On Responding Creatively to Challenging Times (Blumhardt)

“The kingdom of God must be the desire of our hearts; then solutions will come. You can be useful when you are willing to bear the greatest misery for God’s sake…It cannot be in vain, bearing what God wills us to bear, when we are following the one who bore the cross” (Johann Blumhardt [or son Christoph], quoted by Vernard Eller in Towering Babble: God’s People Without God’s Word [1983]).

Happiness through Conformity or Freedom through Suffering? (Mark 8:27-38)

Miraculously freed to discern and affirm our savior

“And he asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Christ’ (Mark 8:29, English Standard Version). 

Peter is right. Jesus is the Christ (the Greek word), the Messiah (the Hebrew word), the one chosen by God to save God’s people from all the powers of evil and penalties of sin. 

We might rightly marvel at Peter’s answer. The Twelve, including Peter, have heard all the words and seen all the signs indicating the saving presence of the Kingdom of God in the person of Jesus. Yet Jesus had recently complained of them, “‘Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts heartened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?’” (8:17b-18, ESV). 

Peter, then, did not discern and affirm the significance of Jesus all by himself. He did it solely by the grace of God; that is, only through a miracle.

Freedom as Embracing Suffering We Could Otherwise Easily Avoid

In An Historian’s Approach to Religion (1956), English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) noted that, from the earliest days of civilization in our fabled land of Olympia, we humans have always devoted ourselves to false gods. In ancient times, we worshiped what he calls the “parochial community” exemplified, in the 5^th century BC, by Athens. Later, when even the best municipal states—like Athens—failed to deliver on their promises of enhancing life and preventing death, we humans switched our devotion to the “oecumenical” or imperial community. Rome remains our best ancient example of this. Eventually, even Rome proved to be unworthy of our adoration.

Overcoming Evil with Good: Jesus Freeing Us from Today's Gods, Myths, and Religion

In The New Demons, Jacques Ellul speaks of the gods we moderns adore. Only in the last seven pages does he mention how we, as Christians and churches, might respond creatively to these Olympian gods, the myths they spin, and the religious words, actions, and objects we use every day to affirm our misguided devotion to them.

     
Jacques warns us right off that this creative response will be difficult. In case we had forgotten, “it has to be understood that Christianity is a break with our society” (222).

     
Of course we Christians and churches must first allow our own devotion to the gods to be challenged by Jesus through his biblical witnesses. When Jesus uses their words to free us from our devotion to those gods, however, we should realize that this will not endear us to our Olympian neighbors.

Christian Freedom Subverted through Olympian Success

Today we continue our reflections on The Subversion of Christianity by Jacques Ellul (trans. Geoffrey Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1986).

   
By the 300s, the Church suffered permanent subversion through Olympian succes. It became quantitatively Olympian and lost its qualitatively Christian character. This had consequences.

Churches: Activist, Conversionist, Prophetic

In his book, Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth, pp. 89-113), George Hunsinger, professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, included a 1987 essays entitled, “Where the Battle Rages: Confessing Christ in America Today.” In that essay, he speaks of churches activist and conversionist. For the sake of greater clarity of purpose, we will compare these alternatives with our prophetic mission groups.

 
Today Jesus is calling Christians here and there to serve him together as prophetic mission groups of two to twelve members. Our purpose, as a group, is to be what George refers to as a “confessing church.” Basically, that means ministering with one another in ways that allow us to live as prophetic witnesses to Jesus Christ both personally and as a group. Our mission as a group is to send members, two by two, to participate in local churches to invite them to live as faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ as well.

On Jesus Not Being a Means to an End

In his book Disruptive Grace, George Hunsinger, currently professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, criticizes Christians for regarding loyalty to Jesus as a means to an end. George reminds us that loyalty to Jesus is “the supreme end by which all other ends are judged and in which all worthy ends are included, though in practice there may be times when even worthy ends will need to be sacrificed for the sake of the supreme end” (96).

Reflections on Itinerant Paul and Hostility

The years AD 49 to 61 were the twelve most important in the life of the apostle Paul. During those years he shared the good news about an unconventional Jesus with people in the Levant, Anatolia, Hellenia, and Latinia. He started several new congregations of unconventional witnesses. Most importantly, he defended the unconventionality of his witness and theirs in a short series of letters. These letters later gained world-historical significance as part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Without them we would witness much less clearly to Jesus: the one odd god/man of freedom, truth, love, and vitality.