Friday, July 30, 2004

How Then Shall We Behave Toward Homosexual Sinners (A United Methodist Perspective)

After the great sighs of both relief and disappointment following General Conference, it may be best to take a time out on the issue of homosexuality. However, it may also be an opportunity to reflect on how we approach this issue and how we might overcome divisions that seem to grow deeper every quadrenium. Are there any common means of loving gay and lesbian people? Is it possible to fashion new approaches to ministry with homosexual persons that transformationalists and reconciliationists can recognize as valid and progressing us towards resolution of this burdensome dispute? Is their a way to move forward without compromising one's convictions or denying another's ability to minister creatively in the same church family?
For the sake of discussion let us assume that the traditional teaching of the church on the issue of homosexuality is correct: all forms of homosexual behavior, whether loving and faithful or not, are sinful. Shall we allow them to enter our worship services and join as baptised and professing members? Of course, we should. Should we belabor a point of which they are already aware, namely, the church's condemnation of homosexual behavior? Certainly not. Should we assume that they can be changed in their orientation. No. Are all gay people permissive and exploitive in their sexuality? No, not anymore than heterosexual people are. Are many gay couples deeply loving and faithful towards one another? Yes, these couples do indeed exist more than the church cares to admit. Should we affirm celibacy as a joyous sexual discipline for both homosexuals and heterosexuals alike? Absolutely yes. Should we defend their human and civil rights in the secular world? Most definitely yes. Should we give them grace even when they refuse to repent? As we should do with all sinners, yes! These are but a few of the stances toward gay people in the church that are, or ought to be, agreed upon by both those who affirm an accepting position and those who hold to the traditional teaching of the church. But can we go further and build more common ground on this issue? Surely this is a very important issue in the church which touches upon other vital concerns the church has for all Christian disciples. Justification or the unconditional acceptance of the sinner just as she is, as a child of God, saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, sanctification or the growth in holy purity and wholeness in Christ, and the unity of the body of Christ under the shadow and shade of the cross....all of these critical issues come into play when we speak to this controversial subject. And yet as important as these issues are , where one stands on the issue of homosexuality is not a matter of orthodoxy or heterodoxy. Orthodox Trinitarian Christians can and do believe differently on this as well as many other very important but secondary issues.
Recognizing this is critically important if we are to discover common ground and perhaps move toward a consensus. Recent talk of an amicable separation is premature. Perhaps one day we will arrive at the conclusion that regretfully, if we are to be effective in our ministries, we must part ways with the hope that God's reconciling and transforming grace will bring us back together. The thought of such a separation ought to trouble the Christian heart enough to lead us to do what work is necessary not just to tolerate one another or to win a position of power to enforce one's convictions on a minority but rather to find a real consensus that empowers us to love the homosexual sinner as fully as we love any other sinner.
If we are to require life long celibacy for gay people they need and deserve solidarity. We ought to encourage celibacy for heterosexual Christians and to bless partnerships in this discipline. We can recognize a union of celibate Christian friends without promoting temptation. Such unions could be those of both same sex and opposite sex persons. Every gay brother or lesbian sister in the Lord should have the opportunity to be supported in the discipline of celibacy by a heterosexual brother or sister instead of being told they must bear a burden for a lifetime which heterosexuals are asked to bear only until they are married. The point of such a union would be to transform the burden into a joy because it is shared.
Of course not all gay people will accept such an obligation and would insist on continuing to live in the loving unions which they have already established. Do we respond to this by refusing communion as well as marriage. Within our tradition we believe that holy communion is a converting ordinance to be received by all who love Christ. We, of course, follow this in the litany with "who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another." How do we love those who do not recognize their behavior as sin? I know of many United Methodists who receive communion and who play the lottery and participate in other forms of gambling even though our denomination considers it a sin and "a menace to society." And yet we would never consider refusing communion to such unrepentant gamblers. Why? Not because we are lax in condemning sin but because we believe that in the breaking of the bread one comes to recognize the Living Word, Jesus Christ, whom we tend to miss if we only receive the written Word. In receiving Christ we are converted and sanctified and gradually we come to recognize our imperfections as we encounter His perfect love. We allow sinners, repentant and otherwise, to receive the sacrament even though we are all unworthy to eat at the Lord's table because the Lord called sinners to repent and yet he joyfully ate with them and now calls all of us who are ignorant or obstinate in our sin to feast on His body and blood. It is, more often than not, only after we have received this reminder of Christ's sacrificial love that we are able to recognize our sin. Surely the grace we extend at the table of holy communion ought to lead us to gracious attitudes towards openly gay couples who enter our sanctuaries showing the same respectful affection that heterosexuals often show one another in the worship sanctuary. As we do so, we perhaps come to our own repentance and recognition of the depravity of our culture which, unlike the Biblical world and that of many Asian cultures, condemns the open expression non-erotic same sex affection, male to male as well as female to female.
As we are more accepting of our gay brothers and sisters and more cognizant in doing so of the beams within our own eyes, bonds of good will and trust begin to be formed. Such bonds make breaking the bondage of sin a less complicated process. What we do in Christian worship permeates how we love one another in the world. The issue of state sanctioned gay marriage has become a heated issue within the context of this larger ethical problem. Perhaps civil unions would be a fair legal compromise which grants gay couples all the rights and opportunities afforded to married heterosexual couples. Then again, as many legal experts are arguing, such an arrangement still treats gay people as second class citizens. If a civil union can serve as a legal alternative which , except in nomenclature, is in all measures of rights and benefits equal to legal marriage, then why not just put the state out of the business of recognizing marriages altogether and instead let it recognize various forms of sexual and non-sexual civil unions as the legal means of protecting rights and benefits of persons who give their lives to one another. If on the other hand we refuse to recognize any form of legal same sex union in the secular world, are we not infringing upon civil rights or forcing a religious opinion on people who believe differently. If that seems far fetched, consider the fact that most Christians discourage and often forbid inter-faith marriage as a violation of Biblical injunctions if entered into after being received into the Body of Christ and yet these same Christians would never consider criminalizing or making such marriages illegal.
As we respect the civil rights of gay people even though we may disagree with them on theological and moral grounds, gay people may come to see that traditionalists are not all homophobic and bent on discrimination and exclusion. Seeing this respect in the secular world could help gay people feel more comfortable about accepting invitations to worship and other services of the Church. While they come into the church and are baptized or received full membership in the Church, they will need support in various ways that call upon us to bless them liturgically and otherwise. Gay couples who are baptized need, as much as heterosexual couples, to have their baptism celebrated in and by the Church. We should not require their baptism be performed on different Sundays. We should greet them with the holy kiss or hug or handshake of fellowship as we extend both the Lord's table and the fellowship dinner table to bless them as equal and indispensable members of the Body of Christ . Gay people need not be excluded from lay leadership positions and celibate but self-avowed homosexuals called to ministry should be ordained when they are qualified. If gay couples have children, we bless their parental bonds as we would married or divorced parents. If they need counseling in their relationships we offer it to them even if we do not approve of their union. If they long for love from their families, we model that love for their families. If they never repent of their sin we give to them the same longsuffering, never failing love which Christ gives to us.
Obviously, we recognize as Christians that we fall short in how we treat sinners of all sorts. I notice how readily we go the second mile for many different sinners but when it comes to gay people we rarely complete the first mile with them. Going the extra mile softens the sinner's heart, brings him to acknowledge his need for Christ. Of course, there is also the danger that going the second mile will bring the benefactor to repentance as well. Some may object that my proposals here lead us down a slippery slope that eventually blesses immorality. We might come to view our insistence on absolute prohibitions against homosexual behavior as regrettable as forbidding slaves from seeking their liberation because the New Testament tells them to obey their masters, even those who are harsh. On the other hand, gay people who see that the church truly cares for their well being and is not bent on discrimination and exclusion but rather determined to be in solidarity with and hospitality towards them may become convinced that celibacy is a joyful obedience which honors God's design for human sexuality. Either way, these suggestions are given as a means by which unity can be preserved while new opportunities to minister to and with gay people are expanded. A creative solidarity which both transformationalists and reconciliationists can endorse might be the beginning of deeper dialogue and more thoughtful communication if not renewal of communion between two deeply divided factions. One could hope for more but certainly not any less.

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Prediction

For the record, I am predicting that on July 27, 2004 Osama Bin Laden will be captured and/or killed.

Reason for Republicans to Vote Kerry and Democrats, Nader

If your candidate wins the presidency look for him to bear the blame for any problems which occur one year later. What are the likely burdens to bear in late 2005 and all of 2006? Inflation is heating up and this will be followed by a price-wage spiral. Gas prices are the primary cause and if they continue to rise with the increased consumption, inflation is not going to slow. The Federal Reserve will continue to fight it with higher interest rates. However if oil prices continue to rise, raising interest rates will not slow inflation. Radical changes in how we fuel our cars, factories and homes would put the brakes on. With high interest rates home values come tumbling down. No more refinancing, no more spending. Combine this with more outsourcing to give investors a profit and to keep prices low enough for consumer spending to continue and you have a formula for stagflation. Remember stagflation? Inflation, underemployment, declining real wages and purchasing power. Any effort to stimulate the economy further with more tax cuts and increased spending will only serve to force the fed to raise interest rates higher. I am not an economist and so I might very well be misreading this but I don't know of how this can be avoided short of new alternative fuels coming online very quickly. If you're a Democrat you want Bush to take the blame for this mess. If you a Republican you want Kerry to be the scapegoat. Solution: vote for Kerry or Nader. Whoever wins loses big time in 2006. I welcome someone wiser than I to tell me why I am wrong so I don't feel my stomach turning when I walk into the voting booth.

Christology

The question of Christology hinges on how God comes into the world in the person ofJesus. Is Jesus the one and only Christ? If he is the Christ, why this particular human and not
someone else and how are humans and indeed creation saved through this person? How is this particular person universal and unique at the same time? How is he truly God and truly human?
This last question also raises theological and anthropological questions. Who is God? Is God capable of temporal existence or is He timeless and so wholly other that to say that the Word became flesh is to state a logical impossibility? Conversely how can a human be God? How can a sinless human be human? Can a human be God and not lose her or his humanity? Can a temporal
creature in any meaningful way be the bearer of eternity in her or his person? Is a finite spatial person capable of carrying a non-corporeal and infinite God?

Obviously given the space of this paper not all of these questions can be answered.However there can begin a questioning of these questions and some of their assumptions along with a the framing of other questions and possible solutions. I begin with my on particular questions and assumptions born of my situation in life. As a North American, southern, white male born into a lower middle class family who was raised with certain assumptions concerning scriptural authority(verbal plenary inerrancy), I am blessed and burdened with the need to construct a Christology which is Biblically based. As one educated under critical scholarship, I am also blessed and burdened with the need to recognize the limits of biblical authority vis-a-vis historical-
critical research and a theology which views God as a higher authority than the Bible. I also have seen the contradictions of exclusivity in regards to issues of racial, sexual and economic injustice. The hermeneutic of my culture has historically utilized the Bible to claim a universality which actually excludes persons and voices and thus fails to offer a compelling universal message. A repressed humanity fosters an diminished view of the humanity in Christ and thus a truncated Christology. On the other hand, I have come to be equally critical of a Christology which in its apologetic toward modernity domesticates and diminishes Divinity and thus deprives Christology
of power. All this is to say that I wish to develop a Christology which addresses pluralism without losing its universality. Such a Christology must be particular, open, universal, communal and
eschatology. This proposal for Christology will be written in reverse and may appear at first to be catabolic and may be evaluated to be anabolic but is arguably neither but rather metabolic or teleo-bolic in that the end and meaning of Christology is finally in front of us, not all behind, above and
with us. Christ is in continuity with the Christological traditions that originate from different reference points and is moving toward the “Day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6) which is still yet to come. In short the future revelation of Jesus Christ is determinative in saying who He/She is
process of becoming.

If we begin for irony’s sake with the particular, Jesus must be the center of Christology. The problem of the historical Jesus makes this a difficult task. We can know with reasonable
historical certainty that there was a man name Jesus from the town of Nazareth who lived in Roman occupied Palestine in the 1st century. We also know that he had a following and that he was
crucified by the Roman authorities. Beyond this we have the witness of the church in the canon of scripture. Scholars have and will continue to debate how much of the testimony of the NT is historically accurate. While my best guess is that the New Testament is more historically factual than critical scholars tend to claim and less so than traditionalist want to affirm, for this paper I assume that we must admit that all of the texts of the Gospels in particular and the New Testament as a whole are colored by the theological concerns of the primitive church in various locations and times. This is not to say that historical critical scholarship cannot find elements of the Gospels which are historically more or less probable than other portions. Rather we must say that all of the texts of the canon (including the Hebrew Bible) are necessary for constructing a Christology and that we cannot construct an adequate Christology which does not take all of the texts seriously whether historical or mythical. The first serious consideration is that Jesus was truly human. This means that he lived in a particular time and place. This is both a theological and a historical truth. Whatever we may conclude about the humanity and the divinity of Jesus, the canon is consistent that God comes to humanity in history and not outside of it. Jesus was also a Jew. If we take the idea of the incarnation seriously this means that God comes into the world as a particular human with a particular history, not as a generic human nor as an apotheosis but in affirmation and judgement of all humans in each one’s particularity. We cannot say for example that the Godrevealed in Jesus is not the Jewish God or that Jews worship a false God. If God became incarnate in Jesus that God is no other God than the God of the Jews and the Jewish faith. The desire of the inerrantists, even moderates like Grenz, to insist upon more factuality than can be claimed by historical research is understandable but such historicity is unverifiable. While God is revealed in history, objective historical research (if such exists) cannot conclude that very much beyond the prosaic is historical and thus we cannot establish a sufficient Christology from the tools of historical research. Grenz insists upon the historicity of the resurrection as the basis for affirming the claims of Jesus to divinity. As evidence he sights the change of the day of worship and the reality of the martyrs. First, we have to say that even if Jesus were raised from the dead, we have to assume that he did indeed claim to be divine if we are to conclude that he is divine. Second, we would have to assume that God would not raise from the dead (and thus vindicate) someone who made faulty claims about himself. Such an assumption has profound implications in regards to the doctrines of salvation by grace and justification by faith by leaving the whole of humanity (except perhaps Jesus) unqualified for resurrection and thus without hope for such vindication. Most of all, we have to question the evidence that Grenz gives. The apparent sudden
change in the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday is extremely problematic on a number of grounds. The witness of the martyrs deserves more attention. Certainly, such martyrs are evidentiary but not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If we assume that some and maybe many of the traditional accounts of the martyrdom of the first Christians are factual, we must also acknowledge that martyrs have died for causes less than a human who was raised from the dead. While the mass hysteria critique is also problematic, we must acknowledge the ability of humans to make myths to justify a cause is beyond legendary.

The God who confronts us in our particularity is an open God. She is open to the free decisions of human creatures and these free decisions influence and even change God. The human
is open to the world and God is open to humans. Thus we have a human Jesus who grows in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and humanity and a Self-secure God Who binds and loses in heaven what His people to bind and loose in on earth. More importantly, the resurrection in the Biblical tradition is a communal event. Paul thus calls the risen Christ “the first fruits of those who sleep.” For the resurrection of Jesus to be meaningful in the canonical way, we must await the resurrection of all the saints. For the resurrection to be historically proven, we must first
see it repeated or, theologically speaking, completed. That meaningfulness requires a future disclosure of God in Christ whom the creed says in hope shall come to judge the living and the dead.

While the historicity of the resurrection is beyond the purview of historical critical scholarship and sound canonical theology, such scholarship and theology cannot refute the
possibility of a historical resurrection of the dead which begins with Jesus. If the canonical claim is taken seriously then Jesus is the resurrection on which all resurrections depend. His resurrection is universal in significance and not just for the benefit of Christians. While event this cannot established beyond reasonable doubt, if the witness concerning his resurrection cannot be dismissed, neither can the witness to his divinity and this too signifies a universal claim on creation since the canon consistently affirms that the God of Abraham and Jesus is the one true Creator of the cosmos. To claim less is to claim a tribal deity who must compete with or eternally tolerate other tribal deities who may or may not be benevolent towards the creation. Scripture and tradition affirms the universal Lordship of Christ. Whether or not this universality is imperialistic is a question to be address. However, first we must realize that this universality is connected to the particular Jesus, whether that Jesus is understood canonically or historically. Whatever we know
about Jesus is knowledge about the universal God. Does this mean that the knowledge we have of Jesus is the final knowledge we may have about God? Only if Jesus does not continue to reveal himself. Hall persuasively argues for the full and true humanity of Jesus and all its implications. In the process of affirming his humanity, we might wonder if Hall, in spite of his criticism of apotheosis, has forgotten the divinity of Jesus and made Him incapable of any more universal significance than any other human. Does Hall’s Jesus represent God any more than Martin Luther King, Jr, a biblical prophet or any Christian? If more so, then how much more is necessary to establish Jesus as theabsolute singularity. The question of the particular universality of Jesus is the question of his uniqueness (monogenesis). These is a question Hall does not answer. I am not certain I can answer it myself. I can say yes to the evangelical stance that He is unique but realize that the minute one posits uniqueness along side universality, one is treading very close to imperialistic theology. Feminist and womanist theologians point out how easily this occurs in their critique of traditional Christology’s patriarchialism. If we wish to take a clue from Iranaeus that what is not assumed is not redeemed, then women cannot be redeemed. If on the other hand the divinity of God is androgynous then the male humanity of Christ is linked to the feminine aspects of Divinity. There is certainly within the wisdom tradition of scripture ample precedence for this assertion. There is, however a bit of a canonization within the canon when feminists assert that Jesus who identifies himself with “the least of these.” While certainly this text is an important part of any Christological construction it is not the only one and it is arbitrary to make it the pivotal text. We may say that Jesus is found in the black woman but we must as be careful as Hall points out not to make an apotheosis out of Jesus either as the ideal middle class white male or as the most oppressed of the oppressed. If we do, we deny his true humanity. Furthermore, the basis for constructing such a theology is not from below but rather from above, from the received canon. Moreover the canon within the canon approach opens the door to all sorts of oppressive interpretations. We are stuck with the dilemma that Christ represents the universal God in a unique
way which may not be definable. We can say that this unique universality preserves the particularity of all humans but does not specify how Jesus is unique in a universal way. I leave this as an unresolved tension in my Christology, knowing its potential imperialism and also knowing that anything less leaves Jesus dispensable or at least optional to Christology.

A partial remedy for this dilemma is to affirm the openness of Jesus Christ from both the human and the divine sides. While we may say that Jesus was sinless we need not say that Jesus was omniscient or inerrant or perfect in his humanity. The Biblical witness states that he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and humanity(Luke 2:52). This canonical witness is in perfect harmony with any account, secular or otherwise, of anthropology. Humans are always in development, always becoming. We may further state that whatever Jesus may have known about his divinity, there is no point in his life that this recognition was complete. Indeed, his cry of God-forsakenness on the cross is a clear indication that the full understanding of his divinity eluded him until the end of his humble, earthly pilgrimage. That the Gospel of John, with its high Christology, seems to indicate otherwise is not a problem. First the high Christology of John is not always consistent. The high priestly prayer of Jesus recognizes that he lacked glory in this world that He had before the creation (John 17:5). Such a lack is evidence that while the Johanine Jesus clearly identifies himself as Divine, He does not consider that Divinity to be full of the glory necessary for total Divine self-realization. Moreover, as critical scholarship points out, the high Christology of John’s Gospel is a reflection of the theological concerns of that community and not necessarily a historic fact of Jesus’ self knowledge. We must not go so far in this direction as to say that the community’s reflection on Jesus is inferior to the self knowledge of the historic Jesus. Such an assertion assumes that others can know nothing more about our individual selves than we already know. The whole fields of the social and psychological sciences would be pointless endeavors if that were true. Rita Nakashima Brock points out that in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus is not always cognizant of his divinity as when the woman touches the hem of his garment and he feels the power go out from him. Jesus in his human nature, at least, is unaware of who touches him, pointing to the reality that his divine nature does not always disclose all knowledge to his human nature. Nakashima Brock points out further that in his encounter with the Syro-Phoenecian woman, Jesus is taught by that woman that his mission is to include the gentiles. While Nakashima Brock
may not give due credence to the possibility that Jesus was being deliberately provocative; nevertheless, the Syro-Phoenecian woman, instead of Jesus himself, articulates the expansion of
Jesus’ mission. The human nature of Jesus continues to grow in sophia and charis indicating that the incarnation does not mean that his human nature is perfect or omniscient. Jesus even wrongly predicts the coming of the Son of man in glory in his own generation. The fact that this prediction must have been a great embarrassment to the early church makes the historicity of this prediction more likely. Regardless of the historical reliability of various portions of the Gospels, the canon is clear that Jesus is never in his human nature closed to growth. His life is “open to the world” as Grenz drawing on Pannenberg points out in regards to human nature.

If we are to acknowledge the openness of his humanity, a consistent openness of his divinity would take seriously the incarnation as being the way in which what happens to and within
the humanity of Jesus also happens to and within his divinity. I f we assume that all that the human nature experienced the divine nature experienced also, we might also advocate a kenotic Christology. The voluntary( hand tied behind the back as opposed to hand chopped off) version is preferable but once there is consistent voluntary identification with humanity involuntary suffering inevitably occurs. If the both the human and the divine nature do not know the hour of coming, we have to admit that the divine nature has entered our time and if God enters our time, His nature must be temporal and if temporal then open to a future which is in some , if not many respects, indeterminant. This is not to say that God’s experience of time is the same as human experience of it; however, in Jesus the human experience of time is incorporated into the divine experience of time. If that incorporation is possible a temporal eternity as opposed to a timeless one is necessary. The best that a timeless eternity can do is to say that eternity is adjacent to time and hence the incarnation is not a union of divinity with humanity but a tangential proximity. This is not to posit a Nestorian view of the union but rather to say that God is capable of union with humanity because God is temporal and capable of voluntary self limitation. In God’s self limitation H/She demonstrates openness toward the future and this economic demonstration is consistent with God’s ontological reality (Rahner’s rule). When the Son predicts His coming in glory during the generation of the original disciples and this does not transpire, we have a God-Human who does not know the future with exhaustive certainty. This would be consistent throughout the triune persons since the Father knows the future only in as much as He determines not to change His mind about that future. A Christ who is both ontologically (temporal) and economically (restricted to the time and space of 1st century Judea) limited can say and really mean, “Who touched me?” Such a Christ is also not absurd when he prays since relational events within the trinity are temporal rather than timeless. Furthermore, this Christ demonstrates the confident love of God by granting that what His disciples permit or forbid on earth will be permitted or forbidden in heaven.

The promise of given both to Peter and the disciples lets us know that after the ascension Christ is still open to new learning and this openness makes possible the communal aspects of
Christology. He has more to teach us that could not be borne all at once(John16:12). We should not then ask, “What would Jesus do?” as if He is not still doing but rather “What is Jesus still doing?” That doing is done in dialogue with His Body. Jesus is present in the Church in both divinity and humanity whether we are to understand this as via the Holy Spirit (Calvin) or by the ubiquity of his presence post-ascension (Luther). He is also present in the Bible and the Sacraments. And as He gathers all things into Himself (Ephesians), His presence is manifest outside the church in the world He came to save. We need not see this only in terms of His immanence in the world but also in terms of his transcendence as the continuing and heuristic presence of Judaism and Islam attest. While Hall is right to recapture the consistent importance of the human nature as a sign not only of real human representation but also as an assurance of divine solidarity, Judaism and Islam remind us even in their critiques of Christian faith that the wonder and mystery of the incarnation needs the reality of God’s transcendence. In all these places of Christ’s presence, there is genuine, living, interactive, vulnerable relationship that makes Christ always becoming always open to the new creation and even open to the retrieval of the Hebraic faith which Jesus was dependent upon. The uniqueness of Jesus, however it may be conceived, must always be in ongoing relationship to the work of the Spirit in Israel, the Church and even in the other faiths and philosophies of the world He is saving. The particular Christ is also the communal Christ and the cosmic Christ.

This openness to the world which is both human and divine, manifest in both natures of Christ is an openness to the future and so christology is eschatological. What Christ was and is always becoming is open to what is to become when He/She is to come in glory. We do not know the final revelation of Christ. We know that the last witness of the canon says that he is the Alpha and the Omega. We know that the Pauline witness says that through him God will be all in all. The objective certainty of Christ does not lie in either the canonical witness nor in the tradition of the Church, nor in the resurrection as a historical event, nor in a historical Jesus but rather in the future of God in Christ. Christology is firmly established not from above or below but in the future. Christology is an ongoing process (metabolic), the final structure of which is in established in the end (teleo-bolic). Christology begins at the end. Christology whether from above or below is limited; Christology from the end is cumulative. Christology from below and above can be self serving; Christology from the end serves and judges all. Jesus Christ is growing and His growth does not stop with His biological maturity as a human, nor with his death or resurrection, nor with the closing to the canon, nor with the experience of the church in tradition or its contemporary situation, nor with the individual experiences of saints dead or living. All of these are part and parcel but what and who Christ is ultimately is revealed in the future. Whether we presume to start from above or below we have already begun with the pre-supposition of the eschatological Christ. That Christ is still outstanding, open and in process.

We close with the puzzle of the uniqueness of Christ. Christology must affirm that Jesus Christ is the unique God-Human without being imperialistic and exclusivistic. Nakahima-Brock makes a Christ the crest of a communal wave, a Christa community. This image is basically a passive one of dependency rather than inter-dependency. Mark Kline Taylor wants to affirm the communal aspects of Nakashima Brock’s Christa/Community wave however he would like to assure that Jesus plays an active rather than passive role. So Taylor suggest the analogy of yeast. Yeast comes from bread but is also essential in making loaf bread and so while it does make Jesus essential and active in Christology it fails to make Him unique. We may not have a fitting metaphor for how Jesus is the absolute singularity, nevertheless it must be affirmed. A controversy which I have not touched on is the sinful verses sinless nature of Christ. I think that issue is to be settled by recognizing that original sin is transferred in our communal history and not seminally. Jesus is born into the sinful condition of the world and even in the womb so the Christmas story tells us the sinful world conspires to exclude Him from shelter. Yet Jesus is the sinless one even as by sin He is undone. We may recognize in this paradox the need of humanity for a Christ who is all that we have described, particular, open, universal, communal and eschatology. In this Christ we have a Savior of the individual, the community and the cosmos even if we have to let our words, even inspired words, fall short of and merely approximate the glory of the final Word of God.

The Virgin Birth

As to the miracle of the virgin birth, the miracle is really in the conception of the Holy Spirit. A virgin could give birth today if she were artificially inseminated. And maybe this is a clue as to how the miracle occured. Again I view miracles as did C. S. Lewis, not as violations of natural law but rather as the application of various natural laws in unanticipated ways. If John Wesley could be transported to our time, he might think at first that he was seeing miracles of angels or of demons as he encountered our technology. Perhaps in her conversation with the angel Gabriel Mary encountered a creature with some very advanced learning in reproductive endocrinology. This science fiction may be a clue as to the nature of all miracles. Angels may be cloaked creatures sent by God or maybe God does some of these technological feats directly. Interstingly the word technology means literally "art word".
Having established the possiblity of the virgin birth as a miracle that coheres with natural law, I must also speak a cautionary word or two. First even though the virgin birth makes it into the creed, we are not obligated to interpret it literally. We can still affirm its meaning to be virtually synonomous with the doctrine of the incarnation. The virgin birth shows up only in 2 gospels and nowhere else in the NT. Legendary stories surely make it into the Bible, the clearest example being the story of the global flood, which is demonstrably a myth based on tales of local floods. There is no way to either deny or affirm the factuality of the virgin birth. Furthermore, the virgin birth could be interpreted in an heretical fashion to mean that Jesus was half God and half human. To deny the virgin birth as a fact is not to deny the incarnation. What makes Jesus divine is not the absense of Joseph's sperm but rather the kenosis of the eternal Word of God.

A Parable

A certain man and a certain woman had eight daughters. One day before the man left for work, his wife told him, "Honey I need to you stop and get these things from the supermarket on your way home." She handed him the grocery list which he looked over and noticed something missing. "Who would like some ice cream tonight?" All the girls responded, "Me!" "OK," daddy replied, "What flavor would you like?" "Vanilla," said one. "Chocolate!" countered another. "Strawberry!" shouted a third. Sensing his displeasure with the debate, the others said, "Any flavor is fine with us, Daddy." And so Daddy reasoned, "I tell you what... I'll get Neapolitan so everyone can get their favorite flavor." Off he went to work.
Later that day the man stopped by the supermarket as his wife asked him. He was making his way through the aisles when he came upon ice cream cones. As he placed the box of cones in the cart, his cell phone rang. It was his wife. "Honey, I just want you to know that I called the girls three times to come in from play to do their homework and they did not obey. They finally did come in as it was getting dark.' "I'll take care of it dear."
When he arrived home the girls saw the headlights and shouted, "Daddy's home!" They all ran out to meet him and helped him bring in the grocery bags. They also helped Mom and Dad put away the groceries. Finally, the last item was placed in the pantry, a box of ice cream cones." Daddy then poured the girls some milk and they all drank it. Then they all preceded out of the kitchen and into one of their rooms where they began to discuss among themselves.
One daughter said, "Daddy forgot the ice cream." "No," said the oldest daughter, "Daddy lied to us." Another daughter objected saying, "No daddy would never lie to us. He was actually planning to given us the ice cream this weekend when our cousins come to visit." "That makes no sense," said the middle daughter. "Daddy was planning on getting the ice cream cones tonight and bringing the ice cream home tomorrow." "That can't be, protested still another daughter. "He did say 'tonight' and so what happened was the ice cream melted into the milk we just drank." Another said, "Actually what daddy was trying to tell us was that, we had ice cream last week and so when we drank the milk tonight we could imagine what it tasted like." A very pensive daughter said< "Daddy wanted us to buy our own ice cream."Finally the youngest daughter spoke up, "Daddy found out that we did not obey mommy and so he decided not to give us ice cream tonight."

In understanding the various predictive prophecies of the NT, Christians and non-Christians have reached various conclusions. Post Christians would say that God has forgotten his promises so I am not paying attention any more. Skeptics say these prophecies are pure fiction. Futurists think that all of the predictions of the NT are meant for some future time even those which all to often seem very much like they are referring to the generation of the first disciples. Partial preterists divide the texts so that those things which obviously came true were meant for the first Christians. Those that did not come true were meant for some future time. Full Preterists believe that all of the predictive prophecies including the coming of the Son of man in power and glory came true in the first generation of Christians just as the writers of the NT said they would. Critical scholars tell us that the predictive prophecies that seemed to have come true actually are historical recollections written as if they were predicted in advance of them happening. Process scholars would say that God only provides some inspiration and it is up to us to fulfill those prophecies. Finally, some Christians believe that many predictive prophecies are contingent on human faithfulness to the covenant that God makes with them, even when many of those prophecies are never written with an explicit conditional provision. Which of these views makes the most sense to you. One or more may make a lot of sense. Some may seem totally contrived. All of them are possible even as the explanations of the eight daughters could have correctly interpreted what happened to the ice cream. To me the last explanation seems the most obvious and holds to a high view of scriptural accuracy. God has made promises that he will keep. However, sometimes He decides not to keep certain promises because of the unfaithfulness of His people. Or God may actually delay the time when he plans to fulfill His promises. God may actually decide to replace a good promise like longevity with a better promise like eternal life. Such a God is open to human input. He may or may not respond as we wish. He is all powerful and not unable to keep his promises without predetermining or foreknowing in exact detail all that will happen with human history. Such a God is all knowing and infinitely resourceful in his responsiveness. Such a God is immensely generous in His sovereignty rather than totalitarian. Such a God is worthy of our worship and trust even more so than the words of the Bible. He might even allow for historical fiction to be one of the genres that He inspires some of the biblical writers to create. Such a God is exactly the God that is describe in the beautiful complexity of the Book we so often seek to contain, nail down and limit to a lifeless relic of history in the same way so many did with the eternal Word when he walked this earth. To such temptations let us say, "No!" To those who would cling to the simpleton's hermeneutic of nostalgia with its cowering risk free god, let us shout prayerfully"Get a life! Or better yet worship the Living God with a living faith!"

Dangers of Dispensational Rapture Fantasy

I am sure that Tim LaHaye unreservedly believes in the dispensational theology that inspires his Left Behind book series. No doubt, he has done the Church a service in recalling it to a serious consideration of the blessed hope of Christ's return in glory. Too often we mainline protestants have shied away from being any more specific about this teaching than the one line in the second article of the Apostles' Creed: "From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead." Because of Left Behind's popularity we mainline folks are forced to deal with the issue in our pulpits and Sunday schools. No longer can we conveniently igonore the bulk and heart of the book of Revelation as does the Revised Common Lectionary. If we do, we endanger the faith of Christians in our pews as well as those of our fundamentalists friends.
To be sure, whether one is a dispensational futurist or a preterist or an idealist or a historicist is a secondary issue. Being wrong on issues surrounding the apocalypse is not equal to the heresy of denying trinitarian doctrine. However, errors in eschatology can lead one down a road to disappointment that can shatter one's faith not only in the promised Return but also in the One who is returning. With respect to dispensationalism there are 2 theological errors and one ethical/political errors that should inspire mainline protestants to sound a clarion call of warning to there fundamentalist friends.
Dispensationalism asserts that before the return of Christ to establish his millenial reign there will be a seven year period of great tribulation before which the church is snatched away to heaven, waiting there while non-believers suffer God's wrath and messianic Jews evangelize and convert previously procrastinating and unrepentent gentiles.
We might argue endlessly with dueling proof texts but to get to the heart of the matter, dispensationalism reflects a one dimensional view of the cross as substitutionary punishment to satisfy the wrath of god. Although this is one aspect of the cross, it ignores or at least trivializes Jesus command to "take up your cross and follow me." What we have in the book of Revelation is a call for Christians to be witnessing martyrs in tribulation until the ressurection of the dead and the final judgement. Certainly there is a protecting from God's wrath during this tribulation but there is no hint of LaHaye's escapist fantasy. God spares His children His wrath but not persecution at the hands of God's enemies. If LaHaye is right John the Revelator is counseling Christian wimpiness not endurance to the end. The witness of putting down our crosses as we breeze away to bliss when the going gets apocalyptically tough is anything but a Christian testimony.
If indeed God does expect Christians to endure persecution to the very bitter end, then we begin to see the dangers implicit in the rapture fantasy. First, it tempts Christians to loose faith when persecution gets more serious than what evangelicals imagined they endured in the Clinton era. Second, it tempts those who think they are tougher than Job to put off the decision of faith. No need to give up sin and follow Jesus today if I get seven years of second chances.
Finally there is a danger here and now that ought to trouble both beleivers and unbelievers alike. Dispensationalists are making Israel right or wrong a litmus test for politicians in hopes of forcing God's hand. Bush is valued for keeping hope alive for the final Israelite generation with Biblical borders. This serves only to further irritate overly inflamed irridentism on both sides of the Israeli/Palestian dispute. Expect no peace, more terror and greater pain at the pump as long as the State Department has to answer to the LaHaye's crowd of eisegetical escape artists.