The Weakness of Messages

In an interesting article over at the Acton Institute blog, John Couretas argues that the reason Christian movies are so bad is because conservatives are good at communicating through messages but not through stories or narratives.

Messages, which progress on the basis of logic and deduction, have a certain function, but they lack the power of narratives to move our hearts and minds. Narratives communicate a message, but they do so in a way that “works at a deeper level, sometimes tapping into the mythic consciousness of an entire people.” Couretas goes on to explain the importance of narrative abilities in the political realm, referencing other essays that defend the importance of moral imagination for the functioning of a healthy society.

The same issues apply to reading our Bible. When we only have a concern to communicate the message of the Bible, we are in danger of diminishing its narrative and dramatic character and power. The Bible certainly does communicate a message, which centers around the person of Christ, but as a whole it present this message in the form of a grand narrative, which is the recording of a real life drama between God and his people. When we only have concern for the core message, and we throw out the literary husk, we lose the power of Bible to shape our lives and to empower us to continue playing our role in the drama today. We need reason to understand the Bible, but we need imagination too. Imagination helps us see the drama as a whole, allows us to enter into the different worlds described in the text, and enables us to see how the drama of our daily lives corresponds to this divine drama revealed in Scripture.

Courteas is right: Christians needs to learn how to tell stories and make good movies. But this points to a greater priority: Christians need to learn how to read their Bibles with imagination, not allowing the drama to be boiled down to a story-less message, so that our lives will take on the dramatic shape of Scripture.

God and Evil

A great article by Jay Sklar, professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary, has been posted at ByFaith, the online magazine for the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Having posted recently on Christopher Wright’s book The God I Don’t Understand, that wrestles with the problem of evil and suffering, I thought this article would be a good follow-up. Jay Sklar, like Christopher Wright, focuses on God’s own experience with evil, his suffering, and the promise of the destruction of evil in order to deal with the problem of evil today. I encourage you to read the article, and feel free to post any comments or reactions there or here on the blog.

People and Place: A Short Review

I cannot attempt the length of review that People and Place deserves, but I will offer a few comments regarding some of the strengths and weaknesses that stood out to me. As I read, several elements continued to stand out to me as strengths on the basis of which I would recommend People and Place to others:

•    The ascension is highlighted as a significant aspect of Christ’s work throughout, an oft-neglected aspect of Christ’s saving work and its importance for the church.
•    It is thoroughly Trinitarian, giving ample space to the Spirit’s work, which is sadly underemphasized in many Reformed ecclesiologies (certainly not Calvin!).
•    It deals with an enormous amount of Christian theology, and Horton masterfully commends theologians when they deserve it while critiquing them in equally appropriate ways. Therefore, whether discussing John Calvin (Reformed), Deitrich Bonheoffer (Lutheran), Miraslov Volf (Free Church), N. T. Wright (Anglican), John Zizoulas (Orthodox), or Hans Urs von Balthasar (Roman Catholic), Horton is fair, judicious, and thoughtful.
•    It applies covenant theology in a very consistent and sometimes surprisingly creative ways. Horton consistently defends the cornerstones of covenant theology, but also draws, for example, from a theology of sound (Webb), the intersection of drama and theology (von Balthasar, Vanhoozer, etc.), and speech-act theory (Austin et. al.) in ways that enriches and broadens a confessional approach.
•    The book continues to show Horton’s desire to integrate biblical theology and systematic theology through the lenses of covenant and eschatology. This is a very admirable goal, and the moments when Horton succeeds are bright spots that are the most enriching.
•    It charts an appealing middle ground between various ecclesiological options in the church today. Rather than choosing between people and place, total Christ or total Church, unity or plurality, justified or sinful, eschatological event or historical institution, ministry to the faithful or mission to the world, “overcoming estrangement” or “the stranger we never met,” Horton seeks to move beyond either/or dilemmas and constructs compelling middle ways, or rather, both/and solutions.

On the other hand, there were certain weaknesses in People and Place that makes me hesitant to praise this book without reservation.

•    Even though Horton claims that his project seeks to appeal “to the metaphor of drama to express the dynamic interplay between eschatology and history in the diverse covenant administrations” (ix), this metaphor is seldom employed and does not have any practical influence on the book’s conclusions, which could have been strengthened with a more consistent application of the metaphor.
•    Although Horton interacted with a myriad of theological works, from the church fathers through to the emerging church, he never once interacted with Kevin Vanhoozer’s The Drama of Doctrine, which covers many of the same themes as People and Place. I am a little confused about this omission, since Vanhoozer endorsed the first book in this series, Covenant and Eschatology, and Horton’s book is only weaker because of it.
•    Despite his desire to integrate biblical and systematic theology, the systematic side comes out much stronger, and the lack of exegesis is disconcerting at points. Many things such as the marks of the church are simply assumed from confessional standards and developed from there rather than being deductively defended and developed from Scripture (why just Word, sacraments, and discipline?). For a stark contrast to Horton’s method, one thinks of Ben Witherington’s recent biblical investigations of Baptism (Troubled Waters) and the Lord’s Supper (Making a Meal of It). Witherington eventually gets around to systematic conclusions, but he does the hard (and always fruitful!) work of exegesis first. These two elements should never be separated.
•    At times Horton launches into a practical discussion, but in general, one is left wondering how these academic insights relate to daily church life and ministry. I know that Horton has written more practically elsewhere, but I generally think that academic, systematic theology should not be disassociated with practical theology, even in the same volume. This may be a little unfair, as one book can only say so much, but I could not help longing for more practical discussions throughout (and I appreciated the practical discussions that were included, like his insistence on the frequency of the Lord’s Supper).

If you have read the book, I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, and observations regarding strengths and weaknesses. Do you beg to differ on any of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned above? I look forward to your thoughts…

Local Performances of the Script of Faith

Here are three more interesting quotes from Michael Horton’s People and Place that have to do with applying the metaphor of drama to theology. Tomorrow I hope to post a short review of this book.

“God has not only given us his word of judgment and grace, but our own appropriate lines in the script of faith and gratitude…Therefore, God’s Word does not render us silent; it gives us back our voice—or rather, it gives us back the appropriate lines in the script intended for us.” (97)

“The church is never the effectual agent; instead, it is the recipient and field of God’s sanctifying work in the world: the theater in which the Spirit is casting and staging dress rehearsals of the age to come.” (197)

“In what Barth called “the strange new world of the Bible,” we find that instead of trying to make God’s story fit the soap opera of our own life in this passing age, we become characters in the drama of redemption. It is the church’s responsibility to stage local performances of God’s “community theater” through concrete practices. Not only must the preaching regularly immerse us in the canon; we also must be catechized at home and at church in a common faith, in a story that gives decisive shape to the liturgy.” (210)

Performing a Completed, Normative Script

“As the ecclesial body cannot be equated with its sovereign head, ecclesial speech (tradition) cannot be equated with God’s Word. Since Christ’s person and work—and apostolic testimony to it—are qualitatively distinguished from the church and its practices, the canon does not simply offer us a good story to complete by imitation (a corollary of an exemplary view of the atonement) or repeat by further acts of atonement and reconciliation, but a completed script that draws us into its story line as performers. The canonical characters are in a qualitatively different class than the postcanonical church that performs the play. Even to speak of intentionally departing from the script is to assume that the script is normative.” ~Michael Horton, People and Place, 96

Doctrine and Life Connected in Drama of Redemption

“In a covenantal context of a living relationship, doctrine and life, theory and practice, creed and deed are inextricably connected. It is the drama of redemption itself—God’s activity in the world—that keeps the dogma from degenerating into mere propositionalism and the praxis from degenerating into mere moralism. A merely intellectual view of the Word yields a merely intellectual view of faith. However, as life-giving as well as informative news, the gospel creates knowledge, assent, and trust.” ~Michael Horton, People and Place, 40

Our Supporting Role in the Theo-Drama

I have started working through Michael Horton’s book People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology, and throughout he has some facinating quote regarding the drama of redemption and our role in it that I will be posting along the way. Here is the first:

“Because of Pentecost, even we who were previously aimless characters in the dead-end and insignificant plots of this passing age become part of the growing cast in the supporting role of witnesses to the God of promise. Because of the Spirit, the church’s performance here and now is not “based on a true story,” but is part of it: a living liturgy of covenantal action and response. It originates in the heart of the Father, unfold in the life of the Son, and is brought to fruition by the graciously disruptive power of the Spirit.” (30)

The God I Don’t Understand

Theologians have always struggled to balance the puzzling questions of faith with the solid answers of faith. We easily fall into opposite paths of either nebulous ambiguity or presumptuous pride of knowledge. But Christopher Wright in his latest book The God I Don’t Understand avoids both paths. He is able to admit humbly the things that are beyond understanding, while clearly articulating the truths that we should understand because God has made them clear in the Bible. Throughout the book, Wright quotes from Christian hymns and poetry that accentuate the point that “faith seeks understanding, and faith builds on understanding where it is granted, but faith does not finally depend on understanding” (22).

Take the problem of evil. Wright honestly admits that evil is a mystery, something that simply does not make sense. The Bible contains many examples of people expressing lament, protest, and anger at the presence of evil, and all of these responses are appropriate. And yet despite the mystery and offense of evil, our faith also leads us to affirm the utter goodness and sovereignty of God, truths that converge at the cross, which Wright deals with at a later chapter.

Another example is the destruction of the Canaanites during the Israelite conquest. Wright insists that we are right to struggle with this hard reality, but that the Bible does point help us avoid some dead-end answers and provides some frameworks for understanding. The dead-ends answers include, “it’s an Old Testament problem, which the New Testament puts right” or “the Israelites thought it was what God commanded, but they were wrong” or “it is all meant as an allegory of spiritual warfare.” What I love about Wright’s approach is that he does not present “solutions” in contrast to these “dead-ends.” He admits that his frameworks “do not neatly remove the emotional and moral pain and revulsion generated by the conquest narratives. However, I do find these perspectives helpful for my own faith, and I pass them on in the hope they may help you too” (86). Therefore he presents the culture and rhetoric of ancient warfare, the uniqueness of the conquest, the wickedness of the Canaanites, God’s justice, and God’s overarching plan of salvation as frameworks “to strengthen our faith in the midst of things we do not understand” (107).

Some people are surprised that Wright included a large section on the cross in a book entitled The God I Don’t Understand. But Wright explains that lacking full and complete understanding does not prohibit us from loving and trusting the God whom we do not fully understand. Why did God send his only Son to die on the cross for our sins? The best answer we can give is that he loved us, but why did he love us? This is a mystery that can only lead us to grateful praise! After acknowledging the mystery, Wright traces out the elements of the cross that we should understand, including the multitude of metaphors the Bible provides to teach us about the reality of the atonement (redemption, ransom, victory, new creation, etc.). At the center of all these metaphors, Wright concludes that we will find penal substitution. “It is the essence of what the Bible says happened at the cross” (127). He claims that those who challenge the centrality of penal substitution are merely attacking a caricature, or a straw man, not the biblical reality. The biblical atonement fulfills both God’s anger and love, is an act of both Father and Son, and takes about both our guilt and shame.

In the last section of his book, Wright deals with the much-contested subject of eschatology and the end of the world. Again, throughout this chapter Wright confesses his lack of understanding with great humility. He says, “I sometimes think it is like a creature whose eyes and brain can only see things in black, white, and shade of grey, trying to imagine what a world of colour is like…or what it might be like to live in a world of four (or five or fifty) dimensions” (159). Wright covers a myriad of important topics—millennium, rapture, the land of Israel, the resurrection of the dead, the return of Christ, and the day of judgment—but in my perspective nothing is more important than the emphasis Wright puts on our final destiny, which is not heaven. If we have saving faith in Jesus, we will go to heaven when we die, but we will not stay there. Jesus is coming back to renew and reign over this earth in a new heavens and new earth! Our bodies will be raised from the dead, we will meet Jesus in the air, and come right back down to earth with our Savior and King. Wright explains how this new creation will include the full glory of civilizations, the healing of nations, the harmony of creation, and a redeemed humanity, all under the glorious presence of God. I agree with Wright that this vision of the new creation has great importance for our lives today, as “all of our work now contributes to the content of the new creation” and “all our behavior now must be governed by the standards of the new creation” (219-20).

In sum, The God I Don’t Understand is an excellent model of theology done with an accurate understanding of our finiteness and fallenness. It does not shy aware from mystery and unanswerable questions, but embraces them as part and parcel of our faith. Out of this humble approach arose solid perspectives on some of the most perplexing issues of the faith. These perspectives did not just feed my understanding, but they moved my heart and empowered my will to live for the glory of God.

Vintage Church

In his latest book called Vintage Church, Mark Driscoll hazards a huge and comprehensive definition of the church:

“The local church is a community of regenerated believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord. In obedience to Scirpture they organize under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching and worship, observe the biblical sacraments of baptism and Communion, are unified by the Spirit, are disciplined for holiness, and scatter to fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission as missionaries to the world for God’s glory and their joy.” (38)

He also identified the following elements as marks of the church:

•    Regenerated church membership
•    Qualified leadership
•    Preaching and worship
•    Rightly administered sacraments
•    Spirit unity
•    Holiness
•    The great commandment to love: learning, obedience, solitude, fellowship, service, appropriate speech, Sabbath-keeping, worship, evangelism, mercy, hospitality, prayer, giving, and humility (each are unpacked in chapter eight)
•    The great commission to evangelize and make disciples

I found Vintage Church to be full of solid, biblically-supported perspectives and a good number of practical pointers for church leadership, life, etc. I was a little surprised, however, that Driscoll’s book did not challenge some of the more traditional ways that evangelicals “do church” today, as is common in other books on the church by emerging church leaders. Did anyone else have this same thought as they read they book? Regardless of how I wish Vintage Church was a little bolder, I greatly appreciated the issues that it covered in a biblically faithful way. What are your thoughts on the definition and marks of the church as outlined above? How are they similiar and/or different from other recent works on the chuch that you have read?

Refreshing Stand Against Reductionism

Hunter Beaumont recently posted a refreshing article over at Resurgence that highlighted that various ways in which “and” is the most important Christan word. To read this article, click here.