The Questions to Ask

Theological Discernment strips away the accretions of pious personality and religious pomposity to expose the core of a preacher's or a theologian's message. If that core isn't Christ and him crucified... If that core doesn't seek to take everything captive to Christ, then that preacher or theologian is not a "theologian of the cross" but rather practicing theologies of glory.

Theological Discernment is about having the tools to strip away such accretions. Steve Paulson--professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary in St. Paul--recently delivered such a set of tools into my hands. The tool set consists of three questions that can be posed to a preacher's sermon or a theologian's writings. If the preacher or theologian have answers that differ from the ones given, then it's likely they don't have their Christology right. If their Christology's not right, they're not properly distinguishing Law and Gospel. If they can't distinguish Law and Gospel properly, then they're operating under the "opinio legis" system and not from "fides Christe."

Steve's three questions followed by their appropriate answers are:

1) Who or What killed Jesus?

Answer: The Law killed Jesus because he was forgiving sins.

2) What did God do with a dead Jesus?

Answer: He raised him from the dead so that he would continue to forgive sins.

3) Where do you find Jesus now?

Answer: On the lips of a preacher who's declaring your sins forgiven.

My take:

Simple.

Religion--because it operates under the "opinio legis" always seeks to complicate things and to introduce extraneous matters. There is "complex" religion and "simple" religion. In complex religion there are a multitude of persons all arranged in a hierarchy of authority, all demanding obedience of one kind or another; your religious "duty" is to determine your place in the hierarchy and be appropriately obedient. In simple religion the complexity has been reduced to two persons: Jesus and you; your religious duty is express your loyalty to your "pal" Jesus by not disappointing his or others expectations of your relationship.

Faith--because it is the operation of "fides Christe"--simplifies everything: It is Christ and Christ alone. Jesus Christ lays no burden of religious duty on you--he carries your burden. Jesus Christ requires no piety from you--whatever piety you practice is for your own enjoyment not his. Jesus Christ delivers you into humility--where there's no possibility of religious pomposity. Jesus Christ takes your brand new eternal life and hides it away with himself in God for safekeeping until he is manifest in glory, then your new life will be manifest as well. Until then, Jesus Christ who is now your life, takes your mortal life and hands it over to your neighbors so that you might be of some use to them while you wait for Jesus and his glory.

The Proclamation on the Plains Conference on Jan. 2-4, 2011

Dr. Steven Paulson of Luther Seminary (St. Paul, Minn.)

Luther House of Studies, Sioux Falls, SD

You all come, now, ya hear!

Theologians of the cross, unite!

Pretension Busters: Challenges

www.despair.com -- "Increasing success by lowering expectations"

(so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance, character, and character, hope.

Romans 5:3-4

Back in a previous century when there was no vast array of communication methods to bring strange and unusual sights right into your home, you had to make an effort to have an unusual experience. So there was a mythical story about a 19th century Texas farmer going to the circus because he'd never seen an elephant. Driving his wagon load of produce on his way into town, what should he come across but the elephant he'd never seen. Of course, his horse had never seen one either, never wanted to see one again, and spooked, upsetting the wagon and destroying the produce. Protesting to be unconcerned with the consequences, the farmer declared: "I don't give a hang; for I have seen the elephant!"

Participants in the California Gold Rush popularized this expression. The anticipation of riches and the promise of exotic experiences lured multitudes to expend not only their life savings but often life itself to reach and explore the gold fields. When queried on whether or not it was worth it, they would often respond: "I don't care; for I have seen the elephant."

For many Christians afflictions, suffering and challenges are assumed to be transitory experiences; that is, they are experienced and then done with. Normal life resumes between various episodes of suffering or the occurrence of challenges. At the worst, life would be just one challenge after another; but, at best, the challenges would be few, far between, and always beneficial.

St. Paul--with Martin Luther following his lead--believed just the opposite: suffering was normal life. In fact, as St. Paul writes above, once you've been declared righteous by God and received the hope of his glory, you also have received eyes to see the reality of life: the only place we have to rejoice in this world is in the midst of our sufferings. Luther put it this way: the Christian life is a "passive" (as in the "passion of Christ) life; that is, it "suffers" the will of God to be done.

Suffering, endurance, character, hope--all these co-exist in the passive life of a Christian as the Christian "suffers" being done unto by the will of God. The word "character" here does not refer to adjectives like integrity, honesty, respectability, etc. No, it is instead the naming of a certain kind of person, specifically a soldier who has been to the front lines and met with the enemy--a battle-hardened veteran.

Having received the hope of the glory of God and formed by the crucible of living passively beneath God's will, the veterans of faith St. Paul and Luther could face the loss of all they had--even life itself--with an certainty beyond that of "seeing the elephant." They had the assurance of God's love given by the Holy Spirit.

And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Romans 5:5

Pretension Busterrs: Burnout

www.despair.com -- "Increasing success by lowering expectations"

(so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

" The Lord said, “You were upset about this little plant, something for which you have not worked nor did you do anything to make it grow.

It grew up overnight and died the next day"

Jonah 4:10

Burnout is that complex set of emotional symptoms that includes hopelessness, frustration, anger, despair, apathy, self-pity, and lethargy. Burnout is the result of labor that seems pointless--that is, the work is never completed; the work doesn't remedy the situation; the work has no tangible effect upon the situation; and the future promises no change in the situation. One definition of insanity is "doing the same things over and over while expecting a different result. If you accept that definition, then burnout is the only "sane" response to those kinds of working conditions.

The prophet Jonah "burned out." He knew something about his God: that the Lord was gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment. (Jonah 4:2) Thus, when Jonah received a commission for the Lord to preach to Ninevah and declare its destruction, Jonah was confident that such destruction would never happen. Ninevah would repent and the merciful Lord would relent. This would make Jonah a "false prophet"--one whose prophecy failed to come about.

Sure enough... Jonah finally prophesied destruction to Ninevah, Ninevah repented, the Lord relented, and Jonah "burned out." He went off to a hillside and wished he were dead. The Lord had made a liar of him. He expected to be called into prophecy again; wherein the Lord would again make him a liar. Jonah expected this to be the pattern of his future. The only "sane" thing to do was to "burn out," if he didn't want to keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

Today's preachers face Jonah's dilemma: preaching wrath, destruction, and repentance when God is merciful, forgiving, and loving seems an exercise in futility, frustration, and no change for the future. Their prophetic voice is called into question; their work appears fruitless; and their preacher looks as if it makes no difference. Their "burnout" is imminent. If the only "sane" thing to do is burnout, their prophetic voice changes target. The preacher's task no longer is to name people's sin and call for repentance. The preacher now speaks to assure them of God's love for them, to affirm them in their chosen lifestyles, and to motivate them to the self-actualization of their favorite agendas--personal, social, or political.

This "contagion" of burnout sweeps across the ranks of preachers. The preaching of God's Word delivering Jesus Christ categorically as THE way, THE truth, and THE life fades into the background since it demands the death of sinners in repentance so the Christ can be the life of the newly raised-up saints. The Word of God that kills to make alive is exchanged for a sentimental word which affirms the status quo.

This "burned out" attitude is indeed deadly. Without the proclamation of Justification by faith in Christ which works death and new life, these preachers simply leave their hearers dead in their sin while helping them feel good about their sinful condition and exhorting them to accomplish their various agendas.

But...

Thanks be to God that his Holy Spirit still gives life to "insane" preachers who will indeed keep on doing the same things over and over but not expecting different results--That is, they preach Christ categorically again and again and again even when such preaching seems pointless, unending, and without visibly remedy. With no other word than God's Word of death and new life, these crazy prophets simply declare it over and over to the delight of sinners who know the truth about themselves and God.

"I love to tell the story for those who know it best

seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest."

LBW #390

Pretension Busters: Blogging

www.despair.com -- "Increasing success by lowering expectations"

(so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

“Where there are many dreams, there are many vanities, and words without number. Therefore, fear God!”

Ecclesiastes 5:7

As a blogger I certainly know about "the few" of the above caption. The struggle for "audience" often consumes bloggers--especially as they try to move into some sort of "pay" model. In most of those models "pay" is driven by the number of "hits"--visitors--the blogger's site obtains on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Various tactics are used by bloggers to drive up the "hit" numbers: 1) Networking--you join an increasing circle of friends who "scratch each other's back" by visiting each other's sites, as the number of friends increases so do the number of hits; 2) Branding--carefully choosing a theme and/or key words and/or specific topics that rate high on "search engine" priorities, this drives up hits which in turn earns higher ratings on the search engines; 3) Appeal--crafting the content of the message so that it "appeals" to people's sentimentality, their vanity, their popularity, etc.; 4) Marketing--simply using any means possible to "get the word out" so that there is "recognition" of the blog and therefore it draws attention and "hits."

As a preacher, I know as well about "the few." The struggle for "audience" often consumes preachers--especially since audience size is used as a measure of the preacher's success and determines the preacher's "pay." Preachers use every tactic mentioned above and then some to increase the size of their audience. The most insidious and destructive of those tactics for preachers is that of "Appeal"--crafting the content of the message so that it "appeals" to people's "itching ears:" For there will be a time when people will not tolerate sound teaching. Instead, following their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves, because they have an insatiable curiosity to hear new things. (2 Timothy 4:3)

The above caption is a parody of Winston Churchill's statement in his famous speech of 1940 wherein he pointed to the heroic defense of Britain by the Royal Air Force against the Nazi war machine by saying: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," The pilots and their crews of the RAF had a single-minded pursuit of purpose: to be the living shield between their homes and homeland and the enemy come to destroy them. Their single-minded devotion to that duty emptied them of concerns for personal success, profit, or safety. Time and again they took to the sky knowing that, live or die, they were all that stood between all they loved and its destruction.

While there are some similarities between bloggers and preachers--especially as they engage in strategies of audience maximization, there is one defining difference that really precludes a preacher's participation in said strategies. While it may be true for bloggers to use many words to say so little, for a preacher (unless they've surrendered to audience maximization) there is but one word to deliver but that one word says so much. That one word is a person, Jesus Christ, the Word of God. An all-encompassing word who said of himself: "And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all things to myself." (John 12:32) The preacher's single-minded pursuit of purpose: the proclamation "of Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2) empties such a proclaimer of concerns for personal success, profit, or safety. This preacher stands to be a voice delivering a living Word which is "lifted up" between all they love and the triumvirate of powers (the devil, the world, and the sinful self) seeking to destroy them.

The preacher delivers in such a way so as to declare this into reality: "Never in the history of the world have so many owed so much to just one."

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Philippians 2:5-8

Pretension Buster: Blame

www.despair.com -- "Increasing success by lowering expectations"

(so much like the Old Adam and the Old Eve)

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

And the Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked?

Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”

So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

And the woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

Genesis 3:11-13

When confronted with the question: "Did you eat...?" notice how both Adam and Eve admit to eating. But... oh what bondage they are in. Not only do they confess to eating but they also confess to being helpless pawns to the wills of others. The two of them point accusing fingers of blame to the ones who caused them to eat: Adam points to Eve; Eve points to the serpent.

Lurking in the text is another object of blame--explicit for Adam; implicit for Eve. In Adam's casting of blame upon Eve, he explicitly names the woman as "the one whom you [God] gave me." For Eve--behind her naming the beguiling serpent--lies the implicit words "whom you created." Genesis 3:1 tells us that this serpent was the most shrewd of all the animals the Lord God had made. So our lapsarian parents both implicate their creator as responsible for not only their eating but also for their nakedness and all its attendant consequences.

Adam and Eve's pointing fingers of blame are inclusive: neighbor (Eve), creation (serpent), and Creator (God) are all responsible for the condition the fallen couple now suffer. No wonder Luther could say that after the Fall free will existed in name only (Heidelberg, #13). Certainly, after their fall, Adam and Eve claim to be helpless victims "bound" to the will of others.

This gives rise to the possibility of another perspective on the contrast between "blame" and "blameless." As demonstrated by this Genesis story, "blame" is that pointing finger--directed away from self and toward the other--that pointing finger declaring: "It's not my fault, it's yours!" "Blameless," on the other hand, has meant that one possesses nothing to which an accusation can stick--there is no place in you for "blame" to be affixed. Thus, as typically used in Scripture, "blame" and "blameless" are not the strict antonyms their structure would indicate. But what if they were?

If "blame" and "blameless" were strict antonyms, then 'blameless" would mean "one who does not 'blame.'" For Adam and Eve to have been "blameless" they would have said something like this: "I ate. It was my own fault, my own grievous fault. I ate." Now that sounds like a real confession.

Hans Iwand--a German theologian of the 20th century--once declared that the first justification that takes place in "justification by faith" is the "justification" of God. That is, sinners--rather than "blaming" God as the cause of their problem--now see that God is "justified" in his accusation (his judgment) against them. God is "just" in his judgment of them. These sinners--justified by faith--no longer "blame" God for their difficulty; they are "blameless." Presumably, then, these justified sinners no longer blame creation or neighbor and so are "blameless" before them as well.

However much we desire success, it will never be ours until that accusing finger of blame bypasses neighbor, creation, and Creator and points solely at ourselves. Then, abjectly and honestly confessing our failures we will come to know--not the success of our own work--but the success of God's work in us.

And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds as expressed through your evil deeds, but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him – if indeed you remain in the faith, established and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

Colossians 1:21-23a