Volume 4

Volume 4, No. 2: Summer 2008

This issue includes the following articles plus book reviews and more:

Will Evangelicals Teach Them Economic Obedience or Consumer Theology?

By Michael Andres

There are many biblical commands regarding economic justice, limiting material possessions, and resistance to covetousness. However, evangelicals have been unduly influenced by an American culture with a pervasive ‘will to have’ and consequent consumptive practices: by remaining largely silent on matters of economic obedience and justice, mimicking the economic practices of the prevailing culture of acquisition, and holding uncritical and unbiblical attitudes towards material possessions as evidenced by the role of the Christian cultural products industry. Instead, evangelicals should be wary of using consumerist methods to further the faith and oppose the deleterious effects that consumerism has on beliefs, practices, theological reflection, and power. Finally, I try to show that a consumer ‘theology’ is fundamentally at odds with the evangelical theological tradition, particularly its notion of sanctification as theocentric, gracious and sufficient.

The End of the Reformation Has News of Its Demise Been Greatly Exaggerated?

By Kimlyn J. Bender

In light of recent ecumenical discussions and achievements, many are asking to what extent historic theological divisions between Catholics and Protestants have now been overcome. This essay approaches this question by examining the recent study by Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom entitled Is The Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism. The present essay argues that while much progress has been made in the dialogue between Roman Catholics and Protestants in general and evangelicals in particular, issues of ecclesiology will continue to divide the communions for the foreseeable future, and that these issues resist resolution precisely because they are ultimately Christological as well as ecclesiological. This essay attempts to shed light on these Christological and ecclesiological differences.

Through a Prism Darkly: Reading with Musa Dube

By Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

Though outright imperialism has been declared passé, the present era of globalization nonetheless remains implicated in the colonial project, as do the Church and the Bible. Within such conditions Christian theology and biblical interpretation must be(come) actively postcolonial, or else remain culpably, if passively, neocolonial. Thus Musa Dube asks, “Given the role of the Bible in facilitating imperialism, how should we read the Bible as postcolonial subjects?” In answering her own question, Dube develops a postcolonial feminist “reading prism” with and from the ordinary reading practices of African women. This essay explicates her hermeneutics and explores the possibilities of reading the Bible with and through Dube’s prism as a white Western male. In so doing, it argues that white Western Christians must attempt such readings and engage in postcolonial struggle.

Beyond Tolerance and Difference: An Interview with Kristen Deede Johnson

By Matt Jenson

Contemporary political discourse tends to either languish under lazy appeals to tolerance or devolve into the violence of irreconcilable difference. In her recent book, Theology, Political Theory, and Pluralism: Beyond Tolerance and Difference, Kristen Deede Johnson examines the tradition of political liberalism exemplified by Rawls and its recent post-Nietzschean critics whose agonistic political theory finds conflict basic to politics. Proposing a constructive model of ‘conversation’, Johnson calls for a more deeply Christian political engagement that resists a privatization of belief in the name of ‘tolerance’ while
refusing to resort to the rhetorical violence of a triumphalism that would equate state and church.

One Seeker’s Spiritual Pilgrimage

By B. Patrick Williams

This is an abridgement of a letter that I wrote to my major advisor at Oregon State University, Professor Marcus Borg, October 2002, relating key events of my journey to a personal relationship with God in Christ. Marcus Borg was a great mentor, encouraging me to find my own way and supporting me in the process. It felt right to share with him my transition into a divergent way of thinking and being. Included are the ways in which working at Starbucks, studying literature and religion (to include C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien), and developing friendships shifted my focus off of myself and onto God and others. In doing so, I left behind a liberal Christian agnosticism preoccupied with intellectual satisfaction in order to embrace a Christianity grounded in my need for Jesus Christ and His Grace.

Hope for Humanity

By V. Elizabeth Perkins

The essay reflects on the way the transforming love of God has broken into the depressed neighborhood of West Jackson to offer the hope of beloved community in the face of human depravity. Elizabeth Perkins shares her own struggle to find “Hope for Humanity” after experiencing two burglaries in the midst of her work with the Zechariah 8 Community in Jackson, Mississippi. The essay presents a striking vision where young and old participate in the kingdom of God through living for one another in community. A vision Perkin challenges us “to cuddle up to,” so we can discover, with her, through this “our lives become so rich!” While a thief may be able to steal our possessions, as Perkins reminds us, “No thief can steal God’s love from us.”

Freeing the Captive and the Captive Church

By John M. Perkins

In his sermon, Dr. John Perkins focuses on how the church should engage critical problems in the cultural foundations of family and community—especially as those problems affect those in prison, and those at risk for future incarceration. He states that the church has often ignored prisoners as victims of their own failures; but the church ought to recognize that prisoners’ failures are just reflections of our own failure as Christians—failure to be salt and light in the world’s individualistic and materialistic culture. Perkins draws on the example of Psalm 11 and David’s own struggle with captivity to outline what the church ought to do in light of the worldly influences in culture. He asserts that, “the Church must be the driving force behind changes in culture. We must be a worshipping, nurturing community, allowing people to move forward with dignity.” Only through the church acting on Scripture’s directives, and truly serving Christ through serving others, can we help to free the captive and work together for God’s Kingdom.

“Folsom Prison Blues” Revisited

By Paul Louis Metzger
Multnomah Biblical Seminary

In his essay, Paul Louis Metzger utilizes the lyrical imagery of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” to relate to the personal and structural barriers that many ‘prisoners’ experience both within the church and outside it. He states that the church often cultivates exclusionary and elitist attitudes toward ‘outsiders’ and even toward other churches. On the other hand, Cash related to those who were ‘imprisoned’ either literally or spiritually—and he also understood the liberation that Christ offers to the saved. “Before Jesus freed him from his ‘imprisonment’, [Cash] was inside longing to get out. After his turning point, he was outside longing to get in—to help free other slaves.” Paraphrasing Jesus’ words, Metzger states that, “those like Cash who are forgiven much, love much; those who are forgiven little, love little.” We in the church often play down our own sins while labeling those who ‘get caught’ as the real villains—when, in fact, we are all sinners, in need of Christ’s transforming love. Metzger emphasizes that Jesus came to free the captive (whatever form that captivity may take) and he believes that, “we all need a fresh vision of the ‘Personal Jesus’, whose glorious love and mercy and grace are the only things capable of breaking us out of our Folsom blues imprisonment.”

Venturing out of the Comfort Zone

By Zach Dundas

Dundas offers a personal narrative of how writing a feature on evangelicals took him, as a writer for an alternative newspaper, out of his own comfort zone and into an important insight. The narrative becomes emblematic of the social challenges we face in America: we exist in a diverse society full of segmented pods of special interest, with a perpetual invitation to cocoon ourselves with others who share our values, interests, and tastes. This, Dundas remarks, is okay—as long as we remember there are other worlds out there, just as valid and rich as our own. Every one of us should make periodic efforts to learn a little bit about people who are not like us. Dundas winsomely reveals how researching the story helped him recognize the limits of his own preconceptions through an experience of diversity.

Volume 4, No. 1: Winter 2008

This issue includes the following articles plus book reviews and more:

Green Martyrdom and the Christian Engagement of Late Capitalism

By Rodney Clapp

Consumer capitalism rivals–and perhaps surpasses–the nation-state as one of the two most powerful and formative “leviathans” of modernity. Though consumer capitalism in central aspects contradicts and obstructs the convictions and practices of classical Christianity, the modern church in affluent countries has largely capitulated to it. This essay suggests that purchase for real and really Christian engagement of consumer capitalism may arise from returned attention to one of the crucial aspects of New Testament and classical Christian witness—martyrdom. But capitalism, in contrast to communism, has learned that it is more effective to seduce and co-opt Christians than to kill them. So there is needed an account of martyrdom that does not entail physical death by violence (red martyrdom), but which, after the way of the cross of Christ, resists personal and corporate formation as self-interested, addicted, envious, and un-self-controlled consumers. White martyrdom, recognized particularly in the monastic movement, is one historical manifestation of such an account. Another and lesser known is the Celtic-based green martyrdom. This essay briefly reprises green martyrdom’s origins, then concentrates on playfully but seriously imagining how green martyrdom might embody a true faith of the cross in our day, when the excesses of consumerism threaten not only Christian formation but the very fate of the earth itself.

“The Great Task of the University”: Reflections on the Regensburg Address of Pope Benedict XVI

By Peter J. Casarella

Pope Benedict’s address at the University of Regensburg created a firestorm. But far from trying to incite controversy, the Pontiff outlined a cogent argument for intercultural dialogue. This essay examines the theology of dialogue in the address, including Benedict’s claims regarding the real basis for dialogue between Christians and Muslims, the violence implicit in certain forms of nominalism, and the practical foundations for dialogue in the modern university. By interweaving experiences with students at The Catholic University of America during the attacks of September 11, 2001, the author of the present essay proposes his own interpretation of the infamous speech. He argues that if genuine intercultural dialogue takes place within the broad expanse of the logos that takes on flesh, then there is no way that Christians acting with this logos can reasonably advocate that God must be on our side because he contravenes the normal rules of civil discourse.

Imitatio Christi in Late Modern Culture: A Late Medieval Contribution

By Olli-Pekka Vainio

A religious conversion raises always a question on how the religious identity should be articulated in the given culture. In the late modern culture, typical choices are rugged individualism, which sets only very abstract, if any, directives for a genuine Christian way of life, or authoritarian conformism. The question is: How should the identity of a follower of Christ be articulated in our culture while avoiding both too severe and too vague expressions? In the Bible and in the subsequent spiritual tradition, conversion was understood as imitatio Christi. The reformer Martin Luther understood conversion as transformation into the likeness of Christ. This transformation is depicted through Christological rules and language, which then are linked to concrete forms of life. His account of conversion provides a well-developed and creative articulation of redeemed human agency, informed by Christological reflection, for late modern age.

Social Life and Worship Preferences: “And Now,…Here’s God”

By Stephen K. Bailey

This article suggests that worship styles reflect the social experience of God’s people to a greater degree than we may think. Using Mary Douglas’ grid and group theory, the author looks at four basic types of worship in an attempt to trace worship style preferences to their social roots. The goal is to enable the Church to have a deeper appreciation for the diversity of worship in the Church and to help us understand how God incarnates Himself in the midst of our social/cultural identities.

Theology in the Twenty-First Century Church: Or, A Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Last Century

By Michael Jinkins

Based on a presentation for the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, this essay profiles major theological, social, and cultural challenges confronting the Church today in North America. Using an informal and thoroughly unscientific survey of a small group of respected congregational leaders (the survey was conducted by the author in preparation for the presentation), the paper allows two questions to focus attention on concerns facing contemporary Christian communities of faith. The questions asked were: “What are the two or three biggest challenges facing your congregation as it looks to its future?” and “How do you go about reflecting theologically on these challenges?” Five challenges emerged and are explored in the paper: pluralism, stewardship, “therapeutism,” consumerism, and Pelagianism. The meaning of each of these terms takes a sometimes surprising shape because of the particular contexts of the congregational leaders surveyed.

Writing with Both Hands: Reflections on What’s Moving Under the Church Carpet

By Brandon Rhodes

Old political allegiances and loudly-thumped theological maxims are being shaken to their core as younger Christians imagine an embodied politic rooted in a missional theology of hope. Rhodes muses that the “post-Republican” winds whirling through American evangelicalism has a lot to do with cultural forces, but also explores the theological underpinnings of that transformation. Near the heart of the matter is an understanding of the gospel message shifting from “how to go to heaven after you die” toward “how to bring heaven to earth today.” There are many beautiful ways to live that gospel out; he concludes with an exhortation to embody a Kingdom politic before (and for) the watching, wailing world.