The first of this section is here.
________
Certainly the idea that we should love our neighbor seems uncontroversial enough for a Christian. But the question of how that love works out in practice has often been controversial. Nevertheless, very many Christians in many traditions would share the loving values that also seem common sense to the Wesleyan tradition.
For example, one of the distinctives of John Wesley's ministry was the attention he gave to coal miners and others that many of his social status deemed beneath them. He was a key participant in a movement within England that not only ended in the abolition of slavery not long after his death, but that very well may have saved England from the bloody revolution that took place in France near the end of his life. In the 1800s, the ongoing Wesleyan tradition gave birth to the Salvation Army, whose mission to the poor is so well known that few realize it is also a denomination in the Wesleyan tradition.
It is fascinating how so many Christians not only ignore the clear and consistent principle of helping the needy in Scripture, but have actually convinced themselves that those who do are almost evil. Perhaps some of this push back goes back to the early twentieth century in America, when those who most pushed a "social gospel" were Christians who had largely stopped believing in things like the virgin birth or Jesus' bodily resurrection. But a key perspective is to see this group's concern for the poor as all that was left of their Christianity rather than some substitute for it. Proponents of a social gospel looked to Jesus as their supreme moral example, even though they did not consider him to be God. We can feel free to critique their rejection of orthodox faith, but how deeply ironic to critique their moral impulse to ask, "What would Jesus do?"
Bringing good news to the poor and the dis-empowered thus remains a core Wesleyan value. It is not only a key value of the Pentateuch, where Israel was to help the needy in its land (e.g., Deut. 15:11). The need for "social justice" was also a key point of God's critique of Israel in the prophets (e.g., Isa. 10:2; Amos 2:7). A key element of Jesus' announcement of the coming kingdom was "good news to the poor," so much so that Luke makes it the inaugural message of Jesus' earthly ministry (Luke 4:16-21, quoting Isaiah 61:1-2). The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats assigns eternal destinies based on whether a person has fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, and clothed the naked (Matt. 25:31-46).
And helping the poor and dis-empowered was a key value of the early church (Acts 2:44-45; Gal. 2:10; Jas. 2:15-17; 1 John 3:17). Understandably, the majority of these examples and instructions are directed toward the needy within the church. However, the principle is to love everyone, to do good to everyone, even if the needy within the church are a focal concern (e.g., Gal. 6:10).
The application of principles must take into account the complications of life. Today we would identify many more types of people as needy than only those who are hungry. There are the addicted, the generationally poor, the abused. The goal of loving them remains, of moving them to healthy forms of life. We want not only to give out fish but to teach to fish and to help others want to fish in the first place.
Yet it is also the nature of things for us to come up with excuses for not following through on what we need to do. And thus things like the abuse of help for the needy or setting up an artificial tension between social and spiritual gospels can get in the way. The principles remain clear. The sins or abuses of others has nothing to do with our impulse to love and serve them. And the social gospel is not in competition with the spiritual gospel. They are the same gospel, and a person probably will not receive your word of "salvation" if they are hungry or greatly in need.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
My Two New Bible Studies
Wesleyan Publishing House had a good idea to go along with the two books on Paul I'm writing (the first is already out; I am incredibly excited about the second because it will be, as far as I know, the only book that goes through Romans fully bringing Wesleyan theology into dialog with developments in the study of Paul these last thirty years).
The idea WPH had was to have shorter 6 week Bible studies that were like companion pieces to the two Paul books. Two of the Bible studies are now out: one on Philippians and one on 1 Thessalonians:
What is great about these, I think, is that the parameters for writing were so tight that I had to be very concise in what each snippet of 4 or 5 verses meant and also had to apply every 4 or 5 verses. I think the result is better for pastors and laypeople than any normal commentary. You get minute meaning and application virtually paragraph by paragraph.
The constraints of the format made these painful to write but I think they might very well be the most helpful pieces I've written for use in the local church. I can't wait to write the two on Romans scheduled to come out late next year.
Thank you for enduring a short moment of personal happiness ;-)
The idea WPH had was to have shorter 6 week Bible studies that were like companion pieces to the two Paul books. Two of the Bible studies are now out: one on Philippians and one on 1 Thessalonians:
What is great about these, I think, is that the parameters for writing were so tight that I had to be very concise in what each snippet of 4 or 5 verses meant and also had to apply every 4 or 5 verses. I think the result is better for pastors and laypeople than any normal commentary. You get minute meaning and application virtually paragraph by paragraph.
The constraints of the format made these painful to write but I think they might very well be the most helpful pieces I've written for use in the local church. I can't wait to write the two on Romans scheduled to come out late next year.
Thank you for enduring a short moment of personal happiness ;-)
Love Neighbor 1
So the principle to "love neighbor" is also a Christian absolute of action. There are no circumstances where God would have us act unloving toward our neighbor, where love is perhaps best understood in terms of the Golden Rule, aptly summarized in the Sermon on the Mount: "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets" (Matt. 7:12, NRSV). Love again is not about how you feel toward others but how you choose to act toward them both in your mind and action. And the rules of psychology are such that if you get in the habit of loving choices, by God's power and through the accountability of others, the feelings will follow.
A disposition to love and show mercy does not in itself contradict acts of justice. Such a disposition certainly requires acts of discipline. Love is not absolute permission, nor does a society that fosters a sense of cheap grace or self-aggrandizement truly show love to its members. While justice is not an absolute principle, it is the most loving way to structure a society, and exceptions to justice should be rare on the level of society as a whole, or else society would disintegrate. Sometimes love must also choose between who to be loving toward. Is it possible that love of one's own or love of the oppressed could force a nation to war or to self-defense?
Again, the Wesleyan tradition has historically been more optimistic than other Christian traditions about the extent to which God wants to empower a believer to be loving toward others. It has gone so far as to suggest that believers can be so empowered that they might very well make loving choices toward others consistently, perhaps even without exception, for the remainder of their time on earth, and do it with joy. In my opinion, it is counterproductive to spend much energy in introspection wondering whether or not we have fulfilled this expectation, as many in our tradition have done in the past. The key point is that you can indeed do the loving thing the next time such a choice presents itself, and you should plan on it!
A disposition to love and show mercy does not in itself contradict acts of justice. Such a disposition certainly requires acts of discipline. Love is not absolute permission, nor does a society that fosters a sense of cheap grace or self-aggrandizement truly show love to its members. While justice is not an absolute principle, it is the most loving way to structure a society, and exceptions to justice should be rare on the level of society as a whole, or else society would disintegrate. Sometimes love must also choose between who to be loving toward. Is it possible that love of one's own or love of the oppressed could force a nation to war or to self-defense?
Again, the Wesleyan tradition has historically been more optimistic than other Christian traditions about the extent to which God wants to empower a believer to be loving toward others. It has gone so far as to suggest that believers can be so empowered that they might very well make loving choices toward others consistently, perhaps even without exception, for the remainder of their time on earth, and do it with joy. In my opinion, it is counterproductive to spend much energy in introspection wondering whether or not we have fulfilled this expectation, as many in our tradition have done in the past. The key point is that you can indeed do the loving thing the next time such a choice presents itself, and you should plan on it!
Friday, December 10, 2010
Love God 3
The bread crumbs back.
________
So we are arguing that the dominant characteristic of God for the Wesleyan tradition, at least in terms of how he relates to the creation, is love rather than justice. We are arguing that God wants everyone to be saved but as sovereign king has decided not to force anyone to be saved. We are arguing that even when he acts in judgment he primarily does so in hope of redemption--as discipline rather than retribution. Christians do believe that God can and does act in final judgment, without hope of redemption, but surely this is an act of final recourse for God, one he would prefer not to do.
Our obligation in return is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matt. 22:37). This is the absolute of absolutes in Christian ethics, one of the two great absolute commands of the Christian life, and indeed, the second actually folds into this first one. If we love God we will also love our neighbor. There are no exceptions to these two principles. There is no circumstance where God would have us not love him or not love our neighbor.
At the same time, the question of how to love God can quickly become rather nebulous ground. Indeed, it would be easy for a Christian to twist this command in order to violate God's will. 1 John says, "The love of God is this, that we obey his commandments" (1 John 5:3). Ah, but what are his commandments, says the interpreter, who then goes on to load the first commandment with all sorts of things that violate the second commandment, to justify hatred of one's neighbor.
So let us be clear: love of God will never contradict love of neighbor. The Parable of the Good Samaritan bids us love our neighbor (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus bids us love our enemy (Matt. 5:43-48). No one is left. Any application of Scripture or any Christian system of thought that tries to justify hatred of people, is in conflict with the first and second great commandment. Love of God can never be used to justify love of neighbor. We can hate injustice. We can hate certain ideas. We can hate sin. But we must act in love toward all people.
Here it is perhaps important to say that love in the Bible is not a matter of feeling or emotion. Love has to do with the way we act toward others, both mentally and especially concretely. We can be angry at another person and yet not sin in our thoughts or actions (Eph. 4:26). We can thus even be angry at God and not sin as well (cf. Ps. 13:1). Indeed, if we act in love toward God and others long enough, our feelings will eventually change to follow suit
To love God with all our heart is to "do everything for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). It is to live according to Colossians 3:17: "whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." John Wesley and the Wesleyan tradition have historically had a very optimistic view of the degree to which the Holy Spirit wants to empower a believer to love God. Wesley called it "Christian perfection" and his followers "entire sanctification." The Wesleyan tradition has taken very seriously the word "everything" in these two verses.
We can debate whether that focus on "everything" became unhealthy at times, leading the introspective Wesley to wonder if he was even a Christian in a moment of doubt late in life. We split hairs with others over minute questions like whether the sin principle inside us could be entirely eradicated or only suppressed. We will briefly return to this background in the section below on Christian faithfulness. Our personal sense is that these were areas where the Wesleyan "system" itself led us down unprofitable paths.
To love God, however, boils down to our choices, both in our minds and actions. And to love God in everything means that we have no idols, that we have "no other gods before God" (e.g., Exod. 20:3-4). To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength is for us never to make a choice with our mind or body that gives greater loyalty to something or someone else other than God.
A distinctive of the Wesleyan tradition is our optimism about the degree to which God wants to empower us to fulfill this principle through the power of the Holy Spirit. We think a believer might from this day forward consistently, perhaps even without exception, act in this way in mind and body for the rest of their lives--and do so with joy. This is the essence of what our tradition has meant by entire sanctification.
________
So we are arguing that the dominant characteristic of God for the Wesleyan tradition, at least in terms of how he relates to the creation, is love rather than justice. We are arguing that God wants everyone to be saved but as sovereign king has decided not to force anyone to be saved. We are arguing that even when he acts in judgment he primarily does so in hope of redemption--as discipline rather than retribution. Christians do believe that God can and does act in final judgment, without hope of redemption, but surely this is an act of final recourse for God, one he would prefer not to do.
Our obligation in return is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matt. 22:37). This is the absolute of absolutes in Christian ethics, one of the two great absolute commands of the Christian life, and indeed, the second actually folds into this first one. If we love God we will also love our neighbor. There are no exceptions to these two principles. There is no circumstance where God would have us not love him or not love our neighbor.
At the same time, the question of how to love God can quickly become rather nebulous ground. Indeed, it would be easy for a Christian to twist this command in order to violate God's will. 1 John says, "The love of God is this, that we obey his commandments" (1 John 5:3). Ah, but what are his commandments, says the interpreter, who then goes on to load the first commandment with all sorts of things that violate the second commandment, to justify hatred of one's neighbor.
So let us be clear: love of God will never contradict love of neighbor. The Parable of the Good Samaritan bids us love our neighbor (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus bids us love our enemy (Matt. 5:43-48). No one is left. Any application of Scripture or any Christian system of thought that tries to justify hatred of people, is in conflict with the first and second great commandment. Love of God can never be used to justify love of neighbor. We can hate injustice. We can hate certain ideas. We can hate sin. But we must act in love toward all people.
Here it is perhaps important to say that love in the Bible is not a matter of feeling or emotion. Love has to do with the way we act toward others, both mentally and especially concretely. We can be angry at another person and yet not sin in our thoughts or actions (Eph. 4:26). We can thus even be angry at God and not sin as well (cf. Ps. 13:1). Indeed, if we act in love toward God and others long enough, our feelings will eventually change to follow suit
To love God with all our heart is to "do everything for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). It is to live according to Colossians 3:17: "whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." John Wesley and the Wesleyan tradition have historically had a very optimistic view of the degree to which the Holy Spirit wants to empower a believer to love God. Wesley called it "Christian perfection" and his followers "entire sanctification." The Wesleyan tradition has taken very seriously the word "everything" in these two verses.
We can debate whether that focus on "everything" became unhealthy at times, leading the introspective Wesley to wonder if he was even a Christian in a moment of doubt late in life. We split hairs with others over minute questions like whether the sin principle inside us could be entirely eradicated or only suppressed. We will briefly return to this background in the section below on Christian faithfulness. Our personal sense is that these were areas where the Wesleyan "system" itself led us down unprofitable paths.
To love God, however, boils down to our choices, both in our minds and actions. And to love God in everything means that we have no idols, that we have "no other gods before God" (e.g., Exod. 20:3-4). To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength is for us never to make a choice with our mind or body that gives greater loyalty to something or someone else other than God.
A distinctive of the Wesleyan tradition is our optimism about the degree to which God wants to empower us to fulfill this principle through the power of the Holy Spirit. We think a believer might from this day forward consistently, perhaps even without exception, act in this way in mind and body for the rest of their lives--and do so with joy. This is the essence of what our tradition has meant by entire sanctification.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Why I like Obama and despise Congress
Once again, I am left shaking my head at:
So he's acted the way he has acted consistently. He is a realist. He is getting what he can get and compromising as necessary. Congress, meanwhile, continues to be as gridlocked as ever. If it's this bad now, things will go nowhere for the next two years.
- House Democrats who won't compromise on extending tax cuts for those earning over $250,000.
- Republicans who won't compromise on extending unemployment benefits for another year.
- Those who think Obama operates like an ideological liberal.
So he's acted the way he has acted consistently. He is a realist. He is getting what he can get and compromising as necessary. Congress, meanwhile, continues to be as gridlocked as ever. If it's this bad now, things will go nowhere for the next two years.
Wesleyans and the DREAM Act
Last night the House passed the DREAM Act. Today the Senate may not. I was thinking it provided a possible test case for Arminian vs. Calvinist theology in action. Gabriel Salguero, who is a Nazarene in the Wesleyan tradition, who teaches at Princeton, and who is one of several helping us contextualize our Missional Course into Spanish, has been one of several engaged with the White House on this bill. Similarly, Norm Wilson, a Wesleyan who teaches in IWU's undergraduate program, has been encouraging Wesleyans to support the bill.
What is the bill?
The bill addresses individuals whose parents brought them illegally to the United States before they were 18. Such individuals often are far more American than, say, Mexican. In some cases, they might not even remember Mexico, might not know how to survive in Mexico, have nowhere to go in Mexico. In some cases their parents have been deported and they are just floating around here. Maybe they have gone through our public schools and they mainly know our way of life.
In short, these are individuals in a kind of limbo. Legally, they do not belong here. Culturally, they may belong here far more than in some other place.
The DREAM act gives them a path to legality. They can enroll in college or the military for two years and if they demonstrate they are profitable members of society, they can become legal. The key criteria are that they have lived here for at least 5 years and came here before they were 18.
So how does the flavor of your Christian theology potentially affect your attitude toward this issue.
CALVINIST: Because the rules and God's justice are the main thing for the Calvinist, I suspect Calvinists will have a tendency to want to see us stick it to these kids. Tough luck Charlie. Your parents broke the rules and so you have to pay. We're going to send you back where you belong and if you have a hard time there, well, your parents should have thought of that before they broke the rules.
ARMINIAN: In God's eyes, you are just as important as I am. Legal, illegal, they are precious in his sight. The goal is redemption. What separates you from me is a piece of paper. I will do to you what I would have you do to me. If it were me, I would have nowhere clear to go and a potentially dangerous and unknown path to a place that has become a foreign land to me. If it were me, I would want you to have mercy on me and let me make a go for myself, let me contribute something to your society, which I would own as my society. I suspect that the true Arminian would be biased to be sympathetic to this Act--only the details would then lead me to be against it.
I don't think there are any such details in this case. This Act is all about biases. Are you a legalist without compassion? You will tend to be knee jerk against it. I think anyone with the heart of Christ will have a bias toward passing it.
What is the bill?
The bill addresses individuals whose parents brought them illegally to the United States before they were 18. Such individuals often are far more American than, say, Mexican. In some cases, they might not even remember Mexico, might not know how to survive in Mexico, have nowhere to go in Mexico. In some cases their parents have been deported and they are just floating around here. Maybe they have gone through our public schools and they mainly know our way of life.
In short, these are individuals in a kind of limbo. Legally, they do not belong here. Culturally, they may belong here far more than in some other place.
The DREAM act gives them a path to legality. They can enroll in college or the military for two years and if they demonstrate they are profitable members of society, they can become legal. The key criteria are that they have lived here for at least 5 years and came here before they were 18.
So how does the flavor of your Christian theology potentially affect your attitude toward this issue.
CALVINIST: Because the rules and God's justice are the main thing for the Calvinist, I suspect Calvinists will have a tendency to want to see us stick it to these kids. Tough luck Charlie. Your parents broke the rules and so you have to pay. We're going to send you back where you belong and if you have a hard time there, well, your parents should have thought of that before they broke the rules.
ARMINIAN: In God's eyes, you are just as important as I am. Legal, illegal, they are precious in his sight. The goal is redemption. What separates you from me is a piece of paper. I will do to you what I would have you do to me. If it were me, I would have nowhere clear to go and a potentially dangerous and unknown path to a place that has become a foreign land to me. If it were me, I would want you to have mercy on me and let me make a go for myself, let me contribute something to your society, which I would own as my society. I suspect that the true Arminian would be biased to be sympathetic to this Act--only the details would then lead me to be against it.
I don't think there are any such details in this case. This Act is all about biases. Are you a legalist without compassion? You will tend to be knee jerk against it. I think anyone with the heart of Christ will have a bias toward passing it.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Love God 2
The first post in this section is here.
_____
The Wesleyan tradition thus shares with many Baptists, Catholics, and various other pietist traditions some sense of "free will." We should be careful how we define it, however. We probably should not say that people can come to God any time they choose. And historically, the Wesleyan tradition is not saying people have any power in themselves to move toward God. We are saying that, at some point of everyone's life, God gives everyone the opportunity and empowerment to move toward him.
Now mind you, this is all Wesleyan theological glue. The biblical text no more spells these parts of our system out than it spells out the Calvinist idea that God does not really want everyone to be saved. We are picking some truth and playing it out, justifying it in the theological system of our creation. When we Wesleyans talk about prevenient grace, we are doing our best to work out a system of ideas that undergirds aspects of truth and practice we think are clear. We might think of these ideas as more suggestive than definitive, pictures more than equations.
One way to get a sense of Wesleyan identity here is to say that, for Wesleyans, God's mercy is his primary operating mode in this world than his justice. God would rather forgive than punish. Indeed, we would prefer to see God's punishment as formative rather than punitive. This orientation means when God disciplines us in this world, he does so to make us better and ultimately to save us, rather than to ensure that judgment is dispensed.
This orientation has all sorts of implications for life. Does a parent punish a child because she or he has it coming or to help the child to learn not to do harmful things? Do we discipline to redeem or to satisfy wrath? To be sure, we find both images in Scripture, but we remember that God revealed Scripture in the categories of its audiences, rather than purely on God's own terms.
Again, this communicative model coheres with the Wesleyan sense of God. God comes down; God reaches out and communicates in terms his audience can understand because he wants them to come to him. The other model pictures it unworthy of God to come to you. You must come to him and understand him on his terms and, since you are incapable, you are lost except for those lucky, arbitrary few he sends for.
So while many Wesleyans and Wesley himself believed in "penal substitution," many Wesleyans also sit rather loosely to it. Penal substitution is the idea that Jesus took our punishment on the cross, usually in a rather legalistic way. Did Jesus take our place on the cross? Certainly there is a sense in which he did. Paul says in Galatians 3 that we were under a curse and Christ transferred our curse to him. Did Jesus take our punishment? There is a general sense in which he did, since a sacrifice involves this dynamic of satisfying God's anger.
But the way these individual truths are often combined into a system can become quite questionable. So by the reckoning of some, God's justice demands that he get the exact amount of punishment required of every sin. So in order to reconcile us to God, Jesus had to take on himself this exact amount of punishment, which in effect was infinite because the smallest disobedience of God demands infinite punishment. To do so, Jesus had to be God to be able to satisfy infinite punishment, but he had to be human so that the right party was experiencing the punishment. Jesus' descent to hell satisfied this requirement of justice.
Again, what a logical system! And yet it is equally unbiblical. Is God really such a "bean counter" of offenses against himself? What of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the father has the authority simply to forgive his dishonoring son? What of the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant where the master has the authority simply to write off his servant's debt.
Something about Jesus' death does seem to satisfy the order of things. It is hard to imagine us as humans sensing the magnitude of our need for reconciliation without it. Nor does it seem we could grasp the magnitude of God's love for us without the cross. But could God have forgiven us by his command, simply because he chose to do so? It is hard for me personally to think he could not have. After all, do I not in love exercise this grace with my own children from time to time? Am I greater or more loving than God? Surely not.
_____
The Wesleyan tradition thus shares with many Baptists, Catholics, and various other pietist traditions some sense of "free will." We should be careful how we define it, however. We probably should not say that people can come to God any time they choose. And historically, the Wesleyan tradition is not saying people have any power in themselves to move toward God. We are saying that, at some point of everyone's life, God gives everyone the opportunity and empowerment to move toward him.
Now mind you, this is all Wesleyan theological glue. The biblical text no more spells these parts of our system out than it spells out the Calvinist idea that God does not really want everyone to be saved. We are picking some truth and playing it out, justifying it in the theological system of our creation. When we Wesleyans talk about prevenient grace, we are doing our best to work out a system of ideas that undergirds aspects of truth and practice we think are clear. We might think of these ideas as more suggestive than definitive, pictures more than equations.
One way to get a sense of Wesleyan identity here is to say that, for Wesleyans, God's mercy is his primary operating mode in this world than his justice. God would rather forgive than punish. Indeed, we would prefer to see God's punishment as formative rather than punitive. This orientation means when God disciplines us in this world, he does so to make us better and ultimately to save us, rather than to ensure that judgment is dispensed.
This orientation has all sorts of implications for life. Does a parent punish a child because she or he has it coming or to help the child to learn not to do harmful things? Do we discipline to redeem or to satisfy wrath? To be sure, we find both images in Scripture, but we remember that God revealed Scripture in the categories of its audiences, rather than purely on God's own terms.
Again, this communicative model coheres with the Wesleyan sense of God. God comes down; God reaches out and communicates in terms his audience can understand because he wants them to come to him. The other model pictures it unworthy of God to come to you. You must come to him and understand him on his terms and, since you are incapable, you are lost except for those lucky, arbitrary few he sends for.
So while many Wesleyans and Wesley himself believed in "penal substitution," many Wesleyans also sit rather loosely to it. Penal substitution is the idea that Jesus took our punishment on the cross, usually in a rather legalistic way. Did Jesus take our place on the cross? Certainly there is a sense in which he did. Paul says in Galatians 3 that we were under a curse and Christ transferred our curse to him. Did Jesus take our punishment? There is a general sense in which he did, since a sacrifice involves this dynamic of satisfying God's anger.
But the way these individual truths are often combined into a system can become quite questionable. So by the reckoning of some, God's justice demands that he get the exact amount of punishment required of every sin. So in order to reconcile us to God, Jesus had to take on himself this exact amount of punishment, which in effect was infinite because the smallest disobedience of God demands infinite punishment. To do so, Jesus had to be God to be able to satisfy infinite punishment, but he had to be human so that the right party was experiencing the punishment. Jesus' descent to hell satisfied this requirement of justice.
Again, what a logical system! And yet it is equally unbiblical. Is God really such a "bean counter" of offenses against himself? What of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the father has the authority simply to forgive his dishonoring son? What of the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant where the master has the authority simply to write off his servant's debt.
Something about Jesus' death does seem to satisfy the order of things. It is hard to imagine us as humans sensing the magnitude of our need for reconciliation without it. Nor does it seem we could grasp the magnitude of God's love for us without the cross. But could God have forgiven us by his command, simply because he chose to do so? It is hard for me personally to think he could not have. After all, do I not in love exercise this grace with my own children from time to time? Am I greater or more loving than God? Surely not.
An Arminian Fellowship?
Another throw away thought I had Monday. I was thinking this morning how much my theology has in common with more than just the Wesleyan tradition. For example, Scot McKnight wouldn't agree with me on everything, but he is broadly Arminian I think. So is the Evangelical Covenant Church of North Park. So is the Anabaptist tradition here at Messiah. In fact, the bulk of Baptists are broadly Arminian (General Baptists).
What I'm saying is that a lot of Christian traditions agree on God's provision for everyone to be saved and his empowerment for us to choose him. We might differ on how you spin "the security of believers," but we are pretty much agreed on the first four parts of the TULI-P.
I wonder if anyone has ever thought about putting together an Arminian fellowship? Not sure why other than the fact that it is good to break bread together.
Just an idle thought...
What I'm saying is that a lot of Christian traditions agree on God's provision for everyone to be saved and his empowerment for us to choose him. We might differ on how you spin "the security of believers," but we are pretty much agreed on the first four parts of the TULI-P.
I wonder if anyone has ever thought about putting together an Arminian fellowship? Not sure why other than the fact that it is good to break bread together.
Just an idle thought...
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Love God 1
I'm sitting in a guest house at Messiah College, a lovely Brethren college in Pennsylvania, helping with a program they're starting. The landscape of the campus reminds me of Southern Wesleyan, although it's bigger. The faculty are warm hearted like IWU's, although their academic orientation is more like Houghton's. Nice place.
So this is my warm down for the day. By the way, did you hear that IWU is proposing to loosen the reigns on its dancing policy? I had a hearty Schenck laugh when I read the paragraph about "spontaneous dancing." It can happen to Wesleyans, you know, that uncontrollable urge to flail your arms about in the most bizarre manner. ;-) This spirit once came over me in Germany and I knocked a stein off of some passing waiter's tray into an ice cream buffet. Ask my family.
___________
If you are not careful, theology and philosophy can quickly blur off into discussions that seem far removed from everyday reality. It can be a by-product of trying to construct intellectual systems out of practical truths. For example, it is important to us as Christians to believe that God is in control. It gives us hope, not to mention that it is part of our allegiance to him as king. Yet it is also important for many of us, including the Wesleyan tradition, to affirm that everyone is important to God and that God wants us to try to see everyone be reconciled to him.
The problem comes when we then try to fill in the blanks. For example, John Calvin (1500s) started with the first truth--that God is in control--and then filled in the blanks as follows. If God is in control, then he must decide even who comes to him and who does not. Therefore, it must not be possible for just anyone to be reconciled to him. He must choose who will be saved and in fact make them believe, leaving those he does not choose to continue on in condemnation and alienation.
The Wesleyan-Arminian tradition disagrees. It finds this picture of God incompatible with the notion that God is love. Calvinism is a beautiful intellectual system, but its picture of God does not seem to square with the dominant picture of God in the New Testament. How does God love the world (John 3:16) or want everyone to be saved (1 Tim. 1:4) if he arbitrarily decides to save some and destroy others as a top down decision, with no input from those he is saving or damning whatsoever?
Indeed, this system inevitably leads to a very questionable view of God's values. God becomes a slave to the rules. He must have absolute justice. He cannot simply forgive. Someone must pay the last exquisite drop of blood in punishment.
God seems arbitrary. With no apparent basis for choosing, God seems to decide arbitrarily to save some in order to show his great "mercy." Then with equality no apparent reason he decides to fry everyone else. The Calvinist might argue that they deserved to fry anyway, but they never had a chance. God is loving to choose to save "you, you, and you," but "you, you, and you" did not matter anyway.
By contrast, the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition believes that the notion of God as love does not really make sense unless God would want to give everyone a chance. Wesleyans have more often than not even believed that someone who has never heard about Jesus has a chance because God "lights everyone who comes into the world" (John 1:9). We are "judged according to the light we have" rather than by our conscious thinking. Notice again the heart orientation of the Wesleyan tradition, less worried about what is going on in a person's head.
John Wesley also tried to fill in the blanks, but we believe with the right overall sense of God's "nature." If we start with God as love, then surely he finds a way to give everyone a chance. Wesleyans call it "prevenient grace." Calvin saw God's grace as all or nothing. Either you had it and would be saved or you did not and were sunk. Wesley thought God surely gives everyone at some point enough grace to signify a desire for more or to continue in darkness. A person is thus saved entirely by God's power, but part of that power was invested on empowering you to make a choice.
So this is my warm down for the day. By the way, did you hear that IWU is proposing to loosen the reigns on its dancing policy? I had a hearty Schenck laugh when I read the paragraph about "spontaneous dancing." It can happen to Wesleyans, you know, that uncontrollable urge to flail your arms about in the most bizarre manner. ;-) This spirit once came over me in Germany and I knocked a stein off of some passing waiter's tray into an ice cream buffet. Ask my family.
___________
If you are not careful, theology and philosophy can quickly blur off into discussions that seem far removed from everyday reality. It can be a by-product of trying to construct intellectual systems out of practical truths. For example, it is important to us as Christians to believe that God is in control. It gives us hope, not to mention that it is part of our allegiance to him as king. Yet it is also important for many of us, including the Wesleyan tradition, to affirm that everyone is important to God and that God wants us to try to see everyone be reconciled to him.
The problem comes when we then try to fill in the blanks. For example, John Calvin (1500s) started with the first truth--that God is in control--and then filled in the blanks as follows. If God is in control, then he must decide even who comes to him and who does not. Therefore, it must not be possible for just anyone to be reconciled to him. He must choose who will be saved and in fact make them believe, leaving those he does not choose to continue on in condemnation and alienation.
The Wesleyan-Arminian tradition disagrees. It finds this picture of God incompatible with the notion that God is love. Calvinism is a beautiful intellectual system, but its picture of God does not seem to square with the dominant picture of God in the New Testament. How does God love the world (John 3:16) or want everyone to be saved (1 Tim. 1:4) if he arbitrarily decides to save some and destroy others as a top down decision, with no input from those he is saving or damning whatsoever?
Indeed, this system inevitably leads to a very questionable view of God's values. God becomes a slave to the rules. He must have absolute justice. He cannot simply forgive. Someone must pay the last exquisite drop of blood in punishment.
God seems arbitrary. With no apparent basis for choosing, God seems to decide arbitrarily to save some in order to show his great "mercy." Then with equality no apparent reason he decides to fry everyone else. The Calvinist might argue that they deserved to fry anyway, but they never had a chance. God is loving to choose to save "you, you, and you," but "you, you, and you" did not matter anyway.
By contrast, the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition believes that the notion of God as love does not really make sense unless God would want to give everyone a chance. Wesleyans have more often than not even believed that someone who has never heard about Jesus has a chance because God "lights everyone who comes into the world" (John 1:9). We are "judged according to the light we have" rather than by our conscious thinking. Notice again the heart orientation of the Wesleyan tradition, less worried about what is going on in a person's head.
John Wesley also tried to fill in the blanks, but we believe with the right overall sense of God's "nature." If we start with God as love, then surely he finds a way to give everyone a chance. Wesleyans call it "prevenient grace." Calvin saw God's grace as all or nothing. Either you had it and would be saved or you did not and were sunk. Wesley thought God surely gives everyone at some point enough grace to signify a desire for more or to continue in darkness. A person is thus saved entirely by God's power, but part of that power was invested on empowering you to make a choice.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Google thought...
I was sitting on a runway in Chicago today thinking Schencky thoughts as usual. Here was one.
If I were the CEO of Google... or the president of a small dying college, I would either start a college as part of my company or, better, buy or cooperate with one about to go out of business. The degree--a BS in Google whatever. Why not let the industry cooperate with an innovative college to create a problem based curriculum whose main purpose is to feed a company like Google employees?
Google of course is just an example. A degree in Intel whatever. A degree in Boeing whatever. Sure, we'll throw in humanities courses so these engineers have a soul. Just because you can make a really nifty microbe that can wipe out the planet doesn't mean you should. Sure, the college would insist the students get a little philosophy and history, not to mention an understanding of physics that is a little broader than how to put a transistor on a sheet of silicon.
But the building block model of learning is too slow to keep up with the cutting edge of the twenty-first century. Technology companies should grow their own. But to keep their people human, colleges could facilitate it.
What do you think? I personally nodded off just after having this thought... ;-)
If I were the CEO of Google... or the president of a small dying college, I would either start a college as part of my company or, better, buy or cooperate with one about to go out of business. The degree--a BS in Google whatever. Why not let the industry cooperate with an innovative college to create a problem based curriculum whose main purpose is to feed a company like Google employees?
Google of course is just an example. A degree in Intel whatever. A degree in Boeing whatever. Sure, we'll throw in humanities courses so these engineers have a soul. Just because you can make a really nifty microbe that can wipe out the planet doesn't mean you should. Sure, the college would insist the students get a little philosophy and history, not to mention an understanding of physics that is a little broader than how to put a transistor on a sheet of silicon.
But the building block model of learning is too slow to keep up with the cutting edge of the twenty-first century. Technology companies should grow their own. But to keep their people human, colleges could facilitate it.
What do you think? I personally nodded off just after having this thought... ;-)
Sunday, December 05, 2010
God Looks on the Heart 3
Previous post is here.
________
This line of thought leads us to the question of absolute truth. Does the pragmatic, Wesleyan tradition believe in absolute truth? Do you mean, do we believe in truth, definite truths? Well, of course. What's the point of trying to communicate if there is no such thing as truth?
The question is more about how accurate or precise our systems of thought are. The great thing about systematizing our thoughts is that it helps us process things. Systems of thought help us grasp complex things and remember them. Systems of thought help us see potential inconsistencies in the way we think.
Other traditions today have a clear penchant toward what we might call the Platonic. Plato thought that truth was a matter of ideas and that the things we see around us are only imperfect shadows of the truths we can only access with our minds. So many Christians who use code words like "worldview" have a tendency to think that everything we see and do around us is simply the outworking of some system of ideas in our heads. They might spend a great deal of time trying to get your ideas straight, thinking that if we can only get the system of ideas in your head right, then the rest--how you live--will take care of itself.
This way of thinking has a lot of problems. For one, the vast majority of people do not live from day to day playing out their ideas. The sentiment that "right insight leads to right action" sounds noble, and is a great ideal toward which to aspire. [1] It just is not how most of us will ever operate. Most people will change sooner if they work with God's help to change their habits, their physical actions. According to most psychologists, this path is actually more effective in changing the way people think. So the "get the ideas straight and the actions will follow" only proves to be true for a small number of us. For most of us, the pattern is "get the habits straight and the ideas will follow."
Indeed, the Bible itself does not lay out some neat system of ideas. It is deeply ironic on the highest level that the vast majority of biblical texts are not theoretical, but contextual. Romans is not a "compendium of systematic theology," as Luther's systematizer, Melanchthon, once said. Romans is more systematic than Paul's other letters, but its argument and train of thought still have everything to do with a situation where Paul is introducing himself to a group that might potentially have heard bad things of him from his opponents. If one wants to complain about Wesley writing sermons rather than a systematic theology, one might first start by complaining about the apostle Paul and, indeed, every book in the Bible.
So we see that the idea of a "biblical worldview," as helpful as it can be, has as much or more to do with the Christian thinkers who "find" it in the Bible as it does with the Bible itself. The briefest look at how many different systems of thinking Christians have put together over the centuries shows this dynamic very quickly. Since none of the books of the Bible themselves present a system of thought, such systems require not a little glue from those who construct them. Such glue, thankfully, usually comes from a hefty dose of common Christian tradition--glue that the Holy Spirit has helped the Christians of the ages apply to the biblical texts. But of course individual thinkers also are bound to mistake their own personalities and the perspectives of their situations for "Scripture alone."
This is not the place to unpack what really is involved in determining what "the Bible says." First we have the meanings of individual texts, which we have no choice but to define according to the definitions and categories we know. Even on this smallest of levels we are more likely to find meanings familiar to us rather than those of the original audiences to whom the biblical texts were literally written. Then there is the matter of how we connect individual texts together. Since they usually do not tell us how to fit them together, this is a process we must do. We have no other choice.
So we prioritize them in terms of the meanings we have already given them. We designate texts familiar to us as "clear" and those that seem strange to us as "unclear." If the first meaning that suggests itself to us does not make sense to us or does not fit with our sense of what the Bible can say, we might reinterpret its meaning as best we can. I am assuming throughout these last few paragraphs that the reader in question sincerely wants to hear what God has to say and submits to God's authority in Scripture.
The notion of "biblical worldview" as often as not leads a person to run roughshod over the biblical text. It is one thing to find common themes throughout the Bible. Love of God and neighbor, for example, pops up continually throughout the biblical texts. It is another to mistake a Christian system of thinking for what the biblical texts themselves actually say.
For one thing, such systems usually undersell God's brilliance. When I think of how to illustrate what I mean, science often comes to mind. If a person takes a high school or college science class, we often learn simple rules to start off. We learn that objects fall at the same rate, no matter how heavy they are. We learn that it takes so long to get across a certain distance moving at a certain speed.
But if we stay with science long enough, things get complicated. Those things falling--we talked about them as points because in reality, air and wind get in the way. Those things getting from A to B in a certain time--we learn that time slows down as an object approaches the speed of light. Indeed, a lot of "real life" calculations require what are called statistical models. Scientists see how most things behave because reality is too complicated to come up with a neat equation or rule to describe the situation.
Similarly, I am convinced that those of us who think we have neat little systems of theology to describe the truth of the Bible--let alone God--are going to be incredibly embarrassed in the kingdom of God. The problem with systems of theology, in my opinion, is that I can understand them. I do not think I would be able to understand God, at least not on a literal level. After all, I have trouble understanding Einstein's theory of relativity. Surely God is a bit more advanced still! Surely his revelation to us is baby talk, "goo-goo ga-ga" that I can just get the gist of, even if I really am only getting the general impression.
The bottom line here is that I revel in the fact that God looks on the heart. I have to think that those who are more oriented around the head are going to be very embarrassed for the first few moments of the kingdom. And after all, if God is primarily interested in our heads, why does he not set us all straight? We know each other too well to think that all the most spiritual people are Wesleyans or Baptists or Lutherans or Catholics or Reformed or Quakers. There are equally spiritual, equally open, equally intelligent individuals in all denominations. Correcting the finer points of our ideas just does not seem to be high on God's agenda.
And look at how long God took to send Christ. Even those whose interpretation of Genesis leads them to believe in a young earth see God waiting thousands of years before Christ came, and even the staunchest Protestant will have to deal with God waiting over a thousand years to send Martin Luther to get things back on track. Other Christians will see God waiting millions or even billions of years just to bring humanity into the world, let alone to redeem us!
In short, no likely understanding of God sees correcting our understanding as God's first order of business. God just has not moved that quickly in history. And thus it is that while ideas matter to Wesleyans, the state of your heart and the state of your life are much more important. Are you a Seventh-Day Adventist who worships on Saturday, believes our souls sleep before the resurrection, and maybe even stays away from pork? Wesleyans would join almost all other Christians in thinking you probably have emphasized the wrong biblical passages. But as Wesley said, "if your heart is as my heart... then put your hand in mine." [2]
[1] Plato's reporting of Socrates' philosophy.
[2] From his sermon, "On a Catholic Spirit."
________
This line of thought leads us to the question of absolute truth. Does the pragmatic, Wesleyan tradition believe in absolute truth? Do you mean, do we believe in truth, definite truths? Well, of course. What's the point of trying to communicate if there is no such thing as truth?
The question is more about how accurate or precise our systems of thought are. The great thing about systematizing our thoughts is that it helps us process things. Systems of thought help us grasp complex things and remember them. Systems of thought help us see potential inconsistencies in the way we think.
Other traditions today have a clear penchant toward what we might call the Platonic. Plato thought that truth was a matter of ideas and that the things we see around us are only imperfect shadows of the truths we can only access with our minds. So many Christians who use code words like "worldview" have a tendency to think that everything we see and do around us is simply the outworking of some system of ideas in our heads. They might spend a great deal of time trying to get your ideas straight, thinking that if we can only get the system of ideas in your head right, then the rest--how you live--will take care of itself.
This way of thinking has a lot of problems. For one, the vast majority of people do not live from day to day playing out their ideas. The sentiment that "right insight leads to right action" sounds noble, and is a great ideal toward which to aspire. [1] It just is not how most of us will ever operate. Most people will change sooner if they work with God's help to change their habits, their physical actions. According to most psychologists, this path is actually more effective in changing the way people think. So the "get the ideas straight and the actions will follow" only proves to be true for a small number of us. For most of us, the pattern is "get the habits straight and the ideas will follow."
Indeed, the Bible itself does not lay out some neat system of ideas. It is deeply ironic on the highest level that the vast majority of biblical texts are not theoretical, but contextual. Romans is not a "compendium of systematic theology," as Luther's systematizer, Melanchthon, once said. Romans is more systematic than Paul's other letters, but its argument and train of thought still have everything to do with a situation where Paul is introducing himself to a group that might potentially have heard bad things of him from his opponents. If one wants to complain about Wesley writing sermons rather than a systematic theology, one might first start by complaining about the apostle Paul and, indeed, every book in the Bible.
So we see that the idea of a "biblical worldview," as helpful as it can be, has as much or more to do with the Christian thinkers who "find" it in the Bible as it does with the Bible itself. The briefest look at how many different systems of thinking Christians have put together over the centuries shows this dynamic very quickly. Since none of the books of the Bible themselves present a system of thought, such systems require not a little glue from those who construct them. Such glue, thankfully, usually comes from a hefty dose of common Christian tradition--glue that the Holy Spirit has helped the Christians of the ages apply to the biblical texts. But of course individual thinkers also are bound to mistake their own personalities and the perspectives of their situations for "Scripture alone."
This is not the place to unpack what really is involved in determining what "the Bible says." First we have the meanings of individual texts, which we have no choice but to define according to the definitions and categories we know. Even on this smallest of levels we are more likely to find meanings familiar to us rather than those of the original audiences to whom the biblical texts were literally written. Then there is the matter of how we connect individual texts together. Since they usually do not tell us how to fit them together, this is a process we must do. We have no other choice.
So we prioritize them in terms of the meanings we have already given them. We designate texts familiar to us as "clear" and those that seem strange to us as "unclear." If the first meaning that suggests itself to us does not make sense to us or does not fit with our sense of what the Bible can say, we might reinterpret its meaning as best we can. I am assuming throughout these last few paragraphs that the reader in question sincerely wants to hear what God has to say and submits to God's authority in Scripture.
The notion of "biblical worldview" as often as not leads a person to run roughshod over the biblical text. It is one thing to find common themes throughout the Bible. Love of God and neighbor, for example, pops up continually throughout the biblical texts. It is another to mistake a Christian system of thinking for what the biblical texts themselves actually say.
For one thing, such systems usually undersell God's brilliance. When I think of how to illustrate what I mean, science often comes to mind. If a person takes a high school or college science class, we often learn simple rules to start off. We learn that objects fall at the same rate, no matter how heavy they are. We learn that it takes so long to get across a certain distance moving at a certain speed.
But if we stay with science long enough, things get complicated. Those things falling--we talked about them as points because in reality, air and wind get in the way. Those things getting from A to B in a certain time--we learn that time slows down as an object approaches the speed of light. Indeed, a lot of "real life" calculations require what are called statistical models. Scientists see how most things behave because reality is too complicated to come up with a neat equation or rule to describe the situation.
Similarly, I am convinced that those of us who think we have neat little systems of theology to describe the truth of the Bible--let alone God--are going to be incredibly embarrassed in the kingdom of God. The problem with systems of theology, in my opinion, is that I can understand them. I do not think I would be able to understand God, at least not on a literal level. After all, I have trouble understanding Einstein's theory of relativity. Surely God is a bit more advanced still! Surely his revelation to us is baby talk, "goo-goo ga-ga" that I can just get the gist of, even if I really am only getting the general impression.
The bottom line here is that I revel in the fact that God looks on the heart. I have to think that those who are more oriented around the head are going to be very embarrassed for the first few moments of the kingdom. And after all, if God is primarily interested in our heads, why does he not set us all straight? We know each other too well to think that all the most spiritual people are Wesleyans or Baptists or Lutherans or Catholics or Reformed or Quakers. There are equally spiritual, equally open, equally intelligent individuals in all denominations. Correcting the finer points of our ideas just does not seem to be high on God's agenda.
And look at how long God took to send Christ. Even those whose interpretation of Genesis leads them to believe in a young earth see God waiting thousands of years before Christ came, and even the staunchest Protestant will have to deal with God waiting over a thousand years to send Martin Luther to get things back on track. Other Christians will see God waiting millions or even billions of years just to bring humanity into the world, let alone to redeem us!
In short, no likely understanding of God sees correcting our understanding as God's first order of business. God just has not moved that quickly in history. And thus it is that while ideas matter to Wesleyans, the state of your heart and the state of your life are much more important. Are you a Seventh-Day Adventist who worships on Saturday, believes our souls sleep before the resurrection, and maybe even stays away from pork? Wesleyans would join almost all other Christians in thinking you probably have emphasized the wrong biblical passages. But as Wesley said, "if your heart is as my heart... then put your hand in mine." [2]
[1] Plato's reporting of Socrates' philosophy.
[2] From his sermon, "On a Catholic Spirit."
Saturday, December 04, 2010
I wish I could understand this!
If I had nothing else to do and was independently wealthy, I'd sure spend some time trying to understand these two paragraphs from Wikipedia ;-)
______
Petr Hořava is well-known for his articles written with Edward Witten about the Hořava-Witten domain walls in M-theory. These articles demonstrated that the ten-dimensional heterotic E8 x E8 string theory could be produced from 11-dimensional M-theory by making one of the dimensions have edges (the domain walls). This discovery provided crucial support for the conjecture that all string theories could arise as various limits of a single higher-dimensional theory.
Hořava is less well known for his discovery of D-branes, usually attributed to Dai, Leigh and Polchinski, who discovered them independently, also in 1989. In 2009, Hořava proposed a theory of gravity that separates space from time at high energy while matching some predictions of general relativity at lower energies
God Looks on the Heart 2
This is the second post (see the first here) of the second section (see the last of it here) of a little project that is meant to capture my vision for the Wesleyan tradition in the early twenty-first century.
___________
Christianity does have two great absolutes of action: love God and love neighbor. The rest is complicated. These principles play themselves out in different ways in different times and places, and they play themselves out differently in different situations even within a particular context. This is the approach that Jesus and Paul modeled in Scripture, and it is only our penchant for systematizing and easy answers that would lead us in a different direction.
The conflict in Mark 2 over the Sabbath is illuminating. In this story, the Pharisees question why Jesus' disciples are violating the Sabbath by plucking grain on Saturday (2:24). Jesus does not say, as the impulse of many today would be, that the Pharisees do not understand the Sabbath law. He does not say, for example, that the Sabbath is about rest or worship. Jesus accepts the accusation and argues instead that there is a time to make exceptions to the rule. Did not David and the high priest make an exception to the rule against eating the bread of presentation because his fighting men were hungry? In short, Jesus does not treat the Sabbath law as an absolute.
Indeed, Paul treats it as a matter of personal conviction in Romans 14:5. Again, the impulse of some might say that it is only a legalistic keeping of the Sabbath that Paul rejects. But where is there any evidence for such a position in the biblical text? The Sabbath law in the Old Testament is a purely concrete law, not some abstract principle. It is about not working from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. It is not about worshiping on Saturday. It is not about taking some time off some day each week. You will not get such abstractions from what the biblical texts actually say, only from an impulse to find some principle behind every specific command.
So we might be shocked to find Paul telling the Romans that keeping the Sabbath law is a matter of personal conviction (Rom. 14:5). We might be shocked to hear Colossians telling its Gentile audience not to let anyone judge them for their observance of Sabbaths (Col. 2:16), connecting such observance to the "elemental spirits" (2:20, NRSV) that are limited to an earthly realm they have left behind as believers. We will find no text in the New Testament that reduces the Sabbath law to a principle of rest or that transfers it to Sunday. Instead, Paul relativizes this Ten Commandment, reducing it to a matter of personal conviction.
The point is that we should certainly start as Christians with the specific ethical commands of Scripture, but it is really the two great commands that are the absolutes: love God and love neighbor. Because history and culture change, these principles must always be contextualized when it comes to specifics. An insistence on keeping the letter of Scripture sometimes only results in peculiarity--we confuse women's hairstyles in the forties and fifties for keeping 1 Corinthians 11. At other times it can work against the main principles.
For example, it was the American "letteralists," the fundamentalists if you would, of the early 1800s that argued in favor of slavery as an institution. Do not Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter accept slavery as an institution, and tell slaves to submit to their masters even when their masters are unjust? A careful reading of Philemon as well confirms that Paul even there does not tell this slave owner to free his slave Onesimus. Following the letter and the specifics of Scripture did not lead to abolition but merely to reform within the institution.
It was thus groups like the Wesleyan Methodists and the Quakers who saw beyond the letter to the true absolute principles and worked for abolition. The trajectory of the kingdom was clear enough--in Christ there is neither slave nor free (Gal. 3:28). So why would we not abolish slavery now if we have the chance? If we really viewed the slave as our neighbor, if we really treated them as we would have others treat us, would we not grant them their freedom? Would we not rather make all humans our equal and abolish the very institution, the very earthly structure that facilitated "hate" of neighbor?
The heart of the Wesleyan tradition is thus not "letteralist" or fundamentalist. It is principled, but on the two great ethical principles that appear consistently throughout the New Testament and that were anticipated in key Scriptures of the Old: love God and love neighbor. The working out of the specifics may start with the specifics of Scripture, but it must end with the complex, corporate wrestling of the body of Christ with the specifics of any time and place, with a view to the trajectory of God's kingdom to come.
In the implementation of these two great principles, the Wesleyan tradition clearly has a tendency toward what is called "pragmatism," a focus on what works or what seems useful rather than on uncompromising principles. Here we once again see a difference in flavor from other traditions. The very word "compromise" is a dirty word in many Christian circles. Some might stereotype a pragmatist as someone who either does not understand theory or who does not have the courage of will to stick to his or her principles. What we are suggesting here instead is that the theory of the person who condemns us is in fact incorrect, as are some key principles. The nature of love, the key principle, is to compromise on everything but the most central principles when it is appropriate. For God, people trump rules.
This line of thought leads us to the question of absolute truth. Does the pragmatic, Wesleyan tradition believe in absolute truth? ...
___________
Christianity does have two great absolutes of action: love God and love neighbor. The rest is complicated. These principles play themselves out in different ways in different times and places, and they play themselves out differently in different situations even within a particular context. This is the approach that Jesus and Paul modeled in Scripture, and it is only our penchant for systematizing and easy answers that would lead us in a different direction.
The conflict in Mark 2 over the Sabbath is illuminating. In this story, the Pharisees question why Jesus' disciples are violating the Sabbath by plucking grain on Saturday (2:24). Jesus does not say, as the impulse of many today would be, that the Pharisees do not understand the Sabbath law. He does not say, for example, that the Sabbath is about rest or worship. Jesus accepts the accusation and argues instead that there is a time to make exceptions to the rule. Did not David and the high priest make an exception to the rule against eating the bread of presentation because his fighting men were hungry? In short, Jesus does not treat the Sabbath law as an absolute.
Indeed, Paul treats it as a matter of personal conviction in Romans 14:5. Again, the impulse of some might say that it is only a legalistic keeping of the Sabbath that Paul rejects. But where is there any evidence for such a position in the biblical text? The Sabbath law in the Old Testament is a purely concrete law, not some abstract principle. It is about not working from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. It is not about worshiping on Saturday. It is not about taking some time off some day each week. You will not get such abstractions from what the biblical texts actually say, only from an impulse to find some principle behind every specific command.
So we might be shocked to find Paul telling the Romans that keeping the Sabbath law is a matter of personal conviction (Rom. 14:5). We might be shocked to hear Colossians telling its Gentile audience not to let anyone judge them for their observance of Sabbaths (Col. 2:16), connecting such observance to the "elemental spirits" (2:20, NRSV) that are limited to an earthly realm they have left behind as believers. We will find no text in the New Testament that reduces the Sabbath law to a principle of rest or that transfers it to Sunday. Instead, Paul relativizes this Ten Commandment, reducing it to a matter of personal conviction.
The point is that we should certainly start as Christians with the specific ethical commands of Scripture, but it is really the two great commands that are the absolutes: love God and love neighbor. Because history and culture change, these principles must always be contextualized when it comes to specifics. An insistence on keeping the letter of Scripture sometimes only results in peculiarity--we confuse women's hairstyles in the forties and fifties for keeping 1 Corinthians 11. At other times it can work against the main principles.
For example, it was the American "letteralists," the fundamentalists if you would, of the early 1800s that argued in favor of slavery as an institution. Do not Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter accept slavery as an institution, and tell slaves to submit to their masters even when their masters are unjust? A careful reading of Philemon as well confirms that Paul even there does not tell this slave owner to free his slave Onesimus. Following the letter and the specifics of Scripture did not lead to abolition but merely to reform within the institution.
It was thus groups like the Wesleyan Methodists and the Quakers who saw beyond the letter to the true absolute principles and worked for abolition. The trajectory of the kingdom was clear enough--in Christ there is neither slave nor free (Gal. 3:28). So why would we not abolish slavery now if we have the chance? If we really viewed the slave as our neighbor, if we really treated them as we would have others treat us, would we not grant them their freedom? Would we not rather make all humans our equal and abolish the very institution, the very earthly structure that facilitated "hate" of neighbor?
The heart of the Wesleyan tradition is thus not "letteralist" or fundamentalist. It is principled, but on the two great ethical principles that appear consistently throughout the New Testament and that were anticipated in key Scriptures of the Old: love God and love neighbor. The working out of the specifics may start with the specifics of Scripture, but it must end with the complex, corporate wrestling of the body of Christ with the specifics of any time and place, with a view to the trajectory of God's kingdom to come.
In the implementation of these two great principles, the Wesleyan tradition clearly has a tendency toward what is called "pragmatism," a focus on what works or what seems useful rather than on uncompromising principles. Here we once again see a difference in flavor from other traditions. The very word "compromise" is a dirty word in many Christian circles. Some might stereotype a pragmatist as someone who either does not understand theory or who does not have the courage of will to stick to his or her principles. What we are suggesting here instead is that the theory of the person who condemns us is in fact incorrect, as are some key principles. The nature of love, the key principle, is to compromise on everything but the most central principles when it is appropriate. For God, people trump rules.
This line of thought leads us to the question of absolute truth. Does the pragmatic, Wesleyan tradition believe in absolute truth? ...
Friday, December 03, 2010
God Looks on the Heart 1
In 1 Samuel, when God is directing Samuel to anoint David king, Samuel first sees David's brother Eliab and thinks that surely he is the one to be king. God's response is a text from which Wesleyans have often preached: "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7, NRSV). People look at outward appearance; God looks at the heart.
The Wesleyan tradition is not primarily oriented around what we as Christians believe, although beliefs are important. Actions are also very important to our tradition, but even here, the Wesleyan tradition at its best is not primarily focused on behavior. At its best, the Wesleyan tradition is focused on the heart rather than the head or the hands.
And rightly so. Jesus himself in Mark 7 affirms this heart orientation when he rejects a focus on Levitical purity in deference to the attitude of the heart (Mark 7:20-23). We also misunderstand Paul if we think his sense of God's standard of righteousness is really absolute. We do not rightly understand Paul if we think his definition of sin is anything short of absolute perfection. Sin for him is "whatever does not proceed from faith" (Rom. 14:23). In other words, sin is primarily a matter of intention rather than performance. [1]
John Wesley did not start out intending to found a church. In fact, he remained an Anglican minister till his death, even though he did ordain bishops for the newly formed United States of America. When he gave the "Methodist" movement clarity on what to believe, he did not write a "systematic theology," as John Calvin had two hundred years before. Instead, he bequeathed his followers a set of standard sermons. If this movement of lay leaders and Anglican ministers would preach in agreement with those sermons, then they were part of the movement.
Some might want to think less of these Methodists for such a practical orientation. Wesley himself ironically had the personality of a purist, an idealist. But his ideas also told him that the mission trumped his preferences. So Wesley no doubt hated preaching outside church walls, something that simply was not done in his day. His personality was such that he no doubt hated breaking this long standing understanding of where worship takes place. But when he did not have a pulpit available, he did the next best thing. He made an exception.
This is the ethos of the Wesleyan tradition, and we believe it flows nicely from Scripture. Notice the difference in emphasis from that of some other Christians today. One hears a lot today about how important absolutes are. But the nature of absolutes is not to make exceptions. Such was not Jesus' orientation, who was criticized for the exceptions he made. Such was not the nature of Wesley, who compromised on non-essentials so that the essentials could take place. Such rhetoric is foreign to the Wesleyan tradition, that wants to bring God's will to bear on this particular situation, not to force some supposed exceptionless rule on every situation...
[1] To be sure, one can also wrong another person unintentionally and a person can be unaware of sinful motives. But the starting point for understanding sin is with intent.
The Wesleyan tradition is not primarily oriented around what we as Christians believe, although beliefs are important. Actions are also very important to our tradition, but even here, the Wesleyan tradition at its best is not primarily focused on behavior. At its best, the Wesleyan tradition is focused on the heart rather than the head or the hands.
And rightly so. Jesus himself in Mark 7 affirms this heart orientation when he rejects a focus on Levitical purity in deference to the attitude of the heart (Mark 7:20-23). We also misunderstand Paul if we think his sense of God's standard of righteousness is really absolute. We do not rightly understand Paul if we think his definition of sin is anything short of absolute perfection. Sin for him is "whatever does not proceed from faith" (Rom. 14:23). In other words, sin is primarily a matter of intention rather than performance. [1]
John Wesley did not start out intending to found a church. In fact, he remained an Anglican minister till his death, even though he did ordain bishops for the newly formed United States of America. When he gave the "Methodist" movement clarity on what to believe, he did not write a "systematic theology," as John Calvin had two hundred years before. Instead, he bequeathed his followers a set of standard sermons. If this movement of lay leaders and Anglican ministers would preach in agreement with those sermons, then they were part of the movement.
Some might want to think less of these Methodists for such a practical orientation. Wesley himself ironically had the personality of a purist, an idealist. But his ideas also told him that the mission trumped his preferences. So Wesley no doubt hated preaching outside church walls, something that simply was not done in his day. His personality was such that he no doubt hated breaking this long standing understanding of where worship takes place. But when he did not have a pulpit available, he did the next best thing. He made an exception.
This is the ethos of the Wesleyan tradition, and we believe it flows nicely from Scripture. Notice the difference in emphasis from that of some other Christians today. One hears a lot today about how important absolutes are. But the nature of absolutes is not to make exceptions. Such was not Jesus' orientation, who was criticized for the exceptions he made. Such was not the nature of Wesley, who compromised on non-essentials so that the essentials could take place. Such rhetoric is foreign to the Wesleyan tradition, that wants to bring God's will to bear on this particular situation, not to force some supposed exceptionless rule on every situation...
[1] To be sure, one can also wrong another person unintentionally and a person can be unaware of sinful motives. But the starting point for understanding sin is with intent.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
What's in a Denomination? 3
The two beginning posts in this series are here first and here second.
________
So what is distinctive about the Wesleyan tradition and the Wesleyan Church? It is admittedly a little awkward even to ask this question. Is it not much more important for us to accentuate the things we hold in common with all Christians everywhere: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of us all" (Eph. 4:5-6)?
And indeed, we all do share most of our beliefs and practices in common with other Christians. We believe in God the Father Almighty, who made heaven and earth from nothing. We believe Jesus was God come to earth as a human like the rest of us, except without sin. We believe he rose bodily from the dead and that we will too. These are common Christian beliefs, the faith of the church universal. We believe that if we truly love God and love our fellow human, we have met all God's expectations.
Nevertheless, despite how much we have in common, identity is most clearly defined in what is different, in our distinctives. What is distinctive about the Wesleyan tradition, especially at this point in history? These may not be completely unique among Christians, but a particular mix of convictions and emphases that helps you know our flavor, what might be different about us from some other places you might worship or train.
The following pages lay out a few areas where the Wesleyan tradition has a flavor that differs from some other traditions. First, we tend to be a "pietist" tradition, which means that we are more concerned about a person's devotion to God in heart and life than whether you have all your ideas straight. Ideas matter, but we do not think they are God's first order of business. We are thus primarily oriented around a person's intentions and how they play out in your life and living.
Secondly, our heritage is "Arminian." Basically, we do not believe that God forces anyone to accept or reject him and that potentially anyone might be saved. By the same token, God's grace to us requires faithfulness, such that those who turn their backs on God--even if they genuinely served him at one point--cannot ultimately be part of God's kingdom. In this age, we thus see God's love as a more dominant characteristic than his justice or judgment.
Thirdly, the impact of John Wesley in particular on our identity is quite optimistic about the extent to which God wants to transform both us as individuals and the world in general. We believe God can so thoroughly redeem an individual's heart that you can not only consistently make the right choices but that you can do it with delight. We also do not believe that, in most contexts today, we need wait until the kingdom of God to see society change. We believe in bringing good news to the poor and oppressed, what is often called "social justice" today. Our particular brand of Wesleyanism was formed as an abolitionist movement against slavery. We have ordained women since the late 1800s and believe a woman can take any role of leadership in the church.
Lastly, our particular brand of Wesleyanism received its most distinctive identity from the "revivalist" movements of the late 1800s and early 1900s. It thus shares with Pentecostal traditions an experiential emphasis on the Holy Spirit and his direction. Our parentage in revivalism gives us an openness to hearing the Bible beyond its original meaning and to a spontaneity in mission and worship. Like Wesley and so many revivalists, we are oriented around getting to the goal rather than on proper form or working out all the theoretical details. The Spirit is with us on the journey to provide guidance and course correction...
________
So what is distinctive about the Wesleyan tradition and the Wesleyan Church? It is admittedly a little awkward even to ask this question. Is it not much more important for us to accentuate the things we hold in common with all Christians everywhere: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of us all" (Eph. 4:5-6)?
And indeed, we all do share most of our beliefs and practices in common with other Christians. We believe in God the Father Almighty, who made heaven and earth from nothing. We believe Jesus was God come to earth as a human like the rest of us, except without sin. We believe he rose bodily from the dead and that we will too. These are common Christian beliefs, the faith of the church universal. We believe that if we truly love God and love our fellow human, we have met all God's expectations.
Nevertheless, despite how much we have in common, identity is most clearly defined in what is different, in our distinctives. What is distinctive about the Wesleyan tradition, especially at this point in history? These may not be completely unique among Christians, but a particular mix of convictions and emphases that helps you know our flavor, what might be different about us from some other places you might worship or train.
The following pages lay out a few areas where the Wesleyan tradition has a flavor that differs from some other traditions. First, we tend to be a "pietist" tradition, which means that we are more concerned about a person's devotion to God in heart and life than whether you have all your ideas straight. Ideas matter, but we do not think they are God's first order of business. We are thus primarily oriented around a person's intentions and how they play out in your life and living.
Secondly, our heritage is "Arminian." Basically, we do not believe that God forces anyone to accept or reject him and that potentially anyone might be saved. By the same token, God's grace to us requires faithfulness, such that those who turn their backs on God--even if they genuinely served him at one point--cannot ultimately be part of God's kingdom. In this age, we thus see God's love as a more dominant characteristic than his justice or judgment.
Thirdly, the impact of John Wesley in particular on our identity is quite optimistic about the extent to which God wants to transform both us as individuals and the world in general. We believe God can so thoroughly redeem an individual's heart that you can not only consistently make the right choices but that you can do it with delight. We also do not believe that, in most contexts today, we need wait until the kingdom of God to see society change. We believe in bringing good news to the poor and oppressed, what is often called "social justice" today. Our particular brand of Wesleyanism was formed as an abolitionist movement against slavery. We have ordained women since the late 1800s and believe a woman can take any role of leadership in the church.
Lastly, our particular brand of Wesleyanism received its most distinctive identity from the "revivalist" movements of the late 1800s and early 1900s. It thus shares with Pentecostal traditions an experiential emphasis on the Holy Spirit and his direction. Our parentage in revivalism gives us an openness to hearing the Bible beyond its original meaning and to a spontaneity in mission and worship. Like Wesley and so many revivalists, we are oriented around getting to the goal rather than on proper form or working out all the theoretical details. The Spirit is with us on the journey to provide guidance and course correction...
2.5 Million Dollar Gift to Wesley Seminary
The family that owns Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. has made a $2.5 million commitment to Indiana Wesleyan University for a new building that will house Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University.
The IWU Board of Trustees, at a meeting in October, approved construction of the 21,000-square-foot seminary building that would include classrooms, faculty offices and a multi-purpose gathering place for students to study and fellowship. The university is pursuing additional funding for the building, which is estimated to cost $7 million. Construction of the seminary building could begin as early as spring of 2011.
“We are pleased to assist Indiana Wesleyan with its new seminary building because of our family’s passion and vision to see universities train young men and women in the word of God,” said Tyler Green, Ministries Coordinator for Hobby Lobby Stores. Tyler Green is the grandson of David and Barbara Green, the founders and owners of Hobby Lobby Stores. Tyler Green and his wife, Kristin, are IWU graduates. Hobby Lobby Stores, a private company based in Oklahoma City, operates 457 stores nationwide. The company was founded in 1972.
“We are grateful not only for this generous gift but also for the friendship that has developed in recent years between the Green family and IWU,” said IWU President Henry Smith. “Barbara Green, because of her business expertise and her passion for ministry, has been an invaluable member of the IWU Board of Trustees.”
“This gift is a double blessing,” said Dr. Wayne Schmidt, Seminary vice president. “Its generosity makes our facility a reality, and the Green family so wonderfully represents that which we value. The Seminary already is becoming known for its innovation and expansion in order to meet the needs of those it serves.”
We're very grateful to the Green family for their continued investment in the university and now in the seminary. Thanks always to God as well for his continued gifts!
The IWU Board of Trustees, at a meeting in October, approved construction of the 21,000-square-foot seminary building that would include classrooms, faculty offices and a multi-purpose gathering place for students to study and fellowship. The university is pursuing additional funding for the building, which is estimated to cost $7 million. Construction of the seminary building could begin as early as spring of 2011.
“We are pleased to assist Indiana Wesleyan with its new seminary building because of our family’s passion and vision to see universities train young men and women in the word of God,” said Tyler Green, Ministries Coordinator for Hobby Lobby Stores. Tyler Green is the grandson of David and Barbara Green, the founders and owners of Hobby Lobby Stores. Tyler Green and his wife, Kristin, are IWU graduates. Hobby Lobby Stores, a private company based in Oklahoma City, operates 457 stores nationwide. The company was founded in 1972.
“We are grateful not only for this generous gift but also for the friendship that has developed in recent years between the Green family and IWU,” said IWU President Henry Smith. “Barbara Green, because of her business expertise and her passion for ministry, has been an invaluable member of the IWU Board of Trustees.”
“This gift is a double blessing,” said Dr. Wayne Schmidt, Seminary vice president. “Its generosity makes our facility a reality, and the Green family so wonderfully represents that which we value. The Seminary already is becoming known for its innovation and expansion in order to meet the needs of those it serves.”
We're very grateful to the Green family for their continued investment in the university and now in the seminary. Thanks always to God as well for his continued gifts!
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
What's in a Denomination? 2
The first post in this series is here. Although my verbosity may need edited, my intention is that this would be translated and used as an introduction to Wesley Seminary at IWU in Spanish, perhaps also for the Anglo students as well.
_____________
Denominations are not particularly popular these days, and understandably so. At least in some parts of the Western world, the individual is more empowered than ever. The idea of a bureaucracy or hierarchy dictating what you must believe or how you must behave is less and less attractive. Veils of secrecy have also come down, revealing how spiritually ordinary, even inferior many Christian leaders are. We hear of prominent Christian leaders having affairs or priests sexually abusing children. In the "Information Age," things that used to be hidden all too easily come to light.
In my own pilgrimage, I used to hold ministers in much higher regard until I actually became one. Then as I studied and I became a scholar, I realized that even those who made recommendations on denominational articles of religion and codes of practice were also individuals just like me. I came to the conclusion that it was the charge of a minister that is sacred, the office of a minister, as it were. And the beliefs and practices of denominations represent the convictions and commitments of a particular group of Christians, a sweet smelling offering to God rather than the final answer on absolute truth.
So I have come to believe that denominations can be servants of God as well as individuals, means of grace to those within their reach, if their leaders and participants have the right spirit, if they have the right perspective on their place in the universal church. We sometimes speak of the "invisible church" to get at the truth that God's church cannot be identified with any one church or denomination. Individuals within the Roman Catholic Church, in this view, are part of the invisible church, but the Roman Catholic Church is not the same as the church catholic, for the church catholic includes all true believers in all times, all places, and all churches.
At the same time, language of the invisible church is only a proverb for one side of the truth. An equally true proverb is that there is no such thing as an invisible church. The true church of God is always visible. That is to say, God's people meet together and can be seen together visibly. The visible church does not have to be in a dedicated church building. Many if not most of the earliest believers met in houses.
But there is no such thing as a lone Christian. The very notion of the "body of Christ" implies believers in connection with other believers in local assembly. In fact, this is what the word "church" means in Greek, an assembly. You do not have to meet in assembly every week to stay in Christian community. Yes, you can experience God as an individual in a boat on a lake. But your spiritual vibrancy will fade away if you do not connect for long. Intentional removal of oneself from the body of Christ is a path away from the head of the body, Christ...
_____________
Denominations are not particularly popular these days, and understandably so. At least in some parts of the Western world, the individual is more empowered than ever. The idea of a bureaucracy or hierarchy dictating what you must believe or how you must behave is less and less attractive. Veils of secrecy have also come down, revealing how spiritually ordinary, even inferior many Christian leaders are. We hear of prominent Christian leaders having affairs or priests sexually abusing children. In the "Information Age," things that used to be hidden all too easily come to light.
In my own pilgrimage, I used to hold ministers in much higher regard until I actually became one. Then as I studied and I became a scholar, I realized that even those who made recommendations on denominational articles of religion and codes of practice were also individuals just like me. I came to the conclusion that it was the charge of a minister that is sacred, the office of a minister, as it were. And the beliefs and practices of denominations represent the convictions and commitments of a particular group of Christians, a sweet smelling offering to God rather than the final answer on absolute truth.
So I have come to believe that denominations can be servants of God as well as individuals, means of grace to those within their reach, if their leaders and participants have the right spirit, if they have the right perspective on their place in the universal church. We sometimes speak of the "invisible church" to get at the truth that God's church cannot be identified with any one church or denomination. Individuals within the Roman Catholic Church, in this view, are part of the invisible church, but the Roman Catholic Church is not the same as the church catholic, for the church catholic includes all true believers in all times, all places, and all churches.
At the same time, language of the invisible church is only a proverb for one side of the truth. An equally true proverb is that there is no such thing as an invisible church. The true church of God is always visible. That is to say, God's people meet together and can be seen together visibly. The visible church does not have to be in a dedicated church building. Many if not most of the earliest believers met in houses.
But there is no such thing as a lone Christian. The very notion of the "body of Christ" implies believers in connection with other believers in local assembly. In fact, this is what the word "church" means in Greek, an assembly. You do not have to meet in assembly every week to stay in Christian community. Yes, you can experience God as an individual in a boat on a lake. But your spiritual vibrancy will fade away if you do not connect for long. Intentional removal of oneself from the body of Christ is a path away from the head of the body, Christ...
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Launching the MDIV in Spanish
The greatest strength of IWU is its "can do" spirit, its eagerness to innovate. It has been its orientation this last decade. IWU isn't perfect. It isn't necessarily the first adopter. There's plenty of room for improvement. Just because it is forward looking on this venture here today does not mean it will be on that issue or in the future.
But, man, what a ride it's been this last decade!
The latest instance is the launch of the MDIV entirely in Spanish this January, after just a year and a half as a seminary. It's been quite a rush, with everyone in a flurry to get webpages and data systems in place, flipping the Spanish switch in Blackboard. We've seen the future in Google Translate. Man, it's not perfect but did you know you can set Google automatically to translate your incoming emails into English!
There's a whole philosophy at work here that I hope one day we'll give full expression to. It's a pragmatist philosophy. It's "we learn by doing." It's "truth rises from the particulars rather than truth as the playing out of universals." It's "truth is closely related to what works and systems of truth should correspond closely to the presenting data of reality." The philosophical cloud brings to mind terms like pragmatism, Aristotle, empiricism, Occam, Wittgenstein, non-foundationalism, critical realism, etc. It seems on an opposite end from Platonism, rationalism, presuppositionalism, foundationalism, fundamentalism.
It's the internet (statistically generated paths rather than pre-planned ones). It's networking rather than top down hierarchy. It's a Wikipedia that is mostly right and generated overnight rather than a project planned out over ten years. It's Google translate that is based on a statistical model--probability--rather than a program in which a fluent expert sits down and tries to program a dictionary. It's learn what you need as you need it (and thus remember it) rather than learn the entire system and only then move to application (after you've largely forgotten it or never really learned it in the first place). It's you almost always learn it a little wrongly first and then only later refine your understanding.
In short, Erasmus wins.
I'm sure I'll blog more on the Spanish MDIV in the days to come. This post didn't even start out about this.
But, man, what a ride it's been this last decade!
The latest instance is the launch of the MDIV entirely in Spanish this January, after just a year and a half as a seminary. It's been quite a rush, with everyone in a flurry to get webpages and data systems in place, flipping the Spanish switch in Blackboard. We've seen the future in Google Translate. Man, it's not perfect but did you know you can set Google automatically to translate your incoming emails into English!
There's a whole philosophy at work here that I hope one day we'll give full expression to. It's a pragmatist philosophy. It's "we learn by doing." It's "truth rises from the particulars rather than truth as the playing out of universals." It's "truth is closely related to what works and systems of truth should correspond closely to the presenting data of reality." The philosophical cloud brings to mind terms like pragmatism, Aristotle, empiricism, Occam, Wittgenstein, non-foundationalism, critical realism, etc. It seems on an opposite end from Platonism, rationalism, presuppositionalism, foundationalism, fundamentalism.
It's the internet (statistically generated paths rather than pre-planned ones). It's networking rather than top down hierarchy. It's a Wikipedia that is mostly right and generated overnight rather than a project planned out over ten years. It's Google translate that is based on a statistical model--probability--rather than a program in which a fluent expert sits down and tries to program a dictionary. It's learn what you need as you need it (and thus remember it) rather than learn the entire system and only then move to application (after you've largely forgotten it or never really learned it in the first place). It's you almost always learn it a little wrongly first and then only later refine your understanding.
In short, Erasmus wins.
I'm sure I'll blog more on the Spanish MDIV in the days to come. This post didn't even start out about this.
FOX: "Bailout clipped taxpayers for $25 Billion"...
If you can't see, I'm smiling. This FOX news article is about the fact that the current estimate for what the TARP bailout will cost the American people in the end is $25 billion. The initial payout was $700 billion and the current final tally is half a previous estimate that was itself considered overly optimistic.
So what I'm smiling at is FOX's begrudging wording of the news in the worse way possible. The news is that Bush/Obama's bailouts saved the economy and quickly stabilized the world economy for way, way less than anyone hoped. The news is that Bush and Obama's decision was the right one and that FOX and the Tea Party were wrong on this one.
But I will take the faint praise of the FOX article anyway: "The bailout fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, became hugely unpopular with the public and in Congress. Advocates and even some critics, however, credit it for stabilizing the financial sector in the wake of Wall Street's meltdown in 2008." Read between the lines: even economists who oppose the TARP bailout recognize that it stabilized the financial sector.
The anger of the American people, at least on this particular subject, was misplaced, based on ignorance, and fanned by conservative rabble rousers who were wrong, at least on this one.
So what I'm smiling at is FOX's begrudging wording of the news in the worse way possible. The news is that Bush/Obama's bailouts saved the economy and quickly stabilized the world economy for way, way less than anyone hoped. The news is that Bush and Obama's decision was the right one and that FOX and the Tea Party were wrong on this one.
But I will take the faint praise of the FOX article anyway: "The bailout fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, became hugely unpopular with the public and in Congress. Advocates and even some critics, however, credit it for stabilizing the financial sector in the wake of Wall Street's meltdown in 2008." Read between the lines: even economists who oppose the TARP bailout recognize that it stabilized the financial sector.
The anger of the American people, at least on this particular subject, was misplaced, based on ignorance, and fanned by conservative rabble rousers who were wrong, at least on this one.
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