A generational shift in evangelical Christianity?

[Cross-posted from my "secular" blog, [A]mazed and [Be]mused. By the way, my university-aged son has just joined me as a co-blogger over there, and I'm feeling pretty pleased about it!]

Evangelicals are increasingly motivated by a broader range of social concerns, from disease in Africa, to the environment, to racial reconciliation. And they want to be a witness to these values instead of a tool in the power games of others.

Newsweek. The last sentence of the quote aptly characterizes where American evangelicals have positioned themselves for the past twenty-five years:  as a tool in the power games of others.

(Perhaps I should speak of "Christianists" — the term by which Andrew Sullivan distinguishes this politicized group from other evangelicals.)

The mainstream US media has recently published a couple of articles hailing the arrival of a kinder, gentler evangelicalism. The New York Times reported:

The founding generation of leaders like [Jerry] Falwell and [James] Dobson, who first guided evangelicals into Republican politics 30 years ago, is passing from the scene [either dying or retiring]. … Meanwhile, a younger generation of evangelical pastors — including the widely emulated preachers Rick Warren and Bill Hybels — are pushing the movement and its theology in new directions.

There are many related ways to characterize the split:  a push to better this world as well as save eternal souls; a focus on the spiritual growth that follows conversion rather than the yes-or-no moment of salvation; a renewed attention to Jesus’ teachings about social justice as well as about personal or sexual morality. However conceived, though, the result is a new interest in public policies that address problems of peace, health and poverty.

In my experience, concern for the environment is also taking root among younger evangelicals.

I hope Newsweek and the Times are right to suppose that this represents a generational shift. I'm not quite convinced yet, but I'm hopeful.

There are two trends to consider. The Times is alert to one of the trends, which involves very large, "seeker sensitive" churches.

The church pastored by Bill Hybels averages 20,000 in attendance each week. To maintain a more personal touch, it makes use of 2,600 small groups. The Times comments:

Hybels, founder of the Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, is very possibly the single-most-influential pastor in America; in the last 15 years, his Willow Creek Association has grown to include more than 12,000 churches. Many invite their staff members and lay leaders to participate by telecast in Willow Creek’s annual leadership conferences, creating a virtual gathering of tens of thousands. …

As his stature has grown, Hybels has seemed more willing to irk Christian conservative political leaders — and even some in his own congregation. He set off a furor a few years ago when he invited former President Bill Clinton to speak at one of his conferences. And the Iraq war has brought into sharp relief Hybels’s differences with conservatives like Dobson.

… On the eve of the Iraq invasion, Hybels preached a sermon called “Why War?” Laying out three approaches to war — realism, just-war theory and pacifism — he implored members of his congregation to re-examine their own thinking and then try to square it with the Bible. In the process, he left little doubt about where he personally stood. He called himself a pacifist.

The other trend is more of a grass roots phenomenon. There is a rising interest in something called the "Emergent" church. Or "movement", or "conversation" — Emergent leaders are uncomfortable being defined by labels.

The Emergent movement reminds me of the internet-driven political campaigns of Howard Dean and Ron Paul. Yes, there are identifiable leaders (e.g., Brian McLaren), but the movement as such has no hierarchy, and is not identified with any individual. It is amorphous — a concept that has spread virally — a meme.

As such, it isn't clear how much impact the Emergent movement will have on Christianity. It could self-destruct, as Howard Dean's political campaign did in 2004. On the other hand, it might represent the beginning of something new in Christianity:  a way of doing church differently in a postmodern era.

The thing to note is that these two trends, so different in approach, have similar ideals with respect to social issues. There's an amusing, semi-serious description of the seven layers of Emergence on a Christianity Today blog. Consider the seventh "layer":

Maybe the mission of the church isn’t simply to become a bigger church? … To their amazement, [the article's hypothetical congregation] discovers significant swaths of the Bible (such as the Pentateuch, prophets, gospels, and epistles) talk about justice, poverty, and compassion. The church begins to speak about social issues and participates in efforts to combat poverty, AIDS, and global injustice.

This paragraph takes a bit of a cheap shot at the Hybels model of doing church — "Maybe the mission of the church isn’t simply to become a bigger church?" Emergent folks tend to be critical of the megachurch model. Nonetheless, the paragraph's emphasis on poverty, AIDS, and global injustice is consistent with the mission objectives of Hybels's church.

In the convergence of these two trends, there is hope for the next generation of evangelicals. The reader may note an approving nod to the Emergent movement in the name of this blog, Emerging From Babel.

A postmodern take on historiography

I am very interested in the historical criticism of scripture. It is certainly relevant to the New Testament (the vexed question of the "historical" Jesus), and every bit as relevant with respect to the Hebrew scriptures.

For example, believers typically take David as a model for the Messiah. But then an archaeologist comes along to assert the following conclusions:

David and Solomon existed in the 10th century B.C. but as "little more than hill country chieftains." There was no golden age of a united kingdom, a magnificent capital and an extended empire.

Currently, Finkelstein's and Silberman's claim remains hotly contested. But what happens if the scholarly consensus moves in that direction? How does it affect exegesis? How does it affect faith?

Postmodern scepticism about historiography:

I am sympathetic to a postmodern view of historiography. The scholar's conclusions follow largely from his or her presuppositions.

I don't think it is entirely so. For example, I think we can conclude, on objective grounds, that the synoptic Gospels accurately capture the very "voice" of Jesus (his ipsissima vox), if not always his very words (ipsissima verba).

But over and over again, scholars' supposedly objective conclusions follow directly from their personal predilections. For example, did Jesus predict the arrival of the kingdom of God during his lifetime? Just about everyone resists that conclusion, although there are good biblical grounds for it.

Conservatives resist that conclusion because they can't admit that Jesus made a prediction that didn't come true. Liberals resist that conclusion because the image of Jesus as a wild-eyed, end-times prophet doesn't fit their preferred schema:  Jesus as a teacher of universal ethical truths.

Conservatives and liberals alike sift the data according to what is palatable to them.

Postmodernists conclude that there is no such thing as objective history. I agree that historiography is highly problematic. Some basic conclusions are objective, in my view; but you can't progress very far before scholars begin picking and choosing from the data in accordance with their personal preferences.

Ken Burns's perspective:

That was my long-winded introduction to a quote from the documentary film-maker, Ken Burns. He sat down with Jon Stewart to discuss his documentary, "The War", a fresh examination of World War II. The video is embedded below (at least, it will be until Comedy Central deletes it from their site). But here is my transcript of the excerpts that caught my interest:

The second world war has been so draped in bloodless, gallant myth. You know, it's the John Wayne war. And when you see colour [film footage], it's no longer at arm's length. It's right there, and it's the worst war ever, not the good war, cause it killed sixty million people. …

A handful of soldiers [are now] able to say, "This is what really happened. I saw bad things; I did bad things; I lost good friends. I was scared, I was bored, I was hot, I was cold."

All the things that are universal to war. A guy in Iraq today — experiencing the same thing. And two thousand years ago, in the Peloponnesian War — the same thing. …

We don't have a political bone in our bodies in this film. … But at the same time, history is the set of questions we in the present ask of the past. And so it's very much informed about our anxieties. …

We know that it takes some time from an event before you can really understand it:  that you can triangulate with the passage of time. So you're constantly aware as you're dealing with new stuff that [our perspective] is going to change.

You know, if you did something on Vietnam ten years after the fall of Saigon — when we're in a recession, when Japan's ascendant — it'd be a different film than twenty years out, when we just won the first Gulf war, that our economy was booming, Japan was stagnant. I mean, every time you change a degree from that moment, every part of your perspective changes. …

I think all of us are in a continuum. You know, somebody says, "Is this the definitive work?" Absolutely not! You know, our Civil War film, seventeen years ago, spawned hundreds of documentaries. It's just, you do what you can do in that time.

Allow me to object to one of Burns's statements: "We don't have a political bone in our bodies in this film."

In that statement, Burns momentarily falls back into the positivist trap. He speaks as if the historian floats in a heremetically sealed compartment, and is not influenced by the surrounding environment.

Conclusion:

Presumably Burns meant only that he isn't trying to support either the Democrats or the Republicans in this documentary. It's clear from everything else he said in this segment that he understands the hard truth of historiography:  that all historians are biased. We are all captives to the era which shapes us, all editing the data to respond to our interests and defend our prior convictions. As Burns put it,

Every time you change a degree from that moment, every part of your perspective changes. … You [just] do what you can do in that time.

That's why historical conclusions, like those of Finkelstein and Silberman, must always be taken with a grain of salt. One must always ask, Where does this historian "come from"? What axe is s/he grinding — what polemical position is s/he setting out to prove?

I hasten to add, it's true of everything I write as well. In one post, I'm trying to make a case for same sex marriage. In another post, I'm resisting the biblical teaching on penal substitution.

If the posts are tendentious, does that make me a liberal? No, because this idea has nothing to do with the great liberal/conservative divide. Conservatives are playing the same game, they're just grinding a different set of axes. Hence the postmodern scepticism about all historiography.


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Adam christology in the Philippians 2 hymn

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

(Php. 2:6-11)¹

Johannes Weiss first called attention to the rhythmic nature of the above text in 1899. Today, there is nearly universal agreement that Paul is quoting a very early Christian hymn composed in honour of Jesus. The opening word, ὃς ("who"), hints at the same conclusion. "Who" sometimes functions as a kind of pivot introducing hymnlike confessions of faith:  see Col. 1:15, 1 Tim. 3:16, and Heb 1:3.

We've been discussing "Adam christology" (see the previous post). What does that mean? In the words of James Dunn,

The divine program for man [was] run through again with Jesus. Christ faced the same archetypal choice that confronted Adam, but chose not as Adam had chosen (to grasp equality with God). Instead he chose to empty himself of Adam's glory and to embrace Adam's lot, the fate which Adam had suffered by way of punishment. (Christology In the Making, p. 117)

Consequently, God super-exalted Jesus and installed him to the highest office, Lord of all.

Dunn is fitting the language of Php. 2:6-11 ("equality with God", "emptied himself") into the paradigm, Adam christology. It's a controversial interpretation of the Philippians text.

Evangelicals wouldn't know it, but the interpretation of Php. 2:6-11 is extremely contentious. Gerald Hawthorne writes,

The number of genuine exegetical problems and the sheer mass of books and articles it has called forth leaves one wondering where to begin. … There is little that can be agreed upon, whether the topic discussed is the precise form of this section, its authorship, its place and purpose in the letter, the sources used in its composition, and so on.

(Philippians, Word Biblical Commentary, ad loc.)

Most interpreters continue to see a clear reference to Christ's pre-existence in Philippians 2:6-11. But Dunn dares to question that interpretation:

As J. Murphy-O'Connor has recently maintained … the common belief that Phil. 2:6-11 starts by speaking of Christ's pre-existent state and status and then of his incarnation is, in almost every case, a presupposition rather than a conclusion, a presupposition which again and again proves decisive in determining how disputed terms within the Philippians hymn should be understood. (p. 114)

Perhaps the easiest way to proceed is to lay out these two possible interpretations of the text side by side.

	pre-existence	Adam christology
was in the form of God (μορφῇ θεοῦ)2	refers to Jesus' divine status in heaven, before his conception in Mary's womb	Refers to Jesus' Adam-like status after his birth. "Form" (μορφῇ) of God is synonymous with "image" (εἰκών) of God. Like Adam before the first sin, the man Jesus bore the image and glory of God perfectly.
did not ἁρπαγμὸν [cling to?] [snatch at?] equality with God	Jesus, who already possessed equality with God, did not cling to it	Jesus, like Adam, was tempted to snatch at the possibility of god-like status (see Ge. 3:5) — but resisted
emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, γενόμενος [being born?] [becoming?] in the likeness of men	refers to Jesus' incarnation: he divested himself of his deity and was born in the likeness of a human being	γενόμενος is not to be translated "born" but "becoming" (just as it is translated in vs. 8). When Adam sinned, he became estranged from God, a slave to sin and corruption (suffering / death). Jesus, who did not sin, might have claimed an exemption from the universal human pattern (the "likeness of a human being"). He did not stand on his rights but emptied himself: i.e., he voluntarily participated in Adam's state of slavery.
being found in form as man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross	emphasizes death by crucifixion as the ultimate expression of Jesus' self-emptying	ditto; with the theological observation that Jesus' suffering and death were a voluntary participation in Adam's suffering and death
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name ("Lord") that is above every name	a return to the status Jesus already enjoyed prior to his incarnation, concluding a pattern of glory/descent/return to glory	elevation to a status Jesus had not formerly possessed: the status that Adam was destined for but never attained because of his sin

Dunn summarizes:

The Christ of Phil. 2:6-11 therefore is the man who undid Adam's wrong:  confronted with the same choice [whether to snatch at equality with God], he rejected Adam's sin, but nevertheless freely followed Adam's course as fallen man to the bitter end of death; wherefore God bestowed on him the status not simply that Adam lost, but the status which Adam was intended [but failed] to come to. (p. 119, emphasis in original)

Via his obedience unto death, Jesus became God's final prototype, the last Adam.

Am I convinced that Dunn's interpretation of Php. 2:6-11 is the right one? No.

Am I convinced that Dunn's interpretation of Php. 2:6-11 is a legitimate, possible interpretation? Yes.

This controversy is an outstanding example of the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts. Individual words (μορφῇ, "form"; ἁρπαγμὸν, "cling to" or "snatch at"; and γενόμενος, "born" or "becoming") are ambiguous. Their interpretation turns on our presuppositions:  the paradigm we impose on the text.

When we read the text through the traditional lens (trinitarianism, fully articulated only in the post-biblical era), Php. 2:6-11 clearly refers to Christ's pre-existence. It never occurs to us that another interpretation might be possible — one that sees no reference to pre-existence in the text. But then another paradigm is suggested — in this case, Adam christology — and we realize with some shock that it makes sense.

What then? We're left with two divergent interpretations, and it is impossible to know for certain which one is correct.

Postmodernists say that all interpretation is like that:  we get out of the text what we bring to the text; therefore no text has a single "right" interpretation. Meaning is always subjective and legitimately contested.

The postmodern perspective is obviously problematic for the concept of biblical authority. But whether or not we're comfortable with its implications, Php. 2:6-11 is a good example of the real challenges of interpreting biblical texts.


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¹Here, Php. 2:6-11 is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. When individual phrases are later inserted into a table, I am not following any one English translation.

²The Greek text is copied from the Online Greek Bible using the font, Athena.

To Babel and back, part 1

This series of posts will introduce the concept of the blog. Part one surveys the history of biblical interpretation in the modern West.

1. The Normative Era:

People used to know things by consulting the Holy Bible. For example, if some scientist told you that the earth was millions of years old, you could whip out your Bible and prove him wrong.

The Bible was normative. Everyone agreed that the Bible was true; and truth can't contradict truth, right? So science had to agree with the Bible.

2. The Critical Era:

Eventually sceptics began to subject the Bible to critical scrutiny. For example, that question about the age of the earth wouldn't go away. New evidence was adduced to show that the earth is older than anyone would deduce from Genesis.

Theologians adapted. Maybe there are gaps in the Genesis genealogies, they reasoned. Maybe one "day" of creation actually refers to an "epoch". But the questions only multiplied:  evidence began to mount that the Bible wasn't absolutely trustworthy after all.

The assault from science was formidable enough, but then came historical criticism. It began to undermine confidence in texts that were critical to theology.

In the Hebrew scriptures, salvation is grounded in the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt. But did the Exodus really happen? All those plagues? The death of every first-born son in Egypt, and no trace of it in secular histories?

(In my view, the Exodus is simply too ancient an event to withstand critical scrutiny. Faith may say that it happened, but there is no independent evidence to corroborate the biblical account.)

For a while, Jesus was sacrosanct. Everyone shrank from criticizing the Gospels. But in 1778, Reimarus opened the floodgates. Critical scholars began to ask, for example, whether Jesus really walked on water.

And did he really claim to be God, or was that merely a myth, introduced later by Jesus' followers? The importance of historical criticism can scarcely be overstated:  it struck a savage blow at the very roots of Christian faith.

3. The Relativizing Era:

First, the assault from science; then, historical criticism; now, globalization. Globalization matters for religion because it exposes us to all the other traditions out there. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, native religions:  a veritable smorgasbord of religious traditions, most of them with a venerable history. And all of it is now available at your local Chapters!

The result:  a descent into Babel. A cacophony of voices, all talking at once, each trying to make itself heard over the others.

Exposure to many traditions has called all of them into question. Christians offer a narrative account of how the cosmos came into being, what went wrong with it, and how God will rescue us in the end. But what's so special about that? The Dalai Lama has a competing narrative; American Indians have one of their own; Mormons have still another; and so on and so forth.

Every religion is equally convinced that its narrative is true. The effect is to relativize all of them:  my narrative doesn't look so special anymore.

Science weighs in with its authoritative opinion, claiming that all of the sacred texts are equally bogus. Science profers a narrative of its own. There is no god; the cosmos is billions of years old; all living creatures evolved from the humblest, single-celled organisms; evolution has no end goal (it is not purposive); human beings are an accident of nature; inevitably, the cosmos will collapse back onto itself, and that will be that!

Science has its own epistemology, too:  reason and the scientific method are the only sure guides to knowledge. But here's where the story takes an unexpected twist:  from a post-modern perspective, the scientific narrative is as suspect as any other:

Science has been under unprecedented attack with the rise of postmodernism. Both in academic circles and in popular culture, we see today a contempt for the sciences that many find hard to understand. Science is viewed as the vanguard of European exploitation, a discipline run amok, the instigators of nuclear and other weapons systems, the handmaiden of big business, and as the defilers of nature.

Postmodernists argue that the ideal of the scientist as a neutral, objective observer is pretentious. There is no such thing as an uninterpreted "fact"; and the interpreter of that "fact" is always biased:

Hypotheses do not simply rise up from raw data. Instead, they originate in the mind of the observer, who then imposes the hypothesis upon the data as a way of organizing it.

In sum, we have all arrived in Babel together:  Christians and Muslims; Mormons and Buddhists; mystics and scientists; theists and atheists. No one's opinion is normative anymore.

4. Triangulating a way out of Babel:

I do not believe Christianity has cornered the market on truth. Nonetheless, I am a Christian:  which is to say, that is the tradition that I operate out of.

My method (which I will explore in subsequent posts in this series) is to rely on three approaches to knowledge.

• Theological first principles.


• Careful exegesis rooted in historical criticism.


• Ultimately, I employ the texts as narratives which provide a necessary counterbalance to the presumptions of the modern, secular West.

Thus there are three elements to my method. We might describe the process as triangulating our way out of Babel, since there are three points at which we will seek to establish our bearings.



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