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I have spent much time the past seven months working on a project to bring together George Lindbeck, David Burrell, and Stanley Hauerwas to discuss how the "back to the sources" movement that led to Vatican II has influenced so-called "postliberalism" or the "Yale School." I have many reasons to want to listen carefully to such a discussion. Largely, I must confess, I have committed myself to such a task because I see profound parallels between Roman Catholicism and the life of the Methodist-holiness movement, in particular the Church of the Nazarene in the 20th century. I see the contests within pre- and post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism as extremely enlightening even to understand the often contested mission of the Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City.

The discussion between Professors Lindbeck, Burrell, and Hauerwas is going to take place on January 18-19th in Kansas City, Missouri at Nazarene Theological Seminary. NTS has willingly, even enthusiastically, sponsored the project -- and I owe a great deal of thanks to President Ron Benefiel and Professor Andy Johnson. Last week I received confirmation that Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, who has oversight responsibilities in the United States of the new religious movement, Communion and Liberation, will conduct the interviews. I honestly think that Wesley's Methodist movement has deep structural parallels to Communion and Liberation as a movement to renew the church catholic from within by emphasizing holiness through a return to the sources of the Christian life. We all have much to learn as the Spirit returns us to the central mystery of our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again.

It is that phrase from the Eucharistic prayer that we confess together that takes me to an amazing book by George Lindbeck, The Future of Roman Catholic Theology. Lindbeck is more famous for his The Nature of Doctrine, yet this later book cannot be understood well, so it seems to me, without reading the earlier one. Lindbeck wrote The Future of Roman Catholic Theology as a series of lectures in 1966 following the conclusion of Vatican II; it was published in book form late in 1970 or early 1971. Lindbeck accurately predicted in this work the dynamics that would characterize Roman Catholic thought -- both what Vatican II rejected and the area of coming controversy -- in the next 40 years. Much is at stake in the witness of the church catholic that might be clarified by Lindbeck's analysis. Much is at stake more locally as well, as these currents have embedded themselves in positions and relationships that have deep bearing on the future of local renewal movements and congregations within the church catholic.

As Lindbeck reflected upon the Vatican II documents, he rightly noted that "In themselves, they [the Vatican II documents] are often ambiguous, open to both rigidly ‘conservative’ and radically ‘progressive’ exegesis. The decision on the proper way to read them depends on how one evaluates their general tenor, on how one views their place and probable influence on the vast changes in theological thinking now taking place in the Roman Catholic Church as well as in other churches" (pp. 2-3). He correctly noted "because the Council is part of a dynamic, ongoing process, it is the new theological emphases which are likely to prove most significant as a basis and guide for further developments" (p. 4). Lindbeck could not have predicted at this point that an Augustinian would be elected as bishop of Rome (and the Archbishop of Canterbury), but he detected the move towards an Augustinian vision to chasten the conservative neo-Thomism that had characterized the Vatican curia in its separation of grace from nature; the secular from the sacred.

Lindbeck argues that what characterized Vatican II was a new vision of the world. "We could label it ‘realistic futuristic eschatology'. The kingdom of God on earth, according to this view, is not actualized exclusively and completely in Christ’s first coming or in the event of faith; rather, its full manifestation is really and temporally future. Further, the kingdom is conceived of as the transformation of the real world. It is not simply ‘beyond,’ as in customary ways of imagining heaven; nor is the realm of space, time, and history in which we live pictured as moving towards total destruction at the end of time, but rather it is in the process of being prepared to become the kingdom of our God" (pp. 9-10).

In such an understanding -- itself deeply anchored in the very form of the Christian Scriptures and in the witness of the early church -- the church becomes "the pilgrim people of God" or, to use a different language, "resident aliens." Vatican II relinquishes the idea that it is the church's job to control the world, to be the chaplain for interests already present in the world. "Because it [the church] is a pilgrim people journeying from one epoch to another and from one culture to another, it is seen as deeply involved and affected by the vicissitudes of history, not as skimming lightly over the waves of change. This image of the pilgrim people fits in with our awareness that the church is an historically and sociologically concrete community subject in one dimension of its being to the same laws of change as any other society. This is the ecclesiological foundation for that call to constant aggiornamento, to constant ‘updating,’ which is a major theme of all the Council documents" (p. 34).

The church, and individuals and congregations within the church catholic, have "not yet arrived at the end of its pilgrimage; it is not yet made perfect. All this is implicit in the image of the messianic people when seen in an eschatological perspective, and this provides the basis for the reiterated insistence on the need for renewal. At one point, this even leads the Council to declare that the church is in constant need of purification and is semper reformanda (E 6). In doing this the Council appropriated themes which Protestants have thought were their private property" (pp. 34-5).

Vatican II adopted the tension we find in Paul who confesses simultaneously that "not that I have achieved this or been made perfect" as he asks that "all who are perfect" join him in the task ahead (Philippian 3:12-15). It is radically different from salvation as commonly supposed as "going to heaven." It does not undercut eternal life, but places it in a different conceptual framework. Thus, "salvation is conceived not individualistically but rather in terms of the redemption of mankind as a whole and indeed of the cosmos. In order to bring about such a stupendous result, God must be guiding all the processes of history towards the goal, not simply working redemptively in and through the church" (p. 35). God is rightly seen as the One who can use even the Jewish rejection of their own Messiah for the salvation of the Gentiles, or can turn the tragedy of the crucifixion of Jesus into salvation for the world.

To grasp fully the implications of this view of the world, the church, and the kingdom, Lindbeck tells us what such a perspective rejects. He calls this the "classical view" of salvation and the church. "In the classical framework the church may be deeply concerned with the secular order, but in a way which is likely to be fundamentally conservative or reactionary. It is chiefly interested in promoting a moral, social, and political environment which favors what is thought of as the proper business of the church, viz., the gaining of a large membership or many converts so that as many individuals as possible may have access to the means of salvation contained within the church" (p. 39). Grace stands outside the order of nature except as it is available to the life of individuals through the programs of the church.

Ironically, it seems to me, Protestant evangelicalism most deeply embodies this pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic perspective today. The "classical framework" is the hallmark of revivalism, in which the church provides "religious services" for "personal decisions for personal salvation", completely divorced from the material world at large. It is also found in the church growth movement in which the church adopts the secular trappings of the society in order to lure persons into the church so that they might, likewise, experience programs and services in which grace comes crashing into the natural order from the outside through a personal faith that grants eternal life. The effective church gains "a large membership or many converts so that as many individuals as possible may have access to the means of salvation contained within the church" (Lindbeck, p. 39). Within variations of what Lindbeck calls the classical framework, Church leadership must decide upon the selected demographic niche or geographical region, such as a neighborhood, for its secular service. The church is seen as a service provider to meet various needs of particular groups so that some within the particular sociological group might "get saved" -- receive an integrating experience of God from outside the natural order to help one's personal struggles in this world and eternal life in the age to come -- even as the church works in the secular world to bring in the kingdom even for those who do not come to believe in Jesus Christ. This can take the form of a conservative or progressive political agenda adopted by the church.

As a reaction against the church's conservative embracing of the contemporary social order and an externalist view of grace as "outside creation smashing into it in individual lives," recent academic theology and "alternative" church life in the evangelical and Methodist-holiness movement has adopted a different agenda, a progressive social agenda that sees the necessity of working to bring the kingdom of God to pass now. There is much positive here. Yet I have a deep concern. As within post-Vatican II Catholicism, important differentiations between the church espousing a progressive social, intellectual agenda versus an authentic return to the sources tends to get lost.

Lindbeck fired a warning flare already in his book for Roman Catholics. He warned against an enthusiastic embracement of the secular, progressive order as the church rejected its modern alliance with the conservative, reactionary order. "Tactical considerations made it difficult for the Council to warn against this kind of enthusiasm. The majority was fighting an almost Manichaean version of the classical outlook for which nothing new and nothing outside the church are good. . . . . This made it difficult for the Council to warn against excessive optimism regarding Christian social action, or to be critical and balanced in its affirmation of the values of the new, the secular, and the non-Christian. To do so would have seemed a concession to the reactionary pessimists" (p. 42-3). Instead, the Council taught that "Christians should throw their energies into the building of the earthly city, and therefore also into their ordinary callings, confident that they can serve God in their daily work just as genuinely as in church on Sundays" (p. 40).

It is a similar enthusiasm that also inspires minorities within evangelicalism to join up with Jim Wallis' program with Sojourners or Michael Lerner's "The Left Hand of God" against the alliance of the majority evangelical church with its legitimation of conservative social, political, and economic forces. Yet such a move itself only represents a reaction against a false Christian position that merely duplicates its problems on the "other side of the fence".

Rejection of the "conservative" position was prevelant in Nazarene and evangelical circles in the ''70s, '80s and '90s. Such thinkers and leaders sought to bring the church out of its cultural captivity to the American right and its liturgical expression in contemporary revivalism or church growth liturgies. These taught that the kingdom of God is built, expanded, or increased through the active work of congregations and its members in their daily tasks, especially in the social service sector of the society. As time has passed, among some, the position itself has more radically moved among some from its earlier hope to re-form the church to adopting an alternative congregational life within the church. If the contemporary church is "individualistic", it will be "communal"; if the contemporary church is "colonial" in its embracing of the American missionary movement; it will be "anti-colonial;" if the conservative church supports "capitalism"; it will be "anti-capitalist;" if the contemporary church is "accomodationalist to the governing structures of society," it will be "anti-accomodationalist." If the conservative church seeks to focus on Christian distinctiveness while embracing a conservative political program, the incarnationalist will seek coalitions with those closer to the progressively present kingdom of God than the conservative, reactionary church that it seeks to leave behind.

Yet this move has gone under the radar, except in certain calls for a "social holiness." A compromise was broached between progressive elements with the conservative church in the United States. The contemporary liberal nation-state, in the right hands, it is held, does not necessarily provide a problem. The state can be a real possibility to help bring in the kingdom if it adopts a progressive socialism that will incorporate the life of religiously motivated persons. Progressive forces and "compassionate conservatives" can come together in a social program for congregations to work to bring in the kingdom. Democratic government, federal, state, and local, can be an ally in such a position if a congregation will form 5013c "compassionate ministry" not-for-profits that can directly receive government funding for Christian-like activity tangent to the life of the congregation. The congregation can pay for its particularly "religious" activities; the "social witness" of the church can be funded in collaboration with government or NGOs to allow greater effectiveness in witnessing to the kingdom by 'kingdom activities' or 'practices.' A tenuous coaltion formed between two sides of the same coin that obscured a more fundamental difference between the alternative political agendas that both are seen to witness to the kingdom.

Lindbeck called for caution already in 1966. He recognized a distinction between the "progressives" within Vatican II from the mainstream of the Council, a progressive element that made their presence felt alongside the "realistic future escatology". Lindbeck wrote, "There is also fragmentarily present another tendency which may be termed ‘incarnationalist.’ According to this, the kingdom of God and the body of Christ grow progressively through history. The church will advance until it unifies all humanity and embraces all genuine values of other religions and of secular developments in the fullness of its catholicity. A major way in which this is accomplished is precisely through the participation of Christians in all kinds of secular activities. Thereby they sanctify the world and saturate it with Christian values" (p. 41).

Lindbeck recognized the power and truthfulness within the "incarnationalist" position: "The main reason for the appeal of incarnationalism, however, is that, oddly enough, its major premise is traditional. It agrees with the classical outlook in holding that the church should engage in secular diakonia because this constitutes a kind of pre-evangelization which contributes to the Christianization of the world and the ultimate triumph of the church."

Yet he also important notices its difference from those who seek the way forward for the church in a return to its sources, to its unsubstitutable, particular Christological center: "The minor premise and the conclusion, however, are very different. Instead of limiting pre-evangelization to what directly and visibly helps the growth of the church, the incarnationalist thinks of human advances of all kinds of serving this end. He thereby participates fully in the building of the earthly city, confident that this will contribute in the end to the spread of Christianity. Thus a classical first premise combined with a highly optimistic second premise provides support for greater emphasis on the secular mission of the church. In a way reminiscent of the classical Catholic pattern of grace presupposing and perfecting nature, the incarnationalist understands the Christianization of the world as presupposing and perfecting secular progress and development" (pp. 44-5).

The subtle but profound distinctions between the "incarnationalist" and "realistic futuristic eschatological" positions have taken time to differentiate, whenever and wherever they have arisen. They look very common in relationship to the "classical positions" that they reject. It has taken me years of hard work, thought, mistakes, prayer, reflection, reading, observation, and conversation to articulate the differences that I sensed and intuited earlier. The profound missional difference that characterizes many contemporary disputes within the larger life of the church, particularly from those who seek the renewal of the church from its conservative captivity, can be found at this level -- and differentiation is not an easy task. It took years to differentiate between the postive versus distorting emphases of liberation theology within Roman Catholicism; the history of Communion and Liberation experienced fragmentation within the movement in its earlier history between "progressive incarnationalist" and "return to the sources" sides; we can find the same difference between Councilium and Communio Catholic theologians, between the "National Catholic Review" and the "traditional Catholic review" websites; it is the difference between"Hauerwasian" and "Sojourners" evangelicals; it is found between "socially active relational Wesleyans" and Wesleyans who find their tradition taking them back into the history of the church catholic. Such a difference has been a constant source of tension within the congregation at Mid-City at various phases for many years; these tensions that can bubble up in persons leaving the congregation with a perceived failure in its mission to be suitably "incarnational".

Such an "incarnationalist" position is partically represented in the mission statement of Mid-City where we speak of co-operation with other believers to "expand the kingdom of God." It is a deeply secularist vision, as Vattimo would say, of history as "progress and its overcoming." The incarnationalist position is a pro-poor, anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, communitarian, pro-government regulatory of private enterprise whose project moves to the very center of the church's program of challenging the social systems around them ("the principalities and powers") in building now the kingdom of God through alignment with all well-intentioned persons who might join us in the task. The ethical and the social nature of the kingdom of God render the confessional and particular nature of Christian convictions as a secondary importance.

The difference, however, is not inconsequential, nor trivial, nor tied necessarily to personalities; it has deep implications to sustain the long term witness of the church. Lindbeck saw the real difference between the progressive, incarnationalist vision with the realistic futuristic eschatological vision. He wrote, "While the church’s secular mission is at least as important from an eschatological perspective as from an incarnationalist perspective, it does not, for the eschatologist, depend on this kind of incarnational optimism. The present age is one of ‘preparation for’ not ‘growth’ or ‘progress’ towards the kingdom. There is no guarantee that mankind is becoming better or that the world will be Christianized. All developments are ambiguous and may be used for either good or evil. Such an outlook is more open to the future than an incarnational one. It is less subject to crushing disappointments than are optimistic or utopian views regarding the course of history. No matter what happens, and even if the church’s secular mission is not ‘successful,’ the church must struggle for love and justice and serve the needs of men because only in this way can it be an authentic anticipation and witness to the final manifestation of God’s reign and rule" (p. 44).

By turning to the center, to the kingdom of God as it has already been revealed in Jesus rather than in a social engineering of the present for the future, God protects the church from being co-opted by other political forces in this time between the times. God instead pushes us to holiness, to confess the limitations of our own historical perspectives; to deliver us from the unintended consequences of our trying to do good by taking control, and instead, to focus us on Jesus Christ to engage in direct works of mercy for our own sanctification.

We must ask the Spirit to sanctify us to be holy and without blame in order to receive the kingdom; we do not actively bring in the kingdom through human activity. Ironically, and this is very important, we must embrace a "realistic futuristic eschatology" rather than an "incarnationalist" presence in order to sustain us in the truth of the Gospel that salvation [the kingdom] comes by grace through faith, not by works, lest anyone boast. It is at this point that we can say that the reformation is over; in Vatican II the Roman Catholic Church has re-formed at the crucial point. Luther -- and Wesley -- have won. The residual forces of a incarnationalist understanding that brings in the kingdom by works, as in pre-Vatican II Roman common understanding, cannot be taken over by well-meaning evangelicals as they move beyond the limitations of their earlier understandings of the church. To protect ourselves and because Christ prayed that we must be one as the Son and the Father are One, we must allow the Spirit to re-form us as we adopt that we are merely the pilgrim people of God to witness to the fullness of what has happened in Jesus Christ, crucified and raised, and in the new age that is yet to come in the return of Jesus Christ.

This is the mystery of our faith: Christ has died; Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.

Posted by johnwright at 6:33 AM | Comments (9)

As background to this weekend's Scriptures, I was reading a sermon by John Wesley called "The Circumcision of the Heart." Wesley writes, "Our gospel, as it knows no other foundation of good works than faith, or of faith than Christ, so it clearly informs us, we are not his disciples while we either deny him [Christ] to be the Author, or his Spirit to be the Inspirer and Perfecter, both of our faith and works." What most characterizes Wesley's thought and life is this continual turning back to Christ and faith in Christ for renewal in justice through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Wesley is quite direct and truthful: "This God's short and plain account of true religion and virtue; and 'other foundation can no man lay.' It is Christ who "alone can quicken those Who are dead unto God, can breathe into them the breath of Christian life, and so prevent, accompany, and follow them with his grace as to bring their good desires to good effect."

Only Christ can bring their good desires to good effect. Perhaps this will help us see a common thread throughout the passages.

Isaiah 59:1-4, 9-19

Our OT passage begins with a very blunt assessment that it is human sin that separates persons from God, rather than finding blame in God. The passage attributes the lack of justice of the very personal human sin that sticks to human hands and the resultant gloom that comes as a result. Possibly you might want to read through the passage and see if this is a fair assessment of what is going on it. Of course, we are much more comfortable with a psychological language of "healthy" and "unhealthy" when it comes to speaking about individuals and a sociological language of "structures" and "powers" when it comes to groups of persons. What do you hear as the difference between these languages?

What is God's response to the extent of sin that leads to injustice and the lack of truth? To what does the passage look forward to as a solution to this problem of injustice caused by human sin? Where do we confess this solution has already occured? When do we confess that the solution will occur in its fullness?

Hebrews 5:12-6:1,9-12

The Hebrews passage reprimands us to move past the "basic teaching" or "fundamental principles of Christ" and to press on to perfection, to move to maturity, to have our faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil (interestingly, the passage presupposes one must be trained to make such distinctions rather than seeing them as obvious to all). The movement is away from "dead works" yet nonetheless an exhortation to works. What type of works does this passage exhort us through our faith toward God? Whom are we to imitate to keep moving on, to be able to distinguish between good and evil?

Mark 10:46-52

The gospel passage speaks of Jesus bringing a blind man to see. It has a spiritual as well as a physical significance as the person follows Jesus as a result of now seeing. What is the faith that has made him well? To whom is this faith directed? Why would people try to silence Bartimaeus? Notice that it is not the disciples, but others who order him to be quiet. To whom does Bartimaeus cry out in calling out to Jesus?

After these passages, maybe it'd be good to again discuss the Wesley quote. Do you think that it is a good teaching? What particular relevance in placing Christ as the basis for faith which is the basis for good works for our Christian and congregational life?

Posted by johnwright at 10:16 AM | Comments (12)

There is a prominent New Testament scholar who teaches now at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland named Larry Hurtado. He has undertaken a long program of study on worship of Jesus in earliest Christianity and recently published a shorter collection of essays on the topic in a book called How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? The introduction is quite compact historical summary of his main conclusions. He writes as a "historian," not as a theologian, as a secular academic, not a Christian believer. Yet his conclusions bear witness to our passages this week.

Hurtado writes, "Perhaps within only a few days or weeks of his crucifixion, Jesus' followers were circulating the astonishing claim that God had raised him from death and had installed him in heavenly glory as Messiah and the appointed vehicle of redemption. Moreover, and still more astonishing, these claims were accompanied by an emerging pattern of devotional practices in which Jesus figured with an unprecented centrality. . . . . from a surprisingly early point after his death, Jesus' followers were according him at a level of devotion that far exceeded their own prior and impressive commitment to him during his lifetime.. . . . the energetic and sometimes complex early Christian efforts to articulate doctrines about Jesus and God in the next few centuries were practically demanded and significantly shaped by the intense devotion to Jesus that we see already expressed in our earliest evidence of the young Christian movement" (pp. 4-5).

Isaiah 53:4-12

Given this background in history, it is not surprising that early believers in Jesus found Isaiah 53 descriptive of him and them. The passage is the most commonly read OT passage in the traditional Christian lectionary. Perhaps a discussion how the passage "describes" what happened to Jesus and how the passage describes our relationship (the first person plural pronouns in the passage) to what happened to the figure in the Isaiah passage might be helpful to understand the reason for the center of our devotion to this historical person Jesus.

Hebrews 4:12-16

The Hebrews passage begins with a description of the function of the "word of God" before moving to Jesus' role as the high priest. Of course, Jesus is the Word of God incarnate in the flesh. How does the Word of God help us come to terms with our own self-deception, our tendency to get caught up in our own tangled webs of perceptions of ourselves and the social group that gives us our perceptions of the world? How does the fact that Jesus as the High Priest, the one who offers and distributes the goods of this world in honor of God the Father, help us sustain our confession of faith that we made in our baptism? Why does Jesus, the eternal judging Word of God who is simultaneously the High Priest, help us to approach God boldly in our prayers?

Mark 10:35-45

It seems to me that in the Mark passage that James and John focus their concern, not on Jesus, but on the coming kingdom that they abstract away from the person of and devotion to Jesus. Jesus then becomes a means to their own participation in the kingdom, a means to a greater end -- "we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." As a result, their well-intentioned desire to participate in the kingdom becomes shifted to a desire for influence and status and power within the kingdom. Of course, the "baptism" of which Jesus speaks, having already been baptized with water, was the baptism of blood in his crucifixion -- they ask for status and power, he offers them martyrdom. Then a rift occurs in the body of the twelve, as others resent the open grab for influence and power in the coming kingdom made by John and James. Commitment to the political program of the kingdom separated from the figure of Jesus becomes a means of disunion and controversy amidst Jesus' followers.

In this light we need to hear Jesus' response, a response not adequately translated in the English versions. In the English versions we tend to hear Jesus' response as a reaction against the authoritarian, absolutist tyranny of the Gentiles versus the "service" of Jesus that works as a kind of democratic communitarian sharing. Yet that is much more a modern concern as a reaction against the supposed medieval commitment to authority than the concern expressed in the passage. In the passage it is James and John's concern to place themselves for influence sake at the center of the program of the kingdom separated from the figure of Jesus.

The word for "servant" in the passage is not the Greek word for a slave (doulos), but a representative (diakonos). Diakonos is a word for an office of authority as well. The difference is not between authority and service, action versus reaction, but whom one represents with one's authority -- and we all bear an authority with our lives, even as we live under authority. Jesus demands that among the disciples that the office of authority represents all, rather than a segment, of his disciples for personal agendas within the kingdom. His words are a call to the unity of the kingdom in all times and in all places in the practice of authority within his disciples (i.e., the necessary of the catholicity of the church). He therefore links the office of the authority amidst his disciples -- and the kingdom -- to his own self, and to his crucifixion. "The Son of Man came not to be represented, but to represent [the will of the Father] and give his life a ransom for many. Jesus represents God the Father completely faithfully even if it means his crucifixion -- and in this faithful representation, gives his life as a ransom. The key here is again, not a program of the kingdom, but the person of Jesus who is the embodiment of the kingdom in its fullness. The text ends up giving a rationale why we are Christians live our lives in devotion to Jesus, and why the martyrdom of which Jesus refers in the passage becomes the highest form of authority and "representation" amidst his followers.

If this above interpretation is helpful, it helps connect with the Isaiah and Hebrews passage as well. It focuses our devotion on Jesus but also raises concretely how authority functions in our lives to shape who we are. Given Isaiah, Hebrews, and Mark, how do we hold fast to the confession that we have made amidst the various tugs and pulls that we face in the world and church today?

Have a wonderful evening and discussion!

Posted by johnwright at 8:10 AM | Comments (2)

A recent article in The Christian Century ("Going Catholic: Six Journeys to Rome," 8/21/06) noted six prominent theologians who have recently become Roman Catholic. It is interesting because, as the articles author, Jason Byassee notes, "They are also relatively young, poised to influence students and congregations for several decades. They more or less fit the description of 'postliberal' in that they accept such mainline practices as historical criticism and women's ordination while wanting the church to exhibit more robust dogmatic commitments. All of them embrace what Mattox describes as an 'evangelical, catholic, and orthodox' vision of the church. They could not see a way to be all those things within mainline denominations" -- including Gerald Schlabach, who became a Roman Catholic from his Mennonite tradition. In some ways this is an outcome of the profound changes in Roman Catholicism in recovering its Christological moorings as a result of Vatican II and the papacies of Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI.

Byassee's account of Schlabach is most interesting to me because of his background as an evangelical Mennonite. Byassee writes, "Schlabach worries that Protestant churches have become ends in themselves rather than reform movements dedicated to the church universal. Schlabach sees the Catholic Church as the best hope for a reunion of 'liberal' and 'conservative,' 'protestant' and 'catholic' visions of the church: 'Imagine a church . . . that could not sing without feeding the poor, nor feed the poor without nourishment from the Eucharist, nor pass the peace without living peaceably inthe world, nor be peacemakers without depending on prayer, nor pray without joining in robust song." And I might add, all of these practice presuppose a robust orthodoxy of Christian convictions.

Byassee ends by quoting Stanley Hauerwas why shouldn't everyone become Roman Catholic. As typical Professor Hauerwas is very quotable in a penetrating and wise manner. He "prefers loyalty to one's church of origin: 'I feel like you need to stay with the people who harmed you.' At the theological level, Hauerwas cites the remark by Cardinal Walter Kasper . . . . 'In the ecumenical movement the question is conversion to Christ. In him we move closer to one another.'"

I cannot and have no desire to deny the historical contingency of my own biography. My life fits well within the historical trends that have influenced the six scholars noted by Byassee. I studied theology at a Roman Catholic institution, a center at the time of "postliberal" thought. My encountering Stanley Hauerwas and his students such as Simon Harak, SJ, at Notre Dame, and Professor Hauerwas's and his students' writings and friendships have been extremely important to me. Yet I remain, unapologetically, consciously, and intentionally, within the Church of the Nazarene as an ordained elder. Baptized by William Prince who became a General Superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene, it is this people that the Spirit used to transmit the faith given to the saints to me. No one is more aware of the foiables, struggles, and sinfulness of this people, but I too believe that it is important to "stay with the people who harmed me."

Yet I have a deeper conviction grounded in a critical faith and a faithful reason. It is my conviction that the Methodist/Holiness tradition in which the Church of the Nazarene stands has particular gifts to offer the church catholic to help all of our conversion to Christ. I have to argue that the center of the Wesleyan/holiness movement is to be "evangelical, Catholic, and orthodox." The Wesleyan/holiness tradition may only sustain its coherence and faithful witness precisely in so far as it is evangelical (in the classical sense of Christologically-focused), Catholic, and orthodox -- something it has struggled to keep because of its experiential focus in its assimilation to American revivalism. I am increasingly convinced that we should regard John Wesley as the first (non)modern "return to the sources" (Ressourcement) theologian, a position that has since come to characterize the post-Vatican II papacy. I think that the early Methodists and then the holiness movement bears strong affinities to the new religious movements such as Communion and Liberation as well as those within the Catholic Worker who keep to Dorothy Day's teachings, rather than being carried off into a progressive political agenda for the United States that leaves her unflinching evangelical, catholic, and orthodox witness behind.

Our ministry and witness at the Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City has always focused on remaining evangelical, catholic, and orthodox. If one examines our mission statement, one finds the statement that our mission is in accordance to "the Spirit of the early church, the Wesleyan vision, and the mission of the Church of the Nazarene." We have always been about the return to the sources of the faith and our particular tradition as a means of addressing contemporary secularist environment that the church faces. That is why we named ourselves "The Church of the Nazarene in . . . " We wanted to emphasize, not a denominational identity, but the anchorage of our mission in the evangelic, catholic, and orthodox tradition that is the faith that has been handed down through the saints.

I deeply respect and have learned from contemporary renewal movements in Roman Catholic thought and life. I need, and I believe that my congregation needs, to journey with particularly these folk to keep us to keep from splintering from falling into a cultural Christianity whether it be a conservative bourgeoise Christian evangelicalism or a progressive neighborhood Christian communitarianism. I am not sure that we can keep evangelical, catholic, and orthodox without such conversations and friendships amidst strong social and intellectual forces that would move us away from these commitments. But unlike these six theologians, I believe that the Church of the Nazarene, and the Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City, San Diego, in particular, affords a place to build a evangelical, Catholic, and orthodox witness. In this way, maybe we can participate in a deeper catholicity of conversion to Christ -- to find out that in Him, we are drawn closer to each other.

Posted by johnwright at 8:05 AM | Comments (6)

With Board meeting Monday night and District Pastor's meeting last night, the day job has gotten me way behind. So I want to just suggest general angles for your discussions of these passages. Have a wonderful evening!

I am convinced that to run "private goods" as a dichotomy to "community goods" is a false dichotomy, but belongs to a notion of "sacrifice" that is isolated for what true human goods are. Does one have to abandon goods to participate in shared goods? The Amos and Hebrews readings might help us understand this. What does one receive in this age in following Jesus? How have you experienced this? Is following Jesus merely for this age? How does that help us understand the Amos and Hebrews reading? Does one really give up fields and family in following Jesus? How can we talk about it?

Amos 5:6-7,10-15
Seek the LORD and live,
or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire,
and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.
Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood,
and bring righteousness to the ground!
They hate the one who reproves in the gate,
and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.
Therefore because you trample on the poor
and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your transgressions,
and how great are your sins--
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
and push aside the needy in the gate.
Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time;
for it is an evil time.
Seek good and not evil,
that you may live;
and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you,
just as you have said.
Hate evil and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Hebrews 3:1-6
Brothers and sisters, holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also "was faithful in all God's house." Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later. Christ, however, was faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.

Mark 10:17-27(28-31)
As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."

[Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."]

Posted by johnwright at 4:52 PM | Comments (3)

Today there is terrible confusion within the Western Christian world concerning marriage and divorce. North American evangelical divorce rates are higher than the surrounding culture, a symptom, I believe, of the absorption of evangelicalism into the individualistic therapeutic psychological culture. At the same time conservative American Protestants uphold a nineteenth century Protestant moralism concerning the union of wife and husband. American society, shaped morally by the liberal political context, operates only according to the first, having abandoned the second. As a result marriage has become a legal contract for the psycho-sexual emotional well-being of individuals. From this perspective, gay and lesbian couples should not be detered from entering into their own private contracts, upheld by the authority of the state, for their own "psycho-sexual emotional 'health', should they?

Thus the depth of confusion concerning marriage. The readings of this week take us into the profound difference of Christians regarding marriage. The Genesis reading and the Gospel reading take center stage; yet the Hebrews passage helps us maintain our focus as well.

Genesis 2:18-24

The translation of this passage is difficult because English does not really afford the type of dynamics that the text gives, especially in relationship to the gender dynamics, nor the precise physicality of words for "partner." First, the word translated at the beginning as "man" actually takes its reference from its color and origin -- this being is taken from the "soil" (adamah) and thus is called "human" (adam). The being is not gendered male at this point. Also the "helper" is to be a "partner." Yet the Hebrew is much more physical, and very difficult to translate. Richard Eliot Friedman has a good translation of the phrase. He translates it "I will make for him [the human] a strength corresponding to him [the human]." It is thus no surprise that the one human becomes two from the very bone and flesh on the one human by God's creative power. It is only after the creation of the woman (ishsha) and the other side of the adam becomes man (ish). This allows us to understand the real impact of the final phrase "they become one flesh." Marriage and sexuality sign an ontological return to the one human nature that humanity really is, both male and female, each one individually, and even more fully, together in sexuality within marriage.

Read through the passage together. How does this change the gender dynamics from what you have traditionally heard and known? What is the difference between the human and other animals here? What does this passage suggest about marriage and sexuality?

Mark 10:2-9

We must read this passage very carefully as well. Notice the precision of the Pharisees question -- gender is front and foremost here. The question to which Jesus responds is about a male divorcing a female. The question seems to presuppose that they are trying to "trap" Jesus by forcing him into an unpopular position to show how he violates Moses's teachings. How does Jesus respond? How does he interpret the Torah's teaching to allow the male divorce of the female (but not the vice versa!). If you notice, Jesus combines a quote from Genesis 1:27c with the quote from the end from Genesis 2, linking the two passages together. He then speaks of a permanence of human marriage and sexual relationships.

You might discuss then how Jesus sees marriage related to human "nature" as given in creation before the fall. How is human nature gendered, and how is this related to marriage, divorce and sexuality? Does Jesus view marriage as a legal contract primarily? How would you describe it? Does Jesus view marriage and sexuality in terms of the "psycho-sexual emotional well-being of individuals"? How does his teachings compare with this?

Hebrews. 2:9-18

Our Hebrews passage quite literally focuses on Jesus: "we do see Jesus." How does Jesus relate to human nature? Does Jesus take on "male nature" or "human nature" in this passage, or is there a difference? How does this relate to Jesus being our salvation made "perfect through sufferings"? How do Christ sufferings help those who are being tested? How might this relate to the Genesis and Gospel teachings on marriage? Is marriage necessary to reflect the genuine human nature that we see, post-fall, in Jesus?

It seems to me that in the Scriptures and Christian tradition, we have to understand marriage in terms of what has taken place in God objectively -- in the exchange of marriage vows, we are married. It is not up to us from that point on, but rather to show God's intent and image in which we are created in the marriage by learning to live out what has actually happened as witnesses to God. Sexuality is part of this witness, from which, of course, procreation is signed as a possibility through sexual relations between male and female in a way impossible through same sex sexuality. Marriage thus witnesses to the creative love that the Triune God, the only God, is. This is why Christians cannot sanction same sex marriage or sexual intercourse, at the same time as being open to support and love gays and lesbians as created fully in the image of God as they point to the fulness of redemption that comes, not through marriage or sexuality, but through Jesus Christ, himself a celibate. There becomes a pointing that human "nature" is defined, not by hormones or brain patterns or unshaped desires (if such things exist), but by Jesus Christ -- who calls us into the same redemptive suffering for the sake of the world, whether married or celibate. This is why Christians may practice "separation", but not "divorce" -- opening up the possibility of remarriage. This is very different from our culture that struggles with separation (the breaking of the "marriage contract"), but celebrates remarriage ("the formation of a new contract for personal psycho-sexual and social enjoyment and security"). Unlike society, for Christians, marriage is sacramental -- a sign that reveals, images God through real participation in God as the Mysterious Reality that is Love through Christ by the power of the Spirit.

In this way marriage signs as well the nuptial relationship between Christ and the church. Reconciliation is not something that we bring about through our works. It has happened, really and fully in Christ, in which persons are initiated into by faith in their baptismal vows and in the water through the invocation of the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our job is not to force what has already happened, but to learn to live out what has already happened, in the difficulty of life's concrete settings, often through suffering. We learn by the Spirit's sanctifying presence to live toward a future that has already happened in the past, and outside of time in eternity, in Christ.

Posted by johnwright at 7:52 AM | Comments (6)