Replay in Baseball

(This blog is prompted by this article by Ken Rosenthal and Tim McCarver's video response.)

Baseball's refusal to expand replay is untenable. If they can easily fix bad calls, do it! I've heard two main arguments against doing this: the "human factor" and game length.

Human Factor

There's two sub-arguments under this one. First, bad calls are part of the game. Let me be perfectly candid: That's sheer idiocy. If we've learned anything from Olympic sports, tennis, and football, it's that using technology to get the call right doesn't detract from the sport but maintains the integrity of the competition, thereby enhancing the sport. Thankfully the popularity of this view seems to be waning. Second, McCarver and others argue that they don't want the game digressing to a video game where everyone is a robot. Impressive. Most impressive. He managed to use not one but two logical fallacies is the same argument--slippery slope, appeal to fear. Seriously, did the man just appeal to the robot argument? Last time I checked the NFL's use of replay has not precipitated the hostile takeover of androids. Has someone been watching too much Will Smith science fiction again? Don't worry, Tim McCarver, it happens to the best of us.

Game Length

I'm annoyed that our society has the collective attention span of a gnat. People say baseball is boring 'cuz it's slow. Personally, I like the game because it's slow, not in spite of it. It's a breath of fresh air. That being said, I do agree with the concern about game length for a different reason: 24 hours = 1 day. The simple logistics of life is that games that run 3+ hours seriously eats up one's day, making for for bad husbands, fathers, students, etc. That being said, the argument that replay shouldn't be expanded because of game length still doesn't hold water. It's not idiotic, but it is an exercise is missing the point. The problem isn't spending time on the right things, but on the wrong things. The real issue is the duration between pitches, which quickly adds up. Why don't they just use the equivalent of the NBA's shot clock between pitches? Batters have to be in the batter's box within a designated period or it's an automatic strike. Easy fix. As for the time replay would take, have these people watched a game on TV since 1980? The audience knows within 10 seconds if the call was correct. Stick a 5th umpire in the press box and have the home plate umpire wear an earbud. Problem solved. They don't have to follow the NFL model on that one.

In my mind, the real problem is that the crotchety old white guys who run baseball like tradition for tradition's sake. ("That's the way we've always done it!") I keep listening to their arguments with an open mind, hoping one of them will say something--anything!--that's a good, rational reason for not expanding replay. And I keep being disappointed. Unfortunately, unless a bad call costs a team a playoff series--it might even take the World Series--I seriously doubt sanity will prevail during Selig's tenure. Worse yet, the guy is poised to pull a Strom Thurmond. But hey, it'll be real exciting to get replay when he retires in 2034. Who knows? By then we might just skip over the whole replay thing and go straight to the robots!

Why Are There Priests in Christianity?

One of the final vestiges of hardcore Protestantism within me is my enthusiastic affirmation of the priesthood of the believer. Honestly, in light of 1 Peter 2:9, I'm having difficulty seeing it any other way. This is obviously a strange objection for a guy who is seriously considering Anglican ordination. Probably something I need to spend some serious time on...

I'm looking at this issue from three angles: historic polity, biblical themes, pastor v. priest.

Historic Polity

As of right now my polity is something of a blend. On the local level, I'm basically Presbyterian while on the regional, national, and international level I'm more in line with the emphasis upon bishops found in the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and Methodist traditions. In the NT era there were elders and deacons with apostolic oversight. As I understand it, as the apostles died an alternative form of governance needed to be developed that would maintain ecclesiastical unity and doctrinal purity. Thus, the development of the bishopric. I've long suspected that the second century was something of a hybrid with elders/deacons and bishops. Sure enough, Roger Olson confirmed it in his book The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform with a quote from an early apostolic father, Ignatius of Antioch: "As the Lord did nothing without the Father, either by himself or through the apostles (for he was united with him), so you must not do anything without the bishop and the presbyters [elders]." (The bracketed elders was Olson's modification, not mine.) As I've been reading I was hoping that Olson would touch upon the development of the priesthood, but had no such luck. By the time he'd gotten to Cyprian of Carthage we'd sudden gone from "presbyters [elders]" to "presbyter (priest)." If nothing else that confirms the existence of priests by the early to mid third century, which obviously remains quite early, but I'm still trying to get my mind the circumstances surrounding that shift from elders/presbyters to presbyters/priests.

Biblical Themes

In terms of cultural anthropology, a priest is an intermediary between a deity and its worshipers. That makes perfect sense in the OT for Shekhinah within the wilderness tabernacle and later temple in Jerusalem, but not-so-much for the NT. Please forgive my ignorance if I've completely misunderstood this one, but Jesus was the Lamb of God who fulfilled the law. So wasn't the whole point of the temple's veil being torn during his crucifixion the inauguration of the New Covenant where the Holy Spirit was no longer residing within the Holy of Holies but would now indwell believers? Isn't that the basis of our bodies being temples for the Holy Spirit in 1 Cor. 6:19-20, the living stones reference in 1 Peter 2:5, and the fulfillment of the priesthood in Hebrews? These seem like major themes. With Jesus being our Great High Priest and the Spirit's indwelling at Pentecost, I thought the whole intermediary/priest thing was done. Have I missed something? I don't presume that theological development = theological corruption, but I can't help wonder if this isn't a direct result of the Hellenization of Christianity. That is, I wonder if priests came back because of Christianity's syncretism with the Greco-Roman world. I'm not enough of a Protestant that I assume the worst, but I am enough of one that I leave that option on the table.

Pastor v. Priest

A number of Anglicans have suggested that, in practice, Anglican priests more or less function as pastors so there's really not that big a difference. OK. So why call them priests then? Seems like a cop-out to me. Language is an imperfect means of communication, but words nevertheless convey meaning. Similar as they might be, I don't say, "Catholic" when I mean "Orthodox" and I don't say, "Cat" when I mean "Dog." A pastor is a shepherd and a priest is an intermediary. Clearly those offices share many of the same responsibilities, but at the end of the day they've got to be called separate things for a reason.

I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable than I can shed some light on this issue either with his/her own knowledge or by recommending articles, books, or essays. Any and all help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Reading the Bible on a Desert Island

Whenever I read Philip Yancey I'm blown away by his piercing self-assessment. One example from The Jesus I Never Knew comes to mind. He wrote that, were he a first century Jew living under Roman occupation in Israel, he probably would have been a Pharisee--and not just any old Pharisee, but the type who militantly opposed Jesus. This from the man of whom Billy Graham once said, "There is no writer in the evangelical world that I admire and appreciate more." Yancey's ability to honestly identify his own limitations and sinful inclinations is second to none. That degree of self-aware brutal honesty is something to which I aspire. Following in that pattern, then, I've been thinking about the Trinity. More specifically, were I on the metaphorical desert island with no outside influences and little to do but read the Bible for 50 years, would I arrive at a Trinitarian theology? Though I'm the staunchest of Trinitarians, I'm not so sure I would.

I definitely would be a monotheist--that's pretty clear from the OT--but I'd have trouble when I got to the NT. I'd probably conceive of God the Father as the lone God. He seems like the continuation of the powerful deity from the Old Testament whom Jesus seeks to submit to in the NT. Initially I'd probably think of Jesus in almost Islamic terms--as a really good prophet. Then the Holy Spirit's descending upon him at his baptism would mess with my mind, so I'd think of him as an amplified prophet with a kind of unique divine spark that was magnified or completed at the baptism. Then that pesky virgin birth thing would get to me, which I suspect would eventually lead to a sort of royalty view. Just as in a royal family the king is supreme but his son is still royalty, so I'd think of Jesus as a competent but insufficient divine prince, as it were, under his father who rules eternally. Kind of like today's British monarchy, he'd be kind of like Queen Elizabeth who technically is still in power but in actuality merely does the bidding of the government. Jesus would undoubtedly be a created being, though. As for the Holy Spirit, there's no way I'd think of him as a distinct person. Are you kidding me? More of an it--kind of a weird ghost-like, divine-ish, helper/messenger, entity thing. In terms of the power rankings, I'd never conceive of the three as co-equal. It'd clearly be Father (1), Jesus (2), Holy Spirit (3). Although, it would seem as though the Holy Spirit had been around longer. I might even come to think of the Spirit as existing from eternity past along with the Father, since there's no sign of its creation and it was clearly there hovering above the waters very early on, so maybe there would be a challenge for the #2 spot. Still, the Spirit would probably seem like more of the butler to Jesus' son of the manor lord.

Anyway, my point is this: This Bible-only view that is so common in American evangelicalism is extraordinarily inadequate because the Bible must be interpreting by sinful people with cognitive limitations, such as myself. Without the guidance of tradition found in church history, I for one would have digressed into heresy long ago. In fact, just these past few days I've been thinking about how, without knowing it, I'm pretty sure I was at one time an implicit oneness Pentecostal, which, it's worth noting, I held while attending a church that was antagonistic to tradition.

* Just to clarify, I'm not saying the church I attended held to oneness Pentecostalism as a congregation-wide doctrinal position. I'm not accusing anyone of heresy. I'm saying that I implicitly held to it. Two reasons: 1) They rarely taught things like the Trinity, so I didn't know any better; 2) The way they practically talked about God was as Father OR Jesus OR Holy Spirit, which didn't suggest an overt Trinitarian view even if it was the official position.

Mini Blog #24: New Ethics for the Information Age?

Since departing the Dittohead regime, my perspective on the nation's impassioned ideological rhetoric has continually evolved. Initially it was amusing. I couldn't help but laugh at people who sincerely compared Dubbya to Hitler. But it wasn't too long before amusement turned into bewilderment. Bewilderment shifted to annoyance, which itself gave way to agitation. Agitation later morphed into anger. And anger turned into weariness. For a long time, I assumed that I was pretty much alone on that political journey. I didn't want to read my own experiences into my perception of others. After the recent news of Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" and Rutgers University's "Project Civility," however, I've begun to wonder if I'm not part of a larger trend. Are there many other people like me who, regardless of their various political beliefs, are united in their fatigue at the 24-hour news cycle featuring political cockfighting to bolster ratings? Are there people who are just plain tired of all the angry blowhards? Could this be the beginning of the "Civility Movement"? Or perhaps, to borrow a line from Stewart, the "Take It Down A Notch Movement"? Whatever the case, it'll be interesting to see if these are simply outliers or if they're part of a growing cultural trend. For years now people have been saying that new ethics need to be developed to govern communication in the Information Age. Maybe we've finally gotten to the point where enough is enough, which is serving as a catalyst for serious thought on this issue. I wonder if we're seeing the beginning of that.

Mini Blog #23: Seminary

(It's a mini blog, not a thesis. I'm writing in generalities...)

A number of friends have commented that they want to attend seminary to better orient their faith, wrestle through their doubts, find some answers, and deepen their walk with the Lord. All of which I encourage. Here's the trouble: The seminary system excels in self-fulfilling prophecy. Most potential students pick a seminary that aligns with what he or she believes, right? Not surprisingly, then, the professors there tend to reinforce said beliefs. To give a handful of examples, not a lot of Reformed Christians who go to Westminster come out non-Calvinists, not a lot of Baptists who go to Southern leave believing in paedobaptism, not a lot of moderates who attend Fuller leave as conservatives, and not a love of Dispensationalists leave Dallas as Covenant Theologians. It's this theological Catch-22. You go to seminary to work through your beliefs, but you have to know what you believe to pick your seminary. Obviously I've not been to seminary so mine is an etic perspective, but what I've been encouraging people to do is really spend time studying for a couple years beforehand. That isn't necessarily the time to work through all the doctrinal minutia, but to establish the larger conceptual framework for how they approach the task of theology. In other words, spend time studying on your own to find what stream you swim in or what structure you fit within, so to speak, and only then decide what seminary to attend. Maybe that's bad advice, though. I'd be interested to see what future, present, and former seminarians think about this one.

Discernmentarianism: A Middle-Way Forward in the Gender Role Controversy

With the global realignment continuing to unfold within the Anglican Communion, most North American parishioners seem to have polarized between the progressive/liberal and traditionalist/conservative camps. My guess is that there are many quiet moderates out there--those who can't articulate themselves well, just don't want to put up a fuss, or feel as though their voices are being lost in the cacophony of ideological rants--which means that vocal moderates such as myself have a tough row to hoe. This is particularly true in my situation, as I consider beginning the path toward ordination in an overtly conservative diocese.

The Anglican Church in North America has given each diocese freedom to determine its own policy on the issue of gender roles. The challenge I face is that my diocese affirms male-only ordination and I do not. Personally, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Submission to ecclesiastical authority and grace for others' conscience have enabled me to comfortably accept that theological position. Beyond the specific issue of ordination, however, I get far more rigid. It's important to me that the general ethos be that of genuine gender equality. That is, I'm not OK with church cultures that are suppressive of women. For example, the cultural expectation that women run the nursery and bake the goodies while not allowing them to teach Christian Education (to everyone), which I've witnessed in numerous churches, violates my own conscience to same degree as female ordination does to others.

The complementarian view that women are "distinct but equal," which is usually defined in stereotypical roles that are premised on relatively recent socio-economic developments, often smacks of the farcical "separate but equal" legal doctrine of the Jim Crowe South. To be clear, I'm not saying that's always the case among complementarians. Yet, in my quarter century within conservative evangelicalism, it's been the exception rather than the rule that that not be the reality on the ground. Also, there will undoubtedly be those who suggest I've employed an ad hominem argument with that comparison, but I don't think so. The striking similarity between the two is not only worth noting, but it's the truest parallel from history that I could think of. The analogy is limited, of course. Certainly the hatred that so permeated the Jim Crowe South is contrary to the heart intentions of nearly all thoughtful complementarians. Where I think the parallel holds up is the justification of inferiority under the supposed banner of equality.

Wisdom is needed to navigate the contrasting visions for womanhood not only seen between church and society, but even within the Church. Because this issue is deeply felt by so many women, it can be extraordinarily difficult to simultaneously affirm/encourage both stay-at-home moms and those women who, for example, want to be college professors. Sadly, the two groups are regularly intimidated by one another. As I see it, the complementarian-egalitarian war has reached an impasse and the only viable way forward is the development of a clearer doctrine of women that holds that the ultimate value of each woman is found in doing what God has called her to do, whether that's being a stay-at-home mom or a college professor, a nun or a business professional. Surely we can all agree that true fulfillment is found in following God's will, and His will isn't uniform for 1/2 the population.

In a post from this past June I coined a new term: Discernmentarianism. My focus there was marriage and it concluded with the following paragraph:

"Obviously there are principles that should govern all marriages (e.g. love, mutual submission, forgiveness), but given the inimitability of each and every person and the resulting complexities of all relationships, I'm not convinced there is a given ideal for what all marriages ought to be. My view is that the only definitive, God-ordained model is that each couple should thoughtfully and prayerfully discern on a continual basis what their individual marriage should look like. In my own marriage, I'd be a fool to be a complementarian but in many others I've seen they'd be fools to be egalitarians. There's room enough for both. What a particular marriage looks like shouldn't be based upon an external standard that forces couples into a certain mold, but upon the internal needs of a husband's and wife's unique marital relationship. Some might suggest that my view has fallen prey to sheer relativism. Fair enough. I would only reply that my view (i.e. that the relationship between a husband and wife in a marriage ought to reflect the discerning application of wisdom to their specific circumstances, which I suppose could be called Discernmentarianism) is, eh hem, the type of 'relativistic' pattern found in Proverbs."

It seems to me that that pattern holds true in church polity. In the South, it'd be a terrible idea to insist upon full egalitarianism, including women's ordination. The inevitable result of such a hard-nose position would be schism. In the Northeast, an insistence on complementarianism would be equally as foolish. Scholars, clergy, and laity on both sides of this theological divide keep arguing for what the authoritative, biblical position is and how it should be applied to our own contemporary context, but the position I've come to is that there's not a single right answer that can be rubber stamped. In my estimate, this is an issue where there can be no ultimate resolution. Proverbial discernment is the only approach that keeps personal conscience, ecclesiastical unity, and the application of biblical teaching all in tension.

Going back to my original concern, to the best of my knowledge the ACNA has not explicitly articulate a doctrinal position like Discernmentarianism. Rather, it has allowed for a measure of theological elasticity in the pattern of classic Anglicanism. What I find interesting is that the practical result has been a position not unlike mine where each diocese decides that issue according to their local concerns and convictions. Perhaps it wouldn't be a stretch to say that the ACNA, as an ecclesiastical body, holds to de facto Discernmentarianism. I'll say it again: Ah, it's good to be Anglican. 

Top 10 Reasons Why I Suppose American Christians are Converting to Islam

Preface: A christian friend who is intrigued by Islam suggested that I write a post on the trend of American Christians converting to Islam. That's a daunting task considering this is something I've only begun to hear about in the past month. So while I'm taking on the challenge, I want to be very clear that I'm writing from my gut. The following comments aren't based upon sociological data or firsthand interaction with those who've converted. They simply compromise my attempt to put myself in someone else's shoes. It's speculation. Also, those of you who are anticipating an apologetic defense of the christian faith will be disappointed. It's a fool and a coward who tries to disprove a thing before seeking to understand it on its own terms.

(In no particular order)

Top 10 Reasons Why I Suppose Christians are Converting to Islam

1. Islam is "other." There's a certain mystique or excitement about Islam because it's different and foreign. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. It's the same reason eastern religious thought caught on so much with the hippies and then again with the New Age movement. For an American audience, it's a fresh perspective on intellectual and spiritual questions.
   
2. Islam doesn't appear as fragmented. In John 17 Jesus prayed that believers would be one just as He and the Father were one, so that the world would know that the Father sent the Son. To point out the obvious, there was wisdom in that. The more fragmented a religion appears, the more difficult its truth claims are to swallow. The basic reasoning goes something like this: "You can't even agree among yourselves how to interpret your own holy book, so how do you expect others to accept your absolute truth claims?" Good question. This is a particularly strong impulse in the American context where the dominant form of Christianity, Protestantism, has fragmented to the point of sheer absurdity. Never mind that Islam, too, has its own divisions. Most Americans don't know that yet, or don't realize just how divided those sects are. Protestantism v. Catholicism is much more tangible to an American audience than Shiite v. Sunni.
   
3. Islam is growing. I don't know enough about cultural anthropology and psychology to say whether this is specific to Western society or is simple human nature, but my observation has been that people like to be a part of something that is gaining strength rather than something that is atrophying. Western Christianity is in numerical decline. It's not cool to be going down with the ship, so to speak. Of course, Christianity seems to be growing in Africa and Asia for the same reason it's declining in North American and Europe. Go figure.
   
4. Islam appears more authentic. Why? Because Christians have lost moral credibility. When you hear such staggering statistics as Christians having an equal divorce rate as the rest of society, the whole faith seems hypocritical. People then respond by seeking a truly moral religion. It's the same reason Mormonism is growing so rapidly.
   
5. Islam is the underdog. Or it at least appears that way from the American vantage point where Christianity has been the dominant socio-political force for over a millennium and a half. Contrast Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the proposed Manhattan Islamic center. Which man (and religion) looks like the irrational bully and which looks like the rational one who's been bullied? Especially when you throw in the economic and military might of Western nations the last 400 years as opposed to the rampant poverty in the Middle East, and Islam looks like the religious equivalent of Rudy.
   
6. Islam is protected. Because of our Judeo-Christian Western heritage, political correctness insists upon little to no reverence or respect for Christianity. Not so with Islam. Insult Christianity and you receive awards. Insult Islam and you may well lose your job. Our post-christian culture sees the former as the unshackling of society from an oppressive religion and the latter as the oppression of a minority group. You've got to figure that all those derogatory comments about Christianity take a toll, and cause people to look elsewhere.
   
7. Islam appears to be an antidote to America's diseased morality. I'm not one of these "the sky is falling!" guys. From a historical vantage point, it's hard to argue that our present pervasive immorality (e.g. pornography) is any more reprehensible than our past sins (e.g. slavery). It's the myth of declension that all of society is going to hell in a hand basket, yet there clearly is a rampant breakdown in the nuclear family and many other areas of moral decay. While not endorsing a specific faith as a national religion, most of the Founding Fathers concurred that a form of religion was essential for maintaining morality and thereby a functional society and system of government. It appears to many that Christianity has failed in that regard, so why not try something new to fill that need?
   
8. Islam is misunderstood. This go against conventional wisdom, but I think Americans really, really like seeing themselves as misunderstood. Oh, they'll piss and moan about how no one gets them, but they like it. It's like the gossipy church lady whose claims to hate drama, but always finds a way to be embroiled in it. She claims it's just sooooo exhausting and it saps her soul when, in reality, she relishes it. It's the same reason a lot of hipsters are becoming Anglican--"My parents just don't understand, man."--only taken to the next level. To be clear, I'm not contesting that Islam is misunderstood by most Americans. What I'm suggesting is that Christian converts to Islam like that little bit of persecution in the same way the fundamentalist Christians who watch Fox News like that little bit of persecution they get from the mainstream media. It's a simple sociological fact that mild persecution galvanizes people's beliefs.
   
9. Islam sticks it to The Man. Converting to it can be a form of open rebellion to societal norms. It's the ultimate middle finger our nation's Judeo-Christian background. When you hear old speeches by Malcolm X and interviews with Muhammad Ali shortly after he changed his name from Cassius Clay, it's clear that there's a certain cultural militancy at work. Apparently it hasn't occurred to these folks that Islam is The Man in much of the world. It's kind of like the rural white boy who dresses like Allen Iverson to stick it to all the Abercrombie & Fitch preps. Truth be known, that same guy would probably dress like a prep to stick it to the urban culture were he attending school in the city. Stickin' it to The Man gets complicated when The Man is culturally bound.
   
10. Islam doesn't suffer from the fatigue facing Christianity. When I get interested in issues I try to leave no stone unturned, to the point that I become rather obsessive about it. It's part of my rationally meticulous nature. Can't say I've ever done that with Islam, but I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought about converting. At those times when I'd reached the absolute depths of a spiritual valley--when I'd been beaten by my supposed brothers and sisters in Christ; when I was surrounded by fundamentalists who justified hateful political views using our Savior's name; when the theologians all contradicted one another and came across as profoundly arrogant jerks; when the pastors saw fit to manipulate people into submitting their lives to Christ using erroneous historical claims; when organized Christianity looked as though it couldn't be further from the simple loving grace of Christ--yeah, I looked to Islam. I suspect many disillusioned Christians have felt the same way. Or, if they haven't already, with Islam's spreading popularity and seemingly increased viability, they're starting to.

Again, this list comprises my humble attempt to understand the perspective of Christians who've converted to Islam. I don't claim it's authoritative and I invite discussion.

My Completion of the Canterbury Trail: My Journey (Part III-h)

I was wandering a theological wasteland. After ruling out evangelicalism's standard theological systems, then deciding Catholicism and Orthodoxy weren't my bag of chips, I had no idea where to look. I'd developed a great passion for theology, but disliked the way conservative evangelicalism's most revered scholars went about the task. I found them overly confident, thought they were prone to oversimplifying complex issues, and couldn't stand that constant hint of antagonism toward the big, bad liberals. Yet what else was there? I certainly wasn't about to jump off the deep end and start denying Christ's bodily resurrection or any of that. I cranked out blog posts with titles like "Problems with Systematic Theology as a Discipline", "Choose ye this day which presuppositions ye shall serve", and "Burned out by the Arminianism-Calvinism debate." I couldn't have articulated it at the time, but this quote from N.T. Wright's book, Justification, captures what I was sensing: "For too long we have read scripture with nineteenth-century eyes and sixteenth-century questions. It's time to get back to reading with first-century eyes and twenty-first century questions." I needed to be part of something new that was searching for something old. I kept going round and around the same worn-out, binary debates, not knowing that underlying all those opposing positions was the same basic philosophical and historical perspective.

One can only run around the hamster wheel so many times before the frustration mounts. Within the span of about a month the frustration turned into anger toward the whole enterprise. Reflecting this were blog posts like "Theology: Great Discipline, Terrible Academic Culture" and "My Growing Distaste for Theology." Here's a sample from one of those posts:

"In its purest, most simple, form, theology is pursuit the of God--both knowledge of and relationship with Him. What could be better? The problem is, the pure form rarely manifests itself. My observation has been that the culture of the whole theological endeavor has been marred. The theologians themselves are arrogant, proud, and self-righteous. The overall aura is one of hostility, magnified by the eternal weight that is placed upon the discussion. In literature, if you disagree over the interpretation of a text, it's alright. If you disagree in theology, you're abusing the divinely-inspired Word of God, misrepresenting our Lord and Savior, and potentially sending people to hell. Then there's also this prevailing superiority trip. Both amateur and professional theologians act as if all other disciplines are innately inferior. For example, I recently heard an address by D.A. Carson in which he delved into the topic, What is Evangelicalism? Before he got into his own views, he first systematically went through all the ways of addressing the issue in order to show how they were errant or limited. According to him, theology alone was the way to adequately answer the question. It alone provided the truth. (How convenient that a theologian would think such a thing.) Now, I sincerely like most of D.A. Carson's work. Certainly I disagree with him on some things, but by in large I like his stuff. But I hear him, like most other theologians, dismissing all disciplines like this, I cannot help but marvel at their brazen arrogance and/or naivety."

I wanted to do theology the right way. I was committed to worshiping God with my mind, which to me necessitated complete intellectual honesty. No questions were off-limits. I thought it was important to be transparent with those around me. Yet when I humbly questioned doctrines like the Trinity, inerrancy, and the Perspicuity of Scripture, I encountered the full wrath of fundamentalism. Time and again professors and peers accused me of having a low view of Scripture, being liberal, and believing heresy. Apparently these folks haven't consulted a dictionary and are, therefore, ignorant of the fact that "questioning" and "rejecting" aren't synonyms.

I still haven't figured out how one is anyone supposed to respond to fundamentalists. Lie? Just make crap up that will support the 'ol conservative party line so they'll think you're "good, safe, truthful, and conservative" and leave you alone? Ignore? Simply ignore the fact that a brother or sister in Christ just deeply offended you by saying you dishonor God? Challenge? We all know there's little to no hope in changing a fundamentalist's mind on anything. If you try to explain the complexity of the situation, it'll reinforce their suspicions that you're one of those liberal academics insidiously trying to destroy Christianity. And if, by the grace of God, you actually get them to reconsider their position for even a minute, their friends and family with charge them of succumbing to doubt and compromising the truth. Soon enough they'll return to the fold, or get kicked out and be right there beside you. There's just no good response, which I'm convinced is exactly how they want it.

I never did find a good answer for the fundamentalist problem, but my saving grace was Chris Vena. I met him on my college's online philosophy forum. He'd done his B.A. at Toccoa Falls College, M.A. at Bethel, had just finished up his Ph.D course work at Marquette, and was looking to return to TFC for a position. The first time we chatted in person the topic was theology. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "So you're not a Calvinist?"
Chris: "Nope."
Me: "Or an Arminian?"
Chris: "Nope."
Me: "Dispensationalist?"
Chris: "Nope."
Me: "And you don't subscribe to Covenant Theology?"
Chris: "Nope."
Me: "I don't get the sense you're a Cessationist."
Chris: "Nope."
Me: "Probably not a Pentecostal, either."
Chris: "Nope."
Me: "So what the heck are you?"
Chris: "A Trinitarian Christian."
Me: "That's it?"

Chris pretty well embodies Gen X in my mind. With his hat pulled low and my reflection in his sunglasses, the jerk just leaned back and smiled. Can't say it was the most insightful conversation I've ever been a part of, but he made me feel like it was fine, even good, to be where I was. He offered no answers that day, but assured me that I was on the right path. It was exactly what I needed to hear.

After that I basically went on a theological hiatus for a couple years. It was time to put my attention elsewhere--marriage, history, politics, philosophy, culture, music, movies, friends, an academic conference, etc. It wasn't until after graduation that I had any time available for theology.

Within a few days of receiving my diploma I went to Chris' office and asked him to recommend a book. Knowing that I was on an evangelical kick, he recommended Roger Olson's How to Be Evangelical without Being Conservative. It was a terrific book, so I went back. The second time he recommended Scot McKnight's The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. Two for two! (By the way, I still think that book should be titled The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible and Your Views on Women in Ministry. It's kind of comical how he subtly slipped in that whole egalitarian issue... into the entire second half of the book. Scot McKnight, you are a smooth criminal.) Again I stopped by his office. This time he wasn't there, so I called him. Although he hadn't read it yet, he recommended Olson's Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical Theology. He warned that it was more of a technical read than the previous two, but thought I'd like it. Naturally, I broke into his office and, um, borrowed it. Sign #347 you're a dork: You're stealing theology books from your professor's office.

Reformed and Always Reforming hurt my brain in a good way. It took two solid months to get through because every single paragraph challenged or nuanced the theological training I'd received in conservative churches and Bible college. When I finished the book, I wrote this review:

"Time will tell if this proves to be the most important book in my theological development, but right now I suspect this will be the case. This book has helped me to provide the theological methodology that I've been searching for for so long. I don't necessarily agree with Olson on where that methodology takes him in terms of specific doctrines, nor do I like much of the nomenclature he uses. Nevertheless, I finally feel as though I found what I've been looking for. Sorry, Bono."

A year later I still agree with that assessment. I resonated with and found much comfort in the book's themes, but the thing that impacted me most was Olson's explanation of the postfoundationalist form of evangelical theology. I'd never heard of it before.

(In case you haven't either, this theological form can be seen in the works of authors like Stanley Grenz, John Franke, LeRon Shults, Kevin Vanhoozer, and N.T. Wright among others. And, for the record, I cannot stand describing events, movements, or periods as post-something--post-war, postmodern, postconservative, postfoundationalist. It's a genuinely terrible way to describe a thing. The prefix itself keeps the onus on the past, not the present or the future. I have a great deal of respect and appreciation for tradition and history, but I dislike the idea of being driven by a response to a particular thing. Nevertheless, "postfoundationalism" is the normative term so for the time being I'll use it.)

According to Olson, here is what postfoundationalist evangelical theology looks like:

• The creative task of theology is never complete. There is never a perfect moment at which the task of theology has been achieved. It then follows that there is no Utopian theological period, no golden age, to which Christians ought return, whether the 5th century, the 16th century, or 1827--the year Darby invented Dispensationalism.
  
• Since theological systems are created by finite human interpreters of the biblical text, no single theological system is capable of perfectly representing or explaining God. (Yes, that includes you, Reformed Theology. Don't worry, I won't tell Piper. We'll just keep this as your and my little secret.) It doesn't matter what the system is or who is pushing for it. It's inadequate to capture the Bible's teachings, much less the God to whom the scriptures point.
  
• It embraces a sort of soft postmodernism where absolute truth does exist, but it cannot be attained in a completely objective manner for the simple facts that people filter the world through their own experiences and are limited by their own human nature. Olson puts it this way: "...'true Truth'... is 'out there' even if we are incapable of making truth claims that are not culturally and historically embodied." Absolute truth exists, but people are incapable of fully attaining it unless, of course, you're one of those really smart omniscient people.
  
• It denies that absolute certitude and absolute relativism are the only viable options, insisting that "[i]t is only the lingering power of the foundationalist schema that makes us believe we must choose between the polar opposites of timeless and placeless objectivity and sheer, arbitrary and solipsistic relativism." Christians can believe while struggling with doubt. Reminds of a quote I heard somewhere: "Lord I believe; help my unbelief!" They can and should always be working to refine their views even while they affirm them.
  
• Christians don't need to have the weight of their salvation resting upon their ability to get every last theological detail correct, though I'm sure Piper is close as he's attained 7-point Calvinism. It is the biblical number for perfection, you know. Olson writes, "Christians can admit that, like every other set of truth claims, what they believe is open to correction and revision while they continue to believe and worship and practice their faith." Christians ought to seriously wrestle with their beliefs even as they work out their faith with fear and trembling. Part of the human condition is that we never fully "arrive."
• The purpose of pursuing truth is not merely the individual acquisition of facts and the increase in one's intellect, but the transformation of the whole person through their own spiritual journey in community. Take that, Enlightenment!
• It doesn't deny the existence of propositional truth, but it does reject the more or less purely propositional view of theology where the goal is to reconstruct what the Bible was "really trying to say." Why read the Bible when Grudem's Systematic Theology neatly explains that mess created by the prophets and apostles? In other words, systematic theology is necessary but isn't the objective. It isn't the pinnacle of theology to which all else is aimed. Rather, the goal of all theology is to understand and be a part of God's unfolding redemptive work through the biblical narrative. A Christian's life is to be an ongoing extension of that narrative. The canon closed, but the story has not ended.
  
• It insists upon a holistic epistemology, including the belief that "knowledge is not a collection of isolated factual statements arising directly from first principles. Rather, beliefs form a system in which each is supported by its neighbors and, ultimately, by its presence within the whole." Disciplines exist and are helpful, but ultimately they're artificial constructions to break the totality of knowledge into manageable pieces. Dear D.A. Carson, Theology doesn't trump all else. Signed, All Other Disciplines.
  
• It demands intellectual humility because of humankind's "fallibilism," or the "recognition that one could be wrong and must therefore be open to correction." Olson provides a quote from Vanhoozer in which he writes, "Rationality is largely a matter of humility, or to be precise, of the willingness to put one's beliefs (and one's biblical interpretations) to the critical test." Theologians taking the fall into considering while doing their theology... who wudda thunk it? It may be cliché, but the old saying rings true: The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
  

Finally I'd made a break-through! However, as excited as I was about postfoundationalism, I never was able to buy into it entirely.

Olson and others are calling for a flexibility and humility in theological methodology. He wants Christians to be able to reevaluate their beliefs as merited by new evidence. (Paging Galileo Galilei. You have a phone call. It's the Church calling to apologize.) That I liked. What I didn't like is that he considers absolutely any doctrine up for reconsideration. He believes the present generation must have a respect and deference for previous generations of interpreters, but ultimately they too were fallible humans and may have been wrong. For example, postfoundationalists believe we should be very careful to not haphazardly overturn or revise an ancient doctrine like the Trinity, but ultimately we should never completely take that possibility off the table. In my estimate, for all his efforts to be humble in light of human finitude and fallenness, at the end of the day he, quite ironically, is willing to place all his trust in the present generation. They're able to overturn absolutely anything. He undoubtedly wouldn't word it quite like that, but the end result remains the same: There's no absolute standard for that which comprises true, essential christian doctrine.

Before going any further, let me be clear that I'm uncomfortable with the language of "demanding Christians hold to an absolute, unwavering theological standard." I cringe when I hear that sort of thing. It immediately brings me back the 19th century-inspired foundationalist theological methodology practiced by conservative evangelicals like J.I. Packer and fundamentalists like John MacArthur, whom I respect but want to distance myself. (Well, I respect Packer anyway...) At the same time, I do insist that Christians hold to orthodoxy, which is a theological standard. The key distinction, I think, is that foundationalists demand that standard because of their philosophical commitment to rational certitude whereas I insist upon that standard because I believe in The Great Tradition, which, I would note, predates foundationalism by many, many centuries. Practically, we end up in the same place, but, in my opinion, the path we take there is nearly as important as the destination.

In Reformed and Always Reforming, Olson had strong criticism of paleo-orthodoxy, which is "a broad Christian theological movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries which focuses on the consensual understanding of the faith among the Ecumenical Councils and Church Fathers." (Thank you, wikipedia.) He points out that its leading advocates, persons like Thomas Oden, Alister McGrath, Christopher Hall, and the late Robert Webber, seem to almost have that "golden age" perspective where we need to return a particular time which was the apex of christian theology. In fairness to Olson, he does recognize that it's a broad movement. There's a spectrum in terms of how authoritative paleo-orthodox theologians see the past, or how much they wish to theologically return to the past. Yet Olson's basic point is that he wants to move away from that perspective and it's there where he and I part ways. Just as I affirm the basic spirit of postfoundationalism with some important reservations, so I also affirm the basic spirit of paleo-orthodoxy.

As I see it, Paleo-orthodoxy is a critique of historic Protestantism's embrace of the ad fontes--back to the sources!--philosophy behind the Renaissance. Paleo-orthodoxy advocates a historical view of theology that most conservative evangelicals don't hold. Rather, they tend to hold to a Bible-only view--wanting all theology to come exclusively from the Bible. It's historical restorationism. Yet I don't equate theological development with bad theology. One need look no further than the Trinity to see that that's clearly not the case in church history. Consequently, I'm cautiously open to the idea that the Holy Spirit guided--or even inspired--the Church as certain theological constructs were clarified, expanded, refined, nuanced, or created beyond those which were explicated in the Old and New Testaments. Thus, I'm not a "biblicist" in the strict sense some use that word. Yet I still have enough Protestant influence on my thinking to insist upon a recognition that the Church along with its doctrines and practices can be, and at times have been, corrupted. As I once heard a Southern Baptist professor say to an Eastern Orthodox priest, "Just 'cuz that's the way it's been for 15 centuries don't mean it's right." The only way I'm willing to buy into the final product is if those doctrines and practices don't conflict with Scripture and there's good rationale for how they gained acceptance. Yet the most important thing for me is that paleo-orthodoxy insists that orthodoxy is found in the Spirit's guidance through church history.

Though I've long held that historic orthodoxy is essential, most of the time I've secretly wondered why that's so. The Church has deemed certain doctrines to be non-negotiable in order to maintain authentic Christianity, but I wondered what the relationship between Christianity and those doctrines was that necessitates that they be maintained? Beyond tradition for the sake of tradition, i.e. the annoying "that's what we've always believe" rationale, what's the purpose? The answer finally came about a month ago as I listened to a N.T. Wright podcast.

According to Wright, the Bible's primary purpose is to tell the story of God's redemption of this world. He made the world good. We royally effed it up. So God is, as Wright says in his very British manner, "setting all to rights"--fixing all that's broken. That's the basic storyline. That much I already knew. What was new was Wright's assertion that it's possible for one to go down the list and check off belief in all the necessary doctrines, yet fundamentally misunderstand the overarching narrative, thereby misunderstanding and even falsifying those doctrines. In this way, those propositional truth claims that comprise orthodoxy must be understood within the context of God's redemptive narrative or they're worthless.

If one believes in, say, Christ's resurrection but fails to understand it in the context of foreshadowing or, more accurately, being the first person/thing to be perfectly restored, he misunderstands not only Christ's death and resurrection but the purpose of the entire Gospel. The resurrection's significance isn't that we'll be brought back to life so we can fly up to heaven Jenkins-LaHaye style, but that this world will be redeemed. Adam's fall brought death, which resulted in the curses. Jesus crucifixion brought life, which resulted in the resurrection. The resurrection is but a sample of the future restoration that proves that what Jesus said is true. Without the resurrection everything Jesus taught is false, we have nothing but despair for the future, and God's redemptive narrative is worthless. With the resurrection we know what what Jesus said is true, we have hope and confidence that God will conclude His task of fixing this world, and God's redemptive narrative has infinite worth. The importance of retaining orthodoxy, then, is that the Church preserves the plot of the redemptive narrative that brings life and hope to a world in need. If we fail to uphold the apostolic tradition that was passed from Jesus to the apostles all the way down to us, we've lost the Gospel. That is why I affirm paleo-orthodoxy and that is why cannot agree with Olson that everything is potentially up for reconsideration. Respect and deference is good, but it's ultimately inadequate.

When people ask me what theologian my beliefs most closely align, I tell them N.T. Wright. Though I've not heard him come right out and say it, his theological conceptions seem to reflect a deep church tension between paleo-orthodoxy and postfoundationalism. Whatever the case, I'm paleo-orthodox in regards to orthodoxy and postfoundationalist in regards to adiaphora. I consider any and all secondary doctrine up for potential revision but I have an unwavering grip on the The Great Tradition. (For those of you with a TFC background, this basically means I'm a theological hybrid of Shelton and Vena the Lesser.) It is through that tension that I've finally escaped the theological wasteland of conservative evangelicalism's philosophical foundationalism and historical restorationism.

Ah, it's good to be Anglican.

My Completion of the Canterbury Trail: My Journey (Part III-g)

"You've got it all wrong," bemoaned Dr. Williams. "Who taught you your church history?!" He meant it as a rhetorical question, but I answered him literally. "An atheist public high school teacher who had about as much sympathy for organized religion as Richard Dawkins." With a smile and a chuckle he deftly added, "Oh, right, you grew up Pentecostal. Perhaps they're right, though. Maybe we need to go straight back to the first century. After all, as I learned at Trinity... errrr, never mind." Until leaving the Assemblies of God at 17-years-old I was imbued with a restorationist model of christian faith that taught that the Church had been corrupted by centuries of tradition, which necessitated a return to true, "biblical" (i.e. first century) Christianity. Consequently, despite my love of history I developed an intense, out of character aversion to church history. All that began to change at Moody, though.

During the first day of the fall semester one of my professors taught the Apostles' Creed. He explained that it was one of the earliest articulations of the basic christian faith and dated back perhaps as early as the apostles themselves. It had been recited by Christians transcending cultures, languages, races, nationalities, socio-economic classes, and theological differences for at least 17 centuries. In this way it bound the Body of Christ together through time and space. Knowing the low church, historically apathetic evangelical backgrounds of most his students, the professor intentionally challenged us by beginning every class with a recitation of the creed. The first time I seriously hated it. It sounded like cultish chanting. It made me feel like I was taking part in the absent-minded indoctrination. It smacked of the "dead orthodoxy" Pentecostalism had spent so much time inoculating against. The previous semester, however, another professor had softened me up.

This professor taught the poorly named Intro. to Music, which for all intents and purpose should have been called Intro. to Worship. Throughout the semester he identified my presuppositions regarding worship, then systematically ripped apart my schema. It was one of those courses that you incessantly complain about at the time but later realize how important it was. When all was said and done I took away four important lessons:

1. Anti-tradition is itself a tradition.
   
2. Most tradition has lasted because of its rich meaning.
   
3. The assumption that new is automatically better is an absurd, uniquely American phenomenon.
4. Only the fool assumes the superiority of his views when he's not bothered to consider the alternatives.

In sum, "tradition" was no longer an epithet.

(As an aside, because of that course I also know how to conduct, which I regard as unquestionably the least practical skill I possess. It ranks right up there with have memorized most of dialogue in Short Circuit.)

There remained an inward battle over the validity and worth of tradition. It was assumed emotionally-driven cultural norms vs. rationally-driven theological principles. Suffice to say, within a few couple weeks I let my guard down and was giving serious thought to this Apostles' Creed business. I could not deny the beauty of the act and, before I knew it, I was actually looked forward to reciting the creed. I couldn't have identified it at the time, but in retrospect that was the beginning of an undeniable sense of the Spirit's drawing toward a more historic form of Christianity.

Six months later I was working in a group home for the mentally challenged. I usually worked evenings and overnights, but was scheduled for a random Sunday morning shift. When I arrived I was told that we were going to take the guys to church. (For the record, it's a serious let down when you can't stand going to church and look forward to skipping it 'cuz you have to work, then end up having to go anyway for work. Not to mention you feel like a spiritual mercenary.) Their legal guardians had designated certain religious affiliations, so a group would be arriving shortly to pick up the Protestants while the Catholics were taken in the van. Without giving me a chance to discuss the point, my staunchly Lutheran co-worker insisted that he'd take the Protestants. Within a few moments they were out the door and my guys were piling into the van.

I'd successfully shed most of my fundamentalist tendencies by that point, so I had no overt qualms about being in a Catholic parish, but I remained very uncomfortable at the prospect. Plus, that morning I was feeling about as worshipful as a trip to the bowling alley. Yet as we walked into the sanctuary something quite strange happened. I found myself appreciating the architecture and decor. I looked around and found that the people obviously weren't merely going through the motions. The priest said something about a third century saint that I really resonated with. Before long I'd become caught up in the service. I completely lost myself and was earnestly worshiping. It was only when I was denied the Eucharist that I snapped back to reality. My Protestant sensibilities returned, but my desire for history and tradition had again grown.

As was explained in a previous post, over the next year I became severely disillusioned by Protestant theology and spent my free time secretly looking into Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Bridging the end of that period and the beginning of my re-embrace of evangelicalism was Mark Noll's and Carolyn Nystrom's book Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism. It was there that I came across what has so far been the most important quote of my faith journey. "The Holy Spirit has a history," writes evangelical theologian Christian Hall. "The church does not thrive in the first century, fail in the second, then revive in the sixteenth. The Spirit never deserts the church." I wouldn't say that it was so novel as it was confirming, thereby prompting a massive restructuring of my faith. Perhaps the best way to say it is that it was the catalyst for releasing the pressure that had been building upon my tectonic plates, if you will. It caused such strong, conflicting emotions that I had to stop reading and go for a walk.

It wasn't the content of the quote that shook me up, but the source. Expectations are everything. If Noll had cited a Catholic or Orthodox scholar I wouldn't have flinched, but this comment came from an evangelical! Like a Compton rapper rhyming about rodeo clowns, it was not at all what I expected and decidedly out of place. In my schema, evangelicals were intentionally ahistorical. Even evangelical historians like Noll, Marsden, and Hatch, whose works I'd only recently become acquainted, seemed to care only about relatively recent American religious history. I remember thinking, 'Wait just a darn second. Can... or should... evangelicals care about church history?' Cognitive dissonance galore. It felt like my head was going to explode.

This new found historical outlook has taken time to work itself out. For a couple years it remained on a pretty abstract theological level. Beginning with my understanding of orthodoxy, it then altered my views on theological methodology, ecumenism, hermeneutics, ecclesiastical authority, worship practices, the canon, and so forth. Eventually it began influencing my perception of the local church I was a part of. I finally understood that "[Mere Christianity] is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms," as Lewis once remarked. "If I can bring anyone into that hall, I have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in." While the University Church was great as an autonomous local body, it began to feel inadequate. I yearned to be part of a larger ecclesiastical tradition--a tradition that celebrates history and has its doctrines moored in historic orthodoxy and its practices rooted in Church history. For most Christians it seems you get to their head by way of their heart. I'm just the opposite. The historical faith that had begun in my head had become the desperate cry of my heart.

This past year I felt burdened by feelings of loneliness, exhaustion, and worry. Loneliness because I've felt tangibly detached from the redemptive narrative that began in Scripture and has continued through 2,000 years of Christendom. Exhaustion resulting from the weight of carrying evangelicalism's hectic pragmatism and obsession with the here and now. Worry because I felt like I'd neglected the Church Fathers, whose wisdom and guidance seamlessly built upon the precedent set by Christ and then the apostles. In some very mystical sense that I cannot fully explain, I felt called to a tradition that provides fellowship not only with Christians in a local body but with Christians transcending time and space. I've now found that in Anglicanism.

Catholic and Orthodox Christians are correct. Unfortunately, Anglicanism is second-rate as far as historic traditions go. Like Francis Beckwith, the president of the Evangelical Theology Society who resigned his post to return to Rome, I wish I could commit to one of the two ancient branches stemming from the unified Patristic trunk. I understand that desire. Yet after much soul searching I've come to accept that my conscience won't allow it. I simply cannot commit to their theological stances. What I have committed to is a worldwide communion that has entered only its sixth century yet feels much older because of its English origins and long-standing practice of consciously rooting itself in the preceding 15 centuries of Christendom. In this way, its maturity belies its age.

Anglicanism is far from perfect, but in this articulation of the faith I've found a historic grounding that filled what had been a gaping hole in my faith. Thus far the result has been nearly two months of the most consistent spiritual peace I've ever experienced.

Mini Blog #22: Spiritual Warfare

Every time I hear people detail their experiences with spiritual warfare my brain accesses two files: This Present Darkness and the Salem Witch Trails. Images immediately flood my mind of angelic beings stabbing inanimate objects with invisible Medieval weaponry and little girls claiming to be spiritually pitched via witchcraft. Then I roll my eyes. At this point, it's an involuntary response. It's not that I don't believe in spiritual warfare. I absolutely do. It seems clear to me that it's impossible to be an authentic Christian without believing in the existence of a spiritual realm that is typically inaccessible through our five senses. But when you're exposed to numerous scientific explanations for supposedly miraculous occurrences, weekly examples of Christians faking supernatural experiences, and the really bad fiction the lines the shelves of christian bookstores, it becomes hard to take people seriously. This is one of those cases where I'm struggling not to let the stupid Christians ruin it for everybody else.

Mini Blog #21: Sacramental Theology

I don't equate theological development with bad theology. Evangelicals tend to want all theology to come exclusively from the Bible, but one need look no further than the Trinity to see that that's clearly not the case in church history. Consequently, I'm cautiously open to the idea that the Holy Spirit guided--or even inspired--the Church as certain theological constructs were clarified, expanded, refined, nuanced, or created beyond those which were explicated in the Old and New Testaments. Yet I still have enough Protestant influence on my thinking to insist upon a recognition that the Church along with its doctrines and practices can be, and at times have been, corrupted. As I once heard a Southern Baptist professor say to an Eastern Orthodox priest, "Just 'cuz that's the way it's been for 15 centuries don't mean it's right." The only way I'm willing to buy into the final product is if those doctrines and practices don't conflict with Scripture and there's good rationale for how they gained acceptance, thus the deep church tension in my theological conceptions between paleo-orthodoxy and postfoundationalism. Putting all that to practice, I'm curious about the origins of sacramental theology as part of my ongoing exploration of the ancient faith. For example, there was clearly theological development from the inauguration of the New Covenant at the Last Supper to the way they practiced the Lord's Supper as part of the lovefeast in Corinth to the manner in which Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches have practiced the Eucharist for centuries, let alone the myriad ways Protestantism's sub-traditions do it. I'm wondering how we got here from there. As I've stated previously, I'm probably one of the least sacramental Anglicans who has ever lived, but if I'm ever going to be a sacramental Christian it's undoubtedly going to be for the same reason I committed to the tradition--deep roots in church history. So, can anyone help me out? Know of any good articles or books detailing the historic development of sacramental theology? Have any historical insights you can share? I'd appreciate the help.

Mini Blog #20: Conviction

The Spirit has been convicting me about something.

My heart goes out to those who've been wounded by organized Christianity. I lack grace, however, for those who aren't making progress and actually appear to be reveling in those wounds.

To put it to a metaphor, I have all the compassion and love in the world for the soldier who got his legs blown off yet is still trying to crawl to safety. I'll risk my life to save that man. But my heart is cold toward the person who got shot in the keister Gump-style and can't do anything but cry and scream that they're dying.

Is it just me or does it seem like there's an epidemic of this behavior? It's almost like it's cool to be angry and hurting.

I don't have the "suck it up, wuss" football coach mentality. I'm not one of those guys who thinks psychology is a crutch for justifying sin and explaining away personal responsibility. Yet I get really frustrated, even angry, when they're content to wallow.

Quite often I find myself confused as to what I should think, say, or do.

I guess it starts with admitting that I don't get every last thing about where they're coming from because each of our lives are richer and more complicated than I can ever fully comprehend. Another element is no doubt recognizing that most people don't share my temperament. They don't respond to things like I do. I'm the oddity. Most people aren't as proactive by nature.

Beyond that, I'm looking for advice.

Musing on Hipster Faith

(This post was prompted by a recent article in Christianity Today entitled "Hipster Faith.")

During the late '90s and '00s, much was made of the emerging church. Today the discussion is beginning to center around hipster Christianity. Those with a more critical view describe it as an attempt to make Christianity cool. It's said they're compromising the faith to be culturally relevant. Those with a more positive view say it's merely the cultural evolution of the Church. It's not so much an intentional effort to change the Church's culture as it is a reflection of the inevitable generational shift. Whatever the case, it's the third generation of this phenomenon.

First was the Baby Boomers, who captured the counter-cultural hippie spirit in the Jesus People movement. It was from this movement that Christian rock began. As the Jesus People aged, the movement institutionalized, Christian rock became CCM, and rose Gen Xers came to prominence. They started the emerging church and profess love for bands like U2 that were comprised of musicians who were Christians rather being "Christian bands." Now it's the Millennials' turn. These so-called hipsters prefer to be called followers of Christ. They dislike CCM and find U2 to be passé. I think Christianity Today nailed it when describing these persons as Christians who loathe "Left Behind books and film series, Jesus fish bumper stickers, and door-to-door evangelism" as well as Pat Robertson, Thomas Kinkade, W. Bush, American flags in church, James Dobson, and Jerry Falwell. Hipsters care a great deal about feeding the poor and creating culture. They want a more intellectual faith.

As a student of church history, one lesson I've taken away is that no renewal movement continues indefinitely. Over time they lose momentum, lose their initial organic form, become institutionalized, and eventually become corrupted only to be replaced by another one. And yet, while movements fade, their legacy continues onward. This is precisely why I tend to keep a level head about all this. At the time, the Jesus People movement faced intense scrutiny, but few today criticize what they stood for. It's simply a part of history that contributes to the present. I think the same will be true of the emerging church. It faced relentless criticism for relativizing truth and accommodating to postmodernism, but as it begins to fade we're starting to see its lasting influence. It transitioned American Christianity into a new cultural context just like the Jesus People did before them. So what will happen with hipster Christianity? There are way too many factors to offer a narrow prediction, but I suspect that because so many people are already talking about it we're well into the movement. If the pattern holds, right now people are simply trying to identity and understand it. Soon academics and clergy will fiercely debate it. Some will argue that they're selling out to the spirit of the age. Many will offer jeremiads about the pending destruction of the American church. Others will argue for its advantages and say it's simply the next step forward. But eventually Millennials such as myself will start hitting our late 30s, the movement will fade, and the next generation will respond against our excesses, abuses, and blind spots. Yet what we did well will not be sifted out because it was imbued into the culture. It will have become part of the Church's DNA.

Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with hipster Christianity. In many ways I resonate deeply with it. I love its criticism of the American Church's embrace of big business, trite art, nationalism, the Republican Party, and fundamentalism. I love the compassion, artistic inclination, and commitment to serious thought. Yet I really can't stand the fashions, musicians, and technological-obsession as embodied in skinny jeans, Sufjan Stevens, and iPhones. Perhaps more than anything, I can't stand the rebellious spirit that so often drives these things. Hipsters like indie music because it's not mainstream. They like Apple products because Microsoft sucks. They voted for Obama because he was the opposite of Bush. They like beer because the conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists say Christians shouldn't drink it. I don't doubt they like those things in and of themselves, but their tone remains more of opposition than advocacy. When I step back and think about it, I realize they're Christians who've built their identity around being rebellious. Frankly, I find nothing more lame.

At the end of the day I'm in agreement with hipster Christianity's underlying principles that have caused them to actively distance themselves from the evangelical sub-culture, yet in disagreement with the emotion that drives that reactionary swing; I'm in disagreement with the passive embrace of much 21st century culture, yet in agreement with the need to understand and be part of the culture. I'm not worried, though. There's no question it will influence American Christianity, but I doubt it will ultimately be a radical break from the past. It's just another renewal movement. That's my take, anyway.