In His New Book, “Simply Jesus,” N.T. Wright Suggests We May Miss the Essence of Christianity If We Don’t Understand the Implications of Who Jesus Is

I just finished reading Simply Jesus by Anglican theologian N.T. Wright over the holidays, and, once again, he has radically disturbed my very Western, Americanized perception of Christianity.

On the other hand, in doing so, he has offered a vision of Jesus that is much more compelling, and, which, according to the author, deals with the right questions and enables us to gain a fresh worldview – that of first century Christians.

Wright points out that the questions we ask about Jesus as 21st-century American Christians are very different from those asked by those in the first century. Our questions are generally quite direct: Do heaven and hell exist? How do I get to the first and avoid the second?

Back then, he suggests, the questions were very likely quite different. First century Palestinians had quite a different worldview than ours, and we need to understand their worldview in order to understand what it meant for Jesus to be born, live, die and be resurrected in that period of history. Only then can we understand enough to ask the right questions today.

And so for most of the book, Wright weaves an intricate thread consisting of the strands of history, culture and religion that formed the genre of first century Christianity.
 
What emerges is an understanding of Jesus that you or I likely did not learn in Sunday School. But it is a powerful and enlightening tapestry which is woven. We learn, according to Wright, that Jesus himself, by his death and resurrection, established the kingdom of God on earth which continues now and will be fully known at his second coming (in spite of the predicaments we find our world in today).

Of course there is considerable theological discussion on the whens and wherefores of the kingdom, but Wright weaves a tightknit and comprehensive brief for his views.
  
I found the book a fascinating read. But keep your mind open to fresh gleanings. The Jesus you meet in this book is one you’ve likely not seen quite this way before.

Spinning Our Wheels?

I finally finished James Davison Hunter’s book, To Change the World – The Irony, Tragedy & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. The book really delivers in the realm of social theory, explaining why Christians are mostly ineffective in their efforts to “change the world”.

In fact, “changing the world” should not be our primary focus, he suggests. And he laboriously makes the case that despite our country being nearly 80% “Christian,” the influence of Christianity is, to a great degree, ineffective. Further, he suggests, rather than positively influence society, Christians (especially the Christian Right) have instead come across as angry, bitter and resentful.

A significant part of the problem, he says, (and I’m greatly oversimplifying here) is that the Christian Left, the Christian Right and the neo-Anabaptists, all have chosen, in one way or another, politics, policies and law as the target areas in which to “penetrate” in order to change society.

This will surely fail, he says (two thirds of the book is given to explaining why), and his proposed alternative is what he calls and defines as “faithful presence.” “A theology of faithful presence,” Hunter says, “calls Christians to enact the shalom of God in the circumstances in which God has placed them and to actively seek it on behalf of others.”

This should be done in our daily living, rather than through the political or legal systems as is seemingly the current focus, he offers. You can see that simply understanding what he means and how it should be implemented is a significant challenge - but a worthy one - and one for which the book is very much worth a read.

The book does not end on a particular high note. His own assessment of his theology suggests that even if Christians and the Church could live according to his concept of “faithful presence,” his best prognosis is that we may be able to live in “a better world.”

I think I might have titled the book, Spinning Our Wheels?

Post Script Re: Mega Church Changes

Apparently there’s more to the saga of the changes going on at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, better known as the “poster child” of “seeker-sensitive” ministries.

In the previous post we gave a nod to the church and its Pastor, Bill Hybels, for having the chutzpah to map out changes in their program-driven worship practices that are based on the results of a self-conducted survey of its members and six other similar congregations. As mentioned in the last post, these findings have been widely reported in a book released last year by Greg Hawkins, Willow Creek’s executive pastor.

Among the proposed modifications are the adding of theology and Bible classes during midweek services and the re-structuring of weekend services to focus on serious Christians who want to mature in the Christian life (in contrast to past uses of rock music and multimedia to attract “seekers”).

How are they preparing to put into practice these and other fresh insights? Here’s the plan, according to Hawkins: “Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research (bold mine) and rooted in Scripture”.

It is reported that on the wall outside of Bill Hybels’ office hangs a poster that reads: “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?” These questions are consistent with the “business/corporate” approach to ministry that the church has followed but that now has become suspect.

It might be good to pause for a moment and ask: if the “new” approach to worship praxis at WC is going to be influenced by more research on what people think they want, many, like myself, will be prone to ask, “What has been learned?”

A basic course on the historical Church would reveal that the Church, local or catholic, is not “consumer-driven”. Instead, many, myself included, believe it is the living organism through which we worship God and by which He speaks to us, guides us, and teaches us to live according to His revelation.

My hope and prayer is that lessons have been learned, and that the changes will be a step toward developing Christian maturity. I must admit to some concern, however, that this wonderful congregation might be commencing to sing just another verse of the same song.

Mega Church Admits Flaws; Makes Mega Changes

Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Illinois has been sort of the national “model” for “seeker-sensitive” churches – ones that cater to people “seeking” to learn about the Christian faith.

In order to make Christianity more “window-candy-like,” to attract casually interested people to enter its doors, Willow Creek, and others like it, incorporated talented, upbeat Christian “rock” musicians, entertaining multi-media extravaganzas, and pop-culture sermons to fill the pews.

The “seeker” concept apparently worked so well that the Willow Creek “Association of Churches” was formed to train and foster the “seeker-sensitive” methodology in other locations across America. For about 30 years, Willow Creek and other imitating mega-churches have been the talk of the evangelical world.

Until last year, when the book, Reveal: Where Are You? co-authored by Willow Creek executive pastor Greg Hawkins, hit the bookstores. The volume revealed the discouraging results of a self-conducted survey taken among Willow Creek Church and six other similar congregations. You can read here what the periodical Christianity Today said about the study in an editorial.

Among other shortcomings in its decades-old practices, the church found that the “seeker-sensitive” people rarely followed a path to deeper faith, while at the same time those who did have a more mature faith felt “stalled” in their faith growth and were “dissatisfied”, with many considering leaving the church. Not at all what church leaders had expected, the survey results, however, confirmed what many other pastors and theologians had suspected.

To their extreme credit, Willow Creek had the fortitude to take the initiative, discover and begin to deal with the issues. Beginning soon, if not already in practice, weekend services will focus on “mature believers seeking to grow in their faith.” Midweek services will now offer classes on theology and the Bible. Imagine that – studying the Bible in church! How revolutionary!

I need to immediately stifle my facetiousness, and be thankful for the anticipated effects of what this group of churches will be doing from now on. But I do admit to having been on the questioning end of things from the very beginning. The simple fact is that the gospel and Christianity have little or nothing to do with “popularity” or with giving people what they think they want or with making them feel good for a few hours.

The gospel is the gospel, and the church is the church. It has been unchanged in purpose and function for two millennia. It is the Holy Spirit’s work that causes people to “seek… the kingdom of God”. We can’t possibly “package” the Christian message better than the Canon does nor think that we can do the compelling work of the Holy Spirit.

I’m pretty sure that’s why I, along with my wife, have found a reality of faith in the mainline church that we had not known is there. In contrast to rock bands, dramas and trendy power point sermons, all we do is sing simple hymns of the faith, read the Scriptures, recite and validate the ancient creeds, partake in the Sacraments, and listen to sermons based on Biblical texts.

We are thereby refreshed and then sent to live out God's grace by serving those in the world around us. Thanks be to God.

Latest By Our Son Doug

Part of remaining on tenure course, when you teach at the university level, is that you must publish. And publish some more.

Our son Doug teaches theology at Seattle Pacific University and during the past several years has written numerous articles and papers for a variety of publications, both academic and popular. Additionally, he has written chapters in theology books in cooperative authorship with peers as well as with other scholars.

But now, in addition to the above, he has authored a treatise in theology. If you do a book search by author (Douglas M. Koskela) on "Amazon.com", up comes his book, Ecclesiality and Ecumenism, with the subtitle, Yves Congar and the Road to Unity. Almost sounds like a novel.

But it doesn’t read like one. It’s pretty heavy theological “stuff”. Here’s his pic and a description of the “plot”, both from the back cover:

“This book explores the contributions of the French Dominican theologian Yves Congar on the question of ecclesiality ('churchliness' in the catholic sense) with an eye to their ongoing ecumenical potential.” The volume articulates Congar’s “fresh reflection on what makes the church legitimately the church” that holds considerable promise for revitalizing efforts toward Christian unity.

Ecclesiality and Ecumenism is an unabridged version of Doug’s Ph.D. thesis, and it has been nuanced a bit to appeal to a wider audience. Understanding the topics that he probes has in recent years become very critical, especially with the ecumenical gestures made by the current and previous Popes. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI is cited in the book.

Amazon.com says the book is “temporarily out of stock”. Yikes, there must have been a run on it. However, I know for sure you can buy it here if you’re interested. It’s definitely worth a read, and, o yes, have a glance at the dedication page.