Archive for the ‘Religion’ category

Positive Politics in America

July 23rd, 2009

As I continue work on my Doctoral dissertation, I am continually seeing passage with new eyes.  My recent post encouraged Christians to live in harmony with one another and  develop a positive view of church (I don’t always do that as well as I would like).  But this passage from Titus makes another strong assertion–Christians must also learn to live in harmony with those outside the Faith.

Titus 2:15-3:6
So communicate these things with the sort of exhortation or rebuke that carries full authority. Don’t let anyone look down on you. 3:1 Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work. 3:2 They must not slander anyone, but be peaceable, gentle, showing complete courtesy to all people. 3:3 For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another. 3:43 But “when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 3:5 he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, 3:6 whom he poured out on us in full measure4 through Jesus Christ our Savior. 3:7 And so,5 since we have been justified by his grace, we become heirs with the confident expectation of eternal life.

I must admit I feel a strong conviction about this passage.  As I look across the political spectrum, I see so many Christian voices violating this teaching from the Apostle Paul.   Christians on the left still find it necessary to slander former US President George Bush because they hate his policies.  Christians on the right find it equally necessary to slander President Obama because they fear his policies.  Granted, our political system is different than the one in Paul’s day.  Our system of democracy (a Constitutional Republic) encourages debate, and disagreement with political leaders is not considered slanderous.  But how often do followers of Jesus cross the line of disagreement and become slanderous?  I can’t speak for others, but I hope this passage will be a stronger guide to my own political rhetoric in the troubling days ahead.

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Posted in Politics, Religion

One Year With Karl Barth: Revelation Spawns Religion

July 20th, 2009

The revelation of God in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the judging but also reconciling presence of God in the world of human religion, that is, in the realm of man’s attempts to justify and to sanctify himself before a capricious and arbitrary picture of God. The Church is the locus of true religion, so far as through grace it lives by grace.

Barth asserts that the event of Divine revelation can only be understand and expounded through the Scripture.  Revelation, both its reality and possibility, comes to the Church only through the action of God through the Holy Spirit.   It is this encounter with God that has spawned, says Barth, the many religions of the world.  And although Christianity is singular in its message, it is not unique its its encounter with revelation.

So here is where I want to stop and consider what Barth is saying.   It is the first time in reading the Church Dogmatics, that I find myself hard pressed to understand Barth.  Here is the crux of Barth’s assertion regarding revelation and religion.

From this aspect what we call revelation seems necessarily to be only a particular instance of the universal which is called religion. “Christianity” or the “Christian religion” is one predicate for a subject which may have other predicates. It is a species within a genus in which there may be other species. Apart from and alongside Christianity there is Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism and every kind of animistic, totemistic, ascetic, mystical and prophetic religion. And again, we would have to deny revelation as such if we tried to deny that it is also Christianity, that it has this human aspect, that from this standpoint it can be compared with other human things, that from this standpoint it is singular but certainly not unique. We have to recognise the fact calmly, and calmly think it through. If we are going to know and acknowledge the revelation of God as revelation, then there is this general human element which we cannot avoid or call by any other name. It is always there even apart from Christianity as one specific area of human competence, experience and activity, as one of the worlds within the world of men.*

I understand that Barth, in his later years, became a universalist.  Is this the beginning of that theology?  Is Barth here saying that revelation is evidenced in all religions and therefore all religions have an unique but equally viable revelation of God?  Or is this Barth’s way of saying that all Men are created with the ability to experience God; some are led into a false religion and others into the One Truth of jesus Christ revealed in the New Testament?

So, according to Barth, which is it; Christianity is one option among many or Christianity is one true revelation among many misleading ones?  Or is there something else gong on here I am totally not understanding?

* Karl Barth, Geoffrey William. Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics, Volume I: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2004), 281.

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Posted in Bibliology, Religion

William P Young is One Voice for the Generations Pt 3

June 30th, 2009

This is the third and final part of my interview with William P Young, author of the Shack.  This post begins with a good discussion of the Gospel and the resurrection of Jesus… does it really matter if jesus raised from the dead?  What Paul Young has to say will surprise some people.

Let me know what you think of this interview and what other folks you would like to hear me interview.

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Posted in Christology, Culture, Eschatology, Interviews, My Audio/Video, Religion, Systematic Theology

William P Young is One Voice for the Generations Pt 2

June 29th, 2009

This is part two of my interview with William P Young, author of the Shack. Part one finish with Paul’s positive impressions of Postmodernism, and part two continues the discussion of Postmodernism and its negative influence on Christianity.

Please pass this along to your friends. Part three will be posted tomorrow.

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Posted in Culture, Ecclesiology, Interviews, My Audio/Video, Religion