Tennis Since Wimbledon 2003

Since Roger Federer (currently world number 3) won his first Grand Slam tournament (Wimbledon 2003), there have been 32 grand slam tournaments (including that Wimbledon, but not including the Wimbledon which is going on right now).  I wanted to look at the numbers over the last 8 years and see the lack of competition that has existed within men’s tennis the last 8 years.  The numbers to the left are the current ATP rankings, and to the right of each name is the number of Grand Slam tournaments that the top 25 players in the world have won during this time (note that in the current Wimbledon, two players on this list, Djokovic and Nadal, will face off in the championship at Wimbledon).

1.  Novak Djokovic 2

2.  Rafael Nadal 10

3.  Roger Federer 16

10.  Andy Roddick 1

21.  Juan Martín del Potro 1

That adds up to 30 of the championships in that time.  The other two Grand Slams were won by the retired players Marat Safin (Australian Open 2005) and Gastón Norberto Gaudio (French Open 2004).  So in the last eight years, 32 championships have been won by 7 players.

Compare that with the four major championships of golf in the last 32 Majors, in which 21 golfers have won a major:

Tiger Woods 6

Phil Mickelson 4

Pádraig Harrington 3

Angel Cabrera 2

Charl Schwartzel 1

Trevor Immelman 1

Zach Johnson 1

Rory McIlroy 1

Graeme McDowell 1

Lucas Glover 1

Geoff Ogilvy 1

Micahel Campbell 1

Retief Goosen 1

Louis Oosthuizen 1

Stewart Cink 1

Todd Hamilton 1

Ben Curtis 1

Martin Kaymer 1

Yang Yong-eun 1

Vijay Singh 1

Shaun Michael 1

So, based on these results, there's a lot less of a competition in tennis today, and while it may be good for fans of Federer and Nadal, I'm not so sure it's good for the sport of tennis.

Karl Barth on Grace

This coming Sunday, I'll be preaching on Romans 6:12-23.  While doing some research, I pulled out my copy of Karl Barth's The Epistle to the Romans and found this wonderful passage:

“Grace is the power of obedience; it is theory and practice, conception and birth; it is the indicative which carries with it a categorical imperative; it is the call, the command, the order, which cannot be disobeyed.  Grace has the force of a downright conclusion; it is knowledge which requires no act of will to translate it into action, as though the will were a second factor side by side with knowledge.  Grace is knowledge of the will of God, and as such it is the willing of the will of God.  Grace is the power of the Resurrection: the knowledge that men are begotten of God, that it moves and rests in Him, and that it is beyond all concrete things, beyond the being and course of this world.  Inasmuch as men have discovered it, Grace is the existence begotten of God, the new man, created and redeemed by God, the man who is righteous before Him and in whom He is well pleased, the man in whom God again discovers Himself, as a father discovers himself in his child.  Of supreme importance, then, is the demand that I, the new man in the power of the resurrection and within the krisis of the transition from death to life, should by faith and under grace—will the will of God.  As the man under grace, I am in a position to hear and understand this demand, for existentially and assuredly I live from God and am what He desires.  By this demand, moreover, I am reminded of that primal Origin by which my existence is affirmed, and I perceive that I—and yet not I—am” (207–208).

Charles Taylor on "Excarnation"

I've grown more and more agitated with the gnostic understandings that many Christians have of humanity and what happens to people when they die.  I recently attended a funeral in which the preacher referred to the persons body as a "shell."

At the Stone-Campbell Journal Conference a week and a half ago, Luke Timothy Johnson helpfully addressed Paul's understanding of the resurrection and the body as seen in 1 Corinthians.  Much of his presentation was very similar to N.T. Wright's work on the matter (see Surprised by Hope or Resurrection and the Son of God).  It's refreshing to hear presentations like Johnson's because I so rarely hear those issues discussed in churches.

Charles Taylor has a very helpful discussion of gnostic or disembodied views of humanity in A Secular Age.  He calls it "excarnation," which he defines as "the steady disembodying of spiritual life, so that it is less and less carried in deeply meaningful bodily forms, and lies more and more 'in the head'" (771).  While I am a person who enjoys reading, thinking, writing, etc., I am more interested in an understanding of theology which is not just in the head, but deals with our embodied lives.  This includes not just service towards others, but worship practices that use our senses our senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell.  So, for instance, our practices of the Lord's Supper should not be rationalistic and introspective, but times in which we commune with God and with one another and "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 34:8).  As Taylor says, "Christianity, as the faith of the Incarnate, is denying something essential to itself as long as it remains wedded to forms which excarnate" (771).

Martin Luther on Evil

This morning, I'm working more on my lesson for youth group tonight.  We've been doing a series on Ezekiel, and to help me with preparing my lessons, I've been reading Robert Jenson's commentary on Ezekiel from the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible series.  I enjoyed a paragraph I just read in which Jenson comments on how Christians should view evil (especially the comment about Luther):

"Augustine said that evil is the darkness where being has run out; the shadow that lies over our lives is the gloom that deepens as the light dims.  Karl Barth said that evil is what God eternally leaves behind him and that the shadow is the trace of his doing this.  But perhaps the shadow's sheerly negative reality is best acknowledged and exorcized by doing what Martin Luther famously did, throwing things at it" (115).

William Cavanaugh on Production

"As I write this, I stop to look at the clothes I am wearing: my shirt was made in Indonesia, my jeans in Mexico, my shoes in China.  My undershirt, whose label instructs me to 'have a nice day,' was made in Haiti, where a nice day for most people is a day when there is enough food to eat.  Most of us would never deliberately choose our own material comfort over the life of another person.  Most of us do not consciously choose to work others to death for the sake of the lower prices on the things we buy.  But we participate in such an economy because we are detached from the producers, the people who actually make our things.  Not only are the people who make our things often a world away, but we are prevented from learning about where our products come from by a host of roadblocks.  And so we inhabit separate worlds, worlds that have entirely different ways of looking at the material world.  The 'happy meal' toys from McDonalds's that we easily discard reveal nothing of the toil of the malnourished young women who make them.  We spend the equivalent of two days' wages for such women on a cup of coffee for ourselves--without giving it a second thought.  We do so not necessarily because we are greedy and indifferent to the suffering of others, but largely because those others are invisible to us."

William Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2008), 43.

"Naming God"

I love these opening lines from Hauerwas' sermon, "Naming God," which comes from Working with Words.

"'God is whoever raised Jesus from the dead, having before raised Israel from Egypt' is the hallmark sentence of Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology.  This elegantly simple but dauntingly deep sentence took Jenson a lifetime of theological reflection to write.  To write such a sentence requires that the grammar of our faith discipline our presumption that we know what we say when we say 'God.'  For it turns out that we are most likely to take God's name in vain when we assume we can know what we say when we say 'God'" (79).

"Working with Words"

Yesterday, I received my copy of Stanley Hauerwas' new book Working with Words: On Learning to Speak Christian, a book I've been looking forward to for months.  I love Hauerwas' opening paragraph:

"In Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir I suggested--or is confessed a better description?--that I write because writing is the only way I know how to think.  That is not quite true.  I am able to write, or I find I feel I have to write, because I read.  Reading is one of the ways I learn how to think.  I am often asked how I have written so much.  The only explanation, and it is not clear to me that it is an explanation, is that my writing is determined by my reading.  Which means that I hope others will write about what I have written about about because they have read what I have read" (ix).

Academy Awards Reflections

I won’t reflect on every category, since with a few of them (like Sound Editing or Film Editing) I have no idea how to judge them.  Also, since I can’t read to Screenplays to make a judgment, there’s no point in weighing in.

AMAZING opening montage.  Loved the blending of scenes from some of the years.  I especially enjoyed A.H. winking at Colin Firth, J.F.’s “I loved you in Tron” bit, and the use of Back to the Future.

I feel torn about the Best Supporting Actress Category.  I also liked Amy Adams and Helena Bonham Carter, and I loved Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit (who I would have voted for if I was able to).  I can, however, live with Melissa Leo winning the award.  She did a great job in The Fighter.  As an aside, starting off the Academy Awards with an f-bomb; really?

I (ashamed to say) only got to see one of the animated feature films, Toy Story 3, but I still can’t imagine any animated film beating Toy Story 3, so I’m definitely happy with the win.

Christian Bale was amazing in the fighter.  It was pretty impressive that he spent so much time with Dickie and lost so much weight to do the part.  I would give a close second place to Geoffrey Rush, but I still would give my vote to Christian Bale.

Currently, my favorite directors are the Coen brothers, and I’ll always root for them to win, but this year, I’m comfortable with Tom Hooper winning Best Direction.

I’ve seen three of the films for which women were nominated for Best Actress.  While I feel bad for Annette Bening that she lost (again), I’m happy for Natalie Portman.  While Black Swan was at times difficult to watch and I still don’t know if I completely get it, she did put forward an amazing performance.

Again, I’ve seen three of the Best Actor nominated films.  Even though I haven’t seen all five, I can’t imagine anyone else winning this award but Colin Firth.  I loved Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, but Firth put forward an amazing performance.  It’s difficult to do something like act as though you have speech impediment even though you don’t and to do it convincingly.  Ok, he won.  This was one category I would have been upset about if he didn’t win.

I’ve seen nine out of the ten Best Picture Nominees (I haven’t seen 127 Hours).  I have narrowed down my top three to The King’s Speech, The Social Network, and True Grit.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t love any of the other films.  I also loved Toy Story 3, Inception, The Fighter, and Winter’s Bone.  I can appreciate The Kids are All Right and Black Swan, but I wouldn’t have given either film my vote.  I keep on going back and forth on which one of my top three I would vote for.  In the weeks leading up to today, I started to lean more and more toward The King’s Speech.  Spielberg just announcement that The King’s Speech was the winner and Cassandra shook her head in disappointment (she wanted The Social Network to win).

I don’t have many complaints this year, so my reflections are probably pretty boring, but here they are anyway.

A Secular Age: Intro

I haven't blogged since November, so I figured I should get back to work on blogging.  In my last post, I made some reading goals for 2011.  So far, I've read the two fiction books on my list, Brothers Karamazov and The Corrections.  I enjoyed them both.  I'm also reading Church Dogmatics along with J.R. Daniel Kirk's reading group (http://www.jrdkirk.com/karl-barth-reading/).  Due to some recent reading I've done, I've become more and more interested in reading Charles Taylor's A Secular Age.  What pushed me to read it now is I just read on James K.A. Smith's blog (http://forsclavigera.blogspot.com/) that he's currently teaching a seminar on A Secular Age.  He made his syllabus available online and also started a blog to go along with the reading of the course (http://asecularage.blogspot.com/).  While I'm a week behind on the class readings, I'm hoping to catch up and read along with his class.  I’m reading the Kindle Edition, so I will be citing location numbers rather than page numbers in my own reflections.

Taylor begins the introduction asking, “What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age?”  By “we,” Taylor is referring to those of us who live in the “North Atlantic world” (loc. 31–35).  Taylor then notes that we in the west don’t have a clear understanding of secularity.  He gives three ways in which secularity is characterized:

1. “The first concentrates on the common institutions and practices—most obviously, but not only, the state.  The difference would then consist in this, that whereas the political organization of all pre-modern societies was in some way connected to, based on, guaranteed by some faith in, or adherence to God, or some notion of ultimate reality, the modern Western state is free from this connection.  Churches are now separate from political structures (with a couple of examples, in Britain and the Scandinavian countries, which are so low-key and undemanding as not really to constitute exceptions).  Religion or its absence is largely a private matter” (loc. 35–40).  Taylor notes that this was until recently the standard view of secularity, which he calls secularity 1.  Secularity 1 is characterized by an understanding of “public spaces” that have been “emptied of God, or of any reference to ultimate reality” (loc. 49).  Secularity 1 contrasts with earlier periods in which “Christ faith laid down authoritative prescriptions, often through the mouths of the clergy” (loc. 52).
2. Secularity 2 “consists in the falling off of religious belief and practice, in people turning away from God, and no longer going to Church” (loc. 58).  Taylor says secularity 2 can be seen in the countries of western Europe—“even those who retain the vestigial of public reference to God in public spaces.”  On the other hand, Taylor notes that while the US was “One of the earliest societies to separate Church and State, it is also the Western society with the highest statistics for religious belief and practice” (loc. 55–60).  Note that Taylor does not just focus on religious belief, but also practice, and later he also discusses experience and search.  Taylor thus understands belief and unbelief as “lived conditions, not just theories or sets of beliefs subscribed to (loc. 145–147).
3. Taylor then says that he wants to examine the secular in a third sense, “closely related to the second, and not without connection to the first: This would focus on the conditions of belief.  The shift to secularity in this sense consists, among other things, of a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.”  In this sense, the US is fully secularized, while most Muslim societies and India would not be, even if church attendance in the US was higher than mosque attendance in Jordan (loc. 60–65).

So, within A Secular Age, Taylor says “the change I want to define and trace is one which takes us from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others.”  While Taylor, and myself, see it as inconceivable to abandon faith, many see belief as simply one option among others (loc. 65–71).

Smith notes this on his blog about Taylor’s introduction:

One of the biggest challenges in reading a big book like A Secular Age is keeping track of the argument through the thickets and rabbit trails of such a sprawling account. One way to keep in task, then, is to keep in mind Taylor's quarry--his concern and project. The project is to answer a question that is formulated in a couple of different ways early in the book:

“How did we move from a condition where, in Christendom, people lived naively within a theistic construal, to one in which we all shunt between two stances, in which everyone’s construal shows up as such; and in which moreover, unbelief has become for many the major default option?” (p. 14)

“Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?” (p. 25)

I find Taylor’s three-fold understanding of secularity helpful.  It prevents simplified understandings of secularity.  This introduction helps see the important questions that Taylor wants to answer throughout the book.

The two questions that Taylor raises are important for contemporary people of faith.  Even though I am a devoted Christian and even serve as a minister, why is my default position often unbelief when it concerns the miraculous?  While I disagree with the dualisms of American society that tell me that my faith should be private and separated from my public life, I often do exactly that.  I’m hoping that reading Taylor will help me become more aware of some of these issues and help me see ways in which I can understand belief and unbelief holistically, rather than rationally.

Reading Goals for 2011

Over the last eight years, I have collected quite a few books due to recommendations from professors or references within other books.  Now that I'm in the midst of a break from school, I want to try and catch up on some of that reading.  I have had a tendency to read a bunch of shorter books and to put off the larger volumes that will take me a while to read.  In 2011, I want to read through some of those larger volumes that I've collected.  In order to leave room for me to also read some other shorter volumes, I am going to make a modest goal of reading 12 large volumes (by that, I mean books that are for the most part 500 or more pages).  Here's my list:

1 and 2.  I want to read volume 1 of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics, which is in two books.  J.R. Daniel Kirk, a Duke Ph.D who teaches NT at Fuller Theological Seminary is starting an online group to read through the entire CD in seven years (http://www.jrdkirk.com/karl-barth-reading/).  I plan to participate in this group.  He has a tentative reading plan for 2011 which includes reading through volume 1.  Since 1.1 is shorter, we'll read that in four months and then have eight months to finish 1.2.  That sounds doable to me, and since many Barth scholars encourage people to read Barth slowly, that will give me time to do that.  It will also give me time to work through the Latin passages as well.  I'm looking forward to it!
3.  Walter Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy.  I started reading this a few years ago, got a few hundred pages in, got distracted, and never got back to it.  This time, I want to read from beginning to end.  I think it will be nice to read this volume alongside Barth as well.
4 and 5.  Ben Witherington III's two volume NT theology, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical World of the New Testament.  Volume 1 is The Individual Witnesses and Volume 2 is The Collective Witness.  I plan to read this immediately after reading Brueggemann, which I think will be interesting for two reasons.  One, I'll read an OT and NT theology.  Two, Brueggemann and Witherington have some similarities and differences in their approaches to reading Scripture.  They both would keep theology and ethics together and blend critical scholarship with readings in and for the church.  At the same time, Bruggemann is a mainline Protestant while Witherington is more or less an evangelical (even though he is ordained in a mainline Protestant denomination [UMC]).  Should be fun to work through both!
6.  Stanley Grenz's Theology for the Community of God.  I've read a few of Grenz's shorter volumes (e.g., Primer on Postmodernism) and want to read through his magnum opus.
7.  N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God, the first volume from his Christian Origins and the Question of God series.  I would like, in the next couple years to read through the three volumes that have been released so far, so I might as well start with the first one.
8.  Since a few of the Ph.D programs I am interested in are Roman Catholic schools (e.g., Marquette and Dayton), I need to do some more reading on Thomas Aquinas.  While I'm not necessarily reading one big volume, these "smaller" books ad up to one big volume.  What I want to do is read Nicholas Healy's Thomas Aquinas: Theologian of the Christian Life again (it was a text book in one of my classes at ESR) and Fergus Kerr's Thomas Aquinas: A Very Short Introduction.  Then I want to read Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt's Holy Teaching: Introducing the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, which includes various passages from the ST with Bauerschmidt's introductions and commentary.
9.  Everett Ferguson's Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries.  As a SCM person who is interested in the sacraments and the fathers, Ferguson is a towering figure.  While I don't have a copy of the book yet, I hope to get it in the near future.
10.  A Secular Age by Charles Taylor.  I keep on seeing references to Taylor (and in particular this volume) in a lot of my reading (from James K.A. Smith to Stanley Hauerwas), so I need to actually read Taylor.  I need to either purchase a copy or borrow one from a local library.
11.  The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  I've read Crime and Punishment and The Idiot, but haven't read BK yet.  2011 is the year that I finally read it.
12.  The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.  I need to read more fiction and Franzen seems like a great figure in modern literature for me to start reading.


I think this list is doable and it will also give me some room to read some shorter books, like some of Hauerwas' shorter volumes of essays that I haven't read yet, or some of Barth's smaller books, like The Humanity of God or The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life.  To get through it, however, I need to be more disciplined in how I spend my time and put this list on the wall in my office right next to the desk.

15 Authors in 15 Minutes

The Invitation Guidelines:  Don't take too long to think about it.  Fifteen authors (poets included) who have influenced you and that will always stick with you.  List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag at least 15 of your friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing which authors you choose.  To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste the rules in a new note, cast your 15 picks and tag people in the note.

1.  Karl Barth
2.  Stanley Hauerwas
3.  James K.A. Smith
4.  William Robinson
5.  William Cavanaugh
6.  Stanley Grenz
7.  Ludwig Wittgenstein
8.  Robert Webber
9.  D.H. Williams
10.  N.T. Wright
11.  J.R.R. Tolkein
12.  C.S. Lewis
13.  John Howard Yoder
14.  Michael Crichton
15.  J.K. Rowling

Canon and Creed

My review of Robert Jenson's new book, Canon and Creed, was just posted at the Englewood Review of Books (http://erb.kingdomnow.org/).  Here it is:

Canon and Creed is the second book in Westminster John Knox Press’ new series, Interpretation: Resources for Use of Scripture in the Church.  The series supplements Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching.  Canon and Creed’s author, Robert Jenson, is a Lutheran theologian whom David Bentley Hart calls, “America’s perhaps most creative systematic theologian” (First Things Oct 2005, “The Lively God of Robert Jenson”).

In Canon and Creed, Jenson seeks to move beyond understandings within the church and the academy that “we can cling to Scripture or cling to church doctrine, or possibly to both in different contexts, but cannot cling to both with the same grasp” (2).  Instead, through the work, Jenson emphasizes the mutuality of canon and creed as “Spirit-given reminders of what sort of community the church must be if it is indeed to be the church” (2–3).

While some scholars might argue that a canon did not exist within the church until formal criteria for canonization developed in the fourth century, Jenson argues instead that there was a functional canon by the latter part of the second century.  He cites Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, written around AD 180, for support.  While some find such a canon vague, Jenson argues, “A canon with fuzzy edges . . . can be authoritative Scripture as well as one with absolutely set edges” (12).

Against Marcion, Jenson affirms that the Christian canon includes both the Old and New Testaments.  While some Christians have asked why Christians need the Old Testament, Jenson instead says, “The real question was and is this: ‘Can Israel’s Scripture accept this proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection and this new movement within Israel?’” (20).  Jenson argues God answers this question by vindicating Jesus Christ in the resurrection.  The God who rescued the Israelites from slavery is the God who raises Jesus to life.  Jenson advocates a Christian reading of the Old Testament that avoids supersessionism and is rooted in the overarching narrative of Scripture.

In relation to the New Testament documents, Jenson notes that in addition to apostolicity, early Christians recognized their canonicity due to the fact that “they witnessed to the apostolic faith” within the regula fidei (“rule of faith”; 40).  Jenson thus notes that the relation between the canon and regula fidei is circular: the regula fidei comes from Scripture and Scripture is recognized as canonical due to its coherence with the regula fidei.

By “creed” within the volume, Jenson not only refers to the ecumenical creeds, but also to catechetical-baptismal confessions and the regula fidei in its various forms.  While Jenson advocates the importance of contemporary Christians studying Scripture in light of the creed, he does not support the creeds uncritically.  Jenson notes that no creed is a complete summary of the Christian faith.  Jenson critiques the creeds for their lack of references to the Old Testament (apart from naming God as creator) and to the life of Jesus in between his birth and death.  Jenson thus argues, “We have arrived again at a point to which . . . we will repeatedly come: the canon without the creed will not serve to protect the church against perversion of the gospel, and neither will the creed without the canon” (32).

Jenson then discusses dogma, which he says “reprises the original creedal development and participates in its authority” (63).  Dogma differs from creed, “For dogma responds to questions that did not arise in the second- or third-century church, and to which the regula fidei and the creeds may not supply obvious answers” (65).  We do, however, see the development of creed to dogma even within the Nicene Creed (AD 325), Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (AD 381), and within the Chalcedonian definition (AD 451), which sought to answer new questions raised within the church in the light of canon and creed.

Jenson also notes that in the second century, “the church received a trio of institutions to guard its identity through time: canon, creed, and episcopate” (71).  The bishops played an important role in maintaining the church’s teaching and served as delegates at the ecumenical councils.  While many Protestants from non-episcopal traditions may have difficulty with Jenson’s chapter on the episcopacy, he raises some important issues for consideration.

Rather than simply stating his case that contemporary exegetes should study the canon and creed together, Jenson gives examples of his approach in the last three chapters by exegeting Genesis 1:1–5 and Luke 1:26–38 in light of the creed and Mark 14:35–36 in light of dogma.

Throughout Canon and Creed, Jenson demonstrates that while the historical-critical method does have a place in the study of the Bible, the method is not an end in itself.  For example, Jenson criticizes some historical Jesus scholars for “mistaking a pile of scholarly reports for a person” (58).  Jenson thus follows after theologians like Karl Barth, who criticized some critical scholars for writing commentaries that discuss the meaning of various Greek words and phrases and archaeological finds.  Barth argues, however, that their work is “no commentary at all, but merely the first step toward a commentary” (Epistle to the Romans, 6).  Jenson argues that until the birth of modernity, “theology was not thought of as an enterprise distinct from biblical exegesis” (118).  Jenson thus advocates a way of reading of the Bible not simply for the academy, but one for the church, in which Christians in their reading of Scripture “seek to discern a ‘christological plain sense’” (82).

Jenson presents a balanced approach to the study of canon and creed which makes use of helpful sources both ancient and modern.  Canon and Creed is a work that would benefit preachers, teachers, and students interested in the formation of the canon, the ancient creeds, and their importance for the contemporary church.  Readers from the Stone-Campbell Movement and other free church traditions who are skeptical of creedal formulations should also consider reading D.H. Williams’ written volumes Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism (Eerdmans, 1999) and Evangelicals and Tradition (Baker Academic, 2005), as well as his edited volume The Free Church and The Early Church (Eerdmans, 2002).

William Cavanaugh on the Origin of the Kingdom

"It should be no surprise that the Romans treated the church as a political threat whose practices were subversive of good order in the Empire.  Pliny, in a letter to the Emperor Trajan (c. 110 CE), reports that he applied Trajan's ban on political societies to the Christian communities of Asia Minor.  In the Roman view, Christian failure to worship the pagan gods and their assumption that allegiance to Caesar conflicted with allegiance to Christ was not simply a religious matter, but concerned imperial political order.  As N.T. Wright notes, Christians did not attempt to defend themselves from persecution with the claim that they were merely a 'private club' or collegium for the advancement of particular interests.  They continued to proclaim the kingship of Christ, even if such kingship was not based on the model of Caesar's (Wright 1992: 346-57).  That Christ's kingdom is not of (ek) the world (John 18:36) was regarded as a statement of origin; the kingdom is not from the world, but it is in the world and deeply concerned with it."

William T. Cavanaugh, "The Church," in The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 396.

Review of Boyd's Present Perfect

A review I wrote of Gregory Boyd's new book, Present Perfect, was just posted over at Englewood Review of Books (http://erb.kingdomnow.org/featured-present-perfect-by-greg-boyd-vol-3-25/).  Here it is, reposted with the permission of the publisher:

In his new book, Present Perfect: Finding God in the Now, pastor and theologian Gregory Boyd advocates what he calls, “the most important discipline that you could ever practice” (10).  Drawing upon two monks from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Brother Lawrence and Jean-Pierre de Caussade, as well as a twentieth century evangelical missionary and literacy advocate, Frank Laubach, Boyd defends the need for Christians to practice the presence of God.

To illustrate the need of Christians to be aware of God’s presence, Boyd tells a story of a time he went on a run through the woods to train for an ultra-marathon.  While Boyd ran, his mind focused on the upcoming race and his performance in it.  A few hours into his run, he noticed a cricket chirping.  Boyd then noticed more and more crickets, and then some frogs, bees, and birds.  Boyd then noticed the beauty of the scenery around him and the fragrances.  Boyd says:

The moment felt sacred.  I felt I was waking up to God’s presence permeating all things and reflecting in all things.  It seemed I was, for the first time, waking up to the way the world is supposed to be experienced—the way it really is.  Overwhelmed by this sense of  God’s presence and breathtaking beauty, I began to weep (13).

Boyd uses this story to illustrate how many Christians go through life seemingly unaware of God’s presence around them.  Boyd calls on them to awaken to the “reality . . . that God is present in . . . every moment” (15).

Boyd says many contemporary Christians have difficulty experiencing the presence of God in the present moment because they have a “secular worldview” that assumes God is irrelevant to most areas of their lives.  As Stanley Hauerwas says in With the Grain of the Universe, “Christians in modernity have lost the ability to answer questions about the truthfulness of what we believe because we have accepted beliefs about the world that presuppose that God does not matter.”  Boyd argues that for Christians to experience God they must stop compartmentalizing the “spiritual” from the “normal,” and see God as involved in their whole lives.

Following figures like Augustine and C.S. Lewis, Boyd argues, “our deepest hunger is only satisfied when we’re rightly related to God” (45).  To be rightly related to God, Christians must be citizens of God’s kingdom, surrendering their entire lives to Christ’s lordship with single-minded obedience.  This will lead, when accompanied by a yielding to the Spirit, to sanctification and a renewed mind (Rom 12:2).  This renewed mind should not lead Christians to being unaware of the needs of the world around them, but instead to conformity with Christ, who loved and served the world.  By living in Christ’s love and loving and serving like Christ, Christians continue Christ’s incarnation in the present.

Present Perfect also includes an appendix in which Boyd critiques the New Age Movement, principally through interaction with Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (New York: Plume, 2006).  Boyd does so to contrast his emphasis upon practicing the presence of God with Tolle’s advocacy of “something like the practice of living in the present moment” which he “associates with becoming aware of one’s inner divinity and an assortment of other New Age concepts” (153).

Throughout Present Perfect, Boyd advocates the need for individual Christians to practice the presence of God.  Unfortunately, Present Perfect lacks an emphasis upon how Christians should experience God’s presence in communal gatherings or practices like the Eucharist (most likely because Boyd wants Christians to practice the presence of God continually, rather than an hour a week on Sunday morning).  Also, while Boyd is correct that some people in the church are hypocritical, his dichotomization of religion and relationship is problematic.

At the same time, Present Perfect has its share of strengths.  Boyd succeeds in writing a book advocating the practice of the presence of God to people in a contemporary North American context.  Boyd effectively critiques post-Enlightenment understandings of the Christian faith that compartmentalize life, showing that Christ is Lord of not just the “spiritual” part of a person’s life, but of every aspect of life.  Boyd also avoids the possible escapism critique by arguing that awareness of God’s presence leads one to social action rather than away from it.  Also, each chapter closes with some possible exercises, making the work practical to readers.

While Boyd does tend throughout the book to speak of how individuals can practice the presence of God, groups could read the book and practice the exercises together, therefore discovering a way to practice the presence of God in Christian community (40).  While Boyd is theologically astute, he writes at an accessible level, so Present Perfect could be read not only by professors, pastors, college students, or adult groups, but also by youth.

E-reader

As an avid reader, I really want to get an e-reader in order to save on shelf space, etc.  I, however, as a person who will go back to school in the future and will (hopefully) do some publishing, have a big concern.  I want to be able to cite books in papers, but can't do so if I can't see the correct page number.

For example, on the Barnes and Noble site about the Nook, it has in the FAQ section the question, "Why do my NOOK page numbers not match up with the page numbers of my physical book?"  The answer is, "You may notice that sometimes when you turn pages, the page number doesn't change. Since the screen on the NOOK can contain fewer words than a physical page of a book (depending on the font size being used), sometimes it will take several screens of text to display an entire page. In these cases, the page number will not change, although you are making progress through the book."  That's not really an answer to the question.  The answer deals with why one physical page might be several e-pages, but it doesn't say if the page numbers in the NOOK match up with physical page numbers.  The Kindle site does not say anything about how the page numbers match up.

Does anyone who has an e-reader have any insight on this?  Or, does anyone know if Turabian or other citation guides have new guidelines on how to cite books from an e-reader?

Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology, Part 6: Theological Method

I read the fifth chapter of Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology, "Anthropology," by Henri A.G. Blocher, but to be honest, some of it was over my head and other parts of it I don't have an opinion on, so I don't feel comfortable commenting on it.  Instead, I'm going to make a few comments on the sixth chapter, "Christus Praesens: Barth's Radically Realist Christology and its Necessity for Theological Method."

First, Richardson notes that Barth breaks with propositional understandings of revelation.  You can in this critique of propositionalism see where Lindbeck gets at least part of his critique of cognitive-propositional understandings of religion.


Second, Barth is critical of natural theology.  Richardson notes, "The possibility of the knowledge of God is a naturalized, domesticated, generalized condition which Barth most emphatically rejects" (138).  In other words, Barth is critical of natural theology because when people center their theology upon "general" or "natural revelation," they tend to make God in their own image.  As I will note in a paper that I will turn into a blog series after I finish blogging through this book, Barth is a helpful figure to draw upon in critiquing American civil religion.

Third, while Barth's primary focus is not theological method, but dogmatics, his theological method still shines through.  According to Richardson, Barth's theological method stems from the understanding that when the church listens to the reading of scripture or preaching, they are listening to God speaking in the present.  (This does not mean Barth was unaware of the distance between the original audience and the contemporary church.  Barth instead understood, "The One who was for us 'then' is the One who is for us 'now'" [142].  "Barth's answer is a bridging of historical distance through the actuality of the living Jesus Christ whose resurrection, by the grace of God, provides the reality by which the theological speaks with the Church in confessing 'Jesus lives'--and continues, 'and I with him'" [144]). 

Fourth, in a point similar to the one above, Barth believed that the Spirit aids and illuminates the preacher, theologian, and church in their reading/listening to Scripture.  (As I mentioned in a previous post on this issue, Barth can thus be an extremely helpful figure for the Stone-Campbell Movement as we try and develop a theology of illumination for our context).  Richardson says that for Barth, "Thus, fellowship with the living God is a necessary condition for doing of Christian theology" (145).  Richardson also says of Barth's understanding, "The work of the Holy Spirit is necessary for the work of the theologian since by the activity of the Spirit the theologian is 'kept close to Jesus Christ in true and genuine faith,' and enlivened to speak and write as an expression of gratitude to God" (147).

While Barth's understanding is not politically correct, I find it most convincing.  While there are non-Christians who do historical studies that can help contemporary people better understand the biblical text and while there are non-Christians who can understand and write of what ancient peoples thought, Christian theology is "faith seeking understanding."  I hope in many ways that more theologians, like Hauerwas, will offer critiques of the modern university and focus Christian theology upon the context of the church.

Are You a Christian Hipster?

Richard Beck, a psychology professor at ACU who blogs at Experimental Theology, just posted a link to a quiz entitled, "Are you a Christian hipster?" (http://www.hipsterchristianity.com/quiz.php), which is a companion to an upcoming book, Hipster Christianity by Brett McCracken.  I got a 90/120, which defines me as a "hipster Christian."  The result says, "Extremely High CHQ. Congratulations! You are a grade A, Sufjan-caliber Christian hipster! You probably like Thomas Merton, hookah, and lectio divina. You're not above self-critique and meta theory, and thus should definitely read Hipster Christianity.."

I don't know quite how I feel about the result.  It appears as though the quiz is simply saying I'm a 20 something who grew up in a time where I was taught to care about the environment, distrust the Left Behind series and megachurches, and care about war/peace/justice issues, but I've never really seen myself as a hip person.  I'm curious to see what some of you would get on this quiz--especially some of you professor types who are old enough to be my parents.

I'm going to look more into this upcoming book; possibly more on the topic to follow.

Barth and Evangelical Theology: Part 5, Creation

The chapter in Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology entitled “Creation” is by Oliver Crisp, who teaches at the University of Bristol.  Crisp correctly notes that the center of Barth’s theology is Christology, and thus that Barth’s “doctrine of creation is ‘christologized’” (77).  Crisp does not attempt to exhaustively summarize Barth’s doctrine of creation, but instead to interact with “some of the more controversial issues involved in his doctrine of creation proper in, CD, III/1” (78; CD is the abbreviation of Church Dogmatics).  Crisp focuses in particular on the relationship between Barth’s doctrine of creation and “that of the classical (Western) theological tradition, particularly, the Reformed strand of that tradition” (78), in an attempt to note the similarities and differences.  (Notice any similarities between Chung and Crisp?)

Crisp notes four areas of overlap that Barth and the Reformed tradition share in their doctrines of creation:

1. The whole of the Trinity is involved in creation.
2. Creation is a free act of God (see the previous post on Barth’s emphasis upon God as “the one who loves in freedom”).
3. Barth has a sort of supralapsarianism, though Crisp notes that his “is different from traditional construals in important respects” (80).  In particular, Barth “denies that the divine decrees fork at the point where God elects some human beings and reprobates the rest.  Instead, according to Barth, God elects and reprobates Christ, the Elect (and Reprobate) One, and derivatively elects al humanity ‘in’ Christ” (80–81).
4. Barth makes a close connection between “the divine act of creation, and the covenant of grace whereby God graciously ordains to elect Christ as the one through whom human redemption is brought about” (83).

Crisp then notes four areas in which Barth differs from the Reformed tradition:

1. Unlike the Reformed tradition, Barth is critical of natural theology.  Barth remains critical of natural theology because it often results in humans making God in their own image.  According to Barth, “We can only know what God is like where God breaks into our world in an event of revelation and makes himself known to us” (86).  Jesus Christ is the primary revelation in which God makes Godself known.
2. Barth denies “an apologetic purpose to the doctrine of creation” (88).  Barth, correctly, argues that Genesis 1–3 should not be read as a scientific textbook or an apologetic text, but instead as a dogmatic text.  Crisp, as an evangelical, has some problems with Barth’s views on the matter, but I’m with Barth on this one.
3. Crisp never says explicitly “third” in between what he explicitly lists as “second” and “fourth,” which is one of my biggest pet peeves when reading an essay/book.  I’ll just assume that the third difference is Barth’s hermeneutical differences with conservative evangelicals.
4. “Unlike classical theologians, Barth does not believe creation is a timeless act of an atemporal God, whose essence remains unaffected by the utterance of the divine fiat, and bringing into being of the created order” (90).  Barth instead believes the incarnation should control what one thinks of God’s creative act.  For Barth, however, God’s time is different than human time and God is eternal (by which Barth means, “He is simultaneously before time, above time, and after time” (CD, III/1, 67).  Barth’s account of God’s relation to time makes little sense to me, but neither does the classical view, because both views place God as simultaneously past, present, and future.  I do not deny, however, that God created time.

Crisp concludes that Barth’s emphasis upon God creating through Christ is consistent with Scripture at some points, but in others “goes beyond the biblical affirmation that Christ is the agent through whom and form whom all things are created” (93).  Crisp, however, notes that other figures, such as Colin Gunton, are more supportive of Barth’s project.

Crisp is also cautious about Barth’s critique of natural theology.  I have mixed feelings on the matter.  I do think in some ways that Barth over states his case, but in other ways think his overstatement is needed.  (When I finish blogging through Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology, I was to do some work on a paper I wrote a few years ago on Barth’s critique of natural theology and turn it into a short blog series.)  Crisp offers up Nicholas Wolterstorff and Alvin Plantinga as an alternative to Barth and a way of better utilizing Calvin for a contemporary natural theology.

Crisp, while he has disagreements with Barth, helpfully notes that Barth is still a theologian worth interacting with and worth learning a from.  I greatly enjoyed reading Crisp’s chapter.

Barth and Evangelical Theology: Part 4, God and Election

After getting bogged down on my thesis, blogging about Hauerwas’ Hannah’s Child, and taking a slight break, I am finally returning to Barth and Evangelical Theology. The chapter I will comment on is called “A Bold Innovator: Barth on God and Election,” by the editor of the volume, Sung Wook Chung, a Korean theologian educated at Harvard and Oxford who teaches at Denver Seminary.

I was slightly surprised that the editor of Barth and Evangelical Theology was the figure so far in the volume with the most opposition to Barth’s theology. He says in the introduction to the chapter, “I am not in agreement with [postconservative theologians] that Barth’s theology is the hope for the future of evangelical theology. Rather, I am convinced that conservative evangelical theology should take issues with many points of Barth’s theology” (60).

While acknowledging that Barth believed in the Reformation principles of sola scriptura, sola gratia, a christocentric emphasis, and what Chung calls “theologianhood of all believers,” Chung argues that Barth was an “innovator” when it comes to the doctrine of God. First, Chung critiques Barth’s “actualism,” by which means Barth’s argument that “God is who He is in the act of His revelation” (63). Chung sites Princeton theologian George Hunsinger, who argues Barth “thinks primarily in terms of events and relationships rather than monadic or self-contained substances” (64). Chung opposes Barth’s emphasis upon God’s action rather than substance, thus arguing it is against scripture and thus anti-evangelical. Scripture however, often focuses more on how God acts to redeem Israel, in Christ, etc., and spends much less time discussing God’s substance. Chung seems unaware that Barth argued the economic Trinity (how God acts in relation to his creation in salvation history) is the immanent Trinity (the interior life of God).

Second, Chung critiques Barth’s view of God “as the one who loves in freedom” (65). Chung believes that one should begin not with “God is love” but instead with “God is spirit” or “God is good.” Because Barth places the emphasis upon God’s free love and free loving actions, Chung believes Barth argues “love is God,” which is unfounded (66). Chung argues that “one who loves in freedom can be evil,” but Barth obviously believes God is not evil and that God’s love is good and different from human love. Chung thus seems to define an evangelical view of God with a stream of Reformed thought that emphasizes God as spirit and God’s attributes of goodness, truthfulness, and holiness above love.

Third, Chung critiques what he calls Barth’s “metaphysics of relationship,” primarily because Barth “hated speculation” and “never defined God from a perspective of substantialist metaphysics.” Again, Chung seems unaware that for Barth, the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity. Chung even argues, quite inaccurately, that “Barth’s relational ontology is a quite innovative pattern of thought that has no precedent in the history of Christian theology” (70). Then he says, “Of course, we may say that the three Cappadocian Fathers were an exception” (70). So, Chung shows a dislike of social views of the Trinity, which are present within Eastern Orthodoxy and recent western theologians like Colin Gunton, Stanley Grenz, Jurgen Moltmann, etc. So once again, Chung appears to only take seriously certain forms of Reformed theology.

Fourth, Chung critiques Barth’s doctrine of election, which centers upon Christ as “the direct object of divine election” (72) and the “Subject of election” (74). Thus, “In [Jesus], all human beings are directed indirectly” (72). Barth, while opposed to holding to universalism as dogma, held to it as an “article of hope,” much like some contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians (73). Chung is correct that few in church history discussed this view as the primary form of election, it does have support from some passages in Scripture and various figures in tradition. Chung thus correctly argues that Barth holds together both Calvinistic and Arminian tendencies.

Throughout the chapter, I found that Chung could not see outside of his lens of conservative Reformed evangelical theology in viewing Barth, who was a Reformed theologian of a different mold. One point I will seed to Chung is that Barth at times speaks of the Trinity in modalistic language, which is upsetting, but in other contexts he does not. It appears Barth, like Nicholas Lash, uses quasi-modalistic language to maintain an emphasis upon the oneness of God. As a person who is from a Arminian background and appreciates aspects of Eastern Christianity, Barth’s doctrines of God and election are less upsetting to me than to someone like Chung. I was pretty surprised that in a volume of essays that are supposed to constructively and appreciatively interact with Barth’s theology from an evangelical perspective that Chung’s essay was so critical.

Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir, Part 12

“Although it is true that I got through the years with Anne in part because of my boundless energy and stubbornness, I would not have survived if I had not had friends praying for me.  I ‘knew’ God was with me because I knew I had friends all over the world praying for us.  Prayer did not mean that I thought everything would work out for the best.  Prayer meant that God was with us.  Prayer meant that Anne did not die alone.  Prayer means that none of us will die alone” (281–282).

“Humility is a virtue that rides on the back of a life made possible by having been given good work to do” (284).

“As I shared this manuscript with friends along the way, someone asked me what I had learned in the process of writing Hannah’s Child.  I am tempted to say that I have learned how fortunate I am to have had such good friends, but that would be stating the obvious.  I might also reply that I now realize how lucky I have been, but that would be killing time in the hope of discovering something to say.  There are other possibilities.  But in fact what I have learned is quite simple – I am a Christian.  How interesting” (284).

Throughout Hannah's Child, Hauerwas gives an account of his life shaped by the story in 1 Samuel of Hannah praying for a child and promising to dedicate that child, Samuel, to God.  Hauerwas had a similar experience, as his mother told him when he was a child that she had too prayed for a child and promised to dedicate the child to God.  While Hauerwas did not always think of his life through that lens, he says that in the process of writing it came to him.  Having the story of his life shaped theologically has similarites to Augustine's Confessions, however, Hauerwas does not reference Confessions anywhere within Hannah's Child.

Throughout the book, Hauerwas shares the numerous friends and congregations who shaped his life and helped him discover "I am a Christian."  While the book is about Hauerwas, it is also about how God shaped and used him to do theology for the church.  The book also made me think of the friends, teachers, classmates, and congregations that have shaped me as a Christian.  So, while the book tells the story of his life, Hauerwas also teaches his readers throughout the book.  As Lauren Winner says in her review on the back of the book, "I love this book because I love its author.  But Hannah's Child is about more than the making of someone called 'Stanley Hauerwas.'  It is about how one makes and sustains families, how God and the church make and sustain Christians."  I highly recommend Hauerwas' memoir (to those not overly offended by occasional cussing).