Glenn Beck and Social Justice

If you haven't heard about Glenn Beck urging his listeners to leave their church if the church's website mentions "social justice" in a positive light, you can read about it here.

Much has been made about his statements, and in response, I found myself getting into an interesting discussion of the topic on everybody's favorite social network. I feel pretty good about one of my responses, and have deemed it blogworthy. So here is my response to a friend, and maybe you, if you share a bit of Beck's skepticism about "social justice."

Thanks for the thoughts!

I agree that the term "social justice" can embody a lot of different beliefs, many of which contradict the Bible, or at least a reasonable interpretation of it.

When the church talks about justice, I'd rather use a descriptor like "Biblical justice", but even in adjusting the language, the social implications of the pursuit of Biblical justice are numerous and unavoidable. So a balance must be maintained. Pursuit of social justice without Biblical reflection can spiral into mere humanistic liberalism.

BUT, there are many, many, great churches out there that consist of many, many Godly people, who do have a strong emphasis on Biblically rooted social justice pursuits, and are not bothered by using the term social justice to describe what they do. One of my heroes of the 20th Century, Martin Luther King, Jr., would not have been emboldened to pursue nonviolent resistance to a segregated America were it not for his strong vision of the Kingdom of God characterized primarily by love and justice with all their infinitely social implications. Catholic Social Teaching, one of the strongest components of the Catholic Church, is committed to a pursuit of social justice that is ardently on the side of the poor, radically pro-life, and attempts to embody the Gospel in all its many-sided compelling beauty.

So I hope we won't throw out the baby with the bathwater. It is a personal choice whether or not to align oneself with a church that is comfortable with self-identifying with the term "social justice," some of which are committed to a Christ-shaped Gospel commitment, and some of which are teetering on the brink of the aforementioned humanistic liberalism.

But Mr. Beck's exhortation for his listeners to see the use of the term itself as not only a red flag and a place to raise questions, but a reason to leave your church is...well...overstated, to say the least. It demonizes a whole category of churches, and in the process attempts to eliminate the need for discernment by making up our minds for us.

And I do think that if we take his words at face value, they are undeniably a play on the fears of his listeners: fears of liberalism, socialism, and even communism and Nazism. These are genuine fears, but exploiting those fears with church people from a political bully pulpit is something that I don't appreciate as a pastor. And I pray that these words don't come across as from my very tall religious bully pulpit :)

Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear

I got a chance to briefly meet and hear papers from some wonderful scholars at the Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture held at North Park Theological Seminary early this fall. The theme of the symposium was "The Idolatry of Security." Different presenters took the topic in different directions, some focusing on national security, others on personal security, and still others on eschatological security. I found Scott Bader-Saye from the University of Scranton to be particularly engaging. Ironically, Bader-Saye presented on a Thursday night, causing me to miss my weekly viewing of a new episode of The Office (which takes place in Scranton, PA).

Well, now that I'm done with seminary, I have finally been able to dig into Bader-Saye's 2007 book from the Christian Practice of Everyday Life series, Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear. Bader-Saye does a remarkable job of maintaining balance in his treatment of a very touchy subject. He manages to look at fear from many angles without losing focus on the primary goal, which is to help his readers "...live into the joyful freedom of those children of God who have learned to put fear in its place."

Bader-Saye argues that fear is the shadow side of love; all fear is somewhere rooted in a love for something or someone. So in a sense, in order to squelch all fear, we would have to squelch all love. Most of us can agree that this is a bad idea. Following the wisdom of Aquinas, Bader-Saye urges us not to become fearless, but to make sure our fears are rightly ordered. We must question whether our fears are imminent, powerful, threating, and legitimate. We need to question whether we're overrreacting to the objects of our fear. Are we lashing out, closing up, and losing the joy of life? Are we opening ourselves up to manipulation?

Our fears can be properly ordered when understood within the right narrative, and when they don't paralyze us from doing good. Bader-Saye suggests three virtuous practices to help us properly order our fears: hospitality, peacemaking and generosity. All three of these ask us to risk, and all three of these can be potential threats to our security, but all three of these help us to truly preserve the love which our fearful instincts fight so hard to protect.

I've laid out some of the nuts and bolts, but it must be noted that Bader-Saye writes in a very engaging way, using plenty of examples from pop culture and stories from real life to narrate his points. He quotes lyrics from U2, Dashboard Confessional, Bruce Springsteen and Tim McGraw, analyzes films like the Star Wars saga and Pieces of April, and engages the literature of Elie Wiesel and C. S. Lewis. And of course he deals throughout with the political landscape and its relentless use of fear as a motivational tool to mobilize Americans on the right and left.

Bader-Saye deals with the doctrine of Providence, a doctrine largely (and sadly) forgotten outside of the Reformed tradition and sadly distorted in the great injustices of Manifest Destiny, etc. Yet the author insists that the providence of God is precisely what we must trust if we are to put fear in its place. He writes, "Providence is the conviction that through it all God's story cannot be lost, and thus God's hopes for the human story cannot be thwarted."

I think he's on to something. So buy it, read it, and have your friends read it so you can discuss it and together change the world.

200mcs: One Down, Two To Go

I haven't retired from blogging, I swear.

I finished my first 200 mile commuting semester (henceforth 200mcs) just under a week ago, and I really enjoyed it. The 200 mile commute thing kind of sucks, but in a weird way, it's been really good. A lot of good thoughts swirled in my head this semester, and a lot of my classes interacted in profound ways so that it was an especially meaningful semester.

I wrote papers on the image of God, the incarnation, resurrection and return of Christ, eschatology, eco-theology, sacraments, the Trinity, gospel communication to indie-hipsters, hospitality and the christological basis for ecological preservation and designed a worship service for the first Sunday of Advent. I read some great books (The Way of Jesus Christ by Jurgen Moltmann, Free of Charge by Miroslav Volf, a book on sacraments by Leonard Vander Zee), a lot of good ones (Jesus the Liberator by Jon Sobrino, a couple books by Robert Webber, Whose Religion is Christianity? by Lamin Sanneh, Eyes Wide Open by William Romanowski, Border Crossings by Rodney Clapp, Mosaic of Christian Beliefs by Roger Olson, Selling Out the Church by Kenneson and Street, White Woman's Christ and Black Woman's Jesus by Jacqueline Grant, Luther, Feminism and the Cross by Thompson along with a collection of African christologies), and the occasional forgettable book (...).

I had some great conversations with old friends and made some new ones. I learned a lot about theology, christology, worship, communication and hospitality, and learned the art of sleeping on a six foot couch. I walked the line between guest and mooch, and when I came home I was able to truly be with my family. I got to see Yo La Tengo, Rosie Thomas and Over the Rhine all thanks to my wife's place of employment, Calvin College. Addison got bigger and smarter and more beatiful every day, and I have come to appreciate Marcie more than ever. It's sufficient to say that I don't deserve her and that's a fact.

I didn't blog much because I kept painting myself into a corner, promising to post about something specific, but never feeling inspired to fulfill those promises. From henceforth no more promises will be made on this blog.

You have my word.

And you have my love.

Eco-Theology 3

My third point is that many Christians simply do not take seriously the ecological implications of their theology.

This can start to look a lot like the first reason, but the difference is that rather than not seeing the connections between the different aspects of their theology, these people fail to see the impact what they believe theologically has on their lives at all. This is the saddest, and perhaps one of the most common deficiencies in today’s churches. What is learned in church is something that is perceived as “good for us” and “good for our kids” but has little effect on how life is lived. Put simply, these people have theological systems in their minds which are largely disconnected from their hearts. Therefore, an intellectual assent to a very orthodox theology which should lead to a very ecologically friendly lifestyle is given the backseat to convenience or fear.

Let's look at a hypothetical situation in the church. A leader of a trustee committee is gung ho about adding a bunch of new parking and plowing down some forest which contains rare foliage and is the habitat for many local animals. This trustee thinks that in order to spread the gospel, we take a "whatever is necessary" approach. There may very well be other trustees in the room who disagree with his assessment, but refuse to speak up because this guy is a respected member of the church.

Or because their business training tells them that it is good business for the church to have more parking spaces for growth.

Or because they are afraid that they cannot articulate their argument coherently, and do not want to be embarrassed by this respected leader in front of all the other trustees.

But they should.

And I hope they do. The gospel means more than just getting people into the doors of the church. A gospel lived well in the church community might just mean that this congregation sacrifices the parking spots as an act of living out gospel principles.

My three "possible objections" are by no means the only three reasons people don't take eco-theology seriously. I just tried to come up with a few primary ones to get the discussion going.

I'll post one more wrap-up for this series in the next week or so with some suggestions for moving forward and hopefully some helpful contributions to the discussion of eco-theology.

Eco-Theology 2

This problem reaches full strength in the second reason that ecology is not often taken seriously in churches today; a deficiency in a small number of doctrinal positions.

For many, this is the obvious problem. A deficient understanding of the doctrine of creation can very quickly turn someone into a hippie-hating conscienceless resource consumer. If one embraces a tradition where God’s call for humanity to exercise dominion over creation is seen as license to abuse the created order for our purposes regardless of the ecological consequences, then such abuse will occur regularly. This view is mistaken. God’s call for humans to cultivate and have dominion over the created over is a passing of responsibility to his imagers, who are now responsible to lovingly care for and yes, utilize for the good of the whole created order, not at its expense.

Not as obvious but every bit as dangerous to an ecological theology is a deficient understanding of eschatology (the doctrine of last things or "end times"). There are extremely popular eschatological frameworks (some popularized by fictional novels) which convey the eschaton as the destruction of the earth. The battle of Armageddon is emphasized on the earth, and the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21 and 22 are relegated to a heavenly, spiritual realm. The goal of this eschatological system is escape from this world. The purpose of living faithfully to Christ is that he can save us from the impending destruction of the earth.

A theology that locates the final resting place of Christ and humanity somewhere other than this earth almost has to lead to ecological apathy. What point is there in caring for a world that will face destruction soon, and as part of God’s perfect plan no less? Yet when we see the eschaton as the restoration of all things to Christ and the return of the Triune God to the earth he lovingly created and declared as good, we do no longer look at life as our only chance to use up the fruits of the earth. Rather, we see our lives as a great opportunity to plant the very trees of the New Jerusalem, where the sea is glassy and there are trees which are for the healing of the nations. We no longer spiritualize these words of Revelation, but see them as our duty to the world which God has entrusted to us.

Eco-Theology 1

I think there are three primary reasons that ecology is not taken seriously in many churches today, and I'm going to address them in subsequent posts here. Feel free to pipe in with questions, as I am still struggling to make more sense of all this and fully think through the implications of these arguments.

Here are my three primary reasons that ecology is not taken seriously in most churches today:

1. We fail to see the interrelatedness of doctrines in our theological systems. Which can lead to...

2. A deficiency in one or two doctrinal positions (usually creation or eschatology), which forbids us from taking the created world seriously.

3. We simply don’t take seriously our theological convictions about ecology (or anything else, for that matter).

I'll only deal with number one today.

So what about the interrelatedness of doctrine? For at least the past century, the idea of systematic theology has been a popular one. Systematic theology brought a renewed interest in theology, contextualized theology for a world steeped in an Enlightenment worldview, and from these, much good has been done. However, the downside to systematic theology is a system of division which easily leads to a theology of division. We study doctrines such as creation, the Trinity and salvation individually, and somehow they begin to feel like separate things, as if the character and activity of God himself is somehow neatly divided into categories. God acts here as creator, Jesus acts here as Savior, the Spirit works here as equipper, and little is said about how these rich aspects of theology overlap and connect with one another.

So we don’t consciously connect the points of doctrine in our theological systems, but rather allow our subconscious mind to do that work. When these connections are not intentional, our minds simply take what we value most in one area of theology and allow it to trump whatever we may want to believe in another area. So we have people who may think that it is pretty important to care for the earth who are not willing to stand for this principle because there is another element of their theology which is more central to their identity which appears to contradict it, yet having not explored the connections between these two aspects of their belief system, the one perceived greater wins out.

In An Attempt...

...to be more disciplined in other areas of my life (running, housecleaning, parenting, husbanding, personal hygiene, etc.), I have neglected blogging. Yet blogging is something I love, so I will hopefully be returning to the discipline sometime soon. For now, I'll just let you know what I plan on blogging sometime in the near future.

I have quite a few distinct thoughts rolling around in my brain on the topic of Eco-Theology. I've been doing some Eco-Theology in various forms lately. I have some of the thoughts down already in the form of a theology paper, but it wouldn't make a very good blog as is. I did some Eco-theologizing when I set up recycling bins at our house and posted some scripture texts in our garage from Psalms and Revelation as a reminder why I/we recycle.

In other news, I'm an uncle for the first time. Carter Charles Fedewa was born very early Sunday morning. It's amazing to see a little baby now that Addison's so big (almost 14 months). It really does go stinkin' fast. It's not all just gross exaggeration. I've been off all week for fall break, which has been great, and tomorrow morning we head to Rockford to see my family. It's been awhile and I miss them.

I am blessed by Marcie and Addie all the time. Despite our awkward travel/living situation, life is really good. Praise to the Father, Son and Spirit who love and sustain us in each moment and throughout each season of this messy but beautiful life.

Living Jesus

So as the semester is approaching on Monday, I have decided to get a bit of a headstart on reading. I know once classes start, it's gonna be a whirlwind, so I'm at least introducing myself to some of my books.

I've started working on a couple books for my Christology class. I was excited for the class to begin with, but after beginning the readings, I'm even more excited. The first book we have been assigned is Living Jesus by Luke Timothy Johnson, and it is right up my alley. The basis premise is that in our quest to learn Jesus, we have, for the last 100 years anyway, begun with the wrong question. Before we get into historical method and source/redaction/form criticism, we need to ask a far more basic question; "Is Jesus alive or dead?"

Johnson argues that if Jesus is alive, as so many of us confess, then we ought not treat him as a historical (dead) figure when trying to learn about him. Rather, we take what we know of who Jesus is through the eyewitness accounts of his disciples and friends, continued over the past 2000 years through the work of the Holy Spirit in his church, also combined with our own experience of Christ in the context of the church, and now we're closer to being able to learn Jesus.

The whole historical Jesus quest always struck me as odd, and Johnson has put some solid feet on that which was only an inkling in my relatively uneducated mind. I'm also beginning to read Jurgen Moltmann's The Way of Jesus Christ, and in his prologue, he explains that he named the book what he did just because Jesus is so dynamic, and cannot be nailed down as "known" in some static sort of way. Jesus is always known in a dynamic relationship, not as a static, distant historical figure. So I'm getting the same sort of approach from two different angles, and I feel theologically energized by it.

Dear God, what have I become? I just used the term "theologically energized." Oh yeah, I became a seminary student again. My fellow nerds and I will retire to the nerdery with our Greek lexicons.

Church and Culture, Part 2

One of my dearest friends, affectionately known as Gus, wrote the following in response to my first post on Church and Culture. (Note: Gus generally does use his shift key occasionally, but neglected said key due to the informal nature of the blog comment). I found it to be quite well put.

"the thing i think we need to learn to do is to learn to see truth and beauty everywhere it exists (as you suggest) and then re-learn to see the beauty of the gospel...not just a vitamin-fortified cure for what ails you, but a sweeter song than is actually possible to sing apart from this amazing life in God...then as we readily look for truth and beauty we can sing this sweeter song as we live in the midst of other people's lives...I just dont think we know how to recapture the beauty of the gospel, so it still seems lame, trite and out of touch with the truly "profound"...if the gospel is not more beautiful than anything else, I am not sure I want it"

I don't really need to expound on this a lot, but I want to dive further into the idea of the beauty of the gospel "live[d] in the midst of other people's lives." It harkens in my mind the metaphor laid out by Rob Bell in NOOMA Rhythm / 011. Bell's thesis is basically that many of us have a far too distant view of God, as if he's somewhere else and intervenes occasionally. As a corrective, he invites us to look at life as a beautiful piece of music that God is putting together, and we all can live in tune with this great music when we live in the story of the gospel of redemption, when we live in tune with God's score.

Whenever I watch the film, it always challenges me to think that if I am truly living in tune with the "sweeter song," which reflects God's glory perfectly, that my life and the life shared by my community (church) would actually be attractive, exciting, sweet and beautiful.

I mean, if God really knows what he's doing, then if we follow him right, our lives will be the best lives possible. We'll be blessing as many other people as possible, loving as much as possible, seeing beauty everywhere possible and knowing its source. It does not diminish the fact that the call to discipleship is a hard one, wrought with sacrifice and tough calls, but if we truly believe that making these tough sacrifices is exactly what God desires of us, then won't our lives be better on the other side of that decision?

Perhaps if we are able to stop being paralyzed by fear, to truly live out the liberation that is proclaimed by the Gospel we profess, then we will be part of a song whose beauty nobody can deny. It is not a song invented by the mind of one great genius, but the sound of thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand singing the same song, each of us using our creativity within the structure of the greater piece of music.

What this looks like practically will be addressed in the near future, but in the meantime, let's play the song together.


[Also, see thoughts from David Fitch on this exact same topic, including plans for a forthcoming post on Kevin Vanhoozer's book on the topic of the Church and cultural engagement]