"But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
[2] The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
[3] You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
[4] For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
[5] For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
[6] For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
[7] Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this."
(Isaiah 9:1-7 ESV)
Advent is a season of tension – of waiting and anticipation. A season defined by darkness, but by that sort of darkness that lives in a state of tangible expectation of the light that is about to break forth.
This time of year in New England, we know a lot about darkness. These days, I wake up, get dressed, walk the dog and drive to work in the dark. It’s dark again before I get in the truck to come back home again. As challenging as this routine can be – facing the alarm, getting out of bed and preparing for the day in total darkness – there’s a certain blessing in it. Namely, that I get to be awake to witness that moment each day when the darkness of night gives way to the dawning of a new day.
On my way to work each morning for the past few weeks, as I head over the General Sullivan Bridge and look east, I can actually watch the turning of the tide. The horizon just quietly begins to glow, and the darkness that had been there just moments before is replaced, in what seems like an instant, with the glorious colors of the breaking dawn. By the time I park my truck at the job site, the darkness of the previous night is all but a memory: it’s a new day.
This is what the prophet Isaiah describes here in chapter 9: this passage that Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, is recorded as quoting at the very outset of his earthly ministry. It’s a story of hope and expectation. Of the promise that, no matter how dark and broken and lost things may appear in our world today, the dawn is indeed coming. Isaiah speaks of the waiting of Israel for the birth of their Messiah. In Advent, we remember and join Israel as we wait in expectation for our saviors’ great and glorious return… That true and final dawning of Heavens’ new day.
In the season of Advent, we remember that we are a people who are to be defined by Hope, and the knowledge that, no matter the present darkness, the tide has already turned. The new day of Jesus is already accomplished, and just over the horizon. And very soon, the struggle and heartache and tension will be but distant memories as we find ourselves caught up in the eternal embrace of Jesus, our savior and our God.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
"Dogmatics" Reflection: Part 3 - Speaking of the Church
“We ought not to be concerned on account of this impossibility, for on its own account we are relieved of all responsibility. What ought to concern us is that again and again we so obstinately tend to look to ourselves instead of to Jesus Christ. In Him everything has happened for and to the Church, that it might be true that its proclamation is the Word of God, And it can only be a question of our not resisting the Holy Spirit who says just this to us, and who will uphold us in all circumstances through all the actual human accomplishment or failure which is visible in the Church. It is only when we hold fast to this truth that we can survey this sphere and exist in it with neither frivolity nor despair, and therefore critically, in readiness both to decide and to act. That there is a Word of God for the Church… and again that beneath the Word there is a genuine human authority and freedom in the Church: that is something that must first and foremost be apprehended, accepted and reckoned with. This… is not to be understood abstractly… but concretely: as the Church for which Jesus Christ has provided we are now able to struggle manfully against the great human impossibility."
– K. Barth, “Church Dogmatics” I.2, p. 749
It is here, as the conversation of “Dogmatics” turns the Word of God as it comes to be made manifest in the life, work, and proclamation of the Church, that Barth and I – I believe – come to understand one another in a new way. We’ve talked about the nature of revelation: we’ve spoken of God’s work in history and of Jesus - we’ve spoken of prophets and apostles and of scripture. But as a pastor and preacher it is here, as we begin to discuss the manner of God’s speaking in and through the Church, that the force and scope of Barth’s logical consistency throughout our conversation comes more clearly into focus. It is here that his Christ-centeredness shines through in the concreteness of application. It is here that Barth’s great Christocentric vision is offered as the rightful foundation of – and therefore, as a great gift to – the Church in the midst of its present-ness and locality in our own day and age.
Yes, for all the mind-bending complexity of Barth’s dogmatic logic and rhetoric, it is here, as we discuss the Church, that Karl and I begin, perhaps, to see eye – to – eye. Because, for all the undeniable humanness and brokenness and imperfection in the Church inasmuch as it exists as an all too human enterprise – a brokenness with which, unfortunately, Barth would be all too familiar as a first hand witness of the acquiescence of the German church to the whims of the Nazi state – Barth refuses to allow this perspective to be that which defines the truth of the Church and its essential nature. His Christocentrism simply will not allow him to do so. The strength, clarity and consistency of his theology will suffer no absolutizing of any reality or perspective apart from that self-revelation of God to mankind which culminates in the person/event of Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus that we find the God who is free for us, and through Jesus that we are given the gift of our own freedom for God. It is in God’s own communication of Himself in Jesus that humanity is given the means – the vocabulary and voice - by which we are able to engage in the impossible calling of the Church to the work of the proclamation of this God in and to our world at all. Because the revelation of God is and can only remain His SELF revelation, the Church which is called into existence in and through Jesus Christ for the purpose of God’s continuing witness and revelation in the world can never be defined at all by the varying degrees to which our human efforts fall nearer to or farther from the fulfillment of this calling according to our own resources or on our own terms. For all the inescapability its humanity – its incarnational essence - the Church exists in, through, and for Christ, and its reality is therefore rooted in Christ in such a way that we can only speak of the Church constructively after apprehending its genuine nature as defined, not by our humanness – but by the will, vision, purposes and accomplishments of Christ on her behalf. Simply put, Barth presses us to understand that we come to know the Church as she truly is not by gazing at our own humanity, or upon the flawed humanness of its present form, but by setting our eyes upon Jesus himself, the God by whom and for whom the Church exists at all.
Barth has no reluctance to speak about the humanity of the Church, and in doing so to speak of our responsibility in the midst of Gods call upon us as those within it. He is, however, eminently concerned that, before we turn our conversation to the human expression of the Church and to our role and responsibility within it, that we have first done the work of establishing the proper foundation for all of our speaking. Barth’s pen spills thousands upon thousands of words in the service of ensuring that we have landed upon the right set of presuppositions for our conversation. Namely, that when God is rightly spoken of by human beings, this is no less than a present miracle of the Holy Spirit breaking through the impossibility of human apprehension of the eternal God to enable God to speak His Word through the vehicle of human proclamation which constitutes the call - the very “raison d’etre” - of the Church. And furthermore, that every purpose and work of the Church centers on the event, the person and the completed work of Jesus Christ on behalf of the Church, such that, understood rightly, every work of the Church is really only to do after Christ, imperfectly and incompletely, that which He has already done in the world perfectly and completely. As such, our responsibility as the Church consists not in producing some new great work on God’s behalf, or accomplishing on our own that which Christ has heretofore left undone. It is, rather, to press ever more deeply into the realization of all that has already been accomplished for us; to apprehend the greatness of Christ’s salvation of us and to grasp ever more fully the breathtaking reality of God’s purposes for us as the Church: to look beyond and through the humanity of the Church to set our eyes upon who we truly are in Christ in such a way that our humanity is itself transformed more and more into His likeness and our lives brought into truer alignment with His great and glorious will. For Barth, this is the essence of human freedom: namely, the freedom of Humanity for God in and through Jesus Christ.
In the end, perhaps there is nothing newer, truer or deeper being spoken here than what the Apostle Paul himself said to the Philippian church in Phil. 3 in his own rebuttal of human self-confidence and achievement:
“If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
This passage of scripture has always spoken to me in a profound way, and this is perhaps why I resonate with Barth here, as He holds to his Christ-centered understanding of reality to the point that every other perspective, claim and achievement is relativized by comparison. For me, this passage perhaps illuminates how Barth understands what it means to be the Church: a community of people, “pressing on (together) to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of (us)”.
In a world of suffocating consumerism, entitlement, and self-centeredness, there is something of the Gospel here that would be unto us life itself, if we could only come to take hold of it.
– K. Barth, “Church Dogmatics” I.2, p. 749
It is here, as the conversation of “Dogmatics” turns the Word of God as it comes to be made manifest in the life, work, and proclamation of the Church, that Barth and I – I believe – come to understand one another in a new way. We’ve talked about the nature of revelation: we’ve spoken of God’s work in history and of Jesus - we’ve spoken of prophets and apostles and of scripture. But as a pastor and preacher it is here, as we begin to discuss the manner of God’s speaking in and through the Church, that the force and scope of Barth’s logical consistency throughout our conversation comes more clearly into focus. It is here that his Christ-centeredness shines through in the concreteness of application. It is here that Barth’s great Christocentric vision is offered as the rightful foundation of – and therefore, as a great gift to – the Church in the midst of its present-ness and locality in our own day and age.
Yes, for all the mind-bending complexity of Barth’s dogmatic logic and rhetoric, it is here, as we discuss the Church, that Karl and I begin, perhaps, to see eye – to – eye. Because, for all the undeniable humanness and brokenness and imperfection in the Church inasmuch as it exists as an all too human enterprise – a brokenness with which, unfortunately, Barth would be all too familiar as a first hand witness of the acquiescence of the German church to the whims of the Nazi state – Barth refuses to allow this perspective to be that which defines the truth of the Church and its essential nature. His Christocentrism simply will not allow him to do so. The strength, clarity and consistency of his theology will suffer no absolutizing of any reality or perspective apart from that self-revelation of God to mankind which culminates in the person/event of Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus that we find the God who is free for us, and through Jesus that we are given the gift of our own freedom for God. It is in God’s own communication of Himself in Jesus that humanity is given the means – the vocabulary and voice - by which we are able to engage in the impossible calling of the Church to the work of the proclamation of this God in and to our world at all. Because the revelation of God is and can only remain His SELF revelation, the Church which is called into existence in and through Jesus Christ for the purpose of God’s continuing witness and revelation in the world can never be defined at all by the varying degrees to which our human efforts fall nearer to or farther from the fulfillment of this calling according to our own resources or on our own terms. For all the inescapability its humanity – its incarnational essence - the Church exists in, through, and for Christ, and its reality is therefore rooted in Christ in such a way that we can only speak of the Church constructively after apprehending its genuine nature as defined, not by our humanness – but by the will, vision, purposes and accomplishments of Christ on her behalf. Simply put, Barth presses us to understand that we come to know the Church as she truly is not by gazing at our own humanity, or upon the flawed humanness of its present form, but by setting our eyes upon Jesus himself, the God by whom and for whom the Church exists at all.
Barth has no reluctance to speak about the humanity of the Church, and in doing so to speak of our responsibility in the midst of Gods call upon us as those within it. He is, however, eminently concerned that, before we turn our conversation to the human expression of the Church and to our role and responsibility within it, that we have first done the work of establishing the proper foundation for all of our speaking. Barth’s pen spills thousands upon thousands of words in the service of ensuring that we have landed upon the right set of presuppositions for our conversation. Namely, that when God is rightly spoken of by human beings, this is no less than a present miracle of the Holy Spirit breaking through the impossibility of human apprehension of the eternal God to enable God to speak His Word through the vehicle of human proclamation which constitutes the call - the very “raison d’etre” - of the Church. And furthermore, that every purpose and work of the Church centers on the event, the person and the completed work of Jesus Christ on behalf of the Church, such that, understood rightly, every work of the Church is really only to do after Christ, imperfectly and incompletely, that which He has already done in the world perfectly and completely. As such, our responsibility as the Church consists not in producing some new great work on God’s behalf, or accomplishing on our own that which Christ has heretofore left undone. It is, rather, to press ever more deeply into the realization of all that has already been accomplished for us; to apprehend the greatness of Christ’s salvation of us and to grasp ever more fully the breathtaking reality of God’s purposes for us as the Church: to look beyond and through the humanity of the Church to set our eyes upon who we truly are in Christ in such a way that our humanity is itself transformed more and more into His likeness and our lives brought into truer alignment with His great and glorious will. For Barth, this is the essence of human freedom: namely, the freedom of Humanity for God in and through Jesus Christ.
In the end, perhaps there is nothing newer, truer or deeper being spoken here than what the Apostle Paul himself said to the Philippian church in Phil. 3 in his own rebuttal of human self-confidence and achievement:
“If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
This passage of scripture has always spoken to me in a profound way, and this is perhaps why I resonate with Barth here, as He holds to his Christ-centered understanding of reality to the point that every other perspective, claim and achievement is relativized by comparison. For me, this passage perhaps illuminates how Barth understands what it means to be the Church: a community of people, “pressing on (together) to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of (us)”.
In a world of suffocating consumerism, entitlement, and self-centeredness, there is something of the Gospel here that would be unto us life itself, if we could only come to take hold of it.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Reflections on Barth's 'Church Dogmatics' - Part 2
“That the lame walk, that the blind see, that the dead are raised, that sinful and erring men as such speak the Word of God: that is the miracle of which we speak when we say that the Bible is the Word of God. To the comprehension of this statement there belongs, therefore, the recognition that its truth consists in the removing of an offence which is always and everywhere present, and that this takes place by the power of the Word of God. This offence, like the offence of the cross of Christ, is based on the fact that the Word of God became flesh and therefore to this very day has built and called and gathered and illumined and sanctified His Church amongst flesh. This offence is therefore grounded like the overcoming of it in the mercy of God. For that reason it must not be denied and for that reason, too, it must not be evaded. For that reason every time we turn the Word of God into an infallible Word of God we resist that which we ought never to resist, i.e., the truth of the miracle that here fallible men speak the Word of God in fallible human words – and we therefore resist the sovereignty of grace, in which God Himself became man in Christ, to glorify Himself in His humanity.”
– K. Barth, “Church Dogmatics” I.2, p. 529
It is here, at the point of Barth’s understanding of the revelation of God as we find it in scripture that we come, I believe, to the heart of the inescapable complexity within his overall theological paradigm. It is also here, consequently, that Barth makes himself anathema to those within conservative evangelicalism who – in some ways rightly, and in some ways perhaps over-defensively – suspect that Barth’s programme constitutes an undermining of and wholesale revolt against the inerrancy, infallibility, and hence the authority, of scripture as it has been traditionally understood. What is profoundly interesting about this rhetorical conversation is that in it, Barth would not at all understand his position as constituting a “lower” view of scripture at all; rather, quite the opposite. Barth would argue that an understanding of scripture as the Word of God which comprehends that work of revelation as occurring through, and in spite of, the thorough humanness and natural error of the authors of scripture, actually more fully appreciates the miraculous nature of God’s self-revelation through such means and therefore proves itself to be an indeed ‘higher’ view of this work of revelation than an understanding of scripture that requires that it’s human authors be miraculously (or ‘magically’) prevented the possibility of error, and hence in some way actually removed from their own humanness, in the act of writing.
To those of us coming to Barth from outside the theological streams of historical European, enlightenment, protestant liberalism, this line of thinking is so foreign that we are hard pressed not to simply dismiss it off hand as irredeemably and dangerously unorthodox. Indeed, I myself am not entirely sure what to do with it at this point. In the end, for those of us for whom the primacy of scripture is paramount, it may very well need to be dismissed as such. However, even if we are to dismiss this particular – and again I say, central – aspect of Barth’s thinking as erroneous, we must be ever careful not to do so simply off hand. The “greatness” of Barth as a theologian lies in the manner in which all thoughtful theology that follows him must do business with him; once encountered he cannot be circumvented, but must be conversed with. And, if in the end we determine that we disagree with Barth, we will be much better Christian thinkers for having had to wrestle with understanding precisely the point at which we have found it necessary to part ways with him.
It is clear to me that to understand Barth one must wrestle thoroughly with his doctrine of scripture, as disconcerting an experience as that may very well prove to be. And this is important for, if it is disconcerting, it is because Barth here seems to brush up against a profound and sublime understanding of God’s revelation; an understanding that takes the sovereignty, objectivity and miraculous grace of God’s self-revelation – and, specifically, the paradigmatic miraculous-ness of the incarnation of God - with utmost seriousness and genuine piety. It is not Barth’s intent to play fast and loose with the doctrine of scripture, but to deepen our appreciation of the miracle of revelation beyond mere parrot-talk of inerrancy and infallibility. And, as post-modernity comes of age around us, and with it the inherent skepticism of categorical assertions of this sort, those of us who hold to the primacy and authority of scripture must become fluent in these conversations of nuance and tension, or otherwise risk wholesale retreat from engagement with the seeking world around us.
At this moment, I am fairly certain that I cannot follow Barth here. I am further convinced, however, of the importance of learning how to understand and articulate why, exactly, that is.
– K. Barth, “Church Dogmatics” I.2, p. 529
It is here, at the point of Barth’s understanding of the revelation of God as we find it in scripture that we come, I believe, to the heart of the inescapable complexity within his overall theological paradigm. It is also here, consequently, that Barth makes himself anathema to those within conservative evangelicalism who – in some ways rightly, and in some ways perhaps over-defensively – suspect that Barth’s programme constitutes an undermining of and wholesale revolt against the inerrancy, infallibility, and hence the authority, of scripture as it has been traditionally understood. What is profoundly interesting about this rhetorical conversation is that in it, Barth would not at all understand his position as constituting a “lower” view of scripture at all; rather, quite the opposite. Barth would argue that an understanding of scripture as the Word of God which comprehends that work of revelation as occurring through, and in spite of, the thorough humanness and natural error of the authors of scripture, actually more fully appreciates the miraculous nature of God’s self-revelation through such means and therefore proves itself to be an indeed ‘higher’ view of this work of revelation than an understanding of scripture that requires that it’s human authors be miraculously (or ‘magically’) prevented the possibility of error, and hence in some way actually removed from their own humanness, in the act of writing.
To those of us coming to Barth from outside the theological streams of historical European, enlightenment, protestant liberalism, this line of thinking is so foreign that we are hard pressed not to simply dismiss it off hand as irredeemably and dangerously unorthodox. Indeed, I myself am not entirely sure what to do with it at this point. In the end, for those of us for whom the primacy of scripture is paramount, it may very well need to be dismissed as such. However, even if we are to dismiss this particular – and again I say, central – aspect of Barth’s thinking as erroneous, we must be ever careful not to do so simply off hand. The “greatness” of Barth as a theologian lies in the manner in which all thoughtful theology that follows him must do business with him; once encountered he cannot be circumvented, but must be conversed with. And, if in the end we determine that we disagree with Barth, we will be much better Christian thinkers for having had to wrestle with understanding precisely the point at which we have found it necessary to part ways with him.
It is clear to me that to understand Barth one must wrestle thoroughly with his doctrine of scripture, as disconcerting an experience as that may very well prove to be. And this is important for, if it is disconcerting, it is because Barth here seems to brush up against a profound and sublime understanding of God’s revelation; an understanding that takes the sovereignty, objectivity and miraculous grace of God’s self-revelation – and, specifically, the paradigmatic miraculous-ness of the incarnation of God - with utmost seriousness and genuine piety. It is not Barth’s intent to play fast and loose with the doctrine of scripture, but to deepen our appreciation of the miracle of revelation beyond mere parrot-talk of inerrancy and infallibility. And, as post-modernity comes of age around us, and with it the inherent skepticism of categorical assertions of this sort, those of us who hold to the primacy and authority of scripture must become fluent in these conversations of nuance and tension, or otherwise risk wholesale retreat from engagement with the seeking world around us.
At this moment, I am fairly certain that I cannot follow Barth here. I am further convinced, however, of the importance of learning how to understand and articulate why, exactly, that is.
Reflections on Barth's 'Church Dogmatics' - Part 1
“The Word of God which is revealed in revelation declares that man is not actually free for God. This is already expressed by the fact that it is actually the Word or the Son of God who is revealed… God comes forward Himself to be man’s Saviour. This presupposes, and is already proclaimed as a truth of divine judgment, that man cannot be helped in any other way. It is not merely that man lacks something which he ought to be or to have or to be capable of in relation to God. He lacks everything… He is not only a sick man, but a dead one. It was because the world was lost that Christ was born. Therefore, from the very standpoint of Christ’s birth we have to say, in the very strictest sense, that the world was lost... Man is free in many respects, He possesses many of the possibilities common to all creatures… but he does not possess the possibility of communion with God.” – K. Barth, “Church Dogmatics” I.2, p. 257
Within this section of his Church Dogmatics, Barth expresses his conviction that the revelation of God – rather than being the mere subject of man’s interpretation and criticism – in reality both binds and defines humanity itself. It binds us in that the revelation of God comes to mankind in the incarnation – the Word made Flesh – and so, in assuming humanity itself, that Word of God becomes the unavoidable master of humanity. In that same move, the revelation of God also defines humanity by mankind’s role as a participant in the equation of that very revelation; the revelation OF God and FOR mankind. In the sovereignty of God and the inescapable authority of His revelation, we are seized by the divine Word of God. The paradox of this seizure lies in Barth’s understanding that it is in the binding of humanity to the Word of God by and through the Holy Spirit that we actually find that genuine freedom for which we have been created and to which we are called: the freedom of man for God.
This humiliation and negation of the ways in which we would seek to understand true human freedom apart from the work and word of God is a timely and compelling message. Left to our own devices, mankind is ever tempted to remain imprisoned by our own endlessly self-referential visions of freedom; supplanting our subjective, blurry, understanding of ultimate reality for the objective clarity of God’s illuminating self-revelation for us. We are all too pleased to subjugate Christ to be molded by the forces of own sense of self-knowledge and personal experience, rather than allowing our eyes to be opened – or lives surrendered - to the authority of Christ as judge and redeemer of all human knowledge and experience. Until we receive that revelation of the Holy Spirit which both captures and liberates us as people who are finally and ultimately free for God, we remain prisoners of our own miniscule possibilities. For Barth this is only overcome when, “… the self-enclosed uniqueness of man, who only has and knows his own freedom, is overarched and enclosed and finally relativised through the uniqueness of God and His freedom, the freedom in which He is resolved to have fellowship with this man and once and for all to be his Lord.” (p.260)
It is the incarnation of Christ, and the Holy Spirit that enables us grasp the significance of that incarnation, which causes the revelation of God to bear so inescapably upon Humanity: either drawing us into the light of God’s reconciliation in Christ or into the heat of God’s judgment through him, God has caused his self-revelation to come to bear upon the world. The ‘freedom’ of man apart from God is an illusion of the most subversive nature, imprisoning man in the emptiness of endless self-pursuit. Even when this self-freed man turns his eyes to consider God, it is as one entirely lacking the resources and power to do so: it is Babel - a ‘tower to Heaven’ so piteous that God must condescend to stoop down to even cast judgment upon it. Who will free us from this all-consuming idolatry of self?
For all the muddy waters that may consist of Barth’s writings when considered as an entire corpus of work, I find his understanding of the subjectivity of mankind in the face of the objectivity of God continually refreshing and compelling. In an age, much like that of Barth, where there is a tidal pressure in our western world to objectify personal human experience at the expense – or total ignorance – of God’s revelation of Himself to and for us in Christ, it remains a helpful and life-giving reminder. In the midst of our brokenness and futility, we cling to God’s Word-made-Flesh and to the words of the Apostle that: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Cor 5:18-19)
Within this section of his Church Dogmatics, Barth expresses his conviction that the revelation of God – rather than being the mere subject of man’s interpretation and criticism – in reality both binds and defines humanity itself. It binds us in that the revelation of God comes to mankind in the incarnation – the Word made Flesh – and so, in assuming humanity itself, that Word of God becomes the unavoidable master of humanity. In that same move, the revelation of God also defines humanity by mankind’s role as a participant in the equation of that very revelation; the revelation OF God and FOR mankind. In the sovereignty of God and the inescapable authority of His revelation, we are seized by the divine Word of God. The paradox of this seizure lies in Barth’s understanding that it is in the binding of humanity to the Word of God by and through the Holy Spirit that we actually find that genuine freedom for which we have been created and to which we are called: the freedom of man for God.
This humiliation and negation of the ways in which we would seek to understand true human freedom apart from the work and word of God is a timely and compelling message. Left to our own devices, mankind is ever tempted to remain imprisoned by our own endlessly self-referential visions of freedom; supplanting our subjective, blurry, understanding of ultimate reality for the objective clarity of God’s illuminating self-revelation for us. We are all too pleased to subjugate Christ to be molded by the forces of own sense of self-knowledge and personal experience, rather than allowing our eyes to be opened – or lives surrendered - to the authority of Christ as judge and redeemer of all human knowledge and experience. Until we receive that revelation of the Holy Spirit which both captures and liberates us as people who are finally and ultimately free for God, we remain prisoners of our own miniscule possibilities. For Barth this is only overcome when, “… the self-enclosed uniqueness of man, who only has and knows his own freedom, is overarched and enclosed and finally relativised through the uniqueness of God and His freedom, the freedom in which He is resolved to have fellowship with this man and once and for all to be his Lord.” (p.260)
It is the incarnation of Christ, and the Holy Spirit that enables us grasp the significance of that incarnation, which causes the revelation of God to bear so inescapably upon Humanity: either drawing us into the light of God’s reconciliation in Christ or into the heat of God’s judgment through him, God has caused his self-revelation to come to bear upon the world. The ‘freedom’ of man apart from God is an illusion of the most subversive nature, imprisoning man in the emptiness of endless self-pursuit. Even when this self-freed man turns his eyes to consider God, it is as one entirely lacking the resources and power to do so: it is Babel - a ‘tower to Heaven’ so piteous that God must condescend to stoop down to even cast judgment upon it. Who will free us from this all-consuming idolatry of self?
For all the muddy waters that may consist of Barth’s writings when considered as an entire corpus of work, I find his understanding of the subjectivity of mankind in the face of the objectivity of God continually refreshing and compelling. In an age, much like that of Barth, where there is a tidal pressure in our western world to objectify personal human experience at the expense – or total ignorance – of God’s revelation of Himself to and for us in Christ, it remains a helpful and life-giving reminder. In the midst of our brokenness and futility, we cling to God’s Word-made-Flesh and to the words of the Apostle that: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Cor 5:18-19)
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Engagement and Activism: Some Thoughts on "Faith Works" by Jim Wallis
Overview:
In “Faith Works: How Faith-based Organizations are Changing Lives, Neighborhoods and America”, Jim Wallis presents an incarnational manifesto; a roadmap toward genuine, relevant engagement with the most pressing social issues in America today, written across the lives of many people of faith who have themselves – in one form or another – actively engaged with these issues over the course of the last several decades. With an aim to draw the reader up into his vision of a socially responsible faith, Wallis weaves his own musings together with the stories of those people with whom he has labored alongside over the course of his own journey of Faith and Justice, formulating, in the end, a “How To” manual of sorts for faithful social engagement. The volume is broken into five major ‘movements’ within the whole, each broken down into several chapters: “Engage Your World”, “Deepen Your Understanding”, “Learn Your Strategy”, “Guide Your Steps” and finally, “Think Movement”. Given the scope of this work as a whole, there is presently only space here to reflect but briefly upon two particular aspects of Wallis’ thought which happened to stand out to me.
Listening to Those Closest to the Problem:
Under the banner of “Deepen(ing) Your Understanding”, Wallis writes this in chapter 6:
“Whom do we listen to and whom do we trust? Trust is essential to listening. Why do we continue to believe the myth that poor people don’t know anything and can’t be trusted? Where do you really find more truth about a society – at the top or at the bottom? Are the best solutions conceived in the corridors of power or in the neighborhoods? Do the poor really have no assets or resources, as most people think? Listening to the poor opens up whole new possibilities, ideas, and directions in overcoming poverty… Many youth and community-serving programs have found… they couldn’t get off the ground until they began to truly trust and engage and involve the people they were trying to serve. Many good and decent programs didn’t become highly successful until the poor themselves were given a real hearing, and became involved in their leadership.” (Wallis, p.105-106)
Why do we believe the myth that poor people don’t know anything and can’t be trusted? We choose to believe this myth (whether explicitly or implicitly) because, most times it’s simply easier to be paternalistic than it is to actually develop meaningful partnership within the communities we wish to serve. It’s just easier; more orderly, less risky, less messy to plan and strategize and scheme from the relative safety of the places and conversations within which we ourselves are already familiar and comfortable. To invite those closest to the problem into the conversation is to risk the conversation being changed in ways for which we are not prepared. It is to risk have deeper issues exposed; issues that we may not feel prepared to deal with. It is to risk becoming exposed ourselves; our mixed motives and gaps in competence suddenly and uncomfortably laid bare.
Why do we choose to operate in this way? Because a program – if we’re honest - is pretty easy to run; to genuinely come alongside real people, on the other hand, poses a much greater challenge. When we stop to listen, we acknowledge that we are entering relationship with real people, not merely crafting a program to solve a logistical puzzle. This two-way street of relationship brings to light layers of complexity that simple logistics just don’t confront us with. Which is why, given our druthers, we often find ourselves more inclined to programs than to people. Unfortunately (or fortunately), sustainable and meaningful engagement with issues of injustice cannot be found in paternalistic, programmatic sterility of this sort. Rather, it requires that we commit ourselves to people, not merely programs, and to developing functional, relational partnerships within the communities we seek to serve. It requires that we listen, dialogue, and risk the vulnerability of being laid bare in our own sin and incompetence as we engage with the real complexities of human and systemic brokenness to seek God together for the way ahead.
There is nothing easy about this. But, it is the way of the incarnation, and it is the path to resurrection that comes by way of the Cross. It is the way of Jesus, and so we must follow him into this if we are to follow him at all.
Keeping it Human:
In reflecting upon his own journey, and the lessons learned along the way, Wallis continues with the following:
“In the struggle for social change, it is very important to take care of one another – our families, our kids and ourselves. The human dimension is so easy to lose and so crucial to maintain. It’s so important to stay grounded, not to get too grandiose or self-important, keep humble, and, above all, keep your sense of humor” (Wallis, p.268-269)
If paternalism and programmaticism are the traps we fall into when we forget the humanity of those whom we are seeking to serve, there is another breed of pitfall that comes about when we, along the way, forget our own. This is, in many ways, what makes ‘activism’ so unattractive to many of us: when the only people we know as ‘social activists’ seem to be young, hard-bitten leftists with an axe to grind, a lot of spare time and very few familial constraints or societal responsibilities outside those of ‘the cause’, it can become difficult to relate or to imagine how the rest of us might fit in to the picture except as the occasional, seemingly complacent, objects of activist’s vitriol. The effect is particularly numbing because, if history has taught us anything, it is that the journey of seeing God’s redemptive justice worked out within human society is a long, tiresome, frustrating one in which success can only ever be measured by degrees. This is no sprint, but a marathon in the truest, most Pauline sense, and one which often has more to do with what God is drawing out in us than with our tangible personal impact upon society. If we are to respond to the call of justice in any sustainable way, it must be as human beings and fellow sojourners, rather than as human bullhorns and self-made martyrs. To have any lasting impact, this call must reach more broadly than merely to those naturally inclined activists among us.
While I can certainly still be impressed by the radical commitment and sacrifice of single twenty-somethings to a cause, and can still admit the ways in which youth movements will continue to play a prophetic role in stirring society at large from our places of systemic sin and complacency, I find myself in a place where this is no longer the most compelling vision for me. The bigger challenge, and the more compelling vision, lies in the question of what it looks like to take a community of those people who are just a bit further down the road, people with jobs and spouses and children – people with roots and responsibilities – and to discover with them where the journey of radical, costly discipleship might take us. Ordinary people, with all the burdens and constraints of ordinary life, figuring out how to follow wholeheartedly after an extraordinary God; a God of redemption, salvation, justice and righteousness. A God with a heart for the downtrodden and oppressed who calls us to share that heart.
What might it look like for a plumber, an electrician, a teacher, a businessman or a waitress to become kingdom-minded ‘activists’? This is the question that stirs my heart today. And, for this question to have any traction or genuine effect, we must understand our activism as human activism; we must pursue justice as people on a journey, compelled by our surrender to the Spirit of God Himself into the challenge and frustration and labor pains of this work, but also into joy and life; fullest life. This is the heart of the Gospel; may we, as followers of Jesus, be captured and compelled by it.
In “Faith Works: How Faith-based Organizations are Changing Lives, Neighborhoods and America”, Jim Wallis presents an incarnational manifesto; a roadmap toward genuine, relevant engagement with the most pressing social issues in America today, written across the lives of many people of faith who have themselves – in one form or another – actively engaged with these issues over the course of the last several decades. With an aim to draw the reader up into his vision of a socially responsible faith, Wallis weaves his own musings together with the stories of those people with whom he has labored alongside over the course of his own journey of Faith and Justice, formulating, in the end, a “How To” manual of sorts for faithful social engagement. The volume is broken into five major ‘movements’ within the whole, each broken down into several chapters: “Engage Your World”, “Deepen Your Understanding”, “Learn Your Strategy”, “Guide Your Steps” and finally, “Think Movement”. Given the scope of this work as a whole, there is presently only space here to reflect but briefly upon two particular aspects of Wallis’ thought which happened to stand out to me.
Listening to Those Closest to the Problem:
Under the banner of “Deepen(ing) Your Understanding”, Wallis writes this in chapter 6:
“Whom do we listen to and whom do we trust? Trust is essential to listening. Why do we continue to believe the myth that poor people don’t know anything and can’t be trusted? Where do you really find more truth about a society – at the top or at the bottom? Are the best solutions conceived in the corridors of power or in the neighborhoods? Do the poor really have no assets or resources, as most people think? Listening to the poor opens up whole new possibilities, ideas, and directions in overcoming poverty… Many youth and community-serving programs have found… they couldn’t get off the ground until they began to truly trust and engage and involve the people they were trying to serve. Many good and decent programs didn’t become highly successful until the poor themselves were given a real hearing, and became involved in their leadership.” (Wallis, p.105-106)
Why do we believe the myth that poor people don’t know anything and can’t be trusted? We choose to believe this myth (whether explicitly or implicitly) because, most times it’s simply easier to be paternalistic than it is to actually develop meaningful partnership within the communities we wish to serve. It’s just easier; more orderly, less risky, less messy to plan and strategize and scheme from the relative safety of the places and conversations within which we ourselves are already familiar and comfortable. To invite those closest to the problem into the conversation is to risk the conversation being changed in ways for which we are not prepared. It is to risk have deeper issues exposed; issues that we may not feel prepared to deal with. It is to risk becoming exposed ourselves; our mixed motives and gaps in competence suddenly and uncomfortably laid bare.
Why do we choose to operate in this way? Because a program – if we’re honest - is pretty easy to run; to genuinely come alongside real people, on the other hand, poses a much greater challenge. When we stop to listen, we acknowledge that we are entering relationship with real people, not merely crafting a program to solve a logistical puzzle. This two-way street of relationship brings to light layers of complexity that simple logistics just don’t confront us with. Which is why, given our druthers, we often find ourselves more inclined to programs than to people. Unfortunately (or fortunately), sustainable and meaningful engagement with issues of injustice cannot be found in paternalistic, programmatic sterility of this sort. Rather, it requires that we commit ourselves to people, not merely programs, and to developing functional, relational partnerships within the communities we seek to serve. It requires that we listen, dialogue, and risk the vulnerability of being laid bare in our own sin and incompetence as we engage with the real complexities of human and systemic brokenness to seek God together for the way ahead.
There is nothing easy about this. But, it is the way of the incarnation, and it is the path to resurrection that comes by way of the Cross. It is the way of Jesus, and so we must follow him into this if we are to follow him at all.
Keeping it Human:
In reflecting upon his own journey, and the lessons learned along the way, Wallis continues with the following:
“In the struggle for social change, it is very important to take care of one another – our families, our kids and ourselves. The human dimension is so easy to lose and so crucial to maintain. It’s so important to stay grounded, not to get too grandiose or self-important, keep humble, and, above all, keep your sense of humor” (Wallis, p.268-269)
If paternalism and programmaticism are the traps we fall into when we forget the humanity of those whom we are seeking to serve, there is another breed of pitfall that comes about when we, along the way, forget our own. This is, in many ways, what makes ‘activism’ so unattractive to many of us: when the only people we know as ‘social activists’ seem to be young, hard-bitten leftists with an axe to grind, a lot of spare time and very few familial constraints or societal responsibilities outside those of ‘the cause’, it can become difficult to relate or to imagine how the rest of us might fit in to the picture except as the occasional, seemingly complacent, objects of activist’s vitriol. The effect is particularly numbing because, if history has taught us anything, it is that the journey of seeing God’s redemptive justice worked out within human society is a long, tiresome, frustrating one in which success can only ever be measured by degrees. This is no sprint, but a marathon in the truest, most Pauline sense, and one which often has more to do with what God is drawing out in us than with our tangible personal impact upon society. If we are to respond to the call of justice in any sustainable way, it must be as human beings and fellow sojourners, rather than as human bullhorns and self-made martyrs. To have any lasting impact, this call must reach more broadly than merely to those naturally inclined activists among us.
While I can certainly still be impressed by the radical commitment and sacrifice of single twenty-somethings to a cause, and can still admit the ways in which youth movements will continue to play a prophetic role in stirring society at large from our places of systemic sin and complacency, I find myself in a place where this is no longer the most compelling vision for me. The bigger challenge, and the more compelling vision, lies in the question of what it looks like to take a community of those people who are just a bit further down the road, people with jobs and spouses and children – people with roots and responsibilities – and to discover with them where the journey of radical, costly discipleship might take us. Ordinary people, with all the burdens and constraints of ordinary life, figuring out how to follow wholeheartedly after an extraordinary God; a God of redemption, salvation, justice and righteousness. A God with a heart for the downtrodden and oppressed who calls us to share that heart.
What might it look like for a plumber, an electrician, a teacher, a businessman or a waitress to become kingdom-minded ‘activists’? This is the question that stirs my heart today. And, for this question to have any traction or genuine effect, we must understand our activism as human activism; we must pursue justice as people on a journey, compelled by our surrender to the Spirit of God Himself into the challenge and frustration and labor pains of this work, but also into joy and life; fullest life. This is the heart of the Gospel; may we, as followers of Jesus, be captured and compelled by it.
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