festive hermeneutics
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve never really noticed just how much the start of Matthew’s gospel sets Jesus up as the new Moses/representative of Israel. But, going back to the ‘Christmas’ stories over the last few days it really lept out at me. So, with acknowledgement to the reformed catholic blog and Tom Wright’s Matthew for Everyone, here is a set of parallels. I think I’m roughly following the order in Matthew’s narrative:
* Moses escapes Pharaoh’s slaughter of baby boys
Jesus escapes Herod’s slaughter of baby boys
* Moses comes out of Egypt (with Israel)
Jesus comes out of Egypt
[aside 1: see reformed catholic for interesting overtones of Israel-is-Egypt]
[aside 2: but it's interesting that both are in Egypt due to the dreams of a guy called Joseph, but maybe that is pushing things too far...]
* Moses takes Israel through the waters of the Red Sea
Jesus is baptised
* Moses and Israel head from the water into the desert and face challenges of trusting God
Jesus heads from baptism into the desert and is tempted, but trusts God
[aside 3: Jesus' temptations cover bread and worship of someone/thing other than God. Israel complain about provision of food and tragically worship the golden calf]
* Moses is advised to select leaders to help him
Jesus calls the disciples
* Moses brings the law down from the mountain
Jesus preaches the sermon on the mount
Justification and football
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
A sort of informational post:
John Piper’s book ‘The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright’ is available free on-line as a pdf. I’ve only skimmed bits of it and I guess your view will depend on where you start out, but at the very least it is good to see that Piper & Wright had discussions before publication.
In the interests of keeping both sides in mind, remember that some of Tom Wright’s stuff on justification can be found on the ntwrightpage.
In between the two, Michael Bird has some useful perspectives (I was going to say ‘is a voice of reason’, but that would cast aspersions on the others!). He has an interesting paper on Incorporated Righteousness, which attempts for a middle way between new and old perspectives and makes a lot of sense. He also points out how these sort of debates arise in part from the difference between systematic theologians and New Testament scholars.
I also like this quote from Eugene Peterson, which seems appropriate to these exchanges:
Among those for whom scripture is a passion, reading commentaries has always seemed to me analogous to the gathering of football fans in the local bar after the game, replaying in endless detail the game they have just watched, arguing (maybe even fighting) over observations and opinion, and lacing the discourse with gossip about the players. The level of knowledge evident in these boozy colloquies is impressive. These fans have watched the game for years; the players are household names to them; they know the fine print in the rulebook and pick up every nuance on the field. And they care immensely about what happens in the game. Their seemingly endless commentry is evidence of how much they care.
Tags: hermeneutics, justification, theology
safety in numbers (2)
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
In early Christian art, the Trinity was often depicted by three identical people. An interesting way to try and depict the un-depictable. But, perhaps, it also points to a possible shortcoming when we try to think Trinitarianly.
As I said in my previous post, the Trinity is the basis for the value of diversity. It acts this way because diversity is intrinsic to the being of God. But it seems to me that it is easy to almost-but-not-quite get to this point.
The almost-but-not quite start is to think of the Trinity as three identical beings in one. I think I see that, for me at least, this is in my underlying assumptions. My worry then is that this reduced view of the Trinity takes us from thinking in terms of diversity to thinking in terms of uniformity: We believe in people joined in unity, but we assume they must be identical, with the differences ironed out so that they are indistinguishable.
I don’t think that uniformity is the goal, or what God is like. Of course, we know very little about the personalities of God, but I think we can say that the doctrine of the Trinity is about three different (i.e. non-identical) personalities in one. How can we make this step? At the every least, we know this: that post-pentecost God is a single being who has lived three different stories: that of Father, Son and Spirit. And surely identity is related to some degree or another to personal story. (Ricoeur: ‘Characters … are themselves plots’.) Kevin Vanhoozer discusses this idea of narrative identity: “Who God is, and what God is like, is a function of the entangled life histories of Father, Son and Spirit related in the gospels.” So, for instance, the incarnation immediately shows that God is not a community of uniformity but one of diversity, of three (non-identical) persons with different stories.
The result: we have a basis for celebrating true diversity-and-unity not just a uniform crowd.
Tags: church, postmodernism, theology
music, culture, theology, the kitchen sink…
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I was going to resist recommending another mp3 so soon after the last one, but as there is an intersection with my last post I have point out A Sense of an Ending by Jeremy Begbie. This is a great talk that wanders from looking at culture through music to the lessons from music for culture and theology.
Where it interacts with the previous post is the reference to improvisation. In this case, Begbie puts forward the idea of improvisation as a description of identity and self. Where modernism had the lone hero as the ideal and post-modernism has transient identities that change from one day to the next, Begbie suggests something that he terms ‘the musical self’. As a ‘musical self’, we become more who we are supposed to be through improvising the ‘music’ alongside others and playing off others. All the time we know that God has the ending sorted, so there is safety in the improvisation. (Seems like an interesting model for church.)
He says all these things far better than I can explain… And you really need the musical examples to appreciate it all.
He also has an interesting lesson from musical meter. You really have to listen to the talk to get this one, but the gist is that one down-beat/resolution in a piece of music is often an up-beat in a large plan. The lesson/analogy being that, through the small rhythms of our lives, God may well be working with a higher level meter that we can’t quite see as we go along. Or, the example of prophesy in the Bible, where fulfillment often sets up a larger expectation of things to come.
I had some random thoughts based on the last point, but they are a bit specific so you may want to leave before I get started. Here goes: One of Tom Wright’s big themes for NT studies is that Second Temple Jews did not believe the true return from exile had happened, even though they were strictly back in their own land. Somehow not all that was promised had worked out. (Wright’s idea being that Jesus was bringing about the true return from exile.) There is constant disagreement over whether this is true — whether Jews believed the exile had ended or not. I think Begbie’s multiple-layers-of-meter helps here: Yes there was a return from exile on one level and presumably many were happy with that. But that resolution also set up a bigger longing for a more complete release and some felt that more intensely than others. Just a thought…
Anyway, the main message is the 1.5 hrs needed to listen to the mp3 are well worth it…
Tags: art, culture, mp3s, music, theology
Jazz can make you a better Christian … Nice.
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve listened to two excellent mp3s on Jazz recently.
The first is by William Edgar — Heaven in a Nightclub. He gives an whirlwind tour through the history of Jazz pointing out the influence of Christianity. He also gives live examples which, since he is a very good Jazz pianist, are great.
One thing that stuck out from his talk is the comment that much of today’s praise music expresses happiness not joy, because it doesn’t face up to the dark and despair of life. Because of its history jazz (and other African-American music) is in contrast to this.
The title of this post comes from the second mp3 — Learning to Glorify God through the Enjoyment of Jazz by Kevin Twit (of indelible grace). More into the relationship of Jazz and Christianity — how Jazz can correct our theological shortcomings.
An interesting point from this one is the importance of learning to improvise. White middle-class evangelicalism can be very much into rules and doing things the right way (implicitly if not spoken). This is a lot like the performance of Classical music. On the other hand, Jazz is about exploring the limits via improvisation. One low-level example given is apologetics — there is a tendency to approach apologetics with an implicit script ‘if they say this, then you come back with…’; instead it should be more of a real conversation where we truly listen to the other people and respond from what they are saying, knowing that we are building on and interacting with a whole tradition. More risky, but more exciting…
The idea of improvisation is one that Tom Wright considers on a bigger scale in the famous How Can The Bible Be Authoritative? He puts forward an analogy for the Bible of a play for which the penultimate act is lost — we are called to improvise the act, ensuring that our playing is in the consistent with the existing record.
It’s useful to think about how our approach to life/theology might be affected by our cultural need to have everything spelt out with only a small scope for the player’s interpretation, compared with other views where there is room for improvisation (with of course the restriction that we are true to the underlying tune/play). How much do we miss that we should be doing?
Another interesting point from Kevin Twit’s talk is the difficulty of teaching Jazz. In the end you have to learn by example, listening, following previous great players. Which ties in with a previous post and the ever-important theme of disciple verses book-learning.
Oh, and I can’t leave a post on Jazz without a link to Reflections of a Jazz Theologian.
Tags: apologetics, art, culture, jazz, mp3s, theology
living proof
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
The belief policy of the Christian … is not “believe whatever you are told no matter how seemingly ridiculous” but rather “believe what you are told about God by those who have it on good authority and whose testimony — which includes their lives (and deaths — are reliable indicators of practical wisdom.” …
No special privileges or perogatives should be allowed to insulate theological truth claims from the crucible of testing. To pour onelsefl out for the sake of the evangelical truth claim mean making the way of Christ intelligible, both theoretically and practically. It means living a life that embodies the Word in the power of the Spirit in a way that is able to meet, an pass, the critical tests of human reflecting and human existence.
Kevin J. Vanhoozer in First Theology
I want to suggest that scientific proof, philosophical proof and riligeous proof follow the same rules…After a question has been defined … We must be able to live consistently with our theory.
Francis Schaeffer in The God Who is There
For the human makers of things, the incompletenesses and inconsistencies of our ideas become clear only during implementation. Thus it is that writing, experimentation, “working out” are essential disciplines for the theoretician.
Frederick P. Brooks Jr in The Mythical Man Month
Tags: apologetics, theology, worldview
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...