Category Archives: Theology and Religion

The The and the Dangers of Generalizations

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In this post, Scot McKnight publishes a letter from a pastor struggling with some Christian leaders’ reactions to the “emerging church,” and an extremely lively conversation has ensued.

I am not going to comment on the post itself, but many of the comments talk about “the” emerging church or “the” evangelical church. This is a common, yet dangerous, practice. The world of Christian thought and practice is so diverse that it’s practically impossible to summarize even what subgroups like “emerging” or “evangelical” Christians believe and practice. I do it myself, I know, though I shouldn’t.

Let me use my own church as an example. Most Americans, I think, would classify us as “evangelical,” if they were familiar with that term. Our church tradition, however, historically had very little interaction with the broader Protestant tradition: we have published our own magazines, read our own Bible commentaries, founded our own colleges, etc. That changed about 20 years ago. Today, our church incorporates some unique beliefs and practices that developed in isolation from the wider church with beliefs/practices borrowed from, say, Bill Hybels or Beth Moore, to just give two examples. At the same time, there are many elements of Hybels’ and Moore’s theologies that our church either outright rejects or simply ignores. Other giants of “the” evangelical world – like J. I. Packer or John Stott – are practically unknown. For many of our members in their forties and fifties, Francis Schaeffer was an enormous influence, but younger members have no idea who he was. Rob Bell has gained currency among our members in their 20’s and 30’s, but no one in our church has even heard of Brian McLaren. An increasing number people are reading John Piper, while others think that Reformed theology is practically heresy.

Even within just one church, it’s difficult to generalize. And now a generalization about generalizations: painting with a broad brush can be easy. You can create a straw man that’s easy to knock down with your arguments. Since you get to paint with your own brush, you don’t have to interact with specific positions or find a real basis for your criticism. You discover that you’re always rights, and anyone else is wrong, if you want them to be. It’s intellectual softness that does nothing to advance the Church.

Frustrations with Origen

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In reading God’s Rivals, I became very frustrated with Origen. On the one hand, we have a legitimately brilliant theologian and pastor, a la Bonhoeffer. As McDermott writes, “By night he studied the Bible and by day he prepared his students for martyrdom.” On the other hand, Origen was quite comfortable engaging in wild speculations – for examples, he theorized a Mormon-like pre-existence, where our obedience or disobedience to God resulted in the context of our birth (rich/poor, Christian/nonChristian, etc.). Origen apparently felt that he would throw out these ideas and allow the church to determine which to be true and which to be heretical. He got his wish, unfortunately. In 553 (300 years after his death), he was declared a heretic at the Second Council of Constantinople.

Review: God's Rivals

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Gerald R. McDermott. God’s Rivals: Why Has God Allowed Different Religions? 2007, IVP.

McDermott raises an interesting question with his subtitle, and he turns to the Bible and to early Christian writers for some answers. A great idea: in North America, where Christianity is by far the most dominant religion, it’s easy to forget that the Bible and the church were birthed in societies obsessed with a multitude of gods and religious systems. McDermott notes, as well, that Greco-Roman philosophy was itself a religious system, based on the idea that God could be discovered through reason. McDermott devotes one chapter each to surveys of the Old Testament, New Testament, and the writings of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen.

The insights that McDermott are surprising, at least to me. Using passages such as Daniel 10:13 (referencing the “prince of Persia,” a spiritual being with authority over Persia) and Deut. 32:8-9 (where God allots nations “according to the number of the gods” – McDermott favors “sons of elohim” instead of “sons of Israel” based on manuscript evidence), McDermott argues that the OT hints at the following:

  • YHWH created “the hosts” as spiritual beings with varying degrees of authority.
  • Some of the spiritual beings were given authority over nations or ethnic groups, such as the archangel Michael over Israel.
  • These spiritual beings have largely rebelled against YHWH. This is connected to the fall of Lucifer.
  • Because of their rebellion, these spiritual beings have led men and women to worship them instead of worshiping the true God.

It’s important to note that McDermott only suggests this as a possible reading. The early Christian writers he covers, however, take it as a given that the gods of other nations are fallen angels. In subsequent chapters, McDermott reviews Paul’s famous words regarding principalities and powers, and the varying views of the four early Christian writers he chose. The Christian writers wrestled with the major question of how much truth other religions contain. Their answer, to differing degrees, is “some.” Clement goes so far as to suggest that other religions may be God’s covenants with other nations, analogous to God’s covenant with Israel, covenants which point to and are to be replaced by the new covenant of Jesus Christ.

Two concluding thoughts: First, McDermott wants to recapture the Bible’s and the early church’s view of other religions as having spiritual components. There are real spiritual beings behind these other religions; they are much more than simply “mistakes” or human searches for God. Because they originate with spiritual beings originally created by God, other religions contain some kernel of truth. McDermott writes,

This also means that other religionists are not our enemy…Our real battle, as Paul advises us, is not against human beings – flesh and blood – but against “the cosmic powers of this present darkness” (Eph. 6:12). (165)

Thus, our attitude toward other religions should be respectful and characterized by “patient persuasion, not hostile argument.”

Second, McDermott does an excellent job of bringing early Christian writers to life. Using Eusebius‘ history of the early church, McDermott interweaves the theologies of these writers with their personal testimonies and contexts. He leads me to desire to read them for myself.

Religion Reporting

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I wish that reporters who cover the religion beat knew their theology better. For example, in this article, which is about the efforts of “moderate Christians” (those who follow Christ in moderation?) to counter teachings about the rapture. The writer, Andrea Hopkins, does a pretty good job of comparing Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind novels with the teachings of the of Lutheran and Episcopal ministers she interviews, but she slips late in the article when she confuses the rapture with the second coming:

The success of the graphic novels is just one indication of the strength of belief in rapture, Armageddon, and the subsequent second coming of Jesus Christ. A 2006 survey for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 79 percent of American Christians believe in the second coming, with 20 percent believing it will happen in their lifetime.

I should hope that all Christians would believe in the second coming, since Jesus himself promised that it would happen, and it’s been included from the very beginning in foundational documents like the Nicene Creed. But the rapture is a distinct sub-belief, believed only by premillenialists, and then only by some premillenialists.

Also, Hopkins, as well as some of the ministers she interviews, seem to think that the rapture is based on Revelation, when the true foundation of rapture theology is 1 Thessalonians. I really wouldn’t expect the average reporter to pick up on this, but it’s disappointing that these ministers aren’t a bit more precise.

Catholics and Protestants

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A Question from Class: Would a Catholic see a member of Lakeside (or other Protestant Christian) as saved? I’m just curious as who they define as “saved”–those with a personal relationship with Christ, those who observe the sacrements, those who observe sacrements at a Catholic church, etc?

My Answer:
Great question! I am in the middle of reading a book that talks about exactly that.

Are Protestant saved, according to Catholics? Before Vatican II, the answer would have been simply, “No.” There is a Catholic dogma that states, “outside the church there is no salvation,” and that was understood to mean that Protestants are “outside the church.” (But not Eastern Orthodox churches – Catholic theology has recognized them as “true churches” for several hundred years.)

Vatican II changed all that. There was a document called Lumen Gentium (“Light to the Nations”) that acknowledged that there are true Christians, who are truly saved and in whom God is truly working, but who are not part of the Roman Catholic church. In other words, it recognized for the first time (!) that you can be Protestant and still be saved. Vatican II also spurred the Catholic Church to find common ground with other churches, with the idea that, as theological differences were worked out, those churches would “come home” to the “Mother Church” ( i.e. Rome). (That hasn’t exactly happened the way they planned.)

But (there’s always a but!), a church like Lakeside is a bit of a puzzle to Catholic theology. That same Lumen Gentium defines “the Church” as those who “preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter” – i.e. the pope. Catholics view church as “top down,” starting with Christ, then flowing the apostles, and only then to the people. It’s the popes, bishops, and priests who form the foundation of the church. They don’t have a very good grid for understanding “bottom up” churches, where the church is first and foremost a fellowship of believers, who then elect and ordain their own leaders. So some Catholics would hesitate to even call Lakeside a church! ( <!– D(["mb","I think from Acts and 1 & 2 Corinthians, however, that it's pretty clear that we are.)

Finally, in terms of who is saved, I decided to look it up in the \nCatholic Catechism, which the official word on pretty much everything. When speaking about the people of God, it says that

\n One becomes a member of this people [of God] not by a physical birth, but by being "born anew," a birth "of water and the Spirit," that is, by faith in Christ, and Baptism.

\nThat's really close to what Lakeside says! It's just a small matter of defining "faith" and "baptism." 🙂

Mike

“,1] ); //–>I think from Acts and 1 & 2 Corinthians, however, that it’s pretty clear that we are.)

Finally, in terms of who is saved, I decided to look it up in the Catholic Catechism, which the official word on pretty much everything. When speaking about the people of God, it says that

One becomes a member of this people [of God] not by a physical birth, but by being “born anew,” a birth “of water and the Spirit,” that is, by faith in Christ, and Baptism.

That’s really close to what Lakeside says! It’s just a small matter of defining “faith” and “baptism.” 🙂