A Tale of Two Freedoms

           

 Before I begin, let me say this not a frivolous bashing of America and I am very thankful to live in a country where I have freedoms (in speech, religion, education, politics and the many other opportunities we can often take for granted).  I know there are people around the world who may never get to experience this.  Moreover, I think we should be responsible with how we use our freedom because we do have a unique opportunity and platform in our world which is great as far as that goes.

With that said my question then is can Christians say that our American social freedom stands vis-à-vis Christian freedom, as many have portrayed it?  Are not life, liberty and happiness what God envisioned for all people?  I would say to some degree, yes, this is true, but there is an inherent danger when we attempt to marry Church and Empire by Christianizing the features of national and political culture.  Certainly, it seems alright for everyone to work together for a peaceable and just world, but that can only happen when we are talking about the same thing which is exactly what I am suggesting we are not doing.

Governing or Being Governed?

Fittingly, I am writing this on the weekend of July 4^th in which we celebrate America’s independence/freedom, but freedom from what?  This depends on who you ask.  Some will say this was the separation from the tyrannical British government who kept imposing its demands on the colonists of America while others will say a bunch of rich landowners just didn’t want to pay their taxes.  Nevertheless, we can agree that this was the date Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence which was the document that outlined the reasons for the colonial’s disconnect from Europe.   The justification John Adams and Thomas Jefferson appealed to in their draft seemed to point to human rights as a whole.  We see this in their stating that governments in general only have the ability to wield just Powers because the people consent to it and thus the people under a government are entitled to “alter or abolish” any government that deny their “unalienable rights” to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.[1]  This was meant to give way to a government and society that would prove its efficacy by defending its life and rights by any means necessary, that would live according to its free will and as one sees fit, so long as no one gets hurt, and a place that would do whatever necessary to find personal happiness.[2]  Based on what follows in the D.O.I. (pertaining to what Europe was and wasn’t doing for its people) it would seem that a bit of Epicurean thought was motivating their action as their conception of freedom was based in personal pleasure and further associated with the improvement of their material-goods and personal situations. 

Today, it could be argued that this has helped to create our hedonistic society that emphasizes worth in individualism, pleasure in greed, need for excess, self-centeredness and self-maximization which raises the question: are we really acting and living freely or have we become slaves to our own vices?   It seems when we pick at someone’s vice/idol it lashes out at us revealing both its slave and their master.  So, for us to put such societal-values on a pedestal and then defend and kill for them says something about what or who we are loyal to.  Apart from my own opinion, however, there was and is a central ideology that stands behind what constitutes as “American freedom” which still plays itself out to greater and lesser degrees and moderated by our justice system.

Freedom from a Deeper Bondage

In Stanley Hauerwas’ book, A Peaceable Kingdom, he points to the idea of societal freedom as a type of ethic for both Christian and non-Christian.  Throughout his book the point Hauerwas keeps returning to is that Christian ethics requires a qualifier.  This is to say, Christians often appeal to any truthful ethic from God as being absolute and thereby true for everybody, but the problem arises when we think our definition of the ethic means the same thing as it does for the non-Christian who is also working for a free and equitable social order.  The difference is Christian freedom is intrinsically informed by the story of God’s relationship with Israel, the Messiah’s life death and resurrection, and a basic conviction that both are true.  Subsequently, God’s freedom has destabilized humankind’s understanding of freedom and does not look like what the D.O.I. proposes. While we might say that both were trying to bring freedom from bondage, one attacks the symptom of bondage (Though don’t forget it created bondage for others like the Native Americans, Africans and so forth) while God actually defeated the ultimate source of our bondage, our sin.  

We thus must challenge the belief that Christian social ethics is first and foremost to create a more peaceable and just world.  The church has been called to first be the servant-community that lives faithfully as the church even when its effectiveness is not so apparent and outcomes look grimm.[3]   This means the essence of our freedom is to be faithful to God which may, as Hauerwas points out, sound self-serving, but being a faithful church means a being faithful manifestation of God’s peaceable Kingdom in the world.  Therefore, we do not have a set of ethics we adhere to, but are a community that embodies an ethic.[4]  As we come to relocate ourselves within God’s narrative, the freedom from sin inaugurates many new freedoms: we become rooted in a self-less love that frees us to be peaceable, faithful, patient, kind, gentle, self controlled. We also become free to no longer need to cling and violently defend our idols such as money, power, comforts of life or whatever it is our hope has come to rest in because our hope is no longer self-interpretive. Our hope, freedom and equality are now given its content through our tradition that is faithfully participating in God’s story. 

[1] George B. Tindall & David E. Shi.  America: A Narrative History (New York W.W. Norton & Company 2010), 139-140.

[2] Greg Boyd. The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan 2009), 84-86.

 [3] Stanley Hauerwas. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, Indiana University of Notre Dame 1983), 99.

[4] Ibid.

Monotheism and a Trinitarian God

I was talking with a Jehovah’s Witness who challenged the idea that Christians can believe in a monotheistic God given that we claim God exists as a Trinity.  Since this is a topic I think every Christian should think through I decided to blog on it in hopes provoking some of you to thought and perhaps making it intelligible to others  So, understandably this JW I encountered could not help but see that there might be a glaring contradiction with our doctrine.  If we believe God is three, then logically we are a polytheistic people, right?  Not so fast.  

First, the Trinity is a doctrine formed about God based on what Scripture points to.  Granted, the model for it has taken some different shapes over the years which suggests that it has been an ongoing work rather than a consistent set of presuppositions.[1]  Nevertheless, the most agreed upon model of our day reads something like God is of one being shared by three co-equal, co-eternal persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

1)      There is one and only one God eternal, inflexibly-holy and all powerful.

2)      There are three eternal persons described in Scripture – The Father, Son and The Holy Spirit.  These persons are never identified with one another – that is, they are carefully differentiated as persons.

3)      The Father, Son and Spirit are identified as being fully Deity---that is to say that the Bible teaches the Deity of Christ and the Deity of Spirit.

Ergo, the question is raised if they are distinct than how can we claim monotheism?  The most crucial aspect to my argument for this is begins with the ancient world’s representations polytheism. 

The vast amounts of texts recovered throughout Egypt and the Mesopotamian world reveal Israel was indeed surrounded by a polytheistic people (Egyptians, Hittites, Sumerians, Akkadians and so forth).  These texts always present similar portraits about their gods (because the ancient world had a congruent worldview) which illustrate a very chaotic power struggle within the heavens, specifically in their creation myths.  These are often epics that include a combative conflict motif between primordial deities which always results in one winning out and usurping cosmological control.  Subsequently, many other deities more or less embraced the hierarchy in the heavens, though there were instances of coups being plotted against the god. Nevertheless, a good portion of the gods were subordinate to the reigning deity even when they did not particularly agree with that god.  Thus, when unity did exist among the god’s cosmological government it was never out of absolute agreement and unity with that deity, but was more often a coerced outward conformity because the reigning god was simply more powerful.   

 

With the Trinity, as we saw, this is not the case and I would propose that monotheism may not be as simple as just the worship or belief of one God (though this was the traditional thought in Second-Temple Judaism’s understanding of the Shema: Deut. 6:4-8) but it could be that monotheism on another level can be found in undividable unity and equality shared between more than one God like in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Perhaps my phraseology makes them sound uncomfortably distinct, but it gets the point across and I do not think it undermines their sacred-shared substance.  Even so, as far as I know this type of harmony and interconnectedness never was said to have occurred between any other deities in those ancient histories and myths.  Yet, the God revealed in Israel’s history and Messiah shows each persons of the Trinity equally participated from the initial act of creation and sustaining of life (Gen. 1:1-2; Jn. 1:1-4) to the outworking of a new creation and new life (2 Cor. 5:17-19) in the face of anti-creational forces (Jn. 10:10-29).      

  

With all this said, I am not going to claim that I have it completely right or figured out and I am okay with that.  Sometimes it is alright to let things about God remain a mystery, though that is a hard thing for the Western mind to do.  No matter how it works out I believe the evidence behind it points to a God that is outside our realm of total comprehension for the time being, but if nothing else offers us a glimpse of his complex vastness and his unique commitment to stay involved in the human story.

[1] Some notable Trinitarian models have been the “psychological model” (I believe this to be erred) which sees three forms of God’s one self-image revealing the heart, mind and will of God in different periods of history.  The model I am a appealing to is what is considered the “social model” which as I illustrate finds unity in the mind, heart and will of three deities/persons.

God is a Misogynist?...

Perhaps it is nothing new to say that the subjugation of women has repeatedly dominated societies. Nor is it new that religious history has often reflected and even perpetuated this. More importantly these assertions, with very few exceptions, would be right.  However, because religious fundamentalists have helped this along, many have attempted to prove through the use of scripture that God somehow favors men over women (though many religions are culpable here I am specifically pointing to Judeo/Christian texts).  I contend, however, that this is not the case simply because it does not reflect the good world God created, but has always remained, Biblically speaking, a symptom of a much deeper problem.

My point begins with God’s divine resolve that man being alone was not a good thing, but decided he needed a helper and in turn made the woman (Gen. 2:18; 22-25).  This idea of a helper is often downgraded and misconstrued as secondary or less important. Yet, the Hebraic phrase used in the Genesis passage translates quite literally into “a helper as in front of him”  which suggests, in ancient Near-Eastern thought, that this corresponding new-creation is not superior to Adam, nor is she an inferior, but stands as his equal.[1]  We run into error when we then read “post human-fall” verses like Genesis 3:16 as God’s new plan for man to rule over woman when in actuality it is the influence of the curse that should not be.  This characteristic of the curse has to do with the good nature of the woman to desire intimacy, but then man wrongly responds in domination.[2]  Thus, the suppression of women in religion and otherwise is completely man-ordained and initiated.  

While there were instances in Hebrew Scripture that point to a reintegration of woman-equality (i.e. Miriam, Deborah, Anna, Esther, all the attention to the plight of widows etc.. Deut. 10:18; Psa. 146:7-9) it is not until Jesus’ life and ministry that God makes new waves to rectify this.  God initiates this change in sending His Messiah into the world by way of virgin conception. This Savior is to break the back of sin and bring redemption to Israel and the world, and yet it begins with a God/woman effort (Matt. 1:18-25).  As side note, Jesus being born of the male gender was representative of humanity as whole and not that of superior gender, but that’s a bunny trail for another time.

Subsequently, this Son of God publicly elevates women and calls attention to her acts of holiness.  In one instance anger arises when a well known “sinful” woman shows great devotion to Jesus through a very symbolic gesture, but Jesus rebukes them saying that not one of them bothered to receive Him as well as she did (Luke 7:36-50).  In another instance Jesus is watching as people give money to a communal offering.  Many rich people were giving large sums of money, but when the poor widow gives her small sum Jesus points out that the rich gave little because it was a little out of their abundance while this woman gave the most because the little she gave cost her all she had (Mark 12:41-44). Most considerably, however, is when Jesus bestows the first glimpse of His resurrected self to the women (instead of His disciples) and entrusts them first with this revelation (Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-9).  It is so significant that it did not benefit the male authors of a hellenized society to add this to their Gospel and yet it is precisely these types of occurrences that continue throughout their accounts.  Nevertheless, we can see that God is not only in the process reinstating woman to her rightful position, but has perhaps all along remained intimately connected and concerned for her all the while sinful cultural-norms worked against her. 

Lastly, it is in light of Jesus that Paul outlines the concept of shared submission within a marital context. This offers a view of man/woman, husband/wife who live out sacrificial and nurturing love as imitators of Christ (Eph. 5:21-33). What Paul points to here is that if the man has a leading role in any of this, it begins with his living a selfless life that makes decisions based out of a real love and concern for the well being of his wife even at the expense of his own.[3]    This is to be the action that reverses the curse of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:16) and thus Jewish and Christian life should have always existed as a counter-cultural affirmation of women.  So, may we become increasingly aware that man, woman, and God were never to be at odds with one another, but have always been purposed for an existence of shared relational wholeness in peace and embrace. 

 [1] Victor P. Hamilton. The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17: NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 1990), 175.

[2] Tremper Longman III. How to Read Genesis (Downers Grove, Il: InterVarsity Press 2005), 113.

[3] Now I realize that this does not take into account other Pauline scriptures or otherwise that point to various house rules within the church such as women should keep silent (1Cor. 14:34-35) or they should cover their heads (1Cor. 11:2-16)  or even that women should be modest and not braid their hair, or wear gold or silver (Timothy 2:9).   Christians have to become better at distinguishing cultural issues within the first-century church from what actually applies to us today.  Paul was dealing the best he could with the conflicts that arose in the baby churches that existed within ancient social norms and pervading worldviews.  

Sacred Space: A Life Devoted to Prayer

Anyone who has read even some of my past posts knows I have spent a lot of time talking about the relational nature of God, but now I want to ask what is the point of knowing it if that knowledge does not lead us to enter into it?  God has offered an invitation to journey that allows one to commune and co-labor with him, but upon accepting that request our moving forward in unity hinges on both participants’ (God & Persons) willingness to communicate and communicate often (just as any healthy relationship requires) and for this God has given us the avenue of prayer.  I believe most people to some degree do know this, but what many do not take into account is the extent of their un-readiness for the giving of the self that is required when approaching God.  When we invite Him to communicate with us in prayer and try to respond to him in prayer we should find communicating with God necessitates participation of our entire selves: our disposition, thought, desire, hope, will, activities, and direction of life.  It is only when this happens that prayer can finally evolve, in a more adequate sense, into a holistic practice that allows God to individually and communally shape us, interact with us as-well-as us with him. 

Subconsciously, I think, many avoid prayer altogether for several reasons.  First is because they somehow feel they are not worthy, or are too far removed, but the reality is the feelings of inadequacy and distance have been overcome by grace. The simplicity of coming to God in the humble act of prayer is now enough to close the gap and makes experiencing belonging a real possibility.  Second, are those who make prayer the way to control situations or even use it as a means to maximize personal happiness, but both dispositions will come up short.  Still others neglect the vulnerability of having to face themselves and only focus on prayer for others, but the inability to look inward also renders their actions incomplete.  Thomas Merton rightly said, “Those who attempt to do things for others or for the world without deepening their own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give to others.  They will communicate nothing to them but the contagion of their own obsessions, their aggresivity, and their ego-centered ambitions, their delusions about the end and means.”[1]  God uses our prayer-filled lives to bring us into wholeness, hence the reason we devote ourselves to it, but it comes first from responding to God’s love by falling in love with Him. 

Richard Foster expounds on this throughout his book on prayer in which he says to pray is to change and that is a great grace that provides a way for “our lives to be taken over by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.”[2]  He shows this comes by way of three main streams of prayer: inward, upward and outward.[3]

             1. Inward: We pray prayers of self-examination, prayers of tears for personal wounds, and prayers for inner transformation because we wholly rely on God and thereby posture ourselves before Him in honesty of brokenness allowing His renovating of our will and desire (Eph. 1:17-23).

2.      Upward: We pray prayers that give adoration back to God in response to His overwhelming outpouring of Self and love onto us (Heb. 13:14-15).  We pray to interact with God meditatively, contemplatively and from our heart to His heart.

3.      Outward: We pray prayers in faith to petition, to heal and to intercede on behalf of others despite insurmountable odds (1 Thess. 1:11-12; 3:1-2). We pray because we know that God’s desire to set all things right in the natural is intrinsically tied to unseen and the real conflict is not flesh and blood (Eph. 6:10-12). Therefore, we consistently pray God’s Kingdom into the despair of all situations and conflicts.

So it is not just one of these facets but in all of them that we can discover the heart of prayer is a moment by moment living with God.  

[1] Thomas Merton. Contemplation in a World of Action (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1971), cited by Lee Camp, Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Radical World (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press 2008), 178.

[2] Richard Foster. Prayer: Finding the Hearts True Home (NY: HarperCollins Publisher 1992), 6.

[3] This is Foster’s three-part outline throughout the book and is certainly worth reading for those wanting know more about prayer.

Christians and the Death Penalty

Al Mohler recently posted an article titled “Why Christians should support the death penalty” (click here to see).  In his post he attempts to show that based on Genesis 6:9 and Romans 13:4, the Bible sometimes mandates the use of capital punishment, but he goes on to suggest that it is only qualified under right and just circumstances.  While I have to applaud Mohler for at least attempting to face and deal with this very real issue, I have to disagree with his conclusions.  I believe Mohler is unfortunately following suit with what a large number of Christians have, meaning that he is attempting to justify occasions of vengeful-retributive-justice. It is often easier for us to employ an eye for an eye response to intentionally-monstrous violence than it is to consider the response the imagines a new future with that person still in it.  We rarely like what refuses to satisfy the hurt and rage we have clung to over these instances, and this is a problem. Moreover, the scriptural passages employed do not reflect what they seem to and other pertinent passages are ignored altogether.

The Problem With Al’s Usage 

I think many will agree we most often run into problems when we disconnect a single verse of Scripture from its context.  Romans 13:4 does say, “But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he (the government) does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (ESV).  In a previous post I laid out why Romans 13 does not actually support things like the death penalty or even involvement in government (read here).  To sum it up, however, I contend that Romans 13 should not be taken apart from Romans 12 because together Paul draws a stark distinction between God’s allowance of governmental authority to maintain some order, for better or for worse, and the Christian responsibility to bear witness to God’s Kingdom. 

Mohler’s usage of Genesis 9:6 is perhaps as equally misused.  The passage does read, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (ESV).   While I will spare you the drawn out interpretation, I do want to suggest something about it.  In a broad stroke, Genesis 8:20-9:7 is God’s dealing with the survivors of the flood within the context of a world that has for sometime been marred by human violence. This is to the degree that it has become woven into its very fabric, yet God has a plan to continue its future and his relationship with humanity. In doing so, he slowly begins to reintroduce a moral duty that takes very seriously the importance of life within its inherently violent social disorder.  Hence the reason human life should never be taken in the first place (9:6). This may suggest that God had to make some accommodations so to reach a broken violent people thereby gradually persuading and leading them toward his ideal way of living that is purposed in peace and wholeness.  This seems to be more the case as God continues forward with the Law given to Moses (which envisions a new way of living within the world) and the prophets (who reinforce the covenantal Law message and even came to see that God desired mercy and not sacrifice Hosea 6:6). I do not believe we can then say that God has really ever desired humans to become arbitrators over one another, but, as I have said so many times before, desires a creation that cares for the other.

... But What About Jesus?   

There is so much of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection that reiterates and reinterprets Israel’s Law and ethic as a thing of mercy and in a way that demonstrates God’s heart more than ever before.   Shockingly he does this by negating the eye for eye/tit for tat mindset of Moses’ day and calls for an action that loves selflessly (Mathew 5:38-48; 9:12-13).   Jesus goes on to demonstrate this for the Pharisees after they drag a woman caught in the act of adultery before him. They test him by pointing out that according to the law they were well within their right to stone her.  Yet, Jesus replies by saying whichever one of them was without sin may throw the first stone. As each man threw down his stone and walked away, Jesus stooped down and asked the woman who was around to condemn her.  Upon replying that nobody was, Jesus then said neither do I condemn you (John 8:1-11). While Jesus did not contest the fact that her action was worthy of death by law, he makes two points here: one, that only a person void of sin is just in carrying out this act of judgment, and two, that being the one void of sin, as he was believed to be,  had the clearer vision that was more interested in extending mercy to a broken person then ending the life of a law violating enemy. 

I believe this is as Yoder suggested the gospel itself meaning that Christ died for his enemies which gives way to a people who are ultimately responsible for the life of neighbor and especially the enemy. So also, we can then only say this to another if we are willing to say to ourselves that we cannot dispose of a person according to our will.[1]  So, as a Christian whose ethics are qualified by Christ’s teaching and God’s broader story with humanity, I would have to say no, we cannot support the death penalty.   

[1] John Howard Yoder. The Original Revolution (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press 1971), 42.

  

Does Christ’s Physical Resurrection Matter?

           

The topic of Christ’s resurrection has often been a topic of intrigue and debate mainly because of theories that have been formed over what really occurred. The theories have ranged from accusations that Jesus mysteriously survived the crucifixion, to his disciples stole the body and fabricated the whole thing, to his disciples suffered hallucinations, to it being a metaphorical resurrection of Christ coming to life in the hearts of the disciples, to the argument that the disciples, among many, really did witness the miraculous.  I personally find the evidence for a real resurrection account to be sufficient over all the other theories. So, if any of you would like to hear my thoughts on that, say so and I would be more than happy to make it my next post.  However, my main point here is to show why it is vital that it be true otherwise Christ was no Messiah, but would have been the failed revolutionary or false prophet as others claimed him to be.

            The Claim

Throughout the Synoptic Gospels there is plenty of anticipated warning given by Jesus that both his death and resurrection were on the horizon given that his demise had already been in the hearts and on the agendas of the elders, chief priests and scribes (Matt. 12:40, 16:21; Mk 8:31; Lk. 9:22).  It must, nevertheless, be understood that in this first-century world any talk of rising from the dead or resurrection was understood to denote an occurrence happening to the physical body.  As N.T. Wright has extensively laid out, bodily resurrection was something the many Jews believed could and would happen as a future event while most of the Pagan world, along with some Jews, denied especially in the context of a future life.[1]  Death was a one way road.  Now I know the tendency to assume that the Pagan world was just being faithless, but what reason did they have to think any different?  The eventual death of the body had never not occurred as far as they knew.  The idea of new life was something God reveled to Israel via Abraham, Moses and the Law, Israel’s oracles and so on and became inherent within Jewish theology and hope. 

Decay

However, this is most pronounced in their view of sin.  Sin is ultimately disobedience to YHWH not because he has some sick need to dominate and smite, but because he is the source of life and working contrary to that source of life was going to cause bondage unto death.  An appropriate analogy is like that of a flower that has been cut from its root.  While it too appears to still be healthy and alive, it is only a matter of time before its decay becomes evident the longer it is away from its root system.  So also, sin irreversibly crosses that boundary that initiates the curse of being severed from our life source thus bringing death to both the organic aspect of humanity as-well-as the spiritual (Gen. 2:17; 3:3).  From that point forward humanity is in need of an act of mere regeneration by way of re-creation. This act is essentially what we see initiated by the Ten Commandments as God’s new act of creation (hence the Law’s intrinsic purpose of setting the Hebrews apart through restored fidelity to YHWH)  that comes to further completion in the Messiah who was obedient/faithful to the point of death (Matt. 5:17-19).     

    

New Life   

Paul expounds on this notion for the church of Corinth (a people steeped in Pagan thought and tradition) who had trouble grappling with this concept:

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures… If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have died in Christ have perished.  If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor. 15:3-4, 17-19 NRSV). 

In essence it is that simple; if Jesus did have a bodily resurrection, then sin and subsequent death have really been overcome, but if he did not rise then nothing has changed and we are still in bondage to sin. However, since we believe Jesus did rise from the dead, we do have a reason to believe that we are in the initial stages of freedom and things are different.  Therefore, we have entered into an overlap of time between times.  This is to say that “‘the present evil age’ has been invaded by the ‘age to come,’ and is the time of restoration, return, covenant renewal and forgiveness”.[2]  Therefore, God’s initial act toward the completion of re-creation could not end except in a literal reanimating of both organic and spiritual life in Christ the “firstborn of creation” (Col. 1:15).  Perhaps this raises more questions than it answers, but it is the beginning of understanding.

[1] N.T. Wright. Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church (New York: Harper Collins Publishing 2009), 37.

[2] N.T. Wright. Christian Origins and the Question of God: The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press 2003), 332.

Tradition!

This year I decided to take part in Lent and I must say I have come to some new conclusions about the practice.  Now I know there are some of us who come from denominations that for whatever reason don’t participate in it, but I want to use my Lenten observations as a means to look at how we Christians should approach our traditions.  Of course it would not be terrible if it also helped us discern what traditions were worth keeping and what are worth abandoning.   

Nevertheless, in its historical setting Lent was practiced in the days and weeks leading up to someone’s baptism in which each person would prepare themselves via confession, prayerful solitude, fasting and so forth before the public declaration of their faith.  However, Lent today is different.  It is now an communal activity practiced annually with the same reflective aims, yet it has become more of a time to daringly give up something cherished (i.e. food, unnecessary spending, social media etc..) between point A (Ash Wednesday) and point B (Easter Sunday). This then raises the question, does anything really change?  Don’t get me wrong it is good that this has become an annual tradition for all Christians, but it is meant to be an avenue for drawing near to God while God draws near to us in a way that allows God to transfors the human-self toward inner Christ-likeness.  This is, as Judy Bauer says, for the purpose of spiritual growth in a way that carries us from an old state of being to a new way of living.[1]  Thus, some might see the Lenten tradition is reminiscent of the “spiritual disciplines”. The disciplines also seek to purposely enter into a place where we set aside external things in exchange for God’s direct renovation of our interior life.   

    

These observations have come from my going without while feeling like I am only going through the motions.  We so often fall into the trap of trying to rush through these things which I suspect happens because first, we have let the hurried aspect of our social-sphere demand it’s way in to the deepest part of inner spiritual self, and second, because we are blinded by illusory ideas that our spiritual health and nourishment has been met and requires nothing further.  However, grace and the sanctifying process say otherwise (Phil. 2:12-13). The truth is life with God is a journey that begins new every day requiring fresh submission and willful dependence on him.  Therefore whether we are participating in Lent, taking communion, or merely entering into daily prayer, it is all purposeful for growing us in God.          

      

Tradition as whole exists to pass-on “ideas, commitments, customs, manners, and celebrations of life in its complexity” all for the sake of memory and community.[2]   I believe Christian traditions do the same thing, but are intrinsically tied to a memory and community belonging to a larger picture of past, present and future divine outworkings which draw an entire creation home from exile (Ps. 96:10; Isa 56:7; Matt. 25:31-32; 28:19-20).  Therefore, all Christian traditions that refocus human thought and life back on our patient God and his work should never be approached arbitrarily or superficially. It is always working to further the development of new Christlike character in our personhood and thus requires active participation. In essence our aim should always be deeper communion with God. 

[1] Judy Bauer. Lent Easter Wisdom Nouwen (Ligouri, MO: Ligouri Publications 2005), viii.

[2] Richard E. Wentz. American Religious Traditions: The Shaping of Religion in the United States (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress 2003), xi.