Pensive

Call it a comeback (if you like)

2011-07-12T15:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been many months since I last touched this social experiment called "blogging," but I have decided with full intent to try to blog more. I will be matriculating in the PhD in Divinity (systematic theology) degree at the University of Edinburgh (New College Divinity School: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/divinity) this September, and so hopefully I will have new, fresh and exciting positngs (the sarcasm is dripping) for you, my "raving fans," to indulge in.

I will also probably blog about my life in Edinburgh, UK (http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/) with my wife and our two kids as us lonely colonists try to adapt to a very similar, yet very different country/culture.

My doktorvater for my tenure at Edinburgh is Dr. Paul T. Nimmo (http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/divinity/staff-profiles/nimmo) whowho is an up-and-coming Barthian scholar who caught my intellectual eye in the autum of 2010.

Onwards and upwards...

Dedicatory Donatism

2009-03-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

I have been ruminating on the subject of baby dedication for sometime now. My wife and I dedicated our oldest child when she was 10 months old in a church we no longer attend because we moved provinces. We have not yet dedicated our youngest child because, well, we haven't gotten around to it and we are looking for a time when we can get the majority of our respective families out to our current hometown and church.

I have noticed, however, in recent years a small but growing trend amongst some of my own family members and friends that baby dedication is being done in one's own home or in a non-traditional ecclesial setting (i.e. chapel, small-group, etc). While these couples are good evangelicals who are either in full-time ministry or planning to be, they seem to think that although baby dedication is a necessary rite for parent's and their children to go through, the physical context is either irrelevant or a traditional church setting is non-desirous.

It is here that I find myself disagreeing with this current practice; not baby dedication itself, but the intentional removing of the ceremony from a traditional church context to that of one that is more conducive to the desires of the parents.

I believe that this removal of baby dedication from a traditional church context/service is founded upon an heretical or at least quasi-semi-heretical ecclesiology, namely Donatism.

Now, let me first say that this new practice is not a full-blown return to Donatism like the one Augustine fought against over the efficacy of the sacraments as administered through repentant bishops who had renounced the faith under severe duress in times of Roman imperial persecution. What I am saying is that this new practice is Donatistic in that it intentionally excludes the remainder of the congregation of which the parents and children belong in order to have control over which hand-selected people the parents want to be influential in their child's lives.

Dedicatory Donatism is a threat to our churches because it states through not dedicating children at church (or dedicating them at church to appease the congregation, but then having the "real" dedication at one's home/small group) that only those who are deemed worthy by the parents are worthy to be influential on their children.

I believe that by cutting off one's children from the rest of the congregation, they not only manifest a schismatic mentality with regard to who is worthy and who is not, but they evidence that they actually do not believe that God is in the midst of all of his congregations and its constituent members, and is therefore, willing and more than able to use these very people to minister to their children.

In effect, what a dedicatory Donatist is saying is: "I believe that God is only capable of ministering to this child of ours through the people we have hand-picked." By divorcing the dedicatory act from the rest of the congregation, then, the parents are malnourishing their child by having such little faith in the God who calls and uses the foolish and weak of this world to the shame the wise and strong. By not allowing all members of the body of Christ to speak into and minister to their children they have shown that they cannot trust God to use other Christians whom they may not like (or whatever their reasons are), but must sovereignly choose those whom they deem fit for para-parental service.

Matthew records: "Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.' When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

I do not deny that these parents who dedicate their children in a non-traditional manner have the best intentions for their children and that there is a strong temptation to only surround your children with only edifying and constructive people (especially Christians), but to wrench this sacred practice out the church is, I argue, to wrench your children away from Christ and to prohibit them from being brought to Christ through his church who ministers to them in Word and sacrament/ordinance.

Children of Christian parents don't need to be taught that there are two churches: the big one where we meet on Sundays as formality and the small one that really matters with the parent's friends who really matter. What children need to be taught is that they belong to God in Christ and that part and parcel of belonging to God is that they belong to his church, not some quasi-church that excludes based upon relational pragmatics.

Taste and See

2009-01-21T11:23:00.000-08:00

So, I've been very diligent at reading along with the schedule for Calvin's Institutes this year, and this first post concerns the witty and insightful quip by Calvin in 1.8.2 where he states:

"Consequently, those for whom prophetic doctrine is tasteless ought to be thought of as lacking taste buds."

In this section, Calvin is arguing for the superiority of Scripture and points to the OT prophets who employ a wide variety of speech-style (sweet or rustic), or rather are employed by the Holy Spirit to communicate the word of God to his people. Therefore, Calvin argues that, regardless of what style(s) of human speech the Holy Spirit appropriates in the act and process of inspiring the prophets, Scripture is always qualitatively better than any other written document, for through the Scriptures, God "breathe[s] something divine."

It is self-evident that Calvin has a very high view of Scripture, which is why he seems to have a very difficult time understanding how anyone could not see (or taste) the divine in and through the Scriptures, thereby having to chalk-up any and all doubt to either Satan and/or one's impiety.

So, my questions (for my faithful readers) are these: Is Calvin's high view of Scripture too high? Meaning, are the different styles of the numerous biblical authors simply created conduits through which the divine truth/law/word/gospel flows but does not take on any of the authors' "properties"? Would Calvin be considered a good evangelical with regard to his view of Scripture, or could he even be more or less at home with the fundamentalists? I await your responses!

"Institutionalized"

2009-01-02T07:11:00.000-08:00

Hello all, and a happy new year!

In light of not having any good new year's resolutions, I have learned that Princeton Theological Seminary has created a year-long reading plan for Calvin's Institutes in honour of his 500th birthday (July 10, 1509). See here.

So, in light of having finished my proto-magnum opus on the Four-fold gospel, I will be attempting to actualize a new-found new year's resolution, which is to read through Calvin's magnum opus and glean any and all theological treasures and truths from this monumental theological work.

My postings may be sporadic, but I will try to comment on those passages that I find most interesting, confrontational and/or edifying. This is a big step for me because being raised in the Anabaptist tradition, someone like Calvin is not exactly a "brother-in-arms" for the gospel. But, as history shows, Calvin did marry, and his wife was an Anabaptist; well, at least she was. As the saying goes: "If you can't beat them, join them."

So, I have decided to join (hopefully) many others and read through the Institutes this year and be blessed by brother John while coming to a greater appreciation for and knowledge of the de facto founder of the Reformed tradition of the Christian church; a tradition that I find myself becoming more and more sympathetic to (just not the whole paedobaptist thing).

BP

The Four-fold Gospel: Part 4

2008-12-31T06:33:00.000-08:00

Fold #4: The salvific nature of the return of Jesus

This is the final installment of of the four-fold gospel (according to Bradley Penner) and I begin by apologizing for not having posted anything in over six weeks. I have many justifiable excuses that make perfect logical sense in my solipsistic mind, but I need not bore you with such mundane things.

In this post I will set forth the argument that the return of Jesus (Second Advent; Parousia, etc.) is part and parcel of the good news that God is with us and for us in the revelatory event of his Son's incarnation, death and resurrection, and that to not stress this aspect of the gospel as gospel is tantamount to negating the prior three realities and reducing them to a hollow sham.

From my context and viewpoint of 21st century North American Evangelicalism, eschatology has unfortunately devolved into two extremes. Either Christians are apathetic to all things eschatological preferring to remain agnostic about times and seasons, or they are so ravenous to pinpoint the time and day of Christ's return that many other important aspects of the gospel and Christian life recede to the background.

What I advocate here is not a "golden mean" between these two extremes, but a re-situation of the return of Christ within the realm of the gospel; meaning that I am viewing the Parousia soteriologically. My chief concern is to present the Parousia as "good news" as opposed to a biblical-apocalyptic puzzle to be solved or hermeneutical lock to be picked. I believe that many of the issues that surround and are generated by contemporary eschatology is because the Parousia is no longer viewed as a soteriological reality and event, but as a (glorious) formality that will eventually happen sometime in the future, but really has no bearing upon the church's life in the present.

The text I have chosen to ruminate on is 1 Corinthians 16:22 - Come, O Lord! which is the Aramaic word Marana tha. The phrase is found within Paul's final greetings to the church in Corinth and immediately comes after a very strong conditional statement that "If anyone does not love the Lord - a curse be on him."

This verse seems, at first glance, to be filled with both stern warning and hopeful promise, for the juxtaposition of such a warning for the Corinthian church to not love the Lord on the threat of being anathematized right beside such an exclamation of hope that Jesus will return is (potentially) bordering on theological schizophrenia.

However, it is my contention that one can only fully understand and appreciate the blessedness of the sure hope that Christ will return to consummate his salvation already accomplished in his incarnation, death and resurrection by viewing it in the light of the necessity to love the Lord always in order that one will not be accursed and thereby experience the joy of hoping for the Lord's return.

In fact, the concrete manifestation of loving the Lord is seen in the church confessing and proclaiming that the Lord will come. If the church does not confess the return of Jesus then it is not loving him and is not proclaiming the gospel. The good news is not simply the cross, nor is it simply the incarnation or resurrection, but is all four "folds" as the narrative of salvation (Heilsgeschichte) "unfolds."

Therefore, the return of Jesus is salvific in nature because it is the final event in which God reconciles all things to himself, which he began in eternity past when the Father elected the Son to be the lamb who would be slain for the sins of the world and would reconcile the world to himself, was revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and is what the church expectantly awaits when Jesus will return in "power and great glory."

The return of Jesus, then, should be viewed as a soteriological reality because although we have been released from our sins and guilt through the atonement of Christ, we still so not yet live in the fullness of the kingdom of God (that good old eschatological tension), meaning that even though we are saved, we still need to be saved through the transformation of our lowly bodies into the image and fashion of the one already given to the resurrected Lord.

On a final note on the salvific nature of the return of Jesus, I want to drive home the point that Jesus' return is good news. It is not something (for the Christian at least) to be feared, but reverently expected. The current devolving of eschatology into wild speculation or agnostic resignation is due to the fact that the return of Jesus has been excised from its soteriological home and transplanted into abstract categories that have little to no relation to the act of God in Jesus to save his creation from the chaos of sin.

We must, therefore, continually cope in faith, hope and love, to always love the Lord for fear of being accursed, as we proclaim Come, O Lord!

BP

The Four-fold Gospel: Part 3

2008-11-19T06:43:00.000-08:00

Fold #3: The salvific nature of the resurrection of Jesus

In this third installment of the four-fold gospel (according to Bradley Penner), I look at the resurrection of Jesus as part and parcel of the gospel message that God is with and for us in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting to the glory and praise of the triune God.

Now, it may seem that any discussion on the gospel would, by necessity, include a discussion on the resurrection. However, in my lifelong experience of being a Mennonite/Evangelical I have not heard much on the resurrection as a necessary "element" in the salvation message. The resurrection seems to be, rather, something Christians celebrate once a year by singing the good ol' hymns, having a "sunrise service" and maybe a somewhat decent breakfast at the church to lure in the irreligious "seekers."

What I propose in this entry is to argue that the resurrection is an indispensable aspect of the gospel message not only for the efficacious imputation of Christ's righteousness and the regenerative impartation of the Holy Spirit, but for the church's proclamation that what Jesus wrought (such a great word!) in his incarnation, life, passion and death is justified, accepted and vindicated by God, and is consequently wrought for us and our salvation.

The text that I will be focusing on is Mark 16:6, specifically the phrase: "He has risen!" Although I could have chosen this phrase from one of the other three evangelists or even the "kerygma" of 1 Cor 15:3-5, I chose Mark because over the summer I wrote a paper on the death of Jesus in Mark's gospel and even though this was a great exercise (it does a theologian good) I found myself wondering what role the resurrection plays in the gospel narratives and our own.

The testimonial-proclamative statement "He has risen" is, I believe, the crux of the entire gospel of Jesus Christ. Without his resurrection, the incarnation, life, passion and death of Jesus the Nazarene (and parousia, but more about that later) are kerygmatically empty, theologically hollow, existentially meaningless and ethically impotent. Simply put, if Jesus has not been raised then we are still in our sins and to be most pitied among all men (cf. 1 Cor 15:17-19).

However, Jesus has been raised and the salvific nature of his resurrection (is there any other?) is what concerns us here. The soteriological efficacy of the resurrection is centred upon and flows from the reality that Jesus has been bodily resurrected. I believe that an implicit and functional Docetism has crept in unaware into the theology of too many Christians (one is even too many!) and contorting their view of the resurrection into a quasi-Platonic view of the resurrection of Jesus and theirs as well, which is really no resurrection at all, but an escape from the prison house of their "flesh" rather than the re-creation of it.

I think many Christians have a "Philly creme cheese" view of the eschaton (re: the Philadelphia creme cheese commercials with the feminist angel and her man-servant Albert) meaning that they will be disembodied spirits or re-incarnated angels playing harps and not fretting over the calories of eating creme cheese and other "sinful" delicacies in the sweet by-and-by.

By being bodily raised, Jesus reveals that his life and death are accepted by God as a proper and worthy sacrifice for sin, that he is vindicated over his enemies who rejected his messianic claims and that he stands triumphant over death, hell (Gehenna, Tartarus) and the grave (Hades, Sheol).

Therefore, it is all the more imperative that the resurrection of Jesus be proclaimed, not only on Easter Sunday, but every Sunday (that is why the Christians started meeting on Sundays in the first place, right?) along with Jesus' life, passion and death; for to only focus on the vicarious nature of his death is to truncate the good news into a (potential) divine child abuse that implicitly condones a quietistic victim mentality and leaves a gaping lacuna for any -ism to fill the void and answer the question as to why Jesus was resurrected in the first place.

It is here that the author of Mark's gospel (Q from Star Trek?) crafts his narrative (as short as it is - I believe Mark's gospel ends at 16:8) to argue that the resurrection of Jesus constitutes the gospel, for the resurrection is proclaimed as a current and co-terminus reality that radically effects all reality, beginning with the two women at the tomb and extending to the apostles and, ultimately, all humanity/creation.

Now, I know this is quite a bit of theologizing of the evangelist's resurrection narrative, but I believe that the testimony of the young man in a white robe (angel?) demonstrates the salvific nature of the resurrection as the proclamation that God has overcome death, hell and the grave in the resurrection of his Son. To put it boldly (and possibly crassly), the medium of the resurrection is the message that "God is with us" and that "It is finished," meaning that we are no longer in our sins, we are not to be most pitied among men and that our faith is not in vain.

The resurrection of Jesus is not simply for him and his vindication (although it is first and foremost), but for us and our salvation; and even though we do not have stark empirical "proof" (despite the supposed shrine in the Holy Land) we do have the "evidence" of the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is the truthful and faithful recollection of the apostolic community, which exists for the proclamation of the gospel that "He has risen."

As a final note on the salvific nature of the resurrection, I focus again on the bodily aspect of Jesus' resurrection. By being raised bodily from the dead God has taken time (history) unto and into himself in order to reconcile and redeem time (history) in the body of Jesus. This not a divinization of time (history), but its current reconciliation and proleptic-eschatological redemption of it; and as those who are "timed" (historicized) creatures, we participate in this reconciliation and promised redemption, which constrains us to proclaim to the world that this is the "new creation" that has irrupted into the fallen creation.

So let us proclaim with the young man in a white robe, as those who are now clothed in Christ and will one day receive our own robes of righteousness, that "He has risen!"

BP

Meine Geschichte

2008-10-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

For those of you who do not know the 'heavenly language' of German, the title of this post auf English is 'my story (or history).' I have decided to write not so much my testimony (although that will be implicitly included), as my story of what type of home I was raised in and how I came to be who and what I am today through my various church/'spiritual' experiences.

The catalyst for this post stems from a friend (maybe more like a good acquaintance, but we are 'friends' on Facebook), who is a contributor to a fairly new blog Four, Seven and Twelvefold (http://4712fold.blogspot.com/) where the initial entries are by certain 'elect' people sharing their 'stories' of their respective Christian experiences.

I did try to put my story up there, but I am not in the inner-fold, so I resort to posting this on my blog in hopes that it may bless, challenge and edify some, hopefully all.

My personal journey has been one of constancy and upheaval. I was born into a typical Mennonite family (an only-child as well) in Abbotsford, BC and my parents decided that they did not want to subject their child to the rigidity and legalism of the MB (Mennonite Brethren) version of the Mennonite tradition, so they 'converted' to the GC (General Conference) version in hopes for a more 'normal' church experience not only for them, but also for me.

As I grew up in the GC church, I felt completely at home, because for the Mennonites, ethnicity and ecclesiality are so inextricably tied together that one can have difficulty distinguishing, let alone separating the two. Nevertheless, being a Penner I fit in with all the other Wiebes, Klassens, Dirks, Dycks, Loewens and the like because 'birds of a feather flock together.'

The dark side of this whole experience of being raised in this GC habitat is that I was never properly exposed to other Christian expressions and experiences, because (I think) of a mentality of superiority and duality. Superiority, in that the Mennonites (as Radical reformers) tended to think of themselves as being the only true Christians who had recovered the bible and its pure teachings to the exclusion of all other so-called expressions of the Christian faith. Stemming from this superiority, is the functional duality (even at times dualism), where the Mennonites basically stick to themselves and are not concerned with ecumenical dialogue or ministry.

Therefore, I always viewed other (so-called) Christians with a slight to strong suspicion because they did not follow the bible, and the bible alone. This led me to adopt a parochial and insular worldview that, ironically, stifled my love for the Scriptures, ecclesial communion and evangelistic witnessing. This grand irony was that I was supposed to be free from the legalism and rigidity of my parents' church background, but I (and yes, them as well) ended up becoming exactly what we didn't want to be - dead orthodoxy legalists.

It was here, at the age of 13 that my parents, for many other reasons than church, ended their marriage, and the constancy that I had become accustomed to was thrown into an upheaval that was to last for almost five years when I finished high school.

My parents separated (and later eventually divorced) half-way through my grade 8 year and my mom and I moved to Salmon Arm, BC where we tried to start over and I tried to make new friends in a new high school, only we did not attend church. Why? There were no Mennonite churches in SA, so (#1) we did not know where to go, and (#2) when something like a divorce happens in a tight-knit Mennonite church/community/family, it gets kinda ugly, with people taking sides and some in our 'home' church creating schism, not reconciliation.

These are, ultimately, poor excuses, but at the time they seemed like good ones considering the cataclysmic upheaval that had hit our (former) family and our close (they're all close when you're a Mennonite) relatives. It was here that I entered the darkness of my teenage years. Having jettisoned my former identity as a good GC boy from a good family I felt that an 'identity-revision' was in order. I exchanged the legalist garb for that of a libertine one in order to more easily fit in with and gain the acceptance of fellow-schoolmates and simply... because I wanted to.

As my high school years drew to a close and as I kept up the brilliant (I thought it was) facade of being a good student during the week and a not-so-good-son on the weekends, I was inevitably and continually faced with the gnawing question: "So, what are you going to do after high school?" I also had not regularly attended church for about five years with my mom only sporadically attending an Evangelical Free church, so my 'spirituality' was a complete non-factor in my decision-making process.

I graduated and had no sense of direction of what I was to do with my life and even why I was even here on planet earth. The seemingly benign question of post-high school vocation that had been shadowing me for almost five years had now suddenly evolved into a metaphysical/existential one that was screaming at me to find the 'meaning of life' and get on with it (that's Mennonite activism for you).

Since I did not have any stupendous plans post-high school, I worked at a car dealership and detailed cars while I waited for... something, anything (or someone). In the spring of 1999, I was invited out to a men's retreat by a fellow co-worker who happened to be a Christian (Free Methodist flavour) and it was there that I had my metaphysical/existential question answered by having a metaphysical/existential encounter with one and true living God through his Word.

It was here that I 'converted' although I am still uncertain to this day if I was a Christian before, and just back-slidden, or if I had never truly believed, and hence was saved, before (something I still ponder, but do not fret over). After this weekend retreat I began attending the EFree church my mom was attending and got 'plugged-in' (like an appliance, or something) to a small-group.

I was baptized on July 4, 1999 and became heavily involved in the College and Career group at the church. It was definitely a different experience attending an evangelical church in distinction to a Mennonite one. First, there is (a bit) more emotion and pietistic subjectivity in the evangelical tradition in contrast to the Mennonite one; and second, evangelicals are far more ethnically and ecclesiologically diverse. Although the Mennonite umbrella is large and there are far too many versions of 'Mennonite' (kinda like the Baptists), the evangelical umbrella is massive and encompasses just about anyone who appropriates the label for/to themselves.

These differences, however, were not enough to make me itch for a different expression/experience of Christianity, but it did allow and encourage me to interact and dialogue with others who consider themselves to be 'evangelical' and Lutheran/Anglican/Pentecostal etc. In the three years that I attended the EFree church in SA I became more appreciative of other traditions and hungered for a greater understanding of the entire Christian faith in other Protestant and non-Protestant manifestations.

This led me to attend Bible College (PBC '06) and eventually Seminary (Briercrest - still goin') where I have deepened my knowledge of the church historic and the many theologies of her doctors. Oh, and before I forget, I got married (July 6, 2002) and my wife, Marci, and I have two kids. That's always important for one's spiritual formation - your wife is your best critic and encourager!

At the present moment I would consider myself a content evangelical, but one who is not beholden to one particular expression of this tradition. Because of its diversity, I (primarily through books) have become interested in other expressions of evangelicalism (Alliance right now) and other Protestant denominations (Presbyterianism) from a distance.

The one area I struggle with the most right now about being an evangelical Christian is the 'ugly, wide ditch' between the academy and the church. Being an 'ivory-tower' kinda guy, I find myself most closely aligned with evangelical theology, but I am intrigued and even enamoured with a more liturgical style of worship (Anglican/Lutheran/Presbyterian). I am not on the road back to Rome or Constantinople; but Canterbury, Wittenburg or Edinburgh are not as scary as they used to be since I left the Mennonite tradition.

While enamoured, though, I have no plans to leave a more overt evangelical church expression, for while the liturgical style is beautiful and reverent (in contrast to the fun-and-games entertainment approach of some [most] seeker-sensitive churches) I need good solid preaching (preferably expository, but topics are OK, if they're done well).

I have yet to find an evangelical church that combines both the beauty and reverence of the liturgical style with sound evangelical theology and preaching; but, we can't all have our ecclesiological-theological cake and eat it too, can we? My mom always says: 'Beggars can't be choosers.'

This is a very long blog post and I apologize if I have rambled on, but thank you if you have made it this far, and hopefully, you have been blessed, challenged and edified (or at least one of the three) in your reading of 'my story.'

BP

The Four-fold Gospel: Part 2

2008-10-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

Fold #2: The salvific nature of the death of Jesus

Many of you have been waiting in bated breath for the next installment in my "four-fold gospel" series, in which I tackle (or are tackled by) one of the sayings of Jesus from the cross - "It is finished" (John 19:30). Although I could have chosen from the other sayings of Jesus as he was being crucified, I chose this Johannine one because of it's (seemingly) cryptic and triumphant nature (also, because all four of my "folds" have three words in them - Mennonites are consistent!).

The evangelist's decision to use this passion saying stems from his desire to provide a portrayal of Jesus as one who fulfills the will of God the Father, which is the salvation of the world. Much discussion has erupted around the atonement of late, especially with the extensive dialogue over whether the penal-substitutionary view is still culturally relevant or even biblically faithful, and if the Christus Victor and Moral-Influence views should not be resurrected and given a voice not only in academic discussions but also from the pulpits.

It is not my overt and explicit intention to wade into this debate here and now (though that will most likely be a later post in a later series), but to put forth a "mere" explication of what it means for Jesus' "finishing" to be good news.

In John 19:28 we seen the evangelist's personal commentary and interpretation leading up to the final saying of Jesus. As Jesus hung on the cross, moments from death, he knew that he had fulfilled ("finished" ESV) the will of his Father by taking upon himself the sin and guilt of humanity and had triumphed over it (John 1:29; 16:33) through his obedient passion and death.

The evangelist argues that at the moment when it empirically seemed that Jesus was defeated and evil had triumphed, in actuality, it was at that place and moment that God defeated evil with evil in the flesh of his Son. Jesus finished the will set out for him by the Father to be accomplished in the power and presence of the Spirit (John 3:34).

This, then, is good news because Jesus' "finishing" entails that his death on the cross is sufficiently meritorious for us in that no one is required to "fulfill" the will of God, for it has already been fulfilled in Christ. By Jesus finishing the Father's will he releases all from the angst of self-justificatory religiosity and empowers all to become witnesses to the "final" event in which God triumphed over sin, guilt and alienating enmity in the death of his Son.

Therefore, as we participate in Christ through faith in him and his finished work by the presence of the Spirit, we "fulfill" the will of God, though not on any natural merit, but on Christ's merit. The "finishing" aspect of the death of Jesus provides hope to those who are weary and heavy-burdened with their labours of religious self-justification and pious performance anxiety.

For all who acknowledge that Jesus has indeed "finished" the will of God for them (and hence, for all) this is a blessed and glorious truth that releases them from worry and to action, in testifying to the accomplishment of redemption in the fulfilling death of Jesus.

As we participate in the finished work of Jesus by the Spirit, we evidence that participation in imitation by being "crucified with Christ" and "dying daily." The cruciform life is the Christian life and as Jesus proclaimed that "It is finished" so we too must declare that truth to the "ends of the earth." Therefore, as Jesus bowed his head and gave up his spirit to God, so must we, but not in self-resignation to the evil that seemingly triumphed, but in full recognition that God's reconciliatory will has been fulfilled, and fulfilled for us.

BP

10 things that biblically/theologically interest me

2008-10-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

1.) Christology (Athanasius and Barth)
2.) Soteriology (ordo salutis)
3.) Postmodern theology (Kevin Vanhoozer, Stanley Grenz)
4.) Theological hermeneutics (Vanhoozer)
5.) Theologically oriented commentaries (e.g. Brazos Theological Commentaries)
6.) Political Theology (Oliver O'Donovan)
7.) Ethics
8.) Apologetics
9.) Anabaptist theology (or lack thereof! )-:
10.) doctrine of the Trinity (patristic development and contemporary discussion)

The Four-fold Gospel: Part 1

2008-10-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

My wife was raised in a pietistic Baptist (NAB) church; I was raised in a pietistic Anabaptist (Mennonite - GC) church. So, it is a bit surprising that we now are now attending a Christian and Missionary Alliance church in Moose Jaw, SK. Although I have heard much about the C&MA "movement" (they don't like the label "denomination" but if it looks like a duck and talks like one, then...) and I am somewhat familiar with their interesting hybrid/synthesis/hypostaic union of Presbyterian Calvinism and Pentecostal Revivalism, my wife and I are still trying to figure out their denominational (there's that word!) distinctives relative to our respective pietistic heritages.

The last three weeks the associate pastor of this Alliance church has been preaching through the "four-fold" gospel (I think they got this from Pentecostalism), each week preaching a different "fold" of the good news. We have gone through Jesus as saviour, sanctifier and healer (that is, physical healer) and next week will be Jesus as soon coming king.

This has been a very enlightening and informing experience for my wife and I as we learn about the second work of the HS (baptism of the HS after regeneration) and the real possibility that one can be physically healed in this life, because not only did Jesus die for our sin (spiritual sickness) but also my physical sickness as well (healing in the atonement).

While my wife and I are not sold on the C&MA distinctives of the baptism of the HS and physical healing (at least as the C&MA interprets them), we are in vast agreement with the other aspects of their doctrinal statement, and I even prefer a top-down Presbyterian government over that of, but not against, bottom-up free-church congregationalism (why empower ignorance?).

Therefore, we have decided to attend this church (for now), not only because they have great worship teams, padded pews and a host of other obligatory "programs," but because we "feel" (we're such good pietists!) that this is where God wants us to be. I just won't be getting overly-emotional in church anytime soon. You can take the Baptist girl and the Mennonite boy out of their pietistic churches, but you can't take their pietistic ways out of them!

So, now for the real reason why I am writing this post. I would like to put forth my own "four-fold" gospel as such: God with us (Matt 1:23), It is finished (John 19:30), He has risen (Mark 16:6) and Come, O Lord (1 Cor 16:22).

This personal "four-fold" gospel is not meant to refute or replace what the C&MA has enshrined in it's particular doctrinal statement, but is meant to be my own (complementary?) version of what I believe the "good news" is about. My "four-fold" gospel takes it's cue from CS Lewis' "Mere Christianity" as I am not trying to start a new "movement" or even denomination (there it is again!), but "merely" state what I believe are the four core realities/aspects of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Fold #1 - The salvific nature of the Incarnation of the Word of God in Jesus of Nazareth

In the gospel of Matthew, the evangelist interprets and applies the Isaianic prophecy (Isa 7:14) to the one who is born of the virgin - Jesus of Nazareth (Matt 1:23). The first "fold" of my/the gospel deals with the soteriological implications of the incarnation.

The incarnation of the Word of God (see also John 1:1-14) who became Jesus of Nazareth is not always (at least in my experience) touted as the core of the good news of salvation in Jesus. The cross usually gets the lion's share of the emphasis of the good news, but now I would like to argue that the cross (and by consequence, the resurrection and parousia) would never have and will never take place without the incarnation of the Word of God.

By the Word of God assuming human flesh in Jesus, all human flesh (by flesh I mean all the constitutive elements of what makes humans human) is thereby saved, because as one church father (I think Athanasius) once said: "That which has not been assumed, has not been healed." Therefore, the logical converse is: that which has been assumed, has been saved!

What I am not arguing is that humans are saved by any crass "divine blood transfusion." But, the incarnation is salvific because in God assuming human flesh, the ontology of humanity is redeemed because God has taken humanity's plight upon himself and overcome it in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, the incarnation of the Word of God in Jesus and his subsequent cruciform life, is not simply an exemplary-ethical revelation that God desires us to emulate, (though, that is true), but is (by necessity) first and foremost an ontological re-creation wherein God so thoroughly identifies with humanity that humanity is inescapably confronted and consoled by the God who is irrevocably and eternally "with us" in all our finitude, limitations and even plight in Jesus of Nazareth.

I know that this short and pithy blog entry by no means does sufficient justice to the salvific nature of the incarnation (does any blog entry?), but I do want to posit the thesis that Christians should come to a more robust and holistic view of the incarnation as a necessary asepct (or "fold") of the good news. Rather than viewing the incarnation as simply a nostalgic christmas time miracle that remains only to warm our hearts (sounds Wesleyan), it would be better to view the incarnation as the author of Matthew's gospel does: God-with-us.

Because God is indeed with us in Jesus, he is, therefore, for us. This is the good part of the good news as revealed in the incarnation, for what a comedic travesty it would be to have a God who is with, but not for those whom he has created and promised to reconcile and redeem.

Thankfully, God is with us and for us and he does this through the enfleshment of his Word in Jesus of Nazareth. The incarnation, then, chronologically precedes, because it is logically necessary for, the cross, resurrection and parousia. But more about those in my next three posts.

BP

10 things that biblically/theologically bore me

2008-09-19T14:36:00.001-07:00

1.) Feminist Theology
2.) Canon law
3.) Intertestamental literature (Apocrypha/Pseudipigrapha)
4.) KJV-only debate
5.) Inerrancy debate
6.) Isaianic authoriship
7.) Hyper-technical commentaries (WBC)
8.) Documentary Hypothesis
9.) Greek syllabification rules (See Mounce's Basics)
10.) Anything by John MacArthur and/or Hank Hanegraaf (nuff said)

What bore's you?

Ecclesia reformandum, semper reformanda

2008-09-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

This great Latin phrase that was coined during the Reformation era (ca. 1500-1650) is a favorite of mine because I believe it encapsulates and reveals the reality of the church and all her ministries (especially her theology) as a finite and ever-revisable entity that, although always held together by the grace and power of God, is in constant need of reformation.

However, not all ideals are always fulfilled and the impending stagnation of theology and church polity soon manifested itself by ca. 1650 with a definitive "hardening of the [theological] categories" with the drawing up of confessional lines and the consequent ecclesial segregation thereof (Protestants and Catholics; Magisterial and Radical Protestants).

Therefore, I contend that a retrieval and re-implementation of this insightful phrase, "the reformed church is always reforming," would be a good and continual corrective to the constant temptation of the church to settle into any dogmatic and/or ecclesiastical mould that would prevent God from continuing his work of reforming his church: theology, polity and all.

Now I know this sounds idealistic, and history has shown that idealists rarely get their way, but I do believe that only when the church acknowledges its inherent limitations in her commentary on scripture and organization, can she begin to realize the need for God to reform her into the image of his Son by the power of his Spirit.

This task of reforming and being reformed will continue until the parousia because we still reside "east of Eden," but lest we catch a case of spiritual melancholy, we also live on the "other side of Easter."

BP

P.S. I really want to see what Roger Olson has to say on this topic, but I'm broke right now. Maybe Christmas?
http://www.amazon.com/Reformed-Always-Reforming-Postconservative-Evangelical/dp/0801031699/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

The one book meme

2008-09-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

1.) One book that changed your life
A Passion for Truth - Alister McGrath

2.) One book you have read more than once
The Re-birth of Orthodoxy - Thomas Oden

3.) One book you want on a desert island
The Church Dogmatics - Karl Barth

4.) One book that made you laugh
Don't stand too close to a naked man - Tim Allen

5.) One book that made you cry
A new kind of Christian - Brian McLaren

6.) One book you wish had been written
The complete, exhaustive and absolute guide to understanding women - Unknown author

7.) One book you wish had never been written
Everyday Apocalypse - David Dark

8.) One book you are currently reading
The Work of Christ - PT Forsyth

9.) One book you have been meaning to read
Institutes of the Christian Religion - John Calvin

Coming out of the closet

2008-09-17T10:02:00.001-07:00

I have a confession to make...

I am a closet Barthian. While some of you may cheer that I have finally accepted the reality that I have a strong affinity for the theology of the 'Swiss master,' others may think that I am a walking-talking contradiction because of being raised in a good Mennonite home/church, and that just as oil and water are irreconcilable, so too is the situation with those radical and magisterial reformation traditions.

Well, if there is anyone who can teach me to keep/hold the dialectical tension of those two traditions it is Barth, and I would like to share a quote from the old man in Basel that I find as a needful reminder of why and how I should do theology.

"The angels laugh at old Karl. They laugh at him because he tries to grasp the truth about God in a book of Dogmatics. They laugh at the fact that volume follows volume and each is thicker than the previous one. As they laugh, they say to one another, 'Look! Here he comes now with his little pushcart full of volumes of the Dogmatics!' - and they laugh about men [i.e. humans] who write so much about Karl Barth instead of writing about the things he is trying to write about. Truly, the angels laugh."

I am sure that the angels get quite a chuckle about what I try to say about God and that I spend too much time trying to 'get' Barth rather than the triune God. Then again, it is more important that God 'get' me than I him.

Got it?

BP

What's in a name?

2008-09-17T08:40:00.000-07:00

It seems to be a right of passage to not only begin a 'blog' but then to find an interesting and tantalizing title to which most readers are left scratching their heads as to what exactly the creator intends by the title.

The title, 'Pensive,' is word (adjective for those English buffs) that means "deeply or seriously thoughtful," which is not necessarily indicative of every post that will manifest in my 'blog' but is the over-arching intention that (hopefully) will permeate the majority of my posts.

Also, the title is drawn from that most irreverant and interesting book series Harry Potter. In the series the character Dumbledore possess a magical thing (kind of like a holding tank) called a 'pensive' in which he extracts thoughts from his mind through his wand and places them in the 'pensive' until he wants to think these thougths again and then extracts them from the 'pensive' and puts them back into his mind for further rumination.

Now, before the heretic hunters come looking for me in order to burn me at the virtual stake, I am not trying to be 'magical' in this blog nor is this a round-about way of promoting Harry Potter. The title I chose is simply to reflect my intention to be thoughtful in my postings and future discussions about my postings with those who dare to interact with my intellectual prowess. (I'm not that scarry, really... just ask my wife!)

So, this 'blog' is my 'pensive' because I desire to be pensive in my postings and responses and also try to be a witness to the plethora of bad 'blogs,' which are nothing more than dribble and banterings.

Clear as mud? I thought so.

Sound off

2008-09-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hey,

This is my first post and I have nothing to write about, well nothing of ultimate importance. But, I do want to write about the fact that 'blogs' (as they are affectionately know) are a great place to 'sound off' with musings, banterings and even the odd intellectual golden nugget.

I am currently researching and writing a paper on the death of Jesus as presented in the gospel of Mark, and it is very interesting to see how the different gospel writers ('evangelists') view/perceive the death of Jesus (and his whole life in general).

I think it just goes to show how subjective the evangelists are in their respective presentations of Jesus, but not to the point of a nihilistic relativism where opinion and perspective are deemed the new (at least functional) metaphysic.

I appreciate seeing (or better yet, perceiving) the way in which 'Mark' presents Jesus differently than the other three canonical evangelists to get across his point and still remains faithful to the good news of Jesus.

And what exactly is his point? Well, you'll have to read my paper when it's done, because I'm still figuring that out for myself.

This is simply my first blog entry and I do hope that my subsequent ones will be more stimulating and engaging than this one.

BP