Entries Tagged 'Theology' ↓

I’m still here, seminary is just way more work than I expected (or I have made it that way, but that’s besides the point.) Anyway, this thought came into my mind today and just left me thinking for a while…

“postmodernity is the disenfranchisement of the dead.”

Think about it, let me know what you think.

In a real and decisive sense, therefore, he is the miracle, the miracle of all miracles! Whoever takes up the subject of theology finds himself inevitably confronted with this miracle. Christ is that infinitely wondrous event which compels a person, so far as he experiences and comprehends this even, to be necessarily, profoundly, wholly, and irrevocably astonished. -Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology
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A thousand pardons, I am swamped at school.

From Berlin Discourse no. 16, April 1738

I believe that my Savior, my King, bears His name with honor and glory.
I believe His eternal divinity.
I believe His real humanity.
I believe that I am one of His household.
I believe that I was lost. I have known my sentence of death. But I believe most certainly that I have been ransomed and absolved.
I believe that I am the just reward of all His labor, of all His pains and sweat.
I believe that He has won and gained me by His own sword and bow.
I believe that I am no longer compelled to sin.
I believe that I will not die.
I believe that I have mastery over the Devil.
I believe that I am redeemed not through word or work, or miracle or arbitrary decree of God, or through a new creation or through any other means than through the punishment of death which the Son of God suffered for me. I believe that I now belong to no one but to Him who has earned me.
I believe that He has the Kingdom over all.
I believe that I live under Him, where I am under His protection, under His peace, under His rule.
I am certain that I have the unalterable right, which all my fellow citizens have, to be as unchangeably holy as they, and that I am as constantly happy as they all are.
But I also believe that I am nothing without Him, and that I live only because He lives. As long as He lives, I will live also.
And I know all this as certainly as I know that my head is on my shoulders.

Translation by C. Daniel Crews, September 2005 (many thanks, original link from the Moravian Archives)

Click below for my thoughts

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The previous post expressed some pent-up frustration that felt really good to let out (wonderful, actually) and helped me decide that this blog should be more than a vent, it should be a locus for my interests.

The focus of this blog will move towards bringing to light many of the lost writings of German Pietism, especially those relating to Halle and Herrnhut. I have deep emotional ties to both the Moravian and Lutheran traditions, and have found these writings to be of immense help to me, and plan to focus my academic career around developing a greater understanding of them. It is my hope to bring many lost gems into the postmodern awareness, bringing forth a personal reality of a risen, living, and eternal God in those who read them.

I feel that there is a lot of attention being paid to the great reformed tradition of England, Scotland and Wales, but the Northern European writings of the same era have not received much consideration at all. Part of the problem has been that they exist almost exclusively in the “scholarly” realm, a place removed and inaccessible to the hungry Pilgrim (who wants stale bread when you can have a fresh biscuit with jam from such wonderful and gifted contemporaries such as John Piper, Mark Dever, Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller as well as scores of others - in addition to the volumes of devotional material reprinted from the Puritan and later Reformed movement.) My hope is to provide a truly pastoral sharing of these works, with my heart inclined to well-being of the reader and not just the historicity of the writings.

Why the long title?

Well, for the most part it is because I’m trapped. I’m without the spiritual elders of earlier years, and without their wisdom I’m flailing around searching for a rock. All the while knowing that the rock is ultimately Christ, my hope, and I’m trusting in it, but I’m nervous about all the details.

To start at the beginning, for my first sixteen years of life I was an atheist, raised by agnostics, knowing little of the church (I was quite happy that way.) I was baptized as a baby at an Episcopal church, the denomination of my father, but never really knew anything except the Lord’s prayer. We recited it as a family before bed until I was about 4, but something happened and it simply stopped. All religious “truth” was set aside in a rush of self-driven intellectualism, the real God of my home.

I converted thanks to the work of the Spirit and the well-spoken words of Mennonite friends who introduced me to a life of Christ that was holistic, real, and working to redeem values and people to a “Truth” that wasn’t being handed to them from a source outside the Bible. I needed a local church, and being in the part of Pennsylvania I was in, it happened to be a Lutheran church. I had no particular ties to the church at first, but I began to read the words of Luther and was inspired by the fire and passion in his words. I stayed with the Lutheran church for the few years before college, gleaning what I could from the theological scraps from preaching and feasting on the words of Luther.

At college in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania I was introduced to the Moravians, and quickly became one, singing at Central Moravian for three years before becoming a member of Edgeboro Moravian. I loved their traditions, their history, their words and daily practicality. Zinzendorf placed a heart-driven passion at the center of my theological world (herztheologie) and he continues to be the main influence on my theological direction (much to the chagrin of my more puritan-style reformed friends.) I met my wife around this time and often attended two church services every Sunday, one at the Moravian church I was a member of and one at the church she had grown up in, a highly charismatic world of flags, praise guitars, and prophetic words. Although I never felt at home here, they did show me something amazing about the fact that the expression of faith can be emotive and celebratory, it is OK to jump up and down in worship (they did it on Palm Sunday, of that I am sure, if ever there was a rock-styled event in the Gospels, it was then.)

Time to step aside for a moment to address the “calling of Christ” in my life. Early on, maybe a year after conversion, I was leading an emotional friend through the Lord’s prayer, she wanted to leave the church, she hated the hypocrisy and the lies. In bringing her through this she was brought to tears, I could sense the tension of faith and self that I often find in my own heart. As I got off the phone I felt overwhelmed, I broke into tears, I knew that this is what I was called to. I was called to speaking the Gospel’s truth into people’s lives. I was scared, excited, and firmly convinced that I had a direct experience, hearing God’s say, “This is your calling, now GO and follow it.” As I progressed through college, helping to lead worship, and as an elder of the campus fellowship, I began to pursue candidacy in the Moravian church. I eventually found myself at odds with some of the extra-scriptural elements slinking in at the edges. I decided not to complete my final candidacy paperwork and took a job in Virginia, far away from the Moravians and all the craziness that made me sick to my heart and stomach. For two years in Virginia I helped lead worship at a small Baptist church, living and loving in an urban context quite unlike the part of Pennsylvania I grew up in. After two years in Virginia we moved to Massachusetts when my wife took a job at a small Christian college, a college near the seminary that appealed to me the most, Gordon-Conwell.

We’ve worked at paying off all our debts and now I stand on the precipice of Seminary, without official denominational backing, although I am attending a Lutheran church that is a member of LCMC.

I’m scared to death - I don’t fit in any molds that I’ve met.

I have love for all those folks I’ve met:
Charismatic: for their unrestrained passion to experience God in worship
Evangelical: the Word must be proclaimed, there’s no getting away with whitewashing Christ’s truth for the world
Lutheran: the fire of the Spirit changes not just your actions, but brings you to repentance and the grace of God
Anglican: God is Holy, and the mind is a tool, not just something to be avoided or turned off
Baptist: your life is a reflection of Christ, the little things do make a difference
Mennonite: we are strangers in a strange land, we can’t just agree with the “powers” of this world and forsake the truth
Moravian: this world is our ministry field, we can’t avoid it, but we can bring light to places of darkness

Sure, there are parts where I disagree (For example I can’t bring myself to have a second baptism, both on grounds of the Nicene creed and on a covenantal belief in the nature of the baptism itself), but ultimately I just want to find a church home. One that holds to truth, but seeks out an holistic expression of it, a world-changing expression of it, and a hope in the life of the world to come. Any ideas where this seminarian can find a place to lay his head?

Oh, the sweet exchange! Oh, the inexpressible creation! Oh, the unexpected acts of beneficence! That the lawless deeds of many should be hidden by the one who was upright, and the righteousness of one should make upright the many who were lawless! Since he clearly demonstrated in the former time that we could not possibly, by our very nature, obtain life, and since he now revealed the savior who has the power to save even what is powerless-for both reasons he wanted us to believe in his kindness, to consider him our nurse, father, teacher, counselor, physician, mind, light, honor, glory, strength, and life, and to have no concern over what to wear or eat.

Epistle to Diognetus, 9:5-6

“What Have We Done?” as performed by The Northern Conspiracy on Good Friday (April 6th, 2007) at MHC | Shoreline.

This was performed at Mars Hill Church (Seattle) on Good Friday, although a little repetitive it does a good job of looking deep within and admitting honestly the reality of our Christ-following.

Oh my soul, Oh my Jesus. Judas sold you for thirty, I’d have done it for less.

Oh my soul, Oh my Savior. Peter denied you three times, I have denied you more.

As the nails went in, I was standing right there.

As you breathed your last, I shook my head and I cried.

Oh my God, what have we done. We have destroyed your son (x2)

Oh my soul, Oh my Jesus. Judas sold you for thirty, I’d have done it for less.

Oh my soul, Oh my Savior. Peter denied you three times, I have denied you more.

And the blood ran down, and I was standing right there

And the water poured, I shook my head and I cried.

Oh my God, what have we done. We have destroyed your son (x4)

(repeat v. 1)

For when outsiders hear the sayings of God from our mouths they are astonished at their beauty and greatness. Then when they discover that our actions do not match our words, they turn from astonishment to blasphemy, saying that our faith is some kind of myth and error. For, on the one hand, they hear from us that God has said, “It is no great accomplishment for you to love those who love you; it is great if you love your enemies and those who hate you.” And when they hear these things they are astonished by their extraordinary goodness. But when they see that we fail to love not only those who hate us, but even those who love us, they ridicule us and the name is blasphemed.

Second Clement 13:3-24

note: The letter known as second Clement is overwhelmingly considered to not have been written by Clement of Rome and was more than likely a simple homiletic exhortation to an Egyptian Christian community sometime in the second century. It contains a strong emphasis on works, coupled with mysticism of the flesh that could indicate the presence of teachings that would eventually be associated with gnostic movements later,in the second and third centuries.

Any postings from outside of scripture do not mean that I endorse the reading of these materials as supplemental to scripture, in this case they are informative of early Christian thought (would one want to think of what would happen if Joel Osteen’s books were the only surviving Christian material from our era?)

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Too often bible studies are thinly veiled attempts at socializing in Christian circles (and not that there is anything wrong with that, but please call a spade a spade.) So here’s some usefully organized links to getting yourself on a more exegetical approach from the ESV bible blog.

My wife and I were talking about the fact that we should live the Christian life as a holistic world view, our actions should really reflect what Christ teaches, even when those choices are contrary to what the world teaches. This covers the day-to-day aspects of life, but what about the things that are outside of your life? 

The example she gave was Darfur, as a horrible thing that she felt was outside of the daily life that we were talking about and therefore tougher to make a decision about how to act. We decided that if we felt we needed to help then that was the Spirit moving in our heart and that we should respond. If she felt we needed to do more than give money that we should do more, it is all a matter of answering the ache of the Spirit inside of you. Kingdom work is both mundane and heroic at the same time, it is all
about where the motivations come from. So, if you’re watching the news and you just want to cry about a tragedy, pray about it, and if you feel God is calling you to action, then act. Don’t just pray for them, but pray what you should do for them. We can’t retreat from those who are suffering and marginalized, because in us they will experience the kingdom, and in them we will experience the kingdom.