i am paradox

Go to hell ?

Gotta give a huge shout out and thanks so much to one of my mentors from afar and good friend Mike DeVries , who posted the link for this article.

"Eternal misery is a horrifying possibility.  But it won't be a fiery cavern where demons poke you with pitchforks--or is it?  Hell has never been a fashionable destination, but in recent years it’s met a fate that even the most passé hotspots don’t endure; people suspect it doesn’t exist. Or, if it does exist, it attracts no customers; "we are permitted to hope that hell is empty" is how this is sometimes phrased. Even the most conservative Christians have a hard time putting a positive spin on a wrathful God who flings evildoers into flaming torment.


 

  

It is tragic that some Christians have been so battered with stories of a prideful, vindictive God that they have fled from Jesus’ fold. No wonder some become atheists; who would want to spend eternity with such a tyrant?

Yet I’m going to make a case for hell, though not the one you see in cartoons, a fiery cavern where demons poke you with pitchforks. Dante made that kind of thing look pretty exciting, but "The Inferno" was written almost 1,300 years after the gospels. When you strip away European and medieval assumptions, and look at the writings of Christians in lands and cultures closer to Jesus’ time, you get a different picture."

Make sure you check out the rest of the article on beliefnet, I assure you it's worth the time.

Hell by Frederica Mathewes-Green

The Atonement?

a·tone·ment  (-tnmnt)
n.

1. Amends or reparation made for an injury or wrong; expiation.
2. 1. Reconciliation or an instance of reconciliation between God and humans.
   2. Atonement Christianity. The reconciliation of God and humans brought about by the redemptive life and death of Jesus.

For over a year now, I, along with many others, have been reconsidering our view of the atonement of Christ. Long prominent in western Christianity is the concept of the substitutionary atonement, i.e. namely that Christ died in our place. But it seems that the release of The Passion of the Christ has awakend our postmodern sensibilities.  Feminist theologians have especially brought this issue for many evangelicals: if God wanted to forgive us, why didn't God just forgive us?  Why did God need something bad (the murder of an innocent) to occur before God did something good?  Why did Jesus need to die a violent death, and doesn't the cross promote redemptive violence?  I am sure you can see the timeliness of this question in light of the terrorism we face in our world today.

Two books that have really helped shape my thinking in this regard have been The Nonviolent Atonement  and Recovering the Scandal of the Cross.  So did Brian McLaren's The Last Word, even though the main premise of the book is hell, not the atonement.

I was thinking about this recently b/c of a few blog posts and articles that I came across online, and know that a lot of people don't know anything about this. I think it's a great topic for both Christians and non-Christians and that it's really important and timely. As we are in Lent and approaching Holy Week soon, I invite you into the conversation of what really happenned when Jesus went to the cross, and why.

"I will lay it down as a premise for theological thinking about the atonement that one’s theory of sin shapes (even to the point of determining) one’s theory of the atonement. I will also agree with many scholars who point out that males have shaped the discussion of the atonement. Let’s just name the major influences: Irenaeus and the recapitulation theory, the Cappadocian fathers and the ransom theory, Anselm and the satisfaction theory, Abelard and the moral influence theory, the Reformers and the penal substitution theory, Hugo Grotius and the government theory. Each theory is connected to a male. Has their “maleness” intruded into the theory of the atonement? Feminists think so. What do you think?

Rita Finger argued that the penal substitution and moral influence theories encouraged women into patterns of submission, while the ransom (Christus Victor) theory encouraged liberation. Some feminists have repudiated the cross as an instrument of powerful violence against the oppressed and powerless, and have therefore sought out a theory of atonement that is virtually cross-less (Ruether). The cross, so they are arguing, justifies violence against the weak.

Now if the premise above be accepted, we are in need of examining our understanding of sin, and we have to ask if males have shaped the discussion in light of male-ish sins and therefore male-ish atonement. Do the theories of atonement above mostly focus on the “curse” of God against Adam in Genesis 3 and do they incorporate enough the “curse” against women in Genesis 3?"

Feminism and Atonement

"Chalke opened the evening by emphasizing that The Lost Message of Jesus was not just about atonement, the issue that his critics have most seized on, but also about rediscovering Jesus' call to radical discipleship and peace. He admitted that his book had gaps as it was not meant to be an academic or even theological book. “I wrote this book for those who don't know Christ yet,” he said, “We [Christians] are considered to be guilt-inducing and judgemental.” Our focus on penal substitution is part of that problem, he said.

By focusing simply on God's wrath and appeasement through the cross we paint a distorted picture of Gods character. We portray him as a someone bent on retribution rather than someone who loves us deeply but who is upset by our actions. Furthermore, Chalke said, penal substitution perpetuates the myth of redemptive violence.

Chalke clarified that he does believe in substitutionary atonement on the cross but not penal substitution. He also outlined the notion of Christus Victor which sees Christ's life, death and resurrection all together as victory over the powers of evil, both spiritual and earthly.

Gathercol responded with an assessment of a number of areas. First he felt that the book was too one sided and needed more balanced discussion. He said that Chalke's renderings of the Gospel made the future life a pale second best to now. “My concern with Steve's view is that it has very little to do with saving us for eternity,” said Gathercol, “[Jesus] does talk a heck of a lot about the final judgement.”

Responding to Chalke's critique of penal substitution, Gathercol made the point that it was Father and Son working in unison undertaking to bear weight of sin that we alone cannot. He suggested that it was not a unilateral decision on God's part to have Jesus go to the cross. He quoted on Mark 10:45 and said that the story of Jesus and the cross are biblical and inspiring and that Jesus is paying a ransom for us, arguing that you cannot simply get rid of a doctrine just because it was badly treated by some.

Gathercol echoed the concerns of many Evangelicals when he suggested that Chalke relativizes Jesus' message too much. “Steve has gone to town on what sounds good in our context,” he said. “Jesus anticipated that people weren't always going to lap up the message.” He went on to argue that the book is a serious revision of Jesus' message that does not fit with the picture of the “rescue mission” that is portrayed in John 3:16.

Chalke responded to Gathercol's criticism by saying that his message was not simpy “God loves you so take it easy.” However, at the other extreme he called on the church not to reduce Jesus' message to the “sinner's prayer” as a key to heaven. “In the end, if you believe in penal substitution, the cross is not primarily about God's love, but about God's anger,” he said."

The Lost Message of Jesus

Think about it

"I’m realizing that the Bible has a dangerous sort of power. It’s not unlike anything with power really. Anything as explosive and influential as the Bible should be expected to be dangerous in some ways. It’s like “the force” in Star Wars. If you use it right you can be in touch with and then able to protect the whole galaxy. If you use it wrong you might just turn into Darth Vader.

I heard once (probably in history class) that dynamite was not originally invented to kill. Dynamite, which has arguably led all the way to nuclear weapons, was originally created for mining. It was originally intended to benefit the world, a very practical and powerful invention. But just like anything with great power it is dangerous. Handled wrongly or stored incorrectly it can become unmanageable and unpredictable, it is very dangerous. And, just like anything with power, it can be used for things as productive as mining to things as destructive as war. It can help people and it can destroy them.

The Bible has an uncanny brand of power, a mysterious and mystical power. It has the power to bring down great rulers from their thrones and lift up humble people (Luke 1:52). The gospel can bring great joy, abundant life, restoration, healing, and renewal but if it has this kind of power shouldn’t we be careful with how we handle it?

I hear a lot of pastors and speakers quote the bible and sometimes it just breaks my heart what they do with it. They carelessly toss verses around to prove their point, taking it out of context, out of its real definitive framework and they defile it. The Bible has been used by some to do good things but by many others it has been nauseatingly misused. It has been used to marginalize women, segregate races, institutionalize Christianity, label and categorize people, justify murder, rationalize apathy, keep people in poverty, keep people away from education, away from thinking freely, away from love. The Bible has been used to destroy the very message it wants to bring. As dynamite was brought into the world to bring prosperity and has been used to destroy prosperity, the Bible was brought to bring peace and acceptance yet has been used to destroy the very things it stands for."

Thanks to my friend Wes Ellis for these insights !

"I’m realizing that the Bible has a dangerous sort of power. It’s not unlike anything with power really. Anything as explosive and influential as the Bible should be expected to be dangerous in some ways. It’s like “the force” in Star Wars. If you use it right you can be in touch with and then able to protect the whole galaxy. If you use it wrong you might just turn into Darth Vader.

I heard once (probably in history class) that dynamite was not originally invented to kill. Dynamite, which has arguably led all the way to nuclear weapons, was originally created for mining. It was originally intended to benefit the world, a very practical and powerful invention. But just like anything with great power it is dangerous. Handled wrongly or stored incorrectly it can become unmanageable and unpredictable, it is very dangerous. And, just like anything with power, it can be used for things as productive as mining to things as destructive as war. It can help people and it can destroy them.

The Bible has an uncanny brand of power, a mysterious and mystical power. It has the power to bring down great rulers from their thrones and lift up humble people (Luke 1:52). The gospel can bring great joy, abundant life, restoration, healing, and renewal but if it has this kind of power shouldn’t we be careful with how we handle it?

I hear a lot of pastors and speakers quote the bible and sometimes it just breaks my heart what they do with it. They carelessly toss verses around to prove their point, taking it out of context, out of its real definitive framework and they defile it. The Bible has been used by some to do good things but by many others it has been nauseatingly misused. It has been used to marginalize women, segregate races, institutionalize Christianity, label and categorize people, justify murder, rationalize apathy, keep people in poverty, keep people away from education, away from thinking freely, away from love. The Bible has been used to destroy the very message it wants to bring. As dynamite was brought into the world to bring prosperity and has been used to destroy prosperity, the Bible was brought to bring peace and acceptance yet has been used to destroy the very things it stands for."

Thanks to my friend Wes Ellis for these insights !

Special Guest Speaker on Demonology

My good friend and mentor Chris can just post like a sentence and get a dozen responses. But on Sunday, he posted quite a worthy blog entry which is getting a lot of attention. Here is a sample:

"But when was the last time that you or I drove out a demon?

In our modern, enlightenment-influenced age, I fear we are quick to diagnose "troubled" people as having a host of psychological and/or neurological disorders, but slow (if at all) at attributing anything to demonic influences.  Why is that?  Is it because we are much more a man or woman of science than we care to admit? Is it because of unfortunate abuses we have witnessed in years past?  Is it because we're embarassed to believe in demonic activity anymore?  Or is it because we've become far too sophisticated for such primative notions as demons and the like?"

You can read the rest here!

Anyway, all of that to say this: paradox will be hosting a very special guest and noted expert on this topic Sunday, October 30th, 6:30 p.m. Yes, that is the night before Halloween. Yes, we did that on purpose!  Everyone is invited out to hear famed author and professor Dr. Charles Kraft speak, and then take your questions live.

Are demons real today? What are they and where did they come from? How do we discern between an evil spirt and psychological and/or neurological disorders?  And what about demon possession--how does it happen and why? Please help us get the word out about this night--it should be an amazing experience!

God of Wrath ?

I have been thinking through and processing the nature of God lately. How do we deal with the angry wrath of God's judgement in the Old Testament with the love that Jesus preached about in the New Testament?  And to be even more specific, it's one thing when God sends judgement upon people (i.e. the flood), but what about the genocide that Israel commited in the name of God, numerous times? 

I will post some more about this over the weekend, but I recenly came across this post from my friend Mike DeVries :

" Here's an exerpt from the late night essay on Judges 11. Thoughts anyone?

Perhaps one of the most disturbing stories in all the Scriptures is found in Judges 11, which chronicles the actions of Jephthah and the deliverance of Israel from the Ammonites. Jephthah we are told in the text is the product of the union between a prostitute and Gilead. He is subsequently cast off by Gilead’s wife to fend for himself, taking to a life of raiding, surrounded by outlaws as companions. When the Ammonites wage war on Israel, Israel calls on Jephthah to deliver them. Jephthah agrees and sends word to the Ammonites trying to avoid a bloody confrontation. When it appears that the Ammonites have not heeded his words, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon, assuring him of victory.

It is at this point that the story takes an ominous turn. Jephthah makes a vow unto the Lord that “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” [Judges 11.31] Jephthah goes off to war against the Ammonites and finds God’s promise faithful – the Ammonites are given over to his hand. Upon returning to his house, his daughter, his only child, comes out of the house to greet him, as was the custom of the day. Jephthah, faced with a choice, decides the unthinkable – to go ahead with the sacrificing of his daughter unto the LORD, and this even at her own encouragement!

The question that haunts the reader is why. Why does Jephthah make this kind of vow? Does God actually condone the vow? Why does Jephthah decided to go through with the sacrifice, since the Scriptures strictly forbids human sacrifice? Why does his daughter placidly agree to the sacrifice, even encouraging her father to go through with it? All the while the reader must ask the question, “Where is God when all this is happening? He stopped the hand of Abraham, will he not stop the hand of Jephthah?” God is strangely silent in Judges 11, again why?

And what is the legacy of Jephthah in light of Judges 11-12? R.K. Harrison notes, Although Jephthah never claimed the title of "judge," he was one of the most illustrious leaders of that period of Hebrew history. A man of energy and conviction who was used by the Spirit of God, he fought valiantly against the pagan Ammonites. He was faithful in his vow to God, even though it cost him dearly, and in the NT was included in the category of great people of faith [Hebrews 11.32]. [Harrison, p. 984]. According to Harrison, Jephthah appears to be a model of faithfulness to God, with the human sacrifice of his daughter justified as a reasonable, even courageous act of obedience. Can this really be?"

Judges 11

21st century spiritual formation

One of the most important problems facing the church in America today is that people are more interested in spirituality than ever before, and we don't know what to do about it. More and more people are talking about and quoting stats about how many churches are closing, dying, etc. I think we will continue to see a paradox in the time that we live in: on one hand, we will see the largest churches in history and churches grow larger and larger.  And on the other hand, we will see churches close and die at a rapid pace.

Brian McLaren has a new article on the new kind of conversation website about spiritual formation in a postmodern context. This could be one of the keys we need in the time in which we are living.

21st century spiritual formation

And here is an interview with Dallas Willard and Richard Foster also on the same topic.

The Making of the Christian: Richard J. Foster and Dallas Willard on the difference between discipleship and spiritual formation

Saturation Evangelism

"The New York Times describes the film as a “a 1979 box office flop” with a “gooey soundtrack and a British voiceover”, but Jesus Video Project America believes the “Jesus” video is an effective tool for “saturation evangelism.” Since 1992, the ministry has mass-mailed over 20 million copies on DVD and videotape to households in Alabama, Hawaii and South Carolina and large sections of Ohio and Texas (a county-by-county distribution in North Carolina is currently under way). Not everyone, though, welcomes the video proselytization. After physician Robert Cosby bought 1.7 million copies and mailed them in 1998 to every household in Alabama, he found a copy of the video in his front yard with a note that said, "Jesus has returned."

Saturation Evangelism

The Motherly Qualities of God

I am giving my very first Mother's Day message tomorrow morning, which is very fitting considering I am also getting ordained this week. I will be speaking on the motherly qualities of God, and came across this fasincating read:

"Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, whenever reference is made to God (or, for that matter, to the other two members of the Godhead) a male pronoun (He, Him, His, etc.) is employed. Why is this the case? Does God indeed possess gender comparable to that of humans? Is God male?

<>

God’s “gender” has been a hot topic for approximately the last two decades, owing in large part to the impact of the women’s liberation movement and the sexual revolution. Books with titles like When God was a Woman, The Feminine Face of God, Womanspirit Rising, and Beyond God the Father are leaping off bookstore shelves. Religious writers have capitulated to the “signs of the times” in attempts to make God “gender neutral.” For example, the well-known writer on science and religion (and herself a believer in God), Kitty Ferguson, placed the following disclaimer in the frontispiece to her best-selling book, The Fire in the Equations, produced and distributed by the W.B. Eerdmans company (a religious publisher).

The author of a book on the topic of science and religion needs a pronoun for God. Regardless of whether I choose to call God “he” or “she,” I find myself making a statement which I don’t wish to make. Using them interchangeably seems contrived and gets confusing. “She/he” or “he/she” is cumbersome...and one still has the problem of which gender comes first in the pairing. “It” will not do. Lacking a better solution, I have chosen to use “he,” which makes the weaker statement and is more easily interpreted as inclusive (1994, ellipses in orig.)."

You can read the rest here: God the Father ?

Time to come home

Isn't it time for the American troops to leave Iraq?  If you say the main reason we were there was to catch Sadam, well, my comments would be that we have him, so let's get out of there.

"St. Paul's Episcopal Church on the Green in East Norwalk, Connecticut wanted a new series of paintings depicting the stations of the cross. The press release announcing the dedication of the paintings is headlined: "Art, Religion and Abu Ghraib - A Connecticut Church Installs Stations of the Cross Referencing the Iraq War and the Prison Abuses at Abu Ghraib."

"The resulting paintings combine traditional Christian imagery with references to a year of turmoil in the Middle East, including the war in Iraq and the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison."

None of your business

Who will go to heaven and who will go to hell? I think that we will be surprised at both. We had an amazing dialogue at paradox tonight about this, which unfortunately didn't get recorded. Perhaps the greatest answer to this is: it's none of your business.

When many people typically think of hell, they think of it in terms of justice. Which works great if you are referring to Hitler. But what about the innocent people that were killed and tortured that maybe didn't accept Christ. So our conversation was steered into what it means to accept Christ. Is it just saying words, or embracing a life, the way of Jesus?

I am planning on doing a podcast on that subject this week. Until then, here are a few paragraphs that I really resonate with.

Heaven on earth?