Envision declaration on the common good

The panel of scholars at the Envision Conference met and dialogued from June 2-11 in order to draft a declaration. The document, “Envision the Future: A Declaration on the Common Good,” seeks “to reclaim the common good; to enact a robust vision of a common life that moves away from a world where resources and responsibilities – whether economic, political, or social – are held in the hands of a few to a global community in which they are held by all and all are benefited.” The entire document is available online here. If you wish, you can add your name to the distinguished list of endorsers.

The document charts a positive and ecumenical vision. They speak of being racially and ethnically diverse, as well as uniting “Evangelicals, Pentecostals, mainline Protestants, Anabaptists, emerging church members, and others who profess that the call of Jesus includes struggling for peace, social, economic, and racial justice, and a flourishing creation.” I commend them for their efforts in this regard, though I have doubts about the ability of orthopraxis to unite people who disagree about orthodoxy. I am deeply uncomfortable with the notion that “theology divides, but practice unites.” While the Envision leaders do not come out and say this directly, this is certainly the impression I got after the conference.

All in all, I heartily support what Envision is trying to accomplish. The declaration is rather vague, but that is to be expected from an ecumenically oriented document. Envision, they say, “inaugurates a new relation between our faith and our politics. In a spirit of humility and hospitality, we seek to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God and each other.” All of that is well and good, but it can tend toward the platitudinous. What does it mean to “do justice” or “love mercy”? These are hotly contested terms. While I realize that such a document has to remain at the level of generality in order to embrace the widest possible constituency, does this not, in the end, only delay the hard work of defining these terms and working toward concrete solutions?

I am being picky, of course, but only because I want to see some real progress here, particularly among Evangelicals. I look forward in hope to a time when Christians are no longer led around by various political parties, but instead are themselves, as the church, the leaders and visionaries for social justice in the world. In any case, despite the generalities and potential overemphasis on ecumenism, the end of the Envision document is worth quoting:

We acknowledge that we do not agree on all things. We acknowledge that we do not have all the answers, but we will seek them together. In the midst of our differences we are committed to remain together at the table that God sets for us and not demonize each other, but to talk, reason, and work together for a brighter and better future. We affirm our desire to work together and with others in a shared commitment to justice, equality, and peace. We invite all who share such a commitment and vision to sign this declaration and join the Envision movement.

On using gendered pronouns for God

I thought we had progressed further than this. In the comments to my final post on the Envision conference, some people criticized me for advocating the removal of gendered pronouns in relation to God. They argued that this was implicitly a rejection of the revealed triune name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whenever I hear this kind of argument, I reminded of how much re-education still needs to happen in the church.

The fact of the matter is that the name “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” has nothing whatsoever to do with gender. God is neither male nor female, because God is not a creature. God is qualitatively different from anything created, and that means the distinctions between male and female, old and young, black and white, have no bearing on God’s being. Even when God takes on the humanity of Jesus, this does not mean God only takes up the male sex. That would be heretical, tantamount to saying that God only died for men, not for women. The humanity of Jesus is concrete, yes, but a concrete universal—the humanity of all people. This is why the Roman Catholic insistence upon male clergy on the basis of Jesus’ maleness (and the sex of the disciples) is fundamentally mistaken: it elevates the particular attributes of Jesus as a male human over the attributes of his salvific significance. The only attribute significant in terms of his identity as the Savior of the world is the attribute of “human nature,” not “male humanity.”

At the end of the day, interpreting the name “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” in gendered terms is equivalent to interpreting anthropomorphic imagery about, for example, the “hand of God” as if God actually has a hand. The Bible is full of anthropomorphic talk about God, but that does not mean God is just a Big Human in the sky. Similarly, the revealed name of the Trinity as “Father, Son, and Spirit” should not lead us to the mistaken impression that God is simply a human father raised to the level of infinite perfection and then projected upon the face of the divine. Nor is the Son of God simply a human son raised to the level of infinite perfection. (As always, we face the perennial problem: what is the gender of the Spirit?)

I am not arguing that we should jettison anthropomorphic imagery of God. The fact of the matter is that all human speech about God is necessarily anthropomorphic. As humans, we cannot speak about God in non-anthropomorphic language. We only know creaturely reality, so such talk is inescapable. But we cannot interpret such language literally or univocally. To do so would only be a denial of God’s divinity. It would mean reducing God to the level of a being within the world. It would be to adopt the metaphysical idea of God that Feuerbach already unmasked as a human projection, an idealized human being. According to Feuerbach, “The divine being is nothing else than the human being, or, rather, the human nature purified, freed from the limits of the individual man, made objective—i.e., contemplated and revered as another, distinct being. All the attributes of the divine nature are, therefore, attributes of the human nature.” In the end, Feuerbach realizes that such knowledge of God is only “man’s knowledge of himself, of his own nature.” When we ascribe gendered pronouns to God as if they are actually descriptive of who God is in Godself, then we fall prey to Feuerbach’s critique. We succumb to metaphysical thinking about God.

Am I saying that gendered pronouns are absolutely unacceptable? No. God had to become a specific gender in the incarnation, and it happened to be that God became a man. Does this mean that one gender is superior to the other, or that one gender is more a part of God’s being than another? Absolutely not! But it does mean that gendered pronouns are, in a certain, inescapable. When we talk about Jesus, we are talking about God. My argument was really about being courteous to those who seek to excise gendered pronouns when speaking about God, about the divine. While I personally strive to never use gendered pronouns because of the possible misinterpretation that God is somehow male or related more to men than women, I do not disparage those who choose to use such language, as long as they use it critically and responsibly.

Where I get frustrated is when people think that somehow male pronouns are privileged over female pronouns. That is nonsense. We can and should be able to speak about God as a “she” just as much as a “he.” Either gender is anthropomorphic in nature, and thus does not apply to God’s actual being, because God is not a creature. We speak as humans to humans, and we need to be aware of the limitations of our speech when we talk about God. Failure to do so is to fall into idolatry: to make God like us, or, even worse, like me.

Intelligent Design = Creationism

Intelligent Design proponents like to say that ID has nothing to do with creationism, that it is just taking the scientific evidence at face value. They’ll even say that one could believe that the designer is an alien being from another planet, though I know of no prominent ID proponent who accepts this position. But the attempt to separate ID from creationism is a red herring meant to distract us from the truth. See for yourself.



H/T The Creation of an Evolutionist

Sermon: a missional theology of universal reconciliation

On May 25, I gave my latest sermon at my church, The Well, entitled, “You Will Be Saved Because You Have Been Saved.” We are preaching through the book of Acts in lectio continua style, and I was given the text of Acts 16:16-40. This is the famous passage in which Paul and Silas are in prison, singing to the Lord, when suddenly an earthquake occurs, breaking them free. Instead of fleeing the scene, Paul and Silas remain in their cells. This act of witness prepares the jailer for his conversion. The jailer asks, “What must I do to be saved?” And Paul answers, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

I decided to use this text to preach a thoroughly theological sermon on the nature of salvation. In short, it is an attempt to provide an exegetically responsible soteriology. As readers of this blog know, I am an advocate for Christian universalism. Ever since my (still incomplete) series on universalism from 2006, my views have become far more refined and nuanced. I abandoned the series both because it was taking too much time, but also because my theological commitments have shifted and evolved since I began that project. While I still agree with my earlier position, two important things have happened: first, I heard Bruce McCormack lecture on the problem of universalism at last year’s Barth Conference at Princeton Seminary. He affirmed the right of theologians to adopt universalism as a theological position, but he argued that churches themselves must remain in the tension between salvation and damnation, between universalism and double predestination. Churches must not adopt univeralism (and fall into complacency) or adopt double predestination (and fall into despair). Instead, from an ecclesial standpoint, one must remain under judgment.

While McCormack’s position is very Balthasarian, it is also a healthy one, primarily because of the second change to my earlier position: viz., my adoption of missional theology as the basic framework within which to think theologically. A missional theology need not undermine Christian universalism—in fact, reflection on the mission of God leads us in that very direction, I would argue. But missional theology is also fundamentally an ecclesial theology, and within the sphere of the church, a theology which does not propel us into mission is in some way deficient. McCormack’s position is missional, at heart, though he did not use that language. My adoption of missional theology thus leads me to emphasize not only the objective-christocentric reality of universal reconciliation, but also the subjective-ecclesial reality of our calling as ministers of reconciliation in the world. It is this dynamic relationship between reconciliation and mission, between Christ and the church, that I chose to explore in my sermon.

I would call my position a missional theology of universal reconciliation. The church does not continue or augment or complete the mission of God accomplished in Jesus Christ, in whom God reconciled the world to Godself (2 Cor. 5:19). And yet the church is called by God to be the witnesses of this reconciliation to the world. They are called to be missionaries, in the sense that they engage in the mission set before them by Jesus. Of course, Jesus has already gone before them as the Resurrected One, and thus the church is by grace able to follow Jesus in humble and faithful obedience, acting as his ambassadors to a world bereft of good news.

You can hear my exposition of Acts 16 here. Give it a second to load. Because the sermon does not begin until 7:00, click ahead until you reach that marker. Since I speak a bit fast and it may be hard to understand what I am saying at times, feel free to email me and I can send you the text of the sermon.

Upcoming Blog Conferences

In addition to the Hans Urs von Balthasar Blog Conference (March 2008) and the second annual Karl Barth Blog Conference (currently in progress), I want to take a moment to acknowledge two upcoming blog conferences: the Sergei Bulgakov Blog Conference (September 2008), and the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Blog Conference (November 2008). Both will likely be annual events, like the other two conferences already mentioned.

I will be contributing an essay to the Bulgakov conference tentatively entitled, “The Comforter: Bulgakov on the Holy Spirit.” The essay will be a close reading and engagement with Bulgakov’s groundbreaking work on the Holy Spirit entitled, of course, The Comforter. I’m not sure if I will contribute to the Bonhoeffer conference, but I would like to write something, perhaps on how Bonhoeffer’s Ethics compare to Barth’s ethics in his Muenster lectures and in Church Dogmatics II/2.

In any case, these conferences look to be excellent theo-blogging events. I, for one, am glad to see theo-blogging becoming more of a collaborative effort.

Do not put your trust in presidents

After the Envision ’08 conference—in which there was so much talk about transforming society and influencing Washington—it’s only appropriate I think that we read and reflect on Psalm 146.

Psalm 146:1-10

Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD, O my soul!
I will praise the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

The LORD will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD!

2008 Karl Barth Blog Conference

The second annual 2008 Karl Barth Blog Conference has begun over at Der Evangelische Theologe. This conference will explore the theology of Barth through the eyes of Eberhard Jüngel’s masterpiece, God’s Being Is in Becoming. Jüngel is the most notable German interpreter of Barth and a remarkable theologian in his own right. This blog conference looks to be an exciting event.

Jon Mackenzie’s contribution is currently online and examines the role of philosophy and theology in Jüngel. Yours truly has an essay appearing later on Jüngel’s mediating role between Barth and Bultmann. Because of its length, the “director’s cut,” so to speak, will appear in Fire & Rose after the edited version is posted as part of the conference.