Scot McKnight: October 2006 Archives

Like the Beach Boys, I've been all around these States of ours in the last three years, and I have an observation about church unity: everyone between 20 and 40 packs a computer, reads blogs, and dresses the same. Even seminary students these days are wearing blue jeans, flip flops (preferably Rainbow!), T-shirts, and they have spikey hair and funky facial hair. I have started wearing color T-shirts, but no one seems to have noticed. (There is a rumor that even at Dallas students don't wear ties.) Now for some serious thoughts:

Most of the schools, and also some of the churches, are clearly aware of their doctrinal distinctives. None more so than Westminster. In spite of theological differences, Christians welcome other Christians -- which is to say we really do try to live out our creedal confession of the communion of the saints and the unity of the Church. I surely experienced this at WTS.
If we can't get along by loving one another, trusting one another, listening to one another, and conversing with one another, then how can anyone stand up and say, "Now there's a group of Christians." (The way we all took notice of the Amish recently.)

This does not mean there are not some strong differences and disagreements. I disagree with some (as I did in my paper on emerging), but in our disagreements we need to learn to keep it from becoming personal. There are two elements to this: dislike for another and the fear/pride of being shown wrong. Most of us get into trouble for both at times, but we need to be aware of both and do our best to avoid them.

Case in point: I saw a marvelous exchange at Westminster between Michael Horton and John Franke -- let's call Michael a conservative Reformed thinker and John a more progressive one. John is willing to take risks with his ideas, and he has done so, both in his book with Stan Grenz and in his Character of Theology. (By the way, I'd much rather read a risk-taker than someone who is going to tell me what I already believe; I like the challenge, the pleasure of a new idea.)

Now Michael disagreed with John; John sat there and took it; nodding his head; jotting down notes; and he got up and said that Michael was right about some of what he said and that some of it was subject for further conversation. Admirable. Admirable. Admirable. Michael was calm, efficient, clear, and that sort of thing. John was kind, grateful, and clearly one who thought theology was done in context and conversation.

Sometimes we disagree too strongly with one another. Case in point: there was an interchange with a student and me Friday night in an open session. As it turns out, he felt he was inappropriate in the exchange; the next morning he came to me immediately and apologized and asked for forgiveness (which I, of course, gave and had I been a little more liturgically comfortable, I would have made the sign of the cross -- I did this to myself -- because it is the cross that creates the reconciliation we were experiencing). I was moved by this student. I think this is what it is about.

Wherein lies our unity? Not in our "light" but in our "life." Not in what we know, but in the One we do know.

A final word: everywhere Kris and I go we meet new people, we trust new people, we gain the confidence of new people, and we find new people to be our friends. Most of these people we don't even know -- maybe we've met briefly. I had never met Tony and Jessica; I've only had a few conversations with Peter Enns and Michael Kelly and Michael Horton and John Leonard and Dan McCartney, but I'll tell you this: I'd be glad to sit down with anyone of them over dinner, or over some libation on my back porch, and just be friends. It is our form of that ancient Christian practice called hospitality.

"Receive one another." We've been received. Therein lies a real expression of our unity.

This is our last in the series on Roger Olson's book, Arminian Theology. Myth #10 is that Arminians adhere to the "governmental theory of atonement." Most may not know what this theory holds, and most may never have heard that Arminians believe this.

First, what does this theory hold? It is not easy to describe. It maintains that the death of Christ upheld public justice and moral government; it honors God by demonstrating God's justice; and Christ's death is a "substitution" for our penalty, but not an actual suffering of our punishment. (The view seeks to avoid limited and universal atonement.) So, the death of Christ exhibits how seriously God takes sin and shows that God wants his justice to be upheld. The death of Christ, in the governmental theory, was non-necessary.
Second, do Arminians believe this? Some do, but most don't. Arminius doesn't. Wesley doesn't. Thomas Oden doesn't. Who does? John Miley, H. Orton Wiley, Charles Finney, and the architect of the view, Hugo Grotius.

What we learn from this book is that we need to be careful what we call "Arminian." I'm now ready for a book that summarizes the myths Arminians use against Calvinists. If someone writes such a book, I hope they are as careful and charitable as Roger Olson was.

My grandmother, at the time over 90, worried to my father that she was pregnant. Her worries did not come from some kind of Sarah-for-our-time miracle but instead from the gradual loss of her mind. My grandfather, who landed in this world right around 1900 and moved to this good country as a teen and who was seriously wounded with a Jacob-like wound, regularly said "echel macpheckel" to me -- it was something he had learned in Scotland and wanted me to know. To this day I don't know what it means, but I sometimes find myself saying it the way the ancient Hebrews said "selah".

You will observe that I spoke of my grandparents in the past tense. Which denies my own eschatology. Does your eschatology ever shape how you speak of the dead in Christ?

In James Vanoosting's And the Flesh Became Word, there is an essay on the communion of saints in which he encourages a few practices that emerge from our eschatology -- our faith that death ushers the saint into the presence of Christ and that, truly as you and I are alive, they are alive in the present.

First, refer to all saints in the present tense. "Martin Luther teaches..." and Dorothy Sayers "writes for us."

Second, he suggests inviting a saint into your reading and talking to them about what you are reading. If they are alive, they are in some sense also present.

Third, connect the dead saints to the living Christ so that we speak of them in the present tense.

I imagine my grandma laughing now about her Sarah-symptoms and my grandpa whispering in my ear, as he limps by, "echel macpheckel."

"And, because of his Resurrection," Vanoosting writes, "all the faithfully departed are. English grammar be damned!" His "damned," I suggest, is a modern presentation of Paul's "Death, where is your sting?"

Commentaries on Psalm 119 fade. That is, they treat each paragraph in sum and make only brief comments. I suppose this saves space because Psalm 119 can be treated as 22 individual psalms. Today I'll look at the flow of the first "letter" (vv. 1-8).

It begins with a blessing on those who listen and learn from the Torah, then it reminds everyone that, after all, the Torah is the law of God to be kept. Then the one who utters this psalm expresses the wisdom of this psalm: "would that my ways were firm in keeping your commands (chaqim)." This leads to a resolution on the part of the psalmist: "I will praise you ... as I learn your just rules (mishpat). I will keep your laws."

Then the dark word: "do not utterly forsake me."

Think it through: the Torah is God's gift to guide God's people; God's people is wise when it listens and heeds; this leads to God's blessing. It is foolish to avoid the Torah.

Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday we were at Westminster Theological Seminary where, at the initiative of the student body, a conference was hosted about the emerging movement. First of all, Kris and I want to express publicly our gratitude to WTS and especially to our hosts, Anthony (Tony) and Jessica Stiff.

Tony is a promising leader in the church; his perception was remarkable to me, and he and Jessica looked after Kris and me so well we just want to say thanks on this blog.

I haven't been in an environment like WTS for a long time, so (admittedly) I was a bit nervous when I began my first paper on the emerging movement (my paper is posted here at The Foolish Sage in pdf format). Thanks to Mark for posting this; I have no clue on how to turn something into pdf and then posting such a thing on the blog. The paper reads a little less passionately than I delivered it. A funny experience for me: I thought the second paragraph of my paper was pretty funny; no one laughed. Everything I feared about WTS's attitude toward emerging entered my mind and I hunkered down for a while and it took me half the paper to come back to reality.

The paper I wrote some time ago, called "Future or Fad?," has proved helpful for some who are inquiring into the emerging movement. This new paper extends, modifies, and develops that paper more than a year later.

I welcome your comments and observations on the paper.

Friday morning Michael Horton gave a paper about the emerging movement, and I was a bit uncomfortable (but I got over it quickly) when he was disagreeing with John Franke, who was sitting in the 3rd row -- but they are friends and this kind of conversation has been going on between them for decades. If you want to see how Christians can respond to one another, get ahold of John's paper -- because he said, "Yes, Mike, I screwed up in not doing my homework as carefully as I might have." Then John gave a great paper on the theology of mission and the mission of theology.

We had a break -- a lunch -- and then I gave a paper on atonement (which I won't publish on the blog because it is from my book coming out from Abingdon next summer called A Community called Atonement). After that, I didn't get to hear Dan McCartney's paper on atonement because I did a radio interview with Michael Horton -- and we had a very good conversation.

Friday night we had a time with students from both Biblical Theological Seminary and WTS, and they had questions and comments about emerging.

I think it is only honest to say that a few faculty, who have written against emerging/emergent, protested the event by not attending the sessions -- at least so I was told (by a half dozen students). Sadly, I think -- why? Because they are the ones with whom I would have most especially enjoyed conversation, and the ones who perhaps could have learned from the discussions.

Saturday morning I gave another interview, this one on The Real Mary to Publisher's Weekly Online, and then we had a nice coffee at Chestnut Hill Coffee Company. Jessica then picked us up, we went back to WTS. Two more papers -- one by John Leonard (a missiologist) and the other by Walter Henegar. Both of these papers were very good.

I've been asked if the papers will be published, and I doubt it. Why? Emerging is changing fast enough that if it took a year for these papers to appear, they would be out of date.

Personal reflections of this experience will begin tomorrow.