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Update

2011-10-24T12:32:00.000-04:00

It's been some time since I've given an update for my half a dozen or so faithful blog readers. Here's what's been keeping me from blogging more often:

(1) This fall I started my PhD in Religion (theology) at Baylor University. So, we moved the family down to Waco, TX, in August and have been since enduring the heat. I'm currently in the middle of the following courses:

(a) Christian Anthropology / Karl Barth, taught by Jonathan Tran.
(b) Christology, taught by Peter Candler.
(c) Pauline Theology, taught by Bruce Longenecker.
(d) Reading colloquium on John Henry Newman, led by Ralph Wood.

So far it's been both stimulating and challenging. (If anyone has any paper ideas on the above topics, let me know!)

(2) We have been attending Hope Fellowship in Waco, an Anabaptist affiliated house church. (It's a bit deceiving calling it a "house church," since there are about 80 people involved and an intricate leadership and decision-making structure. It's more like a church that happens to meet in a big, old house.)

(3) Instead of blogging here, I've written some guest blogs on other sites, including:

(a) A two part blog on rules for theological discourse about the afterlife, posted on Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog (see part one and two).
(b) A couple separate blogs on the CBE Scroll (see here and here). The first one was reposted on Jesus Creed as well, where it generated quite a bit of discussion (see here).

(4) I've co-edited a book with my friend Jared Burkholder on the relationship between evangelicalism and Anabaptism. It's called The Activist Impulse: Essays on the Intersection of Evangelicalism and Anabaptism and should be out early 2012 through Pickwick Publications. The best part about it is that it has essays by some great friends of mine, including Joel Boehner, Matt Eaton, Tim Erdel, John Roth, and others. I also contribute an essay on how an evangelical use of Scripture can lead to an Anabaptist approach to ethics--particularly the ethics of war. Keep an eye out for this title, and be sure to buy it when it comes out!

(5) Last but certainly not least, Andrea and I are expecting our second child on April 25!

Needless to say, my blogging will continue to take a back seat into the foreseeable future.

The Most Influential Books of My Life

2011-08-11T11:43:00.001-04:00

In a couple weeks I'll be a full-time student again, which means that for the next five years what books I read will be mostly dictated to me (by professors or research necessities). It's been nice to read what I want these last three years, and as this season is coming to an end, I've been prompted by my friend Nate to make a list of those books that have been influential to me thus far (not including the Bible, the most influential book of all, of course). In order to help me think through this list, I've decided to list them chronologically by seasons of my life (and to artificially limit it to four book from each of my first two seasons and eight from each of my last two). See my brief explanations at the bottom of my list. Here we go:

The High School Years
(1) C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
(2) Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises.
(3) Annie Dillard, For the Time Being.
(4) Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart.

The College Years
(5) Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline.
(6) Andre Dubus, Selected Stories.
(7) Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Everything You Think You Know about Politics . . . And Why You're Wrong.
(8) John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus.

The Seminary Years
(9) Roger Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities.
(10) Chad Meister, Building Belief.
(11) Thomas Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate.
(12) Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will.

(13) John Hick, Faith and Knowledge.
(14) William Alston, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religion Experience.
(15) Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief.
(16) Thomas Finger, A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology.

The Adjunct Years
(17) Greg Boyd, Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church.
(18) Stanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology.
(19) John Howard Yoder, The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism.
(20) John Roth, Choosing against War: A Christian View; "A Love Stronger Than Our Fears".

(21) Ron Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity.
(22) John Howard Yoder, Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community before the Watching World.
(23) John Howard Yoder, To Hear the Word.
(24) Stanley Hauerwas, Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir.

Explanations
(1) is the first piece of intelligent Christian writing I ever read. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Lewis, but I can't deny the importance of this book for my life trajectory. (2) opened my world to good literature. I have since read nearly every novel by Hemingway as well as his contemporary Fitzgerald. (3) was my first real encounter with the problem of evil and helped me to realize that questioning God is a necessary part of loving God. In a longer list, it would be coupled with Elie Wiesel's Night, which was the first and perhaps only book I've read in a single sitting. (4) complexified my until-then naive understanding of missions and the impact it can have on cultures if Christians aren't careful (and sometimes even if we are).

(5) represents a maturation in my understanding of the Christian life in college and in a longer list would be paired with Dallas Willard's The Great Omission or Spirit of the Disciplines. (6) includes some of the most powerful and compelling short stories I've ever read; incidentally, this is the book I brought with me on my honeymoon months after graduation. The title of (7) pretty much says it all; I read this my senior year for a class on the 2004 election process with Dr. Haas and it killed a number of sacred (political) cows I previously held. I actually had a tough time getting into (8) and it wasn't until rereading it years later that I got more out of it. Still, no one who knows me well today would deny how much I've been influenced by the perspective of this book.

(9) came at just the right point in my life, as I was being bombarded by combative Calvinists in seminary while trying to understand my own theological background and beliefs. (10) made the list because of the friendship and process that the book represents. I followed this book at every stage of its development, including using it later for a very formative church small group. Working through (11) caused me to become an analytic philosopher, and the paper I wrote interacting with it turned me into a scholar. (12) is one of the finest pieces of analytic philosophy I've ever read and pretty much solidified my already strongly held belief in libertarian free will.

(13) - (15) were three books I wrestled through for my thesis, each influential on my thought in their own way. (14) might actually rival (12) as the finest piece of analytic philosophy I've read, not to mention one of the most difficult. (16) fleshed out the theological trajectory I was heading on and was thus influential on my self-understanding, though I've since read better books on the topic.

(17) further solidified my theological trajectory and gave me categories for explaining it to the everyday people I encounter (rather than merely to other theologians and philosophers). (18) caused me to realize that I wasn't an analytic philosopher after all but was actually a theologian. Incidentally, this book found its way into the concluding chapter of my thesis as something of a corrective to the approach of books (13) - (15). It also has one of the most memorable lines that has shaped how I approach theology: "The problem for Christians and non-Christians alike is the Christian inability to live in a way that enables us to articulate what difference it makes that we are or are not Christians" (231). (19), in my opinion, is a more powerful argument for Christian pacifism than (8); it is shorter, has a more forceful punch, and doesn't get as bogged down in academic minutiae. I would recommend anyone interested in reading Yoder to begin with (19) and go on from there. (Of course, I'm leaving off a number of his books from my list, but pretty much everything he's written [see here] has been influential to some degree.) (20) makes the list for similar reasons as (17) as well as the friendship that the book represents. I would also highly recommend Roth's trilogy on Mennonite Beliefs, Stories, and Practices, each of which would make it on a slightly longer list.

(21) broadened my understanding of the importance of Anabaptist theology beyond nonviolence and into the everyday world of economics and consumerism. (I wish I could say that this book has impacted my lifestyle more than it has!) (22) helped me to fall in love again with the church after a time when I had become a bit jaded and cynical; now I can't imagine being a Christian without the practices of the church. (23) helped me to understand and articulate how and why the Bible is authoritative in the face of all of the hermeneutical and historical challenges that seem to trip so many people up these days. Finally, (24) humanized the discipline of theology and therefore confirmed my life-calling. Incidentally, I finished reading this book one year ago today, the day my father died, and I was so moved by the book that I sat down that evening and wrote a letter to the author.

Farewell Sermon

2011-08-07T17:18:00.000-04:00

The Glory of the Father, Son, and Keller Park Church (John 17)

By David Cramer

Keller Park Church

7 August 2011

This morning I want to look briefly at the word “glory,” especially as it is used in Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer recorded in John 17. For us “glory” often has the connotation of something grand, weighty, or spectacular that is witnessed by a large number of people. Thus, in sports we have phrases like “Go for the glory!” or “No guts, no glory!,” which suggest that if you truly want to receive praise, honor, and accolades, you have to go all out, or, as another one of our sayings puts it: “Go big or go home.” There is glory in displays of great achievement that are widely recognized.

This understanding of glory actually finds quite a bit of precedent in the Bible itself. So God is said in Exodus to receive glory from miraculously parting the Red Sea and leading the Israelites to safety from the Egyptians. Repeatedly the Old Testament states that God’s glory fills the whole earth, though it is also manifested visibly in the tabernacle and temple, where God’s glory dwelt. In these and numerous other instances, God’s glory is the visible display of God’s power, might, and grandeur.

But in Scripture glory is not necessarily confined to God alone; there is a relative human glory as well. We read, for example, in Proverbs 25:2 that “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” Nevertheless, more often that not in Scripture, human glory is described as fleeting at best and destructive at worst. So in Isaiah 17:4 we are told that “the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away,” and in Isaiah 13:19 that “Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the pride and glory of the Babylonians, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

In light of these usages, we might be tempted to conclude that God’s glory is displayed through God’s mighty acts and wonders, and that while we at Keller Park Church can praise and worship God for God’s glory, we should probably stay out of the glory business ourselves. After all, we’re a ragtag bunch of misfits who meet in a small grocery store converted into a meager worship space, whose air conditioning only works half the time and whose roof seems to find new ways to leak each year. We seem to attract a fair amount of new people yet we remain somehow resilient to actually growing much bigger. Our annual giving is just barely over the poverty line for a small family in the U.S. We don’t have the latest visual or audio technology. We don’t have multiple professional staff members. We don’t have multiple services, much less a radio program or video venues. We don’t have state of the art anything. Our softball team won one game last year and seems to invent new ways of blowing leads in the last inning. It sometimes feels like we are spinning our wheels in our attempt to reach the neighborhood, much less having a significant impact across the city. And on top of all of our difficulties reaching out to the larger community, we also have pain and brokenness within our church body. In short, it isn’t very difficult for us to sing “Not to us, but to your name be the glory”—since the last word we would probably think of to describe Keller Park Church is “glorious.”

And, yet, when we read Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in John 17, we find that he has the audacity to do just that: to suggest that we might actually share in his glory and in the glory of God the Father. John records this prayer of Jesus’s, which Jesus prays on the night before his crucifixion, just after the last supper and just before his arrest. Let’s read John 17 together, taking special note of how Jesus uses the word glory.

“After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

‘Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

‘I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

‘I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

‘My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 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.

‘Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

‘Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

This passage is striking on a number of levels. First, Jesus redefines the word glory; then, by drawing parallels between himself and his followers, he suggests that we actually contribute to God’s glory, just as he does; and finally, he claims that not only do we give glory to God but that God actually gives glory to us as well.

So, first, we see in verse 5 Jesus’ redefinition of glory. He states: “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” Note that before we defined glory as a visible display of power witnessed by a large number of people. But here Jesus talks about glory as something he and the Father shared before creation, in other words, before God had demonstrated God’s power through any kind of creative act and certainly before there were any others to witness God’s acts of power. Glory is not defined here by its grandeur but by its intimacy. It is not defined in terms of an external, visible quality, but rather as something that is intrinsically beautiful—as something literally divine. In verse 24 Jesus further describes this glory as “the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” This glory is not about displays of power and might but rather is the quality shared in an intimately loving relationship between Father and Son.

After redefining the meaning of glory in ways that defy our expectations, Jesus defies our expectations again by suggesting that we actually contribute to God’s glory just as he does. In verse 4 Jesus states: “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” In other words, Jesus brings glory to God not so much through displays of mighty power as through humble obedience to the Father. But then two verses later, Jesus states that those the Father has entrusted to him have also obeyed God’s word and thus, in verse 10 Jesus makes the jaw-dropping claim that “glory has come to me through them.” Jesus himself has been glorified by his ragtag bunch of disciples—a group of guys who might have fit in well at Keller Park Church. Here Jesus makes it clear that we glorify him not through visible effectiveness and quantifiable successes but rather through humble, persistent, faithful obedience to God’s will as revealed to us in the life of Jesus.

Finally, after redefining the meaning of glory and audaciously claiming that we contribute to God’s glory, Jesus makes the even more audacious claim that we participate in God’s glory. In verse 22 Jesus states: “I have given them the glory that you gave me.” The very glory that God gave Jesus before the creation of the world Jesus has passed on to us. And as we already saw, this glory is defined as the intrinsic quality of mutual love between the members of the Trinity—a love that we as a community are drawn into. So Jesus explains in vv. 22-23 why he has given us glory: “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.” We share in the glory of God when we love God and each other and through that love demonstrate our unity in Christ to the world.

In other words, thankfully for Keller Park Church, God isn’t glorified through the large buildings and multifaceted ministries that a lot of churches chase after. Ultimately, those things are human glory, and as such, they are bound to fade away with the sands of time. But if we at Keller Park Church—the ragtag group of underdogs that we are—remain steadfast in our commitment to be obedient to God’s word and to love God and each other deeply, we will receive the glory that will never fade away: the everlasting glory of the Trinitarian love shared among the Father, Son, and Spirit from before the creation of the world that we have been graciously invited to participate in through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In closing, let me pray over you the prayer of Paul from Ephesians 3:14ff.:

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Hell Under Fire

2011-07-09T18:01:00.000-04:00

I haven't read Rob Bell's Love Wins--mostly so that I don't have to give an opinion of it when someone asks, but also because I've never read anything by Bell, and why start now? However, it has been interesting to track the discussion of hell and universalism that has resulted from the book (even though, from sources I trust, Bell neither denies the existence of hell nor affirms universalism!). If you're interested in a safe place for evangelicals to discuss these issues, you probably can do no better than Scot McKnight's blog, Jesus Creed. Particularly helpful are his recent posts on universalist Tom Talbott (here and here), though he's also carefully blogged through Bell's book (here) and the book, The Evangelical Universalist (here). He's also had a couple guest posts on the theme, the first comparing Bell to CS Lewis (here) and the second arguing that universalists have a deficient view of God's love and justice (here). If the number of comments on these posts is any indication, this is indeed a topic of great interest among evangelicals these days. (Whatever one thinks of Bell, it appears he has a good bead on what's hot in evangelicalism--even if it's below the surface before he brings it to light.) If you read the comments on these posts, you'll probably notice that I occasionally offer my two cents worth. And, if you follow Jesus Creed, you might even notice another guest blogger on this topic soon. . . .

Missionary Church General Conference 2011

2011-07-04T08:58:00.000-04:00

Two years ago I attended the Missionary Church general conference held at Bethel College and did a play-by-play of the sessions here on the blog. This year the general conference has followed me to Texas (Dallas), but due to scheduling issues, I'll have to miss it. But it looks as though the MC has followed my lead and will be blogging the conference. If you have interest in the Missionary Church and (like me) can't make it to the conference, be sure to follow their blog. Also, be sure to make your voice heard in the comments section. I know I will.

NIV 2011 Strikes Back

2011-06-28T08:03:00.001-04:00

In "it'd kind of be funny if it weren't so sad" news, the translation committee for the NIV2011, led by prominent hierarchist NT scholar, Doug Moo, has been criticized by hierarchist groups--such as the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Southern Baptist Convention--for being too feminist in its translation. The translation team is responding with some good "spankings" of these groups: to CBMW and to SBC. CBMW reviewer Denny Burk has given a response to the response. (I'll let you decided how convincing it is.) And just to show that you can't please anyone, the egalitarian group Christians for Biblical Equality also has a slightly critical review, though unlike the other two it seems more fair and nuanced, and as far as I know the NIV translation team hasn't felt the need to respond to it.

Problems with Plantinga's A/C Model

2011-06-18T11:56:00.004-04:00

For my master's thesis, "Nonevidentialism, Pluralism, and Warrant: Plantinga, Hick, and the Epistemological Problem of Religious Diversity" (excerpts of which can be read here), I offered a sympathetic critique of Plantinga's A/C model, which he develops in his magnum opus, Warranted Christian Belief. At the time (nearly two and a half years ago), I sent him my final chapter, which he responded to favorably though briefly. It seems that now, in the clearer light of his retirement, Plantinga has come to terms with some of the problems of his A/C model, though they might not be quite what you would have thought:

Phoebe and Women in Ministry

2011-06-16T16:15:00.002-04:00

Received this post via the Christian for Biblical Equality e-newsletter today. Some pretty interesting stuff on Phoebe from one of the foremost Pauline scholars in the world.

"Fretting over Phoebe"

Dr. Michael Bird (PhD, University of Queensland) is Lecturer in Theology at Crossway College in Queensland, Australia. His research interests include the Gospel of Mark, Pauline theology, New Testament theology, and evangelical ecclesiology.

"I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me" (Rom 16:1-2 TNIV).

I love messing with my students. Yes, I know it catches them off guard, but exposing their assumptions and ignorance is both enjoyable and actually educational too. When I get to my Romans class, I ask the students four questions:

So who actually wrote Romans?

"Paul," they immediately reply in chorus.

"No," I retort, "Who physically sat down and penned the letter to Paul's dictation?"

Blank faces, deep thoughts, then some bright spark will blurt out, "Oh, oh, that guy, what's his name, um, Tertius."

"Correct-a-mundo" comes the teacher's approving reply who points students to Romans 16:22 which says, "I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord" (Rom 16:22 TNIV).

Moving on...

So who delivered the letter to the Romans then? Who was Paul's envoy?

Confused faces, odd looks: how can they be expected to know that?

"Turn with me to Romans 16 then" and together we read the text.

Then we have a cool discussion about the meaning of "deacon," "benefactor," and the role of letter carriers in antiquity. It gives a good starting point to talk about Christian ministry and patron-client relationships in the context of the Greco-Roman world.

"So then, if Phoebe is a deacon, Paul's benefactor, and he trusted her to take this very important letter to the Romans, then Phoebe must have been a woman of great abilities and good character in Paul's mind. Do you agree?"

Heads nod in agreement.

And if the Romans had any questions about the letter like 'what is the righteousness of God?' or 'who is this wretched man about half-way through?' who do you think would be the first person that they would ask?

Eyes wide opened, some mouths gaping, others looking a bit irritated.

Then I provocatively add: "Could it be that the first person to publicly read and teach about or from Romans was a woman? If so, what does that tell you about women and teaching roles in the early church?"

The end result is an "Aha" moment for some students, confusion and frustration for others.

Then comes the big question...

Think about it people. This is Romans—Paul's letter to unify the Roman churches and to prevent a potentially fractious cluster of ethnically mixed house churches from ending up like Galatia where there were painful divisions over Law and Halakhah—the oral interpretation on how exactly to obey the Law. This is Paul's effort to return to Jerusalem with all of the Gentile churches behind him. This is Paul's one chance to raise support from the Roman churches for a mission to Spain. This is Paul's gambit to answer rumors about his ministry that he's either anti-Law or anti-Israel. This is Romans, his greatest letter-essay, the most influential letter in the history of Western thought, and the singularly greatest piece of Christian theology. Now if Paul was so opposed to women teaching men anytime and anywhere, why on earth would he send a woman like Phoebe to deliver this vitally important letter and to be his personal representative in Rome? Why not Timothy, Titus, or any other dude? Why Phoebe?

Some students nod in agreement, others flick through to 1 Timothy 2:12, others sit back and just think.

I'm careful to make the point that this is not the be all and end all of debates about women in ministry. There are other texts, contexts, and interpretations that we have to deal with. This text won't answer questions for us about who to ordain either, they have to be answered elsewhere. But I point out that taken at face value, Paul evidently had no problem with women having some kind of speaking and teaching role in the churches. I think Paul's commendation of Phoebe and her role as letter-carrier to the Romans shows that much. What is more, we should also commend women like Phoebe today!

KPC Summer Camp

2011-06-13T15:18:00.002-04:00

A great story about Keller Park Church's summer camp here.