Pithy quotes from our current reading which give us pause to reflect

Faith & Science Conversation
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I’ve been doing some (near) final polishing on the End of Apologetics thread, a relatively safe place for me around the Forum these days, and I have been thinking about this quote. This is one of the thoughts from the book that won’t let go of me. I can tell some version of it has gripped others long before I got to it. And I hope it grips more.

The express aim of my re­description is to move us past the modern split between objectivity and subjectivity that forces us to choose one or the other…My focus on subjectivity is to resituate objectivity so that we may have both together.
This unity of objectivity and subjectivity is what makes Luther’s dramatic formula “Here I stand” emblematic of edifying truth and paradigmatic for Christian truth-telling. As Kierkegaard notes, wit­nesses are Christians whose proclamation of the gospel starts with their lives. The act of witness is the unity of the inner and the outer, subjectivity and objectivity, the public and the private. It is the outward sign of the inward truth of the gospel that contains the light of Christ in the clay jars of our words and our actions.
But we must not lose sight of the fundamentally aporetic charac­ter of the truths to which we witness. Luther in his confession and Augustine in his passion for truth both teach us that we never possess the truth for and by ourselves; rather, we are to be possessed by the Truth (together with others). For all of the directness of witness, it retains its basic and ironic indirectness. The faithful expression of Christian witness comes in the form of both word and deed (and only in this bivalent form). We can never show the light of Christ and the truths that edify us except through our words and actions-and in an important sense these truths do not exist for us or those to whom we witness apart from our full testimony. We will not have the truths that edify us, nor will we be a witness to them, apart from our fully assuming them and living so that they shape our words and actions. This means that the gospel truth ultimately takes the form of a com­munity that displays the gospel truth and makes it possible to imagine a world in which they exist.
(Penner, Myron. The End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context. Baker Academic, 2013, pp. 129-130.)

I wonder, what other texts could be added to this one to help flesh out the ideas–the components of this bivalent form.

What does this bivalent form look like when carried out?

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Well, there is always this one in James 2:
4 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

It is a big question I wonder about as a lifelong Baptist, when you examine the traditional idea of salvation by belief. Can right beliefs save you? Perhaps, if you take the “No true Scotsman” path that belief requires change and action, and not just praying the believers prayer for “fire insurance.”

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Thanks, Phil. This is perfect.
As a lifelong Baptist as well, I have also wondered (but certainly not enough). I’ve reconciled the message of James with salvation by faith grounded in belief as, “The proof is in the pudding.” I know that sounds trite, but actually, if we see in someone the kinds of works mentioned in these verses, or that Christ commands, we recognize that that proof is quite costly to produce.

A bit later:
@jpm I just happened to reread this, looking for something else, and want to add I am always brought back to Ephesians 2:8-10 as well:

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The faith and grace are a gift leading to salvation, but not as “fire insurance” but to do good works in Christ Jesus.

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The careless soul receives the Father’s gifts as if it were a way things had of dropping into his hand…yet is ever complaining, as if someone were accountable for the checks which meet him at every turn. For the good that comes to him, he gives no thanks - who is there to thank? At the disappointments that befall him he grumbles - there must be someone to blame!

George MacDonald - as quoted by Lewis (#163) in “MacDonald”

I would add, in fairness to the ‘grumbler’ - and with all continued due respect to MacDonald, that the reverse can also be observed of the “naive” believer always encouraging gratitude for the good, but then being unwilling to entertain the thought of God’s hand in any calamity. Even though I take and aspire more toward MacDonald’s expression above, I think we’re obliged to admit that nobody above escapes the charge of inconsistency.

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Yes, Merv. A really good quote. Thank you for sharing it.
I think your extension is important. I’ve seen both…have done both. The naive person can be dangerous and cruel when faced with someone else’s suffering that they cannot process or tolerated. They must force the Big Happy Ending, and in doing so sacrifice the sufferer. They try to extract gratitude toward and edification in regard to God from the one who needs a helper in bearing a burden.

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Calamities are baked into life and not entirely avoidable. Evolution shows this to be true. But occasionally we are granted some insight over and above our plodding caution and that deserves our appreciation.

The idea that life is a blank slate that gets painted by a capricious God to test and amuse us seems unwarranted from where I sit. Life is for real and got this way from necessity. Does anyone really say “well then, no thank you”? Not me. There is wonder and glory as well pain and sorrow. Too much of the latter and our enthusiasm can be dimmed but life without some of all these would be flat and seem less remarkable. Perhaps just my good fortune talking but I do appreciate the consolation of perspective for the tough patches as well as the intrinsic joy of the good stretches.

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The political left in our culture tells us to ‘submit only to ourselves’ – and to the wider liberal culture – in your choice of pursuits. The cultural right, in their own reactive turn, tells us to ‘submit to our law’ and our way of using scripture to spin out both old and fresh (but always selective) legalisms in their dance with all the hated liberalisms of the day, whatever those may happen to be at the moment.

But the great authors and prophets of the past tell us to submit instead to the source of it all, the law-Giver. Some may chase after laws given rather than the Giver, as if their righteousness could be found somewhere therein. But eventually it will be the eternal Giver rather than the temporal gifts that we will learn to want. Or at least so it seems to me to be the nearly uniform testimony of prophet, apostle, and disciples.

While the left (at least the part of the left that has been trained to despise religion) shows little interest in any of this, it is the right that ought to take to heart the very scriptural narrative that they so wish to be seen as venerating. Because while they have become experts at identifying the other culture’s Babylonian identities in the various prophetic voices, they have lost the ability to rightly see themselves.

As one Pastor, Erna Kim Hackett, put it so eloquently when she states that …

…Christianity suffers from a bad case of Disney Princess theology. As each individual reads Scripture, they see themselves as the princess in every story. They are Esther, never Xerxes or Haman. They are Peter, but never Judas. They are the woman anointing Jesus, never the Pharisees. They are the Jews escaping slavery, never Egypt. For citizens of the most powerful country in the world, who enslaved both Native and Black people, to see itself as Israel and not Egypt when studying Scripture is a perfect example of Disney princess theology. And it means that as people in power, they have no lens for locating themselves rightly in Scripture or society — and it has made them blind and utterly ill-equipped to engage issues of power and injustice. It is some very weak Bible work.

Granted, she gives the above thought in a specific context of systemic social injustices, and specifically racism, - all very applicable receptacles for her pointed challenge. I’m only generalizing her point to our wider cultural situation as well, since I think it applies even beyond those specific issues, as important as they are.

And to end with yet one more (quite hard!) thought from MacDonald (as selected by Lewis: #167):

Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because He said, Do it, or once abstained because He said, Do not do it. It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe, in Him, if you do not do anything He tells you.

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I think this is also good.

“…though relationships are important, the focus on relationships is anchored in white theology’s pathological individualism.

Jesus died for my sins.

Jesus went to the cross for me .

I know the plans He has for me .

Though there is a place for the individual in theology, white theology, in profound syncretism with American culture, has distorted the Bible to be solely about individual redemption.“

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Yes, but…
This is an outstanding example of the great importance of the NT emphasis on individuals comprising the Body of Christ (the church as an active body). Understanding that redeemed individuals comprise a single whole made up of many, many interconnected, interdependent parts is essential to our understanding of ourselves as Christians as well as the church and its function in the world (among other things). We should be able to look to the side on a Sunday morning and recognize that all those we are sitting with in the congregation comprise a local expression of a much greater whole that have received the same great, yet humbling benefits.
Penner repeatedly emphasized the individual as part of a community. It’s part of the Christian “deal.”

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We are distinct (indeed unique) members of one very large and diverse body. Many, yet one.

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Trying … trying … trying to resist … FAIL!

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Currently reading the incredible Dune Trilogy by Frank Herbert. One particular recent quote stood out as a rather telling description of recent times:

“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.”

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Such a good quote from Pastor Hackett. When the Bible gives us a hand it is usually not to pat us on the back, but to lift us from the gutter. I am reminded of Nouwen’s Return of the Prodigal Son, a book I learned of from you guys, where previously I have seen myself as the Prodigal, but learned from it that I am more often the bitter elder son with no excuse for my actions.

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Yes. Figurative or literal, any storm that drives us to God is a good thing.
 

Away despair; my gracious Lord doth heare.
Though windes and waves assault my keel,
He doth preserve it: he doth steer,
Ev’n when the boat seems most to reel.
Storms are the triumph of his art:
Well may he close his eyes, but not his heart.

George Herbert

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I don’t remember this one. Thank you, Liam. One of the many things I appreciate about Dune is Herbert’s critical look at the ways religion is used to manipulate and control people.

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Aaaach, sigh.

Brian’s “feel good” “gospel of self.” Sort of.

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Merv, I wanted to come back to this post of yours as well as the article. Thank you for both and taking the time to pull so many sources and thoughts together and to write it all so well.
The article had so much quote-worthy in it, I almost copy and pasted the whole thing again. I’ll refrain.

This one does a great job of pulling things together.

Is this the Lewis/Macdonald book you’re using?

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Yes. Only I don’t have any hard copy. I checked it out on Hoopla through my local library here.
-Merv
[…which means … no copy and paste for me. Any excerpts I post here just have to be typed out the good old fashioned way.]

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Thanks! For all the persistent typing, a testament to the value you place on the quotes, and for the quotes. As well as the book info. I found it in Bookshare and will get it on my main ereader soon.

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Another gem from MacDonald … Reading from Lewis’ favorite passages of Macdonald is like getting “MacDonald concentrate.”

The uncertainty lies always in the intellectual region, never in the practical. What Paul cares about is plain enough to the true heart, however far from plain to the man whose desire to understand goes ahead of his obedience.

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