Right and Wrong Ways to Keep “Pure”

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Over on The Green Room I’ve put up my latest on different models of the kingdom of God. This time, the problem “fortification paradigm” churches – i.e. those tempted to fundamentalism – most need to watch out for:

The underlying problem here is a failure to understand that there is no expression of the gospel, or of Christian faith and life, that is not culturally contextualized.

I’m going to call the failure to recognize this “cultural puritanism.” (I hate to use that term because I actually like Puritanism when it’s seeking purity by the right standard! It’s when our own cultural instantiation of the gospel becomes the standard that puritanism goes wrong.)

Risk a little cultural contamination and read the piece, and let me know what you think!

The Administrative State and Its Discontents

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Amid Trump’s execrable executive-order follies and the scandalous placement of a political operative (and a scoundrel at that) at the center of the national security apparatus, it’s worth pointing out that a certain kind of conservative argued in favor of Trump (or at least that Trump was not an unacceptable option) precisely on grounds that he would disrupt the inevitable growth of the administrative state. Holman Jenkins, formerly my favorite columnist, bet particularly long on this point.

Of course, the fact that Trumpian chaos will make the problem worse rather than better was clear from the outset. This is what happens when prudence – rightly ordering means so they match our ends – is no longer considered a cardinal moral virtue. People feel free to do any damn thing to achieve their goals, as long as they have the right goals.

Just Published: “Interpret Carefully” in Christ and Pop Culture

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I suggest three fundamental approaches to finding the best possibilities in Silence. When I go to watch Scorsese’s movie, I’ll be hoping he chooses to emphasize elements such as these; I shall be elated if that happens and critical if it doesn’t. First, it is possible to read the very cryptic section that follows the end of the main plot as offering a definitive reinterpretation of the plot. When the story moves on past the self-justifications Rodrigues offers for his apostasy, and instead traces the bureaucratic records concerning the household where the new apostate has been set up, it is possible that we are meant to see that both Kichijiro and Rodrigues return to the faith. That is, though both of them break under pressure, they are subtly called back to the faith; their baptismal faith repeatedly subverts their apostasy, and triumphs over it when they are punished. To weigh this very heavily in our evaluation, though, we need some basis for disregarding pretty much every conclusion that Rodrigues draws from his experiences. Most importantly, we need a reason to believe that Rodrigues has returned, or returns periodically, to a faith that specifically repudiates his claim that Jesus personally called him to commit an act of apostasy.

(source: Interpret Carefully: Balancing Caution and Hope in Responding to Shusaku Endo’s Novel Silence – Christ and Pop Culture)

Holiness in the Church

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The Green Room carries the latest in my series on three models of the kingdom of God:

In some ways fortification churches do best at emphasizing the cruciform nature of discipleship to Jesus Christ. Believers are required to submit to the death of their desires for both individual comfort (as against the accommodation paradigm) and corporate influence (as against the dominance paradigm). The church is not here to make us comfortable and happy, nor is it here to influence society; it is here to become like Christ, regardless of the consequences.

As always, your thoughts are appreciated!

Theological Education at TGC

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Today TGC carries my article on the challenges facing theological education:

How we got into this mess is a long and complicated story. One of the biggest problems is the 19th-century German research university model of education, with its emphasis on abstraction, fact/value distinction, and scholarly specialization. That model is now the only model of what counts as “knowledge” in the Western world, and theological schools are not immune from its dominance. Theological educators are professionally evaluated and promoted based on whether they produce scholarly books and articles (judged by the 19th-century German research university model of “scholarship”) much more than on whether they produce disciples.

I’m honored to be spearheading a new event, Karam Forum, March 2-3, where theological educators will collaborate and equip one another to meet these challenges. If you have the exciting privilege of being a theological educator, consider joining us!