The Church: A Proleptic Sign of the Kingdom of God Embodying a Eucharistic Piety

Lately I've been wrestling with the Luthern theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg's theological ecclesiology.

There are two important dimensions of his ecclesiology that have stood out to me so far: his view of the church as the proleptic sign of the Kingdom of God and his view of spirituality as "eucharistic piety".

It is important to note from the very beginning that for Pannenberg, theology is always a provisional enterprise. No one has a "pure" theology. We all embrace heresy in one sense or another. After the first advent of Jesus Christ we see dimly- after the second advent, the parousia, we will see more clearly.

(i) The Church as the Proleptic Sign of the Kingdom of God

Proleptic can be defined as follows, "the representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently existing or accomplished."

For Pannenberg, the church is the eschatologically proleptic sign of the Kingdom of God. I haven't read enough of Pannenberg to understand the full implications of this statement. But here are a few points I think Pannenberg may be trying to communicate.

(a) Within the eschatological "already/not yet" dimension of the Kingdom of God , the church is that entity which points forward to the day when love and justice embrace and the reign of God visibly covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.

(b) For Pannenberg, an important aspect of the Kingdom of God is the unity of humanity and the union between creature and Creator. Although always in a provisional sense, the church is that unique community where fellow men and women are reconciled to each other and reconciled to God. This unity is a living testimony to a watching world.

(c) Lastly, Pannenberg's theology of the Kingdom of God brings love and justice intimately together. The kingdom love is just; the kingdom justice is loving. The church should be that place where the difficult question of how to extend a loving justice/just love into a broken world is wrestled with and prayed over.

(ii) Eucharistic Piety

Pannenberg laments over the internalized pietism that plagues much of Lutheranism (and I would add much of contemporary Evangelicalism!)

Following much of church history (and his own tradition) Pannenberg argues that the Eucharist is at the center of the church's spiritual life. Not only worship, but our lives and relationships with others should be shaped by the Eucharist. Practically, what does this mean?

I have not read enough of Pannenberg to answer this question. The following thoughts are my own personal reflections (shaped by Catholic theologians William Cavanaugh, Hans Urs Von Balthassar, and Henri de Lubac).

We live in a world saturated by consumerism and violence. Every second we are bombarded by images of death, sex and distorted desire. We are told that we're not really alive if we don't satiate all our cravings and are warned that we will never flourish if we are kind- if we neglect to utilize force and oppression to get ahead.

These two contemporary virtues are unmasked at the table for what they really are: lies from the pit of hell!

In the Eucharist, we are not told that desire is a bad thing. Instead, our desires are re-oriented toward the One for whom they were created. In the Eucharist we feed on and enjoy the exuberant Triune God. We do what we were created to do. Not to aimlessly search and prod for the "next best thing" but to rest and commune with the maker of heaven and earth.

Violence is also "re-narrated" in the Eucharist. Violence is not the end all be all of human existence. Jesus Christ has experienced the violence and terror of Holy Saturday ("and he descended into the dead") to make an end of death and establish true and reinvigorating peace. Each time we receive the broken body and spilt blood of our Lord Jesus Christ we are reminded that peace, and not violence, is what causes a community to flourish. The Eucharist is that place where Jesus meets us- empowering us with his peace so that we might be led by the Spirit- bringing that very same peace to our friends, neighbors, and community.

Should Christians Be Involved in Movie Discussion Groups?

A common objection to movie discussion groups is that many of the most respected and sought after films are saturated with violence, profanity, and sexuality. Many of these movies are anti-God. How can Christians, who are called to be “different” from the world and its cultural patterns watch such morally questionable movies? I am not sure how to answer this question. It might be the best thing for some Christians not to watch some of these movies. But for those who think these movies can become platforms to discuss the gospel, I offer these two provisional insights.

First, it is always important to remember that God has not forsaken the most God-forsaken places. Even the face of a prostitute can exhibit the grace and glory of God. I believe that we, like God (albeit not in the exact same way), can never forsake the most God-forsaken movies.

Second, it is wise to remember that Christ is never simply “against” or “for” culture. Instead, he is dialectically “above and through” culture. Practically speaking, this means that God’s way of being in the world is never identical to our culture’s way of being in the world. The gospel will always challenge our culture in one way or another. But at the same time, God never operates in a “supra-cultural” sphere. This means that God always communicates his gospel within the forms and structures of a particular culture. This is a pattern we should emulate.

The real question we have to ask our selves is, “how can we be in the world but not of it?” I believe questionable movies can be interpreted as creative vehicles of God’s truth without endorsing them en toto. I don’t want to stretch this too far, but using movies like There Will Be Blood and Requiem for a Dream for movie discussion groups is actually a redemptive endeavor. We are taking sharp and jagged swords and converting them into creative plowshares for the endorsement and extension of the gospel.

Our Dialectical Identities

F. LeRon Shults, a contemporary theologian, has co-written a fabulous little book with Stephen J. Sandage entitled The Faces of Forgiveness: Seeking Wholeness and Salvation.

In one section of the book, Shults begins to talk about the Christian's "dialectical identity". In one sense, this "dialectical identity" is representative of all human beings.

Shults writes, "[the human] ego is both centripetally figured (self-centered) and centrifugally oriented (other-facing)". Because of this, argues Shults, human beings find it almost impossible to trust and develop healthy interpersonal relationships. Why? Because every one is trying to simultaneously balance two seemingly contradictory "modes of being". On the one hand, every individual in his/her centripetal figuration (self-centerdness) tries to find their identity and worth in their accomplishments, personal treasures, etc., while at the same time longing to be accepted and welcomed unconditionally by the community, the "we". On the other hand, every individual in his/her centrifugal orientation (other-facingness) seeks and longs to be accepted by the community, the "other" without being erased by the "will of the people", without being stripped of their unique individuality.
and
The outcome is bleak. One is caught in the endless cycle of being secure with oneself at the expense of being accepted by the community and being invited into fellowship at the expense of personal flourishing.

This is such a difficult predicament, argues Shults, becuase human beings were created to be individuals in relation, beings in community. Ideally, we should be people that flourish in our individuality within the rich context of diverse community. Is an "individual-in-community" a genuine possibility or an idyllic illusion?

For Shults, this is a genuine possibility only within the context of a relationship with the Infinite "Other"- the true Community of Persons (the Holy Trinity). The gospel, the good news that God affirms our individuality despite our brokenness and guilt empowers us to be comfortable with ourselves and look outward toward others. Becuase we know God will always be gracious to us, we don't have to fear rejection nor the obliteration of our unique personalities.

Christianity casts a beautiful vision of the individual maintaining his unique identity within a healthy participation in community. He/she needs others to flourish; the community needs plural individuals to be a place of "communion".

Community, Cross, New Creation

For the past two months, I've served as the pastoral intern at Redeemer Sugar Land. This has been a very enjoyable experience. I've been challenged, stretched, discouraged, empowered, transformed, hurt and everything in between. This has been a great and realistic taste of ministry.

Last week I was at Panera Bread catching up on Barth's Church Dogmatics when I met two pastors from local churches here in Fort Bend county. Both of them were extremely nice individuals with some great perspectives on ministry. There was one thing they both agreed on that initially took me off guard. In fact it was something that quite honestly disturbed me. Both of them told me that I wouldn't be able to effectively communicate the vision of Redeemer to visitors/seekers if I could not do it in the space of a paper napkin. I was confused. Was this a form of savvy advertising? How could I boil the vision of my church into the space of a napkin?

Later that evening, I realized that I had overreacted. Despite what the two pastors had in mind, I began to realize that it wouldn't be a bad thing to encapsulate Redeemer's vision or "DNA" in a short and concise message. This would be a great thing if not only for the sake of clarity.

This past Monday, at the request of a friend, I picked up Richard Hay's The Moral Vision of the New Testament. As I was reading about abortion and pacifism, I was hit by Hay's New Testament paradigm for interpreting ethical issues: community, cross, new creation.

Although I am taking these three concepts out of their original context, I believe they are a very helpful way of articulating Redeemer's vision. And they create an alliteration-- which is nice.

Community:

*By emphasizing the importance of community, we are witnessing to the reality that we are ultimately created to experience and enact love in the context of relationships. In a culture and age of rampant individualism, we want Redeemer to be a place where we wrestle with what it really means to live "life together".

*By community, we also desire to stress that the church is the only organization that doesn't exist for the sake of it's members alone. We aren't being the authentic people of God if we are not reaching out to our local community with graciousness and love.

Cross:

*For us the gospel is absolutely central. Christ is our great prophet, priest, and king
who loved us so much that he gave his life that we may truly live. The gospel and the gospel alone shapes our identity. We are more broken and sinful than we would ever dare confess and yet more loved and accepted then we would ever dream possible.


New Creation:

* This world is not all there is. God has an answer to all the present suffering and brokenness. His answer is a "new heavens and a new earth". Although we now live in the already/not yet tension between the cross and the second advent of Jesus Christ- there will come a day when all the broken and hideous things that flood our world will be transformed by grace into whole and beautiful realities. This is the world's hope.

The Logic of Election

I know. We Christians do spend too much time thinking about and debating theology. It's not necessarily that theology is a bad thing; it's when theology becomes an end in itself and not a means to practice or worship that it becomes dangerous.

Let's take a classic Christian doctrine as a quick case study. All orthodox Christians (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) have a doctrine of election. Many disagree on the theological particulars. Is election referring to the individual person? Is it a communal election? Both?

Lesslie Newbigin, a famous missionary to India, believed that while not all Christian traditions would agree on the particulars of the doctrine of election, there was a beautiful "logic" behind the doctrine of election that all Christians could get behind.

For Newbigin, the doctrine of election was inherently mysterious. We cannot fully understand it. And we shouldn't try to! Nor should we spend all of our time debating over it. Although he was not calling Christians to embrace some form of doctrinal agnosticism, like John Calvin and Herman Bavinck before him, he knew how dangerous it was to probe the depths of the mind of God.

So what is this "logic" behind the doctrine of election? Well, Newbigin is a firm believer that good doctrine must always lead to practice and worship. While Christians can't spend their entire lives obsessing over the depths of the doctrine of election, they can easily hone in on God's purpose for election.

God's election is never merely to save an individual. Taking Abraham's election as our hermeneutic, we see that God elects in order to transform communities who then communicate God's grace/blessing into the entirety of created reality.

Yes. It's very easy to dwell in the "ivory tower" But I think it's much sweeter to come down and practice what you preach.

The Essence of Christianity

Bavinck boils Christianity down to the following sentence: 

"Christianity is no less that the real, supreme work of the Triune God, in which the Father reconciles his created but fallen world through the death of his Son and re-creates it through his Spirit into the kingdom of God"

(The Essence of Christianity)

Must Buy!

I just recently purchased Bavinck's collection of essays on religion, beauty, societal relationships, science, and many other topics. 

It is truly a gem. Biblically rooted; culturally sensitive. I am blown away at how Bavinck addresses issues that I am facing today in the 21st century. I haven't read all the essays yet, but I would definitely recommend the ones on Evolution and The Relationship Between Society and Christianity. 

Vacuuming for the Kingdom

Whatever Christianity is, it is not a philosophy in the traditional sense of the word. Although Christians should be interested in ideas and truth, the Christian faith cannot be reduced to just another "idea" or "ideology". Christianity is ultimately about a community's witness to the very real and historical person of Jesus Christ. You may doubt Christ's authenticity, but you have to admit that Christianity is unique in this regard.

Practically, Christianity's concrete and non-philosophical nature can be quite frustrating. If you're anything like me, you find it easier to talk about love and justice than actually practice them. In the Christian faith, you think about love and justice... but you also have to practice them. This means you can't stay in the ivory tower. You have to come down to everyday life and exercise your faith in very practical ways.

This week, my wife and I had a guest over to our home. All day, on a theoretical level, I thought about the nature of hospitality, why Christians were called to do it and how ultimately God was hospitable with us.

But then my wife reminded me that I had to vacuum our dirty floor in order for our guest to feel welcomed. This, she reminded me, was an integral part of being hospitable.

Believe me! It was much easier for me to contemplate hospitality then to actually practice it.

Hospitality: A Sign of Contradiction

I've just begun to read a new book by Christine Pohl entitled Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition.

I'm reading this book at the start of my first week as the pastoral intern at Redeemer Sugarland.

One of the things that I appreciate and admire about my friend/mentor/pastor Brad Wright is his incurable desire to cultivate community and "make room" for people in his life through the embodiment and enactment of hospitality. I would go as far to say that Brad embraces a hermeneutic of hospitality. Although he hasn't articulated this to me in these exact words, there is a sense in which he would say the best way to "read" the Christian story is (a) as a narrative in which God is opening up his Kingdom to strangers and outcasts to meet with them in communion and (b) that you can't really understand Christianity without practicing hospitality.

That said, I want to follow in Brad's footsteps. As St. Paul once wrote, I want to "seek to show hospitality".

But I don't want to be naive. I know hospitality is a form of death-to-self. It can be joyful but it is not always glamorous.

I'd like to end with this quote that really stuck out to me:

"A community which embodies hospitality to strangers is a sign of contradiction, a place where joy and pain, crises and peace are closely interwoven"

- Jean Vanier

Doctrinal Righteousness

“[Roman] Catholic righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a Protestant righteousness by good doctrine. At least righteousness by good works benefits one’s neighbor, whereas righteousness by good doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride.”

- Herman Bavinck

Herman Bavinck is my favorite theologian. I think this is my new favorite quote.

The Dilemma of Belief in the World of Today

"Belief appears no longer as the bold but challenging leap out of the apparent all of our visible world and into the apparent void of the invisible and intangible; it looks much more like a demand to bind oneself to yesterday and to affirm it as eternally valid. "


- Pope Benedict XVI

This is is a great quote from a brilliant thinker as to why so many people today adopt a hermeneutics of suspicion. This is a difficult barrier for the minister of the gospel today.

What Hath Rome to do with Westminster?

"To be sure, the response of faith to revelation, which God grants to the creature he chooses and moves with his love, occurs in such a way that it is truly the creature that provides the response, with its own nature and its natural powers of love"

Hans Urs von Balthasar

This is a beautiful summation of the tension of God's initiating grace and our authentic response to the gospel from a brilliant Roman Catholic theologian.

your story

an open letter addressed to you

ruffled, broken, bent on the table

good news, bad news, you just don’t know

pregnant expectation attacks your stomach

the clock hand is now moving slowly


the paper in your hands is rough

the words are small

piercing your eyes with emotion

you taste excitement once again


paradise warped into wasteland

then stunned back into something beautiful

freedom strangled by the heat of idolatry

beauty, justice, relationships

the vandalization of shalom; the triumph of grace

from a garden-park to a holy city

This is your story

Pneumatological Compassion and Mindfulness

Lately, I've been listening to podcasts of Krista Tippet's Speaking of Faith (American Public Media) on my iPod. This is a very stimulating and engaging forum of religious discussion. 

As a religious studies minor, and a lover of ideas, I want to stay in touch with all the "current" religious movements even after I leave the University. 

As an amateur follower of Francis Schaeffer, I really want to learn how to authentically listen to those of different faiths. As a Presbyterian, I am very good at destructing arguments and immediately pointing out when someone has gone theologically astray.  I do a poor job highlighting the beauty and truth (even if it is a partial truth) of other world religions. 

One of Krista's guests was Karen Armstrong. Armstrong considers herself a "freelance Monotheist". Armstrong is a Monotheist drawing from the various resources of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. When asked how these three religions could coexist, she pointed to the theological virtue of compassion. She believes that compassion is the one thread that runs through these three "historical" faiths that prohibits them from blowing each other apart. She concluded her interview by stating that compassion is the greatest of all religious impulses. 

Krista Tippet has also interviewed Thich Nhat Hanh.  Hanh is a world renowned Zen master. He has had a countless influence on many people (including Martin Luther King). For Hanh, the greatest religious impluse is "mindfulness". Mindfulness for Hanh is a calm and melodic "being in the moment". He believes that if different religious leaders would take the time to understand the sufferings of the "other" and practice mindfulness, we would see far more peace in the world. 

As a Christian, I believe compassion and mindfulness are indispensable. While I appreciate Armstrong's and Hanh's insights, I have to disagree with them on an important level. Throughout their entire conversations about compassion and mindfulness, they never mentioned God or even an "outside force" that could help cultivate compassion or mindfulness 

in human beings. This is really one of the reasons why I am a Christian. Most (if not all other religions) have beautiful ideals and ethical standards that I (on one level or another) am attracted to. My problem is that I can't muster enough will power or "calmness" to produce these religious impulses. 

My Christian faith stems from my desperateness and utter dependance. It is only in the Christian tradition that you have an outside personal force (the Holy Spirit) breeding these religious impulses in ones heart. I'm too anxious to be mindful . I'm too selfish to be compassionate. But I believe in a pneumatological mindfulness and compassion. It is the Holy Spirit that moves in us to cultivate a desire to sit still (mindfulness) and authentically listen to the "other" (compassion). I think this is why Christianity has never called these virtues impulses. They aren't a result of our spontaniety. Instead they are fruit. They can only grow when we are rooted in Christ and empowerd by his Spirit. 

 

John Calvin's Central Soteriological Structure

What I am about to say will probably be controversial to some people.

John's Calvin's central soteriological structure is not the doctrine of predestination (as some critics of Calvin wrongly assume).

Lane Tipton, professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, writes:

"Calvin's central soteriological structure is Spirit wrought faith union with the crucified and resurrected Christ of Scripture"

Amen brother!

The Drama of Doctrine

I have a big problem. I try to read too many books at one time. My wife Kristen thinks I have an incurable disease :)

I also don't usually read through an entire book (I usually get through 1/2 or 3/4 of the way through). The major exception to this is when I read a book with someone else.

To my heart's delight, my friend/pastor (Brad Wright) and I will be reading through Kevin Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology.

The main argument of this book is that doctrines are not merely theoretical concepts that we are called to intellectually submit to. Instead, doctrines are the canonical-lingustic teachings about God's Trinitarian drama within redemptive history that serve to shape and guide the Christian's ecclesiastical/cultural performace.

I needed to hear this..

"Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God"

Karl Barth

This is a great quote for me. I really needed to hear this as I am prone to take life too seriously.

You Can't Mean Everyone?

"In the church of Jesus Christ there should be no non-theologians"

Karl Barth

Very Convicting

"Faith in God's revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo."

Karl Barth

Tradition(ed) Faith

"Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living"

- Jaroslav Pelikan

Some Definitions (vol. 1; pages 1-10)

Evangelical Christianity is often allergic to tradition.Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and anyone else doing that liturgy thing, we often believe, are merely trading the Bible for the traditions of men. In some instances this may be the case. But it doesn't always have to be.

Some Christians are very proud of the fact that they stick to the Bible and "the Bible alone!". They don't let philosophy, theology, church history or any other tradition get in the way of God's pure Word. Don't get me wrong. I'm evangelical. I understand why most people think this way. We're trying to protect the uniqueness of the Bible.

However, I think Christians are mistaken if they believe they can arrive at a mature and developed doctrine of the Trinity (for example) by merely opening the pages of their New Testament and never consulting the tradition of the church. This is not to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is not in the New Testament. This is to say that many apologists and theologians have fought long and hard, across the centuries, to communicate how God can be fundamentally one yet also three. Whether Christians know it or not, the minute they use the word "Trinity" and talk about God in terms of being and essence they are walking into the halls of tradition, borrowing extra-biblical terminology to describe a profoundly biblical truth.

Not all tradition is the enemy of biblical truth. In fact, I would go as far to say that on one level, you can never separate the two. We never experience biblical truth apart from the communicative channel of tradition.