The transformative power of grace

I have been listening to Les Miserables again. I also rented the 2012 movie for a weekend and watched it twice. One of the songs that stood out is "What have I done?" Jean Valjean sings it after a priest shows him mercy. The song sets the stage for the unfolding story.

What have I done?

Sweet Jesus, what have I done?

Become a thief in the night

Become a dog on the run

Have I fallen so far

And is the hour so late

That nothing remains but the cry of my hate

The cries in the dark that nobody hears

Here where I stand at the turning of the years?

If there's another way to go

I missed it twenty long years ago

My life was a war that could never be won

They gave me a number and murdered Valjean

When they chained me and left me for dead

Just for stealing a mouthful of bread

Yet why did I allow that man

To touch my soul and teach me love?

He treated me like any other

He gave me his trust

He called me brother

My life he claims for God above

Can such things be?

For I had come to hate the world

This world that always hated me

Take an eye for an eye

Turn your heart into stone

This is all I have lived for

This is all I have known

One word from him and I'd be back

Beneath the lash, upon the rack

Instead he offers me my freedom

I feel my shame inside me like a knife

He told me that I had a soul

How does he know?

What spirit comes to move my life?

Is there another way to go?

I am reaching, but I fall

And the night is closing in

And I stare into the void

To the whirlpool of my sin

I'll escape now from that world

From the world of Jean Valjean

Jean Valjean is nothing now

Another story must begin

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Herbert Kretzmer / Alain Albert Boublil / Claude Michel Schonberg

What Have I Done? lyrics © Alain Boublil Music Ltd.

What do Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr have to do with one another?

This month at the theology reading group we are discussing Bonhoeffer and King: Their Legacies and Import for Christian Social Thought. It is a volume of eighteen separate essays and edited by Willis Jenkins and Jennifer M. McBride.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived at different times and in different contexts. Bonhoeffer lived, wrote, preached, resisted, suffered, and was executed in Nazi Germany in 1945. King lived, wrote, preached, resisted, suffered, and was assassinated in a racially-segregated USA almost a quarter of a century later, in 1968. Coincidentally, both were killed at the age of thirty-nine years and four months. Both took a stand against injustice and resisted tyranny, ultimately at the cost of their lives. Both were completely driven by their theological convictions, with a focus on costly and radical discipleship, and the Sermon on the Mount.

Both had communitarian perspectives on life and politics. Here is an example, from King.

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the inter-related structure of reality.” 

 Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Note, that this mutuality resonates with the apostle Paul's perspective on the church as the body of Christ, as described in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12:25-26:

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Although there are similarities between King and Bonhoeffer, there are some significant differences. Foremost, Bonhoeffer as a Gentile and a child of privilege had the freedom to choose to take the path of suffering. In contrast, King and his forebears did not have a choice. Suffering was forced on them because of the colour of their skin. They were enslaved, beaten, lynched, discriminated against, and denied civil and voting rights. Yet in that enforced circumstance they had the choice to take the path of the cross, to suffer with dignity, to forgive their enemies, and to turn the other cheek (page 158).

A second difference was their theological perspective, including their interpretation of the Bible. King embraced his education in liberal Protestantism, claiming it more "rational", sometimes distanced himself from orthodox belief, and interpreted much of the Bible in terms of the social gospel. Bonhoeffer had a higher view of Scripture and embraced orthodox creeds. Note Bonhoeffer was against the tide of his time, when Germany was awash with higher criticism and liberal theology. Although, Karl Barth was a kindred spirit.

Both were preachers who carefully crafted sermons with aesthetic appeal and anchored in Biblical texts, metaphors, and theology. There is a nice chapter on "Preaching and Prophetic Witness," by Raphael Warnock, currently pastor of the last church that King pastored, and recently elected to the USA Senate.

A chapter, "King and Bonhoeffer as Protestant Saints," by Stephen Haynes, ends by quoting the first two stanzas of the poem, "A Dead Man’s Dream" written by Carl Wendell Hines Jr. as a tribute to King.

Now that he is safely dead,

Let us praise him.

Build monuments to his glory.

Sing Hosannas to his name.

Dead men make such convenient heroes.

For they cannot rise to challenge the images

That we might fashion from their lives.

It is easier to build monuments

Than to build a better world.

So now that he is safely dead,

We, with eased consciences will

Teach our children that he was a great man,

Knowing that the cause for which he

Lived is still a cause

And the dream for which he died is still a dream.

A dead man’s dream.

When does humanity make my heart sing?

What is so wonderful about being human? Sometimes humanity does inspire awe and wonder in me.

Babies burp, puke, poo in their pants, and sometimes cry inconsolably. Yet, they are so cute and adorable. I love their little fingers and toes, with miniature nails. They explore their environment with great curiosity. Babies occasionally flash winsome smiles to the joy of those watching them. And there is the miracle of the way they grow spontaneously and mature into small children. Those cute little fingers grow to full size.

Small children have their own sense of awe, wonder, curiosity, and joy. They can be a source of inspiration and envy to staid adults like myself. Simple things delight: throwing flower petals in the air, blowing bubbles, digging in the garden, holding a hand, or cuddling a pet.

To often I struggle to see adults as cute and adorable or a source of delight, awe, and wonder. They have an incredible ability to heartlessly inflect pain on others. But sometimes adults do make my heart sing and I clamour for more. I am moved deeply by acts of service, tenderness, compassion, courage, reconciliation, forgiveness, generosity, and self-sacrifice. A poor person shares what little food they have with their neighbour. A child stands up to a bully in the playground.  A mother comforts a sick child. A highly-paid CEO leaves his position and suburban house so he can work and live in a marginalised poor community.

Relationships can be beautiful and lead to awe and wonder. Even introverts such as myself hunger for relationships and community. There is nothing quite like the connections associated with vulnerability, camaraderie, and laughter. Even those of us blessed with a stable and rich family life, desire more.

                                    Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. 

I am in awe of human creativity expressed in art, music, literature, business, science, engineering, and academic disciplines. Wow! Why can humans create such amazing things?

Humans have much of the same biology as animals: DNA, proteins, cells, organs, brains, ... Yet humans are unique in the animal kingdom. Their level of consciousness, reflection, communication, creativity, and culture is simply on a different scale from anything seen in primates. On the one hand, apes can do some fascinating things with similarities to human behaviour. However, apes do not write science textbooks, build telescopes, or create great literature.

Humans all have the same biology. But no human has exactly the same DNA as another. Consequently, each human has a unique personality, unique physical characteristics and abilities. Humans also share many common abilities and aspirations. There is unity in diversity. I delight in the diversity, even though sometimes I do wish everyone was just like me! In particular, it would be nice if everyone had the same values and perspectives as me. On the other hand, I can begrudgingly admit the world would be an even bigger mess if it was full of introverted Western theoretical physicists.

To understand the wonder and tragedy what a human is and how they behave, I find different perspectives helpful. Humans can be considered at different scales, from genetic to social. Thus, one can bring to bear perspectives from biology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and theology. I also have awe and wonder at humans and what we can understand about humans, again reflecting something wonderful about human capabilities.

My sense of wonder provides hints of transcendence: there is something beyond all that we observe, touch, measure, and rationalise.

There is much to celebrate and enjoy about humanity. But, sober observation acknowledges the reality of human depravity. We hurt ourselves, others, and nature. Sometimes brutally and in ways that we consider worthy of condemnation. This leads me to an ambivalence about humanity. Awe and wonder at the beauty of humanity must be held in tension with revulsion and contempt for human vulgarity. This is a paradox.

The dialectic of the human condition is captured in the narrative of the Genesis narrative, and the associated theological concepts of creation and fall. On the one hand, each person is made in the image of God, of intrinsic value, and mandated to enjoy, care for, and steward the creation. On the other hand, this image is marred. Humans are fallen, prone to violence, and alien to themselves, others, and nature.

Following Jesus is costly

 In my theology reading group this month we are discussing, The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I now realise that I am reading the book the "wrong" way. It is not like a "typical" theology book that can be read over a couple of weeks and digested. Although there is much profound theology the book is more suited as a "devotional" book that should only be read in short segments and returned to often.

I find the book profoundly challenging. In some ways, the message is simple: if you want to be a disciple of Jesus that means you have to take the followings of Jesus seriously and obey them! The middle third of the book is an exposition of The Sermon on the Mount. As much as we may want to it is very hard to perform the hermeneutical gymnastics needed to wheedle out of Jesus' commands. Love your enemies, forgive your enemies, do not love money, hating someone is akin to murder, a lustful thought is akin to adultery, do not draw attention to yourself, fast and pray, deny yourself and its desires, ... the list goes on and on... Later, I give some choice quotes. 

First, I want to discuss something about the book I find increases its significance and power. Bonhoeffer identified as a Lutheran and embraced Luther's theology, including sola fide (justification by faith alone) and sola gratia (salvation by grace alone, not by good works). Ephesians 2:8-9 is a central text to this theology. However, in Chapter One, Bonhoeffer contrasts "cheap grace" and "costly grace."

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares... Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! ...What would grace be if it were not cheap?...

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

In Chapter 2, "The Call to Discipleship", begins with Jesus calling Levi, the tax collector, to follow him. Bonhoeffer then claims

the following two propositions hold good and are equally true: only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes. 

This is illustrated by the interactions of Jesus with two men who avoided obedience by asking Jesus about moral dilemmas: The rich young ruler  (Matthew 19) and the Pharisee whose question, "Who is my neighbour?" led to Jesus telling the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10).

Heinrich Hofmann, "Christ and the Rich Young Ruler", 1889 

[Aside: it is ironic that this painting was purchased by John D Rockefeller Jr, and donated to Riverside Church, New York.]

In Chapter 3, "Single-minded obedience," Bonhoeffer states some of the hermeneutic that he uses.

the whole Word of the Scriptures summons us to follow Jesus. We must not do violence to the Scriptures by interpreting them in terms of an abstract principle, even if that principle be a doctrine of grace. Otherwise we shall end up in legalism.

We must therefore maintain that the paradoxical interpretation of the commandments does always includes the literal interpretation... 

 Here are some the reflections on the Sermon on the Mount that this leads to. First, on the danger of materialism.

Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected. In the wilderness God gave Israel the manna every day, and they had no need to worry about food and drink... Where our treasure is, there is our trust, our security, our consolation and our God. Hoarding is idolatry.

On loving your enemies. 

Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is not inner discord between the private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all. 

Disciples of Jesus are to be distinctly different from other people. This is a narrow way that few will choose.

To be called to a life of extraordinary quality, to live up to it, and yet to be unconscious of it is indeed a narrow way. To confess and testify to the truth as it is in Jesus, and at the same time to love the enemies of that truth, his enemies and ours, and to love them with the infinite love of Jesus Christ, is indeed a narrow way.

Jesus told his disciples "when you fast ...". It was a given that they would fast. Ascetism is an important part of discipleship. 

If there is no element of asceticism in our lives, if we give free rein to the desires of the flesh (taking care of course to keep within the limits of what seems permissible to the world), we shall find it hard to train for the service of Christ. When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation.

I found the book very challenging, particularly as it cuts to matters of the heart: what do I love? what do I value? what are my motives? what are my private thoughts? 

Transformation in theology and mission

“I am making everything new!” 

So proclaims the One who sits on the throne as a new heaven and earth come into being (Revelation 21:5).  The Apostle Paul proclaims (2 Corinthians 5:17):

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 

The concept of transformation is central to the grand narrative of the Bible. God transforms bondage to freedom, hate to love, alienation to relationship, lost to found, poor to rich, darkness to light, infidelity to faithfulness, injustice to righteousness, and death to life. God has transformed, is transforming, and will transform individuals, families, communities, churches, and nations. The Kingdom of God is all about transformation.

Transformation is qualitative change. The new state is qualitatively different from the old state. It has a quality that the old state did not have.

For several decades my fellow "holy" scribbler, Charles Ringma, has taught a course on Transformational Theology at seminaries in Australia, Canada, and Asia. He recently reflected on this experience, noting dimensions that students struggled with, and raised several important questions about transformational theology. This has stimulated the following post, which mostly reflects on what the social sciences might contribute to this discussion. Here I bring my perspective as a condensed matter physicist with an enduring interest in complex systems and the concept of emergence. I start with several claims (presuppositions) to justify why this perspective is possible and may be useful.

There is a dialectic between our actions and the work of God in the world. We live in a material world that functions in certain ways. The book of Proverbs is all about discerning wisdom: how the world actually works (the physical and moral order) and living accordingly. Acting according to wisdom or folly will produce good or bad outcomes, respectively. This world is both created and fallen, good and bad, of great potential and fundamentally flawed. We are constrained to live and act in this world. We are creatures living in a creation. We have autonomy but are constrained. 

God is sovereign, the Holy Spirit is always working, and God does do miracles (events outside the normal pattern of regularity, such as raising Jesus from the dead, speaking to people's hearts and souls, causing nations to rise and fall). But, arguably most of the time God acts through normal processes associated with human action (speaking, loving, serving, listening, planning, ...). Even God's acts of judgment on Israel and other nations were performed through human agents such as Assyria and Babylon.

If we are concerned with mission as transformation, i.e., acting in ways that promote the transformation that God desires, then we need to observe and learn how the world actually does function. This reality both creates possibilities and imposes constraints. The material world behaves according to the laws of nature, that physics, chemistry, and biology, aim to encode. Are there "laws" of transformation? How does transformation occur in individuals, families, institutions, communities, and nations?

Charles noted that

Many students worked on the assumption that if we get our theology right (orthodoxy) then good strategies and practices will follow in impacting others and our world.

This reflects a common problem that people too often have implicit beliefs (i.e., unstated assumptions that are embedded in a particular worldview or life experience). In this case implicit beliefs about how transformation happens.

Today we know more about answers to the last question above than we ever have before. Scholars in history, sociology, political science, anthropology, and psychology have greatly increased our understanding. This does not mean that we have complete understanding or that all the scholarship in these fields is reliable or sympathetic to the values of the Kingdom of God. But, there is much we can learn from this scholarship to aid us in our journey to partner with God in transformational mission. 

A significant idea is emergence: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Emergence is one of the most important scientific concepts developed in the second half of the twentieth century. It is relevant to physical, biological, human, and social sciences. The possible relevance of emergence to mission has recently been explored in detail by Darren Duerksen and William Dyrness in a recent book, Seeking Church: Emerging Witnesses to the Kingdom. They draw on work by the sociologist Christian Smith. In a recent talk I explored some of these ideas.

An emergent perspective considers a specific entity that we wish to see transformed, whether a human individual or an oppressed community, as a system that is composed of many interacting parts and that, is embedded in an environment of external components. For example, a human individual is not a disembodied spirit but a combination of mind, heart, body, and soul. Furthermore, a person is never an isolated entity but interact with a social network of family, friends, and community, which in turn is embedded in a nation-state and a global economy. If we wish to see an individual come to faith in Christ or to experience healing from trauma, we may need to consider the role of many of these interacting components.

Charles noted that

The greatest overall weakness in papers for the transformation theology course was the treatment of synchronicity. Religious, social, economic, and other factors usually have to combine to bring about significant change. Students tended to operate on the basis that only religious factors were needed.

The characteristics of emergence are as follows. Due to the interactions between the components of the system, new entities can emerge.  The whole system can have properties that are qualitatively different from (and not reducible to) the properties of the individual components. A brain is conscious but a single neuron is not. A dead body has no morality but a living person does. Water is wet but a single water molecule is not. New entities that emerge may be desirable (e.g., a just society or a flourishing church in a slum) or they may not be (e.g., a stock-market crash or a church that becomes a personal empire). Christian Smith, refers to these emergent entities as relational goods and relational evils, respectively.

Quantitative change can lead to qualitative change. Changing the temperature of the water in the pipes from plus one degree Celsius to minus one degree Celsius will lead to the water undergoing a transition from the liquid to the solid state, i.e., freezing and expanding, and bursting your water pipes. Last year in Chile, a 30-peso (four-cent) rise in the price of peak-hour metro tickets led to social upheaval and a plan to write a new constitution for the country.

Emergent phenomena are hard to predict, even for simple physical systems where scientists have an excellent knowledge of the components and their interactions. Hence, it should not be surprising that it is very hard to predict how society and the economy will behave. For example, economists cannot agree on an answer to the simple question, "Can government "stimulus" spending actually prevent an economic recession?"

Central to describing and understanding emergent phenomena are a range of scales in time, space, and numbers of components. For example, transformation of a society can be viewed at the scale of individuals, families, neighbourhoods, cities, and nations. Insight and discernment are required to decide which of these scales may be most significant, and thus key to our understanding and action.

I now give a specific example to illustrate how emergent phenomena are hard to predict and often surprising. 

The emergence of social segregation

Many churches are very homogeneous with regard to the demographics of members. Many Christians do not have many non-Christian friends? Why is that?Segregation is a common social phenomenon: groups of people clump together in spatial regions (or relational connectivity) with those similar to them. Like attracts like. Examples range from ethnic ghettos and teenage cliques to "echo chambers" on the internet.

In 1971 Thomas Schelling published a landmark paper in the social sciences. The motivation for his work was to understand how racially segregated neighbourhoods emerged in cities in the USA, but the ideas are applicable to a wide range of phenomena. Schelling's work surprised many because using a simple model he showed how small individual preferences for similarity can lead to large-scale segregation. 

A major conclusion is that motives at the individual level are not the same as the outcomes at the macro level.  This idea provided the title for an influential book Micromotives and Macrobehavior, that Schelling published in 1978.  People may be very tolerant of diversity (e.g. only have a preference that 30 per cent of their neighbours be like them) but collectively this results in them living in very segregated neighbourhoods.

Practical implications for transformative mission

An emergent perspective should lead to humility. It emphasises how much we do not understand rather than deluding ourselves that we do understand what we are doing and what the outcome will be.

The systems we are interested in, communities of people, are complex. They are hard to describe, understand, and predict. Yet, many of us, and the organisations that we are involved in, have a simple mechanical view of these systems and how transformation will happen. Study at this seminary and you will become a successful pastor. Give money to this family in the slum and it will lift them out of poverty. Preach the Gospel and people will become disciples of Jesus. Elect Christian politicians and society will become more Christian.

Humility means a willingness to learn from others: community members, non-Christian social scientists, team members, and those with a different perspective than our own.

Humility should lead to realistic expectations about the likely outcomes from our actions. On the one hand, we want to proceed by faith that God will do great things "far more than we can ask or imagine." On the other hand, we are constrained by our ignorance, limited resources, and the fallen nature of our world. Suppose, we proceed with the hubris that we actually know what we are doing and that our actions must produce the outcome that we naively believe will follow. Except by the mercy and generosity of God, our efforts will "fail" because they go against the way that the world actually works. This will lead to disappointment, disillusionment, and despair. Countless activists have been burnt out and quit and organisations collapsed because they had unrealistic expectations and did not see the outcomes that they assumed would happen. A humble emergent perspective can lead to a long-term view that makes initiatives sustainable, both at the individual and institutional level.

Most complex systems are adaptive. In response to perturbations, they adapt and re-organise. This is the basis of the law of unintended consequences. Organisations need to be adaptive. One approach is Action Research where action leads to reflection which leads to action.

An emergent perspective on transformation is against the common narrative that great leaders are heroic individuals who have the vision and know the strategy and tactics to get there. As they are immersed in their surrounding corporate culture most Christian organisations embrace this view of leadership. The origins of this narrative are not Biblical but rather the theory of management that arose from the military success of the USA in World War II and of the auto industry in the following two decades. Two experts on organisational development, Gervase Bushe and Robert Marshak, state that

The “visionary leader” narrative and performance mindset that predominate in theories and practices of “Change Leadership” are no longer effective in an environment of multi-dimensional diversity marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

Instead, they advocate an alternative leadership model that starts from the perspective that organisations are emergent and their behaviour is hard to control and predict. Leaders need to find ways to harness the self-organisational and adaptive tendency of organisations. This might be done by influencing the conversations that take place within the organisation, encouraging employees to come up with their own solutions to problems, and creating a culture and structures that are sensitive to the tension between efficiency and innovation.

Obviously, this emergent perspective on leadership and organisational development has important implications for how any organisation selects and promotes leaders, how those leaders act, and what policies and procedures are embraced.

The complete redemption of creation

 I earlier posted about how much I benefited from reading A New Heaven and A New Earth: Reclaiming a Biblical Eschatology by Richard Middleton, in our theology reading group. The book centres around elucidating the creation-fall-redemption-renewal narrative of the Bible.

This month we are reading and discussing the second half of the book.

The book can be viewed as an introductory text on biblical theology, as it attempts to provide a model for the narrative of the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.

It is helpful for me to consider what the essential message of the book is. In some ways, Middleton is elucidating what the Bible really does say about the theological concepts of creation, fall, redemption, and renewal. He considers that he is correcting common misunderstandings about these concepts.

What is creation?

Sometimes Genesis 1-2 is read solely as a description of material origins. Where did humans come from? When did it all begin? Where did the earth, animals, and plants come from?

According to modernism, humans and nature are distinct (but connected) entities [e.g., they have the same DNA], and both are just material. Consequently, creation is equated with nature, particularly what humans have not touched or used. "Creation care" is concerned with being good stewards of the natural environment and its resources. However, Middleton considers that a more Biblical perspective is that creation (and the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28) is broader. Creation is not just objects (humans and "nature") but much more. Creation is also what humans create by their interactions with one another and with the non-human world: agriculture and art, institutions and ideas,... Creation is the entire human socio-cultural order. The doctrine of creation is not only concerned with some single event in the past, but also the  present and future: how God sustains the world, works in the world, and what God wishes the world would be.

What is the fall?

This has affected everything: humans, the earth, animals, plants,... Sin (the rebellion of humans) has not just broken the relationship of humans with God, but also humans with one another, humans with nature, and humans with themselves. The creation is no longer what God intended it to be, both what God created and the culture that humans now create.

What is redemption?

In Scripture, redemption is conceived most fundamentally as the reversal of the fall and the restoration of God’s good purposes from the beginning. By way of contrast, in our dualistic philosophical inheritance from Plato, redemption is conceived as transferal from a lower, inferior realm (variously understood as body, earth, matter, nature or the secular) to a higher, more valued or esteemed realm (understood as soul, heaven, spirit, the realm of grace or the sacred). This dualistic assumption is often simply superimposed over biblical texts that address redemption and so leads to a distortion of the Bible’s message. Whereas a dualistic understanding of redemption typically devalues the good world God created and encourages an aspiration to transcend finitude, the biblical worldview leads to an affirmation of the goodness of creation, along with a desire to pray and work for the redemption of precisely this world (including human, socio‐cultural institutions) that earthly life might be restored to what it was meant to be. Being aware of the distinction between these two conceptions of redemption helps clarify the significance of the creation‐fall‐redemption paradigm that is utilized by many who are interested in developing a Christian worldview.

This summary is taken from the paper by Middleton, that he developed into the book. 

The human calling is not just to create culture but also to redeem culture, by participating in its transformation. I find it interesting that this redemptive view drove many of the founders of modern science, as chronicled by Peter Harrison in The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science.

What is the final renewal?

What is the end of it all, the eschaton? Sometimes words such as consummation or re-creation, are used instead of renewal. How does this relate to the idea that "when Christians die they go to heaven"? There will be a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21) that will be free of sin, suffering, and death. Middleton gives particular attention to critiquing interpretations of 2 Peter 3, that claim that all of the existing creation is going to be destroyed/burned up/consumed and God will create something new from scratch, and the disembodied "souls" of Christians will live in a new place, "heaven". Rather, at the eschaton, God will complete the work of redeeming the fallen world that began with Abraham.

A Scientist Looks at Genesis 1-3

This evening I am giving a talk on the first three chapters of Genesis to Village FOCUS at QUT Kelvin Grove, a Christian group for international students. Here are the slides. 

For background, I recommend comparing and contrasting Genesis with the Babylonian creation myth the Enuma Elish, which is nicely summarised in this short video.

Another helpful short video is Science and Genesis, featuring John Polkinghorne, Alister McGrath, N.T. Wright, and others.

I have found helpful the book How to Read Genesis by Tremper Longman.

An excellent introductory book that puts my talk in context is Let there be Science: Why God loves Science, and Science needs God, by David Hutchings and Tom McLeish

Emergence in science, theology, and mission

Emergence is one of the most important concepts in the sciences, both natural and social. I have also found it to be fruitful in engaging with questions relating to theology and mission. 

Tonight I am giving a talk on the subject for a session of the Write conference of The Simeon Network. It was canceled earlier this year and is now being held online. 

Here is the current version of the slides.

A gentle introduction is in a short article I wrote for Test of Faith.

A longer academic article is Emergence, reductionism and the stratification of reality in science and theology.

Last year I wrote a blog post about Emergence of Sin by Matthew Croasmun. A helpful review is at Marginalia: LA Review of Books.

Update. A complete video of the talk is below. The introduction is by Professor Peter Gill.

A Christian response to the coronavirus

I thought this short talk from Krish Kandiah was particularly helpful, engaging, challenging, and stimulating.

Counting: the sin of metrics, from King David to modern socieity

One of many strange stories in the Bible is the following from 2 Samuel 24.

Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.’

2 So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, ‘Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enrol the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.’

3 But Joab replied to the king, ‘May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?’

4 The king’s word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders; so they left the presence of the king to enrol the fighting men of Israel.

....

8 After they had gone through the entire land, they came back to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.

9 Joab reported the number of the fighting men to the king: in Israel there were eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who could handle a sword, and in Judah five hundred thousand.

10 David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.’

There are many questions associated with this one. But, a basic one is: why was it sinful to count the fighting men. I presume it is because this reflected David trusting in the strength of his army and not that of the LORD. Such trust goes against what a young David said before he fought Goliath (1 Samuel 17:47)

All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's,..

Is there something in this passage that is relevant today. Partly with tongue in check, I wonder if it is relevant to the obsession of society today with counting (metrics) to measure performance, particularly in workplaces and sadly often in churches. In this vein, Mike Higton, a theology professor at Durham University, has an article,  The Research Assessment Exercise as sin.

The dangers of unrestrained global corporate power

Here are the closing words of the book, The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire by William Dalrymple.

The East India Company remains today history’s most ominous warning about the potential for the abuse of corporate power - and the insidious means by which the interests of shareholders can seemingly become those of the state. For, as recent American adventures in Iraq have shown, our world is far from post-imperial, and quite probably will never be.
Empire is transforming itself into forms of global power that use campaign contributions and commercial lobbying, multinational finance systems and global markets, corporate influence and the predictive data harvesting of the new surveillance -capitalism rather than - or sometimes alongside - overt
military conquest, occupation or economic domination to affect its ends.
Four hundred and twenty years after its founding, the story of the East India Company has never been more current.

Helpful summaries of the books are a New York Times op-ed piece by Dalrymple and an interview in an Indian newspaper.

Theology books to read in 2020

I am blessed by being in a theology reading group that meets each month. We are about to discuss what books we might read and discuss next year. Here is my rough list of suggestions, roughly in order of preference. An almost common theme is the interaction of theology with the social sciences.

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
Lesslie Newbigin

The Presence of the Kingdom 
Jacques Ellul

Sociology through the eyes of faith
David A. Fraser and Tony Campolo

Seeking Church: Emerging Witnesses to the Kingdom 
Darren T. Duerksen and William A. Dyrness

Transformative religious experience: a phenomenological understanding of religious conversion
Joshua Iyadurai

The Gospel in Dostoyevsky: Selections from His Works 
Alternatively read one of his novels.
J.I. Packer claimed, ``Dostoyevsky is to me both the greatest novelist, as such, and the greatest Christian storyteller, in particular, of all time.''

Surviving the State, Remaking the Church: A Sociological Portrait of Christians in Mainland China
Li Ma and Jin Li

Absence of Mind:The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self 
Marilynne Robinson
[The famous novelist discusses the relationship between science, religion, and consciousness].
[Based on her Terry lectures at Yale, available online].

Reason, Faith, and Revolution 
Terry Eagleton
The Marxist literary critic responds to the New Atheists.
[Based on his Terry lectures at Yale, available online].

Wouldn't You Love to Know? Trinitarian Epistemology and Pedagogy
Ian W. Payne

Emergence of Sin

Christian Mission in the Modern World
John Stott and Chris Wright

And for something different, listen to a piece of classical church music and discuss.
e.g. Elijah by Mendelson, The Creation by Hadyn, St. John's Passion by J.S. Bach.

How is sin emergent?

One of the most exciting books I have encountered recently is
The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans by Matthew Croasmun.
It is based on the Yale Ph.D. of the author.
[At US$75 the book is rather expensive! Fortunately, I could read an electronic version through the UQ library].
I have a longstanding interest in how the concept of emergence is relevant to the dialogue between science and theology.

My son made me aware of the book, through a podcast from the Bible Project [who make cool videos summarising books of the Bible] with the author.  The podcast is an excellent introduction to the book.

What is sin? How should it be defined? A simple and common definition is something like ``sins are individual acts which involve disobeying God's commandments". Another is that ``sin is part of the human condition: our intrinsic disposition to do what we want rather than what God wants". But, is sin also something even greater, a cosmic force?
Corruption is sin. But, is corruption just the choices of individuals or is it something larger, a social force in some societies that carries people along and is something far greater than just small decisions by individuals? This is the idea of structural sin, that is particularly highlighted in liberation theologies. What does the Bible actually say?

Paul's Epistle to the Romans is one of the great treatises on sin (and redemption through Christ). Croasmun focuses on the puzzles presented by Chapters 6-8,

In Romans 5–8, Sin struts on the stage of the text like a personal being. The “data” are clear on this point. The noun ἁμαρτία (sin) is used as the subject of an active verb no fewer than eleven times in this brief passage. To summarize the familiar language, in these chapters, ἁμαρτία exercises dominion (5:21, 6:12), seizes opportunities to produce covetousness and kill (7:8, 11), revives (7:9), and acts in place of the human agent in whom it dwells (7:17, 20). The noun ἁμαρτία is deployed in personal terms in these chapters. This is not disputed. The question is, rather, whether this constitutes literary “personification,” or whether we have instead what we might describe as “person identification.”

I like the discussion of racism (chapter 3) as an example of the questions explored. There is a famous mathematical model for racial segregation that is relevant. Even a small amount of individual prejudice can lead to segregated communities and amplification of inequitable access to resources (education, medical, security, networking, …) and increase prejudice because people have little day to day contact with the ``other’’. Small individual choices that may not be considered sinful can lead to unjust social structures that facilitate sin.

A great irony of church history

Jesus is the model servant leader. Even though he knew his power, he gave it up. He washed the feet of his disciples.

 ...the third temptation of Jesus was...  the temptation of power. “I will give you all the kingdoms of the world in their splendor,” the demon said to Jesus. ....

One of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its leaders constantly gave in to the temptation of power—political power, military power, economic power, or moral and spiritual power—even though they continued to speak in the name of Jesus, who did not cling to his divine power but emptied himself and became as we are [Philippians 2:5-11]. 

The temptation to consider power an apt instrument for the proclamation of the Gospel is the greatest of all. We keep hearing from others, as well as saying to ourselves, that having power—provided it is used in the service of God and your fellow human beings—is a good thing. With this rationalization, crusades took place; inquisitions were organized; Indians were enslaved; positions of great influence were desired; episcopal palaces, splendid cathedrals, and opulent seminaries were built; and much moral manipulation of conscience was engaged in. Every time we see a major crisis in the history of the Church such as the Great Schism of the eleventh century, the Reformation of the sixteenth century, or the immense secularization of the twentieth century, we always see that a major cause of rupture is the power exercised by those who claim to be followers of the poor and powerless Jesus.

         What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to won life than to love life. Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” We ask, “Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom?” (Matthew 20:21). Ever since the snake said, “The day you eat of this tree your eyes will be open and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil” (Genesis 3:5), we have been tempted to replace love with power. Jesus lived that temptation in the most agonizing way from the desert to the cross. 

The long painful history of the Church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led. Those who resisted this temptation to the end and thereby give us hope are the true saints. One thing is clear to me: the temptation of power is greatest when intimacy is a threat. Much Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love. 

Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus, pages 57-60

Theological concepts and academic disciplines

At the African Scholars track of the IFES World Assembly, we are discussing Christian perspectives on academic disciplines.

A helpful article is by Elizabeth Hall, Structuring the Scholarly Imagination.
A video of a lecture is here

I will give a shorter of my seminar, Moving towards a Christian perspective on your academic discipline. Slides and a questionnaire are available here.
There is also a French translation of the questionnaire.

It builds around four key theological concepts: creation, fall, redemption, renewal.

Mental health in a fallen creation

The Garden of Eden in Genesis 1-2 represents God's ideal. There is harmony between God and humanity, between male and female, and between humans and nature. There is no struggle for survival. There is no shame. Everything in the creation is good.

Yet this is not the world we live in.
People are alienated from God: they lose identity, purpose, and hope.
Men and women are in conflict.
Work is hard and stressful. It is usually a struggle for survival.
Humanity is alienated from nature.
People are ashamed.
Violence (physical, sexual, and verbal) is prevalent. Violence easily escalates and is passed on to the next generation.
The mind is corrupted. People believe lies, including about themselves.
Disease and death are present.

This is the world introduced in Genesis 3: the fallen creation. Adam and Eve believe a lie: they can be like God: be rulers and know everything. They rebel and experience the consequences: the world described above, a world of alienation.

Mental illness is part of the fallen creation. Depression is characterised by a lack of hope.

The Bible does not present a simplistic or reductionist view of what a human is. The description in terms of ``mind, body, heart, and soul'' is not dualist or even quadralist! Rather the Bible presents a holistic Hebrew perspective that being human and being whole is multi-faceted. Hence, mental health requires an integrated approach. The causes are complex. The solutions are complex. There are spiritual, biochemical, social, and psychological dimensions to be addressed. These dimensions often interact with one another, either constructively or destructively. Healing and prevention may require a blend of prayer, counseling, drugs, exercise, diet, supportive relationships, community building, and lifestyle changes.

The mandate for Christians is to bind up the broken hearted, heal the sick, and set the prisoners free.

What does Jesus death on the cross achieve?

Tonight at the theology reading group we are discussing ``The Nature and Basis of Salvation,'' chapter 11 of Christian Theology: An Introduction, by Alister McGrath.
The chapter explores different perspectives through history on what the death of Jesus on the cross achieved and what is the meaning and nature of the salvation that is linked to his death and resurrection.

McGrath helpfully points out that it is hard to separate the question of ``What did Jesus achieve?" from the questions of ``Who is Jesus?" and ``What is the nature of humans and what do they need?''



Some view the cross of Christ as only exemplary and subjective, i.e. it provides an example and inspiration for humans to be willing to suffer, particularly for a greater good beyond themselves. In contrast, an objective ontological view is that the cross achieves something objective (makes salvation possible); it actually changes reality.

There are different models and metaphors for the cross and what it achieves including that it is a sacrifice for sin, a victory over sin and evil, a provider of forgiveness, and a demonstration of God's love. Most of the writers McGrath that engages with seem to exclusively favour just one of these over the others. I find this a little strange; why can't they all be true? There are many dimensions to what the cross achieves. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. This seems to be similar to the view taken by John Stott in his classic book, The Cross of Christ. The challenge, as always in theology, is to find a balance in emphasis between the different dimensions. Furthermore, the cross represents a profound mystery and so any ``model'' will be limited by human language and concepts.

There is also a range of views about what is the nature of the salvation that Jesus offers: reconciliation with God, reconciliation with others, deification (being made divine, particularly favoured in Eastern Orthodox theology), imputed righteousness, personal holiness (Wesley), authentic human existence (Tillich), spiritual freedom, and political liberation (Boff, Gutierrez).
Finally, when it comes to the appropriation of salvation, what is the balance between an extremely Western individualistic conception of personal faith and a communal and institutional conception, as extremely embodied in the Roman Catholic church. Again, the challenge is to find a balance in emphasis between the different perspectives.

One thing in the chapter that was completely new and intriguing for me was the views of Rene Girard, an anthropologist, who claimed that desire, violence, and scapegoats were integral to humanity, to religion, and the sacred. Girard states "Mine is a search for the anthropology of the Cross, which turns out to rehabilitate orthodox theology". For the context and extensive bibliography see here.

It is arguable whether this chapter would be better after chapter 14, which concerns human nature and sin. Most of those who deny the saving power of the cross (particularly Enlightenment writers) do so because they don't think people need to be saved (i.e. they are basically good) and deny that human reason is not corrupted.

This leads to a broader issue that is discussed by McGrath: the influence of historical and cultural context on people's theology. Living in contexts as wide-ranging as Hellenistic philosophical debates, a military dictatorship in Latin America, upper middle-class North America today,  or Catholic Germany at the time of Luther, do have an influence, for better or for worse, on the theological emphases and formulations that they produce.

Most importantly, the chapter would be more helpful if there was a deeper engagement with key Bible passages, particularly those that are hard to reconcile with some of the narrow views advocated by some of the writers reviewed. This is where Stott's book is helpful.

Grunewald, Isenheim Altarpiece. Karl Barth wrote most of his Church Dogmatics, with a reproduction of this in view.

Who is Jesus Christ?

The Christian doctrine of the person of Christ sets out to explore why the church believes that the little piece of human history called "Jesus of Nazareth" holds the key to the nature of God and of human destiny. This area of theology, often referred to as ``Christology'', sets out to locate Jesus of Nazareth on a conceptual map. It attempts to place him along the coordinates of time and eternity, humanity and divinity, particularity and universality, and answer the question of how an event which took place at a specific time and place can be relevant for all people and all times.

This is the beginning of a chapter in Christian Theology: An Introduction, by Alister McGrath. It is the subject of the theology reading group will be looking at this month.

I found the chapter particularly interesting and stimulating. It highlights the many different dimensions and richness to Christology. Human language and concepts are inadequate to simply give a definitive description of such a great mystery, inevitably leading to debates, controversies, and divisions. History also shows how certain ideas and debates keep resurfacing. I think some of the issue with such a complex subject is that different people want to emphasize different perspectives. The question is how does one find balance.

A few of the things I found particularly interesting in the chapter are the following.

It is debatable to what extent one can separate ideas about Christ, about salvation, and about human nature (Christology, soteriology, and anthropology). Charles Gore said, ``Inadequate conceptions of Christ's person go hand in hand with inadequate conceptions of what human nature wants... The Nestorian Christ is the fitting saviour of the Pelagian man.''
[This is an allusion to Nestorius who emphasised the humanity of Christ and saw Christ as largely a human example. Pelagius  considered humans capable of doing good without any divine help.]



A second insight concerns how Adolf von Harnack raised questions about whether the desire of the patristic writers (early church fathers) to interpret the Gospel in terms of Greek thought was helpful or not. In particular, he considered that the concern with abstractions, particularly in fine debates about the meaning of the incarnation, distorted the "simple" practical message of salvation and living that Jesus presented. I would agree that Harnack ultimately took this in unhelpful and extreme directions but it is an important question to consider.

Another helpful insight is to consider the diversity of terms/names used in the New Testament to describe Jesus: Messiah, Lord, Christ, Son of Man, Son of God, God, Word, ....
I would add Suffering Servant, Redeemer, and Rabbi.
Each adds a different dimension and perspective, highlighting the problem of a narrow reductionist or one-dimensional perspective that too many seemed to have advocated over the centuries.

Anger and isolation in the city

I enjoyed watching the movie Can you ever forgive me? based on the life of Lee Israel, a struggling writer who found "success" by forging and selling personal letters from famous authors.

 

The lead character is played well by Melissa McCarthy, who I am more used to seeing play buffoons.
It is a great story. But the movie also catches some of the angst, internal struggles, alienation, and anger of someone who is so alone because they just cannot get along with others.
God's ideal is that we live in community but we are too often our own worst enemies. We yearn for this too but others disappoint us and hurt us and so we lash out in anger and the spiral continues...
The cycle is only broken when grace, mercy, and forgiveness breaks through.

The scandal of the evangelical mind

This is the title of an influential book, written in the context of the USA. Recently, I gave a talk with this title, based on Philippians 2:1-13. My argument is that although the book is important and has valid points there is actually a much bigger scandal.