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Books and Reading

Writing, Reading, and the Rest of Life

05/04/2013
Beer, Books and Reading, Doctor Who, Writing
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First post of the year and it is… yep, April. I suppose this is where I should apologize, but going media silent this year was mostly an intentional move, and has proved to be a healthy and peacegiving decision.

Still, I miss this space, and wanted to give anyone who is still inexplicably stoping by a quick update and some reassurance that I was not, for example, imprisoned after an ill fated act of civil disobedience. We are all healthy and doing quite well, if a bit busier than one might hope.

So, with that said, here are a few highlights of my recent writing, reading, and other adventures.

Writing:

Some freelance projects, and Trading our Bombs for Bridges at Deeper Church, which was a short reflection on living as Resurrection people in a cynical world.

Reading:

A few recent stand-outs.

Because I was curious where Rob would go after the-book-that-shall-not-be-named.

Because it has been a fun adventure.

Up next/soon?

And the rest of life:

The Doctor is back!

The weather is finally making a pleasant turn so hopefully I can find an afternoon soon to clean out the garden and get it ready for the new season. I am thinking I will start an asperagus bed this year.

And last but not least, the robust porter I brewed this winter is finally ready. Just opened the first bottle a few days ago, and I am quite pleased with the result.

Grace and Peace,

Mason

Hauerwas on Karl Barth

01/12/2012
Books and Reading, Karl Barth, Stanley Hauerwas, Theology
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karlbarthpipeI have been reading from Barth and Hauerwas this morning, and thought I might share some highlights of what I’ve come across.

From his memoir, Hannah’s Child - Hauerwas on encountering Liberal theology in the University, and his attraction to the work of Karl Barth.

“The presumption of many scholars at the time was that the task of theology was to make the language of the faith amenable to standards set by the world. This could be done by subtraction:  ‘Of course you do not have to believe X or Y’; or, by translation, ‘When we say X or Y we really mean…’  I was simply not interested in that project. From my perspective, if the language was not true, then you ought to give it up. I thought the crucial question was not whether Christianity could be made amenable to the world, but could the world be made amenable to what Christians believe? I had not come to the study of theology to play around.

I am not sure why I thought like this, but I suspect it had something to do with being a bricklayer. I simply did not believe in ‘cutting corners.’ I was attracted to Barth because he never cut any of the corners. He never tried to ‘explain.’ Rather, he tried to show how the language works by showing how the language works. There is a ‘no bullshit’ quality to Barth’s thought that appealed to a bricklayer from Texas and that seemed to me the kind of straightforwardness Christian claims require” (p. 59).

Hauerwas delved into this fascination with Barth in more detail in a First Things article titled Karl Barth Dogmatics in Outline, and played off of Barth’s understanding of the word “God” in the essay Naming God at ABC.

Also a part of my reading this morning, an old post by Kim Fabricius, Ten Propositions on Karl Barth.

Books, Links, and Ramblings

17/11/2012
Books and Reading, Reformation, Story, Theology
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My reading has taken on a historical theme recently, with Pelikan’s The Growth of Medieval Theology and MacCulloch’s The Reformation currently occupying any free time I can find.

Next up, Gordon’s biography of Calvin.

Also of note, I just finished Jamie Smith’s The Fall of Interpretation (which was brilliant), and am adding a couple volumes by Barth and Torrance to the top of my reading list.

This morning I stumbled across the blog The Evangelical Calvinist. So far I’ve only read a couple posts – Thomas Torrance’s View of Scripture as ‘Human’ and Calvin: Right and Wrong on Predestination, Election – but it looks promising and ties into my other reading well at the moment.

I couldn’t be happier that the election is over, but I continue to find the apocalyptic language of both the Religious Right and the Religious Left incredibly disheartening. If Jesus is Lord means anything, it ought to mean the Church participates in a different sort of politics. As Augustine argued, Christians are part of a different polis, and that should determine how we approach the polis of the world – which one would hope leaves little room for uncritical partisan loyalties.

Speaking of Augustine (and Barth, Torrence, Smith, Calvin, the Reformation, etc.), might there be way of being [faithfully] “Reformed” that looks quite different from the way Piper and Co. have defined that term?

I believe so, but I am still wrestling with what that might look like.

On a tangentially related note – it seems I’m not the only one tentatively exploring a more traditioned stream of the faith these days. I have only anecdotal evidence for this, but it seems many who were engaged with emgerent have slowly and quietly begun moving towards something else. Of course, there is a significant difference between taking your next step in a journey and recanting your previous step.

The Gospel According to Isaiah 53 | a Review

29/10/2012
Book Review, Books and Reading
1 Comment

I still remember the beginning of The Passion of the Christ. It started with a dark screen, haunting music, and then these words appeared from Isaiah 53 “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

Although it did not cross my mind at the time, in retrospect it could seem peculiar to begin a film about the Passion with a quotation from anything besides one of the Gospels. It fit though, because Isaiah, and in particular its account of the Suffering Servant, has influenced Christian thought about the death of the Messiah to such an extent that it is often referred to as the Fifth Gospel.

However, the beloved nature of this passage can also lead to overfamiliarity, to our easily skimming over it because we, of course, already know what it has to tell us.

So, when given the opportunity to review The Gospel According to Isaiah 53, I decided the time investment would be worthwhile if I could shake off my too-comfortable familiarity with the text and be challenged afresh by it’s message. I was not disappointed.

Divided into three sections  – Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Interpretation, Biblical Theology, and Practical Theology – this book features a wide-ranging collection of essays on everything from the identity of “The Servant of the Lord” to “Preaching Isaiah 53.”

Of particular interest to me were two of the essays on the New Testament use of Isaiah 53, specifically Darrell Bock on its use in Acts 8 and Craig Evans on its use in Peter, Paul, and Hebrews. As usual I learned quite a bit from both Bock and Evans’ writing, and came to further realize just how pervasive the language of Isaiah 53 is in the New Testament, even and perhaps especially when it is not being directly quoted.

Also, I was intrigued by John Feinberg’s essay “Postmodern Themes from Isaiah 53.” Though not uncritical of postmodernism, Feinburg notes how this passage can be a place of productive commonality with its focus on narrative, community, and power through weakness.

The one part I did not anticipate when I began reading was the book’s emphasis on using Isaiah 53 for evangelizing the Jewish community. In fact, it turns out that part of the impetus for this book was to equip Christian leaders to minister to Jewish people. Though not a strike against the book, it would be worth knowing ahead of time, as the academic nature of the text did not lead me to expect to suddenly be reading about evangelistic technique.

Still, all said The Gospel According to Isaiah 53 was an engaging and worthwhile read, which casts light on a key passage for understanding the mission and death of the Messiah.

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Oh yes, I received this book from Kregal Publishing for the purpose of review. No stipulations were made on the content of said review, but I am required to note this to be compliant with FCC regulations.

Tradition, Catholicity, and Postmodernism: Excerpts from The Fall of Interpretation

06/10/2012
Books and Reading, Church & Culture, Hermeneutics, Philosophy, Theology
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I’m making my way through Jamie Smith’s The Fall of Interpretation, and thought I’d share some of the more thought-provoking quotes thus far.

On realizing all readings of Scripture are “traditioned:”

“I had been inducted into a tradition that didn’t think of itself as a tradition – indeed, I had been steeped in a hermeneutical tradition that regularly decried “the traditions of men” and thus championed a “back to the Bible” primitivism that took itself to be a reading rather than an interpretation of Scripture. In sum, I had been unwittingly and covertly initiated into what I describe below as a “hermeneutics of immediacy,” which, of course, does not think of it is a hermeneutic at all…

As you might imagined I felt somewhat duped, as do many who emerge from fundamentalisms that have effectivly hidden aspects of reality. Once those aspects of reality are discovered (or, in this case, once it’s discovered that “reality” is always already mediated), it’s hard not to ask: What were you trying to hide?”

On postmodern catholicity:

“there are two ways of being postfoundationalist: emergent or catholic. The former, I have argued, remains haunted by the ghost of immediacy and thus can never quite be comfortable with the particularities of a hermeneutic tradition in all of its specificity. The latter, in contrast, is a postcritical affirmation of the particularity of the “catholic” orthodoxy of the Nicene tradition, and of even more specific renditions of that (such as Reformed or Anglican or Pentecostal streams as particular interpretive traditions within catholic Christianity).

Both are postfundamentalist stances, but the former – still haunted by the modern dream – tends toward a liberal trajectory as the only other option within the modern paradigm, whereas the latter “catholic” option is postliberal precisely insofar as it refuses to be haunted by the modern myth of immediacy. Thus I have argued that the “catholic” option is actually more persistently postmodern.”

No Creed but the Creed I’m Not Articulating to You

02/10/2012
Books and Reading, Confession, Creeds, Theology
3 Comments

“No Creed but the Bible” has become a popular position to take, frequently expressed by fundamentalists and emergent Christians alike, albeit in rather different ways.

Carl Trueman wants to call b.s. on the whole thing.

I read his new book, The Creedal Imperative, over the weekend and – despite some significant areas of disagreement – found it thought provoking and well argued.

In particular I was struck by his argument that everyone has a creed, the only difference is creedal traditions put that creed in the public domain.

By that he is suggesting, and I’m prone to agree, that everyone has a framework they read the Bible through whether or not they acknowledge it.

That might be Calvinism, an affinity for Liberation theology, an eschatology that has been shaped by growing up in Dispensational churches, or a thousand other theological biases, but ultimately no one reads the Bible without interpretive baggage.

So then when a pastor proclaims his church has no creed but the Bible, he is in danger of two things. First, he is effectively making his church’s creed whatever he (and the other key leaders of the church) decree is Biblical in a given week. And secondly, he is identifying his own theology so closely with the Bible that he is unable to see his beliefs objectively enough to really evaluate them against the Scriptures.

In other words, it is too easy to move from “no creed but the Bible,” to “no creed but my personal interpretation of the Bible.”

Or, “the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” [Switch part 1 and part 2 of that sentence as necessary]

I’ll admit that my own ecclesial history has made me prone to seeing all sorts of red flags when it comes to entrenched theological camps (which creeds and confessions certainly can represent). But that said, Trueman’s book is a good reminder that the alternative is fraught with difficulties as well.

What do you think? Are creeds and confessions helpful, necessary or inevitable even? Do they too easily lock us into errant or uncritical readings of the Scripture? Is there really a better alternative?

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