***“Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately. What I receive is only a thin little stream and what I can then give out again is only a yet thinner extract of this little stream. I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life just with Calvin” (Letter to Eduard Thurneysen, June 8, 1922).

The musings of the 36 year old Karl Barth upon acceptance of the Chair in Reformed Theology at Göttingen after his own “bombshell dropped into the playground of the theologians,” his peculiar commentary “The Epistle to the Romans,” made him a star in the theological world.

Do not imagine that acquaintance with Calvin’s disciples or Calvin’s interpreters approaches acquaintance with the man himself. He did not get to be Calvin by spoiling otherwise happy gatherings with fierce debates about predestination and an angry God. Read him for yourself. Start with the Institutes (1559) in the Battles/McNeill edition. You will meet more of yourself there than you expected and you will begin to understand how Barth could become so alternately awestruck and smitten.

***I suppose I first learned of the inevitable idolatrous tendency of protestant liberalism (and apologetic approaches to theology generally) from Karl Barth. He convinced me that unless we allow the God-borne witness to in Holy Scripture to speak for Himself, we find ourselves speaking in His place, and so, wittingly or not, we make a “god.”

Now that I am writing on C.S. Lewis, I find in him something of that distinctive, hard-nosed dogmatism I found in Barth. Note this passage from Mere Christianity: “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive. . . . And half of you already want me to ask me, ‘I wonder how you’d feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?’ So do I. I wonder very much. . . .I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do―I can do precious little—I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it.”

Those words could as easily have been written by Karl Barth. Dogmatism is justly associated with the darker dimensions of human nature and behavior; the furrowed brow, the protruded neck vein, the angrily pointed finger. But in Lewis and Barth, dogmatism puts on a happy face. Lewis found a way to let Christianity be itself while pursuing Christian unity. He shied away from internecine Christian squabbles. He found it unseemly. Barth loved a good debate, but also enjoyed good faith ecumenical dialogue and insisted that theology, above all else, is a “happy science,” because it deals, first and last, with Good News.

***Check out the article in the November 27 Wall Street Journal by Arthur C. Brooks, “A Charitable Explanation.” Everybody knows that France cares more and does more for the poor than other nations. And everybody knows that liberals in America care more and do more for the poor than conservatives. NOT! on both counts.

Americans give, per capita (gross as well, by a long shot, but the per capita is the real kicker) more in the month of December than most countries give all year. France turns out to be one of the stingiest, laziest, and least couragous countries on the planet when it comes to giving to charity or lifting a finger to help the poor.

Conservatives in America are not only four times more likely to attend church, they outpace liberals by a long shot on giving to charity, volunteering for charitable causes and offering hands-on help to the poor. Conservatives even out-pace liberals and secularists with money and time contributed to non-church-related social organizations.

But wait! Conservative evangelicals are fixated on making money, stopping abortion, and yelling at homosexuals, right? Well, liberals are carrying home barrels full of money too, and now we know they are choosing to keep much more of it for themselves than conservatives do. Go figure. And apparantly, conservatives have energy left over to actually help the poor even after expending themselves in making money (so they can give more than the liberals I guess), defending the unborn, and speaking biblical truth to power regarding God’s loving warning against homosexual behavior.

And conservatives do all this in the face of patronizing ridicule from everybody from the Mainstream Media to the cultural secularists to Oprah and especially their own liberal and progressive Christian brothers and sisters who scold them for not caring more about the poor!

I just know Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo must be tickled about these numbers. A next book title suggestion for either author: Learning to Love the Poor From Conservative Evangelicals–And Getting our Own House in Order.

Message from conservative evangelicals to liberals looking for ways to help the poor: “Jump on in. The water is fine.”

***Must evangelicalism and emerging churches be enemies?

Thomas Oden views modernity as the dying intellectual and cultural framework beyond which postmodern believers may move for the recovery of ancient, orthodox and yes, evangelical Christianity. He defines modernity according to the following four substantive or ideological commitments: (1) autonomous individualism (Sartre, Nietzsche, Hemingway) or in the East, (2) autonomous collectivism/utopianism (Marx); (3) narcissistic hedonic assertiveness (Rousseau, Shelly, D.H. Lawrence, Madonna), (4) reductive naturalism/historicism (Bultmann/Freud, Skinner); (4) absolute moral relativism (Dewey, Bultmann, Feuerbach) and one methodological principle, modern chauvinism according to which old ideas are viewed as necessarily inferior to new ideas.

Oden has this to say of two interpreters of postmodernism preferred by some emerging church (EC) leaders: “Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty have led us into a cult of subjectivism and sentiment that reduces truth to subjective preferences.” Oden views evangelicalism (as a whole and as a distinguishable historical movement) as a refuge of sanity and faithful Christian memory where ancient, orthodox, Biblical Christianity has been comparatively preserved and where the dying and retrograde convictions of modernity have had to contend with Biblical truth and the Spirit of God.

Could it be that the strong protest-element against evangelicalism driving the thinking of some EC leaders is based largely upon idiosyncratic, historically and geographically misinformed and so distortive comprehension of evangelical Christianity? Could such distortive conceptual lenses pre-dispose some to an unnoticed and undesired drift into what Oden recognizes as ultramodernity?

Prospects for reconciliation within mainline denominations between increasingly dissatisfied and disgruntled evangelicals and increasingly discredited, dysfunctional and de-funded liberals will be reduced, says Oden, to the extent that bureaucratic ecumenism remains emotively fixated on (a) ultrafeminist rhetoric, (b) the romantic idealization of secularity, (c) an accommodation to syncretism in world religions that disavow witness to Jesus Christ, and (d) fantasies of rational redistribution of wealth by political planning elites who always plan their own interest first in any plan, as we have learned the hard way.

Will EC leaders settle increasingly into predictably politically correct convictions on one issue after another? For example, will renewed zeal for social justice coincide with liberal democratic recipes for improvement? Will EC exegesis exhibit increased confidence in extracting storied meanings from Biblical narratives that appear oddly novel against the backdrop of two millennia of orthodox exegesis while experiencing intractable befuddlement and ambiguity regarding say, teaching on homosexual behavior that has enjoyed remarkable consensus across those same millennia? Will interest and protectiveness wane with regard to the exclusive claims of Christ, or the distinction between witness as message that draws persecution and good works and service within and without the believing community, the substituionary dimension of Christ’ atoning work?

However things develop, Thomas Oden’s voice will help to sharpen our understanding of the issues involved.

***Lewis modeled the retention of myth and story as fit instruments for Christian expression, entertainment, inquiry, and instruction. He did so against the backdrop of the deadening, spirit-evacuating tendencies of the higher critical approaches to history and the Bible so dominant at the time. Lewis did so earlier, more impressively, and with more faithfulness to orthodox Christianity than some of those influenced by the Yale-based Narrative School shaped by Hans Frei and George Lindbeck more than three decades after Out of the Silent Planet appeared.

For example, where some students of the Narrative School sit loose with regard to the historicity of the resurrection and its necessity for orthodox Christian confession, Lewis could not. Partly because, as Lewis himself put it in Surprised by Joy, “ I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths.” Appreciation for the uniqueness, power, and beauty of story as an indispensable vehicle for Christian expression, instruction, and worship need not and ought not to require either the neglect or the despising of doctrine. Retention, acknowledgement, and enjoyment of propositional truth and the recovery of Biblical narrative are not mutually exclusive quests. Just ask C.S. Lewis.

***Do not miss the Geminids Meteor Shower tonight. They are better than the Perseids that show up every August. Yes it will be cold. But we are talking between 60 and 120 meteors per hour and they move slower than the Perseids, resulting in a thicker tail and longer viewing time. So, if it is clear where you live, bundle up, get some distance from city lights, lie on your back and brace yourself for astral stimulation. P.S. Don’t forget to apply lip balm.

***Well not exactly, but, like Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and many others across the centuries, Lewis’ subsequent reflection upon his own conversion included punctiliar, durative and progressive dimensions. He may have been Surprised By Joy in 1931 but, as George Sayer has put it, Lewis “began to believe in a nebulous power outside himself” in 1926. Warren viewed his brother’s conversion “as no sudden plunge into a new life but rather a slow steady convalescence from a deep-seated spiritual illness of long standing.”

Some leaders of the emerging church movement advocate a “belonging before believing” approach to spiritual seekers and non-believers alike, partly as an acknowledgement that God’s dealings with those he draws to himself involve discernible divine activity often over very long periods of time. Reduction of divinely wrought conversion to the narrow confines of a Damascus Road like event may fail to do justice to the full scope of God’s providential redeeming activity.

But surely openness to more durative conceptions of conversion fails to justify the “belonging before believing” mantra of some. Merely being human and/or curious does not a Christian make. Until Lewis gave a clear, credible confession of his faith in Jesus Christ, he had not yet legitimized his reception into full communion with a body of believers called Christian.

Recognition that God’s converting activity takes place over time, even over many years, need not weaken confessional standards for church membership, but it should free us to speak differently about conversion and ease the pressure applied in some quarters to nail down ones conversion to time and place with great certainty. Indeed, might not one view conversion as punctiliar and divine converting activity as durative without expecting exacting perception and tracking of these things by believers themselves? Our comprehension of God’s hand in our own lives and in the lives of others remains proximate and provisional, and that’s OK. For Charles Spurgeon, the ability to nail down with certainty the timing and nature of what happened to ourselves or others back when was less pressing than the presence of discernible evidence for regeneration today.

***“Standing up for truth… has no appeal to emerging church leaders” (Gibbs-Bolger, p. 124).

Dan Kimball objects to the stereotyping of emerging churches and who can blame him? Effort to understand before critiquing is common courtesy; it is an act of doing unto others as we would have done to ourselves. In particular Kimball counters charges of emerging church doctrinal latitudinarianism: “All the emerging churches I know believe in the inspiration of the Bible, the Trinity, the atonement, the bodily resurrection, and salvation in Jesus alone.” The above quote from Gibbs and Bolger, while not justifying some of the more rash generalizations that one encounters, does help explain why concerns are being raised.

Scott McKnight says that Gibbs-Bolger “show that the center of the movement is about ecclesiology not epistemology.” It may be true that Gibbs-Bolger’s impressive marshalling of primary source material shows this and, more importantly, it may actually be true. But Gibbs-Bolger also tell us that the movement was shaped “at a time when there was growing ferment that not only the methods but also the message needed to change.” Then Todd Hunter is quoted thus, “We got the gospel wrong” (p. 49). Not epistemological? Pages 69 and following argue for epistemologically significant narrative approaches to scripture texts and single out foundationalism for special critique. Even in the introduction, an emerging church leader impatient with the generational focus of some church growth leaders is quoted thus, “I couldn’t really figure out why people were obsessing about a subgroup when an enormous epistemological shift was occurring.”

To my ears at least, Kimball and McKnight strike a very different notes than much that I am reading in Gibbs-Bolger.

***The Nativity did not disappoint, even though after habituating the audience so thoroughly to words of comfort and warning from angels and through dreams, the producers inexplicably departed from the Biblical witness and had the Wise Men think better of returning to Herod with the location of the child King on their own, unaided by divine messengers. Go figure.

But the movie captured a fundamental message of the Biblical narratives: our God delights to bestow special favor on the poor, the aged, the disenfranchised, and the world’s rejects and to take his place beside them. It has been his way from the beginning. The history of God’s dealings with humanity is replete with such upside down divine dealings. He makes Israel; not a people, a people. He chooses younger despised brothers—Jacob, Joseph, and David to represent him.

Are we healthy and wealthy? By global and historic measures, most Americans certainly are wealthy. Are we popular and powerful? If so the word of the Lord shouts, “Watch Out! Do not be deceived.” What do we have that is not a gift? And if a gift, why do we boast? God’s blessings confer favor but also responsibility.

Are we poor, sick, despised, and without influence or status in the estimation of the world? The word of the Lord shouts, “Watch Out! Do not be deceived.” Our God resists the proud and lifts up the humble. When God took own humanity in Jesus, he came in low indeed, and stayed low for a long time. When he was finally lifted up, it was on a cross that we deserved. But the grave could not hold Him.

This is the way of our God. He stoops to us to help us but also to model what he expects from and empowers in us, his children; that we would think soberly, humble ourselves and serve the poor, the sick, the outcast, the aged and the prisoners. By so doing, we show acquaintance with the ways of the only God and knowledge of what it cost him to make us ours. Our imitation of him does not make us his, but it does please him and because he causes us to fall in love with him, his pleasure is ours as well.

See The Nativity at a theatre near you.

***“What would I not give to get away from a cantankerous congregation and look into the friendly eyes of animals?” Thus Martin Luther facetiously dismissed Andreas Carlstadt’s increasing distaste for town life and aversion to scholarship and burdensome pastoral duties; all three resisted as distractions from quite times in which to cultivate the inner life. Luther viewed Carlstadt’s new radicalism about as favorably as he did the old monasticism. What Carlstadt meant as devotion to God and the pursuit of personal holiness Luther viewed as abandonment of responsibility and the dumbing down of the ministry of the Word.

“Be ye separate” and “Go ye into all the world” are not new commands, and neither is the church’s struggle to satisfy both. Wendell Berry’s spiritual retreat to Henry County Kentucky after his stint at Stanford has entered its fifth decade. I don’t expect him to give up the blue skies and the manure anytime soon. But must we view Berry’s half-century in the sticks as self-serving retreat from responsibility? Amazon rankings suggest the poet/farmer is providing a valued service to more than a few somebodys.

But surely retreat, especially as a lifestyle, can become a spiritual temptation. Perhaps one indicator of legitimate spiritual retreat is precisely its desire to “go ye” with renewed zeal at its conclusion. Dietrich Bonhoeffer labored mightily for the recovery of a rich regime of spiritual retreat in community and by oneself in prayer, Bible study, meditation and worship. But (good Lutheran that he was) Bonhoeffer recognized two unmistakable duties owed by the Christian and the Church to the world Christ died to save―witness and service. Retreat for the sake of pursuing or nurturing some navel-gazing personal holiness given the alien righteousness of Christ and a world in need of the gospel and love delegitimizes the whole sorry business. “Plunge into the tempest of living!” That was Bonhoeffer’s clarion call.

Can we read Paul’s litany of hardship, weakness, and opposition in 2 Corinthians without blushing at fanciful justifications for retreatest, escapest construals of the holy life? The Franciscans are to be commended for resistance to this kind of thing. From time to time our Savior separated himself from the clamoring crowds needing and demanding his help, and perhaps we must as well. Certainly Jesus needed the strength only time alone with the Father provided―for the cross!