Should you give yoga your time and your heart?

Posted on October 3, 2011 by PaulVK

This is still in my ThinkChristian.net conversation on Yoga.

“All things are permissible, not all things are beneficial.”

There are a lot of things that help cope with the difficulties of life. A nice drink at the end of the day. The thrill of flirting. A bit of self indulgence with the credit card. Loosing yourself in music from your youth. A championship run for a sports team. A high adrenalin outing. A good movie.

There’s probably nothing wrong with most of it, in fact a good amount of it should be received as good gifts from our creator God. Problems develop when these things start become regular pieces of my “make life work” strategy and when they become fixtures of my narrative and become deeply attached to my identity.

The question here as I understand it is “Is Yoga a good idea for a Christian?”

Yoga makes no sense if you do it once, kind of like going to church. The payoff of the discipline, of the system, is in the repetition and the devotion to it. What does Yoga offer? How does it claim to deliver on its promises? What will it require of you to obtain those promises?

My understanding of Yoga is that it asks you to give it your time, your heart, your attention, your allegiance and in return it offers to give you a new perspective on your experience of living, a perspective on your existence, a power and an energy to achieve what you want to achieve. It doesn’t demand that you submit your will to it because “the universe” has no will, it is impersonal. This gives you power. It offers to put you in the driver’s seat of existence. You are the center.

I find this antithetical to Christian devotion, much of which is designed for submission of our will to the will of the Father. The Christian path is not one of self-actualization, or of being awake to the illusion of diversity and differentiation, but of living out the life of the age to come in the present age of decay. Of embracing the cruciform life of “your wellbeing at my expense” towards God and our neighbors and receiving the first fruits of the resurrection while the age of decay robs us of life.

The goal of the Christian life is not finding your power but releasing your claims and receiving from the Father your inheritance.

Yoga, like many things, makes claims and offers and asks for something in exchange. Do you want what it offers? Are you willing to pay what it requires?

I would suggest that the more you invest in yoga the more you will not only appreciate what it offers but you will also believe its view on the world. Why would you invest in it if you didn’t initially embrace its claims and what it is promising to give to you?

Many things offer to give life in the age of decay. I say it can’t be done. You will stretch, you will have experiences of peace, of power, of seeing, of community, of hope for greater well being in the future. I have no doubt of this.

But the age of decay will rob you of your youth, your ability to stretch. You will lose your friends. Your relationships, your achievements, your desires will all break down and be taken from you. This world can’t get by on maintenance, it needs resurrection.

You may imagine that the greater sense of peace, control, confidence, etc. that Yoga is offering you gives you more patience with your neighbor, it may even seem to help you love your enemy, but I’d suggest that what it is in fact doing is offering this to you at the expense of desire. Most of these systems, including Buddhism offers greater control at the expense of love. Your desire of an outcome is diminished by greater contemplation on oneness or on the idea that your differences are illusory. In the end, you may need to separate yourself from people whose presence seem to disturb your sense of peace and control.

Christianity works differently. In the gospel we are in training to love our enemies, which means that we have love AND loss at the same time. Loss is endured and is fruitful in our participation in the cross and then more than compensated in our resurrection.

So, what do you want to train in? For me, that is the question. pvk

The posts in what turned out to be a series:
Christians and Yoga
Is Yoga a Religion?
Is Yoga Helpful?
Should You Give Yoga Your Heart?

Posted in theological | 3 Comments

Is Yoga Helpful?

Posted on September 29, 2011 by PaulVK

A Methodist minister responded to the ThinkChristian piece talking about how helpful Yoga has been to her. Here was my answer to her.

1. Has Christianity borrowed from other religions? Let’s rephrase the question: How has Christianity borrowed from other religions?

Throughout the history of the church it has engaged other religious beliefs and practices, other philosophies, and shown an incredible capacity engage a diversity of cultures. This is part of the reason Christianity has been so successful. You find this capacity already in the book of Acts.

At the same time, the reason the religion has survived and thrived is because in the process it has also not lost itself. For a history of this I recommend Alister McGrath’s book “Heresy” that I reviewed here on TC http://bit.ly/nqbCQ5.

The Christian church has appropriated other practices and beliefs that it did not (sometimes over long periods of time) find to be destructive to the church. Part of the reason Christianity could do this is because of its core beliefs, that Yhwh, the creator God created a good creation and the fruit of culture too belongs to its maker. See the “cultural mandate” in Genesis and Isaiah 60 as worked through by Richard Mouw.

Having said that Christians have likewise had a long tradition of particularism. Notice how Paul handles the issue of meat in the market place that had been sacrificed to idols. Notice how Paul deals pastorally with those who were leaving the temple worship found throughout the Roman empire and all of the practices that went along with it along with the knotty economic, familial and social ramifications connected to it.

Christianity has a complex history of engagement with other beliefs and practices. Yes, but also a very strong strain of Christian exclusivity.

2. One of the areas of clear contradiction between yoga (in the context of Hinduism) http://www.expressionsofspirit.com/yoga/eight-limbs.htm and Christianity is in fact the religious importance of physicality. Hindu pantheism is a very different understanding of reality than the Christian foundation in the Hebrew Scriptures. At some point you have to ask yourself whether God is the creator or the creation? You’ll have a very difficulty time embracing pantheism given both God’s strict commandment about graven images and Romans 1.

3. In my opinion many world religions highlight true things and can yield experiential benefits to its adherents. To me it is dishonest to say they don’t. Can yoga give a secularist a greater experience of calmness, self-control, peace and wellbeing? Of course. So can therapy, so can modern medicine, so can a job change, a marriage or divorce, a relocation, a new relationship, a better doctor, etc. So can a beer. The book of Proverbs offers the advice to provide alcohol to the miserable to forget their troubles. It works. I could with some expectation of success send someone in distress to a mosque, a synagogue, an 12 step meeting, a therapist, a yoga instructor, etc. and expect from many of these sources to see some positive results. But all solutions happen within a frame. The question of a religion concerns that frame.

When I was a missionary in the Dominican Republic doctors would prescribe 3 pills to sick people. They were poor and so went to the pharmacy and bought only the cheapest one, usually the pain killer. They took it, the fever was relieved, the pain went down, they felt better. We can all, however, appreciate the sad irony.

4. All religions attempt to address not only felt needs but underlying problems. All religions offer salvation, but when people say “all religions are basically the same” they discredit the integrity of those religions because “salvation” is NOT the same in every religion. It’s at this level where the foundational assertions of the competing religions are engaged. Are you seeing the annihilation of your narrative identity, consciousness, individuality in pursuit of union with the divine? The 8 limb path of Yoga leads to Samadhi “we realize what it is to be an identity without differences, and how a liberated soul can enjoy pure awareness of this pure identity. The conscious mind drops back into that unconscious oblivion from which it first emerged.”

That is a very different image than faithful servants of Yhwh, individual narratives intact (the “you” you know, the “you” that God can love, the “you” that is in community with other “you”s, distinct yet in community) continuing the cultural mandate unfettered from our rebellion and decaying condition within the age to come.

Which frame do you really believe? Which frame are you investing your life in? Which frame shapes how you spend your time and the years you’ve been given?

The posts in what turned out to be a series:
Christians and Yoga
Is Yoga a Religion?
Is Yoga Helpful?
Should You Give Yoga Your Heart?

Posted in Culture commentary, theological | 5 Comments

Is Yoga a Religion?

Posted on September 29, 2011 by PaulVK

In discussions on whether a Christian should practice Yoga this claim comes up regularly. Is Yoga a religion? Here is how I responded to it in the TC thread.

It’s pretty tough to argue that Yoga isn’t a religion. Again, see http://www.expressionsofspirit.com/yoga/eight-limbs.htm This isn’t from me, from what I’ve seen of yoga training and programs its pretty standard.

There may however be a difference from one place to the next in terms of how much of the metaphysical package is promoted by a particular studio or teacher. Is there anything inherently evil about striking a pose? I doubt it. The questions revolve around what are we seeking with the pose. Might we have a statue or a picture at home? Sure. What are we seeking with the image?

Sitting in church doesn’t make you necessarily a Christian. Going to a yoga session won’t make you a Hindu. My hope is that repeatedly opening yourself up to Christian teaching will impact your mind, heart and eventually your life. I would assume a yogi wants the same thing.

What is a Religion?

A religion usually addresses a number of foundational questions. 1. Who/what are we? What is our problem? How is the problem addressed? What is our destiny?

Yoga offers all of these things.
Who/what are we? We are part of the universal transcendance (the divine, etc. pantheism)

What is our problem? We have lost touch with our divinity and our connection with the divine. We are confused by the illusion of multiplicity and we fail to experience the basic truth that all is one. All experience of otherness is illusory. Suffering is caused by buying into this illusion.

How is the problem addressed? By following the 8 limbs, the core of yoga. Yamas and Niyamas, Asanas, Pranayama, PRatyahara, Dharana, Dhyana leading to Samadhi.

Take a yoga teaching class and you will be taught these things and instructed on how to teach others. You will also be involved in “spreading the news” of yoga and helping others find the way. Salvation is Samadhi, union with the Divine.

This is why I consider Yoga a religion.

The posts in what turned out to be a series:
Christians and Yoga
Is Yoga a Religion?
Is Yoga Helpful?
Should You Give Yoga Your Heart?

Posted in Culture commentary, theological | 5 Comments

Christians and Yoga

Posted on September 27, 2011 by PaulVK

Think Christian had a piece on Christianity and Yoga. This is a hot topic. I got involved in the comment stream. Here is one of my responses.

Yoga can deliver what it offers: a sense of peace, a sense of power, a sense of unity, etc.

There is nothing wrong with stretching, exercise, breathing, quietness, etc. Yoga is not simply that, however. No serious Yoga proselytizers I’ve encountered have been dishonest in what they’re offering. It’s no secret. If you take a yoga training class part of the class is to spread the practice. Right?

“The Eight Limbs, the Core of Yoga” It is a regimented system to achieve an end and the end it offers is union with the divine. What they mean by “union” in this case is pretty important because it isn’t identical with what Christianity means by “union with Christ”.

Seeking the Divine

Many religions offer union with their articulation of the divine or transcendent. Shrine prostitution for example was a vehicle for gaining access to the divine through sexual contact. Some traditions of yoga offer similar things.

In many animistic practices experience is gained through music, dance, alcohol, smoking different things, etc. We long for an experience of connection with something larger than ourselves and when we have it we feel safe, powerful, at peace, etc. The more destructive these things are, as in the two cases I sighted, the more short-lived they tend to be. The larger, older religious systems have learned a lot.

Most religious systems, including Christianity, work on the basis of “if it’s true in the little things then the large claims are true.” Yoga gains credibility by yielding a sense of peace, centeredness, self-control, etc. and for most of us those are desirable qualities.

Yoga delivers on those outcomes. So if they are right on how to gain a sense of wellbeing and power that I seek then the larger claims must be true.

So what larger claims do you believe?

Do you believe that “shalom” was lost because we forgot we were divine and the “salvation” is achieved by a systematic process of practices and disciplines to regain what we lost?

Do you believe that our world is broken because of our rebellion and down to its core breaking down, but that in the revelation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ the reversal of that rebellion is already underway?

Yoga works to convince you of the former. Life in the Christian community, under the cruciform yoke of Christ, together with Christian spiritual disciples should also yield peace, joy, self-control even in the context of suffering and loss.

Hope this is helpful. pvk

The posts in what turned out to be a series:
Christians and Yoga
Is Yoga a Religion?
Is Yoga Helpful?
Should You Give Yoga Your Heart?

Posted in theological | 3 Comments

True Love and False Love

Posted on September 26, 2011 by PaulVK

Some years ago a theologian named William Vanstone wrote a book, now out of print, that included an interesting chapter called The Phenomenology of Love.41

All human beings, he says—even people who from childhood were deprived of love—know the difference between false and true love, fake and authentic love. Here’s the difference, Vanstone says. In false love your aim is to use the other person to fulfill your happiness.

Your love is conditional: You give it only as long as the person is affirming you and meeting your needs. And it’s nonvulnerable: You hold back so that you can cut your losses if necessary. But in true love, your aim is to spend yourself and use yourself for the happiness of the other, because your greatest joy is that person’s joy. Therefore your affection is unconditional: You give it regardless of whether your loved one is meeting your needs. And it’s radically vulnerable: You spend everything, hold nothing back, give it all away.

Then Vanstone says, surprisingly, that our real problem is that nobody is actually fully capable of giving true love. We want it desperately, but we can’t give it.

He doesn’t say we can’t give any kind of real love at all, but he’s saying that nobody is fully capable of true love. All of our love is somewhat fake. How so? Because we need to be loved like we need air and water. We can’t live without love. That means there’s a certain mercenary quality to our relationships. We look for people whose love would really affirm us. We invest our love only where we know we’ll get a good return.

Of course when we do that, our love is conditional and nonvulnerable, because we’re not loving the person simply for himself or herself; we’re loving the person partly for the love we’re getting.

Keller, Timothy (2011-02-22). King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus (p. 96). DUTTON ADULT. Kindle Edition.

Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Imago Dei and the Genesis controversy

Posted on September 11, 2011 by PaulVK

More reflections on Woltersdorff’s video.

I’ve been taking the video in chunks. W lays out two Christian resources for tolerance (I’m reversing the order), love of neighbor and the imago dei. He’s obviously been working on the connection between the Imago Dei and our understanding of Human Rights and the thought occurred to me “how does the origins debate with respect to the Genesis account impact our ability embrace the profession that each person is made in the image of God?”

At Calvin College we’ve seen a vigorous debate about how the question of the historicity of Adam impact federal headship and Paul’s understanding of redemption in Christ Jesus. I have seen little discussion about how animal ancestry impacts our assumed preferential status of human beings as opposed to the rest of the animal kingdom. That status itself has been assaulted by various parties and the dismissal of that status I think is commonly accompanied by the dismissal of a vigorous belief in the Genesis accounts as history. If only an idiot would believe in what is presumed to be a naive historicity of the book of Genesis then of course only an ideo presumes to assert a preferential status for human beings in contrast to the rest of the animal kingdom.

I did a bit of thinking (and please help me with this) to try to imagine other passages of the Christian Bible that articulate an ontological preferential status of humanity as opposed to a functional preferential status, we award preferential status to human beings if they display the capacities of rationality, dominion, or some other qualification we assert, etc. I’m hard pressed to think of other passages of Scripture that assert the imago dei as forcefully and clearly as Genesis 1 and 2.

It’s interesting to think back to the “monkey trial” and Williams Jennings Bryan. I recall a treatment of the trial that noted that part of Bryan’s motivation for opposing evolution was how it was undermining an ontological preferred status for humanity as opposed to a functional one that was highly susceptible to racism as displayed in the American treatment of African Americans and the Nazi treatment of Jews and others. It is not difficult to see how quickly we award status based on performance rather than being.

I will have to give this more thought. Please jump in with ideas or things I’m not considering. pvk

Posted in Culture commentary | 3 Comments

Woltersdorff on 9/11, secularism and religious tolerance

Posted on September 10, 2011 by PaulVK

Nick Woltersdorff, former Calvin College and Yale Divinity School professor gave a fascinating 10 year retrospective on 9/11.

This second little segment I found enormously correct, insightful and helpful.

Religious difference and responses:

1. Other religions are interesting… all paths lead to God… no one is better than the other.

I think W. is dead on correct on this. I hear a lot of people attempting this around me but I never find it honest. Those who like to do so usually find some religions, often those with “fundamentalist” labels on them to be inferior than the religion they subscribe to. They wish to gut the traditional religions and construct a least-common-denominator religion from them but that of course simply begs the question because their newly constructed religion as all the knotty particularities (despite much protestation) of the religions they are replacing.

W. here says that doesn’t really work and I think he’s right.

2. Indifference to religious differences. This isn’t tolerance and it isn’t “all religions are the same” either. It’s kind of a pragmatic “shelving” of the issue, but I think in the end is neglect.

3. Tolerance says that I think my religions IS superior. I prefer it to the other religions. I think in fact that I am right and they are wrong (I think this is the most honest approach) but I need to find within my religion the path to tolerating the religions of others around me. Tolerance asks religious adherents to look within the capacities of that religion to accomplish this. W then begins to speak from a Christian point of view.

Now I’m going to wander from Nick’s script.

If you recognize the truth of the point that W. makes in this it impacts a lot of one’s posture towards other religions. On one hand, anyone who believes themselves to be right on various important subjects (religion, politics, etc.) there is within us a sense of obligation to that rightness to influence others towards it. To believe one self right on an important matter and to not advocate for that matter is to hate your neighbor, give up on this planet and give up on “the right” altogether. This is why we write, vote, educate, participate. I don’t think its honest to do any of this without confessing that in fact we are all proselytizing on ranges of subjects, beliefs and values. I think there is something deeply human about this.

Part of what Christianity has to contribute on this is the command of its master to “love your enemies like yourself.” In my experience Christians quickly relegate this command to a level of advanced Christianity that should only be expected of exceptional saints. Regular people who have jobs, families, watch sports and indulge in pet sins can slide by without it. I think loving enemies is part of Christianity 101 even though it requires a lifetime to practice.

Love of enemies requires us to not park at point 1. Point 1 simply isn’t honest.

Love of enemies requires us to not park at point 2. Love is a desiring the good. Point 2 is at best a benign neglect that doesn’t appreciate that value demands desire. The good should be desired because it is good. To neglect the good is a form of coldly despising it which is not just.

Love of enemies requires a kind of tolerance. A tolerance that recognizes the value in the other and desires good for one’s neighbor. There are various goods in a complex relational economy so it is not a simple thing but the goal of it is clear.

The Christian story is that of a tolerant creator who seeks the good of his creatures while tolerating their stewardship of his creation. Jesus’ parable about the wheat and the tares is all about tolerance. pvk

Posted in theological | Leave a comment

The Daniel 7 “Son of Man”

Posted on August 25, 2011 by PaulVK

This too followed a “Calvin in Common” conversation following up on my post on believing the resurrection. What do I mean by this Daniel 7 “Son of Man”?

I am indebted to NT Wright for much of this (I think, I may do him a disservice too. 🙂 ) I recommend NT Wright’s “The New Testament and the People of God” . I remember reading that thing from cover to cover. It took some time but it was well worth it.

The heart of NT Wright’s thesis is that the Jewish community we find in the NT is a people that still continued to think of themselves in exile. It is not hard to see why. The geographical return from exile did not live up to the prophesies. When the Jews were free they were harassed, weak and divided, and most of the time they were simply a vassal state of the major empires, the Persians, Greeks and then the Romans. By Jesus’ time they worshipped in a refitted temple built by a tyrant with messianic aspirations that no one bought. Right next to the temple was the Roman fortress that visibly reinforced the message that worship of Yhwh in the temple was only afforded by the “generosity” of their Roman overlords. The Jewish people were economically, politically, militarily, socially and religiously under threat. The culture war that Jesus was born into swirled around the question of the house arrest that the Jews were under. Should they accomodate (aristocracy) or resist and if they resist should their resistance be hot (zealots) or cold (Pharisees) or escapist (Essenes). What would Jesus do?

NT Wright points out that Daniel 7 was a popular passage in this context for obvious reasons. Daniel 7 tells the story of the sea monsters (empires) rising up to oppress the people. The Ancient of Days defeats the beasts and one like a son of man comes with the clouds of heaven and is given a kingdom over all the peoples of the earth that will never pass away. (Daniel 7:13, 14) Many of us more familiar with the New Testament will catch the message in the gospels and in the book of Revelation.

If you read the gospels one of the more striking elements is how Jesus uses this term “son of man” when he refers to himself in the third person. I often find it interesting when I hear people do this. People who are in positions of authority will sometimes refer to themselves in the third person often in a context where they are speaking “ex cathedra” or “from the chair”. They are speaking from whatever position of authority they possess in the system they are referring to. Get your concordance (or Bible study software) out (check out http://biblia.com) and look how “Son of Man” gets used in the gospels.

Why did Jesus use this title? Jesus clearly in his context needed to get his message across in a coded way. Given his context he couldn’t have come out and said “I am Yhwh”, that would have gotten him nowhere. What I think we see is that he appropriates this Daniel 7 figure because he’s really addressing the Jews and the Jews will get the message. Again, notice how he manages the issue of identity at his trial in Luke (https://paulvanderklay.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/the-trial-of-jesus-his-resurrection-and-the-change-in-plausibility-structures/) On one hand he engaged the culture war of his time but he doesn’t align with the set positions. He opens up a new front, one which will in fact be scalable when the church breaks out into the broader empire. Paul and the Apostles as the church spreads out into the empire don’t carry with them the “Son of Man” title for Jesus, they simply appropriate imperial titles “Jesus is Lord” “Jesus is Savior”. The book of Revelation of course takes this whole hog and appropriates much more of Daniel, updating it to paint the picture of Jesus vs. both the Jews persecuting the small diaspora Christian congregations (read some of the 7 letters) and then the empire and emperor himself and triumphantly portrays Jesus through OT apocalyptic language as coming into his kingdom.

Daniel 7 is a key passage I think for understanding what Jesus was trying to say to his context. What is interesting is that one of the most difficult turns Jesus needed to lead his small group through was repositioning the “Son of Man” from a Maccabean ruler (which clearly many were hoping he would be) to a cruciform savior. Notice how often the “Son of Man” comes coupled with the context of his being turned over into the hands of the gentiles. Again, if you read those statements through the lens of Daniel 7 things look funny. The Daniel 7 “son of man” is supposed to triumph over the nations, not be subject to them in a humiliating crucifixion? This is why Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion are utterly foolish and impossible to imagine, but this is of course how Jesus squares the circle and how his church conquers Rome in a way that no violent Jewish revolt every could. Jesus does conquer not with the blood of his enemies but by his own blood and is vindicated (proved righteous) by the resurrection. The assumption is that his followers will in fact do the same, follow the same path.

Loving enemies wins enemies, it doesn’t kill them. That is the answer to the problem of human rebellion. You can’t fix it by killing them (Noah). You can’t fix it by legislating evil away (the Mosaic Law). You fix it by sacrificial love. pvk

Posted in Understanding the Bible | Tagged | 1 Comment

Believing in the Resurrection

Posted on August 25, 2011 by PaulVK

This piece grew out of a conversation on “Calvin in Common” surrounding the discussion at Calvin College regarding the historicity of Adam. A few of us who are Christians were asked if we did really believe in the resurrection and why. If Adam was never a real individual would it then also follow that the resurrection of Jesus Christ also be untrue? This was the question I was answering.

This is of course the thought that some desperately fear and many are articulating as the motivation for applying duct tape to theologian’s mouths. I am engaged in a number of these conversations directly and indirectly to the right side of myself, those who are saying S&H much be cut out (like some sort of cancer) because the “myth” idea will spread and soon you lose the whole thing.

Duct tape doesn’t work well with ideas and this question of course has been out of the bag longer than any of us have been alive.

Part of the problem here is that evangelicals have been using the Bible a certain way for so long that everyone can’t help but fall into this line of thinking. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” The Bible according to evangelicals is the starting point of experiential faith, and everything gets swept in with it. I don’t think that really holds.

I started believing this stuff obviously long before I had a choice about the matter. I believed in it because people that loved me well and were trustworthy (parents and others) told me it was true, Bible and all. At some point of course, you grow up enough, talk to enough other people, meet enough other people that are nice, and good and trustworthy and don’t believe and you’ve got some deciding to do.

I’ve always found it helpful to locate the center of this religion and work out from that point. I think the Apostle Paul got it right in locating the center of the religion in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, everything else either holds together, or falls apart from that historical event. As others have suggested, the best contemporary historical treatment of the resurrection is NT Wright’s. I remember Tim Keller talking about the fact that he decided to read it while he was in the hospital battling cancer. He also noted that the quote he was meditating upon as they were rolling him into the operating room was not from Wright, or the Bible, but from Tolkien, but that is another matter.

I don’t see shaking Adam out of the Genesis tree as destroying the faith. I think that there is surely some theological work to do around this subject if you can’t stomach a historical Adam, but I’m not in any way sure that, for example, this disturbs all Christian traditions (especially the Orthodox Traditions) as much as it impacts our particular branch of the tree.

Nobody really believed Jesus was the Daniel 7 Son of Man until the resurrection. Even his closest friends when the heat was on bolted and ran. You don’t run away from a guy who can beat sea monsters just because the temple guard sneaks up on you. I’ve finished preaching through Luke and now I am in Acts and the change in the apostles is marked as a result of the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Many scholars are helpful today including NT Wright as mentioned above, Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802831621, and currently I’m working though Ben Witherington’s Acts Commentary http://www.amazon.com/Acts-Apostles-Socio-Rhetorical-Commentary/dp/0802845010. The historical value of the NT books is obviously contested, but it’s also clearly of a different nature than Genesis.

NT Wright’s thesis is that the best evidence for the resurrection lies with the community around that testimony and how it changed the world. Last year I worked my adult Sunday School class through the book of Revelation. You have scattered, small communities of Christians going from a persecuted minority to the majority position of the Roman Empire in a couple of centuries. It’s bracing.

Having said this there are days when I seriously sit back and ask myself “do I really believe all this stuff? Do I really believe that the universe, it’s very structure (read John Polkinghorne), will be overturned, remade, renewed and this all has already begun in the resurrected body of Jesus of Nazareth? (Colossians) It’s hardly a thought that is easy to embrace without a community, yet it is a thought that has endured 2000 years. Again, I realize lots of thought that I believe to be nuts have endured, but this surely is one of the crazier sounding ones.

I wrestle with these thoughts weekly as I prepare sermons. Not only am I challenged to believe it but I get to stand up publicly and try to tell others to. Here’s a blog post that is rather typical of these ponderings as I work through a Biblical text.

I know the vast majority of people tend to sit back and flow down stream with the ideas they’ve inherited from their parents or have absorbed along the way, usually ideas that get fashionable in a culture. We all can’t help doing a lot of absorption, that’s human, but as CS Lewis noted these Christian claims are so audacious they have to be weighed and evaluated and that evaluation tends to be multi-layered.

If the resurrection is true, and of a different category than even the resuscitations that Jesus is said to have accomplished, people who were raised only to die again, this is a bit of data that remakes my assumptions about the world and most importantly about Jesus. What if in fact he IS the Daniel 7 Son of Man? Once you arrive there then suddenly the words he is testified to have said take on more importance. He surely seems to revere the Old Testament, maybe that should impact how I see it, and on we go.

I also spend time, when I’m contemplating whether or not I believe all this stuff, what my alternatives are. (Maybe a minister shouldn’t write this kind of stuff, then again I work in an unimportant backwater church and no one will take out a full page ad in the Sac Bee about what I write here… 🙂 ) What if Jesus isn’t the Daniel 7 Son of Man? What if he didn’t rise from the dead. What if its all made up, a big confusion, etc. What have I left? I tend to find the alternatives finally distasteful. Each have their beauties and their attractive qualities, many would bring ill to myself and my loved ones, often they would make my life easier, get me more money and more of what my baser self thinks it wants.

Each time I run this mental course (so far at least… 🙂 ) I come back to the same conclusion. This is the only way for me to live. This is the only vision of the universe worth living in.

After our little exchange about Bachmann and Paul Spyksma sent me The NewYorker piece and I tried to read it on my Kindle, I decided to try a trial subscription to the New Yorker to read it. In it I found another interesting piece on a book about how to make atheism less dark. . Atheism is just too damn hollow and dark no matter how hard they try improve it.

I don’t know if I was any help. One of the better classes I took while at Calvin was one by Nick Woltersdorff on belief. He wasn’t there full time anymore but he was back for a bit and taught that course. It was my fifth year at Calvin (couldn’t finish in 4 due to my own indecision and so I took some extra fun courses and this was one of them.) One of the things I took away from that course was the reality often confirmed in my pastoral vocation that the path to believing something, anything, is hardly as simple as a syllogism. Belief captures us not the other way around. It makes Calvin’s notions of the Holy Spirit’s work sound pretty convincing.

I hope this isn’t too personal. I find it helpful to not just hear people lay out the facts as they see them but to also tell me why they think what they think. I’ll even leave you with a favorite song of mine (Resurrect Me by John Foreman)that pertains. It’s probably not Bont’s cup of tea (western music) but I like it. 🙂 pvk

Posted in theological | 1 Comment

A Conservative Apology for Liberal Christianity

Posted on August 12, 2011 by PaulVK

This grew out of a conversation on CRC-Voices about the relationship between the Bible and history, Genesis and Science, and the controversy surrounding the professors at Calvin College and the historical Adam.

We have many layers to us.

1. For cultural reasons many in our context have difficulty thinking about the Bible as history.
2. For cultural reasons many of us in our context have allergic reactions to anything that appears to undermine understanding the Bible as history.

Where do these two realities relate to piety, faith, living out the Christian life?

I personally find a bias towards assuming a close relationship between the Bible and history far more encouraging and conducive for trusting in Jesus. I think I can make a good argument that it is in fact a superior approach for yielding a faith that is revealed by cruciform, sacrificial, self-donating acts of trust and obedience in anticipation of the resurrection. For me, as I see it, if the disciples could do it, if the OT heroes could do it, if the Spirit of God worked amazing things among his people, then I can trust in him too. I find this perspective on the Bible very helpful and faith-life encouraging in terms of actually living in obedience to Jesus Christ. Obedience like loving enemies, turning the other cheek, forgiving, believing in the resurrection of the dead, the apostles creed, etc.

Having said that, I can’t assume that people with biases, likely generated by their experience, education and involvement in our skeptical, secular culture, will have a hard time reading the Bible as history. First of all they have a lot of good points. It is clear to me that how the Bible relates history is culturally different from how we relate history, compare the Synoptics.

I see the skepticism toward the relationship between the Bible and history as a bias. I like to encourage a bias towards giving the Bible the benefit of the doubt. Others have a bias the other way. Biases are usually cause by experiences, education, cultures, etc. We’ve all got them.

Now what if in fact you are biased against seeing a strong correlation between the Bible and history. What if your bias creates in you a regard that the Bible is a book that has some inspiring things in it but lots of other problematic things too so you don’t necessarily see it as “authoritative” in the way that some conservatives understand it. What if, however, you are still living a life trusting Jesus, even the Jesus that is in some ways impaired (in my opinion) by those biases you bring to the Bible? Does God cut you off because of those biases?

I see some Christian liberalism as a rather Thomistic path in the sense of the Apostle Thomas who doubted. I don’t know how they can do it with their set of biases, but I also know that God has crafted his body through a huge diversity of people from a broad set of cultural biases. Who am I to say that he can’t work through a church of skeptical, secular westerners that find various items like the virgin birth or the authority and inspiration (as conservatives understand it) of Scripture and doubts about hell?

I find those biases difficult for me to pursue a cruciform life, the kind of resurrection life that Jesus calls us to. I can’t say, however, that it can’t be done and there is ample evidence, in fact, that it is being done. My biases often lead me to judge people according to my biases, but Jesus is pretty clear about biases and judgment. By your biases you yourself will be judged, and I most often find myself failing even by my own standards.

I like debates about the Bible and history and I will continue to argue that the evidence suggest that we afford the Bible the benefit of the doubt when it comes to questions of history and the witness of Scripture. I think there are good reasons for affording the Bible that benefit even on secular evidence. I will in fact within the confines of my church and denomination advocate for maintaining this bias and promoting it as a helpful platform for Christian obedience and witness. I find my bias to be most conducive for reducing fear, encouraging faith, taking risks of love in the name of Jesus.

At the same time, however, I can appreciate when those with a bias going in the other direction have to engage the same concrete struggles I face of loving enemies, forgiving wrongs, taking up the cross, caring for the poor, awaiting the resurrection and the redemption of this broken world all in the name of Jesus. I won’t judge them to not be part of the body of Christ based on their bias with respect to the Bible and history. pvk

Posted in Culture commentary, Institutional Church | 2 Comments