When I began this project, I hoped it would allow me to become part of the writing/blogging community of Christian thinkers and theologians out there, kindred spirits and obstinate debaters alike. You have shared about my blog on your own pages, or created links, or written comments, or just plain been cool people. So I want to thank you all and plug your own awesome blogs!
Monte Lee Rice: Monte Lee Rice - Proclaiming through word and deed for the healing of all creation
Amanda MacInnis: Cheesewearing Theology
Brian Fulthorp: συνεσταύρωμαι: living the crucified life
Rick Waldholm Jr: I Heart Barth
Brian LePort: Near Emmaus
And anyone else that I forgot!!
The non-bloggers who have been a blessing to me in this project would include: Marty Folsom (an excellent theologian and professor), Frank Macchia (for being willing to dialog a bit on my ideas), and my fellow pastors Dan Houston and Bjorn Meinhardt for their encouragement.
Thanks!!
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Jesus Christ's Self-Attestation
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” - John 4:39-42
As I continue my foray into Church Dogmatics IV, I am deluged by things I want to write about. But something jumped out at me today that both reminded me of the above scripture in John's Gospel and of the Pentecostal emphasis on the need for a personal encounter with God.
In the early pages of the section "The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country" (p.157ff in the T&T Clark Edition), Barth begins his threefold division of redemption that he has just spent 150-plus pages "introducing." For Barth, the incarnate Son of God cannot be abstracted from the event of atonement. The incarnation of the Son is the atonement. But Barth does say that the event of atonement can be examined on three different levels: the God who reconciles, man who is reconciled, and God-and-man in reconciliation. He begins his exploration of the God who reconciles with an examination of how Jesus appears in the New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels.
In the Synoptics,
As Pentecostal Christians, we are people of the Spirit. We believe that the Spirit of God is sovereign, active, and powerful. We also believe that salvation is not simply adherence to particular doctrinal formulas or participation in particular sacramental rituals. Doctrine matters, and the sacraments are beginning to be more deeply appreciated, but nothing takes the place of personally encountering Jesus Christ by faith. Like the Samaritans, everyone needs to "hear for themselves" the voice of Christ by the Spirit. And Barth reminds us not only that this is so, but that we can trust Jesus and the Spirit to introduce themselves to those who don't yet know their Lord. He does so, first and foremost, through the Bible, but also through faithful preaching and witnessing. But it is not ultimately us who reveal Jesus. The self-revelation of God only happens when people personally meet this God. And they meet this God when he introduces himself in Christ and by the Spirit.
42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” - John 4:39-42
As I continue my foray into Church Dogmatics IV, I am deluged by things I want to write about. But something jumped out at me today that both reminded me of the above scripture in John's Gospel and of the Pentecostal emphasis on the need for a personal encounter with God.
In the early pages of the section "The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country" (p.157ff in the T&T Clark Edition), Barth begins his threefold division of redemption that he has just spent 150-plus pages "introducing." For Barth, the incarnate Son of God cannot be abstracted from the event of atonement. The incarnation of the Son is the atonement. But Barth does say that the event of atonement can be examined on three different levels: the God who reconciles, man who is reconciled, and God-and-man in reconciliation. He begins his exploration of the God who reconciles with an examination of how Jesus appears in the New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels.
In the Synoptics,
"He [Jesus] is not simply a better man, a more gifted, a more wise or noble or pious, in short a greater man. But as against all other men and their differences we have in the person of this man One who is their Lord and Lawgiver and Judge." (p.160)Barth goes on,
"The New Testament community does not merely think, but lives and acts in the knowledge and on the presupposition that in this man 'dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily' (Col. 2:9)" (p.160)After spending some time reinforcing this, particularly in his own context, deeply important point, Barth makes some comments that are both very typical of his theology of revelation but also very significant for we Pentecostals who see ourselves as above all a missional community of Christ.
"He is to them [i.e., to the New Testament community] the Christ, the Kyrios, the Son of Man and the Son of God, the One who is absolutely different and exalted, even before they describe Him in this way. And when they do describe Him in this way, they appeal in some sense to Himself - that He Himself continually attests to Himself as such. And in relation to others they count on it happening that they too may accept - not their own representation and appraisal of a man honoured by them - but the Word of Jesus, His self-attestation of His majesty, of his unity with God...
"When the New Testament attests Him to be such, it speaks of His resurrection from the dead. Only secondarily, and in this way, does it speak of the records of it. And in relation to others His witnesses expect that the same Holy Spirit who has revealed this to them will not be silent to others." (pp.162-163, emphasis mine)Within these observations by Barth, the first thing that can be seen is Barth's theology of scripture as a "witness to the Word of God" rather than the Word of God itself (or, himself). The New Testament, for Barth, is the authoritative collection of documents by the community of Jesus' original witnesses. But it is not the Word of God. It is a witness to the Word, and by the Spirit can become the Word of God afresh. But while the text is authoritative, ultimate sovereignty is not in the text but in the God who is witnessed to in the text and who is Lord over the text. The Spirit witnesses to Jesus who shows us the Father. Only God himself can be the Word of God. Only God can reveal God. Revelation is a trinitarian event. And so the Bible becomes the Word of God only in the power of the Spirit of God, and only as it reveals Jesus.
As Pentecostal Christians, we are people of the Spirit. We believe that the Spirit of God is sovereign, active, and powerful. We also believe that salvation is not simply adherence to particular doctrinal formulas or participation in particular sacramental rituals. Doctrine matters, and the sacraments are beginning to be more deeply appreciated, but nothing takes the place of personally encountering Jesus Christ by faith. Like the Samaritans, everyone needs to "hear for themselves" the voice of Christ by the Spirit. And Barth reminds us not only that this is so, but that we can trust Jesus and the Spirit to introduce themselves to those who don't yet know their Lord. He does so, first and foremost, through the Bible, but also through faithful preaching and witnessing. But it is not ultimately us who reveal Jesus. The self-revelation of God only happens when people personally meet this God. And they meet this God when he introduces himself in Christ and by the Spirit.
Friday, January 25, 2013
October 29, 2010: the Day Brian LePort Called Me a Hipster
I do not know Brian LePort. He also does not know me. One way or another we have become Facebook friends, and I do at times peruse his blog nearemmaus.com, where he posts along with a couple other bloggers about theology, biblical studies, historical Jesus studies, and so on. The other day I was googling Karl Barth and seeing what was around the blogosphere when I came upon this post. The intentionally-funny piece is entitled "Karl Barth Madness" and lists ten reasons why Brian has no interest in reading Karl Barth. Since the writing of this piece in 2010, he has posted a number of blogs about Barth, but that is beside the point. I thought Brian's list was clever, at times very accurate, and (perhaps because of it's accuracy) somewhat insulting all at the same time. And, as can be expected, a debate ensued on his blog. I am not really a "get into debates on blogs" kind of guy, and I was over two years late to the game, so I did not get involved. But I did ask Brian's permission to mention him and his post and to interact with it. He very graciously said ok.
The title of this present piece gains it's title from his sixth reason for not reading Barth:
Brian is also painfully correct. He states as another reason not to read Barth that it is unnecessary for him to since he has no intentions of ever attending Princeton. Well, in my experience, these two observation collapse into a painful truth. For a few years my wife and I attended University Presbyterian Church in Seattle under the preaching of Earl F. Palmer. Earl was an excellent preacher and theologian and an out-and-out, no-apologies Barthian. The first sermon of his we ever heard included him busting out his old, tattered copy of Dogmatics in Outline and reading from it for five minutes or so. And Earl made Barth fun. Barth was relevant, reminding us to read our Bibles to see Jesus and to see everything as centered on Jesus. He also was heavily involved in Princeton Seminary, having gone there himself, and UPC as a congregation probably shipped half a dozen seminarians off to Princeton single-handedly each year. (I was almost one of them!) But while attending UPC, I also got to know for a brief time a young man who embodied Brian's reason #6 sickeningly well. This young man went to Princeton, was brilliant, loved Barth and Moltmann, and essentially disdained everything and everyone else (he was one of those, "all Christians are suckers but me" kinda guys). In remarkably un-Barthian fashion, he considered the Bible there to be questioned, doubted, picked at, and of little value beyond being a source document for Jesus. He was Barthianism gone sour. He was also, absolutely, a theological hipster.
Not on to my other point...
In the comments section of the blog, Brian writes,
I have been on that road every since. If it makes me a hipster, I guess I need to trade in my wire-frame glasses for some nice, thick black plastic frames that I see on the face of so many (*ahem!*) people, particularly all these Seattle hipsters...
The title of this present piece gains it's title from his sixth reason for not reading Barth:
(6) There seem to be more people reading Barth than Scripture these days so I think I’ll buck the trend. It is very theologically hipster to read Barth. We’ll see where that is in ten years. [emphasis mine]So there it is. Without ever meeting me, and two years before we somehow inadvertently became Facebook friends, Brian LePort called me a hipster.
Brian is also painfully correct. He states as another reason not to read Barth that it is unnecessary for him to since he has no intentions of ever attending Princeton. Well, in my experience, these two observation collapse into a painful truth. For a few years my wife and I attended University Presbyterian Church in Seattle under the preaching of Earl F. Palmer. Earl was an excellent preacher and theologian and an out-and-out, no-apologies Barthian. The first sermon of his we ever heard included him busting out his old, tattered copy of Dogmatics in Outline and reading from it for five minutes or so. And Earl made Barth fun. Barth was relevant, reminding us to read our Bibles to see Jesus and to see everything as centered on Jesus. He also was heavily involved in Princeton Seminary, having gone there himself, and UPC as a congregation probably shipped half a dozen seminarians off to Princeton single-handedly each year. (I was almost one of them!) But while attending UPC, I also got to know for a brief time a young man who embodied Brian's reason #6 sickeningly well. This young man went to Princeton, was brilliant, loved Barth and Moltmann, and essentially disdained everything and everyone else (he was one of those, "all Christians are suckers but me" kinda guys). In remarkably un-Barthian fashion, he considered the Bible there to be questioned, doubted, picked at, and of little value beyond being a source document for Jesus. He was Barthianism gone sour. He was also, absolutely, a theological hipster.
Not on to my other point...
In the comments section of the blog, Brian writes,
"Yes, it is a bummer he didn’t get to discuss the Holy Spirit. I may have been interested in at least reading that point."Well, I am sure that by now Brian realizes that Barth wrote a LOT about the Holy Spirit, even if he passed away before completing his massive Church Dogmatics. And, interestingly enough, it was precisely Barth's pneumatology that set me on this wild Barthian-Pentecostal goose chase. I had always loved Barth and considered myself Reformed, but God seemed to be irresistibly (darn Calvinists!) drawing me back to my old AG congregation. My spiritual life has included what could be called "Pentecostal experience," but I was having a very hard time being Pentecostal theologically. And it was Barth's pneumatology, particularly in his Gottingen Dogmatics, that gave me a theology that both critiqued and (probably contrary to what Barth would have wanted) affirmed my Pentecostal experience. For Barth, the Spirit's role in revelation is what he calls "the Subjective Reality of Revelation." And since, for Barth, salvation does not happen over here in me but over there in Christ, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to illumine within the believer the reality of his or her salvation which is true in Christ. And the work of the Spirit is a work that creates real response. Barth even goes so far as to admit that it could be called experience. I knew I had found something. This was something that could both critique some of the bogus-ness I and other Pentecostals have been guilty of in understanding our experiences of the Spirit and could also affirm and even help clarify what exactly the Spirit is doing in and with us when he fills us, gives us gifts, and makes us aware of the reality and otherness of the God who loves us.
I have been on that road every since. If it makes me a hipster, I guess I need to trade in my wire-frame glasses for some nice, thick black plastic frames that I see on the face of so many (*ahem!*) people, particularly all these Seattle hipsters...
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Faith, Love, Hope, Eschatology, and Life in the Spirit
I am continuing my excursion through Church Dogmatics IV/1 "The Doctrine of Reconciliation." And today I had an interesting dialog with a believer in my town who I never would have thought would show up in this blog.
I have a believing friend who has become deeply entrenched in the movement known as Hebrew Roots. If you're not familiar with that movement, it is basically a modern day version of the Galatian heresy. Adherents of the group believe that there is really not supposed to be anything called "the Christian church," and that gentile believers in Jesus (Yeshua) are supposed to live their lives according to Torah (the law of Moses). Our conversation today went as most conversations do between him and me. He said that Christians are inconsistent in adhering to the "moral law" while not observing things like the Sabbath. I tried, unsuccessfully I think, to explain that the Christian has died and risen with Christ and thus lives in the eschaton (I didn't use that word), and thus are not bound by law. We live by the law of love because that is how the kingdom of God works. We no longer need a schoolmaster. We live, through Christ, in the age to come, where the "forever" of the Mosaic covenant no longer holds. He wasn't convinced. Oh well. This, however, showed me something that is integral to New Testament Christianity that both Karl Barth and the best examples of Pentecostal Christianity have managed to understand and articulate in their own ways.
In his massive work on the pneumatology of the apostle Paul, God's Empowering Presence, Gordon Fee repeatedly makes the case that the presence of the Spirit in the church meant for Paul that believers were already living in the age to come. In fact, Fee regularly calls the Spirit the "eschatological Spirit." In his own highly informed and scholarly manner, Fee is articulating exegetically something that is inherent to Pentecostal understanding of the Spirit. From it's very beginning, the Pentecostal movement understood its reception of the Spirit and the gifts as an eschatological phenomenon. They Spirit of the Last Days was being poured out to prepare the church and the world for the return of Christ. Whereas the early Pentecostal leaders may have missed the eschatological significance of Christ's resurrection, and while they may have primarily been working within a dispensational framework, the connection between the reception of the charismatic Spirit and the age to come was not missed. The pouring out of the Spirit meant that the end of the ages was, at the very least, immanent.
In Church Dogmatics IV/1, in the section titled "The Being of Man in Jesus Christ" (pp.92-122 in the T&T Clark Edition), Barth applies the fulfillment of the covenant which has taken place in Christ alone to the existence of the believer. Barth is insistent that salvation is entirely in Christ alone, and he means this in a far more radical sense that traditional Reformed theology. For Barth, salvation happens there in Christ not here in me. In traditional Christian theology - Reformed, Pentecostal, or otherwise - salvation is something that is accomplished both there in Christ and here in me. Even Reformed theology speaks of the application of redemption in the believer by the Spirit. But for Barth, he has already spent an entire section arguing that salvation has happened entirely in Christ. He has fulfilled the covenant. He has been rejected for us. He is the elect man. The covenant is fulfilled. Man is now saved. And, which will be discussed more in upcoming blogs, what the Spirit does is not to cause salvation to happen here in me, but to bring about realization of the salvation that has happened there in Jesus. For Barth, the Spirit doesn't so much bring Jesus to me as he brings me to Jesus. I like that distinction. (And time does not permit me to rabbit trail into Barth's eschatological view of Christ's resurrection, which has caused un-careful readers to think Barth denied the historical nature of the resurrection.)
But in his section, "The Being of Man in Jesus Christ," Barth makes quite an interesting argument for how the salvation in Christ works within the believer. He uses Paul's threefold list from 1 Corinthians 13 of faith, hope and love. However, for his purposes, Barth reorders them as Faith, Love, and Hope. Faith is, naturally enough, the realization of the reality of Christ and his atonement for me. This is Barth's section on justification. Then there is Love, which for Barth refers to obedience to Christ's commands, or his "direction," and is Barth's treatment of sanctification. What is most interesting, however, is Barth's treatment of Hope.
Hope, for Barth, is eschatological. And our hope is not in some disembodied beatific vision, but in an eternal service to and partnership with God. It is the closest thing Barth with get to synergism. Our salvation is entirely monergistic for Barth, but the life God saves us to is an eternal life of partnership with God. This is a partnership in eternity, but which spills back and makes all the things we do today and tomorrow hope filled actions, too. And this too, like Faith and Love, is a work of the Spirit, who makes us realize the truth of who we are in Christ.
For my Galatian friend, our salvation in Christ has almost nothing to do with eschatology. Sure, maybe he keeps us out of hell and will rule from Jerusalem during the millennium. But other than that, other than some eternal tomorrow, "Yeshua" has not brought us the kingdom or ushered us into the eschaton. For Pentecostals, Jesus is the Spirit Baptizer, and the Spirit he pours out on us is the Spirit of the age to come - both equipping us to be witnesses to him as we usher in the end and also placing us into the kingdom that began with Christ but has not yet been consummated. For Barth, Christ has changed the entire world. The world just doesn't know it yet. He has raised man from the dead and justified him before God. Man is now God's servant and partner. That is, he one day will be - and that means he already is.
I have a believing friend who has become deeply entrenched in the movement known as Hebrew Roots. If you're not familiar with that movement, it is basically a modern day version of the Galatian heresy. Adherents of the group believe that there is really not supposed to be anything called "the Christian church," and that gentile believers in Jesus (Yeshua) are supposed to live their lives according to Torah (the law of Moses). Our conversation today went as most conversations do between him and me. He said that Christians are inconsistent in adhering to the "moral law" while not observing things like the Sabbath. I tried, unsuccessfully I think, to explain that the Christian has died and risen with Christ and thus lives in the eschaton (I didn't use that word), and thus are not bound by law. We live by the law of love because that is how the kingdom of God works. We no longer need a schoolmaster. We live, through Christ, in the age to come, where the "forever" of the Mosaic covenant no longer holds. He wasn't convinced. Oh well. This, however, showed me something that is integral to New Testament Christianity that both Karl Barth and the best examples of Pentecostal Christianity have managed to understand and articulate in their own ways.
In his massive work on the pneumatology of the apostle Paul, God's Empowering Presence, Gordon Fee repeatedly makes the case that the presence of the Spirit in the church meant for Paul that believers were already living in the age to come. In fact, Fee regularly calls the Spirit the "eschatological Spirit." In his own highly informed and scholarly manner, Fee is articulating exegetically something that is inherent to Pentecostal understanding of the Spirit. From it's very beginning, the Pentecostal movement understood its reception of the Spirit and the gifts as an eschatological phenomenon. They Spirit of the Last Days was being poured out to prepare the church and the world for the return of Christ. Whereas the early Pentecostal leaders may have missed the eschatological significance of Christ's resurrection, and while they may have primarily been working within a dispensational framework, the connection between the reception of the charismatic Spirit and the age to come was not missed. The pouring out of the Spirit meant that the end of the ages was, at the very least, immanent.
In Church Dogmatics IV/1, in the section titled "The Being of Man in Jesus Christ" (pp.92-122 in the T&T Clark Edition), Barth applies the fulfillment of the covenant which has taken place in Christ alone to the existence of the believer. Barth is insistent that salvation is entirely in Christ alone, and he means this in a far more radical sense that traditional Reformed theology. For Barth, salvation happens there in Christ not here in me. In traditional Christian theology - Reformed, Pentecostal, or otherwise - salvation is something that is accomplished both there in Christ and here in me. Even Reformed theology speaks of the application of redemption in the believer by the Spirit. But for Barth, he has already spent an entire section arguing that salvation has happened entirely in Christ. He has fulfilled the covenant. He has been rejected for us. He is the elect man. The covenant is fulfilled. Man is now saved. And, which will be discussed more in upcoming blogs, what the Spirit does is not to cause salvation to happen here in me, but to bring about realization of the salvation that has happened there in Jesus. For Barth, the Spirit doesn't so much bring Jesus to me as he brings me to Jesus. I like that distinction. (And time does not permit me to rabbit trail into Barth's eschatological view of Christ's resurrection, which has caused un-careful readers to think Barth denied the historical nature of the resurrection.)
But in his section, "The Being of Man in Jesus Christ," Barth makes quite an interesting argument for how the salvation in Christ works within the believer. He uses Paul's threefold list from 1 Corinthians 13 of faith, hope and love. However, for his purposes, Barth reorders them as Faith, Love, and Hope. Faith is, naturally enough, the realization of the reality of Christ and his atonement for me. This is Barth's section on justification. Then there is Love, which for Barth refers to obedience to Christ's commands, or his "direction," and is Barth's treatment of sanctification. What is most interesting, however, is Barth's treatment of Hope.
Hope, for Barth, is eschatological. And our hope is not in some disembodied beatific vision, but in an eternal service to and partnership with God. It is the closest thing Barth with get to synergism. Our salvation is entirely monergistic for Barth, but the life God saves us to is an eternal life of partnership with God. This is a partnership in eternity, but which spills back and makes all the things we do today and tomorrow hope filled actions, too. And this too, like Faith and Love, is a work of the Spirit, who makes us realize the truth of who we are in Christ.
For my Galatian friend, our salvation in Christ has almost nothing to do with eschatology. Sure, maybe he keeps us out of hell and will rule from Jerusalem during the millennium. But other than that, other than some eternal tomorrow, "Yeshua" has not brought us the kingdom or ushered us into the eschaton. For Pentecostals, Jesus is the Spirit Baptizer, and the Spirit he pours out on us is the Spirit of the age to come - both equipping us to be witnesses to him as we usher in the end and also placing us into the kingdom that began with Christ but has not yet been consummated. For Barth, Christ has changed the entire world. The world just doesn't know it yet. He has raised man from the dead and justified him before God. Man is now God's servant and partner. That is, he one day will be - and that means he already is.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Karl Barth, "the World," and Evangelism
I am continuing to take a break from my study of Hell in Barth's though, but look for a third installment soon(ish). If you missed parts 1 and 2, they can be read here and here. For now I am foraying into volume IV of the Church Dogmatics, the Doctrine of Reconciliation.
The Pentecostal movement, from the very beginning, has been a missionary movement. Whenever Spirit-empowered missions and the planting of indigenous churches is lost from view, I think that the true essence of Pentecostal Christianity is lost. The tongues, the healings, the miracles, and the exuberant worship, are simply pieces of this larger goal: the church, in the power of the Spirit, preaching the gospel to the ends of the earth, that every nation, tribe, and tongue may hear, believe, and so be saved. So the preaching of the gospel is central to Pentecostalism. So is the belief that hearing the gospel and responding to the gospel is needful for redemption in Christ. I will not go so far as to say that the early Pentecostals were uniform in their views on the eternal fate of those who have never heard the gospel. They may or may not have been. I don't know. But I know that what was central to the Pentecostal vision was the "lost-ness" of the world and the need people had to hear about Jesus. If Barth's theology cannot speak to this missions mindset, then it is a poor companion to Pentecostal experience.
In Church Dogmatics IV/1, "The Doctrine of Reconciliation," Barth begins his book with the assertion that the Christian message can be summed up in the name Emmanuel, "God With Us." He goes on to make clear that this "God With Us" is true, not because of us, but because of God. Reconciliation with God is based on covenant. God covenanted with mankind. It was his purpose in creating us. He created us to love us, but we broke faith with him. We disobeyed and cancelled our "right" to the covenant relationship with God, but since God had already determined to have us, he kept both sides of the covenant, and he did this through Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God and man are reconciled. And this is where Barth's implicit universalism appears (not so much in this section of the Dogmatics as in the logic).
But universalist or no, Barth is making a valuable point. Redemption Proper, that is, redemption itself, takes place "over there" in Christ, not so much "over here" in us. We have forfeited the covenant, but outside of us and on our behalf, God in Christ has restored and maintained it. Later on, in volume IV/4, Barth will explain Christian experience of the Spirit (which he calls "baptism in the Holy Spirit") as being brought into, or made aware of, what has happened for us in Christ. A strong case can be made from Barth's thought that what we generally mean by "being saved" doesn't take place until this conversion, or Spirit baptism. But because Barth wants to downplay the subjectivism which he saw as the great enemy to the gospel, Barth threw all his weight on the actuality of the redemption that happened in Jesus. Salvation really happened when Jesus lived, died, and rose again. And because Barth rejected a classical Calvinistic view of "limited atonement" (Jesus only died for the elect), actual salvation has happened for the whole world and for every man in it already in Jesus. He didn't make salvation possible, he saved us. But what does this do with the need to preach the gospel to people, and to actually believe it ourselves?...
On pages 70-78 of Church Dogmatics IV/1 (T&T Clark edition), Barth spends time exegeting two important passages for his understanding of the gospel, John 3:16 and 2 Corinthians 5:19.
In the first passage, of course, we are told that God has "loved the world" by sending Jesus Christ, and for Barth this love is effective. God has loved the world, which is to say, he has kept the covenant on behalf of the world in Christ. And Barth emphasizes that, in John, "the world" is the wicked world. God has loved the wicked world in Christ. The whole thing is loved. Is there any distinction then between believers and unbelievers? Yes, it seems there is:
And what is fascinating and beautiful about Barth's though here is the role believers thus take. Because salvation is for the world, to be a believer is to be a witness. This is evident from the above quotes, but comes out even more forcefully in Barth's exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5:19. In typical Barthian fashion, and in keeping with his view of reconciliation in Christ, Barth takes the apostle Paul's statement that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" and "not counting their sins against them" with utmost seriousness. God has reconciled the world! He has not counted our sin! He has made us righteous in Jesus! So where does preaching the gospel come into this? In the "ministry of reconciliation":
The Pentecostal movement, from the very beginning, has been a missionary movement. Whenever Spirit-empowered missions and the planting of indigenous churches is lost from view, I think that the true essence of Pentecostal Christianity is lost. The tongues, the healings, the miracles, and the exuberant worship, are simply pieces of this larger goal: the church, in the power of the Spirit, preaching the gospel to the ends of the earth, that every nation, tribe, and tongue may hear, believe, and so be saved. So the preaching of the gospel is central to Pentecostalism. So is the belief that hearing the gospel and responding to the gospel is needful for redemption in Christ. I will not go so far as to say that the early Pentecostals were uniform in their views on the eternal fate of those who have never heard the gospel. They may or may not have been. I don't know. But I know that what was central to the Pentecostal vision was the "lost-ness" of the world and the need people had to hear about Jesus. If Barth's theology cannot speak to this missions mindset, then it is a poor companion to Pentecostal experience.
In Church Dogmatics IV/1, "The Doctrine of Reconciliation," Barth begins his book with the assertion that the Christian message can be summed up in the name Emmanuel, "God With Us." He goes on to make clear that this "God With Us" is true, not because of us, but because of God. Reconciliation with God is based on covenant. God covenanted with mankind. It was his purpose in creating us. He created us to love us, but we broke faith with him. We disobeyed and cancelled our "right" to the covenant relationship with God, but since God had already determined to have us, he kept both sides of the covenant, and he did this through Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God and man are reconciled. And this is where Barth's implicit universalism appears (not so much in this section of the Dogmatics as in the logic).
But universalist or no, Barth is making a valuable point. Redemption Proper, that is, redemption itself, takes place "over there" in Christ, not so much "over here" in us. We have forfeited the covenant, but outside of us and on our behalf, God in Christ has restored and maintained it. Later on, in volume IV/4, Barth will explain Christian experience of the Spirit (which he calls "baptism in the Holy Spirit") as being brought into, or made aware of, what has happened for us in Christ. A strong case can be made from Barth's thought that what we generally mean by "being saved" doesn't take place until this conversion, or Spirit baptism. But because Barth wants to downplay the subjectivism which he saw as the great enemy to the gospel, Barth threw all his weight on the actuality of the redemption that happened in Jesus. Salvation really happened when Jesus lived, died, and rose again. And because Barth rejected a classical Calvinistic view of "limited atonement" (Jesus only died for the elect), actual salvation has happened for the whole world and for every man in it already in Jesus. He didn't make salvation possible, he saved us. But what does this do with the need to preach the gospel to people, and to actually believe it ourselves?...
On pages 70-78 of Church Dogmatics IV/1 (T&T Clark edition), Barth spends time exegeting two important passages for his understanding of the gospel, John 3:16 and 2 Corinthians 5:19.
In the first passage, of course, we are told that God has "loved the world" by sending Jesus Christ, and for Barth this love is effective. God has loved the world, which is to say, he has kept the covenant on behalf of the world in Christ. And Barth emphasizes that, in John, "the world" is the wicked world. God has loved the wicked world in Christ. The whole thing is loved. Is there any distinction then between believers and unbelievers? Yes, it seems there is:
"Those who believe on the Son are the members of the cosmos who, while they necessarily participate as such in its opposition, and are therefore subject to perishing and have forfeited eternal life, in the sending of the Son and therefore in the self-offering of God can and must recognise [sic] God as God, and His will as a will of love, a will to rescue and to save...
"They are those who without being in any way different from others are under the forceful permission and command to affirm God and the will of God as it has been revealed to them. This is not because, as distinct from others, they are disposed and able of themselves, but because God is too strong for them...
"What happens to them, and as such is only theirs, applies to the whole world, as we see from the verse which immediately follows [i.e. John 3:17], and is connected to v. 16 by a "gar" [Grk. for "for"]: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved" (v. 17). Within the world, and therefore as a witness directed and appointed to it, there are men who belong to it, yet do not perish but have everlasting life. In the setting up of this witness within the world the atonement is shown to be an atonement for the world." (p.73, emphasis mine)So Barth's understanding of the distinction between believers and unbelievers is not one of righteousness (we are all rebels), or of personal qualities (if anything, we believe because we're weaker than our neighbors). Those who believe are those who have actually entered into what is the real situation of the whole world. The atonement that has taken place in Jesus really is an atonement for the whole world. Using Barth's logic of sin and damnation as "nothingness" and "absurdity," then, I would conclude that Barth is saying that when we believe we enter into truth as opposed to continuing in the lie of sin and lost-ness. Our salvation in Christ is true, and our continuing in an unreconciled state is a ridiculous lie.
And what is fascinating and beautiful about Barth's though here is the role believers thus take. Because salvation is for the world, to be a believer is to be a witness. This is evident from the above quotes, but comes out even more forcefully in Barth's exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5:19. In typical Barthian fashion, and in keeping with his view of reconciliation in Christ, Barth takes the apostle Paul's statement that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" and "not counting their sins against them" with utmost seriousness. God has reconciled the world! He has not counted our sin! He has made us righteous in Jesus! So where does preaching the gospel come into this? In the "ministry of reconciliation":
"Between the apostle and the rest of the world there is the decisive difference that he has eyes and ears for the atonement which has been made, and therefore for the conversion of the world to God, for the new thing which has come and therefore for the passing of the old, whereas the world is still blind and deaf to it. . .But it is not this difference, and the tension of it, and the dynamic of this tension, which makes him an apostle. What moves him in this difference, what prevents him from evading the tension as a kind of private person reconciled with God, what forces him to make it his own, to bear it in his own person, is the fact that what has come about for him in Christ as his reconciliation with God has come about for him for the sake of the world." (p.77, emphasis mine)So for Barth, the salvation of the individual in Christ is part of the bigger whole: the real salvation that has taken place once and for all in Jesus Christ for every single person. The individual's salvation is the actualization of this salvation, the entering by grace into a fact that is (potentially) true of all. But when we enter into this fact, the joyful burden of being a witness to the world of it's salvation which has taken place in Christ becomes ours as well. And in this way, Barth becomes a happy ally to the Pentecostal cause of missions and world evangelization. Glory to God in the highest, and to his Son who has made salvation real. Amen.
Friday, January 11, 2013
My Book Idea's Outline as of 1/13, with Some Explanation
For those who perhaps do not know, this blog started out as a project to pick up the pieces of a book idea that I have struggled with for about a year. Barth is a heavyweight and not without his flaws. Every time I read him I am simultaneously inspired and frustrated. Whenever I take a break from him, I find myself utilizing his conclusions (even the frustrating ones!) in some pastoral context - usually in preaching.
The following outline actually dates back several months, since the last season of life when I wrestled with the book project idea. It is the product of an incomplete thought running up against the patient and friendly wisdom of Barth scholar Marty Folsom, an adjunct at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington. (He may or may not want his name attached to this, but oh well. Hopefully he's a forgiving chap.)
So here is my outline thus far. If you are familiar with Barth, you might (but only might!) already see what I am doing with some of these chapter divisions...
As a pastor in the trenches of ministry, I think it is important that my book (if God allows it to be written, and I get myself to write it) reflect 1. my own knowledge and experience, with all their limitations, and 2. the practicality of what I am talking about. I want this book to be doable and honest, and to answer real pastoral and theological questions.
I will expound a bit more in the future on each of these particular topics/chapters, hopefully making it even clearer where my "Barthianism" and my Pentecostalism meet.
The following outline actually dates back several months, since the last season of life when I wrestled with the book project idea. It is the product of an incomplete thought running up against the patient and friendly wisdom of Barth scholar Marty Folsom, an adjunct at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington. (He may or may not want his name attached to this, but oh well. Hopefully he's a forgiving chap.)
So here is my outline thus far. If you are familiar with Barth, you might (but only might!) already see what I am doing with some of these chapter divisions...
1. The Resurrected Christ – Acts 1:1-11Out of my afternoon spent with Marty many months ago, the idea to give the book an exegetical structure came into being. Specifically, of course, the narrative/text over which the book would lay would be the Pentecost narrative. In that way I would be in a better position to actually put Barth into dialog with Pentecostalism as I know it, allowing them to discuss a key text together. Of course, the danger of working with scholars (a danger which Marty did not necessarily impose but which others who also displayed brief interest in the idea did) is that they generally want a rather exhaustive study done on the topic. After talking with academics, putting Barth into dialog with Pentecostalism doesn't seem possible without having both a thorough historical and sociological comprehension of every stream of Pentecostalism worldwide and a complete understanding of German academic theology since the enlightenment, including why exactly Barth took the positions he did and which European philosophers lay the groundwork for his epistemology. Needless to say, I could never produce that book, and if I did produce it the only way I would get anyone to read it would be to teach a seminary class and require all my students to buy it.
2. The Apostles – Acts 1:12-26
3. The Outpouring of the Spirit – Acts 2:1-13
4. Scripture and Preaching as Witnesses to Jesus Christ – Acts 2:14-36
A. Scripture
B. Preaching
5. The Disruption of Pentecost upon Gender, Class, and Politics – Acts 2:17-21
6. Election and Predestination – Acts 2:22-32
7. Pentecost as Trinitarian Reality – Acts 2:33
8. The Real Response of Free Humanity – Acts 2:37-40
9. The Church as the Place of Revelation – Acts 2:41-47
10. Reflection: The Sacramentality of “Pentecostal Experience” and Some Necessary
Correctives
As a pastor in the trenches of ministry, I think it is important that my book (if God allows it to be written, and I get myself to write it) reflect 1. my own knowledge and experience, with all their limitations, and 2. the practicality of what I am talking about. I want this book to be doable and honest, and to answer real pastoral and theological questions.
I will expound a bit more in the future on each of these particular topics/chapters, hopefully making it even clearer where my "Barthianism" and my Pentecostalism meet.
Monday, January 7, 2013
"Tohu Wa-Bohu" or Karl Barth and Hell pt. 2
"Who knows what sort of "last" ones might turn out to be first again? The proclamation of the Church must make allowance for this freedom of grace. Apokastasis Panton? No, for a grace which automatically would ultimately have to embrace each and every one would certainly not be free grace. It would certainly not be God's grace.
"But would it be God's free grace if we could absolutely deny that it could do that? Has Christ been sacrificed only for our sins? Has he not, according to 1 John 2:2, been sacrificed for the whole world? Strange Christianity, whose most pressing anxiety seems to be that God's grace might prove to be all too free on this side, that hell, instead of being populated with so many people, might some day prove to be empty!" ("The Proclamation of God's Free Grace," from God Here and Now, Nook location pp.49-50).As I wrote in my last piece, Karl Barth would certainly find it odd that I would set aside all other studies in his theology to try and find a "theology of damnation" in his thought. And I will admit, it is not as enjoyable to dwell with Barth in the depths of sin and hell as it is to soar with him on the heights of Christ, his Person and his work. But my respect for Barth is too deep not to press him on this point. The beauty of Barth is his passion that the Bible be allowed to speak for itself, that the Spirit be given free reign to take the words of these witnesses and speak the Word of God to us again. And the Word of God includes judgment.
I also mentioned that the beauty and challenge of Barth's thought lay in his total personal sense of freedom from any human constraints, such as the law of non-contradiction. The Word of God assaults us from the outside, and all our petty little rules have no authority there. This makes Barth's thought look like a five-sided square, or a square circle. One constantly finds oneself arguing with Barth, not because he's wrong but because he's a rule breaker. And in a different, frustrating, but beautiful sense, Barth is staggeringly consistent.
A lot is said about Barth's personal theological development, and how his theology changed over the years. To me, what is remarkable is how much his theology stays the same. I believe this is because Barth's theology is just the result of a constant return to Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever (hebrews 13:8). My way of making sense of Barth's christocentrism is to say that, for Barth, God only goes one way. All that God does is grace. God himself is grace. He is light. He is life. He is love. And underlying all of the apparent tension in Barth's thought is this overwhelming singleness. Barth's take on what God says and does, and who God is, seems contradictory according to our rules. But if the revelation of God in Jesus Christ becomes the key to everything, then the apparent contradictions melt. It is us who are the contradiction. It is our sin that looks like a square circle. And this leads me to an understanding of sin, hell, and damnation in Barth that personally, and I think pastorally, is becoming significant for me. But it all begins with Barth's exegesis of Genesis 1:1-3.
In his Church Dogmatics III/1, The Doctrine of Creation, Barth spends a significant amount of time exegeting the opening verses of the Bible. He is quite detailed in his thought and a pleasure to read. As I was reading his take on Genesis 1 for a sermon I was preparing, it struck me that Barth's understanding of the phrase in Genesis 1:2, "And the earth was waste and void [Hebrew: tohu wa-bohu]," had profound implications for the doctrine of hell.
For Barth, creation does not begin in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." That is a preamble to the following narrative. It is a heading for what is about to be described. And in verse 2, which he exegetes in the light of Babylonian and Egyptian myth (by way of contrast, not by way of comparison) and source-criticism, Barth takes the position that what is being described is a sort of negation.
"What v.2 offers...is in contradiction (we can only say, in glaring opposition) to the created reality of heaven and earth summarily described in v.1, and in glaring opposition to what is later described as God's 'good' creation. There is only 'chaos'... In v.2 there is absolutely nothing as God willed and created and ordained it according to v.1 and the continuation. There is only 'chaos.'" (CD III/1, p.104, T&T Clark Edition).
It's important to realize that Barth is approaching Genesis 1 as a theologically true saga. He is not treating it as a "myth," but he is also not treating it as scientific history. It is theological history. What is important is what Genesis 1 tells us about God. And Barth is careful to point out that God is never said to "create" the darkness, or even the waters (a biblical symbol of chaos). In fact, says Barth, God is portrayed as placing limits on the darkness and chaos. God never creates at night. He only creates in the day. God does not call the dark good, only the light. And so on. True, other Old Testament texts credit God with "creating" the darkness, but God only creates the darkness by creating light. By creating something God in a sense "creates" the "nothing" that contrasts it. Darkness is now "something," but only in contrast to the "light" that God has made.
All of this lined up with what I already knew about Barth's view of sin and evil as nihil, "nothing." Sin is negation. It is the "impossible possibility," to quote Barth. And even in his own exegesis of Genesis 1:2, Barth already points forward to a doctrine of judgment when he observes that these ominous Hebrew words, tohu-wa-bohu, appear in the context of judgment elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures.
"What tohu and bohu mean in practice can be gathered from the two prophetical passages where they are mentioned together as in Gen. 1:2. All the horrors of the approaching final judgment are summed up in the vision of Jer. 4:23 : 'I beheld the earth, and, lo, wehinneh tohu wa-bohu, and the heavens, and they had no light.' And, according to Is. 34:11, in the prophecy about Zion : 'And he shall stretch over it the line of tohu (confusion) and the plummet of bohu (emtpiness).' Thus the condition of the earth depicted in v.2 [of Genesis 1] is identical of the whole horror of the final judgment." (Ibid., pp/104-105).It is important to realize, of course, that Barth's focus is on God in all his exegesis. The point, Barth would say, of Genesis 1:1-3 is that God says "No!" to the darkness and the chaos. Genesis 1 is itself already gospel. It is already redemption. It is already pointing us to the God who shines the light of Christ into our hearts (2 Corinthians 4:6). Barth specifically denies that Genesis 1:2 posits a pre-creation evil that needed to be conquered, a la ancient myth. What Barth affirms is, again, the theological point of the creation account - Who is this God? He is the God who makes life, whoo creates light, who calls all things into being through his powerful Word, who says No! to chaos and who sets limits on the darkness.
The question remains for us whether we will respond to this God, and say Yes to him who has already said Yes to us in Creation, in Covenant, and in his eternal Word, Jesus Christ.
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