If you still don’t understand the emerging church, or tend to think it will be a brief, passing trend in church history, this video might help. Everytime you hear the word “jazz” just replace it with “christian belief” in your mind. Sit through the first (unnecessary) 40 seconds of introduction and you may just find this helpful. Not a perfect correlation, but there are some very neat parallels.
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Kingdom theology saw a resurgence in the second half of the twentieth century. Many rightfully consider the embracing of kingdom theology as essential for a biblically faithful community, witness, and mission to the world. A brief survey of Jesus’ message and ministry in the Gospels reveals that God’s kingdom was absolutely central to his work. It was what he preached, why he exercised his authority, and was part of his identity and self-understanding.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:24 (NIV)
Many in the church are warming up to this idea. Some in the nineteenth and twentieth century, especially liberal theologies, used the concept to set forth a humanistic agenda of world peace which stripped away any notion of supernatural salvation or atonement theology from the Christian message. It is also used by some to propagate socialist political theory. More recently, it is used by charismatics as grounds for a theology of healing and reconciliation. While some of these may be aspects of evangelical options, kingdom theology serves as what is referred to as theology’s integrating theme. Some consider it the most basic theological theme that gives meaning to all other doctrines. That being said, it was surprising to see John Franke and Stanley Grenz offer such little treatment of it in Beyond Foundationalism, especially in light of Franke’s other work The Character of Theology in which he continues this pattern but does use the term at various points in his work, rather affirmingly. While I considered the idea that it was not within the scope of Beyond Foundationalism, as it turns out they propose community as theology’s integrative motif. So, there is an obvious intentionality and thoughtfulness put into it, and they even offered a few brief paragraphs as to why kingdom as an orienting motif falls short. The reasons they provide are (p. 234-235):
- The kingdom of God is hard to define. But there have been satisfactory, technical definitions. Also, community itself is not without controversy.
- It lends itself to individualistic theology, even in the hands of liberal theology. Actually, kingdom theology probably provides the most social motif while retaining the individual responsibility of persons. Of course they would probably resist the need for such a move in the first place, since he takes seriously that we do not have meaning or identity without the reference of community. Still, the individuality of persons is retained in Scriptures, so there is no need to fear where kingdom theology only may lead, even as Franke grants.
- Kingdom theology is a pervasive but not a basic theme in the Bible. While this may be true if looking for explicit references, this is not true if one understand the concept as implicit. Community, though also convincingly pervasive, falls short in a similar manner.
“In fact, the concept of community forms the content of the kingdom of God. The divine reign consists of God at work redeeming, reconciling, and transforming creation into God’s intended ideal and thereby constituting the world as God’s realm.”
I don’t know if they realized what they just did here—they resorted to God’s realm as being more basic than community. God’s realm is his kingdom. What community as an integrative motif misses out on is all the dimensions of creation that is beside humans; big-picture ecology is gleaned over. God’s kingdom plan extends to the destiny of creation, and has a wider scope than that of community. Since the subtitle of Beyond Foundationalism is “Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context,” it makes sense that community is at the core of their proposal. Not to mention, it is incredibly helpful and useful. Still, since postmodern theory admits that the words we use actually shape our experience, I think it would be wonderful to see works that treat theology’s task, nature, or method take seriously the term Jesus used to define his ministry. I am curious as to why they decided to go in a different direction. The one reason I understand, though still have my reservations about, is that it is an outdated model in a post-monarchical world.
Yesterday was a big day for the Southern Baptist Convention. They voted on some important motions, including the Great Commission Resurgence which was pretty controversial, though it did pass. Read about that here. Recently there also continues to be a lot of controversy surrounding calvinism in Southern Baptist churches and seminaries. Calvinists are still the minority in this denomination. Apparently the SBC isn’t favorable to the Acts 29 network—a calvinist church planting network—so pastor Joshua Shank decided to propose a motion to widen its support…in the form of a rap. It was light hearted and the convention seemed to welcome his motion. The only question I’m left wondering is if, ”Teamwork will make the dream work,” then why is Acts 29 exclusively calvinistic? With such a young, talented, and visionary network of church planters, it would be great to see it open up to better relationships with those who are outside this particular theological camp.
Pillarization is the phenomenon of creating social cleavages based on community distinctions. Since especially the Dutch started this practice, the church has in its own way welcomed the divide between sacred and secular by pursuing Christian versions of media, educational institutions, hospitals etc. Think Godtube, Westminster Seminary, TBN. In evangelicalism today, this has continued and is at least in some sense beneficial. Publishing companies, seminaries, certain television channels are often both necessary and beneficial. When it comes to early childhood education though, the reason most parents choose private Christian schools or homeschooling as opposed to public is because they question the values being passed on in public schools. Most parents genuinely fear that schools will rob their children of their faith. I find this to be troubling because if Christ’s presence is not in the world through his church, it will only continue down its wayward path. For this reason, we need to trust that Christ in us is greater than he who is in the world, and that the Spirit in us is able to overcome fear, and that we are to remain in the world but be not of it.
I will be the one to tuck my child into bed. I will be the one to teach her to ride a bike for the first time. I will pack their lunch for school. I will pray with him before meals, and when he is scared, and on many other sorts of occasions. When she practices her most enchanting hobbies, spending free time in a way that most pleases her, I will be the one next to her.
I will be the one that celebrates these moments with them. I will be there whispering in their ear that they are loved by me, and loved even more by God in Jesus. What could be more powerful a safeguard than that?
On May 11th Homebrewed Christianity posted a podcast interview with N.T. Wright. It seems like most interviews with Wright these days typically treat the same issues, but this one was somewhat exceptional, maybe because of its broader scope and/or maybe because the blog is a little less concerned with the issues evangelicals are presently quibbling about. But if you want a primer on Wright’s thought this is a good one nonetheless. Very enjoyable. Here are several significant(?) quotes:
“Bart [Ehrman] is quite an angry man.”
“I do think that the Gospels intended to refer—and succeeded in referring—to Jesus himself and not simply to the community’s faith about Jesus.” (on Barthian heritage)
“If you are a theologian that believes you ought to wait for the biblical scholars to sort stuff out before you can then use their material in your own work, then you might sometimes feel like you have to wait forever.”
“The bible doesn’t use the phrase afterlife—that’s a modern term. Let’s talk about the robust Christian hope.”
“The role of postmodernity is to preach the doctrine of the fall to arrogant modernity.”
“If we read the gospels and say our prayers, we should be able to do it.” (on how to move into a post-postmodern world)
“The unity of the church for him [Paul] is a symbolic thing as well as an actual thing. It is the symbol which says, this is is the new humanity—don’t accept any cheap, man-made substitutes.”
“If you imagine a church that stops doing theology, you are imagining a church that is about to split.”
And here he recalls a quote by Crossan which he considers to have been a subtle, though friendly, jab at Wright’s journey in biblical studies.
“If you read Paul first you’ll read Jesus wrong; if you read Jesus first you’ll read Paul differently.” John Dominic Crossan
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