need doctrinal counseling? join the club.

Five years ago, D. A. Carson critiqued H. Richard Niebuhr's classic typology of ways to relate Christ and culture. (For a PhD seminar this semester I've read Niebuhr along with primary sources that more or less illustrate his various categories.) Carson claims Niebuhr's categories are not mutually exclusive, and that no one model can stand on its own.

"[E]ven the most intellectually robust theory of how things work, or ought to work, falters in practice within a generation or two, because human beings falter: we overlook something, or we distort the balance of things, or, because this is a fallen and broken world, our well-intentioned actions invite a nasty reaction on the part of unbelievers, and the tension between Christ and culture spins off in some new direction." (D. A. Carson, Christ & Culture Revisited, 224–25, emphasis mine)

This is not just true of the "Christ and culture" question, but also of Christian theology in general. I've had a wonderfully diverse Christian experience, partly because Danny and I have moved 11 times in our 14 years of marriage. This has forced us to rethink "church" again, and again, and again. At times, it's been confusing.

I was baptized as an infant in the Christian Reformed Church, where our family stayed until I made public profession of faith at age 11. Not long afterwards, we left the CRC to join a vibrant charismatic community, where we experienced spiritual growth, healing, and a new appreciation for the work of the Holy Spirit and the love of Christian community. When that church disbanded, we helped start a non-denominational church. Unfortunately, that also ended badly, so we sought refuge in a Foursquare church. Four years later I headed off to a progressive dispensationalist Bible College, where my church attendance depended on available transportation: Baptist, non-denominational elder-led, and finally Mennonite, after I met and married Danny. We served first in the elder-led church, and then in the Mennonite church until we moved to the Philippines as missionaries, where we attended a non-denominational Tagalog-speaking and a charismatic English-speaking church. When we moved to Charlotte, NC, we attended an Evangelical Free church until a move across town brought us to Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, where we became members. We're currently attending a Baptist church during our sojourn in Wheaton, but we're still receiving financial support from our Mennonite sending church in Oregon, and our UMC church in Charlotte. Are you dizzy yet?

I am. Last week I scheduled an appointment for "doctrinal counseling" with one of my professors to try to find out how to keep the best parts of each of these church traditions without being theologically schizophrenic. I have a deep appreciation for certain aspects of each of the churches I have called home. Each has strengths and weaknesses, making it difficult to choose just one. My conversation with Dr. Treier was helpful in sorting through various doctrinal positions to see which can be fruitfully combined.

Reading Carson's book has also helped. His closing words urge us to listen to the whole witness of Scripture in our development of doctrine. He says,

"To pursue with a passion the robust and nourishing wholeness of biblical theology as the controlling matrix for our reflection on the relations between Christ and culture will, ironically, help us to be far more flexible than the inflexible grids that are often made to stand in the Bible's place. Scripture will mandate that we think holistically and subtly, wisely and penetratingly, under the Lordship of Christ — utterly dissatisfied with the anesthetic of culture. The complexity will mandate our service, without insisting that things turn out a certain way: we learn to trust and obey and leave the results to God, for we learn from both Scripture and history that sometimes faithfulness leads to awakening and reformation, sometimes to persecution and violence, and sometimes to both. Because creation gave us embodied existence, and because our ultimate hope is resurrection life in the new heaven and the new earth, we will understand that being reconciled to God and bowing to the Lordship of King Jesus cannot possibly be reduced to privatized religion or a form of ostensible spirituality abstracted from full-orbed bodily existence now." (227–28, emphasis mine)

Flexibility is a hallmark of the emerging generation, and it, too, can be a weakness if by flexible we mean spineless or infinitely "open." Truth matters, and so does our expression of that truth. But I'm glad that there is more than one way to "do church," and that we can all learn from one another. Our response to the truth of Scripture is not scripted in advance or limited by our cultural context. That's beautiful.

Tuesday Tidbit: a "proud humility"

I'm reading H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture for a class by that name with Dr. Daniel Treier that begins this morning. Niebuhr's description of Christ's humility is striking:

"The humility of Jesus is humility before God, and can only be understood as the humility of the Son. He neither exhibited nor commended and communicated the humility of inferiority-feeling before other men. Before Pharisees, high priests, Pilate, and 'that fox' Herod he showed a confidence that had no trace of self-abnegation. Whatever my be true of his Messianic self-consciousness, he spoke with authority and acted with confidence of power. When he repudiated the title of 'Good Master' he did not defer to other rabbis better than himself, but said, 'No one is good but God alone.' There is no condescension in his life toward the sinners, such as might mark an insecure or apologetic man. His humility is of the sort that raises to a new sense of dignity and worth those who have been humiliated by the defensive pretentions of the 'good' and the 'righteous.' It is a kind of proud humility and humble pride, which can be called paradoxical only if the relation to God as the fundamental relation in his life is left out of the account. It is wholly different from all the modesties and diffidences that mark men's efforts to accommodate themselves to their own and each others' superiority-feelings, it is also wholly different from that wise Greek virtue of remaining within one's limits lest the jealous gods destroy their potential rivals. The humility of Christ is not the moderation of keeping one's exact place in the scale of being, but rather that of absolute dependence on God and absolute trust in Him, with the consequent ability to remove mountains. The secret of the meekness and the gentleness of Christ lies in his relation to God." (26–27 in the edition pictured, emphasis mine)

We often think of humility as self-abasement. But as Niebuhr points out here, true humility has nothing to do with self. True humility is rooted in "absolute dependence on God and absolute trust in Him."

ready or not ...

2013 is here!
And so is the start of a new semester.
This will be my last one as a student.
Ever.
(As far as I know.)

I entered school at 4 years of age and I've been in school ever since, with only about a 1-year break.

That's 30 years of school. 

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This semester I'm taking two classes:

     Christ & Culture — Dr. Daniel Treier
     Ugaritic* Language and Literature — Dr. Adam Miglio

I'm helping to teach one class:

     Exegesis of Deuteronomy — with Dr. Daniel Block and Austin Surls

and I'm grading for another class:

     Old Testament Theology — with Dr. Block

In my spare time I'll be working on the next chapter of my dissertation and on my comprehensive reading list.


Like every other semester since high school, I'm in a bit of syllabus shock. The stack of books and assignments is daunting. But (excuse me for stating the obvious) I find that when I read a lot I learn a lot. Since learning is fun, it should be a great semester!

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*In case you're one of the majority of people in the world who have never heard of Ugaritic, let me explain. Ugaritic is an ancient language that was discovered fairly recently and is closely related to Hebrew. It is useful to biblical scholars for 3 main reasons: (1) the vocabulary is so similar that it can help us figure out the meaning of obscure Hebrew words that only occur a time or two in the Bible, (2) mythical texts that depict the religious beliefs of Ugarit shed light on biblical passages, especially those that talk about Ba'al, and (3) Ugaritic poetry bears a close similarity to Hebrew poetry, so comparison of these two bodies of literature brings greater clarity to the Bible's unique message. I'm especially fascinated with the poetry of the Bible, so I'm learning to read Ugaritic to equip me to better understand it.

first day of classes

After a thoroughly delightful week of "vacation" spent in my study carrel (studying whatever I wanted to study with no pressing deadlines!), the semester has officially begun. Now I have the joy of reading what others feel I ought to read (thankfully they all have good taste). All of my classes meet on Tuesdays, all in the same building. Here's the line-up:

Intro to Doctoral Studies (January only) - Dr. Daniel Block
Theological Hermeneutics (February through April) - Dr. Daniel Treier
Exegesis of Ezekiel - Dr. Daniel Block
Ancient Near Eastern Backgrounds - Dr. John Walton

You might have seen Dr. Walton's name before . . . on the IVP Bible Background Commentary (Old Testament), the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (5 vols), the Genesis commentary in the NIV Application Commentary Series, The Lost World of Genesis One, or even, perhaps, on the Tiny Tots Jesus Story Book. He wrote Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament as a course textbook for this class, and so far, it is just the thing I needed. It is such a privilege to learn from a respected expert in the field. Dr. Walton and his wife love to show hospitality to students, and I'll be in their home for the second time later this month.

I have another 6,000+ pages to read this semester, and believe it or not, I'm looking forward to all of it. I also have 2 papers to write, a number of book reviews and shorter essays, and one major hurdle to clear: my proposal defense. On April 11, I will present and defend my dissertation proposal. All of the PhD faculty will be present to ask questions about my proposal and point out areas of weakness. When I have revised the proposal to their satisfaction, I then have approval to begin working on my dissertation (a 300-page scholarly contribution to the field). I have a rough draft of the proposal already, which was part of my application last year. This weekend I plan to give it a thorough revision.

In exchange for the generous scholarship provided by Mina Marie Johnson through the school, I am also working 8-10 hrs/week as a research assistant for Dr. Block. Several publishing projects are on the front burner this month, and I'm learning what must happen behind the scenes for a book to make it in print. There's nothing glamorous about compiling an index, but many people will use it who are looking for help to understand the scriptures. Even this tedious work is a ministry to people I will never meet, a way of introducing the world to the work of my mentor.

Yes, my hands are full . . . and so is my heart. What a joy to be in this place at this time for this purpose!