Reflecting on Ted Haggard, coupled with some readings from Albert Nolan's Jesus Before Christianity (in which he emphasises the power of faith), has led me to reflect on another public representative of Christianity: Benny Hinn.
Now let me be clear from the start that I think that Benny Hinn is a predator. I believe that he preys upon the most desperate and vulnerable members of society in order to advance his personal wealth and power. I have serious questions about the faith Hinn professes to have, and I have even more serious questions about the healings he claims to perform. (Hinn refuses to provide any supportive documentation that his healings have been genuine. And when faced with documentation that suggested that a number of people [who claimed to be healed at his rallies] had not actually been healed, Hinn claimed this was so because those people had lost their faith, or fallen into sin, after the rally!)
However, I had a new thought tonight. Given Jesus' emphasis upon the faith of the recipient of healing, I asked myself this: “Is it possible that some healings have occurred at Hinn's rallies because of the faith of those who attend?” Of course, these would be healings that God performed despite of Hinn, and not because of him. Is God so humble, and so gracious, that he would choose to heal the sick, even in the presence of a fraudulent healer? He just might be. After all, God's compassion for the poor and needy seems to regularly overcome his distance from the wealthy and self-satisfied.
I wonder what the implications of this might be for those of us in the Christian community? Perhaps an implication would be that this simply highlights the absence of those within the Christian community who are willing to affirm the faith of others who believe (or long to believe) that God can make lame people walk, blind people see, and sick people healthy. Perhaps it reveals to us that we have lost something of Jesus' emphasis that the Spirit brings liberation from all things.
Of course, by asking this question I am in no way suggesting that the reason why so many Christians are sick is because they lack faith. Far from it. I actually believe that God can heal people based upon the faith of Jesus, not upon the faith (or lack thereof) that is held by the recipient of the healing. This is so for at least two reasons: I think that God often acts in our regard because of the faith and intercession of Jesus — and not because of our faith (or lack thereof); and I think that sharing in the sufferings of the world (include sharing in the illnesses that come from living in a world that is broken) is a fundamental element of the Christian vocation. If it is part of the Christian calling to be broken with the broken, then it is also a part of the Christian calling to be sick with those who are sick.
However, I also think that the near total absence of miraculous healings in the Western Christian community does, at least in some way, suggest an absence of faith in the Western church as a whole (and not in sick individuals specifically).
I long for a Christian presence at the margins of society that truly does offer addicts freedom from the power of drugs, drugs that, in the words of a friend of mine, “enter into your body and alter you at the level of your DNA” (this friend knows this from his firsthand experience with crack). The Spirit should be a presence that restores us, at the very same level.
I long for a Church rooted at the margins of society that offers freedom to people who suffer from mental illnesses, people who hear voices that torment them and tell them to hurt themselves. The Spirit should replace such voices with an inner voice of love.
And when such addictions and illnesses persist, I long for a Church that embraces those things and transforms them into redemptive acts of solidarity with our broken world. The Spirit should be a Spirit that binds us together and makes us one.
The near total absences of such transformations in the Western church, and the far greater presence of such transformations in African, Asian, and Latin American churches, suggests to me that we in the West could learn a thing or two about faith from our sisters and brothers in the two-thirds world.
So, I guess I have drifted away from my original question but I would be very interested in hearing how others might answer that question, and what others have to say about all these things.

Sister, we must love these people very much, so that they can forgive us for helping them.
~ St. Vincent De Paul (1581-1660)
I stumbled upon this quote in an essay by Krister Stendahl and I was struck by how “contemporary” it sounded. Given that much of Christian charity during the modern period has been marked by a certain triumphalism and condescension, we tend to consider those who speak of true service of the poor and the outcasts — service that discovers God already present within the poor, and service that discovers that one is often more blessed than blessing — as entering into a new and exciting phase of journeying with those who are in exile. The quote from St. Vincent would suggest otherwise. We are not discovering something new, we are discovering something that some of us lost somewhere along the way. St. Vincent realized just how much pride and how much justification of self-indulgence we tend to invest in so-called “acts of charity.” He knew that often the ways in which we “help” others are far more about us than they are about the people that we are “helping.” And he knew how much “charity” is often simply a veneer that helps perpetuate the broader social structures that maintain the gap between the rich and the poor.
Yet the solution St. Vincent offers is not to stop all our efforts to be helpful. Rather, we must learn to love “very much.” The contrast between the language of “helping” and the language of “love” is significant. The language of “helping” establishes a hierarchy and an unequal, and often unhealthy, power divide. Thus the “helper” is able to gain nearly total control over those who are, by definition, “helpless.” However, with love such hierarchies and such unequal divisions of power are abolished. Love leads us to the place where any exchange that takes place is mutual and, most importantly, natural. Thus, Stendahl goes on to say, “true love demands that neither the giver nor the receiver be conscious of giving or receiving.” The exchanges that take place because of love are not exchanges that keep tallies or records of debts. Rather, all such categories are abolished and we are no longer “givers” and “receivers” but “lovers” and “beloved.”
Indeed, as I have moved ever more deeply into journeying with those who are in exile, I have had the delight of experiencing both sides of that love relationship. As I have begun to travel down the road of loving very much, I have, to my delight, also discovered myself to be loved very much. This is a great source of joy to me. How I wish that all those who are in Christ knew the joy of being loved by those who are in exile.

For some time I have felt a certain amount of discomfort in relation to the “Emergent church” conversation. Now granted, the number of people who fall under that label is increasingly large and diverse and to make a general criticism of the Emergent conversation is pretty much impossible. Even to criticize the movement based upon it's most famous leaders would be misleading. Criticizing all things Emergent based upon the writings of Brian McLaren (who, IMHO, does really miss the boat a lot of the time) is sort of like criticizing the entire “New Perspective on Paul” based upon the writings of Ed Sanders. For example, people that I admire quite a lot (like Brian Walsh) also fit within the Emergent conversation, and to discard Walsh because of McLaren is sort of like discarding N. T. Wright because one disagrees with Sanders (although Walsh does misunderstand Lyotard's talk about “metanarratives” but that's an aside).
However, with this proviso in mind, let me say that there is a particular trend that seems quite common in the Emergent conversation, and I find this trend to be quite troubling. However, to speak of this as a “trend” may be a bit too strong. Let me just say that I have the impression that this trend is present across the board in the Emergent conversation… but I am open to being mistaken about this. Actually I hope I am.
So what is this trend that seems to be present? Simply stated, I am not convinced that anything terribly new is going on in the Emergent conversation. It seems to me that, for the most part, the Emergent conversation is just another generation learning how to culturally appropriate their Christian faith — it's just that this time faith is being appropriated within a postmodern consumer culture. At the end of the day, it seems as though Emergent folk are just as thoroughly grounded in contemporary culture as traditional Christianity was grounded in modern culture. We've moved from quoting Descartes to quoting Derrida, from reading Dostoyevski to reading Nabokov, from listening to Gospel music to listening to Sufjan Stevens, from celebrating “stale” liturgies to celebrating “ancient-future” services, and we think that this is causing a more genuine form of Christianity to come (back) into existence. I'm not convinced. For the most part, it appears as though the Emergent conversation is not rectifying the mistakes made by prior generations of Christians; in fact, it appears as though they are simply repeating those mistakes in new and updated ways. Thus, once again, you get a Christianity that is oh-so-relevant, but really it's just as self-indulgent as the surrounding culture and as previous generations of Western Christianity. It seems to me that the Emergent conversation is not much better and not much worse than most other church trends that have come and gone in the last one hundred years. It's all just a little too convenient (but, after all, we consumers love convenience). Being Emergent lets me be “hot” and Christian and it doesn't cost me a thing (and we consumers love free things even more than we love convenience).
Now, show me a movement where people are committed to a costly form of Christianity, where people are radically committed to loving God and loving their neighbours, where people are daily laying down their lives for those whom they love, show me this movement or conversation, or whatever, and then I might be inclined to say, “yes, here is the Spirit breaking in (once again) in a new and marvelous way.”

I was doing a bit of work in Lk 6 with an interlinear Greek/English New Testament and I was struck by an alternate translation of verse 37a. Generally, in our English translations, the verse reads something like this:
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned” (emphasis added).
Now, the thing is, the verb that is translated into English as “will” can also be translated as “may.” Thus, an equally valid translation of the text would read like this:
“Do not judge, and you may not be judged; and do not condemn, and you may not be condemned” (emphasis added).
I believe that this translation better captures what Luke has Jesus saying in this passage. While the first translation (“will”) captures the future-element of what Jesus is saying, the second translation (“may”) captures the present-element of what Jesus is saying (while also retaining the future-element). In light of the Lukan emphasis upon the poor, the oppressed, and Jesus' solidarity with socio-religious outcasts, this second translation means that Jesus is essentially saying this:
“If you do not buy into the popular way of judging others, if you refuse to judge others by the social standards that continually dehumanise and marginalise others, then you too can refuse to be judged by those who wish to marginalise and dehumanise you. You can reject those judgments because you may not be judged and condemned — so long as you do not then impose such judgments on others. Do no judge and any judgments of you are invalid; do not condemn and it is not permissible for you to be condemned. You can refuse to give such judgment and condemnation any authority over you.”
This reading ties in well with Jesus' proclamation of forgiveness to sinners as sinners (and not as penitent sinners).
The Church today would do well to think on how these thoughts tie into the way in which she journeys and speaks with those who are judged, condemned, and called “sinners” today.

I was reading Luke the other day and was struck by the parallels that exist between Jesus and Moses. Jesus, like Moses (only more so), is the great liberator of Israel. Jesus provides the people with a New Torah, he provides them with nourishment in the wilderness, and, ultimately, on the cross, he brings an end to exile and the wilderness wanderings of Israel. Of course, the fact that the bondage of exile has ended is confirmed at the beginning of Acts with the outpouring of the eschatological Spirit.
However, I was struck by this idea: if Jesus, in Luke, is like Moses yet greater than Moses, surely Paul, in Acts, is like Joshua, yet greater than Joshua. After Moses liberated the Hebrews and led them through the wilderness, Joshua conquered the land that God had promised them. However, with Paul as Joshua things are significantly revised. The land is now the world, and the means by which one conquers are radically different. Whereas Joshua conquered by the sword, Paul conquers by the Gospel proclamation — by the sword of the Word. Whereas Joshua conquered by inflicting violence on others, Paul conquers by allowing violence to be inflicted upon himself. Whereas Joshua conquered by force, Paul conquers by serving others in the power of the Spirit.
Furthermore, I suspect that those who wish to appeal Old Testament conquest narratives in order to justify Christian violence today have not sufficiently grasped the way in which Paul's model of conquest completely subverts and replaces any and all violence with cross-shaped living.

Well, over the last two days I have had the privilege of attending a series of lectures presented by Miroslav Volf. The lecture series, offered as the 2006 Laing Lectures at my school, was called “A Voice of One's Own: Public Faith in a Pluralistic World.” The first lecture was entitled, “The Malfunctions of Faith: Idleness and Coerciveness,” the second lecture was called, “A Faith that Makes a Difference” and the final lecture was called “A Peaceable Faith.” Part of what made the lectures so interesting was the fact that a few profs from my school were able to respond to Volf's lectures and then engage in a panel discussion with him.
There was one exchange between Volf and my professor Hans Boersma that I find particularly interesting. Volf had concluded his first lecture by emphasizing that the Church must exist as a counter-culture for the common good. Boersma challenged the term “counter-culture” and argued that the Church should be understood as a complete and unique “culture.” Volf then expressed some discomfort with the notion of the Church as a culture and the example that he provided was intriguing. “For example,” he said, “I do not think that the Church speaks her own language.”
This caught my attention, given the fact that “postliberal” theologians, in light of Wittgenstein's notion of “language-games” and Lyotard's notion of “petit recits [small stories],” have been emphasizing the uniqueness of the language of the Church.
Consequently, at the end of the third lecture when I had an opportunity to speak with Volf I pressed him on this point. If the Church does not speak her own unique language, what language does she speak? Indeed, could it not be argued that a further “malfunction” of the contemporary Church in the West is precisely the fact that she has lost her own unique language and capitulated to other language-games, allowing her world to be shaped by words and meanings that are foreign to her?
Unfortunately, Volf did not have time to respond in full. He began by expressing his discomfort with any approach that understands language as strictly functional and then went on to affirm the argument that the Church is, inevitably, caught speaking the language of those around her — how can she not?
I then attempted to take the question from another angle and asked, taking Barth as a guide, whether or not the Word of God could be described as the truly unique Language of the Church; indeed, is it because the Church is ever only a witness to the Word, that the language of her proclamation is not unique?
Volf began by expressing his discomfort with Barth's approach to language (analogy in particular) and, alas, this is about as far as we got. He noted that this topic is one that is particularly important today, but also noted that such things were difficult to discuss briefly and the night was late and others were coming and going, getting books autographed and expressing their thanks.
So I am left hanging. Anybody want to pick up on these questions?

A few thoughts inspired by dialogue with the New Perspective on Paul.
Properly understood, it is not my faith in Jesus that saves me. Rather, it is the faithfulness of Jesus that saves me.
My faith does not defeat the power of sin, nor does it atone for my sins. Rather, it is the faithfulness of Jesus that has defeated sin and atoned for the sins of us all.
My faith does not recapitulate humanity, nor does it inaugurate the new age. Rather, it is the faithfulness of Jesus that recapitulated humanity and birthed the new age.
Therefore, it is the faith of Jesus that is salvific, not my faith in Jesus. My faith in Jesus simply shows that I have been saved by Jesus. My faith is not what gets me into the covenant people of God, it is that which shows that I am already in the covenant people of God. Faith in Jesus is not that which saves Christians, rather it is that which is an identity marker of those who have already (in the here-and-now) realized that they have been saved by Jesus. Faith simply sets apart those who have already realized that Jesus is Saviour and Lord of all, until the day when Jesus returns and God becomes “all in all.”
However, there are another dimension to Christian faith in Christ. Indeed, Christian faith is perhaps better described as in Christ faith. That is to say, it is the faith of those who are in Christ. Indeed, one of the the most central elements of Paul's writing is the notion of Christian existence “in Christ.” Christians are those who members of Christ's body, they are baptized into Christ's death so that they will be resurrected with Christ, they share in Christ's sufferings so that they may also share in his glory, therefore Christian living can be summed up as “Christ” (as Paul says in Phil 1.21: “For me, to live is Christ”). Therefore, because all that we are and do is now “in Christ” this means that our faith is “in Christ faith.” Understood in this way, it is possible to see our faith as participation in the faith of Christ.
Realizing this also opens the door to revisit the notion of type of righteousness possessed by Christians. Certain New Testament scholars have raised a significant critique of the Reformed doctrine of “imputed righteousness.” This doctrine asserts that God gives his own righteousness to believers and thus considers them innocent. However, the critics of this doctrine have argued that to suggest that believers are granted God's righteousness is to make a category mistake. What they mean is this: righteousness language in the New Testament is best understood against two backgrounds, the forensic (i.e. law court) and the covenantal. Now, in the law court there can be more than one type of righteousness. There is the righteousness of the judge, who judges impartially and justly, and there is the righteousness that is granted to the defendant when he or she is vindicated. Thus, when righteousness language refers to God as judge and to humanity as the defendant, one must not suggest that one can share in the other's righteousness for that would confuse the categories. The defendant is not declared righteous in the same way that the judge is righteous. Furthermore, the same distinction holds within the covenantal context. Here God's righteousness is understood has his faithfulness to the covenant he made, and to suggest that human's receive this righteousness is to confuse the covenant partners with one another. This critique, I think, is quite convincing.
However, there is a sense in which the notion of “imputed righteousness” still holds true, but it does so in a significantly reworked manner. Stated succinctly: because the in Christ faith of believers is participation in the faith of Christ, believers also participate in God's righteousness because they then become the agents by which God remains faithful to his covenant with humanity and the rest of creation. The notion of “imputed righteousness” is therefore all about vocation, commission, and mission, and not about some sort of static status. One can be said to share in God's righteousness to the extent that one shares in God's mission. Indeed, this is also then a participation in God's righteousness as judge over the world, and perhaps this view of imputed righteousness makes good sense of Paul's enigmatic statement that “the saints will judge the world” (cf. 1 Cor 5-6). Christian's share in God's righteousness as judge when they go into the world with the embodied announcement of the forgiveness of sins.

Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.

A short while ago, I read Kim Fabricius' “Ten propositions on hell” which is quoted in full on Ben Myer's blog (cf. http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2006/09/ten-propositions-on-hell.html). I thought I would provide 10 alternate (but not necessarily contradictory) theses on hell.
Let us begin by asserting that:
(1) Jesus saves us from hell in the same way that he saves us from death.
This can then be rephrased in a more provocative manner:
(2) Jesus does not save us from hell any more than he saves us from death.
Yet:
(3) Our salvation from death does not prevent us from dying. Rather, our salvation from death is a salvation that leads us through death.
Consequently:
(4) Our salvation from hell does not prevent us from “descending into hell.” Rather, our salvation from hell is a salvation that leads us through hell.
If this is the case then:
(5) What we mean by the word “hell” must be reconsidered.
As we do this we must note that:
(6) The references to hell in the early creeds (the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed) occur within the domain of Christology (and they are not a part of the assertions about the final end state of humanity — which only speak of the “resurrection of the dead” and the “life everlasting”).
Therefore:
(7) “Hell” must be understood within the framework of Jesus' mission.
When this occurs:
(8) “Hell” is best understood as the place where Jesus' ultimate, and salvific, solidarity with “sinners,” with the god-forsaken, and with those who experience the utter extremes of exile comes to its fullest expression.
Furthermore, it must be remembered that:
(9) Christians are called to participate in the mission of Jesus, not because Jesus' victory was incomplete, but so that Jesus' victory can be implemented in the present.
Therefore:
(10) Christian's are not saved from hell, if that is taken to mean a complete escape from hell. Rather, Christians are saved so that they can participate in Jesus' descent into hell, and share in his mission of salvific solidarity with the god-forsaken.