Following Up on Cultural Liturgies

Last week I wrote a review of James KA Smith's book Desiring the Kingdom, which you can read here. I mentioned toward the end of my review that I feel like this is a book that is going to stick with me, that even though I felt Smith overstated his point his point was still well worth making. In my reading in the past week or so there have been a couple of other things that have made me think about the importance of liturgy and worship. The first, N.T. Wright's thoughts on the subject which are outlined briefly in his recent tome on the Apostle Paul. The second, a novel I am reading about a young Hasidic Jew. 

Wright's work is something I plan on engaging with often and at length as I work my way through its 1800 or so pages, but for my purpose in this post I want to draw out some of his thoughts on "worldview" that are germane to Smith's work. Smith balks, somewhat, at the language of worldview altogether, since such talk privileges, as he sees it, the life of the mind over a more embodied, holistic experience. Wright is not entirely comfortable with the term "worldview" himself, but caveats noted he says in reference to the worldview of Paul, 

"the life of the mind was itself elevated by Paul from a secondary social activity, for those with the leisure to muse and ponder life's tricky questions, to a primary socio-cultural activity for all the Messiah's people. The interesting question of whether one thinks oneself into a new way of acting or acts oneself into a new way of thinking will, I suspect, continue to tease those who try to answer it (not least because it is of course reflexive: should you answer it by thinking of by acting?). . . Worldview creates a context for theology, but theology is necessary to sustain the worldview." (PFG 27)

Wright is driving toward something here that is tricky when evaluating a work like Smith's. While I agree with Smith's assessment that humans are by nature worshiping beings and that this is an inextricable part of our humanity, the call to discipleship within Christianity demands that we engage fully with our minds as well as our bodies and our affections. Which is merely to say that both men are right. At certain times and in certain contexts (such as Smith's Reformed world) it is right to emphasize the centrality of the body and of desire to Christian worship. At other times and in other contexts, for example a believer who only reads the Bible devotionally or refuses to deal with any "theology" cuz that's bad and divisive, it is helpful to be reminded that we are instructed to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. 

As to the second provoking text, this week I have been reading (and loving) Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev, the story of a young Ladover Jew in Brooklyn who is blessed with a gift for painting. Perhaps I will write more about the book at some point, but for the subject at hand what stands out to me is the way the faith of the Ladovers invades every portion of their day. They pray at morning, noon, and night. They sing Psalms, they study Torah, they recite Scripture. Their days are infused throughout with reminders of their core identity: Jewish followers of the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. Even their dress and hairstyle are formed in such a way as to set them apart. 

I found myself reading Asher's father asking him every night to say his Krias Shema ("Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one") and longing for that level of devotion, that simplicity of faith standing at the center of one's identity. Theological and cultural differences aside, I find it extremely admirable. Moreover, kids raised in this tradition will know that their faith marks them out from the world at large, that to follow God is a costly and precious thing. They will grow up with Scripture grafted into their heart. 

I can hear some people already casting doubt, claiming that such a system would only breed rebellion. My response: at least children raised under such a system would know what they are rebelling against. Given the Biblical illiteracy of even church-going Christians today, whose kids by and large walk away from the faith in rebellion anyway, I wonder if those kids have any idea of the depth of the tradition they are casting aside. With my own kids, I want them to see the depth of their faith tradition, to taste of its riches when they are in my home, and know that to follow Christ is no mean pursuit. And they would feel what it is to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Commonplacing: N.T. Wright on the Parables

I am reading N.T. Wright’s book on Jesus right now and am really enjoying it. I have written about Wright’s work a couple of times in the recent past. While an orthodox believer, Wright takes a more historical approach to the life of Jesus before treating the theology of his message. I have long struggled with how we Christians are to view the life and work of Jesus: he gave some hard teaching and a) is it our job to follow it, or b) did he give it merely to show us how in need of grace we are? I have heard this question answered both ways and usually with some sort of vague harmony of the two. I am reading this book in the hopes of coming to a more settled answer to that question. Before I try to engage with any thoughts of my own, such as they are, I thought it would be good to pass along an excerpt from the book on the parables that I found to be quite beautiful, especially considering the academic nature of the work:

“It should therefore be clear that the parables, by their very form, place Jesus firmly within his Jewish context. The genre itself puts into effect that double-edged message of welcome and warning which is the parables’ regular theme. The parables are not simply information about the kingdom, but are part of the means of bringing it to birth. They are not a second order activity, talking about what is happening at one remove. They are part of the primary activity itself. They do not merely give people something to think about. They invite people into the new world that is being created, and warn of dire consequences if the invitation is refused. Jesus’ telling of these stories is one of the key ways in which the kingdom breaks in upon Israel, redefining itself as it does so. They also function, for the same reason, as explanation and defence of what Jesus is doing. As Meyer argues, the parables are not merely theme, they are also performance. They do not merely talk about the divine offer of mercy; they both make the offer, and defend Jesus’ right to make it.” (176)

I think this is exactly right and calls into question my habits of reading the gospels as mere preparation for the bigger thing—the atoning work of Christ on the cross. Wright is encouraging the reader to think of the life and work of Jesus as both the fulfillment of Israel’s story and the inauguration of the kingdom. Too often when we go straight to the cross we deny that Jesus’ earthly ministry had any purpose whatsoever and Jesus becomes a Jew in name only. It would have been all the same, really, if he had just been a divine carpenter crucified for our sins without having bothered with three years of itinerancy. To do my Savior justice, and to know him as He is, I need to be disabused of that notion. 

N.T. Wright 2

As promised in the preceding post, here is a review of N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope. Though I would rather be chiming in to the chorus of voices on Grand Rapids pastor Rob Bell and his new book, I will probably have to wait until the semester is over and I have time to do some luxury reading to give it the attention it deserves (but do watch this video of Bell getting grilled by an MSNBC reporter). I could do as some have done and review a book without having read the whole thing, but Jonathan Swift has some harsh words for critics who act in this manner. After I extricate myself from Marxism in the seventeenth century, the vanity of youth in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and certainty in the works of John Foxe compared to doubting and uncertainty in John Donne (my term papers for this semester) I look forward to taking a close look at Bell’s work.

What makes the mention of Bell relevant in the context of an N.T. Wright post is that in many ways Bell seems to see himself as an American proponent of Wrightian theology. Bell, though, seems to circumvent the traditionalist stance taken by Wright in his works and has not even come close to the level of scholarship Wright has under his belt, but Bell seems consciously aware of the influence of Wright and has back-cover endorsements on at least two of Wright’s popular level books. Anyways, this sounds like it is turning into a review of Bell, which I already promised I wouldn’t do. On to Wright.

The biggest theme of Surprised is rethinking the popular concept of heaven, the afterlife, and the power of the resurrection of Christ as well as the resurrection of Christian believers and how a reexamination of these truths will lead to a more theologically coherent and missiologically sound church. Perhaps Wright’s biggest target relating to this guiding theme is the popular conception of a disembodied, ulterior realm called heaven as the final dwelling place of the saints of God. This is a position that has never sat well with me, reading passages such as: Romans 8 where Paul tells us that creation is groaning in anticipation for the day when it will be redeemed--if God is just going to destroy it someday, will that really be redemption?; 1 Corinthians 15, the most famous passage (and famously confusing) in Scripture on resurrection where we are told that death no longer has dominion and has lost its sting--if we simply go in spirit form to an alternate, disembodied realm can death really be said to have been defeated? It seems rather that though still dead we continue some sort of spirit existence; nearly the entire book of Revelation, where we are told about the new heavens and the new earth descending and our glorified Lord tells us that he is making all things new does not make any sense whatever if the earth is fully bad and irredeemable and must be destroyed some day. Building off of these, and other, passages, Wright builds a case that when we die we will join Christ immediately (as was Paul’s clear hope: Philippians 1), but that there is a day also when the dead in Christ will rise and be joined together with him and his reign on this earth will begin. To a theological geek like me this was thrilling reading and I wish I had time to get in to all of the sub points Wright examines along the way, but the big question arising from all of the book is why does this matter? Heaven/new earth, spirit/resurrected body--who cares?

Wright here argues that our views of eschatology (death and/or the end of the world) have practical effects on the way we live out life on this earth. If we believe that this planet is cursed and God is going to zap it some day there is no point in cultivating it in love as his creation, bearing the divine imprint. In this view of the world, only things done for the “gospel” will be seen by the church to have an substantive value and everything done in the world--working hard at a job, writing a great Master’s thesis, being a really great plumber--will seem valueless because it is fleeting. But if we believe that God is coming back to this place and will restore it and that at this moment we are caught somewhere between creation and new creation, our work in this world will take on immense value, everything done in this world that is done in faith and in pursuit of God’s glory will be eternal, whether it is doing missions work in the Middle East or changing an old couple’s tire or studying for a Physics exam when you would rather watch a movie. What is done on this earth matters and will last.

For me this is glorious, liberating theology. My life at school--reading Marxist historians on the English civil war, helping college freshman write composition papers, working diligently so as to be able to participate in class lectures--would all seem like a waste of time if the above paragraph were not true. As Christians, in a world starkly divided between the things of God and the things of this world only the things of God seem to matter. When we refuse to see the world in this dichotomous relationship, though, and see creation and new creation intertwined what we do has value.

This is not to say I didn’t have reservations reading Wright’s work. One of the more frustrating elements of Wright’s work is the shortness of the book. Since he has written in-depth, 700+ page defenses of the resurrection in other places, this book functioned as a sort of Reader's Digest version of these earlier texts. This left Wright’s exegesis of certain Biblical texts foundational to his argument short on depth--his numerous references back to his earlier scholarship has convinced me to purchase a couple of earlier books but did not provide the Biblical meat behind Wright’s claims that one would hope for a popular level book. In a sense, writing for a popular audience instead of a more narrow scholarly world I would contend that one has to be even more careful with Biblical explication since the readers will not share an intuitive understanding of the original languages and could become convinced on the basis of the author’s authority rather than Scriptures. In no way do I think this was Wright’s intent, but it is an unfortunate consequence of boiling such an important topic down into such a relatively small book.

Twice he makes a statement along the lines of, “If you remove the birth of Christ from Scripture you lose two chapters in Matthew and two in Luke, but if you remove the resurrection you lose the entire New Testament” (rough quote). While I understand the larger point he is trying to make--that our faith hinges on the resurrection, which is true--it is a bit foolishly controversial to seem (twice) to downplay the virgin birth of Christ as somehow unimportant because it didn’t receive the page space devoted to the resurrection. Indeed, without the virgin birth there is no atoning death or resurrection to speak of and we are still in our sins. Yes, its that important.

Also, Wright shares the typical mainstream aversion to speaking in concrete language on hell. He doesn’t deny its reality, but tries to twist away from it, arguing that hell is a condition where an individual has so denied and defaced the image of God within him/her that the image flickers out and this individual no longer bears God’s image. This is certainly a way of saying what hell might be, but in a book that is mostly concrete and direct in language, this sort of dance around hell struck me as Wright’s acknowledgment that he had no desire to speak on the subject--a feeling I happen to share, but one which, unfortunately, our Savior chose to repeat time and again.

Ultimately, though, I found Wright’s book extremely valuable and illuminating. It has quite literally changed the way I think about my life and my mission and how I can glorify God (this book worked brilliantly in concert with another book I recently read, James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World). While Wright’s statements have an air of radicalism, this is only because our culture has imbibed the thoughts on the afterlife from a nineteenth and early twentieth century evangelical tradition. Martin Luther understood where Wright was going. Talking about how we may give glory to God, he said the following: “A dairy maid can milk cows to the glory of God.” What we do matters. And, Luther again, speaking what he would do if he knew Christ were coming back the next day: “I would plant a tree.” What we do matters, because this place will last.

N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright is an interesting figure in contemporary Christianity. His books are bestsellers across the conservative-liberal ideological divide, and he infuriates people on both sides of that unfortunate aisle. He first came to my attention when John Piper, beloved prophet of we modern Calvinists, took aim at Wright’s theory on justification. In essence, they wrote books to each other each staking out his own position. Given my deep appreciation for Piper and his work, I was naturally skeptical of Wright and would have blithely dismissed him were it not for the encouragement of one of my good friends to give him a try.

Wright is a one-time Anglican bishop. (He recently stepped down to focus more on writing, speaking, and teaching) He is one of the most prominent voices in the old mainline faiths and, like his good friend the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, routinely makes enemies in all quarters--he is neither liberal enough for the full progressivists nor conservative enough for the staunch traditionalists. Wright is also one of the foremost Bible scholars in the world today, having taught for over 20 years at Oxford, McGill, and Cambridge. I recently read two of Dr. Wright’s books--Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope--and while I certainly found things to disagree with, moreso I found him to be a wonderful voice speaking the truth of the Christian gospel, mission, the purpose of the church, and the purpose of the individual Christian. Simply Christian is a sort-of modern Mere Christianity, with Wright asserting the basic doctrines of Biblical Christianity held across all theological traditions while framing the old story under an aesthetic designed to appeal to the educated, much like Lewis’s rather difficult and similar book. In many ways Wright reminds me of that other Anglican whose books have provided me with so much over the years, C.S. Lewis. I cannot say that I agree with all of Lewis’s theology, or even methodology, but he is a believer in the gospel, a compelling voice standing against the tide of universalism or liberalism or even reactionary conservatism, and has so much that is so good that I can read his books with discernment and be incredibly blessed by them.

In the next post I will review the second of Wright’s books that I have read, Surprised by Hope, but for now I want to come out in defense of the all too easily dismissed bishop. When you consider the milieu in which Wright works, his defense of the traditional Christian doctrines of creation, fall, redemption, resurrection, and the setting to rights of the universe in the coming of the new heaven and the new earth he looks extraordinarily faithful and countercultural. Now one could bemoan this as further evidence of the failure of the mainline denominations--that a man holding to basic doctrine is held up as a model of doctrinal purity--but let us be more generous than that to Wright’s endeavors and humble enough to face that whatever evangelical non-denomination we see ourselves as part of was only made possible by the extraordinary sacrifices of those easily maligned mainline churches. William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury (highest position in the Anglican church) was not ordained until he made up his mind that Jesus rose from the dead. David Jenkins, one of Wright’s predecessors at Durham, referred to the resurrection as a matter of conjuring tricks on the part of the disciples. Jenkins and John Dominic Crossan, another of the more renowned contemporary Bible scholars made famous for co-founding the Jesus Seminar, hold to what is called the moral objection of the resurrection: that Jesus was raised from the dead is all very well and good for him, but since God doesn’t intervene to stop hurricanes and earthquakes like he did to raise Jesus from the dead than what is the point of the resurrection?

Given this backdrop, my appreciation for Wright is immense and grows every time I consider it. Preaching what Wright preaches would not be difficult in a Southern Baptist church in Alabama. In fact, if he didn’t come off a little more conservative he would be booted from a job preaching there. But holding to a literal death and literal resurrection and literal salvation and real eternity is not easy in the Anglican communion. The institutional pressure before Wright and Rowan Williams became more prominent was to slide further into liberalism.  Wright and Williams are both working to arrest that slide. May God bless them as they try and may we not judge Wright according to our own supposed doctrinal purity. Let the mere in mere Christianity and, for Wright, the simple in simply Christian outweigh our own pet concerns.