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Archive for Theology – Page 2

An Alternative to Calling People Biblical Literalists

By Matt · Comments (6)
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

I was having a conversation with my students tonight about different denominations and what distinguishes us as a Lutheran church. Being a part of a Lutheran church within a few miles of bastions of Baptist (Southwestern Baptist Seminary) and dispensationalist (Dallas Theological Seminary) theology, we are definitely in the minority. Most of my students go to school with, are in FCA with, have conversations with, and sometimes go to youth group with their baptist and non-denominational friends. They have picked up on the fact that most of their friends and their churches seem to talk differently than we do about scripture. And it’s not a difference in authority, but of hermeneutics. We all affirm the authority of the scriptures, but the nature in which we read them has a different character to it.

When I asked my students how they would describe the way most conservative denominations read the Bible, they said that they read the Bible literally. I’m not a big fan of calling people literalists, not because it might not be partially true, but because it doesn’t convey to me the real issue.

Sunday Afternoon

Then I came up with an analogy that I think makes the distinctions a bit more clear. I think that most conservative churches are biblical pointillist. In art, pointillists use dots, or points, of concentrated colors together to paint a certain picture. The above picture is an up close look at pointillism. So when I say that some people are biblical pointillists, then I mean that people and churches tend to construct their theology by beginning with very small portions of scripture, oftentimes individual verses, and weave these together into a cohesive picture, like below. That is why conservatives tend to encourage spiritual disciplines like bible memorization.

200909022200.jpg

I think that the mainline church tend to be more thematic, or dare I say narrative, in the way they read the scriptures. We look for themes and narratives that tie the verses together and thus make a cohesive, nuanced, flowing argument across the scriptures. Our colors are blended together from one color to the other to make a smooth transition between one theme and another, one book of the Bible and another.

I’m not using this analogy to argue for one side or the other. Judging by the kind of church where I have chosen to work, you can guess which side of the issue I tend to end up on.

I guess I’m simply curious if you think this analogy makes any sense. Is “biblical pointillism” a better, more acurate classification than “biblical literalism”?

Comments (6)
Categories : Theology
Tags : bibliology, hermeneutics

Vision Statement for YM Leadership – Foundation: Theological Practice

By Matt · Comments (0)
Monday, June 15th, 2009

This three-part series is part of a paper I had to write for a class in 2008. I thought it made good summer blog content. I welcome your thoughts.

The grounding principle in my approach to ministry with adolescents begins with the conviction that youth ministry, as with any form of Christian ministry, is fundamentally a theological enterprise. Too often professionals in youth ministry, to their detriment, have shunned the reality that ministry is theologically formative. To speak of Jesus Christ is to speak of theology. To seek to be conformed into the Way of Jesus Christ is to speak of theology. If we in youth ministry seek to do anything it is to speak of and be conformed to Jesus Christ. To reject the theological nature of our work is to remove Jesus Christ from our youth ministries.

In beginning at such a starting point, all practices are then naturally scrutinized through a theological lens. This theological commitment acknowledges that theology goes deeper than the words we write, speak, and read, but is also learned and communicated through concrete practices and rituals. There is no such thing as a theologically neutral act. Questions like “What does this communicate about God and humankind?” can and should be applied to everything from a Bible study, ski trip, lock-in, or youth group t-shirt. As the youth minister begins to ask questions about the theological nature of practices, adults and youth will also begin to see how the Christian faith permeates every aspect of life. One might say that this theological reflection is a ministry in itself, rather than just a tool for ministry.

Comments (0)
Categories : Theology, Youth Ministry
Tags : statement, vision

Want a Free Theological Resource for Ministry?

By Matt · Comments (4)
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Free Resource

Suggest an idea in the comments for a free theological ministry resource

My current online course at Luther Seminary is “Overview of Christian Teaching,” an introductory theology class. As part of our final project we can either take an exam, write a 9-12 page paper, or do some project that can be used in ministry (bible study, activity, retreat, powerpoint presentation, website, confirmation lesson or curriculum, etc.)

I would like to try and do the project if possible and would like your input. If you could get yout hands on a robustly theological resource, what would you be looking for? What format? What topic? What age group (I work with junior high and high school but would be interested in doing something for college students or adults as well)? Have you ever bought a theological resource for use in ministry and were disappointed? What would have made it better?

Note that the paper option is in the 9-12 range, so the project itself might not be able to be too in depth, but only provide a snippet of the overall resource (i.e. an outline of a 10-week teaching series with two lessons written out in full). But if I like the topic I might go ahead and finish it out. When I do, I will post it for free for anyone to use.

We are using Roger Olson’s Mosaic of Christian Belief as the basic text, and he uses the following chapters (to help spur your thinking about possible topics–but be creative if you want to go outside the box):

  1. Christian Belief: Unity and Diversity
  2. Sources and Norms of Christian Belief: One and Many
  3. Divine Revelation: Universal and Particular
  4. Christian Scripture: Divine Word and Human Words
  5. God: Great and Good
  6. God: Three and One
  7. Creation:Good and Fallen
  8. Providence: Limited and Detailed
  9. Humanity: Essentially Good and Essentially Estranged
  10. Jesus Christ: God and Man
  11. Salvation: Objective and Subjective
  12. Salvation: Gift and Task
  13. The Church: Visible and Invisible
  14. Life Beyond Death: Continuity and Discontinuity
  15. The Kingdom of God: Already and Not Yet

Leave me a comment of something that might be helpful for you in your ministry.

I would appreciate a tweet about this if you are on Twitter.

Comments (4)
Categories : Seminary, Theology, Youth Ministry
Tags : free, resource

Theology in Real Life

By Matt · Comments (1)
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

As I said in my last post, I am taking a basic theology class in seminary right now, and almost every week we have some case study about how to deal with varying theological problems and heresies that might appear in our churches. As this class progresses, I am seeing a pattern in my responses:

  • The more mature and committed to the Christian faith, the more we can deal directly with the theological nuances of the topic-at-hand. Thus, having theological debates with pastors, Sunday school teachers, church leaders, and inquisitive parishioners could be a fruitful practice.
  • The more distant and combative people are in relation to the Christian faith, the more it is incumbent upon the Christian community to diligently examine themselves and bestow all the more love and grace upon the distant party. Winning with words seldom happens, but losing with words is a likely outcome. We should not combat spoken heresy with lived heresy, but with lived orthodoxy. And the orthodox practice is to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

What do you think? Does such an approach hold water?

Comments (1)
Categories : Theology

Theodicy and Hurricane Katrina

By Matt · Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

We had an interesting exercise in my seminary class last week, and I thought I would post it. The class is Overview of Christian Teachings, a basic theology class. we were studying the nature of providence and the professor provided the following prompt. My response is below.

“The editor of Faith & Values has called asking you to write a short article to be published this coming Saturday that addresses the following question: Is God responsible for the hurricane that devastated New Orleans (by causing it or permitting it to happen)? The editor requires that you are to write from your own convictions and conclusions on this issue, and not simply report possible solutions that have been posed with respect to the problem of evil throughout history or your own denomination’s point of view (although they may be cited in support of, or as a way of explaining, your own view). You have, for better or worse, accepted this assignment.”

The great natural tragedies of our day present quite a conundrum to the committed Christian such as myself. Tragic “acts of God” (as insurance companies like to classify them) always raise the question, If God is good and all powerful, why didn’t God stop this? Such is the classic question posed to the area theological of theological inquiry known as theodicy, which deals with the question of the reality of evil in our world today. Hurricane Katrina is one of the most poignant examples where this question is being asked today. Could God not have saved New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf coast? As someone who has led a group of teenagers twice to the cost of Mississippi to help the community there rebuild from Katrina’s devastation, this exercise is not just academic. I have seen, talked to, and volunteered my time for the people who lived through the nightmare in August of 2005.

The first question we must deal with is God’s goodness. Like many attributes of God-loving, merciful, wrathful, jealous-God’s goodness can be easily misunderstood by the unreflective thinker. If there is a creator God, and if he is good, then God defines good; good does not define God. The temptation is for us to use the reasoning, “I know what good is; therefore, if God does something that is not good, he either cannot exist or is not good.” In reality, we must start with God in order to define what good is, regardless of our notions.

The second question that we must deal with is God’s power. Although classic Christianity holds that God is all-powerful we also believe that God has given human beings some measure of free will. In the case of New Orleans, much went wrong apart from the wind and the rain. Human beings decided to settle along the Gulf coast; human beings chose to build homes below sea level; human beings constructed a system of levees incapable of guarding the city from possible flooding. That God is not culpable in these human acts fits with classic Christian belief. Thus, much of the devastation of Katrina was wrought as a result of human beings who settled in New Orleans. That is not to say that they were necessarily sinful or wrong, but it is to say that human beings face consequences to their actions.

Human beings are not, however, able to control the weather. Only God can alter the climate, and the Bible points to many occasions when he is said to have done so. He parted the Red Sea, caused drought to fall on many lands, flooded the earth, and more. Certainly it is not outside the realm of God’s power to alter the weather from its normal, created laws and mechanisms. Where the question arises is if it is outside of God’s goodness not to intervene in the weather where there might be calamity as a result, as in Hurricane Katrina.

The grand story of the Bible tells that God created the universe, along with human beings who can act freely for Good or evil, and that human beings have been on a crash course of messing things up ever since. God, for whatever reason, has chosen to give human beings the space to be free, make mistakes, and even cause harm to one another. However, the Christian faith also tells us that God as both, simultaneously, allowed human beings to retain their free will at the same time that he has defeated all evil, death, and corruption through Jesus Christ. This paradox of God’s restoration of humanity and our ongoing freedom is quite the mystery. The salvation of humankind has already been achieved, yet it has not been realized. In the same way, we might say that God’s power over all creation to work only for the good has been achieved, but it is not yet realized. We long for the day when it will be so, but that day has not yet some.

The deaths inflicted by Hurricane Katrina were deaths that God has already defeated. As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “Where, O death, is your victory?” Death might be real in our world, but death does not win. As Christians we believe that death has been defeated in Jesus Christ. While the answer to the question, “Is God responsible for Hurricane Katrina” may never be answered while we are on this earth, we do know that God is responsible for the resurrection that comes from such death. In this resurrection we find hope. In this resurrection we find life, even in death.

Comments (0)
Categories : Seminary, Theology
Tags : hurricane katrina, theodicy

My Dream Youth Ministry Communication Application

By Matt · Comments (16)
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

No, it doesn’t exist yet, but I wish it did. If any super web-savvy people (who also happen to have a ton of money or can get people to invest) could pull this off, they could make a killing off of this idea for an application. It would be especially helpful in youth ministry but organizations of all sorts could benefit. Heck, maybe it’s out there and I haven’t found it yet. Here’s my idea:

The Concept

The idea is a one-stop place online to manage all contact information for everyone that needs to get information from you: parents, students, whatever. With all the information on that site, you go to one place, type in information you want to send to everyone, and then it sends it out in whatever format it needs to depending on which avenues of communication people have signed up for.

Outputting Information

In order to streamline communication, one input on the site (i.e. “Mission Trip deposits due tomorrow”) would be automatically converted as necessary and distributed through the following avenues to each member of the group depending on what accounts they have set up.  I think with all the APIs and third party apps floating around out there that most, if not all of the following would be possible.

  • Email – Obviously teenagers don’t use this but their parents do. Still the best way for me to communicate en masse with parents. Depending on your platform you could also email your own youth ministry blog and automatically create a blog post.
  • Facebook wall post – I don’t think Facebook messaging is as effective as a wall post.
  • Twitter – If people have a twitter account, it gets sent there.
  • MySpace – I’m not sure if this is possible, but I still have a few kids left on MySpace and it would be nice to include them in communication.
  • Text Message – One of the best ways to inform teens of things is through texting.
  • RSS – That way if you want to do any fancy RSS-to-newsletter or automatic blog posting you can set that up.
  • Voice: phone tree message – Especially with some parents, the answering machine or voicemail is still a good form of communication. This would likely have to be input separately from the text information (but maybe not, see below), but likely wouldn’t take but a minute.
  • What else am I leaving out?

Inputting Information

So, getting the information out would be pretty sweet, but inputting information could be streamlined as well

  • Website administration interface – Obviously, you should be able to log in to your account and send out info to other people, but that may not be the more efficient way of doing things.
  • Email – It would be pretty easy to give each main account certain email addresses (different ones for each distribution group perhaps) that administrators could send an email to that would automatically be sent out through the program.
  • Text Messaging- Same goes for text. On vacation in the Bahamas and forget to remind everyone youth group is canceled? Text the info to your group’s number and everyone gets the info.
  • Voice – There might be some way to integrate this with Jott.com so you could convert voice to text and email it up to your account. And/or it could save the voice audio and automatically send that out via a phone tree while the transcript is sent out via the text avenues.
  • Twitter – Twit an @reply to a unique profile and it’s sent out to everyone.
  • Other?

User Management

This would be one of the cool features. Each person could login with either their email address, their Facebook name, their cell phone number, whatever, and manage their communication options. They can input all of their account information and update things as it changes. You could have different lists set up for devotionals, announcements, Confirmation, High School, Junior High and people could subscribe or unsubscribe to them as they like. With this setup, the whole church could be on the same account and people just subscribe to the relevant information. Then, when you want to tell people to bring cookies to Youth Night Out, the program sends it out to everyone on the appropriate list via all the communication avenues they selected.

The idea is once you do all the front end work of setting up user groups all you ever have to do past that is send out information to people. No more moving people into different email lists, keeping your phone records updated, remembering to add the kid who just got a cell phone to your text messaging group. Everyone can manage all their own information.

Can it happen?

Well, I think it can happen. I just don’t know if it’s cost-effective to do all of this together. I know some of these features are available as stand-alone programs that cost $20+ a month or more. That could mean $100+ a month. Is this worth $1,000 or more a year?

I know that a program like this would make my life much easier and allow me to hit everyone in whatever medium they use to stay in touch with people without having to go through three or four different avenues. What do you think?

Adam McLane, Tim Schmoyer, are you listening?

Comments (16)
Categories : Theology, Youth Ministry
Tags : communication, email, facebook, myspace, text messaging, twitter, web 2.0

Why Politics is More Exciting than Christianity

By Matt · Comments (3)
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

Watching people’s passionate involvement in the intense politics of the past month or so has been an interesting phenomenon.  We literally had millions of people working in one way or another to get their candidates elected, and last night we watched as euphoria erupted over an election of historic proportions.

It left me wondering: Why doesn’t the church drum up this much excitement and passion? My preliminary guess is that politics offers the kind of eschatology that should be offered in the church.

With each major election people talk and think about change.  New possibilites begin to form in imaginations.  “What if…” questions are asked and dreamed about.  Nothing is outside the realm of impossibility.  We make our stake for what we think the future should like like.  Changing the future is an exciting proposition.

In the church we talk about the past, about Jesus’s death and resurrection so that we might receive the forgiveness of sins.  And we talk about the future that awaits us after our own death and resurrection.  But we don’t often talk about the role of the church in between the two, other than the mandate for personal morality.

This is unfortunate because the church has a purpose other than as an incubator of souls for heaven.  The church is God’s change agent.  The church’s mission is found in the proclamation of the gospel, a proclamation that frees captives, heals the sick, and opens blind eyes.  Talk about new possibilities!  The church is the place where imagining a new future should be a perpetual practice, not just every four years.  The church should be about the business of changing the future, not just preparing people for it. We participate in bringing about God’s kingdom on earth, changing old to new, and seeing life where there once was death.

The passion that excites the public every four years in our politics is an eschatological passion.  And eschatology is the realm of Jesus and His church, not politics and the state.  May we learn how to live in that realm.

Comments (3)
Categories : Ecclesiology, News, Theology
Tags : 2008 election, eschatology, Politics

Why are Politics and Theology Directly Related?

By Matt · Comments (1)
Monday, October 13th, 2008

I find it interesting as I read blogs of people of certain theological persuasions during election season because you tend to learn their political leanings as well.  In reading through the various blogs this year I’ve noticed that most people on the more liberal end of the theological spectrum are liberal politically, and conservatives are the other way around.

Is there anything intrinsic within the different theological positions that gravitate people towards certain political opinions?  Why can’t someone more theologically liberal take the opinion that while they staunchly believe in the gospel in all its social outworking that the government is the least qualified institution to administer the social gospel?  Is our ecclesiology that weak?  Have those from both ends of the theological spectrum given up on the church as an agent of change in the world and retreated to government solve the world’s problems?  I just don’t see how fiscal discipline, limited government, and personal responsibility are antithetical to liberal theology.

I recently saw a quote from Bono about using $700 billion to bailout Wall Street but we couldn’t find $25 billion to help stop preventable diseases.  What ever happened to the church?  In the ELCA alone, members gave $2.3 billion in offerings to their congregations. The ELCA is sitting on $20.6 billion in assets.  Do we not have some resources to spare?

Comments (1)
Categories : Ecclesiology, Theology
Tags : 2008 election, elca, Politics

A Theology of Graduation

By Matt · Comments (4)
Friday, May 30th, 2008

I made the following post on the discussion boards at Youth Ministry Exchange:

Is it theologically appropriate to recognize graduates in the way we do?

Every year we have a breakfast for our high school seniors and then honor them in the service, have a slide show, and they wear their cap and gowns during the service. I see this as both positive and negative:

  • Positive: These youth have worked hard (well, maybe), they have accomplished something, this is an important time in their life, and we need to celebrate that with them. It’s a great transitional time in life and the church should be there in the midst of the transition. It also encourages younger kids to strive for the same thing.
  • Negative: Are we limiting ourselves by placing such a high emphasis on education? What about people who don’t graduate high school? Granted, 99% of the students in our groups might graduate, but is that because our communities’ attitudes towards education are unwelcoming to high school dropouts? Are kids who drop out ashamed to show up in our churches? Are we sending a message that the only people who are valuable in our churches are those who are “successful” and educated? If we do continue to celebrate graduation in this way, how can we remain open to dropouts?

And, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t go to our kids’ graduation parties and ceremonies, but asking if it is appropriate to communally and/or in a worship service recognize this (what some would call) privileged demographic in our society. Your thoughts?

Comments (4)
Categories : Ecclesiology, Theology, Youth Ministry

Now Reading: The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics by Stanley Hauerwas

By Matt · Comments (0)
Sunday, May 18th, 2008

The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics by Stanley HauerwasI also started another book this week: The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer In Christian Ethics. I’ve had the book for a while and have wanted to read something by Hauerwas, who intrigues me even though I’ve never read anything of his. I got introduced to him via quotes I read on blogs and these videos of his lectures.

I know lots of people say to only read one book at a time, but I’ve found it helpful to read at least two books at once. It’s interesting to me to see the connections between books that you read. It seems like my brain is constantly drawing out the implications of one book in light of the other. It’s a good interdisciplinary exercise.

Hopefully I can post my thoughts on the book when I’m done.

Comments (0)
Categories : Books, Theology
Tags : ethics, Hauerwas
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