Nita's Book Club

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 5(b)

2012-02-12T07:18:00.000-06:00

Chapter 5(b) - "The Christocentric Hermeneutical Key"

This is the continuation and conclusion of chapter 5 in which Christian Smith presses the point over and over again of the importance that we see all Scripture in light of Jesus and that any internal harmony in Scripture derives from its core purpose to tell us about Jesus; such harmony doesn't come from its propositions and stories fitting together in a perfect, neat puzzle.

"It (the Bible) witnesses to the incarnate person and work of Christ. It offers apostolic theological reflections on Christ for the church and the world. It shows the difference that Christ made in human life during the earliest years of the church. It tells us who and what we really are in light of Christ. And it sends us on a mission in life in response to the good news of Christ..."

The author quotes Geoffrey Bromiley: "...the Bible can serve as a means of Christian unity only when Jesus Christ is placed at its center..."

Before there was a recognized canon, the early church had what they called a "rule of faith" which was a summary of Christian truth containing "apostolic teaching" and "tradition" and "sound doctrine" and "the faith"; at the very center of this "rule of faith" was the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Later this rule of faith was used in determining which books should be included in the canon, meaning that the centrality of Jesus was the core determining issue in the formation of the canon.

Smith acknowledges that some official statements and declarations of American evangelicals have the "germ" of this Christ-centered insight, but he adds, "...such short, isolated Christocentric statements are rarely strong enough to counter the implications of the many other declarations about complete coverage, the handbook model, and so on, which tend to lead to a flat, centerless, biblicist reading of scripture...Nobody ends up explicitly denying that Christ is the purpose, center, meaning, and key to understanding scripture. But in actual practice Christ gets sidelined by the interest in defending every proposition and account as inerrant, universally applicable, contemporarily applicable..."

A Christ-centered approach to reading the Bible means that we see all of our daily issues through the "mind-transforming lens" of the big story of Jesus and of God's reconciling the world to himself in Jesus. Once we are gripped with the stunning good news of Jesus Christ, "...perhaps God wants us to figure out how Christians should think well about things like war, wealth, and sanctification, by thinking christologically about them, more than by simply piecing together this and that verse of scripture into an allegedly coherent puzzle picture."

The author touches on how this would change preaching, making the good news about God's love in Jesus the central theme rather than focusing primarily on issues and problem-solving and secondary doctrinal matters.

Smith tackles the issue of biblicism bordering on idolatry by acting and talking as if the Bible were God's highest self-revelation. "The Bible is of course crucial for the Christian church and life. But it does not trump Jesus Christ as the true and final Word of God. The Bible is a secondary, subsidiary, functional, written word of God, the primary purpose of which is to mediate, to point us to, to give true testimony about the living Jesus Christ. The Bible did not and could not exist or have any meaning without the higher, truer, more final Word of God, Jesus Christ."

Though there is much more in this chapter, I'll conclude with Christian Smith's words as to how this way of reading and interpreting Scripture helps deal with the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism within biblicism. He suggests three things:

It keeps us from turning the Bible into an idol.
It provides an interpretive center to direct our scripture reading.
If done well, it can have the healthy effect of disarming us of arguments and thereby foster more humility and openness in dialogue with others with whom we disagree.

This chapter alone (on the centrality of Jesus) makes getting this book well worth it! Grace and peace to you this week. Next week we'll go on to chapter 6, "Accepting Complexity and Ambiguity."

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 5(a)

2012-02-10T21:05:00.000-06:00

Chapter 5 - "The Christocentric Hermeneutical Key"
This chapter begins the second part of this book in which Christian Smith proposes ways "toward a truly evangelical reading of Scripture." For me this chapter is the most wonderful chapter of the book; however, its beauty in enhanced by the chapters before it because those chapters help remove certain mindsets about the Bible that get in the way of seeing Jesus in Scripture. Because this chapter is lengthy, I will cover it with two posts.

The author is addressing those who want to find a way (other than biblicism) to approach Scripture that is essentially faithful to the sensibilities of the evangelical tradition. He begins the chapter by defining what it means to be "evangelical": the word evangelical is the joining of two Greek words which mean "good" and "message." "To be evangelical, then, means having one's life centered on the terrifically good message that God is reconciling the world to himself in Jesus Christ... The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most important thing we will ever need to hear and know, and it has the power to reframe and transform everything else...Biblicism too often traps, domesticates, and controls the life-quaking kerygma (proclamation) of the gospel in order to provide the Bible reader with the security, certainty, and protection that humans naturally want."
(We fallen humans like the security we feel in knowing things for certain; by making the Bible an easy handbook to go to - as opposed to doing the difficult work of getting to know an unpredictable and strange Person - biblicism provides answers that are easily accessible, certain and safe.)

Smith goes on to challenge American evangelicals' "natural historical tendencies toward entrepreneurial, activist, pragmatic, immediate problem-solving, and instead spend time needed to think through matters carefully, creatively, and in interaction with the larger, longer Christian tradition."

The Centrality of Jesus Christ

Most of this chapter is dedicated to Jesus being "the purpose, center, and interpretive key to Scripture." Although this reality should be obvious to evangelical believers, the truth is that we have tried to make the Bible be a divine instruction manual that is universally applicable on just about any topic it seems to address; and in doing so, we miss the point of God's giving us the Scriptures, which is "all and only about the work of God in time and space in the person of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the world."

Following are quotes from other writers pertaining to this:

Keith Ward
"For a Christian, every part of the Bible must in some way point to Christ, to the living person of Jesus who is the Christ, and to the unlimited, liberating love of God which is revealed in Christ. To put it bluntly, it is not the words of the Bible that are 'the way, the truth, and the life.' It is the person of Christ, to whom the Bible witnesses."

Peter Enns
"The unity of the Bible...is a unity that should ultimately be sought in Christ himself, the living word...We believe not only that the Bible is the word of God, but that Christ himself is the word...The written word bears witness to the incarnate word, Christ...The Bible bears witness to Christ by Christ's design. He is over the Bible, beyond it, separate from it, even though the Bible is his word and thus bears witness to him. Christ is supreme, and it is in him, the embodied word, that the written word ultimately finds its unity..."

John Stott
"Whenever we read the Bible, we must look for Christ. And we must go on looking until we see and until we believe."

To read Scripture in a Christ-centered way is to help us read it better but also to provide help in revising our theological mindset and method by putting God at the center, not our own ways of knowing. This brings to mind the two trees in the garden of Eden, representing two ways of knowing: through God in Christ or through independent soulish knowing apart from God.

I will complete this chapter in a day or two...

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 4

2012-02-01T10:28:00.000-06:00

Chapter 4 - Subsidiary Problems with Biblicism

In previous chapters Christian Smith has made his case for the problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism", which he believes is the biggest problem with biblicism (see chapter one for his definition of biblicism). In this chapter he tackles several other problems with biblicism that are lesser but real.

He gives nine different problems that he sees; I'll list five and give a short summary of them here:

Blatantly ignored teachings: though biblicists believe that we are to obey all direct and repeated and unambiguous teachings of Scripture, there are myriad passages that we don't obey or feel no obligation to obey, such as:

"Greet one another with a holy kiss" (five times repeated in the NT)
"Women should remain silent in the churches" (I Cor. 14:34; 1 Tim. 2:12)
"Do not resist an evil person" (said by Jesus Himself in Matt. 5:39)
"...you should also wash one another's feet" (Jesus in John 13:14,15)
etc.

Arbitrary determinations of cultural relativism: biblicists rightfully say that not all difficult passages should be applied to our time and culture because of historical and cultural differences, but what is not consistent or honest is the fact that biblicists typically offer no coherent explanation about which Bible passages a) are culturally relevant, b) remain in effect in principle but may be applied in different ways depending on the particular culture, and c) remain universally binding in their specifics for all believers at all times. Examples:

Is the passage about women being silent relevant for women and churches today?
May God's people never eat rabbit or pork? (Lev. 11); should those who blaspheme God be stoned to death? (Lev. 24); should Christians hate those who hate God? (Psa.139:21,22); does much wisdom really bring more sorrow? (Ecc.1:18)
Should all Christians share their material goods in common? (Acts 2:44,45); is it wrong for men to cover their heads? (1 Cor. 11:4); should unmarried men not look for wives? (1 Cor. 7:27)
etc.

Strange passages: given biblicist principles, all Scripture is for our learning, but the fact is that there are some very strange passages in the Bible that are hard to know what to do with. One example is what Paul wrote to Titus (biblicists assume Paul wrote this book) about Cretans (Titus 1:12,13). What he says sounds racist and violates many of his moral teachings in other letters. So in what sense is this part of God's revealed truth and what are we supposed to learn from it today? Some other strange passages the author mentions are Gen. 6:1-4; Judges 11:29-39; I Sam. 16:23; II Chron. 18:22; Psalm 137:8,9; Deut. 21:10-14, etc.
Lack of a biblicist social ethic: although most evangelicals would say they believe "Jesus is the answer", not only for personal needs but for social, political, economic problems in society, "biblicism is unable to deliver one coherent, much less comprehensive, social ethic to guide a compelling 'biblical' response to contemporary social problems." One major reason (among others) for this is that the New Testament has practically nothing in it to suggest the idea of Christian political influence or social action. There are some general principles in Scripture that can be used, but the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism again makes a coherent Christian social doctrine impossible. "When theorists who take a basically biblicist approach try to derive a systematic Christian social ethic from scripture, they end up offering an incredibly wide range of proposals." (Smith gives examples of writings by Christians that range from one end of the political spectrum to the other...)
Setting up youth for unnecessary crises of faith: the author makes the point that the indefensibility of biblicism's beliefs causes unnecessary crises of personal faith for some young people when they realize that what they have been taught (the biblicist approach to Scripture) doesn't work. These young people then become prey to the teachings and influence of college and university professors who challenge the truth of the Scriptures. "Biblicism often paints smart, committed youth into a corner that is...impossible to occupy for many of those who actually confront its problems." In other words, when a young person sincerely and honestly faces the problems within biblicism, he finds himself in a place that forces him to make a decision; often that decision is to leave the faith in order to maintain integrity. (A wonderful 35-minute talk by Greg Boyd is very helpful on this topic: http://whchurch.org/blog/3819/toppling-the-house-of-cards)

"Biblicism is not the way forward for evangelicalism. There must be a better way to understand and read the Bible. What might that be?" With this question, Smith's segues into the second part of the book, "Toward a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture."

Next week we'll cover chapter 5, a wonderful chapter on the Christ-centeredness of Scripture. Grace and peace to you this week!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 3(b)

2012-01-29T06:08:00.000-06:00

Chapter 3 - Some Relevant History, Sociology, and Psychology
The first half of this chapter dealt with the historical roots of underlying philosophical assumptions in American biblicism (see previous post). In the second half of chapter 3, Christian Smith deals with what he believes are reasons why biblicists are not troubled by the fact that there are multiple, divergent interpretations of the same biblical texts by sincere and capable evangelicals while at the same time making the claim that the Bible is easy for anyone to understand and that it speaks with one unified voice.

Why Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism is Not More Troubling to Biblicists: Sociological and Psychological Conjectures

Smith suggests that if what he's presenting is true, there ought to be great concern over it among biblicists; however, for the most part, there is none. The following are his conjectures about why this might be (I will merely "scratch the surface" of what he says about each of these):

The structure of social networks among biblicists. The technical word for this in sociology is "homophily (love for and attraction to what is similar to oneself)...one of the strongest forces operating in social life." Because of this force, we tend to live in relatively small worlds with those with whom we feel comfortable. Consequently, we lose touch with the distinctive beliefs and lifestyles of people in other "worlds". This serves to bolster the biblicist's sense of being correct in his way of viewing Scripture and protects him from the "existential discomfort of having to deal with contradictory beliefs, values, and commitments that such ties normally entail." (This reality is true, of course, of all social networks, not only biblicists.)
The common tendency to minimize the real differences of interpretation and the importance of those differences. The claim that the disagreements are about minor issues is like a member of a conflict-ridden family telling a friend that her family gets along pretty well. It's a form of denial since "disagreements among biblicists (and other Bible-referring Christians) about what the Bible teaches on most issues, both essential and secondary matters, are many and profound. If biblicists hope to maintain intellectual honesty and internal consistency, they must acknowledge them and explain them."
Another possible reason for not being troubled by biblicism may be that being at odds with another group can actually give my group a sense of identity and importance. For example, the "Duke and North Carolina basketball programs need each other, even as they hate each other, simply to help promote the being and identity of Duke and NC." Smith argues that it is this reality that has given many American evangelical groups their vitality. If so, he says there are consequences for those groups involved:

Biblicists may subconsciously resist the idea settling their differences since they are dependent on those that don't agree with them to sustain their existence and sense of distinctiveness. (It's common that entire organized ministries are birthed around a particular "revelation" from Scripture, and that revelation is the group's distinctive identity; if all believers interpreted the Scripture in a similar way concerning this revelation, there would be no need for "my" ministry to exist.)
Secondly, the inevitable effect of building this "in-group identity and commitment difference from out-groups" is that they no longer take the claims and positions of those out-groups seriously; in other words, there's no genuine attempt or desire to understand or honor the others but rather, the point becomes one of remaining on guard so as not to be contaminated by the out-group nor allow them to gain influence.
Summarizing this point, Smith says, "...various Christian groups 'benefit' from conflict, disunity, and fragmentation...This...is highly problematic when considered in light of what the Bible says about Christian unity."

Another possible reason could be fear of "ecumenism," which to many evangelicals sounds like liberal Protestantism which is considered bad. "Better...to be divided in absolute commitment to truth than to be unified in flaccid, liberal compromise...We may be utterly fragmented, biblicists tell themselves, but at least we have not compromised."
The final possible reason biblicists aren't troubled by the problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism" falls more in the area of psychology than sociology. Smith suggests that there is a particular need within biblicism to create order and security in an environment that would otherwise be chaotic and in error. This aversion to disorder and falsehood is common among humans but stronger in some than in others. The author suspects that biblicism is attractive to many because of this fear. He proposes that the heritage that we have of the modernist-fundamentalist battles of the early 20th century could have a hidden effect on our desire to keep things orderly and certain.

While this chapter is the author's conjectures over the biblicist problem, I found it enlightening for me personally for two reasons: one, as I read this, I recognized that I have been participant in some of them - this caused me to cringe at times and to realize afresh my dependence on the great mercy and forgiveness of the Lord toward me; and second, it gave form to some things I've understood intuitively but haven't had confidence in. I am grateful for this.

Next week we'll move on to chapter four, which is the final chapter dealing with the problems of biblicism before going on to the "positive" second half of the book!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 3(a)

2012-01-27T18:02:00.000-06:00

In the first 2 chapers Christian Smith defined "biblicism" and made the case for why the countless ways of interpreting Scripture that pervades evangelicalism makes biblicism impossible. He goes to great lengths to back this up in a convincing way (to me), so again I encourage you to get the book if you want to dig deeper into this.

Chapter 3 was exciting for me personally because parts of it affirmed something that I've taught over the years related to Scripture - and that is that if my knowing God is based primarily on figuring out with my mind what the written Word says, that will not be trustworthy because of the inability of any fallen human to interpret it in a purely objective way - there are many forces at work with each of us that shape the grid through which we read and interpret the Bible. Smith deals briefly with this reality in this chapter by looking at the impact of history, sociology, and psychology on our way of receiving information.

Chapter 3: "Some Relevant History, Sociology, and Psychology"

Philosophical Assumptions Underwriting American Biblicism

The author starts by presenting the historical roots to the philosophical assumptions that undergird American biblicism:
"Most crucial among them...are certain teachings of Charles Hodge (1797-1878) and Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921)...both highly influential professors at Princeton Theological Seminary. (Their) teachings were set within and governed by the then-reigning philosophy of Scottish commonsense realism and the Baconian inductive-empirical philosophy of science." Based on this assumption that the mind is capable of knowing words directly and that these words correctly represent the object being studied, Hodge "defined theology as a science whose method is to 'begin with collecting well-established facts, and from them to infer the general laws which determine their occurrence.'"

And so, according to Hodge, theology consists of "collecting the relevant facts from the Bible and inductively piecing them together...", guaranteeing that the biblical facts would be clear. The idea was to remove human subjectivity and let the facts speak for themselves. This represents a very optimistic view of human knowledge. One reason this approach was attractive to Hodge was that it was a way to have clear arguments against the attacks on the Bible in a time when German idealism and theological liberalism was growing. Warfield carried this on into the 20th century. Smith says of them, "...as their teachings later passed through the scorching flames of the modernist-fundamentalist battles of the early 20th century, it was often their weaker, more simplistic ideas that shaped the thinking of subsequent generations of evangelicals. The problematic influence of Hodge and Warfield on evangelical biblicism is evident today."

Smith then shows that this problem goes even further back to two centuries earlier with the Westminster Confession of Faith. (Smith recommends a book by Carlos Bovell, "By Good and Necessary Consequences", which is a genealogical study of biblicist foundationalism. In it Bovell points out that the clause entitled "by good and necessary consequences" in the Westminster Confession of Faith contributes an important plank that supports today's evangelical biblicism, and that this clause was not inherited from the early church fathers...but was devised by the creators of the confession of faith in response to wide-spread 17th century philosophical skepticism. It was this context that drove the Protestant theologians of that day to get their theological knowlege from scriptural propositions and logical deductions - it is this approach that we have inherited in modern evangelical biblicism.

In other words, the philosophical underpinnings of biblicism are largely based on the reaction of the Church to attacks on the Bible, starting in the 17th century but coming into full bloom in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The author is quick to warn that this doesn't mean that the solution is to resort to "Kantian idealism, arbitrary subjectivism, or theological liberalism." Later in the book Smith proposes a better alternative that he contends is a truly evangelical way of approaching Scripture.

I'll finish this chapter in a day or two - we'll look at what Smith believes are reasons why biblicists aren't troubled by pervasive pluralistic interpretations of the Bible...

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 2

2012-01-20T17:11:00.001-06:00

Chapter 2 - "The Extent and Source of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism"

This chapter takes what the author said in chapter one to another level; his purpose is to convince the reader of how far-reaching the problem of multiple and different interpretations of the same Bible is and why the biblicist claims (see chapter one for biblicism assumptions) don't hold up in light of this. Because it's more or less an amplifying of part of chapter one, I will give a greatly reduced summary of the chapter and would encourage you to read it for yourself if you want to understand his argument more fully. It's well worth the read.

"The many four-views and three-views books noted in the previous chapter address only some of the myriad issues, topics, doctrines, and questions about which Christians - including biblicists - disagree on biblical grounds...many biblicists seem accustomed to easily ignoring or dismissing the 'biblical' convictions of others who read the Bible differently than they happen to, or to minimizing those disparities by suggesting that they are only slight variations on what are commonly shared Bible-based interpretations and convictions. Yet the differences cannot be ignored, dismissed, or minimized. They are real and concern important matters." Some of his examples of these differences:

Church polity (how should a local congregation be governed?). "The Christian church today exists in the fragmented form of literally untold thousands of denominations, dioceses, conventions, and individual congregations..."
Free will and predestination. "Each side is certain that its view is biblical, yet holds its position at the expense of having to exert mighty efforts to reinterpret away the rather plain meaning of the Bible passages that seem to support the other side."
The morality of slavery. "Previous decades (before the Civil War) of heated debate by biblical scholars and ministers who trusted the Bible as God's authoritative word simply could not resolve the conflict by an appeal to the divine texts." Abraham Lincoln observed that people on both sides of the conflict "read the same Bible and pray to the same God."
Gender difference and equality. "...different contemporary books reading the same biblical texts come to very different, often contradictory conclusions."
Wealth, prosperity, poverty, blessing. "Some say the Bible teaches material prosperity...as blessings from God for faithfulness...Others that the Bible teaches the need for voluntary simplicity or poverty...Yet others that the Bible teaches a prudent responsibility and balance concerning money..."
War, peace, and non-violence. "...the good news of the evangelical Mennonite is very, very different from the good news of the conservative Republican evangelical."
Charismatic gifts. "Each side marshals lots of Bible verses to argue its case, and each ends up, in my view, making a fairly convincing case."
Atonement and justification. "At the heart of Christian faith stands the cross on which Christ died for the salvation of the world...But what exactly did the cross - presumably along with the incarnation and resurrection - accomplish? Christians have appealed to Scripture and disagreed about this for 2,000 years..."
Etc., etc.

Smith continues by proposing six likely responses to this problem of the pervasiveness of multiple interpretations of biblical texts:

Some would argue that most Christians study the Bible with "problematic motives, interests, or skills that prevent them from seeing the coherent truth"; or, said more bluntly, "We are right and the rest, unfortunately, are wrong." Smith labels this the "blame-the-deficient-readers answer."
Some might say that none of this would apply to the "original autographs" of the original manuscripts written by the hands of their first authors...Smith calls this the "lost-original-autographs explanation."
Others could say that sin has so damaged humans' capacity for inner thought and knowledge that we cannot see the single truth in the Bible clearly enough...Smith calls this the "noetically-damaged-reader reply."
Another speculative possible response could be that God only gives understanding of biblical truth to some, not all; or the negative side of this - that Satan has such a hold in some Christians' lives that they can't properly read the Bible. Smith calls this the "supernatural-confusion explanation."
Still another reply might be that the different interpretations "represent something like the different parts of the proverbial elephant touched and reported on by the ten Indian blind men - each is right in his own way, but to get the full truth they need to put all their knowledge together." Smith labels this the "inclusive-higher-synthesis response."
Finally, some could suggest that God has purposely made Scripture ambiguous in order to cause disagreement so that we would have to learn humility and openness...Smith labels this the "purposefully-ambiguous-revelation thesis."

The author agrees that some of these responses may be correct. But his point is that given the biblicist assumptions, these biblicist responses should be unacceptable to the biblicist.

He goes ahead to explain this in detail and concludes at the end of this chapter that the Bible "consists of irreducibly multivocal (i.e., it can and does speak to different listeners in different voices that appear to say different things), polysemic (multiple meanings), and multivalent (many appeals or values) texts...To deny the multivocality of scripture is to live in a self-constructed world of unreality."

On to chapter three next week: "Some Relevant History, Sociology, and Psychology." God bless you this week!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 1(b)

2012-01-15T05:19:00.000-06:00

Chapter 1 (part b) - Biblicism and the Problem of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism"

We'll look now at the second half of this chapter and Christian Smith's dealing with what he sees as problems with "pervasive interpretive pluralism."

What the author is referring to is the reality that "the very same Bible - which biblicists insist is perspicuous (clear) and harmonious - gives rise to divergent understandings among intelligent, sincere, committed readers about what it says about most topics of interest. Knowledge of 'biblical' teachings, in short, is characterized by pervasive interpretive pluralism." In other words, while the biblicist insists in theory that Scripture is clear and that anyone can understand it, the reality is that we all read the same Bible but come up with very different understanding and interpretations on the same topic.

This is a problem that has been acknowledged by many evangelical writers/scholars over the years. Smith quotes several respected Bible scholars such as Geoffrey Bromiley, Mark Noll, N.T. Wright, D.A. Carson, and more - all of whom acknowledge that our claims that Scripture is authoritative while not being able to arrive at anything like agreement on what it says is self-defeating. (N.T. Wright says, "It seems to be the case that the more you insist that you are based on the Bible, the more fissiparous (divisive) you become; the church splits up into more and more little groups, each thinking that they have got the biblical truth right.")

Smith suggests that rather than deal with this problem seriously, we have preferred to try to make this into a "virtue" by presenting our divergent viewpoints in popular books about "Three Views...", "Four Views...", etc. Some examples:

The Nature of Atonement: Four Views
Four Views of Hell
Divorce and Remarriage: Four Views
Women in Ministry: Four Views
Four Views of the End Times
Science and Christianity: Four Views
Three Views on the Rapture
Five Views on Apologetics
etc., etc.

The very existence of so many of these types of books bears out the fact that "the Bible apparently is not clear, consistent, and univocal enough to enable the best-intentioned, most highly skilled, believing readers to come to agreement as to what it teaches..."

(The author challenges the well-known mantra, "In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity" saying that "there simply is not unity on many essentials"; in fact, "...not only are Christians divided about essential matters of doctrine and faithful practice; they are also sometimes divided on what even counts as essential.")

The chapter concludes with this question: "if the Bible is given by a truthful and omnipotent God as an internally consistent and perspicuous text precisely for the purpose of revealing to humans correct beliefs, practices, and morals, then why is it that the presumably sincere Christians to whom it has been given cannot read it and come to common agreement about what it teaches?"

Next week we'll cover chapter 2 which deals with the extent and source of pervasive interpretive pluralism...

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 1(a)

2012-01-13T19:38:00.001-06:00

As we start into the first chapter of this book, my prayer once again is that we can see light in His light. This is my continual prayer as we go through this book together... because of the length of these chapters, I may send them in two parts in the course of a week. This particular post will cover the first half of chapter one. Because of the nature of this book, I encourage you to hang in there through the entire book in order to understand the message of the book; although at first the author may suggest things that go against what we're used to, he's actually fighting for the Bible to be understood in a truly evangelical way.

Chapter 1: "Biblicism and the Problem of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism"

Christian Smith deals with two main issues in this chapter: a) what he means by "biblicism", and b) the problems there are with "pervasive interpretive pluralism".

A. Biblicism
Smith gives the definition of biblicism that he is working with throughout this book, acknowledging that the word "biblicism" means different things to different people. In his use of the word he is referring to a particular theory and style of using the Bible, which is made up of a constellation of assumptions and beliefs related to the Bible's nature and purpose and function. This constellation is made up of 9 basic assumptions or beliefs which result in a 10th summary viewpoint:
1. Divine writing - the details of the Bible's words consists of and is identical to God's very own words written inerrantly in human language.
2. Total representation - the Bible represents the totality of God's communication to and His will for humanity...
3. Complete coverage - God's will about all relevant issues to Christian belief and life is contained in the Bible.
4. Democratic perspicuity - any reasonably intelligent person can read Scripture in his/her language and understand correctly the plain meaning of the text.
5. Commonsense hermeneutics - we best understand the Bible texts by reading them in their explicit, plain, literal sense as the author intended them (which may or may not take account of their literary, cultural, and historical contexts).
6. Solo Scriptura - theological formations can be built directly out of the Bible from scratch with no need of any other help such as creeds, confessions, historical traditions, etc.
7. Internal harmony - all related Bible passages about a particular subject fit together into a unified and internally consistent body of instructions for correct or incorrect beliefs and behavior.
8. Universal applicability - whatever the authors taught God's people at any point in history applies universally for all believers at every time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent scriptural teaching.
9. Inductive method - all issues of Christian belief and practice can be learned by piecing together through careful study the clear "biblical" truths that it teaches.

These 9 assumptions or beliefs generate a 10th viewpoint that is common in popular biblicist belief and practice:

10. Handbook model - the Bible teaches doctrine and morals in its affirmations, and these affirmations together comprise sort of a manual or handbook for Christian belief and living, covering an array of topics from science to economics to health to romance, etc.

The author goes on to explain that different persons and groups emphasize and express a variety of these points in different ways, so his point isn't to say that biblicism is a unified doctrine practiced and believed in the same way by all believers. His point is to say that to one degree or another these 10 interrelated assumptions and beliefs are behind and give life to the viewpoints and practices of major parts of institutional and popular conservative American Protestantism, particularly evangelicalism.

Smith gives examples of biblicism as found in evangelical popular (folk) culture, in Christian institutions, and in Christian scholarly declarations. These examples range from the cruder folk sayings to the more sophisticated expressions of belief by scholars and church leaders. Some examples are the following:

Sayings such as: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it!"; "BIBLE - Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth"; "Confused? Read the Directions!"(picture of the Bible)...etc.
Book titles:

Bible Answers for Almost All Your Questions
100 Biblical Tips to Help You Live a More Peaceful and Prosperous Life
Cooking with the Bible
Business by the Book
God's Blueprint for Building Marital Intimacy
God Honoring Finances
Politics and the Christian
etc., etc.

Doctrinal statements of Christian institutions, such as divinity school which includes this: "We believe the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, to be the inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for the salvation of me and the Divine and final authority for all Christian faith and life."
A well-known Bible institute states a commonly held view: "...the authority of the Bible, which declares timeless truth that is relevant today."
A theological seminary states in its beliefs: "...the Holy Scripture contains a system of doctrine. We deny that the Holy Scripture lacks doctrinal unity on any point of doctrine, or that it does not always agree with itself. We affirm that the Holy Scripture is harmonious in all its teachings..."
Evangelical parachurch organizations typically have doctrinal statements that include declarations such as: "We believe that the Bible...is the revelation of God to mankind, is verbally and fully inspired by Him, is sufficient for the knowledge of God and His will that is necessary for the eternal welfare of mankind, and is infallible and inerrant in its original manuscripts, and is the supreme and final authority for all Christian faith and conduct."

Smith is not saying that none of these statements are true but that there are assumptions and mistaken conclusions that we make about the Bible because of a mindset that has developed within Christianity (particularly evangelicalism) which expects the Bible to be and do what he contends God never intended for it to be and do. He deals with this in the second half of chapter one when talking about "pervasive interpretive pluralism." More on that in a couple of days!

The Bible Made Impossible - Author's Introduction

2012-01-05T05:30:00.001-06:00

If you have followed some of my posts recently, you know that the topic of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one that I have written about. As I was reading "The Bible Made Impossible", it occurred to me that, without necessarily using this language, the author is essentially proposing that we can either use the Scriptures primarily as a source of knowledge (a manual) or as a source of discovering the tree of life (Jesus). He contends that we western evangelicals have turned it into a manual rather than seeing it primarily as God's revelation of His Son Jesus.

This week I'll go through his introduction and give a general overview of the content of the book. He begins by saying, "The goal of this book is not to detract from the plausibility, reliability, or authority of the Christian faith or from scripture. The goal is to persuade readers that one particular theory of Christian plausibility, reliability, and authority - what I call biblicism - is inadequate to the task...
By 'biblicism' I mean a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity (clarity), self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability...all together (these points) form a constellation of assumptions and beliefs that define a particular theory and practice..."

Christian Smith goes on to defend himself from any idea that he is promoting theological liberalism, going so far as to state that he believes that such liberalism is not part of true Christianity. Having said that, Smith contends that "biblicism" is not the way to handle such liberalism, as most evangelicals believe.

The book is divided into 2 major sections:
1) "The Impossibility of Biblicism"
In the first section Smith deals with what he calls the problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism"; in other words, the reality that "even among presumably well-intentioned readers - including many evangelical biblicists - the Bible, after their very best efforts to understand it, says and teaches very different things about most significant topics..." So he deals with the relevance of biblicist theory as it relates to claims of scriptural authority and infallibility.

He then deals with the defensibility of biblicism in general, focusing on "the fact that the Bible contains a variety of texts that are problematic in different ways and that biblicist (among other) readers rarely know how to handle." But in order to defend their theory, biblicists respond in 3 ways: a) ignore the problematic texts; b) "interpret" the problematic texts as if they say things that they don't say; c) develop elaborate contortions of scenarios and explanations in an attempt to make it all fit the biblicist's theory.

2) "Toward a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture"
The final 3 chapters of the book are the author's proposals for overcoming American evangelical biblicism. "Contrary to the fears of some biblicists, leaving biblicism behind need not mean losing the best of evangelicalism but, instead, can mean strengthening an evangelical hermeneutic of Scripture." In this section he turns towards Jesus as the primary interpretive key to understanding Scripture (http://nitasbookclub.blogspot.com/2011/11/jesus-purpose-center-and-interpretive.html) and helps the reader toward the acceptance of ambiguity and towards rethinking how we humans know and understand.

Christian Smith is a sociologist and brings this perspective into his study. I find this valuable because he deals with the reality of how our thinking has been and is shaped by history, sociology and psychology.

God bless you this week and may the Word of God lead us to Jesus, the Source of all life!

Increase of Truth Looks like Error - Introductory Thoughts on "The Bible Made Impossible"

2011-12-28T15:38:00.000-06:00

Next week I intend to begin going through Christian Smith's excellent book, "The Bible Made Impossible". Because it challenges the thinking of the average 20th century western evangelical, I want to introduce the book by sharing a bit about my personal journey of recent years.

The Lord has been breaking me out of some significant theological "boxes" that I was raised in and have functioned in most of my life. While on one hand, this has caused me to "tremble" at times, on the other hand, the fruit of it is of God: I am loving God and others more than ever and have been experiencing a liberty in Jesus that I have not experienced before. And this is increasing the desire in me to know Him as He truly is and to help others know how unbelievably good He is!! This has been coming for a number of years, but I've been aware of a significant "growth spurt" in the past 2-3 years in mindset changes, and it keeps getting better and better. I'm discovering as never before that the gospel really is "good news", as the Lord strips away from my thinking the many "additives" that we as evangelicals have attached to the gospel. (These additives result in making it to not always be such good news after all).

One of the more recent paradigm shifts in me has been in relation to the Scriptures, and this book by Smith has been most helpful in this. Three things convinced me to get the book: first, I trusted the source that recommended it; second, when I read about Smith himself, he made clear that he is not a liberal theologian who is wanting to undermine Scripture; and third, when I saw that his main contention in the book is that God gave us Scriptures for the primary purpose of revealing His Son Jesus, I was hooked!! As I read this book, I experienced a wonderful liberty and inner release from some ways of thinking that set me up to be overly concerned about things that tended towards separating me from others who thought differently and that influenced my mindset about how God views people.

While the shifts that I am experiencing are causing me to see through different eyeglasses now than those of my parents/mentors/teachers and friends who are now present with the Lord, I have a hunch that they would agree with the changes because these changes are leading me to greater love and increasing desire to make known the Person of Jesus Who is, after all, what it's all about!

There is never a time when we stop changing and growing; more than we realize, we are all products of our generation and culture, and I believe we are given this lifetime to be continually renewed in our mind in Christ Jesus, which means letting go of former mindsets handed down to us and taking fuller and stronger hold of the Truth (Jesus). It must be in His light that we see light (Psalm 36:9); in other words, changing our ways of thinking needs to happen with and in Him or else it turns out to be simply change from one form of darkness to another, rather than moving from darkness into increasing Light.

The changing of mindsets is no easy thing; mindsets are strongholds that are not easily dismantled. This book challenges some modern western evangelical mindsets and it may prove difficult for some, but I encourage you to go through it with heart open to the Spirit of God and with the prayer that we could see light in His light. I have found that breaking out of a "box" in which I have felt secure can be scary and can feel so wrong, but when with one hand I hold the hand of Jesus and with the other hand I hold the hand of solid believers in the process, I come through into a new place of freedom and joy.

In no way does this diminish my gratitude for all that I have received from others throughout my life; the Lord knows what I have needed all along the way to get me where I am now, and there will be still more changes in my thinking in the years to come for as long as I live in this age.

I'll close with words from George MacDonald (the author who most influenced C.S. Lewis). He wrote the following to his father in the latter part of the 19th century. The context of the statement was his own journey of breaking out of the theological "boxes" of his time and the pain that accompanies doing so:

"Increase of Truth will always in greater or less degree look like error at first..."

Whom to Know is Life...

2011-12-22T15:23:00.002-06:00

In light of our tradition of celebrating the birth of Jesus this week, I want to share a prayer poem with you, written in 1980:

Dear precious, tender holy Babe,
Who in Your mother's womb was made,
Find deep within this heart of mine
Seclusion sweet for birth divine.

Dear gentle, strong and perfect Man,
Who with Your Father one did stand,
Grant me a heart that runs to be
One in mind and will with Thee.

Dear humble, bleeding, spotless Lamb
Whose life true justice did demand,
Make me a heart that gladly yields
To death, that others may be healed.

Dear glorious, gracious triumphant King
Whose name alone makes heaven ring,
Plant deep inside this yielded heart
Sweet praise that never shall depart.

"This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent." John 17:3 (God's Word Translation)

Accessing the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge - Part 3

2011-12-17T05:54:00.002-06:00

Taking up from where we left off last week, these are final thoughts on the topic of accessing the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Jesus, and a suggestion of where/how to grow in knowing and understanding Jesus, our Source.

If what I'm saying is true - that we can only operate and rule well in our assigned sphere of influence by drawing from the Person of Jesus (tree of life) as opposed to drawing from a "manual" (tree of knowledge of good and evil) - then I believe it's safe to conclude that good and godly rulership on our part is possible only through vital relationship with Him. As fallen people, we humans greatly prefer to get our wisdom and instructions from a manual than from a Person, especially since we don't know Him super well and are uncertain about His goodness at times; and even when convinced that He is good, we are uncertain about whether we can hear Him very well. It's much riskier to live by faith in a Person than by faith in a manual that we can touch and see and have some interpretive control over. But just as Jesus governed/judged/discerned in His assigned domain through relationship with His Father and NOT by what He could hear and see with His natural senses (Isaiah 11:2-4; John 5:17-23, 30...), so we must learn to rule by the same means if we want to be life-givers in the domain we've been given oversight of.

So how do we grow in knowing this One in whom is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? I suggest the following as simple (though not necessarily easy) ingredients - none of these on their own is sufficient, and neither will they lead us to Jesus if we don't have a teachable spirit and obedient response to His leadings:

Scripture - God has already weighed in on who He is and what He is like in Christ in the Scripture, so some things about Him are already evident in His Word. However, we need to be aware that we all read His Word through biases (because of our fallenness and sin, woundedness, culture, upbringing, training, gender, personality, preferences, etc.). Healthy ways to approach the Scriptures:

Look for Jesus in all of Scripture. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you search for the living Word when in the written Word. Jesus is THE theme of all of Scripture, and it must be understood in light of the revelation of Jesus. If something in the OT conflicts with what we see in Jesus, the NT revelation of God in Christ carries more weight.

In community…until recent centuries, people knew the Scripture in community. One person read while the others listened.
(The book I'll be reviewing next, "The Bible Made Impossible", will deal at length with the topic of the Bible).

Prayer (personal and corporate)

Develop your personal history with God in prayer.

Based on the Word of God
Learn to listen to and hear the voice of God
Obey what you believe you have heard from Him

Seek out “corporate” prayer (2’s and 3’s praying together), and particularly seek to know what God is like together.

Mature believers

Seek out people with longer life experience (both in years and in vitality) in God and whose understanding of Him incorporates a broad range of views (in other words, someone who is able to receive truth from many sources and process it in Jesus).
Look for those who are tracking with what God is doing in their generation – in other words, who are not "stuck in time".
Books and blogs are a means of being mentored by good followers of Jesus; the ideal is to have a mentor "in the flesh" to process with.

Normal circumstances of life – be intentional about receiving God’s voice through those around you (even those who don’t know Jesus) wherever you are, through the incidents of the day, in our afflictions and sufferings, in nature, etc. God is always speaking; the more often we turn to Him during the day, the more aware we become of His messages coming to us continually.

In summary - along with a teachable spirit and obedient responses, the critical ingredients to growing in the knowledge of Jesus (the tree of life) are:

Prayerful reading of Scriptures (both personal and corporate)
Listening prayer and meditation (both personal and corporate)
Community of Jesus followers (including a mature mentor(s))
Trust in God's voice as it comes to us in life circumstances

Next Book

2011-12-12T16:19:00.001-06:00

In January I plan to start going through the book, "The Bible Made Impossible" by Christian Smith. This book has impacted me in a profound way, and though the author uses very different language, I believe he is contrasting two ways of living: the way of the tree of life, and the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So it will follow up on the recent posts on that topic.

For any who may want to get the book, here is the link for amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Made-Impossible-Biblicism-Evangelical/dp/1587433036/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323727964&sr=1-1

God bless you!

Accessing the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge, Part 2

2011-12-07T19:37:00.001-06:00

This is a continuation of thoughts about our need to access wisdom and knowledge if we are to fulfill the mandate given us to "rule" in our assigned spheres of influence in this age. The apostle Paul says that in Jesus is hidden treasures of wisdom and knowlege (Col. 2:1-4):
"For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, [2] that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, [3] in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. [4] I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments."

Notice that the Spirit through Paul says in Col. 2:3 that the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Jesus, implying that it requires effort in searching out the Person of Jesus in order to discover true understanding and knowledge and wisdom (Prov. 2 & 8).

Without putting forth the effort to seek and know Jesus, we are left subject to the confusion that comes from the unrelenting voices of this age (which began with the fall of man but have reached a fever pitch in our technological age). This applies not only in the world but in the Church as well where there are countless voices giving opinions about every subject possible that we find mentioned in Scripture. Only by knowing Jesus (God’s Mystery) can we find God’s wisdom and knowledge, which transcends that which comes through the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (See James 3:13-18.)

There are endless topics that we need insight on in our stewardship of God's assignment for us in this life; there is seldom, if ever, a “one size fits all” answer for these matters (issues related to money, relationships, family, time management, job/vocation/calling, etc., etc.). Jesus, the tree of life, is the Source of all wisdom and knowledge. Only as we grow in living our lives in Him can we transcend the pettiness of ruling/judging based on “right and wrong" which comes through dependence on the tree of knowledge. In His years on earth, Jesus Himself is the best model of what it means to live and operate from a heavenly Source (Isaiah 11:3; John 5:17-23, 30…), rather than trust in His own understanding.

Next week I'll continue along these lines. Grace to you this week as together we grow in knowing and following Jesus!

Accessing the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge

2011-12-01T10:34:00.001-06:00

In light of the recent posts I've shared related to the collapse of evangelicalism as we know it and in light of the accompanying search for God in the midst of the chaos and confusion resulting from this collapse, I thought I'd share some thoughts in the next couple of weeks on "accessing the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." This is a little different angle on things I've shared before.

Colossians 2:1-4 (ESV)

"For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, [2] that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, [3] in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. [4] I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments."

Because of God’s desire for a Bride for His Son who would rule and reign with Him forever, He created humans according to His image; that image of God includes the capacity to rule. We humans are made to govern, and governing includes the need to judge people and situations.

Because knowledge is the grounds by which we rule in our given sphere, the gaining of knowledge is imperative to us. All of us have been given a sphere in which we have influence over someone else; the father and his family, the mother and the home and children, the man or woman at their job, a person and his or her friends, the "pastor" and the flock, the government official and his realm, the king and his kingdom, etc. Knowing particular information gives us an upper hand and a sense that we can make good decisions and cause life to go the way we believe it should go. (For fallen humans, ruling is about controlling rather than about serving; therefore, access to knowledge is access to control.)

I believe the early chapters of Genesis give us insight into God's generous sharing of authority with humans and into His intentions for how humans would access the needed information to rule well. The enemy’s subtle slandering of God’s nature planted a seed of doubt in Adam and Eve’s trust in His willingness to share all the information they needed to govern well. Along with successfully creating a suspicion of God in Adam and Eve, the serpent pointed them in the direction of the tree of knowledge suggesting that here was a sure source of information they could count on! (After all, God’s instructions to NOT eat of that particular tree suggested that He was withholding needed information.)

There was nothing inherently evil about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was created by God and was a way of knowing, but it was a way of knowing without intimacy, without relationship. The tree of life, however, was available and had no restrictions on eating from it.

Like our first parents, we have all decided that gaining of knowledge apart from relationship is a safer and more secure way and so have eaten of the forbidden fruit; in our fallenness, we are born suspicious of God’s intentions and so we all choose to operate on the basis of that which we can touch and see and control. In order to do a good job of “ruling” in our assigned sphere of influence, we want to be sure we’re getting all the information needed to do it well and thereby control our “world”. Trusting a Person that we have innate suspicions about is too risky.

God intended for Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life and thereby tap into His life, enjoying constant union with God in Christ, and out of that intimate relationship together in Christ to receive all that was needed for governing the domain they were given charge over.

God’s intention has not changed. This age is internship training for governing in the age to come. We practice “rulership” now in the domain given us, and what we learn now will carry over into the next age. Accessing Jesus (the Tree of life), in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, is critical for discovering the wisdom and knowledge needed for ruling well in this age. Our highest goal and priority now must be to grow in the intimate knowledge of God and to govern in our assigned sphere according to His wisdom and knowledge.

Jesus: The Purpose, Center and Interpretive Key to Scripture

2011-11-23T17:51:00.001-06:00

I'm reading a book entitled "The Bible Made Impossible" by Christian Smith and am finding it very liberating for one who was raised in 20th century evangelicalism with a particular mindset related to the Scripture. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_15?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+bible+made+impossible&sprefix=the+bible+made+ Although my mindset has been changing along these lines for some years now, this book is giving me language and confidence related to this topic. In this week's post I am sharing a portion from chapter 5 of this book which, for me, makes this book worth buying (though I must add that the entire book is wonderful...)!

The chapter title is "The Christocentric Hermeneutical Key", and it is the author's attempt to underscore that the primary purpose God has given us the Scriptures is to reveal Jesus (and not to do and say many other things we try to make the Bible do and say), and he hammers away at this relentlessly in this chapter. The following are portions from it:

"The purpose, center, and interpretive key to scripture is Jesus Christ...(Luke 24:44-48) Jesus opened the disciples' minds to truly understand the scriptures precisely so that they would see the (good news) of the gospel of Jesus Christ behind, in, and through all of scripture. If believers today want to rightly understand scripture, every narrative, every prayer, every proverb, every law, every Epistle needs likewise to be read and understood always and only in light of Jesus Christ and God reconciling the world to himself through him...

"...God's truest, highest, most important, most authoritative, and most compelling self-revelation is the God/Man Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ - not the Bible - who is the 'image of the invisible God.' (Col. 1:15)...The Bible is of course crucial for the Christian church and life. But it does not trump Jesus Christ as the true and final Word of God. The Bible is a secondary, subsidiary, functional, written word of God, the primary purpose of which is to mediate, to point us to, to give true testimony about the living Jesus Christ..."

The author quotes Peter Enns who says of the Bible: "We believe not only that the Bible is the word of God, but that Christ himself is the word...The written word bears witness to the incarnate word, Christ...The Bible bears witness to Christ by Christ's design. He is over the Bible, beyond it, separate from it, even though the Bible is his word and thus bears witness to him. Christ is supreme, and it is in him, the embodied word, that the written word finds its unity."

A few more quotes from other authors that are in this chapter:

John Stott: "Whenever we read the Bible, we must look for Christ. And we must go on looking until we see and until we believe."
G.C. Berkouwer: "Every word about the God-breathed character of Scripture is meaningless if Holy Scripture is not understood as the witness concerning Christ."
Geoffrey Bromiley: "...if we go primarily to see Christ (John 5:39), i.e., to learn what the Bible has to tell us about Him and our new life in Him, we shall be brought together at the one true center of the church and its unity."
Donald Bloesch: (Heb. 1:10) "The true or comprehensive picture of God's dealing with humanity is hidden from us until the text becomes for us a window to the light of the glory of God in Jesus Christ...The Bible comes alive when it is read in light of the cross of Christ..."

May the Spirit of the Living Word lead you to Him this week as you look into the written Word. Next week I will continue along this topic. God bless you!

God's Heart for His People - The Coming Evangelical Collapse, Part 4

2011-11-16T09:13:00.001-06:00

This is the 4th and final portion of the article, "The Coming Evangelical Collapse". Up to this point, the author (Michael Spencer) has discussed the following:

"My Prediction" (about what's on the horizon for evangelicalism)
"Why is This Going to Happen?"
"What Will be Left?"

If you want to read the article in its entirety, here is the link: http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-original-coming-evangelical-collapse-posts. As on the other 3 parts, I will underscore pieces of this for those who may want to skim over it:

"Is all of this a bad thing?

Is the coming evangelical collapse entirely a bad thing? Or is there good that will come from this season of the evangelical story?

One of the most encouraging developments in recent evangelicalism is the conviction that something is very wrong. One voice that has been warning American evangelicals of serious problems is theologian Michael Horton. For more than 20 years, Horton has been warning that evangelicals have become something almost unrecognizable in the flow of Christian history. From the prophetic Made in America to the incredible In The Face of God to the most recent Christless Christianity, Horton has been saying that evangelicals are on the verge of theological/ecclesiastical disaster.

Horton’s diagnosis is not, however, the same diagnosis as we saw in the heyday of the culture war, i.e. that evangelicals must rise up and take political and cultural influence if America is to survive and guarantee freedom and blessing. Horton’s warning has been the abandonment of the most basic calling of the church: the preservation and communication of the essentials of the Gospel in the church itself.

The coming evangelical collapse will be, in my view, exactly what Horton has been warning us about for two decades. In that sense, there is something fundamentally healthy about accepting that, if the disease cannot be cured, then the symptoms need to run their course and we need to get to the next chapter. Evangelicalism doesn’t need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But not all; not by any means. In other words, the question is not so much what will be lost, but what is the condition of what remains?

As I’ve said in the previous post in this series, what will be left will be 1) an evangelicalism greatly chastened in numbers, influence and resources, 2) a remaining majority of Charismatic-Pentecostal Christians faced with the opportunity to reform or become unrecognizable, 3) an invigorated minority of evangelicals committed to theology and church renewal, 4) a marginalized emerging and mainline community and 5) an evangelicalized segment of the other Christian communions.

Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshall resources, training and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches?

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart, leaving evangelicalism with a more committed, serious core of followers? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership?

Is it a good thing that the emerging church will fade into the irrelevance of the mainlines? If this leaves innovative, missionally minded, historically and confessionally orthodox churches to “emerge” in the place of the traditional church, yes. Yes, if it fundamentally changes the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate churches.

Is it a good thing that Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority of evangelicals? Yes, if reformation can reach those churches and produce the kind of unity we see in Wesley and Lloyd-Jones; a unity where the cleavage between doctrine and spiritual gifts isn’t assumed.

The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if that development is joined with the calling, training and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing. (I recognize, btw, that all is not well overseas, but I do not believe that makes the help of Christians in other cultures a moot point.)

Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to “evangelize” Protestantism in the name of unity. For those communions, it’s a good development, but probably not for evangelicals themselves.

Will the coming evangelical collapse get evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about its loss of substance and power? I tend to believe that even with large declines in numbers and an evidence “earthquake” of evangelical loyalty, the purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in full form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church’s problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time. (I rejoice in those megachurches that fulfill their role as places of influence and resource for other ministries without insisting on imitation.)

Will the coming evangelical collapse shake loose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? We can all pray and hope that this will be so, but evidence from other similar periods is not encouraging. Coming to terms with the economic implications of the Gospel has proven particularly difficult for evangelicals. That’s not to say that American Christians aren’t generous….they are. It is to say that American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success American style. Perhaps the time is coming that this entanglement will be challenged, especially in the lives of younger Christians.

But it is impossible to not be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, “Christianity loves a crumbling empire.” Christianity has flourished when it should have been exterminated. It has conquered when it was counted as defeated. Evangelicalism’s heyday is not the entirety of God’s plan. I think we can rejoice that in the ruins of the evangelical collapse new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. New kinds of church structure, new uses of gifts, new ways to develop leaders and do the mission- all these will appear as the evangelical collapse occurs.

I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, paid staff and numbers its drugs for half a century.

I expect to see a substantial abandonment of the seminary system. How can a denomination ask its clergy to go into huge debt to be equipped for ordination or ministry? We all know that there are many options for education from much smaller schools to church based seminaries to internet schools to mentoring and apprenticing arrangements.

I hope that many IM readers will be part of the movement to create a new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being his people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I’ll end this adventure in prognostication with the same confession I began with: I’m not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions and possibly right, even too conservative on others. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?"

God's Heart for His People - The Coming Evangelical Collapse, Part 3

2011-11-09T14:37:00.000-06:00

This is the third part of a lengthy article by Michael Spencer, expressing what he believed is coming for evangelicalism. For the first two parts, see the previous two posts; and for the article in its entirety, see http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-original-coming-evangelical-collapse-posts). I have underscored parts to catch the main points for the sake of those who may want to skim-read this:

"What will be left after the evangelical collapse?

a. An evangelicalism far from its historical and doctrinal core. Expect evangelicalism as a whole to look more and more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. The determination to follow in the methodological steps of numerically successful churches will be greater than ever. The result will be, in the main, a departure from doctrine to more and more emphasis on relevance, motivation and personal success….with the result being churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

b. An evangelicalized Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Two of the beneficiaries of the coming evangelical collapse will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been steadily entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more media and publishing efforts aimed at the “conversion” of evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox ways of being Christian.

c. A small portion of evangelicalism will continue down the path of theological re-construction and recovery. Whether they be post-evangelicals working for a reinvigoration of evangelicalism along the lines of historic “Mere Christianity,” or theologically assertive young reformed pastors looking toward a second reformation, a small, but active and vocal portion of evangelicalism will work hard to rescue the evangelical movement from its demise by way of theological renewal.

This is an attractive, innovative and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

d. I believe the emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision. I expect to continue hearing emerging leaders, seeing emerging conferences and receiving emerging books. I don’t believe this movement, however, is going to have much influence at all within future evangelicalism.

e. Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear; they will exist only as a dying form of church. The Southern Baptist Convention will experience dramatic losses in the numbers of churches in the next 25 years. By 2050, the SBC will have half the number of churches it has today. The SBC will become “exhibit A” for the problems of evangelicalism, with fragmentation appearing everywhere and a loss of coherence on many fronts.

f. Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Within that community, the battle for the future of evangelicalism will be fought by those who must decide whether their tradition will sink into the quicksand of heresy, relativism and confusion, or whether Charismatic-Pentecostalism can experience a reformation and renewal around Biblical authority, responsible leadership and a re-emergence of orthodoxy..

The stakes in Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity are very high. It has become a worldwide missions phenomenon, and it has become a community carrying the most virulent and destructive heresies and errors in evangelicalism. The next 15-25 years will be crucial for this community. I am hopeful, but not optimistic. I see and hear little from this community’s younger leadership that indicates there is anything close to a real recognition of the problems they face.

g. A hope for all of evangelicalism is a “rescue mission” from the world Christian community. If all of evangelicalism could see the kind of renewal that has happened in conservative Anglicanism through the Anglican Mission in America and other mission efforts, much good would be done. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity? I do not know, but I hope and pray that such an effort happens and succeeds.

At present, most of evangelicalism is not prepared to accept pastors and leadership from outside our culture. Yet there can be little doubt that within our western culture there is very little evidence of an evangelicalism that can diagnose and repair itself.

h. A vast number of parachurch ministries are going to become far less influential, and many will vanish. The same will likely be true from everything from Christian media to publishing. This will throw what remains of evangelicalism back on the local church, and that moves us to my last post, a consideration of whether this collapse is a good or bad thing.

i. I believe that the missionary sending agencies of evangelicalism will survive the coming collapse, but will be greatly weakened by significant decreases in the giving base. It is time for mission strategies among evangelicals to change, and it is long past time for westerners to use their resources to strengthen work within a nation and not to just send Americans to the mission fields."

Next: "Is All of this a Good or Bad Thing?"

God's Heart for His People - The Coming Evangelical Collapse, Part 2

2011-11-03T19:38:00.000-05:00

The following is part of an article by Michael Spencer concerning what he understood is coming for the evangelical movement. Because of the length of the article, I'm sharing it in several parts. This is part 2 (see last week's blog for the first part along with introductory comments). Underlining is done by me. (For any who may want to read the article in its entirety now, here's the link: http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-original-coming-evangelical-collapse-posts)

"Why Is This Going To Happen?
1) Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This was a mistake that will have brutal consequences. They are not only going to suffer in losing causes, they will be blamed as the primary movers of those causes. Evangelicals will become synonymous with those who oppose the direction of the culture in the next several decades. That opposition will be increasingly viewed as a threat, and there will be increasing pressure to consider evangelicals bad for America, bad for education, bad for children and bad for society...The coming evangelical collapse will come about, largely, because our investment in moral, social and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. We’re going to find out that being against gay marriage and rhetorically pro-life (yes, that’s what I said) will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of evangelicals can’t articulate the Gospel with any coherence and are believing in a cause more than a faith.

2) Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people the evangelical Christian faith in an orthodox form that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. In what must be the most ironic of all possible factors, an evangelical culture that has spent billions on youth ministers, Christian music, Christian publishing and Christian media has produced an entire burgeoning culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures that they will endure.
Do not be deceived by conferences or movements that are theological in nature. These are a tiny minority of evangelicalism. A strong core of evangelical beliefs is not present in most of our young people, and will be less present in the future.

3) Evangelical churches have now passed into a three part chapter: 1) mega-churches that are consumer driven, 2) churches that are dying and 3) new churches whose future is dependent on a large number of factors. I believe most of these new churches will fail, and the ones that do survive will not be able to continue evangelicalism at anything resembling its current influence. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive. Our numbers, our churches and our influence are going to dramatically decrease in the next 10-15 years. And they will be replaced by an evangelical landscape that will be chaotic and largely irrelevant.

4) Despite some very successful developments in the last 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can hold the line in the rising tide of secularism. The ingrown, self-evaluated ghetto of evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself. I believe Christian schools always have a mission in our culture, but I am skeptical that they can produce any sort of effect that will make any difference. Millions of Christian school graduates are going to walk away from the faith and the church. There are many outstanding schools and outstanding graduates, but as I have said before, these are going to be the exceptions that won’t alter the coming reality. Christian schools are going to suffer greatly in this collapse.

5) The deterioration and collapse of the evangelical core will eventually weaken the missional-compassionate work of the evangelical movement. The inevitable confrontation between cultural secularism and the religious faith at the core of evangelical efforts to “do good” is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good that evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, that much of that work will not be done. Look for evangelical ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6) Much of this collapse will come in areas of the country where evangelicals imagine themselves strong. In actual fact, the historic loyalties of the Bible belt will soon be replaced by a de-church culture where religion has meaning as history, not as a vital reality. At the core of this collapse will be the inability to pass on, to our children, a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7) A major aspect of this collapse will happen because money will not be flowing towards evangelicalism in the same way as before. The passing of the denominationally loyal, very generous “greatest generation” and the arrival of the Boomers as the backbone of evangelicalism will signal a major shift in evangelical finances, and that shift will continue into a steep drop and the inevitable results for schools, churches, missions, ministries and salaries."

Next: "What Will Be Left?"

God Heart for His People - The Coming Evangelical Collapse, Part 1

2011-10-27T19:40:00.000-05:00

As I shared last week, I'll be quoting from others' writings for a few weeks on the topic of where I believe God is taking His people in these critical days. Today and for the next weeks I'll be sharing an article by Michael Spencer on the coming collapse of evangelicalism as we know it. Because of the length of the article, I'll break it into several sections. While I may not agree with the author on every point, I believe the he is sending an important message for us. The prophetic voice has never been a popular voice in the history of God's people but is very important to prepare us for the shaking that God must do among His own for the sake of His name among the nations, so I encourage you to read with a prayerful heart.

"Part 1 - The Coming Evangelical Collapse: My Prediction
     I believe that we are on the verge- within 10 years- of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity; a collapse that will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and that will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. I believe this evangelical collapse will happen with astonishing statistical speed; that within two generations of where we are now evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its current occupants, leaving in its wake nothing that can revitalize evangelicals to their former “glory.”
     The party is almost over for evangelicals; a party that’s been going strong since the beginning of the “Protestant” 20th century. We are soon going to be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century in a culture that will be between 25-30% non-religious.
     This collapse, will, I believe, herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian west and will change the way tens of millions of people see the entire realm of religion. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become particularly hostile towards evangelical Christianity, increasingly seeing it as the opponent of the good of individuals and society.
     The response of evangelicals to this new environment will be a revisiting of the same rhetoric and reactions we’ve seen since the beginnings of the current culture war in the 1980s. The difference will be that millions of evangelicals will quit: quit their churches, quit their adherence to evangelical distinctives and quit resisting the rising tide of the culture.
     Many who will leave evangelicalism will leave for no religious affiliation at all. Others will leave for an atheistic or agnostic secularism, with a strong personal rejection of Christian belief and Christian influence. Many of our children and grandchildren are going to abandon ship, and many will do so saying “good riddance.”
     This collapse will cause the end of thousands of ministries. The high profile of Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Hundreds of thousands of students, pastors, religious workers, missionaries and persons employed by ministries and churches will be unemployed or employed elsewhere. [ ]. Visible, active evangelical ministries will be reduced to a small percentage of their current size and effort.
     Nothing will reanimate evangelicalism to its previous levels of size and influence. The end of evangelicalism as we know it is close; far closer than most of us will admit.
     My prediction has nothing to do with a loss of eschatological optimism. Far from it. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But I am not optimistic about evangelicalism, and I do not believe any of the apparently lively forms of evangelicalism today are going to be the answer. In fact, one dimension of this collapse, as I will deal with in the next post, is the bizarre scenario of what will remain when evangelicals have gone into decline.
     I fully expect that my children, before they are 40, will see evangelicalism at far less than half its current size and rapidly declining. They will see a very, very different culture as far as evangelicalism is concerned.
     I hope someone is going to start preparing for what is going to be an evangelical dark age."

(Next week I'll continue with Spencer's article in which he writes about what has caused this decline. Blessings on you this week!)

God's Heart for His People

2011-10-20T19:48:00.002-05:00

I'm increasingly aware and troubled by how much my mindset as an evangelical believer has been shaped by the individualistic bent of the western culture. The 20th century is known for the rise of evangelicalism and while there are certainly some positive elements to evangelicalism, there are some serious deficits in the way we think about God and His Kingdom.

With this is mind, I plan to quote from a couple of sources along the lines of this topic in the next weeks. Some of this material may be controversial, especially for those of us who have spent most our years "swimming" in evangelical waters. We are uneasy and uncomfortable with thinking outside of the evangelical box...but I believe God's heart for His people is for much more than we have experienced, so I share this with the prayer that many hearts will be prepared for the coming of what could be the greatest "upheaval" the Church has experienced in her history. We may not know what this will look like yet, but we can be awake and aware when things are shaking badly and thereby be of help to many believers who will be completely disoriented by the shaking.

This week I'm quoting a portion from Hal Miller:

“Christianity is culturally relevant when it offers a qualitatively different society. Jesus called it “the kingdom of God.” Paul saw its first outlines in the gathered disciples of Jesus, and so he called them ekklesia – we translate it “church”- a Greek word denoting citizens assembled to attend to their common project, their city.

The evangelicals missed this. Evangelicalism sought to transform people and so transform the world. They did not see that something might be missing from this vision, something their assumption of American individualism would hide from them. The true Christian vision is to transform people, transforming them into a people, and so transform the world.

The evangelicals missed that middle term. They could not see the church as a foretaste of the new society; it was a club for the new individuals. The evangelicals simply dressed American individualism in Christian clothing. They ended up with new isolated individuals, but in the old society. Since their expression of Christianity did not take form as a new society, it quickly became culturally irrelevant, even though it was admirably culturally open.

To be culturally relevant, Christianity must offer an alternative. God has indeed chosen to deal with persons as individuals- in this the evangelicals were right. Yet they are not simply individuals; they become members of a social reality called ekklesia, which is the entering wedge of the new society of God’s making.

Too often, for example, we assume that evangelism involves the simple aggregation of more and more new individuals. If enough people are “born again,” the world’s problems will diminish...

The Christian calling requires being reconciled with God, to be sure. But it also requires being a new, reconciling society characterized by forgiveness, acceptance, and responsibility in a common task- a society qualitatively different from its culture, yet engaged with it. Little gatherings of Christians for worship and mutual help in being disciples become the seeds of God’s coming new society.
Such a new society will be culturally relevant because it springs from God’s movement among God’s people. The persons who make up this new society live their faith in the face of day-to-day problems that they share with the world around them. They face the same questions as unbelievers: finding joy and meaning in work, living at peace both personally and globally, raising responsible and compassionate children. And in facing those questions, Christian faith becomes relevant even for unbelievers.

Imagine a group of people gathering to help each other in the common task of seeing God’s kingdom incarnated in their work, in their families, in their towns, in their world, in their midst, and (rather than only) in their individual lives. This gathering is ekklesia. It will be relevant to its world because it lives the life of the kingdom in the world, not apart from it.”

...Under Construction...Thanks for Your Patience!

2011-10-13T16:10:00.001-05:00

Proverbs 4:18 has always been a favorite for me: "The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day." The implication to the reality that there is increasing light on my journey in God until the full day is that there are still shadows on the path. Remembering this helps me realize that although the light is growing daily, there is yet more to understand about Him and His ways and thoughts. It also causes me to know that I unwittingly do or say things that reflect the shadows that are still there, and consequently I do and say things that irritate and/or offend others.

So this week I want to pause and say "thank you" to the many spiritual siblings (young and old) God has given me who have exercised and continue to exercise amazing patience with me, some more than others by virtue of having lived with me longer and/or having worked with me. I know there have been many times in my life when I thought I saw things very clearly only to realize later that I had been stumbling in half-light and injuring others in the process.

One of my sisters was reading me a story last week of how Ruth Bell Graham decided what she wanted written on her tombstone. One day she was painstakingly driving through a lot of road repair work, and along the way were signs to the effect that the road was "under construction". When she finally reached the end of the road work, there was a sign that said: "End of construction. Thanks for your patience!" That's what she asked to have on her tombstone, and her family did as she asked. What a great epitaph!

But while I am still living in this present age, I want to say to those of you who have borne patiently with me till now: "I am still under construction... thanks for your patience!!" Your patience with me is a reflection of the long-suffering heart of God, and I am very grateful!

Hotel or Prison?

2011-10-05T11:21:00.001-05:00

We American believers have been unconsciously and profoundly affected by what this nation's early leaders put in the Declaration of Independence. It has shaped our mindset to such a point that we assume that what is written there is biblical. There are parts that have some biblical truth to them but not all; and even those parts that may have biblical overtones to them, are mixed with the mind of the world, the flesh and the devil.

One idea in the Declaration of Independence is that all men have the "inalienable right" to pursue happiness. I believe this has set us up to think the opposite of what Scripture tells us about our life in this age. And while we who follow Jesus would say that we agree with Jesus and the apostles, we are not aware that the impact of our national beginnings is deeply embedded in us so that in spite of all the promises in the New Testament of suffering and persecution, we still have a subconscious belief that we have a right to be happy, and therefore, when things are difficult, we are confused or offended.

This doesn't mean that we are meant to like suffering or that we intentionally go out looking to suffer; but our mindset related to what we expect in this age will greatly impact our response to suffering when it does come (and it will). God has a future prepared for us of utter joy and peace and satisfaction that will last forever, so He's not ashamed to put us through a thorough preparation now so that we will be fit for the age to come. Because of the fall and the entrance of sin into humanity's story, one of the primary ways of being prepared comes through suffering.

C.S. Lewis puts it like this: "If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it's not so bad. Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists; the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic."

Many of us (myself included) need a renewing of our minds concerning how we view this age. The Declaration of Independence tells us we should see this age as a "hotel" while the Scripture indicates that we should view it as a "prison". With the scriptural mindset, the kindnesses and goodness of the Lord shines more brightly in this "prison" and our hearts are empowered to bear the suffering with hope and understanding.

Some Scriptures to meditate on along these lines are: Matt. 5:11,12; 5:43-48; John 15:20; Acts 5:41; Rom. 8:17; II Cor. 1:6; II Cor. 4:17,18; I Thes. 3:4; I Pet. 2:20; 3:14; 3:17; 4:13; 4:19; 4:1; 5:10; Rom. 5:3; II Tim. 1:8; Rom. 8:18; 8:35; Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24; II Tim. 3:11,12...

A Safer Subject - Part 2

2011-09-28T17:25:00.000-05:00

The safer subject of the unstoppable, unrelenting, unfailing, never-ending love of God that I wrote about last week can only be understood in the cross of His Son, Jesus. In the sacrificial offering of Himself on our behalf, God in Christ has made clear that He is for us at whatever cost to Himself!

As C.S. Lewis says, God's love for us sinners is a much more secure ground to stand on than our love for Him which, though real, fluctuates at times; therefore we can only find our hearts anchored in peace as we contemplate His love rather than ours.

Because of our fallenness, we are severely bent towards contemplating just about everything else but His love, so it is only a mighty work of the Spirit in our lives that empowers us to look at Him. So how do we contemplate God and His love?

First, ask the Spirit of Jesus to strengthen the 'yes' in your spirit toward His love so that the proneness toward not believing His goodness and love is corrected with each 'yes.'

Then study the cross by simply taking time to read and/or listen to the portions in Scripture about Jesus' death and resurrection (the Gospels and Isaiah 53, etc.). See yourself and your sin and the sins of others against you in Him as He died. Ask the Lord to help you understand your personal role in His crucifixion and death so that you get a glimpse of Your value to Him (Rom.5:8 "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.").

And finally, learn to contemplate His love in all of life; ask the Spirit to help you see the daily little comments or incidents or events through the lens of the cross. Develop the ability to see the love and affection of the Father coming at you constantly, even in the difficulties which come sifted through His deep desire for you and for your ultimate well-being in Him.

As we think/contemplate on this "safer subject" and drink deeply of that well, the overflow of His love will spill out onto Him and others!

Grace and peace to you this week in Him!

A Safer Subject: The Unstoppable, Unrelenting, Unfailing, Never-ending Love of God

2011-09-22T18:50:00.000-05:00

This week I want to share a short story from my life of some years ago that was a pivotal moment in my growth in understanding what God is like. While I certainly knew the love of God in my life before this, the revelation of His love for me in this particular moment hit me unlike ever before and it set me on a path that I've been on ever since.

I had gotten sick just before leaving on a flight for Mexico City, and I got worse in the following days after arriving there. One night the pain in my body reached a point where I wasn't sure if I'd make it through the night. As I lay in bed hardly able to move at all and feeling like I might die, everything became clear and black and white to me; I sensed the Lord asking me, "Nita, what is the one thing you are most sure about?" Without hesitating, I answered, "...that I love You, Lord."

I sensed that He was pleased with that answer but He responded with this: "That's good but there is something more important, and that is that I love you!" In that moment the eyes of my heart were opened to the reality that what is most trustworthy and sure is the unstoppable, unrelenting, unfailing, never-ending love of my heavenly Father.

C.S. Lewis says, "On the whole, God’s love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him." The apostle John says that we love Him because He loved us first. Our love for Him is real but it is His UNSTOPPABLE, UNRELENTING, UNFAILING, NEVER-ENDING love for us upon which we must rest and build our lives or else we are left with the burden of religion.

God bless you and show you His love...next week I'll share more on this.