Archive for the Category »Theology «

December

Dare I go here this early in this series?? I wasn’t planning on going here this early, but Elliot’s well thought/written comment yesterday as well as parts of others’ comments have begun to address the topic of truth. With this being such an important topic in postmodern epistemology, I think it is actually best to talk about truth early in this series.

Now, Jason had a very good word in his comment that I need to emphasize before writing on this topic. FEAR. Appropriate word from Jason as this emotion/reaction often clouds our thinking and responses to what could otherwise be great conversations. Please don’t respond with fear as you read this post.

Image from Getty Images

For the Christians reading this, you must hear me say – I believe the Bible is Truth, every word of it (specifically in its original language), I believe that God inspired the biblical authors so that we humans can know God through knowing truth, and I believe that we have reliable English (and many other languages) translations by which we can study and know truth. (I am not going into the nuances of inerrancy or infallibility for this post, but rather am concerned with some philosophical approaches to truth in our postmodern cultures)

For those who are not of the Christian faith, you must hear me say – I hold my beliefs with firmness and with humility. I am very committed to what I believe as an individual, a husband, a father, a pastor, and one who is on mission to extend God’s grace to all peoples of the earth. Along with that, I am willing to discover truth in all of God’s creation in all disciplines of humanity. I would love to hear from all perspectives in this conversation.

I am an evangelical Christian and recognize that this evangelicalism was born out of the Enlightenment era and world view. However I was born in 1972 just as postmodernism was taking over (at least in America) our culture in mainstream thought. Over the years (especially in the last 7) I have read much and considered this epistemological struggle crucial to forwarding the message of Jesus Christ into the world now and the future. I believe that for Christians to continue to talk about truth as we have in the past (enlightenment/modern) will only cause more to walk away from their faith with the conclusion that faith has no bearing to their “real” life. To give some definition to what I am talking about, let me mention a paragraph from the work of Stanley Grenz:

“The Enlightenment perspective assumes that knowledge is not only certain (and hence rational) but also objective. The assumption of objectivity leads the modernist to claim access to dispassionate knowledge. Modern knowers profess to be more than merely conditioned participants in the world they observe: they claim to be able to view the world as unconditioned observers – that is, to survey the world from a vantage point outside the flux of history” (Stanley Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism, Eerdmans, 1996 p4)

All of us, in our pursuit of truth MUST acknowledge that none of us stand outside of a vantage point or bias, but we all come from a certain context and bring that context to our observations and interpretations. Now some would quickly say that the Bible is God’s revealed truth and God stands outside of time/history so it is unconditioned truth. This is valid to a point, however God chose to use human authors who are in time/history through which to reveal his eternal Truth. I believe even the fact that there are 4 perspectives (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John) of the earthly life and ministry of Jesus included in the canon of inspiration points to the multiperspectival dimension of truth. The four gospel perspectives all point to and are records of the same Truth but from different viewpoints. This is where humility must enter into our truth claims as Christians or any other discipline. Let’s back away from theology for just a bit and consider this in the field of science.

In Jason’s comment yesterday he linked a great and witty article about scientists’ new fascinating work with neutrinos possibly traveling faster than the speed of light thus potentially messing with Einstein’s theory of relativity. In this article, the author pointed to the dynamic nature of the discipline of science:

“The whole point of a scientific theory is that it is there to be shot down – to be shown to be false by new experimental evidence, or to be replaced with a better, more accurate theory that explains more.”

Now don’t throw stones yet I am not saying that the doctrines of Christianity are merely theories to be shot down or shown false. In science we have “laws” and “theories”, both of which can be challenged and overturned (we do live in the

Image from NASA

age where Pluto lost its planethood, a process in which Pluto didn’t change, but our understanding of it did) I believe that in theology we have some things that are “laws” that through the years and rigors of theology we can hold onto very strongly, allowing our core person and communities to be shaped by them. We also have “theories” (I’m even uncomfortable using that word in conjunction with doctrines) which in our best efforts express truth as we know it. We can trust these “theories” (beliefs), we can live life with confidence around these beliefs, but we continue to learn and grow as people created in God’s image (my bias) who are intelligent and seeking to know a God who can be known. And it is possible that through further studies, new evidences, additional experiments, different applications, etc. we come to better, more accurate explanations. (This is the task of theology after all)

Now, I think I have said enough for today and enough to process in some thoughtful commenting. Tomorrow, I shall continue with some about rationalism in the postmodern epistemology and more.

Category: biblical studies, Brian, Church, culture, ministry, Post-modernity, Science, seminary, Theology, Truth Tags: epistemology, faith, Grenz, postmodernity, science, Theology, truth 6 Comments

Science, Faith and Leaving Christianity (part2)

December

written by:brian | 11 Comments

“84% of Christian 18- to 29-year-olds admit that they have no idea how the Bible applies to their field or professional interests. For example, young adults who are interested in creative or science-oriented careers often disconnect from their faith or from the church. On the creative side, this includes young musicians, artists, writers, designers, and actors. On the science-oriented side, young engineers, medical students, and science and math majors frequently struggle to see how the Bible relates to their life’s calling.” (Top Trends of 2011: Millennials Rethink Christianity)

It is alarming that young adults “have no idea how the Bible applies to their field or professional interests.” Unfortunately, I think (unscientifically) we could bump that age range up a decade or so and still be in the 70% range of American Christians identifying with that statement from The Barna Group.

image from Getty Images

This great disconnect isn’t something that has happened overnight and I believe that a key factor is the way that Christians have approached science. The logic that says, “Science tells me ________, but the Bible tells me _______, so science can’t be right” is just as dangerous as the other way around. The danger is just as potent because in both cases we are not dealing with simple raw data. Science is founded on examining empirical data, but how much of what “science says” has gone far beyond the data to drawing further conclusions, theories or interpretations of the data?

In response to yesterday’s post, my friend Dave, gave a strong comment from his experience in support of young earth and this being strengthened as he looked at the evidences during college. He made a statement that I would like to comment on further: “I believe the Bible is a tool to help us understand science…not the other way around.” I agree with the heart of his comment, but want to take a few steps back to examine and distinguish how I would arrive at a statement like this.

First, I believe that there are two types of revealed data about origins, life, the universe, God, etc. One is general revelation and can be found in the world/universe around, including people. This is commonly referred to as nature or the natural world. The other is specific or special revelation which I believe is the writings in the scriptures of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. (Now some will disagree with the existence of any special revelation or with what is included in that special revelation, but that could be a topic of a further post) The key to this is that BOTH general and specific revelation consist of raw data that must be observed, interpreted, and applied. In that process we all bring certain presupposition and bias.

So science is the observation, interpretation, and application of general revelation (nature).

And faith is the observation, interpretation, and application of specific revelation (scripture).

Image from Getty Images

But these two disciplines are not isolated and one cannot reject the other and remain whole. The Hebrew poet was inspired to write,

“The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.” (Psalm 89.11)

What we observe from what God has created will coincide with God’s special revelation. So then it comes down to interpretation from both directions.

I believe the problem has occurred and will continue to occur when there is an interpretation or application that is concluded in either that doesn’t seem to work with or, more severely, is in contradiction with the other. At this point of disagreement it is important to go back to each area of discipline and observe more, re-interpret (if applicable), and re-apply in both areas. When we do this, I am confident that science and faith can work together and not only “get along” but strengthen each other. But if either discipline digs in and says “I’m right” without reexamination, then we end up with an embarrassing Galileo situation.

So then I can say that the Bible is a tool to help us understand science AND science (general revelation) can be used as a tool to help us interpret the Bible.

Further, this philosophical approach will help Christians (young and old) have a greater understanding of how the Bible informs their career, professional interests, and life calling AND how their life calling helps them and others have a greater understanding of the scriptures. We need individuals of faith to be in all fields of academia to enrich our understanding of both God’s special revelation and general revelation. A person in the field of medicine can be greatly enriched by his/her faith in fundamental respect for life and purpose of creating a better life medically. A gifted writer has greater purpose in writing when biblical faith is present to not only write true or inspiring stories, but words that serve a purpose greater than himself/herself. There is no career path that is untouchable by the individual’s faith.

Now this post has mostly been in the theoretical realm, so I leave it to you to comment with support or disagreement and possibly bring up some specific applications or questions.

Category: Church, culture, ministry, Post-modernity, Science, seminary, Theology Tags: apostacy, Bible, christianity, creation, evolution, faith, hermenuetic, postmodern, science, Theology 11 Comments

Science, Faith, and Leaving Christianity (Part 1)

December

written by:brian | 15 Comments

50-75% of teenagers who attended church leave their faith as a young adult! The stats vary in different reports, but any of the stats are alarming. In one study the Barna research group reported that “Overall…nearly three out of every five young Christians (59%) disconnect either permanently or for an extended period of time from church life after age 15.” (Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church)

This is a troubling number as I have spent the last 20 years working with teenagers in the context of a church. It is those stories of young adults walking away from their faith that sadden me the most. Through reading and talking with others, I have come to believe that most of the time a large contributor to their apostasy is the church or people in the church. It seems that although the church has done so much good over the years (another post to come on this in a few days) we have been in a defensive posture in modern and postmodern times. Many have characterized the church as people who are against ________ (you fill in the blank) rather than what we are for. Sadly, if I can make a general observation, this is the attitude of the Pharisees, the most criticized group of people in the records of Jesus’ life on earth.

One such area that we (the church) have been historically against is science. In fact in the aforementioned article by the Barna Group, it is reported to be reason number 3 in the top six reasons young Christians leave the church. “…[T]he research shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries.”

It is this aspect of science and faith that I would like to discuss first. In this “anti” position the church has stood in for a long time and in a strong way against science. There are many illustrations of this in history, but most notably are Nicolaus Copernicus’ development of the heliocentric theory, proposing that the earth is not the center of the universe, but rather moves around the sun. Even more known is the conflict this developed into between the church and Galileo Galilei for the support of heliocentrism. “In 1633 Galileo was convicted of grave suspicion of heresy for ‘following the position of Copernicus, which is contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture,’and was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.” (Catholic Church and Science) Although there was a process of the church stepping back from this decree against this scientific theory (become proven in reality), it wasn’t until 200 years later (1835) that all traces of this ban were gone.

What was the central issue in this controversy? Scripture. Heliocentrism was refuted because what the Bible “said”. However, one must now see that it wasn’t what the Bible said, but what was the accepted interpretation of what was written in the Bible. This brings us back to the point of the relationship between faith and science. And at the center of this in today’s world is what has become known as the creation-evolution debate. Most polemically this debate is between those who state that the Bible (Genesis 1&2) says God created the earth in 6 literal days by His spoken word and those who say the earth was formed over billions of years beginning with a cosmic explosion of very dense matter.

Now my purpose here is not to state what I believe on origins and give all evidence to support/defend it. (To acknowledge my bias I do believe that what we know of as life and the earth we live on has its origin in God and is written about in God inspired scripture) My purpose is however, to engage Christians with the possibility that we can fully embrace the sciences and be completely true to scripture! In fact, I believe that our faith can be enriched by the sciences! In addition, my purpose is to engage with those who have rejected faith for science in such a way as to create conversations of understanding.

Recently, through a friend and former pastor, I came across an organization seeking to do just what I described, create space for conversation between faith, science and culture. The Colossian Forum created the following video (well worth 8 minutes of your time) to highlight their organization’s purpose and mandate; something I believe is desperately needed.

More Light, Less Heat from The Colossian Forum on Vimeo.

Over the next ten days I am going to be publishing several articles related to the Christian faith in our current postmodern context.

(full disclosure…this is fulfilling an assignment in a seminary class as well as a desire of mine to be blogging more often and interacting with what I am learning)

I would enjoy receiving and interacting with any and all comments you might have regarding my posts. I certainly can’t have any conversations if this is only one-way communication.

Category: biblical studies, Brian, Church, culture, ministry, Science, seminary, Theology Tags: conversation, creation, debate, evolution 15 Comments

the god of Christmas

November

written by:brian | Leave a Comment

The subtle, yet poignant message in this commercial screamed out at me this morning while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with the family. Watch below and see if you can hear what I hear:

Did you see it…not only have we overtaken the real reason for the Christmas celebration, Christ the eternal, the Messiah taking on humanity for the salvation of the world, but we have further replaced God with today’s image of commercialism, Santa Claus! Coca-cola has created Santa as a god-like figure who controls the events of humanity through his snow globes, to bring happiness to all (and a Coke and a smile). I realize that this is a mythical and flawed view of how God works, but it subtly indoctrinates our society and bumps God the Father and the Son out of the Christmas celebration. Maybe we should start calling the holiday season Santamas? Merry Santamas to all…yikes!

Those of us who know the reality of God in flesh appearing need to keep Christ as the center of Christmas, help our children discern and understand the lies of society around, and celebrate that true joy and life only known through the Christ of CHRISTmas.

I Love Coke…but this ad campaign doesn’t bring happiness or a smile to my face.

Category: christmas, culture, Theology, youtube Leave a Comment

Technology, the Gospel, and the Church

March

written by:brian | Leave a Comment

I came across this blog post from Tony Morgan and I was simply amazed at what I was seeing and how this could impact the teaching and spreading of the gospel. But it also raised a thought of concern of how we think about the spread of the gospel

It is hard to consider the value of technology for spreading the gospel and discipleship verses the potential loss of what the gospel is intended to accomplish. What I mean by this is that the good news is that because of Jesus, we are invited into participate in the love and holiness of the triune God, through grace…and this is meant to establish God’s eternal kingdom of people beginning here and now. Jesus’ model prayer was “…your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I can’t get away from the hands-on, person to person aspect of the truth of God being lived out in a local group of people with shared experiences. Sometimes we in the church get caught up in the idea that we are all about just getting the message out to as many people as possible. But this is just spreading the INFORMATION of the gospel, not spreading the TRANSFORMATION of the gospel. I believe that technology can sometimes isolate us rather than congregate us. It can give us a false sense of community if we are not continually pursing those right next to us.

All this said, I do think that community can occur using holograms, and in the future, truly life transformational ministry will involve this type of technology. What thoughts do you have about technology, theology, and the kingdom of God? How will this and other technology further change the face of global mission?

Category: culture, ministry, spiritual life, Theology Tags: church, gospel, holograms, technology, Theology, tony morgan Leave a Comment

What is Christianity All About?

October

written by:brian | Leave a Comment

“Christianity is not about a new moral teaching – as though we were morally clueless and in need of some fresh or clearer guidelines…Christianity isn’t about Jesus offering a wonderful moral example, as though our principal need was to see what a life of utter love and devotion to God and to other people would look like, so that we could try to copy it…Nor is Christianity about Jesus offering, demonstrating, or even accomplishing a new route by which people can ‘go to heaven when they die.’…Christianity isn’t about giving the world fresh teaching about God himself…Christianity is all about the belief that the living God, in fulfillment of his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this – the finding, the saving, the giving of new life – in Jesus. He has done it. With Jesus, God’s rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all.” (N.T. Wright Simply Christian)

That is the story of the whole of scripture…God’s Epic Rescue of his creation, heaven and earth colliding and the power of grace and mercy triumphing over the power of the law. We are to daily experience the rescue of God in our lives and be the rescue of God in others’ lives! David Crowder’s song Remedy constantly pours through my head…

Oh, I can’t comprehend
I can’t take it all in
Never understand
Such perfect love come
For the broken and beat
For the wounded and weak
Oh, come fall at His feet
He’s the remedy
He’s the remedy

He is the one who has saved us
He is the one who forgave us
He is the one who has come
and is coming again

We are currently teaching an 8 week series through the story of all of scripture and making sure we don’t lose or cut up our scriptures into unrelated parts, resulting in just a collection of stories and truths. I am rediscovering how by keeping the whole in perspective, it brings out the richness of the details and specifics of scripture AND how my life is still part of this great rescue story. This isn’t something that has merely taken place thousands of years ago, but a new-life story that is played out over and over through the days that you and I live!

If you are interested, I am posting the audio recordings of each week in my podcast media tab of this site.
(We have had some problems with some of the recordings that we hope to have worked out in the future.)