ETS 4- John Hammett on the Emerging Church

Date November 23, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Dr. John Hammett has given permission to post his paper here: “An Ecclesiological Assessment of the Emerging Church Movement.” (76kb PDF)

His paper is in response to the “Official Response to Critics of Emergent” posted this past June, in which several of the top EC guys expressed their hope that “those in the academy” would discuss Emergent. He began by attempting to define the movement, noting why this is a difficult task. It has something to do with postmodernism and people rethinking Christianity in light of it. It seems that the central premise of the movement is that “all churches must respond to postmodernism.”

Dr. Hammett asks two questions regarding this premise: Must they? Should they? In regards to whether or not churches must respond, the motivation appears to be that if Christians want to reach people, they must respond to postmodernism. This is a missiological concern. However, there are four factors that challenge this premise:

1)      The shift to postmodernism is not universal. Here in North America and elsewhere in the world there are still large numbers of people who would more accurately be characterized as modern than postmodern.

2)      There are a number of churches successfully reaching out to postmoderns who are not part of the emerging church movement.

3)      Most teenagers are still influenced by their parents, who are, for the most part, modern.

4)      Postmodernism will not last long, and may already be fading.

The second question is whether churches should adapt their methods and message in light of postmodernism. They should, in some sense, but two guidelines should be kept:

1)      Response should be Scripture driven instead of culture driven. Despite the claims of many within Emergent, the movement generally appears to be more concerned with where the culture’s at than what Scripture says.

2)      Any response should make in light of a biblical analysis of the culture. However, critique of postmodernism from emerging churches is difficult to find. They’re too busy critiquing modernism.

The challenge for us, whether we consider ourselves part of the emerging church or not, is to engage the culture we find ourselves with Christ and the Bible as our guide; not giving into culture where it is against Christ.

Category Posted in Culture, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Roger's Posts Comments 8 Comments »

ETS 3.1- Where I Disagree with James Spiegel

Date November 22, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Dr. Spiegel was kind enough to send his paper today, so I
can provide for you the example I took exception with. This has to do with
distinction #6– “a final distinction should be made between an artwork’s objective
content and an audience’s subjective response to that work.”

“Another example, this one moral in
nature, pertains to scenes from two films: 
Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost
Ark and Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.  In the former there is a scene in which Indiana
Jones encounters an Arab wielding a long sword.  The crowd parts in expectation of their battle.  Exasperated, Jones pulls out a pistol and
causally shoots the Arab dead.  At this
point, the audience viewing the film typically erupts in laughter.  Consider now a scene in Pulp Fiction featuring John Travolta, who of course is every bit as
charming as Harrison Ford.  Travolta’s
character, Vincent Vega, is conversing with a fellow hit man and their young
hostage, carelessly wagging his gun in the young man’s face.  Suddenly the gun goes off in the man’s face
and he is killed.  Vega’s response and
the ensuing situation are somewhat comical and at this point the film audience
again erupts in laughter.  But here is
where the Christian catches himself and thinks, “I shouldn’t be laughing at
this.”  It is also here that I have
known some Christians to walk out on the film. 
But what usually goes unnoticed is that this scene is actually more
redemptive than the scene from Raiders
precisely because the latter elicits a self-rebuke for laughing at the death of
a human being.  So here we have a case
in which the response of many (most?) Christians is superficial and overly
subjective and fails to take adequate account of the objective features of an
art work.”

I haven’t seen Pulp Fiction, but I don’t think this
disqualifies me from legitimately disagreeing here. While I wouldn’t have
justification to say Raiders of the Lost Ark is a morally superior film
(though I suspect it is), I believe I can make the case that it is (in general)
objectively moral and especially so in the particular scene in question (or
perhaps that the scene is morally ambiguous).

Perhaps the most compelling reason is that Indiana Jones is
a clear “good guy” in opposition to clear evil. While his motivations for doing
good may or may not be adequately justified, he is the one person who has the
ability to frustrate the plans of the evil Nazis. In this scene in Raiders
of the Lost Ark, the Arab is an obstacle to Jones’s progress toward his
end. He is therefore morally justified in his killing of the Arab, whether
through a grueling battle or quickly ending his life with one shot.

Furthermore, the scene itself, as with many scenes in
the Indiana Jones series, easily falls within the category of comedy. It brings
to mind cultural motifs of great duels between enemies, and shatters the motifs
by ending the duel quickly in an unconventional manner. The comedy of the scene
has less to do with the Arab’s death than it has to do with the portrayal of the
“great duel.” The audience (Christian and non-Christian) laughs because their
expectations are undermined. Thus, this scene is not objectively morally
deficient because the death of the Arab swordsman is morally justified and the
humor is not in his death but in the iconoclastic nature of the event.

Category Posted in Ethics, Main Page, Philosophy Comments 3 Comments »

ETS 3: James Spiegel on Ethics and Art

Date November 20, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Dr.
Spiegel’s paper was titled “Beauty, Goodness and Evil: When is
Immorality in Art Aesthetically Warranted and Morally Justified?” The
central issue is the relationship between ethics and art. He laid out
the three potential positions: 1) asceticism- the view that art and the
artist are above morality 2) moralism- the view that art is subordinate
to ethics, that ethics is the only basis upon which art may be judged
3) ethicism- that art has moral attributes that do not necessarily
contribute to aesthetic quality. He believes ethicism is the best
option, but does not think ethicists have unpacked this view
practically. So the rest of the paper was an attempt to do this.

 

In
order to unpack ethicism practically, Dr. Spiegel put forth six
distinctions upon which to judge art. In each case, he gave examples
from music, movies, and books that were positive and negative.

 

1)      When evil is involved, is it simply a depiction or is it an endorsement?

2)      Is the depiction of evil necessary or gratuitous?

3)      Is the depiction of evil in service of a noble theme or an abominable theme?

4)      Does the art provide insight into truth or obscure truth?

5)      Does the art convey final justice and personal redemption or moral lawlessness and personal helplessness?

6)      We must be aware of the difference between the objective content of the artwork and the subjective response of the audience.

 

Most
of the examples worked pretty well. Dr. Spiegel said he used over 50
examples throughout the paper. Only one of them did I have a
significant disagreement with. Overall, I think this is a good grid
through which to judge the moral qualities of art. I’m not sure,
though, if it’s entirely sufficient. He’s written a few books now, the
latest came out last month: The Benefits of Providence.

Category Posted in Culture, Ethics, Main Page, Philosophy, Roger's Posts Comments 3 Comments »

ETS 2: Moreland v. Franke on Non-Foundationalism

Date November 19, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

One of the most anticipated sessions at this year’s ETS conference was the exchange between J.P. Moreland and John Franke. The purpose of the session was to address the concerns raised by Moreland in last year’s plenary paper. Franke stated the best way he saw to do this was to give his reasons for adopting non-foundationalism.

 

(My summary of Moreland’s paper is longer because he passed his out and I was able to use it to write this post. I only have my notes from Franke’s paper to reflect on.)

 

Franke cited Barth’s idea that God never enters into the control of human beings. Therefore, our approaches to God cannot ultimately relate to Him. Theology is only possible when God speaks. Even revelation does not directly correspond to God- the finite cannot understand the infinite. The Cappadocian Fathers were right in noting that in the incarnation Jesus’ human nature was not divinized. God revealed Himself through creaturely veils that remain creaturely veils. So, the words God gave us are little ‘t’ truth and not capital ‘T’ truth (which is comprehensive). Therefore, we should embrace theological pluralism (not soteriological pluralism) realizing that there is no ultimate source of knowledge except for God Himself. Franke wanted to make it clear, however, that he does not deny we use foundations or that objective reality exists.

 

Moreland read a response to some things that troubled him in Franke’s writing. His main concerns have to do with our understanding reality and knowledge. Franke seems to imply that reality is a social construction. He may say that there is a reality, but we have no access to it- this makes reality useless. Thus, reality has no role in the task of theology. Franke says we cannot know God through natural human perception. Moreland gave knowing his wife as an example of attaining knowledge through direct access, and also that in knowing her he is not trying to control her (Franke thinks the quest for knowledge is motivation by a desire for control). We would also, then, not have direct access to scripture, so it becomes useless for theology. “In its place, we will have self-defeating reflective equilibrium that forever spirals in  an unending circle in the dark.”

 

It doesn’t follow that because we do not have exhaustive knowledge that we cannot have accurate, exact knowledge. To say we can’t have such knowledge doesn’t lead to humility but to defeatism. Moreland believes there is vagueness and equivocation on whether there is such a thing as “simply seeing” or direct awareness. He proceeded to make a case for direct awareness. He also gave several examples of self-refuting claims Franke’s made. Moreland believes that Third World Christians will disregard the claims Franke’s made because they intuitively claim to have knowledge and their faith and deed reflect their knowledge. Under “Frankean-style influence” theology and religion in general will “become more marginalized from the broader intellectual conversation raging around us.”

 

Following the paper there was some short interaction between the authors and then Q & A time. Franke was asked about the accusation of self-refutation and so he went through a couple of the quotes and said he failed to see how they were self-refuting. Everyone I’ve talked to (yes, all non-emergent) said it seems obvious, and I agree. Since this is already a long post I’ll save discussion on that for another post next week. Franke made the point that non-foundationalism does not mean they don’t believe in foundations (I’d like him to elaborate on that), however, I think Moreland does make that assumption toward the beginning of his paper.

 

Note on the ETS series: I will be posting on another EC related paper early next week, and will hopefully be posting the paper itself. If any of the other papers on talk about from ETS become available online I’ll post a link. I’m only posting reflections on 5 out of the 11 or so papers I went.

Category Posted in Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Philosophy, Roger's Posts Comments 11 Comments »

ETS 1: Wayne Grudem on Poverty and Wealth

Date November 16, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

I’m at ETS this week- the annual convention for the Evangelical Theological Society in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. I think there’s some 900 papers being read, and my guess is about 1,500 attendees (at least). Ultimately I will probably only be able to make it to 12 or so. The first paper I went to this morning was Wayne Grudem’s “Why do poor nations remain poor? Economic causes and Biblical solutions.”

 

I haven’t heard or read anything by Grudem on economics before, so his depth of insight in and knowledge of the subject at hand surprised me. Many things brought us to our current state of division between wealthy and poor countries.

 

Wealthy nations became wealthy because of the Industrial Revolution (technological advancement) and the “Protestant work ethic” which includes viewing secular work as a calling from God, the command to subdue the earth, viewing time as linear and valuable, valuing knowledge and sharing it, and personal virtue.

 

Poor nations remained poor due to a lack of private property, viewing government as master rather than servant to the people, the use of the law to protect those in power instead of enforcing justice, use of non-capitalist economic systems in that they lack free markets for goods, produce wealth by taking rather than making, high taxes and government control, and the embrace of cultural attitudes and values that work against poverty (i.e. a lack of the Protestant work ethic).

 

So what can be done to help poor countries (while we are also helping poor individuals)? Short term aid and relief of debt helps temporarily, but it doesn’t help long term because it doesn’t provide a productive economic system and thus solve the problems that led to their poverty. What has worked is the influence of Biblical views of work, poverty, government, wealth, equality of all people, and learning from other nations. In other words, we need to help change the systems these countries operate under in addition to providing monetary assistance.

My question, which I didn’t have time to ask: The Industrial Revolution is viewed as economically good but it also forced men out of the home and helped unravel good family structures. Is there a danger of the same conflict of goods occurring assuming we are successful in changing the economic systems of the poorer countries?

Category Posted in Culture, Ethics, Main Page, Politics, Roger's Posts Comments 8 Comments »

Is 'Personal Trust' an Essential Component of Saving Faith?–I

Date November 15, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Saving faith is typically thought to consist of three necessary
components: knowledge (or understanding), approval (or assent), and
personal trust (i.e., some act of will). I want to suggest (and briefly
argue) that the third element might not be necessary after all. In
short, I have a hard time seeing how believing the right things about
my own sinful state, along with some very important and specific right
things about Jesus, isn’t enough.

Most verses dealing with saving faith speak of “believing in” or
“coming to” Jesus. Take the prototypical example, John 3:16: “He gave
his one and only Son that everyone who believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life.” It seems that replacement of “believes
in” with “believes that he lived a sinless life and died on the Cross
to pay the penalty for their sins,” or some other more theologically
precise formulation, would preserve the meaning of this crucial verse.
Someone might respond that no matter how precise your “believes that”
replacement, an additional clause, e.g., “and exhibits a personal trust
in him as Savior” is necessary—but that response already assumes that
saving faith includes an element of personal trust.

Perhaps there’s a way to soften the conclusion above. Perhaps there is
an affective component of saving faith, but one that’s not our responsibility.
Augustine, for example, said “Faith is nothing else than to think with
assent.” I think it’s at least reasonable to claim that, given the
inconclusive nature of the scriptural evidence pertaining to the exact
constituents of saving faith, it’s quite possible that the “personal
trust” so often assumed to be required for a saving faith may not be
necessary—and if necessary, may not in fact be our responsibility.
Consider John 6:37: if it is the Father who has given us to the Son,
then it is at least possible that personal trust in Jesus is not
something we can even come up with on our own; we might therefore be
better served focusing on attempts to believe the right propositions
about the perfection of God’s nature, the sinfulness of our own human
nature, and how Jesus’ life and death have reconciled the two.

Finally, it’s worth considering the practical outcome of the view I’m
suggesting. No doubt, an abandonment of trust and commitment to the
person of Christ is dangerous; but I think we have the unique position
of living among the deleterious effects of a conception of saving faith
that has shifted an inordinate amount of its focus toward the idea of
trust in a person, as exemplified by pithy slogans like “no creed but
Christ.” In one sense, focus on the person of Christ can be of nothing
but benefit; but when trust, commitment, and matters of the heart are
exalted at the expense of propositional belief, the intellectual—and by
extension spiritual—life of the Church suffers. In fact, I do not think
that the effect of the 20th century church’s general and
anti-intellectual subordination of correct propositional belief can be
overstated.

Category Posted in Main Page, Poetry/Scripture/Liturgy/Etc., Religion (General), Theology Comments 7 Comments »

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together…

Date November 15, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

We Did It!

The A-Team has won Hewitt's Blog of the Week
Contest! We could not have done it without you, our faithful companions through
all of our daring escapades. I would especially like to thank Face for her
outstanding ‘Get Out the Vote’
effort. Even though we were vandalized by a
maintenance shutdown on Saturday night (likely the result of a dubious
pro-Hasslehoff blog), we still pulled through. Hannibal's on
the jazz, B.A.'s actually in a good mood, and I and my sock-puppet are
off to
our next adventure, now with the aid of a trusty Crosley Solo radio. Cheers!

Category Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts Comments 2 Comments »

Vote For Victory, And…

Date November 12, 2005 Posted by Amy Hall

Win the war in Iraq?  The war on poverty?  The war against David Hasselhoff’s performance wardrobe?

 

No, not even all of us together could win any of those things…but we could help Roger win Hugh Hewitt/Radio Blogger‘s Blog of the Week!  Roger’s Victory Garden post has been chosen as one of the five finalists for this week’s blog contest; the winner will be determined by the vote of the people–and that includes you!  Will you join with us and give Roger your vote?

 

Now I know you’re asking, “What’s in it for me?”  Let me tell you a story.  Roger is a penniless, hardworking seminary student who has, on his own, worked his way up from a penniless, hardworking college student.  And even now, though he toils away, collecting interesting facts to inform and entertain you, Roger does not own a decent radio that will actually receive radio signals.  But if he wins this nifty prize, all that will be remedied, and he’ll finally be able to give you more.  So really, a vote for Roger is a vote for YOU.

 

So take 10 seconds and exercise your democratic rights.  Vote for Roger’s “Victory Garden” and be a part of the victory–together, we can do it!

 

(Paid for by the Vote For Roger Campaign and Citizens Against Public Vocal Appearances By Hasselhoff.)

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Miscellaneous Comments 11 Comments »

They’re Here to See Him

Date November 10, 2005 Posted by Amy Hall

This is a familiar analogy, but somehow, I never get tired of hearing it: 

 

It frequently happens that the value of a thing lies in the fact that someone has possessed it. A very ordinary thing acquires a new value, if it has been possessed by some famous person. In any museum we will find quite ordinary things–clothes, a walking-stick, a pen, pieces of furniture–which are only of value because they were possessed and used by some great person. It is the ownership which gives them worth. It is so with the Christian. The Christian may be a very ordinary person, but he acquires a new value and dignity and greatness because he belongs to God. The greatness of the Christian lies in the fact that he is God’s.

 

— William Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter (1976)

 

I love this image because even though those objects in the museum are valuable, nobody who looks at them focuses on the objects themselves.  No one thinks, “Oooh!  A beautiful pen!” and then concentrates on the qualities of that pen.  The object itself is neither focused on nor praised.  The pen only inspires awe insofar as it’s able to bring the viewers closer to the reality of the Owner; for a brief moment, they’re connected to Him–close enough to touch, and suddenly He becomes more than words on the page of a history book.  He’s real, and they experience His greatness…and all from merely observing His tools.

 

The fact that a very ordinary, everyday pen like me could possibly bear the fingerprints of God in a meaningful way that would bring glory back to Him makes me more than grateful.  Glory to God!

 

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Religion (General) Comments 2 Comments »

Proposition 75 Fails

Date November 9, 2005 Posted by Amy Hall

In an amazing feat of unsurpassed irony, the unions were able to defeat those who wanted to be asked permission before having money for politics taken from their paychecks by campaigning against them with the money taken from their paychecks.

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Politics Comments 10 Comments »

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