Interpreting, Comprehending, and Apprehending the Work of God

“The church is the place where the messianic renewal of the world, which God began irreversibly in Jesus, must go forward. That is the essence of the church. That is its calling. We could also say that that is its fortune and its burden. This is not at all to say that God acts only in the church. God is at work always and everywhere in the world. But this universal activity of God in all the world can be unmistakably recognized only where it is interpreted, and thereby comprehended, as the work of God. And it can only be comprehended where it is apprehended in faith and discipleship. Wherever that happens, there is church.”

(Lohfink, G. The Work of God Goes On. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987. p. 57)

The Necessity of Spirituality to the Theological Enterprise

This symposium in First Things is an excellent read; full of thought provoking reflections on theology as a knowledge tradition and its place within the modern university by three of the sharpest American theologians writing today (and one political science prof. who authored the paper around which the symposium centered).

This point by Stanley Hauerwas, summarizing the argument of Gavin D'Costa's Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy, and Nation, especially stood out to me:

"Recognizing this history, D’Costa argues that, if theology is to regain its claim to be knowledge crucial for the work of the university, it must be reconnected with the practices that make it intelligible: prayer, the sacraments, and the virtues. In a wonderful chapter entitled “Why Theologians Must Pray for Release from Exile,” D’Costa suggests that prayer is the necessary condition to secure the objectivity of theology, because theology cannot be done with intellectual rigor outside the context of a love affair with God and God’s community. The formal object of theology is God, and, like other disciplines that require practices and virtues constitutive for knowing the object of their investigation, theology requires prayer."

I think Barth says something similar in his book on prayer, where he casts theology as a form of prayer. Anyway, I think the connection between spirituality (i.e. prayer and other disciplines, worship, the sacraments) and theological knowledge may be something worth developing into a paper.

The State and the Power of Death

"Enumerate the usual prerogatives of the state and it becomes plain that each and every one of them embodies the meaning of death: exile, imprisonment, slavery, conscription, impeachment, regulation of production or sales or prices or wages or competition or credit, confiscation, surveillance, execution, war. Whenever the authority of the state is exercised in such ways as these the moral basis of the authority remains the same: death. That is the final sanction of the state and it is the only one."

William Stringfellow, A Keeper of the Word, 226

Biblical Support for Female Leadership in the Church

1. Men and women are created in the image of God.
2. All four Gospel's record women as the first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.
3. At Pentecost the spirit of prophecy fell upon both men and women.
4. Junia was recognized by Paul as an apostle herself.
5. In Christ the distinction between male and female is overcome.
6. There are numerous scriptural references to women excercising leadership in the early church.
7. Passages in the NT in traditionally thought to be in opposition to female leadership in the church are either interpolations or capable of being interpreted in non-oppositional ways, and with good reason.

Obviously all of these points require defense and nuance, but for now I will simply register my belief that they are capable of being defended and nuanced in a way that when taken together I find sufficient for supporting the conclusion, on Biblical grounds, that not only is female leadership in the Church permissible, but also necessary for the Church to be what she is called to be in full. (Of course there are good arguments for female Church leadership that can be made on other grounds as well. For example, the experience of women obviously gifted for leadership.)

Principalities and Powers

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the language of "principalities and powers" in the Bible, and how it applies to the 21st century world I inhabit. My thinking on the topic has been stimulated, informed, and shaped by the following sources: the "demonic individual/personalism" of the conservative evangelical/charismatic Protestantism that I was raised in, exemplified in, for example, Frank Peretti's novels, which I devoured as a teenager; my own personal encounters and experiences with forces and sensed presences of evil; and more recently, the writings of John Howard Yoder, Walter Wink, William Stringfellow, and Marva Dawn, which expanded and corrected my individualistic and dualistic understanding of the powers to include their comprehensive, systematic, and concrete/physical manifestations and dimensions.

I am convinced that this is an extraordinarily important subject that has been widely misunderstood and underappreciated by American evangelical churches, thereby greatly hindering their mission and witness, even, at times, enabling them to be co-opted and used to further the ultimately deadly agenda of the principalities and powers themselves. More on this later.

Not entirely unrelated to my earlier ruminations on time is this poem by the Anglo-Catholic priest, Christian socialist, and pacifist G. A. Studdert Kennedy. I first read it in the preface to Lesslie Newbigin's autobiography and it left a very strong impression on me, particularly the last stanza.

IT IS NOT FINISHED

It is not finished, Lord.
There is not one thing done;
There is no battle of my life
That I have really won.

And now I come to tell thee
How I fought to fail.
My human, all too human, tale
of weakness and futility.

And yet there is a faith in me
That Thou wilt find in it
One word that Thou canst take
And make
The centre of a sentence
In Thy book of poetry.

I cannot read the writing of the years,
My eyes are full of tears,
It gets all blurred and won’t make sense;
It’s full of contradictions
Like the scribblings of a child.

I can but hand it in, and hope
That Thy great mind, which reads
The writings of so many lives,
Will understand this scrawl
And what it strives to say – but leaves unsaid.
I cannot write it over, the stars are coming out,
My body needs its bed.
I have no strength for more,
So it must stand or fall – dear Lord,
That’s all.

(Source: Maggie Dawn)

The Problem of Time

Time is a problem for me. I often don't know what to "do" with it. I sense that it is a scarce and precious "resource" with ethical and, more fundamentally, theological prescriptions regulating its use and misuse. In other words, the "gift" of time comes with certain responsibilities and obligations.

Like most other gifts I can use it ("Use your time wisely"), give it ("I can give you some time on Monday"), ask for it ("Could I have a moment of your time?"), lose it ("I've lost track of time"), ignore it ("Pay no attention to the time"), waste it ("What a waste of time"), misuse it ("That really wasn't a good use of time"), and use it well ("He makes good use of his time"). Unlike other gifts, though, I can't decline it or get away from it in this life. I have to make some "use" of it, for good or for ill.

I can't help but seeing the "problem" of time as first and foremost a theological problem. What does God expect and desire for me to do with my time? How do I use it faithfully? That is the question that most troubles me. I think it troubles me because I so rarely feel confident that I am answering it correctly, particularly in the day-to-day details of my life. For instance, writing this blog; a faithful use of my time? Isn't there something better, more important, more beneficial to the work of God in the world than sitting at my keyboard and writing this right now? Am I then sinning?

The problem, I think, has to do with the ordering of goods. For me, as for Jesus, the highest good, is the Kingdom/Will of God. All other decisions and actions ought to be subordinate to and ordered towards its growth/accomplishment. But what does that mean when it come right down to it? How could I possibly know which decisions/actions will best promote an end so diffuse, complex, and mysterious as the Kingdom of God? I can't. I must have help.

Whence does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. In the Scriptures. In the traditions and liturgies of God's people (Israel and the Church). In the lives and words of the Prophets, both canonical and non. And in my own personal, existential experience of the Spirit's guidance.

None of these by themselves, or taken together, can provide me with certainty that I am in every moment using my time well, of course. That kind of certainty is unnatainable, and perhaps, even, undesirable. For no doubt it would quickly lead me to believe that it is me and my own good actions that are bringing about the redemption and salvation of myself and of the world (i.e. the kingdom/will of God), when in fact, it is wholly the gracious work of the Lord. Thus faith.

Theou gar esmen sunergoi, theou georgion, theou oikodome este.