Theologue-Troy

Great Commmission Resurgence

2009-04-30T13:47:00.004-05:00

I have been getting a lot of email about the new Great Commission Resurgence that has been proposed by Dr. Danny Aiken and signed by most every major leader in the SBC. I have read it a couple of times but did not really see it as that big of a deal. Today I got an email from a friend who asked me directly "what do you think?"
I decided that I would share my thoughts for her here so that maybe more people will read the Declaration or possibly the entire manuscript by following the link below or going to http://www.greatcommissionresurgence.com/media.
Here are my thoughts and an outline of the Declaration:
I like that this is basically a call back to the gospel. There is nothing in the statement that I have trouble with and I really trust the guys who are behind this. You can read online who has signed the document and I signed it today. It is really nothing new for me because I have been around these guys for 15 years or so. This is really the worldview and philosophy of ministry that I have always been taught from. It is a statement to extreme groups on both ends of the scale who would try to divide over secondary issues. I believe we are approaching time of persecution and oppression. These are times for unity in our diversity around the absolute truths of the word of God. The next generation will see a separation of the wheat and tares. It is time for true believers of all preference and personality to labor for the bond of unity that is the love of the Spirit of Truth.
Over 10 years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Judge Paul Pressler, one of the key leaders of the Conservative Resurgence. When we met him and had him sign his book for us, my friend Jeff Jordan respectfully thanked Judge Pressler for fighting for us so that we did not have to. Pressler pulled Jeff very close and said something like this, "I did not fight so that you would not have to. I fought so that you might be able to. If you rest on what has been accomplished, it will be lost. You must fight and continue to fight for the word of God." I believe that is what this is, that continued fight.
What are your thoughts? I encourage everyone to read the statement and decide for yourself.

Toward a Great Commission Resurgence in the
Southern Baptist Convention
A Declaration
Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on
earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have
commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew
28:18-20, HCSB).
Preamble
Southern Baptists have always been a Great Commission people. Christ’s command to go, disciple, baptize, and teach is woven into the very DNA of our churches. By God’s grace, over the last thirty years the SBC has undergone a Conservative Resurgence that has brought substantive changes to many of our churches and all of our Convention’s seminaries and boards. We, the undersigned, are thankful for the Conservative Resurgence and believe that God has called Southern Baptists to a Great Commission Resurgence as the next step in the renewal of our denomination. It is our conviction that a Great Commission Resurgence must embrace the following ten commitments:
I. A Commitment to Christ’s Lordship.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to submit to the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ in all things at the personal, local church, and denominational levels. (Col. 1:18; 3:16-17, 23-24)
II. A Commitment to Gospel-Centeredness.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to make the gospel of Jesus Christ central in our lives, our churches, and our denominational ministries. (Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 15:1-4; 2 Cor. 5:17-21)
III. A Commitment to the Great Commandments.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to recommit to the priority of the Great Commandments in every aspect of our lives and every priority we embrace as a network of local Baptist churches. (Matt. 22:37-40)
IV. A Commitment to Biblical Inerrancy and Sufficiency.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to unite around a firm conviction in the full truthfulness and complete sufficiency of Christian Scripture in all matters of faith and practice. (Matt 5:17-18; John 10:35; 17:17; 2 Tim 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21)
V. A Commitment to a Healthy Confessional Center.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to look to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a sufficient guide for building a theological consensus for partnership in the gospel, refusing to be sidetracked by theological agendas that distract us from our Lord’s Commission. (1 Tim. 6:3-4)
VI. A Commitment to Biblically Healthy Churches.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to focus on building local churches that are thoroughly orthodox, distinctively Baptist, and passionately committed to the Great Commission. (Matt. 16:13-20, 18:15-20; Acts 2:41-47; Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Cor. 5)
VII. A Commitment to Sound Biblical Preaching.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to affirm and expect a pastoral ministry that is characterized by faithful biblical preaching that teaches both the content of the Scriptures and the theology embedded in the Scriptures. (2 Tim. 4:1-5)
VIII. A Commitment to a Methodological Diversity that is Biblically Informed.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to consider themselves and their churches to be missionaries in non-Christian cultures, each of which requires unique strategies and emphases if the gospel is
to penetrate and saturate every community in North America. (Phil. 2:1-5; 4:2-9)
IX. A Commitment to a More Effective Convention Structure.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to rethink our Convention structure and priorities so that we can maximize our energy and resources for the health of our local churches and the fulfilling of the Great Commission. (1 Cor. 10:31)
X. A Commitment to Distinctively Christian Families.
We call upon all Southern Baptists to build gospel-saturated homes that see children as a gift from God and as our first and primary mission field. (Deut. 6:1-9; Psalm 127, 128; Eph. 6:4)

Theologue-Troy: Missiology

2009-04-06T09:57:00.003-05:00

The April meeting of the Theologue-Troy Group was held this past Friday at Village Coffe in Troy, Alabama. We had one of our largest groups yet attend this month to hear Karen Alewine present on Missiology. We have included the outline of her presentation below.
The next meeting of Theologue-Troy will be May 1st. Reid Ward will be presenting on Ecclesiology. We hope you will all come be a part of the discussion.

Missiology

Misconceptions about missions:

1. Missions is a super special assignment for extraordinary people.

a. God uses the foolish, weak, and despised people of the world to bring glory to Himself (I Corinthians 1:26-31).

b. Paul wasn’t the only missionary of the first century. Others such as Barnabas, Silas, Mark, Aquila, and Epaphroditus, as well as many others, helped to spread the gospel during the first century.

2. World missions can be done by proxy.

a. Not everyone can be a missionary, but everyone can be on mission for God.

b. Giving is not a way of paying for your part of the command to go into all the world and preach the gospel.

c. Giving and praying are great, but do not fulfill the great commission by themselves.

I. Mission of God - to restore fellowship with man and to make him a partner in world redemption. (John 3:16)

A. The Nature of God

1. Powerful

Isaiah 40:12 – God has measured the earth and the heavens with His hands.

Psalm 19:1 – The heavens declare the glory of God

Jeremiah 32:27 – Nothing is too hard for God.

2. Loving

Psalm 8:5-6 – God shows His love for man by putting all things under his feet.

Genesis 2:8-14 – God placed man in the perfect environment and provided everything he needed.

3. Purposeful

Psalm 33:4-6, 10-11 – God’s plans stand forever

Psalm 19:1 – The astronomer can predict precisely the location and movement of the stars and planets because they were made according to the purpose of God.

B. The Nature of Man

Genesis 1:27 – God created man in His own image, which means that man is good, responsible, and capable of communion with God.

Genesis 2:7 – Man is finite and limited to time and space.

1. Relational

God made man to have a relationship with Him and with other created beings.

2. Responsible

a. Genesis 2:19-20 - Named all living creatures

b. Genesis 2:15 - Care for the earth

c. Genesis 1:28 - Have children

3. Finite

Genesis 3:16-24 – During the fall, man sacrificed his close relationship with God, destroyed his cooperative relationship with the created order, and became subject to sin and death

C. The Nature of Evil

John 14:30, John 16:11, 2 Corinthians 4:4 - Satan is the prince of this world

Ephesians 2:2 - Prince of the power of the air

Ephesians 6:11 - Heads a vast horde of demons, principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world and wicked hosts of the spirit world

Matthew 4:1-11 - Claims authority over all the kingdoms of this world

D. The Nature of the Mission

Psalm 78:41 - God limits Himself because of the possibility of what He can do through us.

1. To Bring Glory to God

Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14 – God’s eternal plan is for His people to be the praise of His glory.

Ephesians 3:19 – God receives glory when man fully recognizes the purpose of his existence, consciously praises God for His grace, and joyfully demonstrates God’s grace by being filled with all the fullness of God.

2. To Share the Good News with the Alienated

Ephesians 2:10 – God restores man’s identity and his purpose for being.

Ephesians 2:13-22 – God creates a new society without barriers.

Ephesians 3:6 – The Gentiles are included in God’s plan.

3. To Display the Wisdom of God to Evil Powers

Ephesians 3:10 – Man becomes God’s display of His wisdom to Satan

II. Mission of God’s People

A. God’s Election of a People

Genesis 12:1-3 – God involved man in His purpose by choosing Abraham and his descendants.

Deuteronomy 9:4-5; 7:7-8, Hosea 11:1-3, Jeremiah 3:4, Exodus 16:6 - God’s love, not Israel’s faithfulness is the reason for her election

The saved are elected to help bring the lost to a knowledge of God.

B. God’s Covenant with His People

Exodus 19:4-6 – God’s covenant with Israel shows that He chose them for service.

Galatians 3:13-16 – As Christians, we are elected in Christ and inherit the promises.

C. God’s Role for His People

1. A Disciplined People

Deuteronomy 7:6-11 – God disciplined His people and that discipline involved nurture for motivation, training for obedience, and punishment for correction in righteousness.

2. A Nation of Priests

Exodus 19:3-7, Isaiah 61:4-6 – God intended Israel to be His servants.

2 Peter 2:9-11, Revelation 1:6 – God has never wavered in His purpose

3. A Servant People

Isaiah 42:1-7 – God’s servant will bring justice to the nations.

Isaiah 49:1-12 – God has called Israel

III. Mission of Christ - God sent His Son, Jesus to fulfill the mission He had given to Israel.

A. The Incarnation

Philippians 2:7 – Jesus emptied Himself when He became man. He was fully man as well as fully God.

Luke 2:52 – Jesus had to grow in wisdom and physical stature.

Hebrews 5:8 – He had to learn obedience.

1 Corinthians 2:14, Hebrews 2:9 - The incarnation is illogical to the natural mind

Hebrews 4:15 – God took the risk that the Son could fail.

John 1:15-16 - The incarnation proves God’s commitment to man and his partnership in mission.

Philippians 2:7 - In the incarnation Jesus emptied himself of his power except that to be given by the Holy Spirit.

1 Timothy 1:15 - The incarnation demands that every person have the chance to hear the gospel.

B. The Crucifixion

Philippians 2:8 – The purpose of the incarnation was Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.

Revelation 13:8 – The crucifixion was not a surprise; it was planned all along.

Luke 22:44 – Satan assaulted the humanity of Jesus in Gethsemane to tempt Him from fulfilling His purpose.

Philippians 2:8 – Christ was obedient to the Father’s will.

C. The Resurrection

Matthew 28:18 - Through the resurrection Jesus gained all authority in heaven and in earth.

Colossians 1:20, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 - Christ reconciled the world to God.

IV. Mission of the Holy Spirit - God the Father and Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to take Christ’s place.

A. The Inspirer of Missions

Acts 2:4-11 – When Christians were filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they spontaneously shared the gospel with people of all nations.

Acts 2:17 – Peter had to explain at Pentecost that what was happening was the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy that “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions; and your old men shall dream dreams.”

Numbers 11:29 – Moses had wished that all God’s people would prophesy and that His Spirit would be on them. This wish was fulfilled at Pentecost.

B. The Empowerer of the Church

John 16:8-11 – Only the Holy Spirit can convict of sin, judgment, and righteousness.

C. The Guide in Missions

1. Jerusalem – Acts 2:1-8:4

2. Judea and Samaria – Acts 8:5-12:25

3. The Rest of the World – Acts 13:1-28:31

V. Co-Mission of the Church -

Ephesians 1:22-23 – The Church has two possibilities: the possibility of failing to accomplish God’s purpose as Israel did and the possibility of becoming the fullness of Christ.

A. The Church’s Possibilities and God’s Expectations

Ephesians 3:6 – God wants to make both Jews and Gentiles a new creation.

Ephesians 1:18 – Christians should have their eyes opened so that they may know the hope of God’s calling and the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance.

Ephesians 1:12 – God is made richer because of our praises.

Ephesians 1:23 – God expects us to be Christ’s body.

Ephesians 5:25-27 – God has not given up hope on the Church.

B. Priests of God: The Calvary Principle

Hebrews 8:6-13 – Through His death, Christ established a new covenant with us and gave us direct access to God.

2 Peter 1:3-4 – Christ redeemed us by His sacrifice and gave us even greater promises that Israel received.

Romans 12:1, Hebrews 13:15 – We are New Testament priests who sacrifice their living bodies, praise, thanksgiving, good works, and material possessions.

I Corinthians 3:16 – We are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 9:23 – We are commanded to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Christ.

C. Servants of God: The Incarnation Principle

Matthew 23:11 – He that is greatest is the servant.

Acts 1:1 – First do, then teach.

D. Sons of the King: The Resurrection Principle

Luke 12:32 – It is God’s desire to give His Kingdom to His children.

Acts 4:20,29; 5:32,41; 7:60 – Even with the threat of persecution, the Church continued to witness and pray for others.

VI. Discipling: Mandate to Mission

A. The Impossible Task

B. Becoming Disciples

Luke 14:26-27 – We must deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Jesus in order to be His disciple.

1. Follow Jesus

2. Be an apprentice

Matthew 11:29 – Work alongside Jesus.

3. Be a Learner

Matthew 11:29 – Learn continuously from God.

4. Be a Representative

John 20:21 – Jesus has sent us to be His representatives to an unbelieving world.

5. Jesus: the Perfect Model for the Disciple

John 5:19 – Jesus did what He saw the Father doing.

John 5:20 – Jesus did what the Father showed Him.

John 5:22,30 – Jesus did not judge anything on His own initiative.

John 5:24-26 – Jesus gave life to the dead as He received it from the Father.

John 5: 43 – Jesus came in the Father’s name.

John 6:38 – Jesus’ one purpose was to do the Father’s will instead of His own.

John 6:39 – Jesus discipled everyone the Father gave Him.

John 7:16 – Jesus taught the Father’s teaching rather than His own.

John 7:18 – Jesus sought only the Father’s glory.

John 7:18 – Jesus saw Himself as the Father’s representative.

6. Holy Spirit: the Perfect Model of a Servant

John 14:16

John 16:13-15

C. Making Disciples

1. Model

Matthew 23:3 – Jesus reacted negatively toward the Pharisees who did not practice what they preached.

2. Selection

Luke 6:12 – Jesus prayed all night before choosing the twelve.

3. Partnership

Mark 3:14 – Jesus chose the disciples so that they might work with Him.

4. Life-Situation Learning

Jesus was always teaching them lessons from life.

5. Job-Related Training

Jesus was always teaching His disciples about the jobs He wanted them to do.

D. Global Discipleship

1. As disciples go about their daily tasks in the world, they will come in contact with unbelievers.

2. Some disciples go to other nations and cultures as missionaries.

E. Reproducing Disciple-Makers

Barnabas discipled Paul who discipled Timothy and so on.

1. The local body of believers wins converts and integrates them into the fellowship.

2. The local church provides small groups that help incorporate the group’s values into the individual’s own values.

3. The local church should contain disciple-makers who can advance the process of multiplication.

VII. Equipped for Mission

A. Who Are the Soldiers?

B. God Appoints Leaders to Equip His People for Mission

Ephesians 4:11-12 – God has given the Church certain people whose duty is to equip the saints.

Ephesians 4:1 – The equippers are to equip the saints to walk worthy of their calling.

Ephesians 4:7 – The equippers prepare the saints for ministry.

The equippers are to equip the saints to build up the body of Christ.

1. Apostle

An apostle goes to virgin territory, reaches people for Christ, plants churches, helps them grow, and then moves on.

The apostle equips the church for its missionary function by his example, his reporting, his exhortation, and his training of others for missionary service.

2. Prophet

The prophet proclaims God’s word and concern about nations, churches, and individuals.

The prophet equips the church with a holy value system, a sense of justice, and an urgency for the coming Kingdom.

3. Evangelist

The evangelist has a special ability to proclaim the gospel to unbelievers, both to large groups and to individuals.

4. Pastor-Teacher

The pastor-teacher nurtures the young and the weak in the faith, builds up the church, and equips each member of the body to fulfill his particular ministry.

C. Return to the Biblical Principle

We cannot expect one person (the pastor of a congregation) to do all these different jobs.

VIII. The People of God on Mission

A. Every Believer Is a Minister

There is not a distinction in the Bible between the clergy and they laity.

Ephesians 4:15-16 – Everyone is called to ministry.

B. Every Believer Has a Spiritual Gift

1 Corinthians 12:7, Romans 12:4-6, Ephesians 4:7, 1 Peter 4:10 – God has given every believer one or more spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 12:11-18, 25 – Spiritual gifts are spiritual abilities given to persons to enable them to minister to the entire body.

Galatians 5:22-23 – A life that has spiritual fruit is a life in which spiritual gifts can flourish.

1 Corinthians 12:11-27 – The purpose of the different spiritual gifts is that the body would be unified and interdependent

C. Every Believer Extends the Body to the World

Early churches grew because they served in the world. They worshipped and ministered in homes.

Acts 8:4 – In the first century Christians went everywhere for various reasons, but they preached the gospel wherever they went.

Acts 13:3; 14:26-27; 15:40 - Model for sending missionaries: Spend time in fasting and prayer. Send your best equippers. Cooperate with the Holy Spirit to send missionaries. Commend them to the grace of God for mission work. Receive reports of the fulfilled ministries of the missionaries. Commend them to return for further missionary service.

IX. God’s Go-Between

A. Purpose of Prayer in Missions

Prayer is the mighty means by which the church is empowered to demonstrate the wisdom and power of God to Satan and his hierarchy of rulers and demons.

Prayer is God’s way of giving the church on-the-job training in overcoming the forces hostile to God.

B. Pattern of Intercessory Prayer

2 Chronicles 20:1-25 – Win the battle in prayer first.

The purpose of intercessory prayer in missions is to overcome the spiritual powers that rule the nations and the hearts of unsaved men.

God uses His people as intercessors to train them in His purpose, to direct them in His battles, and to display to the evil powers His glorious plan of eternal partnership with man.

C. Power of Praying According to God’s Will

Prayer is designed to involve us in God’s purpose, not to involve God in our plans.

In order to pray successfully, we must know God’s will. We can know God’s will through the study of His word.

Matthew 9:37-38 – The reason there are so few people reaping the harvest is because we are not praying that the Lord will send out laborers.

D. Position of the Intercessor

The intercessor stands between God and the one for whom prayer is made.

E. Plan for Intercession

2 Corinthians 10:5 – Pray for protection of your mind.

Revelation 12:11 – Claim your right to pray.

Psalm 145 – Praise God for your salvation and assurance.

Ephesians 5:19-20 – Praise God for your salvation and all its blessings.

Romans 8:5 – Claim the mind of Christ.

Psalm 139:23-24 – Ask God to search your heart and show you any wickedness in it.

1 John 1:9 – Confess any sin that the Spirit has revealed in your heart.

2 Corinthians 5:21 – Claim Christ’s righteousness as the substitute for your sin.

Ask God to not let your emotions cloud the truth.

Isaiah 52:7-8 – Be prepared to take the gospel to anyone for whom you pray.

Ask God to fulfill the promises He gives in His word.

Ephesians 6:19-20 – Ask that God’s plan be executed and that His gospel be proclaimed boldly.

F. Priority of Intercessory Prayer in Missions

Movements of God are born in the prayer of His people.

G. Practice of Prayer for Missions

Every local church should have an intercessory prayer ministry enveloping local, associational, state, national, and international missions.

X. Mission Accomplished

A. The Will of God

2 Peter 3:9-12 – We are to evangelize the world because God wills it.

B. Needs of the World

Man’s greatest problem is lostness.

C. Uncertainty of the Future

The impending wrath of God on all unrighteousness has been withheld only because of God’s longsuffering toward man.

The uncertainty of the future demands that we take the gospel to every nation while there is still time.

D. Possibilities of This Age

Matthew 28:20 – God is working in the lives of His children to send them into the harvest.

God’s hand is moving throughout all the affairs of men and of nations to produce a harvest.

There may be people who reach a future generation, but if we do not reach our current generation it will be lost.

E. Imminence of Christ’s Return

Matthew 24:42-44 – Christ will return without warning.

Source: Biblical Basis for Missions by Avery T. Willis, Jr.: http://imb.org/core/biblicalbasis/default.htm

Contextual Christologies: A Look at Modern Christologies

2009-03-09T11:02:00.002-05:00

The second meeting of the Theologue-Troy group was held this past Friday at Village Coffee in Troy, Alabama. We had another great meeting. The next meeting will be Friday, April 3, at 8:30 am. Karen Alewine will be presenting on Missiology: Theology of Missions. We are hopeful more people will come out to participate in the discussion.
We have posted below the notes from Tyler Gresham's presentation on Contextual Chsitologies.

Within this discussion I want to discover what the orthodox view is of Christ and what contemporary contextual christologies say about Christ.

Orthodox Christology

Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can come to the father but by Him (John 14:6). He is one with the Father (John 10:30). He is the forgiver of sins (Mark 2:5). He is my Lord and my God (John 20:28).

What does Christ’s salvific work accomplish?

The atonement (Christ’s death for humanity’s sins) redeems us to God.

“Christ died once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).

“For if we have become united with Him [Christ] in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:5-6).

Our union with Christ kills death and removes us from the bondage of sin. Christ is our redeemer and savior, according to Orthodoxy. Our belief in His death and resurrection removes us from sin’s bondage and He is the only way to the Father.

Process Christology

Process Christology uses Heraclitus’s (540-475 BC) oft quoted dictum: “You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.” The christology uses Einstein’s principle of relativity and William James’s stream of consciousness thought as examples of process thought.

“The goal of process theology, based on the analysis of process philosophy, is to determine the relevance of the Christian faith for a culture increasingly imbued with the sense of becoming” (190).

“The most important concept is ‘actual entity’ or ‘occasion of experience.’ Everything in the universe, from God to the smallest puff of existence, is an entity. Each entity has two sides: mental and physical” (190).

God, therefore, is an entity, but perhaps a “‘bigger’ entity than others.” So, He is not distinct from the world, but a part of the world. “God and the world require each other for the intelligibility of each” (190). Therefore, to experience the world we must at some level also experience God. Process theology also highlights the tender, feminine aspects of God.

Process Christology has two main streams of thought: there are some process theologians “to whom Christ is just an extraordinary person, not a special revelation in the classical sense of the term”(192). “Christ is different only in degree, not in kind, from God’s other revelations” (192). The other stream of process thinkers believe Christ is unique and “is special in his personhood” (193). Both camps are universalist, believing that Christ is not an absolute savior because this would not align with God being love.

Process thinkers believe that the world is in the process of becoming, so God does not even know the course of the world. He has not predetermined or foreknown the future.

Process theologians have a great hope for the future, and that “God’s subjective aim is that the entities of the world constantly experience greater value. In that sense, total openness to the future provides the basis for hope that progress will occur.” There are problems with this openness, for it “is also risky. Human beings may choose self-annihilation in terms of ecological catastrophe caused by human actions or nuclear war. Even God cannot guarantee the future of the creation though the hope of the kingdom of God is a vision for the future” (195).

As for an afterlife, “human beings do not enjoy the immortality or experience resurrection in the traditional orthodox sense but rather add to the enjoyment of God and are ‘remembered’ by God” (195). This closely resembles a combination of Christianity and Buddhism.

Feminist Christology

“Many feminist thinkers insist that the personification of God as Father is a form of patriarchy and makes mechanisms for the oppression of women appear justified; from this grows male dominance” (196-7). “Gregory of Nazianzus ridiculed his opponents who thought God was male because God is called Father, or that deity is feminine because of the gender of the word, or that of the Spirit is neuter because it does not have personal names. Gregory insisted that God’s fatherhood has nothing to do with marriage, pregnancy, midwifery, or sexuality. God is not male, even though we call God him. It is just a conventional ways of using language. Christian theology believes that none of the divine Persons has a gender, but in their actions in humanity and the world, each Person is manifested under names borrowed from the genders” (197). Therefore, feminist thinker Elizabeth Johnson prefers to call God “She Who Is.”

According to Naomi Goldberg: “Jesus Christ cannot symbolize the liberation of women. A culture that maintains a masculine image for its highest divinity cannot allow its women to experience themselves as the equals of its men. In order to develop a theology of women’s liberation, feminists have to leave Christ and the Bible behind” (197-8).

Many women, and men, have embraced this theology because of the past when women were called “the gateway to hell” and “less than male,” because of the oppression that women in the church have experienced, and because of the interrelatedness of women with the experience of being mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters. Perhaps in the past a single male figure could represent all humanity, but with the thought of the interrelatedness of life today this is no longer so, according to feminist theology.

With this interrelatedness, God is no longer known “in the inner chamber of the heart or at a solitary place but in the true community of women and men. As a result, the experience of God is ‘the social experience of the self and the personal experience of sociality’” (199).

Feminist thinkers also argue that Christ is a prototype rather than an archetype. “This means that the biblical tradition of a male Jesus addressing his male Father is not an exclusive source but a re-source (only one way) for thinking about Jesus” (200). This has led many feminists to call Christ with the feminine Christa.

Therefore, when discussing salvation, feminists align “with liberation theologians” and recognize “salvation as a holistic shalom, social and physical wholeness and harmony. Salvation is understood relationally, between human beings and in relation to God. Only that kind of holistic approach can equip the church to fulfill its task in promoting justice, peace, and wholeness” (202).

Black Christiology

“The starting point for black theology in general and black Christology in particular is black experience. The proponents of this contextual theological movement argue for the uniqueness of black history and current experience, which have been taken into consideration in doing theology” (204). Therefore, liberation is a key point for black theology and Christology.

James Cone, the most famous black liberationist, “defines liberation as working so ‘that the community of the oppressed will recognize that its inner thrust for liberation is not only consistent with the gospel but is the gospel of Jesus Christ.’ Thus to speak of liberation as God’s work and intention in the world means that one must understand liberation as a permanent, final, and ultimate feature of one’s existence” (204-5). Therefore, the task of theology is “to identify with the humiliated and the abused” (205).

So, black theologians base their theology on their African heritage. They emphasize the “legacy of slavery and the struggle to survive under harsh and unjust oppression. ‘African slaves who embraced Christianity also modified and shaped it to meet their existential needs and saw, even in the contorted presentations of the gospel by some white people, a continuity between what they knew of God in Africa and the God of the Bible’” (205).

Therefore, African Americans have brought their own folktales and mythologies to the table as well, and with these they tell stories about God. James Evans, another prominent black theologian, notes, “‘The two stubborn facts of African American Christian existence are that God has revealed God’s self to the black community and that this revelation is inseparable from the historic struggle of black people for liberation’” (206).

In light of this, Christ becomes a very powerful figure for blacks. “‘The Messiah embodies the nationalist hopes and dreams of an oppressed people….It is noteworthy that continued oppression and travail did not destroy the messianic dream but intensified it’” (206).

The hope for a messianic age also included the hope that that age would issue forth an in-gathering of the people of God. “The idea of the in-gathering of the people of God seemed to support the hopes of pan-Africanism and the radical transformation of the world order and gave hope for the coming of justice and peace” (207). Furthermore, Evans believes that the “‘center of the African heroic poem is the epic hero.’” Many African Americans see the messianic hero as an epic hero. So, “this African mode of figural interpretation allows African American Christians to see in Jesus not only an epic hero who embodies the values that promote the liberation of the oppressed but also a mediator who is concerned about their daily survival” (207).

The black Messiah has aroused a heated debate between the larger theological community. While some blacks, such as Albert Cleage, believe in an actual, historical black Messiah (Cleage goes as far to suggest that the Bible was written by black Jews and that Christ was a Zealot attempting to overthrow the government to establish a black nation of Israel), many others believe in the historical Jewish Christ, and that “he is also the redeemer of each and every specific group. ‘The black Christ participates in the black experience. In some sense Christ makes contact with what the black Christian is aware of in his unique history and personal experience’” (209). Moreover, this makes the black Messiah a “mythical construct” to help blacks escape the negative views of being black.

Postmodern Christology

Postmodernism is one of the most recent of the schools of religious thought. “The postmodern notion of religion is characterized by consumerism: ‘The individual in the role of consumer is encouraged to pick and choose from a vast inventory of religious symbols and doctrines, to select those beliefs that best express his or her private sentiments’” (213). In postmodernism, “the church of the third millennium finds itself in the midst of a culture that has become ‘nothing but a meeting place for individual wills, each with its own set of attitudes and preferences and who understand that world solely as an arena for the achievement of their own satisfaction, who interpret reality as a series of opportunities for their enjoyment and for whom the last enemy is boredom’” (213).

With this attitude, “postmodernism cherishes pluralism and divergence and encourages consideration of the radical ‘contextuality’ or ‘situatedness’ of all thought forms and philosophies” (214). Postmodernist thinkers base their pluralism in the belief that “language is whimsical and capricious and does not reflect overarching, absolute linguistic laws. Consequently, one of the major tasks of postmodernist study is to deconstruct language; there is virtually no relationship between what the author meant and how the reader understands and appropriates the text….Some postmodernists even go so far as to say that the very idea of ‘meaning’ is a forced concept, implying that somebody had the authority to define the meaning” (214-5).

Therefore, postmodernists believe that no meaning can be placed on the biblical text. “The notion that there is a meaning to a biblical text—whether ascertained by church authority as in the premodern period or by critical scholarship as in the modern period—is blasphemy to the postmodern mind-set” (215). So, postmodernists have no real Christology because the system is “hostile to claims concerning a determined meaning” (215).

There are postmodern theological texts, but they are quite different from any other theological text. Mark Taylor, a postmodernist theologian, devised what he calls a/theology (a designation for a sort of anti-theology). To Taylor, “theological language does not refer to anything, and truth does not correspond to anything” (215). However, postmodernists do believe that instead of “analyzing and systematizing about Christ, the influence of Christ is to be lived again in any new context” so that one can become whole (216). “Theology is participation in life rather than the act of analyzing concepts” (216).

We will look at three distinct views of postmodern theology and christology. The first is a sort of postmodern liberation theology proposed by Harvey Cox. He believes that churches will embrace postmodernism to “affirm social justice, the rights of the poor, a communal understanding of salvation, and democracy not only in society but also in the church” (217).

Mark Taylor is a proponent of radical postmodernism. He bases his views on those of Thomas J. J. Altzier, who believed in “the death of God.” He viewed this “‘self-annihilation of God,’ as an event in history. Beginning in the incarnation and culminating at the cross, God emptied himself in the person of Jesus Christ. God became fully identical with humanity by negating his own objective existence through finite life and death. This ‘passage’ of God in history to total immanence, in Altzier’s analysis, was an act of grace for the sake of creature and creation” (218). Taylor “argues for the elimination of the concepts of self, truth, meaning, good, and evil. […] Without God—since God is ‘dead’—there is no central perspective, no objective truth of things, no ‘real thing’ beyond language” (218). For Taylor, revelation and reconciliation with God are totally meaningless.

Ted Peters believes in an evangelical approach to postmodernism. He wants to understand “‘how God’s promise of future wholeness for all creation affects our life now amid a world of brokenness’” (219). Peters’ rejects many mainline postmodern beliefs and stresses for the contextualization of the Gospel. He would like the “church’s theology and ministry….to be made intelligible and effective in each context to which Christians are called to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ” (220). He only believes in postmodernity because it is our current context, so our theology should address it. For Peters, Christ brings the forgiveness of sins and “a proleptic foretaste of new creation” (220). He believes in the factuality of the cross and resurrection, and says that Christ is the “final prophet, the final priest, and the final king” (221).

Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. Christology: An Ecumenical, International, and Contextual

Perspective. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003.

The Doctrine of Scripture: Theologue-Troy February 6, 2009

2009-02-09T10:07:00.003-06:00

The first meeting of the Theologue-Troy was held this past Friday at Village Coffee in Troy, Alabama. We had a good meeting and the discussion was a lot of fun. There really is no great time to include both college students and career types. So, we are going to plan on continuing to meet on the first Friday of every month. The next meeting will be Friday, March 6, at 8:30 am. Tyler Gresham will be presenting Christology: Views of Christ. We are hopeful more people will come out to participate in the discussion.
We have posted below the notes from Reid's presentation on The Doctrine of Scripture.

Historical Views of Inspiration
I. Scripture as the Word of God:
God reveals himself through His creation (that is general revelation) and through His word (that is special revelation). There is enough revelation in general revelation to give people enough knowledge of God to be accountable for their actions, but not enough to deliver themselves from judgment. This is why Paul says, in 2 Timothy 3:15, that God has revealed Himself by means of the Scriptures; that we might be made “wise unto salvation.” Throughout the history of the church, there has been agreement with Paul concerning the centrality of Scripture.
A. The Apostolic Period -
Scripture is the written word of God, which testifies to God’s plan of salvation centered on Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate. Jesus himself affirmed the status of Scripture as “the Word of God” in John 10:35. He also confirmed that it bore witness to His work in John 5:39. Paul viewed his own writing to be not merely human words, but “words taught by the Spirit” in 1 Corinthians 2:13, so that the message of the apostles was “the word of God.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
B. The Early Church -
Christians in the post-apostolic church rarely used the phrase “word of God” to speak of Scripture. However, the idea that the words of the Bible constitute a message from God is clearly attested to by an overwhelming consensus of theologians over a period of more than a thousand years.
Irenaeus (Against Heresis) used the phrase “the Holy Spirit says,” referring to Scripture.
Tertullian (Apology) referred to the Bible as a “written revelation from God.”
Augustine (Enchiridion) referred to Scripture as “divine” and to the biblical authors as writers who “by divine assistance were enabled.”
Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae) stated that “the author of Holy Scripture is God.”
C. Protestant Church -
The protestant reformers were more emphatic in their designation as the Bible as the “word of God.” Luther commonly used the terms “Word of God” and “Scripture” interchangeably. Calvin (in The Institutes) spoke of the Bible as “having sprung from heaven, as if there, the living words of God were heard.” (1.7.1) Reformed confessions such as the Second Helvetic (1566) and Westminster (1646) speak of the Bible as the word of God.

II. The Inspiration of Scripture:
The Church’s classical confession of the divine authorship of Scripture is closely linked to the doctrine of Inspiration. This term is derived from the language Paul used in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”(ESV)
θεoπνευστος [theopneustos (the-o'-pnyü-stos)] adjective; inspired by God. From Theo: God and Pneo: to breathe. Literally, God-breathed.[1] Of course, the pneuma can also mean “spirit” (as in John 3:8 where Jesus uses the word twice, once meaning wind and the other meaning spirit. In context then, Paul says that all Scripture is a product of the work of the Spirit of God.
A. All Scripture -
First, note that Paul ascribes this quality to all Scripture, not just the parts in red. This would mitigate any buffet view of Scripture in which some of the bible is seen as God’s word, while other parts are seen as human ingenuity. We will see the importance of this when we view the modern alternatives to Plenary Inspiration in the next section.
From a strictly historical context, Paul is here referring only to the writings that we know as the Old Testament (though he may have also had the early gospels in view). However, from the earliest days of the church, Christians have consistently applied Paul’s statement here to the New Testament as well. This is justified on the following grounds:
Jesus saw His message and mission as absolutely consistent with “the Law and
the prophets.” (Matthew 5:17-20)
Jesus commissioned His apostles as agents of divine revelation, inspired by the
Holy Spirit. (John 15:26-17)
Jesus stated that future believers would come to faith through the apostolic word, of
which the New Testament is a written deposit. (John 17:20)
B. Scripture Inspired -
Second, Paul says that Scripture is inspired by God. This clearly extends inspiration not only to the writers but to the documents themselves. We will see why this is important in our review of the Quantitative Inspiration view in the next section. For now it is enough to understand that the writers did not just feel a feeling of inspiration from God that they tried to express in language, but they received a message from God that could be set forth in words.
C. Verbal, Plenary Inspiration -
Theologians have sometimes used the words “verbal” and “plenary” to describe the traditional Christian doctrine of biblical inspiration.
1. Verbal Inspiration, refers to the idea that the very words of Scripture are the words God desired to be written. They are as Paul puts it, “words taught by the Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 2:13) Modern Protestants see Scripture as simultaneously the Word of God and the words of men. While this view takes seriously the different personalities of the biblical authors, it insists that the words used by the writers were not merely human attempts to articulate their experience of God. The words were those which God wanted written, and He supervised the writing of the words in such a way as to not override the humanity of the biblical authors.
2. Alternatives, have sometimes replaced verbal inspiration as many modern theologians falsely equate it with what is called Dictation Theory of Inspiration.
Dictation Theory; view of inspiration that views the biblical writers as scribes who wrote down words dictated tot hem by the Holy Spirit. While some ancient and modern writers have spoken of biblical inspiration in terms more or less approximating dictation, in an attempt to emphasize that the very words of Scripture are the words of God, the overall consensus of Christian history has been to reject the notion of dictation in the strictest sense. Dictation fails to take into account the different writing styles and experiences of the various biblical authors, and is closer to what Islam believes concerning the Koran.
Quantitative Theory (or Illumination View); view of inspiration that defines it in such a way as to make Scripture only quantitatively superior to the writings of men such as Shakespeare or Plato. In an attempt to distance themselves from a dictation theory, these Christians define inspiration in terms of the experience of the writers of Scripture, who received inspired feelings or ideas from God, then sought to express these in words. While this does take seriously the differences in personality found in the biblical authors, it fails to recognize Scripture as qualitatively different from any other writings. The difference between Scripture and all other writings is one of kind, not merely one of just quality or degree.
3. Plenary Inspiration, simply means full. It is thus another way of saying that all Scripture is inspired by God and consequently “cannot be broken.” (John 10:35)
4. Alternatives, have sometimes replaced plenary inspiration as modern theologians try to synthesize Quantitative Theory in various degrees with verbal inspiration.
Encounter View; Karl Barth was a twentieth-century Swiss theologian who rejected the traditional notion of verbal, plenary inspiration and did not regard the Bible as the word of God. In his Church Dogmatics, Barth refuses to acknowledge any revelation apart from the Person of Jesus Christ. He says, “Revelation remains revelation and does not become a revealed state. Revelation remains identical with Christ.” (118) God’s one self-revelation is the person of Christ. Since this revelation can not be confined to the past, for Barth it is identical only to the risen Christ who continues to live and to indwell believers. No words about Christ can be classified as revelation in a direct sense, nor any ideas about God, as revelation is only the person of God who reveals Himself to us when we encounter the risen Christ.
Therefore, Scripture can only be called the word of God in a secondary sense. By the Holy Spirit it became and will become a witness to the divine revelation of the risen Christ. It becomes the word of God when Jesus confronts us through it. None of the Bible is the word of God, but it may all become the word of God to us. Thus, the personal encounter which believers have (experience) becomes the theological norm. This view is very popular today and is the interpretive basis for the postmodern Christian sub-culture.
Historical Acts (or Dynamic View); is another modern school of thought that identifies divine revelation with God’s saving acts in history. The Bible is a witness to past saving acts o God, but is not itself divine revelation. It simply consists of the ancient writers’ attempts to articulate the impact of God’s saving acts on their lives.
Therefore, Scripture is merely human responses to God’s acts in history. While the definition of revelation is different than Barth’s it has the same problem as not seeing revelation as including language but only experience. This view even takes one step further in saying that the writers did not necessarily encounter God directly, but rather the results of what God did for them.
Partial-inspiration; is a third modern approach which takes a two-level view of biblical inspiration. While the approach takes on various forms, it basically states that there is a qualitative difference between biblical statements concerning spiritual matters and those that concern historical or temporal matters.
Spiritual matters are seen as inspired and therefore true.
Historical matters are seen as secondary and may not be historically accurate or true.
Some in this view hold that certain statements in Scripture may be historically false, yet convey spiritual truth. This view differs from that of Barth and the “God-who-acts” perspectives in that it does attempt to link divine revelation with the words of the Bible and thus includes ideas and not just experience. However, it falls short in that it attributes error to some of what bible authors wrote about history. Rather than dismiss the historical text, they reinterpret them as something like parables or allegories. This drives a wedge between the words of the biblical authors and the word of God. This highlights the connection between the theories on biblical inspiration and methods of interpretation. Because of that connection, I would like to highlight a few of those methods.

III. Interpretation of Scripture:
A. Allegorical –
An allegory is the expression of truths through symbolic figures and actions or generalizations about human conduct or experience. The notion that readers of Scripture must interpret many events as allegories has its root in Greek philosophical dualism. According to this worldview, historical events and realities, including language, are but images or shadows of divine realities. (see Plato’s Republic, book 6) The Judeo-Christian worldview, on the other hand, is rooted in the idea that God has acted and spoken at specific times and places in history. For this reason they actually avoided allegory and focused on actual words and deeds. This only began to change in the second and third century with Marcion and Origen.
B. Literal –
During the forth and fifth centuries, strong opposition arose to these allegorical methods. The uniting idea in these oppositions was the belief that the primary meaning of the text was its literal, historical sense that which the biblical writers intended to convey by means of ordinary usage of human language.
These early opponents had little lasting effect on the popularity of the allegorical method until the onset of the Protestant Reformation. With the Reformation came a renewed emphasis on the Hebrew background of the bible and on the literal interpretation. Martin Luther, who was trained in the allegorical method as a Roman Catholic Augustinian Monk said, “Scripture’s plainest meaning are to be preserved; and unless the context manifestly compels one to do otherwise, the words are not to be understood apart from their proper and literal sense.” (Martin Luther: Selections, 266) In emphasizing the plain, literal sense Luther did not deny that Scripture contained figures of speech and symbolic language. In fact, he emphasized that the writer’s own words and historical background should determine the interpretation of the text. This grammatical-historical exegesis approach stresses that the meaning of the Bible is clear enough for any reasonably informed person to understand. It also opened new avenues of theological insight which allowed the reformation to articulate fresh perspectives on the previously unchallenged dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. However, the new emphasis on the historical led in time to another interpretive approach called the historical-critical method, which carried consequences unforeseen by Luther.
C. Historical-critical –
During the eighteenth century biblical scholarship came under the strong influence of Enlightenment philosophy. The Rationalist wing of this intellectual movement defined history as a closed continuum of cause and effect. This left no room for the miraculous or supernatural. When applied to biblical interpretation it led to a historical-critical hermeneutic, which declared that the biblical accounts of the supernatural were not history but myths. Myth was seen as a primitive way of interpreting remarkable events in the pre-scientific age of the Bible. That leaves it to the interpreter to go behind the myth and discover what really happened. This came under very serious attack toward the end of the nineteenth century showing that the gospel accounts were written in such a way that it is impossible to separate the historical Jesus from the supernatural Christ.
Thus, the Allegorical method seeks to find the meaning above the text by way of spiritual interpretation. The Literal method seeks to find the meaning within the text by means of grammatical-historical exegesis. The Historical-critical method seeks to find the meaning behind the text by means of investigative interpretation.
The key is that the Literal method best describes the traditional or orthodox view of Scripture as the word of God, inspired through divine revelation, and thus authoritative and sufficient for matters of faith and conduct.

[1] Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for theopneustos (Strong's 2315)". Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 4 Feb 2009. < strongs="G2315&t="KJV">

First Meeting - Friday, February 6, 2009

2009-01-21T12:41:00.003-06:00

The First Meeting of the Theologue-Troy group will be held on the first Friday in February @ 8:30 a.m. The topic for discussion will be The Doctrine of Scripture. Reid Ward will present on Historical Views of Inspiration to get the discussion started. Everyone is welcome to attend and participate.