Kruse Kronicle

Best of It: Final Thoughts

[Series Index]

We have concluded our discussion of John Stackhouse’s Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World. I’ve read this book three times now. Here are some reasons why this book has been so important to me.

Shalom – Almost 25 years ago, while in grad school, I took a Kyregma class at my Presbyterian church on shalom. Getting a grip on the centrality of this Hebrew concept to the warp and woof of the entire Bible has been formational to my thinking ever since. Many emerging Christians today are taken with the New/Fresh Perspective on Paul … which locates Paul’s teaching firmly in the context of Second Temple Judaism, revealing that Paul dealt with far more comprehensive views of redemption beyond the narrow issues of personal salvation or law versus grace. This study was a similar epiphany for me. Shalom was the central theme of the lengthy series I wrote three years ago on Theology and Economics (see here). Shalom is at the heart of Stackhouse’s ethical calculus. That is one of the primary reasons I identify so strongly with this book.

Final Destiny – There is a pervasive view that humanity’s destiny is an ethereal place called heaven. As Stackhouse emphasizes, a new earth …. one that is somehow both continuous and radically discontinuous with this earth … will be our new home. Furthermore, what we do in our daily activities also somehow impacts future realities. The material world matters and will somehow be redeemed.

“Already, Not Yet” – While the biblical narrative has redemption and restoration of shalom as its theme and teaches that the Kingdom of God, which gives witness to God’s shalom, was inaugurated with Jesus Christ, it is also true that the narrative makes clear that there will be some crisis moment in the future when the new creation is consummated. That creates what I believe is the central paradox of Christian mission: We are to be seeking shalom in all we do in a context where full authentic shalom is unattainable. Lean too hard toward an unqualified pursuit of shalom, and you end up with destructive idealistic movements. Lean too hard toward the limitations, and you end up with rationalization of the status quo and accommodation … or possibly separation from dominant culture altogether. Accommodation is not an option, yet idealistic transformationalism and cultural separatism strike me as attempts to escape the tension.

Four Commandments – I particularly appreciated Stackhouse’s framing of the “four commandments.” Creation Commandments: 1) cultural mandate, 2) love God and love neighbor. Redemption Commandments: 3) love one another as I have loved you, 4) the Great Commission. This framing helps process exactly how God has sent us into the world … both in an ontological sense and a more temporary sense of the mission of redemption.

Tetralectic – If we are to obey the four commandments as we pursue shalom in an “already, not yet” context, all the time avoiding diversion into either side of the paradox, how are we to find guidance in our lives? I appreciate Stackhouse’s tetralectic of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, all interacting with the guidance of the Spirit as we share in community. There is no formula. There is risk. I suspect attempts to escape this tetralectic approach are usually attempts to find rest in a false certainty (ex. fundamentalist doctrine, pure reason, etc.)

Realism versus Idealism –When young men and women fall in love, they enter into a type of insanity … they see only the best in each other (real or imagined) and live in a fantasy of achieving eternal bliss. Sociologists and psychologists suggest this temporarily altered state of reality may be necessary to create the initial bonding that will hold them together once “the drug” wears off. The operative word here is “temporary.” At some point, the real-world returns, and the couple must address these realities to have a sustainable relationship.

Much of what I see in the church world, whether Evangelical revival services for “saving souls,” Religious Right political action, Mainline Church prophetic witness, or emerging church activism, strikes me as all too similar to the state of young lovers in love. We fall in love with being in love. We are ever looking for the next big romantic fix … the next moving worship service, the next great mission trip, the next great social justice activity. Idealistic visions and causes are endlessly lifted, but the instruction that equips us to live beyond the honeymoon stage is absent.

Stackhouse’s book is like a tall cool drink of realistic water in the middle of the scorched earth of frenetic idealism. I do not doubt that some will characterize Stackhouse’s work as cultural accommodation because he does not rise to their idealistic standards. (Having views very similar to his, I get the same myself.) It is much like trying to tell a young couple in love about the challenges they face, only to be dismissed because you do not know the strong love the lovers have for each other. But for those like me who long ago got over the honeymoon … who are weary of the endless call of others for us to recapture that bliss … and who want some serious reflection on following Christ in the real world, I have rarely encountered a book that does so in such a thorough and accessible way.

Well … there you have it. It took 34 posts, but the series is over. I’m certain I’ve butchered aspects of this book, but I hope I’ve whetted your appetite with enough specifics that you will pick up a copy and tell others about it. For those from the Hauerwas/Yoder perspective, I’d encourage you to read a copy as he respectfully offers a counterpoint. Even if you disagree with Stackhouse, he has important insights to bring to the conversation. (It would be interesting to have a book discussion reading this book and Yoder’s “Politics of Jesus” side by side.)

Thanks to those who have followed along, and thanks for the great conversation along the way.

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Best of It: Conclusion (Part 4)

[Series Index]

We come to the end of the last chapter in John Stackhouse's Making the Best of It. We left off in the middle of the section dealing with "Behaving in Public," having dealt with the subsections of "Show" and "Tell." Today we skim over "Campaign" and "The Fundamental Move." Then we will wrap up with the final section on "Governing Motifs."

Campaign

While there should be Christians involved in politics (beyond voting and the occasional contribution), it is not true that all Christians should be politically active. Stackhouse returns to the issue of individual call. He is particularly concerned about pastors.

Indeed, pastors and politicians work not only in different categories but also to a considerable extent in mutually exclusive ones. Pastors emphasize purity, loyalty, clarity, and totality, while politicians must work with mixedness, expedience, ambiguity, and compromise. (341)

Pastors who too closely identify with candidates and regimes get brought into the sin and failure that inevitably is part of a regime. Their prophetic voice is compromised.

I appreciated Stackhouse's position that Church institutions and their leaders should be less prominent in their political actions. They should focus on shaping culture by forming individuals at work in their various spheres of life. Christians should form partnerships and campaigns with folks based on common cause, not necessarily religious affiliation. We will always search the political landscape for what will bring the greatest shalom, trusting God to lead the way … all the time recognizing that God does not simultaneously move on all fronts. Some important things need to be placed on the back burner to accomplish even more important things. We keep working at making the best of it as we seek God's leadership.

There is a real danger here. This approach … with all its ambiguity and paradox … can morph into rationalization:

... But here is where diabolical mischief lies closest at hand: in rationalization and ideology, in veiling both our ruthless voracity and our lazy conformity in the guise of "Christian Realism." So we must be vigilant against this constant peril. (344)

But he also adds:

Yet, as I have argued, the options of total purity or total conquest seem to be not only inconsistent with the (whole) Bible's teaching but also simply impossible short of the return of Jesus in power and glory. ... (344)

The Fundamental Move

The fundamental move to make is quite simple: to turn the tables, to put the shoe on the other foot, to ask, "How would you feel if it happened to you? ..." (344)

Stackhouse challenges the desperate political agitation by some Christians to preserve things from a by-gone era of Christian consensus that are no longer representative of our society (say, school prayer, putting "God" on our money and in our anthems, or trying to make Easter a national holiday).

... Indeed, we should use what influence we have left to help construct the sort of society in which we ourselves would like to live once our power to effect it has disappeared. ... (345-346)

Stackhouse closes this section with some good comments about "representative democracy" versus "direct democracy" and what that means for electing candidates. He suggests we need to elect candidates pursuing shalom and free space for the Church to function. I will not dwell on that here.

Governing Motifs

In this closing section, Stackhouse writes:

We thus must distinguish the concern for shalom making from mere utilitarianism, which is at best half right. Yes, we seek the greatest good possible, but not just for the greatest number. Moreover, what counts as "good" is not merely calculable along an axis of pleasure and pain, and certainly not merely the pleasure of the powerful (whether an elite or the majority) at the expense of others. (350)

Our path of discernment is complex, and there are dangers if we don't do our work well. Here are motifs Stackhouse suggests help us avoid the dangers

Dialectic Without Capitulation

We are neither to capitulate to nature nor to pursue total dominance.

… We human beings were put in charge of the world to cultivate it – indeed, to subdue it. we are not to succumb to the lure of "natural rhythms," of letting things be, however beautiful they are and however ashamed we feel about our previous mismanagement. We are to garden the world, to take its potential and improve it. We are not to abandon our dignity and responsibility, however intimidating the task may seem and however unnerved we are by our recognition of past failures. We are to make shalom. (351)

Neither are we to capitulate to the powers of human institutions like government, commerce, or entertainment. We are not to withdraw from the cultural mandate. Nor are we to seek total domination of the culture. We make alliances and pursue shalom, but we will not accept "… the cessation of evangelism, our complicity in wrongdoing, our silence in the face of injustice, and our basic allegiance above all." (352)

Another dialectic is to withdraw from the Church in disillusionment versus esteeming the Church as more righteous in its actions than it is. We have to be realistic about what the Church is in this era before the consummation of the new creation.

Transformation Without Imperialism

This impetus to garden, and the specifically impetus to recover and redeem, must be tempered by the recognition of our own limits and sinfulness.  ...(353)

Quoting Lesslie Newbigin:

We are not conservatives who regard the structures as part of the unalterable order of creation, as part of the world of what we call "hard facts" beyond the range of the gospel, and who therefore suppose that the gospel is only relevant to the issues of person and private life. Nor are we anarchists who seek to destroy the structures. We are rather patient revolutionaries who know that the whole creation, with all its given structures, is groaning in the travail of a new birth, and that we share this groaning and travail, thus struggling and wrestling, but do so in hope because we have already received, in the Spirit, the firstfruit of the new world (Rom, 8:19-25). (354)

Plurality Without Relativism

Here he reflects on the challenges of extending pluralism while using our voice to speak out against evil and injustice.

Conviction Without Hubris

We walk in confidence that Jesus is Lord, and we have been assigned a mission that includes "cultivating the earth." We have confidence God will bring about the new creation he promised.

But we cannot succeed without others and Christian community. We recognize here that we (individually and as communities) are wrong about some things. But which ones? Our best efforts and best intentions are going to fall short. Yet we dare not go forward in timidity as we engage the world. We have been given a mandate. That is the tension into which God calls us. Even as we go forward boldly, we must be open to being reformed by God.

This concludes the last subsection of the last section of the book's last chapter. I'll have one more post that offers some final remarks.

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Best of It: Conclusion (Part 3)

[Series Index]

The second section in the Conclusion of Making the Best of It is called "Behaving in Public."

Grounds for Hope

John Stackhouse acknowledges the fears of many that Western Civilization is drifting away from Christianity. In truth, we are moving away from some Christian values and towards others. History doesn't move in a straight line. Drawing on Philip Jenkins, he notes that 1798 has to be a low ebb in the influence of the Church… with the persecution of the Catholics and skeptical deists and Unitarians in ascendency around the Atlantic. (I also remember that only 17% of Americans belonged to a church during the Revolution.) Jenkins writes that "Resurrection is not just a fundamental doctrine of Christianity, it is a historical model that explains the religion's structure and development." (322) In short, we should not despair about long-term outcomes because of short-term trends (and by short I'm not necessarily suggesting less than a lifetime.) Secularization and de-Christianization is not irreversible, and we should not panic.

Some want to fight tooth and nail to keep certain values intact through government force. Stackhouse writes:

We also should pause to ask ourselves a fundamental question: is the imposition of a Christian regime in America, or Canada, or Britain, or elsewhere desirable, even if it were possible? (324)

And …

As grateful as we should be for the blessings God has given the world through Christian Civilization, the record also shows that we Christians – who are, in Luther's phrase, simul justus et peccator (at the same time justified and yet sinners) – are capable of just as much selfish mischief as almost anyone else when we wield unchecked power. (325)

He notes:

I am simply registering a Christian suspicion of all majority power, much less unchecked power, whether wielded by Christians or anyone else short of the Lord Jesus himself. And I thus recommend pluralism to help us in this penultimate era, given the fallenness of everyone, including us, until God achieves his ultimate purposes and we enjoy the immediate reign of Christ. (326)

Show

When it comes to living with plurality within a democracy:

It's one thing to say, "Here's how we think it might work." It's a wonderfully different thing to say, "Here's how we do it." (326)

I loved this quote from Franklin Little from fifty years ago:

Politicians in the churches attempted to secure by public legislation but they were unable to persuade many of their own members was either wise or desirable … Lacking the authenticity of a genuinely disciplined witness, the Protestant reversion to political action was ultimately discredited, and the churches have not to this day recovered their authority in public life. (326-327)

Ouch! I don't think things have changed a great deal. Maybe they are now … maybe not. Like any human grouping, our natural tendency is toward maximal conformity instead of maximal creativity. But Stackhouse argues that we must intentionally create places where different people can grow together. Diversity is essential to thriving communities. Pathologies develop from too little diversity. Can we partner with, and affirm, people of Christian traditions different from our own? That is one place to start.

That said, Stackhouse acknowledges that "excessive diversity" can be destructive. Churches have a long tradition of having a "rule of faith" that folks adhere to. So a big challenge is discerning how a rule of faith should function and how church discipline should be exercised.

The issue of practicing pluralism with those outside the Church is also important. Stackhouse decries how "tolerance" is equated with affirming everyone else's actions. There are things in others and us that we disapprove of. Tolerance is a willingness to accept that difference … not affirm it. Stackhouse writes:

I fear that we simply have to wait out this current adolescent attitude of trying to affirm everyone while fiercely judging all who will not play the same game. Eventually, one hopes, an adult recognition of the necessity of tolerance as a civic virtue will (re-)emerge. (329)

True pluralism is about tolerance and not these "adolescent attitudes."

Tell

So what should we "say" in public life? Stackhouse hits ten things over ten pages, which I will not dwell on.

1. "First, we ought to teach and maintain the values intrinsic to modern public life: democracy, the rule of law, human rights, self-worth, the worth of others, cooperation and competition, freedom and responsibility and so on. These are values that are consonant with Christianity and with other world views …" (330)
2. "Second, we need to teach that not everyone "wins" in democracy." (331) But it is the best way to handle the need of society to govern by majority consent and still protect minority dissent.
3. "Third, Christians can speak up to teach the public what Christians actually believe and do, rather than what various members of the public might think we believe and do. …" (332)
4. "Fourth, we can resist any form of sectarianism, any ideological bullying, any teaching or (what is more common) assumption of any single religion or worldview as if it alone is entirely true and all other viewpoints are entirely false. …" (332)
5. "Fifth Christians can be in the vanguard of cultural change, instead of fighting rearguard battles to maintain out diminishing cultural privileges, in regard to any religious events and symbols in schools, legislatures, courts, and other public institutions. …" (335)
6. "Sixth, and related to this point, is the responsibility to practice proper silence. …" (335) He refers here to unwelcomed evangelism and exposure of our faith to others in settings such as the workplace.
7. "Seventh, Christians can watch our language in public. …" (335) In short, lose the Christianese … at least in public. Learn to be persuasive and compelling in the language and symbols of those not in the Church.
8. "Eighth, our Christian theology can help us help society think through difficult questions and solve difficult problems by keeping together a combination of virtues and actions that, if isolated, result in vengeance or sentimentality. … (339) Here, Stackhouse suggests some difficult issues where justice and forgiveness must be held together for healing and change to occur. (No forgiveness leads to vengeance, and no justice leads to sentimentality.)
9. "Ninth, part of good telling is good listening. … (339) Conversation, not argument, should be our primary mode of communication.
10. Finally, therefore, the image of conversation reminds us of the apostolic injunction to speak the truth in love. ... (Eph. 4:15). … (340)

We will continue this lengthy section on "Grounds for Hope" tomorrow.

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Best of It: Conclusion (Part 2)

[Series Index]

The first section in the conclusion to Making the Best of It is called "The Shape of our Lives." John Stackhouse looks at this in terms of three issues.

We can look at the question of the shape of our lives in terms of what we do to shape them, which I will construction; the situation in which we do that construction, which I will call context; and the intermittent, interrupting, and sometimes interesting surprises that occur, which I will call contingencies. And I will look at how we shape our lives in three modes: individuals, home/family, and church. (313)

I'm simply going to hit some points that I found interesting.

Construction

Stackhouse says our lives should reflect God's mission and Christ's call, but we know that because evil is within us, we fail to live up to that purpose. We need to shed those things that impede us. Also, as we make decisions, we need to be asking:

"… How does this help me be who I am supposed to be for Jesus Christ today?" Families and churches can do the same: "How does this way of meeting, this schedule, this activity, this form of decision making, this hierarchy, or this budget help us to be who we are supposed to be for Jesus Christ, today?" (314)

Christian maturity is essential to resisting evil and discerning what will bring shalom. Stackhouse points to one study that concluded:

… the most important factor in producing a mature, well-balanced, and well-integrated Christian faith was not excellent preaching, worship, small-group fellowship, or anything else but adult Christian education. (315)

Yet Christian education is one of church life's most deplorable (IMO) aspects. That said, Stackhouse acknowledges that Christian education alone is not enough. The "holy habits of the normal Christian life, such as prayer, worship, charity, and the like," must be present.

I liked his final paragraph in this section:

Is the goal, then, the perfectly balanced life? Many Christians think it is, and seek the correct ratio of Bible study to prayer to work to leisure to sleep to exercise to … No, the goal is to be whom we are meant to be in order to grow in love for God and do his work in the world. (316)

Context

The challenge for the above is that the context keeps changing. First, we move through various life-cycle stages or go through life seasons. Each season has its limitations and opportunities. Second, our cultural context is always changing. Realism dictates that we shift our posture and actions relative to the context. Our actions in one culture may not be the correct ones in another, and our responses may vary within the same culture in different eras. Shifts in context always combine God's providence and human evil. Thus, the questions in the above section will be shaped by our changing context … but our mission of resisting evil and reshaping the world toward shalom is constant.

Contingencies

Stackhouse writes, "The Book of Acts is full of interruptions." So are our lives. Stackhouse looks at stories in Acts and observes that they are filled with both normal and supra-normal deviations that are hard to separate. Not every interruption is a blessing, but God often does call us to unexpected contingencies.

I liked this passage:

In sum, we can retain the ideal of a balance life, but now in a way radically qualified by our understanding of mission and vocation. Balance in this case is not the balance of a dancer raised on one foot, or even of a spinning top. It is much more dynamic: the balance of a runner traversing a broken-up and heaving landscape. To maintain balance for this step and to prepare well for the next step the runner might well have to lean way off center – to be deliberately off-balance in terms of a snapshot, but properly balanced in terms of a journey. This metaphor thus rules out both the idea of a detailed template in which every Christian life ought to be lived and also the utter confusion in which no option, no matter how extreme, can be judged as wrong. The proof is in the success of the journey. Missteps of either sort – trying to maintain a static, universal ideal or indulging in a capricious impulse – will result in a fall. The question is, does the runner keep running toward the goal?

Realism thus requires a constant renegotiation of changing contexts and contingencies. We both maintain the perpetual elements of any proper Christian living and adapt them to the features of this particular occasion. Such a challenge means that it is not always clear that we are, in fact, making the right choice. Ambiguity cannot be avoided here, either. … What do we do? We make the best of it – in concert with fellow Christians, in cooperation with our other neighbors, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in discipleship to Jesus Christ, to the glory of God. (320-321)

Amen.

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Best of It: Conclusion (Part 1)

[Series Index]

Today we begin the review of the conclusion to Making the Best of It, in which John Stackhouse pulls all the pieces together.

Stackhouse reminds us that Dietrich Bonhoeffer's driving question was, "Who is Jesus Christ, for us, today?" Stackhouse writes:

I have then posed the complementary question: Who are we, for Jesus Christ today? What sort of person am I, and what sort am I to be, for Jesus Christ, today? What sort of family, or congregation are we Christians, and what are we to be, for Jesus Christ today. (309)

He believes that two options predominate in Christianity today.

(1) withdrawal from certain worldly institutions, or at least from coercive sectors of those institutions, into holy communities that bear witness to the world of the alternative ethic of the Kingdom of God, and (2) wielding all the power available in the name of Christ to draw the world under the rule of the Kingdom of God. (209)

Stackhouse sees his Christian Realism as a better alternative to either of these options.

Of the posts I've written on this book, those that have explicitly touched John Howard Yoder and Anabaptist views have generated the most conversation. At the end of the book, Stackhouse acknowledges that he has contrasted his position with Yoder's position several times precisely because he thinks many will, and are, finding Yoder's model attractive. Scot McKnight noted a strong Anabaptist streak in the emerging church movement. My experience has been that most folks in the emerging church world come from conservative/fundamentalist/evangelical environments where the Religious Right, with its ambitions of wielding political power, is pervasive. It is not hard to understand why the more circumspect teachings of Yoder and Hauerwas are appealing. Still, along with Stackhouse, I think the Yoder/Hauerwas option is not the best. To give you some idea of Stackhouse's thoughts on this issue, I will quote him at length before launching into the rest of the chapter.

I return to a passage I quoted early on:

Some elements of culture the church categorically rejects (pornography, tyranny, cultic idolatry). Other dimensions of culture it accepts within clear limits (economic production, commerce, the graphic arts, paying taxes for peacetime civil government). To still other dimensions of culture Christian faith gives new motivation and coherence (agriculture, family life, literacy, conflict resolution, empowerment). Still others it strips of their claims to possess autonomous truth and value, and uses them as vehicles of communication (philosophy, language, Old Testament ritual, music). Still other forms of culture are created by the Christian churches (hospitals, service of the poor, generalized education, egalitarianism, abolitionism, feminism). [From "How H. Richard Niebuhr Reasoned: A Critique of Christ and Culture." in Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Culture.]

It must be clear that I recognize that Yoder does not advocate a simplistic "Christ against culture" model – nor do his latter-day epigones, such as Stanley Hauerwas, William Willimon, and others. They are too intelligent and too Christian for that. Thus I agree strongly with this passage of Yoder's. …

… The fundamental disagreement has to do with the cultural opportunities and, indeed, threats posed by societies whose dominant institutions are open to Christian participation. … The Roman Empire in many respect was not open to such Christian participation, and that is the cultural context of the New Testament. But what happens when the emperor not only opens a door to Christians but welcomes them in, as Constantine did? Those of Yoder's stripe see this occasion as the Great Disaster, the co-optation of the church by the world, which they never tire of identifying as the root of all sorts of evil. But what if, as we have remarked already, we see the new era inaugurated by Constantine as an evangelistic success story, as simply the logical working out of the mission of God in the Roman Empire – with full recognitions of all of the ambiguities, limitations, failures, and blessings that attend the mission God being accomplished via human beings in the world?

It is obvious that few of us live in anything like "Christendom" today. Yet we still have far more opportunity to participate in the life of our culture than did the first Christians – including participation in every institution of society. What, then, are Christians supposed to do in this context? Keep acting like a repressed minority, when we are no longer repressed and no longer a minority? Yoder and his ilk do seem to suggest that it would have been entirely salutary for Christians to have retained that mentality. And he, as always, makes an attractive case, particularly as we stand many centuries downstream of the Constantinian era and rue the entanglements of Christianity and culture that have occurred since then. (310-312)

While Christians have had their blunders through the centuries, they have also used resources Providence provided to end the excess of the medieval church, end slavery, build schools, establish charities, etc. … these were "… all things Yoder wanted them to – pray, proclaim, form godly communities that modeled alternatives, serve society in various other positive respects …" (312) But Stackhouse adds:

... and they wielded power: the power of information media, the power of money, the power of politics, even (let us not be squeamish) the power of guns. And good things happened. Not unequivocally good things, as I have suggested we should not expect before Christ returns. But better things happened than were apparently going to occur without the use of these kinds of power. (312-313)

My thoughts: I first read Yoder and people like Donald Kraybill and Ron Sider back in the late '70s while in college. I remember being fascinated by their work. I've been around Mennonite folks and Anabaptism to varying degrees most of my life. Compared to the antics of the Religious Right, I find it a refreshing crowd to hang with.

What I've not been able to do is embrace the clean demarcations between two kingdoms. Sustainable democratic government depends upon broad-based willful compliance with its directives, but no government is sustainable without the underlying threat of coercive force. The idea that we can somehow participate in government without participating in violence, or the underlying threat thereof, is an illusion … and not participating in government is a failure to participate in the cultural mandate to exercise dominion.

When John was preaching repentance, Luke records:

Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?" He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely – be content with your pay." (Luke 3:14)

No condemnation of their soldiering. Jesus commends the Centurion's great faith in Matthew 8 with no command to "go and sin no more." Peter, directed by God, goes to a Centurion in Acts 10 who was baptized without repentance from his soldiering. Paul is affirming of government agents wielding swords to enforce the good. The generic cry that we can't participate in "empire" because it uses coercive force just isn't faithful to the biblical witness.

I'm sympathetic with the critique people like Yoder bring about past abuses. I'm not persuaded by his response or those of his enthusiasts. We must participate in government where we have the freedom to do so as part of answering the cultural mandate. I think the line comes when total allegiance to, and worship of, the state is mandated for participation.

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Best of It: Principles of a New Realism (Part 5)

[Series Index]

Today we wrap up Chapter 8, "Principles of a New Realism," in John Stackhouse's Making the Best of It. The fourth and final section deals with "Liberty and Cooperation."

Liberty and Cooperation

Individuals

… We are free, first from sin and death. No longer must we obey sin and fear death. We are free to choose the good in the hope of eternal life.

Out of his experience of wrestling with sin, fearing death, and longing for a good God, Martin Luther rejoiced to affirm that the Christian is free from worrying about his destiny, is therefore free from egocentricity, and so is free truly to love God and his neighbor. We can extend this insight to affirm that the Christian is thus free to tend the earth without selfishness. And, according to the redemption commandments, the Christian loves his fellow Christians and serves the rest of the world in genuine regard for the other, rather than out of concern for his own gain. (297)

That said, Stackhouse goes on to remind us of the win-win-win concept. Life is not a zero-sum game between God, others, and ourselves … where the good of one in this triad comes at the expense of the others. Shalom is the optimal condition for all three. When we pursue shalom for others, we also benefit God and ourselves.

We are active participants in the realization of shalom. While law guides us, we are not automatons executing explicit commands in every waking moment of our lives. We are volitional beings. The imagery that came to my mind was parenting, where we set boundaries and instruct our children, but we hope that they internalize values that will guide them, making boundaries second nature. Key to the New Testament is the idea that we have freedom, but the primary focus of that freedom is on, as Stackhouse notes, "freedom for the other." We also have the responsibility to not only avoid the bad in favor of the good or choose the lesser of two evils, but often to discern and act on the greater of two or more goods.

Others

God has given us freedom. Stackhouse notes that God creates humanity and then commands us. This implies a freedom to obey or disobey. "One doesn't command a fork, a flower, or a flood." (300) Yet that freedom is not absolute. I like his ship passenger metaphor regarding ignoring God's law.

The passenger on a ship crossing the Pacific is free to jump overboard, free to swim in the ocean for a while, and then free only to drown. For it is not his nature to have that degree of independence. (300)

Furthermore, we are not the only ship passengers on board. Our exercise of freedom must consider others, which certainly includes respecting their freedom.

Stackhouse observes that we all share a natural tendency to insist on the universal applicability of things that seem right to us, and that often leads us to seek a hegemony that reinforces our view. Then he offers this:

Yet confidence in one's on religion and hope for the future can lead in the opposite direction: toward patient, hopeful tolerance of others based on belief that God is in control and will bring his good purposes to pass. (301)

At its core, that church is about love and community. Stackhouse emphasizes that "love and community cannot grow out of coercion.

Stackhouse notes that any human project certainly requires cooperation between people, which means curtailment of freedom. That said, we still ought to consider how we can give as much freedom as possible as people pursue their vocations. Stackhouse is also concerned that we are conscious of "… much less benign motivations of some of those who seek greater state control over individuals and intermediate institutions such as families, churches, and nongovernmental organizations." (302)

Next, he makes some important remarks regarding liberal democracy.

It [liberal democracy] is not only the least bad of the available alternatives, but it manifests positive and crucial Christi values such as justice, the dignity of all people, due process, transparency, honesty, liberty, responsibility, love of one's neighbor, and the humility to recognize the fallibility of both individuals and systems, including the state itself. Of course it is a far cry from the shalom of God's direct rule in the New Jerusalem. … (303)

He goes on to acknowledge other weaknesses.

… Yet Christians also recognize the roots of liberal democracy in the soil of our own religion, and we properly commend and defend it as the only form of government we know of that even attempts to include all of these values. (303)

He also writes:

I agree here, again, with Yoder: Christians must do all we can to bring as much shalom as possible without trying to construct the New Jerusalem by ourselves. (304)

Later, he reflects on the tension between providing as much justice, compassion, and stability as possible with the least curtailment of freedom for individuals and groups.

Some might see such a statement as capitulating to secular modernity. I maintain, however, that the combination and the tension of each element with the others – justice, compassion, stability and liberty – is Biblical. It is the way God works, and the way God wants us to work, this side of the New Jerusalem. (304-305)

He concludes this subsection with some thoughts about international implications as well.

Unity and Diversity in the Church

In this last brief section, Stackhouse revisits his notion that diversity in the church, with our various denominations and traditions, is not bad. There is no way a single form of Christianity can reflect all the richness. Yet he acknowledges, without specificity, that unity needs to be around some sense of "mere Christianity,"… and even if we think our tribe has a better handle on what that is, we can still be in partnership with others who share that "mere Christianity." Stackhouse believes that we should be open to others in three important ways:

• We need to "… be open to considering a stance different from the what [we] have maintained heretofore in the name of tradition, if the cultural situation has changed importantly."
• We should find grounds for ecumenical cooperation among those adopting the same stance.
• "… we should be willing to at least consider affirming others in stances different from ours, even at apparent cross-purposes to ours, as we recognize that Christ may have called them to this apparently contradictory, but perhaps also complementary, stance. (308)

This completes Chapter 8, "Principles of a New Realism." Next, we will turn to the final chapter, where Stackhouse offers his concluding thoughts on what all this means for the relationship between church and culture.

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Best of It: Principles of a New Realism (Part 4)

[Series Index]

Today we look at "Faith and Faithfulness," the third of four parts in John Stackhouse's discussion of "Principles of a New Realism." (Chapter 8 in Making the Best of It.) We've looked at "A Mixed Field, Mixed Motives, and Mixed Results" and "The Normal and Beyond." "Liberty and Cooperation" will be the topic of the next post.

Faith and Faithfulness

The Christian life is one of faith: trusting in God for salvation – of oneself, one's neighbors, and the world. A vital aspect of that faith is trusting the work of God in oneself, in one's neighbors, and in the world. Another is trusting the work of God through oneself, through one's neighbors, and through the world. (288)

Stackhouse identifies two important pitfalls. First, we may arrogate God's work to ourselves individually or as a group. Our efforts are equated with God's efforts. Those not with us are defying God. We are unwilling to make common cause with others, Christian and non-Christian alike, who may not match our vision in all the particulars. Our zeal to do "the Lord's work" can actually interfere with God's work. We frequently come off as pests and bullies.   

Second, we may retreat from engagement with the world while we seek pure hearts and clean hands, trusting that God will work everything out. As Stackhouse notes, "Political decisions, at least most of them, are made by those who show up." (290) (By "political decisions," he means decision-making done in all spheres of societal life.) God is working in and through human institutions to bring shalom. We cannot be absent from them.

Stackhouse titles one subsection, "Irony, Paradox, Integrity, and Effectiveness." Alluding to Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life as a parable; he points out how interwoven our lives are; how hard it is to anticipate how even small actions might have a future impact. The consequences of our actions frequently don't match our intentions. We create welfare programs encouraging unemployment and workfare programs that damage the innocent. Ironies are all too frequent. Yet we must persevere despite a tangled mess of paradoxes and complexities. This perseverance is key to what faithfulness means. Stackhouse writes:

The Cross show us that we won't always win. And it shows us that we always, finally, do win – through the Cross, and through our crosses. (291)

But mindlessly engaging in a pattern of behavior without regard to actual consequences is not faithfulness. I appreciated this passage:

Many individual Christians, however, and also churches and other groups of Christians, congratulate themselves on their faithfulness over against any consideration of effectiveness. "Our job is not to be effective – that's God's business – but to be faithful." How convenient it is for such Christians to fly the flag of faithfulness as their numbers dwindle, their evangelism remains fruitless, and their social ministry stands unwelcomed by others: "We're small, and uninfluential, and disparaged by others, but that's just because we are so true to the gospel." I grew up hearing this from conservative Christians, but nowadays one hears such rationalization also from those on the religious left as they reassure themselves about what they are pleased to call their prophetic fidelity. (292)

Stackhouse draws on the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30. The slave who hides and preserves his talent and is therefore rebuked and condemned "… is the very picture of integrity without effectiveness." Faithfulness requires consideration of both integrity and effectiveness.

Prudence and shrewdness are other virtues we would do well to cultivate. Individually and as groups, we are limited beings with limited resources. We must discern where to focus our efforts within our given contexts. Frequently that means tolerating things we find objectionable and working with others whose views we may find objectionable to be effective.

Again, God tolerates a certain amount of evil and does not try to fix everything at once. We should therefore be more godly and less fastidious. And we can do so because we hope in God who one day will make all things new. (295)

Stackhouse closes this section with observations about hope. We undertake our work without despair or desperation. He challenges the widely held view of total destruction of this world and an ex nihilo creation of a new world. He comments on 2 Peter 3:7, 10-13, showing that it is not about annihilation, but rather the imagery is akin to Noah's flood that washed away what was evil and left what was good. In this case, the imagery is a refiner's fire burning away the impurities, leaving that which is pure. "… there is great discontinuity with the world as it was, but also great continuity." (296)

He closes, writing:

… Precisely because we hope in God, we do not perpetually rush forward into the next thing with our ready-made programs and provisions, but rather cultivate the humility that awaits his direction and supply. (297)

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Best of It: Principles of a New Realism (Part 3)

[Series Index]

We continue with the Principles of a New Realism (Chapter 8)  in Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse. Monday, we looked at Mixed Field, Mixed Motives, and Mixed Results. Wednesday, we began our look at The Normal … and Beyond. Today we finish that discussion.

The Normal … and Beyond: Steering Societies, Converting Communities, Improving Individuals. (Continued)

We concluded the last post by noting the difference between making ethical decisions based on unwavering adherence to ethical prescriptions (deontological ethics) and making choices to maximize shalom (consequentialist ethics). Stackhouse embraces the latter … as do I with some trepidation. Having said this, Stackhouse identifies four considerations we must deal with as we reflect on these issues.

1. "The first consideration is to observe where we are in the Christian Story." (275) We do not live in Jesus' day, and we do not live in the New Jerusalem. Stackhouse takes theologians like John Howard Yoder to task here:

It seems to me, then, to indulge in a weird kind of "second naivete" (Ricoeur) to continue to advocate an ethic that depends on the strong expectation of imminent coming of the Lord – as Yoder conspicuously does. (276)

There is a willful dismissiveness of 2,000 years of church history. We are apparently in this for the long haul. Stackhouse is also critical of characterizing the emergence of Christendom with some "… grotesque deviation from authentic Christian mission …" Christendom was the natural result of mission. The state was merely the last social domino to fall. Did this raise a whole new set of challenges? Absolutely! But it was not a departure from the mission of the church.

One of the charges I hear against fundamentalist Christians is their tendency to absolutize behaviors they believe are taught in the Bible (ex., Women don't preach) without considering the distance of 2,000 years and changing culture. Yet some of these same critics want to absolutize the posture of the New Testament church (i.e., Christ vs. Empire) as the absolute culturally transcendent posture for relating to culture. That was then … this is now. I believe there are different postures and responses for different culture contexts.

2. "The second consideration therefore is to recall the creation commandments and the redemption and the redemption commandments, and their relation to each other." (278) Too many Christians opt to obey the redemption commandments only. We are to work for the greatest shalom possible as we obey the Cultural Mandate and the Great Commandments.

Here again, he is critical of the Anabaptist attempts to disassociate with worldly powers (ex. Yoder, Hauerwas, Willimon). They will argue that the greatest shalom can be created by being a witness separate from the powers. Stackhouse writes:

… I think it is wrong for all Christians to hold to this view. Indeed, I think it is best that most Christians take another, more participatory, and thus more morally dangerous and ambiguous stance. (278-279)

He offers the last two considerations as his rationale.

3. "The third consideration, then, is to return to the Christian Story to witness God involved in violence, deception, and other contraventions of "normal" morality." (279) Stackhouse lays out several instances in Scripture where God or God's people engaged in such actions. He grants that we do not find instances of this concerning the apostles, but it is also true that the biblical record does not recount events where the apostles were placed in extreme ethical dilemmas akin to the SS officer hunting Jews at our door. Thus, the only argument here is one from silence. The holiness of God, in ways that may seem mysterious to us, somehow incorporates these actions.

4. "This fourth consideration is the distinction between God's work and ours, between what is proper only to him and what we are to do in resemblance to, and in cooperation with, him." (280) He goes on:

Since we are created in the image of God to engage in godly work in the world – namely, caring for the rest of creation – and since we are always to love God and our neighbors as ourselves, then we must continue to obey those commandments. Finding refuge from them in the redemption commandments will not do, as we have seen in other contexts. Indeed, in this context we can say that as Christians refuse to work for justice in coercive ways, as well as in non-coercive ways, we could be implying that coercion is always wrong, when in fact we believe in a God who finally will coerce the whole universe back into line. … the only recourse is to distinguish between God's work and ours in such a way the helps us avoid ethical dilemmas. (280-281)

Human beings are not God. We have neither the intellect nor the moral wisdom to carry out God's vengeance in the world. "Yet society does need to be protected, and to be protected by violence – legal, authorized, monitors, and minimal violence but violence nonetheless." (282) Stackhouse goes on to write:

… I suggest now that a Christian community that tries to witness to the world by leaving off participation in other activities that instantiate Kingdom values (such as order, justice, security, and freedom) will also thereby compromise its very witness. This fact is deeply ironic because such communities typically see it in the exactly opposite way. They fear that involvement in these activities will compromise their witness. … (283)

I quote the following because I believe this long passage ties much of Stackhouse's thinking together:

The Bible is a rich resource to help us understand what it means to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. We are not to glibly deploy either a shallow love ethic or a ruthless justice ethic or even a well-intentioned shalom ethic, with all of their vulnerability to oversimplification and rationalization along whatever lines suit our interests and sensibilities. We are not, that is, simply to try to maximize shalom in defiance of explicit teachings of God's Word, nor in simplistic deference to a few verses or principles we think we have adduced from Scripture as applied to our best take on the scene before us. The Bible not only tells us to seek shalom but also gives us considerable detail as to the definition of shalom – and of love, justice, and other key terms. We are not free to simply snatch these words from the Bible, write them on a banner, and then fly that banner over whatever we would like to do. We are to heed the whole Bible, bearing in mind the wisdom of Christian tradition, the deliverances of reason, and the impression of experience. We are to consult our fellows in the church, seeking to profit from their various perspectives. And throughout this deliberation we are to trust the Holy Spirit of God to guide us to the action that makes the most sense of all of these resources in the interest in maximizing shalom. We do not wait until all the pieces of the puzzle nicely fall into place and the way forward opens up before us utterly clear and bright. We walk by faith, not by sight. But we also do not precipitously charge forward on the basis of our favorite simplistic principle and a superficial reading of the situation. Instead, we do our part, our cognitive part, as responsibly as we can, and we trust God to supervise that process such that it will bring Christ's command to us in the here and now.

If we do engage in such thorough study and reflection, we will see that we live in a world in which God himself does not nicely avoid difficult decisions that result in violence against his own ultimate ideals. We live in a world instead into which God has thrust us to do his work of cultivation and redemption, and the way he does it sometimes involves dirt and blood. (284-285)

Stackhouse elaborates using Dietrich Bonhoeffer's dilemma between pacifism and plotting to assassinate Hitler, but I think you get the picture. I'm sure others will challenge Stackhouse's views here, but I found that I strongly identify with this passage.

What do you think?

Next week ... Faith and Faithfulness

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Best of It: Principles of a New Realism (Part 2)

[Series Index]

In Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse, we continue with the Principles of a New Realism (Chapter 8). Monday, we looked at Mixed Field, Mixed Motives. Today we look at The Normal … and Beyond.

The Normal … and Beyond: Steering Societies, Converting Communities, Improving Individuals.

The underlying theme here is that the work of advancing shalom occurs primarily ....  not through miracles, not through extraordinary efforts, .... but through the diligent living of everyday lives. Crises don't come out of nowhere. They are most often the product of processes that have long been at work. Those who influence the processes exercise much control over the crises. I think this underscores the importance of Christians participating in every sphere of society (ex., law, business, government, military, education, art, etc.) if there is to be an ongoing influence toward shalom.

Stackhouse astutely points out that history moves neither in a circle nor a straight line. The strategies of waiting for things to return to where they were, or assuming the continuation of the present trajectory of events, are foolhardy. "History is made up of multiple lines with multiple curves with very limited predictability." (268) The reality is that as some things seem to be moving in a bad direction, others seem to be moving in a good direction. Fixating on one to the exclusion of others leads us to poor judgment.

The issues involved are massively complex. Add to this that we are fallen and finite human beings. Pursuing shalom is difficult and unpredictable, even with our best efforts.

But what about the borderline cases? Stackhouse raises the frequently used scenario where a Nazi SS officer comes to a home and asks if you are hiding Jews. How should we respond? Stackhouse writes:

… the choices are just two, no matter how high or how low the stake. The first is to refuse always to do something that is forbidden somewhere in Scripture (or perhaps, by extension, in Christian tradition), no matter what the intention or expected consequence. One commits the matter to God, who will do what is right, according to his sometimes mysterious plans, but who never requires the believer to do what is evil in order that good may come. The second choice is to do whatever will be truest to the revelation of the will of God, taken as a whole, recognizing that in a topsy-turvy world sometimes one must do what one would never do in Eden or the New Jerusalem, something that is objectively impure that nonetheless is the best of available options and will produce the most shalom in the situation. (274-275)

Stackhouse opts for the second choice, and I'm with him. He fully acknowledges the danger of relativism that some will charge … it is a philosophical debate that has been going on for generations. Be that as it may, it is our ambiguous reality. I agree that this is the uncomfortable tension we are compelled to live in. Frankly, I worry that those who hold to his first option, or those who simply conclude that ethics is all relative, are merely seeking a comfortable escape from the tension we have been called to live within. Instead, … empowered by the Holy Spirit … we must trust the dynamic interaction of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to lead us and God's grace to cover us.

Stackhouse lays out four considerations we must address when wrestling with such matters. We will pick up those in the next post.

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Best of It: Principles of a New Realism (Part 1)

[Series Index]

We now come to Chapter 8, the concluding chapter of Part III in Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse. This chapter is called “"rinciples of a New Realism." Stackhouse begins the chapter:

How, then, do we fulfill our calling within the global mission of God and in our particular place in the Christian Story? This chapter sets out a serious of principles by we may construe vocation and then construct our participation in it. (261)

There are four sections to this chapter:

• A Mixed Field, Mixed Motives, and Mixed Results
• The Normal … and Beyond: Steering Societies, Converting Communities, Improving Individuals
• Faith and Faithfulness: Faith in God's Providence
• Liberty and Cooperation

Today we begin with the first section.

A Mixed Field, Mixed Motives, and Mixed Results

Stackhouse begins with Jesus' parable of The Wheat and Tares in Matthew 13:24-30, where an enemy sows weeds among a farmer's wheat. The weeds must be left to grow with the wheat until harvest because uprooting would destroy the wheat. (I remember reading elsewhere that the tares looked so similar to wheat that even experts have difficulty telling the difference with the naked eye. Only when the head matures does the difference become obvious.)

Jesus explains that the field is the world. Two kingdoms are mixed in our present reality. Referencing Augustine, Stackhouse notes that now is not the time for an apocalyptic confrontation with the enemies of Christ. Some may yet become his friends before the harvest.

So what does it mean to seek shalom in a world where "the tares" are alongside us? First, we should expect sin and plan for it.

It means refusing to live as if we were in Eden or the New Jerusalem, and instead intentionally structuring our lives, individually and corporately, with the expectation of evil. (263)

Stackhouse is critical of both Christian liberals and conservatives who see the world in stark polarities of good and evil and fail to wrestle with the ambiguity that exists in our present context. This is a concern I've had more and more with each passing year. I understand many Christians' frustration with cultural accommodation, particularly younger ones. But all too often, the response borders on millennialism, an implied, if not explicit, belief that the Church will usher in the Kingdom of God. This unchecked idealism is the root of many well-intended destructive movements throughout history. The antidote to both cultural accommodation and the variant forms of idealism is a realism of the variety Stackhouse espouses.

Second, Stackhouse wants us to deal not only with the "bad out there" but "the bad in here." What about the evil in ourselves, our families, churches, and Christian Organizations? Stackhouse writes:

One of the great oddities of so much American evangelicalism is the simultaneous commitment to American political institutions and to an ecclesiastical cultural populism. (264)

Our Constitution and foundational documents take a much dimmer view of human proclivities, carefully separating powers to avoid concentration of government with any one group or branch of government. Yet so much of evangelicalism is driven by powerful personalities in large churches with highly centralized power.

I don't think evangelicals are alone in peculiar thinking on these issues. The Emerging Church movement is mostly anti-institutional, with most folks believing in small, highly decentralized faith communities that are only loosely connected. Therefore, one might presume a heavy sympathy for libertarian politics. On the contrary, I find considerable affinity with big government solutions to almost every problem that confronts society. Emergents often seem to mirror evangelicals' image, having an almost hyper-resistance to powerful leaders in big churches or organizations while readily embracing considerable concentration of societal power in centralized governmental institutions; some virtually identify "social justice" with government action. I suspect this may be due to a reaction against the large church with a powerful pastor model and the libertarian-leaning nature of many evangelicals more than a well-reasoned theological response to culture.

Third, we should not despair because evil is always among us. There is fruit that is growing as well. Law will not bring about total righteousness but can establish minimal boundaries allowing us to flourish. (Personally, I like to think in terms of Chesterton's language of "making room for good things to run wild.”) We can always live better than the law, but we also recognize we will not achieve life as it will be in the new creation. All-or-nothing attitudes (left or right) toward societal engagement are destructive, sacrificing actual incremental improvement for idealistic principles. Picking our battles and nudging the world toward greater shalom in all we do is our mission in the mixed field we live in.

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Best of It: Vocation (Part 5)

[Series Index]

John Stackhouse makes some important closing observations at the end of the chapter on vocation in Making the Best of It.

We've talked about human and Christian vocation, but Stackhouse astutely notes that our lives have temporal nature. I don't know who originally said it, but I've always liked the observation that time is what keeps everything from happening at once.  

Reflecting on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Stackhouse points out that life has rhythm and flow. There are one-time events, like birth and death, and cyclical activities, like planting and harvesting. There are also episodic events like childhood, school, jobs, marriage, parenting, retirement, etc. Each of these demands certain things and restricts us from doing other things. There is a time for everything under heaven. We don't do everything all at once. We must always ask, "What time (or season) is it?" based on where we find ourselves.

This raised two important issues for me. First is the issue of boundaries. Stackhouse touches on the issue of particularity at places in his book. We are each unique limited beings. It occurs to me that we are not the savior of the world. And even when the world's savior was with us in the flesh, he occasionally walked away from demanding crowds to be alone with the Father. He also spent only three of his thirty years in ministry recorded in the gospels. There are limits to what we can and should try to do.

For instance, I have little doubt that we American Christians don't do enough when it comes to poverty. Yet I get weary of the endless guilt trips and moralistic browbeating by those who advocate justice. If I had given up everything I owned, quit eating and consuming, and died a few days later from starvation, the world would not be changed. In fact, it would likely be worse off because it would not benefit from the jobs created and sustained by participation in the economy, and it would not have the regular offerings I will give every year over the next decades to help address poverty. (These are just two factors.) There are limits to what I can do.

There are two unhealthy consequences of moralistic idealism. First is compassion fatigue. The problem becomes so overwhelming that people despair of ever having an impact. They simply live their lives and ignore the problem. Others become so absorbed in fighting the problem that they become slothful in other human and Christian vocation aspects. Relationships and the witness of the Church suffer as a result. I'm persuaded that sustainable healthy change comes when significant numbers of people learn to exhibit compassion and justice within the boundaries of their existence. I'm fully aware that this can be characterized as a rationalization for doing less than my part, but I don't think that is true. There is a tension between broad vocation and personal limitation, and I don't think the Church has done well at helping us live in that tension. No formula will answer the question.

The second issue this raised for me was pride and parochialism. It is easy to get caught up in what has lit a flame in our hearts and begin to trivialize all others not energized by our passions. Each of us is in different life stages and life episodes. God does not call us all to the same service … as Stackhouse wrote, we are all members, not microcosms, of the Church. I think each of us has to work to celebrate and appreciate the call of others, even as we relish our particular call.

Finally, Stackhouse reflects briefly on mission and vocation. He writes:

He [God] aims to rescue, revolutionize, and renew all of creation toward its maturation in shalom. (25)

Considering all the above, we will always ask, what will do the most for the Kingdom? What will bring the greatest shalom? What does this mean in terms of my relationships, my work, and my recreation? This is where the tetralectic  (reason, tradition, experience, and Scripture) comes into play. All that we do touches on our human and Christian vocation. Therefore, Stackhouse concludes the chapter on this note:

When someone asks, therefore, "What are you doing for the Kingdom?" we might well reply with any of the following:

• I'm mowing the lawn.
• I'm washing the dishes.
• I'm making a puzzle with my three year-old.
• I'm paying the bills.
• I'm composing a poem.
• I'm talking with my mother on the phone.
• I'm teaching a neighbor child how to throw a ball.
• I'm writing the mayor.
• I'm preaching.

Everything. Everywhere. Every moment. That is the scope of God's call on our lives, and that is the dignity our lives enjoy. (259)

Next week we begin Chapter 8, "Principles of a New Realism."

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Best of It: Vocation (Part 4)

[Series Index]

We continue with the chapter on vocation in Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse. So far, we have looked at human vocation in terms of “all, some, and individuals.” In the last post, we looked at Christian vocation in terms of “all” Christians. Today we continue with Stackhouse’s observations about “some and individuals.”

Christian Vocation

All

See previous post

Some

Stackhouse sees the Church engaging the world through many institutional means. He is not fond of the label “parachurch” organizations. These organizations are not additives to cure deficiencies. They are modes through which the Church is deployed.

Furthermore, Stackhouse is not particularly troubled by the presence of multiple denominations and their traditions. He is not necessarily excited about the performance of traditional ecumenical bodies per se (ex. World Council of Churches or World Evangelical Alliance), but he does think that the differences can be mutually invigorating to the body. They may actually enhance the witness of the Church. He uses differences over pacifism as an example. He believes (and I agree) that war is a thorny issue that is not easy to resolve regarding Christian ethics. The faithful witness of Christians in the military may positively shape how the military functions. The faithful witness of pacifists will always serve as a thorny reminder to the rest of us that we dare not lightly take Jesus’ teaching on peace and nonresistance. Our ecumenism should be one of tension where there one sharpens the other, not purely a lowest-common-denominator relationship that too many ecumenical bodies develop.

Concerning congregations, Stackhouse writes:

Therefore, many congregations have never asked a fundamental question: “What can and should we try to do for ourselves and those God has called us to serve?” They certainly have never asked the corollary question, “What shall we deliberately not do, or at least not do very much of, in order to faithfully execute God’s particular plan for our ministry?” Churches all too often attempt to do a little bit of everything, and end up with mediocrity and ineffectiveness on every front. (249)

Amen! The same could be said about certain denominational structures I work with but we’re improving.

Individuals

“God wants his people to be in every walk of life, in every social stratum, in every ethnic group, in every location precisely to maximize his influence and draw the world most effectively to himself.” (250)

Stackhouse says we should be thankful, in a sense, for our limitations. It helps us narrow the scope of our competencies for service. Rather than being resigned to our particular situations, maybe we should consider whether we have been assigned to them. We can take great pleasure in the work we are called to do and should be able to celebrate the work others are called to do. We should not expect everyone to enjoy what we do, nor should we be disparaging of the work that others do.

The diversity of gifts is a good thing. Stackhouse writes that each of us is a member, not a microcosm, of the Church. Another important point he makes is that some people’s spiritual gifts may have nothing to do with their workweek skills (ex., a high-power executive who also has a gift of hospitality). He also notes that putting people’s spiritual gifts to work doesn’t necessarily mean putting them to work in a local church. We often need to be more sophisticated in thinking about spiritual gifts.

Stackhouse notes that all too often, we lavish praise on the speakers and musicians in the Church, but what about those who do the work behind the scenes that is so essential? Stackhouse writes:

A mark of the Church functioning properly surely must be the practice of inverting the normal hierarchy of honor and making sure that every member receives the recognition that he or she deserves according to the value of the Kingdom of God. (255)

Amen!

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Best of It: Vocation (Part 3)

[Series Index]

Last week we began looking at vocation as discussed in John Stackhouse’s Making the Best of It. We’ve discussed human vocation. Today we turn to Christian vocation.

Christian Vocation

All

The biblical narrative tells us that humanity has rebelled against God. God is now on a mission to redeem us and creation from this broken relationship. To this end, God has “called out” a people for himself to give witness to who he is and the new creation that is to come. He calls us to repentance. But here, Stackhouse makes a critically important distinction:

Everything else we are and do particularly as Christians connects with this mission [of giving witness.] That is not to say that mission is the sole activity of the church – contra much of the evangelical tradition and some of the Missional Church movement of our day. To say so is to substitute what Christians distinctly are to do for all that Christians are to do. Again, the creation commandments have priority: we are humans first and last, and “Christians” only temporarily. Thus the church engages in worship of God because that is the correct and healthful human response to God, to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength – not merely because worship helps the church perform it particular mission better, although it does. The church also cares for its own in fellowship because that is what people do when they are rightly related in shalom and love each other as themselves – not merely because fellowship strengthens the Body of Christ for service to others, although it does. In particular, it just isn’t true, despite its frequent repetition in some circles, that “the church is the one society that exists for the benefit of its non-members.” That’s cute but not correct. Nor is Kierkegaard’s image of the church as performers in worship with God as an audience: worship is a dialogue between God and ourselves, and he blesses us far more than we bless him, even as he gives us gifts with which to bless other as well. The church exists in the win-win-win dynamic of the Kingdom of God: to love God, to love our neighbor, and to benefit ourselves simultaneously. (234-235)

A couple of pages later, he writes:

To repeat, therefore: the church performs its distinctive redemptive calling within, and in the service of, the general call of God upon humanity to be stewards of the whole earth God. (237)

Failure to understand the redemptive call as a call within a larger call is, in my estimation, one of the single biggest dysfunctions in the life of the Church. On the one hand, are those who have all but lost any sense of God’s redemptive call, especially in terms of personal transformation, and on the other hand, those who want to make the redemptive call all there is. Stackhouse’s clarification on these issues is very helpful and absolutely crucial.

In this subsection, Stackhouse goes on to talk about the witness of the church. He notes that there are three modes in which we are a witness.

• The Church experiences something and relates that experience to others. We have stories to tell and experiences share.
• We are to be examples, imperfect as we may be, of what the Kingdom of God looks like. Others not only hear about Kingdom of God but see it alive before them.
• “Christ calls us beyond the roles of witness and example to be actual agents of mission.” We actively engage in transformative work in the world that moves the world closer to the idea of shalom. We are called to the hard work of “changing people’s loves.”

Stackhouse points again to the win-win-win dynamic of our call. Caring for others contributes to our sanctification and brings pleasure to God. A synergy in holistic witness spirals upwards toward greater shalom all the way around.

Also, Stackhouse explicitly connects the dots between our obedience to the creation commandments as integral to our obedience to the redemption commandments. The tangible expressions of the Kingdom will come in our daily acts of “dominion” and practice of the great Commandments. While human and Christian vocation cannot be confused with each other, neither can they be separated.

We have seen what Christian vocation means for “all.” Next, we look at his reflections on what it means for “some” and for individuals.”

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Best of It: Vocation (Part 2)

[Series Index]

In Making the Best of It, John Stackhouse discusses "human vocation" and "Christian vocation." Today we are looking at human vocation.

Human Vocation

All

In short:

All human beings are called by God to fulfill the creation commandments [Cultural Mandate and Great Commandments], as we have seen. We are to worship God, see each other's best interests, and care for the rest of creation. … There are no "netural actions (Mt 13:48; Eph. 4:29 NASB). One is either making a contribution toward shalom or one is not. (223)

Stackhouse has already made clear that we will not see perfect shalom until the consummation of the new creation, but here he aims at complacency … everyone remaining in their "station" and preserving the status quo while we wait for "pie in the sky by and by." The world is deeply marred by the fall, but substantial movement in the direction of shalom is possible.

Like the seeds of leaven of Jesus' parables that are diffused and then influence all around them, Christians must quietly, steadily, and sometimes dramatically effect change – as Christians have, whether in the development of constitutional government, the rise of science, the abolition of slavery, the empowerment of women, the recognition of universal human rights, and more. (224-225)

The challenge is discerning what shalom looks like and having a robust appreciation for how all the particulars of human action contribute to the flourishing of creation and shalom. Everyone has a legitimate role to play in moving things in the direction of shalom.

But lest we become fixated on productive labors, Stackhouse reminds us that there are "other generic human activities that deserve Christian affirmation" (226) … sports or art, for example. That some have too highly regarded these activities is no justification for their denigration. Stackhouse notes that "God is interested in more than productivity and spirituality.

Some Groups

People function in groups, and Stackhouse lists examples ranging from nation-states, families, banks, and sports teams. As evidenced by this assortment, God did not establish human institutions merely to restrain evil, but they exist as avenues to pursue a flourishing world. Modernity may have contributed to the multiplication of such groups, but they have always been with us.

But human institutions consist of fallen human beings. They are not benign.

One of the great useless emphases of our time, to reiterate, is the championing of community over individualism, as if the former is good and the latter bad – indeed, as if the former is a kind of cure for the latter. (228)

Communities do great harm as well. It is time to end the false dichotomy of personal conversion and social change. Both need transformation, yet transformation from either angle will not usher in the Kingdom of God.

Regarding groups, we must become more intentional and precise in how we see them contributing to shalom. Like individuals, groups get lost in their focus, and we must consistently ask how our institutions measure up to the standard of shalom.

Such a question ought to energize and direct a group, neither asking of it an impossible ideal nor releasing it to ethical complacency and thus to either stagnation or rapacity. (229)

Stackhouse also makes this important observation:

Furthermore, a Christian ethic recognizes that governments are not families and governments and families are not business, and business are not charities or families, and so on. It is a mark of ethical confusion in our time … which gives rise to the rueful (and confused) protests that you don't fire your family members or refuse to help them  if they're in any trouble. Yet it is not only all right for business to fire people but essential that they do so. It is not only all right for businesses to fire people but essential that they do so. It is not only all right for hospitals to put patient care above fiscal efficiency but essential that they do so. … Differentiation, and thus ethical clarity, is essential for the proper functioning of each kind of group. (230)

Individuals

Each individual is called by God to play a particular role in the gardening of the world. No one is useless, no one is free of responsibility, and each is called to contribute to the generic human task of contributing to shalom. (231)

Human vocation sanctifies our work. It makes it holy and a pleasure to God. However, while we all share this vocation, it does not mean that our work will always seem rewarding and fruitful. There is sin in the world and oppressive economic forces as work. Stackhouse writes:

To persist in a truly awful job is an act of faith. It shows not only that we trust God for our future but also that we believe he is not wasting us now. We have faith that he can bring good out of the most menial and even oppressive situations. (232)

Stackhouse also reminds us that none of us can do everything, and abilities and interests regarding work limit each of us. We all like some endeavors and not others. After listing several topics, he has no interest in, Stackhouse writes:

Those subjects are not dull; I am dull to them. Yet this deficiency is also a blessing and an equipment for my service in the world. (233)

A point I would add is that we should be slow to denigrate fields of study or areas of work that don't match our proclivities. The work done in other fields that we consider silly or less noble may be a source of great pleasure to God and the people he has called to work in those areas. Clearly, there is work that does not honor God, but I often wonder how closely my boundaries approximate God's.

The bottom line for Stackhouse is that whatever we do, we must persistently ask what will most increase shalom.

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Best of It: Vocation (Part 1)

[Series Index]

Today we begin Chapter Seven in John Stackhouse’s Making the Best of It. This chapter deals with vocation.

The word “vocation” comes from the Latin word vocare, and thus means “calling.” In history, however, this word has become bound up with the category of “work,” albeit in three different ways. (221)

Work is vocation – Especially true of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, where “vocation” is a call to a religious career … monks, nuns, priests, and such. Others are sometimes said to have “secular priesthood,”  … for example, medicine, law, or education.

Call of Christ to every Christian – Work is not vocation. Our call is to particular Christian activities (like evangelism or charity) disconnected from an entire life pattern (like being a priest) or to economic labor.

Stackhouse was raised in this tradition and said there were only practical pieces of guidance for him:

… avoid sin (such as lying or gossiping at work, stealing office supplies, cheating on taxes, and so on) and evangelize co-workers and customers as often as possible. (221)

It sounds like Stackhouse and I have similar backgrounds.

Work is part of vocation – The root word from which we get “saints” means “to be set apart for special use.” “…Each of us are set apart by God for service.” Stackhouse notes the pervasive tendency to make distinctions between heroes and ordinaries, religious and secular, or saints and non-saints. The Reformation aimed at these dichotomies. He writes:

With this eradication of the two-tiered system in the Reformation then, came two positive teachings: all (legitimate) work is blessed by God, and vocation is more than work. Vocation is the divine calling to be a Christian in every mode of life, public as well as private, religious as well as secular, adult as well as juvenile, corporate as well as individual, females as well as male. Thus to be a Christian in every mode of life is to show something of what it means to be a (redeemed and renewed) human being as well.

From these basic considerations, let us proceed to analyze vocation in nine sub-categories: two sets of three, and then a third trio that affects the first two. (222)

In case you hadn’t noticed, Stackhouse is embracing option number three.

Another pairing that immediately comes to my mind is “clergy” and “laity.” In the fall of 2005, I wrote a post addressing this issue. In short, the adjective “laity” (laikos) is not in the Bible. The word has the connotation of being from the profane common masses. It was a synonym for idiots, meaning nonprofessional … it is also the word from which we get idiot. :-) “Clergy” comes from the word kleros. It means “inheritance.” Whenever it is used, it refers to the entire people of God (laos tou theo). The entire community is God’s inheritance, not a select specialized few. There are no “clergy and laity” or “clergy and the people.” Only the people are the clergy, and from among the people, some are called and gifted for leadership.

Okay. I’m off my soapbox now, and we can move into Chapter Seven.

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Best of It: The Story and the Mission (Part 7)

[Series Index]

Today we wrap up Chapter Six from John Stackhouse's Making the Best of It. We've been talking about "The Story and the Mission." In the previous two posts, we looked at the Creation Commandments: Creation Mandate and the Great Commandments. Today we turn to the two Redemption Commandments: The New Commandment and the Great Commission.

Redemption Commandments

The New Commandment

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (Jn. 13:34-35)

Stackhouse emphasizes, "This is not a simple reiteration of the Great Commandment to love your neighbor, but a new commandment to love Christians in particular." (216) I think his observations here are very important. In the Old Testament, the covenant people of Israel were to be a beacon to the nations via the way they conducted their affairs. The nations would be drawn into relationship with God and their shalom by the attractive nature of their lives together. Contrary to many who want to make the church solely about outward mission, Stackhouse believes Jesus' command parallels Old Testament Israel with the church as the shalom-filled community that draws outsiders into community and relationship with God. We work from the particularity of our own context outward to the universal. I think Stackhouse offers an important corrective here.

The Great Commission

Stackhouse says, "What is fundamentally wrong with the world is that human worship of something of other than God." (218) If "being one" is the centripetal force that draws people in, then the Great Commission is the centrifugal force that sends the church out in mission to encourage them to abandon false gods.

So how do the Redemption commandments fit into God's overall mission? Stackhouse writes:

 … The redemption commandments were given, therefore, not to supersede the creation commandments, but to serve them."

To obey full the creation commandments is to live in the Kingdom of God. Thus Jesus' proclamation of the arrival of the Kingdom is the proclamation that God is setting things right, with himself properly in the center and everyone and everything else accordingly being put in its proper place. To live in the light of the Kingdom is to live in shalom, and to seek the Kingdom is to see a world in which the creation commandments are once again honored by everyone, every moment, in everything. (219)

I thought this paragraph was particularly important:

… we must not restrict Christian ethics to the project of redemption and thus to its particular vocabulary of self-sacrifice and non-coercive invitation. Yes, redemption is all about these things. But redemption is not all that we're about. To say so would be to misunderstand the New [Testament] as being cut off from and uninformed by the Old [Testament] – and by its own eschatology. Rather, we must see the redemptive project and vocabulary as relating to the distinctive (but not the total) work of the church, which is nested within and indeed contributive to the generic mission of all human beings to cultivate the world. (219-220)

One thing Stackhouse noticed that I had observed as well is the seeming parallel between God's creation mandate to "fill the earth" with his co-regent eikons and the net effect of the Great Commission, which, if successful, would result in a world filled with God's co-regent eikons. The inhabited world would be brought under dominion. Old and New have the same objective.

Well, there you have it. It only took seven posts, but there is my summary of "The Story and the Mission." I'm sure I've massacred some of what Stackhouse has written, but hopefully, I've given you a taste of this meaty chapter. In my opinion, he has pulled together a masterful summary.

What are your thoughts about Stackhouse's characterization of the story and mission?

Next, we will turn to Chapter Seven, "Vocation."

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Best of It: The Story and the Mission (Part 6)

[Series Index]

Yesterday we looked at the cultural mandate as part of the Creation Commandments, as discussed in John Stackhouse’s Making the Best of It. Today we turn to the other part of the Creation Commandments, “The Great Commandments.”

Creation Mandates

The Great Commandments

Drawing on the teaching of the Torah, Jesus identified the greatest commandments as loving God and loving neighbor as ourselves. However, Stackhouse sees this pair as implicit in relationships extending back to the Garden of Eden. Thus, they are part of the Creation Commandments.

Three implications. First, these two commandments are the core of all ethical considerations. Stackhouse emphasizes again that loving God or neighbor is not an antithesis to loving ourselves. Because we are all part of the matrix of relationships, our welfare is inextricably linked to the welfare of others. Obedience to these commands creates win-win-win situations.

Second, love is about positive action, not merely avoiding sin. He writes, “Our mission is to get things done, not to avoid getting dirty, or bloody, in the process—and … we must recognize that loving God and one’s neighbor in this troubled and troubling world often entails dirt and blood.” (211)

He dwells on this second implication. One concern he has is the view that individuals are to be loving to each other but, “... the lesser standard of justice is applied to governments and other secular institutions.” (211) Justice alone won’t cut it. Love must be expressed through these institutions. He emphasizes that by “love,” he does not mean personal affection but “… rather, to benefit the other beyond his or her just deserts. Business, schools, hospitals, and governments, among other collectivities, can indeed love in this sense.” (212)

Stackhouse offers the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Germany and Europe after World War II. Yes, the U. S. garnered geopolitical benefits, but others benefited enormously from the plan. “To benefit from an act of love doesn’t make it less loving or less shalom-producing.” (212) We are not God, and our resources are not unlimited, but we often can promote a measure of shalom through collective efforts.

The Sermon on the Mount is revisited. He makes the case that Jesus’ examples are not life-threatening contexts. The core ethic is about going beyond what is strictly necessary to express the love of God to enemies. There is danger in generalizing these teachings to instances of extreme danger or police action.

Third, our neighbors do the will of God when they love God and neighbor, and we can cooperate with them in their work. Discernment is clearly needed in knowing how to partner. “Indeed, part of exercising dominion over the world is to engage in such discernment, for we are responsible to cultivate the good and weed out the bad as best we can.” (215)

At this juncture (page 215), Stackhouse introduces a lengthy footnote where he takes Yoder, Hauerwas, and many Anabaptists to task for their refusal to participate in various aspects of government and society. They would say that Christian Realists are not fully obeying God, but Stackhouse counters that the cultural mandate compels us to exercise dominion over the earth, that all powers are under Christ, and that the body of Christ is mandated (via the cultural mandate) to participate in authority bearing structures in pursuit of a more shalom-filled world. He offers a great quote by Oliver O’Donovan (Desire of the Nations, 12), “The prophet is not allowed the luxury of perpetual subversion. After Ahab, Elijah must anoint some Hazael or Jehu.”

I appreciate significant portions of Anabaptist teaching, but two areas cause me to part ways. One is that I do not believe the “two Kingdoms” can be so neatly delineated and behavior segregated, as some Anabaptists suggest. The other is that assuming we could discern the lines, I don’t buy the separatist mandate in light of the cultural mandate that Stackhouse identifies.

One area where I might part with Stackhouse (more to a degree, probably, than in outright disagreement) is his optimism about large institutions, especially government, doing good. I don’t deny that these institutions have obligations beyond minimal justice. I would simply argue that love is best and most constructively expressed at the level of close community relationships (i.e., family, church, and friends). Other entities are subsidiaries of these localized networks of human relationships.

Here I’m thinking all the way back to Aristotle’s response to Plato’s notion of taking children from their parents to be raised in a collective where no child would be given familial advantage. Aristotle countered that the biological bond of parents to children inspires parents to provide, care, and sacrifice for children in a way no collective could equal. Whatever gains might be had by equalizing opportunities would be much less than the advantage of the devotion of adults to children through familial ties. Overall, we are best cared for by those to whom we are related and in close community.

In my estimation, some government programs can have a corrosive effect on familial/community ties to the point where family and community networks become peripheral, if not superfluous, to our lives. While I can endorse that government has a role beyond minimal justice, considerable discernment is needed to avoid harm, much less to be able to do good.

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Best of It: The Story and the Mission (Part 5)

[Series Index]

The last half of Chapter Six in John Stackhouse's Making the Best of It is titled "Mission: The Four Commandments." Stackhouse identifies two sets of commandments.

• Creation Commandments: The cultural mandate and the great commandments.
• Redemption Commandments: The new commandment and the Great Commission.

Today we start with the first of the Creation Commandments, the Cultural Mandate.

Creation Commandments

The Cultural Mandate

The early chapters of Genesis are clear: we were created to bring all the earth under cultivation and to exercise dominion over it. We are "… to make a garden of the whole planet as "little lords," as deputies of God, doing his kind of work and in obedience to his commandments." (206) Stackhouse sees three implications here.

1. First, caring for the earth and making the best of it is our primary duty under God. (206)

As I've noted, Stackhouse is going to explore other commandments, but he emphasizes that, "...whatever we are to be and to do, in the Bible's account we literally are gardeners first." (206)

2.  … all of our fellow human beings share the dignity and responsibility of this commandment. (207)

Those who obey the creation mandate end up blessing humanity whether they intend to do so or not. However, work that is not contributing to the welfare of the earth and bringing a measure of shalom is not in accord with the mandate. Positive good is mandated, not merely harmlessness. Stackhouse goes on to make a very important qualification:

There is a danger here, to be sure, of seeing this matter through too narrow a sense of shalom and therefore too narrow a sense of what can count as worthy work, art, and so on. Advertising, cosmetics, and fashion, for example, are pursuits that are easily written off by Christians (and others) for their obvious excesses and evils, while we usually fail to credit their virtues: that advertising can help us make good decisions amid the welter of choice we must make in a wealthy society; that cosmetics can beautify the body in the same way in which we ingenuously beautify our homes or churches; and that fashion can reflect both our creativity and our limitations, as we cannot and do not think of design possibilities all at once, but formulate, elaborate, and enjoy them only seriatim. Yet a properly broad understanding of shalom can then help us condemn harmful advertising, vain cosmetics, and stupid fashion, even as it helps us sort through other issues in culture: what is worth doing, and what should be discarded as in fact vain/worthless/empty, let alone positively evil? (208-209)

3. Third, we must not let ourselves be driven to bad consciences, let alone self-loathing, by ecological extremists who are so unhappy about how we have harmed the earth they condemn human dominion, if not humanity itself, as a curse. (209)

God made us to bless the earth by exercising dominion. God did not want us to leave as few footprints as possible, leaving the earth alone as much as we can. He commanded us instead to spread out, over the whole globe, and bring it all under our influence, to subdue it for his own good, and make it even more fruitful, beautiful, and sustainable, under God's guidance and power he invested in it. We dare not be cowed into relinquishing this role out of shame that we have performed it badly heretofore. We must take it up afresh, do the best we can, and look forward to the shalom that our administration will bring, in concert with Christ's rule, in the world to come. (209)

I think this emphasis on the creation mandate is absolutely crucial. The Great Commission (which we will come to shortly) is critical, but it is penultimate and temporary compared to the creation mandate. When the new creation is consummated, the Great Commission expires. If the Great Commission is our ultimate purpose, we cease to have a reason for existence when the new creation is consummated.

The "good news" is the redemption of all creation and humanity. We were made material beings to exercise dominion in a material world. If humanity is to be redeemed, then redemption our creation mandate is central. Ontologically we are dominion-exercising beings, and, unlike the Great Commission, the creation mandate extends into the new creation.

Some of our churches are now talking about the creation mandate and a "sustainable" world, but far too often, the rhetoric belies an anti-technology, anti-market, even anti-human, natural romanticism. On the other extreme is a tendency to see our daily work lives purely as contexts for personal evangelism and the practice of personal piety. We need to grasp the centrality of the creation mandate better.

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Best of It: The Story and the Mission (Part 4)

[Series Index]

We continue Chapter Six, "The Story and the Mission," in John Stackhouse's' Making the Best of It. Yesterday we ended with this observation by Stackhouse:

Implicit in this vision of the New Jerusalem and fundamental to the Christian ethos is what I call the principle of "win-win-win." Shalom is an all-embracing life of mutual contribution and benefit. Within it, individuals and groups are never finally in a situation of choosing whether to benefit themselves or others, never finally in a situation of choosing to honor God or their own well-being. Much of Christian piety and preaching, I daresay, has been importantly misguided and misleading on this account, so let's expand on this theme. (203-204)

What he has to say in the following paragraphs is so important. It is of particular importance for thinking about economic ethics. I will say more after this lengthy quote.

Frequently in Christian ethics, a doctrine of "unselfishness" has been commended. Often this rather negative virtue is connected with the positive virtue of agape as the highest and best form of love and defined as utterly other-focused self-giving. A related theme, particularly in Lutheran and Calvinistic circles, has "the glory of God," as if the pinnacle of piety is to seek God's glory at the expense of one's own utter loss.

The amazing paradox of Christian teaching here, however, is that losing one's life is the way to save it (Mt. 16:24-27). Spending one's goods on others is the way to pile up treasures of much greater value that will last forever (Mt. 19:21). Altruism is in one's own interest – including God's own interest. I need to say this carefully, so I will hew closely to the words of Scripture: Jesus suffered and sacrificed himself on the cross "for the joy set before him (Heb. 12:2), not in a zero-sum game in which he simply had to lose so we would gain. Yes, of course that is partly true also: "by his poverty you have become rich" (II Cor. 8:9). But it was a temporary sacrifice, a temporary poverty. It was an expenditure that was truly costly – may I not be misunderstood as denigrating the grace of God in Christ – but it was spent so as to bring joy to God, as well as to bring salvation to us. It is never one or the other.

For that is the nature of love: God's joy is bound up in our well-being. As Irenaeus put it, "the glory of god is a man fully alive!" and the Westminster Shorter Catechism responds, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever." Our joy, when we are properly oriented to the world, is bound up in the well-being of everything else. The shepherd exerts himself to find the lost sheep because he cares about the sheep, yes, and his worry about the sheep makes him anxious and sad. So both the sheep and the shepherd return to the fold with joy (Mt. 18:12-14). It is ridiculous to try to pull apart what is, in the nature of the case, a seamless unit: my well-being depends upon the well-being of the beloved. Therefore it is bad ethics to urge people to care for others at their own expense in any ultimate sense. No, the Christian view of love is shalom: when you win, I win and God wins. When God wins, you win and I win. And so on, endlessly around the circle of love.

The Christian gospel, therefore, does not ask the impossible and the irresponsible: "Give up your own self-interest for others." Our self-interest is precisely that to which the gospel properly appeals: Here is how to be saved! Here is how to have life, and have it abundantly! Here is how to prepare for the everlasting joy to come! We are all in this together. Thus we work hard, truly self-sacrificially and event to the death, for everyone's benefit: God's, the world's, and mine. No zero-sum, but abundant life forever and for all. (204-205)

"Self-interest" or "Self-love" in economics are not synonyms for selfishness. When I look both ways before crossing the street or cutting sugar out of my diet for health reasons, I am clearly self-interested, but I am not selfish. Self-interest is a healthy trait. Indeed, it is essential for functioning in the world and making appropriate ethical decisions (economic or otherwise.) The human fault is not that we are self-interested but that, through sin, we routinely fail to perceive our self-interest from the vantage point of eternity correctly. To gain the whole world and lose our soul is not in our self-interest. Better to live other-centered lives as we care for ourselves, seeking the shalom of all, and inherit the Kingdom.

One of the single biggest obstacles I have in talking with many sincere Christians about economic issues is self-interest … particularly folks from more pietistic influences. When I highlight passage after passage where Jesus, Paul, or others appeal to self-interest to motivate action, these folks go through mental gymnastics to avoid hearing what is unmistakably there. Since market economics are rooted in the idea of win-win transactions, where parties freely exchange with each for goods, they value more than what they give up to get them (based on their perceived self-interest), it is all but impossible for some Christians to give market transactions validity. How could they have validity when they involve self-interest when we are supposed to empty ourselves?

We are fallen human beings, and we do not fully perceive what our self-interest is. No market economy will bring perfect shalom. (But, of course, any attempt to regulate and control markets is also made by fallen human beings.) Far too many Christian thinkers and activists incorrectly assail "self-interest" when wrestling with economic issues. In reality, I think that our powers of perceiving self-interest are what need to be redeemed by God so the win-win-win shalom Stackhouse writes about can be more fully realized.

The misguided doctrine of "unselfishness" extends to far more than economic matters, but it is one place I confront it regularly.

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(Related: See my posts Economic Fallacies: "Capitalism Based on Greed" and Self-Interest and Benevolence: Partners, not Antonyms (Part 1).

Best of It: The Story and the Mission (Part 3)

[Series Index]

We return to Chapter 6, “The Story and the Mission,” in John Stackhouse’s Making the Best of It.

I’ve been reviewing the chapter section “The Christian Story – and Us Within It.” So far, we’ve seen how the biblical story might inform our ethical considerations and noted the importance of keeping the whole Bible together as God’s inspired word. We need to move on in this chapter, which is very challenging. This chapter is like a big fat steak that needs lots of chewing. So I’ve given up squeezing it into two or three posts. There will be at least two or three more after this one.

The Core Ethical Question and Response

On page 194, Stackhouse writes:

We have implicitly circled around a fundamental point of dispute in Christian ethics, so let us now take it on: what are Christians today to make of the deeds and words of Jesus in his earthly career?

Stackhouse identifies two common responses. One is a dispensationalist scheme that places Jesus’ example and instruction in a previous dispensation that no longer applies to us today. He doubts that many of his readers connect with this response so he moves on to the second.

The second response:

This view affirms that Jesus meant literally what he said and intended us to do what he did. The Sermon on the Mount is meant to be applied directly, as everything else in the gospels. Any ethical alternatives to this literalism are then scorned as disobedient compromises with the world, as failures to take up the cross with vigor and courage, as substandard and ultimately sinful. (195)

Stackhouse gives three reasons why this response is not coherent.

Internally incoherent – Passages about turning the other cheek are present along passages that would have us gouge our eyes or cut off limbs to avoid sin. We are told not to resist evil. Should parents not resist the exhibition of evil in their children? Should churches not exercise discipline? Literal application would seem to suggest we should.

Incoherent within the Christian Story – Jesus alone lives totally within the Kingdom of God. We are part of the Kingdom in its not yet fully realized state and it is futility to believe we can achieve it.

Incoherent with 2,000 years of Christian experience – From Jesus’ day to present, we’ve not seen evidence of people living at this ethical level. It doesn’t prove that it can’t be done but it puts the burden of proof on those who would argue otherwise. We are mandated to begin the journey toward completeness but we do not realize it until the consummation of the new creation.

We Aren’t Destined for the Garden

Next, Stackhouse tackles one issue I’ve repeatedly visited on my blog. The Christian story begins in a garden but does not end there. Nor does it end with humanity ascending into some ethereal, heavenly existence. It ends with a garden city … the New Jerusalem. It is not a new ex nihilo creation but the redemption of the old creation. He quotes all of Revelation 21:1-22:5 to make his point. Then he writes:

This vision is our “imagined future,” without a clear sense of which no one can resist the relentless conformist pressures of our culture and strive for something different or better. This vision is the hope of shalom, the rich Hebrew word that goes far beyond the cessation of hostility and disruption to encompass flourishing: each element (human, animal, plant, and so on) flourishing as itself, enjoying flourishing relationships with everything else, and joining with all creation in flourishing relationship with God.  … (202)

The New Jerusalem vision has five implications: (202-203)

1. “The individual matters, and so does the social. …”
2. “The physical matters, and so does the spiritual. …”
3. “Unity matters, and does diversity. …”
4. “The world to come is in continuity with this world, and fulfills the noble aspirations of this world, even as it clearly transcends this world. …”
5. “Implicit in this vision of the New Jerusalem and fundamental to the Christian ethos is what I call the principle of “win-win-win.” Shalom is an all-embracing life of mutual contribution and benefit. Within it, individuals and groups are never finally in a situation of choosing whether to benefit themselves or others, never finally in a situation of choosing to honor God or their own well-being. Much of Christian piety and preaching, I daresay, has been importantly misguided and misleading on this account, so let’s expand on this theme.”

Stay tuned until tomorrow when I look at his expansion on point 5. I want to quote him at length on this one because of its significance to economic ethics.

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Best of It: The Story and the Mission (Part 2)

[Series Index]

We continue our discussion from Chapter 6 in John Stackhouse's Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World.

One of Stackhouse's big concerns (which I share) is the privileging of one portion of the Bible over another. All of Scripture must be held in the context of the rest of Scripture. There is no way to make sense of the New Testament without the Old Testament. We can't understand the significance of the Old Testament without the lens of the New Testament.

Some in the Protestant tradition are inclined to lift a portion, say, Romans as the interpretive key through which everything must be processed. Recently, another model of this thinking has emerged. Some have taken to calling themselves "Red Letter Christians." (See this recent article.) In light of that, I wanted to quote Stackhouse at length on this mode of thinking:

“What would Jesus do?’ therefore is the wrong question for Christian ethics. If we keep asking it, moreover, we will keep making the perennial mistakes many have made, such as prioritizing church work over daily trades (“because Jesus gave up carpentry for preaching the gospel”); valorizing singleness, at least for clergy (”because Jesus didn’t marry”); and denigrating all involvement in the arts, politics, or sports (“because we never read of Jesus painting a picture or participating in political discussions, much less kicking a ball”). Instead, “What would Jesus want me or us to do, here and now?” is the right question – or, if I may, Who are we, for Jesus Christ today?

Connected with this material issue, the issue of the imitation of Christ as the main motif of Christian discipleship, is a formal issue for ethical method. Many Christians, including some quite sophisticated theologians, seem to equate the priority of Christ himself versus other figures with the priority of the gospels versus other books of the Bible, such as the prophets or the epistles. But this is an important hermeneutical error (bemusingly reminiscent of 1 Cor. 1:12: “I belong to Paul” or “I belong to Cephas” or “I belong to Christ.”), and in at least four respects.

First, even though the gospels come first in the canon of the New Testament, they are probably not the earliest testimonies to Jesus in the Bible. Paul’s early letters, most scholars agree, predate most or all of the four gospels. So if we are seeking access to the most primitive layer of “Jesus tradition,” in terms of whole books (rather than this pericope or that saying or this hymn or that parable in the gospels), Paul’s work would deserve priority.

Second, we should not be privileging whatever we guess is the earlier material in the New Testament versus the later, because all of it is inspired by God and therefore has the same status: Holy Scripture. Any historian knows that sometimes later accounts are better than earlier ones precisely because the later accounts can have benefited from access to several earlier accounts plus perspective that only time can bring. So there is neither theological nor historical ground for preferring “earlier” to “later” – and that goes for preferring Mark’s gospel to John’s too.

Third, privileging the gospels in the name of privileging Jesus would make sense in terms of the relative status of the Lord Jesus versus his disciples, the epistle writers Paul, Peter, John, and others. But the gospels are authored not by Jesus but by other Christians: traditionally, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So to privilege them is simply to prefer Matthew to Paul, or Mark to Peter, or John to, well, John (I-III John) – which reduces to a preference of genre, of gospels versus epistles. Such a preference hardly has literary or theological merit. (Indeed, the championing of the gospels over the rest of the New Testament is particularly odd coming from educated Christians, who sound as if they have discovered a red-letter edition of the Bible, except that their new version prints all of the gospels in red ink, while the rest of the Bible remains in black.)

Finally, the story of Jesus is, of course, the key to history. But to emphasize the gospels over the rest of the New Testament is to forget that Jesus is Lord over all of history, Head of the church that succeeds him in earthly ministry, and in fact Author of the whole New Testament via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – as he is the God who inspired the whole Bible. The better hermeneutical path, therefore, is to keep clearly in view what each of the books of the Bible has to offer us and to draw upon them according to their distinctive natures, regarding not only their genre strengths and limitations but also the place of their subject matter in the Christian Story. We Christians are not to be forever repristinating the experience of the disciples trooping about with Christ in ancient Judea – nor, for that matter, the experience of the disciples in the early chapters of Acts. For there are more chapters in Acts, and the unfinished nature of the book has itself prompted many readers to the conclusion that God intends the rest of the church to keep writing it, generation by generation, until the Lord of the church returns, to fulfill the promise made at the book’s beginning (Acts 1:11) (190-192)

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Best of It: The Story and the Mission (Part 1)

[Series Index]

Today we begin Chapter 6, “The Story and the Mission,” in John Stackhouse’s book Making the Best of It.

“The Bible is fundamentally a story,” Stackhouse writes. (181) It flows from creation to Fall, to redemption, to consummation. Through various genres and authors, we learn what has happened and what will happen. The historicity of the Bible is important for two reasons. First, it inspires faith and trust in God because we can see what God has done in the past. Second, it helps locate where we are … sort of like a big “You are here” sticker on a map … in God’s overarching narrative. Here are a few observations Stackhouse makes about the narrative.

Creation is very good – No Gnostic spirit/matter divides with spirit being good and matter evil.

Humanity is given the mission to garden the planet – As the development of human culture is inherent in Genesis mandates to exercise dominion and care for the garden, human culture is part of the creation that is “very good.”

The creation story must be held in context of the larger story – Some today reason as if we were still in Eden. Many seem to think, “If something can be shown to be “natural” – that is, unaffected by and not a product of human action – then it is pronounced “good.” (184) He raises the example that first came to my mind, which is the prevalent argument that because homosexual orientation is “natural,” it is, therefore, part of God’s good creation. I’ll add here that many things that are good are “natural” but so are some terrible things, like the genetic code that has caused muscular dystrophy with two of my siblings. Stackhouse correctly points out that we cannot reason from “is” to “ought.”

“Dominion” is about responsible authority, not domination – Dominion is “… authority that is wielded under the authority of another, as the Canadian Parliament governs under the authority of the Queen.” (185) Exercising dominion is done with care, sustenance, and creativity, on behalf of others, according to the purposes of the regent who ultimately rules. Stackhouse writes, “For who benefits from the gardener doing his work well, the gardener or the garden? Clearly, they both do.” (185) Echos here of Darrell Cosden’s observations that the natural world is both our habitat and the object of our work.

Culture is an expression of our image-bearing nature – Culture is a natural consequence of God’s image-bearers being in community, but culture has been corrupted at epistemological and ethical levels through human rebellion. The first city mentioned in the Bible (Enoch, built by Cain) and the city of Babel are the antithesis of Eden. Yet in the Biblical narrative, we see God establish the “good city” of Jerusalem, and in the end, we see the Biblical metaphor for the new creation is the New Jerusalem. God redeems human culture.

“Who are we, for Jesus Christ, today?” – Scripture, OT, and NT, were written in particular socio-cultural contexts, often addressing very particular problems. We can’t directly apply much of what the Bible says. It has to be interpreted. Nor should we look at models from a particular context as transcendental guidance. For instance, with the popular “What would Jesus do?” movement, we could conclude that Jesus abandoned “worldly” work to do “ministry.” He lived a life of singleness. Therefore, we shouldn’t marry or involve ourselves in arts or politics and should go about doing “ministry.” Stackhouse points out that the better question is, “Who are we, for Jesus Christ, today?” “… Jesus calls us not to do his work but to extend his work – indeed, to perform ‘greater works than these’ (Jn. 14:12)” (190)

There is much more to follow in Chapter 6. In the next post, we will look at contemporary attempts to privilege one part of Scripture over the others.

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Best of It: Methods in Ethics

[Series Index]

We have been reviewing John Stackhouse’s book Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World. We now enter part three of the book “Making the Best of It” (Chapters 5-8), where Stackhouse builds his case for Christian realism. Today we will look at chapter five, “Method in Ethics: A Sketch.”

Method in Ethics

Discipleship

“I take discipleship to be the fundamental concept in the Christian ethos.”  (165) God calls us into friendship and servanthood and adopts us into family. Stackhouse writes:

Let us posit two axioms about Christian discipleship: (1) the primary calling of Christians is to increase in knowledge and love of God and to do what he wants us to do, and (2) God will provide Christians with all we need to fulfill that calling, namely, to increase in knowledge and love of God and to work with him in mission to the world. (166)

God supplies us with the understanding we need, not necessarily the understanding we want, and not necessarily with a greater understanding the others (Christian or not.) Our reliance is on God, not on gifts of knowledge. Stackhouse goes on:

Immediately, however, we confront a paradox. We must understand that the will of God in our day-to-day lives ought to be defined as “what is consonant with God’s overarching and ultimate purposes as working out in this particular situation,” rather than as “what God would like to happen if the world had not fallen and nothing else were wrong.” (167)

I can’t stress enough how central this statement is to how I process decisions and how disturbing to me is the absence of this perspective in so much of the idealistic Christian transformation agendas (left, right, or whatever) bandied about today.

So how should we approach ethical/theological issues we confront?

A (Protestant) Christian Tetralectic

Christians have traditionally drawn on four resources: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience (i.e., The Wesleyan Quadrilateral). Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants have often weighted or coordinated the resources differently. Stackhouse believes this is a particularly Protestant view, but he believes much of it has application for other streams of the church as well. Stackhouse calls his conceptualization a “tetralectic” signifying the dynamic interactive quality of the four resources.

Scripture – The canon of sixty-six books. Scripture is typically understood to play both a foundational role (the fundamental written revelation of God) and an adjudicatory role as we wrestle with the issues.

Tradition – “… that which one generation deems worthwhile to pass on to the next. This could include formal creeds but also would include things like rituals, hymns or, “other encodings of Christian thought, behavior, and values.” Quoting G. K. Chesterton, tradition means giving one’s ancestors a vote.

Reason – While cultures may differ in what they see as authoritative data (say tradition versus science), most have a sense of things like the law of non-contradiction. Reason is an important human quality. Reason would include natural sciences, social sciences, applied sciences, and humanities.

Experience – We take into account, as individuals or communities, past experiences that relate to the issues we are considering.

Conceiving these as a quadrilateral is problematic because we may be inclined to see them as static discreet entities. Theology and Christian life are dynamic. The four resources operate as an ongoing four-way conversation … a tetralectic. Some other concerns.

First, we do not start simply with Scripture. Our knowledge of Scripture comes to us in mediated form, via some combination of family, friends, enemies, schooling, cultural flotsam and jetsam, church, reading, movies, and the like. …”

Second, we never have at our disposal simply Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. In the case of the Bible, for example, the actual Bible that we have on hand in any given case is just those portions of the Bible we can remember, that we are bringing to bear on the question, and that operate in the background shaping our presuppositions. … The tetralectic thus takes place not among Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience but among our interpretations of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

Third, it is unlikely that a single pass through the resources or – better – one round of conversation among them will be enough. The hermeneutical circle is better seen as hermeneutical spiral, in which successive readings of each resource and successive syntheses of the four resources bring us to what we hope are progressively better understandings. (173-174)

Stackhouse observes that errors in the tetralectic approach can also spiral us away from the truth. Furthermore, he cautions against binary thinking: yes or no, right or wrong, true or false. It is better to think of a strong warrant versus a weak one for taking a position, not absolutism. There is no way we can be sure we’ve collected and interpreted all relevant data correctly. (In other posts, I’ve referred to Kenneth Bailey’s posture of “tentative finality” about decisions, and I think Stackhouse has something similar in mind.) There is no, “…epistemic guarantee outside the person of God himself to guide us.” (175)

Stackhouse points out that God typically locates believers in a community and that community participation is important for positively shaping our thinking and decision-making. But Stackhouse cautions against the tendency of some to offer community as the panacea for Western “individualism.” Community also has a dark side and can lead us away from truth.

Finally, in closing the chapter, Stackhouse stresses the importance of the Holy Spirit in our discipleship. As we engage in a tetralectic dynamic, the Spirit aids in our quest. Moving more deeply into this tetralectic mode, we can better discern the Spirit’s leading. There is a type of intuition we sometimes use that makes sense of things below “articulate consciousness,” but there are also acts of the Spirit that give us insight. Whether intuition or the Spirit, these insights figure into and are tested by the tetralectic dynamic.

There you have a summary of the ethical dynamic Stackhouse sees at work in our discipleship. This is a great articulation of many of the conclusions I’ve come to over my lifetime, though Stackhouse puts them together with such artful focus and nuance. What do you think?

Next, we will spend some time in chapter six, “The Story and the Mission.”

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Best of It: Introducing Part III – “Making the Best of It”

[Series Index]

With the previous post, we completed our review of the first two parts of John Stackhouse's Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World. Part I (Chapter  1) reviewed Richard Niebuhr's five-part typology from Christ and Culture. Part II (Chapters 2-4) offered resources for thinking about Christian realism by reviewing three twentieth-century theologians: C. S. Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We turn to the final section, Part III (Chapters 5-8), "Making the Best of It."

In some ways, the book's first two parts could function as one book and the third part as another. Stackhouse declares at the beginning of Part III that he will not present us with some "corrected" version of Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism ... or directly engage these resources in developing a new version. Then why include the first two parts if he will not directly engage them?

I have chosen this less direct course partly because, while I do intend in what follows to conclude what I can as directly as I can, I fear coming to those conclusions to easily. My hope is that this exercise in tracing out the convictions of my eminent predecessors at even this relatively brief length will help us understand better the true character of their affirmations and help us avoid triggering our reflexes to overlook, repress, or misrepresent – even to ourselves, even without consciously intending to do so – any complex, odd, or even initially repellent thing they might say that we need to hear. I also frankly admire their ways of raising certain questions, setting out certain categories, and offering certain answers, so it is a pleasure to analyze these rich resources before I attempt to address some of the basic themes they bring into view. (161)

Stackhouse also employs Albert Einstein's dictum that we should simply go as far as possible – and not farther. We must put things in categories, but oversimplification is a real danger in ethics. I appreciated this paragraph.

Marx earlier warned us of the phenomenon of ideology, which is rationalization writ large on a societal scale. Those in power evolve an explanation of how they got to be in charge and how it is therefore proper for everyone else to respect the order of things and to play their respective parts with compliance and even diligence. The divine right of kings, the universally beneficial "rising tide" of capitalism, nationalist myths, and communist utopias all have been formulated as persuasive accounts of the inherent goodness of the status quo. Again, perhaps those in power have believed it themselves. (162)

So what are Stackhouse's views? We will begin that next week with a look at Chapter 5, "Method in Ethics."

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Best of It: Dietrich Bonhoeffer - The Christian and the Church in and for the World (Part 3)

[Series Index]

Today we conclude our review of the chapter on Dietrich Bonhoeffer in John Stackhouse's Making the Best of It.

Religionless Christianity. Here Bonhoeffer is thinking of religion in the sense of trying to find timeless, universal truths in Christianity just as we might in other religions – it is an exercise in getting answers to ours. Stackhouse sums up Bonhoeffer's views in this way:

We live without the God that most people want in their religion, a deity who answers their questions, soothes their anxieties, and guarantees their well-being. Instead, we are to live fully in the world that the true God has made according to the way that he has made it and according to the way it has fallen. Thus we suffer along with God, yes, but suffering as God does: in the knowledge that such work is not in vain but is right and good and effective, and with the certain hope of the eventual redemption of the world. (144)

We are responsible to act in an ambiguous and paradoxical world. But Stackhouse notes we live in a troubled world that defies easy answers. Then he offers this quote from Ethics:

If one implies that Christianity has the answer to all social and political questions of the world, so that one would have only to list to these answers to put the world in order, then this is obviously wrong …

Jesus is hardly ever involved in solving worldly problems. … Since Jesus brings the redemption of human beings, rather than the solution to problems, he indeed brings the solution to all human problems. …

Who actually says that all worldly problems should and can be solved? Perhaps to God the unsolved condition of these problems may be more important than their solution, namely, as a pointer to the human fall and to God's redemption. Human problems are perhaps so entangled, so wrongly posed, that they are in fact really impossible to solve. (145)

Relating Bonhoeffer's views, Stackhouse writes:

The world is misshapen by evil, broadly and profoundly. It is so marked, in fact, that as we follow Christ over this tortured terrain, we may encounter ethical choices that include no option that is both obvious and pure – no "straight paths." God's ways themselves are transcendent and therefore not always, or even often, apparent to us – indeed, they can appear evil to us. Thus we must be careful what lessons we draw from the Biblical narrative and from our experience of God's providence, recognizing that even with great care we may well mistake what it is we are to conclude and then do. (146-147)

Bonhoeffer was suspicious of leaning on "unmediated inspirations" as they too easily lead us into self-deception. We do have a responsibility act, however. We discern as best we can and decide confidently that God accomplishes his will through such acts ... even if we choose poorly. Stackhouse writes, "All we can do, therefore, and what we must do, therefore, is to discern our responsibility as best we can and then fulfill it." (147) This is not situational ethics but instead listening for Christ's direction and following.

Stackhouse makes more interesting observations along these lines. One critical issue is the complete absence of the Holy Spirit from the discussion, typical of his theological tradition. Doesn't the Spirit play a critical role in such discernment? While I might share some of Bonhoeffer's concerns about "unmediated inspirations," this glaring omission is a major weakness in his theology.

Eschatological hope. Stackhouse writes this about the story that Bonhoeffer saw in scripture:

"… one world, created by God, that fell into evil and has been redeemed by God through Jesus Christ. This world is the world there is, and that will be – albeit renewed (resurrected) in eternal life. Thus we must not neglect this world in honor of the next, for there is no "next" in distinction from this one: "With respect to its origin this indivisible whole is called 'creation.' With respect to its goal it is called the 'kingdom of God.'" Thus what is 'above' – that is, the blessings of heaven – is indeed given to us by grace "for this world." (154)

Direct action. In Conspiracy and Imprisonment, Bonhoeffer writes:

Is the sole task of the church to exercise love within the given worldly orders, i.e., to animate them as far as possible with a new way of thinking, to compensate for hardships, to care for the victims of these orders, and to establish within the church-community its own new order; or does the church have a mission in regard to the given worldly orders themselves, in the sense of correction, improvement, that is, of working toward a new worldly order? I. e., is the church merely to pick up victims, or must the church take hold of the spokes of the wheel itself? (155-156)

He concludes the latter, as Stackhouse says, with some anguish since he had taken a more Anabaptist view of conquering evil through nonresistance. Stackhouse says that Bonhoeffer did not naturally think about institutional politics as someone like Niebuhr might have, so he had few suggestions to offer along these lines. It was clear that at least late in life, he felt Christians have a responsibility to act, but he was deeply conflicted about appropriate action, as evidenced by his conviction of pacifism and yet feeling compelled to participate in attempts to murder Hitler.

This completes the review of the chapter on Bonhoeffer. What do you think?

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Best of It: Dietrich Bonhoeffer - The Christian and the Church in and for the World (Part 2)

[Series Index]

Today we continue our discussion of the chapter on Dietrich Bonhoeffer in John Stackhouse's Making the Best of It.

One Reality. Bonhoeffer rejected the Lutheran notion of two kingdoms in any strong sense. There is one reality, and Christ rules over all. There is the spiritual office and the kingdom of worldly authority, which should not be mixed, but God rules above both realities, and they answer to him. Stackhouse makes this observation:

Thus the state ought to recognize the church's claim to, and right to, enough space in which it can perform its central task of proclaiming "the reign of Jesus Christ over the whole world." The state – for its own sake, as a servant of God that needs a healthy, functioning church for its own healthy functioning – must no encroach on the church's territory and role (as the Nazis were doing). Without the church and its proclamation of Jesus is Lord, the state becomes, ironically, something other than truly and properly worldly. Lacking a divine reference point, it becomes idolatrous instead, as "the worldly will always seek to satisfy its unquenchable desire for its own deification." (131-132)

Obedience and resistance to the state. Because the state is also of God and because we simply can't know all that goes into decisions about any given situation, Bonhoeffer believed deference should be given to the state. God establishes it and we owe our obedience. This deference is not absolute, but when outright resistance is needed, it should focus narrowly "on those elements that have forfeited their mandate," as Stackhouse says.

Orders of preservation. Bonhoeffer was not a utopian. He believed life was deeply affected by the Fall but not dominated by it. God understood God to have created human institutions to promote good and restrain evil. Writing in Ethics:

Only insofar as church, family, work, and government mutually limit each other, insofar as each is beside and together with the others, upholding the commandment of God each in its own way, are authorized to speak from above to speak. None of these authorities can identify itself alone with the commandment of God. … (136)

Later in life, he speculated that the mandates listed might also be expanded to include things like education and culture. Stackhouse doesn't mention it, but this seems very similar to Kuyper's sphere sovereignty in some ways.

Stackhouse writes:

Bonhoeffer thus distinguished between life we now live as ordered by these institutions and the life to come in which Christ’s Lordship is direct and unimpeded. Yet he also sees that this life, what he calls the “penultimate,” is also given shape by, judged by, and inspired by the life to come, what he calls the “ultimate.” He therefore eschews both radicalism, which despises the penultimate, and capitulative compromise, which despairs of the ultimate. Instead he recommends the way of Christ, which means travelling through the world, doing what one can in the world, and confronting the world – informed and encouraged by the Christian Story (creation, Fall, redemption, and consummation) and especially by the story of Christ. These stories, of course have at their heart the divine project of redemption. (138-139)

Tomorrow we will conclude our discussion of this chapter on Bonhoeffer.

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Best of It: Dietrich Bonhoeffer - The Christian and the Church in and for the World (Part 1)

[Series Index]

We've been discussing Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse. So far, we've revisited Richard Neibuhr's Christ and Culture typology, and we've reviewed two of the three theologians Stackhouse believes we can draw on as resources for thinking about Christian realism (i.e., C. S. Lewis and Reinhold Niebuhr.) Today we turn to the third theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is the longest chapter in the book; as you might imagine, it is packed full of rich material. I'll break this into three posts, but even so, I'm simply gleaning some themes.

Stackhouse summarizes the questions Bonhoeffer pursued this way:

• How am I to understand and speak, and how are we to understand and speak?
• Who am I, and who are we?
• What am I to do in the world, and what are we to do in the world?

Christ is at the center. Bonhoeffer believed the church should be silent before Christ and the Word. Bonhoeffer wrote, "The way of Jesus Christ, and therefore the way of all Christian thinking leads not from the world to God but from God to the world." (122-123)

Bonhoeffer did not believe in Christ as "the divine principle" of liberal theology. He affirmed the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Although, Stackhouse points out that he had doubts about the Virgin Birth and the historicity of the empty tomb. In footnote 15, Stackhouse points out that Bonhoeffer seemed to look for a path between "naïve and dogmatic realism" and "skepticism," but not entirely with success.

We encounter Christ through Scripture. Bonhoeffer recognized that the Bible has its flaws, but nevertheless "… [Bonhoeffer] emphasizes God's encounter with humanity through the figure of Chris and the text of the Bible despite whatever limitations or even flaws might be discerned in either." (121) Concerning Bonhoeffer's take on the role of Scripture, Stackhouse writes:

As we continue, then, to encounter Christ particularly in Scripture, in preaching, in the sacrament, and in church fellowship, we must construct theology in order to know better who Christ is and what he wants us to be and do. Bonhoeffer was no mystic: theology is to be worked up from Biblical and historical sources with care, and only then applied to contemporary challenges. (122)

Lutheran categories – While not always agreeing with traditional Lutheran categories of "law and grace" or "two kingdoms," Bonhoeffer was in direct dialog with Lutheran theology and regularly quoted Luther himself.

"Come and Die." When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die," from The Cost of Discipleship, is probably Bonhoeffer's most quoted line. The death, however, is, "… in order to live again in life abundant. Cost of Discipleship was both "… an invitation and an instruction." (123)

"Costly grace" vs. "cheap grace." Stackhouse says that, "The Lutheran emphasis on justification by faith alone, through grace alone, had been set adrift from Luther's own concern for holiness and rectitude." (125) Cheap grace is sort of a warm fuzzy sense forgiveness of sins as a general truth that makes no demands on us. In Discipleship:

Cheap grace means justification of sin but not of the sinner. Because grace alone does everything, everything can stay in its old ways. (124)

Christ offers us costly grace … a grace which God procured at a costly price. It is a grace that calls us into discipleship and sole commitment to Jesus Christ.

Radically connected through Christ. Jesus calls out to as radically free disciples … free from family, class, nation, etc. Stackhouse writes:

"… the individual, called by Christ as such, who then is related to everything else in creation by way of Christ, who is the center. (126)

But the individual does not live and function apart from Christian community:

Our identity, Bonhoeffer asserts, is found in, and formed by life in community, and our Christian identity – our true self – takes shape in the church. The church is both the agent of God's will and a realization of God's will. (127)

This quote from Ethics was particularly important:

"… the church is not a religious community of those who revere Christ, but Christ who has taken form among human beings." (127)

Tomorrow we dive into Bonhoeffer's thoughts about the state and society.

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Best of It: Reinhold Niebuhr - Prophet of Christian Realism (Part 2)

[Series Index]

So what can we learn from Niebuhr’s Christian Realism? John Stackhouse begins his reflection on Niebuhr’s theologian in Making the Best of It with the following observations:

Niebuhr is well known for admonishing us for the sin of pride, whether in thinking we can replace the current order with one that will work nicely for everyone or in congratulating ourselves that we already have achieved a perfectly just order in this or that institution.

Western culture has paid for [the] boon of historical dynamic with two evils inhering in the historical emphasis. One is the evil of fanaticism, the consequence of giving ultimate significance to historically contingent goals and values. The other is the creative, but also confusing, Messianism, the hope for a heaven on earth, for a kingdom of universal peace and righteousness.

Communism is one of Niebuhr’s main examples of the latter delusion, but he relentlessly chides his fellow liberals for their unwarranted and dangerous optimism about democracy and capitalism as well.

Niebuhr also, however, cautions against the complementary sin, a sin that is perhaps in more need of exposure today in a time of greater doubt, even despair, over the possibility of real, lasting, and beneficial transformation of ourselves or of the institutions in which we work. … (102)

Pragmatism (in the colloquial sense) was an important value to Niebuhr. He warns against allowing any nation or party to become identified with the promise of the Kingdom of God. Specifically, Niebuhr warned that, “The tendency to equate our political with our Christian convictions causes politics to generate idolatry.”

Stackhouse sums up Niebuhr’s realism this way:

We might say, then, that Niebuhr’s realism – the belief that there is a transcendent standard and, indeed, a transcendent God, which both judge us and lures us on to excellence – chastens the modern idea of progress for its pride, but also chastens the postmodern idea of radical relativism for its despair. We must not assume that we can completely remake anything in our world, but we also must not assume that things must remain as they are. Instead, we must make the best of them, neither in proud confidence nor in slothful acquiescence, but in hopeful faithfulness to, and in, the command and power of God. (105)

In some aspects, Niebuhr seems to me to have been a bit quirky. His failure to entertain the idea that Biblical “myths” could have been stylized accounts of actual events seems to me to have compromised his theology somewhat. Another area Stackhouse thinks Niebuhr was significantly deficient in addressing was the role of the Church as an institution. “How should the church as an institution, and not just as well-intentioned individuals, function on behalf of justice and the highest ideal of love?” (111) This is very fuzzy in Niebuhr’s writing.

When I read Niebuhr (many years ago in college), I remember having an ambivalent reaction. His peculiar theological views caused me to be suspicious of his broader theological project. Yet his emphasis on epistemic humility (previous post) has been a core concern of mine my entire adult life. I think it was reading Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman’s The Social Construction of Reality back in college that really jelled this concern for me. It makes me deeply skeptical of both the religious right and the liberal/progressive/emergent communities of the Church. That modernism has been dogged by hubris in its worship of scientific and economic models is a given to me. But I’m also every bit as skeptical of the certainty transformationists have (right and left), believing they have correctly divined the shape and form of the Kingdom of God and have the agenda to realize it (or approximate it) in our time. Things like young-earth creationism, the ID movement on the right, and the frequently sophomoric reflection on economic issues on the left do not fill me with confidence.

I find a lot that I like about Niebuhr’s realism in this chapter, but there are too many qualifications I would need to make to say that I embrace his views. How about you? How does Niebuhr strike you?

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Best of It: Reinhold Niebuhr - Prophet of Christian Realism (Part 1)

[Series Index]

Reinhold Niebuhr was premier among American intellectuals in the mid-twentieth century but today is rarely read in seminaries or elsewhere in academia. Critics like Stanley Hauerwas criticize him as a "chaplain to power." His "Christian Realism" is accused of promoting "an un-Christian defeatism, a willingness to compromise with evil, and a repudiation of the transforming power of God." (82) Stackhouse writes in Making the Best of It:

… Niebuhr's fundamental public claim for Christianity is that it does a better job – a more rationally satisfying, as well as more existentially satisfying, job – of explaining the world than does any other worldview, including the worldviews of Hobbes, Hume, Comte Marx, Freud, or anyone else. Far from being an escape from reality into narcotically soothing aspirations of comforting wish fulfillment, Christianity is the most realistic view of things on offer. (84)

Stackhouse puts Niebuhr's views into three themes: epistemology, human nature, and history. Under each theme, he makes statements that summarize Niebuhr's views (I've numbered these for ease of reference in discussion) and then offers commentary on each.

Epistemology

1. We properly draw on experience to tell us what we can know of the world. (84)

2. What we can find out that way, however, prompts us to realize that we cannot know it all, and mystery is an irreducible element in any adequate description of the world. (86)

Stackhouse quotes Niebuhr:

Religious toleration … requires that religious convictions be sincerely and devoutly held while yet the sinful and finite corruptions of these convictions be humbly acknowledged; and the actual fruits of other faiths be generously estimated. (87)

"Epistemic humility" is what Stackhouse is describing. In footnote 16, he writes:

…This epistemic humility grounding pluralistic tolerance upsets critics of both Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr. These critics assail the Niebuhrs for compromising the stark truth of the Gospel in order to covertly defend liberal democracy and its cultural and consumerist relativism. … (87)

Stackhouse will come to this issue later.

3. Christian theology provides the best conceptuality by which to articulate this reality: God created and sustains the world, and made us able to understand it. He then enables us to coordinate that understanding with the understanding he grants us of theology as well. (87)

4. God has provided information and insight that we never could have discovered on our own – thus we need God's revelation. (88)

Stackhouse quotes Niebuhr from Nature and Destiny:

Christian faith sees in the Cross of Christ the assurance that judgment is not the final word of God to man; but it does not regard the mercy of God as a forgiveness which wipes out the distinctions of good and evil in history and makes judgment meaningless. All the difficult Christian theological dogmas of Atonement and justification are efforts to explicate the ultimate mystery of divine wrath and mercy in its relation to man …

 

Christian faith regards the revelation in Christ as final because this ultimate problem solved by the assurance that God takes man's sin upon Himself and into Himself and that without this divine initiative and this divine sacrifice there could be no reconciliation and no easing of man's uneasy conscience. (89-90)

In footnote 23, Stackhouse writes:

… It is not clear to me how Hauerwas and others who criticize Niebuhr as anthropocentric – even as functionally atheistic (which I think is the implication of With the Grain of the Universe, in order to depict Hauerwas's heroes, especially Karl Barth, all the more brightly as true Christians) – would deal with such a passage. …(90)

He acknowledges that Niebuhr was not entirely orthodox, but he did hold that human quests to know God would be frustrated until the relationship with God is rectified. Quoting Langdon Gilkey

Despite its major concentration on an empirical look at human social behavior, on the real characteristics of political existence, and on the actual shape of the contours of history, Niebuhr's theology is … a 'God-centered' theology and not a humanistic or naturalistic one. As a consequence it cannot possibly be understood – as many have sought to do – as primarily brilliant social commentary with the pious icing, so to speak of theological or Biblical rhetoric. … (90)

5. To reveal truth in a way the properly balances various elements and communicates well across a variety of cultures, God has resorted to the genre of story, of myth – understood as a narrative and symbol set that articulate abiding truth ("this is the way things are and have been") but not, as Christian tradition has believed, historical truth ("this is the way things once happened"). (90)

Unlike many who talk about "myth" as a way to relate historical realities, Stackhouse points out that Niebuhr apparently saw no need for Biblical myths to have connection with actual historical realities. They are pictorial ways of illustrating our human predicament.

6. Christian Realism, therefore, is epistemologically realistic in terms of both metaphysics and morality. (93)

Human Nature

1. Human beings have a twofold nature: we are creatures, and thus human (of the humus, the earth) – finite in awareness, in ability, in mortality. But we are also created in the image of God, and thus enjoy transcendence – to get beyond ourselves to see ourselves, to get beyond the present circumstances to imagine and create a new situation, and to aspire to get beyond ourselves and this world to arrive at a more glorious destiny. (94)

2. Human beings have the ability to choose to a considerable extent what to believe, feel, and do. And yet we are also bound in our beliefs, feelings, and actions, not only by our intrinsic creaturely limitations but also by our sin. (95)

History

1. Human beings can look forward to a great destiny, by the grace of God. This world is not all there is, and there is a better world ahead. (96)

Stackhouse quotes Niebhur:

It is unwise for Christians to claim any knowledge of either the furniture of heaven or the temperature of hell; or to be too certain about any of the details of the Kingdom of God in which history is consummated. (96)

In keeping with Niebuhr's sense of Biblical myth, he also did not believe in the literal resurrection of the body.

2. Meanwhile, however, our duty is to approximate the goodness of that better world, in full and prudent realization of the limitations of this one. (98)

Two observations by Stackhouse:

Niebuhr thus strikes a balance between those who would abandon the world and those who still think we can solve whatever is wrong – or, at least, the Important People can, if they would just get busy. … Niebuhr strives to maintain a realism between cynicism and idealism. (98)

The world, affected by the Fall, is a place in which extraordinary measures are necessary event to approximate God's ideal in this situation – which is all we can accomplish. (99)

Stackhouse points out that Niebuhr thought biblical ideals and universal love were eschatological ideals, unattainable in the interim until he comes again. John Howard Yoder's Politics of Jesus is partly a response to this. Stackhouse suggests that these ideals might have been seen as more meaningful on the individual level versus the societal level in Niebuhr's mind, although in later life, he seemed more optimistic about communities and less so about individuals.

You now have the meat of it. What to make of it all? Tune in tomorrow.

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Best of It: C. S. Lewis - The Christian Individual

[Series Index]

[Today we move into Part 2 of Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse. We will look at three twentieth-century theologians Stackhouse considers resources for recovering Christian realism: C. S. Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He devotes about forty pages to each of these men. I aim to extract some salient points and put them in one post. There is no way I can do his fascinating reviews justice, so you’ll need to get the book and read it.]

Chapter 2 – C. S. Lewis: The Christian Individual

Narrative

As a storyteller himself, one of the things Lewis tapped into was the narrative nature of the Bible … creation and fall, redemption, and consummation. Lewis used the narrative as an interpretive lens to evaluate life.

Lewis believed that the world was created good but immature. There was a “nascent shalom” at Eden, but the world is to evolve beyond that primitive state. The fall resulted in total depravity … not total in the sense of having become abjectly evil, but total in that it has touched every aspect of our being. Redemption in Christ includes salvation, but Lewis seemed particularly attuned to sanctification; we die to ourselves and enter the process of taking on the image of Christ.

Culture

Stackhouse, quoting from an Essay, Christianity and Culture, writes:

“On the whole, the New Testament seemed, if not hostile, yet unmistakably cold to culture. I think we can still believe culture to be innocent after we have read the New Testament; I cannot see that we are encouraged to think it important.”

By “innocent,” Lewis seems to mean that it can still be seen as a good thing to be undertaken, rather intrinsically something evil to be avoided. (54)

Four reasons why culture can be an appropriate undertaking:

1. The need to earn a living.
2. Culture can be harmful, so “it is therefore probably better that the ranks of the ‘culture-sellers’ should include some Christians – as an antidote.”
3. Pleasure.
4. To awaken the unconverted to “something more” points toward the gospel. (54)

One of the key points Stackhouse makes about Lewis is that he has little to say about the church or society as whole. Quoting Lewis, “To me, religion ought to have been a matter of good men praying alone, and meeting by twos and threes to talk of spiritual matters.” (55) This was Lewis before he became a Christian but Stackhouse points out that little seems to have changed afterward.

Lewis generally saw the workplace, the economy, and societal institutions as cursed by stupidity and alienation. These institutions seem not to be his focus. From Good Work and Good Works:

The main practical task for most of us is not to give the Big Men advice about how to end our fatal economy – we have none to give and they wouldn’t listen – but to consider how we can live within it as little hurt and degraded as possible. (56)

The application of Christian principles to various spheres of life was to come from Christians as they lived their vocations in those spheres. No grand agenda on issues of civil authority and civil obedience were forthcoming from Lewis.

In eschatological terms, Lewis did not embrace the dualistic notion of disembodied spirits as the ultimate destiny of humanity. Heaven is where things become more firm, thick, and more vivid, not less so. There would be a new creation that would somehow be both continuous and radically discontinuous with our present reality … is not an unmaking but a remaking. Is something being remade or replaced? Stackhouse suggests that Lewis’ answer would have been “yes.”

Lewis seems to have in view individuals on the path toward sanctification, “looking for the world to come, taking pleasure as he finds it, and contributing to the common good as he can.” (60)

This observation by Stackhouse was particularly insightful:

Inasmuch as the cumulative influence of Christians in society affects public institutions, however, Lewis’ concern was not to subvert public institutions nor to convert them to their final messianic state, but to revert them back to their traditional sources and purposes in God’s providence. In this view Lewis was truly a cultural conservative (and not merely reactionary or contrarian), not because he entertained any romantic view of the inherent goodness of society at some point in the past, but in the deep sense of one who continued to see the goodness and order of God over and in all earthly affairs. Lewis had not given up on the structures God has place in the world, and he believed that the Christian is to contribute as he can to any attempt to recover these healthful, helpful gifts. (60)

Later in the chapter, Stackhouse concludes:

Thus he characterized contemporary culture as neither the apex of civilization’s advance (so the self-flattery of modernity) nor as the nadir of pseudo-sophisticated barbarism (so both the premodern critics). Lewis saw modern society as he saw all societies: as a mixed field, showing the fruit of worthy human efforts under Providence and also showing the fruit of evil human efforts aided by the Evil One. (69)

For Lewis, culture consistently demonstrates three elements in tension.

1. Culture is always plastic: we are always shaping it (as, to be sure, it shapes us), and it is not inexorable, permanent, or linear.
2. Culture always is also marked by the intransigence of evil and the active resistance of evil agents, human and diabolical.
3. Culture is yet under the providence of God, who has promised to redeem the whole world. Thus Lewis felt neither optimism nor pessimism was appropriate; rather, he advocated a realistic hope for both now and the future. (69)

Anti-City?

An interesting side note that Stackhouse picked up on that I’ve noticed is Lewis’ distaste for the city. In the Narnia Chronicles, London is a place to escape. All the cities mentioned are places of evil. In The Great Divorce, Hell is a city, and Heaven is a countryside. Stackhouse wonders if Lewis needs to reflect more on Heaven as the New Jerusalem.

What do you think?

This chapter has so much more, but I’ll leave it here. What are your thoughts about Lewis’ “Christian individual?”

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Best of It: Revisiting Niebuhr's Typology

[Series Index]

Today we revisit the famous (for some, infamous) five-part typology from Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture as summarized in John Stackhouse's Making the Best of It. Niebuhr claims that any of the following types can be appropriate in certain circumstances. They are presented in the order they appear in Niebuhr's book:

Christ Against Culture – Christ is in opposition to culture and calls us into radical opposition. Anabaptists, as well as some fundamentalists and Pentecostal groups, are examples we might typically associate with this type.

Christ of Culture – Christ and his followers embrace culture because the culture has substantially embraced him. Stackhouse suggests that Puritan New England may have approximated this posture.

Stackhouse points out that these first two types recognize no tension between Christ and culture. It is either total opposition or complete embrace. The remaining three recognize some tension between the two.

Christ Above Culture – Christ comes to Culture, which is a mixture of good and bad, to instruct and improve it through his church. Thomas Aquinas was an exemplar of this model.

Christ in Paradox with Culture – Christ calls us to be citizens of two worlds. Contradictions are resolved according to some type of qualification, which Niebuhr never articulates. Stackhouse believes this to be the least developed of the types. This is often identified with Lutheran theology.

Christ Transforming Culture – Christ calls us to redeem the world by bearing witness to him and work for the transformation of individuals and institutions. Stackhouse identifies three modes of this.

1. Converting individuals, who then will act Christianly in all things, infiltrating and influencing all sectors of society and converting others in turn, thus leading to a cumulative transformation of culture. (29) (Billy Graham)
2. Constructing Christian institutions (whether schools, labor unions, news media, or political parties) as wholesome alternatives to the current options offered by other groups, in hope that they will become sufficiently attractive and influential that successive sectors of society will be transformed by their influence. (29) (Dutch neo-Calvinism)
3. Conquering existing institutions with legitimate power, such as taking over businesses by buying stock, taking over legislatures by winning elections, taking over media by producing superior creative products, and so on. (29) (Liberal Protestants, liberation theologians, the new religious right, Christian socialist, to name a few)

Stackhouse also notes that Christians who may be thoroughly against culture can either respond with separation or attempts to take over. Thus, the seeming slide, back and forth, between Christ Against and Christ Transforming by some fundamentalist groups.

Lessons from the Critics

Stackhouse identifies four criticisms that are usually leveled at the typology.

1. Category Confusion – Some said when Niebuhr used "Christ," he really meant "Christianity" or "the church." "Culture" meant "the world" or "the dominant powers and ethos of society." The terms need to be changed. Stackhouse writes:

I'm not sure they do, as long as we realize what Niebuhr is attempting with these categories. Niebuhr is discussing a kind of fundamental tension for the church: the tension between its fidelity to Christ (the ideal of Christian faith) and its posture toward the society from which the church is drawn and in which it must make its way. How, then, does the church best construe the relationship between those two elements? (31)

Related to this is the critique is the criticism that the Church cannot be conceived of apart from the culture. To which Stackhouse essentially responds, "well of course." And Niebuhr, as a disciple of sociologist-theologian Ernst Troeltsch, certainly was aware of this. None of that seriously impacts the purpose for which the typology was employed; to highlight how we might resolve the Christ and culture tension.

2. Taxonomy doesn't account for all possible hybrid types or nuances within types – Niebuhr did not create a taxonomy but a typology. There is a significant difference. "A taxonomy is a classification of things as they are in all their specificity." (32) A typology, in the social sciences, "… is a kind of pure intellectual construct, a setting out of logical possibilities in a situation." (32) Each of these five is an ideal type … not "ideal" in the sense of desirability but in the sense of a pure idea that probably does not exist in reality. These pure types can be useful in analyzing a real-world variable(s) (i.e., the tension between Christ and Culture) but are not intended to be a taxonomy. Regrettably, some scholars (including sociologists who should know better) have not understood the difference.

3. Misapplication by Niebuhr of his own typology - Stackhouse suggests that Niebuhr actually slips into a taxonomical mode in his criticism of the Anabaptists, under the Christ Against Culture discussion, criticizing them for not being consistent with their opposition to culture. According to a typology, no one likely would fit a pure type. He criticizes no other examples in this way when discussing other types. Yet, in other places, Niebuhr notes that when you leave the realm of the hypothetical typology, no individual or group probably corresponds perfectly with any one type.

4. Niebuhr sets up Christ Transforming Culture as normative – Stackhouse says that Niebuhr offers the least criticism of this option. It is the last type treated, and many have noted how the book seems to build toward the conclusion that it is a normative type. Possibly so, but this does not negate the typology's usefulness.

Stackhouse makes two more important observations. He notes that Niebuhr held that "different cultures can require different stances." (38) But beyond that, Stackhouse writes:

"… not only can it be appropriate for Christians to take different stances on different aspects of the same culture, but it typically is appropriate. (38) For example, war is never God's ideal, but it may be justifiable within some Christian ethical traditions. Possibly, one way the church gives witness is that some Christians participate in the war while the pacifist serves as an uneasy reminder that war is never God's ideal.

Finally, Stackhouse says that his position, which he will lay out in the last half of the book, is probably best characterized as a hybrid of Christ in Paradox and Christ Transforming.

There you have it. We begin Part 2 next week. What thoughts do you have?

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Best of It: Definitions

[Series Index]

John Stackhouse lays out some important definitions to begin Chapter 1 of Making the Best of It.

Culture

Culture is the response we give to two "make" questions when thinking about a particular society:

• What do they make?
• What do they make of it?

As Martin Marty wrote, culture is "everything humans do to, and make of, nature." (14) So it is partly about the physical artifacts, but it is also about the meaning society gives to various actions. Niebuhr wrote:

Culture is the "artificial secondary environment" which man superimposes on the natural. (15)

Stackhouse wants to be sure we differentiate this understanding of culture from the idea of culture as "refined living" or "sophisticated tastes." He also highlights that even in relatively small societies, groups are differentiated within society, and caution is needed when we talk about dominant culture in a pluralistic society. Stackhouse doesn't get into the sociological distinction of culture and society (society being the community that has a culture) and says the two terms will be used almost interchangeably for this discussion.

World

Stackhouse points out that no word in either of the biblical languages translates as "culture." "World" is a term that overlaps with our sense of culture, but it is not identical.

Stackhouse reviews several Greek terms that are translated world. Some uses of kosmos probably come closest to what we mean by culture. It can mean "the whole of creation," "the world of humankind," or "the inhabited world." In some contexts, it clearly incorporates what we mean by culture. Uses of the term run the range of positive, negative, and neutral dispositions.

Church

Church can have a broad range of meanings, from sacred building, to congregation, to international denomination or the entire community saved by Jesus Christ. Stackhouse writes:

"…I will use the word in this central way: those who are committed as disciples of Jesus Christ and who band together as such. But sometimes I will mean simply the visible institution, the church as the society of those who nominally follow Jesus, however sincerely or insincerely they do so. I trust that context will make the pertinent definition clear. (18)

Kingdom of God

In one sense, God is sovereign over all, so all creation is the Kingdom of God. But here we are talking about how it is so frequently meant in the New Testament. Concerning "Kingdom of God" in the synoptic gospels, Stackhouse writes:

The Kingdom of God is where, we might say, God's ways are the way, and God's rules are the rule. The Kingdom of God is where God's judgment – which both assesses good and evil and restores them to their rightful places – has taken place, and shalom (peace, wholeness, and goodness) characterizes all things. The Kingdom of God is thus where God's authority is joyfully embraced as legitimate and welcome. (19)

God's reign is here but has not reached its fullness, so in this sense, he says the Kingdom of God is "already, but not yet."

As we move into John and the rest of the New Testament, we see other euphemisms for the Kingdom of God. John speaks of "eternal life." Paul tends to talk about "salvation." Because the "Kingdom of God" imagery is deeply tied up with Jewish culture, gentiles would not have related to the term, thus the need for other depictions.

The Kingdom of God in this sense, therefore, means the coming of God's salvation and the eternal life it brings – which is, indeed, experienced "already, but not yet," by all those who put their trust in God, follow his ways, and look forward to his eventual renewal of all things. (20)

Church and the Kingdom of God

The church is not the Kingdom of God. Stackhouse points out that individuals and groups within the visible church do not always follow Jesus. Some that may appear to be in the Kingdom of God are not. But then there are also those who we might not expect to be a part of the Kingdom of God who are a part:

Positively, in the view of many Christians (sometimes called "inclusivists"), there are people beyond the church who have put God first in their lives and are serving him as best they can. They have not heard the name of Jesus and thus have not joined the church as self-consciously Christian disciples. By God's justifying and renewing grace, however, they have responded in faith to the Holy Spirit's testimony in their hearts and to whatever revelation God has brought to them in their circumstances. Thus they enjoy genuine Kingdom life and are cooperating with God to reform the world according to God's values, however seriously their outlook and experience are compromised by their lack of exposure to the gospel of Christ and their lack of contact with the church.

Furthermore, the influence of God's Kingdom has been spreading, bit by bit, wherever individuals, groups, nations, and transnational realities have been influenced for the better. In our day, for example, the increased profile of universal human rights in national and international politics – with particular attention to women, children, and the poor (recognizing that women and children constitute most of the poor) – is an example of the spread of the influence of the Kingdom of God incognito, so to speak. It is obvious that the international order is far from Christian in its identity and conduct. In that crucial sense it is clearly not the Kingdom of God. Nonetheless, the Kingdom of God is partially and mixedly, but also really, present in the extension of these values into spheres previously not deeply shape by them. (21)

A final important distinction Stackhouse makes is that while there is considerable continuity with the Old Testament version of the Kingdom of God, there is also discontinuity, particularly in the political sphere.

The political dimensions of human life embodied in the Old Testament people of God are not directly manifest in the voluntary, spiritual community of the New. Indeed, the church carries on these dimensions in the quite different mode of encouraging the state under which it lives and the broader society in which it lives to realize as many of the values of the Kingdom as they will – even as the church also reminds the state and the society at large they are not the Kingdom, but are only ever a deeply flawed and conflicted approximation of the city to come. (21)

My Thoughts:

I suspect some of Stackhouse's definitions may be controversial with some of my readers, especially his thoughts on the Kingdom of God. The more I read about Second Temple Judaism, the more I think that Jesus had something not all that dissimilar to what the Jews had in mind regarding a massive resurrection, Israel being restored to greatness, and the Gentiles drawn into worshiping God. It is post-resurrection that the Kingdom of God begins to take on new textures. Some scholars I respect argue the Kingdom of God must be tied more specifically to the presence and action of actual communities intentional in their worship of God and would not consider the development of certain values and outcomes (like the emergence of human rights) to be an expression of the Kingdom of God. They see more of a one-to-one correspondence between "church" and "Kingdom of God."

With some qualification, Stackhouse's views correspond very closely to mine in these definitions. How about you?

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Making the Best of It - Introduction

[Series Index]

Today we begin a lengthy dialog with, Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World, by John Stackhouse.

Stackhouse reminds us of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's question, "Who is Jesus Christ, for us, today?" He reminds us that in all we do, we start with Christ. His identity and mission will constitute the heart of our identity and mission.

But Stackhouse says we must ask a corollary question: "Who are we, for Jesus Christ Today?" Christian ethics is too often perceived in terms of morality, of right and wrong. Stackhouse writes:

Christian ethics, then, is not primarily about what to do rightly or wrongly, but fundamentally about what it is to be Christian in the world, what is proper to the profession and practice of Christian faith. Being Christian in the world is identity, a motive, an agenda, and a posture, all of which lead to action. (4)

Stackhouse quotes Glen Tinder:

I believe that the primary political requirement of Christianity is not a certain kind of society or a particular program of action but rather an attitude, a way of facing society and of undertaking programs of action. (4)

Stackhouse writes that this book is about answering this corollary to Bonhoeffer's question.

Stackhouse says that he believes two models of Christian engagement with the world exist in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand:

Cultural Transformation

The aim is to reshape society according to Christian values. There are movements on both the left and right that take this view. Neo-Calvinism is one expression of this and thinkers like Dooyewood, Wollenhoven, and Rookmaaker would be representative. Roman Catholicism has had folks like Wiegel and Neuhaus. Stackhouse would include Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Liberation theology is another expression with Gutierrez and Cone being representative theologians. While Stackhouse doesn't mention them explicitly I would place the leadership of most mainline traditions in this camp.

Holy Distinctness

The aim is, "a definite Christian community living in contradistinction to the rest of society and thus offering the beneficial example and influence of an alternative way of life." (6) There are a variety of sectarian and Pentecostal groups that take this view but the most traditional expressions would be the Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites. Then there are influential theologians like Yoder and Hauerwas. More recently there has been Radical Orthodoxy with Milbank as the leading voice.

Stackhouse finds neither of these responses adequate. Reflecting on H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture five-part typology of cultural engagement, Stackhouse will draw on the "Christ in paradox with culture" type, though with some modification. Stackhouse notes that this was Niebuhr's least well-formulated type but one that Stackhouse thinks is critical.

Stackhouse's two types of engagement describe two halves of my life. I was raised in the Church of the Nazarene for the first half of my life. Though the denomination has become less sectarian recently, it was considerably so when I was growing up. When I was growing up, the denominational devotional guide called (and maybe still is) "Come Ye Apart," as in, come out of the world and live an exemplary life of holiness as a witness to the world. The denomination is a conservative off-shoot of Methodism.

I spent the second half of my life in the Presbyterian Church, USA, ground zero in the mainline cultural transformation movement. The politics (at least in the hierarchy) is decidedly left of center. Frankly, I find it hard to tell which is transforming which when it comes to the denomination and the culture. :-) Though many conservative reformed folks would not agree, the Presbyterian Church stands very much within Protestant reformed tradition, which has a transformational mindset.

In all frankness, I've never been (from my earliest memories) entirely at home with either of these options, though there are elements of both that have a strong ring of truth. What Stackhouse's book does for me is give voice to the tension I've lived in all my life.

How about you? Do you have a "home" in these two approaches, or are others speaking to you? Do you agree with Stackhouse's notion of Christian ethics?

Next, we turn to Chapter 1, where we will lay out some important definitions and then quickly review Niebuhr's Christ and Culture typology. That will complete Part 1 of the book. Part 2 of the book will examine the Christian realism of C. S. Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr (Richard's brother), and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Part 3, the last half of the book, will be Stackhouse's analysis and reflection.

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