Warfield on the call of the example of Christ

Here's BB Warfield, the Princeton great, in full flight on the example of Christ and its call on his disciples:

He did not cultivate self, even His divine self: He took no account of self. He was not led by His divine impulse out of the world, driven back into the recesses of His own sould to brood morbidly over His own needs, until to gain His own seemed worth all sacrifice to Him. He was led by His love for others into the wolrd, to forget Himself in the needs of others, to sacrifice slef once for all upon the altar of sympathy. Self-sacrifice brough Christ into the wolrd. And self-sacrifice will lead us, His followers, not away from but into the midst of men. Wherever men suffer, there will we be to comfort. Wherever men strive, there will we be to help. Wherever men fail, there will we be to uplift. Wherever me succeed, there will we be to rejoice. Self-sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows: it means absorption in them.

B.B. Warfield, The Person and Work of Christ, p. 574

Christ 'for me'

I am starting with Yr 2 Doctrine Moore Theological College tomorrow on a part of the course entitled 'The Person and Work of Christ'. I thought I'd get a famous piece of Bonhoeffer into circulation - this from his 1933 Christology lectures. You have to remember the political circumstances, of course:


"Christ is Christ not as Christ in himself, but in his relation to me. His being Christ is his being 'pro me'. This being 'pro me' is in turn not meant to be understood as an effect which emanates from him, or as an accident; it is meant to be understood as the essence, as the being of the person himself. This personal nucleus itself is the 'pro me'. That Christ is 'pro me' is not an historical or an ontical statement, but an ontological one. That is, Christ can never be thoughtof in his being in himself, but only in his relationshop to me. That in turn menas that Christ can only be conceived of existentially, viz. in the community... It is not only useless to meditate on a Christ in himself, but even godless."

So: Christ cannot besomething or someone remote from us or he is not Christ... The very nature of Christ's mission (check Peter's declaration of Jesus' title) is for others in a suffering way.

Basics of Verbal Aspect

One of my new colleagues, Dr Con Campbell has just published his new book Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek .

I am looking forward to hearing more about why Con reckons verbal aspect makes such a difference. This is how he reads the current consensus in linguistics:

• aspect is more important than tense and must be reckoned with
• aspect holds the key to understanding the Greek verbal system
• There are at least two aspects in Greek: perfective and imperfective
• Debate about aspect must come to some kind of resolution as quickly as possible
• Greek grammars and NT commentaries need to update and come to grips with the new playing field
• Responsible exegesis of the Greek text must incorporate aspectual sensitivity

Unresolved, however, are the matters of temporality and tense, and the issue of the number of aspects.

What the best college teachers do

Well we have arrived in sunny Sydney. For those not in the know, I am about to resume teaching Doctrine at Moore Theological College here in Sydney. Having now travelled to and fro upon the earth, I remain convinced that, pound for pound, it is a world-class college in which to pursue training for ministry. Working among these colleagues is a amazing privilege. But teaching such students is sublime - they want to learn! Crazy, huh?

So, in preparation, I have been reading up on pedagogy. The most inspiring book I have found to date is Ken Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do . It is a good book because it focuses not on classroom techniques but on the attitudes that great teachers have towards the process of learning. The insights of the book are numerous: for example, that students are less motivated to learn by extrinsic factors such as exams and assessments and most motivated to learn when the intrinsic value of the subject is itself the motivation.

That is not to say that these educators settle for a kind of 'learning for learning's sake' philosophy: not at all. They are also concerned to connect what the teach to 'real' life.

Furthermore:

Highly effective teachers design better learning experiences for their students in part because they conceive of teaching as fostering learning. Everything they do stems from their strong concern for and understanding of the development of the students. They follow few traditions blindly and recognise when change in the conventional course is both necessary and possible. (p. 67)

Innovation, but not for its own sake, in other words.

I also like what he has to say about what great teachers expect from students. They expect that every student can learn - they don't foster elitism, nor do they seek popularity by making the course 'soft'. Neither do they think they are setting a high standard merely because they pile on the work.

The Theological Interpretation of Scripture

I am interested in compiling a reading list of works to do with 'theological interpretation of Scripture. It is a growing field of theological investigation. What's exciting about it is that biblical studies and systematic theology are ending their turf war over who can and can't read scripture.

Can you add to this list? (Francis Watson's works are an obvious addition).


Scripture's Doctrine and Theology's Bible: Howthe New Testament Shapes Christian Dogmatics ed Marcus Bockmeuhl

Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Christian Practice by Daniel Treier

The Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Classic and Contemporary Readings ed Stephen Fowl

Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible ed Kevin Vanhoozer

Pommies

My good friend Sam gave me a fascinating book called Pommies - England Cricket though an Australian Lens.

It is an analysis of why the English game continues to fail at the elite level despite its massive player pool and the ardent following of millions of fans. And the author lays the blame squarely at the feet of the 18 counties who engineer the administration of the game for their own interest. They run the game not in the interest of the public, but as a private members club. So, they sold the TV rights to a pay-TV operator for a truckload of money that was then siphoned off to the counties (who cannot pay their own way because no-one wants to watch them play). They continue to play international matches in venues that seat less that 25,000 people, driving ticket prices up and thereby excluding ethnic minorities - who LOVE their cricket - from the game. Whenever change is mooted, 'tradition' is cited as a counter-argument. What the book makes apparent is that 'tradition' is really only code for 'self-interest'. The huge number of cricket fans who are not members of the MCC cannot get in to the ground to see a Test Match and now cannot see the game on TV either. And the national team continues to falter in performance.

Of course, I was fascinated to compare the C of E, with which there are many parallels. The C of E is theoretically run for the benefit of the entire nation. But because in fact it is run as a private members club, the property and resources of the church in fact are being used for the benefit of those who are members. And the fewer of those there are, the nicer it is for those who remain. And a far amount of theological reasoning and invented traditionalism is produced to bolster this special interest. 'The parish system' is one such tradition, whereby the boundaries of the parish are seen as sacrosanct and unviolable borders on the basis of some reference to the incarnation (John Milbank keeps saying this for some weird reason). Parishes which ARE doing a good job at connecting to the community are penalised and the funds distributed to failing parishes with incomptent and disinterested clergy (Granted, some of this is funding parishes in poorer areas: but certainly not all). Bishops aren't interested in changing a system that serves their interests very well - after all, it elected them! And the people of England continue to be completely alienated from the church whose mission it is to serve them.

But the C of E is an easy target... I think all church institutions - even Australian ones! - could ask the questions - 'is tradition really just being used to mask self-interest?' 'whose interest is actually being served by the status quo?' 'how much subsidy is being given to bolster, not the needy, but the mediocre (whose mediocrity is actually a spiritual disease)?' 'Is this institution being run for the benefit of members, or for the benefit of the community'?

Lucky it wasn't based on looks, eh?

woohoooooooooooo!

The Viva went .....


well!
Thanks to those who prayed.

My Charles Taylor article in SCE

The December issue of Studies in Christian Ethics is out, and with it my article entitled:

" ‘In Spirit and In Truth’ - Can Charles Taylor help the Woman at the Well find her authentic self? "

Studies in Christian Ethics 2008 21: 325-341.

If you would like to read a copy, let me know (with your email address, if I don't already have it) and I can send you one. Or at least the first 25 of you.

Here's the challenge

In the Sydney Morning Herald today:

Did it occur to anyone that the decline in people reading the Bible might have something to do with it being a lousy read ("Confession: fewer know their Bible", September 10)?
The Bible says lots of things, few of them clearly, all of them open to different interpretations, and many of them irrelevant to a post-industrial world. Add to this that it is a series of compounded translations many times removed from the original, and no doubt some translations have been corrupted through the ages by self-interested power-mongers.

Ian Waters Surry Hills

And here's Greg Clarke weighing in.

Viva

My Viva is tomorrow.

Yes, that's right, I am having a viva for a thesis on martyrdom on September 11. Someone thinks this is funny, no doubt!

Slavoj Zizek - On Violence

In trying to think about divine violence lately I disovered Slavoj Zizek's latest offering, Violence: Six Sideways Reflections.

As always, it is a brilliant roller-coaster ride of a book. Zizerk skewers all kinds of lazy thinking in Western culture. He has a severe critique of religion and theism, but he also says this:

Science and religion have changed places: today, science provides the security religion once guaranteed. In a curious inversion, religion is one of the possible place fro which one can deploy critical doubts about today's society. It has become one of the sites of resistance. p. 70

Possibly, but Zizek also argues that only atheists can be truly ethical, because only an atheist will do something because it is right, rather than because it pleases the deity, or to earn a reward. This is an old critique which actually has its basis within the Christian tradition itself (see the 17th century Quietists, for example).

Driscoll's three questions

‘What do people want to have more than anything else?’
‘What are people most afraid of?’
‘What do people make sacrifices for?’

Great questions to ask...

Churchman - Equality

Oh, and in other news, I notice the second in my 'The Christian Revolution' series has been published in the latest edition of the Churchman 122/3 "The Christian Revolution: 2. Equality".

Mission and Theology

I posted this back in 2006 - but I think it is relevant to the Driscoll discussion, so I'll give it another run:

In his (in other ways very annoying) book Recovering the Scandal of the Cross Joel Green asks what I think is very good question: what would happen if theology took the mission of the church seriously?

It’s a good question because it inverts our expectations. We ordinarily imagine that mission ought to take theology seriously: if only we get our thinking about mission right, we say, then we will mission more effectively. We believe I guess in a priority of theory over praxis. The problem with this view is ineffectiveness: revivals are not usually begun in the academy, you may have noticed. There is a tendency for theory to be closed to the questions people are actually asking; to be abstract and unrelated. There is a resulting insensitivity to the different cultural contexts in which mission takes place.

On the other hand, I guess there are some of you who can already sense the artificiality of this: you have already been out there presenting the gospel and living it, and seeing lives changed and people won for Christ. Having to come and sit and think about it seems quite futile: it’s already going on! The problem with this view, I suggest respectfully, is pragmatism. Pragmatism means that we become like advertisers hawking products: we will do anything for a sale, including distort the message out of shape, perhaps casting aside or hiding uncomfortable parts of the scriptural teaching in order to fit in with the culture of context. Perhaps, rather than be insensitive, we may even accommodate our culture so that we lose our Christian distinctiveness.
This is why Green’s question is a good one: because theology needs to realize the urgency of mission! Theology must not be indulgent or merely speculative. It bears the responsibility of explaining a gospel which is for everyone to everyone. And on the hand, those engaged in mission have the weighty responsibility of speaking and acting in and with truth. Mission needs to heed the voice of theology!

And so, from both perspectives, there needs to be a turn back to the sources of theology in the scriptures. Mission must remain faithful to its source in scripture or it will be unable to address cultures - it will only reflect them. If theology takes the mission seriously, not only could theology be forced to rediscover its own deep scriptural resources, so also mission could be reinvigorated by the work done in the thinking about it. We need to trust our Bibles perhaps more than we do: there is more in them of more universal relevance than perhaps we realize. We need to trust perhaps less our ability to read cultures: remember this is a notoriously difficult art. Paul’s method in Corinth is perhaps instructive: he determined not give the Jews the miraculous signs they claimed, not the Greeks the sophistry they demanded: but determined to know nothing among them but Christ crucified no matter how culturally insensitive this may have seemed.

Driscoll skewers Sydney

Reports have filtered back to me about Mark Driscoll's session with Sydney ministers at St Andrew's Cathedral. Sounds like potent stuff. Mike Jolly reports here on the 18 points of critique Driscoll levelled at us. Hearing criticism is a great opportunity of course, and it will be interesting to see how the debate goes from here. I don't buy the whole Driscoll schtick, but, boy, he has courage.

From my point of view, the most interesting and telling of the critiques was no. 13: "There us a lack of missiologists. Your theologians are poor missiologists. You need more missiologists that evaluate culture and be missiologically aware."

Ouch. But, yes: I think that it is imperative that theology and missiology relate themselves better. Not of course so that missiology completely overwhelms theology, but so that theology is actually true to its own evangelical nature. There's work to do...

Christian God not an introvert

John Webster's essay on aseity is one of the highlights of the Engaging the Doctrine of God collection. This caught my eye:

‘…it [aseity] indicates that God’s originality and fullness constitute the ground of his self-communication. He is one who, out of nothing other than his own self-sufficiency, brings creatures into being, sustains and reconciles them, and brings them perfection in fellowship with himself’. (p. 108)

That is, God's self-sufficient and self-determining nature is of the kind that is the basis for his great acts of creation and redemption - his determination to have others and to dwell with them. No introvert, this God.

Engaging the Doctrine of God

The doctrine of God it seems to me is an increasingly contested and increasingly important area of dogmatics. Actually, that seems like a silly thing to say - isn't it always?

A great collection of essays has been released, edited by Bruce McCormack, under the title Engaging the Doctrine of God. What I have read so far has been of very high standard - stimulating and very interesting.

Particular high on my list are the essays by John Webster and Henri Blocher, followed by an excellent one by Don Carson on 'The Wrath of God'. McCormack, as the editor of the book has allowed himself twice the room of everyone else, and I haven't yet tackled his piece. NT Wright has a piece, though it is rather light on footnotes and sounds very derivative of his other stuff - not a fresh piece of research it seems to me.

What is interesting is that there is a tension between those authors who are committed to classical theism (Helm, Crisp, Carson) and those who want to modify it without falling into open theism (McCormack, Blocher, Stephen Williams). And, as always, Barth is the point of depature...