Monthly Archives: August 2013

My Apologetic for My Un-Apologetic Christian Faith

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apologetics1

Maybe you are like me, I grew up in a kind of quasi-Fundy/Evangelical Christian home (back in the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s), and woven deep into this fabric was a kind of Christianity that ebbed and flowed from a very defensive and reactive posture; a posture that stood against the world at large. So my bible was true because fulfilled prophecy made it so, the nation of Israel was back in the land (as of 1948), evolution was a sham (which I still am not a fan of macro-evolution), and 6 day young earth creationism was where it was at, my bible as innerrant was all that mattered, etc. As you can see, I grew up, like many of you, as a pure-bred Christian Fundy. Don’t get me wrong, Jesus was surely present in the midst of all this, and I have quite a few fond memories of his presence in therein and in the lives of so many dear people. And to be honest, there is still a sense of security about all of this past of mine, not so much because of the ideas and cultural location, but because of the people and relationships established in the middle of all of this kind of North American Christian Fundyism.

But beyond all of the above, what the really close observant can see, is that God is contingent or dependent upon our defense of him. Whether that be through appeal to fulfillment of prophecy, or asserting that the scriptures are inerrant, or what have you. What all of this Fundyism is in reaction to, is the ‘Liberal’ and positivist attack on the veracity of Christianity (see George Marsden), and the reality that somehow Christianity is dependent upon some sort of transcendent power that is outside of man and woman. And this is really the problem, as I see it. Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism–as it carries on Fundamentalism’s mode, even if it is redressed in contemporary flare–has allowed the ‘Liberal’ categories and procedures to dictate the way that they are going to engage theology and scripture.

But is this really Christian? Does the Christian need to prove God before they can believe in Him; or does the Christian need to be proven by God, so they can believe in Him? I opt for the latter. This makes a massive difference in the way we exegete Scripture (no longer trying to always prove the ‘Liberal’ wrong), and think theologically (no longer trying to prop up God’s existence through the Laws of probability or through Kalam’s Cosmological argument, etc.). We are free to start where God has started for us, in His Son, Jesus Christ, as God’s Self-revelation of Himself. It is either Christ or Nature; Un-Apologetics or Apologetics.

A Critique of Reading the Bible Through History Instead of Christian Dogmatics

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There seems to be a move among younger biblical studies students that privileges the clear and straightforward teaching of scripture over Christian Dogmatics or theology. I fully believe in the Reformer’s perspicuity or clarity of the scriptures (inner and outer in tact), and I would think that it is this kind of sensus literalis or sensus normalis mode that these younger biblical studies (and older, like N. T. Wright) folk are really appealing to; although it Bible Pagemight also be that these younger biblical studies folk are appealing to some sort of rationalist ego of omniscient and universal reason that somehow sits aloft and allows said student to make interminable judgments about the text of scripture and its theology without really attending to the living voice of scripture that has been present throughout the church’s history. So maybe, these younger students are just engaging in an ideal like John Calvin worked with when reading scripture, or maybe it is more sinister, maybe these younger students are really quite suspicious of any kind of power play (so Postmodern), and thus the church and its developed beliefs and theology can be dust-binned for something newer and shinier, based upon this kind of absolute, universal alter ego available to them that somehow objectively stands over against the church’s reasonings, in a way that is able to discard the tradition or sacred doctrine of the church in favor their new and improved readings of scripture based upon their chosen and various readings and reconstructions of the history and milieu in which scripture was given (so these reconstructions and deliberations become the driver which most prominently shapes the way these younger readers engage with the text of scripture).

But, there is a problem. Say, for Calvin, he certainly read scripture “literally,” but he did so in a very theological-exegetical way (have you read his commentaries?). Calvin, as a Christian Humanist was all about ad fontes and back to the sources, but do you know what ‘back to the sources’ meant for the Christian Humanist? Not only did it mean to re-engage scripture on its own terms, and through the original biblical languages; it also meant re-engaging the scriptures through the Patristic’s readings of the text of Scripture. So sacred doctrine, and church tradition were very much so attendant to and impinging upon the way the Reformers (like Calvin) read scripture. For example here is how even the scholastics Reformed engaged with scripture, in a literal mode:

[T]herefore, these texts had to be explained with reverence (exponere reverenter), that is, not in historical conformity with a tradition or with the author’s expressed intention but in conformity with truth, i.e., reverently denoted in correspondence with established theological and philosophical truth. This method of reverent exposition involved a hermeneutical procedure that went back to the patristic period. To be sure, there was room for some exegesis but, as de Rijk has noted, the scholastics used the hermeneutical norm of objective truth (of the debated subjects: veritas rerum) in addition to a kind of philological exegesis employing semantic criteria for interpretation. This resulted in an incorporation of the authoritative text into one’s own conceptual framework. [Scholasticism Reformed, p. 40]

This does not really seem to me to fit with the way that someone like N. T. Wright & co. or his younger students are actually engaging the text in their kind of literal and critical-historical way of interpreting scripture. So I can’t conclude that these younger students are really all that concerned with retrieving or recovering what they often claim to be; that is, what we have inherited from the Protestant Reformers, as far as reading the Bible and making interpretive decisions. No, the Reformers, and even the Scholastics Reformed, actually engaged in theological-exegesis, literally, for their way of biblical interpretation. They believed that there was an inner-logic at work, which was constituted by the God who has given scripture; and they weren’t so much given to this ideal that scripture could be interpreted or was subject to the latest reconstruction of the history in which scripture was given (as if the history itself was solely determinate for accessing scripture’s reality and meaning).

And so, this leaves us in a dilemma. All I can conclude is that these younger bible students of today have collapsed God’s life into the creation, into natural history; and as such, God and who he is, and how he acts, have been determined to be who he is, not by himself, but by us and how we are able to reconstruct the history in which God has revealed himself. So for these younger students, what becomes determinate for biblical adjudication and meaning is a kind of naked history, but in fact it turns out not to be naked at all; instead this kind of revised history becomes code for God himself, such that God and his life and meaning become contingent upon a kind of abstract nature (creation), which really, in the end (forget these fears about Docetism–which are unfounded), becomes Pelagian, and not Christian.

Conclusion–After-thought

If there is an inner-logic/theo-logic that funds the occasional writings of scripture (in all their historical contingencies), then what must take priority is not the contingent, but the non-contingent, who gives the contingent its meaning. In other words, God and his life revealed in Jesus Christ, must have the right to provide the categories and shape of Scripture and its meaning, and not a revised or reconstructed history that is given its reality by us. It is more Christian to interpret Scripture through Dogmatic categories (even though these are also provisional), than it is to stand on the sandy-lands of historical reconstruction (which really, in my view sounds much more like the way Mormons understand revelation, than Christians do).

On Becoming Theologically Numb and Blogging: Describing the Disorder Known as ‘Virtual-Glaze’

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I, like many of you, have been blogging consistently for many years (me since the Spring of 2005), and it has many benefits. But, as we all know, blogging also has some dangers associated with it. One of those dangers can become what I might call a virtual-glaze. I would define the disorder ‘virtual-glaze’ as the disposition that begins to occur as a sentient agent engages in massive amounts of exposure to the virtual on-line world; in particular, in the case I am glazedsketching here, virtual-glaze happens to bloggers when said bloggers engage with various theological and biblical topics over sustained periods of time, via corresponding, arguing, and debating with others relative to fine points of theological nuance and biblical exegesis. The net result, of being deluged by large amounts of theological encounters, can be a glazed and thus desensitized feeling towards the reality of the very positions a blogger might be continuously arguing for. So this kind of virtual-glazing can begin to put a person into a dispassionate (which I think is a terrible thing!), pandering kind of posture wherein the reality of their theological and biblical position no longer has contact with real life. In short, virtual-glazing places the blogger into an absolute kind of suspension to all things (even if they can argue their position with air-tight ease and sophistication), such that the vigor, the zeal that initially propelled them to argue for their position in the first place loses its edge, and more importantly loses its real life impact in their personal life and daily Christian spirituality.

Let me try and make what I am getting at more concrete. I can remember when the LORD radically grabbed my life in profound ways while in Las Vegas, Nevada in and around 1995 (what happened in Vegas, fortunately, did not stay in Vegas for me!); I was a very luke-warm to nominal Christian at that point (and had been in that state at that point for a few years or so). Through various experiences (which I have talked about before), the LORD just showed me how real he was, and how unreal the world was. My life hung on every page of Scripture from that day forward. What I believed had such an acute implication for me, one way or the other, that my sanity, it seemed hung in the balances. Whether or not God was Triune or not, massive import for me. Whether Jesus was the God-man or just a man had palpable feeling for me; and I knew that if God was not Triune, if he had not revealed Himself that way in His dearly beloved Son, thus as the God-Man in Christ, my life would effectively be over—these things mattered to me! And because I didn’t have the depth or sophistication at that point, because I didn’t have the exposure I now have (through formal training, blogging, and personal fellowship with other Christians), if there was even a twinge of uncertainty as to who God is, or who he had/has revealed Himself to be in Christ, my life, my sanity seemed to be over (which I will have to elaborate on further some at some other time).

Obviously, what I am describing above reflects the deep and painful growing pains of an inchoate depth growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ; and so there is some immaturity involved with the above description, that some maturation (relatively speaking) can go along ways in curing (at least the existential angst I was experiencing for that long season of life). But I highlight the above to underscore my description of what I have called virtual-glaze. Yes, by way of degree, there should be at least some semblance of security in regard to the reality of who God is, and who God is for me (for us). But what I think can get easily lost by way of large amounts of virtual theological exposure is the sense of urgency that was attendant to my early growing pain days that started back in 1995; the sense of need, and reality that if God is not who he has claimed himself to be in Christ, that our sanity, and capacity to know God and subsequently minister to others could all be lost. I think blogging has the capacity of making this reality, who God is, into a kind of game. It has the capacity to remove everything we are discussing over and over again into an abstract legoland hodgepodge of our own making, and always keeping what we are talking about at least an arms-length distance from our real life selves in this real life world with real life relationships in tact.

I think if our sanity, our being is not always hanging in the balances (in regard to this kind of sense of urgency) in regard to knowing and loving God, and others, then we may well have succumbed to the disorder known as virtual-glaze.