A word on my thesis...

While it's fresh in mind, I want to get this on paper for myself and for anyone who might be reading. I'm writing a 25,000 word undergraduate thesis this year and I think I now have some clarity on the outcome of my findings.

I'm studying a 2nd century "heretic" named Marcion of Pontus. He wrote a gospel and the people at the time accused him of taking Luke's gospel and reworking it to his pleasure. In other words, not only did he steal someone else's work, but he perverted it to his own ends and then disseminated it about. Recently, scholars have argued that perhaps it was Luke who copied and reworked Marcion's gospel. Perhaps Marcion was first.

What does this mean?

Well, Marcion was a docetist, which means he had a different view about Christ than the modern church would condone. He believed Jesus was only and fully divine. No humanity, no flesh. Although Jesus came to earth, it was only as a spirit. Thus, his ideas of the death and resurrection of Jesus are quite different. Because of this belief and some other beliefs he had, his gospel looked different from Luke's in a few places. No crucifixion narrative, no birth story, among other things. Also, not very many references to Jesus' physical lineage. He also did not write of Jesus performing many miracles since miracles were largely focused on a person's body, a shriveled hand or broken leg. Marcion believed that God wanted us to focus on the spirit and not the body. He believed that, since the body only leads to sinful pleasures and eventually decays anyway, its not important and actually evil. There's more to his theology but that's the skinny of it.

So, Luke gets a hold of this gospel and makes minor changes. If this is the case, then we have to assume that Luke at least had some kind of agreement with Marcion's views. Why would he grab a gospel of his opponent and use it as a source, while not even changing that many passages at all? So, under this hypothesis, Luke held similar theological ideas to Marcion.

What? A different opinion outside the "orthodox?" That cant be right. Well, what about different authors of the OT that emphasize different attributes of God? Certainly Moses may have held slightly different views than the author of Ecclesiastes or Joel different views than Hosea. We know from events recorded in Acts that some of the disciples had differing ideas. Can the Bible be said to be the Word of God and still contain a wide variety of theologies that all represent the Trinity that we believe to be God? I think so. I think that, despite Paul and Peter's differing understanding of Christ's justification, they both did amazing things for God. In fact, God used them beautifully in their own ways. Despite Paul and James' possibly different understanding of grace and works, they both did ministry together and both loved God. Does it make one of them wrong? Does it mean we have to meld them both into 1 view, doing herminutical gymnastics to make them say the same thing? I don't think so.

So, many different authors with one purpose: to glorify God. But, did they do this in different ways? Maybe God equipped each one for specific words and a specific ministry. Maybe Paul's particular theological understanding led him to courageously plant churches in many cities that Peter wouldn't have even felt were important. Maybe John understood God's love differently than Mark or Matthew. Even in Christian scholarship, historians separate the "synoptic gospels" and "John" and claim they have different perspectives.

What does this say to us today? Maybe our distinctions of denominations and doctrines and theologies are good as long as they lead to unity. The kind of doctrines that claim absolute authority and universal adherence, damning all others, may not be what Paul had in mind when he said "one gospel, one truth." Maybe the Gospel is multi-faceted and God works in different ways across different cultures of different generations. Maybe God reveals a particular part of his character more to one man while another comprehends a different part. Maybe God can be both predestining and will giving, not in the sense that both fit into one particular version of doctrine like the Reform definition of free will, but in the sense that many ideas from many doctrines point towards Jesus the Christ and his salvation.

The Gospel of Guilt

I've been reading C.J. Mahaney's "Cross Centered Life" recently and it has raised some questions. In the book Mahaney lays out what he believes to be some major roadblocks in the way of Christians truly centering their life on God. He doesn't talk so much about lack of devotion or not leaving enough time for prayer and bible reading. He doesn't point to lust or hatred. He doesn't even bring in the verses in Romans and the like that talk of our tendency as humans to pervert God's truth, to trade God's grace for human wisdom. No, he talks about guilt, condemnation, and legalism. These are the things, in his opinion, that most quickly suck our spiritual lives dry and de-center us from God.

He goes on to talk about how we might be free of these things, but I wonder how they got there in the first place. I'm sure there's a theological answer that can solve everything systematically with certain truths and scriptures, but I guess I'm wondering more practically (if that's not a wrong distinction). How is it that Christians have come to the place where guilt and condemnation guide our thought patterns? How is it that we've missed the deep essence of the gospel, freedom, and instead remain shackled to our past and present failings? How is it that this is the issue above everything else? (And it is the issue. Find me a Christian book store that isn't covered with more self-help books than Oprah's home library.)

I found an inkling of a possibility of a chance of a hope of an answer yesterday in John Piper's "50 Reasons Jesus Came To Die." Piper finds that we have a problem truly understanding the picture of a suffering savior that stands at the center of our gospel. We make movies and write books about Jesus on the cross, but we don't truly understand the complexity of the situation and, therefore, we don't understand the gospel that is to set us free and show us God.

This is what he says: "Let us not trifle with God or trivialize his love. We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of his wrath against us."

Unfortunately, I found the inkling of an answer in refutation of this idea. You see, I think that it's this very idea and all of the sociological formations that have stemmed from it that have stifled the faith of many Christians, good Christian men and women that love God and long to understand his ways. Maybe this is not the way that Piper meant it, but this idea seems to convey to me that we must truly, deeply understand our great offense to God before we can begin to experience his love and grace towards us. In other words, it is our recognition of sin that brings us to a place of humility by which we may understand and accept God's grace.

To me, this sounds a lot like a seed from which guilt and condemnation naturally sprout. What is positioned here as the cornerstone of Christian freedom, for a proper understanding of God's love, seems more like rich soil for a dismal understanding of our hopelessness and unsalvageable depravity. Not that God's wrath and our own sin should be dismissed, certainly not. We must come to understand man's depravity and God's righteousness for us to in any way grow in sanctification, in purity and truth. BUT, to ground Christian faith and love in this grave sense of depravity seems to be the wrong move.

This idea doesn't start in Piper's small book. It can't even be localized to any man, church, or culture, because it's everywhere. The idea pervades every hymnal, every theological structure, every version of the sinner's prayer, sunday school education from kids to adults, etc. And, I believe it is the extensiveness of this idea and its formulation as the "Gospel," the "path to salvation," that encapsulated us such that we cannot escape from the guilt and self-hatred of our hearts and minds.

In my own experience, and certainly in my experience with others, it has been the exact opposite of this idea. Oh, how beautiful the world became when I realized that God loves me, purposefully and specifically. It was as if everything before were shadows, empty reflections of some false doctrine. I began to drink deeply in God's grace, to find joy in the simple faith of song and prayer. God was once a distant king to which I payed homage. Enthroned on a high hill past my eye's view, he made decrees and I followed for fear or hope of his justice. Suddenly, I was the maiden of his desire. As Kierkagaard explains it, despite my lowly status and his infinity, I was his heart's sole longing. Then, as if it were nothing, I joyously began to trust this king. Fully and continuously I surrendered myself to his leadership. From this began a process of purity, of understanding my depravity and allowing God to work righteousness into my brokenness. To daily trade in the filthy rags of a lost identity for white robes of my true nature, the man that God had been forming from the beginning. Although I speak in emotional rather than theological terms, I fully believe that this should be the image of sanctification that we proffer (and desire) as Christians.

Is this not the true nature of the Gospel? That God has called us beloved, beautiful, glorious, holy. That from this understanding of our true identity as his beloved, we can begin to understand our depravity, this false nature we carry around. Is it not trust that gives way to the process of God's sanctification? Should we desire God's love and grace or our own purity and holiness before him as of first order? What if we, as a church, sought out God's love as the pearl of great price, as the treasure hidden in the field, as the bread of life? And what if this became the center of our journey rather than a more grounded understanding of the "facts of the case" that have so distanced us from grace and entrenched us in guilt? Certainly I say this with great fear. Oh how I do not want to lose sight of God's disdain for sin, of his wisdom and truth...but I fear it far less than I do the loss of my identity as his beloved.

I pray that we would be set free from guilt and condemnation, from the legalism that so easily dominates our minds, by allowing God to love us. By truly accepting his love and adoration and by grounding our identity firmly in that first and before all else. That we would allow God to romance us, allow him to pursue us instead of making that our responsibility. Instead of, "God I love you so much that I'm changing everything for you", let us first say "God I accept your love, I swoon to your romance, I'm captivated by your grace and I can't get enough." That we would focus on God's love first and our depravity second. How clear our lenses for viewing and understanding the mysterious truths of the Gospel might become if we truly began to realize, culturally, globally, our identity as the beloved of God.

Seminary Essay

Tuesday nights are wild here at New College. Smoke and drink, Funk and funky wardrobes usher in the second half of the week. It’s 10 pm. Students crawl from various studying nooks about campus to the central Promenade for the mid-week ritual. Tuesdays are Drunk Funk. The mass invites to neighboring colleges, the smell of the substances, and the thumping bass beckon any and all to rest from work and join our community in clamor and revelry.

It’s not that classes don’t start at 9am and it’s not that we don’t have plenty of work to be doing (because we’re at one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country). It’s not even so much about the booze and weed, because those can be had individually and many of us don’t even partake in the substances. It’s because New College recognizes two things: the need for rest and the joy of community.

While students at Harvard and the like are drilling away at equations and provocative literature without reprieve, we party. Because of our hippie persuasion, we have found a deeper need than simply toil and spoils.

We need rest. We need to just be sometimes for the sake of being. Rest reminds us that we are not success, we are not our goals or our society’s goals. It reminds us that there are greater things; things like love, passion, purpose, joy.

New College (with a 80% agnostic or atheist population) has taught me that God is all about rest. God created us to be and by just being we glorify him. Why? Because God made us in his image. Because, before the fall, before “original sin”, there was original glory. Because, far beyond the work of our hands, we were made to be God’s beloved creation.

This reminds me of the countless meetings I’ve attended and heard about at New College; the food drives, the tomato picker’s rights campaigns, immigration reform, picketing for better treatment of the Sarasota homeless; Earth Justice Squad meetings, the All Power to the Imagination Conference, signing petitions for better waste management in our cafeteria, brainstorming sessions for ecological reform on a national level.

New College students get things done, God things, because of rest, because of choosing being over succeeding. And because of community.

Back to Drunk Funk. Amidst the ambiance of smoke and sound, there is a fraternity, a commonality. I’m a Christian, many are not. But we are all human. We’re all sojourners of this life. We talk, eat, and live together. We even pray together on occasion. Tonight we rest together.

Community. No agenda. No Stereotypes. No divisions.

This is my testimony. It has become my vision and desire for the church. Not that we sacrifice the Truth of Jesus the Christ, because he is and forever shall be the only hope for creation. But that we truly embrace eachother. That we love.

Glory to Glory

"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."

- 2 Corinthians 3.18

I was reminded again yesterday of how this whole God relationship to humanity works. So much ink is spent emphasizing God's greatness in comparison to our fragility, and rightly so. I don't think that God's true grandness can be captured in one phrase or book or speech. It must be said over and over and over again. How beautiful it is, though, to be reminded that God is so great that he has imbued his own glory upon us, fallen humankind.

It's so easy for me to read the Bible and listen to preachers and never get that. I get that I'm super-sinful. I can see that without any help, though the occasional reminder is good. I get that I need to turn from evil intentions to God's truth. But, so often, that becomes my identity. I take on the image of a whore, of a hopelessly blind man, of dust and ashes.

"from glory to glory." That's how this thing works. Because of God's great love for humanity, my identity is glorious. It is as though, to found my identity, I am to look daily "beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord..." It is from this starting point, the mirror, that I can attempt the other side of the equation. With a proper understanding of my Justification, that I am glorious because of Jesus, I can see where Sanctification, molding and changing my character to fit God's, leads.

I only hope that, as a church, we will continue to uphold this image of "Christ in us." That we would found our identity not in the temporal man, the broken and weak self that we experience daily. That we would not embrace the shifting shadows of our wants and fears. Instead, that we would hold to the truth that our true self is in this person changing "from glory to glory." That we would embrace, in the mirror of God's greatness, the radiant image God has created in us.

Don't destroy the good seed.

"The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed a good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared...

"The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'

'No,' he answered 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "

Matthew 13.24-30

How often do we uproot the weeds with the wheat? How often do we take judgement into our own hands and, in so doing, harm the good seed that was planted in the lives of those around us?

I certainly do not understand the manifold meanings of this text, but I'd like to take a stab. I think Jesus is telling us that it is God who harvests. It is God who cuts away the weeds from amongst the wheat. Not only is God the one who decides our fate, but it is God who continually calls us to uproot the weeds in our hearts. Both in the world as a whole and in the individual.

I do not mean to disregard rebuke and accountability all together, but to raise awareness to our role as the "servants" in this parable. Our role is to go into the garden daily and cultivate the soil. To make sure the wheat grows, to nurture it and refresh it with water and fertilizer.

On a world-level, it is our job to proclaim the good, to encourage and enrich the good that exists. To ground and grow the wheat in culture and society. Human rights. Environmental justice. Restoration.

On an individual level, it is our job to draw attention to the truth and the good in peoples lives around us. Not only to enrich their lives by giving all we have, by fighting for their justice. But also, to choose love and support over disgust and admonition. That we would encourage more than we condemn. That we would be advocate and not judges.

This means that, on the flipside we have to trust God to continue his work of restoration as well. To continue calling humanity to himself. To continue to convict and destroy evil. To uproot greed and hatred. We have to trust that he is as jealous for the removal of evil as we are. To trust that he will judge justly as he promises to do.

Oh, that we would not be judges. That we would not confuse holiness with pride. That we would take care not to uproot the wheat that God has planted in the hearts of those around us. How beautiful it would be for the church, for the world to make compassion and encouragement the first response. To place our trust in God. To release the burden of condemnation that is not ours to carry. To instead gird ourselves in peace, hope and love.

Job and the Church

Job. What an intense book. 42 chapters of straight misery. Not only is the guy deprived of everything, covered in boils, and left to die, but he spends his time around 4 guys and his wife that offer him no consolation. Or do they?

I mean, sure they say a lot of good things. They talk about God's kindness. They speak doctrinal truths about God being righteous and human beings fallen. They try their best to lead Job to "repentance" and to a happier life.

Then you've got Job. He does nothing but curse and yell. He demands answers from God, declares his innocence a thousand times over and condemns his friends for their words. He sulks and screams.

But, in the end, God honors Job and dismisses his friends. God states that Job was righteous through this whole thing and that his friends were wrong. In the end, it was Job's sacrifices and prayers that spared his friends from God's burning anger.

Does this seem strange? It might. It certainly did to the people of the time. I mean these people were taught that God punishes sin and wickedness, that those born with handicaps and those inflicted with diseases were so because of their own evil. Further, there was cultural stigma to evil. Sin, evil was unclean and affected the surrounding area of its stead. You've heard "bad company corrupts good morals" but this was just the beginning of the cultural stigma of sinful people.

Even to our eyes, though, it seems a bit strange that the guy who complained and cursed God would be uplifted in the end as righteous. Meanwhile, his good friends who preached to him, quoted scriptures, and did their best to convict him and guide him to God are condemned.

I think there's an incredibly important message here. Putting myself in Job's shoes, I realize exactly what he's saying. Here I am feeling forgotten by God, having everything torn from me...I'm pleading with God to give me some kind of response, to restore me, to just throw me a bone. Then, my friends chime in and say, "You know, Troy, God only punishes people because they're evil. That's obviously the problem. You should repent." I can imagine my response being pretty similar to Job's in saying "How long will you torment me and crush me with words?" or "Indeed, I know that this is true. But how can a mortal man be righteous before God?"

I see myself, covered in boils, grabbing these guys by the collar and screaming "You think? I've spent the last week, day and night, pleading with God, begging God to show me my error so that I can repent. I suppose you're right though, maybe I should try being a better person. Maybe I've missed something in my straight 40 hours of praying...since I can't sleep with the pain of the boils."

Then, how do the friends respond? They give him proverbs and promises. They tell him that he doesn't really understand God and if he just understood what they got so perfectly, he would be saved...because God saves those who repent and remain righteous. "If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored: If you remove wickedness far from your tent...the Almighty will be your gold...then you will find delight in God." It's like they're saying "Troy, John 3:16...Troy, read Romans 8 again...Troy pray more and learn to trust in God....Troy Corinthians says that you have to rejoice all the time, despite your trials....Troy Jesus said that if you seek you will find, so just seek."

Then Job replies, as I'm sure I would "I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all! Will your long-winded speeches never end?" It's like he's saying "No crap, Sherlock! You think I don't know this stuff? Stop with the endless, empty platitudes and just listen to me, just sympathize with me. Love me. Pray for me."

Does any of this sound familiar? Interestingly enough, Job is supposedly the first recorded book of the Jewish Scriptures. So, long before God saw any need to explain beginnings or the Israelite nation, wars, floods, any of that...God wanted people to understand this story.

I get 2 distinctive messages from this story. The first is that God loves our questions. He wants us to scream out, rather than close up; to pour out our hearts, rather than sit still in silence and reverence. Part of "seeking God with all our hearts" is laying everything on the table, holding no emotion or thought back regardless of its apparent "holiness" or "wickedness" in our eyes.

The second message is equally important and I truly believe it is one of the biggest issues in the church today. How do we relate to people in love? We are called to many things: to disciple, to love, to serve, etc. But, how? What is our role in this whole process?

I think we can learn from Job, that our role is not conviction, our role is not to judge and convict people. That is God's position. I believe that in desiring to convict people, we not only screw up something that only God can do right but we steal from and interfere with God's doing it. Certainly we are called to discern, to be wise. We are also called to counsel, to confront people in love. But, that is not by spouting verses or by giving mini-sermons on how God works. First, we should have the humility to know that we truly cannot know the mind of God. That being said, our approach should be as fellow struggler, as partner, as equal. Not that we can't offer advice and wisdom, but that we should be ever so careful not to interfere, ever so careful to not mix loving advice with judgemental pride.

Our main priority, I believe, our main responsibility is to compassion. God convicts hearts. God restores, God awakens, God regenerates. Our job is to come alongside. To aid in whatever way possible. Whether our friend is a Christian or an atheist or...whatever...the response should be the same: honest, humble, and loving compassion. A love that seeks to understand and sympathize. A love that truly seeks restoration. A love that admits shortcomings, honestly and openly. This means that my first response to a person who says they feel disconnected from God or that they're angry at God, or any number of other spiritual or emotional crises, should be to understand. To remember when I was in that place, to know that I probably will be in that place again in the near future. Not to grab for a doctrine or verse, but to really listen before saying a word.

I believe God will break open our influence, enlarge our ability to love and help people as we listen to the words of Job. As we seek compassion and benevolance, God will not only gift it to us in overwhelming amounts, but will teach us how to act in love. Not that we forsake the extreme value of these tenets and Scriptures, but that we listen first, that we understand and embrace, so that God may have the victory in convicting, in romancing, in calling all of us to himself.

How do I read the Bible?

I've been researching for the past few months for a big honkin paper I have to write and it's all centered around the Bible. That being said, I've spent hours looking at biblical texts, seeking out answers to various academic questions. Am I, then, using the Bible to my own end of writing a defendable paper?

I'm searching for "truth" but not necessarily the kind of truth that's going to form me into a better person, that's going to place me more in line with biblical morality. Rather, I'm trying to write a strong paper and make defendable points.

People do this all the time in academia, art, business. Pastors do it when they write sermons to an extent.

What about the marketing of Bibles? Christian bookstores sell a Bible for just about everyone in every circumstance; "Teen Study", "Nursing Mothers", "Men Who Eat Chocolate On Tuesdays." What about biblical iconography? Or the protestant Bibles of the 18-19th centuries with more bling than T-Pain's cadillac?

Is it right? Is there a "proper", "God-honoring" way to read the Bible? Are there lines and boundaries to be drawn (and where)?Or, can the Bible be manipulated and used to yield certain results without the necessary intent of transformation and TRUTH (with a capital 'T')?