Heaven: Transitional Housing

In researching for my thesis I have been thinking about heaven and humanity. At Christ’s return he will usher in what is known in theological circles as the eschaton.

While some believe that Christ will reign on earth for a 1000 years and then take all the Christians off to heaven and leave the earth to be destroyed, I have come to believe that when Christ returns all of creation, including the earth, will be redeemed and heaven and earth will be married together as one. The distinction between heaven and earth will be no more. Thus, humanity’s ultimate destination is not heaven, but heaven and earth.

One interesting observation I am indebted to NT Wright for is how little is mentioned in scripture about heaven, and how much is mentioned about the new heaven and new earth (which some have translated as referring only to heaven). One of the few verses that does refer to just heaven is John 14:2-3; this is the infamous “Behold, I go to prepare a place for you” passage. The Greek word (monai), which is often translated as “mansions” or “rooms”, communicates a temporary dwelling rather than a long time or eternal. The inference we can draw from this is that these rooms are transitional housing for humanity, as we wait for the eschaton to be ushered in and heaven and earth to become one. Consequently, we need to stop dreaming of heaven as our escape to an eternal paradise, and recognize it as a foretaste of the glorious paradise that will be inaugurated with Christ’s return. When, as David Crowder sings, “Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss.”

Family

In light of my recent blogs that have critiqued the contemporary evangelical church culture, I thought it would be prudent to affirm my loyalty to the evangelical church. As my previous posts have indicated I do have concerns regarding our worship of the system, our passivity in society, and our condemnation (I use this in traditional sense of "damning people to hell") of others. Despite these disagreements I remain committed to the evangelical church.

I have grown up in the evangelical church, it has been my ecclesiological family of orientation for 20+ years. Over those years I have been exposed to other Christian traditions and have developed a deep appreciation for the faith in Christ that they have emulated in their lives and theology. It has been a joy to engage in cross-traditional dialogue. There are many things within these various traditions that are appealing and that we, as evangelicals, can learn from. As a result of this exposure I have found myself having to avoid two extremes of the reactionary pendulum. At one end of the pendulum is an evangeocentrism (evangelical ethnocentrism), where I reject anything that is not common in our evangelical community. At the other end is an unquestioning embrace, where it does not matter what someone believes, as long as they believe something. At one end we find rigidness and 0stracizing, while at the other we find a nebulous of ambiguity.

As I attempt to avoid these extremes I live in relationship with my family. My extended ecclesiological family is much bigger than the evangelical church. My family includes, liberals, conservatives, fundamentalists. It includes Protestant, Mainliners, Catholics, and Orthodoxs. At family reunions I will see this extended family, and in the everyday I live with my ecclesiological family of orientation. As with most families, there will be arguments, perhaps shouting matches. I might even at times storm off to my room and slam the door, but the evangelical church is my family, disagreements and all; and you don't give up on family.

The Christless Church

One of the critiques I hear regarding Seminary is that it puts God in a box, or that it reduces God to a set of principles and theories. I have to admit that, unless we guard ourselves, this can become a very immanent hazard. The exposure to various theologies presents the temptation of constructing our own system that enables us to justify what we want. As my brother often says, "The truth is what suits your purpose."

What I continually find myself coming back to is the need to be in relationship with God, not apart from my studies, but through them. I am continually reminded of Brother Lawrence, who made every aspect of his life an opportunity to be in conscious relationship with God. Our Eastern Orthodox brothers have a form of prayer that embodies this concept very well. In this form of prayer one repeats the same prayer in one's head until that prayer becomes so much a part of one's thinking that it is subconscious, like breathing. The premise of life being a continual conscious relationship with God seems to constantly emerge in the various generations of the Church. I was first acquainted with this idea through Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline and I've seen it most recently in the writings of culturally savvy Rob Bell with his emphasis on "Everything is Spiritual."

While Seminary, or Christian educational institutions, have bared the brunt of these critiques, I have seen the same hazards permeating in our Church cultural. It is so easy to allow the routine of ritual to become our relationship with God. We go to church every Sunday. We attend bible study. Perhaps we're involved in some other ministry. We even get up an hour before work so we can pray and read our bible. None of these are inherently "bad," just as Seminary is not. The problem emerges when the method replaces the person. Prayer becomes an activity to get through or a gauge for my spirituality. It's as though, we no longer need Christ to be Christians. We just need our system or routine that we walk through each week. This is the Christless Church. While such a possible reality grieves me to the core, I think we need to be introspective about this and ask ourselves: Why do I go to church on Sunday? Why do I pray? What is my motivation for ministry? Is it to be a "good Christian"? Is it to get what I want? In the Old Testament when God's presence left the temple, the people saw the cloud of God's glory leave. I wonder if Christ left our church would we even notice?!

Ironically, one of my greatest lessons in Seminary has been that there is no box that God fits in, or any system that will fully encapsulate God and our relationship with him. There is no equation by which if I do A God will have to do B or if I do Y then X will occur. Our faith is not a sytem , the essence of our faith is us in relationship with YHWH, the one true God.

May our means of relating to God never become our God.

Transforming Culture

A few years back I read an article by Richard Niebuhr entitled Christ and Culture. Niebuhr looks at how the relationship between the Church and the culture has traditionally been viewed. We've all faced this question in some form in our journey. I have to admit that I've adopted a range of responses over the years. Recently, I've come to settle on the position that we, the Church, are immersed in our culture and no matter how hard we may fight it, in one way or another we are an intrinsic part of culture. The question for me then became what does it mean to be in culture. Are we simply mindless sponges absorbing our culture? Are we at war with this culture we live in? Both of these questions represent extreme positions on a vast spectrum of positions. On this spectrum I have found myself becoming more and more firmly planted in the position that the Church is a transforming agent in culture.

How the Church acts and reacts toward those who share this culture with us has had a profound impact on defining the perception of the Church and her relationship with others. I have found those who have adopted the "at war with culture" approach have produced significant damage to culture and to the Church. Conversely, I have found those who unquestioningly embrace everything our culture embraces have only perpetuated the goods and evils of culture. I have found those who have adopted the position of being transforming agents in culture, however, have produced significant beneficial growth in our culture. John Wesley, John Newton, William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and Granville Sharp were all members of "The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade," This committee was the vocal voice in society that changed the cultural perspective of slavery, which applied the necessary political pressure to abolish the slave trade. William Booth, and other members of the evolving Salvation Army, bought the freedom of hundreds of teenage girls who were being victimized in the 19th century European sex slave trade. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been iconisized as the person who mobilized millions to peaceably pursue civil rights in America. The list goes on and on.

What I notice about this list, besides that they're all "Christians," is that for the most part these transforming agents in culture brought about the change through peaceful action. Rather than being passive members of culture or militant aggressors towards culture, they pursued these changes by being active members of their cultures. The second thing I notice about these examples is that they are a voice for the silent victims of society. This would come as no surprise for those of us familiar with Wesley's famous quote, "there is no holiness apart from social holiness." Those of us who are not familiar with this quote, are likely familiar with the words of Isaiah, "Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the orphan. Fight for the rights of widows" (Isaiah 1:17).

As I consider these historical examples, I am left wondering how we, the Church, are seeking social justice. How are we being a voice for the marginalized, and oppressed? This question has become even more personal for me as I prepare to go back into full time ministry. When I look at my old philosophy of ministry I notice that it is primarily inward focused, and consumeristic. I gave a great deal of attention to giving teens "the answers" while they have fun. Realizing how my perception of who the Church is and who she is to be, I am now thinking through: How can I ensure that in my life I am being a transforming agent and encouraging others to do the same?

Cosmic Conversation

Over Christmas I read Peter Rollins' How (Not) to Speak of God. It gave me some things to think about, one of which is the nature of theology. Rollins is a continental or postmodern philosopher and one doesn't have to spend much time reading in this field before they come across the terms "object" and "subject." An object is acted upon and the subject acts (i.e. Bill [subject] poured the water [object]) . A great deal of postmodern philosophy is spent turning objects into subjects and subjects into objects.

Rollins writes about how in the Enlightenment God was treated as an object that we dissect and categorize. In this era, theology was all about defining God and getting all the answers. With the dawn of postmodernity theology a new way of "doing" theology has emerged. Now humanity has become the object that is being acted upon. Theology is humanity experiencing God acting upon it. As limited begins, we must recognize that our experience is not necessarily the way it is or the way God is.

I'm not content with either of the views Rollins offers. The first one puts God in a petri dish to be examined, while the second view does the same thing to humanity. I think our relationship with God is so much more than a scientific experiment. Thanks to Rollins I have come to refine my view of theology. I have come to understand theology as a cosmic conversation that spans history. Throughout history God has been speaking to us through revelation and we have been speaking back to God, and speaking to each other, what we understand him to be saying through religion. In turn he responds back to us and we respond back to him. In this cosmic conversation no one is solely object or solely subject but we are all both. For when God speaks to us he is the subject and we are the object, but when we speak to God we are the subject and he is the object.

The purpose of the cosmic conversation is for us to enter into a more intimate relationship with God, by coming to know him more fully. This knowledge is not the kind of knowledge that comes by memorizing the facts. It is birthed out of relationship. The most intimate marriage was born out of and nurtured through long conversations and time spent together. The french language makes a strong distinction between "head knowledge" and "relational knowledge." In french there are two forms of "to know." The first one, "savoir," is a head knowledge, like knowing 2+2=4. The second one, "connaitre," is a personal knowledge, like knowing your best friend. Both of Rollins definitions of theology views are focused on the the savoir knowing, expecting it to lead to the connaitre knowing. However, I believe it is only through the connaitre that anyone (Christian or non-Christian) knows anything about God. Although we may not realize it, God is speaking, revealing himself, to all humanity, and it is through responding to his speaking that we become an active voice in this cosmic conversation. True theology is not birthed out of a petri dish it is birthed out of our relationship with God.

Falling Forward

I was hanging out with a friend this past Friday, and during this time we were recounting the events that had led us to where we are today. Thinking over the past... none of your business years of my life, I realized a few things, one is that comparatively to some, I haven't experienced "substantial suffering" in my life, and the other is that through the suffering and mistakes that have occurred God has used it for good.
Many times we read Romans 8:28 (God works all things for the good...) in isolation and presume that whatever happens to us God wanted to happen (and possibly made happen) because he wants to do some thing great through it. I have a hard time swallowing this interpretation because it seems to adopt an attitude of "the end justifies the means." However, when I read this in conjunction with verses like Genesis 50:20 (God turned into good what you meant for evil). I see Romans 8:28 as more likely meaning that even though things happen in life that God does not desire for us, he still is able to use these things for his good. It is here I begin to see The Beauty of Mistakes and The Beauty of Suffering.


The Beauty of Mistakes
I forget where I first heard the expression "Falling Forward," but I've felt that most of my life has been a beautiful mess of falling forward. Looking over some decisions I've made in my life I can confidently say I've made many mistakes. I do not consider all my decisions to have been mistakes. I've made some pretty good decisions too. However, as I look at some of my "biggest mistakes" I also see some significant decisions that have altered the course of my life. Whether it be decisions in ministry, decisions in dating, decisions in education, or some other decision, I can see how the decisions I have made have influenced where I am now in life. Some of these decisions have produced some of the greatest friendships, taught me how to make better decisions in the future, and produced character in me that I have long been lacking. In making mistakes, I've definitely realized as much as I think I know it all, I know very little. Perhaps not coincidentally, my mistakes have also resulted in many times of suffering.


The Beauty of Suffering
I can usually correlate my times of suffering with decisions I have made. As I said earlier my life has not been full of much suffering, but the times that I would say I have suffered, I have learned a great deal about myself and others. I've also learned how small my faith is, and how big God is, allowing me to question and accuse him (which I'm pretty good at) without striking me with boils or deep-frying my face. It is in this context of mistakes and suffering that I have come to discover who I am, who God is, and as a result loved us both even more.

The last thing I want to do is turn this into a cliche "just trust God" blog, or minimize suffering. To be honest..SUFFERING SUCKS!!! I think the suffering of creation tears the heart of God and that is the very reason he enters into our suffering and suffers with us. Yet, amidst suffering and mistakes there is intrinsic value and beauty. These are not just dark times in our lives that we should repress or forget. There is beauty in our mistakes! There is beauty in our suffering! In our ugliest hours of inadequacy there is value and beauty.