Trinity, Hierarchy and Subodrindation

I just learned that early Christians understood person in a much different way than we do. Their word for person--persona--means mask worn by an actor. Bruce Shelley in his Church History in Plain Language writes, "In Trinitarian thought the "mask" is not worn by God to hide but to reveal his true character. It is clear that when we think of the Trinity, we should not try to think of three persons in our sense of the term, but three personal disclosures of God that correspond to what he is really like."

Now this is messing with my mind as I am wrestling with the quesitons of hierarchy and subordination in the Godhead.

Bruce Shelley is pretty conservative so I am surprised he discusses the trinity like he does.  Are there any Theology Proper people out there that have some thoughts and insights.  Did Shelley take things a little too far or is he on the money?

Why Do They Hate Us--From Mikle Spencer's Blog (AKA Internetmonk)

Mike Spencer a Southern Baptist Lists Reason's the World Dislikes (Evangelicals) Christians So Much. It's rough--true of me in many areas--and true of many churches I have been a part of. What do you think?

1. We endorse a high standard of conduct for others and then largely excuse ourselves from a serious persuit of such a life.

2. Our piety is mostly public. We love others to see what God is doing in our lives.

3. Many of us relate to others with and obvious--or thinly disguised--agenda. In other words, those who work with us or go to school with us think we are "up to something."

4. Many of us are bizarrely shallow and legalistic about minute matters. We are not as healthy and happy as we portray ourselves.

5. We may deny that we have made God into a political, financial or cultural commodity, but the world knows better.

6. We are too slow to seperate ourselves from what's wrong. It's clear to many that we no longer have the cutting-edge moral sense of Martin Luther King Jr. or William Wilberforce.

7. We take ourselves far to seriously and appear to be opposed to normal life. What normal, healthy people find laughable, we find threatening and often labe with the ridiculous label "of the devil."

What do you think--is he right?

The Shack, Church History, and The World

A quote from The Shack--Jesus talking to Mack:


"Mack, the world system is what it is. Institutions, systems, ideologies, and all the vain, futile efforts of humanity that go with them are everywhere, and interaction with all of it is unavoidable. But, I can give you freedom to overcome a system of power in which you find yourself, be it religious, economic, social, or political. You will grow in the freedom to be inside or outside all kinds of systems and to move freely between and among them. Together, you and I can be in it and not of it."

There are many people that are knocking this book because the way it represents God's disdain for worldly institutions including the church that developed power structures for institutional gain. I wonder if these critics are so caught up in these institutions and power structures because they use them for personal gain. In Wiliston Walker's A History of the Christian Church, he writes:

"...Christian writers from Hermas to Origen and Tertullian, make it plain that the churches of the second and third centuries continued to see themselves as a society some how "set apart"--governed by a Spirit other than the spirits that ruled the world at large. The original source of this attitude can no doubt be sought in the world-view of the Jewish apocalyptic [The Jewish Prophets]. Repudiating the political, moral, and religious corruption of a world trapped in the nets of evil, the apocalyptist had looked to the future for that world's overthrow--to a new age when God would punish evil, reward suffering for righteousness, and so set the creation right [looked forward to Jesus]. Since, however, those who had believed the message of Jesus' resurrection and had entered, by baptism, upon his new life knew themselves to have a share even now in the good things of the age to come, they also knew that it was their business to live as people "crucified...to the world."

It seems to be me The Shack is calling the church back to its original perspective and Christ's directive to be in the world and not of it. Are we so much a part of our world's institutions that we can't see we are a part of them? Do we not see that God has called us out from them? I grew up in Baptist circles and my extremely conservative Baptist church emphasized being different from the world. The problem: They only wanted us to be different in our private morality--don't drink, don't chew, don't go to movies, don't have sex out of marriage...etc. Granted they were right about some things in which we are a called to be different--sex out of marriage. They were legalists about others--don't go to movies. INSTEAD of focusing on private morality the church must focus on being different from corporate morality as well, it must be different from the world's systems and institutions, it and its members must act differently from them. We, the church, have to look at ourselves, both individually and corporately, to see how presuppositions are are based upon this world's understanding and way of doing things and not God's way revealed in Scripture. We have to know that we are so a part of these systems and institutions a part of us that we will have to work extremely hard not to twist the Bible to support our way of doing these, but rather use the Bible to examine how we have been co-opted by these institutions.

Slavery, The Politics of Power, and The Risk of Grace

The following is a great quote from a New Testament scholar regarding his reflections on the message of Philemon:

"All societies rest upon inequities--some concealed, others noticed--that make brotherhood impossible. Every age and locale has its particular and familiar slaveries. What heightens injustice is that all believers--exploiters or exploited--are equally nearsighted about the oppressions we have unwittingly learned to live with. No one cries out: the strong because they need not, the weak for they dare not. Or perhaps this unfair: it might seem that slaves would sense injustice that owners ignor. But even slaves must have their eyes and their feelings dulled; you cannot long entertain hope for what is unattainable. So, rather than live in perpetual frustration, the enslaved man generally will not allow his conscience to become too sensitive...Yet there is no social order, no revision of the economy, no advance in politics, no possible world situation that adequaetely conforms to the gospel or even makes room for its full realization, no revolution that does not eventually redistribute injustice."

This is the whole point of Paul not commanding Philemone to emancipate Onesimous; rather, tries to persuade Philemon in love and relationship. He (Paul) is trying to live out the Gospel that restores creation with Shalom or peace and he courageously keeps his "power" as an apostle under control--so he will not become an oppressor or exploiter and operate by the same world system that Christ came to redeem, and calls his church to redeem by operating Christ's way (love and self-sacrifice, power under not power over)--not the world's way.  Further, we have the Hope that God, when he returns, will finally correct all injustices--1 Samuel 2 is an example of this Hope/Faith in the life of Hannah.

I have a lot to learn from Paul and this letter to Philemon. I dare say the church in general has a lot to learn as well.

The quote above is from J. T. Burtchaell as quoted by Ben Worthington the III in his Socio-rhetorical Commentary on The Prison Epistles.

The Way The Unchurched Percieve The Church: A Story About a Friend's Unchurched Friend

So today I went to a my son Ian's soccer game and some friends from our small group came out to cheer him on. [We have a great small group that does life together--very biblical but that's another post.] Anyway, we went to McDonald's for our kids to play in the playland. While we were eating and watching the kids, my friend Chris began to relate to me an experience he he had with one of his unchurched friends.

He began the story by sharing how he was helping this friend, we will call him A. J. pull and winterize some boats from the area lakes. As they were driving from job to job AJ began to tell him a story about church people.

As it goes AJ rented some space for his business from a "Christian". This space was in a shop where this Christian businessman worked and AJ rented a certain # of square feet in this shop. As the story goes AJ never received the full number of square feet. Many times AJ would clean the section he was supposed to have and remove equipment and materials this businessman owned that were not suppose to be in his area. Every time he moved this material--it would end up back in his space the very next day. Eventually AJ decided he would only pay have the rent--since he wasn't receiving the full space. This business man cursed him out and yelled at him at the top of his lungs.

AJ commented that it is a shame that Christians--this business man--can live one way at the shop, but at church be a totally different person. He recounted how he had visited this man's church to see him in a suit and tie acting totally different. He then lamented at the fact that Christians think they can go to church and be one way so they can live the rest of their life another way. He also lamented at the fact that he had made some mistakes in his life (had a child out of wedlock) but that nobody AT CHURCH would accept him or give him a chance--even though for the past few years he had been turning his life around.

He then talked about a small group he had attended that wasn't like that. He said looking back--this was his church and this is they way he wished the church would be.

If the church would only realize that non-Christians perceive the institutional church a certain way and that the perceptions they work hard to keep people from having (having "bad" people in the church--one might say "real" people) actually contribute to the negative perception the unchurched have.

When will we learn that we need to be real and authentic. I don't know how many times I have been told that I need to wear a Jacket and Tie because that is what respectable pastor wear. That isn't me, and for me to do this would contribute to the negative perceptions that many of the unchurched have.

The Need for a Missional Ecclesiology Part 1

Once again Dr. Brisco has an excellent post on the missional church. It explains why the leaders of so many churches are afraid to make hard decisions and think only of making the congregants happy.

In this post he quotes Hunsberger who suggests 3 views of church in the US and the West that have contributed to a consumer church. The first view he mentions is called the "Reformed Heritage" view, and it naturally developed into the second view which he call the "Contemporary Variation". Our Church falls into view 1 and because of our consumer driven culture have morphed somewhat into view 2. However, we are not alone--most churches in the West have developed form this reformed heritage. This is why I believe the church in the West needs to recognize and lament what it has become--see my Tears, Persecution, and Connection with god blog--so we can envision a new tomorrow and be the church God wants us to be: view 3 which Hunsburger calls "Missionary vision".

Here is Brisco's Blog:
http://missionalchurchnetwork.com/the-need-for-a-missional-ecclesiology-part-i/

Here is my Tears, Persecution, and Connecting with God blog:
http://davesmcmusings.blogspot.com/2009/06/tears-persecution-connecting-with-god.html

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From Market Driven to Mission Oriented

Here is a link to an interesting blog. The posting is called From Market Driven to Mission Oriented. This is definitely a shift the church needs to make. Further, I agree we don't have enough pastors trained in missiology to help us make that shift. Even more many of the "conservative" or "fundamentalist" missionaries the West has sent have no real missiological training--there form of missionary activity was to impose Western values on the churches they were serving.

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