J.W. Wartick
Why I left the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod: Still Faithful
Still Faithful
It has taken me a long time to work up to writing this post. It’s actually been more than a year since I last made a post in this series, in part because of my own processing of the events. However, I’ve been asked time and again by many who have left the LCMS or who have left evangelicalism or other restrictive Christian groups to tell about why I am still a Christian. Why did I stay, despite the abuse, despite so many things I saw as wrong, despite everything? And, an oft-unspoken part of the question that I’ve heard is “How?” How is it, that after all these observations, after coming to a place in which I found much of what I was taught and thought was true is totally wrong, that I continue to believe anything?
Faithful?
Part of my hesitancy to write this post is because I know from bitter experience how many might read it and scoff. “‘Still faithful,’ he says? He’s a heretic/wolf in sheep’s clothing/demon-possessed!” I have heard each of these from various people, including people in person. And, while it’s easy to say to ignore those people who dress up their power trip in theological garb, it is so much easier said than done. When you had a true fear of literal hellfire for many years, it’s very harmful to be confronted by people who use that fear to try to silence and oppress. So yes, I know the scoffers are out there, and that I’ll hear or see some of those awful comments again. But I still think it’s important to write on this because there are so many out there who are wondering if it is okay to still be faithful when so much harm comes from within. I write this for you–and for me.
I Still Believe… what?
One thing that is easy to trip up on as people are deconstructing and/or reconstructing faith is the constant refrain of questions pushing to get at exactly what we believe. I get that a lot from more conservative Christians and especially apologists, who are often, unfortunately, seeking to argue about whatever beliefs I espouse instead of engage with me honestly. I know this is true. I have my degree in Apologetics. Literally. I did this same thing from the other side, and I repent of that. Engaging online is often helpful because it opens you up to others who might be on the same path, but it also invites in those who simply out to argue with everyone. And so often, the way people are taught about Christianity is a “my way or the highway” mentality such that any divergent view isn’t just seen as wrong, but actually excludes the person who holds that view from the Christian community.
Suppose I told you that I believe trans people are worthy and loved by God not in spite of but for who they are. If your visceral reaction to that is to immediately turn to argument, then that is that same upbringing or that same background of beliefs I’m referring to. You, the one reading this, are using that belief I hold in order to “other” me. I am now “less than” on your view.
It is this black and white, either/or thinking that I have broken away from. It has taken more than a decade, and it has taken so much pain and spiritual agony and angst, but I have finally broken beyond the dichotomy in my thinking. None of this means that I don’t think that reality has things that are true or false, or that some theological positions are correct, while others are not. No, it’s the inherent urge to repress/correct/change those who disagree with me that I’ve broken out of. And, more importantly, it’s the urge in myself to stand upon certainty in all things that I am still in the process of breaking away. It’s okay to say “I don’t know” as a response to theological questions. It really is. And maybe you are fairly sure about some things. That’s okay, too. What I’m talking about breaking away from is that inherent tension, fear, and othering of anyone who disagrees or any belief that is different. Some things I do still hold fairly strongly to. Others, not so much. There are so many things I hold now that while I may be able to answer “I believe this about that,” I am also comfortable saying, “but I’m not really sure about it.”
All of this is to say I’m not as interested in the “nail down the answers to theological questions A, B, C, ….Z” approach anymore. Sure, there are many theological positions I still hold, and may hold firmly. But to me that’s so much less interesting than God in Christ.
False Gods
Recently, I went to a retreat for a bunch of progressive Christians or formerly-Christian people still interested in theology. It was incredibly life-giving. It was filled with praise. It was filled with questions. It was uncomfortable at times.
One song that I heard live was “Some Gods Deserve Atheists” by Derek Webb. I’d never heard it before. He prefaced his singing by saying we should constantly be trying to kill our gods. Any god we could kill simply by thinking hard enough about it would deserve such a death. And some gods deserve atheists–they aren’t real; they’re formed of hate or fear. For me, a god who created people for the express purpose of condemning them to an eternal hellfire is one such god. Such a god deserves atheists; that god is not worth our time or worship. That’s a god of “othering” when the God I believe in, the God I learned about in Christ, is a God of Love, a God who is literally described as love itself on the highest possible level. God is love; and any God who doesn’t reflect that deserves atheists.
Does this mean I’m putting myself in judgement of God? Well, only if that god is small enough to be able to be judged by me. Any god that can be so contained into a box that I can sit back and disprove that god in my head, or by that god’s fruits on Earth, is no god.
Still Faithful
One thing that has shocked me, and that I am by turns disturbed and comforted by, is that a big part of why I still believe is that I still tend to think a lot of Lutheran answers to big questions are correct. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian theologian in Nazi Germany who was executed, in part, for his participation in the Confessing Church, a tiny minority of Christians in Germany who opposed the Nazis even as the overwhelming majority of Christians capitulated to or joyfully joined hands with them. Before he was murdered, some of his writings feature him speaking of “religionless Christianity.” Misinterpretations of his theology here have him lionized by various movements. But at the core of his thought wasn’t the overthrow of churches–that wouldn’t have made sense for a man whose theology included seeing sacraments such as Baptism as integral to Christian faith. The core, rather, is the stripping away of the structures that prevent Christians from living wholly into Christ or mirroring Christ to others. Bonhoeffer wrote of the maximal importance of living for the people around us and for the world. One helpful summary of religionless Christianity is found in Tom Greggs’s work, Theology Against Religion. Therein, he writes in part that religionless Christianity is “fiercely anidolatrous”–its doctrine of God seeks to constantly fight against the human tendency to create God in our own image or a God who defends our preconceptions; it is “resolutely unwilling to engage in articulating binaries“–it doesn’t seek to “other” but to unite; it is “not differentiating between sacred and secular spaces“–our lives are lives reflecting Christ in whatever spheres we enter; and it is “seeking to meet people in the fullness of their lives” (emphasis his, 218).
All of this is an extended way to get at some things I want to highlight. First, I think that the faith I hold now welcomes others in radical ways. Second, it remains tied inherently to streams of thought in Christian tradition, often reaching back to the earliest Christian theologians like Origen or Gregory of Nyssa. Third, it remains a faith radically against Christianity empowered by structures of state or hierarchies of power. That is, my faith stands against any use of Christianity for oppression. And yes, the church has so much to answer for here.
Finally, I must turn to a few concrete beliefs and affirmations because without them it doesn’t make sense of the question “How do I remain Christian” in a meaningful way.
The evils of the world, merely contemplating them, left me broken for a time. School shootings that could have easily been prevented if humans would have acted also call into question why God wouldn’t act. I mean, if God could really drop a stone on anyone at any point, why wouldn’t God do so–just once–in order to stop a school shooting in progress even as humans failed to do so? And the tired apologetic answer I used to rely on–that we don’t know how many such tragedies God has prevented by whatever means–just doesn’t work for me anymore. If God really could just intervene, why don’t we just see it?
I know all the answers to this question. Like, really. I studied theodicy so much while getting my degree. Molinism, open theism, process thought, free will defense, etc. The answers range from God doesn’t intervene because God has greater goods planned (free will, or whatever) to God can’t actually prevent such evil, so that’s why God doesn’t. And I have a confession: none of them are really satisfactory to me. Why does God allow evil? I don’t know. And the more I suffered over this question, the more I fell into holes of anxiety looking at the latest news of a massive shooting or some other horrible evil, the more I realized that I just don’t know, but I feel like I know other things that make me live in tension on this question. For example, I feel I know Jesus Christ is real, and that God is love. And since those feel real to me, and I believe them, I live in tension on the question of evil. If I were a really good Lutheran, I’d fully embrace an appeal to mystery here. And that’s kind of what I’m doing, in a way. But it’s deeper; I just don’t know that we can know. Whatever answer is given here is going to be unsatisfactory in some way. If it’s because God can’t prevent evil; to me that seems to make God smaller in ways I don’t understand. If it’s because God has some greater good in mind, it seems to underplay the real horrible suffering of people now. If it’s because God can’t prevent evil due to allowing for free will, it seems that it would be worth suspending free will–even entirely–in order to prevent so much suffering. And so I just… I don’t know. And I’m learning to be honest with myself in holding to that uncertainty.
Other theological questions have led to rethinking of positions. One such question was that of the fate of the lost. Why would a God who claims to be loving form people who that same God would then sentence to suffer for eternity? For a time, I held to conditional immortality, also known as annihilationism. That view, which I still think is better attested Scripturally than any kind of eternal conscious torment view, holds that those who don’t believe in Christ for whatever reason are ultimately annihilated or destroyed by God. Immortality, that is, is conditional upon faith in Christ. But I continued to struggle with this, whether it’s the reality that so many never get a chance to even hear about Christ, or that so many hear about Christ only through systems of colonialism and oppression, it didn’t make sense to me. Additionally, many verse in Scripture suggest that God wants all to be saved. So why not do so? More than that, long Christian tradition reaching back to the earliest teachers of Christianity affirms universal salvation. So, a short answer to the question of the lost and how I stay Christian regarding that question is that I think God will really reconcile the whole world to Godself, so that God really will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28).
Ah! One might immediately challenge that with other scriptural verses that strongly suggest that not all are saved. And to that, another answer I have come to is that the Bible is polyvocal. It doesn’t speak with a united front on these topics. And, while that is annoying and has caused confusion and so much pain, it also is somewhat freeing and beautiful. God didn’t pigeonhole the authors of Scripture into losing their opinions and voices. It’s far more complex than that.
There are so many more, but these are some of the big questions I personally faced that I hadn’t addressed yet in the series, and some of the answers I continue to settle upon. I offer them not to try to convince you, but to try to answer the question of how I remain Christian. I remain Christian, in part, because I reconstructed my faith, and I came to answers that I think make more sense of reality than the answers I had before.
Concluding Thoughts
I have so much more to say. I wish that for those readers who ask me the question “why/how do you stay Christian” who are genuinely wondering about it, that I could sit and have brunch with you and talk about it for hours. I mean, isn’t that question so far reaching, so fascinating? And I look back over what I wrote and it all seems so small, and so inadequate to even begin the conversation.
For me, Jesus Christ is so fascinating, so loving, and so central still, that it compels me to come back time and again. When I see the awfulness that is so much of Christianity; the latest report of a Christian pastor using a position of power to assault or degrade others, for example, I find myself fleeing back to Christ. And I don’t mean a trite “that’s not real Christianity” type answer to the evils Christians perpetrate. The links of Christianity in America and power are too interwoven to pretend that real Christians don’t bring about much harm. Rather, what I mean is, I flee back to a God who came into our world, who suffered, and who rose, and who intentionally brought so much powerful goodness to the world that our lives, when viewed from eternity, will all be for good.
Links
Formerly Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) or Wisconsin Synod (WELS)– A Facebook group I’ve created for people who are former members of either of these church bodies to share stories, support each other, and try to bring change. Note: Anything you post on the internet has the potential to be public and shared anywhere, so if you join and post, be aware of that.
Leaving the LCMS/WELS– Not sure about whether to leave or thinking about leaving? Do you want to others who are thinking along the same lines? I created a group for those who are contemplating leaving these denominations, as well.
Why I left the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod Links Hub– Want to follow the whole series? Here’s a hub post with links to all the posts as well as related topics.
Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “The God of Monkey Science” by Janet Kellogg Ray
The God of Monkey Science: People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World by Janet Kellogg Ray explores the interactions of Christians and science in a post-Covid world.
The book explores many topics related to Christianity and science. Kellog Ray includes historical notes about the ways Christians have interacted with science, examples from more recent events such as the rise of the Intelligent Design movement and associated anti-evolution arguments, and even the recent Covid-19 pandemic and Evangelicalism’s largescale embracing of anti-science positions in that time period as well.
A particularly fun aside- one of my blog posts is quoted in the book. Kellogg Ray quotes from one of my posts about leaving my former denomination and how science was a big part of that.
What is especially helpful in the book is how so many real examples of anti-science thinking are provided and then contrasted with context. Some of the examples are especially egregious, such as the attempts to portray Anthony Fauci as anti-mask because of an early video in which he talked about not needing to wear masks at the time but then later, following additional, substantial studies, switching the messaging. This is part of how sciience works–updating guidelines and expectations based on additional or new evidence.
The book is not at all a bash-fest on Christians, either. The author is unabashedly an evangelical Christian, but she writes the book as a kind of long form exhortation to Christians to do better, have humility, and perhaps listen to experts when it comes to science. It’s written in a winsome manner, and will hopefully make some rethink the way they approach science reporting and misinformation.
The God of Monkey Science is a refreshing look at the need for Christians to interact with science more honestly and fruitfully. It is recommended.
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Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “The Uncontrolling Love of God” by Thomas Jay Oord
The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence by Thomas Jay Oord is the kind of book that I would have either intentionally sought out to pick apart or steered clear of a few years ago. Why? Oord unabashedly challenges traditional conceptions of divine providence, especially digging at the wounds of evil to argue that such accounts are insufficient answers to the problem of evil that we face in the real world.
Before turning to evil, though, Oord argues for the establishment of actually random events. That is, events that are not predetermined by anything. This randomness is real, not apparent, and is balanced by laws of nature which are to be read as regularities, not as comprehensive explanations of reality in lawlike terms (43-44). Going along with this, non-predetermined free choice is another factor in the world which must be accounted for in accounts of providence.
A central concept of the book is the notion of “genuine evil.” Oord notes that philosophers tend to distinguish between necessary and gratuitous evils. He essentially labels gratuitous genuine evils. These evils are “events that, all things considered, make the world worse than it might have been” (65). That doesn’t mean there can’t be goods that might come from them; rather, they are events where the actors involved could have chosen something better instead (65-66). Most Christian theological positions are keen to prevent God from being the primary cause of evil or the one predetermining evil, and there are various attempts to avoid doing this. Oord presses the point though, arguing that even having God as a secondary cause for evil, or attempting to portray overriding goods or ultimate goods as somehow overcoming evil is insufficient to adequately respond to genuine evils (chapter 4 on Models of God’s Providence delves into this deeply).
Ultimately, Oord offers an alternate model of providence, which he calls the “essential kenosis model.” As the name implies, this focuses on the notion of kenosis–divine emptying of the divine self or power–for the sake of other. The model holds that God is essentially, not accidentally good. That is, God does not choose good, but rather is good. Along with this, Oord’s position, in contrast with almost every other position of providence, argues that “God cannot unilaterally prevent genuine evil” (167). Such a position, Oord argues, is aligned with views that God cannot do logically impossible actions. On this position, God preventing all genuine evil unilaterally is a logical and actual impossibility. Thus, Oord’s position avoids the difficulty of needing an overriding good for ultimate resolution of good and evil. The palatability of this will vary, but Oord makes a compelling case for his position.
The Uncontrolling Love of God presents a challenge to more traditional conceptions of divine providence. Oord takes the position to the logical extremes, which will likely alienate some readers. For those seeking an alternative to all-controlling views of God and evil, the book will resonate.
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Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Paper “The Character and Ethical Consequences of Religious Determinism” and Theodicy
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about divine action in the world, theological determinism, and related topics. It’s honestly been a tough part of my reconstructing faith journey–trying to figure out how it all fits together. Questions about God’s action and evil have been particularly vexing. And the trite answers I received and even argued through my apologetics training just don’t seem to work for me as well as they once did. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been a major–indeed the major–figure in my theological journey. I was shocked to come yesterday upon a paper I know I’d read before but that hadn’t registered as I read all of his works. That paper was about the very topic I’ve been agonizing over of late. It is entitled “The Character and Ethical Consequences of Religious Determinism.” The paper is found in print in Volume 10 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Works in English, Barcelona, Berlin, New York 1928-1931.
First, I should note that Bonhoeffer is not concerned in this paper with theodicy as a primary or perhaps even secondary concern. Bonhoeffer tends to treat evil as a fact of the world rather than attempting to downplay or explain it away. That said, I think the points he makes in this paper are highly relevant to those who are wondering about divine control and theodicy.
Bonhoeffer argues that there is a threefold way to think about determinism in the world. He doesn’t say this is totally expansive of every option. Rather, this is how he divides the possibilities. First, there is philosophical determinism. This largely relates to causal determinism of events in nature. Because of this, he states that this kind of determinism is irrelevant to the question of ethical consequences. While I don’t fully agree with him here–natural evil is a category that is often discussed–I get the point he is getting at. He says it is irrelevant because his next two categories encompass what would be the case if God is involved in such evils.
Thus, his second category is religious determinism. Here, God determines all. A consequence of this view is that evil is good, actually. Bonhoeffer goes on to note the problems with such a view. If one holds this, then “I always know that evil has already been overcome; it follows from my concept of God, which I always have at my disposal in order to explain ‘rightly’ all misfortune in the world…” This, Bonhoeffer says, makes evil and good a “synthesis of nondifference… evil is merely a paradoxical means of actualizing the good” (DBWE10 441-442) Another problem is that it conflates “Creator” with “world cause.” God is the former, not the latter, so God isn’t causing all the evil. To say God causes such is not “Christian determinism.” Here Bonhoeffer gets at the heart of my difficulty with more traditional views of God, because so many of them either bite the bullet on this or try some other means to make it so that while God determines every event that happens, God is still not the cause or direct actor of evil. Bonhoeffer undercuts those claims by noting that they destroy the differences between good and evil, making good and evil ultimately the same. On such a view, as Bonhoeffer states, evil is just a “paradoxical means” of doing good.
It is important, too, to reflect on Bonhoeffer’s brief point about the conflation of God as “Creator” and God as “world cause.” Bonhoeffer only briefly touches on this topic, but he is quite clear that he believes the two are actually opposed to each other. “God is conceived as the world cause, rather than as Creator. The two are completely distinct so that the one excludes the other, something rarely taken into account even though everything follows from this premise.” God, instead, is Creator–the one who brought the world into existence–rather than the one who is causing every event in the world.
From this, Bonhoeffer gets, finally, to what he calls Christian determinism. Here, he argues that Christian determinism merely holds that justification–salvation, if you prefer the term–is the act of God alone. Human beings aren’t capable of doing this act, so God must do it–as “God’s free and sole act” this makes “huma beings… completely in God’s omnipotence” (DBWE 443). The question of human freedom and lack of freedom, says Bonhoeffer, ultimately relates only to… “the ultimate, to salvation” (ibid). Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran, also comments briefly that he thinks this is the point of Luther’s Bondage of the Will; not that all things are determined by God, but that human beings cannot act on their own related to salvation. Bonhoeffer admits Luther goes beyond this, but attributes it instead to Luther’s propensity to “not always clearly distinguish this idea [that of freedom in salvation] from others of a more speculative of cosmically interpretive nature” (ibid).
The ethical consequences of this view of determinism, Bonhoeffer argues, are that evil is actually evil against God. “Good does not stand behind every evil” in contrast to the notion that God intends for evil to happen. Instead, “God wants the good” (ibid). The good that God brings about in salvation is one that “makes human beings free… for God” (444). He turns again to Luther’s assertion that “God brings about both evil and good,” calling it the “ultimate speculative insight that should not itself be used to interpret other circumstances.” This view leads to an antinomy–back to the paradox of religious determinism. Bonhoeffer says this question may remain open, but it seems clear that his Creator vs. world cause (and the opposition here–the vs.–is intentional in Bonhoeffer’s writing) would allow for some interesting spaces to explore here. Bonhoeffer himself notes that the notion “That God as the Creator hates evil and that nonetheless nothing can occur in the world that God does not want is an insoluble antinomy…” However, he goes on to say it is “no longer antinomy… as soon as one believes oneself able to draw conclusions from it for a Christian devaluation of evil” (ibid). He essentially leaves it at that, later saying that the God of guidance is derived from the God of justification, not the reverse. The point here seems to be that the God of determinism in salvation is only arrived at through a God of guidance–eg, non-omni-determinism.
Ultimately, Bonhoeffer’s view remains largely within Lutheran thinking on the issue. He gives credence to Luther’s views of God as ultimate cause of even evil, while arguing that this is mere speculation. His point seems to be that Luther and others who draw that thinking from Luther’s basic positions on justification are doing the reverse of what they should be doing–drawing the God of world cause from the God as Creator. Does Bonhoeffer ultimately appeal to antinomy or mystery? No, he doesn’t. But his position is left somewhat vague, then. What do his final lines about antinomy being defeated by conclusions “for a Christian devaluation of evil” mean? I am not clear on this. However, I think the distinctions between Creator/world cause and his differences between Christian and religious determinism are on the right track of where I’d like to go. Lutheran theology allows for paradox and mystery at times, and I admit that makes me uncomfortable. But Bonhoeffer’s positions in this paper may make it easier to wade into those waters while living in a kind of happy space between speculation and antinomy.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer– read all my posts related to Bonhoeffer and his theology.
Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Life of the World” by Winfield Bevins
Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Life of the World by Winfield Bevins seeks to highlight how liturgy and mission can coordinate to create a fuller life of the church.
Bevins notes the ways that liturgy can contribute to the life of the church, such as a story-filled and formed worship style that invites listeners to actively participate (40). After highlighting the impact and import of liturgy, Bevins turns to the notion of a missional church and how liturgy and mission can go hand-in-hand to disciple the people of God.
Liturgical Mission is a call to action both to see liturgy for what it can be and for those in liturgical denominations to practice the call to mission.
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Links
Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “When Children Come out: A Guide for Christian Parents” by Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets
When Children Come Out: A Guide for Christian Parents by Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets is a fairly even-toned look at how Christian parents can navigate some of the difficulties that come up within and without their tradition related to children coming out.
What sets this book apart from many books about Christianity and sexuality is its avoidance of culture war narratives. Rather than giving hard yes or hard no answers to questions about what parents can or should do, Yarhouse and Zaporozhets use research to show how different approaches yield different outcomes with parents and children. Many stories are included throughout the text, from both affirming and non-affirming parents and their children. These stories help highlight the application for the research the authors bring to the forefront.
The book has 7 chapters, each of which focuses on a different aspect of Christianity and how the journey about children coming out can change things with faith, the church, parents, where parents seek help, and more. One of the major takeaways from the book is to be proactive, nurturing relationships with one’s children and with their church to help bring about positive change in lives.
When Children Come Out is a useful resource for Christian parents. I would imagine that parents from all over the political spectrum would find it beneficial reading.
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SDG.
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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church” by Nijay K. Gupta
Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church by Nijay K. Gupta is a fascinating look at women in leadership throughout the early church.
Gupta first notes his own journey of coming to understand that women have often been “hidden figures” (alluding to the book/movie about black women in NASA who helped launch the space program) when it comes to the history of the church. The rest of the book is divided into the time before the early church and the time of the early church. The chapters in the first part highlight Deborah, the role of women in Genesis 1-3, women in the NT, and women during Jesus’s ministry. The second part focuses on women as leaders in the early church, featuring Junia, Prisca, Phoebe, and others.
Many of these stories will be familiar to those already interested the debate over women in the church. But Gupta does a fantastic job not only providing an introductory look at the women of that early church and how the Bible shows them to be leading and teaching but also of introducing some lesser known topics. For example, there’s an interesting section about women ministering to Jesus as well. He also highlights how women were following Jesus alongside the twelve and helping fund and support that ministry (62ff).
The book will likely not convince those already entrenched on “the other side” but serves as a solid introduction to the challenges that come with denying women positions of teaching and leading in the early church. It becomes more and more clear that complementarians must explain away rather than explain the presence of these women leaders.
Tell Her Story presents an excellent introductory read to help show that women were indeed leaders in the early church. I highly recommend it.
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SDG.
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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “Wandering Toward God: Finding Faith Amid Doubts and Big Questions” by Travis Dickinson
Wandering Toward God: Finding Faith Amid Doubts and Big Questions by Travis Dickinson is a look at how to navigate doubts on one’s journey of faith.
For full disclosure, as a reader I should note that I’ve been going through a journey of doubts myself. I looked forward to seeing how Dickinson might approach this while also being somewhat wary of my own experience with Christian apologetics largely dealing with certainty rather than acknowledging the depths of difficulties with faith. While reading this book, I found my concerns were mostly assuaged. Dickinson does an admirable job offering a sympathetic hand to those who have serious doubts. Chapters are dedicated to both figuring out what kind of doubts one might have (are they severe enough to be a challenge to Christianity in toto or are they more incidental, for example–and how to navigate that as well) and how to pursue resources, answers, or even just some kind of comfortable area where one lives alongside and with doubt.
Dickinson does dive into a couple of apologetic-level questions, exploring some of the common questions that come up in Christians’ journey. I found this part less helpful, because having studied apologetics myself, the answers Dickinson is able to offer in such small sections are very basic. That’s not necessarily a knock on the book as a whole, but for those who have already done some questioning and who find problems with some of the simpler answers, these sections will be a rehash. On the flip side, Dickinson’s own notion of how to deal with doubts as they arise tend to be very useful and less on the trite answer side.
Wandering Toward God was a worthy introductory read for thinking about doubts in one’s faith life. I recommend it, though I also want something deeper myself.
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SDG.
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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture” by David A. deSilva
Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture by David A. deSilva introduces readers to the cultural context of the New Testament.
The book is divided into chapters that tackle each of the major topics. There are two chapters on honor and shame. The first introduces the concepts of honor and shame to understand how such concepts worked in the NT period. The second chapter specifically talks about the concepts of in the NT itself. The next two chapters are about patronage. The first is to show how patronage worked, while the second applies that to the notion of grace in the NT. The next two chapters cover kinship. First, deSilva outlines how families worked in the first century world. Then, he applies that in the next chapter to the concept of a “household of God” in the NT. The next two chapters cover purity in the biblical world.
Example after fascinating example is used by deSilva to demonstrate the cultural differences between the NT setting and our own. These are across the whole array of topics deSilva introduces throughout the book. That makes the book not just a resource for learning about the culture of the NT world, but also something to help actually apply that understanding to the Bible. These applications are direct from the text, such as the understanding from the book of Hebrews (13) in which the author talks about the imprisoned being remembered as though they are “the same thing, though separate individuals” (252). This kind of insight is absolutely dripping from the book.
Readers looking to more fully understand the NT should consider this book a must-read. It illuminates much of the cultural context of the Bible.
Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity is a fascinating book that can help change how readers see the Bible. I recommend it for those looking to more deeply understand both the context and meaning of Scripture.
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Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
“Discipleship in a World Full of Nazis: Recovering the True Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer” by Mark Thiessen Nation
Discipleship in a World Full of Nazis: Recovering the True Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is an alluring title that promises to push at scholarly boundaries. Any time a book seeks to “recover” a “true legacy,” there are a number of ways it could go on the subject. It could be a sensationalist look at the topic, or a more measured look at something that has, heretofore, been sensationalized. Mark Thiessen Nation seeks here to rethink Bonhoeffer’s alleged participation in the plot to kill Hitler, among other things.
Mark Thiessen Nation’s thesis is fairly straightforward: consensus scholarship regarding Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler is grounded upon shaky historical ground and should be rejected in light of his apparent and actual pacifism. In order to argue for this end, he makes three early points in favor of that thesis- Eberhard Bethge leaves the impression that Bonhoeffer was involved in the plot to kill Hitler; the evidence for why Bonhoeffer was arrested point in another direction; and, finally, the starting point for evaluation of Bonhoeffer’s life, legacy, and theology ought to be located in a place other than as a resisting pastor involved in the plot to kill Hitler (3).
What is interesting is that I doubt many Bonhoeffer scholars would dispute almost any of these theses. Eberhard Bethge clearly gives the impression Bonhoeffer was involved. There’s no reasonable way to dispute that. The evidence for Bonhoeffer’s being arrested does not suggest it was due to a plot to kill Hitler. No Bonhoeffer scholar I am aware of actually suggests that Bonhoeffer’s involvement in a plot to kill Hitler is the lens through which his whole life should be read. What this means is that Mark Thiessen nation, in picking these theses early on, essentially gives himself an easy hit, teeing it up so that he can knock it out of the park. By doing so, it gives the arguments that follow a veneer of support. After all, his earliest theses were proven to be at least mostly correct! One could be forgiven for thinking the rest of the argument would flow from these points, but one would be mistaken.
An important aside about these early theses is warranted. The evidence regarding Bonhoeffer’s arrest not being related to a plot to kill Hitler does not help Thiessen Nation’s narrative, because none of those arrested around the same time as Bonhoeffer were arrested for that reason either! If Hitler had known of a plot to assassinate him, does anyone actually think he would have let those would-be assassins sit in prison rather than torturing and murdering them immediately (as he did once he discovered the plot)? The reasons for the arrests of these others is a matter of historical record, but by emphasizing that Bonhoeffer, uniquely, was not arrested due to a plot to assassinate Hitler, Thiessen Nation makes it seem as though this is some major point against historical arguments for his involvement. But that’s an unwarranted leap, again, given that the plot had not yet been discovered. No one could have been arrested for a plot that those doing the arresting didn’t know about yet! Unless Thiessen Nation is aware of some historical data that says they were aware of that plot contemporaneous with Bonhoeffer’s arrest (having read much literature on this, I don’t know of any, but I can hardly claim to have universal knowledge of the topic), this point is superfluous at best, disingenuous at worst, because it sets up readers to doubt Bonhoeffer’s involvement based on this lack of reason for the arrest.
Another salient historical point that Thiessen Nation only raises occasionally is that there is no evidence directly linking Bonhoeffer to the plot to kill Hitler. While this seems possibly correct in regards to a paper trail, it seems incorrect regarding those who knew Bonhoeffer personally. Again, this would include Eberhard Bethge. Time and again, our author here notes that there is little to no evidence for Bonhoeffer’s involvement; yet testimonial evidence is evidence, and we have that. Additionally, nothing is made of the relevant point that those involved in a plot to assassinate a brutal dictator would hardly keep everything on paper for posterity. It shouldn’t be that surprising in this case to hold to the dictum that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Still more, Thiessen Nation does not acknowledge that, after World War II in Germany, those who had worked against the Third Reich were still viewed with suspicion for many years. Bonhoeffer was not exempted from this, and it would surely be a point in favor of additional secrecy regarding those involved in any plot to kill Hitler. It’s not a particularly delightful thing to acknowledge, but all of these are facts of history that are borne out in research of the time period.
Thiessen Nation goes on to argue that various points are in favor of reading Bonhoeffer as a committed pacifist. While noting some difficulties with earlier writings, he finds great support in Discipleship and argues for this as a core point of Bonhoeffer’s ethics (see chapter 4). Then, he turns to Ethics and this is where I think the argument starts to come apart. First, he sees Bonhoeffer’s rejection of Kantian absolutism and even applauds it (125-126). This is a point often missed in examination of Bonhoeffer’s–and Lutheran–ethics generally. This ethic rejects a kind of totalitarian deontology in favor of a more situational ethic. This point would actually obviate against a reading of Bonhoeffer as purely pacifistic, as this would require a kind of Kantian commitment to pacifism, but the topic is not explored further.
Thiessen Nation next hones in on the quote from Bonhoeffer that “everyone who acts responsibly becomes guilty.” He suggests that this quote should not be read contextually related to a background of a plot to assassinate Hitler, but rather as a way of understanding the broader context of the war. This certainly resonates with me, and I think that it would make sense. Indeed, I would not personally limit that quote or the general discussion of Bonhoeffer’s thought on responsibility to his involvement (or not) in the plot to kill Hitler. If he was involved, his reasoning on responsibility certainly makes sense of how it would work within his ethical system. Taking away this involvement, Thiessen Nation casts about for another motivation for the reflection on responsibility. He lands on it coming from Bonhoeffer’s reading of letter(s) from his student(s) regarding their own involvement in the Third Reich (129-130). Such is a fascinating thesis, and allows for additional areas of research regarding Bonhoeffer’s life. However, Thiessen Nation pushes it farther, tying Bonhoeffer’s reflection on responsibility to the awful acts of his students, including “cold-blooded murder of civilians and surrendered soldiers” (129, see also 129n21). This is, in my opinion, one of the worst re-readings of Bonhoeffer I’ve read. Bonhoeffer’s entire discussion of responsibility is set against the background of becoming guilty not for oneself but for the sake of the other. To read that as a justification of “cold-blooded murder” simply because Bonhoeffer was somehow struggling to justify his students’ actions makes this a horribly motivated and specious justification for, well, cold-blooded murder! And it doesn’t make any sense of Bonhoeffer’s own words, as he wrote this all in context of taking on guilt for one’s neighbor! How could one do that if one is too busy murdering them?
I would almost second-guess my reading of Thiessen Nation here, because it seems such an off-base reading of Bonhoeffer, but he makes it quite clear that it is his intent to suggest Bonhoeffer was somehow justifying this cold-blooded murder: “Might [Bonhoeffer] have been thinking of [his students’] letters when he wrote that it worse to be evil than to do an act of evil? …in the midst of extremely difficult circumstances, Bonhoeffer is quite sensitive toward his former students who either were not convinced by his teaching on nonviolence or who couldn’t face the consequences of formally claiming to be a conscientious objector, which was a capital offense” (130). He goes on to say that “my hypothesis is more likely than any notion that he is writing reflections to justify his ‘involvement’ in any attempts on Hitler’s life” (ibid). This removes any doubt of this reading: Thiessen Nation is genuinely suggesting that Bonhoeffer wrote this section on responsibility to justify his students’ and friends’ actions of choosing to murder civilians instead of die as a conscientious objector. If he’s right in this reading, he has turned one of my favorite sections of Bonhoeffer’s work into a heinous justification of evil.
Bonhoeffer’s words themselves appear to obviate against this reading, however, because in the section on responsibility in Ethics, he explicitly states that human beings must become guilty not for the sake of themselves or their own attempts to be guiltless, but “entering into community with the guilty of other human beings for their sake. Because of Jesus Christ, the essence of responsible action intrinsically involves the sinless, those who act out of selfless love, becoming guilty” (Ethics, DBWE: 276). Where can one truly justify murder of innocent others for the sake of preserving one’s own life in this text? Where could one read it at as Thiessen Nation does? It is an utterly nonsensical reading of Bonhoeffer to read him as justifying murder to avoid capital offense.
Mark Thiessen Nation himself, according to this profile, was a conscientious objector to Vietnam. I hesitate to speculate, but is it possible that he is looking at his own situation, likely knowing others who committed awful acts in Vietnam, and trying to provide some kind of a posteriori justification for those acts, roping Bonhoeffer into such a defense?* The reading seems radically American and individualistic, putting one’s own well-being as such a high good that becoming guilty of “cold blooded murder” to avoid one’s own capital punishment is seen as good for the sake of the other. Again, none of this makes sense in light of Bonhoeffer’s own work. Thiessen Nation concludes this section acknowledging we can’t know the exact reason for Bonhoeffer’s deliberations on guilt, which would have been a better overall point (though still hotly disputed) (130). Yet this last minute broadening of scope does little to overcome the fact that he asserted earlier that his reading of Bonhoeffer justifying mass murder for the sake of one’s own life is somehow more likely than Bonhoeffer justifying tyrannicide for the sake of the other. Again, it is ludicrous to the point of the absurd to read Bonhoeffer this way in the context in which these words were set.
Belaboring the point even a little more, Chistine Schliesser, in the aptly titled Everyone Who Acts Responsibly Becomes Guilty, argues that one can see this thread of guilt for the sake of the other throughout Bonhoeffer’s entire works. It’s more complicated than that, of course, but that book offers an excellent overview of the concept of guilt in Bonhoeffer.
Another problem with Thiessen Nation’s overall theses related to Bonhoeffer’s pacifism is that he is only capable of reading Bonhoeffer as wholly pacifistic through revisionism (see the discussion above); through arguing against some early biographers and friends of Bonhoeffer (eg. Bethge- who would almost have to be accused of lying if Bonhoeffer were not involved in the plot against Hitler in any way); or through arguing that Bonhoeffer changed his mind not infrequently, only settling on pacifism after a number of other ethical stances were attempted. The former two points have been spoken for already, but I think the latter point is worth a very slight reflection. Thiessen Nation, while critiquing other authors who seek to place Bonhoeffer in his Lutheran perspective (eg. Michael DeJonge), fails to take Bonhoeffer’s Lutheranism seriously. Bonhoeffer quoted Luther more than any other theologian, and it is not difficult to trace many aspects of Bonhoeffer’s theology directly to Luther. This includes his ethics. Thiessen Nation was right earlier to note the rejection of Kantian ethics in Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer (and Luther) rejected deontology. This rejection allowed for a more dynamic or situational ethic that could be adjusted to current contexts rather than delivering principles that would last for eternity. It seems to me that a better reading of Bonhoeffer that doesn’t require re-interpreting or rejecting parts of his ethic would simply be to take it as a development of Lutheran ethics, in which sometimes pacifism is the right response and even perhaps a broad ideal, but at others, taking on guilt for the sake of the other is required.
Discipleship in a World Full of Nazis is a provocative look at Bonhoeffer’s alleged pacifism. I believe it largely misses the mark, and misses it badly in some cases. The author’s [with others] earlier Bonhoeffer the Assassin? (my review here) made a more limited argument. It is clear to me, having read this work, that trying to double down on reading Bonhoeffer as a pacifist will only work if one shoehorns his ethics into corners that don’t make sense contextually. Overall, I think this book does not succeed in its argument.
*Rev. Beth Wartick made this point to me in conversation.
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Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
J.W. Wartick - Reconstructing Faith 