Humility Starts At The Top

I can feel all fifteen sets of eyes on me… all waiting for me to respond, looking anxiously because I am assumed to have an answer that will settle all disputes. Humility is often talked about, and frequently held up as a virtue required of all leaders. Some leaders make grand claims to have attained humility and are quick to recount the episodes in their lives that gave them the ability to somehow remain humble in the face of success all around them.

Anyone in a leadership position, especially one that involves teaching can easily fall into the trap of thinking they know more than they really do. The church culture expects answers from their leaders. As a professor at two different colleges, I am constantly faced with questions from eager students who expect me to give them the answers to all the difficult questions in the world. It becomes increasingly easy to operate from a stance of epistemic authority from the position of teacher. Add to that the perceived infallibility that comes from advanced degrees, or special titles, and you have a potent combination that can cause anyone to think more of themselves and their understanding of all things than is really the case.

What would be the response to a pastor on a Sunday morning that admits during the weekly service that he/she has studied the Scripture passage under inspection that week only to discover more questions have risen in his/her mind than answers. Could a pastor really tell his/her congregation that all the answers are not divinely imparted to them during their weekly study? Could the existence of mystery really become not only acceptable, but also expected?

I often times wonder what the response would be in a congregation if a pastor openly admitted to the congregation that “I have been studying this passage all week, and honestly I’m still not quite sure what all the implications of this are.”

“We know in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9). The apostle Paul rightly understands the incomplete nature of our understanding of the world around us.

Responsible Christian teaching rightly admits the incomplete nature of our comprehension of God. God is beyond our comprehension; any attempt to adequately describe the God of the Bible always falls short of completion. A sense of awe and wonder must always accompany any theological enterprise.

Christian pastors and teachers need to become acutely aware of this limitation, because of temptation to think more of ourselves than we should. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking we have all the answers, which soon leads to dogmatic statements that extend to every area of theology. Certainly there should be some subjects with which we speak with great certitude about, however, in many cases a little epistemic humility would go a long way.

So how can we remain humble in front of others without compromising the imparting of truth, which is the responsibility of Christian teachers?

First, I would extend a call to all teachers, whatever their status to learn three very important words: I don’t know. There is something refreshing about admitting that you do not know something when asked a question. So much pressure is placed on Christian leaders to have all the answers, because they are professional Christian leaders. However, admitting that we are not all knowing relieves us from the pressure of having to be infallible on all things in theology. Pastors admitting that they don’t have all the answers would actually encourage their constituents ensuring them that questions are sometimes ok.

Second, Christian leaders need to approach any teaching with great humility, knowing that anything they begin to say about God will be in part inadequate to fully capture His greatness. Any statement about God in human language falls short of His holiness, His perfection. So we will begin to readily admit that God is bigger, and greater than anything our words can describe.

Finally, pastors, and teachers will understand that sometimes starting the conversation amongst your listeners is actually a greater method of teaching than giving all the answers. The pastor on Sunday morning moves from being the last word on the subject to the first word. The pastor starts a conversation that will continue throughout the week.

Questions are often times better than answers, because through our questions we become seekers after God, searching the Scriptures prayerfully to encounter a God who is both beyond us, and somehow personally attainable through the Scriptures.

Reclaiming a Narrative of Hope

Reclaiming a narrative of hope.

When I was in the ninth grade a new teacher came to my little school in rural Pennsylvania. Loquacious students quickly spread word about the new style of this particular teacher, with two main points of emphasis coming down the grapevine to my ever interested ears. The school was a buzz about the particularly strange way in which this new teacher utilized a thin pencil to daily draw in a set of eyebrows that had previously been scorched off in some sort of terrible accident with a razor [or so my ninth grade mind thought].

The other piece of news that quickly made its way to my corner of the small school was the religious practices of this teacher. Information was passed along to me that this teacher was a practicing Pentecostal, and as such engaged in all sorts of strange religious practices that were foreign to a good young Baptist as I was. My immediate reaction was to pass judgment on this foreign sect that my teacher participated in, and immediately to judge the validity of her faith. Why was I so quick to pass down judgment? First naïveté, and second because of the narrative in which I was so deeply entrenched.

Everyone is engaged in a controlling narrative that informs his or her lives. While postmodernity would like to cast aside all controlling narratives, it is impossible to do so. We make our decisions based on this narrative, and from the story above, you can see that I made judgments on others based on the narrative in which I lived. From a distance I am able to marvel at how quickly I was willing to judge, and glad to see that the personal narrative in which I live is quite a bit more broad and accepting.

The Christian community in general has been cast into a narrative in which we are often times uncomfortable, but which we are most likely well deserving. The Christian community would be well off to rediscover the narrative that permeates the Scriptures, that narrative of exile and exodus.

Scripture opens with the grand story of Moses and the people of Israel enslaved in a foreign land, the chosen people call upon God to remember his covenant promises and deliver them from bondage. God is faithful to his promises, and delivers his people from their bondage. God brought them from exile to freedom.

Thousands of years later we see this same narrative informing all of our lives. We live exile, longing for our home. This longing is a natural outworking of the experiences we have while separated from the rule of God, but these longings can often times revert our attention from the grand purpose of God, and focus them too narrowly on our personal longings for freedom.

Certainly the promise of freedom as individuals is an important aspect of the narrative of Scripture, but we must remember that what God is doing in our world comprises a narrative that we have nearly forgotten.
So how do we broaden out our perspective in order to fully engage with the overarching narrative of exile and exodus in Scripture?

First, we must begin to recognize that God wants to restore all things in His creation. The sin that befell the physical world in Genesis 3 will soon be overturned with the return of God. This means instead of emphasizing a narrative where the souls of those who are lucky enough to hear a particular message about God and His work head off to disembodied bliss upon death, we would rather begin to expand the controlling narrative in our lives to include the restoration of all creation. This means we would be just as likely to speak about the well being of creation as we would the well being of individual souls.

Second, we realize that in our world there are still many who languish in exile, struggling under the oppressive regimes in our world that control the wealth for themselves, while allowing others to suffer without. Exodus means deliverance from this oppression, and it is the business of the people of God to be concerned about those who are currently suffering this type of persecution. As we begin to recognize that in our flattened world the suffering of others is not only our business but also our responsibility, we will look to spread the gospel of freedom to those that live in a world without freedom. We will begin to use our resources to help those in need, because this becomes a part of our responsibility as the people of God.

Finally, we will see the work of God in the lives of all people, both believers and unbelievers. As a young man I could not fathom that God would be working in the life of someone who was a member of a different denomination than I. My narrative was too small. As the narrative that controls our lives expands and grows, we will begin to realize that God wants to deliver all people from their exile, and we will see that work of God in everyone’s life, regardless of where they are in their particular journey. This saves us from being the judge as to who is in and who is out, and instead calls us to love everyone and join them in the work that God is doing in their lives.

May we all expand the narratives that control our lives until the day when God is “all in all.”

The Problem of Exclusivity 2

A second problem that I have with hard exclusivism is the reality of hell. This is one of those topics that when brought up to Christians most just assume the reality of a lake of fire in the center of the earth where all the non-chosen will be sent to live in eternal torment. While I disagree with the literalism of many interpretations of hell, I think Christians must deal with the reality of really really believing in hell.

One of the best illustrations that I have come into contact works something like this. In order to really really believe in hell, you would have to foresee a future where you would live in a wonderful mansion on top of a hill. You would live with all the creature comforts that a human can enjoy, every wish and desire is met. The only drawback to the life of bliss that you are living is that there is a concentration camp at the bottom of the hill where your fellow man is being tortured day after day. That doesn't exactly sound like the life of bliss that I look forward to upon my exit from this world.

I am not saying that the existence of hell, or judgment should come under attack. I personally read the Scriptures as having clear indications that a life of rejection of God leads to personal judgment. But what I am saying is that most Christians are too quick to assume that they are in and others are out, and those who have not assented to a specific message are destined for a life of indescribable torture at the hands of God.

Really really believing in hell must bring us face to face with this reality. I wonder how many Christians have really ever thought this one through. I also wonder how many Christians have actually looked up all the references in the Scripture on hell, and asked themselves what the Scriptures actually say.

I have found that too often our visions of hell are more influenced by popular culture than they are by what the Scriptures actually say. None of this means that I don't believe in hell or judgment, but rather I would call all serious Christians to an examination of what the Scriptures actually say. And my challenge is this. To really really believe in hell you have to deal in some way with that concentration camp at the bottom of the hill.

The Problem of Exclusivity

"There can be no doubt that certain types of evangelical theology have caused considerable anxiety in this respect by their apparent insistence that only those who respond to the explicit verbal proclamation of the gospel will be saved... But this is flawed theology, which limits God's modes of action, disclosure, and saving power."

--Alister McGrath

Most evangelicals consider themselves exclusivists, without ever realizing some of the pitfalls of their position. While conservatives will be willing to defend the hill of exclusivity till death, maybe a softening of the position is long overdue. Hard exclusivism teaches that only a direct response to the verbal proclamation of the gospel is effective in atoning for the sins of the hearer. But I agree with McGrath that this limits the breadth and scope of God's saving power. There are certainly Biblical examples of those outside the line of salvific history that are considered part of the family of God [Melchizedek, Abimelech, etc.]

This is not to say that pluralism should rule as king, or even inclusivism that views all paths as leading to salvation through Christ. We must begin to recognize the saving power of Christ that extends beyond our abilities. The eternal purposes of God will be established. Perhaps a better way forward is to begin to recognize the saving power of God, that can extend beyond an explicit elucidation of the gospel.

Does general revelation take the place of specific revelation? I don't think so personally, but what I do believe is that God will judge each individual on the basis of their knowledge and their personal response to God.

While I am personally not an inclusivist, I am also not a hard exclusivist. I recognize that the work of God is possible outside of my preconceived notions of how a person is to be saved. I do not believe that salvation lies in any religious path to the divine, but I do believe that God will judge all people individually, and he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy

Christians often times become obsessed with creating dividing lines of who is in and who is out. I believe our stance on that particular question should remain a stance of the agnostic. God alone will judge, our time on earth is better spent doing unto others as we would have them do to us, than on deciding who fits into the "in" category. Christians love to draw lines in the sand and defend their territory, but perhaps a better way forward is to first recognize our similarities, and our mutual need for the work of God in our lives.

The Task Of The Community

"Good theology... is the disciplined and critical reflection of the community of faith upon the gospel entrusted to it. It is reflection carried out within the community of faith, from the standpoint afforded by faith, and for the sake of the community of faith. Christian theology, then, is a pursuit of the church. It is the attempt on the part of those who belong to the church of Christ to explore and to comprehend more fully the shape and structure of the truth which they are called upon to profess and to live out in all its varied aspects."

--Stanley Grenz, Renewing The Center, page 209


Regardless of what some may think, the Bible does not interpret itself, and the task of theology is not confined to those in the hallows of academia. The task of Christian theology remains the task of the community of faith, for the benefit of the community of faith. That task involves contextual interpretation, and subjective application, which is what makes the center of theology always shifting, and moving as the church of Jesus Christ grows, and adapts to it's current context.

Reclaiming theological construction as a key responsibility of the church takes us beyond fundamentalism and it's foundational constructs, and beyond the protestant liberalism of experience claiming the right to be the cornerstone of theology. Rather it acknowledges the shared religious experience of people of faith in Jesus Christ, and rests on the foundation of the faithful interpretation of Scripture by those in the community of faith.

Everyone that claims the name of Christ is a theologian, and as a result must practice their task in the context of their own community of faith.

The End Of Theology

"In this sense, then, the postmodern turn spells the end of theology. No longer can any one group, tradition, or sub-narrative claim without reservation and qualification that their particular doctrinal perspective determines the whole of evangelicalism. Rather, the ongoing evangelical theological task includes (among other things) a never-ending conversation about the meaning, in the contemporary context, of the symbols that as evangelicals they are committed to maintaining and that form the carriers of meaning for all."

Stanley Grenz, Renewing the Center, pg. 189.

Quote of the Day

"I approach theology in a spirit of adventure, being always curious about what I may find. For me, theology is like a rich feast, with many dishes to enjoy and delicacies to taste. It is like a centuries-old conversation that I am privileged to take part in, a conversation replete with innumerable voices to listen to.

[I see myself] more like a pilgrim than a settler, I read the path of discovery and do my theology en route.

Being a theological pilgrim involves listening ever more carefully to what the Scriptures actually say and teach and making appropriate course corrections in response."

--Charles Pinnock