Archive for April, 2010

It was announced earlier this week that beloved scholar, N.T. Wright, will be stepping down from his role as Bishop of Durham on August 31st to pursue a position at the University of St. Andrews as Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity.

Not-for-much-longer Bishop of Durham

In the announcement by the Diocese of Durham, Wright states,

This has been the hardest decision of my life. It has been an indescribable privilege to be Bishop of the ancient Diocese of Durham, to work with a superb team of colleagues, to take part in the work of God’s kingdom here in the north-east, and to represent the region and its churches in the House of Lords and in General Synod. I have loved the people, the place, the heritage and the work. But my continuing vocation to be a writer, teacher and broadcaster, for the benefit (I hope) of the wider world and church, has been increasingly difficult to combine with the complex demands and duties of a diocesan bishop. I am very sad about this, but the choice has become increasingly clear.

And in St. Andrews’ announcement, the Head of School, Professor Ivor Davidson, states,

Tom Wright ranks among the most distinguished New Testament scholars in the world, and his profile as a churchman, writer and communicator is simply outstanding. I am delighted that he will be joining us at St Andrews, where he will further enhance the long-established reputation of the School of Divinity as a major international centre of biblical and theological scholarship.

Let’s bypass the United Kingdom’s spelling of “center” as “centre,” and I would say to Ivor, “Of course, you are delighted! I would be delighted if he took a position at my school! It’s like putting racing tyres on your car. The old tyres (i.e., professors) were great, but these (i.e., N.T. Wright) are just cooler.” But here’s what I have to say to N.T. Wright…

Auckland Castle, where the Bishop resides

Dear Not-for-long Bishop,

I am somewhat disappointed by the move. I know it will help you finish book on Paul, which I for one didn’t think it would ever get done but now will likely happen and thought you were trying to be like Barth and die before finishing your 5-volume magnum opus; and I know this position will be less distracting from your vocation as a writer. But I must say, you were somewhat “untouchable” to me (in a good way, of course). You were…THE BISHOP. Now, you are a professor. I know a ton of professors. They are cool, but bishops are cooler. I hope the new job goes well for you, and I know I am just being selfish. But when you were living in a castle, you had this “mystique” that now you will lose in my book. I still will read your material, and I am still trying to figure out what St. Paul really said. I will just miss the castle (and let’s be honest, you will too).

Your biggest fan,
Evan

N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright’s a scholar, but he’s also a pastor. I knew he was a pastor, but it took this past weekend’s “Jesus, Paul and the New Testament: A Theological Dialogue with N.T. Wright” for this to become a reality for me. On Friday night, N.T. Wright (NTW) spoke about one of his areas of expertise–Jesus, who you may have heard about on this blog. NTW spoke about the Greek words that Jesus and Peter use for the word “love.” In John 21:15-17, after Jesus’ resurrection, he speaks to Peter, and the Gospel states,

¹⁵When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love (Greek = agape/αγαπας) me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love (Gk. philes/φιλω) you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

¹⁶Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love (Gk. agape love) me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love (Gk. philes love) you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

¹⁷ The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love (Gk. philes love) me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love (Gk. philes love) you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.

If you notice, Jesus twice asks Peter if Peter loves him with agape-love. Peter twice responds, “Lord, you know I do love you with philes love.”  Peter offers Jesus philes love, which is friend-love, but Jesus first wants agape love from Peter. Peter just cannot go that far. He can only give Jesus friend-love. What is interesting, Jesus doesn’t keep pestering Peter waiting for Peter to finally respond, “Yes! Lord! Fine! I love you with agape-love!” Peter couldn’t go that far. So what does Jesus do? He comes down to Peter’s level and meets Peter where he is. In a sense Jesus says, “Ok, Peter. You can only offer me friend-love right now. Ok, then, do you friend-love me?”

Is that awesome?! Jesus comes down to Peter’s level and accepts what Peter can give at that moment.

NTW ends this thought on a note like this, “Maybe there is someone here like Peter today. You can’t give Jesus everything, but only something. Jesus will meet you there.” If you ask me, that reveals the pastoral heart of N.T. Wright, which is what I needed to hear. I have a lot of “head knowledge” from him. I’ve read The New Testament and the People of God. I’ve listened to him talk about Paul’s view of the afterlife. But I really needed something to cut me to the core. And NTW provided that for me this past Friday night.

So, from now on, when people ask me, “Why do you like N.T. Wright so much?” I may just respond with this story.

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You can read my notes from the majority of the sessions here.

You can listen to and/or watch most of the sessions here.

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[This is the finale of my response to Clemens Sedmak's Doing Local Theology. Below is my personal reflection on what he has put forth. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. My overall score of the book is at the end of this post.]

homeless woman

Clemens Sedmak’s Doing Local Theology deserves both negative and positive reflections. First, the overall writing of Sedmak’s book is at times repetitive and slightly monotonous. Also, when culture-specific theology is emphasized, everyone is a theologian. This is at times important, but the global Church does not always benefit from everyone practice theology. For instance and although Sedmak would resist such an example, no one outside of Nazi-sympathizers desires Adolf Hitler to be a theologian, even though in some cases he was. If one emphasizes cultural-specific theology, this is the danger.

However, even if the abuse of cultural-specific theology is possible, it should not be neglected, and Sedmak is correct that “little theologies” are incredibly important to the life of the Church. “Little theologies” can be used to touch the life of a single mother more than a “big theology” like Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Little theologies can help the homeless man in my neighborhood more than a big theology like Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Although “little theologians” will be less known, their grassroots influence cannot be overemphasized.

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[This is part 2 of my response to Clemen's Sedmak's Doing Local Theology. Read part 1 here.]

The majority of Doing Local Theology focuses on what Sedmak calls “little theologies,” as he defines, “To translate the big concepts of our theological tradition into our life experience is to create ‘little theologies’” (p. 46). Much of “little theologies” is understanding tradition. As Sedmak states, “Theologians are accountable to a community, a community that was there before them and will be there after they are gone. Chesterton talked about tradition as democracy including the dead, giving a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves any longer.” In this dialogue with tradition, the theologian not only receives a sense of identity but also respects other cultures in other contexts (p. 53).

Although theology must respect tradition, “the theological tradition has to be reappropriated [sic]” (p. 54). Theology must be done with people in mind, and the theologian must decide how a certain concept is expressed within a local culture. The Bible is the primary source for where Christians engage tradition. As one reads the biblical text, he or she must keep in mind, “Everybody who reads the Bible has an agenda,” and, due to this, Sedmak explains, “The Bible has to be reappropriated [sic], taken into the reality of the people” (p. 57). In this way, tradition is contextualized.

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Friday, April 16, 2010

Tom Wright

The theological dialogue with N.T. Wright has begun! The morning began with the five of us (Derek, Jon, Greg, Tim, and me) finding seats in Wheaton’s auditorium directly behind Tom Wright. Yes, we picked these seats on purpose…more “eye time” with the Bishop.

Before the conference, I was somewhat skeptical of the purpose of the conference, believing that this would simply be a bunch of theologians having a love affair with Jesus and the Victory of God or everything Wright has done. I am a huge fan of Wright, and I have adopted much of his theology so I wasn’t too worried about it. However, I was a little skeptical.

The first session squashed any thoughts on that. Richard Hays, who is a very good friend of Wright, opened the conference with a critique of Wright’s lack of appreciation for Karl Barth. Hays considers himself a Barthian, and Wright does not follow the same line of thought and disagrees with much of Barth’s writing. It was a cordial critique, and, as one sitting behind Wright, you can tell he took it lightly.

I don’t want to reflect on every session here, but I wanted to point this out — dialoguing with a theologian must be true dialogue. It involves times of agreeing and disagreeing. There are times where I shout “Amen!” and others where I reject what someone has to offer. I remember someone telling me that scholars have a “code” that they don’t critique one another, but something like the first (and I emphasize “first”) session of the conference was the complete opposite. When I engage theology, I must really be engaged, and, at times, this will mean disagreeing. In fact, if I don’t disagree with some things, perhaps, I am simply being lazy.

Yes, Hays could have come up to the stage (and after losing his father-in-law earlier this week now one would have blamed him), and he could have said some really nice things about Wright’s books, the castle he lives in, or the new, pin-striped shoot he was wearing. But he didn’t. He disagreed (and did so lovingly) with some items in Wright’s proposals, and he took them on. He didn’t run from confrontation. He engaged in it.

Do you run from confrontation or do you engage in it? Do you do it kindly or are you pretentious when participating in it?

I took notes on all the sessions on Friday. The speakers were Richard Hays (Duke), Marianne Meye Thompson (Fuller), Brian Walsh & Sylvia Keesmaat (Toronto), Nicholas Perrin (Wheaton), and N.T. Wright. You can view them here here [link corrected].

[Many of you responded to my request to help me choose a book for my seminary class, and the one that received the most votes was Clemens Sedmak's Doing Local Theology. I have since wrote a response to the book for my class, and the first part of the response is below.]

Doing Local Theology

Clemens Sedmak in his book Doing Local Theology: A Guide for Artisans of a New Humanity uses fifty theses to discuss the importance of understanding the surrounding culture as the starting point for the task of theology. He proposes that theology is not universal but local and thus comes in many forms. In this sense, everyone is a theologian since theology addresses our deepest questions and desires. Sedmak’s proposal for the importance of local theology is helpful for the missional church, which seeks to understand its culture in order to speak within it rather than to it or above it.

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N.T. Wright

This Friday and Saturday, I will have the privilege of attending Wheaton College’s “Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N.T. Wright,” where the Rt. Reverend will be sharing along other scholars sharing about him. From Wheaton’s estimation, there will be about 1100 people attending, which seems astronomical for theology conferences, but I guess that’s what you get when you combine N.T. Wright with Richard Hays, Brian Walsh & Sylvia Keesmaat, Kevin VanHoozer, and Americans starving for good, nourishing theology. I imagine the event will be phenomenal, and I am very excited to attend with four friends. I will be blogging and reflecting on about the event here. So, for the two of you who read this blog that won’t be with me there, you can get some updates about the conference. Enjoy!

Schedule of the event.

[As I speak with many college students, I feel like many of them are going crazy because they have jam-packed schedules. And it made me think of a post I wrote November 22, 2008. I think it is extremely relevant for my own life right now, too].

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

-Exodus 20v8-11 TNIV

I think the idea of “sabbath” (or rest) has been lost on many of us, Christians (particularly, in America). We ultimately have fallen into the idea that we (the Church) need to be best, fastest, quickest, coolest, most exciting people because otherwise the world will look elsewhere. I think this is somewhat true, and there is great benefit in attempting to attract the “un-churched” (for lack of a better term). However, in our attempts to be these things, we have inevitably lost sight of the beauty of sabbath, the beauty of rest.

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