Miroslav Volf Discusses “A Public Faith”

I just watched an intriguing series of videos (thanks to Matthew Miller) where Miroslav Volf discusses a number of issues related to his newly released book “A Public Faith”. He discusses the place for religion in the public sphere and how it ought to look despite its necessary ambiguity at some level in detailing the specifics of that engagement. Good stuff (as I’m sure the book is). I could hear echoes of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics throughout these clips.

Jurgen Moltmann on Sacrament and Ethics

Moltmann disagrees with Barth’s notion of the “lordship of Christ”, referring to the eschatological reserve (the “already/not-yet” of the Kingdom).  This leaves him room to describe a messianic, sacramental ethic that makes my heart sing (taken from Following Jesus Christ in the World Today):

Christian messianic ethics celebrates and anticipates the presence of God in history.  It wants to practice the unconditioned within the conditioned and the last things in the next to last.  In the economic dimension, God is present in bread; in healing, as health.  In the political dimension God is present as the dignity of the human being; in the cultural dimension, as solidarity.  In the ecological area, God is present as peace with nature; in the personal area, in the certainty of the heart.  Every form of his presence is veiled and sacramental; it is not yet a presence face-to-face.  God’s presence encounters human persons in the concrete messianic form of his liberation from hunger, oppression, alienation, enmity and despair.  These messianic forms of his presence point at the same time, however, beyond themselves to a greater presence, and finally to that present in which ‘God will be all in all.’

God’s real presence as bread, as freedom, as community, as peace and as certainty thus have the character of exploding the present.  To act ethically in a Christian sense means to participate in God’s history in the midst of our own history, to participate in the comprehensive process of God’s liberation of the world, and to discover our own role in this, according to our own calling and abilities.  A messianic ethic makes people into co-operators fo the kingdom of God.  It assumes that the kingdom of God is already here in concrete, if hidden, form.  Messianic ethics integrates suffering people into God’s history in this world; it is fulfilled by the hope of the completion of God’s history in the world by God himself.

Messianic ethics makes everyday life into a feast of God’s rule, just as Jesus did.  The messianic feast becomes everyday life.  As Athanasius once said, ‘the resurrected Christ makes life a feast, a feast without end.’  As we celebrate the presence of God’s kingdom by identifying with and serving the needs of the poor, the downtrodden, the lonely, and the powerless, Christian ethics becomes a sacrament.  Then in our normal daily life in the world, politics becomes worship (Rom. 12:1-2).

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Scot McKnight is doing a series on a new (?) book called Justification: Five Views, but from what I can tell he’s focusing on the New Perspective on Paul (NPP)/Old Perspective issue.

In his second post, he gives a great summary of the New Perspective as well as a number of (not elaborated) criticisms. McKnight notes that the NPP is first of all a new perspective on first century Judaism–it was not a works righteousness religion. He also notes that the NPP is not a coherent or monolithic theology that can be compared to Reformed theology, for example. He says these two points are key to understanding NPP.

What’s with all the aNTiWright hoopla?

I just read a wonderful article  by John Dunne (thanks to Mike Bird’s link) that discusses the contributions of NT Wright and asks why there are so many theologians within the Evangelical tent that oppose his work on several counts.  I found it a helpful summary of Wright as well as why Wright’s contributions should be  embraced by Evangelicals of all stripes. (I only wish I had written it ).

The New Perspective on Paul in less than 10 minutes

With N. T. Wright and James Dunn (via):

 

Ben Myers on Love Wins

Rob Bell’s Love Wins is kind of old news in the internet world, yet its effects in terms of online and classroom discussions continues to be felt. Things having cooled down, it’s probably a better time for some level-headed reflection on what Bell had to say in the book.

That level-headed reflection won’t come from me, because I still haven’t read the book. Instead, I will redirect you to Ben Myers’ thoughts on the book, posted a couple of days ago. It’s a great article and I’m having difficulty choosing a portion to quote here.

Myers notes that Bell’s book calls is indebted to Eastern Orthodox theology, in particular the notion of Christ descending to hell and setting its captives free–effectively breaking the power of hell.

Some critics have questioned Bell’s orthodoxy – especially his emphasis on the universality of salvation. But the most striking thing about his approach is its deep indebtedness to Eastern Orthodox tradition. The Orthodox churches have always emphasised the universality of Christ’s work – not only his death and resurrection, but also his descent into hell. The Orthodox liturgy proclaims that hell was emptied by Christ: ‘Hell’s gatekeepers trembled before you; you raised with you the dead from every age.’ In another part of the liturgy, Orthodox Christians sing: ‘Rising from the tomb, you broke the bonds of Hades and destroyed the sentence of death, O Lord, delivering all from the snares of the enemy.’

…As [Russian Orthodox] Archbishop Hilarion argues, the universal scope of Christ’s work doesn’t necessarily mean that all will be saved. But it means that even hell itself is no longer a place of separation from God. Christ has penetrated into the depths of hell, flooding its darkness with the light of love. Hell has become a site of divine activity, a venue of divine love. ‘If I make my bed in Hades, you are there’ (Psalm 139:8). Thus the torment of hell can only be understood as the torment of love. Hell’s power is abolished – but someone might still reject God to such an extent that even love becomes a torment, an unbearable ‘scourge’.

I recommend the entire post. It’s refreshing.

And yes, I can connect this to Barth. Says Myers:

The hostile reaction to Bell among North American evangelicals reminds me of the way some people responded to the great Reformed theologian, Karl Barth. Barth placed so much emphasis on God’s grace that his critics called him a universalist. But in Barth’s view, both universalism and its denial are errors. The important thing is to uphold the absolute freedom of grace: if grace is free, then we should neither deny nor affirm universal salvation. It’s not our decision to make – ‘salvation belongs to the Lord!’ (Psalm 3:8). Yet Barth thought the ferocious condemnation of universalism exposed something pathological in the Christian mindset. When he was accused of promoting universalism, he once replied: ‘Strange Christianity, whose most pressing anxiety seems to be that God’s grace might prove to be all too free …, that hell, instead of being populated with so many people, might prove to be empty!’

Barth’s reply expresses precisely how I feel about the whole universalist/Rob Bell issue: heaven forbid the thought that Christ save everyone!

Evil, suffering, beauty, goodness.

I suppose it’s time I contribute something here. It has nothing (directly) to do with Barth or any particular theologian. But it is theological. The truth is, I had for the moment forgotten about this blog, because this post rightfully belongs here. But I’m not a big fan of the confusion cross-posting can cause, so I’m going to give you a taste and then redirect to my blog. Hopefully that’s okay by you. I won’t make a habit of it.

It’s pretty common in film and television to see people who are functionally atheistic or non-religious to turn to God when it suits them. For instance, a character who under normal circumstances does not profess belief in God or practice any sort of religious observance, will begin to pray when there is an in-flight emergency or when they are up for a big promotion. I’ve been watching through the Seinfeld series again and noticed an unusual twist on this theme.

In the season 4 episode entitled “The Pilot, Part 1″, NBC finally confirms that they will begin shooting the pilot for the sitcom George and Jerry have been writing. George begins to panic about what might happen, so he visits his therapist. They have the following conversation:

George: What if the pilot gets picked up and it becomes a series?

Therapist: That’d be wonderful, George! You’d be rich and successful!

George: That’s exactly what I’m worried about. God would never let me be successful–he’ll kill me first! He’ll never let me be happy.

Therapist: I thought you didn’t believe in God?

George: I do for the bad things!

This is a clever observation about how we approach the subject of God. When bad things happen, the question of God inevitably arises. Under normal circumstances–when things are “good”–God rarely comes to mind…

Read the rest at The Eagle & Child.