No Church? No Problem

Sorry I've been gone so long. I think I burned out on the whole blogging thing and needed some time away. I am seeking to bring more balance in to many areas of my life. We'll see how it goes.

Here's an interesting quote from an article at Christianity Today called No Church? No Problem.

Unlike the Great Awakenings, which brought people into the church, this new movement "entails drawing people away from reliance upon a local church into a deeper connection with and reliance upon God." Already "millions of believers have stopped going to church," so Barna expects that in 20 years "only about one-third of the population will rely upon a local congregation as the primary or exclusive means for experiencing and expressing their faith." Down will go the number of churches, donations to churches, and the cultural influence of churches.

This doesn't sound too good for job security for pastors! But I hope it spells great things for the advancement of God's Kingdom. What are your thoughts about this trend?
Filed in: church, trends

More Problems with Evangelical Theology

This is an interesting article by Chuck Colson. He speaks of the weakness in evangelical theology to deal with suffering. I agree. I believe most evangelical theology doesn't even have a theology of suffering. It has plenty of answer for suffering but it provides us with very little on how to suffer. As Colson says,

I'm not sure how well the contemporary evangelical world prepares us for this struggle, which I suspect many evangelicals experience but fear to admit because of the expectations we create. At such times, we can turn for strength to older and richer theological traditions probably unfamiliar to many—writings by saints who endured agonies both physical and spiritual.

I've got to get this quote from Colson in as well:

Evangelicals must rely on more than cheerful tunes, easy answers, and happy smiles. We must dig deeply into the church's treasures to find what it is like to worship God, not because of our circumstances, but in spite of them.

What are your thoughts? Have you struggled or suffered and found your theology wanting?

Filed in: theology, evangelicalism

Ben Witherington on The Problem with Evangelical Theology

Recently I wrote about Ben Witherington's new book The Problem with Evangelical Theology. Thanks to D.P. here's a quote from Ben Witherington's blog concerning his book and what he hopes will be achieved by it:

It is my hope that this book which I have written will stir up a lot of discussion, not defensiveness or furor. I think in the 21rst century we need to learn to do our theology in a more Biblical way, not just use the Bible as a justification or proof text for the theology we want to do anyway. If we manage to do this then perhaps those two reformation principles will come alive again-- in reforming ourselves, we may become more Biblical persons, thinkers theologians, ethicists. And this would be an exceedingly good thing. The time for posturing, pretending, and polemics should be over.

So how can we do theology in a more biblical way? What would it mean to be more biblical in our theology?

Just for fun: the graphic above comes from a shirt.

Filed in: quotes, books, theology

Reading reflections - Paul Among the Postliberals

A friend and I are currently reading this book. Here's an interesting quote from the end of chapter 1:

That message and missions [Paul's mission to the nations] is precisely about God's deliverance of the Gentiles from their former religious-sociopolitical allegiances, in order that they might give their unreserved loyalty (pistis) to the one God of Israel who has invaded their world in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, in order that they might become a new people, under a new Lord and a new regime called the kingdom of God, the body of Christ, the ekklesia. That is justification. The Gentiles share in this new people and new regime by being baptized into the body of Christ and, in their newfound freedom from other gods and other lords, by becoming obedient and faithful to their Lord, repeating the pattern of his obedience and faithfulness in their whole way of life, in body and in soul, social and personal, active and passive, economic and political, within the body of Christ and as the body of Christ. That is faith. Their justification, therefore, is or ought to be immediately marked by a specific and visible way of being and living in the world as a social body. Every letter of Paul is oriented to that end; one searches in vain for any section within those letters that is not oriented to it. (emphasis is original)

At the core of this book and the first chapter is the discussion of the "rendering of the Greek phrase pistis Christou Iesou (Gal. 2:16 and its variants elsewhere)." Is this phrase to be understood as faith in or toward Jesus Christ with Jesus Christ as the object of the faith thus translating the phrase "faith in Jesus Christ" or is it a subjective genitive thus translating the phrase "the faith(fulness) of Christ."

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this issue and especially on the quote concerning faith and justification. Are those definitions that you can live with? How do you understand pistis Christou Iesou? Why do you understand it the way you do?

Filed in: books, quotes, theology, bible, hermeneutics