Category: Kingdom of God
N.T. Wright (in response to James K.A. Smith) on tradition, creedalism, and canonical readings.
"I'm not persuaded that the fruits of historical science have suddenly put us in a position superior to pre-modern interpreters."
A few weeks ago James K.A. Smith wrote a bit about N.T. Wright’s new book How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels (see “Kings, Creeds, and the Canon: Musings on N.T. Wright”). Initially he praised the work, then he moved into his critique. To summarize Smith didn’t like (1) that Wright seems to present his views on the Kingdom of God in the Gospels as something of which everyone is woefully ignorant until he came to explain it; (2) that Wright talks about the creeds as if they are “…the villain that tempted us to miss this ‘forgotten story.’ “; and (3) Wright dismisses “canonical readings” of Scripture (if this true then what are we to make of this video titled ‘The Whole Sweep of Scripture’ produced by The Work of the People featuring Wright?) and “the rule of faith” because he sees “tradition” as a “blinder.” Smith announces, “I’m not persuaded that the fruits of historical science have suddenly put us in a position superior to pre-modern interpreters.” (This is his challenge to Wright’s “originality” as someone who is as much a historian as a theologian.)
To summarize, Smith doesn’t think Wright has introduced something new that the Reformed tradition overlooked. He doesn’t see historical research as having added something essential to our understanding of Christian doctrine that the canon and creeds failed to provide. This book says what people like Abraham Kuyper, Richard Mouw, or others in the Reformed tradition have said already.
Some people commented questioning Smith’s suggestion that Wright sees himself as delivering something new that is actually quite old. One person pointed out that even if there have been people saying the things Wright is saying this doesn’t mean it is not a message that many still need to hear. Then N.T. Wright responded:
"And, excuse me, what’s this about me being dismissive of ‘canonical’ readings?"
He began by clarifying that his experience has led him to come across many people who do not have a solid answer for why we need the “content” of the Gospels themselves. Many see the reason for Jesus as being his death, burial, and resurrection. What are we to do with Jesus’ life and teachings? I must say as someone who has been around Pentecostal and E/evangelical groups if it weren’t for the writings of Wright I wouldn’t have an answer to that question either. It is great that Smith’s tradition has addressed this subject. For the rest of us who are outside Reformed circles with little to no interest in entering we are thankful for the work Wright has done on this subject.
Second, Wright defends his appreciation of the creeds. I must quote a large section:
“I take care precisely NOT to ‘fault’ the great creedal tradition. I use the two classic creeds in my regular prayers and worship – in the Anglican manner: the Apostles’ Creed every day, and the Nicene Creed at the Sunday Eucharist. (Just as they do at Calvin, of course.) The creeds are not the ‘villains’. They were not written to provide a teaching syllabus. They are the symbol, the badge, the list of things that were controversial early on which the church had to hammer out. The problem comes – and at what point in church history this occurred I couldn’t say, that not being my period – when the creeds are used as teaching outlines; because of course they skip precisely over the ‘middle bits’ of the gospels, and thereby, quite accidentally and non-villainously, collude with a quite different movement, with which many of my readers tell me they are all too familiar: a form of Christianity in which it would be quite sufficient if Jesus of Nazareth had been born of a virgin, died on a cross and never done anything in between. The rise of such a truncated form of Christianity is not at all (I suggest) the fault of the wonderful and beloved Creeds, but of quite different movements which have then (ab)used them as a teaching outline which has reinforced (quite accidentally in terms of the Creeds’ original purpose) the omission of the kingdom of God as a present reality. In other words, I not only don’t reject Nicene Christianity, I embrace it, affirm it, love it, live it, and pray it. But the best sort of Nicene Christianity has always insisted that you read the gospels themselves, and indeed pray the Lord’s Prayer, and that these are just as important for shaping who we are in Christ as the formulaic creeds themselves.”
'How God Became King' by N.T. Wright.
Third, Wright rejects that he dismisses canonical readings. He states that his book is “a plea to let the canon be the canon!” According to Wright appeals to “the canon” often mean appeals to a tradition and not the biblical canon at all.
Finally, Wright refutes Smith’s seeming dismissal of extra canonical literature. He states,
“So what’s this about ‘extra-canonical resources’? This is often said but it’s (frankly) nonsense. Without extra-canonical resources – e.g. lexicography – I would not be able to read the New Testament at all. Without knowing a bit about who the Pharisees were – and what the Sabbath meant to a second-Temple Jew – I wouldn’t understand Mark 2. And so on.”
Then Wright goes on to say a few more good things about the necessity of understanding at least some things about the context of Second Temple Judaism and the first century world. I am thankful to Smith for highlighting what he thought should be approved (I haven’t read the book yet), but as someone who has read a lot of Wright’s work over the years I am more appreciative of his response which I think frames his project as I have understood it. One comment said that the next generation will look at Wright’s work “as just another dead end project.” This is false already. For many of us in that already emerging next generation he has helped us rethink the Apostle Paul, the message of the Gospel, the Kingdom of God, the use of Hebrew Scripture in the New Testament, Second Temple Judaism, eschatology (one pastor friend of mine said he had given up on eschatology until he read Surprised by Hope), and so forth and so on. In some sense most scholars are forgotten in a generation or two. That is how the guild functions. To say Wright’s work is a dead end is to ignore the impact it has had already! (Of course, that person said in his comment that Barth’s project was “a dead end” and although I am not a Barthian I think this overlooks the reality that Barth remains one of the most influential theologians even now.)
Update (04/13): Smith replied to Wright and Wright has added a couple additional comments. Make sure to read those as well!
Advent 2011: Fourth Sunday
One week until Christmas. This Sunday my pastor will be finishing the Advent Sermon Series we’ve been doing on the “fulfillment” passages of Matthew 1-2. He should be covering 2.16ff. with a focus on vv. 17-18. In this passage the words of the prophet Jeremiah are found useful for explaining the misery caused by Herod’s decision to slaughter the infants and youngest children of Bethlehem because his paranoid state-of-being would not allow him to live with the thought that a “King” was born in Bethlehem.
Herod was a lunatic. He has his own sons killed because he thought they were a threat to the throne. It is amazing that a man who had power feared everyone and anyone who threatened it, including a small child whom he did not know. There is a quote attributed to Lord Acton which states, “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
As we watch the leaders of this world do their thing it seems apparent that this is true. Democracy has it’s problems, but dictatorships seem to create the largest messes globally. Humans do not tend to make very good kings.
What if God were King? What is God ruled the world instead of humans? What is God ruled through a human?
This is why hope in that small child Jesus is different than hope in any politician or world ruler. Jesus is the one through whom God rules the world. Jesus is the one through whom humanity finds its destiny and purpose. In Jesus humanity meets God and God meets humanity. Only a person like this could avoid Lord Acton’s warning against despot behavior.
So we await the return of our King. Advent is that time of remembering that he visited us once, that he ascended into heaven where he reigns in the authority of God the Father, and that he will return to unite heaven and earth in perfect peace–shalom!
Jesus and the Occupy Movement.
Would Jesus "occupy' or not? This is likely a wrongheaded question in itself.
On the one hand you will find people saying Jesus would have opposed the Occupy Movement like Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council (see “Jesus was a free marketer, not an Occupier”). Apparently, Jesus supported free market capitalism even before it existed. At least that is Perkins argument because in one of Jesus parables he has a servants earning profits on money given to them by their master. Perkins doesn’t seem to mind the master-slave dynamic. As Scot McKnight notes (see “Occupy Hermeneutics”), this is one of the dangers of “biblicism”.
Often this crowd can be found laughing at people who oppose abuse by corporations. They find passages of Scripture that seem to support staying contently in your place in society as if Christianity advocates some form of caste system. Another approach is an under-realized eschatology wherein all “change” in this age is not worth pursuing. There is no hope for good to prevail until Jesus establishes his Kingdom on earth. If we oppose violence we are trying to “establish” the Kingdom of God. If we oppose greed we are trying to “establish” the Kingdom of God. Often this comes from people who are quite comfortable with the current dynamics of this world. This allows them to ignore Jesus’ Kingdom activities which challenged the systems of the world and that he expected his disciples to continually reenact.
On the other hand you will find the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. He says Jesus would have supported the Occupy Movement (see “Rowan Williams Says Jesus Would Be Siding With the Occupy Movement”). The Jesus of the Gospels is closer to Williams’ Jesus than Perkins’, but I have two areas of contention with the idea that Jesus would be part of the Occupy Movement.
First, I don’t like when I hear anyone say that Jesus would be part of their movement. If Jesus were physically present we’d either be for him or against him. He would culminate the rule of God perfectly and his solutions would be beyond our own. Even at his first advent Jesus’ mission was his own (or we may say it was “God the Father’s”). At most we can say Jesus stood in continuation with the movement of John the Baptist. Otherwise, Jesus is the figurehead of his own movement. It is not about Jesus being in line with us. It is about our need to be in line with him.
Second, as we struggle to represent Jesus’ Kingdom here on earth we will always fall short. I respect Christians who participate in the Occupy Movement, but there is no doubt that Occupy has imperfections. If a disciple feels that their Lord has called them to witness unto him within the Occupy Movement that is one thing. To equate all the actions and goals of the Occupy Movement with the ideals of the Kingdom of God is an error. It may be just me, but Jesus is less concerned with the “American Dream” or the ideals of capitalism than he is with the real 99% of this planet who suffer far worse than the poorest of our citizens.
This does not mean that I don’t want to see equality in the United States. As part of our experiment in democracy this is something I seek. It is part of what it means to be an American who affirms “all men were created equal”. Yet we should not convalute our ideals with those of the Kingdom of God.
Where we find crossover we find our need to care for the poor, the physically impaired, the widow, the orphan, the elderly, and anyone our society deems “the least of these”. This doesn’t make Jesus a Marxist or even of socialist. Again, that would make Jesus fit in our system. We need to avoid minimizing Jesus into a set of principles oddly similar to our own (much like Jesus’ temple cleansing has been used as a parallel for anti-Wall Street demonstrations). I don’t know what the response is to a government that seems to make it more and more difficult on the least of these, but I think it is somewhere between challenging the State and acting as part of the solution ourselves. Often it is the second half of that equation that is far more difficult.
For my brothers and sisters who feel that their calling as Christians demands that they align with the Republicans or the Democrats, the Tea Party or the Occupy Movement, or whatever parties or systems your country uses, I pray for you in your endeavor. If you are seeking to represent Christ well then I hope you fulfill your calling. Let us not equate our personal callings as representatives of Christ with Christ’s agenda itself though. There is always some nuance wherein our fallibility distracts us from Christ’s mission. We can only seek to be in-tune with the Spirit as we await the day when Christ makes all our efforts into something more beautiful than we could construct on our own.
Is the Kingdom part of the Gospel? (Mark 1.14-15)
It is often noted that the epistles say very little about the Kingdom of God in juxtaposition with the gospels. This is one of the reasons why many are very confident that the historical Jesus spoke often about the kingdom. It seems to be something that his followers did not emphasize as much; therefore, it doesn’t make sense that they would have invented his Kingdom sayings. This has led to quite a bit of speculation as to why the church forsook a concept so important to Jesus himself.
I am beginning to think that “the gospel” may have come to include the proclamation of the Kingdom so that when the Apostle Paul writes, “I am not ashamed of the gospel…” (Rom 1.16) it was taken for granted that this included the proclamation that God has enthroned Christ as his King (see Rom. 1.3-4).
The first thing that made this come to mind is Mk. 1.14-15 which reads:
“Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
As one can see when Jesus comes to Galilee “preaching the gospel” (κηρύσσων τὸ εὐαγγέλιον) he discusses the soon coming Kingdom of God (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ), which demands that one responds by “believing the gospel” (πιστεύετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ).
Could it be that many in the early church simply assumed that any talk of “the gospel” assumed “the kingdom”?
Wednesdays with Wright: Reading Jesus, Paul and the People of God: Wright on the Future of Historical Jesus Studies
Nicholas Perrin and Richard B. Hays (eds) (2011). Jesus, Paul, and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N.T. Wright. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.
Well, Daniel and I are already half-way through our review of Jesus, Paul, and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N.T. Wright (again, we would like to say a huge “thank you” to IVP for our review copies). We have already taken a look at the first four chapters where various scholars interact with Wright’s work in historical Jesus studies. Today we will examine the chapter where Wright has the floor and he gets to present his vision for where historical Jesus studies may go as relates to the life of the church.
N.T. Wright, “Whence and Whither Historical Jesus Studies in the Life of the Church?”
In this chapter Wright begins by looking back at where the quest for the historical Jesus has gone. He gives much attention to Rudolf Bultmann, emphasizing his project and the historical context within which it evolved. Wright’s major critique is that he understand Bultmann to have imported the Lutheran “two kingdoms” model onto Jesus. This results in a Jesus of history and one of faith. Once this move has been made scholars became more concerned with “the community” to which the gospels were written that the Jesus about whom they were written (p. 117).
The first person Wright finds who provides a good corrective is Ernst Kasemaan whose own work showed “if we don’t do historical-Jesus research, difficult through it may be, we are helpless against the ideology that manufactures a new Jesus to suit its own ends.” (p. 119-120) Wright uses Germany as an example, showing that when people no longer seek the Jesus of history we often find something like the Jesus of the Nazi ideology or whatever other culture it is wherein Jesus is being reinvented.
Wright says that as he was training for academics and the pastorate, “I found my self incapable of saying in the pulpit, ‘As Jesus said…’ without asking myself the question, But did he?” (p. 120) In his view many of his contemporaries either bought into the criticisms of their professors or they retreated to a Jesus with whom they were comfortable from the traditions from where they had come.
While he admits that he retreated into Pauline studies for about a decade (I can resonate) it was Schillebeeckx’s Jesus and Meyer’s The Aims of Jesus that drew him back toward the subject of the historical Jesus. One shift in methodology that Wright admits making is rather that asking whether Jesus said this or that (a crapshoot of a task) he decided to ask,
” Supposing Jesus said this or that, what would it have meant at that time? lead to the question, So what did Jesus mean at the time? What was he wanting to get across to his hearers? What was he trying to accomplish? What, in short, were his aims?” (p. 123)
Wright then spends some time explaining his historiographical method before presenting his “two main themes” (p. 133): the divinity/humanity of Jesus and the cross/kingdom in the life of Jesus.
Divinity and Humanity?
It is here that Wright presents his Christology. He notes,
“The Gospels are not primarily written to convince their readers that Jesus of Nazareth is the second person of the Trinity. They are not talking about that. Rather, they are written to convince their readers that he really was inaugurating the kingdom of God–the kingdom of Israel’s God–on earth as in heaven.” (p. 133)
According to Wright, “Jesus as kingdom-bringer has been screened out of the church’s dogmatic proclamtion. The church has managed to talk about Jesus while ignoring what the Gospels say about him.” (Ibid.) What must be acknowledged is that the Gospels claim “that this is Israel’s God in person coming to claim the sovereignty promised to the Messiah.” (p. 134) We must understand that this is God giving his son the nations (see Ps. 2).
Wright does not think that the tradition of the church has misunderstood Jesus like liberal scholars do, per se. Rather, he sees them as minimalizing him. He says this of the Chalcedonian Creed:
“…the Chalcedonian Definition looks suspiciously like an attempt to say the right thing but in two dimensions (divinity and humanity as reimagined within a partly de-Judaized world of thought) rather than in three dimensions. What the Gospel offer is the personal story of Jesus himself, understood in terms of his simultaneously (1) embodying Israel’s God, coming to rule the world as he had always promised, and (2) summing up Israel itself, as its Messiah, offering to Israel’s God the obedience to which Israel’s whole canonical tradition had pointed but which nobody, up to this point, had been able to provide. The flattening out of Christian debates about Jesus into the language of divinity and humanity represents, I believe, a serious de-Judaizing of the Gospels, ignoring the fact that the Gospels know nothing of divinity in the abstract and plenty about the God of Israel coming to establish his kingdom on earth as in heaven, that they know nothing of humanity in the abstract, but plenty about Israel as God’s true people, and Jesus as summing that people up in himself.” (p. 135) (See a fuller discussion of this quotation here.)
For Wright we cannot merely do abstract theological readings of the gospels. We must do historical readings. We must ask what the evangelists sought to tell us and who this Jesus was of which they spoke.
Kingdom and Cross
At this juncture Wright addresses one of his pet-peeves: the separation of the kingdom from the cross. He doesn’t see this as something only Liberals do, but also Conservatives. Some want a “kingdom” Jesus who teaches us good morals, ethics, and about social justice. Some want a “cross” Jesus who teaches us how to get to heaven because he died for us. Wright will settle for neither dichotomy.
Instead Wright points out that the evangelists focus on a Christ whose Kingdom is proclaimed through his life, yet whose death is the ultimate proclamation as the whole world sees him declared “King of the Jews” while hanging from a tree. For Wright we cannot miss this twist. Jesus’ life matters because he is the Ps. 2 King. His death matters because it shows how God defeats the world powers through an inauguration that includes a suffering Messiah. As Wright says, “For the Evangelists, the kingdom is the project which is sealed, accomplished, by the cross, one the one hand, and the cross is the victory through which the kingdom is established, on the other.”
Kingdom and Resurrection
In the same breathe as the Kingdom and the Cross, Wright mentions resurrection. Resurrection says more about the historical Jesus than many credit. He critiques conservative apologist who seem to boil it down to God’s big miracle (though it is nothing less, p.148) when in fact if there wasn’t a particular belief about Jesus as Messiah prior to his resurrection the resurrection claim wouldn’t make any sense. He takes aim at those who like Borg and Crossan (though unnamed) want to imply that the early Christians didn’t know the difference between a physical resurrection and some sort of post-mortum “presence” of Christ. If Jesus was merely “felt”, like people say of their deceased loved ones, this would not make Jesus the Messiah, it would not lead to proclamation of the gospel, it would not lead to them speaking of ascension and enthronement.
Wright say, “So often preachers at Easter say, ‘Jesus is alive again; therefore he’s in heaven; therefore we’ll go to be with him one day.’ That’s not what the evangelists say. Rather, they say, ‘Jesus is alive again; therefore new creation has begin; therefore we have a job to do.’ And part of that job is precisely to tell the story, the story of Jesus as the climax of the story of Israel’s God and the climax of the story of Israel, the means of the world’s redemption.” (p. 149)
Prospects
Where does Wright see historical Jesus studies going?
(1) Big-picture: He says that for too long it has been difficult to get a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies if you are a big-picture person. Details people have it easier, but we need big-picture people. He says, “The study of the Gospels in the light of all we now know about first-century Judaism positively cries out for exploration of big, new subjects: Jesus and the temple, Jesus and priesthood, Jesus and economics.” (Now we know where Nicholas Perrin got the idea for his recent book!) (p. 150)
(1) The gospels and the church’s mission: Wright’s second point is that it is time for a “fresh reading of the Gospels in service of the church”. (p. 151) Taking his point from Jn.20.21, “As the father has sent me, so I send you” he finds it high time for the church to ask how the gospels impact mission. In order to understand the resurrected Jesus we must read the gospels which seek to tell us about Jesus before the resurrection. We must keep the Kingdom with the Cross and both with the Resurrection.
In this chapter he has some stinging things to say about Christianity that he finds as semi-Gnostic, which makes a good transition into his criticisms of Barthians. Let me share some excerpts (though remember excerpts are merely that, excerpts):
“…the church needs constantly to reconnect with the real Jesus, who the canonical Gospels give us but whom we have so badly misunderstood. The world will pull these things apart again, will lure us into the smaller worlds of either social work or saving souls for a disembodied eternity. Our various Western worldviews will force on us political agendas that are culled from elsewhere, which we can feel good about because they don’t have the cross attached to them. Gnosticism is so much easier than Christian mission: easier epistemologically, especially in today’s Western world, and easier socially and politically too. You don’t have to worry about justice in the world if you go that route. Beware of atonement theolgies that deliver a type of evangelical preaching which is actually detached from what Scripture actually says!…And those who, in order to renounce Gnosticism, become glorified social workers will find all too easily that they are caught up in a political agendas culled from elsewhere, which can be adopted with no need for the cross—the cross as the means of victory, and only means by which genuine kingdom victories are won.” (p. 152)
“We only know the meaning of the resurrection, and hence of present Christian faith, in the light of the kingdom and the cross. Without that, the very word resurrection loses its meaning and becomes merely a cipher for “the new spirituality.” The point about resurrection is that the risen Jesus, though now immortal and beyond the reach of suffering and death, is nevertheless the same Jesus who went about announcing God’s kingdom and dying to bring it about.” (p. 155)
“If the Messiah is not raised, said Paul, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. And, we might add, if the Messiah who died is not the Jesus whose history we know through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, our faith is groundless and we are still in our fantasies.” (p. 157)
Conclusion
Let me say what I found positive and what I found negative:
Positive:
(1) Wright’s correction of the Bultmannian project that creates a Jesus of faith not grounded in history.
(2) His emphasis on keeping the Kingdom, Cross, and the Resurrection together.
(3) His emphasis on ‘big-picture’ studies and the gospels as fuel for the mission of the church.
(4) His sound reminder that the church often shrinks Jesus, even when we say orthodox things about him. We must remember who he was historically and that must influence our doctrine. We cannot de-historicize Jesus.
(5) His criticisms of some Barthians who create a chasm between those who are inside and those who are outside so that the gospels are private rather than public documents. We cannot response to criticisms of the gospels merely by saying that they are Christians books for Christians. This type of retreat is futile.
Negative:
(1) In his criticisms of orthodox Christology he could be misunderstood as undermining it. I don’t think that is what he was doing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was represented as doing this.
(2) The same with Barth. It doesn’t seem he has read much Barth, nor does he care to do so (I sympathize since I have tried very hard, only to find myself being drawn back to trying to reading the text trying to understand how early audiences would have read it), so I think he is reacting against forms of Barthianism. His criticism of Barth’s followers can easily be interpreted as criticisms of Barth, but I don’t think they are, though it is possible.
Schedule for this series:
06/01: Marianne Meye Thompson, “Jesus and the Victory of God Meets the Gospel of John” (Brian LePort)
06/08: Richard B. Hays, “Knowing Jesus: Story, History, and the Question of Truth” (Daniel James Levy)
06/29: N.T. Wright, “Whence and Whither Historical Jesus Studies in the Life of the Church?” (Brian LePort)
07/06: Edith M. Humphrey, “Glimpsing the Glory: Paul’s Gospel, Righteousness, and the Beautiful Feet of N.T. Wright” (Daniel James Levy)
07/13: Jeremy S. Begbie, “The Shape of Things to Come? Wright Amidst Emerging Ecclesiologies” (Brian LePort)
07/20: Markus Bockmuehl, “Did St. Paul Go to Heaven When He Died? (Daniel James Levy)
07/27: Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation? The State of the Union with Christ in St. Paul and Protestant Soteriology” (Brian LePort)
08/03: N.T. Wright, “Whence and Whither Pauline Studies in the Life of the Church?” (Daniel James Levy)
Avoiding Civil Religion (Four Conversations)
We are on the brink of Memorial Day Weekend. As with the 4th of July this is a time where pastors all across the United States of America must make a decision regarding how much civil religion will come from the pulpit. I am grateful that I don’t have a role where I have to listen to the various opinions of parishioners on this subject, but for those who do, let me recommend these four conversations.
__________
(1) Over at The Pangea Blog there are three guest posts from one Dan Martin addressing the following:
- The Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the USA (Introduction) here.
- The Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the USA (Citizenship) here.
- The Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the USA (The Sanctuary and the Flag) here.
Every since I read an essay by Stan Hauerwaus a few years ago I have been convinced that national flags should not be visible in the sanctuary of a Christian church. Martin’s final post suggest that very thing. It is worth reading.
(2) Michael J. Gorman has written a short post providing six tips for avoiding civil religion this Sunday. You can find that here. I think all of his points are adhering or at least seriously pondering. At the end he writes, “Make sure everyone leaves the church knowing it is Easter season and Pentecost is around the corner! It is the season of life and peace and promise.” To that I say, “Amen”.
(3) Kevin DeYoung guides us in “thinking theologically about Memorial Day” in this post here. He holds a more openly nuanced view, but at the end he reaches the same conclusion writing, “while patriotism can be good, the church is not a good place for patriotism”. Once you’ve read DeYoung’s post I recommend also reading Aaron Rathbun’s ruminations on it here.
(4) W. Bradford Littlejohn has done us all a great favor by outlining posts from Ben Witherington and Peter Leithart where Witherington reviews Leithart’s book Defending Constantine and Leithart responds. The links can be found here. I haven’t read this book, but if I do I assume this will be a valuable source for further thought on the thesis presented.
What are your thoughts on the interaction between Civil Religion and Christianity? Where are they compatible if at all? What are some areas of change that the church in the United States should make? Do you have any thoughts on the aforementioned conversations?
Rob Bell on Resurrection
Rob Bell on Resurrection:
He is risen!
Wednesdays with Wright: The cross and the kingdom
In this brilliant lecture, titled “Putting the Gospels Back Together”, N.T. Wright addresses the tendency of many groups to either emphasize the crucifixion of Jesus while ignoring his kingdom message or to emphasize the kingdom message while ignoring the crucifixion. He makes an effort to reconnect the two. You can listen here.
Wednesday with Wright: Redefining the Kingdom
Last week I quoted N.T. Wright talking about how Jesus had to avoid falling into the trap of settling for the type of Messiah that the Jews were expecting. Rather, Jesus’ calling including redefining the Davidic Messiah. This week is a much shorter quote in line with last week’s and it is about the concept of “the kingdom”:
…Jesus spent his whole ministry redefining what the kingdom meant. He refused to give up the symbolic language of the kingdom, but filled it with such new content that, as we have seen, he powerfully subverted Jewish expectations.
Jesus and the Victory of God, 471.
In Jesus we find a Messiah and a Kingdom that were both in continuation with Jewish expectations and radically subversive to those very same expectations!
If this is not enough N.T. Wright for you Daniel Levy is now doing a “Tuesdays with Tom Wright”. See here.
