Tag Archives: Church

Teaching the Faith in a Christian College

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In the previous essay, I posed the following question, which I left unanswered: “What about teaching the faith in the Christian college? Is it catechesis or theology or evangelism or something else?” I will address this question today.

What is a Christian College?

My Experience

I do not remember a time when I did not know that I would attend a Christian college. The Christian college was presented to me as a safe alternative to state colleges. Faculty at state colleges were known for ridiculing the faith of Christian students, and state-college students, away from home for the first time and unsupervised, often plunged into drunkenness and fornication and reaped the consequences. In contrast, faculty at Christian colleges were all faithful Christians and encouraged students to pursue lives of faith. Most students were raised in Christian homes and chose to attend a Christian college because of its devotion to Christianity. There they could study the Bible at a deeper level with knowledgeable Bible teachers and live in a community dominated largely by Christian ethics and worship.

I attended two Christian colleges and found them to be much as they were described to me. All the faculty were indeed Christians, and a religious mood permeated both campuses. No matter what their majors, students were required to take a Bible course every semester. We attended dorm devotionals every evening and chapel services every day. You could hear the continual buzz of theological conversations in dorm rooms, hallways, and classrooms. These two Christian colleges gathered hundreds of Christian students and faculty in one place for one purpose, and it was good for me. Indeed, it was so good for me that I set my sights on teaching in a Christian college. And for the past 36 years I have taught in a Christian university.

A Little History

During my time as a student in these two Christian colleges I knew nothing about the history of the Christian college in America and very little about the history of the institutions I attended. I knew only their founding dates and founders and the names of a few of their most illustrious presidents. Later, I learned that from the colonial period until the late 19th century nearly all colleges and universities in America understood themselves to be in some sense Christian. However, from the late 19th century to about 1920, many of the older church-related colleges moved from an overtly Christian stance first to non-sectarian and then to a secular identity. At the same time, conservative Christians—sometimes called fundamentalists—established small liberal arts and Bible colleges as orthodox alternatives to liberal and secular colleges.* My alma maters, too, were founded in the early 20th century in response to the loss of the older Christian colleges to modernism. And they retained that countercultural mentality through my time there and beyond.

Diversity Within Limits

According to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, there are hundreds of Christian colleges in the United States and Canada and around the world. And they are quite diverse. Some are closely associated with a particular denomination and some center their identity in a confession of faith. Some require all faculty to be confessing Christians and some do not. Some require students to adhere to a Christian confession of faith and a code of conduct and some do not. Given this diversity, I cannot hope to present a one-size-fits all answer to the issue posed in the title of this essay: “Teaching the Faith in a Christian College.” Should it approach students as subjects for evangelism or catechesis or theological instruction? Below is a statement I place in all my syllabi and read to my classes on the first day of the semester. Although you can easily find out where I teach, I will not use my university’s real name. Let’s call it Misty Mountain Christian University or MMCU.

My Syllabus Statement to Students

“Misty Mountain Christian University is a Christian university.”

At minimum, this assertion means that (1) most professors and staff profess and practice the Christian faith; (2) students are required to take courses that introduce them to the original, normative religious texts of Christianity—the Bible—and show how this faith has influenced the world; (3) students are allowed and encouraged to be involved in voluntary Christian activities of worship and service; (4) the University takes an affirmative stance toward Christian belief and practice. If you are a Christian, studying at MMCU gives you an opportunity to deepen your faith in an affirming climate. If you are not a Christian, studying at MMCU will give you an opportunity to understand what Christianity actually teaches and why it affirms these things as good and true.

In terms of your course of study, MMCU does not require you to be a Christian to study here. Nor does it make the quality of your grades depend on affirming Christian belief. Grades will be determined by your level of mastery of the course material and not your beliefs.

Professor Highfield is a Christian believer, thinker, and writer. This course takes an affirmative stance toward belief in God in general and Christian faith in God in particular. Nonetheless, I will respect every person even if you do not agree with my viewpoint and Christian beliefs. I ask you to treat your classmates with the same respect. The quality of your grade does not depend on agreeing with me.

This statement contains the essential features of my view of the purpose of teaching religion courses in the Christian university.

*For more of this fascinating story, see William Ringenberg, The Christian College: A History of Protestant Higher Education in America (Baker, 1984, rev. ed. 2006).

Next Time I will unpack my syllabus statement in hopes of answering the question about the place of evangelism, catechesis and theology in the Christian college.

Orthodoxy or Progressivism: The Choice all Christian People Must Now Make

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The Change

The decisive choice facing Christian people today is not picking a church based on worship styles or children’s programs. Nor are the most pressing decisions occasioned by the traditional differences among Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox Churches. For sure, each of these great traditions still places before us distinct doctrinal positions. But in the past, one could assume that with all their differences each preserved the essential Christian gospel and a faithful vision of the life of discipleship, what C.S. Lewis called “Mere Christianity.” But lately that confidence has been shattered. Now every believer in whatever tradition must decide between orthodox voices and progressive ones within their tradition.

The Choice

The orthodox voices call us to listen to all of Scripture, deal honestly with the apostolic teaching, and pay attention to the faithful of all times. They urge us to follow the narrow way of obedience and sacrifice. Orthodoxy warns us not to listen to the voice of the world, which often resonates with our lower natures. In contrast, progressive Christianity values liberal social change more than personal repentance. Whatever deference it gives to Christian language, progressivism is not animated by the spirit of obedience. It views miracles as parables and Christian teaching as wisdom for a less enlightened age. Biblical morality is useful only insofar as it contributes to personal happiness. The true authority for progressivism is subjective feeling validated by the spirit of the times. Its religion like all idols has been crafted by human hands.

My Growing and Shrinking Family

I am a life-long member of a fellowship of believers that reaches back into the early 19th century. I treasure it and remain committed to its central aims…that is, of being simple New Testament Christians without too many “addons.” For most of my life I’ve respected believers from other traditions, but I never felt the desire to join one of their denominations. And I still do not.

But within the past few years I’ve realized that I have more in common with orthodox Roman Catholic, Global Methodist, Orthodox Presbyterian, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Bible Church Evangelical, Pentecostal, or almost any other group of orthodox believers than with the progressives in my own tradition. I share with the progressive wing a common history, traditions, institutions, heroes and villains, but sadly, we are no longer led by the same spirit. Our diverging paths grow further apart with every step.

Evangelicals: The Group Progressives Love to Hate

Progressives love to hate evangelicalism. The reasons for this antipathy are clear. Progressives lean to the political left; American evangelicals lean right. Progressives adopt a permissive view of sex, gender, and marriage.  Evangelicals hold to traditional sexual morality and marriage. Progressives are doctrinally liberal while evangelicals are orthodox. Most progressives are former evangelicals embarrassed by their roots and eager to demonstrate their enlightened credentials.

Pan-Orthodoxy

Evangelicals are orthodox but not all orthodox Christians feel at home in American evangelicalism. It’s too emotional, entrepreneurial, doctrinally shallow, political, culturally narrow, etc. I suggest that orthodox believers need not feel locked into a choice between American evangelicalism and progressive Christianity. Orthodox Christianity was not born with the American evangelical movement. It can be traced back to the New Testament through all the great traditions, despite their cultural differences and distinct doctrinal emphases. It’s in that line of true faith, that spirit of obedience, where I feel most at home. I am brother to all my orthodox brothers and sisters wherever they worship the Lord Jesus. I stand with you. We can work out or bear patiently our differences as long as we share that loyalty. Let’s find each other and stand together “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (Jude 3).

Was Jesus Really “Invisible” in Your Grandmother’s Church?

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I just read Scot McKnight and Tommy Phillips, Invisible Jesus: A Book About Leaving the Church and Looking for Jesus (Zondervan, 2024). I will not do a chapter-by-chapter review, but I want to share my thoughts.

The Argument

I decided to read this book for two reasons. First, one of the authors Scot McKnight wrote a very kind endorsement for my book, God, Freedom & Human Dignity (2013), and he is an insightful author. Second, I am also interested in the subject it addresses. A student in my current (Fall 2024) theology class brought to my attention his own process of “deconstruction” and return to faith. At first, I was confused because to me “deconstruction” refers to the French theory of literary interpretation, which assumes that works of literature never merely tell the truth or a good story but always construct a fictional world designed to preserve the power structures that advantage the author. The job of the interpreter is to sniff out (deconstruct) the ways the text seeks to deceive and dominate the reader. But I learned from the Invisible Jesus that the term “deconstruction” is now being used of people rethinking their Christian faith in critical ways. I suppose the term “deconstruction” fits what this group is doing because much of their critique focuses on exposing narratives that preserve abusive power structures within (mostly) evangelical and fundamentalist churches.

McKnight and Phillips paint a sympathetic picture of the “deconstructors.” They do not portray them as rebels, heretics, and anarchists. Deconstructors ask legitimate questions of their evangelical and fundamentalist churches. They challenge the hypocrisy of church leaders and question legalistic morality. They object to the church’s lack of concern for the poor and silence on racism and sexism. To them, the church seems too focused on money and right-wing politics. It’s too hierarchical, patriarchal, middle-class, and White. The deconstructors question the truth or importance of such doctrines as six-day creationism, male headship, ever-lasting punishment in hell, and the rapture.

McKnight and Phillips see deconstruction as a prophetic movement impelled by the Holy Spirit and in search of a Jesus-centered faith. Deconstruction is the negative side of many believers’ longing for a Jesus-shaped community of intimacy, generosity, equality, and inclusion. Deconstructors cannot see Jesus amid the institutional structures and activities of typical churches; hence the title of the book Invisible Jesus.

Analysis

Agreements

There is much to applaud in Invisible Jesus. Indeed, I made some of the same observations and critiques in my book Rethinking Church. Many churches are too clergy-dominated, stage-centered, and money-driven. We need to focus more on the Table of the Lord and small groups. Let every voice be heard. And let the way of Jesus, not corporate America, set the agenda. Amen! McKnight and Phillips are right to say that we ought to listen carefully and patiently to the deconstructors and learn from them.

Critical Observations

However I do have some concerns. (1) Over the last 5 to 10 years, exposing the evils of evangelicalism has become a cottage industry and a good strategy to get a book published by a major publisher.* I detect in McKnight and Phillips a mood that troubles me. Is it Uncharitableness? I don’t know how to characterize it. But there are many gratuitous barbs directed toward evangelicals. Perhaps this sharpness is related to the negative church experiences of the authors. Readers of the book will discover in the first chapter that both McKnight and Phillips think of themselves as deconstructors. They tell their own stories of deconstruction (pp. 5-10), which strikingly resemble the stories of many other deconstructors told in the book.

(2) In the opposite direction, McKnight and Phillips construct an almost wholly uncritical, even heroic, picture of the deconstructors. I don’t share their view. Do the deconstructors measure the faith of the churches they are leaving by the teachings of Jesus? Did they learn these lessons from Jesus alone? To the contrary, many of the deconstructors I know absorbed the values of progressive secular culture before or simultaneously with their departure from the evangelical church. And the Jesus they admire seems to champion secularized versions of toleration, peace, love, inclusion, equity, and diversity.

(3) It strikes me that the picture of a Jesus-centered church painted by Invisible Jesus is utopian or at least unhelpfully abstract. The real living church has always been imperfect and impure. The weeds always mix with the wheat. There will be disagreements even within a “Jesus-centered” church about what it means to be Jesus-centered! The authors leave the nature of this ideal church underdeveloped. Yes…we must love God and our neighbors, be kind, tolerant, take care of the needs of the hungry, naked, and homeless. But does doctrine, that is, the full range of biblical teaching, matter at all? Are there any rules for making sure that the powerful force of sexual attraction is used for good and not evil? What about marriage and divorce and abortion and LGBTQ+ ways of living? Is there any type of authority in the church?

(4) Perhaps I find myself somewhat critical of Invisible Jesus because McKnight and Phillips are writing to a different audience and dealing with a different problem than that with which I am most concerned. I do not deny that the evangelical movement is in trouble, and for many of the reasons treated in Invisible Jesus and other recent books. It’s just that I don’t live there. The people I am pastoring (especially my students) are being crushed not by evangelicals but by progressives. Where I live (the West Coast) the dominant culture is secular and hostile to any form of Christianity that takes the Bible seriously. For me, to write a book critiquing evangelicals would be smashing through an open door, jumping on the band wagon, beating a dead horse. I have no desire to take the devil’s side when the devil is already winning!

(5) Invisible Jesus implies but does not construct an alternative vision of faith and life of the people of God. I suppose we will have to wait for the authors’ next book. But if history is a good teacher, when you reject a Bible-based evangelical theology, an almost irresistible logic carries you all the way to Liberalism.

*See my review of Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Liveright, 2021) from August 2022.

A Time for Orthodoxy (Part Three)

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In the previous two essays I argued that anti-creedal traditions such as the Stone-Campbell Movement (S-CM) need to rethink their opposition to creeds. We no longer live in a culture that reveres the Bible and believes in objective facts and clear truths. In today’s context, the anti-creed stance will inevitably be assimilated to postmodern relativism wherein each individual has the right to construct their own creed. The unity of the church dissolves into anarchy and its identity is obscured to the point of vacuity. I recommended that churches and Christian colleges and other parachurch institutions state clearly the beliefs and practices for which they stand and prepare to enforce them. Call them what you will, creeds, statements of faith or confessions of faith.

A Little History

Despite the rhetoric of the anti-creedal traditions, there has never been a church without a creed, written or merely understood. From the New Testament era forward, every church has had three elements of authority that worked together to preserve its unity and identity: scripture, tradition, and office.

Scripture

The New Testament scriptures embody the apostolic witness to the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, the earliest explanation of the meaning of what happened in Jesus Christ, and the apostolic instructions about how to live in response to it. The NT possesses prime authority for identifying true Christian faith and practice. No other document or person or tradition should be allowed to define Christian faith and practice in contradiction to the scriptures. Because Scripture possesses such unique authority it is tempting to conclude that no other authorities are needed. But historical experience demonstrates that this is not true. We find many instances wherein the scriptures have been distorted, twisted, and interpreted contrary to their original meaning.

Tradition

The NT scriptures record events and teaching set in first-century Judea, Galilee, and the Mediterranean world. By the late first- and early second-centuries the church had become largely composed of gentiles many of whom were steeped in pagan religion and philosophy. They brought many of their pagan views of divinity, humanity, and salvation with them and they read some of these ideas into the scriptures. In this way they constructed such hybrid forms of Christianity as Gnosticism in which Christian words were ripped from their historical context and filled with mythological and mystical meanings drawn from pagan speculations. Thus arose the question of the “true” interpretation of the scriptures. The gnostic churches taught one thing and the orthodox churches taught another. Which is correct?

Irenaeus of Lyon (b. 130) argued against Gnostic Christianity that the true meaning of the scriptures is preserved in the “rule of faith,” which has been taught, believed, and preserved from apostolic times in the oldest churches, especially Rome. The rule of faith is a short summary of the heart of the Christian faith often memorized by new converts and incorporated into worship.*

Irenaeus argued that gnostic Christianity was a recent invention that contradicted the earliest traditions embodied in the rule of faith. In this way the continuity of belief represented in the rule of faith preserved the true interpretation of the scriptures and disproved the gnostic interpretation. Throughout the history of the church, tradition has functioned as a check on interpretations that read alien ideas into the scriptures contrary to their original meaning.

Office

But how is the rule of faith enforced? Who says, “This is what we believe. No gnostic, no progressive, no liberal teaching will be allowed. And you (supply name here) are guilty of error. false teaching or heresy.” Apart from a living voice the “rule of faith” itself is subject to distortion and reinterpretation! For Scripture and tradition are written texts, and written texts can be manipulated by unscrupulous or ignorant interpreters.

In practice, every church has always recognized the necessity of leaders—apostles, bishops, elders, shepherds—to make decisions for the community to preserve its identity and unity. This is true in all Christian traditions from Roman Catholic and Orthodox to the most extreme Protestant and from the first- to the twenty-first century. When the identity of the community is threatened, an authoritative voice must be ready to assert “This is who we are, this is what we believe and teach.”

Different churches seek leaders with different qualities, but all of them recognize that their leaders should be very well versed in the scriptures and the traditions. They must be mature and known by the community to live exemplary lives.

The Three-Legged Stool

Scripture, tradition and office provide mutual support and together are often called “the three-legged stool.” All three of these authorities are necessary for preserving the identity and unity of the Church, the Christian college and other parachurch institutions. Church leaders would be completely powerless to make and enforce decisions if they could not appeal to Scripture as the prime authority to give divine sanction to their decisions. And if tradition has no recognized authority for the community, leaders cannot convincingly assert their interpretation of Scripture as the true one!

Three is the minimum number of legs for a stable stool. Indeed, a three-legged stool is more stable on uneven ground than one with four legs! Balancing scripture, tradition, and office is the best way to insure the identity and unity of the church. Of course, even conscientious leaders who listen carefully to Scripture and tradition can make mistakes. But like all decision makers, church leaders must take that risk. The alternatives are far worse: an ecclesiastical wild west where everyone claims to be their own Pope, a democracy in which the illiterate and unwashed vote their whimsical opinions, or an aristocracy who think they can edit Scripture and reject tradition because they can feel the Spirit’s new wind.

*See Everett Ferguson, The Rule of Faith: A Guide (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015). Ferguson is an internationally recognized church historian from the Stone-Campbell Movement.

Next Time: How creeds, confessions, and statements of belief work.

A Time for Orthodoxy? (Part Two)

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Today I want to apply the line of thought I began in “A Time for Orthodoxy” (August 17, 2024) to a situation shared by many of my readers to one degree or another. Much of my life’s energy has been devoted to two institutions, the church and the Christian college. I grew up in a conservative wing of what American church historians call the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement [from now on I will abbreviate it as S-CM]. This religious movement began in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Its main aim was to remedy the tendency among Protestant denominations to engage in interminable disputes and divisions over ever more subtle doctrinal points. The early leaders of the movement hypothesized that these disputes were generated by adherence to theological opinions that go beyond the plain meaning of the New Testament texts and get lost in logical labyrinths. Partisans enforced their doctrinal opinions with creeds, confessions of faith, and catechisms and other documents to which they demanded adherence by clergy and laity. These confessions served as the standards of orthodoxy for their party.

The Anti-Creed Stance and Commonsense Philosophy

The leaders in the S-CM combined two strategies already present within Protestantism in their efforts to bring peace to the warring Protestant parties: (1) emphasis on Scripture as the sole authority for Christian doctrine and life and (2) the distinction between essential and indifferent matters. If we follow strictly the words of Scripture, reject all mere human theological constructions (ecclesiastical creeds, confessions of faith, etc.), and require adherence only to a small number of “essential” teachings that are clearly taught in Scripture, all right-thinking believers will agree and unite in the great work of evangelism and service.

This strategy made sense to the first generation of S-CM leaders for two reasons. First, the Bible was viewed by the great majority of nineteenth-century Americans as the final court of appeal in religious disputes. Even denominational creeds and confessions of faith were in theory to be judged by Scripture. Second, along with most Americans the S-CM leaders adhered to commonsense (or Baconian) philosophy, which made a radical distinction between facts and theories in natural science. Applied to biblical interpretation, the Bible could be viewed as containing many plain facts that require no interpretation. Biblical facts (assertions of truths or events) like empirical facts can be known by everyone alike whereas elaborate combinations and logical constructions composed of facts and truths provoke disagreements.

The S-CM leaders hoped to create unity among Christian believers by requiring acceptance of only those doctrines that are plainly taught in Scripture and relegating all theories and speculations to the realm of opinion on which we may allow diversity of thought. That is to say, Scripture itself serves as the confession of faith and makes additional documents superfluous. In its own day this viewpoint possessed some plausibility for the reasons mentioned above.

The Anti-Creed Stance and Postmodern Philosophy

In our day, the naiveness of the anti-creed view has become obvious. The two historical conditions that made it plausible in the nineteenth century have disappeared. We no longer live in a culture where the Bible is widely accepted as true and authoritative. Moreover, our culture has replaced commonsense philosophy with postmodern relativism wherein each individual has their own “truth” and all “facts” are subject to contextualization and interpretation. Taking account of this new historical context explains how someone could expect the argument I discussed in “A Time for Orthodoxy?” to be persuasive:

In a case wherein many thoughtful Christians disagree on an issue, the church ought to tolerate diversity of belief, expression, and practice.

If you combine the anti-creed tradition with postmodern relativism, the argument above makes perfect sense. The Bible may very well be acknowledged as the sole authority for Christian faith and practice, but according to the argument everyone must be left free to interpreted it in their own way. In my previous essay, I made a reductio ad absurdum argument by showing that the argument implies that all views are equally true. And if all views are equally true, the distinction between truth and falsehood is meaningless. The identity of the church is obscured and its unity is shattered.

How can churches and Christian colleges guard their identity and unity in face of this absurd argument? Attempts to reassert the S-CM’s commonsense distinctions between obvious facts and truths and obscure theories won’t persuade the postmodern Christian. And reasserting the necessity of creeds and confessions of faith as standards of orthodoxy will evoke cries of intolerance and authoritarianism. What to do?

The Unfortunate Necessity of Creeds

I do not claim to know a sure-to-work solution. However, I believe that in the current postmodern climate anti-creed churches and Christian colleges must rethink their opposition to creeds and statements of faith. In spite of complaints of intolerance and authoritarianism, we must be willing to state publicly what we believe, practice and teach, and in some cases, what we reject. The details of such statements, the level of conformity expected of community members, and enforcement mechanisms will need to be worked out by those communities. The alternative is gradual erosion of institutional identity and unity. Our age is, I believe, “A Time for Orthodoxy.”

Coming Soon–The Choice: Should the Church Affirm LGBTQ+ Identities and Ways of Living?

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My new book, The Choice: Should the Church Affirm LGBTQ+ Identities and Ways of Living? will be published and available within a week from today!

Here is what my good friend Rubel Shelly said about it:

Ron Highfield has made a significant contribution to the present-day discussion of LGBTQ+ claims by a tight focus on the work of Karen Keen. Highfield’s The Choice is a careful and erudite analysis of Keen’s work that uncovers a species of argument being offered from many quarters. First, he lays bare Keen’s postmodern substitution of feeling and rhetoric for Scripture and sound reasoning. “From the postmodern perspective,” he notes, “autobiography is argument.” In such a case, Scripture can be displaced by personal desire. Second, he skillfully explains the implications of such an approach to an orthodox view of the Bible. If only those historic demands of Scripture that pass muster with one’s self-defined notions of kindness, justice, love, secular psychology, and minimal human suffering (i.e., inconvenience, restraint of desire) are obligatory to Christians, we are back to the ancient times in Israel when every individual is a law to her/himself. Contrary to Keen’s claim to show how evangelicals can defend an “affirming” case for same-sex marriage, Dr. Highfield demonstrates that her case abandons an orthodox view of God-breathed Scripture in order to read into the Bible what our postmodern culture otherwise could only wish it had said.

Rubel Shelly

professor, writer, minister, and author of Male and Female God Made Them: A Biblical Review of LGBTQ+ Claims (Joplin, MO: College Press, 2023).

If you are a church leader, teacher, or an individual believer who is seeking help with answering the question voiced in my subtitle, Should the Church Affirm LGBTQ+ Identities and Ways of Living? I wrote this book for you. Soon, if not already, every denomination, every local church, including the congregation where you attend, will be faced with The Choice, the choice I address in this book. Are you ready?

Rethinking Church Now in AI Audio

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Dear friends:

I am excited about an innovation in Artificial Intelligence! My book Rethinking Church has just been rendered audible via AI. Though I am sure we all would love to hear books read by their authors, AI technology cuts production costs by 95%! And it comes close to sounding like a real voice actor. So many people these days tell me that they do not have time to sit down and read a book, but they do listen to podcasts and audible books.

Listen to the free audio sample by following the link above or simply going to Amazon.com and searching for the book.

I am in between series at the moment. I am putting the finishing touches on a book. The working title is:

The Choice: Should the Church Affirm LGBTQ+ Identities and Ways of Living.

Look for it within the next three months.

rch

Celebrating Ten Years and 385 Essays!

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Today is the tenth anniversary of ifaqtheology.com. On August 08, 2013, I announced the beginning of this blog, promising to address theological questions with

“Clarity in thinking, precision in speaking, honesty, truth, common sense, intellectual humility, thoughtfulness and fairness.”

Why Start Ifaqtheology?

1. I came to realize that I could not write a book or an academic article on every subject I wanted to address. The academic style requires the author to pursue a painstaking process of documentation. It takes huge amounts of time and limits how much you can read and write. Academic writing plays an important role in the life of the church, but I was not satisfied with talking only to fellow professors.

2. I wanted to reach a broader audience. For a long time, I have believed that most churches do a poor job of teaching the full range of the Christian faith to their members. The people’s ignorance of doctrine and church history leaves them vulnerable to the winds of culture. I started this blog to do something about it.

3. I use blogging to clarify my thinking on various topics. It energizes me to think that some people—even if only a few—will read these essays right away.

Accomplishments

I think that my efforts have been worth it. This entry makes 400 posts since 8/8/13. I estimate that 385 of these posts are essays on theological or related topics. The average word count for those essays is about 1,000 words. That makes the total count 385,000 words, which translates to about 1,000 printed book pages. I have published five books that began as essays on this blog:

The Thoughtful Christian Life (2014)

A Course in Christianity (2016)

Christianity—Is it Really True (2015; 2d ed, 2017)

Four Views on Women in Church Leadership (2017)

Rethinking Church (2021)

During the past 10 years the blog has been viewed approximately 91,000 times. I have no way of knowing exactly how many different people have read something from the blog but 5,000 would be a good guess. Readers made 1,400 different comments in reaction to something they read on the blog.

A Resource

All of these 385 essays are still available to readers, and they are easy to access. You can find what you are looking for by using the search box at the top right of this page. Just type in the box a topic that interests you. Also, if you scroll down the page below the month-by-month archive list, you will come to a huge alphabetically ordered list of “Categories.” You might find a topic there that interests you. I view the blog archives as a sort of theological dictionary.

Recommend Ifaqtheology

I started ifaqtheology to help the church as a community and individual Christians to a deeper understanding of their faith and to equip them to live faithfully in a post-Christian culture. I hope you will use it as a resource and recommend it to others.

The Author’s Dilemma—An Autobiographical Reflection on the Maxim, “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”

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As readers of this blog know I recently published two books, Rethinking Church and The New Adam: What the Early Church Can Teach Evangelicals (and Liberals) About the Atonement (Cascade, 2021). Although I felt compelled to write and publish those books and I believe they are worth reading, I have a hard time feeling good about promoting them. Part of my hesitancy arises from imagining that other people might view me as promoting myself, seeking honor, or placing myself above others.

This fear was reinforced about a week ago. I posted a link to the Amazon.com page for The New Adam to a FB group to which I belong. (It is important that you know that this is a church group.) One person commented on the link something like this:

“I wish people would stop trying to sell their Bulls…ty books to this group.” [BTW to protect this person’s identity, I’ve deleted the original post and all subsequent comments.]

What do you say to a comment like this? I said something like this:

“I did not know bulls…ty was a biblical term. Perhaps, even if you read my book you would still think that it is bulls…ty, but surely you cannot know this before you read it.  I wonder what you want from authors and teachers. Should they cease writing and speaking and hide their thoughts from the world for fear that someone will think they are merely seeking attention or placing themselves above others? I think about all the great books I’ve read and how much I appreciate the labor that went into them and the insights I received from them. Indeed, no human being is without sin. Everyone loves honor and enjoys attention, and no author’s heart is entirely pure. But isn’t too cynical to judge the work of every author, speaker, and teacher—even when you have not studied their works—as exclusively self-aggrandizement?”

I agree that there are too many books. Libraries are full of them, and millions more are printed every year. Many of them repeat what has been said hundreds of times already. Most do not grab my attention. With rare exceptions, I read only the best books I can find on whatever issue I am thinking about at the time.

Why then do I write more books and essays? Is it because I need attention and confirmation? Perhaps this is a factor; I won’t deny it. But there are other reasons as well. When I was a young person I had many troubling questions. I needed answers. I asked my teachers, and I searched in books. Within my circle at that time I found no one who could help. And there were so many books in the library I did not where to start. Soon realized that to make progress I had to think through problems for myself, and I discovered that the best way for me to do that was to write. I also discovered through experience that other people could benefit from my work of thinking and writing.

What drives me to write and publish, besides the need for attention and affirmation? I want to understand my Christian faith insofar as I can and I believe that helping others to understand is one of the best things I can do for them.

Do I believe that by thinking about the issues surrounding the atonement I have achieved greater insight into my faith in Jesus Christ and the salvation he offers? Yes. I do. Do I want you to read The New Adam? Yes. I do. Do I want you to tell others about it? Yes…because I want them see what I have seen and experience what I have experienced. I pray the Lord will forgive me for my less noble motives. And if there is any bulls…t in my books I pray that my readers will forgive that as well.

Note on the definition of B.S.: In his famous essay “On Bs…t,” Harry Frankfurt defines this mode of speech as focused not primarily on truth, as the liar and the truth teller are, but on conveying a favorable impression about the speaker to the audience. One who speaks this way carelessly blabs confidently about things he does not really understand (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).  

The Point of it All (Rethinking Church #27)

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We are nearing the end of our project of rethinking church. In the concluding essays I want to draw the series together in a few summary points, make some observations, give some advice, and make a proposal.

The Point of it All

  • The essence of church is simple and versatile. Where there is genuine faith in Christ, baptism, and the meeting to fellowship with the Lord and each other, there the church becomes visible.
  • The mission of the church is simple and clear. Its task is to witness by word, life, and deed to the reality of Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead.
  • Most churches, past and present, augment their essential nature and mission with optional features that they view as legitimate means, appropriate in their situation, to manage their affairs and carry out their mission.
  • It is vital to distinguish between the simple essence and mission that must be present in every genuine manifestation of the church and the additional features that may be helpful in specific times and places.
  • To emphasize the distinction between the simple church and traditional churches that have taken shape over the centuries, I called the latter parachurch churches.
  • Churches need to examine themselves continually to make sure that the once-helpful additional features do not replace or neutralize the essential features. Church reform always begins by comparing the existing condition of the church to its God-given essence. Whatever feature or activity that renders the church incapable of manifesting its essence or accomplishing its mission must be recalibrated to harmonize with the original norm.

My Hope for the Series

I don’t think I have unrealistic expectations about the prospects for human perfectibility. I am not offering a secret formula for creating the perfect church. I do believe, however, that it is possible to do better. I have not argued, and I do not believe, that parachurch churches are illegitimate and should be abolished. Many people find them life giving, and I would not take that away from them. I hope, however, that the leaders of these churches—if they happen on these essays—will take to heart the distinction between the essential features of the church and the nonessential ones and engage in self-examination and reform. Experience in church leadership has taught me that reform of existing parachurch churches will not be easy. You may need to start from scratch, and like Paul avoid “building on someone else’s foundation” (Romans 15:20).

I embarked on this series in hope of clarifying my own understanding of the church and my relationship to it. I also hoped that others might benefit from thinking along with me. I had in mind especially those believers who find themselves troubled or alienated from traditional churches but have not lost faith in Jesus. They love being with other Christians but are disillusioned with traditional churches. Some of these believers are older and have given much of their lives to church work, as volunteers or as paid clergy. They are tired and a bit cynical. I want them to know that they do not have to choose between unhappily continuing in the traditional church until they die or melting into secular culture. There are many options for being the church in this world between those two extremes.

I also had in mind young people (20s to 40s) many of whom are not be able to hear the gospel message because it gets mixed with “churchy” language and programs. Having spent a lifetime in the church, I understand “Christianese” and even speak it. I can pick up on the slightest biblical allusion. I get the symbolic rituals and holy tones of “preacher speak.” But most young people don’t get it, and acquiring a taste for these things is not prerequisite to becoming a disciple of Jesus. It all sounds strange, weird and cultish.

If there is any value this generation seeks it’s “authenticity,” and if there is anything it hates it’s “inauthenticity.” And if there is any institution that reeks of inauthenticity it’s the traditional church. For sure, there is more to the Christian way of life than authenticity, but Jesus was hard on hypocrites and praised the pure in heart. Authenticity is not trendiness but honesty. It’s having no gimmicks and planning no tricks. No plastic smiles, fake happiness, or implausible certainty! Jesus said to his disciples as they left to tell the good news to the Judean towns and villages, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give” (Matt 10:8). Freely! Not a word that comes to mind when I think of most churches.

I want my young friends to experience a community of other believers where they can learn and teach, know love and fellowship, encourage and be encouraged by others, and give and receive strength. I want them to experience the simple, essential church wherein they can be formed into the image of Christ and become authentic witnesses to the kindness of God embodied in Jesus. They may at some point learn to speak “Christianese,” come to appreciate the arcane traditions of the church, and may even wish to join a parachurch church. That may be a good thing. But let’s not force them to begin there.

To be continued…