PreacherMike

I’ve just finished reading the impressive new book by Douglas Campbell, NT prof at Duke, called The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul It is a massive (1200 pages) — and largely successful — response to the modern, individualistic reduction of the gospel that is sometimes abbreviated as “Lutheran.”

The short version of that “gospel” is this: God is wrath-filled because of our sin yet we are helpless to do anything about it because we can’t keep the Law/law perfectly. But Jesus died as a penal substitute for us, and when we put our faith in Jesus (Arminianism: because of our choice; Calvinism: because of God’s preordained choice), his righteousness is imputed to us.

Those who follow current studies in Paul have met serious responses to this reduction through the works of Richard Hays, N. T. Wright, Ben Witherington, Scot McKnight, Douglas Harink, etc. (See, most recently, Wright’s insightful Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision.) But in this new tome, Campbell has thoroughly exposed the weaknesses of “justification theory” — its textual weaknesses, as well as its intrinsic and systematic difficulties.

Here’s a taste of what Campbell was hoping to accomplish:

“It is very important to appreciate that this analysis is consequently not an attack on the gospel but an attack on a version of the gospel, and one that I maintain Paul himself would view as false. It is therefore a thoroughly evangelical discussion in both method and purpose. Moreover, the solution that I am aiming toward is deeply Protestant if not Lutheran. To put things at their simplest, only if my rereading is true is it possible to affirm coherently Paul’s slogan that ‘God justifies the ungodly,’ since he means by this that God delivers the wicked from their enslavement to Sin, when they cannot deliver themselves, and thereby demonstrates his unconditional grace and love. . . . [Paul's] description of deliverance and cleansing ‘in Christ,’ through the work of the Spirit, at the behest of the Father, the entire process being symbolized by baptism, is the good news. It requires no supplementation by other systems.”

Here’s what Michael Gorman, author of some of my favorite recent works on Paul, has written about Deliverance:

“I blurbed Douglas’s book and was possibly the most positive of the five who did so:

This means, more bluntly, that in my estimation Douglas is both profoundly right (’his overall thesis is persuasive’) and simultaneously off the mark (’One may disagree with parts of the analysis, or take a somewhat different route to the same destination’). Fortunately, he is terribly right where it really matters: in his perceptive characterization of the liberative and participatory character of justification in Paul. Unfortunately, the relatively narrow topic of this panel’s review—the book’s treatment of Romans 1-3—is where Douglas is, I think, off the mark.”

I loved what McKnight wrote about it: “It would be a fantastic vacation read or summer read for pastors; it is a must for professors and I believe should be read by seminary students as a primary text on Paul — whether one agrees with it or not.” If I were not a reader of McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog, I’d think that he needs to better understand what vacation reading is!

While I am still rethinking his proposal about Romans 1-3 (and am not convinced), this is a valuable and welcome contribution to a discussion that sits right at the center of the church’s mission. And I’m quite convinced that Campbell’s suggestion that “justification theory” is a computer virus that, “having infiltrated a system, overwrites some of its key commands with a foreign code from another programmer and then goes on to execute a series of embarrassing and even destructive actions, often losing original material in the process.”

If the book could help steer us away from having our thoughts dominated primarily by God as Judge and by retributive justice, that would be a nice start.

More coming as I continue to blog about justification, “faith of Christ,” and the book of Galatians.

Congratulations to Phil Schubert on being named ACU’s 11th president. Here’s the note on the ACU website:

A Message from the ACU Board of Trustees to the ACU Community:

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Phil Schubert has been chosen to serve as Abilene Christian University’s next president.

The Board of Trustees’ decision is the culmination of a prayerful process and a diligent, thoughtful national search which led to the consideration of a wealth of excellent prospects. In the end, we found our new leader right here on our campus.

Dr. Schubert is an individual in whom the university and this board have tremendous confidence. The fact that someone of Dr. Schubert’s caliber will now lead this 104-year-old institution bodes well for ACU’s future. We are excited about the energy and enthusiasm he brings to his new role.

Prior to appointing Dr. Schubert, the Board listened closely to the ACU community. We solicited your input early and often. You told us plainly that ACU’s next president should be an honest, trustworthy, Christ-centered leader; a person of integrity, approachable and personable, driven by a compelling sense of mission. We believe that both of our finalists embody these characteristics. We have concluded, however, that Dr. Schubert is best suited to help ACU manage the opportunities and challenges of the coming years.

Dr. Schubert prepares to take the reins from Dr. Royce Money who, during his 19 years of service, has successfully led our university through numerous challenges to new levels of service and accomplishment. Going forward, we are confident Dr. Schubert will hold fast to ACU’s 21st Century Vision and continue to take the university to new heights. He believes that, while these are challenging times, ACU remains poised to become the premier university for the education of Christ-centered global leaders.

We ask you to join us in extending our sincerest appreciation to co-finalist Dr. Rick Lytle. He has served ACU with distinction for 19 years, and continues to do so as the Dean of the College of Business Administration and as he leads our students this semester in ACU’s Study Abroad program at Oxford. His ardent love and passionate support of the university’s mission is clear to all who know him. Dr. Lytle says, “My support and prayers are with Phil and his family as they assume leadership of this great university. May each of us continue to work hard, stay on mission, and give thanks for the blessings resulting from our associations with Abilene Christian University.”

Dr. Schubert will formally begin his responsibilities as the 11th president of Abilene Christian University on June 1, 2010. Thank you for your prayerful support of the search process that has brought us to this milestone, and please continue to seek God’s blessings for our university, our students and for our next president.

Sincerely,

Sharron Drury and Jim Porter
Members of the ACU Board of Trustees
Co-chairs of the Presidential Transition Team

This was a wonderful moment in chapel:

A few insightful statements about faith and baptism in Paul by Michael Gorman (Reading Paul ):

“This is the essence of faith — dying to an old existence characterized by disobedience to God through complete identification with the obedience of Jesus. Paul both defines this complete identification with Jesus’ death (co-crucifixion) as faith and states that it occurs in the public expression of that faith known as baptism (Rom 6:1-11). Moreover — and this is crucially important — the act of co-crucifixion is not a matter of human effort; it is a graced response.”

“Reconciliation with God, then, is by God’s own initiative, or faithfulness, expressed in the faithfulness of Jesus, to which we respond by sharing in that faithful death in the act of saying ‘yes’ to God and expressing that ‘yes’ in baptism.”

“The person who says ‘yes’ to the gospel and is justified by co-crucifixion with Christ in the experience of faith and baptism makes a spiritual and sociological move from being outside Christ and the covenant people of God to being inside Christ and God’s people. Using what is sometimes called ‘transfer language,’ Paul can speak of ‘believing into Christ’ (the literal meaning of a key phrase in Gal 2:16) or being baptized into Christ (Rom 6:3; Gal 3:27). More vividly, he calls this being clothed with Christ (Gal 3:27), an experience that must be renewed day by day (Rom 13:14). Christ envelops the individual and the community that lives in him, beginning a long-term process of shaping both believers and churches into his image (Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 3:18), a process also of having the mind of Christ within (Phil 2:5).”

Read about it here.

If you could ask God one question, what would it be?

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We had a great board meeting for the Kibo Group this past weekend in Ft. Worth. The group was started by the fifteen of us who climbed Kilimanjaro together in 1998, and it focuses on ministries to help East Africa. Eleven of the fifteen were able to make it, plus two more were Skyped in from Searcy, and one other from Rwanda.

When you get a chance, I’d love for you to check out some of the programs that Kibo supports like: Malo Ga Kujilana, the Mvule Project, the Water Source, and the Basoga Women’s Leadership.

Here are two wonderful renditions of “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

First, Judy Garland:

And, Reese Cope:

Here’s a re-post from four years ago. The following posts in the series can be found here:
The B-I-B-L-E #2
The B-I-B-L-E #3
The B-I-B-L-E #4
The B-I-B-L-E #5
The B-I-B-L-E #6
The B-I-B-L-E #7
The B-I-B-L-E #8
And I’d now add this as The B-I-B-L-E #9

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Here is one of the most shocking discoveries of my early life: the Bible has to be interpreted.

I know that’s a no-brainer. But I grew up thinking that what set us apart from all other religious groups is that we just believed the Bible. God said it. We believed it. That settled it.

Other people had creeds. Others twisted it because they liked musical instruments or didn’t like baptism. They put their trust in commentaries–the words of mere humans. But we just read the Bible.

It helps to live an insular life if you want to hold onto that belief. Because when you begin engaging Christ-followers from other groups, you quickly realize that many of them think about the same thing.

But the Bible has to be interpreted. In a sense, that happens even in the earliest stages of translation. Those translating the Bible from Hebrew (and a bit of Aramaic) in the OT and Greek in the NT have to make choices. How do they translate a passage when it’s ambiguous? How do they express in English a word that seems to have a wide range of meanings?

Several times I’ve heard people say they’re jealous because I can read the Greek New Testament. (Hey, seven years of Greek and you’d be there, too!) They wish they could just read what the text says.

Guess what? It’s a blessing to be able to do that and it’s helpful to know what the original text said (as best we could piece it together from manuscripts–since we don’t have any original copies of the NT books), BUT . . . you still have to interpret. Reading Greek rarely makes things more obvious. Otherwise, all the Greek-readers would be unified.

We are not unique because be follow the Bible. Or because we’re nervous of creeds. Or because we like the “plain meaning of the text.”

As I’ve led discussions about the ministry of women, I’ve often heard people say, “We shouldn’t make the Bible say what we want it to say.” I agree. Absolutely. But let’s also be honest about this: none of us comes to scripture completely objective and unbiased. All of us are having to use tools of interpretation.

I don’t want to twist scripture. I want to live under its authority. But I also have to humbly admit that this is harder than I might have imagined.

This recognition demands two things from us:

First, it demands community. We need to read scripture together–with other Christians we know and with believers from other times, places, and denominations. As people seeking to follow Jesus, we need to rely on the insights of the larger community of faith.

Second, it demands humility. Before I write off other people who disagree with me, I’d better realize how very challenging this whole task of biblical interpretation has been. And it wouldn’t hurt me to remember that so many wars in the world have come because everyone has their own holy book that they believe they have the inside track on how to interpret.

I heard a powerful message by N. T. Wright in which he refuted the idea that the landing on the Hudson River a year ago was a “miracle on the Hudson.” It wasn’t so much a miracle, Wright says, but the result of a lifetime by a competent pilot. It was a landing that a novice pilot couldn’t have hoped for. In two or three minutes, he went through lots of little actions and several big decisions. When he told the people in the tower that he was landing in the Hudson, they weren’t sure what he’d said because his voice was so calm.

Shut down the engine . . . set the right speed . . . get the nose down . . . turn off the autopilot . . . seal the vents and valves . . . turn to face south with the Hudson’s flow . . . .

And Captain Sully did it without consulting a manual! (What would you look under in the manual? “F” for “flock of geese” . . . “G” for just “geese” . . . “H” for Hudson River?)

Wright said that virtue is like this. It is what happens when wise and courageous choices have become second nature. It is what results from a thousand small decisions.

So how about that as a theme for 2010: “a thousand small decisions”?

I told my class they could have the Friday after the SuperBowl off if they pick the winner. So using their iPhones/iTouches and the nifty polls devised by the ACU tech guys, here were the results:

Colts – 79
Vikings – 81
Saints – 119
Jets – 10

Just for the record (and please, before you call Vegas, remember WHAT my record on this blog is!), I have:

Colts over Jets
Vikings over Saints
Colts over Vikings

You?