Review of Irresistable Revolution

In Walter Brueggemann's deeply insightful The Prophetic Imagination, he complains, "The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or act". Our desperate need is for a prophetic imagination to "nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us". Indeed "Who will ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down)" (Rom 10:6). How can we be awakened from our slumber of costly self-absorption into the light of gospel-living unless someone goes before us and shows us the way? What we desperately need is not more talkers but dreamers, not mere sideline critics but those who will live critically of the prevailing ethos.

Without being too dramatic, I believe Shane Claiborne attempts such a feat. Author, speaker, and co-founder of The Simple Way in the badlands of Philadelphia, Shane believes, imagines, and acts on a new way of living in his recent book Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. He won't win any awards for clarity or conciseness but his book is littered with gems that capture this thinking:

"Charity wins awards and applause, but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls for a new world" (129).

"...believers are a dime-a-dozen nowadays. What the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but begin enacting it now" (149).

"For the flag and the cross are both spiritual. And they are both political... No wonder it is hard for seekers to find God nowadays. Its difficult to know where Christianity ends and America begins" (193).

"The more personal property is retained as private space, the more corporate property becomes a necessity. And the cycle continues, for as we enlarge the territory of corporate property, private property remains comfortably sacred" (330).

"...I just wanted to rise above the suffocating deadness, to rise above people who no longer feel or dream but just exist" (346).

Most importantly he's done something (exit Donald Miller). Whether he is moving into a decrepit, crime-ridden neighborhood and building community, or sleeping in public parks with the harassed homeless, or extending fellowship to Iraqi believers during America's invasion, he is acting in refreshing, innovative ways that give pause to our shared ethos with the present powers. That is prophetic.

My only complaint is the faddish, stifling ambiguity that permeates his writing. A pair of millennium have taught us that talk of Jesus is malleable, that he can fit into our image of him. As communication and causes grow, our Messiahs will multiply into a myriad of Christs, christening the banners of everything from Republicanism to organic herbal remedies. I am not saying Shane has invented a Jesus on the spot. I am saying that the less we hear of Christ and the more we hear the issues, Jesus ends up filling in the cracks and becomes immeasurably less than we intended.

That being said, Irresistible Revolution is a great read that challenges my Jesus and my lifestyle to the core. May we be men and women that invite fresh winds of Scripture to upend our cultural comfort and embody a different script than the tattered one we've been handed.

The Earthiness of the Old and the Dualism of the New

How do we account for the contrast between the OT's preoccupation with hard work, harvests, politics, and justice, and the NT's urging to get our eyes on things above, to live as exiles, to labor for eternal fruit, and store imperishable treasure? Without trying to jam both Testaments into the same mold, I don't think the differences are as drastic as they may seem.


Certainly there is discontinuity in God's plan of salvation from Old to New. But it's wrong to imagine a false discontinuity that envisions Israel's salvation as an earthly utopia and the church's as a heavenly one. There is no such naive idealism in the OT. From Abraham's doubts and white lies to Israel's grumblings and golden calves to the Law's depressing prediction of absolute failure and punishment, the Scriptures stand witness to the blatant shortcomings of the people of God. At best, men and women of faith are fed shadowy images of better things to come. Hebrews 11 offers us a window into a "dualism" older than Israel and its practical implications.


This parade of exemplary saints from Abel to David all demonstrate one thing - commendation of hopeful faith embodied in earthly action. These were not OT caricatures pouring themselves into building heaven on earth. In the Promised Land itself, Abraham was "like a stranger in a foreign country"! No, at their best they were looking forward, seeing from a distance, welcoming "a better country - a heavenly one". Their sacrificial offerings, boat building, baby making, civil disobedience, prophesying, conquering, and administering justice all economically, socially, religiously, and politically served the same purpose - banking their physical lives on something better to come; living a heavenly reality in earthly bodies and communities.


As Christians we look back on a rich inheritance of ancestral witnesses. We look forward to Jesus, whose own obedience meant flesh, blood, work, sweat, connecting the theological dots of worship within our bodily existence, and then dying and resurrecting bodily himself. This "race marked out for us" is tied taut between these examples. No wonder the fledgling church of Acts is instantly forced to define social structures (1:14-15), property rights (2:44-45), politics (4:19; 5:29), and treatment of the poor (4:34) in light of Jesus' resurrection and their mission in the opening chapters. The church is at its worst when it hangs limply in the balance of an aritificial dualism, affirming Jesus' lordship over everything we can't see and having trouble finding his relevance in things that matter.

Communion and our Engagement to Christ

I posted this on my church's blog recently. Sorry about the length PD.

When we read about the Lord’s Supper in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-26, and Luke 22:14-23), something strange becomes apparent. We are familiar with the first two parts of communion; Jesus breaks the bread and gives it to the disciples, and then He passes the wine telling them that it is, “the new covenant in My blood,” (Lk. 22:20) These parts of the Lord’s supper are mentioned perhaps every time and everywhere it is practiced. What we often neglect to notice is the promise given with the Elements:

“But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom,” (Mt. 26:29, cf. Mk. 14:25, Lk. 22:16,18)

It does not sound like a promise at all, and no doubt the disciples did not hear it as such. To them, it is difficult to hear anything except, “We did some amazing things together, I am leaving you. Oh, and by the way, I’ll come back sometime ” If this were all Jesus meant, despair and desertion would not be difficult to understand. However, upon closer examination we see that there is a very great promise here.

Recall a couple of weeks ago Dusty talked about the Jewish custom of marriage (Parable of the Ten Virgins). He mentioned how the bridegroom and bride would become engaged (and at that point they were viewed as essentially married to the extent that if the bridegroom died, the bride would be considered a widow) and then the bridegroom would proceed to leave and prepare a home for his bride. As soon as his estate was ready the bridegroom would return in a glorious procession and days of feasting and dancing would ensue, and the marriage would finally be consummated.

If we return to the scene in that upper room shortly before Christ’s death and look again at Christ’s language with this image of marriage in mind, its meaning changes. His announcement of His departure is not an expression of abandonment, but a promise of perfect marriage. It is not a funeral march but the beginning of the engagement. Interpreting the Lord’s Supper with an understanding of marriage, His instructions at the passover come to mean two things:

1) Our relationship to Christ has changed. In the Luke account Jesus says, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.” There cannot be a new covenant unless there is an old covenant. The old covenant was our guardianship under the Law. By Christ’s death, our obligation to the Law has been satisfied in Christ, and by joining with Him in death, we announce that the old relationship has ended and a new marriage is beginning. If our old master was merely right in its expectation of us, our new master is good and right in His expectation and aid. And so, as we take communion, we remember the beginning of our betrothal to Christ. What Christ means, then, by saying that He will abstain from the cup until God’s kingdom is established is essentially a commitment to abstinence, since the blood is the very thing that binds husband and wife. Christ is saying that until the proper time, the marriage will not be consummated between He and His Bride. So even though we have fellowship with Christ, our fellowship with Him is not what it will be. This brings us to the second point.

2) Our relationship to each other has changed. Inasmuch as it is important to understand who our Bridegroom is, we must understand who the Bride is. Jesus gives the cup and says, “Take this and share it among yourselves,” and then the bread, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you,” (Lk. 22:17, 19) Remember that God’s intention from Abraham on was to make a great family, or nation, bound by a common heritage and blood (Gn. 17:1-8). The lineage that went from Abraham down through Isaac, Jacob, and all of their descendants all the way down to Christ is a tangible symbol of an eternal reality, that is, the Vine that is Christ in whom we find our spiritual lineage (Jn 15:1-11). In the same way that the Jews trace their physical lineage to Abraham, we trace our spiritual lineage to him through Christ. Hence, by ingesting His blood and body, we are taking in the very elements that make a family a family. I am related to my mother and father and sister by a temporal sort of blood, and my ties to them will end (again, in a temporal sense) as soon as I die. In the same way that my physical blood binds me to my earthly family, the blood of Christ binds us together as His Church as long as we are alive (which is, of course, forever).

The implication here is that when you, the reader, sit in the pews of Rutledge Chapel and eat of Christ’s body and drink of His blood, you sit among family. These same people who eat and drink with you, assuming that they are indeed in Christ, are as much apart of you or more than your physical family, and ought to be treated as such. Christ’s blood flows through my veins and your veins and animates the various limbs and members of this body that is the Bride. This is the Church, this is the Bride of Christ, and this is what is in store for those who trust in Him. It is a terrible, glorious and weighty title to be given. At the same time, it is a wonderful thought that a wedding greater than any bride could ever conceive of is being prepared by a Lover who has not spared any expense to be united with us.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, For the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
Revelation 19:7-8

‘Home’ and the Imperishable Inheritance of Grace

"Maybe this Robert will come back someday…What of Jack will there be in him?”

I used the word ‘imperishable’ here in this title because it is the word that most embodies the splendor and incorruptible eternality of our inheritance in Christ’s standing and also the rewards that are made possible by Christ’s great repute. However, for this novel it would have been just as fair of me to use the word “irresistible” and to good effect. That is the question here isn’t it? Can an inheritance of grace be resisted?

It would be true to say that this novel is a work that takes its aim at a profligate son, a prodigal. But where does Christ’s story of the prodigal son get its start? The story that Christ read as a young man, the story that set down roots in His heart is the story of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the father of Jacob and of Esau.

This novel “Home” is a story about inheritance, and how the claim inheritance makes on its benefactor can survive and be carried out in weakness. In the same way, the promises of God were carried down through the life of Jacob, the deceiver.

“Jacob was a quite man, dwelling in tents,” -Genesis 25:27b

"Jack had run a length of clothesline from beam to beam and thrown a tarp over it to make a low tent in the angle of the floor and roof…a soul that had improvised this crude tabernacle to stand in the place of other shelter…” –Marilynne Robinson, ‘Home’

Just as the Reverend Boughton would often pull Jack in close to get a good look at him, so did Isaac reach out to touch his sons. When Isaac's vision became “dim” as scripture puts it, he carried out his blessing by touching his son and, in that way, confirming on him his grace. So many times through out the novel Reverend Boughton longs to see Jack but can’t. “Is Jack here? I hope you find him, because it seems like I never even get a clear look at him,” He is the only child who truly had the Reverend's inheritance, and at the same time, the only child whom the Reverend could never completely see in order to bestow his blessing. This is why the reverend has no peace, because, although he has many children, he has not given his blessing to the one he intended to have it.

At the end of the novel we learn that the inheritance was given, and received. The young Robert receives the framed picture of the river and, like a fissure in a mountain, the line of grace runs back up through the entire novel, introducing and superimposing itself on every scene that felt deprived of it. Although the salvation moment happens off stage, it is made incarnate here in Jack’s son. Just as Jacob wrestled with God and was full of deceit, his true inheritance and election was made certain because he fathered the nations, and this is why the Lord is wonderful.

The lord is wonderful because even after the metal is cast, and the form is cooled, and there seems to be no hope, only an empty expectation to receive back from the mold that shape that was always cast into it, out comes something full of redemption and grace.

The Lord is Wonderful: A Review of Marilynne Robinson’s Home

“The Lord is Wonderful”, is the closing line of Home. Robinson’s third novel continues to unwrap the depth and complexity of human life in Gilead, Iowa. Home is a followup to Gilead, but not a sequel, prequel, but the same stories told from a different house. Their relationship is not unlike that of the four Gospels in the Bible. Giving unity in setting and characters, diversity in form and content and both creating an overwhelming artistic complexity and beauty.

Gilead and Home have much in common, namely, the Boughton’s and the Ames’s and the shining star of radicalism: Gilead, Iowa. In Gilead readers were invited to read the memoirs and letters of 76 year old Rev. John Ames as he dies of angina pectoris, a failing heart, writing to his 6 year old son Robby (whose name we learn in Home). The reader becomes fully acquainted with the Boughtons in Gilead, particularly John Ames’s fabled namesake, John Ames “Jack” Boughton and his sister Glory. Home puts Jack and Glory to the foreground and leaves John Ames a shadowy figure. Robinson’s characters evoke a kind of gestural stroke like the paintings of Rembrandt, the interaction of the characters is greater than the sum of its parts. When it comes to the psychology of human interaction something very different from Gilead is given in Home, Robinson weds form and content in electing a unique third person POV. However, the POV in Home is not omniscient, but rather is cinematic. By not giving the us the privilege of knowing the intentions and thoughts of her characters, Robinson leaves us to grapple with the complexity of humanity found in the relationships of Jack and Glory. Following Jack or Glory around could have been interesting, but in Home Robinson gives reflections on the mystery of the family, and God’s providence in it. Where Gilead gave pastoral and theological reflection, Home explores familial and relational bonds.

Thematically there is perhaps one dominant motif, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Jack certainly is the Prodigal who returns and Glory the elder brother, yet Robinson shows something much more profound and real than how that story is typically treated. There is much Scripture in Home, though not to the same degree as Gilead, however, what Robinson does in the final pages of Home is nothing less than a reflection on how wonderful the Lord is. Throughout the entire novel we follow Jack and Glory as they eke out their time in Gilead waiting and watching for some glimpse of grace. Reflection is too narrow, what Robinson gives us is a dramatization of wonderfulness of the Lord. If this sounds too pious and mawkish for a Pulitzer prize winner, one must read it for themself to test her maxim “if you can pull it off, you can do it”. This kind of description admittedly makes the book sound trite and pious. Perhaps, that it is why Robinson did not just tell us the Lord is wonderful, but showed us.

In the publisher’s write up of Home, they call it Robinson’s “best work”. I agree. I think that Robinson has demonstrated her prowess as an author in Home that her other work (Housekeeping and Gilead) affirms but in Home her writing is rich with complexity, artistry, and most of all grace.

Prioritism

At closer inspection the prioritist call for the church to trump humanitarian aid for the sake of evangelism is not as pious as it may sound. A theology is only worth the community which can embody it. I am willing to wager that the same zeal extreme prioritists apply to mission work – cutting humanitarian services for exclusively evangelistic ones – is kept at bay from creating major disruptions in their own lives. Where do they invest their time? Their money? Their career or credentials? How much is discarded into the stuff of life (housing, repairs, mortgages, food, family, leisure, entertainment, rest) and how much is salvaged for the true eternal work of evangelism? Are they as faithful to route out all “superflous waste” in their own lives as they seek to impress upon all missions endeavours?

I would suspect that there are in truth two theologies at work here. One emphatically endorses the goodness of God’s creation and gifts, his present Lordship, and worship which extends to all areas of life. Another, with dogged fidelity to a sacred/ secular dichotomy, in which creation and its cares are the irrelevant trimmings of souls and the afterlife. I pity the recipients of the latter.

Response to Chris Little's "What Makes Missions Christian?"

This is my abbreviated response to Chris Little over his article "What Makes Mission Christian?" in the most recent issue of International Journal of Frontier Missions (ijfm.org):

First, it does sound like you were “set up” in this issue and that is not right. At the same time I was taken aback by much of your language aimed at the opposition. You warned of the “horizontalization in mission” (67) and urged “recovering the doxological theme in mission” (69), reminding us that “mission is not undertaken for the welfare and glory of man” (70). Are you really willing to assert that “there is nothing particularly Christian about humanitarian work” (68)? That Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates are indistinguishable from Compassion and World Vision? Furthermore you drew several hard, fast lines between holism and a host of evangelical boogey-men: liberalism, Liberation Theology, annihilationism, inclusivism, and rice Christianity. I’m sure you could point to holistic ministries in each camp but to resort to over-generalized name calling is unfair, unhelpful, and will certainly break down lines of communication.

Second, and more to the point of the actual argument, I am uncomfortable about your portraits of Jesus and Paul. What do you really make of the nature of Jesus’ work? We cannot get around the fact that his miracles are almost entirely centered on restoring bodies. To try and distance him from that central, prophecy-fulfilling work is in danger of making his miracles into arbitrary magic tricks exclusively meant to draw crowds to hear his words – as if pulling a rabbit from his kippah would have worked just as well. As a side note, that brought out two interesting comments in your article. The first is that Jesus never did a miracle which did not lead to words. In reality, wherever you find a couple of paragraphs of black print together in the Gospels it’s usually Jesus doing without saying. The second statement was that ‘poor’ is not “simply a socio-economic term” (69). Granted poor, deaf, blind, dumb can all have spiritual meanings, they also have very literal, very powerful meanings as well including the Isaiah prophecy you referenced (Lk 4:18-19) which was literally being fulfilled by Jesus (Lk 7:21-23). We can safely assume literal poverty was what their money bag was for. I am not trying to play Jesus’ works off his words but simply saying the picture is far more complex than either side has a tendency of painting it.

Briefly on Paul, it is not true that he “seems purposefully to have avoided…personal charity” (67). He made much of his humanitarian aid to Jerusalem (Ac 24:17; Rom 15:25ff; 1 Cor 16:1-3; 2 Cor 8:1-4; 9:1-2, 12). Very interestingly, when he goes to compare his gospel with the apostles the thing James, Peter, and John challenge him on is not Romans Road but to “remember the poor”, which he is quick to assert is the “very thing I was eager to do” (Gal 2:10). Of course, Paul’s calling and gifting distinguished him from the Stephen, Cornelius, Lydia, James, and Lukes of the NT but we cannot make the case that he did not capture God’s concern for the poor nor consider it fundamental to his mission – he did.

Third, (and I hate to use an over-played word you are probably exhausted of hearing) I am afraid that this might lead to a reductionistic view of mission (at least I didn’t say Platonic, Gnostic, or post-Enlightenment). True mission has always been more but certainly never less than answering the question of how one gets saved. At its best, mission must entail the full council of Christ, the message of resurrection and reconciliation, and planting communities who live as a powerful, subversive force here and now in light of the resurrection. It should come as a shock to our over-programmed senses that the only two formal offices in an institution bent on reaching the world are elders and deacons. How can we make mission any less than that?

Honestly I think prioritism is a bad question that has generated a hopeless debate. I would liken it to asking, Which is more important, evangelism or holiness? Or evangelism or theological education for that matter? You might be able to make a great case for one or the other but you are not going to be happy with the results. True, giving someone a loaf of bread is not the same as sharing the gospel (as George Verwer reportedly said), but sharing the gospel is not the same as giving a loaf of bread. Both neglectful Christians are disobedient.

At the end of the day I don’t have a problem with a clarion call to include the gospel at the forefront of all endeavors. It’s our lifeblood. But the way there cannot be through denigrating something so dear and so oft-repeated throughout the Scriptures.