nuance

Time for new product and new stoke. Check Burton.com. Got some boards in mind. Thinking possibly an AK jacket.

But…I have to say I’m most excited about the new Holden stuff…website coming soon. Wait…what’s that? A preview? Ahhhhh yeeeaaah.

The trailer for Driscoll’s newest, Death By Love:

Not sure when this audio was recorded, but I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time…

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

This will be the last installment in this series, and probably the most concise.

Among the many mottos of the Reformation, one stands out as particularly poignant.

Semper reformanda: always reforming.

While no doubt liberal theologians and even atheists have hijacked this phrase to denote some kind of general cultural progress, the meaning of it stands at the very heart of being a post-Reformed, biblical Christian. To be post-Reformed is to recognize that no systematic-theological approach has arrived at a perfect interpretation of the Scriptures and a closed, impenetrable body of doctrine. Instead, the church is always reforming according to new light that the Spirit brings through the Word.

And so again, this is why I am post-Reformed: because I believe heartily that the Spirit is speaking through the Scriptures even today, and I have heard him speak time and time again and have been reformed and transformed by his speaking. Let us all be open, not to divisive novel teachings that disrupt the church, but to new light and understanding that brings into greater focus the glory and supremacy of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Let us be open to the truth that makes us one, even as Jesus and the Father are one.

That’s it, that’s all.

Rejection
So far this series has dealt with the rejection side of being post-Reformed; we reject an emphasis on systematic theology and the resultant tendency to shun community with other-minded believers. We reject preaching that takes a side instead of finding the greater truth, the middle way. We reject the idea that right theology is the primary thing about being a good Christian and instead believe that the work of the Spirit is the primary thing. We reject disunity and division among Christians who all believe in Jesus and the biblical story.

These rejections are important, but they are not the only aspect of being post-Reformed. As I mentioned at the very start, before we got into the acronyms RPF and RFF, being post-Reformed is not the same as being anti-Reformed. In fact, based on the rejections above, to be anti-Reformed would be against the very core of being post-Reformed - because being post-Reformed means an acceptance of all biblical Christians, whatever their systematic-theological background (including the Reformed!).

In fact, the first element in being a post-Reformed Christian is that you come, to some extent, from a Reformed theological background. Whether you were a born and bred Calvinist or came to Calvinistic convictions later on (as I did), being post-Reformed entails a progression, a journey forward, out of that theological homeland. And this journeying on does not entail a total rejection, even if there is a partial rejection; it rather is a positive movement, not against, but away from the starting place with fond experiences and lessons learned held firmly in hand.

Holding on to the good
There are a plethora of positive things, treasures even, to be had from the Reformed movement. And these treasures are things that most biblical Christians, regardless of what side of the Calvinistic divide they fall in, would agree heartily upon. I am going to give a list of some of these treasures that I acquired from within the Reformed tradition, and to which I remain happily committed.

1. A high view of Scripture. If nothing else, the Protestant Reformation was a reclaiming of the Christian Scriptures. It was a counter-cultural, subversive movement against an oppressive religious establishment which had held the Bible under lock and key so it could wield its power with seemingly divine authority. But the Reformers said that the Bible, read and understood by all, is the only binding authority, and that all, including cardinals and bishops, are subject to its rule. This idea - that the Bible is the only authoritative rule of faith and practice - brings Christians of all stripes together; and it separates them from false believers and skeptics who have made a mockery of the holy Word. In every question of truth, it brings us back to the unifying biblical story.

2. A love for theology. I know - this seems to be in contradiction to the rejections earlier. But it’s not. Theology is a good thing; the mind is a good thing; thinking about God is a good, necessary, utterly valuable thing. The Reformation was quite literally a love affair with Christian theology which sprang from its love for the Scriptures. It was theology - the deep thinking about God - that drew me to the Reformed tradition. I had never seen anything like it. It opened my eyes to new truths that stirred my heart. But in my experience, theology became an end instead of a means, and thinking began to define my spirituality - and this was bad. I am post-Reformed in that I, like the Reformers, love theology, but have also seen that theology only works as a means to God the Person, to the relationship, to the precious community, to the spiritual experience and the passionate life of following Jesus Christ. And theological particulars diminish in importance when this end is in view.

3. A BIG God. One thing that anti-Calvinists (not non-Calvinists, but really angry anti-Calvinists) often do without really knowing it is diminish God in the attempt to oppose Reformed theology. Because they hate the thought that God would force someone to accept him, they paint a picture of God that seems more limited than the biblical picture. The Old Testament especially gives us an image of a very, very powerful God. He answers to no one. He does what he pleases. He is God, after all. The Reformation wisely called out the Roman Church for picturing God as one who is mediated by a group of powerful bishops and manipulated by the external works of men (like indulgences, penance, pilgrimages, etc.). While Reformed theology has wrongly become obsessed with the sovereignty of God in personal conversion and regeneration, the basic principle of a big God - one who does not answer to us - is a valuable biblical understanding. We must not put God in our boxes - he is too big and wonderful and powerful for that.

4. An infatuation with the cross of Christ. What was it that moved Martin Luther to oppose the absolute power of his day and risk death in the process? It was nothing less than an infatuation with the cross. For Luther, the central human struggle was against the oppressive power of guilt; and the Roman Church had made a mint by guilting the populace into submission to its rule with threats of divine punishment. But what Luther found in Paul’s letters was a message wildly different from Rome’s; a message of perfect atonement through the blood of Christ. And through Luther, light broke into a dark Christian world in the form of grace, grace, perfect and all-saving grace! What could a sinner add to the substitutionary work of Christ, the perfect God-man who bore all our sins and absorbed God’s wrath against them? God is a God of love who spared no expense to save us - and when he did, he left nothing undone. The great Reformation slogan - sola fide, or faith alone - is the corollary to this infatuation with the cross, for if God saved us totally in Christ, then we come to him for forgiveness and salvation by faith alone. No work, no ritual, no ethnic or religious background recommends us to God - it is only the love of Jesus Christ. This is nothing less than good news of the gospel, and all Christians should be ga-ga over it.

5. A covenant structure. Structuring the biblical story is a bit different from systematizing it. Instead of searching through the Bible as if it’s a theological factbook and then organizing the facts (systematic theology), a structural approach looks for the overall progressive nature of the story and gives it a name. Reformed theology has structured the Bible as a story about God’s covenants with man. What is valuable about this is the fact that it lets the Bible be a story and lets us see ourselves in it; it allows for a narrative theology of sorts that has much relevance for us today. We are also a covenant people, in relationship with God through Jesus Christ at this point in history. The covenant structure also allows us to see more continuity in the biblical story than discontinuity - and it makes it easier to understand and apply. The other popular structure - Dispensationalism - is wildly confusing and pits the Bible against itself. And it gives rise to an interesting eschatology. While a post-Reformed Christian is not a Covenant Theology Evangelist, he may appreciate the simplicity and sanity of this theological approach and carry it on charitably.

6. A sane eschatology. Suffice it to say, I appreciate Reformed theology because it gives us a view of the last days that doesn’t include a word-for-word literal interpretation of Revelation (which can be really scary). It lets symbol be symbol and simplifies everything by referring back to the words of Jesus. This is very much against the grain of some high-minded theological types who insist that Revelation can be parsed down to a date, time, and location for the return of Jesus. Reformed eschatologies just say, “He’s coming back someday: look forward to it.” And that’s a lot easier. The Reformed tradition also gave us postmillennialism which is a fancy word for believing that there is still a point to our lives in this world and we should try to make the world better.

7. A mentality of cultural engagement. From Luther to Calvin to the Dutchman Abraham Kuyper, Reformed theologians have long been champions for Christians in culture. This is the unsung hero-doctrine of the Reformation movement. The backdrop is the medieval notion that there is a thick black line between secular occupation and sacred occupation; and the former really has no value compared to the latter. That is, unless you were a priest or monk or something like that, your job as a blacksmith was pretty much seen as stupid. But Luther said that every human occupation that a Christian involves himself in becomes sacred because he does it for the glory of God. Revolutionary! Kuyper’s contribution was quite literally a vision for the renewal of culture itself as Christians purposefully engage with non-Christians in all sorts of secular work. This becomes a means of witness to the unbelieving world as Christians do a better job than anyone at making the world better. We might say that our current ideas about cultural relevance - being in the world to reach the world - and missional life - everyone is a missionary to the unsaved people in their lives - stems from the work of the Reformers against the sacred/secular dichotomy. A post-Reformed person gladly takes this perspective forward and stands against so many modern manifestations of Christianity - Reformed ones included - that seem to ignore the culture and this world and retreat to pious church life.

Taking these things, and rejecting those others, I am moving forward in my journey. I want to follow Jesus wherever he is going, with as many of his followers as possible. This is why I’m post-Reformed.

From Scot McKnight’s A Community Called Atonement:

“Several texts bring home the fundamental reality that, without the resurrection, atonement is incomplete. We need to begin with this: the point of the resurection is more than hope for those who fear death, for those who are on the verge of death, or even for those who long to be reunited with loved ones. Resurrection, leading as it does to eternal life, is more than the hope for what Tom Wright in numerous settings calls ‘life after life after death.’

“What, then, is resurrection all about? If the death of Christ wipes away sin, the resurrection of Christ makes all things new. Resurrection is about new creation. A theory of atonement that does not flow into the resurrection is an atonement that rids one of the sin problem but does not transform life and this world. Stopping that flow of life from God into God’s people is the abortion of full atonement.”

Did you catch that last intentionally bolded sentence? Did you hear the genius in those words? Perhaps I think they are genius because of my experience; I was for a long time in a church and denomination that does precisely what Scot is warning us not to do, a church that loved to talk about sin/death and salvation/heaven but could barely formulate a meaningful statement about the resurrection. The result was the randomization and abstraction of this life. That is, we were taught to think about heaven, not earth; to focus on saving souls, not feeding the poor; to see pretty much everything as not yet, and nothing as already.

This was an abortion of sorts; a premature cessation of the lifeflow which emerges when the resurrection is primary. Resurrection in our lives, beginning with the new birth, makes our hearts new, then our lives new, and then the world new. Resurrection is the point of atonement, to fully reconcile the world to God and so transform it, to let the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

Taking a turn
So far we have looked intently at the idea of division between Reformed and non-Reformed people - especially the division over the 5 points of Calvinism, or as we simplified it, RPF vs. RFF. Regeneration and conversion are the hot-button points of debate between Reformed and non-Reformed people, and that is a good place to start the discussion about being post-Reformed.

That is, being post-Reformed entails an emphasis on Jesus and the biblical story, not a particular theological view of conversion or regeneration. Not only that - it also entails a passionate pursuit of community among those of varying views on this issue, even within local church communities; and it entails a passionate commitment among the leaders to preach the middle way.

We saw that being post-Reformed is about believing in a universal church that is working to reconcile the world to God through Christ. It is about thinking globally and forsaking lesser concerns to join in that all-important work.

And so we’ve turned to a theme that is truly bigger than theological debates like RPF vs. RFF - we’ve turned to the nature of theology itself.

The un-theology
For me, being post-Reformed is a departure from theology-mania, a departure from intellectualism. It is by no means an abandonment of the intellect, or of theology for that matter, but it is most certainly an abandonment of the mentality that theology is the be-all and end-all of good Christianity.

Because it ain’t.

Theology - thinking about God - is a means to an end, and the end is knowing God personally and living for God practically. The bumper sticker is right, cocky intellectual naysayers be damned: Christianity is not about religion, it’s about relationship.

It is here, in this relational emphasis, that the Spirit emerges as the key to good Christianity; the Spirit, who comforts us with the very presence of God within, who unites our hearts to his heart, who moves our souls to live for a higher purpose - this Spirit is the primary thing, the main thing, in what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Just look at the biblical story - it is replete with tales of the Spirit moving among and within men and doing the work of God in the world. The Spirit formed the formless earth, forms the formless church, and forms our formless hearts.

In this sense, my post-Reformedness is an un-theology; it is a theology that points away from itself to an indulgent spiritual and emotional connection with the God of the universe. When Jesus the person - not the theological fact - is in view, theological facts become like the coding behind a beautiful web page - that is, pointless in an of themselves. They are insignificant except that they bring us to the picture of this person; and knowing the code is literally unimportant compared with seeing the picture and loving the picture and experiencing the picture.

So again, this leads us to a style of doing church that is passionate to break down unnecessary theological barriers for the sake of the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And again, this does not entail the abandonment of truth or theology itself but rather an ability to see what truth is most important in bringing us to the point of it all, that is, God himself manifest in Jesus himself by the Spirit himself.

Something More
The “something more” I mentioned last time is really at the heart of what I mean by “post-Reformed.” In the incessant debates over 5 points and 3 words and 1 variant and various -isms, there are a couple of possible outcomes that maintain general Christian unity. One is for the two sides to retain their differences and yet pursue an emphasis in teaching and theology that is focused on a middle way. Another is for the two sides to still hold tightly to their systems and yet understand the frailty of systems and so embrace one another as Christians.

But there is something even better than these two options, and this is the heart of my post-Reformed identity. It is not just charity towards disagreeable brethren and not just emphasis on a middle way but also a passionate pursuit of community among those of different views.

In my local community of believers, there are people from a variety of theological backgrounds. There are people who have been reared within the strong fortress of Reformed teaching and have been taught to regard all other systems with suspicion. There are those who have grown up in the loving atmosphere of Arminian thought and have been shocked and even repulsed by a Calvinistic or monergistic view of conversion. For some there are strong relational aspects to their theological commitment; moms and dads and dear church leaders taught them this way of thinking, and it’s hard to let that go. For some there is a gutteral emotional aspect, and they find themselves torn up by the thought of having to embrace the other view.

As a leader in this community, what am I supposed to do?

What has always been done
Here’s the way it always goes: the leader takes a side. In the worst situations, he takes a side with reckless abandon and forces, if not actively then by insinuation, a division in the body. People who hold an opposite view are oppressed by the heavy preaching against them; and eventually they leave. Let me just say that even those churches that pay lipservice to a tolerance of various theological opinions, the fomenting message from the pulpit tells the real tale, and the prideful attitude towards “bad theology” proves to be too much for those on the outside.

In the best situations, the leader still takes a side - he is a Calvinist or a non-Calvinist, and the pulpit message, and the party line, is one or the other, - but he does his level best to be as charitable as possible. Perhaps he preaches as infrequently as possible about the issue. Perhaps he avoids it altogether. Perhaps he even advocates for a middle way. In this situation, there can be peaceful coexisting; but usually, the congregation eventually becomes pretty uniform and those with opposing views either give up their views or move on to another church.

As I think about my little community, I find both of these alternatives to be intolerable. I do not want to see any division over systematic theology; I want to be united in an emphasis on Jesus and the biblical story. I want to passionately pursue community with those of either view or background and to passionately - exclusively, even - preach the middle way.

Passionately preaching the middle way
When a leader decides that he will no longer take a side - no longer identify himself as Calvinist or Arminian - then he has opened himself up to passionately preaching the middle way. That is, he has made a commitment, a determination, that he will no longer abide the division over systematics that plagues the church universal - that he will not contribute to this disease. He has become, as the hippies would say, globally minded - thinking again in broad terms, in positive, hopeful terms, believing in the ancient truth that there is indeed a holy catholic church and that the hope for the world is its health and unity.

If that kind of global-mindedness seeps into the heart of that preacher and bleeds out into his preaching before the local congregation the result is a corporate passion, not for a theological system, but for a glorious church and a redeemed planet earth.

Which is also, I think, the biblical vision.

Grant gave us a narrative structure for Romans 8 in his talk last night. I was extremely blessed by it and can’t wait to read my Bible with the express purpose of finding myself in the story…and hearing God speak to me.

Grant structured it this way:

STORY –>

Writer = God

Protagonist = us, those who love God

Plot = redemption/glory

Conflict = suffering/groaning

Climax = salvation/everything works for good/reconciliation

Resolution = the work of the Spirit/final glorification

And in God’s story there is an added element unique to him: Confirmation.

This confirmation brings the nature of the story into full focus: It is not a comedy, nor a trajedy, but rather a LOVE STORY.