Editing

I'm editing today, working on the Ph.D. thesis of a friend.  It's about the political theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, and a very interesting work it is!  It reflects on Niebuhr's use of Augustine's City of God, so I'm getting insights into that work, too.

Today the surroundings are Atlanta Bread Company (read "great pastries, okay coffee") and music provided by Pandora.com, specifically my JSBach channel, so I'm getting music like Dietrich Buxtehude's Sonata for 2 violins, viola da gamba, & harpsichord in C major.  Rock on!

Sermons in Ecclesiastes

We're getting sermons in Ecclesiastes at church (City Presbyterian Church, Denver) these days.  This is one of my favorite books for the following reasons:

1) It affirms the good things of creation as good--wine, women, wisdom, material wealth, building, careers, learning, etc.
2) It admits that pursuing these good things for their own sakes satisfies the pursuer for only a limited time.
3) It expounds the inner hunger that we all have for a significance that goes deeper than self-indulgence, and for a meaning that lasts beyond death.
4) Its continuing theme of vanity "under the sun" points us to a world that transcends this one as the place to seek that deeper and more lasting satisfaction.
5) It eventually focuses on the (relatively) humble goal of taking satisfaction in good work, loved ones, and faithfulness to God, which
6) leads us to look to Jesus here and now for using well the good gifts we have from God and living within a lasting sense of significance and satisfaction in him.

Knowing the outline does not, of course, make following it easy.  Having a map doesn't smooth out the terrain, but it does help us detect false paths.

112th birthday of Jorge Luis Borges

Happy birthday, sir!  Google celebrates today with the following image:

"Utterly Empty"?

Dr. Danny Carroll preached at City Presbyterian Church (Denver) today.  He teaches Old Testament at Denver Seminary, and I'm always glad to hear his expositions of Scripture.  Today he preached from Ecclesiastes 1:12-14 and 3:1-15.

Along the way he made the point that the meaninglessness that so harshly oppresses the author is in fact part of the meaning of life.  That is, since God "has also set eternity in the human heart" (3:11), no non-eternal pursuit can fill that spot.  Only God himself can fill it.  Thus this ache at our inability to satisfy that hunger is itself a window on what our lives mean and where we are headed.

I wonder how well the maxim, "The journey is the destination," fits that perspective.

Sunday's Coming

This isn't new, but it still amuses:     Sunday's Coming

“Why a Death?” A Meditation for Good Friday, 2011

(Sorry for being so late in posting this.)

            Some people think that re-reading a novel is pointless, since you already know the ending.  But some novels are so well written that part of the joy and profit in reading them is to watch the story go by again, to get to know the characters better, to relish the insights the author has in what it means to be human.

            We revisit Good Friday each year for similar reasons.  We know that Easter is coming, but want and need to see the day of crucifixion again, to understand it better, and to be shaped by it.  We mustn’t undercut the seriousness or darkness of the day.  But neither can we understand the day if we try to see it apart from the resurrection.

How ought/must/can one pursue theology? From where you are.

This question has several important answers, all of which help me to see more clearly, all of which strengthen my hand, all of which help me to be more faithful.

Tonight's answer:  You can only pursue theology from where you are.  [Tonight's answer is dedicated to Shane Goodwin.]

Perfectionism

I am tempted to write blogs by sketching them out in a MSWord document first, then editing, letting it sit, polishing, rewriting, then finally posting after it's perfect.  Writing immediately onto the blog puts one in danger of mistakes.  Even my edit-as-you-go mode does not catch all mistakes, especially the mistakes of tone and nuance.

Perfectionism is one of the temptations that will appear in other essays, but it also deserves a place of its own.  "Write nothing until you know everything about the topic, then write with perfect clarity, balance, precision, and thoroughness."  That's the voice that keeps one from writing at all.

The Authority of the Bible (a lecture given Feb. 24, 2011)

… the highest proof of Scripture derives in general from the fact that God in person speaks in it. … Yes, if we turn pure eyes and upright senses toward it, the majesty of God will immediately come to view, subdue our bold rejection, and compel us to obey.

Since for unbelieving men religion seems to stand by opinion alone, they, in order not to believe anything foolishly or lightly, both wish and demand rational proof that Moses and the prophets spoke divinely. But I reply: the testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.7.4 (pp. 78, 79)

This is why we believe the Bible. The Holy Spirit has so worked on our hearts and minds that we hear “God in person” speaking in it. This is also why we continue to believe the Bible, why we go back to it again and again, why we respect and maybe even fear the Bible a little.

To define more tightly what it is that we believe about the Bible, we ask what is the over-all message and gist of the Bible, or does it even have one?

Yes, the Bible does have very strong themes common to every book in it. The strongest theme, and the one that ties together the whole book, is the message of God with us. The Old Testament has a great variety, containing law, history, lyric poetry, erotic poetry, moral tracts, and love stories. And all of them depend on the theme that God is with his people, providing for them both materially and spiritually. The book of Exodus, for example, describes God’s deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt. Psalm 23 describes God’s care for the individual believer. Even Job, who cries out, “Why have you made my your target, so that I am a burden to myself?” (7:20), is troubled precisely because he knows God to be good and just and loving: “But as for me, I would seek God, and I would place my cause before God, who does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number” (5:8). God’s message in the Old Testament is that he makes for himself a people, that he is with his people, and that he rescues them from their trouble.

When we get to the New Testament we find much the same message, but it centers on the person Jesus the Messiah, who is God with us.

Comparing Barth to Packer

I read books by J. I. Packer long before I read Barth, and his work was an important component of learning to think through theological issues, including doctrine of Scripture.

Comments on C.D., I/1, §2

§2.1

The first half of the section seems to consist largely in Barth’s reaction against some of his contemporaries, especially Brunner,

A condensation of C.D., I/1, §2

§02 The Task of Prolegomena to Dogmatics

1. The Necessity of Dogmatic Prolegomena

Prolegomena are the discussions and expositions of how knowledge is attained in a science. Here we ask on what ground dogmatic prolegomena are necessary. 

Can Non-believers Do Theology?

Let me turn that question around: Can non-believers not do theology? If Jesus is “before all things and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:17), then how can any act or statement avoid having its existence in relation, one way or another, to Jesus Christ? If “sin” as such is not just transgression of a moral code, but the acts and attitudes of rebellion against God, then how can they not also be theological statements about the nature of the world and one’s independence from and opposition to whatever “gods” might be out there?

Blogging Barth

Several people are blogging through Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics I/1 in six months! Daniel Kirk instigated this project and has the list of bloggers on his web site, Storied Theology.

Summary of content:

§01 The Task of Dogmatics

1. The Church, Theology, Science

Dogmatics is theology as a science, i.e., as the Church’s self-examination of its speech about Jesus Christ. Like other sciences, it has a definite object of knowledge, it treads a definite path of knowledge, and it must give an account of this path to itself and to others. Although the label “science” is not necessary or especially important, we claim it because we thus 1) bring theology into line with other human concerns for truth, 2) protest the usual pagan concept of science, and 3) reckon the other sciences as part of the Church in spite of their protests.

2. Dogmatics as an Enquiry

We presuppose that dogmatics as enquiry is both possible and necessary. I.e., we can know the true content of Christian talk about God because Jesus Christ is the revealing and reconciling address of God to us. And that content must be known humanly, i.e., in creaturely form which is never clear and unambiguous. Thus dogmatics is always humble and always having to make a fresh start. The Church is challenged to know itself and to ask what to say today.

3. Dogmatics as an Act of Faith

Dogmatics is impossible except as an act of faith in obedience to Jesus Christ. Since faith is God’s gracious address to man, then by presupposing faith dogmatics also presupposes at every step God’s free grace, which he may at any time give or refuse. Thus we can only proceed by saying, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

Note on translation:

The paragraph at the bottom of p. 13 begins, “2. Dogmatics as an enquiry presupposes that the true content of Christian talk about God must be known by men.” I found this confusing, since the ensuing paragraph does not explain why men have to know the content of Christian talk about God. But the G. T. Thompson translation ends the sentence, “… must be known humanly,” i.e., we can’t know it in any other way than in a human mode of enquiry. The ensuing paragraph makes more sense with this beginning.

At times like this I wish I had a copy of the German.

Comments:

From the beginning of section 1 Barth displays the resiliency of a theology that is truly and thoroughly based on God’s revelation of himself to us in Jesus Christ.

Is theology a science? Who cares what scientists think? Their concept of science is pagan, their certainty is quasi-religious, and their Aristotelian tradition is only one among others. And we only call theology a science as a favor to them! LOL!

Glory amid the Messiness: A Christmas Meditation

Glory amid the Messiness

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased." Luke 2:13-14

This passage provokes two questions:

1. Where was God’s glory on that night? Other than the angels themselves, what do we have? Shepherds … childbirth in a barn … God as a tiny creature rather than in the throne room of heaven. We have blood, dirt, and peasants. How glorious is that?

2. Where is the peace? Maybe the night was quiet, but Rome’s pagan army still occupied Israel’s holy land. Herod the psychopath was still king of Judea. We have political oppression, poverty, an inn with no room, Joseph unable to provide anything but a barn for his family, a highly suspicious pregnancy, the pain and messiness and terror of childbirth. What kind of peace are the angels talking about, and where is it to be found?

To answer these questions, we have to ask another pair first: Who is this baby, and what is he up to?

Atonement in the Gospel according to John

Recently I looked through St. John's gospel and found some interesting patterns. In every chapter but the last I could find some description of Jesus as the one who removes the barrier between us and God, a description of that action, and something in the context that connects that action with atonement. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to paste it into the blog in a table, so I put it into a less handy format. Here are the results:


Ch. 1. Title: The Word of God
Atoning Action: became flesh
Connection with atonement: God takes on our flesh, becoming “at one” with us (v. 14)

Title: The Lamb of God
Atoning Action: who takes away the sin of the world
Connection with atonement: Reference to the use of lambs in the Levitical sacrificial system

Ch. 2. (no title; Jesus is a wedding guest)
Atoning Action: turns water of purification to wine
Connection with atonement: Purification (stone waterpots, v. 6) and giving life (wine, v. 10)

Title: Son of the Father
Atoning Action: cleanses the temple
Connection with atonement: "Temple" refers his own body and death (vv. 19-21)

Ch. 3. Title: Son of Man, Son of God
Atoning Action: sent to save the world & give eternal life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life (vv. 16-18, 36)

Ch. 4. Title: The Messiah
Atoning Action: who gives the water of life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life (vv. 14, 25,26)

Title: The Lord
Atoning Action: who gives life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life not mentioned, but giving life is the prerogative of God (vv. 49, 51)

Ch 5. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who works to heal
Connection with atonement: His healing is part of his father’s work, which is the reconciliation of God and man(vv. 8-9, 17)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who obeys the Father and gives life instead of judgment (condemnation) to believers
Connection with atonement: Believers honor the Son and have passed from death to life (vv. 19-24, 27)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who bears witness
Connection with atonement: “That you may be saved” (v. 34)

Ch 6. Title: The Son, The bread of life, the bread of God
Atoning Action: who gives life to the world
Connection with atonement: Resurrection and eternal life (vv. 39-40)

Ch 7. Title: The prophet, Messiah
Atoning Action: who gives living water
Connection with atonement: Reference to life & the Holy Spirit (vv. 38-39)

Ch 8. Title: The light of the world
Atoning Action: who gives the light of life
Connection with atonement: Connection of light with life (v. 12)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who makes free
Connection with atonement: Freedom from the slavery of sin (vv. 31-36)

Ch 9. Title: The light of the world
Atoning Action: who gives sight
Connection with atonement: Judgment (v. 39) and the removal, or not, of sin (v. 41)

Ch 10. Title: The door of the sheep
Atoning Action: who gives salvation and pasture
Connection with atonement: Connection of pasture with salvation (v. 9)

Title: The good shepherd
Atoning Action: who lays down his life for the sheep
Connection with atonement: Gives life by dying (v. 11)

Title: The shepherd
Atoning Action: who knows &calls the sheep
Connection with atonement: Knowing (v. 15) & hearing (v. 16) express union & belonging, esp. with the comparison “even as the Father knows me and I know the Father” and the result, “and I lay down my life for the sheep,” both in v. 15.

Title: The shepherd
Atoning Action: who knows the sheep & they follow
Connection with atonement: Knowing and hearing related to eternal life (vv. 27-29)

Ch 11. Title: The Lord, Christ, Son of God
Atoning Action: who gives life
Connection with atonement: Reference to the resurrection (vv. 24-25, 43-44)

Ch 12. Title: The Son of Man
Atoning Action: who draws all men to himself
Connection with atonement: Connection with “if I be lifted up,” v. 32.

Title: Light
Atoning Action: who delivers believers from darkness
Connection with atonement: Light and belief connected with being converted and healed (v. 40)

Ch 13. Title: The Servant
Atoning Action: who washes us
Connection with atonement: Connection with the OT washings (implicit)

Ch 14. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who prepares a place for us
Connection with atonement: in the Father’s house (v. 2, 3).

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who gives the Spirit
Connection with atonement: to be with us forever (vv. 16-17).

Ch 15. Title: The true vine
Atoning Action: through whom the branches bear fruit
Connection with atonement: These are the branches that the Father prunes (v. 2) and keeps (v. 6).

Ch 16. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who goes to the Father
Connection with atonement: Connection with giving the Holy Spirit (vv. 7 ff.) and the Father’s love for us (vv. 27-28)

Ch 17. Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who gives eternal life
Connection with atonement: Eternal life (v. 2)

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who manifested God’s name to his disciples
Connection with atonement: and God gave them to him (v. 6).

Title: The Son
Atoning Action: who prays on our behalf
Connection with atonement: “Sanctified in truth” (v. 17) means belonging to & union with God (vv. 21, 23).

Ch 18. Title: King of the Jews
Atoning Action: who bears witness to the truth
Connection with atonement: “Hearing” is connected in previous passages with belonging to Jesus

Ch 19. Title: King of the Jews
Atoning Action: crucified
Connection with atonement: References to the Passover (vv. 14, 36) depict Jesus as our Passover lamb; reference to Zechariah 12:10 (v. 37) connects the crucifixion with the coming of "the Spirit of grace and supplication"

Ch 20. Title: The resurrected Son
Atoning Action: grants peace
Connection with atonement: Peace with God (v. 21)

Title: The resurrected Son
Atoning Action: gives the Holy Spirit
Connection with atonement: Union with God (v. 22)

Ch 21.

My Neighbor Totoro - movie review

Because I have greatly enjoyed the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli (see Spirited Away (2001, and Academy Award winner in 2002), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), and others), last night I watched his earlier work, My Neighbor Totoro (1988). It takes place in rural Japan in 1958. A father moves to an old house in the country with his two daughters (roughly 10 and 4 years old). Totoro is a spirit-creature living in the nearby forest. The portrayal of the two girls is witty, charming, and credible, at least to the eyes of a bachelor who has been able to befriend and observe the children of his friends. Look at the Wikipedia article or the plot line at imdb.com for more information about the movie, plot, critical reception, history, etc.

The movie successfully evokes a simplicity of time, place, and culture that contrasts sharply with late 20th to early 21st century America. But it can help us understand the assumptions and values of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Most people in the film don’t have cars, so they get around by foot or bicycle. Some of the roads are paved, but many are not. Not every house has a telephone. Kids ran around unsupervised. The music and graphics produce an atmosphere of peace and stability. The amenities of the house are minimal and rustic. The conveniences include a hand-pumped well just outside the house that needs priming from the stream down the hill. The walls have moving segments and shutters, the better to capture a breeze. The family spends a lot of time cleaning floors and pots and pans and clothes. A neighbor helps with the laundry. They all work hard at daily chores and think nothing of it.

Yes, the film idealizes this lifestyle by leaving out much of the dreariness, lack of opportunity, lack of medicine, and closed-mindedness that often accompanied it. But we technology-laden, globally-minded folk can profit from savoring this portrait of simplicity and asking what it can teach us. Do our techno-toys, our pace of life, and our grasping for more material wealth help us to be more human or do they erode peace and true community? Have our toys become our masters? Are we amusing ourselves to death, to borrow Neil Postman’s title? And, positively, we should evaluate our lives to find God’s kingdom, his glory, and his consequent Shalom.

Weather

This past Friday snow fell all day and into the night. Today the temp is in the 80s. I love Denver!

How do?

So what is giving you a new lease on life this week?

Futility in the Flurries

I went to Breckenridge today with some friends, planning to do some work while they snowboarded.  The Wi-Fi connection was very strong, but it required a password from the hotel at the base station.

I read instead.  Ah well.