_awakening

Advent Conspiracy.

Jamie and I have been talking lately about what Christmas has become. Perhaps it is remembering the past, when as kids you used to approach Christmas with a sense if wonder and awe. Perhaps it is the state of the economy. Perhaps it is something deeper...

I think what we are longing for is something more from the season - to not miss the essence of what the advent is all about by being blinded by all the season has become. It is refreshing to see things like the Advent Conspiracy.

It is a reminder that we are not alone in our hope for something better this season.

Readings and More.

Here's a collection of essays, articles, and lectures recently posted here and there on the web. Enjoy.

Paul's Understanding of the Death of Jesus by James D.G. Dunn
[from BiblicalStudies.org.uk]

How Christian is the Book of Revelation? by G.R. Beasley-Murray
[from BiblicalStudies.org.uk]

Khirbet Qeiyafa: Sha'arayim by Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor
[from the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures]

In Search of the Ancient Name of Khirbet Qeiyafa by Nadav Na'aman
[from the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures]

Reconstructing Hope [a series of three lectures given by Tom Wright at the Harvard Graduate School Christian Fellowship]

The Gospel.

Scot McKnight posted some thoughts today on the gospel in relationship to Romans 1.16-17. First he notes some of the nuances thoughts on the nature of "salvation":

What does "salvation" mean?

1. Common Evangelicalism - Personal forgiveness of sins through the death of Christ and very similar, then, to justification.
2. Fitzmyer - Rescue in a comprehensive sense through the cross and unto the eschatological destiny. Parallel to justification.
3. NT Wright - Not the simple notion of heavenly bliss; rescue from death and ultimate destruction and "from Rome" in a concrete sense.
4. Jewett - Deliverance from the present evil age and restoration unto wholeness and preservation from the wrath to come and not present in Rome's rule but in the powerless communities who believe in Jesus.

He then added some of this own thoughts on the nature of the "gospel," noting:

First, the gospel is (1) God's (2) power. The gospel is the work of God.
Second, God's gospel power works toward "salvation."
Third, God's gospel power works toward the salvation of all people - Jew and Gentile.
Fourth, God's gospel power brings salvation to those who believe.
Fifth, in the gospel God's "righteousness" is made manifest: that is, God's right-making work on earth (and in the future new heavens and new earth) becomes manifest.

This has once again started me thinking more about the nature of "salvation" and the "gospel." As I have mentioned here before, I think the great travesty of modern evangelicalism is to be reductionistic when it comes to "salvation" and the "gospel." As McKnight noted, common evangelicalism posits that salvation is more akin to justification, and further, to a personal, individualistic justification. [It follows then that the "gospel" is therefore seen as, and often limited to, the mere presentation of personal justification.]

For us to reduce salvation and the gospel to merely the reality of justification and the proclamation of it is to not only cheapen the richness of the gospel, but leads to an easy believism and shallowness. I think this is the point that Daniel Radosh is getting in the quote I posted yesterday.  If the central message of the gospel is all about personal justification, then the focus is upon a moment of belief and not the "the hard work that it must take to bring somebody to a genuinely meaningful faith."

However, the nature of the gospel and salvation is so much larger than what is expressed in what McKnight notes as "common evangelicalism." Salvation is note merely personal, it is also corporate and even cosmic in its reach. Salvation involves restoration - what Tom Wright has spoken of as "putting the world to rights again." In being saved, we are invited to become a part of a community that has been called to live the resurrected life through the Spirit. We are called to not only personally experience resurrection and restoration, but to be a part of a restoration movement. It is this kind of movement that Jesus spoke about when told his followers to pray "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." In other words, salvation is an invitation to not only be freed and made whole, but to be involved in being the answer to the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray. It is living the "kingdom come" here on earth, bringing light into darkness, justice into places of unjustness, and goodness into places of evil.

All this has incredible ramifications on the gospel as proclamation. The gospel, or the good news, is that God is about making all things whole and right again. It is the proclamation that God has inaugurated a restoration movement - which includes justification and reconciliation, but moves well beyond it. It is about "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." It truly is the victory of God, through Christ. It is a victory that is cosmic in its nature and scope.

This is the kind of gospel that can change the world.

The Future of the Church.

It's hard to believe that it has been a year since Soularize 2007 in the Bahamas. It was a such an amazing event and below is just a sample why. The videos below were taken from a round table discussion that took place one evening between Richard Rohr, Brennan Manning, and Tom Wright. The entire 30+ minute exchange was captured on videotape, but what appears below is just a segment, when each responded to a question posed by Barry Taylor on the future of the Church in a "post-everything" world. It was fascinating to see their perspectives on this issue and others. It was 30+ minutes I will not soon forget. Enjoy.

Reviews and More Reviews.

If you're looking for book reviews in he broad area of Biblical studies, Review of Biblical Literature is perhaps one of the best clearing houses out there. Every month they peer review some 40-50 works, posting them as PDF downloads. It is well worth subscribing to their email reminder...

Here are a few that have recently caught my eye. Enjoy.

Edward Adams
The Stars Will Fall from Heaven: Cosmic Catastrophe in the New Testament and Its World
Reviewed by Lorenzo DiTommaso

Hector Avalos
The End of Biblical Studies
Reviewed by Ulrich H. J. Körtner

Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan
The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem
Reviewed by Craig L. Blomberg

Stephen K. Catto
Reconstructing the First-Century Synagogue: A Critical Analysis of Current Research
Reviewed by Birger Olsson

Alec Gilmore
A Concise Dictionary of Bible Origins and Interpretation
Reviewed by Jan G. van der Watt

Richard A. Horsley
Scribes, Visionaries, and the Politics of Second Temple Judea
Reviewed by Lester L. Grabbe

Thomas L. Leclerc
Introduction to the Prophets: Their Stories, Sayings, and Scrolls
Reviewed by Bo H. Lim

Grant Macaskill
Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
Reviewed by Brian Han Gregg

Alexander Samely
Forms of Rabbinic Literature and Thought: An Introduction
Reviewed by Joshua Schwartz

David E. S. Stein, ed.
The Contemporary Torah: A Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation
Reviewed by Linda S. Schearing

Ben Zion Wacholder
The New Damascus Document: The Midrash on the Eschatological Torah of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Reconstruction, Translation and Commentary
Reviewed by Gregory L. Doudna

[Now if only I had the money to buy more books... perhaps there should be some "academic bailout" package.]

Voice for the Voiceless.

This morning as a community of faith we read and pondered the following words from Proverbs 31.8-9:

Speak out for those who cannot speak,
     for the rights of all the destitute.
Speak out, judge righteously,
     defend the rights of the poor and needy.

As the morning went along, I couldn't get those words out of my mind. I find it fascinating that often when we think about the faith, we have such a personalized approach. In essence we are taught that it is all about us - our faith, our obedience, our holiness, our right relationship with God. I think what all too often gets left out is the deeper reality that we have been freed and made whole in order to do something. When we step out of the darkness and into the light, we become people of the light. Our lives are to be lived for the cause of the light - the kingdom of heaven.

Now when we think about being "people of the light" - too often we envision the task as being something akin to the moral police, calling out "darkness" where we find, making sure that people know that we are "light." Yet I'm challenged by the words from this morning, and others that we find in the scriptures. If we are to be "people of the light" our lives are to be spent for the cause of the light, to bring more light into this world. So I've been thinking lately...

What it our calling as followers of Jesus is more about incarnation than mere proclamation? What if the way of Jesus was more about the things we stood for, rather than the things we stand against?

What challenges me as I read the scriptures, especially the prophets, is what grieves the heart of God about his people. It was not their theology per se, but their lack of care and attention for those in their midst who had no voice. It was about justice, as much as it was about holiness. It was about the widow and the orphan, the foreigner and the poor in their midst. These were the things that were to mark the people of God.

I wonder what he would say about us today? I wonder what a prophet of God might say to us today?

I bet his message would get the same welcome as the prophets of old.

Rediscovering the Gospels.

I was doing some reading tonight when I came across this quote from Tom Wright:

I am forced to conclude that there is a substantial swathe of contemporary evangelicalism which actually doesn't know what the gospels themselves are there for, and would rather elevate "Paul" (inverted commas, because it is their reading of Paul, rather than the real thing, that they elevate) and treat Matthew. Mark, Luke and John as mere repositories of Jesus' stories from which certain doctrinal and theological nuggets may be collected.

I think he is dead on with this. It took me back to a conversation we had while we were in the Bahamas for Soularize. His statement at that time was that for a substantial section of evangelicalism "Paul" is where we go for the "Gospel," while the Gospels themselves are simply the stories about Jesus. It was as if the writings of Paul were the real theological substance, while the Gospels were somehow lesser in theological stature. What Wright was inviting us into to was nothing less than a re-discovery of what the Gospels are - beautifully crafted representations of the message of the Kingdom, proclamations of what the "Gospel" of God is and looks like.

Could not agree more.

What would our Christian faith look like if it were shaped as much by the Gospels as it is by the writings of Paul?

Reviews and More Reviews.

With my life still deeply wrapped up in reading and research, I've been keeping my eye on a lot of book reviews that have been floating around lately. Here are a few reviews that caught my eye... Enjoy.

From Review of Biblical Literature:

A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible [John J. Collins]
Reviewed by Robin Gallaher Branch

Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Literature [Birger A Pearson]
Reviewed by James F. McGrath

Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency: Variability and Stability in the Synoptic Tradition and Q [Terence C. Mournet]
Reviewed by Robert K. McIver

Qumran Studies: New Approaches, New Questions [Michael Thomas Davis and Brent A. Strawn, editors]
Reviewed by Heinz-Josef Fabry

Redemption and Resistance: The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity [Markus Bockmuehl and James Carleton Paget, editors]
Reviewed by Joshua Ezra Burns

Roman Imperial Ideology and the Gospel of John [Lance Byron Richey]
Reviewed by Warren Carter

The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary: Volume 8: Tractate Yebamot [Jacob Neusner, editor]
Reviewed by Rivka Ulmer

The Coins and the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Economy of Palestine [Jane DeRose Evans]
Reviewed by Mark A. Chancey

The Copper Scroll and the Search for the Temple Treasure [Hershel Shanks]
Reviewed by Kenneth Atkinson

The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam [J. Harold Ellens, editor]
Reviewed by Jan Willem van Henten

The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright [John Piper]
Reviewed by Don Garlington

The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative [Christopher J. H. Wright]
Reviewed by Christopher N. Chandler

In addition, James McGrath has also reviewed a few other really interesting reads on his blog:

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes [Kenneth E. Bailey]

With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe [Gretta Vosper]

The Least of These [part 2].

I guess the time we spent as a church exploring issues of justice must have connected deeply with people in our community. This week we spent time considering another facet of "the least of these" - focusing on the lost voices of those in slavery around the world. We heard about the ongoing work of International Justice Mission around the world - freeing those held in slavery as workers or sex slaves.

While it would be easy to leave the discussion there, perhaps merely asking people to pray or give, our community went one step further, asking the question of where in our midst we see people without a voice, people who are enduring situations in which their dignity and humanity are being stolen from them?

Living in California, the connection was quite apparent. The plight of immigrants in this part of the country is a heated topic. On the one side are people who see the debate as merely legal. "These people" are here illegally, taking a handout from this country and taking jobs away from legitimate Americans. On the other side are people who see this as a moral issue. "These people" have come here, like many other before them, wanting something better, and for whatever reason are being taken advantage of financially. So depending on what vision you have, the discussion is framed in various ways.

The fact of the matter is this. In 2004, nearly 90,000 immigrants worked in California, sometimes very long hours for very low pay - sometimes as a low as $20 a day. In 2007, although stricter laws were put in place upon employers, the problem has escalated.

The question we wrestled with this morning was this:

What should the Church's response be in the name and mission of Jesus?

I find it odd that while the Church has had such a history of standing by the enslaved and those whose dignity and humanity have been ignored, the Church is awkwardly silent on this issue. What does it mean for us to live the way and teachings of Jesus when it comes to the needs of immigrants? So many times in the scriptures the community of God was reminded to care for the foreigner in their midst, as they themselves were once foreigners in a foreign land. What might this look like today? Here? Now?

Our gathering was closed with this statement:

Justice will roll down like a mighty river. The question is whether we will join in and be a part of it or not.

Something I need to ponder more this week.

The Least of These.

So for the past few months we've been going to a church near our house, Presbyterian Church of the Master. When we first moved to Mission Viejo, going on seven years now, our kids went to pre-school there as it was one of the better pre-schools in the area. We decided to give PCOM a try as our kids had friends there and we really liked the direction of where the younger leadership was taking the church.

Well, today I was reminded of why we made that decision.

For the month of May we've been exploring the issue of justice in our world, using Matthew 25.31-46 as a trail guide. The teachings have all been centered around the question, "How are we restoring God's Kingdom here on earth?" Each week, we've been exploring different facets of living a life of justice looks like. This week, being the final weekend of May, we focused on the last part of verse 36:

"Come you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." [Matthew 25.34-36]

Now while I've heard many teachings delivered on justice, and give a few myself, I've rarely heard someone focus on the issue of bringing hope, love, and dignity to those who have been imprisoned. We spend the morning considering those in prison, considering how Jesus connected with those who had been conviced of crimes, and what our response might be. We heard a letter written by an inmate to one of our high school students who had been involved in a letter writing campaign. It was really, really powerful.

As a part of the morning, we were confronted with these sobering thoughts:

• The San Diego Sheriff detention center holds approximately 5,000 people on any given day.
• Over 20% of the inmates detained n San Diego receive no outside contact.

So a few questions were posed. If we are called to carry on the kingdom message and life of Jesus, what might that look like with people who have been imprisoned? How do we proclaim and be involved with justice?

I love being a church that honestly wrestles with these kinds of questions.