Adele Ahlberg Calhoun. Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us (InterVarsity Press, 2005).

“People in a hurry never have time for recovery. Their minds have little time to meditate and pray so that problems can be put in perspective. In short, people in our age are showing signs of physiological disintegration because we are living at a pace that is too fast for our bodies.” – Archibald Hart in Adrenaline and Stress. Quoted by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun in Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us (InterVarsity Press, 2005), italics in Calhoun.

This summer a mix of graduate students and medical students part of the Christian Medical Society/CMDA at Penn State College of Medicine are digging into material from Adele Ahlberg Calhoun‘s Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us (InterVarsity Press, 2005) and Jerry Bridges‘ Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate (NavPress, 2007). Last week I had the opportunity to lead a discussion on the spiritual discipline of rest (Calhoun, 63-65).

First we read Psalm 62. Then we shared our understanding/definition for rest, with some focus upon campus context: a place of security where one can let their guard down and not be disrupted by the hard realities of graduate/professional school. I particularly appreciated the stories of finding rest by seeking the face of God during the exhausting times when trials came in waves encompassing the whole person, i.e., mental, spiritual, emotional, and spiritual. This is particularly challenging when there is a confluence of on/off-campus life (including family). Seeking the face of God included . . .

• regular, personal time in the Word/prayer
• ‘debriefing’ with close friends — keep an eye on the Spiritual Friendship series on the Emerging Scholars Network Facebook Wall.
• a fellowship not only with others facing similar life/vocational struggles, but also hearing/interacting with mentors (those who have gone before them)
• inter-generational local congregations.

Several gave particular emphasis to the rest found in the peace that one can’t do it all — a consideration of expectations and to some degree a rejection of perfectionism(!) — referencing Paul in 2 Corinthians 12.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. — 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

After digging into several reflection questions by Calhoun, we concluded by reading Psalm 63 and praying.

Bonus: Yes, one of Calhoun’s questions was What exhausts you or keeps you working past your limits? (65)

Based on our reading of Psalm 62 and Psalm 63, I added:

• When working past your limits do you find your rest in God alone?
• Do you cling to God as your rock and salvation?
• Do you, as the woman the well, find Christ to be the living water in a dry and parched land (home, higher ed, community)?

Let’s end here for today and I’ll continue on this topic in a future post. In mean time, please share your responses to some/all of the questions offered in the post.

World Vision is a global Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. Photo from WorldVision: Help Asia Tsunami Victims.

Is humanitarian need blind? In college, my Christian fellowship sponsored a fundraiser for victims of the Southeast Asian earthquake and tsunami, sending money to the explicitly Christian humanitarian relief organization World Vision. During the fundraiser, several people approached the coordinators and expressed relief at being able to donate to a Christian organization. One person said, “I don’t mind donating to a secular organization, but it somehow feels better to give to an organization that shares the same faith.” As one of the organizers, I asked myself, “What’s the difference between secular and faith-​​based groups if they’re doing the same thing? Do you need to be a Christian to hand out food and medical supplies? Can’t we all just work together?” All of these questions and struggles probe the complex issue of college Christian humanitarianism.

Wikipedia.org defines humanitarianism as “an informal ideology of practice, whereby people practice humane treatment and provide assistance to others . . . based on a view that all human beings deserve respect and dignity and should be treated as such.” We colloquially use the term “humanitarianism” to describe the general spirit behind the charity work that goes on in the world, but we must recognize that doing so ignores the fine distinctions between the philosophies that motivate such work. At first blush, these differences seem trivial or even unnecessary. We think, “Surely we can lay aside our prejudices and work together for a common cause.” There is an innate belief in our culture that charitable actions are — or at least can be — transcendent over differences, whether in race, culture, or religious belief. The chorus of the Nickelback song “If Everyone Cared” puts it starkly:

If everyone cared and nobody cried

If everyone loved and nobody lied

If everyone shared and swallowed their pride

Then we’d see the day when nobody died.

Prayer in Christian Medical Missions.

After all, does a person who is sick care about the ethnicity of the person administering medicine? Does a person starving to death care about the religion of the person handing out food? Probably not. We tend to assume that acute need is blind in the same way that justice should be blind: unbiased, unassuming, and “fair” to all people and all needs.

But if need is indeed blind, are those seeking to meet those needs equivalently nonpartisan? If the hungry person receiving bread doesn’t care whether the provider is Catholic or Muslim, black or white, a celebrity seeking publicity or simply a well-​​inclined citizen, should we — the donors and the aid workers — care as long as the job gets done? What influence does motivation play in the distribution of aid?

Suppose that we, as potential donors, have highlighted two different humanitarian organizations that we like and would like to donate money to. Both have an excellent track record in terms of financial accountability. One is a Christian organization that intends to ship Bibles and other religious material to afflicted areas (with no coercion involved in the distribution), whereas the other organization is strictly secular and utilizes all funds for emergency supplies. Because of the secular organization’s specialization, it is significantly more efficient with its aid distribution than the Christian organization. Which organization would a Christian be more inclined to fund? The answer depends on personal preference and priorities. The Christian may choose to fund the Christian organization to support a perceived deficiency in spiritual care. Or, the Christian may fund the secular organization in order to more specifically alleviate a particular acute crisis. One would be hard pressed to claim that either choice is superior. However, this example demonstrates that though need may be blind, the donor often is not. We who act are influenced by our religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, resulting in different (and often conflicting) sets of priorities. Note that this example also applies to campaigning for support: should a campus Christian fellowship that desires to help alleviate a current crisis put most of its support and resources in a common and secular campus movement to gather funds or should it pioneer support for an explicitly Christian organization? Is it more important to present a unified campus front or to address specific needs that others may not deem significant?

Time Special Report Tsunami (12/26/2004).

This is not a hypothetical dilemma; these issues were the same ones my Christian fellowship faced in the after-​​effects of the Southeast Asian crisis of 2005. What is the trade-off between spiritual and physical care? Is it possible to separate the two domains into independently funded organizations, or are they so interrelated that we need religious organizations that specialize in physical care (and vice versa)? How can an organization be culturally sensitive while adhering to a set of religious beliefs? How does an organization that focuses on disabled children compare with one that specializes in emergency disaster relief? Should we (or can we) make these comparisons? Again, the answers seemed to boil down to a matter of priorities. We — as individual donors, campus organizations, churches, and other communities on campus and in our culture — are inclined to believe that the best solution is for each donor to give to the cause that he or she or they feel most inclined towards and allow the organizations to sort themselves out in Darwinian fashion.

But such a response means that we must accept a partisan approach to humanitarian aid, one where different organizations, though well-​​meaning, must compete with one another for scarce resources, where organizations are not equivalent even if their goals are similar, where the philosophy of an organization subtly but directly influences its effects. Such a conclusion is certainly more nuanced than — if not completely contradictory to — the conception of “humanitarianism” as a general spirit of charity and this is especially visible when competing humanitarian organizations have conflicting goals and motivations.

What, then, should be our response as a campus, a religious community, or individuals? The questions behind community service and humanitarian relief are not ones that we encounter often — or perhaps are encountered often enough to desensitize — and thus are easy to ignore. Some have said that a systematic discussion or action on the questions of social justice and action in the context of Christian fellowships skews established political neutrality and that it is therefore better for individuals to pursue these answers for themselves. Yet most Christian fellowships on campus teach a particular perspective on sensitive topics such as gender roles, dating and relationships, and homosexuality. If we can establish a well-​​reasoned, biblical and reasonably “neutral” perspective in these areas, surely we can do so in the area of Christian humanitarianism as well.

Asia Tsunami Disaster. “The events of Boxing Day 2004 won’t quickly be forgotten.”

As members of the university, it is our responsibility to encourage intellectual exploration and examination. As Christians, we are called to do this in the context of a “gospel worldview,” or the interpretive effect of Christ’s redemption of humanity on all the effects of humanity. It is simpler to shrug our shoulders and walk away or donate a few dollars and deal with a vague sense of discomfort. But a more appropriate response to the lingering questions of Christian humanitarianism is to begin finding their resolutions in the university and with the full blessing, endorsement, and systemic support of the Christian community. For what students are equipped with the time or resources to perform such an endeavor only as individuals? And how nuanced can such an endeavor be if there is no systemic support or encouragement — ideologically, philosophically, or spiritually — for these questionings? If the religious community is a place where students can find balance and perspective for life, shouldn’t that restorative power be brought to bear on the area of service as well?

[This post is a refresh/update of thoughts on an article written in 2007 for another publication.]

I came the across What is the gospel? in Rachel Held Evans‘ Sunday Superlatives 6/9/2013. She gave Krish Kandiah’s interview of N.T. Wright*  the distinction of Best Interview. Did Evans come across What is the gospel? in a “ramp up” to her recent Ask N.T. Wright . . .? In the midst of all the difficult material posted on her blog, I was encouraged that Sunday Superlatives 6/9/2013 began with Larissa Willard’s Tribute to her grandfather Dallas Willard.

What a gospel legacy left to us by Dallas Willard (1935-2013), Professor in the School of Philosophy, University of Southern California (USC).** Let’s join Larissa in Dallas’ (and what I consider Wright’s) call to Give ‘em Heaven! . . . Stepping forward in the joy and confidence given to us by God and the humble knowledge that as Emerging Scholars we are like dwarves sitting/standing on the shoulders of giants :) To God be the glory!

*N.T. Wright is currently serving as Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at University of St Andrews. As many of you know, N.T. Wright has written a number of pieces for InterVarsity Press (IVP). For his IVP author page, click here.

**If you haven’t already done such, I encourage you to read Thank you. You can rest Dallas Willard. by Joe Thackwell, Graduate & Faculty Ministry, USC.

Alan G. Padgett, DPhil (Oxford), Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, MN).

Christianity and Western Thought Vol 2. Faith and Reason in the 19th Century. Steve Wilkins and Alan G. Padgett. InterVarsity Press, 2010.

In Part I, I explored what Alan G. Padgett, DPhil (Oxford) will share at the upcoming Midwest Faculty Conference: Fruitful, Faithful Presence: Living Theologically in the Midst of the Academy (Cedar Campus, MI, 6/22-28).* Although the conference (or what some have termed a Confamication**) will provide an opportunity for Padgett to develop his thoughts on Fruitful, Faithful Presence in the Academy, he has a significant amount of work in theology involving systematic theology, moral theology (ethics), and the theology-science dialog which you can explore. He is the author or editor of eleven books, including Introducing Christianity (with his wife, Dr. Sally Bruyneel), Christianity and Western Thought (Volumes 2 & 3) and his most recent, The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity. Below are some on-line materials which I recommend you browse, dig into a few of specific interest, and share/discuss with others :)

• Epiphany for a Small Planet: The Redemption of Reason, 2006. Notes/audio available.
• Faith & Academic Commitments in a Post-Modern World: A Faculty & Graduate Student Symposium of InterVarsity’s Faculty Ministry. Audio files (MP3), an outline (PDF), and PPT slides (PDF) available.
• CCT Research Project: “Cognitive Science of Religion and the Psychology of Prayer” – Biola Center for Christian Thought, Visiting Research Fellow (Fall 2013). Follow the link for an abstract. If you’re at Fruitful, Faithful Presence, then please ask him about this project :)
• Contributions to the Christian Century
• Full essays posted by Alan G. Padgett on his personal website. To wet your appetite he has material under the headings of . . .
  • Essays on Evangelical Systematic Theology
  • Essays on Theology & Science
  • Papers on Religion and Science, Presented at Peking University
  • “Spot: Light on Science” columns for The Cresset.
• InterVarsity alumni interview: Gordon Govier. 3/26/2009

During our conversation, I couldn’t help but ask Padgett to flesh out a little more about his understanding of “classic Christianity.” I was particularly interested in whom this academic theologian rested his foundation. I found that he truly rested his foundation on Christ alone and the Word of God. To God be the glory! And as such he enjoyed learning from and interacting with Christ-followers across Church History who did likewise. Once he started sharing theologians he appreciated, he couldn’t stop with his “long list” marching through Church History. At the Fruitful, Faithful Presence, I’ll ask one of our friends from Ohio State University to “mine” Padgett for recommendations of material to add to the Dead Theologians Society Reading List. Here’s a teaser of Padgett’s “long list” and links to some writings for your edification.

• the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil the Great (330-379), Gregory of Nyssa (c.332-395), Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389)
• Augustine (354-430), whose Confessions won ESN’s Best Christian Book of All Time :)
• Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)
• Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
• Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
• Karl Barth (1886-1968)
• Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988).

With regard to his passion for “classic Christianity,” Padgett commented, “In America today, we’ve sort of lost that sense of spirituality’s spiritual home and roots in Scripture, our daily walk with God. That’s what we’re trying to recapture. It’s Christian in that classical sense.” He also pointed out that his presentations on Fruitful, Faithful Presence and his forthcoming writing will explore why and how “theology needs to be grounded in the core of the Christian faith.” He will give concrete historical examples, such as the theology of beauty in relationship to the poetry and music of Charles Wesley. To God be the glory!

But maybe you’re a faculty or know of a faculty on the West Coast, yearning for such a conversation and frustrated that the travel/timing doesn’t match for attending Fruitful, Faithful Presence. What then? If you have not already heard, there will once again be a West Coast Faculty Conference at Campus by the Sea (8/4/2013 – 8/9/2013). The theme will be Doing Justice, Loving Kindness, and Walking Humbly with God in Higher Education. As in previous years, the West Coast Faculty Conference will share Campus by the Sea with an InterVarsity Alumni Camp. During the week they will participate jointly in manuscript Bible study and other activities. Afternoons provide an opportunity to rest, play or visit with friends and family with no formal program.

In the morning…

At this year’s Faculty Conference, we’ll take an in-depth look at various teachings of Jesus in the gospels, exploring what it looks like in practice in all sorts of everyday situations to “act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.”

In the evening…

We will gather as a community of learning and prayer to wrestle with the central question asked by the prophet Micah: “What does the LORD require of all people? To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Some of the questions we will explore are:

• How is “justice” understood biblically? What is this “kindness” that God requires?
• What are some practical opportunities and challenges for Christian faculty to do justice and to love kindness among the people, ideas and structures of higher education?
• How might advocating for and doing justice on campus impact the world beyond campus?

To learn more about the West Coast Faculty Conference, and the speakers who will be addressing Doing Justice, Loving Kindness, and Walking Humbly with God in Higher Education, click here. Stay tuned for more :)

Are you from another other part of the country and desire to have such an opportunity closer to you in 2014, 2015 . . . ? Please email me. InterVarsity’s Faculty Ministry is prayerfully exploring new ways/venues to serve a growing movement not only of faculty, but also more broadly Emerging Scholars. If you desire to be involved in the cutting edge in your area, including providing recommendations of next steps, we desire to hear from you!

*Note: If you’re a faculty member and desire to participate in Fruitful, Faithful Presence (families welcome!), but have not registered, please click here.

**This event encompasses much more than the word conference can possibly contain, so a new word has been added to the lexicon. “Confamication” captures it as a stimulating conference, a restful vacation, which can both include and be a delight to the whole family. And it is a welcoming place for singles, couples and children as well.

To learn more about Faculty Conferences which not only provide space for academic discussion and quiet reflection, but also welcomes and provides great time for singles, couples, and family, click here. To God be the glory! Note: Picture of Campus by the Sea (Catalina Island, CA), location of the West Coast Faculty Conference.

Alan G. Padgett, DPhil (Oxford), Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, MN).

Fruitful, Faithful Presence: Living Theologically in the Midst of the Academy, the Midwest Faculty Conference is just around the corner (Cedar Campus, MI, June 22 – 28).* On Monday, I had the opportunity to interview Alan G. Padgett, DPhil (Oxford), Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, MN), regarding the material he will be presenting. This is the first of two posts.

As we talked, I appreciated Padgett’s commitment to “represent classic Christianity” and for theology to be “a way of loving God with all your mind. . . . a natural expression of Christian belief because it’s thinking about God. And that means that Christians – including Christian academics – are doing theology all the time.” I’m looking forward to learning more about his “mutuality model,” which explores how theology overlays with other disciplines instead of serving as the queen of the sciences or the irrelevant fifth wheel.

At Fruitful, Faithful Presence, Padgett will present various “niches” in Christian life and practice wherein theology can live and thrive, then turn to “theology as scientia and Christian Scholarship” to discuss academic theology and the way this plays a part in Christian scholarship in general. He will also probe, “Why have Christians engaged in academic theology over the millenia?  What common & spiritual Christian practices are the natural home and ‘soil’ for vital theology?” For those interested in more specifics . . .

• Session 1: Love God with All you Are (mind included).  What is Theology anyway? Theology as Prayer.
  • Lessons (Pericopae):  Matt. 6:5-15, 22:35-40 (with ref. to Deut. 6:4-5 & Lev. 19:18); Ex. 32:7-14;
• Session 2: Theology as Worship and Mission
  • Lessons: Rev. 4:7-11.  Matt. 6:5-15, 28:16-20;  Is. 6:1-8 (with reference to whole chapter).
• Session 3: Theology as Wisdom and Beauty
  • Lessons (Pericopae) : Prov. 8:22-36; Phil. 2:1-18, 4:8-9; Ps 96:1-13.
• Sesson 4: Theology as Scientia and the place of theology in Christian Scholarship
  • Lessons: Prov. 1:1-8; 1 Cor. 1:18-25, 1 Cor. 2:1-5; 1 Cor. 2:12-3:1

If you are like myself and wish that you could be there, post-conference material will be available! AND that is particularly important. Why? Because when I asked Padgett if he had material which I could link to regarding the topic, he responded that this is his “first stab” at presenting the material to other scholars. As a matter of fact, Padgett’s using the speaking opportunity to refine material for a future publication on why Christians should engage in the theological enterprise at all, “The idea that there is an organic connection between the regular core Christian practices and theology. Theology naturally rises out of prayer, witness, apologetics, hymn-writing, building cathedrals. . . .” The book will be a short and readable piece by an academic theologian :) What a joy to be part of the learning community known as InterVarsity‘s Faculty Ministry/Emerging Scholars Network. To God be the glory!

*Note: If you’re a faculty member and desire to participate in Fruitful, Faithful Presence (families welcome!), but have not registered, please click here.

To learn more about a Faculty Conference, which not only provides space for academic discussion and quiet reflection, but also welcomes and provides great time for singles, couples, and family, click here. To God be the glory!

Update: 6/12/2013, 8:46 AM.

Bob Trube, InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministry (GFM) Director, Ohio Valley

Last week I received an email from Bob Trube, InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministry (GFM) Director, Ohio Valley. He shared with me Ohio State University’s Dead Theologians Society Reading List. What’s the inspiration? He “shamelessly stole the name and idea from Robbie Castleman, who led a group under this name when she was on GFM staff in Florida.”*

The Dead Theologians Society, or Delta Theta Sigma (DTS), started in the fall of 1990, on the campus of Florida State University, when some InterVarsity Christian Fellowship students began meeting weekly to discuss what they had each learned from reading Oswald Chambers’s devotional classic, My Utmost for His Highest.

Dead Poets Society was then a recent movie, and the students agreed that a Dead Theologians Society was needed to promote the serious discussion of some of the best in Christian literature.

To promote the Society, the Greek acronym Delta Theta Sigma was adopted for the designation of the Dead Theologians Society.

Since that time, this idea of “discipleship through the Christian classics” has spread quickly, and DTS reading groups continue to develop. – The Dead Theologians Society: Pursuing Discipleship through the Christian Classics. Links and some italics added for additional resourcing and emphasis.

Robbie Castleman started a Dead Theologians Society at Florida State University when she served with InterVarsity GFM. Castleman currently serves as professor of biblical studies and theology at John Brown University.

I remember hearing Robbie share about the Dead Theologians Society and that Bob had given the concept a try, but I had no idea that the group had flourished for fifteen years at OSU! Is there a Dead Theologians Society (or something similar) on your campus? If so, please let us know about it. We’re very interested in your structure, how you get the word out/encourage participation, what you (and others) have gained/learned from it, and your reading list (Note: doesn’t have to be as comprehensive as OSU’s Dead Theologians Society Reading List, a sampling is fine).

Interested in starting a Dead Theologians Society on your campus? Some tips are available at The Dead Theologians Society: Pursuing Discipleship through the Christian Classics and below are some of the logistics from a recent OSU email:

1. Our name comes from the fact that we read books that have outlived their authors. We interpret the theologian part broadly enough to include poets like George Herbert, novelists like Flannery O’Connor or Charles Williams as well as those who might more definitely fall under the “theologian” category such as Augustine or Calvin.

2. The group is comprised of grad students, staff, and faculty and one or two community friends. One of the aims is that through our discussions we might better bring the mind of Christ into our research or work.

3. We generally read a book (or two if they are shorter works) a semester, meeting weekly on Wednesday mornings at 7:45 am for an hour at Panera. We select the book as a group the previous term and I put together a reading schedule–generally 15-30 pages a week, depending on the book — we all read lots of other stuff so we try not to make this too onerous! Our first session of the term is always an introduction to the current Dead Theologian placing the work we are reading in the context of his life.

4. We are currently reading A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God which is available for free in a number of e-formats.

What a joy to be a part of such a community of learning as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA! If you have unique offerings on your campus to share with other Emerging Scholars, please email me. Thank-you. To God be the glory!

*Robbie Castleman (D.Min., University of Dubuque) is currently professor of biblical studies and theology at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, AR. She is also the author of several InterVarsity Press books.

A Recent Portrait of J.I. Packer

Several weeks ago I left you with the second installment of my review of J.I. Packer’s Knowing God, one of the works that made it onto ESN’s March Madness bracket, The Best Christian Books of All Time. As I said then, this book has greatly impacted the way I see and live in the present world. I’m far from being able to say that I’ve got this life under wraps (and I hope I never think I do), but Packer’s words have led me to question and wrestle with many “wrapped” beliefs that I would’ve probably left inside that worn, crinkly paper of assumption and expectation.

Today I’m going to work through a few of the several remaining Chapters of Parts II and III, pausing only when I think the main point of the Chapter might bring up some questions for us — we who are so easily ensnared by the worrying pursuit of academic success (if you’re anything like me).

Wrath and Judgment

Chapters 14-17 of Part II and the whole of Part III, Chapters 18-22, have as their foundation the biblical concept of propitiation, which is centered upon the age-old problem of the just and loving God of Christianity. Packer confronts God’s righteous anger and his judgment head-on.

Today we prefer to name anger “frustration.” (Surely it isn’t as bad — or should I say, sinful — to be frustrated as it is to be angry at the person who gets your order wrong at the drive-through.) And judgment? Far be it from us! More than that, we tend to put God into our categories. We’d rather have a God who, after a short period of frustration, smiles and forgets all about the ugly stuff. An “angry” God doesn’t sound like one I’d want my family worshiping. But in Knowing God Packer ushers us into a confrontation with the pervasive biblical theme of anger and judgment as inextricably linked to the character of our God. The anger of the God of the Bible is not like ours. Because it’s perfect. So is his judgment. Packer points out dozens of scripture references related to both God’s anger as his righteous response to injustice and unrighteousness AND to his judgment upon those who practice sin — actions in rebellion to God — without remorse.

Knowing God by J.I. Packer

I’ll let you read the book, but let it be said by way of introduction that, for Packer, the good news is this: our Judge is stainless in his holiness, perfect in his justice, and infinitely abounding in his goodness. We can therefore trust him in his dealings with his creation, including in his wrath and anger. Furthermore, as Packer points out, we know that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

But how is this possible?

Part III:  Propitiation

Packer moves seamlessly from a discussion of judgment and anger to one of propitiation. Propitiation is a fancy word used to deliver the message that an entirely holy, all powerful God can hang out in intimacy with people who, having rejected his help, are anything but holy and powerful. In Chapter 18 Packer quotes John Murray’s The Atonement:

The doctrine of the propitiation is precisely this: that God loved the objects of His wrath so much that He gave His own Son to the end that He by His blood should make provision for the removal of this wrath… (185).

A common misunderstanding at this point claims that Jesus died to “change the mind of his unkind Father” (185). But this, Packer claims, is a gross, polytheistic, misunderstanding of the gospel. On the contrary, God chose, because of his love for his creation, to quench his justly dealt wrath in a willing Jesus for the sake of those whom he loves.

Packer points out that in some translations of the New Testament “expiation” takes the place of propitiation. Packer argues that expiation, which “denotes the covering, putting away or rubbing out of sin so that it no longer constitutes a barrier to friendly fellowship between man and God” (182), is too weak. For expiation does not, as propitiation does, begin from recognizing the pacification of the wrath of God on the cross, a motif on display too often in the biblical story to be avoided (see especially Romans 1-3). Packer takes this argument all the way to a claim that all of the various understandings of what happened between us and God on Good–so very Good–Friday can be traced back to propitiation.

…When you are on top of the truth of propitiation, you can see the entire Bible in perspective, and you are in a position to take the measure of vital matters which cannot be properly grasped in any other terms (191).

The Ragmuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning.

So if knowing God is the desired pursuit of the Christian life, then propitiation is the fact that makes it all possible. Although in Knowing God Packer discusses many other truths of our faith, he begins and ends with knowing God and propitiation. I hope this brief study has opened up some questions for you, as it has for me. I disagree with Packer from time to time, and so will you. That’s completely okay. Even Peter and Paul went through that. What is most important, as we saw argued for in the first several Chapters, is that you come away with a deeper knowledge of the true God. For indeed, as Brennan Manning put it so eloquently in The Ragamuffin Gospel,

The Word we study has to be the Word we pray. My personal experience of the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians, and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the living Word and beseeching Him to help me understand with my head and heart His written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of knowing Jesus Christ personally and directly.

Let all this be said for your encouragement and to the glory of God!

Dr Vinoth Ramachandra serves on the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) Senior Leadership Team as Secretary for Dialogue & Social Engagement.

Part 2 of Vinoth Ramachandra‘s Engaging the University (21:22) is packed. After exploring the broad topics of funding’s push toward instrumentalism, the fragmentation of campus academic life by global communication, and the lack of “any coherent master narrative for a central point of reference . . . to evaluate the relationship of . . . parcels of knowledge to other parcels or to weigh their relative importance,” Ramachandra considers three challenges which Christians face in engaging the university:

• Evangelistic/pastoral challenge: “There are many outstanding thinkers in our university with a global influence who have never been exposed to a robust Christian faith which they can respect intellectually either because they’ve never come across Christians in their universities who love God with their minds and engaged them in serious thinking about God or they have never been exposed to the best Christian learning in their particular academic field of study.”
  • Comment: As a campus minister for the past seventeen years, I found Ramachandra’s exploration of Jonathan Rowles’ loss of faith during World War II particularly convicting. Please continue to share with the Emerging Scholars Network how we may pray for, encourage and equip you (and your colleagues) in this area by email and/or commenting below.
• Raising a Christian voice not only with intellect, but also with charity: “The various disciplines of the academic university are best thought of as enduring social practices into which students are inducted and to which some of them may contribute if they stay long enough to do research. . . . As social practices that constitute human traditions which are open to reshaping and growth through complex processes involving both internal debates and external criticisms. Christians receive these academic disciplines as gifts from God to humanity. They are expressions of His common grace. ‘If we hold the Spirit of God to be the only source of truth,’ wrote John Calvin in his Institutes, ‘we will neither reject nor despise the truth wherever it may reveal itself, lest we offend the Spirit of God.’ If Jesus Christ is indeed the Lord of the university, then those who submit to His Lordship have a distinctive voice to bring to all of these traditions of discourse. This implies that Christian professors and students take the trouble to undergo a Christian formation and sensibility immersing themselves in the Biblical Christian tradition as well as familiarizing themselves with a history of Christian thought that bears on their particular discipline. An alternative would be to have regular relationship with an academic theologian who can guide one in this process. . . .”
  • E.g., “Interrogating the taken for granted assumptions about human nature and human flourishing and opening up space for alternative voices to be heard. . . . questioning the standard story that is told in undergraduate classes about the historical development of the university and its disciplines.”
    • Comment 1: Don’t miss Ramachandra’s consideration of human rights discourse and the challenge to academic theologians “to converse across the boundaries that are set-up in the university.” Let’s “take the trouble to undergo a Christian formation and sensibility immersing themselves in the Biblical Christian tradition as well as familiarizing themselves with a history of Christian thought that bears on their particular discipline.”
    • Comment 2: I find too large a credibility gap between Christians in Christian educational institutions (colleges, universities, seminaries) and the larger academic culture (including Christians faculty, ministries, and students at ‘secular’ institutions). This must be spanned and I desire the Emerging Scholars Network to be a part of such an endeavor through blogging, Facebook, local hubs, seminars, and special events/conferencing. As you have recommendations and/or a desire to participate in such endeavors, please contact me.
  • E.g., “Universities not only enable creativity and foster love for learning, but they also promote isolation and compartmentalization, prideful ambition, one-upmanship, snobbery, petty jealousies, and bitter rivalries. And Jesus Christ judges a scholar based on these temptations, even more than on the excellence of his overall intellectual achievements. This means that we must attend to what is happening to our souls, our characters even as we are shaped by the culture of the university and for this we often need those outside of the university, particularly the local churches to speak to us honestly.”
    • Comment: Father, forgive us. May we as Christ-followers spur one-another on in embracing the narrow way of salvation, running the way of God’s commandments with expanded hearts and unspeakable sweetness of love; so that never departing from His guidance and persevering in the Body of Christ in His doctrine till death, we may by patience share in the sufferings of Christ, and be found worthy to be coheirs with Him of His kingdom. To God be the glory!*
• Defending the human: Resisting the biological reductionism which combines neurological imaging of the human brain with the popular pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology.
  • Comment: A significant topic which spills over into Part 3. I encourage you to invite others to listen and discuss.

More from the 2012 Henry Martyn Lectures coming. If you have not already done such, I encourage you to download, listen to and discuss with Christian colleagues/friends the presentations by Dr. Vinoth Ramachandra.

*Note: Currently running a Christian Devotional Classics series on the ESN Facebook Wall, the most recent post is No murmuring, drawn from The Rule of Saint Benedict.

In last night’s Christian Devotional Classics (Evangelical Seminary) a fellow student shared how much he appreciated Gungor‘s “lifting” of the words of Augustine’s Confessions in Late have I loved you. As you may remember Augustine’s Confessions won ESN’s Best Christian Book of All Time and this is a beautiful selection from the text.

Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace. — Augustine. Confessions. Book Ten, Chapter 27. Newly Translated and edited by Albert C. Outler. Philadelphia: Westminster Press [1955] (Library of Christian Classics, v. 7). Accessed 6/3/2013.

Have you come to love the “Beauty so ancient and so new” or have you “rushed heedlessly among” the beautiful things [made] out of dust, failing to give them their proper place? As you engage in your daily academic endeavors, do you pant, hunger, and thirst for the Creator, i.e., come to know God even more richly? Are you part of a community which encourages you and provides accountability toward that end?

Note: To dig into the Emerging Scholars Network Facebook Wall series built around readings from Christian Devotional Classics, check out “Evil behaviour injures. . . .”.

Picture from Blessed Are Those Who Mourn. Chris Nelson. InterVarsity Urban Project Blog. 3/23/2012.

Not long after graduating from college in 2005, I interviewed students on campus about their involvement in community service. All of them said that they spent less time doing community service in college than in high school, and most of them said that they felt disappointed or even guilty that this was the case. All of them had difficulty articulating why this shift had occurred. No one claimed a lack of opportunity or motivation, but two main barriers emerged. The predominant factor was about structuring time (as seems to be the case for most stresses in college life). One student noted that extracurricular activities, even the service-​​oriented ones, tended to be so organized that they required lots of time to participate; it seemed hard to find a service project that didn’t entail a weekly or regular commitment. Some said that social activities within the Christian fellowship consumed most of their scheduled time for extracurricular activities with the unfortunate consequence of squeezing out community service. One student said that he felt schoolwork was so intensive and pervasive that he “needed all the down time he could get” in order to maintain sanity and that, while community service was a good and worthwhile extracurricular, it wasn’t the best way to relax. Time spent with people in the Christian fellowship served a cathartic purpose in helping to de-​​stress with friends, focus on spiritual development, and restore a proper perspective and context for academics. However, even that time was rarely dedicated to service.

It should not come as a surprise that many college students feel a vague sense of dissatisfaction when it comes to the exercise of “compassion.” In the university, we become acutely aware of how unaware we are about the world’s condition and its disparities. We walk through the student center and pass by fundraisers for starving and abused children while on our way to eat buffet-style in dining halls. We pass by flyers about discussions on poverty and structural violence while on our way to formal parties and dinners. We may take on one or two causes with passion, but our knowledge of the world’s needs easily outstrips and exhausts our available time to do something about it. We feel guilty over not doing or caring “enough” about the throngs of causes and crises crying out for our attention, but when pressed for a response we sheepishly (or angrily) confess that we don’t even know where to begin. What is compassion and what does it mean to live compassionately? Which causes should we devote ourselves to? To whom should we show compassion? How does it relate to evangelism? How does it relate to daily life? How much time can we afford to spend exclusively on acts of compassion? Our spiritual instincts sense that mere participation in a fundraiser or attendance at a lecture is woefully inadequate, yet no one can tell us exactly what “adequate” means.

Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches by Omri Elisha (U of California Press, 2011)

Omri Elisha’s book, “Moral Ambition” moves in the direction of exploring these questions (as in this ESN post), but it notably does not address the unique environment and culture of the college campus. Recent years have seen a dramatic change in the social acceptability and integration of community service/mercy ministries into Christian fellowships. During my college years, the major cause was support for the victims of the Southeast Asian tsunami.  Even InterVarsity’s massive missions conference (Urbana) has, in the past decade, seen an explosion in focus and interest in these areas. Sharon Cohn’s riveting testimony, representing the work of the International Justice Mission, ignited a passion for justice and an awareness of child sex trafficking for thousands of college students at Urbana ’06 (and is worth every bit of its 15 minutes). InterVarsity’s urban projects are, from my estimation, an incredibly popular and fruitful opportunity to explore inner city ministry and urban life.

However, despite an increasing thirst and aptitude for social change among college students, it often leaves them even more unsettled and uncertain about its integration with daily life, mainly because of the questions it leads to . . . questions that are rarely addressed directly from the pulpits of their home churches and congregations.

For example:

• How can a good and loving God permit such incredible evil to take place?
• In cultural conflicts where there is no clear rule of law, how do we determine whose justice is right?
• Are Christian aid organizations in “competition” with secular ones?
• Is it healthy for Christian groups to partner with secular ones? What if the partnership is limited to material aid alone?
• How can Christian humanitarian aid be delivered without being coercive?
• How do we prioritize which causes are “more deserving” of attention?
• Should service be seen as an optional/ancillary activity to the life of a fellowship?  Can it be made central?
• Should Christian campus groups advocate for political change or platforms if they further a specific cause?
• Does a focus on humanitarian aid distract from evangelism, or is it a subtype/extension of it?

In the marketplace that is the university public square, what should be the approach of Christian fellowships to “doing good”?