Things that have gone out of fashion in the Evangelical world (part 3) - Fasting

In the final post in this series, I come to something that is truly a weakness in Western Christianity, and it is also a weakness for me.  I have never heard a sermon on fasting,I have never preached a sermon on fasting. 

We live in a culture that demands that its appetites be satisfied. Whether this is food, alcohol, sex or rest, we see it almost as a human right that we get what we want. Even the Rolling Stones questioned that! To go hungry is something to be avoided and the nearest thing we get to it in this culture is to "detox".

But why fast? Is it simply to show God how pious we are? Isaiah 58:6-8 makes clear what our fast should be like. 

"Is this not the fast which I choose, To loosen the bonds of wickedness, To undo the bands of the yoke, And to let the oppressed go free And break every yoke? "Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry And bring the homeless poor into the house; When you see the naked, to cover him; And not to hide yourself from your own flesh? "Then your light will break out like the dawn, And your recovery will speedily spring forth; And your righteousness will go before you; The glory of the LORD will be your rear guard."

Things that have gone out of fashion in the Evangelical world (part 2) - Confessing Sin to one another

This certainly seems to have gone out of fashion in the Christian world! 

We live in a world where politicians who cheat on their expenses and when they are found out say the they had "made a mistake" or "it was an error of judgement". What they certainly do not say is "I did wrong and I am sorry". Banks rig the interest rates, bankers rig the markets and there are no consequences.

Confession of sin is an important part of being a Christian. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his wonderful little book, Life Together, speaks of the importance of confession to one another. He says that confession to God is important but confession to one another means that we can receive explicit absolution. Sin is always against another person and so against God, so absolution from a person who represents the community is important both for the individual Christian and for the Christian community. 

Receiving forgiveness is a wonderful gift and to give forgiveness is a release from rancor.

Things that have gone out of fashion in the Evangelical world (part 1) - Memorizing Scripture

Now this series of posts could come to sound like and old-man rant. It probably will and it probably is, however, I hope these post will also prompt us to think of what we may have lost. 

In Argentina, there are "days" for almost everything and everyone. There is, like in most places, Father's Day and Mother's Day but there is also Children's day, friend's day and Grandma and Grandpa's days. One very important day in Argentina is Teacher's Day (11/9 commemorating the death of the great Argentine educator Domingo Faustino Sarmiento).

One year on this day (which fell upon a Sunday), during the church service, we shared together what we had appreciated about our Sunday School teachers. I remember Rene Padilla (a well-known theologian) shared that he had appreciated the way in which his Sunday School teacher had taught him to memorize Bible verses. 

So this is my first "things that have gone out of fashion": Scripture memorization. The question is though, why do it? We can look up a verse on our iPhones in seconds: why commit the Bible to memory? Einstein actually said that he didn't remember anything he could write down. So, why use up valuable disk space in our brains on something you can look up?

I think my answer would be that word for word memory is probably not as important as knowing that certain scriptural truths are there and where to find them. Jesus clearly had memorized Scripture; demonstrated by his ability to quote it at the Devil in the temptations (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:9-20 and Luke 4:1-13) and to the traders in the Temple (Matthew 21:13-17, Mark 11:15-19, Luke 19:45-48 and John 2:12-25). That Jesus did it should be some encouragement.

I think the most important thing that Scripture memorization does though is to change our way of thinking. Memorizing Scripture is a stage in the process of helping the believer see the world through God's eyes. Famously, C. S. Lewis said "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." This is also true of the Bible, I believe it no only because I see it but rather that I see everything else by it. This surely aids our discipleship.

Micro and macro thinking

Some of you will be familiar with the Myers Briggs Type Indicator test (MBTI). Some love it and treat as a key to understanding everybody. Others detest it and see it as useful as a Buzzfeed test! Whatever you think about it, it does highlight the ways in which people see the world. I am especially thinking about those people who who see detail but tend not to appreciate the bigger picture. This would by the "S" in the MBTI. Others see the big picture but struggle to see detail. These, according to MBTI are "Ns".( I don't score anything on the "S" or detailed side of things!) The "S" sees the micro and the "N" sees the macro.

In mission studies there is a need for seeing both micro and macro thinking. I tend towards the macro, seeing the big picture of God's mission in this world. There is a need, however, for the micro thinking of how to actually achieve effective participation in that divine mission. Others tend to the "how to" of mission but fail to "look up" to see if they are still heading in the same direction as God. 

How do we maintain that balance? 


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Is Whitchurch really in heaven?

My dad told me that when he was a kid he believed that God lived in Whitchurch (a village south-east of Bristol) and his name was Harold! He thought that the first line of the Lord's prayer was giving God's address and the second line was his name!

Our Father, Whitchurch, in Heaven
Harold be thy name.

However nice Whitchurch may be, it could hardly be described in any shape or form as being Heaven!

So many of us trot off the Lord's prayer without realising that the key to the mission of the Church nestles there in the lines after those first two sections. Jesus encourages his disciples (and us) to pray

Your kingdom come, 
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

If Jesus wants us to pray for this to happen, then surely he also wants us to work to being it about. In this way of thinking, mission is less, trying to convince people to have faith and go to heaven and more bringing heaven down to earth.

Remember, remember...John 17:20-23

Not a very snappy title but one which expresses something that is important to remember. Division in the church is not only a domestic problem internal to the church but is a disaster for the world.

Reformation Day (31/10) and Guy Fawkes Night (5/11) come so close together, it always makes me reflect sadly on division. On the 31st October 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 thesis to the door of Wittenburg Cathedral sparking what has come to be known as the Protestant Reformation. On the 5th November, 1605 a group of Roman Catholic dissidents wanted to kill King James and set up his daughter Elizabeth as a Catholic Queen by blowing up Parliament. Now it is clear that Luther did not want to start a separate church but the result was another split in an already divided church. The gunpowder plot was a symptom of that division and its consequences. 

We live in a world wracked by division. Racial divisions, social divisions, religious and philosophical divisions lead to violence and war all around the world. More than ever before our world needs to hear a message of reconciliation, but more than hear it they need to see it. 

When Jesus prayed for us in John 17 he linked the unity of believers to belief in him. Unity is linked with mission. If God's ultimate purpose is, as Paul expresses it in Ephesians 1:10, to bring all things in heaven and on earth under Christ, then if the church is divided then the world does not have a model of what "all things under Christ" looks like. There is a very close link between church unity and universal reconciliation. 

So, what to do about it?

I just celebrated Halloween

It seems to me that I have just celebrated Halloween. I watched the news!

So called IS murdering people in Iraq and Syria; war and suffering in the Middle East and Ukraine; Ebola in West Africa; war in Central Africa. The list goes on. In this context, the celebration of the macabre seems unnecessary. 

This got me thinking and I wonder, apart from the massive commercialization of this event, whether Halloween helps people cope with such evil by making it comic. Perhaps this is a coping mechanism that so ridicules evil that it allows them to deny the reality of evil. This, of course exonerates us from confronting the reality.

I am not supporting or denying that there are dark spiritual powers behind evil, but I think it operates at all levels not only in Halloween.

BTW - Happy Reformation Day!

Interdependance of the local and the global

I've been blogging recently about how to develop a theology within local contexts that respects the fact that mission is both local and global. The danger of the new "missional" theologies that at best ignore the validity of contemporary cross-cultural mission and at worst deny it altogether.This group of posts originated in a thought from Eddie Arthur, which drives me to the subject of translation as an example. Translation of the Bible and its message is vitally important for the task of making disciples. Making disciples and teaching them to obey is a task that will always include translation. We will need to translate the Gospel into terms that British people will understand as well as in pioneering situations where the language has to be reduced to writing first. Many of the insights of missional theology are founded upon the insights of cross-cultural mission. So local mission depends on global mission for effectiveness and global mission depends on local support for its effectiveness. 

Context

The question I would like to pose today is if the academy is not the right place to start in developing an integrated theology for mission, then where is and why there? 

I would like to propose that there is only one place we can start and that is the context in which we are placed. I have had many discussions over the years with students and teachers who have objected to this and say that our only starting place must be the Bible. However, I do not think that we even have a choice where to start.

If we take the example of the type of theology I described yesterday, I said that it answers questions posed by the academic. This is starting from the context of the academic; i.e his or her context. 

If we must start from the Bible, where in the Bible do we start? John 3:16? Romans 6:23? If so, why? Well wherever we do start, it is because of our Christian background, denomination, tradition or heritage that we will choose this or that verse, passage or book. This is context. My tradition will almost always gravitate towards a letter from the Apostle Paul, probably Romans. You can easily guess what my tradition is!

We always start from the context when thinking theologically about our mission. So if it is inevitable, then it should be conscious to avoid our context dominating the direction of our theology. 

Next time we'll look at what our context looks like.

 

Top down theology

I often despair of the way people think about my chosen subject. They feel that theology is for the professional and not for them. I must admit however that many times they are right and theology is written by the professional and for the professional. It does not serve the church. . 

It is theology which has its source in the academy, i.e. in the seminary or university. It is primarily academic. Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being academic, but the academy is the wrong place for theology to start. In this case the academy decides the themes that theology reflects upon. These themes--whatever they may be--reflect the concerns of an academic not those of the people in the pew.

For example, much of the theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were concerned with the existence of God and other philosophical issues. So theology was written which included issues such as the ontological, cosmological and teological arguments. Not for the faint hearted! The main conversation partner for theology was the non-believer. In Latin America, however, the question was not unbelief but grinding poverty. 

A missional theology does not start in the academy, with the academy's questions but in the pew, with the concerns of Christians, living their lives out in the public square. How is this done?

Next time we will examine how these concerns are identified.

Mythology, missiology and methodology

I asked the question in my last post as to whether we can develop an adequate missional theology that integrates both local and international mission. I am convinced that one of the biggest problems we face in this regard is that "theology" is so detached from the life of ordinary Christians and they do not feel equipped to do the necessary theology to develop my proposed theology.

I see one of my functions in life as to make theology fun for people! "Fun Theology" will seem to many like an oxymoron. However, Karl Barth called theology "a most happy science"! If we do love God then talking about God is a fun thing to do. It is myth to believe that theology is a dull, boring, irrelevant discipline done by boffins. Ok so that might be the reality, but it shouldn't be!

Well, so where is the real theology? 

A Latin American theologian said that there were three levels of theology: Popular, pastoral and professional. This is great alliteration and he wasn't even a Baptist! By popular, he means grassroots; people in a congregation thinking about how they can act as Christians in a particular context in the light of the Gospel. This is real theology. This is the most important level of theology: not the professional. This is a theology that takes its missionary context seriously. 

We need Christians, who inhabit our pews, seats, chairs each Sunday to be equipped to think about their context--narrow and wide--in the light of the Gospel. What they need is not so much volume loads of theological books but a methodology to help them to relate their context--local, regional, national and international--to the Gospel and the Gospel to those contexts. How can we develop such a methodology?

Mission local and international

In the past "mission" has been thought of as only "over there". You must cross saltwater or at least national borders to be involved in mission. In recent years there has been a change and a lot of churches talk of mission as almost exclusively local. Eddie Arthur has written a blog post on this, check it out. He identifies three areas: theology, generosity and openness. He posits that many churches have a limited theology of mission, generosity is a long-term commitment and UK churches, who are in decline should be open to learn from newer churches here and from churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

This got me thinking about the need for an integrated theology that embraces both local and international mission. 

In this blog, I simply want to raise some of the issues which we may develop over the next few blogs. 

1. Theologically, there is no difference between local and cross-cultural mission.
2. Does sending missionaries make a church a missionary church?
3. How can we develop a theology (I assuming "Missional Theology") that encourages, challenges and develops an integrated approach to mission?

The dangers of reading the Bible

I am am currently studying Philippians 2:1-11. Everybody I talk to, who know the passage say, "wow! What a wonderful passage. Isn't Jesus wonderful?" I haven't reached that bit yet. I've got to be honest I am feeling rather weighed down by the bit before it.

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:3-5).

Each of those phrases make me despair of myself. How often do I act out of selfish ambition? How much do I value others above myself? How often do I focus in the needs of others more than my own? When do I actually have Christ's attitude? Let me confess. The answers are "Very often, not a lot, not very often and almost never" in that order. 

And I haven't even got to the detail of Christ's attitude that I'm supposed to have!

About Popular Culture

I am doing some reading about popular culture and found these quotes in Popologetics: Pop culture in Christian  Perspective, by Ted Turnau

If "religion is the opiate of the people", then immersive multiplayer 3D virtual worlds are hard-core Afghani heroin. (Bruce Stirling)

Anyway, I stopped going to churches and got into a different kind of religion. Don't laugh. That's what being in a rock 'n' roll band is. Showbiz is shamanism, music is worship. Whether it's worship of women or the designer, the world or its destroyer, whether from that ancient place we call soul or simply the spinal cortex, whether the prayers are on fire with a dumb rage or dove-like desire, the smoke goes upwards to God or something you replace God with--usually yourself. (Bono)

What does this mean for Christian mission in the West?

Global Theology or World Theologies

As you may know my major interest professional interest is in mission and theology. I have been writing a module called "Methods and Models of Contextual Theology" and time and again the issue has been raised in my mind over whether we should be talking about Global Theology or World Theologies. 

Evangelicals have tended to talk in terms of the unity of theologies and therefore Global Theology (sing.). See Jeffrey P. Greenman and Gene L. Green (eds.) Global Theology in Evangelical Perspective: Exploring the Contextual Nature of Theology and Mission (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2012) or the older Craig Ott and Harold Netland (eds.) Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an era of World Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2007). The danger, which both of these books seek to avoid is homogenization of theology. The globalizating power of economic, social and cultural forces are slipping into church life and theology.

Is a way to combate this to emphasise diversity of theologies. A good Evangelical example is A. Scott Moreau's Contextualization in World Missions: Mapping and Assessing Evangelical Models (Grand Rapids: Kregal, 2013). The fear for most Evangelicals is how do assess this diversity in theologies? The other related fear how do we maintain orthodoxy and avoid syncretism? The question that lies behind both of these is "how do we assess world theologies"?

José Míguez Bonino suggested the way forward is to move beyond dialogue to mutual accountability. He proposes that mutual accountability should be applied at both international and ecumenical levels in the context of a ‘disciplined, continuous and committed conversation at each level of life and thought in the worldwide Christian community’. There should be accountability in three areas; ‘our hermeneutical approach and our understanding of the authority of scripture, the way theology is related to the ‘manifold tradition of the church,’ and in interpretation of reality ‘as an economically, socially and politically structured system’.

What does a Missional Church look like?

Yesterday I preached at my home church from Acts 11.19-30 and Acts 12.25-13.3. Here we see how there is a geographical change in mission sending. Jerusalem had been the main sending church but now we see how Antioch has been added as a sending base. Antioch in Syria (ironically in Turkey today) was on three major trading routes and was an important city; rivaling even Alexandria at one point. 

What was the church at Antioch like? This is what I drew from the passage. 

·       Acts 11.19-20 – a Multi-cultural church.

·       Acts 11.21 a Spirit filled, Evangelistic and growing Church; cf. 11.26 and 13.2

·       Acts 11.26 a learning church who were identified as Christians

·       Acts 11.27-30 a compassionate and generous Church

·       Acts 12.25-13.1 a talented Church – Prophets and Teachers

·       Acts 13.2 a worshipping church

·       Acts 13.2 a Spirit filled church

·       Acts 13.3 an obedient church

Where are we? How do we shape up in comparison?

Violence and Religion

Is there a connection between adherence to a religion and the amount of violence you are willing inflict upon others? At face value, at interesting piece of research from the Pew Research Trust seems to suggest, yes (see the link below for the full report 91 pages long!) The report does report on violence of various religions upon people of other religious and on non-religious people. However, it also covers violence against religious people. Because of their relative sizes Christianity and Islam have the largest numbers of adherents having violence perpetrated against them.

I did read the whole report and did not find one reference to Christians perpetrating violence against other. Almost all were describing violence upon Christians. Turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39)

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2014/01/RestrictionsV-full-report.pdf

Isaiah

Isaiah 5:8-12

 8 Woe to you who add house to house
    and join field to field till no space is left
    and you live alone in the land.

⁹ The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing:

“Surely the great houses will become desolate,
    the fine mansions left without occupants.
¹⁰ A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine;
    a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain.”

¹¹ Woe to those who rise early in the morning
    to run after their drinks,
who stay up late at night
    till they are inflamed with wine.
¹² They have harps and lyres at their banquets,
    pipes and timbrels and wine,
but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord,
    no respect for the work of his hands

As I read this this morning I was struck by the contemporary nature of biblical prophesy. It is so interesting the link Isaiah makes between the greed of adding house to house and field to field (8) and living on your own in the land (8). You own so much that you live alone. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis' the Great Divorce where people in the "grey city" can't stand to live in close proximity to one another, so it continues to spread.

It also shows the ultimate destiny of this greed policy is ruin (9) and a fall in productivity (10). A "bath" of wine is only about 22 litres (apparently a low yielding vineyard could produce nearly 1000 litres. A homer of seed (160kg) will produce only produce and Ephah of grain (16kg). In other words it would be mostly husks. Greed leads to low yields of wine and low quality grain.

Finally, living only for luxury and indulgance (11-12a) is seen as disrespecting the earth (12b).  I don't think this is a polemic against alcohol and parties per se but is saying that indulgence costs the earth dear and does not care for creation.

How contemporary is Isaiah. This is especially true in a world where the 85 richest people own more than the poorest half of the world; in world where the greed to some leads to the financial crisis of 2008 and in a world where our indulgence is leading to climate change, etc.

The place of Tradition in theology

We have been thinking in one of my theology classes about the sources of theology. God's revelation in Jesus Christ is clearly the most important; the recording of that revelation in Scripture is also important. The context is also very important to the theology produced and in recent years that all theology is contextual is gradually being accepted. The role tradition is more ambiguous.

As Protestant Evangelicals we have tended to repeat the Reformation slogan of Sola Scripture, only Scripture. By accepting the role of context, we have started to recognise that there is more than Scripture in our theology but tradition we have left to the Roman Catholics and Orthodox. Tradition does not mean things such as the assumption of Mary or the Infallibility of the Pope. When we refer to "tradition" we refer to the words said about the Gospel. So liturgy, worship style, theology and up to the whole life of the church is tradition. Recognising tradition saves us from sacralising our own theology. 

I love Gustav Mahler's phrase when he said "Tradition is tending the flame, it's not worshiping the ashes".

Five paradoxes of Church

Since the year 2000 there seems to have been an avalanche of books on the Church. I have books on on my shelf called Emerging Church (2006), Re-Emerging Church (2008), Deep Church (2009), Gospel-Driven Church (2004), Intelligent Church (2006), Missional Church (2011) and finally a Just Church (2011). I've even got one that's simply called The Church but that's rather earlier (1968) and by Hans Küng! I was interested when John Stott, in his one of his last books, The Living Church (Nottingham: IVP, 2007, pp. 91-102), posits five paradoxes of the church. The church should be 

1. Biblical and contemporary
2. Authoritative and tentative
3. Prophetic and pastoral
4. Gifted and studied
5. Thoughtful and passionate

The first is challenging. How do we measure up?