Which brings us to what it means to be looking to Christ, or in Christ. I am reminded of C.S. Lewis writing in Four Loves, when he looks at the positions of the participants in loving relationships, and describes the love of friendship as being as two standing shoulder to shoulder looking out and seeing the same scene with the same heart.(All paraphrased from memory from a long ago reading). I see that as what it means to be a friend of Jesus or “in Jesus.” That is, it is to see others as Jesus sees them, and as Penner said, to see them as Christ sees us.
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Maybe time and place are important considerations, too, Phil.
4 years ago, maybe, our Sunday school class went through Genesis. Scott, my husband, just didn’t come for the first 6 weeks. Smart man. I braved it out and embarrassed myself heartily, when the “I don’t know how anybody can call themselves a christian and believe in evolution” opinion came from a very theologically-certain class member. I did not disagree well.
I felt bad for our wonderful teacher, who is a brilliant, very introverted younger man, 20 years younger than me. I’m sure he never imagined the problem coming up. Dear fellow.
I apologized to him and the theologically-certain class member for being so outspoken. The teacher understood and felt bad I had been provoked. The class member I guess thought I was just having a bad day.
Best to have such conversations in smaller settings or over long correspondences via air mail. People say the most horrible things, when they think they are arguing from certainty, even in large groups. It can be awful.
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That’s just splendid, Phil! Thank you for writing that.
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Good advice. We will see if I do any better this Sunday. It is difficult when faced with what we see as erroneous to keep our mouths shut. Our Sunday School teacher recommended via email to the class to watch the “Is Genesis History” movie, and I replied to him alone (no reply all!) that while well done, has so problems and attached some of the critical reviews, including the Biologos one. Crickets so far, but will see if at least it tempers the lesson Sunday.
Sorry for the off topic interjection, but it has been on my mind this week, and relates to how we dialogue with others. At least I can rationalize it that way!
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Phil, I don’t think this is off topic. I think it’s application. There is a awful lot from this book to figure out how to apply and what it looks like in practice, sometimes which we have never seen before. We need to talk about these things.
[I had removed this temporarily, because of valid questions about the truth of the claim in the book I reference. There seems to be enough documentation to put this back.]
This second type of apologetic violence, then, occurs when our
Christian witness unwittingly participates in the kind of systemic or ideological violence that takes place in modern rational societies…This violence is almost completely objective in the sense that it is not attributable to any one person or group and their evil intentions. It is largely anonymous. No one (in particular) is doing it, but it is the underlying violence required to maintain the status quo in which we all participate indirectly. (pg. 159)
This concept apologetic violence weighs on me. I’ve not questioned the existence of systemic and ideological violence for a very long time. It horrifies me to think that I am also complicit in it. But I haven’t given my all, or even my “a lot” to subvert it, either. This leads me to an art installation I saw a few years ago called The Land Grant: Forest Law by Ursula Biemann and Paulo Tavares. (The book form of the installation is available here at Internet Archive.) The installation focused on the forests of western Amazonia, the indigenous nations that live there, the biodiversity and the problem created by the rich natural resources of oil, bas and minerals under the ground.
The installation included reports covering many aspects of Amazonia and interests there. I was horrified to notice one that covered Wycliffe Bible Translators and JAARS aviation. I knew missionaries, who worked for these agencies, who had devoted their lives to taking the Gospel to places that were dangerous and hard to reach. They really loved the indigenous people they worked with as brothers and sisters in Christ. They were also my friends. And then I read this:
One of the main facilitators of oil penetration in Amazonia, chiefly in Peru and Ecuador, was the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), the “anthropologic branch” of the Wycliffe Bible Translators, one of the largest American evangelistic missionary organizations. SIL emerged and expanded its operations during the Cold War, following the economic and security interests of the United States in the resource-rich, largely indigenous, and politically turbulent frontiers of the third world. Often directly funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), SIL’s operations played a central role in the campaigns of political containment deployed by the United Sates in various strategic zones, as in the forests of Vietnam and Guatemala, and at the same time served as one of the most efficient means through which these remote territories were integrated into circuits of global capital.
In Latin America, SIL became one of the closest allies of the United States-backed military regimes that ruled over practically the entire continent at that time. With its own air fleet–the JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Radio Service)–and the increasing support of local dictators, the agency’s network eventually became transcontinental, including operations in Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil.
…
From the perspective of the Ecuadorian state, which lacked financial means and technical conditions to consolidate its western frontier, SIL and its vast logistical infrastructure served as channels for state expansion, permitting national homogenization and integration while providing access to natural resources in Amazonia. For the oil corporations, SIL operated as the pacifying force that contain the resistance of indigenous groups trying to block the invasion of their ancestral territories.
pp. 25, 27, 29 & 31.)
This report leaves me with many questions, but I put it here as a known example of how close to home apologetic violence can come and how easy it is to participate in something you don’t even know exists. Is it possible to ever ask enough questions or think of enough angles?
At least, I can be aware of what my own mouth is doing, or is about to do, and check it. Maybe?
I’m beginning to understand why Kierkegaard named one of his books regarding Christian practice Fear and Trembling. It might take that much concern for me to learn to be in the truth and live that way.
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Not this one. Nor could I remember it, if it were once formulated.
But then, again, aren’t all of these axioms propositions in the end? Is faith something that works out as neatly as an axiomatic system?
As I understand them, yes.
- By no means, I agree.
- But what is faith if not “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”?
So where does that faith come from? Romans 10:17 says: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word concerning Christ.”- “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?”
- Is violence done by the preaching? May it never be.
- Here is where I believe 1 Peter 3:15 comes into play: “always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.”
- Why would anyone ask me to give an account for the hope that is in me, if I myself have no hope?
- Who cares about “propositions”? Only someone who is curious about why I’m such a hopeful person unless, of course, I ain’t. If I ain’t, I may need to revisit the propositions to remind myself what it was that I first heard about Christ.
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Is there a qualitative difference between the types of propositions of an axiom, and the truth statements that a pastor makes, when preaching? I think this is the difference Penner points out between “mere” propositions and prophetic utterances or witness. In other words, we understand the Gospel through the propositions of the Kerygma, but:
- the propositions are not the entire content of the Kerygma; they point to a greater reality, which is apprehended by faith
- the propositions of a axiomatic system such as you provided are based in testable observations and logic; the Kerygma is precisely not logical, at least by the same standards, and is certainly hard to test by the same standards.
Good preaching is challenging but not violent as Penner describes. It’s apolostolic speech, put forth by a pastor who has worked hard, with fear and trembling, to present the congregation the Word of the Lord.
I’ve heard some violent preaching in my life. “Old Time,” revivalistic, arminian to the core, graceless, loveless, legalistic. I never expect that that is the kind of preaching you mean or that should exist. Maybe it’s about died out. We could all do without it.
These are good questions. I would like to know more from Penner, and you or others, what the apolostolic witness looks like that he/you have in mind. I’ve never been good with the old model idea, not because of a lack of faith, but be cause of my understanding that it’s not defensible in the way of a mathematical proof. So, I am left with more questions than answers.
Will the rest of this thread go on for years, as we try to figure out what that witness really looks like?
However, I think your pointing to good preaching is an indication that we do have an idea of it. But what is that type of witness like at an individual level? And if one is willing to accept the idea of dialogic witness, what does THAT look like at all? Maybe the interview with Richard Twiss could help us with that.
What do you think, Terry?
[Looking back at your post I was replying to, maybe I’ve repeated myself and you as well. Sorry. It’s early . Interruptions already. More coffee needs to be ingested, I’m afraid.]
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- The preaching that Paul spoke of in Romans 10:14, in Greek, goes like this: “πῶς δὲ ἀκούσωσιν χωρὶς κηρύσσοντος ?” [How shall they hear without preaching?] The kerygma is what is preached. Anyone who proclaims the Gospel is preaching. One does not have to be a hireling to proclaim the Gospel. But anyone who proclaims the Gospel, darn well better believe what he or she is proclaiming, whether proclaiming from a pulpit or simply sharing it with another person nearby.
- They aren’t? Maybe not.
- In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus began his public ministry in a synagogue on the sabbath withe these words from Isaiah: "“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
- That was Jesus’ kerygma: a quotation from Isaiah, a list of propositions:
- “I have been sent to preach the gospel to the poor,”
- “I have been sent to proclaim release to the captives,”
- “I have been sent to proclaim recovery of sight to the blind,”
- “I have been sent to set free those who are oppressed,”
- “I have been sent to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
- Each proposition was either true or false.
- What is illogical about any of them?
- Is any of them testable? How would someone go about testing whether or not Jesus was sent to do any of those things? I have my ideas. [Note: we wouldn’t be talking about whether or not you or I have been sent to do any of those things, would we?]
I think most of us who have heard “violent preaching”–except those who enjoy a rousing altar call–recognize it when we hear it.
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So if we’re not talking about any of us claiming to actually be Jesus, what is the kerygma, i.e. the proclamation, that we announce? IMO, it’s the Gospel that, like Paul, we have received: that Jesus of Nazareth was sent–as he claimed in each of the propositions that he quoted from Isaiah–and that he did what he was sent to do by a higher authority, God our Father.
- “Good preaching” then, if I’m correct, is that Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed "the Good News; and that is our Good News which we are sent to proclaim. “Bad, deficient, or defective preaching” fails to make clear that Jesus was sent and that he did what he was sent to do. And woe to anyone who proclaims the Good News and does not believe what they are proclaiming.
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Then there’s this:
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
Philippians 1:15-18
Can’t say that I ever really understood such a case. There certainly are falsely motivated preachers today, but rivalry and trying to stir up trouble? Well, AiG and the hamish ilk I suppose.
It’s been a day of interruptions, so I feel I’m losing the direction (if I ever had it) of our exchange. Trying to get back…
What I am getting at is that there’s a person, a reality behind those statements, who is the object of our believing, not just a collection of true statements. One of the things that Penner has been harping on is the problem of making (testable/provable) propositions (alone) the focus of belief, rather than faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, which are signified by the propositions. Again that how we believe being as important as what we believe. (Obviously, we believe something, but the statements alone are not the entire content or our belief. Nor should anyone be satisfied that someone has been properly catechized because she can rattle off a list of propositions from one or another doctrinal statement.)
Sometime, I would be interested in hearing them. Or, if you have already talked about this in another thread, please direct my (fractured) attention there.
Sorry, Terry. I don’t understand what you’re getting at here.
Having become more and more aware of Finney in my developing antiquity, I detest the damage that man has done to Christian doctrine and practice in the churches I know. Shudder.
I promise, I am not claiming to be or ever to have been Jesus.
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-
I started out, in my infancy, as a Southern Baptist (SB). My stepmother was SB, her son by a previous marriage was an SB minister to the Deaf. When she died, her son–40 years my senior–arranged to have Mom’s former-SB preacher give, what I imagine to have been, a soul-winning sermon. I remember it now–with a smile. There’s nothing quite like a eulogy for the single-most important person in your early life, in which the theme was almost completely: “Have you gotten right with God?” Gripping, to say the least.
-
The Van Til-ian Presuppositionalist Reformed Baptists seem to come close, in their somewhat more coherent, regular sermons. Two quotes from Van Til himself:
- "“So, as we have our tea, I propose not only to operate on your heart so as to change your will, but also on your eyes so as to change your outlook. But wait a minute. No, I do not propose to operate at all. I myself cannot do anything of the sort. I am just mildly suggesting that you are perhaps dead, and perhaps blind, leaving you to think the matter over for yourself. If an operation is to be performed it must be performed by God Himself.”
- “It is not kindness to tell patients that need strong medicine that nothing serious is wrong with them.”
-
The prevailing impression I have is that the hallmark of “bad preaching” is what I call, a bad, “bedside manner”. 'Nuff said.
Not to worry, you answered the question here:
Me neither.
As I see , there are two Gospels: the first brought to us by the one first sent: i.e. Jesus; the second given by those to whom He was sent. The second is rooted in and depends on the first.
- I get that,
- and I would go so far as to say–adding to, but not correcting you or Penner–that there is a reality beyond that: The Reality of the Father conveyed in and through Jesus. [John 14:6. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."]
- The second Reality–the one that I believe you refer to–is the Reality of Jesus, “the object of our believing”, “the person and work of Jesus Christ”.
- And here’s where “my problem” begins. Who is Penner talking to in his book? He certainly isn’t talking to atheists, is he?
- With all due respect to @MarkD, Mark is not Penner’s audience. [That is not a criticism; it’s an observation; call it a “proposition”
]
- With all due respect to @MarkD, Mark is not Penner’s audience. [That is not a criticism; it’s an observation; call it a “proposition”
TBC
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He’s talking to Christians, all of whom are called to “go and make disciples of all nations…” And Penner is telling us that our mission has been seriously compromised, - maybe even hijacked by modernism instead.
Others are free to read it too - there should be no secrets here; bring everything out into the light. But I think his intended audience is the body of Christ living in these times.
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Continued:
- I absolutely agree with you, that the “propositions” which we have learned (hopefully) and know “are not the entire content for our belief.” By the way, I’m going to go out on a limb here, and equate the propositions that we’re talking about and the individual statements in our credal statements, i.e. the Church’s creeds are, in essence, the Church’s propositions. Memorizing and knowing them enable or qualify a person to call him- or herself “a Christian”, but they do not make us Christian. At best, memorizing and knowing the propositions make us “semi-intelligible” Christians. Unfortunately, we’re not off the hook, are we? There’s always someone who says (or thinks): What the heck are you talking about, which brings to mind a vivid memory.
- When I was about 14, the “love of my life”, who lived next door, went to Church with me regularly. Her mother–a single mother with two teenage kids and a 3-year old son–decided to put on her Sunday-best and get her youngest dressed in his best clothes and cowboy boots, and go to Church with “the Sampsons”. As we–me, my girlfriend, her mother, and “the kid”, sat in a pew, “the kid” got restless and walked across each of us during my father’s sermon: click-clack, click-clack. My girlfriend and I tried to “entertain” him quietly, but like many 3-year old boys, he lost interest in us and returned across each of us to his mother who, embarassed by “the kid’s” behavior and the sound of his boots on the wooden pews, gripped and shook him, and said: “You’re not supposed to talk when the preacher is talking.” To which "the kid responded in a voice heard throughout the small church: “Well, what the hell is he talking about?” The preacher (my Dad) said: “I think that’s my cue” and ended his sermon, while the mother escorted her son out of the sanctuary.
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In ch. 5, Penner makes two claims that I’m trying to reconcile with each other (and he explicitly recognizes the irony - since these are close to each other in pp. 164-165)
This is possible because modern society imagines the self as existing over against its relations to others and one’s personal convictions as having nothing (or little) to do with public policy. And so the dream of modern apologetics is that its arguments and propositions—as objective truths—are timeless, universal, and neutral and may function in any social context without a basic challenge to the governing structures (except in those cases where the existing polity expressly forbids Christian beliefs and practices) and without violence to the individual person.
and
It is ironic, then, that the deep politics of prophetic witness is also what makes the prophetic stance appear politically ambivalent according to the surface politics of particular governmental or institutional systems—while the opposite is so often true in modern apologetics. Often, modern Christians are politically engaged in the surface politics of modern society, fighting the so-called culture wars with very clearly marked political boundary lines, but all the while they are unreflective about the deep politics at work!’ The prophetic stance of Christian witness I am after cannot be identified with political partisanship to any ruling parties, plans, or ideals. The deep political requirement of Christian witness is by; and its primary goal, is person-preserving and not to produce any particular kind of society or particular program of action. The prophetic stance of the Christian witness, then, is an attitude, a way of facing society and engaging programs of action?’ To be wedded to any particular society or program of action indissolubly subverts the prophetic thrust of witness as that which stands against the powers that stand against the truth.
So which is it? Is it a chimera - an illusion - that apologetics can imagine itself to be free of politics and power dynamics (1st quote above)? Or alternately … to be ‘wedded to’ any particular political program subverts the prophetic witness that should be speaking truth to power (2nd paragraph - and the one I can more easily take on board as an Anabaptist)?
I also find this bit provocative from p. 167:
Truth undoes or compromises the easy confidence we have in ourselves and our received beliefs, so that faithfulness to ourselves and our traditions often takes the form of questioning our ability to account for our world. I am placed in question by the Truth, and I in turn place the practices and beliefs of my community in question.
So would it be fair to say that the Christian is called to practice: humility, humility, humility … but instead we want to adopt the marketing strategies of the world that tell us it’s more effective to practice (or at least display): confidence, confidence, and certainty!
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From p. 168
… the witness to truth has a place from which to stand both within Christian tradition, as a representative of it, and outside it, calling it back to faithfulness. What is also true of prophets, then, is that while they challenge and even speak against their traditions, they are also more deeply committed to them than those who are comfortable in the status quo.82 It is precisely because they are so committed to their tradition and believe in its deepest impulses that prophets sometimes attack it. The prophetic call is always to a deeper fidelity to the founding event of the tradition, but not in such a way that controls it or even tries to make it into a univocal, monochromatic tradition.
YES! This.
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I don’t think apologetics will ever actually end. We practice apologetics whenever we use scripture and interpretation of it to defend why we believe it’s not a historical account of scientific info in genesis 1 and so on. So I don’t feel the justification of apologetics is restrained to just some issues.
By disagreeing - even ‘vigorously’ and then steadfastly maintaining relationship and contact with each other outside of that disagreement (i.e. - not letting the disagreement become a replacement for your entire relationship - but permitting it to be part of it.) This means you don’t start passive-aggressively avoiding them because of their refusal to agree with you on some important thing.
Kendel, you’ve probably already asked this numorous times, but even if so, I’ll repeat it here now toward the end of Penner’s book:
So we know what Penner is against … do we also now have a handle on what he is for? - and if so, what is that?
It might be difficult to do better than Penner himself in terms of concluding paragraphs - the very last sentences of his book with the ‘broken mirror’ imagry - I thought that was powerful and insightful.
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