God Wins

One of the things about the Christian Faith is the option to look at the universe, creation, and history from a wide perspective. I'm reminded of an episode of the BBC murder mystery show Inspector Lewis in which a Oxford professor who studied the Greek classics admitted his unconcern with the trivial details of day-to-day life because he thought in terms of thousand year eras. For the Christian, God created the universe some 13 billion years ago. He began creating the earth 4 billion years ago. He created man at some point and then inaugurated the salvation of this world some 4,000 years ago with the calling of Abraham. It was only some 2,000 years ago that the Kingdom of God came, breaking into history, in the person and work of Jesus and his Church. And as Jesus proved at his resurrection: God wins. New creation is coming. The thorns and thistles that cycle through our lives and the up and downs that cycle through our world that can seem so relevant to our existence are really just blips in the overall working out of God's plan for the salvation of his creation. As Christians, we are called to do good works for the Kingdom of God, seeking God's guidance in how to best do so. If we ask him, he'll give it. It is in the confidence of God's victory and in the assurance of the hope of God's ultimate justice that we place our faith. God wins. Everything else we do is the working out of that ultimate cosmic salvation in the tasks and mission that God in Christ gives us. All anxiety and worry should just fall away. God wins. A wider perspective of creation and history should cause one to throw their sufferings and anxieties on God and trust in his salvific work. God wins.

Charles L. Campbell's Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Han Frei's Postliberal Theology

The other day I finished reading Charles L. Campbell's Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Han Frei's Postliberal Theology. Charles L. Campbell (Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Hans Frei's Postliberal TheologyEssentially, the book is an exploration of the thought, teaching, and context of Frei's use of narrative preaching.The context seems to be the reemergence of biblical preaching by mainline denomination liberals as their move away from subjective religious experience and back towards the centrality of Jesus and the meta-narrative told through the Scriptures. During the 1960s, liberal preachers began to abandon neo-orthodoxy in favor of a more private spirituality and a secular politics, both completely divorced from the Christ event.

Much of the book - literary interpretations of the Bible, the meta-narrative of the Scriptures, refocus on neo-orthodoxy - is "old hat" to me. My studies of Kierkegaard, Mullins, Barth, Brunner, Bonhoeffer, Niebuhr, Moody, Stagg, Buber, and Wright taught me all this long ago. But it is nice to see liberal Christians starting to get it right to some degree.

The most interesting aspect of this book for me was the examination of how people become "Christians" culturally and how they come to believe what they believe. Essentially, the thesis here is that becoming a "Christian" is a process of socialization or enculturation within a particular cultural-linguistic community. One doesn't become a "Christian" by having a "religious experience" but by learning the particular language and set of practices inherent in Christianity, a denomination, and a particular faith tradition. Furthermore, people learn the "meaning" of a scriptural teaching and their way of "interpreting" Scripture by adopting the cultural practices of their faith community, not by drawing upon the sensus literalis.  All of this is really about the practical process of how individuals and community arrive at Biblical interpretation and theology, regardless of accuracy. All of this can be quite depressing to the learned Christian but it really seems to be the way the majority "Christianize" themselves in practice.

Frei is said to argue that the function of the gospels is to render the identity of Jesus. I find this highly questionable but probably only overstated.

I greatly appreciated Frei's assessment that Jesus enacted the way of God in the world as an embodiment of the reign of God. I think this is right on the money. This dips slightly into some of the deeper areas of Scriptural studies involving Jesus self-understanding and prophetic vocation.

I really don't think there are any deeper aspects of Scripture studies than the theology of Job, Roman 1, Deutero-Isaiah, and Jesus' personal understanding of his prophetic vocation.

The book is fairly technical and might be of some interest to preachers. However, it's probably more interesting to those who study preaching. And though I think most evangelicals would find this book uninteresting, liberal and more progressive Christians would find the more practical homiletic parts very useful.

"Judge not ..."

Sometimes when one points out that a particular behavior is contrary to God's will, others will condemn that pronouncement by citing the first part of  Jesus' teaching in Matthew 7, saying, "Judge not".

The people in this context that cite this statement interpret it to mean that one must never judge another person's behavior to be wrong. I am under no delusion that anyone who does so is actually attempting to offer Scriptural wisdom  - they simply don't like being told that a particular behavior is wrong and they are looking for the easiest way to deflect their guilt.

Obviously, we make judgments about behavior every day. Judges and juries are supposed to do it. Jesus in John 7:24 is quoted as saying, "Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”

Indeed, Telling someone that it is wrong to judge is actually judging someone and their behavior. Therefore, under the "never-tell-anyone-they-are wrong" interpretation, it is wrong to tell someone to "judge not". It's hypocrisy.

Again, I know that no one who cites "judge not" in the above manner is really concerned with the meaning of Jesus' teaching and the inner-contradictions of their misinterpretations - they just don't like the guilt of being told they're wrong.

Let's actually look at "judge not" in its context.

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye" (Matt7:1-5).

As the context makes perfectly clear, the purpose of pointing out the sin in someone's life is to help that person remove it. It's not simply the proclamation of error but the call to turn towards a more authentic way of living. For someone to be upset that someone is attempting to guide them towards the removal of serious error in their life is like going to a doctor with breathing problems and becoming angry when he suggests the cure.

"Mr. Smith, you need to stop smoking. It's damaging your health." "'Judge not lest ye be judged!'" "Uh, but I don't smoke." "'Physician, heal thyself!'" "Actually, I'm a general prac-" "'"Shut the heck up," thus sayeth the Lord!'"

Jesus is saying that one cannot help remove the sin from someone's life if they are engaging in that sin as well. You can't help someone with their drunkenness if you are a drunk. You can't help someone with their lying if you are a liar. You can't help someone with their immorality if you also engage in immorality. You can't help someone with their hypocritical use of "judge not" if you are hypocritically using "judge not."