Tim Stafford's Blog, page 32

Appreciation of N.T. Wright

I am in the early stages of working on God’s Justice, a Bible with notes on… drumroll…. God’s justice. At the moment I am slugging my way through Romans, one of the five biblical books I am using for a prototype we will publish in September.

For Romans I am using Douglas Moo’s commentary–a well written, thoughtful, irenic but fairly traditional Reformed view. And, I am using N.T. Wright, through his Romans commentary and a variety of his books on Paul and justification by faith.

Romans is rich, dense stuff, and while Wright is a fluent writer I sometimes feel as though I am drinking from a fire hose. Largely that is because he is presenting a new paradigm. For someone like me, who has read and studied Romans many times, it is hard to escape your prior readings. You try to hold in your mind the argument that Wright is making, but your mind keeps slipping back into comfortable categories.

Wright is trying to read Romans within a Jewish thought-world, which is to say: he sees it as addressing salvation from within the Old Testament narrative in which God’s creation has gone wrong and he has promised (to Abraham) to redeem it through Abraham’s children. For a highly traditional Jew like Paul, there are many, many crucial questions to understanding how these promises come true in Jesus. Questions about Abraham, circumcision, the Law. Romans addresses such questions, extending the story from Adam to Abraham to David to Jesus to us–both Jew and Gentile.

This is very much in line with what Wright did with Jesus in his scholarly works on the gospels. But in some ways the task was easier, because Protestants have never had a very developed understanding of the gospels. (Ask any good Protestant, for example, how the sheep and the goats can be divided on the basis of their treatment of the needy, as Jesus taught in Matthew 25, given that we are saved by grace.) In writing about the synoptic gospels Wright got substantial resistance to a new paradigm built around a Jewish story for Jesus, but nothing like he gets regarding Paul, where his fellow Protestants have a very well-developed, highly theological understanding. Whew! Some circles are very hot!

I can’t sum up a paradigm shift in a paragraph. I’ll just say that I am thoroughly sold on what Wright does. It makes a unified whole out of Romans in a way I have never seen. It ties Paul’s theology into Jesus’ seamlessly, so it’s not Jesus or Paul, but Jesus and Paul. And it fits with my understanding of faith and life, lived practically.

From what I can gather in my interactions with New Testament scholars, lots of people are reading Wright and working through this paradigm shift. Its impact could be very large, not least because it tells a story of global salvation, the flourishing of God’s creation, and the destruction of evil–a much larger and more action-oriented story than what much of Protestantism has fallen into, salvation limited to the forgiveness of personal sins so that I can experience God’s love and go to heaven when I die.

EnlightenUp

I want to tell you about a summer lecture series that I have been helping to lead at my church for 8 years. We stumbled on a format that has proven remarkably successful, in a modest way, and that affirms an important reality in a way nothing I am familiar with does to the same degree. We call the series EnlightenUp, and it is very simple. During the summer months, on Sunday evenings, we ask local people from a wide variety of backgrounds to talk about their work and/or their passion. Last Sunday we had a cellist from the San Francisco symphony. Next week we have an engineer who has thought a lot about the interaction of faith and innovation. We will have an agronomist, a member of our church, who is working in China growing grapes for wine. My daughter Katie will talk about her research into how the Spanish civil war is remembered. A woman who sells real estate will tell us about her work and its intersection with here faith. You get the idea. Once you start looking, you find all kinds of interesting people with interesting work. We don’t have money to pay more than gas, but nearly everybody seems delighted to come. Why? Because they never get asked to talk about their work in such personal terms– what it means to them, how they got involved. And they care about it, a lot.

Those who come are Christians, but they vary in the extent to which they talk about their faith. We leave it up to them, not wanting to force anything. Usually it comes out most during questions, which take up half our 90 minute program. I personally find, because they are unforced, rising from their own vocation, that these expressions are quite subtly wonderful.

Let me quote from our recent church bulletin:

“People sometimes wonder why we do Enlighten Up. It’s not a series with immediate practical value for your Christian life. It doesn’t teach theology or Bible or prayer or evangelism–at least not directly. Rather, it’s meant to accomplish something wider and deeper: to celebrate and learn from the wide diversity of gifts and callings, many of which have no direct place in the church, but all of which are very much part of what God cares for. The glory of God is displayed in his people, as they do his work with love and passion. In music, medicine, sports, astronomy, science, business–and in many, many more endeavors–God’s splendor shows.”

Naturally, not all our speakers are equally strong. The key is to get them to focus on their vocation. What doesn’t work so well are 1. Missionary or travel slide shows and 2. People advocating for a cause. Sometimes people in either of those categories find it hard to adjust to simply speaking personally. But when people do speak personally, it can be simply marvelously interesting. It draws people in.

Lots of people today are looking for ways to connect the church to the larger culture. EnLightenUp does it, simply and naturally. I think almost anybody could bring it off, and it makes a profound impact. So much of church life is devoted to church life. But God’s interests are much wider! And so should ours be.

Thoughts on Brazil

I am not going to pose as any kind of an expert on Brazil, even though I am writing this from Sao Paulo. Nevertheless I can’t help marveling at how internationally invisible this huge, wealthy and bustling country is. Brazil has 200 million people, two thirds of the US population. It is the Latin American colossus, with a very vital economy and a strong political democracy. But the fact that it speaks Portuguese–and somewhat proudly doesn’t speak either English or Spanish–makes it something of a cultural island. A tourist visa from the US costs $160. You can’t easily find English speakers. I’m told–I don’t know whether it is true–that our hotel desk clerks all speak English, but they don’t volunteer that fact. Brazil seems to be in but not of Latin America, at least regarding cultural products like books and movies. By distance it is very far from Europe or Asia. And by intention it keeps the US at arm’s length. To a surprising extent it appears to be a world of its own.

I admire the cultural pride, the resistance to any suggestion that Brazil needs help from anybody. No doubt that partly explains its strength. But I wonder how realistic it is in today’s global economy.

Any thoughts from those who know Brazil?

A Counsel of Despair?

In a comment posted today, David Graham–for whom I have the greatest respect–writes:

Other questions to ponder are, “Would Joshua – in any of his battles – have done this?”  Or “would Ezra – he of the forced divorces for any Israelite married to a foreigner – have done this?”  Or “Is this how David treated Goliath’s body?”  Or “Would the Apostle Paul – he of the ‘if anyone preaches a different gospel, let him be damned’ – have done this?”  Deciding what is “biblical” behavior all depends on where the reader turns her gaze in the scriptures…

It’ s true what David notes: there are quite a number of horrifying things done and said in the pages of the Bible, and some of them are said to have God’s endorsement.

The way David frames it, though, seems to me to be a counsel of despair, as much as to say, “You can find any morality you want in the Bible.” Which I don’t think is quite true.

There is a strong, clear moral thrust in Scripture, which finds its heart in Jesus. And then there are acts and words that are hard to put together with Jesus, if not impossible. The right way to read the Bible is in Jesus, not in the spirit of suspicion, or in the mind of Enlightenment rationalism. That is the method that Jesus used with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, when he “explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:29)

In fact, I think that is the way David reads when he raises  horrifying examples. They stand out because they  seem to stand against the story concerning Jesus.

We should read this way with humility. One would not want to imitate Thomas Jefferson, who snipped out of the Bible all the parts he did not like! We do not have permission to edit out the horrible parts any more than the miraculous. There may always be parts of the Bible that trouble us. Nevertheless, we read the Bible not so much to question God (though that is permitted) as to question ourselves. That generates increasing humility. That, too, is a reading we should do in Jesus.

Good news

I found this incredibly moving. It’s an interview with the woman who arranged for the burial of the Boston terrorist, though she had no personal linkage to him at all. Her calm, clear, non-presumptive articulation of her faith is extraordinary. Very challenging. Would I do this?

Justice and Love

I am working on a Bible with notes on God’s justice, to be called, surprisingly enough, God’s Justice. Subtitle: The Flourishing of Creation and the Destruction of Evil.

A major objection I often hear is rooted in a definition of justice based in the courtroom. Justice is “what’s coming to you,” it is retribution for wrongs. For anyone who believes in the ubiquity of sin, “what’s coming to you” is hardly good news. God’s justice is wrath and punishment, relieved only by God’s mercy and love. God’s justice and God’s love are opposed to each other.

This understanding of God torn between justice and love creeps into human ethics, too. How do I see the poor in my community? Through the eyes of justice, most of them appear to get what they deserve. They didn’t apply themselves in school, their work ethic is weak, they didn’t plan well. It isn’t “just” to help them. I’m torn between being just and being charitable. Somehow I try to find a balance between them. When I offer help, I feel weak and “unjust.”

I contend, however, that this division between justice and love does no justice to the God of the Bible. His justice is inextricably intertwined with love. His justice is not “settling accounts” but “setting things right.” To set things right in his beloved creation, he must destroy evil. Sin must be dealt with. But he deals with sin through love and sacrifice. He gives up himself to sin, in order that no one need be punished. He is all love and all justice, all the time.

That is not just a New Testament version of reality. All through the Old Testament, the “just person” is generous to the poor and stands up for their rights in court. See Psalm 72 for a potent description of the Just King. The law of Jubilee–Law, mind you–is that everybody gets their land back every fifty years, regardless of what mistakes have been made. In the book of Jonah, Jonah wants retribution on Nineveh, but God delights in restoration. Is God unjust? Jonah may have thought so, but God didn’t.

I see no sign of a God torn between justice and love. His love is justice, and his justice is love.

This is a profound mystery. Our best formulations fall short. How does God punish and destroy evil while redeeming everything? The closest we come to understanding is when we study the cross on which Jesus died.

The Pope and the Pentecostals

I was surprised in Argentina to find charismatics and Pentecostals genuinely excited about Pope Francis. Some of that was natural national pride, but some went deeper. Pentecostals in Latin America, you may know, are heavily infected with the “prosperity gospel.” In many cases this rationalizes their pastors’ extravagant lifestyle–their big houses, their fancy cars, even their airplanes–as signs of God’s blessing. The more blessing, the greater the prosperity, is how the thinking goes.

But, one pastor told me, if ordinary churchgoers see the Latin American pope living simply, washing the feet of poor people, and rejecting the perks of the Vatican, they get a different model of God’s blessing. It may not be so easy for pastors to claim the Mercedes.

Equality is Not Necessarily Justice

A friend sent this to me. It’s a great illustration.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/A_08Ry4CUAESBub.jpg:large

Palo borracho

Superficial views of Buenos Aires

It is autumn here, and today was a bright blue day with just a few leaves drifting down from the trees. Buenos Aires has many leafy boulevards, and on one of them I encountered an amusing tree, the palo borracho (drunken stick). All of them have the rounding middle. (Sorry, I was planning to add a photo here, but I don’t know how to do it on my iPad.)

BA has a distinctively European feel to it, reminiscent of Madrid but more retired. It displays many handsome 19th century buildings alongside more modern examples, there are expensive shops and attractive restaurants, but not so much glass and dazzle. It is a big city but the pace seems comparatively sedate. I don’t know any city that has so many bookshops–filled with books, not cards and gifts. My companion, Esteban Fernandez, tells me that bookstores are not in decline here, even though the Internet is ubiquitous.

It is also very European in its population, in fact considerably more European than Europe. It is a nation of immigrants but all from Europe. You hardly see Asians, Africans, or even dark Indian faces such as are plentiful in Mexico.

Apparently racial homogeneity does not guarantee national unity, however. The day I arrived the Congress was voting on measures that would make the judicial system subservient to the president’s administration; they passed, and the streets near my hotel were jammed with protestors. I am told that the country is deeply polarized between the populist administration, which admires Venezuela’s Chavez regime, and a divided opposition. The country is in something of an economic crisis, with currency controls that make it virtually impossible to do external business. (Though there is a “blue market” exchange, so called because it is not really black. Indeed, our hotel openly changed dollars at the blue market rate, which is about double the official rate. In fact, the blue market rate is published daily.) But crises have happened so many times, people go about their business without worrying more than they have to.

My favorite experience came last night in a bar and heraderia (ice cream store), El Vesuvio, desde 1902. The patrons were not present at the first opening, I think, but close to it–the mean age was 70, it appeared. They were there for the tango–singing, not dancing–and they all knew each other and were having such fun! One after another men and women took the mike and, accompanied by guitar and accordion, sang the tragic stories of adultery and reconciliation. Though it looked like talent night at the senior center, it was musically terrific.