This is a selection from a paper I wrote last spring for my hermeneutics class about the book of Job. The paper is an exegesis of Job 46:1-6. The selection that follows comes after all of the tedious ___ critical parts (insert favored exegetical method; form, source, redaction, etc.) and is the analysis of all of that critical work into something that attempts to make sense out of the passage in light of the whole.

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Detailed Analysis

Reading Job 42:1-16, I was struck by a large number of questions. One of the largest questions regarded how this section, particularly the epilogue (42:7-17) fit into the rest of the book as a whole, because it seems as though it doesn’t. Also, as a similar point, what does the message of the epilogue, that of Job having his fortunes restored in double, mean in light of the responses Job gives to his friends concerning the irrelevance of God’s blessing upon his belief and faith in Him? However, for the purposes of this paper, I will endeavor to interact with and analyze one particular verse, 42:6 and in particular the understanding of Job’s repentance in connection to the meaning of “dust and ashes” in 42:6b.

Nearly every book, article or commentary I’ve read on Job indicates that Job 42:6 is the crux verse of the book because this verse contains Job’s repentance in response to God’s discourses in the previous chapters. Not only that, but since this is the verse in which we see how Job finally responds to the situation and to God, it is in this verse that we find the meaning of Job’s suffering for Job.[1] “Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6 NRSV[2]) The question that becomes most important for understanding this verse, as well as the book of Job as a whole, is of what exactly was Job repenting? Was he repenting of simply uttering what he did not understand and things too wonderful which he did not know (42:3), or was it something more than that?

How can it be that Job can justly repent for speaking of things that he did not understand when, in the epilogue, God himself rebukes Job’s friends for “not having spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”(42:7b) God declares Job’s actions and responses to his suffering to be right and good, although Job apparently repents of those actions and words in 42:6.

So, if Job wasn’t simply repenting for the things he said of God, what was he repenting of? One of the conventional ways of understanding Job’s repentance in 42:6 is to consider it as a reversal of his first response to God’s first speech in 40:4-5, in which Job responds to God[3]: “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further.” In this reading then, Job is repenting for his ignorance of God’s power.

It has been argued though, that this reading is too simplistic to be able to do justice to the fullness of what is being said in Job 42:1-6 as well as the book as a whole. I will argue that this position isn’t overly simplistic but that it doesn’t necessarily take into account the entirety of what it means. Terrance Tilley posits that there are at least eight different ways of translating 42:6, all of which contain their own theological positives and negatives.[4] However, for the purposes of this paper, I shall take up the translation put forth by Edwin M. Good in his book In Turns of Tempest: “Therefore I despise myself and repent of dust and ashes.”[5]

The phrase “dust and ashes,” occurs only three times in Biblical Hebrew: Gen. 18:27; Job 30:19; and Job 42:6. In Job 30:19, it seems to signify that Job understands himself to be living in a world where suffering humans cry out to the Lord for mercy and justice, but He does not answer (30:20). In Genesis 18:27 the meaning of “dust and ashes” comes from Abraham’s recognition of his status before God: “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.” Thus, in each of the two instances of “dust and ashes,” it is used to signify something about the relation of humans to God. It is through these two verses that we might be able to come to a solid understanding of what it means for Job to “repent of dust and ashes.”

As I have already noted, Job’s first response to God was to simply be silent. As Samuel E. Balentine has said: “Job had previously concluded that innocent suffering rendered him mute and submissive before a God who permits neither question nor confrontation.”[6] It is through God’s two speeches to Job that God is forcing Job to develop a new understanding of “dust and ashes.” While suffering might be a part of the human condition, it is not required that humans be silent or submissive in the face of suffering.[7] If the response to suffering was to be silent and submissive to the God who brought it about, which the ancient worldview of retributive justice would certainly have said, then the answers Job’s friends give him would have been correct answers. If Job suffered, he suffered because of some sort of sin that God was faulting him for, and thus the only acceptable response would have been to repent of that sin. However, the new understanding of “dust and ashes” that God showed to Job through his speeches shows that the traditional categories of guilt and innocence when it comes to suffering are null and void. Rather, God’s speeches to Job and Job’s subsequent repentance of his “dust and ashes” mentality show that, not only was God inviting Job to “joyfully embrace a world more powerfully under the control of a gracious god than he had realized”[8], but that Job actually did embrace this new understanding of the world’s taxis. Instead of a world in which the guilty are divinely punished through suffering and the innocent are divinely rewarded through physical wealth, Job’s repentance invites us understand the ordering of the world in a radically different way. God hears the cries of the afflicted and responds, He is not deaf to their pleas.

What exactly was it that Job repented of? Job repented of his previously erroneous understanding of the way in which the world worked. Thus, Job was really and truly repenting of “dust and ashes,” i.e. his erroneous worldview, and this is indeed something of which he really and truly needed to repent.

Synthesis

It is generally accepted by almost all scholars and lay readers that the book of Job is fundamentally about the nature of suffering. However, past this very generalized assumption, the proverbial waters get very murky. Nevertheless, the book of Job gives us a picture of one person’s struggle with suffering and what his response to God should be amidst his suffering. It is from within the overall framework of this narrative on theodicy that Job’s repentance (42:1-6) and the epilogue must be understood.

If the book of Job is to be understood as being about the problem of theodicy, then Job 42:1-6 should be understood as the apex of the book. Job’s repentance before God should be understood as the main message of the book as a whole. In all of Job’s sufferings, he never once cursed God or sinned with his lips (2:10b), yet he did question God and he did ask God to hear him and respond, which God obliged. Job’s repentance of his previously-held view of retributive justice and his acknowledgement of the radically different divine order of the world is to be understood as the culmination of the book’s attempt to provide a framework through which one might be able to understand suffering, as well as to present a model for further critical reflection upon the nature of suffering and the goodness of God. Far from providing one monolithic and complete answer to the problem of suffering, the book of Job gives guidelines that are rooted firmly in a solid understanding of Job’s repentance in 42:6 from which we are invited to reflect upon and engage with the reality of suffering in our contexts.

The prosaic epilogue of Job needs to be understood generally in light of the whole message of the book and specifically in light of Job’s repentance in 42:6. It is only through doing this that the reader might be able to avoid becoming stuck in the frustrating and seemingly paradoxical affirmations found within the book as a whole. Job 42:7-17 should also be understood as a reversing of “curse” found in the prologue, with Job being again restored from his suffering. However, since taking the epilogue to be God restoring Job because he was righteous and thus affirming the concept of retributive justice would place the epilogue in opposition to the rest of the book’s message, God’s restoration of Job in 42:7-17 must be understood in light of the message of the whole. This perspective allows room for the reader and their community to creatively understand and implement Job’s repentance in 42:6 in new ways not necessarily presented by the book itself. Thus, in Job’s repentance in 42:6 we find the culmination of the book as a whole, as well as the guiding principal for reflection upon suffering, and in the epilogue we find ambiguity and thus an invitation to engage critically in light of our own world.

Reflection

While all of what I’ve previously said seems well and good, it is all for naught if we have no way of applying it to our own situations and contexts. The Bible, and thus the book of Job, is worth nothing if it cannot speak to the Church currently. So, what can we appropriate from the Book of Job for our context and our world today? What does the suffering of the character of Job have to teach us about the place of suffering in the world, or response to suffering, and how one might suffer blamelessly?

Job doesn’t provide the definitive answers to why suffering exists within the world, but it does give us a theological perspective on how we might engage with that suffering. The book of Job reverses the commonly held ancient belief, and one held by a significant number of people even today, that suffering is a punishment, whether divine or not, for something that a person did.[9] Instead, we see that suffering is something that comes from the fallen nature of the human condition and the cosmos, not necessarily from an individual’s actions and choices.

It has been purposed by various and many scholars that Job offers this position on the nature of suffering, or that position on why suffering happens, but it would be my contention after reading the book and the study that I’ve put into it that Job wasn’t meant to offer us an answer to why people suffer. Rather, in Job we see an expression of how a person might be able to suffer rightly, but not tacitly endorse the suffering itself. God’s speeches to Job and Job’s subsequent response and repentance show us that the question of why suffering exists within the world is the wrong question to ask. Suffering exists because we are fallen people who live in a world that is “groaning in labor pains” (Rom. 8:22) awaiting the fullness of our restoration and redemption through Christ. Suffering is an inevitable result of a fallen cosmos. Nevertheless, suffering is not a divinely ordered mandate. Those who suffer don’t suffer because they have offended or sinned against God. Rather, most likely people suffer because of oppressive systems or evil systemic structures, because of violence and hatred, or because of other’s greed. And those who suffer mustn’t allow themselves to curse God as the author and exacter of their suffering. We, like Job, need to repent of our “dust and ashes” perspectives and understand that suffering isn’t retributive but rather a consequence of the yet fully restored cosmos.

However, the existence of suffering cannot, and certainly does not, have the final word for the Church. God’s answer to Job in His divine speeches shows us that not only does God hear the cries of the oppressed, but that He decisively responds to their affliction.

While God’s response to Job in it’s Old Testament context is somewhat vague and seemingly unhelpful, when viewed from the perspective of the New Testament, and specifically God’s revelation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the proto-type that Job offers us of a person who suffers rightly can be fully understood and appropriate by the Church today. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Word of God incarnate, we see God’s decisive action on behalf of and in response to those who suffer and are oppressed. Jesus came to bring the good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, to preach recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Lk. 4:18-19). This is the message of the Kingdom of God and this is the new order of things that God had shown to Job in His speeches.

In Jesus, God deals the ultimate deathblow to the notion of retributive justice, because in Jesus we see a God who in His gracious love and mercy takes on the fallen human nature, so that He might restore and redeem an undeserving humanity. God acts on our behalf out of His gracious love to set to rights the things that we have broken, to redeem us even while we are undeserving, and to reconcile all things unto Himself.

What does all of this mean for the Church now? It means not only that we have to repent of our mistaken and sinful notions of suffering, but it also means that we have a responsibility to stand on the side of the oppressed and to work towards ending the suffering of those who suffer. It means that our repentance of our “dust and ashes” must result in our action with and for the oppressed and suffering of this world. God has revealed Himself to us proto-typically in Job as the God who hears the cries of those who suffer, and finally and decisively in His self-communication in the person of Jesus of Nazareth as the God who acts on behalf of those who suffer and are oppressed. Thus, we as Christ’s Church must also act with and on behalf of those who suffer and who are oppressed. Job offers us a foretaste of the way in which people are radically and powerfully transformed when they come into contact with the God who loves in freedom.

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[1] Terrence W. Tilley, “God and the Silencing of Job,” Modern Theology 5:3 (1989): 260.

[2] All direct quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible.

[3] Edwin M. Good, In Turns of Tempest: A Reading of Job with a Translation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 371.

[4] Terrence W. Tilley, “God and the Silencing of Job,” Modern Theology 5:3 (1989): 260.

[5] Good, In Turns of Tempest, 375. Good argues for the logic of this translation in the introductory notes of his book. The argument is one based upon Hebraic syntax and word structure, of which I am unfortunately ignorant, and am thus indebted to his work.

[6] Samuel E. Balentine, “My Servant Job Shall Pray For You,” ThTo 58:4 (2002): ­512.

[7] Balentine, “My Servant Job Shall Pray For You,” 512.

[8] Edwin M. Good, In Turns of Tempest: A Reading of Job with a Translation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 377.

[9] This view is seen most clearly in peoples’ responses to poverty and homelessness in America. We tend to think that a person is poor because of something that they did (i.e. substance abuse, poor money management, lack of education, etc.) instead of the systemic factors that have lead to a person’s poverty (i.e. unjust wealth distribution, capitalism, injustices in the job market and work place, etc.).

This is an excerpt from a paper I wrote this semester. The paper was an attempt to offer a theological justification for the legitimacy of homosexual marriages/relationships. The excerpt that follows is from the beginning section of the paper in which I have to qualify what I consider to be legitimate and valid authorities from which we might be able to then engage theologically and ethically with the question of homosexuality. I really like this section, and consider it to be the best part of my paper. I hope ya'll enjoy it and engage with it so that we, as a community of reconciled believers, might be able to develop a solid understanding of homosexuality in light of the nature of God that is revealed to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Authorities For Ethical and Theological Reflection

Before anything can be said about the moral position of homosexuality, I must first discuss the authorities upon which I shall base my argument and position. Ethical reflection requires us to make judgments about what types of things we recognize as having authority for any given situation. In the following section I shall present and explain the things that I hold to be authoritative, as well as critique and expressly reject other things as not having authority for this discussion.

The foundational authority upon which all Christians should base their thoughts, actions and intellectual reflections upon is the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is the norm for all ethical reflection. I hold Jesus and His nature as witnessed to in the Bible as the normative basis upon which we can judge, affirm, critique, engage and witness and this requires that we posit the normative Christ that we see in Scripture as being truly God’s fullest self-communication. Thus, the “ground and grammar” of theology is Jesus Christ and His nature revealed to us, for sure, through the biblical witness, but also not bound to the finite and fallible Scripture.

The norming norm that I advocate, that of Jesus Christ as witnessed to, but not bound by, Scripture, gives due diligence to the biblical witness but it does not allow the biblical witness to be interpreted in such a way that it contradicts the nature of God as revealed to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The nature of God that we see in Jesus Christ is one of love, of compassion, mercy and grace. In Jesus we see the love of God being revealed as radical and transformative action, and something that flips our modern understandings of love upside down. God’s love is that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is the heart of what God’s love is. We had originally cut ourselves off from the source of life, God Himself, and fractured our relationship with the Almighty, but God, in His grace and love, took on the fullness of our fallen humanity in the incarnation, lived and worked amongst those whom the culture said were sinners and worthless, flipped the teachings of His day upside down, and eventually graciously and willingly gave up His life for those whom by their own actions considered themselves to be enemies of God. Yet, the gates of hell could not contain the love and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ and death itself was decisively defeated by the love of God-in-Christ.

In Jesus we see the fullest revelation of a God who stands on the side of the oppressed and who struggles with, and on behalf of, those who are persecuted and exploited. In Christ we see God’s preferential option for the poor and oppressed. We also see a God who is more concerned with faithful disciples than with people acting good and believing the right things, as evidenced to us by Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees in Matt 23:26-8.

However, the question should rightly be asked, how can we know Jesus apart from the biblical witness? To this I would respond that we, by this I mean modern Christians in the West, cannot know Jesus apart from the biblical witness. However, I would then respond using the great theologian Karl Barth’s understanding of the three-fold Word of God.  Barth’s understanding of the three-fold Word of God goes something like this: Jesus Christ is the self-communication of God, the Word Incarnate (made flesh), the Bible is the Word Written, and the preaching of the Church is the Krygmatic Word. All three of these are rightly to be understood as the Word of God because a gracious act of God enables them to be so. However, the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, is the final and definitive Word through which the other two must be understood.[1] In the same way that we cannot say that a testimony is the same thing as that which it testifies to, so to can we not say that the Bible and the witness it gives us to Jesus is the same as Jesus Himself. Nevertheless, we can legitimately understand and know the nature and reality of the person of Jesus of Nazareth and the God who He reveals, through reading and studying Scripture. We simply have to remember that the God who loves in freedom is the master, not the servant of Scripture. Jesus Christ, as witnessed to, but not bound by Scripture, is the ultimate and final authority from which we are able to make ethical and moral claims.

Be that as it may, Scripture itself is also a valuable authority for engaging the issue of homosexuality and homosexual relationships. However, Scripture cannot have the final say in our ethical reflection because the witness of scripture on the issue of homosexuality is very sparse, and the contexts in which the various books of the Bible were written are drastically different from ours, and thus, there cannot be anything like a one-to-one correspondence between passages that mention homosexuality and the nature of homosexuality in today’s world.

There have been a handful of verses that have been held up as proof-texts to help legitimize the Church’s position on homosexuality throughout the Church’s history. I shall briefly try to show why these verves are irrelevant to the current discussion. The first of these is the story of God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:1-29. The “sin of Sodom and Gomorrah” has come down though the tradition as being homosexuality, although this is completely unsubstantiated by the Bible as well as by other scholarly works. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was rather the sin of not being hospitable to the poor.[2] Next people attempt to use the Levitical laws concerning the admonition against homosexuality, although the Levitical laws are no longer something that holds authority over us as gentile Christians.[3] Also on the validity-chopping block are the traditional verses from the New Testament that have been classically cited to condemn homosexuality. These verses have recently come into question because of issues of translation.  In the 1 Corinthians 6:9 ‘sin-list,’ the traditional translation, of which I am using the New King James version to highlight, includes the terms “homosexuals” and “sodomites.” Recent scholarship has shown these terms to be inaccurate translations of the Greek words malakoi and arsenokoitai, which both have no clear scholarly consensus concerning their meanings. The same concept holds true for 1 Timothy 1:10, in which the term arsenkoitai is included in another sin-list; in this case it has also been inappropriately translated as “homosexuals.” While the meaning of these terms is an on-going debate within the scholarly world, it is sufficient for the purposes of this paper to simply say that based upon the lack of knowledge we have concerning the appropriate rendering of malakoi and arsenkoitai, we cannot turn to these verses to give warrant to our ethical reflection. [4]

Thus, I find myself forced to reject the traditionalist view of the complete literalness of the Bible and consequently, the particular passages which have been used to condemn homosexuality in the Church’s tradition. Thus we have to say that in Scripture we are able to find helpful ideas and concepts that point us in the right direction for ethical reflection but never have the final word in that reflection.

I reject the use of what some consider to be Church tradition as an authority from which we might speak about homosexuality. I reject this for two different reasons. The first reason is that tradition itself, far from being a unitary and unanimous voice, is made up of multiple voices and many different “channels” of tradition, many of which disagree quite strongly on very fundamental and important issues. Thus to treat “tradition” as though it were a singular construction would be a great mistake. The second reason I reject the use of tradition as an authority is because it doesn’t have a very good record of being faithful to the Gospel in its encounters with things that are outside of its narrow view of orthodoxy. By this I mean simply that the Church has a poor record of upholding the Gospel of Christ when it confronts and challenges the status quo. We see this in the Church’s “baptizing” of the powers that be during the reign of Constantine in 312 CE. We see this again in the Church’s legitimization of slavery in the 14^th to 21^st centuries, and yet again in the Church’s position on the inferiority of Africans to Europeans (and later Americans) during the same time periods. Still yet we see the traditions poor record in the Church’s rejection of inter-racial marriages and its “baptizing” of racist and xenophobic ideologies. The Church doesn’t have a very good record of understanding and engaging with those who are other than it in a way that’s faithful to God’s self-communication in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Consequently, why should we assume that the traditions of the Church, which could historically considered to be a great defender of the status quo, will be able to provide us with faithful grounds from which we could reject homosexuality? The trajectory of the history of the Church shows a continual cycle of the tradition lagging behind the progressive understanding of God that comes from being faithfully engaged in the praxis and life of the Church, which continually challenges and provokes a new and more faithful understanding of the Triune God. Thus, I am forced to reject the use of tradition as an authority from which the Church can speak about homosexuality.

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[1] This section concerning the theology of Karl Barth is indebted to ch. 1 of Karl Barth’s Evangelical Theology, ch. II.I of Eberhard Busch’s The Great Passion and Volume 1, book 1 of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (CD I/1, 120-121).

[2] See Ezekiel 16:49

[3] See Acts 15, which is the biblical record of the so-called Jerusalem Council, in which the Apostles decided that Gentile believers did not have to abide by Mosaic Law.

[4] This section of the paper is deeply indebted to an essay written by biblical scholar Richard B. Hays. Richard B. Hays, “Awaiting the Redemption of Our Bodies: The Witness of Scripture Concerning Homosexuality,” (ed. Jeffrey S. Siker; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), 5-7.

Some Unfinished Reflection on Liberation Theology as an Alternative to the Ivory Towers of Today, or Truly the Good News

As anyone who has had any theological interaction with me knows, I fancy myself an amateur student of liberation theology. I’ve cut my teeth in the theological world on theologians like Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff, Camilo Torres and others like them. The praxis of liberation theology and the concern with the physical realities of the world deeply attracted me to it. Not only that, but the emphasis upon praxis and solidarity with the poor as the guiding hermeneutic really places the work of theology in proximity to the God we are seeking to give witness to. Liberation theology is a theology of action, while the theology we tend to think about is more of theology in thought. Liberation theology reminds me that the work of the theologian is to be a participant and witness to the work of God in the historical realities of the world.

I really do love the methodology that the authors highlight of liberation theology. The Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes lays out a three-tiered method for theological reflection. First, analyze the context that on finds them self in using the understandings afforded to us by the various social sciences (in the case of Liberation theology, Marxist social critique). Second, compare the understanding gained in step 1 to the biblical narrative and tradition. Third, decided upon actions based upon insights gained in the two previous steps and engage in the decided upon action. One of the main reasons that I like this so much is because it reminds us that theology is meant to affect change and requires participation. In this sense, I would consider the work of the theologian to be comparable to the work of a prophet. Theologians interact with the God who has made Himself known to us in person of Jesus of Nazareth and in light of that revelation they attempt to bear faithful witness to God. However, that bearing witness always requires a continual change on the part of the theologian because the more deeply we understand the self-communication of God, the more we are able to see the reality of the world and of ourselves. When a person interacts with, bear’s faithful witness to, and reflects upon the God of Jesus Christ, they will always be transformed.

Liberation theology also seems to be an answer to the more speculative and metaphysical theology that has become the norm in the academic circles of the world. For liberation theologians, the starting point for theological reflection is found in real life experience of standing in solidarity with the poor. Thus, instead of starting out with theoretical theological postulations (which often have their basis in philosophical traditions that start outside of the realm of God’s self-communication) and then attempting to find some way to fit in human experience and the realities of life, the liberation theologian bases is the concrete, physical and historical ways that God has revealed Himself to us. So, instead of starting with the Platonic “Supreme Good,” or the Aristotelian “Unmoved Mover,” Liberations theologians start with the God of the Oppressed and the God who brought the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. However, the lens of solidarity-hermeneutics is fraught with dangers unless qualified and placed in its proper context, something that many liberation theologians have spilled countless gallons of ink in the attempt to do.

The emphasis of liberation theologians on the three-tiered understanding of liberation is a very helpful understanding to me theologically because it seems to really give shape and content to the work of Christ as God-Incarnate. The three-tiered view of liberation put forth by Gutierrez sees the work of liberation as; 1.) liberation from the socio-economic oppression, 2.) liberation from dehumanization or anything that makes us to be less than what we are, and 3.) liberation from sin which is the ultimate form of and root of injustice and oppression. I find this helpful because, not only does it seem to provide a substantial foundation for ecclesiological praxis, but it also seems to encompass the totality of Christ’s work on our behalf. This understanding of liberation allows us to become participators in God’s work of establishing His Kingdom through the work of Christ the Liberator, and then the continuing of that work through the Body of the Liberator, the Church. Liberation theology, to me then, not only provides us with the methodology but also the theological content that allows us to understand the Gospel as being truly the Good News.

How Karl Barth Has Changed My Mind

When I was 15 a friend of mine gave me Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. I instantly fell in love with Bonhoeffer. I thought that Bonhoeffer’s ideas were revolutionarily radical while still being faithful to Christianity. At the time I remember thinking that theology had reached its pinnacle and conclusion in the ideas of Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church really piqued my curiosity, so after a little bit of research I found the Barmen Declaration, which was, for all intents and purposes, written by Karl Barth. At the time I was intent on absorbing everything theological, so I looked into this Karl Barth. I never expected that simple action would have such far-reaching effects on the way in which I viewed (and still view) theology.

The first book I found by Karl Barth was Humanity of God and while I can admit now that I barely understood any of it, it was huge in my development. Up until that point, I had never read anything that discussed God in such wonderful and imaginative terms, or something that made me think God loved me as much as Humanity of God did. From there, I put Barth on the backburner, and turned my attention to the Christian anarchist movement and other radical Christians. However, I never really have forgotten about my love of Barth. Karl Barth has changed my mind in so many ways, and I’ve interacted and wrestled with his ideas so much that I feel, in a large way, deeply indebted to him.

The first thing that I learned from Barth, and the way in which he shaped my mind rather than changed it, was Barth’s insistence of Jesus Christ as the paramount and most complete form of God’s own self-revelation. Barth’s emphasis upon Christo-centricity over the anthropocentricity that was common amongst theologians of his day (and even ours to some degree) is a wonderful reminder that God has posited himself to be known by us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth as an act of grace and mercy. This is a wonderfully liberating concept, because it shows us that we aren’t responsible for hearing God or attempting to know him on our own terms, but rather that God has set the terms through which we are to know him. This is an idea that seems so simple to me now that I’ve been studying theology for a little bit of time, but when I first read it 'way back when, it completely revolutionized the way I thought about theological work.

This leads into the next big idea that I learned from Barth, namely that the work of theology is a work of gratitude. God has first spoken his Word to us, so now we may, in gratitude, respond to God’s first Word with words of our own. I remember reading some theologian or another when I was younger that talked about God’s radical and complete otherness and feeling incredibly discouraged because I felt a call to do theology, but I couldn’t figure out how I could ever speak about this God, let alone know him. So when I read about Barth’s theology of the Word, I was ecstatic: I could talk about God in a way that was real and true because God has first spoken his Word to me (and all of humanity!). I am now free to respond to God because he first addressed me.

One of the things that I admire most about Barth was his commitment to the Church. I remember hearing a story about how Barth changed the title of his seminal work from Christian Dogmatics to Church Dogmatics because he considered theology to be only possible in its proper context, the Church. Barth was committed to being fully engaged in the life of the church because he felt that, in order to speak about God, one has to be rooted in the place that God’s Word would be most faithfully heard. Barth’s ideas have pushed me to reconsider the sphere in which I do theology, and the reason for it as well. I started to question the legitimacy of theology that isn’t done in the context of the faith community and I decided to commit myself to always be a theologian in and of the church. Barth’s constant dedication to the Church was a huge inspiration for me.

One of the final things that Barth taught me, and one of the biggest ways that Barth changed my mind was concerning the doctrine of election. Barth’s doctrine of election, that of all people being elected in Christ, the Elected One, absolutely changed my mind. I used to be a staunch Arminianist, firmly believing that it was the turning of the person towards God that initiated the salvific work in their lives. I remember firmly debating some of my Calvinist friends concerning the doctrines of predestination and election, and getting very frustrated with the narrowness which defined the category of ‘elect.' But after reading Barth and engaging with his beliefs on election, I started to see that the idea of a person being able to turn to God of their own volition and in their own strength was to firmly root the object and final authority of salvation in man rather than in God. This was not a move that I could make because it seemed to reject the totality of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and to place a power in the hands of humans that I cannot believe we have. However, at the same time, I wasn’t able to accept the traditional doctrine of double predestination so prevalent in Calvinism because it seemed to also deny the totality of Christ’s sacrifice and make it only available to some, rather than all humanity. Barth’s idea of election seems to flow fluidly and logically out of the biblical narratives of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

When I think about all the ways that Karl Barth has changed my mind, I begin to realize that more and more of my ideas are, at the very least, influenced by Barth. I’ve come to see that I am decidedly a Barthian; whether this is good or bad is yet to be determined. However, I don’t think that I would change this at all because Karl Barth has allowed me to see a theologian who loved God, the Church and theology and for that I am eternally thankful.

I’ll end with a joke I once heard about Karl Barth that I found to be not only hilarious, but also to be indicative of how influential Barth has been for most modern theologians, myself included. It goes like this:

Hugo Rahner had an audience with the Pope. After a great deal of discussion, the Pope asked Hugo Rahner his opinion of the world’s greatest theologian.

Rahner squirmed a little bit, breaking eye contact with the Pope while he sought the proper and most humble way to answer the question. Finally, he looked up, shrugged, and said, “I suppose, Your Grace, I would have to say the world’s greatest theologian is my brother, Karl.”

The Pope’s eyes widened. He sat straight up in his chair in astonishment and exclaimed: “Your brother is KARL BARTH?!”

-I wrote this after reading a book of the same title, in which various Barth scholars and theologians wrote essays concerning the ways that Barth influenced their thinking and careers. Anyone that knows me knows of my deep love for Karl Barth and I thought it would be appropriate to sort of give some reasons about why I love Barth. Plus, I just happen to really like this essay. 

Reconciliation

So, here is a tentative draft of an article I am working on which is designed to discuss what I feel will need to be the main focus of my generation's theological reflection if we are committed to being faithful to the call of Christ in our particular context. There are six points which I will eventually highlight, with an attempt to lay a ground work for later theological reflection and introduce a rudimentary element of praxis. 

This first section is concerning the Theology of Reconciliation.

 

I believe that the work of Christ is primarily that of a reconciler [1], in that through the shedding of his blood, the dying of his death, and his subsequent resurrection into new life, Christ has reconciled humanity to G-D [2]. I must conclude then that Christ is a bridge-builder, while at the same time being himself the bridge, and as Christian's, we are called to share in his death and resurrection through the sacraments of Holy Eucharist and Baptism, which enable us to put on the nature of Christ in a very real and tangible way. In light of this, I find it necessary to affirm that since Christ was a bridge-builder, we also are to be people who build bridges.

We must recognize that our world is a very polarizing place, and that the language of "us" and "them"[3] is particularly prevalent in our western culture. I see a world made up of "individuals" trying to live as though they were "islands," disconnected from "them" and content in their "us-ness."[3] I unequivocally affirm that this is not the way of Christ. The call of Christ is the call to the deepest level of community possible, both with G-D and with others.[4] It is a call to participation in a community of people who have been redeemed by G-D and commissioned with the task of helping to incarnate the kingdom of our LORD.[4] The call of Christ is the call to membership in the Beloved Community. 

I believe that the gaps that separate us can take many and varied forms, whether they be racial, cultural, economic, theological/philosophical, political, just to name a few. Regardless of what forms these gaps might take, I believe that it is our job to creatively and lovingly build bridges between "us" and "them"[3] and to point others towards the bridge that has been built between G-D and us. 

 

[1] It would be terribly detrimental to the state of theological reflection and the life of the Church if this were the only way in which the nature of Christ's work on our behalf were to be viewed. So, while I think Christ's work on our behalf is primarily that of initiating and completing the reconciliation of humanity and G-D, I would never claim that this captures, or even comes close to understanding, the totality of Christ's work.

[2] Romans 5.10-11; 2 Corinthians 5.17-19,21; Colossians 1.21-22

[3] For a far more detailed discussion on this idea of "us" and "them," see Miroslav Volf's book Exclusion and Embrace: A theological Exploration on Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Volf's ideas have been enormously helpful for me in developing a theological framework through which I might make sense of what it means to be created in the image of God.

[4] If you are interested in delving deeper into this idea, I would suggest reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together. Bonhoeffer does a masterful job of illustrating humanities need for community as a foundation upon which to build, express and enact faith. He also speaks in detail about the praxis of community, which I have found to be most helpful and insightful.

P.S. 

Sorry for the awkward footnote indicators in the paper, I couldn't figure out how to make them a superscript. 

May the grace of our LORD Jesus Christ, the love of G-D the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you!

Mike G.

Apologies and Scripture

So I wanted to apologize for not writing in the blog more often. The weird thing is that in the past few months I've written a good number of blogs but I never post them up for one reason or another. Anyway, I wanted to offer my apologies to everyone and guarantee a few blog entries when I get home. 

I'm leaving for Cornerstone tomorrow night and I am super excited. The community is going along with a few really cool high school kids. It's gonna be a great time and I pray that the LORD uses this week to draw us into a deeper connection with Him.

This is the Word of the LORD:

"Say to them, As I live, says the LORD G-D, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from you evil ways ; for why will you die, O house of Israel? And you, mortal, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not save them when they transgress; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, it shall not make them stumble when they turn from their wickedness; and the righteous shall not be able to live by their righteousness when they sin. Though I say to the righteous that they shall surely live, yet if they trust in their righteousness and commit iniquity, none of their righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in the iniquity that they have committed they shall die. Again, though I say to the wicked ' You shall surely die,' yet if they turn from their sin and do what is lawful and right-- if the wicked restore the pledge, give back what they have taken by robbery, and walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity-- they shall surely live, they shall not die. None of the sins that they have committed shall be remembered against them; they have done what is lawful and right, they shall surely live."

Ezekiel 33:11-16

Thanks be to G-D!!

Mike G.

Imagining G-D!

I'm not sure if anyone else does this but I sometimes find myself wondering what G-D looks like. I know that it's childish, but I can't help trying to imagine how He might look if I were to see Him.

I know that He isn't the benevolent old grandfather figure that I would occasionally seem Him portrayed as in those nice and peaceful pictures that hung on the walls of my old Sunday school room. I'm also betting that He doesn't look like the warrior G-D that the fundamentalists tend to view Him as, gleaming in polished armor and carrying a two-edged sword in one hand and an American flag in the other. I have a feeling that He would look a bit more regular, more human, than either of those pictures depict Him to be.

I wonder if He would look like my father, a 55 year old balding man whose smile never quite reaches his eyes, but still loves people all the same. Or perhaps, He might look like my mother, a frantic 51 year old woman with good intentions and an uncanny ability to help anyone she meets. Or maybe He'd look like me, an unsure 19 year old who thinks he knows more than he does and does more than he thinks.   

What I'm beginning to learn though is that G-D doesn't look like any of those, or even anything else that I might imagine Him to look like, but rather those are just persona's that I project on Him. I understand why we imagine that G-D looks sort of like us, but only more perfect and -most likely- on a larger scale. We are trying to make sense of the Incomprehensible G-D, who is beyond our finite understanding and intellectual ability. 

Believe me, I understand the temptation to try to make G-D fit into our motifs and temporal concepts but doing so is an incredibly destructive thing to do. I've realized that when I try to personify G-D, what I am really trying to do is to make G-d more human, and as the Greek Fathers have taught us, the minute I make G-D human is the minute I am no longer dealing with G-D. G-D is not my father and G-D is not my mother. G-D is G-D! Glory to G-D!

Mike G.