My Right Foot

Some people are said to have two left feet. I suppose that means that maybe they can't dance or are clumsy or maybe it means something I haven't yet figured out.

I can't dance. I have a clumsy heart and myopic vision of life so much of the time. There is so much I haven't yet figured out. However, I do know this: I have a right foot,... but it's not on my body, at least not literally. So you have two left feet Mike? No, I have one left foot AND a right foot that is integral to my walking through life,... but resides at a different address in Lincoln. What? You're not making any sense. I know. I don't much of the time... but keep reading. 

My right foot is my good friend for whom I have given endless thanks in my prayers this morning: Dr. Brad Riddle who is a trained counselor here in Lincoln, but for a long time before that he was an Assemblies of God pastor and continues to be ordained and licensed as an AG pastor. Brad and I have a friendship that began through a local pastors' prayer group a number of years ago when he was in the pastorate and our friendship continues to deepen and grow.

Now, what some of you may find odd is that I am a "noncharismatic" PCA pastor whose doctrinal standard the Westminster Confession of Faith comes right out and says in chapter 1 that "the former ways" of God revealing himself (through his prophets and writers of Scripture) have now "ceased." In fact, I remember a story that was told a number of years ago at a PCA church-planting conference by Joseph "Skip" Ryan (someone I admire a lot by the way): when Skip was younger, he told his mentor Dr. Kennedy Smartt (one of the founding fathers of the PCA) that he had met a few people who might be interested in helping him plant a church (long before the rigorous tools and blessings of personality inventories and church-planting assessment centers had been established in the PCA). Well, Dr. Smartt had one question for Skip, "son, are there any 'charismats' in your group?" Skip responded, "no Dr. Smartt, there are not." Dr. Smartt responded by saying, "Well, then, go to it boy!"

So PCA folks have always tended to an uneasy relationship with charismatic folks, to say the least (and probably vice versa as I would imagine). Yet, God in His infinite mercy and grace has given to me a trusted friend and co-laborer in the Kingdom: Brad. Brad is my right foot. I think you'll get what I am clumsily saying as I quote some from Richard Lovelace and his classic 1979 work, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal:

"The interrelationship between reformation of doctrine and structures and spiritual revitalization in the church is important and complex. While these two factors can at times occur separately, they are alternate moves like the footsteps of a walking man. Reformation grows out of awakened spiritual interest, and spiritual renewal seldom persists long without continuing reformation. This suggests that God has chosen to bless his church with the fulness of the Holy Spirit on the condition of its moving towards certain vital norms of health and witness" (Lovelace, p. 52).

"We need a 'unified field theory' which conserves and consolidates all the values in the different groups and parties while avoiding their errors and imbalances, which enables the pentecostal and nonpentecostal to affirm one another as Spirit-filled Christians with valid but differing spiritual gifts and which unites socially concerned Christians with those burdened for the destinies of individuals on a common basis in the redemptive work of Christ" (Lovelace, pp. 58-59).

Brad is my good friend who sometimes visits us on Sunday mornings, almost always with his dear wife Judy. Brad always "endures and receives" from my long-winded sermons, often about the vital importance of a Calvinistic understanding of the Scriptures- this is much of what he receives from me. So if this is my "gift" to Brad, what do I receive from him? Well, "mainly" wisdom and encouragement in the Lord. I give him doctrine; he gives me wisdom- not exactly a fair trade, huh? Following my sermons, there's almost always the e-mail a day or two later along these lines, "good job pastor, was truly blessed, thanks for the time of worship, etc." And then whenever I am with him, Brad usually opens a story of the Bible in a way I had not thought about but needed greatly in that moment. 

I'm pretty sure my right foot slows down to keep pace with the clumsy left foot, but as they move together in harmony, there seems to open the marvelous hope of a pathway to genuine reformation, renewal and revival in the church and world.

Memorial Day Meditation, by Steven Garber

"A daddy and his daughter"

A daddy and his daughter, on Memorial Day—I awaken this morning remembering. The son and the grandson of men who served in the first wars of the 20th-century, now my son is in the Army of the 21st-century, deployed for a year to the Sinai Peninsula. A captain and a veterinarian, his work is to make sure that the food the troops eat is healthy; he has a master’s in public health too. And his baby daughter is here in Washington, just today moving out of their Capitol Hill condominium with her mommy. On Saturday she will make her first flight, joining her daddy in the Middle East for a couple of weeks—and then he will come back in July, be here for a month, and then the three of them will move to Sicily, for another tour but all together finally. So I sigh for them, am glad for them, and am proud of him.

The Vision of Wendell Berry, by Sean Lucas

http://seanmichaellucas.blogspot.com/2006/09/post-200-creator-creation-community.html

Makoto Fujimura: The function of art

"The church needs the arts, not so there will be opportunities for more artists in the churches, but for the sake of the gospel."  -Makoto Fujimura

http://faithandleadership.com/qa/makoto-fujimura-the-function-art?page=0,0

Back from St. Louis

I turned forty last Sunday and then left for St. Louis for my D.Min. co-hort meeting the next morning on Monday May 23rd to return to Lincoln yesterday on Friday May 27th. There were six D.Min. students, two instructors and multiple conversation partners we participated with throughout the week.

The students were Warren Mayer who is an I.T. guy who works at the journalism department at the University of Missouri; Jay Simmons who is a pastor of a downtown church in St. Louis called South City Church; Richard Vise who has been on staff with Reformed University Ministries at the University of Auburn for over ten years; Cristano DeSousa who is a Navy Chaplain; Don Johnson who is a pastor of Hanna City Presbyterian Church in rural Illinois, just outside Peoria (also not the 80s icon you probably are thinking about at this point) and, finally, yours truly.

Our instructors were Steven Garber of the Washington Institute and Donald Guthrie of Covenant Seminary, the institution from which I am pursuing my degree.

Some of our conversation partners, often over skype and teleconference calling, were: Tom Nelson of Christ Community Church in Kansas City; Michael Williams of Covenant Seminary, author of Far as the Curse is Found; Amy Sherman, author, who works for a think tank called Center on Faith in Communities; Sean Lucas who is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg, Mississsippi; Ryan Laughlin of Covenant Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, partner with the Fellows Program that seeks to give college graduates a nine-month internship helping them to integrate faith and vocation; and a few others as well.

Basically we spent five days from 9am-5pm in conversation with one other, our instructors and our conversation partners; the reading we did served as material through which we interacted.

I'm going to try and articulate something that words may not be able to capture: perhaps only the imagination, perhaps your intuition as you read and as I try to explain.

If you have been a Christian for a long-time now (I've been one for over 21 years), I have a question. Have you ever walked through a moment when you felt like you were converted again, that you really hadn't understood the Gospel or the Holy Scriptures until that point (despite the fact that there is much that you HAD understood to that point about the love of God, the Gospel of Christ, Jesus and the Bible)? Have you ever walked through that moment understanding that God had "held" you for a very long time (in my case for the last 21 years tracing back to my conversion, ... from the vantage point of eternity, from "before the creation of the world"- Eph. 1:4), ... but that perhaps you were still unable to "see" a huge part of the Christian faith to that point in your life?

I walked through that moment as I walked into my 40s last week.

What do you know about John Newton? Perhaps that he penned the famous and much-loved hymn Amazing Grace? that he was a friend of William Wilberforce who worked hard for the abolition of slavery in Great Britain? that he was a slave owner converted to Christ? Steven Garber shared that from the best of his research, that it took Newton nearly 25 years following his conversion to Christ to come to the deep conviction that slavery was wrong. I wonder what that moment of "conversion" was like for Newton.... oh the patience and mercy of God.

Steven Garber asks this basic question in his book The Fabric of Faithfulness, what will give you a moral vision for life that is large enough to make sense of life? What does it mean to live as a responsible participant in a universe that God made? Garber uses the language that we live in a covenantal cosmos, one that God made with all sorts of opportunities and freedoms to participate in a way that acknowledges that God is God and that we are not. Think with me on the original instruction given to our first parents; they were free to eat of any tree in the Garden, save one and the reason they could not partake in that one tree was simple: because God is God and we are not. The mercy and grace of God was such that they could participate in any and every tree otherwise; however, they chose to shrug off the responsibility to live faithfully to what they knew to be true and everything descended into chaos and brokenness from that point forward. The early church father St. Augustine said that in Christ we are once again able not to sin, so the question that is before each of us as those who bear the image of God and especially for those who are now in Christ is this: what are you going to do with what you know? In the world that God made, how will you live responsibly towards Him, towards your neighbor and towards His creation?

Steven Garber talks about the crabs in Chesapeake Bay "crying out" after generations of overfishing. Now, there are certain days when crab-catching is not allowed, and those in other places like Denver, Co., who once upon a time could have crab anytime all the time, assuming willingness to pay the fair market value, now no longer can do so as the crabs have "cried out." You see, the wisdom that comes from the Great Economy (that which Wendell Berry calls the "Kingdom of God," the deepest of all realities, the world that really is there) now calls the "Lesser Economy" of the fishing industry in the Bay to account; this is how the world that God made... works.

I turned forty this last week- in some ways, I've passed the "formative years" Garber speaks of in his book as I am 18 years removed from the University years; however, in many other ways I'm like John Newton only now beginning to see a comprehensive vision of the moral fabric of my life and heart that is integrally connected to the warp and woof of the universe; and, not only am I so aware of how I am connected to the brokenness of it all, but I also hold forth the hope that as I await the restoration of all things, I very well might be a part of what is right about the coming of the Great Economy too- are you kidding me? I've cried a lot this week thinking about the size of that hope. Who I am in my heart matters- it matters to my wife, my children, my church, my community- it matters to the world and above all it matters to the One who made all things in the first place to matter.

No more pulling life apart and putting parts of it into little boxes friends. No more. Oh Lord have mercy on us. Have mercy.

Done... for Now

My reading list completed, roughly 80 pages of journal notes, ... as I like to say, now I sit around "popping bon bons and drinking cokes" :-). Actually, I travel to St. Louis in a couple of weeks and spend a week getting introduced to the various doctoral program participants, expectations of the program, what I will be doing from May until January 2012 when our co-hort gathers again; in SL, I will get a better sense of what we will be doing next with all this reading- life is often an adventure, isn't it? Oh, ... some have requested to see my reading list I have been working through, so here it is:

Berry, Wendell. That Distant Land. New York: Counterpoint, 2005.

Carson, D.A. Christ & Culture Revisted.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.

Cosden, Darrell. The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.

Garber, Steven. The Fabric of Faithfulness. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007.

Hall, Douglas John. Imaging God: Dominion as Stewardship. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Scott, 2004.

Volf, Miroslav. Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1991.

Wright, Christopher. The Mission of God’s People. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.

Placher, William. Callings: 20 Centuries of Christian Wisdom About Vocation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.

Smith, James K.A. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009.

Thanks for those who have followed the Bloggy Blog so far- prayers are appreciated. If I come up with something to say from now until late May, I'll let you know. Otherwise, let me sign off (for a little while) with one of my favorite quotes from Al Wolters in his book Creation Regained: "God doesn't create junk and He doesn't junk what He creates."

The Missional Challenge, Wright p. 286

... the challenge remains of peoples as yet unreached by any form of gospel message, of languages with no portion of the Bible in them yet, of millions of oral communicators who need to hear the Word in a form that does not rely on the written Word, of peoples whose only exposure to the Christian message has come along with horrendous violence done to them by nations they have been told are "Christian", or with a lurid immorality they cannot help but associate with the same Western cultures.

The missional challenge of reaching the ends of the earth with the gospel, so that the whole earth may be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, faces us still with all its diversity and complexity. The evangelization of the world, in the fullest sense of both the words in that phrase, remains as urgent a priority for the church as it was when Jesus laid it as a mandate on his disciples before his ascension.

The earth, of course, is a globe that has no "ends". From a missional perspective, the "ends of the earth" are as likely to be found in your own street as far across the sea. The missional task of the church, in ... sending, going and supporting- is as necessary for local as for international mission.

The Great Commission Beyond Evangelism, Wright p. 284

The version of the Great Commission at the end of Matthew's gospel tends to have pride of place. It has certainly functioned as a driving text in the modern missionary movement. Unfortunately it has not always been read for all its content.

In another of those sad dichotomies,... the Great Commission has sometimes been portrayed exclusively as evangelistic mandate to go and preach the gospel everywhere, when actually the single and central imperative verb in the text is "make disciples". Now of course, making disciples requires evangelism, and the first added instruction, or step in the process of making disciples is "baptizing them". Baptism presupposes the preaching of the gospel and a response to it of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the second added instruction- the Great Commission Line Three, as we might call it- is "teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you". And such teaching is of the essence of discipling. 

Basically, the New Testament was written by disciples, for disciples, to make disciples. Yet our emphasis has often been on getting decisions, claiming converts, making Christians. Actually the word Christian occurs three times in the New Testament, whereas the word "disciple" occurs 269 times. 

The Great Commission, along with all the practice of the New Testament church, tells us there is mission beyond evangelism....

We should not treat the Great Commission as a ticking clock, just waiting for the last people group to "hear" the gospel before the Lord is, as it were, permitted to return. That kind of thinking has transformed it into a "job to complete", "an unfinished task". But with its command to disciples to make disciples, it is a self-replicating mandate that will never "complete"- not in the sense that we can never reach all the nations (we can and we should), but in the sense that the making of disciples, and the rediscipling of those who have formerly been evangelized, are tasks that go on through multiple lives and generations.

Cosmic Dimensions of the Gospel, Wright p. 273

We have tended to separate the individual from the cosmic and corporate dimensions of the gospel, and then we tend to prioritize the first. That is, we put individual salvation and personal evangelism at the centre of all our efforts (and, of course, personal evangelism is an essential part of our commitment). But Paul's order of the gospel message in Ephesians and Colossians 1:15-26 is creation (all things in heaven and earth), created by Christ, sustain by Christ and redeemed by Christ); then, church (with Christ as head); then individual Gentile believers- "and you also".

All of this, says Paul, has been "reconciled through the blood of Christ shed on the cross". So we are not saved out of creation, but as a part of creation that God has redeemed through Christ. The church is not just a container for souls until they get to heaven, but the living demonstration of the unity that is God's intention for the whole creation.

The bad result of breaking up this "whole" is that Christians who are evangelized by truncated versions of the biblical gospel have little interest in the world, the public square, God's plan for society and the nations, and even less understanding of God's intention for creation itself. The scale of our mission efforts, therefore, is in danger of being a lot smaller than the scope of the mission of God.

Creation Care and Justice, Wright p. 270

We must exercise justice, because environmental action is a form of defending the weak against the strong, the defenceless against the powerful, the violated against the attacker, the voiceless against the stridency of the greedy. These too are features of the character of God as expressed in his exercise of justice. Psalm 145 includes God's provision for all his creatures in its definition of his righteousness as well as his love (Ps. 145:13-17). In fact, it places God's care for creation in precise parallel with his liberating and vindicating acts of justice for his people- thus bringing the creational and redemptive traditions of the Old Testament together in beautiful harmony.

So it is not surprising, then, that when the Old Testament comes to define the marks of the righteous person, it does not stop at a practical concern for poor and needy humans (though that is, of course, the dominant note). It is true that "the righteous care about justice for the poor" (Prov. 29:7). But the sage also makes the warmhearted observation that the "righteous care for the needs of their animals" (12:10). Biblical mission is as holistic as biblical righteousness.

Creation Care and Obedience, Wright p. 269

"Love the Lord your God" is the first and greatest commandment. Now in human experience, to love someone means that you care for what belongs to them. To trash someone else's property is incompatible with any claim to love that other person.... how emphatically the Bible affirms that the earth is God's property, and more specifically, that it belongs to Christ, who made it, redeemed it and is heir to it. To take good care of the earth, for Christ's sake, is surely a fundamental dimension of the calling on all God's people to love him. It seems inexplicable to me that there are some Christians who claim to love and worship God, to be disciples of Jesus, and yet have no concern for the earth that bears his stamp of ownership. They do not care about the abuse of the earth and indeed, by their wasteful and overconsumptive lifestyles, they contribute to it.

Redeemed Work

"Do you see your work as nothing more than a necessary evil, or only as the context for evangelistic opportunity? Or do you see it as a means of glorifying God through participating in his purposes for creation and therefore having intrinsic value? How do you relate what you do in your daily work to the Bible's teaching about human responsibility in creation and society" (The Mission of God's People, p. 224)?

The Scope of Redemption, pp. 226-7 of Wright

A common Christian assumption is that all that happens here on earth is nothing more than temporary and transient. Human history is nothing more than the vestibule for eternity, so it doesn't really matter very much. To this negative comparison is added the idea, drawn from a mistaken interpretation of the language of 2 Peter 2, that we are headed for total obliteration of the whole earth and indeed of all the physical creation. With such a prospect, what eternal value can possible attach to the work we do in the local or globalized public square here and now? But the Bible presents a different prospect. God plans to redeem all that he has made ...

Of course the Bible presents the public square, human life lived in society and the marketplace, as riddled with sin, corruption, greed, injustice and violence. That can be seen at local and global dimensions, from sharp practices at the market stall or corner shop, to the massive distortions and inequalities of international trade. As Christians, we need a radical understanding of sin in its public dimensions, and we need to see part of our mission as being called to confront that prophetically in the name of Christ. But for God, the corruption of the public square is not a reason to vaporize it, but to purge and reform it.

Isaiah 65:17-25 is a glorious portrayal of the new creation- a new heavens and a new earth. It looks forward to human life that is no longer subject to weariness and decay, in which there will be fulfillment in the family and work, in which the curses of frustration and injustice will be gone forever, in which there will be close and joyful fellowship with God, and in which there will be environmental harmony and safety. The whole life- personal life, family life, public life, animal life- will be redeemed and restored to God-glorifying productiveness and human-fulfilling enjoyment.

The New Testament carries this vision forward in the light of the redemption achieved by Christ through the cross, and especially in light of the resurrection. Paul comprehensively and repeatedly includes "all things" not only in what God created through Christ, but what he plans to redeem through Christ. It is clear in this text that "all things" means the whole created order in both descriptions of the work of Christ (Col. 1:16-20). Because of that plan of cosmic redemption, the whole of creation can look forward to the future as a time of liberation and freedom from frustration (Rom. 8:19-21)....

And the final vision of the whole Bible is not of our escaping from the world to some ethereal paradise, but rather of God coming down to live with us once again in a purged and restored creation, in which all the fruit of human civilization will be brought to the city of God (Rev. 21:24-27, building on Isa. 60).

"The Gospel of the Kingdom," pp. 187-8 of Wright

How many years had that Scripture (Isa. 61:1-3) been read in that synagogue? How many times would the local rabbi had encouraged the people to go on praying and trusting for the day when the one of whom it spoke would come and do those things? May he come soon, O Lord! Bring us this good news in our lifetime. Perhaps tomorrow ...

Then one Sabbath morning, the local carpenter's son shocked the whole town with the electric word, "Today!" No more waiting. What you have hoped and longed for all these years is here, in the one standing before you. The prophetic voice of the ancient text has become the living voice of the one now reading it to you. "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21; italics added).

And the things the text spoke of were exactly the things that Jesus pointed to as evidence that the kingdom of God had indeed come. God was reigning in and through Jesus, through his words and his works: "If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" (Luke 11:20). When John the Baptist wondered if perhaps he had backed the wrong messiah, Jesus pointed to the same things, this time supported by yet another text of Isaiah (Isa. 35:5-6), but adding the significant words, "and the good news is proclaimed to the poor" (Lit., "and the poor are being 'evangelized'"' Matt. 11:4-5).

And that reign of God, inaugurated by Jesus and indeed embodied in him, continues to work within human history in the ways that Jesus said it would- like seed growing, like yeast rising, like fish being caught. The kingdom of God is at work in and through the lives of those who have "entered" it, that is, in whose lives God is reigning through repentance and faith in Christ, in those who are committed to the ways of Jesus Christ by submitting to him as Lord, those who seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, in those who hunger and thirst for justice....

The gospel, then, is fundamentally good news of the reign of God.

What is the Gospel? ... Not So Fast ...

"What exactly is the gospel that lies at the core of our mission? It is the good news of what God has done through Jesus Christ for the redemption of the world. But what is the scale and scope of God’s redemption? … One of the dangers with a word like 'gospel' is that we all love it so much (rightly), and want to share it passionately (rightly again), that we don’t take time to explore its full biblical content…. We will find that the Bible itself will correct our tendency to reduce the gospel to a solution to our individual sin problem and a swipe card for heaven’s door, and replace that reductionistic impression with a message that has to do with the cosmic reign of God in Christ that will ultimately eradicate evil from God’s universe (and solve our individual sin problem too, of course)" (Wright, The Mission of God's People, p. 31).

The Mission of God's People, by Chris Wright

I have already begun quoting from Wright's book as I have been working through it; however, I think there is benefit to look at some of his thoughts in the beginning of his book to get a sense of where he is going with things. Here Wright gets us to think intentionally about how we think when the word "mission" is mentioned. These are some of the foundational questions he plans to engage in his book:

… mission is [often thought by Christians as something] either that specially commissioned Christians manage to do full-time, if they can get enough “support” to do so, or something that other Christians (the vast majority) do in odd moments of time they have to spare from the necessity of having to work for a living. Maybe they can fit a “mission trip” into a vacation, or go on a “church mission” over the weekend.

But what about the rest of life? What about the rest of the “world”- the world of work, the public arena, the world of business, education, politics, medicine, sports, and the like? In what sense is that world the arena of the mission of God’s people, and what does such mission consist of? Is it only the moments of evangelistic opportunity in that world, or can our work itself participate in God’s mission?

To push the question further, do the people of God have any responsibility to the rest of human society in general beyond the imperative of evangelism? What content do we put into biblical phrases like being a blessing to the nations, or seeking the welfare of the city, or being the salt of the earth or light of the world, or doing good (one of the commonest expressions used by Paul and Peter)? Do these concepts figure in our biblical theology of mission?

A Whole Gospel

"It is hard to imagine a sequence of events more comprehensive in effect than the story of the exodus presented to us in the book of that name. The texts portray at least four dimensions of the bondage that Israel suffered in Egypt- political, economic, social and spiritual- and goes on to show how God redeemed them in every one of these dimensions" (Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God's People, p. 99).

"Political, economic, social, spiritual- all of these dimensions are integral to the Bible's first great act of redemption. God did whatever it would take to rescue Israel out of whatever form their bondage took" (Wright, p. 101).

"The New Testament presents the cross and resurrection of Jesus as the grand exodus par excellence- the crowning accomplishment of God's redeeming will and power, his victory over all powers, human and satanic, that oppose him and oppress his people" (Wright, p. 111).

Bringing Good News to the Whole of Creation

In the last post, Wright said "our mission must include being and bringing good news to the whole of creation." What are some examples of this? Think of what we might call "creational structures" we see in the first couple chapters of the book of Genesis before the fall of humanity: marriage, stewardship of the environment [think of the idea of subduing the earth and caring for it... yard work anyone? :-) (see last post)], work (Adam was set in the garden to "work it"), parenthood (producing little "image-bearers" who will spread the light of God, His likeness, rule and reign throughout the earth) and implicit is the beginning of "culture-making," i.e. the employment of man-made items like tools that are used to mold, shape and order the earth after God's desire. Also implicit, culture-making is found in the expression of song and poetry as Adam expresses delight in the vision of his bride (Gen. 2:23... see similarities with Isa. 62:5b and Zeph 3:17). 

Things Eternal?

I remember a few years back hearing a line among evangelical people that "the only things that are eternal are God, His Word and souls," so that being the case our entire lives should focus in making Him known by proclaiming His Word by trying to evangelize as many people as possible. There was one book in particular that I remember reading that encouraged its reader to make sure and purchase a house that would require minimal yard work, so that one could focus in on the things that truly are eternal and matter. In a word, we should spend all our energy finding opportunity to "preach the gospel" and to save people from their sin. But is that true? Is that how we should spend all our energy and are those three things (God, His Word and souls) all that will continue on into eternity?

The final book I am working through, due before my May 23rd deadline, is Christopher J. H. Wright's The Mission of God's People. Wright writes this on p. 59, "... although it is gloriously true that sinners are saved through the cross of Christ, it is not actually the whole gospel or the whole achievement of the cross- not according to the New Testament itself." Quoting from Col. 1:15-23, Wright says:

Paul links Christ and creation in the most comprehensive way. Christ was there, of course, as the Son of God, even before creation existed (v. 17). Christ is the source of the creation of the universe (v. 16). Christ is beneficiary or heir of all creation ("the firstborn" [v. 15], "for him" [v. 16]). Christ sustains creation in existence (v. 17). Paul includes creation in the saving power of the cross. Christ has redeemed creation (v. 20). It is vital to see here that the blood of Christ, shed on the cross, is the means of the reconciliation of creation to God, not only of sinners. 

Wright concludes on pp. 60-61:

If, then the cross of Christ is good news for the whole creation, our mission must include being and bringing good news to the whole creation. So our care for creation is motivated not solely by the fact that it was created by God and we were commanded to look after it, but also by the fact that it has been redeemed by Christ, and we are to erect signposts towards its ultimate destiny of complete restoration in Christ. God's redemptive mission includes creation. Our mission involves participating in that redemptive work as agents of good news to creation, as well as to people.

Imaging God, by Douglas John Hall

 

Can I have a "do over"? In my last blogpost, I wrote that Hall's book didn't seem to me to have a "direct connection to my audience," so I chose not to blog about it. Well, ... I'd like to re-consider my decision. I will say this much, that as difficult as I found the read from a technical aspect, very few among my audience will find the read (and cost of the book itself- $26 on Amazon... ouch!) worthwhile. So, in that sense I suppose, there isn't a "direct connection." In addition to the technical aspects of the book, I also listened to Hall as he brought into question the entire interpretative process the western church has undergone for the last 2000 years resulting in Hall's mind, in a neglect of a robust understanding of the created order and God's purpose for it. As Hall writes near the end of his book, "A faith that is theocentric is at the same time anthropocentric and geocentric…. we mirror the sovereignty of the divine love in our stewardship of earth" (p. 200). As someone who has a high view of God's providential action in history and someone who essentially "trusts" that there is much the Church has gotten "right" over the years, this was a difficult critique for me to receive at first but as I kept reading (and praying), I found some fundamental value in Hall's writing; here's one of the things I found helpful ... 

I remember a number of years ago listening to a series of tapes by R.C. Sproul on this term "theocentric" which means "God-centered." He made the case that evangelical people tended to be "anthropocentric" rather than "theocentric." Anthropocentric comes from the Greek word anthropos and means "man-centered." Sproul made the case for why, if you listen to evangelical praise choruses, they are often written in the 1st person, "I, me, us" rather than the 2nd and 3rd, "You, Thee, Lord." I appreciated Sproul getting me to think more intentionally about having a God-centered faith, rather than a man-centered faith. A few years later, I think some of my seminary professors brought a different kind of corrective; they helped me to see that we can become so God-centered, that we forget that there is a sense in which God Himself is "man-centered." Think Psalm 8:4- "what is man that you are mindful of him?" This was a great corrective to help me to remember that "God so loved the world" and also that Jesus Himself became a man (Jn. 1:14) for our salvation. I once again found a place in my theology for a healthy kind of anthropocentricism. Also, my seminary professors helped me "come back down to earth" so that I wasn't so "theocentric" so as to find value in being a jerk to others who didn't share my thoughts on God.

Now Hall brings a new idea to mind, to work into my theological paradigm, ... the notion of "geocentrism." What does it mean as a Christian person to care for God's created order (geo referring to the natural order), the world that God made or what Hall calls "extrahuman creation"? In our discussion on theocentrism vs. anthropocentrism, can we neglect or have we neglected entirely the geocentrism of God? Quoting from two authors named Birch and Rassmussen, Hall writes regarding Psalm 104:

God is praised as creator and all sorts of things in creation are enumerated as witnesses to God's glory as creator: the heavens, the seas, the valleys, the mountains, wild asses, cattle, trees, birds, goats, badger, moon, sun, and lions. Then in v. 23 almost casually it states, Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until the evening." Verses 27-30 then conclude of all God's creatures: These all look to thee, to give them their food in due season... 

Is the redemptive activity of God and the redemptive work of Christ directed and limited to the human? Many would say so, but it hardly seems possible biblically. Unless we see human life lived in a vacuum, redemption must involve the rest of nature as well because redemption is precisely God's effort to restore the whole network of relationships that have been broken by sin. This is why new creation is such a helpful image of God's redemptive work. pp. 170-71

Birch and Rassmussen then go on to discuss passages such as Isaiah 55:12-13, Romans 8:21, Colossians 1:15 and Isaiah 11:6-9.

Still Here

I haven't blogged for a little while but wanted you to know I'm still here. Three things happened to me recently: 1) I caught a liberating sense of approaching completion as I'm down to 1.25 books and about 400 pages, after having started in mid-Feb. with what was then a 2800-2900 page journey to be completed by my first D.Min. co-hort meeting May 23rd; 2) I found myself in a book for the degree program that didn't seem to have as direct a connection with my audience, so chose not to blog about it (if you want to know what book, Imaging God: Dominion as Stewardship, by Douglas John Hall; it's the 2nd book in my program so far that I have not blogged about); and 3) I got somewhat "distracted" as I started reading A Problem from Hell by Samantha Power about the history of U.S. policy towards global genocide. Given the subject, I won't call the Power book "pleasure reading," but it's been nice for the first time since mid-Feb. to read something of my own choosing. Then, again my good friend Harry Riggs likes to say, "books choose us." I was given the book after a conversation with my Ethiopian friend Zenebe Beyene who had just introduced me to a young man who lost both his parents in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Hopefully before too long, I'll have something more to share about my readings.

Callings, part 4 (and final part)

As Placher enters the "fourth historical period" that he calls "Christian Callings in a Post-Christian World, 1800-present," he notes that modern writers have given more attention to the notion of what Karl Marx called "alienated labor." If you have been following this blog, you might recall the notion was often used by Miroslav Volf. Whereas monastic life was viewed early on as a true call from God and all other forms of life and job fell short of the ideal, so the Protestant Reformation shifted thinking that every occupation could be a calling from God. However, the Protestant Reformation also had a tendency to "sanctify" ordinary work and life to the point that some writers began to question whether we should think of anything particularly unique or special about a Christian's calling. German Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer would later write about the "Cost of Discipleship" and the importance of obedience married to faith in the Christian life. Karl Barth wrote, "Protestantism successfully expelled monasticism by recalling the fact that klesis (calling) is the presupposition of all Christian existence. But it lost sight of the divine grandeur and purity of this idea which were always in some sense retained even by monasticism...." (p. 434). To put it bluntly, what's so special about a call from God when everyone has one whether sought out or not?

Nuance regarding jobs and calling grew as we entered an industrial and information age and much of society veered away from an agrarian society. As Placher writes:

Jobs can seem not only meaningless but actually destructive of our lives as Christians. Store clerks and computer programmers miss church because they have to work Sundays.... on average people work longer hours than they did a generation ago, and a long commute often adds to the length of the working day, with less time to spend with spouses and children, less time to be an active church member or an active community citizen. Corporate careers regularly involve multiple moves... parents and grandparents get left behind, to be visited only on rare occasions. In such a context, to urge people to think of their job as the call from God that gives their life meaning may be to push them in exactly the wrong direction, toward centering their lives ever more on jobs that already obsess them.  Callings, p. 327

Certain Christian writers like Jacques Ellul reacted to the Reformation idea of every job being a vocation, i.e. call from God. Ellul made the case for the Bible always speaking of a summons or special invitation to a particular task when using the language of calling. Work is necessary for survival but not as a “superfluous spiritual decoration” (p. 328). Our jobs do not give our lives meaning and the Bible never claims they do, so believed Ellul. American Baptist James Holloway wrote that we don’t know what the prophets and apostles did to earn a living because this wasn’t important to their calling from God; work is not a vocation (p. 328). Stanley Hauwerwas cautions us against making more of work than we should, that work is nothing more than “the means to survive, to be of service to others, and perhaps most of all, … gives us a way to stay busy” (p. 328). Even Miroslav Volf believed that the term “vocation” should be lifted from the Christian idea of work.

So much being written in recent years against the notion of “job as vocation,” Placher pushes back some by seeing there to be high value in many kinds of work but also that vocation can mean a lot of things for a lot of people. Early on priesthood and monastic life comprised an individual sense of call. At other times, like the ones in which we live, Christians have felt “called” to secular jobs or possibly to family life. As Placher writes, “We do not have to limit ‘vocation’ or ‘calling’ to one meaning and then vote it, in that sense, up or down” (p. 330). Job as vocation should stay on the list, but not as the only option. At the end of the day humans want to know, does my life have meaning and purpose?




For some of us, the center of the answer may lie in our jobs- from doctors curing patients to landscapers making the spaces in which people live a bit more beautiful. For others, our jobs will be meaningful primarily only in that they help us support our families, and it will be in the nurturing of a family that we find the core of our life’s vocation. For still others, a hobby may create a community and reward not found in a paid job. Still others may find the activities of their church the work that most gives meaning to their lives. Even on the job, some people may find the support and friendship they give their co-workers more significance than the doing of the job itself. Indeed, in an age when once again committed Christians in Europe and North America may find themselves a minority voice in their society, simply being publicly a Christian, as in the early church, may itself be an important calling…. These are not, moreover, brand new issues…. What should I do with my life? How can I know? Will I find something that gives my life a sense of purpose or meaning? Even through the context in which we ask such questions has grown ever more complex, the Christian tradition still provides us with a range of resources for thinking about how to answer them.  Callings, pp. 330-32

Ordinary Workers and Artists

I turn forty here in less than two months. I've lived enough to know some people who wanted to be artists but were told along the way, likely by a parent, that only the pursuit of a "real job" made practical sense. Having heeded the advice and having become “successful” in their practical pursuits, I've also watched these people entering their late 30s and into their 40s asking the "what if" question about their lives. Dorothy L. Sayers reflects on the incredible tension many feel looking for the search for meaning, yet instead finding themselves working in the “most monotonous and soul-killing kind of toil.” Sayers does this by reflecting on the difference between the “artist” and the “ordinary worker”:

The great primary contrast between the artist and the ordinary worker is this: the worker works to make money, so that he may enjoy those things in life which are not his work and which his work can purchase for him; but the artist makes money by his work in order that he may go on working. The artist does not say: “I must work in order to live”; but “I must contrive to make money so that I may live to work.” For the artist there is no distinction between work and living. His work is his life, and the whole of his life- not merely the material world about him, or the colors and sounds and events that he perceives, but also all his own personality and emotions, the whole of his Life- is the actual material of his work.

… There is a price paid for the artist’s freedom, as for all freedom. He, of all workers in the world, has the least economic security. The money value of his work is at the mercy of every wind of public opinion; …. Moreoever, he is taxed with a singular injustice; while the world pays tribute to his unworldliness by expecting him to place a great deal of his time, energy, and stock-in-trade at the disposal of the community without payment. The artist puts up with these disabilities because his way of life is not primarily rooted in economics. True, he often demands high prices for his work- but he wants the money not in order that he may stop working and go away and do something different, but in order that he may indulge in the luxury of doing some part of his work for nothing. “Thank heaven,” the artist will say, “I’ve made enough with that book, or play, or picture of mine, to take a couple of years off to do my own work”- which he probably means some book or play or picture which will cost him an immense amount of labor and pains and which he has very little chance of selling.… The actor, like other artists, passionately enjoys doing work for nothing or next to nothing if only he can afford to do it. And he never talks of himself as “employed”; if he is employed, he tells you that he is “working.”

… far too many people in this country seem to go about only half alive. All their existence is an effort to escape from what they are doing. And the inevitable result of this is a boredom, a lack of purpose, a passivity which eats life away at the heart and a disillusionment which prompts men to ask what life is all about, and complain, with only too much truth, that they can “make nothing of it.”

… the power that enables men to work with enthusiasm is a real conviction of the worth of their work. They will endure much if, like the artist, they passionately desire to see the job completed and to know that it is very good. But what are we to say about a civilization which employs so many of its workers in doing work which has no worth at all, work which no living man with a soul in him could desire to see, work which has nothing whatever to justify it, except the manufacture of employment and the creation of profits? That is the real vicious circle in which we are all enclosed. That is the real indictment we have to bring against a commercial age.  Callings, pp. 408-12 

Callings, part 3

As we move into the “third historical period” of the Reformation and beyond (1500-1800), Placher documents that we see a dramatic shift in thinking on vocation. To this point in history, the idea was that only clergy had a vocation or “call” from God and that ordinary people who worked ordinary jobs did not so much. The idea was that since to some degree we “work for our salvation”; therefore, only religious jobs truly contribute to this end; that being the case, only religious jobs “counted” as a genuine call from God. However, Martin Luther concluded after reading the Apostle Paul’s writings that salvation did not depend on what we do. Because we are saved purely by the grace of God who loves "sinners, evil persons, fools and weaklings"; therefore, we serve out of gratitude and thanksgiving. We can serve our neighbors simply to serve them, rather than worry so much about how we are helping towards our own salvation (p. 205). Luther argued vigorously that there was no need to enter a monastery or a convent to be an "uber Christian," rather we should remain in whatever station God has placed us and serve God right where we are. Placher writes that when Luther began the Reformation around 1520, between 6-10% of the general population of Germany were priests, monks and nuns; however, only a generation later, that number had dropped by 2/3rds. Monasteries and convents were almost entirely closed and the majority of clergy had married (p. 206). Luther wrote that every Christian has at least two vocations: 1) a spiritual calling (to become Christ’s) and 2) an external calling to a particular line of work. 

There were movements away from Luther’s position, for example the Peasants’ Revolt in Germany in 1525 and the stance of the Levellers in the 1640s who fought to abandon their ordinary occupations. While Luther’s work gave dignity to the ordinary citizen and his job, it also reinforced the existing social order. It became thought of as “sin” to leave the station in life or vocation God had given to a person. In some ways Luther’s teaching, while giving dignity to an ordinary person’s work, also resigned that person to accept their work as God’s call to obedience. To reject or leave the work, was therefore thought to be disobedience to God. This thinking was not accepted by all. While John Calvin agreed with Luther for the most part and warned against the human tendency to restlessness and discontentment with their vocations, nonetheless, Calvin advocated for some freedom of social motion from one job to another (p. 207). Other groups pursued more of a “radical Reformation” (p. 208). Groups like the Mennonites in Holland and North Germany and the Hutterites in Switzerland and Moravia pursued a communal life of simplicity. They viewed the government and the existing social order with suspicion, especially rejecting warfare in particular. Also, they only baptized adults, those who could make a clear commitment to Christ and rebaptized those who had been baptized as infants. These folks became known as “Anabaptists.” Meanwhile, most Catholics continued to think of vocation in terms of priesthood or monastic life and people like Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, Teresa of Ávila of Spain and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz of Mexico capably defended the values of monastic life. 

As the Reformation continued to spread over Europe, in the 1640s, some members of parliament the Puritans sought to simplify worship and raise moral standards in England. They joined parliament in deposing King Charles I (and eventually beheading him) and placed one of their generals Oliver Cromwell as “Lord Protector” over England. Parliament recruited men of lower and middle classes to form an army while the Puritans sought to reform the Church of England by replacing bishops with elected regional assemblies called “presbyteries.” Independents and Congregationalists wanted local autonomy for their congregations. Baptists wanted to purify the church further by baptizing only those who had made an adult commitment of faith and Quakers found guidance from the “inner light” of the Holy Spirit (p. 209). Religious diversity was significant at this time in England's history. After Cromwell died in 1658, Charles II, the son of Charles I, returned from exile in France in 1660 and reclaimed the throne; the Church of England was reestablished as well. Those who continued to seek to “purify the Church” went underground, suffered persecution or moved to the American colonies. 

Overall, the Puritans spent time encouraging others to look inward. While most Puritans thought themselves to stand in the Reformed tradition as founded by Calvin, they also tended to emphasize individual salvation more so than Calvin. Borrowing from the empiricist philosophy common in the 17th century, direct experience became the best way to “prove” the truth of something. So the Puritans as well as other groups like the Pietists of Germany spent a lot of time analyzing their “religious experience.” Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley spoke at length on the experience of their calling. However a different kind of challenge arose for those who had believed in the radical and free grace of God in Christ; Christians now began to utilize a particular kind of experience as the evidence that someone had been truly "called" by God (in the more general sense, i.e. converted). Some even began to view “success” in certain jobs as evidence of salvation and the idea of “vocation” shifted more and more to mean exclusively “job” (p. 210). The Reformers had sought to build the case that any job could be properly called a “vocation,” but in more recent times, Christians have grappled with the question of, to what extent their jobs should define their lives.

Callings, part 2

As Placher moves into the “second historical period” describing the shape of vocations in the Middle Ages (500-1500), we find that monastic life remains as the “ideal,” nonetheless there is a tremendous degree of nuance that develops in medieval thought, regarding the nature of "calling" on the lives of those who seek after “religious perfection.” For example, Benedict of Nursia lived in southern Italy around 500 and originally had withdrawn into a cave to live as a hermit. However, followers would soon gather around him and Benedict ends up becoming the founder of several monasteries drafting a “rule” to guide those living in his monasteries (not a small development as Benedict now discovers the "pleasure and joy" of fellowship). Placher writes, “By most modern standards, Benedict’s rule demands a very tough life, but what struck many of his contemporaries was its moderation and common sense” (p. 108). Nonetheless, the Benedictine pattern emphasized withdrawal to a communal life of prayer and liturgy.

By the 1200s, a different kind of order appears- the Dominicans and Franciscans. Francis of Assisi who was the son of an Italian merchant felt called to a life of radical poverty. At first, he and his followers resisted owning property and worked for the care of lepers and the marginalized in society. To this point, Benedictine monks prayed for “the world” but their primary focus was to work on their own salvation, i.e. to pursue the “contemplative life.” On the other hand, following Francis, the Franciscans actively cared for others; they pursued the “active life” caring for the poor. At about the same time, Dominic, a Spaniard, likewise sold all his possessions to help the poor; however, Dominic feared those turning away from faith in the church, so sought to develop in the church more effective and better-educated preachers. Before long, the Dominicans became among the educational leaders in the church. So, like the Benedictine monks, the Franciscans and Dominicans also formed groups with special rules and lives dedicated to God; however, their vocations tended to be more directed towards others, in the case of the Franciscans, to caring for the poor and the Dominicans towards preaching and teaching ministries. There was a clear tension between the pursuit of the “contemplative life” as modeled by the Benedictines as well as that of the “active life” as modeled by that of the Franciscans and Dominicans. One example is discovered in the story of Thomas Aquinas and his sense of call. Thomas’ family had him earmarked to join the local Benedictine monastery; instead, Thomas ran away and joined the Dominicans. Thomas’ family was so terrified they had him kidnapped and imprisoned for almost a year before letting him pursue his own sense of vocation (p. 110). Aquinas, who would become the greatest theologian of the Middle Ages, would struggle to sort out the relationship between the active and contemplative life as well as the importance of religious vows with their promises of poverty, chastity and strict obedience (p. 110).   

Developing in the 1100s were a few Christians in the Netherlands who began exploring a sort of “compromise” between “lay” and “religious” life. Beguines (women) and Beghards (men) lived in communities and devoted themselves to prayer and “charity”; however, they also held regular jobs, some even kept private property; they took no permanent vows and could leave the community and marry if they wish. Because of the concern among church authorities for this “alternative approach to religion and life,” the Beguines and Beghards often experienced persecution. By the 14th century in the Netherlands, the Dutch merchant Geert Grote, after an unsuccessful attempt at monastic life, became highly critical of local priests and won many supporters; in so doing, Grote met with his supporters in private homes “after the model of the first apostles” (p. 111). Members of Grote’s “New Devout” would support themselves by engaging in various “secular” vocations (though in those days only “religious” pursuits technically qualified as a vocatio). These “New Devout” took no vows, emphasized simple piety, held in suspicion complex theology and were described in language of the time as being “devout” but not “religious” (p. 111). One of the more remarkable devotional works in the history of Christianity arose from this movement, The Imitation of Christ, now strongly believed to be the work of Thomas à Kempis, a remarkable work to get “ordinary Christians” to think about what it means to lead a “religious” life (p. 111). 

Callings, by William Placher, part 1

Placher compiles an anthology on “twenty centuries of Christian wisdom on vocation” and he organizes his book based on four historical periods: 1) Calling to Christian Life in the Early Church; 2) Religious Vocations in the Middle Ages; 3) The Reformation and Seeing Every Job as Vocation and 4) Vocations in a Post-Christian Age. Placher writes, “Any broad categories oversimplify, but there are roughly four broad periods in Christian history when ‘calling’ has had different meanings” (p. 6).

Beginning with the “first period,” the first several centuries of the church’s existence were not easy ones. Christianity began as an “obscure cult” out of the eastern edge of the Roman Empire and most living in the empire heard of it first in “wild rumors” (p. 23). Christians were said to engage in orgies, wanted the world to end, ate flesh, drank blood and were thought to be unfriendly to neighbors since they would not participate in meals involving the sacrificing to one god or another. Plus, they would not sacrifice to the divine emperor, so were thought to be traitors. Even the “Jesus” they worshipped had been executed by a Roman governor (p. 23). Becoming a Christian often meant isolation from family and friends and, while persecution was only occasional, it did carry the threat of torture and death. Still, the church kept growing. By the early 4th century, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire, and some Christians began to feel that living as a Christian had become too easy, safe, socially respectable and comfortable. So they sought out monastic lives of great self-deprivation and lived as ascetics. This kind of radical self-denial “proved” that they were truly following Christ. In the early church, the idea of “call” (klesis) was first and foremost about the call to become a Christian (Rom. 1:6,7) and implied was the “forsaking of all worldly riches and pursuits.” Even those from wealthy backgrounds would sometimes choose the same lifestyles as their servants, in order to “follow the call.” “Spiritual athletes” who trained as Christians just as others might train to accomplish great feats of athletic strength and endurance, became the heroes and heroines of Christians everywhere: in a word, self-denial gave moral authority and lives of exemplary cause to follow. Therefore, even after Christianity became more “acceptable” and to live as a Christian, more comfortable, the thought prevailed that the “spirit of the martyrs” was preserved among those who took up the “call” to lives of monasticism and severe asceticism.

The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, by Cosden

This was a laborious and difficult read for me but for different reasons than my previous read. After tackling Volf's technical read, "Work in the Spirit," I looked at the writing style and the number of pages of Cosden's book (148 pgs.), and I thought, "I'll get through this one fairly quickly." Not so. Cosden spends a lot of time "exegeting" finer points of Scripture so I found myself mulling over much of his interpretive work, thinking about it, at points coming to a new understanding of "old texts"; at other times thinking, "I respect what Cosden is saying but don't agree with him fully." However, despite the "labor" required (pardon the play on words), my experience was that the book only got better and better as I went along and "my socks were blown off" by the time I reached Cosden's final chapters, especially chapter 6, "Shaping Things to Come: Mission for the Masses.”

Cosden makes the point in chapter 6 (his final chapter) that there is much agreement among various evangelical leaders today that the "modern missions movement" is in crisis, “Most evangelical leaders acknowledge that the western mission enterprise is in trouble and that something is fundamentally wrong with the ‘faith missions movement'” (p. 130).

Cosden gives the example of missions work he did in Russia twenty years ago, right after communism had fallen. This illustration hit me pretty hard as in 1992 I was in Hungary (a former Soviet bloc country that was "liberated" in 1989 with the fall of communism) doing evangelistic missionary work for a couple months. But Cosden writes that right after communism had fallen, "lives and livelihoods were crumbling around us as government-based employment welfare systems, ... fell apart" (p. 128). The most pressing question at that time was, "How does the gospel relate to life?" Cosden writes that "Our model as missionaries guaranteed that we produce 'rice Christians'": in other words, "dependent" Christians who could only hope to be "delivered" from the futility of their situations rather than find hope within them. In a word, this theology of missions that said to people in places like Russia, "trust Jesus and he will save you but has nothing really to say about your 'ordinary lives / work,' but that maybe He just might liberate you to becoming a 'missionary' some day" ... was deeply flawed (and continues to be today). Wow. I finish this post with some Cosden quotes to get us to think more deeply about this "crisis" and the need to re-think how we view work and missions.

“... when done in a way that images God and thus co-operates with him, human work in itself is Christian missionary activity. Why? Because it is largely (though not exclusively) through our work that we reflect God’s image and co-operate with him in bringing people and the whole creation to humanity’s and nature’s ultimate maturity and future…. We are saved to become together the image of Christ, and thus the image of God- and we express and develop this most directly in our work” (pp. 129-130).

“…this means that any understanding of mission that fails to grasp that in itself human work is fundamental to God’s purpose (the mission of God or kingdom of God) for us and creation will be theologically flawed. Likewise, missions thinking that fails to incorporate this theology ultimately undermines the missionary calling of the people of God. For the majority of Christians simply cannot now, nor could they ever, measure up to the modern faith missionary ideal of leaving home and work ‘to work’ for God. For what that understanding of mission unintentionally does is marginalize and thus alienate the vast majority of Christians in the world who will spend most of their lives and life’s energy in ordinary work” (p. 130).

“Thus work is not a platform for mission or evangelism, as if it were somehow subordinate to salvation and eternity. Rather, godly work itself actually spreads by embodying God’s good news, a present experience and foretaste of salvation. For work in itself is a genuine form of life imaging God. It is an ever-open invitation to all to co-operate with God in his purposes” (p. 135).

Work in the Spirit, part 2

This was my most “technical read” so far, yet Volf’s thoughts are not only clear but provocative, challenging and insightful. One part that stuck out to me was when Volf spoke of the concept of “expanding needs.” The thought was basically this: as the wealth of a society grows, its “felt product-needs” grow as well. We begin to think we need more things as “wealth, technology and opportunity” grow in our midst. For example, just a few years ago, I was satisfied with my AOL “dial-up” internet connection. Today, not only do I “need” high-speed access, but I can hardly “go without” my blackberry phone with internet access “all the time.” And don’t we see this in many areas of life as we experience expanding "needs" for “conveniences, according to the nicety and delicacy of taste” (p. 149)? Isn't it much more difficult to be satisfied with “bread and water,” once you’ve tasted delicate pastries and wine?

Nonetheless, what fascinates me the most about Volf’s assessment isn’t so much his assessment; most reading this would agree with this idea of our “expanding felt product needs,” rather what fascinates me the most is Volf’s answer to the “challenge.” He begins by critiquing the more typical Christian response, asceticism, i.e. denial of “good things.” As Volf says, asceticism denies the “dynamic nature” of human needs and misinterprets the “Biblical tradition that affirms the goodness of creation and the enjoyment of it” (Matt. 11:19, 1Tim. 6:17). Still, the “endless spiral in which today’s desires become tomorrow’s needs” must be limited as well, lest great damage result. For one, creation becomes destroyed and ravaged if limits aren’t imposed (see Haiti’s ecological crisis, for example). Also, good things become ultimate things. The consumption of a created thing for enjoyment for the glory of God (a good thing) becomes the sole object of our pursuit and desire, i.e. idolatrous (an ultimate thing) and lives become harmed as a result.

So, if the “answer” is not asceticism, how do we deal with these problems? and affirm the goodness of pursuing material “needs,” at the same time? Volf’s answer is we must see that we have other fundamental needs as well. These are what Volf calls “fundamental non-product needs”: 1) Communion with God; 2) Need for Solidarity with Nature; 3) for Tending to the Well-Being of Others; 4) Human Development of Moral Capacities (nurturing “fruit of the Spirit”) and Practical and Intellectual Skills (developing “gifts of the Spirit”). And ultimately, these “fundamental non-product needs" point us to our single, universal underlying need, ... the Kingdom, i.e. the New Creation (Matt. 6:33).  

In fact, the pursuit of these “non-product” needs are not only a way to keep us from unlimited and unhealthy consumption, but a way for us to realize the fullness of our humanity. So we might see some ways in which these four areas are inter-connected. Working for structures that promote human creativity and flexibility in work, matching human “giftings” (by the Spirit) with work roles and giving workers a clear sense of how their contribution fits into the larger narrative of the purpose behind their work (i.e. the organization’s “larger purpose”), also how their work benefits the “common good” (#4 connects with #3), ... all this fulfills fundamental needs we have. The well-being of society becomes our need and therefore our aim. Also, while work has instrumental value to sustain us and meet our needs, it also becomes an end in itself. You see, our work is meant to glorify God (#1). We see ourselves as working for Him ultimately. As the Reformers insisted, we were meant to work “in play and with the greatest delight” (p. 198). As much as producing efficiently, we were meant to delight in our work as well. Self-forgetfulness is our aim as working for Christ becomes our fundamental pursuit; “everything is added to us as well” as we seek His Kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6:33). Finally, we steward "non-human creation," because it is a co-heir with us in future glory (Rom. 8:20,21). Not only does this care and preservation of nature (#2) honor a “co-recipient of divine blessing” but benefits others globally and future generations as well. Care of creation becomes a way for producing and extending limited resources to a broader reach (connecting #3 with #2), instead of consuming with only the needs of the individual self in mind.

Where there is creative freedom, understanding of the larger purpose behind the work and how it benefits the common good; where work glorifies God and becomes an end in itself, an object of delight and worship; and where our solidarity with creation and with one another is strengthened, ... the Kingdom comes. Still, it is naïve to ignore the larger structural and economic forces that keep us in roles of “alienating” work. We can pursue these opportunities and seek to place ourselves in the best possible situations; however, part of working for the "common good" means that we examine the systemic and structural evils that keep others from engaging in meaningful / nonalienating / humanizing work. Volf argues that a market economy provides the best possibility for this kind of work; however, that the common good must be a high valuation in this kind of society. What is our responsibility to one another and to the world in which we live? As Calvin once wrote, “It is not enough when a man can say, ‘Oh, I labor, I have my craft,’ or ‘I have such a trade.’ That is not enough. But we must see whether it is good and profitable for the common good, and whether his neighbors may fare better for it” (p. 189). Ultimately, as we work in the Spirit, what we seek is a vision of the New Creation. In the present, we are realistic in that we understand there will always be “toil” this side of “glory,” ... still we work with hopefulness because in our possession is the Resurrection of Christ and the resultant pouring forth of the Spirit's gifts onto His people.

Work in the Spirit, by Miroslav Volf

I can already tell that this book by Volf will be my most "technical read" so far; however, the intro. has already intrigued me greatly. Let me share a section with you, and I will plan to comment again on this work, once I am a little further along:


"I believe that economic systems should be judged primarily by three normative principles: freedom of individuals, satisfaction of the basic needs of all people, and protection of nature from irreparable damage. All three of these principles can be derived from the notion of ‘new creation,’ which in the present book functions as the main ethical norm. First, the concept of new creation implies guarding the individual’s dignity. Each person is created in the image of God and is called to a personal relation with Christ as His brother or sister. In economic life the individual is thus not to be treated as a thing but as a free and responsible agent. Second, the concept of new creation has implications for community. It implies practicing solidarity. Every person is called to be an heir with Christ in the community of God’s people. In economic life this should mobilize us to work for the fulfillment of everyone’s basic needs. In particular, it implies a preferential option for the poor. Third, the concept of new creation has implications for the natural environment. It implies the responsibility of preserving the integrity of nature. Nature is not a mere thing. Rather, the Bible teaches us that it suffers under corruptibility and will participate in the freedom of the children of God (Rom. 8:78ff.). In economic life this implies that protection of nature from irreparable damage must accompany any work on or in nature" (pp. 16,17).