The coronavirus pandemic has brought our diminished capacity for wisdom into the open… The results of this loss are evident in our society today: Each of us adopting the facts we are predisposed to adopt, editing reality so that it is made up of the facts we want, making no attempt to hold in tension facts that challenge ours, and so falling into the trap of either/or thinking.
My concerns with Christian songs are rarely with the songs themselves. Those songs are products of that writer’s circumstances and personal relationship with God. My concerns are with how Christian leaders use those songs.
The members of my church span the political spectrum. I actually think that is quite healthy, but it occasionally makes preaching a bit nerve wracking. Take this Sunday, Sanctity of Life Sunday. How do I appropriately honor a day of such high value for some members of my congregation without appearing partisan and alienating others?
What sort of signs might we look for to know whether or not what is happening is from God? And if we were to pray for renewal, how would we know God was answering that prayer? Would it look like renewed interest in our liturgies? Or perhaps a new love for the Prayer Book? Would it look like many running to new monastic communities? Would it look like a passion for theology, for politics, or community impact? Would it mean more contemporary worship music? Maybe more traditional music? Would it be lots of new churches? Would it mean larger or smaller churches?
Believing that Christ’s resurrection triumph is to be translated into the structures of the world, the church has become a triumphalist institution working to impose “Christian values” (either left values or right values) on the world around us, but in so doing has become captive to the world. This mistaken understanding of presence has led us to the place we find ourselves today, mired in division along political-ideological lines, screaming at one another from entrenched positions provided to us by the options of a human political ideology, liberal democracy. We won’t be able to break out of these entrenched positions that are causing such deep division in the church until we free ourselves from the false view of the church’s relationship to history, and so to the powers of this age.
Evangelicalism, due to its particular way of living out the assumption of the church’s relationship to history, has become accustomed to analyzing political candidates based on how “Christian-ly” they will wield the powers of this world. In the past, the criterion for voting for a candidate was rooted in the character of the candidate; we can call this the “character criterion.” Assuming alignment on social issues, evangelicals would vote for the candidate with the best character to lead the government in a manner consistent with Christian “values.” (This was why George W. Bush was such a favorite: His conversion story gave comfort to evangelicals that this was a true follower of Christ, a man of character who would lead the country in a manner worthy of Christ.)
We should be spending a little bit of time working at Greek and Hebrew on most days—maybe 10 minutes. For some of us that will mean taking a couple months to learn (or relearn) the alphabet. Eventually we might be translating a few words at a time, until we are eventually able to work through a whole paragraph or even chapter per day. After exhorting Timothy to “devote” (!) himself to reading and teaching Scripture, Paul tells him to “practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15 ESV). We must practice so that we can make genuine progress. And, just as with marriage, we must not let our lack of progress in the past became an excuse for a paralyzed apathy in the present.
The phrase “ivory tower” has been associated with the office of theologian. It’s the idea of a “privileged seclusion” so that individual can pursue whatever endeavor without interference or distraction. I have jokingly used the phrase, “Ministry would be great if it weren’t for the people.” I have known seminary students who believed that they could find a pastorate in which they would show up to preach and otherwise be left alone. (Some of those students later changed their aspirations to becoming a professor.) But that is not the model of the pastor that we find in the Bible.
God’s eternal Word has taken to himself our frail flesh, born as one of us. He has embraced as his very own our weakness and fragility, our transience and loss, our sorrows and our griefs. In his flesh, he has entered the deepest depths of our experience.As we sit in our studies and pay heed to Augustine, or Luther, or Edwards, they invite us to leave cramped and crowded walls of our own small understanding, and to step with them into the soaring cathedral of divine truth.
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