Scot McKnight: March 2008 Archives

Chp 2 of Roger Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming, is about "Christianity's Essence" and his concern is "transformation over information."

He begins with conservative evangelicalism's identification of the essence, and here he sees an entry point in calling Cons Evang "post-fundamentalist evangelicals" (68). Both Joel Carpenter and George Marsden focused on showing how evangelicalism was a reform of fundamentalism. Postconservatives are doing the same: reforming evangelicalism.

Why? Because "there is no final stopping place in the process of ongoing correction and reform short of the return of Jesus Christ" (69). But, postcons think cons evangelicals are "too obsessed with the cognitive and intellectual sides of the gospel and of Christian existence" (69). I'd like you to read that carefully: it is not an either/or or a false dichotomy Olson is drawing here; instead, it is emphasis. Postcons want to correct this "one-sidedness."

And, of course, postcons have been accused of a slippery slope. Olson says back: "it is a vicious calumny unjustified by any fair reading of the works of postconservatives" (69).

Millard Erickson says the "doctrinal component is a major component of Christianity... [and it] will be regarded as the most important permanent element" (70). That is what Olson is talking about. Yes, Erickson and cons evangs do believe in transformation; and postcons believe in doctrine. The question is one of emphasis.

DA Carson is another example in Olson's illustrations of conservative evangelical emphasis on doctrinal content as the essence of Christianity. Carson: "the historic gospel is unavoidably cast as intellectual content that must be taught and proclaimed" (71). Again, he is fair with Carson: "Scripture's purpose is not simply to fill our heads with facts, but to bring us to the living God" (72). But, Olson thinks the burden of both Erickson and Carson -- do you think he is accurate here? -- "is to preserve and protect the cognitive doctrinal content of historic evangelicalism -- evangelical orthodoxy -- as its permanent, enduring, and unchanging essence" (72).

Is conservative evangelicalism's emphasis on doctrinal content? And is its emphasis an overemphasis?

Next post: postconservativism's "experiential impulse".

What are we here for? As we continue our journey toward Pentecost to discover the Spirit empowering God's people to live as God's people should, this question can help shape our preparation. We using our 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed to prepare for Pentecost, and today's chp -- chp 6 -- is about this very question.

Why are we here? I suggest we look to the formative text for the entire Christian tradition -- that we are made as Eikons (image of God). To be an Eikon means two things:

1. We represent God on earth to govern and guide.
2. We relate in love to God, to self, to others, and to the world around us.

If we are here to represent God and to relate to God, self, others, and the world, then Pentecost is the Day when God will usher us deeper into these designed realities.

Getting back to basics is one of the best things we can do today -- one of those basics is to ask why we are here.

There are 85 separable instances of "kingdom" in the Synoptic Gospels; we have three left and two of them are in our text today:

24 Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. 25 Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. 26 But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. 28 You are those who have stood by me in my trials. 29 And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, 30 so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

1. Kingdom ethics are not the same as Roman ethics: power and honor shape Roman ethics; service and love shape Jesus' ethics.
2. Jesus "confers" on his followers a kingdom as his Father conferred one on him.
3. What Jesus seems to be conferring is two-fold:

His followers are permitted at the table: fellowship with Christ
His followers will rule alongside him over the twelve tribes of Israel: judgment

4. Again, kingdom is intimately -- never more so in fact -- connected to fellowship with Jesus and it is also clearly associated with Davidic expectation of an earthly rule of the Messiah; disciples are his viceregents.

A very kind reader of Jesus Creed sent Kris and me a package of Waialua Coffee from Hawaii (north shore), and we are now brewing and drinking it. [I couldn't find the home site; this site sells Waialua.]

Waialua is a smaller bean, but it pulls a wonderful, rich crema; it has great Nachgeschmack; the aroma in the kitchen is pleasant.

OK, it's not the first day of the month but I want you to know that April 1 (no fooling) I will post the first in an 8-part [maybe 10-part] series -- once a month, on the first day of the month -- on volume 2 of his book: OT Theology: Israel's Faith. The first paragraph of volume 2 is simply priceless:

"In the first volume, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Yhwh did from the beginning, though not about what Yhwh began to teach. In the third volume I hope to write about Yhwh's teaching on how Israel was supposed to live. I shall be sixty-six if and when I finish it, and my father and both my grandfathers did not live that long. Having announced this project, I shall feel really stupid if I fail to complete it. But then I shall have other things to think about if that happens -- or not to think about."

Ah, love that irony.