Category Archives: Theology and Religion

Noll and Enns on Theological Diversity and Christian Unity

Quote

Posted on by
Reply

This quote expresses some of my recent thinking to an eery extent:

So if we find ethical, theological, and historical diversity in Scripture, we begin with the assumption that what the Bible intends for us to learn is not primarily concerned with textual unity or precise moral consistency as construed by modern ethicists, theologians, and historians. Rather, “The unity of the Bible is more subtle but at the same time deeper. It is a unity that should ultimately be sought in Christ himself, the living Word…”

Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, p. 139, quoting Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament.

Of course, this leads to several important questions: How much theological or historical disharmony can be tolerated? How much unity should we require for fellowship or organizational structures? What do we do with ethics or theologies that oppose each other? Nonetheless, I think Noll and Enns are on to something important here.

Link

I am not Anglican, but Elizabeth and I greatly value our time as visitors at St. John’s (Shaughnessy) Anglican Church while living in Vancouver. The most recent Regent College Anglican Studies Program newsletter includes two items from the past and the future of St. John’s (Shaughnessy) that I find interesting. First, a fine remembrance of **Harry Robinson**, longtime rector at St. John’s, who passed away earlier this year. Though not as well as known as his good friends J. I. Packer and John R. W. Stott, Rev. Robinson left a legacy, of which I have been a beneficiary.

Second, the assistant rector while we attended St. John’s, **Felix Orji**, is now **Bishop** Felix Orji in the Anglican Church in North America. What wonderful news – congratulations, Felix!

Mark Noll: The Atonement Points Us to Morally Complex Stories

Quote

Posted on by
Reply

> Since the atonement involves tremendous complexity and great mystery, **the best narratives will not be simplistic** (like movies were resolution comes through a car chase or gunfight). Neither will the best narratives be Manichean (where the good guys are all good and the bad guys are all bad). Nor will they be simply heroic (where protagonists triumph over obstacles through reliance on their own inner resources) or simply nihilistic (where the point is to enact the futility of human existence as in novels of Thomas Hardy like *Jude the Obscure* and *Tess of the D’Urbervilles*). Rather, **the best narratives will be morally complex**, as in fact the enduring tragedies, comedies, and novels — like *Oedipus Rex*, *King Lear*, *Paradise Lost*, and *Crime and Punishment* — regularly are. Such morally complex narratives are most satisfying because, in terms of atonement theology, **they are most true to life**.

Mark Noll, [Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802866379/?tag=mikehickcom-20), p. 71. Emphasis added.

Mark Noll on Why the Atonement Matters for Christian Scholarship

Quote

Posted on by
Reply

> If, then, the **act of substitution** is a primordial human reality, the **seriousness of sin** is the essential human dilemma, the **divine initiative in salvation** is the basis for human hope, the **narrative movement of grace** is the primary shape for human knowledge, and the **complex nature of reality** is the inescapable challenge for human understanding — then the **human study of the world should reflect these realities.**

Mark Noll, [Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802866379/?tag=mikehickcom-20), pp. 70-71, emphasis added.

By “complex nature of reality,” Noll refers to the multiplicity of the atonement. Who put Jesus on the cross? Judas? Pilate? The priests? God? Jesus himself? Yes — they all did. Does God love sinners or punish them? He does both. Was the cross the worst moment in human history or the best? It was both at the same time.

Link

Andy Crouch on Steve Jobs, The Secular Prophet

Mr. Jobs’s final leave of absence was announced this year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And, as it happened, Mr. Jobs died on the same day as one of Dr. King’s companions, the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, one of the last living co-founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Dr. King, too, had had a close encounter with his own mortality when he was stabbed by a mentally ill woman at a book signing in 1958. He told that story a decade later to a rally on the night of April 3, 1968, and then turned, with unsettling foresight, to the possibility of his own early death. His words, at the beginning, could easily have been a part of Steve Jobs’s commencement address:

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now.”

But here Dr. King, the civic and religious leader, turned a corner that Mr. Jobs never did. “I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”