• Archive of "truth" Category

    Reviewing “Knowing Christ Today” by Dallas Willard

    May 28, 2010 // 3 Comments »

    As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I recently finished a few books that I think are worth discussing.  I started with a review of Deep Church by Jim Belcher and though I’d try to tackle Willard’s book next.

    Reviewing a book by Dallas Willard is a formidable task.  The guy is nothing short of brilliant.  Add to this his personal humility and Christlikeness, and we have no choice but to take his words to heart and call ourselves, not him, into question if we think we disagree or have come to understand him fully.  Such is my stance as I offer my reflections on this excellent book.

    The fundamental issue Willard aims to grapple with in, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge, is this,

    In the Western world, a great historical struggle between what might be called ‘traditional’ knowledge, represented by the church, and modern knowledge, represented by science, has brought us to where many can only think of religion as mere belief or commitment. (23)

    From here, Willard goes on to explain how both conservatives and liberals, in their own unique ways, managed to divorce knowledge from their versions of Christian faith and life.  To summarize, on the left, the removal of Christian teachings from the domain of knowledge “was largely a defensive move, designed to insulate Christian faith and practice from any possible negative impact of the results of scientific and historical studies.” (24)  On the right, “knowlege was pushed away as inessential to saving faith, having nothing to do with it.” (25)

    What willard is after is a vision of Christian faith that ushers us beyond profession (what we say we believe, even if we’re not committed to it or don’t actually believe it), commitment (what we do regardless of its correspondence to reality), and belief (which doesn’t necessarily correspond to truth or knowledge – “we can believe what is false and often do” (16)), to the realm of Christian knowledge.  Of Christian knowledge Willard says,

    We have knowledge of something when we are representing it (thinking about it, speaking of it, treating it) as it actually is, on an appropriate basis of thought and experience. (15)

    He goes on to say,

    Knowledge, but not mere belief or commitment, confers on its possessor an authority or right – even a responsibility – to act, to direct action, to establish and supervise policy, and to teach… Knowledge also confers upon belief and action a stability and communicability that other sources of action do not.  This is because knowledge involves truth: truth secured by experience, method, and evidence that is generally available. (18)

    Let me go ahead and stop there for now.  I will jump back into what Willard is after in this book and its relevance for the lives of disciples and the Church in forthcoming posts, but at the outset, does anyone have initial thoughts on Willard’s project or observations at the outset?  Is “Christian knowledge” something you think much about and if so, for what purpose?

    Posted in books, Jesus, review, spiritual formation, truth

    Discussing Church, Christ, and Community

    May 14, 2010 // 5 Comments »

    While Amy was away I had the chance to read some books that has been on my hitlist for a while.

    Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional by Jim Belcher

    Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge by Dallas Wilard

    Free for All: Rediscovering the Bible in Community by Tim Conder and Daniel Rhodes

    I plan to offer some thoughts on all three eventually, but I was wondering if there might be some lifeasmission readers out there who have read any of these and were anxious to have some discussion on one in particular.

    (Books link to BetterWorldBooks.com, my book supplier of choice).

    Posted in bible, books, church, community, review, theology, truth

    Missional Preaching Part 2: Preaching as the Proclamation of Biblical Truth

    February 12, 2010 // No Comments »

    In my last post I was making the claim that given a missional ecclesiology, the practice of preaching is a communal activity.  On top of this, I would like to suggest that preaching in missional churches seeks to proclaim biblical truth.

    Now, don’t miss this. I don’t mean “proclaim biblical truth” in the fundamentalist, “The Bible says it, so that’s the end of discussion and you’re stupid if you don’t see it” sort of way that’s maddeningly common, but in the, “In faith, we proclaim this to be true about God and life in God’s Kingdom,” sort of way.

    Because missional churches seek to shape a people for mission in a Post-Christendom world, every activity of the community, including preaching, is meant to be a formative practice in this regard.  As Stutzman says in the paper mentioned previously,

    Missional preaching deliberately draws contrasts between the gospel message and the practices and values of American civil religion, aiming for conversion from habits shaped by participation in American democracy to habits formed through Christian discipleship.

    In preaching, missional churches seek to proclaim the truth of the reality of God’s Kingdom in the midst of every other competing reality.  The point of preaching for missional churches is not anthropocentric/therapeutic - meant to make people feel emotionally better.  Nor does it seek primarily to be relevant in order to captivate or entertain an audience.  It is not even so concerned with being exegetical or expository – patently cerebral types of communication.  Missional preaching is theocentric – it is a practice in which we look for God’s reality to intersect with ours and DO something in us and in our midst.

    So, for instance, each and every sermon preached at Life on the Vine features a rhetorical phrase of some sort.  This is a simple way to articulate the truth that is being proclaimed from the morning’s text.  The rest of the sermon, normally about 20-25 minutes since it’s not seen as more central than any other part of the liturgy, is spent, not unpacking a text, but proclaiming a biblical truth from that text that addresses us and calls us all to some response.

    For instance, this summer I preached from Genesis 49 and proclaimed the truth that,

    Our hope in the promises of God rests on God’s character, not ours.

    The aim in my preaching of this sermon wasn’t mainly to explain the text so that people could understand and try to apply it to their lives, but to proclaim the truthfulness of the text by calling out what it was DOING, namely, calling its hearers to believe, not believe by intellectual assent, but believe by ordering their lives around, this biblical truth.

    And the only way to get at this, is to call for a real response.  That’s our topic for next time.

    Posted in church, community, corporate worship, liturgy, LOV, missional, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, theology, truth

    Missional Preaching Part 1: Preaching as a Communal Activity

    February 9, 2010 // 10 Comments »

    Not too long ago I offered a post on, “Preaching in the Missional Church.”  Basically it was an excuse to pimp this awesome paper by Ervin Stutzman.  Apparently that wasn’t enough for my good friend Wess, who asked what missional preaching looks like ;)

    To try and do justice to Wess’ question, the importance of the topic and to make space for better discussion, I’ve decided to divy this up into three posts.  I’ve got in mind to describe three unique attributes of preaching in missional churches and then illustrating them by way of examples from Life on the Vine, the missional community Amy and I are a part of. (Dave Fitch, one of the co-pastors of LOV, offers some reflections on this same topic here.)

    In missional communities, preaching is a communal activity which seeks to proclaim biblical truth that calls for and invites a real response.

    In most churches, the task of preaching is the responsibility of one individual – 9 times out of 10, a man.  Not only does the task of preaching often remain unshared, but the scope of preaching does as well.  This reality conflicts with the communal nature of missional theology and ecclesiology.

    In missional communities, one of the central aims would be for a team of teachers, whose giftedness is affirmed by the congregation, to share responsibility not only for preaching and teaching, but for giving their time and attention to identifying and equipping other gifted teachers in the body.

    Life on the Vine is shepherded by a 3-person team of bi-vocational pastors.  Not only do they share teaching and preaching responsibilities, but they also facilitate what we call a “College of Preachers,” every summer.  This gives those who have (or at least want to discover if they have) the gift of teaching, the opportunity to use and explore this gift in a guided way.

    In addition, we follow the church calendar.  This means that we are all aware, well ahead of time, of those texts which will be preached each Sunday.  Whoever is responsible for the preaching portion of our liturgical service also facilitates a time of teaching and dialogue for an hour or so before the worship service.  This time gives the entire body the opportunity to speak to the text for the morning and it gives the preacher the opportunity to (re)shape their sermon in light of the insights, questions, and concerns of the body.

    I’ll speak to the issue of missional preaching proclaiming biblical truth next time.  For now, what are your thoughts on preaching as a communal activity?  Is this important to you?  Why or why not?  What might be other ways to achieve the same goal in different ways?

    Posted in church, community, corporate worship, liturgy, LOV, missional, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, theology, truth

    Truth & Love

    January 4, 2010 // 1 Comment »

    Just got done listening to Father Richard Rohr on the Homebrewed Christianity podcast (itunes link).

    He said two of the greatest things I think I’ve ever heard..

    The first isn’t original to him.

    Truth is so needed at this point in history that it can only be entrusted to people of love.

    The second is a direct quote.

    I’m not trying to promote relativistic thinking; in fact, just the opposite.  I’m all for the journey toward truth, but too many people’s truth comes too soon, too quick, and it’s too filled with them.

    I wonder if we can even conceive of an expression of Christian faith where Christ-like love and spiritual maturity are understood as basic prerequisites for the handling of truth?

    Posted in love, truth

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