Bringing "Our Father" Into Today's Church

Eddie Fernandes

The mission given to the church remains the same as the one first given to the early believers by the Lord Jesus Christ 2000 years ago: “to go and make disciples of all nations (people)” (Matthew 28:19,20). For a church like Riverside International Church, in Lisbon, Portugal, to discover how to carry out its mission in the fragmented, unique and complex world it is planted in, it must first come to grips with the God who gave the mission it is trying to carry out. The Bible does not give us a comprehensive definition of God. We know that He is Spirit (John 4:24), but in truth none of us can fully comprehend all that is implied in that Biblical teaching (I Cor. 2:16). Being Spirit does not simply mean that He does not have a physical or material body. Some of the things that are given to us to know about God are revealed in the Holy Bible. By reading it we understand that Our Almighty God is loving, caring, personal, plural, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, unique, immutable, the self-existent Creator of the universe and everything in it. These are but a few characteristics God chooses to reveal about Himself to His people. The Bible also reveals a God who is paradoxically transcendent and immanent.

So how does a church present such a wonderful and awesome God to this generation? How do we deal with the paradox of a close yet distant God? We are all called to be His witnesses to our generations (Acts 1:8). I truly believe that every single person that walks through the doors of any church, on any given Sunday, does so to try and find out about this incredible God. They come seeking, inquiring, longing for, hoping and even desiring to meet with Him. While some are not completely convinced there is such a God – often Christians turned them off Him – they come because deep down they hope there is, and that He will reward them by making Himself known to them. I am convinced that the deepest cry of the human soul is for help – help from something or someone that is infinitely greater than we are. God has placed eternity in the heart of every human being (Eccl. 3:11).

When seekers enter churches all over the world, I submit that they are presented either with a picture of a God that is primarily or predominantly transcendent, or with a picture of a God that is primarily or predominantly immanent. The goal of the church should be successfully to embrace, present and live within the tension of both these pictures of God.

In churches predominantly focusing on the transcendence of God the liturgy, the apparel of the “holy man”, the imagery, the structure of the buildings, the ritual and ceremony – in short the whole approach to Him – communicates that He is so great and so mighty that He is almost as inaccessible as the crow perched on the high steeple outside (Is. 55:9). It has been my observation that a large number of people in these types of churches struggle to come to enjoy a personal, warm, real, living and intimate relationship with the Lord God. Having visited scores of such churches I have sensed very little joy, enthusiasm or excitement in these beloved believers. Everything about the environment of these churches communicates distance: from the position of the lofty richly decorated altar to the unusual ornamented robes of the clergy.

On the flipside of the coin we have churches that focus predominantly on the picture of an immanent God (Col. 1:27). The picture of Christ living with and in believers is strongly pursued whilst the picture of transcendence makes everyone feel uncomfortable. The church buildings are normally stripped of all imagery, meetings take place in all kinds of places, the services have a relaxed feel to them, the dress of both “holy man” and congregant is casual and whatever is considered “normal” in the societal context; the music, message and format of the service is relaxed, contemporary and, in some cases, relevant. Seekers feel more comfortable entering these churches because they can relate to many things they see and hear. Yet too often, the reverence, the holiness, the “fear of the Lord”, the “otherness” of God so prevalent in the pages of Scripture is lost. God is reduced to the status of a “buddy” living next door. We are encouraged in Hebrews 12:28 to “be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.” The way God is treated by many believers in so many of these types of churches today would offend the vast majority of Christians who lived just 30 years ago. I am further convinced that the patriarchs and saints of old would cringe at the disrespect shown towards “the Ancient of Days” in so many of our more charismatic churches today. The reverence and awe is replaced by disrespect for the holy.

Of course these observations are not intended as a blanket statement. There are many exceptions on both sides of the pendulum. There are many wonderful and healthy churches that correctly balance both pictures of God. They are “walking in the fear of the Lord (transcendence) and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit (immanence)” and as a result they too are being multiplied! (Acts 9:31).

We cannot box God in. Everything about Him will always be infinitely greater than what our finite mind will be able to grasp. The combined knowledge and wisdom of the whole Riverside community I serve as pastor, indeed of all the churches in Lisbon and beyond, will not even begin to scratch the surface of the greatness of our God. The challenge ever before us is how we can we present a balanced and objective picture of God.

The Bible clearly teaches that He is simultaneously transcendent and immanent. There is no one correct way to approach Him. There is no one right way to serve and worship Him. When all is said and done whatever we do to minister to Him will always be infinitely less than what He really deserves. As the Psalmist wrote “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens…When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:1, 3, 4). Whatever methods we mortals use, whichever way we “design” our church services and ministries, all that we do to reach out to Him and to His lost creation, will always be the results of our imperfect attempts to serve a perfect God. Our comfort and our strength is the fact that He helps us along the way by His Holy Spirit. But at the end of the day we are still imperfect beings struggling with all of the imperfections that so easily war against us.

The greater part of my past experience with God was one that focused almost exclusively on His immanence. Some years ago when things began to change I found myself criticizing and judging less what others were doing. I started entering church buildings and attending services in churches that those who experienced God the way I did had always labelled as: traditional, archaic, outdated, conservative, boring, irrelevant, dead! I stopped pointing out the “wrong way” others were trying to serve Him and their communities. I began instead to be open and to observe what God was – and is – doing in the world in the most diverse places. With eyes wide open (in amazement) as a silent observer, I began seeing for the first time God at work in people who were more ready than I had ever thought. I began to pray more, listen more and speak less. I started hearing and seeing Him at work more than I had ever done. The blinds I had worn had filtered out His obviously manifest presence. Today I am a learner. There is sheer enjoyment observing God at work in His universal church… with all of its flaws and shortcomings! Whereas in the past I avoided those “dead” churches, now I am a student of the traditions, rituals, liturgies, forms, images, writings and symbols. I am reading again, but from a different angle, the history of my beloved church. Fascinated, I fellowship with priests, canons, bishops, reverends and vicars. My hope is to understand, to learn what can be learned, to build bridges, to open hearts and to see God at work in people and places I had totally ignored!

Many of my fellow ministers misunderstand me. Sadly, as often happens when one tries to unite instead of divide, they are shunned and cut off. We seem to love our sectarianism and therefore we polarise towards division. Strange how we continue to ignore the gut-wrenching, heart-cry of our dear Lord? How do we continue to disobey this plea? “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (John 17:22-23). We don’t have to agree with everything. I am not advocating in any way that we should embrace everything that is out there. We will continue to disagree over belief, teaching, doctrine, practice and conduct. Unity does not mean uniformity. Does a husband always agree with his wife? Does a parent always see eye-to-eye with his teenage son or daughter? Does a brother argue with his siblings? Division destroys our ranks. Satan’s work is facilitated. He need not waste his energy doing battle against the church when the church is successfully going to war against itself! Unity builds bridges, love opens hearts, Christ mends the broken walls, and the Spirit takes care of differences and fixes wrong conduct and doctrine (cf. Zechariah 4:6).

Mistakenly when we look at churches that focus predominantly on the transcendence of God with all of their rituals and traditions, we, in the immanent camp, believe they have missed the point by relegating God to a remote place in the universe. Erroneously we believe that the rituals are but feeble attempts to bring this distant God into their present reality. We struggle with the fact that they do not understand that God is all around them, in fact, desires to live in them! Today, I am beginning to understand that many, not all but many, do believe that. Their approach to Him is not because of His distance and isolation but rather due to a more correct understanding that He is distinct from, separate from, and above everything known to man. For many the ritual has nothing to do with His remoteness but rather His “otherness”. Many of these believers have correctly grasped God’s incredible vastness and greatness. Howbeit, the truth is that many still need to press further in order to discover His nearness. They need to discover a God that desires to live inside each one of His children and enjoy the fruit of such a personal and immanent relationship (cf. Rev. 3:20).

The word immanent comes from the Latin word “in” and “manere” which means to remain. God, the infinite Spirit, created everything and is present in every part of His creation. He is not to be confused with His creation. He is not the creation itself as Pantheism teaches. He is, however, intimately linked to everything. With regard to mankind, the creation He loved so much He died to redeem, He not only wants to surround, he wants to envelope and “remain in” every human being! He actively permeates the entire universe. Incredible as it may sound He is so close to each one of us that He will never be nearer or further to each one of us than He is right now! He is never safely out of range that He will not intervene to deal with our sin. He is never so far removed that He cannot instantly help those who call on His name. He is always just one prayer away from any and all who sincerely seek Him (Rom. 10:9, 10). To those who have believed in Him and invited His Son to be Lord of their lives, He has entered their finite and mortal bodies and has set up residence in them by His Holy Spirit (I Cor. 3:16).

Yet as close as He is, as intimately connected to us as He is, He is still God Almighty, High and Lifted Up, Holy and to be respected. He should be feared by all of His creation (Job 28:28). What a wonderful God we serve!

Jesus taught the simultaneous transcendence and immanence of God in everything He did. When He taught the disciples how to pray He said, “Our Father (immanence) who art in Heaven (transcendence)…” (Matthew 6:9-15). Who can be closer than a father? Who is more intimately connected with a child than a truly loving, caring and providing father whose very seed the child is made from? Yet, where is heaven, yes even the highest heaven and who can know the dwelling place of God? Which one of us can reach up into heaven and see the place where He has established His throne? A million galaxies are but the beginning of His universe. Truly we must agree with Job: “How great is God - beyond our understanding! (36:26).

May we all become bridge-builders, peacemakers and promoters of unity within Christianity so that the world may discover our magnificent, incredible and truly awesome God who is unquestionably transcendent and paradoxically immanent! It is not by our conceit, arrogance and haughtiness that people will come to know Him. Isn’t it amazing that we all claim to have the “inside scoop” on God, but the Bible teaches: “No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (I John 4:12). May we love the world as God did, even to the point of giving our lives for others we don’t really agree with… should it ever come to that! (John 3:16).

(All passages from the New International Version of the Bible)

Celtic Exuberance in the Maybes

Wesley W. White October, 2002

Roguery or Miracle?

Nuala Dhomhnaill lives in Dublin with her Turkish husband and four children. She writes poetry; poetry that blatantly exposes the heart of Celtic Christian spirituality. Here is one of her best.

Annunciations

She remembered to the very end the angelic vision in the temple: the flutter of wings about her – noting the noise of doves, sun-rays raining on lime-white wall – the day she got the tidings.

He – he went away and perhaps forgot what grew from his loins – two thousand years of carrying a cross two thousand years of rows that reached a greater span than all the spires of the Vatican.

Remember O most tender virgin Mary that a man came to you in the darkness alone, and roguery swelling in his eyes.1

This is a piece that wrestles with humanness and divinity. Was the impregnation of Mary miracle or base roguery? Was it the one? Was it the other? Was it both? How are we to account for the fruit of his loins: two thousand years of carrying a cross, two thousand years of smoke and fire?

The opening of the poem recalls the annunciation in terms of an “angelic vision.” By the end, the act itself is in view, and is purposefully ambiguous. The phrase, “that never was it known,” could refer to the ugly truth (hidden to all but Mary) that rape is the honest explanation. Or it could invoke Christian history that has never treated it as such, but has accredited it the grandest miracle of all. Either way, the poet leaves us in the curious (sometimes uncomfortable) domain of “maybe.”2 Maybe it was the one. Maybe it was the other. Maybe it was both.

Maybe is often where the transcendent God and human imaginings meet. Maybe does not disdain ambiguity. It happily probes into the mysterious and willingly acknowledges the limitations of human finitude.3 And maybe is a realm that Celtic Christian spirituality freely enters and happily embraces, even if, in so doing, it sometimes slips beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy.

Maybe God Appreciates Maybe

Transcendence is, after all, an aspect of God that we must take seriously if we are to do justice to the Bible. God is beyond us. The preacher of wisdom (Ecclesiastes 11:5) reminds us that, “Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.” The truth of the matter…that we do not know everything, especially in terms of God, throws us into the domain of maybe. Transcendence, among other things, invites us to speculate possibilities and invites us into the freedom of simply saying, “maybe.”

The world of maybe is not afraid of the Infinite. People who embrace maybe are happy to reside in “the middle of things,” as long as they are free to contemplate the extremes of “Nothing” and the “Infinite.”4 In so doing, God is all the more honored as the true subject of knowing; not merely the object of human scrutiny. People who enjoy the region of maybe are glad, rather than reluctant, to concede that such a subject is progressive. They are not satisfied with static epistemology, but are forever asking more questions with an eschatological purpose in mind. In the end, God delights in the air of provisionality with which certain doctrinal formulae are thereby entertained, for in certain respects, such an attitude does greater justice to his immensity and more fully recognizes how far beyond the finite he actually is.5

Celtic Christianity celebrates the reality of the maybe by accentuating the mystery of God. It does not turn to certainty as the only, or even the most reliable benchmark of orthodoxy.6 Rather, it resorts to riddle, to ambiguity, and to imaginative approaches to a God who cannot be restricted to the finite. The Celtic knot is perhaps the most obvious example. Infinity, perpetual motion, eternity, inter-connectedness, and Trinitarian theology are all evoked by artistic design, not by propositional statement.7 St. Brendan (484-577) creatively referred to these ideas as “the music of heaven” that finite musicians could only imitate.8

Mystery is, in fact, incumbent in any serious journey toward God, according to Celtic sensibility, because there are substantial qualities of God that are hidden. Pascal undoubtedly intones a vibrant Celtic conviction when he writes, “If there were only one religion, God would be clearly manifest. If there were no martyrs except in our religion, likewise. God being thus hidden, any religion that does not say God is hidden is not true, and any religion that does not explain why does not instruct. Ours does all these.”9 Isaiah 45:15 is behind it all: “Truly, You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, Savior!”

For this reason, in the Celtic mind, God must be sought out. “You will seek Me and find Me,” says Jeremiah (29:13), “when you search for Me with all your heart.” Furthermore, such seeking is not so much demanded as it is pleasing to God. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him,” says the writer of Hebrews (11:6), “for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” The Celtic conception of a literal journey, a pilgrimage to find and experience God, is based on a text like this.10 The journey is meant to be arduous and adventuresome for the pilgrim. It is meant to be pleasing to God. Maybe God delights in being somewhat mysterious.

The Human Side of Maybe

Perhaps, then, faith itself is better conceived of in terms of an ongoing journey, rather than static propositions that are argued and won. Maybe invigorates an attitude of seeking, from the human perspective, even though besieged by unknowns. It has little to do with winning and losing. The journey is more about seeking itself, and may include as much pain as pleasure.11 For the Celtic pilgrim, the journey must include the exacting requirements of repentance, but it also moves toward resurrection and rebirth. Coming to the “sure things and true” evokes an ascetic quality that is equally as vigorous as any mental subjection to God’s sometimes perplexing ways.12 Both are necessary as part of an expanding, seeking faith.

One question which must be entertained, then, is how does faith grow? The human side of maybe answers by daring to risk everything to God’s providential care. For the Celtic adventurer (faith as adventure?), even the likelihood of death is not too high a risk and should not be approached in a calculated way. Dallas Willard’s description of the “sea of trust” is a prime example. Hermits shoved off into the sea in curraghs without oars, or any provisions, trusting the winds and currents of God to take them where they would. If death was the outcome, what of faith? Under such conditions, the ultimate sin of unbelief was unearthed and brought to the fore.13 Maybe thus heightens an awareness of sin on the human side of the equation. “God give me a well of tears,” cries the pilgrim, “my sins to hide; for I remain while no tears fall unsanctified.”14

On the other hand, maybe liberates the imaginative elements that ought to accompany the journey of faith, and so increases pleasure. Celtic spirituality gives full license to the power of imagination, and prefers expressions of faith that lean heavily upon the use of symbol, metaphor, and image, as opposed to philosophical and logical explanations.15 Appeal to the imagination was historically necessitated, no doubt, by common Celtic respect for oral tradition, creating a dependence on memory. Nevertheless, the fine arts, liturgical expressions that appreciate all the bodily senses, and especially poetry flourish in such a fertile environment 16

Even serious sacramental practices can be subjected to creative imagining. Nuala Dhomhnaill, again, describes an occasion in which the priest is guilty of dropping the blessed host to the ground, from which emerges “a patch of marvelous grass.”17 “Those who eat the god,” writes Brendan Kennelly, “digest the god’s language to increase their substance, deepen their shadows, and the eaten god is happy, finding Himself in blood.”18 If nothing else, imaginative freedom of this kind raises some doubt as to the advances of Reformation and even Counter-Reformation history, both of which tend to reduce mystery to academic formulae and foment tragedy rather than joy. Even when it hints at myth, Celtic spirituality, on the other hand, exults in mystery and freely explores it with all the tools of human imagination.

Further, although the journey of faith in pursuit of God often embraces the pain of loneliness, it need not and should not be undertaken alone. There is no discrepancy here. The human side of maybe freely acknowledges the reality of loneliness without falling prey to the incipient theological dangers inherent in strict individualism. The believing community in Celtic perspective is indispensable in the way it directs pilgrims to certain paths and not to others.19 Kenneth Leech, in fact, suggests that the believing community is tangibly involved in the progress of pilgrims in the person of a “soul-friend,” who acts as navigator, counselor, confessor and mentor.20 “A man without a soul-friend,” said St. Comgall (516-601), “is like a body without its head.”21 Soul-friends need not accompany, but they do guide and they do represent the core convictions of an entire community that always hovers in the background no matter how remote the terrain.

Maybe in the Balance

It should not be thought, however, that maybe is the only or last word. Such a notion would leave us all adrift in the equally dangerous oxymoron of absolute uncertainty in terms of God. Celtic sensibilities are likewise in tune with the real presence and action of God in both mundane and supernatural circumstances that are at the heart of the Incarnation itself.22 Immanence is not only attractive, but an essential part of the story of God. Stanley Grenz reiterates the distinctively Christian concept of the relational God who is “active within the universe, involved with the natural process and in human history.”23 The Apostle Paul could, in the same breath, speak of the unknown God who is yet “not far from each one of us,” and in whom “we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:23-27)

Acknowledging the mysterious God, therefore, need not deteriorate into simple mysticism. Postmodernism rightly reacts against the meaninglessness of what Francis Schaeffer refers to as “a level of mysticism with nothing there.”24 Mysticism of this type (not mysticism generally) ends up exacerbating an already great degree of existential despair and simply promotes faith in faith, rather than faith in God who does have mysterious qualities.25 Schaeffer is correct to warn against this type of “manipulated semantic mysticism.”26 Meaning, on the other hand, can be had in grappling with the unavoidable (and wonderful) mysteries of God as he actively involves himself in all the affairs of humanity and in all the perplexities of his creation.

The Christian scriptures themselves, especially various passages in the New Testament, demand the maintenance of a proper balance between the transcendent and immanent aspects of God. This balance is suggested in the comparison of several critical theological arguments contained in the Pauline epistles. Following a typically lengthy discussion, for example, of the reasons behind the hardening of Israel (described as a “mystery”) in Romans 11 (verses 25-34), the Apostle appeals to the unsearchable judgments and unfathomable ways of God, and concludes with an astounding quotation of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah (45:15), “For who has known the mind of the Lord?” In contrast, however, the Apostle cites the same quotation (for quite different purposes) in I Corinthians 2:16, but there includes a crucial addendum: “For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” The grammatically emphatic haymeis (“we”) must be noted. The preceding argument infers those who are “spiritual,” as opposed to those who are only “natural.” But the essential question is, “What does it mean to have the mind of Christ?” If nothing else, it must include some insight into the ways and purposes of God.27 Beyond that, the debate properly ensues. Mystery and insight. Both are included. Both have their place.

Keeping Maybe in Mind

What new worlds (or perhaps old worlds re-discovered) can the world of the maybe open up for the church generally, and for new church-planting ventures in particular? Maybe invokes something of the transcendent, the mysterious qualities that heighten our awareness of all that necessarily distinguishes the Creator from creation. What does this world say to the emerging culture—a culture which is increasingly hesitant about foundationalist approaches that leave at best an unappetizing taste in their mouths? Celtic spirituality, perhaps, offers some suggestions.

Firstly, Celtic traditions amplify the attractiveness of that ring of honesty that resounds when communicators of the Christian message freely admit that God is not easily known. There is, conversely, a hollowness to evangelical pronouncements that infer that such an undertaking is simple and undemanding. Communicators gain solid ground when they happily balance what can be known of God with what is mystery. They gain even more when communication becomes less of a monologue and more of a dialogue in which wrenching questions are welcomed, even in public forums, and in which differing opinions are respected.

Celtic approaches might also challenge us to encourage high-risk ventures in the journey of faith. Literal pilgrimages may be in order, even pilgrimages that run the risk of ascetic extremes. The “sea of trust” need not be disdained as foolhardy or assessed in terms of tempting God. In some ways, authenticity is affirmed when the bar is set high. Postmodern inquirers are far less convenience-oriented than their forbearers, and rise to the challenges of seeking. There are biblical certainties and answers, to be sure, but perhaps people get to know God better in the seeking itself. Especially when it asks something of them.

And what of resurrecting a Christian appreciation of an imagination set free? Can we become children again (Matthew 18:3), delighting in the possibilities of “Elfland”, as Chesterton suggests, rather than defaulting to the ethical commandeering so rampant in the adult world.28 Celtic spirituality gives as much credence to the poet, the artist, the dancer, and the bard as it does to the theologian. It unabashedly entrusts the message of the gospel to the powerful resources of the fine arts and does not hesitate to appeal to all the senses even in liturgical contexts. Celtic spirituality trusts that God is sovereign even over the highly subjective realm of the imagination.

Finally, as we pay attention to Celtic Christian ideas, we will work hard to cultivate communities of faith that abound with “soul-friends.” In the midst of the loneliness that ensues in seeking the sometimes hidden God of the Bible, we will nevertheless experience the joy of discovering that we need not “go it alone.” There is someone beside us. A real person. A real body with a soul that resonates with our own. Churches can hardly program this, but they can cultivate an environment in which soul-friends flourish. And they can advocate that such a friend is essential in anyone’s journey toward God. They will read much into Jesus’ statement, “No longer do I call you servants, but friends.” (John 15:15)

Maybe then, the world of the maybes need not be approached with fear. The place of unknowns can be entered and explored with anticipation, and not alone, but with friends, fellow pilgrims on the journey to know and love God. This community of friends can liberate our imaginations, motivate high-risk steps of faith, and set us free from the tyranny of manufacturing easy answers to hard questions about God. We can adventure on in the journey together, not timidly, but with great exuberance.

Notes

1 Oliver Davies and Fiona Bowie, Celtic Christian Spirituality: An Anthology of Medieval and Modern Sources (London: SPCK, 1995), 217-18.

2 The idea of a “world of the maybe” is suggested by Erwin Raphael McManus in, An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God had in Mind (Loveland, Colorado: Group, 2001), 58-59. “Hypermodernism,” says McManus, “is the world of the maybe. Not just objective maybe, but the subjective maybe. Not the maybe of the outside world, but the maybe of the inside world. Too many of us have subdivided the world into what exists outside of us and what exists within us. So many of the philosophical discussions around postmodernism address the issue of objective truth and reality. Is it noble? But I think that in some ways we’ve been naïve. The objective maybe is born out of the subjective maybe. The loss of confidence in knowing the outside world is a result of a loss of connection to our inside world. We don’t simply see the maybe, we live the maybe. For those whose lives are secured in a sense of absolute truth, whose most comforting metaphor is that God is our rock and our foundation, this can be extremely frustrating. And frankly, the church sounds so certain about everything. There seem to be no maybes at all. We act as if we have it all down. We’ve got all the answers. If you’re confused, just come to us because we have it all mapped out. Sometimes it’s as if there is no mystery to God or the gospel, yet Paul speaks of it as a mystery. And last time I checked, the God of the Bible is still the invisible God.”

3 Andrew Marvell (See, Andrew Marvell, The Complete Poems [Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1972], 103-104) superbly expresses the frustrations of finiteness in his work entitled, A Dialogue between the Soul and Body. Here is but the first stanza.

O, who shall from this dungeon raise A soul, enslaved so many ways, With bolts of bones, that fettered stands In feet, and manacled in hands. Here blinded with an eye; and there Deaf with the drumming of an ear, A soul hung up, as ‘twere, in chains Of nerves, and arteries, and veins, Tortured, besides each other part, In a vain head, and double heart?

It could be argued, of course, that this is but an harkening back to the old (and ever-present) gnostic heresy that ridicules the corporeal and lauds the spirit. In the end, however, Marvell dispels such fears by bringing the two together in a doxology of holism. It is a brand of holism that finds joy in perplexity and delights in mystery.

4 The importance of appreciating the extremes of the nothing and the infinite is suggested by Blaise Pascal: “For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up. What will he do then, but perceive the appearance of the middle of things, in an eternal despair of knowing either their beginning or their end? All things proceed from the Nothing, and are borne towards the Infinite. Who will follow these marvelous processes? The Author of these wonders understands them. None other can do.” (See, Pascal’s Pensees, trans. W.F. Trotter [Everyman, 1947], 17-18.) Bryan Appleyard, in Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 14, relates the lack of appreciation of the infinite to the way science has left the human self emaciated: “This exclusion of the self from explanations of science is a complex and profound matter that has implications that will surface again and again in this book. Here I will simply say that it cuts scientific man adrift from his moorings. Artistic expression over the past 400 years, the age of science, persistently returns to the man alone, lost and searching for something, though he is seldom sure precisely what.”

5 For an excellent treatment of the importance of differentiating between God as subject an object, see Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 49. The relationship between a progressive theology and eschatological concerns is likewise addressed by Grenz. See his, Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 197, 343.

6 This kind of emphasis on transcendence, therefore, rightly points up the inherent weakness in what Grenz refers to as “foundational epistemology,” that postmodern thinkers have been questioning for some time. We must, indeed, question the way in which notions of transcendence can square with “grounding the entire edifice of human knowledge on invincible certainty.” See, Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke, Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 30, and W. Jay Wood, Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1998), 78-79.

7 The significance of ambiguity, fluidity, and abstraction in Celtic artistic design is highlighted by Oliver Davies and Fiona Bowie, Celtic Christian Spirituality, prev. cit., 5. A brief explanation of the Celtic knot is offered by Ian Bradley, The Celtic Way (London: DLT, 1993), 5. For an engaging plea for the resurrection of imagination, see Thomas Howard, Chance or Dance? (New York: Lippencott, 1969).

8 Brendan Lehane, The Quest of Three Abbots: The Golden Age of Celtic Christianity (New York: Lindisfarne Press, 1968), 99.

9 Blaise Pascal, Pensees (London: Penguin Books, 1995), 74.

10 Ian Bradley, The Celtic Way, prev. cit., 80-83, captures the essence of the Celtic pilgrimage: “The Celts themselves were well aware of the difference between genuine peregrinatio and escapism to which they were prone as race. The Book of Lismore, a medieval Irish compilation of the lives of the saints, distinguishes three kinds of pilgrimage. The first, leaving one’s country in a physical sense but with no inner change of heart, is dismissed as a waste of time and energy. The second, earnestly desiring to leave everything familiar and comfortable behind and embark on a life of pilgrimage but being forced by pressing duties to remain at home, is recognized as a worthy calling. The third, leaving one’s country for God and forsaking a life of comfort and ease for one of austerity and virtue, is regarded as the highest calling of all. This stress on the importance of the inner journey of repentance, resurrections and rebirth brings us to the heart of the Celtic idea of pilgrimage.”

11 Pleasure and pain are both components of the pilgrim’s journey. Mortification is necessarily unpleasant, but it yields a spiritual and bodily sensitivity that is fully commensurate in the payoff. Brendan Lehane highlights loneliness as one of the more common experiences of the Celtic pilgrim. But it is in loneliness that she or he finds God. See, Brendan Lehane, The Quest of Three Abbots, prev. cit., 70.

12 St. Columbanus (543-615) understood the journey as a hastening towards death in which “the sure things and true” come into focus. See, T. Finan, ‘Hiberno-Latin Christian Literature,’ in J. Mackey (ed.), An Introduction to Celtic Christianity (Edinburgh: 1981), 73. There is a sense in which the journey is as much an inner reality as it is material. The repeated act of repentance is critical to both if resurrection and rebirth are to be more than doctrinal. See, Ian Bradley, The Celtic Way, prev. cit., 80. The one thing Brendan, Columba and Columbanus had in common was the commitment to the search; the search for the unworldly, for refuge, for the place of blessing, for purification, for God. For all of them it entailed traveling through the desert. See, Brendan Lehane, The Quest of Three Abbots, prev. cit., 3.

13 Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988), 129. Brendan Lehane also draws attention to this practice in the Celtic tradition. See, The Quest of Three Abbots, prev. cit., 73. He notes, however, that St. Brendan considered this practice foolish and unnecessary. It should be noted that a similar type of forced exile was mandated as a severe civil punishment for a serious crime. The hermits, however, likened it to the criminal treatment of Christ himself. See, The Quest of Three Abbots, 110.

14 Quoted in, “The Impact of Christianity,” in Early Irish Society, ed. Myles Dillon, trans. James Carney (Nottingham, Nottingham University Press, 1968), 113.

15 Ian Bradley contends that this preference is essentially “the ability to invest the ordinary and the commonplace with sacramental significance, to find glimpses of God’s glory throughout creation and to paint pictures in words, signs and music that acted as icons opening windows on heaven and pathways to eternity.” See his, The Celtic Way, prev. cit., 84.

16 Stress on oral tradition no doubt points back to pre-Christian druidic influence and to the highly respected role of the bard in Celtic history. It resulted in “an indebtedness to poetry, mythology and imagry.” See, Oliver Davies and Fiona Bowie, Celtic Christian Spirituality, prev. cit., 6, 12. It also bespeaks an approach to the transcendent nature of God. Mysterious aspects are subjected to very human means of expression, in imaginative use of words, in artistic design, and in exciting the physical senses in a liturgical context. Davies and Bowie (ibid., 12) go so far as to contend that “the poetic tradition, then, was one of the principal ways in which a distinctive spiritual sensibility was maintained in Wales.” For more on this, see also, George G. Hunter III, The Celtic Way of Evangelism (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 70-74.

17 Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, “Marvelous Grass,” from her Selected Poems: Rogha Danta, trans. Michael Hartnett (Dublin: The Raven Arts Press, 1992).

18 Brendan Kennelly, “Sculpted From Darkness,” in his, Breathing Spaces: Early Poems (Belfast: Bloodaxe Books, 1992).

19 According to Stanley Grenz, the one presupposition that may be basic to Christian theology is the backdrop of the believing community. It satisfies a hunger for family values (in the open rather than restrictive sense) that is both non-foundationalist and a “decidedly postmodern” hunger. But it also shapes “conceptions of rationality,” and, in a sense, accounts for the “loss of certitude,” as it is happy in the realization that “various communities may disagree as to the relevant set of paradigm instances of basic beliefs.” See, Stanley J. Grenz, Renewing the Center, prev. cit., 201.

20 Kenneth Leech, Soul Friend (London: DLT, 1996), 116. For a good description of the Celtic role of the soul-friend, see Ian Bradley, The Celtic Way, prev. cit., 73.

21 Brendan Lehane, The Quest of Three Abbots, prev. cit., 107. Some contend that this statement is better attributed to St. Brigid (450-525).

22 John Macquarrie refers to this aspect of Celtic spirituality as “an intense sense of presence.” Human beings have the potential of being God-intoxicated, “embraced on all sides by the divine Being.” See, John Macquarrie, Paths in Spirituality (London: SCM Press, 1972), 122-24. Celtic Christian belief, according to Bradley, also emphasizes Incarnational theology to the degree that the presence of Jesus can be tangibly experienced, “encircled by him, upheld by him and encompassed by him.” See, Ian Bradley, The Celtic Way, prev. cit., 33.

23 Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 81. Pannenberg’s description of God as “the power of the future” may serve to counter atheistic criticism, but it does little for contemporary Celtic practitioners. See, Wolfhart Pannenberg, The Idea of God and Human Freedom, trans. R.A. Wilson (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973), 110.

24 Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1968), 56. Schaeffer disparagingly discusses such an approach to mysticism in terms of “the jump on the new theology,” that is “no more than a jump into an undefinable, irrational, semantic mysticism.” I deliberately turn to Schaeffer, not because I concur with all his conclusions, but as a premier example of thoughtful evangelicalism in the modern era. It must be kept in mind that he is also an exemplary product of strict foundationalism which postmodern thinkers rightly continue to challenge.

25 Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, 62.

26 Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, 84.

27 Gordon Fee suggests that, contextually, Paul has in mind, “the thoughts of Christ as they are revealed by the Spirit,” noting the Apostle’s use of the LXX in which “mind” translates the Hebrew ruah, most often referring to “spirit.” Fee, as well, notes the importance of the emphatic “we.” See, Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 119-20.

28 See, G.K. Chesterton, “The Ethics of Elfland,” in Orthodoxy (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1994), 45. Chesterton suggests that Elfland is the world in which the imagination is free to envision possibilities within the seemingly impossible. It is a world in which faith is ignited by imagination.

Eden and God's Transcendence

by Al Dyck

Remember the early 80’s, when ‘awesome’ was the word for anything that impressed us? The overuse of the word may have diminished its meaning somewhat, but how often do we stop to ponder what this word means when applied to our God? How often do we dwell on His absolute transcendence? He is far above us and rules over all of creation. “…for you created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” (Rev. 4:11).

We only have to look at the first sentence of The Bible to see this. First we see, “In the beginning God…” When we go all the way back, there was nothing and no one but God. He alone existed, and this fact places Him over and above anything and everything. Jn 1:1-3 testifies In the beginning was the Word… All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being…”

The completion of that first Biblical sentence is, “God created the heavens and the earth.” Have you ever built a house, made a clay pot, sewn an outfit, crafted a nice wooden table, or even created a beautiful garden out of a pile of dirt and weeds? We as humans like to make and create things; some of us are more creative than others. Yet, we always start with materials, a plan, or help from someone else – we don’t go it alone. But God needed none of this; all the necessary resources – the inventive design and the materials – were within Him alone.

The phrase, “God created”, and the subsequent verses in Genesis 1 reveal the extreme power of God, enabling Him to create everything we experience in our world (and all that we have yet to discover). Acts 17:24 says:

The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

He made everything in all of its uniqueness and majesty – galaxies, lions, cobras, lilies, and humankind. Here in Acts Paul is saying that this great God does not dwell in temples made by “measly human hands”. He’s so far above us and all that we create – how could we even think to restrict Him to a human temple in a single place on this earth?

How did God create? Well, that remains a mystery and a debate. But, what we can see from Genesis 1 is that “God said, God separated, God called, God made, God placed, God created, God blessed,” and so on. He did these things by himself (although the Trinity is revealed in v.26, “Let Us make man in Our image”) and of his own initiative. How can we miss his transcendence? He is so great and powerful that He literally spoke creation into existence with the power of His word. God stands far and above us in his creative power. Who can begin to come up with anything as beautiful, vast, and awesome as God?

By rights, He is the Lord of Creation and its ruler – even of humankind. It’s not a popular view today that we have to give accountability to our Creator (in fact, “creator” isn’t a popular idea either). Yet popular or not, if anyone desires to be a Christ-follower, she must choose to yield herself to the Lordship of Christ. A man must choose to submit himself to follow his Creator’s design for his life.

Though we’re focusing on the transcendence or the whole “otherness” of God, creation shows us that we cannot separate the intimate relationship between God and humankind. In the midst of His creativeness, power and majesty, we see in Genesis 3 that God came near to the man and the woman, apparently “to hang with” them. He wasn’t “so great” that He couldn’t be known to Adam and Eve – instead, He sought them out, walking and reflecting with them in the cool of the evening.

Even today we can know God and share this intimacy. Yet at the same time, He still remains totally other than us. Adam and Eve help us see that though He comes close, we cannot “blow off” His commands. When we do that, part of the consequence is that there is a distance put between God and us – it’s the consequence of sin. It’s a reminder that we must fear God and stand in awe of Him.

In the Genesis story, we see that His creatures’ rebellion didn’t thwart His plans. Satan was and is still unable to rise up greater than God. The event of the Fall of Adam and Eve, and their banishment from Eden, demonstrates both His greatness and closeness: while He bans and forbids, He continues to open the way for us to come close in Christ. (John 14:6 & Romans 3-5)

How can this help us relate the gospel to post-moderns? First, we should regularly point out His power and majesty in creation. We can facilitate people connecting with God through helping them to see that His character is exhibited in the world He has made.

Second, we ought to be creative ourselves because God is living in us. We need to release creativity in our day-to-day ministry, especially in the communication of God’s Word.

Third, though God is all-powerful and calls us to yield ourselves to His Lordship, He doesn’t force it on us. He beckons us to come. The intimacy He sought with Adam and Eve shows that He wants to be near us. I think the popularity of some recent literature like Journey of Desire, Sacred Romance, Wild At Heart and others shows us that people genuinely crave this intimacy. There is real value in focusing on this ‘romantic’ or ‘friendship’ aspect to God’s intentions of relating to His creation.

Fourth, in these early chapters of Genesis, God gave humankind responsibility for the earth. It seems as the world is going more and more green-conscious, that Christians should lead the way in caring for God’s creation! We can fulfill His mandate and at the same time have an effect in helping post-moderns see that we take God and His creation seriously.

Fifth, we must consciously work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12) maintaining the tension of a transcendent and immanent God. He is at work in us, and in His world.

Find and you shall seek

Andrew Perriman

The distinction between transcendence and immanence is one of a number of analytical criteria that theologians commonly apply to the definition of God. It belongs essentially to an ontological theology - that is, we typically make use of it in our attempts to describe the divine being. It commonly forms part of a systematic grid of perfections and paradoxes by which we attempt to map the contours of this supreme idea that we call God.

From a biblical perspective, however, the primary distinction is probably the more practical and experiential one between worship of the true God and worship of false gods. The issue in this regard is one not of ontology but of identity and is usually settled with reference to such concretely identifying characteristics as the name of the god, his actions, and prominent individuals who have associated themselves with him. This is immediately apparent, for example, in the opening lines of the decalogue, which establish the name of the god (yhwh), a decisive action, his connection with a particular group, and his relation to other gods: ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me’ (Ex.20:2-3).

Once the identity of the true God has been determined, other distinctions come into play and become, potentially, the source of religious controversy. The divine presence may be encountered as a localized manifestation, limited to a particular place and time, or in more abstract universal terms. God may be encountered as an external reality, revealed in a burning bush or in the form of an angel of the Lord, or he may be discovered in the complex depths of the human spirit. He is a God who both reveals and conceals himself, who is both predictable and unpredictable.

This pattern suggests, however, that we should be careful not to deal with the question of God from an entirely abstract or universalized perspective. The various oppositions are explored and applied, for the most part, within a well-defined covenantal framework. Identification of the true God leads naturally to a corporate commitment to that God, validated and managed in the Old Testament by the Law of Moses and in the New by the experience of the Spirit (cf. 2 Cor.3:4-18). The covenant carries an assurance of the indwelling or immanence of God - the glory of the Lord in the Holy of Holies or the Spirit of the Lord in the heart of the believer - for those who are members of the covenant community.

So although our engagement with the indwelling presence of God is by no means a straightforward matter, it should be qualitatively, that is theologically, different from the experience of the person who is outside the covenant, who has not received the Spirit of Christ. The spirituality of the believer is essentially a pneumatic spirituality. The term ‘pneumatic spirituality’ is virtually a tautology: a spirituality of the Spirit. But it points to the fact that Christian spirituality is locked in to the activity of the Spirit of God. To have the Holy Spirit, which is integral to the identity of the disciple of Jesus, is to express in oneself the particular character, purpose, energy, of the somewhat narrowly defined God of the Bible.

The question that interests me at this point is this: What happens if, as members of this covenant community, for the purpose of missional engagement with the emerging culture, and perhaps in order to restore balance to our own souls, we step outside the confines of an unambiguous evangelical spirituality? Having found what we were looking for, can we become seekers again? Can we begin to define a more ambiguous, alternative spirituality for the space outside the church where emerging culture mission must take place? I have some tentative answers to this question.

1. We are bound to find that we must develop a different terminology, a different set of categories, for defining spiritual experience. The forms of religious life that we have learned from late twentieth century evangelicalism are the product of a particular construction of faith, which we have come to characterize broadly as ‘modern’ but which I think may be better understood as the result of an inadequate, narrow and nervous reaction to modernism. In any case, once we step outside the boundaries of a secure spirituality, we will discover, for example, that much of our language (‘personal salvation’, ‘getting to heaven’, ‘a passion for the lost’, etc.) has become questionable or meaningless. There will be a shift in priorities; answers will give way to questions; we will exchange linear, purpose-driven forms of spiritual behaviour for metaphors and practices of space and wandering.

2. Metaphors of space suggest exploration rather than the pursuit of a known, pre-determined objective. This hybrid spirituality will be hesitant, doubtful, reflective, inquisitive. But it will also be an active rather than passive spirituality, less dependent on an environment of intense, emotive, charismatic worship, less dependent on thoughtless dogmatic formulations.

3. If we remove ourselves from the enclosed sphere of covenant spirituality, we will become more acutely aware of the limitations and failings of our humanity. As Mike Riddell has written, ‘Because the church has become inhuman, the task before it is one of humanization’ (Threshold of the Future, 123). We will recognize the inadequacy of the human mind to grasp infinite truth, we will be less inclined to suppress the murmurings of doubt and disillusionment that arise within us, we will have to become more comfortable with our petty, commonplace sinfulness.

4. We will find ourselves having to come to terms more directly with those dimensions to the experience of God disclose his transcendence. The indwelling of the Spirit, which is determinative for the spirituality of those who are members of the new covenant community, is an expression of the immanence of God: “because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir” (Gal.4:6-7). Outside this community, then, we must deal with God prior to any experience of the sort of intimacy expressed by the metaphor of sonship.

In order to give shape to this more complex spirituality, it may be possible to draw on strands of religious experience from outside the biblical tradition. But the forms of Old Testament spiritual life may offer the most appropriate starting point. Under the old covenant the Spirit is a more elusive phenomenon. There are encounters with the mysterious otherness of God (the burning bush, for example; Moses’ glimpse of the back but not the face of the Lord (Ex.33:18-23)) that would seem out of place in the New Testament context, where the fulness of the godhead has been revealed in Christ (cf. Col.1:19; 2:9). In the spiritual struggles of the psalmists, in the soul-searching of Jeremiah, in the agonized reasoning of Job, we glimpse something of the dark night of the soul that has been obliterated by our easy evangelical spirituality.

5. I made the point earlier that in the context of a polytheistic religious environment the question of identity is more important than the more abstract puzzles that have preoccupied the minds of theologians in the era of the church. It is interesting that today we again find ourselves having to make sense of faith in God in a pluralistic context, where other gods, other ideologies, and other stories abound. Perhaps we need to go through that process of rediscovering who this God is, of learning again how to identify him, how to connect him with people and events and traditions. Perhaps this is the challenge: to help people connect their perception of a mysterious transcendent God with the stark landscape of history.

Postscript: How will this ambiguity be maintained in practice?

i) To some extent in the ambiguity of our own spiritual lives: in a transitional period we cannot escape the tension between the familiar old and the disturbing new.

ii) in the spiritual complexity and diversity of the community of faith: a postmodern community ought to be able to embrace different spiritualities. A charismatic or traditional conservative evangelical spirituality need not be branded as hopelessly ‘modern’ as long as it is able to interact creatively and fruitfully with other less confident spiritualities: we regard our different spiritualities as gifts that we bring to the community.

iii) in our use of scripture: we need to resist the drive to reduce the diversity of biblical types of spirituality, to view all things through the monochrome filter of our own experience of God.

iv) in mission: it ought to be mission that most powerfully alerts us to the inadequacies of our spirituality, both as individuals and as communities. Our spiritualities have evolved to function within a very narrow corridor of human life, and for the most part within the church: mission forces us to leave that corridor and enter a confusing and dangerous world, for which we will need a very different set of responses.

If spiritual life in the Court of the Gentiles is much more like Old Testament spiritual experience - externalized, materialistic, holistic, dramatic, creative, problematic - we may perhaps think of the baptized community as functioning within this positive and intrinsically worthwhile spiritual environment as a priesthood of the Spirit.

Ramblings from One Slightly Homesick Sojourner

Dan Steigerwald

“I want to tell you that I really liked what was said this morning. I agree with you that we can have deep spiritual experiences through nature, art and beauty. I like that this church believes that people everywhere can feel the things you’re talking about, not just people in the church.”

The words of Robin, a spiritual wanderer (and wonderer), after his second visit to Crossroads. A man trying to make sense out of his own deep longings for meaning and connectedness with something higher. A man who “meant” only to take a swim at a local sports center one Sunday morning, but who ended up in a chair at a Crossroads’ service (the pool was not to his liking; he saw our church sign by the entrance to the sports center; and curiosity won the day…).

Robin’s comment came on the heels of a relaxed talk about my own observations on how the beauty of such things as nature, love, music, art and poetry often so deeply touch us that we’re temporarily carried away in ecstatic moments. In those short-lived “spiritual” experiences, I noted that we catch glimpses of perfection, of something higher and better than the shadow world in which we live. But then we experience a rapid descent into the ordinary; and our hearts are left sighing, longing to re-capture those moments and revel in their glory.

“Nostalgia”, as I intimated that Sunday morning, is a helpful concept to use in explaining that involuntary response of our hearts when we encounter exquisite beauty in nature, art or music. The word is derived from the combination of two Greek roots: nostos, meaning “a return home”, and algos, meaning “pain”. When put together, nostalgia becomes, literally, “a pain to return home”. When faced with the imperfect world in which we live (where sickness, death, decay, strife and loneliness taint the many “divine reflections” that are observable), I believe that every human being knows nostalgia in a spiritual sense. As John Eldredge puts it, we know, deep-down, that we were designed “to live in a world of beauty and wonder, intimacy and adventure all our days”. Where we now live, however diversely beautiful it may be, can only rightly be described as “shadowlands” (as C.S. Lewis called it).

Every human being feels to some degree a pain to return home, because God “has set eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). A time-bound, mundane, mortal existence just won’t do. This realm is a lesser expression of what God intended for us, only an echo of an ancient perfection for which we were designed. We can enjoy and sing about the ways it communicates the glory of God, as David did in Psalm 19:1-4. But what it is broadcasting is a unified message about another home where the beauty is unspoiled, a home where the perfection of the Author of beauty is mirrored in unrefracted glory.

My contention is that every person, postmodern or otherwise, feels the nostalgic ache for his or her true home with God. As the Apostle Paul put it, we, along with creation, groan “to be liberated from [our] bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:25). All the glimpses of a higher perfection that we catch through beauty in art and creation and the creativity of man only increase our longing to return home. The human spirit keeps crying out, give me Eden restored - the only place where my heart can finally come to rest.

Our capacity to be deeply moved by finer transcendent pulses from a home beyond may indeed be anesthetized by our fallenness and the sensory overload of consumerist culture. And yet, most of us who sojourn upon this earth do now and then still experience a sense of awe, pain and longing when encountered with a dazzling sunset, a hauntingly beautiful piece of music, or an exquisite work of art. What we who know Jesus can do as an act of love toward those who do not is this: help our fellow homesick friends set these experiences within the context of what we believe God has made known about Himself and His plans for humankind. Let them explore the possibility that these flash moments of ecstasy could be stepping stones to hope. Their fleeting nature testifies to the reality that this life is a beautiful but withering autumn which will one day break forth into eternal Spring.

I personally live as an optimist, and I am able to accept (most of the time) the complexities, mysteries and even the unfulfilled nostalgic longings I have; I can live this way, for I am confident that my true home awaits me. This hope helps me live as an agent of redemption in this present order: a person motivated to steward and draw attention to the reflections of God’s beauty in nature, in art, and in the symbols, rituals and dramas of the historic Church; a person there to remind people that these reflections are not ends in themselves, but signposts to provoke gratitude and groaning (of a good kind).

This hope also arouses my heart to a sometimes-intense anticipation about the glorious freedom of paradise to come. If what I occasionally feel or experience in ecstatic foretastes is even the slightest indicator of what lies ahead, I know I am on a trajectory toward a joy unspeakable! If you feel the way I do (homesick), may God help us to live and love so as to further swell the ranks of those who, in Christ, are joyfully homeward-bound.

1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 6Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7We live by faith, not by sight. – II Cor. 5:1-6

“If you find God with great ease, perhaps it is not God that you have found.” – Thomas Merton

Some practical implications for postmodern ministry

1. Music and the creative arts can be wonderful bridges in our interaction with postmoderns, as they communicate a transcendent beauty that we all long to capture and live within. We can help each other to not get focused on the lesser expressions of glory (Acts 17:24-31). They are not the end as simply objects of appreciation, but they are signs pointing to a perfection and beauty far greater – and one that will ultimately be sustainable for those who give themselves to God.

Some Vehicles: church-sponsored art galleries; events at cathedrals which exude artistic beauty and mystique; music concerts with exceptional artists; poetry readings; trips to art museums….

2. Creation can be a great teaching platform, because it speaks its own unceasing language as the backdrop for our sharing about God’s reality, presence and desire to be known. Its song puts people in the frame of mind and heart to speak of higher things. It helps disarm heady rationalizations, and keep us framed in the realm of experience.

Some Vehicles: Group nature tours, shared vacations, environmental cleanup efforts, star-gazing events in the Summer; visual multi-media events featuring stunning natural scenes; retreats in beautiful areas; non-competitive sailing, canoeing and kayaking adventures….

3. Most people I’ve ever talked to can identify with nostalgia. At the end of their musings about the past, they sigh just like I do – wishing that they could get more tastes of what once was. It’s not that big a step to refocus their attention on the future, on the idea of “foretastes” of a better place that is coming. Maybe there really will one day be what Bruce Coburn calls “the festival of friends”.

Some vehicles: pub sharing; just being friends who don’t fake hope but really have it; growing in the art of recognizing the good and beautiful in this world and expressing gratitude to God for it wherever we are; prayer for those we know who feel no hope….

The Meaning of Transcendence in the Postmodern World

Rogier Bos Voorburg, The Netherlands, November 9th, 2002

INTRODUCTION

Our discussion of transcendence runs two risks. First, there is the possibility of the miscommunication that arises when we use the same word, but mean different things. Second, we run the risk of trying to answer questions the world is not asking. We have concluded that our world displays a quest for transcendence, and so have decided to make this the topic of our discussion. But what are the questions the world is asking? What lies behind this quest? As John V. Taylor’s son told him, when he had decided to leave the church: ‘Father, that man [the preacher] is saying all the right things but he isn’t saying them to anybody. He doesn’t know where I am, and it would never occur to him to ask!’ My intention in this paper is to outline the different uses of the word ‘Transcendence,’ to ask where people ‘are’ in regards to transcendence, and to pursue one or ways forward.

THE DIVINE SEE-SAW; TRANSCENDENCE AND IMMANENCE

When Christians use the word ‘transcendence’ they usually refer to that attribute of God that describes his difference and distance from the world. Transcendence is what we mean when we say that God is ‘wholly other,’ or beyond our world. He is self-sufficient from the world and the reality we experience. He is separate from and independent of nature and humanity.

This attribute of God is always paired with that other attribute that describes his closeness and involvement in reality, his immanence. Together transcendence and immanence form a royal pair which always needs to be kept in balance, and always runs the risk of falling out of balance. Indeed, suggest Grenz and Olson, where such balance is lacking, serious theological problems readily emerge.

Hence an overemphasis on transcendence can lead to a theology that is irrelevant to the cultural context in which it seeks to speak, whereas an overemphasis on immanence can produce a theology held captive to a specific culture.

In their opinion the 20th century offers an interesting case study: the pendulum swung to and fro as different theologies emerged, each disturbance of the equilibrium producing a counter-reaction to the opposite side ? something perhaps useful to consider as we discuss transcendence.

This, in a nutshell, is how theologians think about transcendence, and some of the papers contributed to our forum speak of God in this way. It is here that we speak of God?s awesomeness and majesty, and this produces worship and perhaps a healthy fear. Here we also speak of mystery, as we come to understand that God does not subject himself to our categories and systems, and that He, and indeed life itself, do frequently not behave in the way expected.

TRANSCENDENCE AS A DESIRED EXPERIENCE

When people without theological baggage speak of transcendence they are usually unaware of the concepts of immanence and transcendence as attributes of God. Yet usage of the term is popular today ? albeit in a different manner.

It would seem that the word transcendence is used in two ways, and both ways need to be understood against the backdrop of the transition from the modern to the postmodern era.

In its most popular use of the term, transcendence seems to refer to what can best be described as an experience or a temporary state of mind. Transcendence is what we experience when we achieve a (usually quite brief) sensation that we are out-of-the-ordinary, and that we have somehow entered the extraordinary. It may be achieved through music, silence, visual stimulation or chemical stimulation. It is a feeling of ecstasy, oneness, rapture, awe, energy, in short an experience that is out-of-this-world. It is what opera does to Inspector Morse, or what Rave music and Rave parties do to thousands of partygoers every weekend (sometimes, though not always aided by chemical stimulants). It is what I experienced when I attended the evensong service at St. Paul?s Cathedral some time ago, and the high voices of the boy choirs filled that immense space, echoing left and right. It is also what millions of evangelicals experience when they come together for a time of worship and praise.

I believe that for an experience to be transcendent, four conditions need to be met

1. There needs to be a sense of peace. A transcendent experience does not come until we allow ourselves to forget our momentary struggles, and find a way to leave them ‘outside.’ It also depends on us ceasing our striving, forgetting our anger, and rising above our petty differences.

2. There needs to be a sense of connection. This can be a sense of connection to the crowd we are part of (such as in a football stadium or a disco), a tradition (such as a school of thought, a musical genre or a religious order), or simply ‘the whole’ (be it the universe, God or the Goddess, or the cosmic consciousness). Whatever it is, a sense of belonging is created, and belonging transcends the aloneness that for many is part of everyday life.

3. Part of a transcendent experience is also the feeling of being carried along. Whether it is by the music, the rhythm, the scenery, the cheering of the crowd, the serenity or the Spirit, in a transcendent experience something we experience as bigger than ourselves carries us along for the duration of the experience.

4. Lastly, a transcendent experience requires a sense of surrender. Somehow, the individual needs to give permission for the emotions and feelings to be impacted by the contextual elements.

This need for transcending experience can be understood when we consider that much of our life is concerned with survival, routine, chores, frustration and anxiety. In this way, the yearning for transcendent experiences could be interpreted as mere escapism, but I believe it is much more than that: it is the desire for life as we feel it should have been. John Eldridge explains that within the human heart there lies an awareness that life as we experience it is not the life that we were created for ? and this creates a yearning that Dan Steigerwald has described as the longing for home.

In this respect the longing for transcendence is often explained as the longing for ‘a reality that is more real than the one we live in’. The latter is a phrase I encountered when interviewing some rave party attenders. Surprising as I found the phrase, its sentiment is consistent with C.S. Lewis’ idea of the grass in heaven being harder than our feet are used to (The Great Divorce), or the movie What Dreams May Come, in which the colours of heaven are deeper and richer than the colours on earth ? somehow there seems to reside in the human heart an awareness that reality as we experience it is but a drab reflection of what it should be. The desire for transcendence then is the desire for life as it should have been: real, whole, peaceful, exciting, awesome, beautiful, and majestic.

TRANSCENDENCE AS A BELIEF ABOUT REALITY

There is another reason people in our world desire experiences of transcendence. It is a reaction against the rationalism of the enlightenment, which rejected any sense of mystery, choosing instead to break any whole down into subparts so that it could be controlled and tweaked logically and without emotion. This rationalism cured us (for a while) of dreams of life as it should have been, and focused our attention on that which we can explain and categorize and predict.

But rationalism alone does not feed our souls, and over time the vacuum created by the enduring emphasis on reason could not do anything else but implode. As Richard Holloway said, ‘We are more than our rationality. We have depths to our nature ? emotional, aesthetic and spiritual, and if we lose touch with them we diminish and distort our humanity.’ Albert Einstein agrees with him when he says:

The most beautiful experience is to meet the mysterious. This is the source of all true art and scholarly pursuit. He, who has never had this experience, is not capable of rapture and cannot stand motionless with amazement, is as good as dead. His eyes are closed.

The transition to the postmodern world in this respect is an awakening. All over the Western world people are waking up to the notion that there is more to life, and they are going after it with a vengeance.

Unfortunately, the church has proven to not be immune to the rationalism of the preceding age, and so it now finds itself at odds by and large with a world longing for transcendence. Mark Oakley describes this well:

Part of me worries that the contemporary Church is losing aspects of its wide and generous memory and therefore condemning itself to become a ‘swimming pool Church’ ? one that has all the noise coming from the shallow end. In such a paddling pool it will be easy to say ‘easy’ and mysterious to say ‘mysterious.’ It will also be a place where those who say that they are having trouble seeing, will not feel welcome at all ? Such a Church will never be able to help teach souls to fly.

The amazing paradox is that such a Church can talk of Transcendence, but only as a cognitive concept. By definition God defies categorization and predictability ? but a Church that allows empirical thinking to govern its theology, cannot do anything but attempt to categorize and predict God. Armed with such a worldview we become able to answer virtually any question, but in the process God himself ‘loses’ transcendence, and becomes ‘small’.

You have made God small, setting him astride a pipette or a retort studying the bubbles, absorbed in an experiment that will come to nothing

I think of him rather as an enormous owl abroad in the shadows, brushing me sometimes with his wings so the blood in my veins freezes, able

to find his way from one soul to another because he can see in the dark. I have heard him crooning to himself, so that almost I could believe in angels,

those feathered overtones in love?s rafters, I have heard him scream, too, fastening his talons in his great adversary, or in some lesser denizen, maybe, like you or me.

The problem is now twofold. First, the church is uncomfortable with transcendent experiences for fear that reason should loose its governing influence on our behaviour. Second, the church presents a concept of a God she claims to be transcendent, but the concept leaves little room for mystery, wonder and the unknown. It was this tendency (among other things) that caused Einstein to reject Christianity. Said he: ‘My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.’ Somehow, Einstein could not harmonize the ‘illimitible superior spirit’ with the God put forth by Christianity.

Postmodern people reason much the way Einstein did. Their observation is that ‘if indeed there is a God behind reality, responsible for it all, and upholding it all, He must be so awesome and so ‘other’ that there must be a great deal of wonder and mystery involved in his worship.’ Transcendence is something postmoderns have come to believe about reality: the complexity of ecosystems, the flow of energy through the universe, the size and age of the cosmos and the interdependence of subatomic particles have taught us one thing: reality transcends any possible explanation.

TRANSCENDANCE AS A DESIRED STEP IN THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS

There is a fourth use of the word Transcendence, and it is probably the concept that most Christians tend to be least familiar with. Nevertheless it is a concept that is gaining popularity and becoming increasingly influential in the worlds of art, politics and education.

This use of the word is best explained by Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel, in his lecture ‘The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World,’ which he delivered July 4th 1994, at Independence Hall, Philadelphia.

Havel puts forward the current political and historical situation, which he calls ‘the postmodern world,’ and says we have come to a crossroads in history. Here a fundamental change in human being is desired. Mankind must transcend itself. If the human race is to survive on planet Earth, it must ‘create a new world order,’ one that is carried and supported by a new kind of human Being. The alternative is extinction.

Self-transcendence in Havel?s understanding is the ability to rise above our present condition and to collectively embrace and practice a faith in the oneness of all creation. Inspiration for this idea come what Havel calls ‘two transcendent ideas’: the Anthropic Cosmological Principle and the Gaia Hypothesis. Havel explains both, starting with the Anthropic Cosmological Principle:

Its authors and adherents have pointed out that from the countless possible courses of its evolution the universe took the only one that enabled life to emerge. This is not yet proof that the aim of the universe has always been that it should one day see itself through our eyes. But how else can this matter be explained?

I think the Anthropic Cosmological Principle brings to us an idea perhaps as old as humanity itself: that we are not at all just an accidental anomaly, the microscopic caprice of a tine particle whirling in the endless depth of the universe. Instead, we are mysteriously connected to the entire universe, we are mirrored in it, just as the entire evolution of the universe is mirrored in us.

Until recently, it might have seemed that we were an unhappy bit of mildew on a heavenly body whirling in space among many that have no mildew on them at all. this was something that classical science could explain. Yet, the moment it begins to appear that we are deeply connected to the entire universe, science reaches the outer limits of its powers. Because it is founded on the search for universal laws, it cannot deal with singularity, that is, with uniqueness. The universe is a unique event and a unique story, and so far we are the unique point of that story. But unique events and stories are the domain of poetry, not science. With the formulation of the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, science has found itself on the border between formula and story, between science and myth. In that, however, science has paradoxically returned, in a roundabout way, to man, and offers him - in new clothing - his lost integrity. It does so by anchoring him once more in the cosmos.

The second example is the Gaia Hypothesis. This theory brings together proof that the dense network of mutual interactions between the organic and inorganic portions of the earth’s surface form a single system, a kind of mega-organism, a living planet - Gaia - named after an ancient goddess who is recognizable as an archetype of the Earth Mother in perhaps all religions. According to the Gaia Hypothesis, we are parts of a greater whole. If we endanger her, she will dispense with us in the interest of a higher value - that is, life itself.

It will be evident that this concept of transcendence is inspired by Social Darwinism in that it sees this next development of the human being as the logical and necessary next step in evolution.

A modern philosopher once said: “Only a God can save us now.”

Yes, the only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the earth and, at the same time, in the cosmos. This awareness endows us with the capacity for self-transcendence. Politicians at international forums may reiterate a thousand times that the basis of the new world order must be universal respects for human rights, but it will mean nothing as long as this imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of Being, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of nature, the miracle of our own existence. Only someone who submits to the authority of the universal order and of creation, who values the right to be a part of it and a participant in it, can genuinely value himself and his neighbors, and thus honor their rights as well.

It logically follows that, in today’s multicultural world, the truly reliable path to coexistence, to peaceful coexistence and creative cooperation, must start from what is at the root of all cultures and what lies infinitely deeper in human hearts and minds than political opinion, convictions, antipathies, or sympathies - it must be rooted in self-transcendence:

· Transcendence as a hand reached out to those close to us, to foreigners, to the human community, to all living creatures, to nature, to the universe. · Transcendence as a deeply and joyously experienced need to be in harmony even with what we ourselves are not, what we do not understand, what seems distant from us in time and space, but with which we are nevertheless mysteriously linked because, together with us, all this constitutes a single world. · Transcendence as the only real alternative to extinction.

I have given so much space to this concept of Transcendence, because it is becoming an increasingly influential idea, with powerful adherents in many strategic places in society. Transcendence in this way of thinking borrows indeed from the Christian concept of the transcendence of God, but augments it quickly with insights from many other ways of thinking (in true postmodern fashion) to end with a concept of transcendence that is really about evolution and human development.

CONCLUSION

My paper has sought to put forward four ideas. First, there are four distinct ways in which people understand Transcendence. Secondly, Christians tend to use the word Transcendence different from non-Christians, raising the chances of miscommunication. Third, the way non-Christian use the word sheds some interesting light on what they believe about life and reality, and this in turn presents some healthy challenges to Christian thinking. Fourth, the rationalism of the Enlightenment has severely impacted our way of thinking, and it is necessary to understand the extent of the damage, and make appropriate changes. As we do we encounter the Transcendence of God in a new and fresh way, and this changes our manner of speaking about him and relating to him. In Mark Oakley?s words, we become people who do not seek resolve the mystery of God, but rather ‘deepen’ it.

I shall now risk making a sweeping generalisation. On the whole, religious people fall into two basic categories. First, there are those who want to resolve the mystery of God, to teach and preach it clearly, to spell out the facts as they are believed, to be like a reporting journalist and relay information in black and white to those not in ‘the know.’ On the other hand, there are those who, instead of wanting to resolve the mystery, seek to deepen it. Such people are uneasy with words as ‘simply’ or ‘easily,’ they are willing to get tongue-tied, to say ‘I don’t know,’ to embrace the evocative languages of poetry and music in their search for God. They have come to believe that truth is not the same thing as the elimination of ambiguity.

The weight of glory

the weight of glorysome reflections of an amateur

Lammert Vrieling

You should never start a paper – even a short one – with an apology, so I won’t. I do however point to the fact that an amateur is someone who loves a particular topic but not necessarily has the credentials:-). That’s me.

Because I do not have any original thoughts on transcendence – as far as I know – I read the weight of glory by C.S. Lewis. On page 36 he describes himself as a “typical modern” and states that the word glory suggests two things to him, of which one seems wicked and the other ridiculous… While Lewis continued to write about glory in a passionate manner – much unlike a typical modern? – I started wondering whether the topic of transcendence (that I reluctantly replace with the term glory) landed well with his fellow modern readers. Lewis’ conclusion had a surprising (modern?) bent to it in the end as he emphasized the burden of our neighbour’s glory – instead of our own. Today’s wider interest in the transcendence of God and linked to that interest in symbols, rituals and mysticism seems to be induced by the desire to meet a God who is beyond us, loving yes, but awesome, holy and especially much bigger than our tiny lives. This paper will provide a summary of Lewis’ argument (if nothing else this might at least benefit us:-) and a couple of reflections of a self-proclaimed postmodern.

the argument

Lewis starts the weight of glory with the statement that nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we follow Christ contains an appeal to desire. An appeal to desire for our own good opposes “most modern minds” but Lewis argues that “our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak”… and that “we are far too easily pleased”.

He continues there are different kinds of rewards (3):

- reward with no natural connection (marrying a woman for the sake of her money) —> makes you a mercenary; - reward with natural connection (marriage as the proper reward for a real lover) —> the activity itself in consummation; - “unknown reward” with the potential of being natural and proper (a schoolboy studying greek cannot look forward to enjoying greek poetry)—>heaven as the very consummation of our earthly discipleship but we have not yet attained it nor can we know it.

So, we desire something we do not know of: “we cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.” Sometimes we feel it closely like a foretaste through a sunset, books, music or memories but these are not the real thing. “It was not in them; it only came through them, and what came through them was a longing.” Many try to find this on earth but in the end all die and all is nothing and what we are left with is that we remain conscious of a desire no natural happiness will satisfy. That fact that we have a desire for heaven does of course not prove that we shall one day enjoy it, but it is a pretty good indication that something like that exists and that some will enjoy it. “A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called ‘falling in love’ occurred in a sexless world”.

Lewis then moves on with the promises of Scripture. It is promised:

1. that we shall be with Christ; 2. that we shall be like Him; 3. that we shall have “glory”; 4. that we shall be fed or feasted or entertained; 5. that we shall have some sort of official position in the universe.

This is Lewis’ question about these promises: “why any one of them except the first? Can anything be added to the conception of being with Christ?” The first promise seems much less symbolical than the other promises for it suggests proximity in space and “concentrates on the humanity of Christ to the exclusion of His deity”. “God is more than a Person, and lest we should imagine the joy of His presence too exclusively in terms of our present poor experience of personal love, with all its narrowness and strain and monotony, a dozen changing images, correcting and relieving each other, are supplied.” The latter long quote points – I think – to the heart of the matter regarding our discussion of transcendence; we need transcendence to do some justice to the awesomeness of God.

Initially Lewis is shocked by the fact that many “great” Christians take heavenly glory in the sense of fame with God, approval, good report or “appreciation” by God. After he saw that this view was scriptural (“Well done, thou good and faithful servant”) a good deal of his old thinking fell down like a house of cards. No one can enter heaven except as a child and a child revels in being praised. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself.”

“To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness… to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son – it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”

Now, what practical use is there in Lewis’ speculations… He points to the fact that we might think too much of our own glory hereafter but it is hardly possible to think too often or too deeply about the glory of our neighbour. “The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.”

surprised by conclusions

Although I agree with Lewis’ practical use of “his speculations” about the weight of glory, I am also surprised by this conclusion as I did not anticipate it. The conclusion I expected – but hey who am I? – would have emphasized the implications of an overly human view of God and how this would limit God (and overstates humanity). The weight of glory could be realizing that God is so much bigger than us; the air can be so “pregnant” and heavy with his Spirit that we would have to fall on our face before him. Today’s wider interest in the transcendence of God and linked to that interest in symbols, rituals and mysticism seems to be induced by the desire to meet a God who is beyond us, loving yes, but awesome, holy and especially much bigger than our tiny lives. However, Lewis’ conclusion that we should be focused on our neighbour’s glory would be our natural response when meeting an awesome God like ours. At least, I hope so.

C.S. Lewis. The weight of glory (pp. 25-46) 1949. HarperCollins

What is the gospel: summary of contributions

I suggest that we take as a starting point the distinction between two tasks.

The first task is that of defining as well as we can the historical-eschatological narrative that has given rise to a ‘gospel’ that needs preaching. The primary reason for doing so is to ensure that we are telling the right sort of biblical story, but this approach may also prove especially helpful for defining a postmodern ‘orthodoxy’. Michael’s paper offers important guidelines for exploring these questions further, but this summary will concentrate on our attempts to answer the particular question about the gospel.

There seemed to be agreement in our discussions that the thinking and agenda of modern evangelicalism have created distortions in the core narrative of Christian faith and that these distortions have in turn forced us into certain doctrinal positions with which we are personally uncomfortable and which are especially unhelpful for the purposes of emerging culture mission. There is a need, therefore, to revisit the biblical texts and reconstruct the story in the light of an historical-critical hermeneutic (Andrew). We are likely to find, as a result, that much of the language of eschatology and salvation, by which we define the gospel, relates specifically to the fate of second temple Judaism and the emergence of a renewed people of God in the pagan world. How this works out in detail still needs to be clarified but it is already evident that this sort of retelling of the story will have important implications for how we understand the gospel.

The second task has to do with determining how we interpret and apply this gospel within a postmodern cultural context.

A useful distinction was made between an essential ‘kerygma’ and the secondary teaching that safeguards the integrity of the kerygma and expounds its implications for mission and the life of the church (Dan). We recognized the possibility that the secondary teaching might have to be adjusted in response to social and cultural change.

However, we also identified at least two respects in which the gospel has to be shown to be more than a set of abstracted beliefs or propositions. First, the gospel should not be separated from its narrative context, which helps us to keep in touch with the historical-eschatological story behind the gospel; secondly, the gospel should always be embodied, communicated, lived out, in relationship and in the life of the community. One way to ensure this relational aspect would be closely to identify the gospel with the person of Jesus (Hud).

The emphasis on community here also has implications for how we understand conversion. We found Kallenberg’s suggestion helpful that conversion should be understood as ‘naturalization into community’ (Rogier). This way of thinking corrects the individualism and epistemological reductionism of traditional evangelical models of conversion. It also agrees with the argument that in a ‘post-eschatological’ situation salvation should be understood not as gaining life after death but as entering a community of the Spirit in which we experience the life of the age that has come.

This ‘new life’ also needs to be understood in creational terms (Wes). If in certain respects the gospel is the product of the narrow and particular story of Israel, it must also be fitted within a wider creational or cosmic narrative. This expansive, holistic outlook resonates with postmodern hostility to reductionist intellectual strategies, but at the same time there is an inherent optimism in it which challenges the scepticism and pessimism of postmodernism, offering not another way to announce the demise of the modernist project but an authentic new beginning. Again there is a significant connection here with the ‘post-eschatological’ emphasis on the ‘worldly’ orientation of the renewed community of God.

A progressively better gospel

The gospel is indeed the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. But what is it that must first be believed on for this salvation? And how is that “good news” assimilated over time and further reinforced in the hearts of those believing? By observing Luke’s account of Paul and Barnabas’ first missionary journey (late 40’s AD) from Syrian Antioch into the multi-cultural terrain of Cyprus and Asia Minor, I believe we can gain a fresh appreciation into what I would call the gospel’s progressive or cascading impact upon responding audiences.

At the outset of that famous trek recorded for us in Acts, chapters 13 and 14, Paul and Barnabas were commissioned by the early church at Antioch to communicate this gospel not only to practicing Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, but to Gentiles who had little or no connection at all to Judaism. As they encountered these two primary audiences throughout this journey, the two itinerant preachers used various means to access each. The former was strategically approached via the established synagogues, where Paul integrated his gospel presentation into the normal flow of the Sabbath service. The platform for the latter group involved such events as power encounters or larger, more eclectic gatherings pulled together after this preaching duo’s unusual message leaked out to the general populace from earlier synagogue preaching.

As we consider what Paul and Barnabas proclaimed in the towns visited in this particular journey, we see the presentation of a very basic kernel of gospel material - a “kerygma” which was apparently nuanced according to the audience encountered.[1] For example, among the Jews and God-fearing Gentile proselytes in Pisidian Antioch, we see Paul proclaiming what some have called an updated “Old Testament kerygma”.[2] A similar presentation may have been made in the synagogue at Iconium. In Lystra, among the Gentiles not practicing Judaism, Paul appears to be in the act of presenting the “Veggie-Tails” super-basic version of the gospel (turn from your worthless gods to the living God, the Creator who shows His care for you in his many providences and…). But then suddenly he appears to be tripped-up by the crowd’s desire to pay homage to his godhood rather than listen to his message. One gets the idea that more content might have been shared (probably not of the Jewish kerygma variety - what sense would that have made to most of them?) had the crowd not been so busy trying to worship them (and then later to stone them!).

Among a similar kind of Gentile audience earlier on in the towns of Cyprus, we read that one proconsul, Sergius Paulus, was “amazed at the teaching of the Lord” (which may have included some redemptive acts in Jewish history, but probably included the object lesson of God’s power in blinding the proconsul’s sorcerer attendant). In Derbe we’re told only that Paul and Barnabas “preached the good news and won a large number of disciples.” What was included as part of that good news we’re not told.

So, what seems to be the picture in the Lukan account of this missionary trip is a series of gospel presentations that included selective emphasis on certain aspects of a broader pool of “good news”. How much content was shared and to what degree varied according to the audience encountered.[3] Some contexts afforded a more opportune and hence thorough gospel presentation, while others only allowed certain bare essentials to be brought forward before the opportunity was truncated.

As the good news was proclaimed within a given locale, and people were won to Christ, we recognize a further interesting dynamic on this missionary journey (a dynamic which is arguably germane to most gospel presentations in the New Testament). It seems over time, in subsequent contacts with given responding audiences, additional primary and secondary material needed to be introduced to supplement what was shared in the initial proclamation. That additional material might constitute an extra dose of core material missing in the first-round proclamation; or it might involve further essential teachings to under-gird the gospel to which they had earlier converted. In some instances it probably involved both. In any case, over time a fuller proclamation of the basic kerygma seemed to regularly involve supplementation with essential doctrine. Without this additional secondary material, the original gospel could conceivably not root in someone’s life. This subsequent teaching, probably equivalent to Paul’s “good deposit” (II Timothy I:14), helped foster an environment in the heart conducive to growth in the gospel. It’s not that the gospel was in any way deficient; it’s just that the assimilation of it seemed to involve ongoing reminding, processing and wrestling with further complementary teaching (including core gospel material). One’s understanding and appreciation of the good news was thereby deepened by this further “washing with the Word.”

Looking back to that 1^st missionary journey, we see evidence of this dynamic. As the missionaries backtracked through the cities they just visited, we’re told they engaged in “strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith” (14:22a). I imagine in those re-visitations Paul and Barnabas stressed certain deeper teaching (perhaps showing converts “the way of God more adequately”, as Priscilla and Aquila did for the Jewish preacher Apollos in Acts 18). They may have also highlighted the aspect of suffering as a more subliminal yet very important part of this gospel (in 14:22b, we see Paul and Barnabas returning to the towns and informing the new disciples of that additional heavy reality they face: “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”).

What I’m getting at is this: we cannot rightly talk about the “gospel” in isolation from the necessary follow-up ministry of under-girding that gospel. It trails behind but is still part and parcel to the kerygma seating itself in people’s hearts and lives. As Paul noted to Timothy, sound doctrine is in accord with or “conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God” (I Timothy 1:11). This suggests that the good news is ideally shared in a multi-layered fashion over time, with an outer prominent kerygma, but also with accompanying layers of deeper material. These layers complement and further enrich it as good news.

At this point I’d like to expand this discussion beyond this 1^st missionary journey and briefly explore the makeup of both this “good news” and this “good deposit”. When we observe Paul in action, he seems to have a firm grasp of a basic kerygma, and he and his close cohorts appear to have had a uniform grasp of a broader doctrinal good deposit. So, what was the composition of that core gospel? And what about the good deposit – what did that constitute? C.H. Dodd and many others have argued that Peter’s speeches represent the kerygma ideal in terms of the inclusion of certain bare essentials. The ancient kerygma as summarized by Dodd from Peter’s speeches in Acts was:

1. The Age of Fulfillment has dawned, the “latter days” foretold by the prophets.
2. This has taken place through the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
3. By virtue of the resurrection Jesus has been exalted at the right hand of God as Messianic head of the new Israel.
4. The Holy Spirit in the church is the sign of Christ’s present power and glory.
5. The Messianic Age will reach its consummation in the return of Christ.
6. An appeal is made for repentance with the offer of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, and salvation.

These key elements or something close to them, Dodd argues, would have been part of the primary repertoire employed to elicit faith in the hearer, whether that hearer heard the full scope on round one, or whether they heard that full scope over time in successive presentations of the good news.[4] (I find it surprising that Dodd’s summary excludes any obvious reference to the aggressive inclusivity we see exhibited by Paul in locales such as Pisidian Antioch, and emphasized so prominently in letters like Galatians and Romans. This was a huge part of what made the gospel good news for the Gentiles – that they were actually included and united into one people of God).

Whatever primitive kerygma the Apostles drew upon in their missional preaching, Dodd contends that within the Apostolic era and beyond, into the history of the early Church and its liturgy, a mature, more evolved kerygma emerged:

“As the Church produced a settled organization of its life, the content of the kerygma entered into the Rule of Faith, which is recognized by the theologians of the second and third centuries as the presupposition of Christian theology. Out of the Rule of Faith in turn the Creeds emerged. The so-called Apostles’ Creed in particular still betrays in its form and language its direct descent from the primitive apostolic Preaching. At the same time, the kerygma exerted a controlling influence upon the shaping of the Liturgy. While theology advanced from the positions established by Paul and John, the form and language of the Church’s worship adhered more closely to the forms of the kerygma. It is perhaps in some parts of the great liturgies of the Church that we are still in most direct contact with the original apostolic Preaching.”[5]

Has the Church over the ages unnecessarily complicated matters by moving away from a simple kerygma employed by the original Apostolic preachers? Have we as a Body, historically, been guilty of elevating secondary material into the realm of primary gospel? And do we thereby obstruct the way to faith in our missional preaching, by making the gospel overly complex or a matter of cognitive ascent to a list of doctrines? Should we rather provide a very simple gospel message that even the most unsophisticated could manage to grasp? A lowest-common denominator kerygma which might be comprised of only the following: God has made a way to Himself through Jesus’ death that involves the pure gift of His acceptance and the wiping away of our sins, offered apart from anything we have done or could do to earn or obligate that acceptance, and conditioned upon our endurance in trust (through the encouragement and inspiration of the Scriptures and the ongoing kindness of God in the Holy Spirit).[6]

Whatever we conclude ought to be part of a bare-minimum kerygma, we do need to keep the focus on Jesus Christ resurrected, given as the Savior of the world to all who will believe (Romans 1:2-4). Along with this, we need to offer the community of Christ an ongoing immersion in the stories and instruction of Scripture (the good deposit will thereby continually touch us to help insure that the primary gospel remains alive in our hearts). This good deposit, as Paul envisioned it, is admittedly difficult to pinpoint with precision. And it may have included 1^st century cultural elements which have over the centuries been superceded (e.g. the role of women, slaves, etc.). I suppose this is where our confidence in the ministry of the Holy Spirit is called upon. As we let the Scriptures master us in our community studying to show ourselves approved, we can be assured that the Spirit of God will shore up the gospel in our hearts.

In the Modern era the Church has, as the argument goes, overemphasized the gospel as content to be believed, rather than as encounter with the living Person, Jesus Christ. So as to avoid any conclusions that what I’m suggesting thus far is skewed too far toward content or assent to doctrinal formulations, I want to underscore this other key facet integrally wed to our gospel proclamation and under-girding – the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In his letters to the Ephesians and the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul mentioned another “good deposit” left to the church – “the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:14; cf. II Corinth. 5:5). We cannot fairly talk about the “good news” if we leave out the prospect of a long term, increasingly deeper and satisfying interaction with BOTH good deposits that point us to Jesus (and what true life in Him means). In the gospel we meet Christ, and we continue to find encouragement in the living Word of God along with the active presence of the Spirit (also ministering in power, not just revealing the Scriptures). This dual interaction is the only way that we too, like an aging Paul, might be disposed to say at life’s end “bring the scrolls, especially the parchments” (II Timothy 4:13). Still intrigued by God’s Word to the very end. Still looking for how the Spirit might yet make this good news even better.

To put a wrapper on this discussion, I want to re-iterate my belief in the simplicity of the gospel. It is first and foremost encounter with Jesus Christ Himself – He is the embodiment of the good news (which can be understood and eventually articulated by its recipients in concrete words – even if that means a person only initially knows inside that God has forgiven and accepted them in Christ). As well, I would add that before the Apostle Paul or any gospel proclaimers from his day on, down to the present, ever muttered a word about Jesus into a given context, the Spirit was active preparing the ground to receive the seed of the Word. This advance work of the Spirit, including His confirming signs and wonders in certain cases, along with the personal meeting of Christ (Spirit to spirit), sets the stage for the deeper ministry of the washing with the Word over time. The kerygma and the “good deposit” and the “Good Deposit” all harmoniously over time increasing our appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This leaves room for a “belonging before believing” perspective (which was arguably also present in Paul’s day among the newly forming church communities where the gospel was first going out), where we value giving normal people adequate immersion in the body of Christ. This community immersion enables them to feel and experience Jesus Christ in people who “embody” that gospel and good deposit, and hence fosters openness to receive the forgiveness, acceptance and hope that Christ offers.

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Some afterthoughts as they pertain to postmodern ministry:

1. Exegeting our audiences is as important as exegeting the Word we bring to them, if we hope to have the gospel heard as good news.

2. Missional preaching is not primarily about one-shot unloading of the kerygma on unsuspecting people. In whatever opportunities God allows for sharing these words of life, may we be ever prayerful and discerning about how best to share (what to include; what to hold back on). An ongoing relationship with our hearers helps insure that the gospel gets a fuller hearing (in which we are ideally over time able to pass on the good deposit).

3. However we view Scripture and theology, we must