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? 

Who is my neighbour? Surely, not "them"!

What would it be like to not have a home? To have no country. To be wanted by no country. To be constantly on the move, searching for safety, for food, for water, for stability, ... Or to be trapped in a detention centre for "illegal immigrants" with no hope of ever escaping? Or to be living in a tent in a camp for hundreds of thousands of refugees. Unfortunately, this is reality, day-to-day life, for more than eighty million people. Tragically, this number is growing and unlikely to decrease.

In 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) forecast that 1.4 million refugees would need resettlement in 2019. Yet, only 107,800 were accepted. Only, three countries in the world accepted more than 10,000.

Refugees, internally displaced people, and asylum seekers present a moral and political challenge to our time. They are vulnerable and suffering. Yet, rather than receiving empathy or practical help from wealthy Western nations, refugees too often are demonised as threats to the security, prosperity, and culture of Western nations. I am ashamed of how Australia has "led" the way in this regard, particularly with policies of detaining asylum seekers in offshore detention camps.

At the theology reading group this month we discussed Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics, by Mark Glanville and Luke Glanville.

One of the many strengths of the book is the complementary expertise of the authors, two brothers. Mark is an Old Testament scholar who is also actively involved in helping settle refugees in Vancouver. (This is through the organisation Kinbrace that emerged through Grandview Baptist church and is also discussed in Tim Dickau's book that we recently read). Luke is a scholar of international relations and provides a global political perspective on displaced peoples. As a result, the book has depth in both theology and in political science, which is unfortunately rare in Christian books about political issues. The arguments are laced with references to the academic literature on Old Testament scholarship and on global politics, but the book is still easy to read.

There is a beautiful section on how to interpret the Old Testament ethically today, using a jazz metaphor (page 49). (Both authors are accomplished jazz musicians). Jazz is a rich tradition, but each performance is unique. Performers respond to the local context, creating something new, but rooted in tradition. Similarly, the Old Testament represented and shaped a rich tradition in the communal life of ancient Israel. The translation and application of this tradition to modern life in churches and secular nations is not straightforward but can be rich and beautiful. Ethics for today should respect and draw from that tradition, but adapt creatively.

In the first half of the book, Mark argues persuasively how the concept of "festive kinship" is central to the Old Testament, particularly in Deuteronomy. Kinship is not defined by bloodline or ethnicity, but rather by a community characterised by obedience to God's commands. In particular, this community enfolds the resident alien. 

A natural question is how this concept of kinship fits with the Old Testament narratives that describe how Israel is commanded by God to "devote to destruction" the Canaanites? (pages 55-59). The texts actually show that Canaanites can be Israelites (e.g., Rahab the prostitute who acknowledged the works of YHWH and in faith protected the spies) and Israelites can be Canaanites (e.g., Achan who stole devoted things from Jericho). Being Israelite (Canaanite) is not defined by bloodline but rather by obedience (disobedience) to YHWH.

Jesus further expands kinship to include those on the margins: Samaritans, prostitutes, "sinners", tax collectors, ...  He shares meals with them. In fact, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus spends more time eating than teaching! (page 78). Some do repent but this is not a pre-requisite for joining the meal (page 79).  Jesus' community is defined by its centre rather than by its boundaries (page 94). This contrasts with the Pharisees and many churches today that define themselves by who is in and who is out and by what they are against rather than what they are for.

Jesus proclaims "forgiveness of sins". There are several different Greek words that are translated into English as "forgiveness". Some actually mean "release" in the sense of release from oppression (pages 85, 86, 101).

The Deuteronomy feasting texts are characterised by a four-part movement: lament-gift-thanksgiving-inclusive justice. The purpose is to "forge and inclusive and celebrative community in light of the generosity of God." (p. 107).

"The festal call to thanksgiving with inclusive celebration highlights the importance of the distinctive life of a missional congregation." Howard Peskett and Vinoth Ramachandra note, "Mission is not primarily about going. Nor is mission primarily about doing anything. Mission is about being. It is about being a distinctive kind of people, a countercultural ... community among the nations."  (p. 110).

Careful consideration is given to a number of commonly stated fears and claims that opponents express about the impact that Western nations accepting more refugees will have on security, economics, and culture. (pp. 168-178).

The scale of the problem is daunting. There are about 45 million internally displaced people, and more than 26 million refugees. Most refugees are in poor countries such as Uganda, Bangladesh, and Lebanon. Yet, somehow these countries care for them as best they can. For example, in Lebanon schools are running double shifts as there are as many Syrian children as Lebanese needing and education! This makes a mockery of the greed and xenophobia of wealthy Western nations who are unwilling to bear the cost, risk, and inconvenience of caring for tens of thousands of refugees.

That's enough for now... 

This is a wonderful and challenging book that I pray will stimulate some significant action, particularly among Western churches.

John Dickson also has an excellent podcast episode in which he interviews the authors and a refugee. The associated webpage also has links to relevant materials.

On the subject of refugees and the value of small individual acts of kindness, Malcolm Gladwell has a powerful podcast episode.

Initiatives to alleviate poverty that empower

 Robin and I are giving a talk this evening at The Village Academy on "When Helping Hurts.." based on the book by the same name.

Here are the slides.

Fact Collecting by Robin McKenzie

Fact Collecting

Child of the enlightenment 

Going from one extreme to the next 

Throw the baby out with the bathwater 

Purging that which can’t be replicated in the lab

Makes no sense of love or intuition 

One must know, only the facts

Overthink, analyse, scrutinise 

Analysis paralysis 

But true wisdom is knowing what can’t be known 

Embrace the mystery 

Accept the contradictions, shades of grey

It doesn’t have to make logical sense.

You don’t have to be able to understand 

Forget fighting the slippery thin edge of the wedge

What are we so afraid of?

The prompting of the spirit?

Feelings that can’t be calibrated? 

Our forefathers rejoiced in their new understanding 

Why the sun sat

Where lightning came from 

How to kill a germ

Would they be aghast to see the baby disappear with the water?

Our denial of things immaterial?

Is fact collecting always preeminent?

Surpassing the value of spiritual engagement?

Do facts alone lead to sanctification? 

Ah, The fear of the thin edge of the wedge

      

Engineering principles undergird  bridges

But just as important is the soul 

A corrupt heart leads to use of shoddy material

And bridges falling down.

Who is man that he assumes he is capable of knowing everything?

That knowledge is the answer to all predicaments?

As God said to Job “ Why do you confuse the issue?

Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about? 

Pull yourself together.  Up on your feet!  Stand tall. 

I have some questions for you and I want some straight answers… 

Tell me since you know so much!” 

Why did Christianity go from a marginal sect to a dominant force in the Roman Empire?

For many years Rodney Stark was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. He wrote an introductory college sociology text that has been through ten editions. 

A fascinating book he published in 1996 is The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries 

In the preface, Stark states his approach to trying to answer the question that is raised by the book title.

What I am primarily trying to contribute to studies of the early church is better social science—better theories and more formal methods of analysis, including quantification wherever possible and appropriate. Thus in this book I shall try to introduce historians and biblical scholars to real social science, including formal rational choice theory, theories of the firm, the role of social networks and interpersonal attachments in conversion, dynamic population models, social epidemiology, and models of religious economies.

Stark then considers how the role of women, caring for the sick in epidemics, social networks, martyrs, urban chaos, crises, and other factors all lead to the exponential growth of the church over three centuries.

                          Domenico di Bartolo, Care of The Sick

In the final chapter Stark states 

as I conclude this study, I find it necessary to confront what appears to me to be the ultimate factor in the rise of Christianity. Let me state my thesis: 

Central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations. 

I believe that it was the religion's particular doctrines that permitted Christianity to be among the most sweeping and successful revitalization movements in history. And it was the way these doctrines took on actual flesh, the way they directed organizational actions and individual behavior, that led to the rise of Christianity. 

Contrasting ways that Asians and Westerner's think about theology

 In the theology reading group over two months we discussed Asian Christian Theology: Evangelical Perspectives, published by Langham. It is an edited volume with 16 different authors and is divided into two equal parts, covering doctrinal themes and contemporary concerns. Asia is defined in geographic terms and the authors come from more than ten different countries, including Hong Kong, Israel, and Sri Lanka. Although their contexts are very diverse there are some common features, such as gross economic inequality, Christians being a religious minority, societies are largely religious, globalisation, and limited religious and political freedoms.

Previously, I have written some about the challenges of contextual theology.

According to the Ph.D. program in contextual theology at the Asian Theological Seminary in Manila.

Contextual theology does not mean elevating the local to the detriment of the global. It simply challenges other local theologies that have been elevated to classical status. Thus, contextual theology, while oriented towards a particular society or culture or cultural sub-group, is still in conversation with other theologies in a global discourse since it recognizes that the church is both local and universal. This implies that issues tackled in research will be rooted in the local context but will have global resonance or implications.

The first part of the book aims to give some Asian perspectives on the following doctrinal themes: revelation, scripture, the Trinity, Christology, creation, the Holy Spirit, ecclesiology, and eschatology. I felt that these chapters were a little disappointing as they seemed too "Western" to me. Perhaps this is because almost all the authors did Ph.D.'s in the West!

I felt the second part of the book was better and here focus on just a few chapters.

On page 248 there is a fascinating footnote about Asian modes of thinking. 

In his book, Mangoes or Bananas: The Quest for an Authentic Christian Theology, Hwa Yung suggests that Easterners have a relational approach in contrast to the rational approach of Westerners. Melba Maggay suggests that Asians focus on synthesis and seek to harmonise contradictions. In contrast, Westerners have a "mental habit of logical negation and either-or-thinking."

In all Asian countries, except the Philippines, Christianity is a minority religion. This means that daily life for Christians in Asia involves interactions with people from different religions. Ivan Satyovatra and Kang-San Tan each present chapters on this topic.

The discussion of any topic, not just in theology, is framed and even determined by what questions one asks and what framework is used to answer those questions. With regard to non-Christian religions, questions commonly posed are "Can a non-Christian be saved?" and "Is the Christian God present in non-Christian religions?" Furthermore, addressing this topic, one should be clear about how a particular "religion" is defined and evaluated. Is it in terms of beliefs, practices, texts, or culture? And who gets to define these things: local practitioners, Western academics, or religious authorities?

There is a common typology used to classify the perspective of Christian writers on other religions: exclusivist, inclusivist, or pluralist. Tan reviews three main criticisms of this typology (p. 280-1). First, it oversimplifies the diversity of religions and the diversity within them. Second, it restricts the diversity of possible Christian responses. "Third, the focus of the typology has been mostly on doctrinal comparison between religious systems rather than on people and relationships between faith practitioners. In particular, the typology does not allow a sufficient role for the process of encounter between people from different religions." In different words, it represents a false trichotomy. I find this last criticism fascinating because it reflects an Asian inclination to focus on relationships rather than rationality, as noted in the comments from Yung and Maggay that I mentioned above.

Tan then proposes an alternative typology that is built around Hans Frei's Five Types of Theology, as recounted by David Ford in Theology: A Very Short Introduction. Although I think this is an interesting discussion and it surpasses the three-fold typology, I did not find it more illuminating.

In chapter 11, "Jesus and Other Faiths," Ivan Satyavratra first gives a detailed critique of the pluralist position. He concludes that its most serious weakness is "the huge logical inconsistency inherent in its attempt to deny the right of other worldviews to make any privileged claims, even as pluralism itself employs tradition-specific criteria in evaluating religious beliefs." It "makes exclusive truth claims about the nature of reality just like any other religious belief system." (page 229).

He then presents an alternative proposal in his own context, a "fulfillment" approach. Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of other religions, in some ways similar to how Jesus was the fulfilment of Judaism. Paul's addresses to Gentile audiences that are recorded in Acts 14 and 17 reflect a similar perspective as Paul argues Jesus is the fulfillment of the god found in the local religion. There is then a nice overview of Indians with Hindu backgrounds who have embraced this approach over the last two hundred years. A similar approach has been advocated by John Mbiti with respect to African traditional religions.

The battle for succession: from King David's sons to 21st-century American evangelicalism

 At church we have just started a sermon and study series on the book of 1 Kings in the Old Testament. To get the big picture of a book of the Bible I find it helpful to watch (several times) a short video produced by The Bible Project and to print out the associated poster.

1 Kings begins with intrigue and scheming as there is a battle between two of David's sons, Adonijah and Solomon, and their associated entourages, to receive the blessing of their ailing father to be King. The Bible gives a "warts and all" description of these flawed humans who often act in morally dubious ways, while claiming they are doing what YHWH wants. The ends justify the means. Naked selfish ambition will go to extreme ends to gain and maintain power. It is all about money, sex, and power. This is not just ancient Israel, but also the world we live in today. 

The endless scheming and drama resonate with the popular TV series, Succession, which I have not watched. But, it is not just in the modern pagan world of global corporations that one sees such dramas. I thought of a recent article in Vanity Fair. The article features two sons who succeeded their fathers to lead large Christian organisations in the USA, and now draw annual salaries of about $1 M per year.

INSIDE JERRY FALWELL JR.’S UNLIKELY RISE AND PRECIPITOUS FALL AT LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

Jerry Falwell Jr. was the Trump-anointing dark prince of the Christian right. Then a sex scandal rocked his marriage and ended his lucrative stewardship of the evangelical education empire founded by his father. In a series of exclusive interviews, Falwell—accompanied by his wife, Becki—describes the events that led to his ouster, their fallout, and why he’s finally ready to admit he never had much use for his father’s church anyway.

The article contains the following anecdote.

Jerry also suspected that Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, used the scandal to expand the Graham family’s influence over Liberty. Franklin Graham’s son Will was named vice chairman of Liberty’s board... Jerry said Franklin Graham had also once told him that he wanted to start a Billy Graham University, but it didn’t get off the ground. In September 2020, Jerry and Franklin got into an argument over who should get credit for Liberty’s success. “I said, ‘My dad built the foundation, but I built the house. And Franklin got furious. He said, ‘You didn’t build it!’ You should have heard the jealousy in Franklin’s voice,” Jerry recalled. According to Jerry, Franklin Graham told him his future in the Christian world is over. “He said, ‘You’ll never be anything in evangelical circles again.’ ” Graham, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.

Money, sex, and power. Just like in 1 Kings. Jesus, God's anointed eternal King is so different. So should his servants be.