Below is the fourth and final article that we’ve submitted to Patheos as a contribution to their forum on “The Future of the Seminary.”  I don’t believe it’s actually up over there yet and it seems like that forum has sort of run out of steam, so I thought I’d go ahead and post it here.  If it does make it up over at Patheos, I’ll update this post.  If this happens to be new to you and you’ve got some interest, here’s where you can find the first three articles:

Shaping Students w/ the Character and Competency of Jesus (lifeasmission | Patheos)

Missionary Pastors for a Missionary God (lifeasmission | Patheos)

Ministers are Mobilizers, Not Managers (lifeasmission | Patheos)

As I’ve noted in previous posts, this is some edited content from a more comprehensive white paper that I worked on.  You can find the whole paper here as a resource at thefutureoftheologicaleducation.com.

I hope to round this all out with a (more brief!) summary post soon.  Thanks to those of you who have been following along and weighing in.  Engagement is the only way to refine these sort of ideas toward the creation of something truly new, helpful, and concrete.

This is the 4th and final article in a series that we have been happy to offer related this Patheos forum on, “The Future of the Seminary.”  For our part, we have sought to call attention to the idea that inasmuch as theological education seeks to locate its purpose and aim in the missio Dei, its shape and future can be most helpfully understood from a missiological perspective.  This is the fundamental point of the white paper from which these few posts have emerged, The Missiological Future of Theological Education.

We first offered a video, which summarizes the issues surrounding the way in which Christendom obscured our view of God’s missionary nature, thereby mis-shaping not only our theology, but our ecclesiology and the systems of theological education that we constructed to prepare leaders for these Christendom-shaped churches.  The video also suggests that…

as we seek to re-imagine theological education along missional lines, the most important ‘accrediting factor’ for our schools lies in their ability to do their part in producing leaders who are able to demonstrate having taken on the character and competency of Jesus.

If you haven’t seen it yet, the video is embedded below:

After this initial post, we offered two more that sought to outline the missiological principles that we believe best contribute to creating processes of theological formation along these lines:

1) Missionary Pastors for a Missionary God, in which we suggest that missional approaches to theological education will be praxeological – geared toward the training of theologically reflective practitioners.

2) Ministers are Mobilizers, not Managers, in which we suggest that missional approaches to theological education will be mobilizational - geared toward the training of missionary leaders.

In this final post, we’d like to outline a final missiological principle that we believe will guide a faithful re-imagining of theological education, that of being spiritual – geared toward the training of kingdom citizens.

Spiritual, of course, can mean many things. For us, it simply means that everything about what theological education is and does, ought to be predicated on the centrality of a vibrant and growing relationship with the triune God and his work in the world.  In other words, just as Jesus’ efforts to train and form his disciples would have had no ultimate significance apart from their connection to God and God’s work in the world, so too are the efforts of seminaries wasted apart from this same connection.

Having lost its proper missiological shape, theological education within Christendom made it possible to separate ones intellectual development from ones spiritual maturity. This is a dichotomy that our centers of theological education must repudiate if they hope to lend any support to the shaping of leaders for Kingdom ministry.  Moving forward will call for, at the very least, processes of theological formation that shape convictions, impart spiritual knowledge, re-frame our relationship to Scripture, and embrace the irreplaceable role of the Holy Spirit.

Shaping Kingdom Convictions

As theologian James McClendon once said, “Convictions are not so much things that we have but things that have us.”  As important as we believe Christian doctrine and truth are, if we fail to cultivate leaders who are as convicted by them (as evidenced by life transformation) as they purport to be convinced of them, we will only continue to contribute to the collapse of Western Christianity. If seminaries are to make any sort of meaningful contribution to the mission and witness of the Church in Western culture, they must show primary concern, not only for the information that their graduates possess, but for the convictions that will shape, drive and sustain them through all the trials and tribulations of not only ministry in a Post-Christian context, but amidst the sort of suffering and persecution which the Bible tells us always accompanies faithful witness.

Imparting Spiritual Knowledge

Seminaries and churches are full of people who know plenty of things about God. What our seminaries and churches seem in desperate lack of are people who truly know God in the way the Apostle Paul speaks of when he says, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…” What we have to accept is that this kind of “knowing” cannot be manufactured or controlled. The impartation of spiritual knowledge is finally the work of the Holy Spirit as we live in relationship with God and participate in his mission in the world in the way of Jesus. Thus, it is incumbent upon seminaries to create environments where God can do this kind of work in shaping Kingdom leaders.

Re-framing Our Relationship to Scripture

It should go without saying that in the endeavor of theological education to contribute to the shaping of Christian leaders, there is no text more important or sacred than the Bible. Unfortunately, the experience of many a seminarian is that the Bible is reduced to little more than an object to be examined and dissected. However, when you abstract an engagement with Scripture from a predisposition towards inviting the work of the Holy Spirit, we miss God’s intention for this discipline. Therefore, in terms of truly honoring a spiritual disposition towards theological education, not only will the Bible occupy a primary place throughout the whole of our programs (as opposed to being confined to individual courses), it will increasingly need to be seen as the very story out of which seminaries derive their own identity, purpose, and function.

Embracing the Irreplaceable Role of the Holy Spirit

Our prevailing systems of theological education train and equip people to be leaders in such a way that they assume an ability to succeed based upon their own intellectual capacity and/or skill-set rather than upon their ability to discern the Holy Spirit’s leading and therefore upon the Holy Spirit’s power rather than their own. We suggest that to the degree that centers of theological education want to contribute to preparing leaders for faithful service as Kingdom citizens, they must re-imagine theological education in such a way that the work and role of the Holy Spirit in the theological formation of leaders, as well as in the world, will be given primary attention.

Concluding Thoughts

One of the great travesties of our current Christian landscape is that emerging leaders often feel like they have to make a choice between “going to seminary,” because it will provide the sort of “accreditation” that many denominations and organizations require, or “going into ministry,” in order to give themselves fully to the sort of life & labor they feel like God has called them to.  As we re-imagine theological education along the lines of God’s Kingdom and God’s mission in the world, our hope and prayer is that these emerging leaders wouldn’t feel like this is a choice they have to make. Instead, we envision truly missional systems of theological education, so radically committed to a Kingdom vision of accreditation and to commissioning Kingdom leaders on account of their character and competency rather than their GPA, that ministry becomes the context for all our education and formation as we train reflective practitioners, that the aim of our education would become the mobilization of God’s people for loving and faithful service as we train missionary leaders, and that all of this emerges out of a vibrant and growing relationship with the triune God as we train Kingdom citizens.

An interesting thing was taking place when I began my graduate studies at Fuller back in 2004.  A surprisingly large number of students in the School of Theology, of which I was one, were either switching their degree program or restructuring it as best they could to take advantage of courses that were being offered out of Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies, the school which has traditionally trained missionaries as opposed to pastors and theologians.  The reason was simple – more and more of us were realizing that if we wanted to be equipped for a future of ministry in and to Western culture, we needed to learn how to think and function as missionaries.

As Christendom continues to crumble and as the United States increasingly becomes a microcosm of the globe (it is predicted that by 2050 over 50% of our population will be comprised of minority groups), the work and supporting skill set of Christian leaders will undergo seismic changes.  Actually, I hate to say it that way.  It’s not that the work we should have been doing or the skill set we should have been operating out of all along will objectively change, but the shifting of our culture and context will smack us so hard upside the head that we will have no choice but to wake up to how we’ve gotten off track.

I want to suggest that the people we will most desperately need to help guide us into a faithful engagement with this sort of future are Missionary Theologians.

I say “missionary theologians” as opposed to “missional theologians” to differentiate between those who do theology out of their cross-culturally oriented lives and witness as missionaries as opposed to those who might simply articulate theology from a missional perspective (however masterfully).  The Bible, I believe, is the product of this sort of perspective.  The books, letters, and poetry of the Bible, and the theology they communicate, emerge from the missionary encounter of God’s people with God’s world.  We err when we read the Bible in any other way.  Our work is no different.  It is as we engage the world as the people of God that we actually develop the capacity to see God at work and the proper vantage point from which to do theology.

My friend Doug likes to say that “The Church in Western culture doesn’t primarily have a leadership problem or a missional problem, it has a discipleship problem.”  Inasmuch as a disciple is someone who seeks to know God by joining in on God’s mission in the world by following Jesus in the power of the Spirit, I couldn’t possibly agree more.  And who better to help us step forward into that future than missionary theologians?!

I don’t think my experience at Fuller was unique.  I think this guild is on the rise.  2 questions seem to stand out however.

1) Will we encourage and facilitate the rise of missionary theologians or stymie it by persisting in outmoded paradigms of education and formation?

This question will be answered, in large part, by whether or not schools increasingly make the field of missiology standard fare in terms of equipping Christian leaders for ministry in Post-Christendom.

2) Will we recognize and incorporate the unique contributions that missionary theologians can make in the equipping of leaders?

Here, I think we must look to whether nor not schools (or other training organizations) are making principle use of missionary theologians to train future leaders.

Bottom line, we still have a lot to learn from Mr. Lesslie Newbigin!

I was tipped off by a tweet from @bobhyatt that Tony Jones had a post up on his blog titled, “Which Missional Church?” which intrigued me.

He suggests that there are,

…two movements of people within American Protestantism who claim the term ‘missional.’

Specifically, he mentions The Gospel and Our Culture Network and the Ecclesia Network, two organizations that I have meaningful relational connections to and interest in.

Tony describes the GOCN like this:

These thought-leaders come from a mainline context, but they have evangelical leanings. They feel that the church has lost its missional impulse as the mainline church has been ultimately absorbed by American culture.  And they found a theological patron saint in Lesslie Newbigin, a twentieth century missionary to India who retired to his native England to find that Christianity was no longer a prophetic force.  Newbigin’s books, and those of missiologist David Bosch have guided thinking of this group.  Newbigin and Bosch, as well as the books and newsletters of the GOCN, were all highly influential on the genesis of the emerging church movement and of Emergent Village in particular.

And Ecclesia like this:

These are primarily evangelicals with moderate to liberal leanings. They agree with the ECM’s critique of evangelicalism: that the evangelical church in America has been corrupted by culture, is too consumeristic, and has lost the radical, prophetic nature of the gospel.  They are most influenced by the anabaptist theologies of John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas.

While their are certainly theologians sympathetic to them, this missional movement is largely populated by pastors, church planters, and consultants: David Fitch, Alan Hirsch, Bob Hyatt, and Ed Stetzer among them.  The organization most closely aligned with this missional is the Ecclesia Network, begun in the mid-2000s.

There’s already some good discussion happening over on Tony’s blog and I don’t want to take away from it so please head over there and join in if you are so inclined, but I also wanted to springboard off of this post in terms of some of my own interests.

In a forthcoming (next?) post, I want to share more about the research project that is taking shape through the DMiss cohort I am a part of.  It will become ever clearer then, just how timely and poignant Tony’s post is.  For now, I’d like to make some observations about the commonalities of these two expressions of the missional conversation and see what thoughts others might have. Specifically, I see commonalities with regard to a cultural emphasis, a theological vision, and missional implications.

Cultural Emphasis

1) Post-Christendom. Both groups are seeking to engage a culture and context in which the Church no longer exists at the center of society and Christianity is forced to grapple with the advent of religious pluralism.

Theological Vision

2) Missional Theology. Both groups are trafficking in the world of missional theology – a way of knowing God, reading Scripture, and being the Church that is firmly rooted in the missio Dei.  I should add here that for this reason among others, I simply do not get how and why some (as Tony does in his post) draw a line between the theology of Barth and Yoder/Hauerwas which seems quite united at this point (see this new article by Stanley Hauerwas, ht: Andy Rowell, and this unpublished PDF by Yoder about Barth’s theology)

Missional Implications

3) Missiology & The Local Church. Both groups are wrestling with the missiological implications of a post-Christendom culture/context and a theological vision rooted in the missio Dei as they intersect at the level of the local church.  While the GOCN may have been (may continue to be?) focused on research and writing, if you take a look at their publications, in large measure they emerge from and seek to address life at the congregational level.  Ecclesia, likewise, exists as a network of missionally-minded church planters, pastors, and leaders.

Wondering what others people see or have to say here.  Next time around, I’ll dig into some aspects of the research I hope to do and how it might contribute to the common aims of these groups and the spheres of influence they represent.

As Christendom continues to unravel and the Church loses its privileged role within culture at large, we live in an increasingly biblical illiterate society.

– Quoting Scripture will mean less and less.

– Bible stories will be increasingly misunderstood or forgotten altogehter

– And the battles that Christians wage with one another over the objective nature of Scripture will continue to damage our reputation in a broken world.

For these reasons and more, there is an incredibly important conversation to be had regarding the role of the Bible in society.

In contributing to that conversation, here’s a 40 minute panel discussion from the recent Q conference here in Chicago between Tim Keller, Alastain McGrath, Dempsey Rosales-Acosta, and Brian McLaren (you can find brief bios on all these panelists here) on that topic.  I’m anxious to see what kinds of responses others might have to the questions and discussion here.

(For those reading in a feed reader, the video is flash and may not come through, so you might want to click through to the actual post to view or download.)

The guys over at Homebrewed Christianity recently posted an interview they did with N.T. Wright.  The interview was full of some really great sound bytes that I went ahead and divvied up to make your life easier

You can listen to or download the interview in its entirety here.

On being a bishop. Download audio file (wrightbishop.mp3)

On the unfortunate split between church and academy. Download audio file (wrightpastorwriter.mp3)

On returning to fulltime academic work. Download audio file (wrightteacher.mp3)

On Bart Ehrman. Download audio file (wrightbartehrman.mp3)

On John Shelby Spong. Download audio file (wrightspong.mp3)

On Luke Timothy Johnson. Download audio file (wrightjohnson.mp3)

On Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan. Download audio file (wrightborgcrossan.mp3)

On Jurgen Moltmann. Download audio file (wrightmoltmann.mp3)

On E.P. Sanders. Download audio file (wrightsanders.mp3)

On Karl Barth. Download audio file (wrightbarth.mp3)

On Stanley Hauerwas. Download audio file (wrighthauerwas.mp3)

On his most recent book, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters and why he chose to write about eschatology before ethics. Download audio file (wrightafteryoubelieve.mp3)

On the difference between Aristotelian virtue and Christian virtue. Download audio file (wrightchristianvirtue.mp3)

On the role of character and virtue in other religions. Download audio file (wrightreligiousvirtue.mp3)

On cultural virtue. Download audio file (wrightculturalvirtue.mp3)

On the renewing of our minds when they have become largely detached from the rest of who we are. Download audio file (wrightrenewing.mp3)

On Christianity Post-Postmodernity. Download audio file (wrightchristianitypostpostmodernity.mp3)

On the after-after life. Download audio file (wrightafterlife.mp3)

What NT Wright is reading, thinking, and planning for his “big book on Paul” as the next in his Christian Origins series. Download audio file (wrightreading.mp3)

What we can expect from NT Wright in his new role. Download audio file (wrightfuture.mp3)

Jim Belcher, the author of Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional, and I have much in common.

We both did masters degrees at Fuller Theological Seminary.

We both have a heart for church planting.

I teach a class on the Emerging Church based on the intensive that he references in his book. (35)

We get frustrated when people talk past one another, defaulting to caricatured stereotypes rather than embracing a posture of openness.

And we both value looking for a “third way” to approach dichotomistic thinking.

He is right when he says,

It seems that every time someone criticizes the emerging church, they pick the worst-case scenario or the most extreme statements. (49)

He is also correct in noting,

It seems the emerging church, for rhetorical purposes, uses sweeping generalizations about the traditional church that are unfair. (76)

The larger Body of Christ would indeed be served well by discourse that is deeper, more specific, and marked by a sense of humble openness.  Belcher’s chapters on Deep: Truth, Evangelism, Gospel, Worship, Preaching, Ecclesiology, and Culture, are essentially his attempts  to facilitate just that – a worthwhile enterprise in my opinion.

While Belcher’s book is truly helpful in this regard, I’m not sure he really hits the mark in terms of articulating a true “third way” as a means of engaging these topics.  Very often, his conclusions in these chapters are a combination of a chastened version of the EC position he articulates and an expanded version of the traditional position he articulates (usually w/ reference to Tim Keller and his church!).  I suppose this is a kind of “third way,” maybe even precisely the one Belcher desires, but I’m not certain it’s the most helpful kind of third way for the Church to pursue.

The mistake, I believe, comes in the assumption that one can simply pit the positions of the EC against the positions of the traditional church.  The main problem here is that many in the EC camp are themselves trying to articulate and maneuver a “third way” between the modern categories of conservatism and liberalism, a feature that Belcher seems to either overlook or discount w/o comment.  An indication of this is his quick dismissal of the Anabaptist tradition from which many in the EC draw as one which is able to circumvent many of the dichotomies addressed in this book on account of its fundamentally, Christendom-rejecting, stance.  Belcher never seems to ask, “How might people in the EC camp already be searching for a third way in response to classic approaches to these issues?,” but assumes that their positions are simply reactions against the positions of traditional churches.

Belcher sets himself on this course in stating,

We need to define it [the emerging church] as a movement, particularly its theology.  The best way to do this is to look at what the emerging church movement is against – the things they are protesting and the rasons why they are calling for change. (38)

For the life of me, I can’t grasp why someone would want to define a movement by what they are against (even it it is a protest movement) rather than what they are for.  We certainly regard what the classic reformers were for as far more more important than what they were against!  But more than this, Belcher fails to identify missiology as a core motif for the EC.  For many, if not most, in the global EC movement, it is an attempt to participate with God and God’s mission in the world that is reshaping how they understand the sorts of topics that Belcher raises in his book, not vice versa.

These criticisms notwithstanding, I am glad that Jim wrote this book and don’t doubt for a second that it has an will continue to help many.

**Jim has recently decided to resign from his position as lead pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, CA.  You can read a letter he wrote to the congregation regarding this transition here and some additional discussion about this sort of trend here.

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).

Previous posts in this Series:

Preliminary Thoughts | The Root of the Problem | The Fruit of the Problem | New Soil | Community Rootedness

In my last post I tried to make a case for the necessity of theological education of missional leaders being rooted in missional community.  With this as a contextual prerequisite, I would further suggest that the ultimate aim of a missionally oriented process of leadership training is the formation of Christlike character.

It is too naive to suggest that Christendom was wholly uncritical of the character of Christian leaders.  It is more accurate to say that there’s an inherent assumption within Christendom that if we can only ensure that our leaders believe all the right things, their character will follow suit.  This has turned out to be a deeply lamentable mistake.

It may be necessary for me to reiterate at this point that I am no anti-intellectual.  You would never find me downplaying the importance of continuing study, exposure to new perspectives and ideas, or deep, thoughtful reflection.  Instead, I would suggest that a missional vision of theological education will only value intellectual dimensions of training inasmuch as they contribute to the formation of Christlike character in missional leaders.  Therefore, we might expect a missional vision of theological education to…

1) Train leaders how to think as opposed to telling them what to think.   This is only possible when we humbly buy into the reality that our systems of truth are all fallible and trust that encouraging leaders to follow Jesus is preferable to warning them of the dangers of venturing outside of a particular theological grid.  Thus, through books, articles, media, speakers, discussions, conferences, etc., we may freely (and wisely!) expose leaders to various biblical/theological traditions and perspectives.  Where the rubber meets the (missional) road, so to speak, is in the questions we encourage students to ask of what they are being exposed to.  I won’t go into them here,* but I submit that a missional vision of what it means to be the Body of Christ inclines us to ask different questions of all that we learn than that of Christendom.**

2) Conjoin all intellectual study with missional practice. Only given the assumptions of Christendom could we have divorced religious study from community based missional practice and witness.  A missional vision of the church and theological education is characteristically and relentlessly incarnational.  Missional theology is nothing if not that which we come to know about God as we participate in God’s mission in the world through the Body of Christ.  In this light, I would suggest that each and every aspect of intellectual study find its place within a structure of missional practice which includes both personal and corporate spiritual disciplines.

3) Develop a community based assessment of a leaders process of character development.  When character formation is the central issue in the equipping of missional leaders, time frames are perfunctory.  It’s not one’s ability to make it through a process that qualifies them as a leader, but the manner in which they participate and their holistic development from start to finish.  It takes a community to discern these things.  As valuable as having the commitment and support of a community is to a leader in training, their willingness to speak the truth in love regarding their development is every bit as essential.  Incorporating various means of mentorship and scheduling regular checkpoints between leaders and communities are key components of a missional vision of theological education.

What we know and what we can do as leaders isn’t just meaningless w/o Christlike character, it’s actually negative, destroying the very nature of what it means to follow Jesus and participate in God’s mission in the world.  As Jesus was only worth following inasmuch as he said and did as God said and did, so too are his disciples w/o power and authority if they are not leading out of this sort of Christlike character.

This is all relates to the subject of my next post, the shaping of convictions.  Hope to have some helpful dialogue before then though, so let’s have at it!

*You can find a very helpful article on this subject here.
**In proposing this I readily (and happily) admit that we will always be coming from a particular (hermeneutical) vantage point.  I will explore this further in a future post, but the notion of some completely objective posture in the formation of leaders is neither possible nor desirable.

When I was a sophomore in college, I helped to lead a high school mission trip to Russia.  On the plane, I was reading a book someone had recommended, “Desiring God,” by John Piper.  Through the first 1/2 of the book, I was looking for a way to throw it off the plane – I thought it was crap.  By the end of it, I was transformed.  I had a completely different take on the nature of Christian faith and discipleship that has stood the test of time.

Once I started to get into Podcasts, Piper’s was one of the first ones I subscribed (iTunes link) to.  I still listen to it with some regularity and commend it to you.

When I was contemplating resigning my role as a student pastor in 2004 to pursue more theological education, I decided to take some time off to think, pray, reflect, and ask questions.  I traveled to Minneapolis, visited Bethlehem Baptist Church where John Piper preaches, and had the chance to talk with him for a while after one of the services.  An alum of Fuller Theological Seminary, I expected him to be encouraged that this was one of my options.  He wasn’t.  He said that they had gone down a dangerous to path toward Christian liberalism.

I went to Fuller anyway and discovered that John was wrong.

My idolatry of Piper broken, I began to notice some other aspects of his theology that I had a really hard time with.

I think he gets the issue of God’ sovereignty wrong – not because I believe the opposite, but because I think the whole Calvinist/Armenian debate is flawed at its core.  Both positions assume that salvation is something one can have and therefore argue about who secures our having it – God or man.  With good intention, some will attempt a middle road and say it’s a both/and issue.  It’s not.  It’s a neither/nor issue.  When you begin to understand that “salvation belongs to God” (Rev. 7:10) and is therefore something we can only participate in, never have, the whole debate changes.

I also lament Piper’s view on women. Again, he will argue the “conservative” side of the complimentarian/egalitarian debate, which I think begins with flawed premises.  Do men and women compliment each other or are they equal?  That question isn’t nearly biblical enough to be of any real value.  A more important question, at least as the Bible is concerned, is, how do men and women, who only together image God, as couples and singles, function together in doing and equipping others for ministry.  And the plain answer is that they serve as co-laborers – that each and every aspect of ministry, from preaching and teaching, to caring for children, suffers when not practiced by both capable and gifted women and men.

There was much bally-who in the blog-o-sphere last week when Piper connected a tornado in Minneapolis to a meeting the ELCA was having regarding the issue of homosexuality (here’s the original article and a follow up one).  I have listened to Piper enough that I think what he meant to say was that whenever natural disaster strikes it is an opportunity for us to remember and turn to God, but he seemed to be saying quite a bit more than that and it calls for some accounting.

Lastly, he’s got a bad take on the woman at the well (John 4).  Like perhaps the majority of preachers, he is quick to assume the moral degradation of the woman Jesus encounters, frequently noting that “she’s sleeping with her boyfriend.”  As I take into account the cultural factors at play in this passage as well as the fuller scope of Jesus’ ministry, I find this interpretation to be maddening.

Women had not rights in Jesus’ day; they had not power to divorce a husband; they were property.  Unless they were from a royal or extremely well off family, they had almost no hope of being able to provide for themselves.  As the Bible makes clear, the ability to produce children more often than not determined a woman’s worth.

While we might trip over some of the translated language, I think it’s much more faithful to the text to understand this Samaritan woman, not as a whore (essentially what Piper and others tend to d0), but as a shamed and broken victim of injustice.  When Jesus notes that this woman had had five husbands, he’s not digging her for her sin – when did Jesus ever do that except for the religious leaders?!  And when he says that the man she now has is not her husband, he’s not some *&$%^&# calling her out for “sleeping with her boyfriend”  – again, just doesn’t fit the Jesus of the gospels.  He is calling out the source of her shame and injustice so that he can heal it – something he did all the time.

I love John Piper as a brother in Christ.  His passion and zeal for the supremacy of God captivates and inspires me.  But here’s the final thing about John and this gets me more than anything else.  I have never heard him say (and he’s really public!), “I might be wrong.  There are other followers of Jesus who believe differently than me and they just might be on to something.”  Even if he has said something like this at some point – it is quite definitely not a theme in his teaching the way I wish it was.  I’m not talking about being wishy-washy.  I am taking about some good ol fashioned humility and firm trust in God’s work over his theology.

I am not writing this to disparage.  Beginning with myself, I would ask anyone who has some theological issues with another brother or sister in Christ, to think first and foremost about who they really are and what they have done for the sake of the gospel.  I am no anti-Piperian. I consider John a true partner in the gospel and would run to his defense on most occasions.  But this is just some stuff that I really struggle with enough to hope that others would as well.

As I have mentioned before in a post on “What is Missional?,” Western Christians are bifurcated into two main groups – those who emphasize believing the right things (classic conservatives) and those who emphasize living the right way (classic liberals).  Thankfully, there are people like Pete Rollins who desires to help people embrace not a middle-ground, but an altogether alternative paradigm, believing the right way, illustrated in this blog post of his from this past January.

Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think…

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.

However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.

His perspective shows both the short comings of language and the shallowness of the things we typically consider most important.  This is indeed the sort of belief that I think the Bible calls us to.

Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete. (Lk. 6:46-49)

Some years ago, discussions and arguments regarding the inerrancy, infallability, inwhatever of Scripture ceased to be all that meaningful to me.  It’s difficult to see this as an incredibly meaningful debate to Jesus.  On the other hand, it’s easy for me to imagine God caring deeply about the extent to which we are seeking to bring our lives into harmony with the reality held out to us in the Bible.

I wonder who truly has the “higher” view of Scripture – the one who contends for its inerrancy or the one who demonstrates its truthfulness by the way they live?

If you’re really into this sort of discussion, feel free to have a glance at a paper I wrote on the topic of the opportunity afforded the Christian faith by the cultural turn toward Postmodernity here.

I had the good fortune of receiving an advance copy of Scot McKnight’s newest book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible from Zondervan who asked me to post a review, which I am happy to do.

Scot begins with the following assumption:

Everyone of us adopts the Bible and (at the same time) adapts the Bible to our culture… Everyone picks and chooses.  I know this sounds out of the box and off the wall for many, but no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise, it’s true.  We pick and choose [what to adopt and how to adapt].

He then goes on to suggest that we do well to…

1. Approach the Bible as a story – “Until we learn to read the Bible as Story, we will not know how to get anything out of the Bible for daily living.”  (Sidenote, Scot could have said this better.  How it comes across is out of harmony with the larger scope of what he is trying to communicate.  This sentence by itself perpetuates approaching Scripture as a commodity – what can I get out of it for my daily life? – but this isn’t really what he means I don’t think.

2. (Re)Learn how to listen as we dwell in Scripture – “Our relationship to the God of the Bible is to listen to God so we can love him more deeply and love others more completely.  If God’s ultimate design for us is to love God and to love others, we can only acquire that love by learning to listen to God.”

3. Practice discernment – “The pattern of discernment is simply this: as we read the Bible and locate each item in its place in the Story, as we listen to God speak to us in our world through God’s ancient Word, we discern – through God’s Spirit and in the context of our community of faith – a pattern of how to live in our world.”

The final part of the book is an exercise in trying to follow this 3-pronged approach to Scripture by wresting with the issue of women in ministry.

Kudos to Scot for writing a book that makes much of the excellent work being done in biblical hermeneutics accessible and for providing a resource to those of us trying to help others embrace a missional paradigm of the church that pertains specifically to the place of Scripture within that paradigm.

As all college professors should be, Scot is clearly more concerned with the formation of people than the conveyance of information.  This aspect of his character bleeds through the pages of his book and, all by itself, should merit an audience for what he has to say about how we approach and use Scripture.

Perhaps my favorite line in the book, “… God designs all biblical study to be a ‘useful’ process that leads us to the Bible in such a way that it creates a person who loves God and loves others.”  I would want to tweak this only slightly to read, “… God designs all biblical study to be a ‘useful’ process that leads us to Jesus in such a way that it creates a people who love God and love others.”  But again, I think in the larger scope of what Scot is saying, this sentiment comes through.

It is just this sort of sentiment that I think holds great promise to help correct both those who elevate the Bible to an almost idolatrous level as well as those who would merely cast it off as impossibly relative or irrelevant.  More than this, Scot’s book can be helpful in freeing the Bible from the grip of Western individualism by helping readers to understand the primary role of Scripture as a centering text for a community.

If you value the Bible, and perhaps especially if you think you’re got a pretty good handle on the Bible, I’d highly recommend picking this book up when it comes out.

I had a pretty elaborate post prepared on the whole economic crisis/bailout proposal that I was ready to publish, (instead, I will just point you to this great segment from This American Life, “The Giant Pool of Money,” which clearly and insightfully spells out just how we got in this mess) when another thought struck me – this great opportunity for the Church to shine.  It was this bit of Jesus’ teaching that came to mind specifically.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

This economic crisis is a great heart-check for the Church.  Where… What… Who is our treasure?  What a fantastic opportunity for the Church to witness to the watching world – to, in the midst of economic fright and despair, to be MORE generous, MORE sacrificial, MORE giving; to not “conform to the pattern of this world,” but to put on display a hope and a joy that is no way threatened, but is rather emboldened in times such as these.

But I wonder… will we shine?  I fear that the extent to which the Church in the West has so wedded its identity with that of the American dream will make this very, very difficult.  Thankfully, we worship a God who desires to work miracles amongst a repentant people.

I don’t really like it when a full week goes by and I don’t have a chance to blog – it’s like I get creatively constipated and then I don’t know where to begin.

Aside from just getting back into the swing of things and playing catch up since returning from Afghanistan, I have been busy doing a variety of things – getting the new house settled, wrapping up the online course I have been teaching, and training for a 1/2 marathon, along with other life-randomness.  So, where to start?  How about the 1/2 marathon.

My New Year’s resolution was to get a 1/2 marathon under the belt before the year’s end.  I found out that there is one in Akron on Sept. 27, and since I had 2 friends doing the race (one doing the full marathon and another the 1/2), I decided to give it a go.  Afghanistan came at a bad time in terms of training, so I hit it hard as soon as I made it back.  Well, the left knee, as it has been doing for years, continued to give me trouble and I had to go see an orthopedist.  He read through a previous MRI and did an x-ray.  You should have seen his face when I told him I was training for a 1/2 marathon in 2 weeks?!  He actually said, “You’re running on this?”  I just started rehab this morning and we’ll see how much that helps.  Next stage is a fluid injection to make up for the cartlidge that is damaged and/or missing, and then surgery will be a last resort.  So, sadly, no race for me, at least not this month.  There is another one here in Memphis in December, so perhaps then.

Semi-related, as a part of training and moving to midtown, I have been frequenting the downtown YMCA, which is a great facility.  There is a trolly that goes back and forth, though it ends a mile from my house.  The other day, I ran down to the Y, worked out some there, and took the trolly back, and ran the last mile.  It’s a cool part of downtown Memphis that I was excited to experience for the first time.

My friend Joey stumbled on a newspaper article last week about a gathering in a local establishment called Beer and Bible, facilitated by Phyllis, Tickle, someone I have been wanting to meet ever since moving to Memphis.  I had the opportunity to go and participate in the discussion last week and just loved it.  It was about the most eclectic group of folks you can imagine who used the 7 deadly sins as a jumping off point for discussion.

I also had the chance to accompany my friend Jon and a few other guys who do some work with FCA at Carver HS to a football game.  Carver is a school in urban Memphis with few resources and about 30 guys on the team.  The team they played is an over-resourced suburban school with about 30 guys/position.  Needless to say, Carver got crushed, but it was fun to be back on the sidelines of a HS football game.

What else?  With the help of some friends, lots of painting at my new place has gotten accomplished and I also added a few pieces of furniture as I seek to create an inviting and hospitable sort of place.  Pictures forthcoming.

The class.  I am in the final stages of grading final papers for the first go-around of an online class for Fuller – The Emerging Church in the 21st Century.  The class was filled with great discussion and insights.  The majority of students feel as though they have a lot more clarity on what the EC discussion/movement is all about and I have reall enjoyed helping them to explore their questions, misgivings, and thoughts in general.

Lastly, while the website leaves a little to be desired, the atmosphere at Republic Coffee doesn’t.  I am writing this from their location – one I very quickly become a huge fan of.  If you’re around midtown, check it out.

From the Associated Press:

Ohio church: No kissing, tickling allowed

CINCINNATI (AP) — The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has issued a detailed list of inappropriate behaviors for priests, saying they should not kiss, tickle or wrestle children.

The newest version of the archdiocese’s Decree on Child Protection also prohibits bear hugs, lap-sitting and piggyback rides.

But it says priests may still shake children’s hands, pat them on the back and give high-fives.

I can hear the naysayers now, “This is just good advice. It’s godly wisdom. It’s ensuring that you don’t even have the appearance of evil.” And all that.

Without launching into lengthy biblical defenses of just how mistaken those thoughts are, let me just say how sad this makes me. That the Church, the people of God called to demonstrate an alternative reality, would have to pass decrees curtailing innocent signs of love and affection.

What has become of the Body of Christ when we can’t allows its spiritual leaders to give kids piggy-back rides? Sad.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Gal. 5:1.

A wise man once said that “godliness with contentment is great gain.” Sadly, we live in a culture which would rather have us understand contentment as a vice – something for the weak, disinterested, and apathetic. It is not.

If this picture strikes you, please check out this brother’s post.