The Pneuma of Postmodernity

Postmodernity; the harbinger of destruction for Christian faith, or a timely ally? It seems fair to suggest that many Christians are split in opinion over what implications the advent of postmodern thought has for Christian faith. Allow me to humbly suggest my own analysis of the situation.

In some ways, postmodernity does spell the death of Christianity, or at least, a certain brand of Christianity that is thoroughly wedded to the modernist project. With the success of reason and science, the Church sought to use the tools of modernity to defend its claims, creating both fundamentalism and higher text criticism in its attempt to "scientifically" defend/prove the faith. These Christians continue to be rather violently opposed to postmodernity in its attempt to demonstrate that their project cannot succeed. The problem that occurs whenever Christianity becomes too closely tied to a spirit of a particular age is that when that age dies, the faith is left with no legs to stand on.

The work of Lyotard and Derrida have demonstrated quite thoroughly that modern epistemology falters. The blind faith in Rationality that the Enlightenment promoted has been rather discredited by repeated instances of "self-evident" claims being found to be rather subjective. Lyotard points out that there are no meta-narratives, rather, each group holds to a series of narratives that help make sense of the world. Putting Derrida into conversation with Lyotard shows us that the world is a text that we are constantly interpreting, and while some interpretations may be better than others, we have an increasingly difficult time legitimizing various interpretations over others.

We see this most clearly in the area of moral or ethical discourse, as opposing groups push forward their various claims and are driven farther and farther apart in conflict as there is no good way to arbitrate between claims. What then are we to think? Are we doomed to a hopeless relativism where anything goes? Has the Neitzschean reality been actualized wherein those with power create truth?

Perhaps. What does that mean for Christianity? Well, the first thing we must NOT do is attempt to - by the use of coercive force or power - impose our narrative over and above competing narratives. For at the heart of the Christian narrative is the story of the one who, being the holder of all power and authority, chooses to die rather than use any of that power in a coercive manner. Thus through the cross comes ultimate victory.

What the postmodern turn has done is flattened the epistemological landscape, enabling competing narratives to be heard on an equal footing. Everyone now has a seat at the table, no longer can science delegitimize other ways of knowing. Whereas, in Modernity, other forms of knowing were rejected prima facie, all voices can now be heard. I am not saying that all voices are true, only that now, they each get a equal turn to be heard, it's quite democratic really. Christians are now able to bear faithful witness to their narrative. We must resist the attempt to again pick up the myth of modernity in an attempt to put forward Christianity as a rationally self-evident system.

It is time to do what the Church has always been called to do; that is, be a faithful witness to the crucified Lord, Jesus Christ. The Spirit will do the work of convincing hearts and minds of the correspondent veracity of our narrative. For it is the Spirit that is here working diligently in creation to convict the world of sin and righteousness. All Christians would do well to develop a strong pneumatology that enables God to enact out the Missio Dei. Postmodernity thus becomes a catalyst for Christians to create a robust pneumatology that can support the continued missional reality of the Church.

Kyrie Eleison

Freedom through the Law (Preached at Rossburn Alliance Church, February 23, 2014)

“Blessed are those whose way is pure, who walk in the law of the Lord,” writes the psalmist. And thus begins psalm 119, a very lengthy praise of the beauty of the Law of Moses. I must admit, as beautiful as the poetry is, I am baffled by how much somebody can enjoy writing about a very long list of rules! Think of our modern Canadian law code, I’m not sure how that could possibly inspire anyone of us to write something even remotely close to this rapturous poetry we find flowing from the pen of the psalmist.

 

In many Christian circles today, talk of “The Law” is not all that popular. The Law is complicated, obscure, uncomfortable, and often just downright offensive. Have you ever tried to read through Leviticus? Not exactly a page turner. We don’t like the idea of Law because it implies judgment, and as good Canadians, we know that it isn’t good to judge. The Law is just a bunch of “Thou shalt not’s…” isn’t it? Nobody likes being told what not to do! So that brings us back to our first predicament, how can the psalmist say such beautiful things about the Law? What does he know that we don’t?

 

Let’s take another look at our text from Deuteronomy (Read v. 15-16)

What might stand out to you immediately here is how Moses compares obedience to the Law with the way of Life. Perhaps the Law was never meant to be oppressive at all? Maybe, the Law points us to freedom. The Old Testament goes on to sketch out the history of the children of Israel and their abject failure in keeping to the Law. Their disobedience ultimately lands them in exile and it is from this point of brokenness that the people begin to see the purpose of the law and rediscover the life that is there. That is the place where we get famous passages like Micah 6:8 “To act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God”. In the brokenness of exile, the prophets come to help the people reclaim the Law.

 

A Musician and theologian from Cambridge named Jeremy Begbie pointed out that in music, when composers stuck with the “laws” or rules of music theory in their compositions, they were able to write all of the brilliant and famous classical pieces we know and love today. When composers decided to chuck the rules in the 20^th century, they ended up becoming tightly bound to other systems and producing quite horrible sounding pieces in many instances. There seems to be a freedom that comes when operating within the bounds of certain laws.  I think Moses is getting at something similar here in his suggestion that if the people follow the law, they will experience the benefits of life and covenant blessing.

 

So why do I keep going on and on about the Law? Because Jesus does! “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” In some translations it refers to a jot, or an iota, from the Hebrew letter, yod which is the smallest little marking in the Hebrew alphabet. Nothing of the law is going to pass away.

 

There is a rather unfortunate tendency I’ve run into in many Christian circles, where whenever there is an uncomfortable passage in the Old Testament somebody is quick to say, “Oh, but that’s Old Testament, so it doesn’t matter”. Excuse me? …the Lord of the new covenant did not deride the old covenant. Some Christians in the early centuries of the church did. They wanted to do away with the Old Testament and reject the God of the Jews. The church, however, declared their views heretical – for Jesus had said that he came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them” (Shinn, 34). That’s right folks, blowing off the Old Testament is actually an ancient heresy called Marcionism. Basically, this fellow Marcion didn’t like the God of the OT because he was too repulsive, so he cut out the entire OT and large sections of the NT until he was left with a Bible that didn’t offend him anymore. We should probably try to avoid doing that given today’s reading!

 

So why is Jesus so insistent that no part of the Law shall pass away? Well we have to imagine ourselves in his context. Jesus had been causing a bit of a ruckus in his ministry so far. In first century Judaism there was the Torah (the Law) and the Torah was protected by the Talmud (the fence around the Torah). A large part of the Talmud was the Mishnah, a series of laws that made sure that Jews could not get anywhere near breaking the actual Torah. We are all familiar with tales of Jesus making fools of the legalistic Pharisees. The thing is, Jesus always kept the Torah, it was the Mishnah that he took exception to. He didn’t like the surface righteousness it created in people, he wanted serious devotion to holiness in every fiber of a person’s being.

 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is calling his peers to take the Law seriously. Now of course, the Pharisees took the law very seriously, for like I said, they’d created a whole bunch of other laws to protect them from even coming close to breaking the Law. But Jesus says that actually the law demands more. God wants every part of us, not just the externals that any given law code can regulate, but our deepest thoughts and emotions must belong to him as well. Instead of don’t murder, don’t even hate, instead of no adultery, don’t even lust. (PAUSE) Good luck with that!

 

Where we stopped our gospel reading today “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” seems like a burden that is too heavy to bear. How can we become perfect?

 

Now, the overly harsh face reading of this text has caused a lot of Christians over the years to go to some very interesting lengths to interpret this passage in a satisfactory way. Like Mark Twain said, “I’m more afraid of the passages in the Bible I understand perfectly than the passages that I don’t understand at all!” The mere words of the sermon itself leave us as readers in a rather hopeless place. Different groups have attempted to interpret the Sermon in different ways. The early ascetics (radical Christians in the first few centuries who would beat their flesh into submission) latched on to the self-mutilation bits, very few other people since then have chosen to take that part very seriously. (Talk about the guy in John’s church). A lot of the Reformers, and especially the group of Lutherans who eventually became known as “Pietists” often interpreted the Sermon in a highly spiritualized manner that demanded no actual action. A more contemporary individual who summed up this view in a famous quote was the Reformed Theologian, Karl Barth when he proclaimed, “It would be sheer Folly to interpret the imperatives of the Sermon on the Mount as if we should bestir ourselves to actualize these pictures.”

 

The radical reformation (think of Anabaptist groups like the Mennonites) have interpreted these words fairly literally and seek to live peacefully, though the attempts at radical purity often forced these faith communities into segregated colonies where they could practice their perfection. That has changed quite a bit in recent years however. Us here today in the Alliance Church are also affected by this text in that our denomination rises out of what is known as the Holiness Tradition. Inspired by the likes of John Wesley, this idea that a form of Christian perfection could be attained, and in fact was the mark of salvation itself, finds its theological roots in this sermon.

 

As you can see the attempts to handle this text for better or worse is a perennial problem throughout Church history. As Pinchas Lapide writes, “In fact, the history of the impact of the Sermon on the Mount can largely be described in terms of an attempt to domesticate everything in it that is shocking, demanding, and uncompromising, and render it harmless.” Did I mention that Pinchas Lapide was an Orthodox Jew? He understands I think better than we, what Jesus is doing with this Sermon, and time after time, Christians through the ages have missed it.

 

Earlier, I mentioned that Moses presented the Law to the people as a source of Life. That’s because, the Law is meant to show us the way to Grace! How does it do that? Well, as my preaching instructor always used to say, “Context, context, context!” When reading the sermon on the mount, we can’t be too overwhelmed with the crazy demands Jesus places on us because we remember who it is that is presenting us with this sermon. Jesus! As John Doberstein put it, “The Sermon on the Mount can never be understood, indeed will always be misunderstood, if even for a moment we forget the Preacher of the Sermon. For apart from the person and work of Jesus Christ these marvelous words are the most radical and devastating distillation of God’s claims that it is possible to conceive; they leave us in utter, hopeless dismay. Only ‘in Christ’ do these words of the law become the glorious gospel that promises that for every man ‘life can begin again’”

 

Christ presents us with the Law. To the legalist he points out that our attempts at righteousness will always come up short. And we should be very careful to not use the Sermon on the Mount to create a new legalism. For those who use his words to condemn others find his words condemning themselves of the same guilt.  (Shinn, 38)

 

Picketers at Vancouver Missions Fest…

 

On the flip side to those who would disregard the law and the way of holiness he proclaims a strong “by no means!” The Law of God is something that Jesus wants us to take seriously. He wants us to strive after it with every bit of our being and be slowly transformed more and more into the way of holiness.

 

That being said however, there is no actual way for us to do that on our own. People are right to be afraid of the Law, it is an incredibly heavy burden, and not one of us can handle it. Yet Christ tells us that his burden is light. The law, in a way, points us to the cross. We must pick up our cross, and in the same way, pick up obedience to the Law. The cross is the place of brokenness. People’s lives are shattered by this cruelest of instruments. “But God loves the brokenhearted and the poor in spirit who have no illusions about their own wretchedness as they stand before the face of God. As long as you have not met God as one who opposes you, you haven’t met him at all” (Thielicke, 40).

 

The Law helps us realize our own limits, our own failings and shortcomings, and ultimately forces us to rely on the grace of God. I don’t want you to hear this as a completely hopeless thing. It might be tempting to just not even bother trying to strive after righteousness if we are just doomed to fail anyways. For it is in our weakness that God is strong. In our brokenness we see the face of Christ. In our failures we experience the grace of God. When we can’t go the distance, Jesus sends us his Spirit to carry us the rest of the way. We are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, but we can only do that by the Grace of God, being empowered by the Holy Spirit. May we all learn to sing with psalmist, “Blessed are those whose way is pure, who walk in the law of the Lord.”

 

Amen