exposition - literally exposing the text. Confrontation is a natural consequence of that. Mmm.

Appreciated your use of the feminine in the generic pronoun. Rare. :)

Loved this post Declan! So true, very encouraging ...

2012-02-28T00:46:55.715Z

Loved this post Declan! So true, very encouraging as well! All the best for your time spent away from the net, hope it all goes well and that you get to spend the time needed on God and the other things you've mentioned! Best wishes

What does your reading list for that module look l...

2012-02-10T23:41:40.426Z

What does your reading list for that module look like? I just finished a book called "Hospitality as Holiness" which was pretty good, and I'd be interested to know what else is out there on this topic.

My current module is "the Bible and Diversity...

2012-02-10T22:00:04.512Z

My current module is "the Bible and Diversity" so you can imagine there's a lot of that type of thing going on. For all its supposed appreciation of difference, a lot of it just flattens us out into one homegenised (usually late, western modern) form

One of our lecturers briefly shared his testimony ...

2012-02-07T22:27:19.478Z

One of our lecturers briefly shared his testimony today. While he acknowledged a role for apologetics (though he didn't specify which kind), his conversion was brought about by the vision of the Jesus that is found in the gospels, made compelling by the illumination of the spirit. The apologetics came after this vision, and gave him "reason" to think this Jesus story that captured his imagination is actually true.

The problem with the Craig/Strobel kind of apologetics (and perhaps almost all forms of it) is that it reverses the order. It presents dull, emotionless, beautyless truths and proofs as if they are a gateway to faith in God, but in reality they end up undermining that faith, because faith is nothing if it is not passionate, emotional encounter with and trust in the Beautiful.

This golden era of apologetics is marked by Craig's mission to get people to make up their own minds about what's true given the cold, hard evidence presented to them, but what this kind of apologetics forgets is that truth must come to us as grace and beauty.

In a way, I guess you've sort of come up with the reason why this kind of apologetics is not good for faith: it is depressing, veiling the dynamic, revolutionary, passionate character of Jesus and instead putting something or someone much less compelling in front of us for our deliberation. This brings to mind a great Brueggemann quote that I posted a while ago:

"Just as exilic Jews preferred not to tell the truth about Yahweh because it is a truth too subversive, so many of us in the church choose to bear false witness about Jesus, because the managed, reassuring truth of the empire is more compelling. The truth evidenced in Jesus is not an idea, not a concept, not a formulation, not a fact. It is rather a way of being in the world in suffering and hope, so radical and so raw that we can scarcely entertain it."

As a side note, I think there is an interesting historical/political/theological connection between apologetics and empire, which I'm half-thinking of exploring in my final year dissertation.

This is interesting. I find the kind of apologetic...

2012-02-07T20:13:15.267Z

This is interesting. I find the kind of apologetics people like Strobel produce depressing, and my instinct is that it undermines confidence rather than strengthening it. But it's hard to explain why I feel this way, and it goes against a pretty strong instinctin the other direction in our church culture. I'd be interested in more discussion about why that kind of apologetics is not good for faith

"Allowing it" is a bit weak all right. J...

2012-01-20T17:42:42.641Z

"Allowing it" is a bit weak all right. Jesus doesn't so much allow the cross to happen to him as he does "move towards it and provoke it", in the words of Yoder. We can perhaps speak of the triune God's atoning work with this kind of active language.

I do think that vengeance is God's and He will repay it, but that future tense that Paul uses in Romans 12 should probably have a bearing on how we understand the cross.

hmmm. I understand questioning the ethics that res...

2012-01-20T17:29:34.713Z

hmmm. I understand questioning the ethics that result from holding the juridical-penal model and i look forward to seeing what the likes of yourself and zoom bring to the table in years to come.
As for holding that God's role at the cross was only "allowing it" i have yet to be convinced of.
What does your readings tell about the what happens in hell? Is that not a violent place?

There is a book called the Nonviolent Atonement, w...

2012-01-20T15:49:45.376Z

There is a book called the Nonviolent Atonement, whose argument I read in a condensed form in a book called Atonement and Violence. I remember there being significant flaws, but I definitely think there is much further discussion needed on the topic of the atonement and violence.

The cross is certainly violent to the extent that it displays the violence of Rome, the violence of powers and principalities. But what a nonviolent atonement wants to say is that we are not saved by the violence of humanity (or divinity), but by the nonviolence of the triune God.

Thomas Finger has this to say:

"It is the powers, ranged over against God, who inflict the death penalty although Jesus was innocent. God does not inflict such a penalty, save in the indirect sense of allowing it to be exacted, without intervening violently to prevent it, because this was an inevitable consequence of their mission of self-sacrificing love.
Therefore, it was unjust for Jesus to pay a penalty he did not deserve; yet not because God demands such penalties – but because the powers of evil do."

This is undoubtedly further evidence of my cheaply bought theological anabaptism, but I do think the ethical dimension of atonement "theory" has been criminally ignored, and that the juridical-penal model holds a theological-ethical power that should be seriously questioned.

I must be missing something basic here... but ther...

2012-01-20T15:08:05.030Z

I must be missing something basic here... but there is very little about the cross that suggests a non-violent atonement.?

Perhaps we can say that christ took the violence on himself so that we don't have to put it on others?

I wouldnt be interested in getting rid of the Juridical-penal model for the sake of christian community. But if i were shown it was wrong- well that would be a different thing.

Amen amen amen!

2012-01-10T18:43:45.696Z

Amen amen amen!

I think Volf himself has a helpful way of working ...

2012-01-06T18:09:18.027Z

I think Volf himself has a helpful way of working out some of what you address here:

http://www.yale.edu/faith/resources/x_volf_difference.html

Thanks, jayber crow. I'm a big fan of most of ...

2011-12-30T11:07:04.807Z

Thanks, jayber crow. I'm a big fan of most of those films on your own list that I've seen (though I must admit that True Grit left me with little to remember), so I'm excited to see your remaining lists. I only saw Of God's and Men this year as well and it would be just behind Tree of Life in terms of quality and impact. I watched it again on Christmas Eve, and a part of me wants to continue doing that every year. It could only be good for my soul.

Anyway, I hope this year you give us something in between the end-of-year lists, and I'm sure our paths will cross sooner or later.

I always enjoy reading other people's end of y...

2011-12-29T18:14:44.389Z

I always enjoy reading other people's end of year lists. I share your love of Hannah's Child and Gilead, I'm really looking forward to seeing Tree of Life, and I'm still trying to persuade my wife to embark on The Wire with me.

My movie choices are up on my blog (jaybercrow.furiousthinking.org) with my music and books to follow.

By the way, I've really been enjoying your blog and find lots of food for thought here. I gather we have a few friends in common, so maybe we'll cross paths before too long.

Thanks for the comment, Diana. Any word that is sp...

2011-12-22T13:40:09.688Z

Thanks for the comment, Diana. Any word that is spoken against Jews here is only a word spoken by Jews themselves - that is, the prophets of Israel who decried Israel's violence, of which Jesus was the last.

Of course in the limited nature of a blog post I couldn't go into the history of the church, so my silence regarding the fact that the church has all to often walked in the way of violence -- violence even against its fathers in the faith -- should not be interpreted as justification.

The focus was simply on the text of Matthew and its textual links to Jewish prophets. But make no mistake about it - the judgement on Israel is also our judgement. We are all guilty, Jews and Gentiles, of not walking in the way of the Lord.

I might be wrong with my understanding here Declan...

2011-12-21T21:24:47.150Z

I might be wrong with my understanding here Declan, however I think we should be careful as the line between proclaiming the truth and the antisemitism is quite thin.
I do not agree at all with this James Mayer....I do not know much about him, but the fact that Martin Luther was courageous enough to unveil the truth about God's Word causing a tremendous impact on Church and the German culture doesn't justify his wrong attitude toward Jewish people...affecting the history of the church. It's well known that in his later years, while suffering from several illnesses and deteriorating health, Luther became increasingly antisemitic, writing that Jewish homes should be destroyed, their synagogues burned, money confiscated and liberty curtailed. These statements have contributed to his controversial status.
It's not that I agree with Israel's transgressions but we must know the whole truth about Israel before making any "judgements" about her. As in Romans 9 v 30-33 we read:
What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:
“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

But I keep in mind as well as "because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. 12 But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring! Romans 11 v 11-12
Nevertheless, I am not trying to argue with you here, just thought it is right from my side to tell what I believe. And I know that you are not looking for my approval here but I agree with your last verses and the whole idea in general.

I just read most of the odd-numbered pages from th...

2011-12-10T13:57:57.473Z

I just read most of the odd-numbered pages from the Themelios article (they don't have the even ones for some reason). From what I can gather, it's good analysis, but I'm not sure Barth's work lends itself to such systematic thinking...although that does sound like a bit of a cop out. However, Barth's uncertainty and inconsistency seem to go with the grain of Scripture on this issue, so while I agree with Crisp that Barth's doctrine does "yield a version of universalism", it yields it in the same way that Scripture yields it - by not fully committing to it, and leaving open other possibilities.

Have you read Oliver Crisp on Barth and universali...

2011-12-09T20:44:38.327Z

Have you read Oliver Crisp on Barth and universalism? Very helpful indeed.