Christopher J.H. Wright on ‘The Bible and the Mission of God’

When people ask what kind of theological research I enjoy (yes, I said ‘enjoy’ – I am bit of a theology nerd) I usually break it down into three aspects that I see as interwoven and interdependent. These are trinitarian theology (the communion of Father, Son, and Spirit and our participation in the divine life), narrative theology (our participation in and formation by the biblical narrative and the story of Christ), and missional theology (our ecclesial participation in the missio Dei of which Father, Son, and Spirit are the dramatis personae or primary actors). I see these as intimately interrelated with how we are created in the imago Dei, sexuality, how we should view human relationships, the nature of the church, and (yes) the mission of the church.

On the mission of the church, one of the best books I’ve ever read is Christopher J.H. Wright’s monstrous 535 page The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. The product description on amazon.com reads,

Most Christians would agree that the Bible provides a basis for mission. But Christopher Wright boldly maintains that mission is bigger than that–there is in fact a missional basis for the Bible! The entire Bible is generated by and is all about God’s mission. In order to understand the Bible, we need a missional hermeneutic of the Bible, an interpretive perspective that is in tune with this great missional theme. We need to see the “big picture” of God’s mission and how the familiar bits and pieces fit into the grand narrative of Scripture. Beginning with the Old Testament and the groundwork it lays for understanding who God is, what he has called his people to be and do, and how the nations fit into God’s mission, Wright gives us a new hermeneutical perspective on Scripture. This new perspective provides a solid and expansive basis for holistic mission. Wright emphasizes throughout a holistic mission as the proper shape of Christian mission. God’s mission is to reclaim the world–and that includes the created order–and God’s people have a designated role to play in that mission.

Folks often ask me for a good primer on missional theology and I find that I can’t recommend Wright’s book because, well, 535 pages does not a primer make. So, I was rather pleased when I ran across the two videos below which are something of a condensed version of the book. In the videos Wright covers ‘God with a Mission’, ‘Humanity with a Mission’, ‘Old Testament Israel with a Mission’, ‘Jesus with a Mission’, ‘The Church with a Mission’, and ‘What does it mean to read the Bible from a missional perspective?’

In the first video Wright covers ‘Reading The Whole Bible For Mission: What Happens When We Do?’ and asks ‘a biblical basis for missions’ or ‘the missional basis of the Bible?’

Christopher Wright – Reading The Whole Bible For Mission: What Happens When We Do? from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

In the second video Wright covers ‘God, Israel And The Nations: The OT and Christian Mission’ – which is good to counteract the tendency all to often to leave Israel and the Old Testament out of our story as Christians.

Christopher Wright – God, Israel And The Nations: The OT and Christian Mission from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

A fuller outline of the videos can be found here and here.

Jesus vs Religion [1] – What Do You Think?

Evangelicals love their clichés. No, they really do!

We hear them after a huge disappointment, “God obviously has something better in store for you.”

We can hear them at the break up of a longstanding relationship, “Well, he/she just wasn’t the one. You just need to wait on God’s timing.”

We can hear them at the death of a child, “God just needed another angel in heaven.” (This is but one of the many well meaning, yet completely unhelpful and theologically vacuous clichés offered to C.C. and I as we suffered through losing three babies to miscarriage.)

And we can hear them from tracts meant to supposedly explain the gospel, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”

I’m sure that many find clichés helpful. I don’t. In my perspective clichés (like these above and others floating around out there) reduce faith to mere self help motivational pseudo proverbs that claim the look and feel of wisdom but lack any of the substance. To often clichés run rampant over the realities of human experience, dismissing pain with a few words, and sucking the mystery out of God’s activity in our lives. Clichés lack any real theological promise to narrate us into the story of our suffering and liberating Messiah. While it may be true that each cliché is based on a ‘truth’ or represents a ‘truth’ they fail to account for how ‘truth’ is lived out contextually in the lives of real people and their theological shallowness twists and distorts whatever ‘truth’ might be embedded in them.

In the evangelical circles that I grew up in there were two clichés that were absolute favorites…

“I love Jesus but hate religion” and “It’s a relationship … not a religion!” Oh, and let’s not forget, “Religion says ‘do’ but Jesus says ‘done!” (ok, so I guess that makes three not two).

These were even favorites of mine when I was in high school and as a newly called minister after high school. There is even another variety that has popped up that goes, “I’m spiritual but not religious” (which is thought by some to more inclusive than the standard evangelical clichés). The fact is that this sort of thing still seems to resonate with the experience of a great many people, as the response to the spoken word video by Jefferson Bethke that recently went viral shows.

This video has garnered a kajillion views. Many of my facebook friends shared this video on their wall and had nothing but the highest praise saying things like, “This guy gets it!” But Bethke also drew a host of responses in the form of critiques of what many of these persons saw as the promotion of a false dichotomy.  These are some of my favorites:

1) From Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Why St. Francis Loved Jesus AND Religion.

2) From Christianity Today, The Business of Jesus vs Religion, and “why you can’t reconstruct a stripped down, organic, anti-corporate version of what you think Jesus should be.”

3) A Catholic response in the form of a spoken word video:

4) The ‘Internet Monk’ blog on Why I Just Can’t Hate Religion, Though I Love Jesus.

5) Brian LePort at ‘Near Emmaus’ responds with two great posts: Remember, Jesus Practiced Religion too! and Christianity Against Religion.

6) The normally peace loving folks over at the ‘Mennonite Weekly Review’ pull no punches with: The ‘I hate religion but love Jesus’ approach (and YouTube video) is simplistic, unbiblical and dangerous.

7) In addition to the Catholic spoken word response above, here is a Lutheran version (my apologies that we are still waiting on the Baptist version):

8) The ‘Tall Skinny Kiwi’ himself, Andrew Jones, has the skinny in his post: Religion: Love it and Hate it. He summarizes, “There is such a thing as dead, empty, powerless religion which God rejects” … “And there is also religion done right.”

9) Mike Morrell in a rather comprehensive post, Jesus and Religion’s Relationship Status: It’s Complicated.

10) Christian Piatt at ‘Red Letter Christians’ on Hating Religion, Loving Jesus: A Well-Meaning False Dichotomy.

11) Kevin DeYoung at the ‘Gospel Coalition’ blog asks, Does Jesus Hate Religion? Kinda, Sorta, Not Really (see here for a Follow Up on the Jesus/Religion Video with some interaction between DeYoung and Bethke).

12) And finally, Ed Cyzewski at ‘in.a.mirror.dimly’ with a wonderful post on Why Theologians Should Buy the Religion-Hating YouTube Guy a Fruit Basket.

Nowadays, even while trying to understand where Bethke is coming from (having been there once myself), I tend to agree with many if not most of the points made in these critiques (but not all, just because I link to it does NOT mean I agree 100% with it). My contention though is that there are even deeper concerns at the heart of this conversation about Jesus vs religion (as far as I can see) that most people are completely missing. I am going to get these in another post that should be up in the next day or two. For now I think we can say a couple of things completely clearly. First, Bethke is not the first to say these sort of things. The pitting of Jesus against religion has a long pedigree in modern evangelicalism. Second, its very clear this is a conversation that’s long overdue (and that needs some definite theological, philosophical, and hermeneutical thickness to it).

So, before I add my critique and response let me ask:

Do you love Jesus but hate religion? What is the relationship between Jesus and religion? Or do you think Jesus vs religion is an unhelpful false dichotomy? What do you think?

I look forward to reading your comments. Play nice though.

May This Be Our Prayer

Bapto-catholic…that was what the Catholic trauma chaplain at the hospital where I did my residency in Clinical Pastoral Education called me. He was intrigued that I made use of the lectionary, had an interest in and used liturgy, and made use of the prayers in the Book of Common Prayer. He told me I wasn’t like other Baptists he had ever met. I think his description of me is accurate and I think I was probably set up for it. Though I grew up in Baptist churches my whole life, until I went out to west Texas for college (at a Baptist university) I lived in a small Catholic community known as Lindsay. Lindsay was down the road from the slightly larger Catholic community known as Muenster (yes, these were German Catholics).

The result of this was that I grew up around Catholics my whole life, but at church I often heard about how Catholics weren’t really Christians. They were just caught up in religiosity in which they were trying to earn their way to heaven. There was no way that their faith was genuine. This may sound harsh (and it was) but this was the sort of thing that I heard from Baptist pastors, deacons, and church members alike. One deacon used to tell me that the phrase ‘vain repetitions’ was invented just for Catholics.

I am thankful for the few (like my mentor Donnie York) that did tell me that many Catholics actually were capable of genuine faith and it was probably about same percentage as Baptists – maybe a little more! As a chaplain/CPE resident I had ample opportunity to speak with Catholics as they faced traumas and many times death. I am grateful to these Christian brothers and sisters for teaching me about their deep faith in Christ during these times of deep grief and lament. Yes, we have theological differences, but this does/did not cancel out the depth of their faith in Jesus. I cringe whenever I hear fellow Baptists or other rather ‘conservative’ evangelicals say that Catholics can’t possibly be Christians.

In the sermon yesterday morning the pastor told a story about when Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto became Pope Pious X in 1903. Sarto apparently did not want to accept the position of pope initially but was encouraged to do so by his friend, Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val y de Zulueta (that’s quite the name!), who would become Pious X’s Secretary of State. Merry del Val gifted the new Pope with a prayer that would become known as the Litany of Humility, and one which del Val was said to have prayed every day after the Mass. The full text is below. Read it slowly and meditate on it.

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, O Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I go unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

Can I just say that I think that Baptist deacon was wrong? There is nothing ‘vain’ about this prayer. If you can pray this prayer and it falls under the category of ‘vain repetition’ … well, my friend, don’t blame the prayer because that’s not where the problem resides. Church father John Chrysostom said that the lack of humility and the search for ‘popular praise’ was (in a reference to the ancient Hydra slain by Hercules) an ‘invisible and savage monster’ that needed its many heads cut off, or better yet, to have prevented them from growing altogether. Those that are able to slay this monster of popular praise and esteem and the lack of humility will enjoy the ‘quiet heaven of rest’ while those that don’t will suffer ‘manifold struggles, personal confusion, deep dejection, and a host of other passions.’

We Protestants (of all flavors) can learn much from our Eastern Orthodox (represented here by the ancient wisdom of Chrysostom) and Catholic brethren. May we take Chrysostom’s advice and slay the monster of pride and the lack of humility. Oh that the Litany of Humility were prayed more often in ALL expressions of the ekklesia!

May it gradually shape and form us into the humble image of our Liberating King.

‘Deliver us, O Jesus’ … ‘Jesus, grant us the grace’ …  may this be our prayer!