Christianity

The Great Exchange

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If you follow Christ this is both a sobering and wonderful day. Good Friday, we call it. It is the day we believe God in human flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, allowed himself to be unjustly tried and convicted, scourged with whips that lacerated his flesh into ribbons, and then nailed to a Roman gibbet, in one of the most inhumane forms of execution human beings have dreamed up.

Photo licensed by FreeFoto.com and used by permission. 

It is a day that poses many questions. One is “why did Jesus permit it?” He told his followers repeatedly that in going to Jerusalem, this is what would happen. And his prayers in Gethsemane (“Father, if it is your will, let this cup pass from me”) strongly suggest that this isn’t about a sick death wish or some heroic gesture. Rather, what it sounds like to me is someone facing a hard, but necessary choice involving personal sacrifice–kind of like the soldier covering the retreat of his comrades, knowing that their safety depends on his willingness to lay down his life.

And in fact, this is what is both sobering and wonderful about this day to me. It is this great exchange, that the apostle Paul speaks of in this way in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

What is sobering is this idea of being made “sin” for us. “Sin” in the singular refers to my basic propensity to reject and rebel against any thought of the living God being in my life. I’ve always thought about it as combination of spiritual adultery and treason–of  “going over to the other side.” In some sense, all the things we read about death and judgment are just God’s way of confirming forever the choice I make in my life. Actually, it would be more tortuous to face an eternity with a God who one spent one’s life repudiating. This is a pretty sad state of affairs that the cross of Good Friday faces me with. But it is also wonderful news because it tells me that God has provided a costly way out of the impasse–one who became sin in my place–like the soldier who lays down his life for his buddies.

More than this, there is an exchange that becomes possible because of this day–God’s righteousness for my sin. Volumes have been written about this phrase, “the righteousness of God” that I can’t even begin to summarize in a blog. But what it does signify is that I can become something I wasn’t, someone considered in right standing with God, no longer under the cloud of treason for all my petty and not so petty acts of rebellion, no longer estranged by my spiritual adultery. There is full and free pardon, and reconciliation–the healing of a broken relationship.

Someone has said that the difference between real Christianity and religion is the difference between “do” and “done”. I can’t make this exchange. But I can gratefully receive the exchange made for me. That is why the two little words, “in him” in this verse are so important. It is in Jesus, on the cross, that this exchange took place.

And so I come back to this question of “why did Jesus die?” It seems to me that either it was to accomplish this great exchange, or that it was one of the most colossal follies of history. Why would Jesus die if there was any other way to rescue an estranged humanity for God, or for humanity to rescue itself?

This is what this day means for me. It sobers me to realize what my spiritual treason and adultery cost God. And it utterly amazes me that Christ willingly took that cost on himself to effect this great exchange. I can do no more than stand in wonder at such love that Jesus himself articulated:

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13, NIV)

Review: Story-Shaped Worship

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Story-Shaped Worship
Story-Shaped Worship by Robbie Castleman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Robbie Castleman contends that worship that is pleasing to God is worship that is shaped by the story of God–a story where God, and not me (or us), is the hero! What she sets out to do, and accomplishes, in this book is to explore the resources in the Old and New Testaments, and in Jewish and Christian practice through the centuries that may inform the shape of our worship today. How worship shaped by God’s story appears may look very different in different times and cultures but there are some underlying contours that distinguish between God-pleasing, and human-centered worship.

The first part of her book explores the biblical pattern for worship. She begins in Genesis with God, creation, fall, and what she calls the first “worship war” between Cain and Abel. She goes on to explore worship patterns, the matter of sacred space and the importance of sabbath in Israel’s worship and identity. She then identifies a seven-fold pattern of worship that emerges in the liturgical patterns of ancient Israel that she believes has continuing relevance to story-shaped worship: God’s call, praise of God, confession, declaration of the good news of our forgiveness, the Word of the Lord, responding to the Word, and Benediction. She proceeds to talk about worship by the book, that we are not free to improvise any way we wish or turn worship to other purposes than the glory of God. Worship is to reflect an obedience grounded in the grace of God. She concludes this first part with looking at the rise of the synagogue and the pattern of readings and prayers that was carried over into Christian practice.

The second part considers structures of worship in the patristic, reformation and contemporary periods. In the patristic period the church worked out in its liturgy what it was clarifying in many of the early battles around the Godhead, the person of Christ and his work. The reformation was a period of both confirmation and correction–reaffirming patterns that were true while modifying practices of the eucharist (and baptism) around differing understandings of the meanings of these ordinances. In the contemporary period, the issue is avoiding falling into a subjectivism of worship where everyone does what is right in their own minds, while adapting the resources of scripture to develop God-honoring worship that is faithful to his story.

Each chapter includes a “workshop”–a series of questions that may be used by worship leadership teams. The book concludes with a chart of the Christian year showing how this is another way of shaping worship around God’s story. An extensive glossary and bibliography is also included.

Robbie Castleman is a former work colleague. A personal memory of Robbie is her strict commitment to spend time speaking to and listening to God before she participated in any other conversations in her day. This passion for God, and God’s story runs through this book, which offers helpful resources for the theology and practice of worshiping God for any who share her passion for God.

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Stand Firm in the Faith

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Ben posted yesterday on one of the other phrases in 1 Corinthians 16:13, “be strong.” As I listened to Rich on Sunday, my attention was caught by the phrase “stand firm in the faith.”

One of the things I most appreciated about what Rich said had to do with not confusing faith and certainty. I find this is a real problem with many. Unless they can be certain about God, or something God has promised, they don’t think they can have faith. Truth is, there is very little in life that I can say that is certain when I think carefully about this. Am I certain my wife loves me? I’m pretty sure of that and I trust her enough to fall asleep in her presence and let her prepare my food. But I can’t prove to a certainty that she loves me. I have faith in her love and after 35+ years of marriage, it seems pretty reasonable to trust her!

On the other hand, there are some who think that faith is simply irrationality–believing what we know isn’t true. Faith may be that for some, but what I propose is that Christian faith is reasonable faith–that God has given us sufficient reasons to believe that he is good and that we can trust Him. The resurrection of Jesus, which Paul argues for in 1 Corinthians 15 is perhaps the most compelling of these reasons.

At the same time, Rich focused on something else that is very important. Sometimes we know all the reasons to believe God and it is still hard to act on what we believe to be true. Rich spoke about the idea that sometimes faith is simply “keeping on”. That is what Paul means when he says “stand firm”. Sometimes the best way to “keep on” is simply to stay put!

This is hardest for me when I am anxious or fearful. One place where I struggle with this is money. Things were very tight for us when I was growing up, and I fear being in that place. Whenever the bills mount up, it is tempting to postpone writing those checks to the church and other places where I give regularly. And I’m more prone to think twice (or more) about helping with a special need. Standing firm or “keeping on” means following my regular routine in writing those checks first–and trusting God to get us through the tight patches.

I fear failure. Yet I find the life of faith calls me into doing new, risky things, at times. It may mean a new situation of speaking about Christ, or a new responsibility where I could crash and burn! The “firmness” in standing firm is not the firmness of success versus the shakiness of failure. It is that whether this new venture flies or flops, I am secure in Jesus–firm.

So a few questions for your reflection:

  • In what instances might you be looking for certainty when God has given you sufficient reason in scripture and your experience that he is good and can be trusted?
  • Where might you be attempted to stop “keeping on” in some practice of faith in your life?
  • Where might the Lord be inviting you to trust him to keep you firm and secure in some new, risky thing?

[This is also posted on Going Deeper, a blog reflecting on the messages at my church on which several of us post]

Review: Faith and Fragmentation

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Faith and Fragmentation
Faith and Fragmentation by J. Philip Wogaman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

J. Philip Wogaman has served as a pastor to Presidents and so I was intrigued to see how he would handle the project of re-framing the Christian faith in a post-colonial age of rapid scientific and technological advance, an age of intellectual and religious pluralism. The book itself is a reprint of a book originally published in the 1980s. Most of the trends he notes have only continued to unfold so there is much of current relevance in what he writes.

He begins with an image of a broken, fragmented cup related by Ruth Benedict in Patterns of Culture, an image shared of the shattering of the cultural and worldview framework of the Digger Indians in California. Wogaman questions whether the same thing has happened with Christianity as it has been understood, and whether there are resources within the faith that provide an unfragmented cup, one that can hold water, or the new wine of new life.

I found his analysis of traps avoided by early Christianity (being held captive to a Jewish form of Christianity, anti-intellectualism, antimaterial spritualism, and sectarian aloofness to secular power) spot on. Likewise, his analysis of the “fragments” of a broken faith we are tempted to cling to was equally telling–nostalgia, religious feeling, liturgical formalism, institutional activism, fundamentalism, nationalism, rationalism and more.

Equally, I was impressed with the scope of issues he explores–the question of human knowledge, cosmology and science, the self, our relation to society and response to various forms of injustice, and missions in a post-colonial era. I will give Wogaman credit for not retreating to a privatized, interior faith that says little or nothing about these challenges.

Where I found Wogaman more problematic was in his core theology. Most critically, I find Wogaman denying the possibility of the miraculous and the bodily resurrection of Christ. For him, the incarnation is simply an expression of the transcendent love of God for all humanity. What this all seems to boil down to is a “moral influence” idea of the work of Christ. Wogaman’s vision is for a church that responds to this work as a “community of hopeful love”. Certainly I would affirm that love is the mark of disciples in Christian community and that we love because God first loved us.

Yet in the end, what Wogaman seems to advocate is a Christianity without power, and really without hope beyond this life. In his denial of the transformative power of the Risen Christ working through the Holy Spirit to work inner transformation, I find that all he is proposing is a form of moralism motivated by some vague gratitude toward God. In the end, it seems to me that Wogaman himself is offering us only fragments of what is a far more robust faith, fragments that cannot hold water, nor carry the new wine of new life.

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Review: One Bible, Many Versions: Are All Translations Created Equal?

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One Bible, Many Versions: Are All Translations Created Equal?
One Bible, Many Versions: Are All Translations Created Equal? by Dave Brunn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Why are there so many versions of the Bible in English? And which of them should I read?” Those are questions I’ve often been asked by both believers and those exploring Christianity confronted by the bewildering array of translations you can find in the Bible section of any book store.

What is perhaps less apparent is that the answer to the second of those questions has been a source of sometimes bitter contention in certain sectors of the church. There are still “KJV only” factions. Likewise, there is contention over “literal” versus “meaning-based” or “dynamic equivalent” versions of the Bible. The former believe that one should translate word for word from Hebrew or Greek to English. The latter argue that for accuracy of meaning, translations may often resort more to “phrase by phrase” renderings.

Dave Brunn believes the divisions over translations are actually scandalous–one more way in which Christians are dividing over what should unite them. He also believes that our many translations in English are actually a blessing, allowing us to compare renderings as we seek to accurately understand a particular text.

Brunn is a Bible translator, but one who has worked in translation work in Papua New Guinea translating the Bible into Lamogai. This gives him a unique perspective on translation work in several ways. For one, he argues that most of the contention about translations is an English-based discussion, assuming that this is the only real language into which Bibles are translated. For another, Lamogai is a very differently structured language from the biblical languages as well as from English, which is actually part of the same language family as Greek. One of his contentions is that if word for word translation were God’s intention, then all the languages which God brought about as a result of the tower of Babel would correspond word for word (and even prefix/suffix) to the biblical languages. The truth is that none of them do.

Brunn does not leave this on a theoretical level. Through scores of charts he shows how all of the versions, even the most “literal” often give renderings that are not word for word, and that in some instances, some of the more idiomatic translations actually give closer word for renderings than these literal translations. He builds up evidence that this occurs in hundreds if not thousands of instances in the Bible and that if word for word is the only standard for translation, ALL of our English translations fail.

Brunn actually believes that they all fail for good reasons. Sometimes, word for word renderings from one language to another result in nonsense in the translation language, or actually are misleading in terms of the meaning of the text. Sometimes the questions are as simple as grammar and may mean rendering a verb as a noun or vice versa. Sometimes the question is readability. For example, Young’s translation comes as close to word for word as any, and while helpful for study, is laborious to read. Brunn points out that this isn’t a characteristic of the original Hebrew or Greek, which read well, but rather a result of word for word rendering. Thus, he would argue that all “literal” translations are really “modified literal” and actually these and the translations that focus more on meaning than formal equivalence actually have much in common with the more “literal”.

The author concludes by passing along the counsel of a professor that ideally, there should be a good “modified literal” and good “idiomatic” translation every twenty years and he believes we are actually blessed to have such a situation in the English language for the light each of these sheds on the other.

One quibble with the book is that I don’t think the author in the end finally answers the question in the subtitle: Are all translations created equal? In saying that all the translations have much in common and are valuable when used together he does not answer this question explicitly. At most he seems to say we might dispute renderings in particular translations. In my own experience, I would not say to a new believer or seeker, pick any of them, they are all equal or all equally valuable. I would discourage starting with the KJV, because while beautiful, it is not based on the best manuscripts and the language is archaic and may be misunderstood or more difficult to understand. For a first Bible, I would probably choose readability without the idiosyncracies of paraphrase versions. For a second Bible, I would encourage getting something that is closer to word for word once they are serious about studying texts.

All in all, I think this book is a valuable contribution to understanding the issues involved in translation that hopefully will contribute to a wider appreciation of the wealth of translations available in English, more careful engagement with diverse translations, and a passion to see the scriptures translated in every ‘heart language’ in the world.

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A good resource for those who do not want to go out and by a plethora of Bibles to compare translations is Bible Gateway, which allows you to look up verses and passages in a variety of translations (including non-English language translations).

Review: A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World

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A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul E. Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nearly every Christian I know, and perhaps those of other faiths as well, feel they are rank beginners in this matter of prayer. It is not only the making of time and space for prayer in our lives but confronting the distractions we face when we pray, the struggle to figure out what we ought say, and wondering whether we will be heard–is anyone there?

I cannot say this was the best book on prayer I’ve read. I would give pride of place to Ole Hallesby’s Prayer and John White’s Daring to Draw Near: People in Prayer. However this is a very practical guide to prayer that many will find helpful because of how open and vulnerable the author is about his own prayer journey.

One of the big issues Miller deals with in this book is our prevailing cynicism about prayer that prevents us from trusting God with the most basic details of our lives. Does God really care? Can God really do anything? His most powerful example of overcoming this is describing his prayer journey in praying for his daughter Kim, who suffers from a developmental disability. Throughout the book, he relates instances of praying for God’s help in dealing with aspects of her disposition, including a habit of waking in the night and pacing. Slowly, with Kim, and others in his household, he learns to trust God to transform them rather than trying to do this himself.

At its root, Miller teaches that prayer is an acknowledgement of our helplessness and that this is actually good news. We are helpless to change the character of others or even our own character. Often we face situations that are beyond our control or ability to change, and even the ones we think we control may are often far more complicated than we acknowledge. He encourages us to take seriously Jesus extravagant promises for those who abide in him. This means our wants are shaped by what Jesus wants but at the end of the day, he encourages us to ask with the freedom of children for the wants we find in our hearts as we’ve been abiding in Christ. This is not “name it/claim it” theology but rather the boldness and freedom that arises in relationship.

He concludes his work with sharing his use of index cards in praying for people and the ways he prayer journals. What is most winsome throughout the book is that Miller keeps it real and shares how he actually prays as a result of scripture and his own prayer journey.

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