Musings: Notes From My Daybook

From Morris I forward on to the reader a wonderful link where you can get all your divine questions answered. Thanks to modern technology you can now connect right to the heavenly communication system and IM with God. Check it out: the igod

This new resource is fantastic. Now you don't have to wait for answered prayer, agonize over tough decisions, share your burdens with other people, or discipline yourself to live faithfully. You can just tap in your daily dilemma and get an instant response. Takes all the guesswork and questions out of spirituality. Everything is a sure thing.

I'm thinking we need to set up a couple of kiosks in the gallery at church. This could be the evangelistic answer we've been looking for. IM'ing with Jesus. Can't get any better than that!

Of course what I'm wondering is whether Morris got all the answers to his questions about the Queen of Sheba?? And what about the Super Bowl? Could be some real possibilities to paying off the mortgage!

Newbigin states: "We have to confess also, if we are to be honest, that the same churches that demanded freedom of conscience when they were in a minority have, when they became majorities, denied to others the freedom they claimed for themselves. How, if we are to think of a Christian society, can we ensure that the same sins are not repeated when and if Christians are in a position to impose their views on others?"

One might think that the answer is to simply accept all truth claims. Maybe the best answer is simply say that all religions are right and good and equal so embrace whichever one fits you the best or make up your own. But such indifference about truth does not serve well either. And in North American contexts the evidence of pluralism's lack of cogent integrity grows. Newbigin alludes to a statement by the historian Gibbon: "In Roman society all religions were to the people equally true, to the philosophers equally false, and to the government equally useful."

In order to placate, nurse along, or, at times control, do we not continue to witness a call to simply accept one another, love one another, and embrace our differences--all the while diminishing what we hold to be unique about the Christian faith?

Maybe it is time to reclaim freedom. Of course, we will have to redefine it. Today freedom means autonomy--to do whatever you please. Freedom becomes a license to do whatever you want to do. Such a definition of freedom must be reframed with a deeper, more holistic framework. Freedom, held in tension with other ideals such as "the good" brings a sense of community and begins to open up the possibilitiy that freedom is not merely autonomy. Freedom may, in fact, have something to do with relationships with God and with others.

For Christians, freedom is not autonomy; it is, instead, a new life that is found in Christ. For the secularist, freedom can ultimately lead to a state of meaninglessness.

To claim the truth in Jesus Christ and to have confidence to give others freedom to exist, to hold their opinions and to learn is what freedom allows.

Again, from Newbigin: True freedom is a gift of grace given by the one who is in fact Lord; that gift, freely given, can only be received in freedom. It follows that the church cannot bear witness to that gift unless there is freedom to refuse it. Yet the church must still bear witness that this is the only true freedom: to belong wholly to the one by whom the space of freedom is created, and whose service is perfect freedom."

To talk about kingdom in the 21st century is a quick way to assure yourself of losing your readers quickly. The idea of kingdom with a ruler who exercises control doesn't sound very democratic or popular or hardly anything that a North American could quickly warm up to--especially if I were to tie in the idea of kingdom to the idea of spirituality.

But I must--at least for a while use the term.

I need to use it because it represents a foundational aspect of Jesus' message and it has been used ever since as a way to identify the significant, decisive work of God. And yet, by saying "ever since" I am not quite telling the truth.

About 150 years ago, the idea of kingdom got caught up and identified with all the progress and excitement of the many technological and scientific advances. Many Christians began to attach the wide-spread hope that such advances in medicine and science would usher in a new age. That new age of prosperity and peace came to be identified as "kingdom."

A couple of things about that identification really fouled up the word. First, kingdom came to be seen as a materialistic idea, rooted in a purely human set of endeavors. Second, is that much of the 20th century has pretty well proved that progress and utopia is not nearly as close at hand as we might hope. The optimism that characterized the late 1800's has given way to a wide variety of responses. Nihlism, existentialism, Marxism, new forms of a secular utopia rooted in questionable forms of pluralism, and religious fundamentalism are just a few of the options offered.

For others, the idea of kingdom came to be unhelpful as a practical vision for life out of the aftermath of various arguements about eschatology--or teachings about the end of time. In various church debates about how the end of time would come, the idea of the kingdom came to be identified with idea of the church or the people who are identified with God.

Sadly, either way, kingdom lost any dynamic, biblical force in shaping Christian thinking.

So, if we would simply slip back and ask some questions about what kingdom meant to Jesus' message we might find out the following:
1. A wonderful announcment comes to humankind that declares that in Jesus, God and his gracious rule comes to us.
2. In particular, God's rule in the world means that the usual destructive categories of evil, corruption, and death are being subverted. A new age is dawning in the world and God is bringing a new way of living in this world.
3. The foundational elements of this new way of life is bound up in Jesus' teaching and ministry.
4. This rule of God is present with us now; as Dallas Williard would state--God is available and accessible to us.

These things remind us that God is the one who will bring renewal and hope to humankind. Reliance on human progress is short-sighted and narrow. But God's rule is not something that occurs merely "in heaven," or "in eternity." His rule is right now; he is present and at work in the world.

Such a vision of kingdom eliminates the short sightedness of secularism. To say that the future is the hope of humanity, leaves those who live in the present with no hope. It devalues the worth of the human individual to say that only in some future age that people will get it right. Ultimately, the secular person is left with nothing to live for.

Not only that, but this revitalized idea of kingdom challenges many Christian people to see that the present is the vital and active place of God's work. God has invaded the world to turn the world's values upside down. Christian people are called to join in the revolution!

To get some sense of the kingdom reading the gospels--especially Matthew, Mark, and Luke is a great place to begin. Note how often Jesus talks of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. I think that you will find that it was incredibly important to him.

Lesslie Newbigin, British missionary, returned from a long missionary career in India and then embarked upon a second career. Challenged by the radical, secular changes that had occurred in England, he took to exploring how the church makes the gospel heard in a (now) pluralistic world. His writings continue to spawn reflection and dialogue. For example, The Gospel and Our Culture Network is one such place where Newbigin's insights continue to be explored.

I have been working with Newbigin's book, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture. Though written twenty years ago, his observations ring true. Over the next few days I want to explore seven trajectories that Newbigin offers as the book concludes. He puts these seven ideas out as a way of extending the discussion as to how the church continues to be the church in post-Christian world.

In summarily he suggests:
1. A renewed focus on eschatology--particularly on the idea of kingdom.
2. The Christian doctrine of freedom must be heard again--freedom for all, even when Christianity is the dominant force in society.
3. A re-energized focus on theology for lay people and the integration of biblical faith and public issues.
4. A strong critique of denominationalism. Denominations creates great barriers to allow for the lordship of Christ to be seen and experienced.
5. Seeing Christian faith through cultures other than our own.
6. Avoiding the temptation to prove the Christian faith on the terms of what our culture says makes for truth.
7. To live with hope.

Why Newbigin? In part, because he saw things, important things clearly. Early in this book, as he reviews Christianity's loss of its dominant role in the public sphere he pointedly states what is really at stake:

"Having lost the battle to conrol education, and having been badly battered in its encounter with modern science, Christianity in its Protestant form has largely accepted relegation to the private sector, where it can influence the choice of values by those who take this option. By doing so, it has secured for itself a continuing place, at the cost of surrendering the crucial field. As an option for the private field, as the protagonist for certain values, Christianity can enjoy considerable success. Churches can grow. People can be encouraged, as the posters in General Eisenhower's day used to put it, to 'join the church of your choice.' All this can happen. And yet the claim, the awesome and winsome claim of Jesus Christ to be alone the Lord of all the world, the light that alone shows the whole of reality as it really is, the life that alone endures forever--this claim is effectively silenced. It remains, for our culture, just one of the varieties of religious experience."

Christianity as merely one variety of religious experience--I think that the church can do better than that.