God is the one who remembers. Everything. Everyone, every being, is remembered by God. A God who understands human weakness, but also a God who judges each of us. Everything you or I do matters, because it will be remembered by God. Those who made the Holocaust possible will be remembered by God. My Grandson, who contributes a large portion of his small salary to charity will be remembered. Remembered and judged by God. For all eternity. But that’s it. God does not punish the bad or reward the good. In the end we return to the stardust from which we came. But God knows. Forever. Kind acts and cruel acts are not the same. God knows the difference and remembers, even when humans have forgotten. Everything you do is of eternal significance.
What do Niebuhr, Barth, Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, and Tillich have in common? More than you might imagine.
What do Niebuhr, Barth, Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, and Tillich have in common? More than you might imagine.
Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rudolf Bultmann, and Paul Tillich are the most well-known Protestant theologians of the twentieth-century. All downplay the mythical worlds of heaven and hell. The eschaton is now; we have already been saved by Christ’s intervention in history; he need not come again. What we have to do is live up to what we have been given gratis. Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, and Barth hold this view most strongly, Niebuhr less so, and I’m ignoring important differences among them.
Bultmann and Barth come to this view because there is nothing left but faith. If we regard the Bible as historically bound, while at the same time conveying an essential truth, then that truth must be known by faith alone. The Bible provides symbols, such as the cross, to help us discover and express that faith.
Paul Tillich and existential Christianity
Paul Tillich and existential Christianity
Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was a popular theologian* who reinterpreted the Bible in terms of existential themes. Existentialism was fashionable in the 1950’s, for it addressed the loneliness and absence of meaning that many felt after World War Two. We had won the war, the economy was booming, but what was the point of it all, especially when the population of the planet could be annihilated in an hour; for this was the height of the Cold War?
Unusual for a popular author, Tillich was also esteemed by his colleagues for his intellectual rigor, above all his three-volume masterwork, Systematic Theology. There and in his more popular works, Tillich transformed the language of the Bible into the language of existentialism. God became our “ultimate concern” and sin became estrangement, separation from God, from self, and from neighbor (Essential, pp 165-166).
Hauerwas and the end of socially responsible Christianity
Is Stanley Hauerwas the end of socially responsible Christianity?
Stanley Hauerwas was named “America’s best theologian” by Time Magazine in 2001. It’s been a few years, but was he ever America’s best theologian? Or does that category even make sense?
Hauerwas’ most well-known and popular book is Resident Aliens. There he argues that Christians should see themselves as “resident aliens” in a foreign land. Instead of attempting to influence government and society, Christians should live lives that exemplify the love of Christ. The first social task of the church is to be the church (Peaceable Kingdom, loc 235, 2492).
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Martin Luther King’s letter from the apostle Paul: two revolutionaries
Martin Luther King’s letter from the apostle Paul: two revolutionaries
April 4th was the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. In remembering this date, we mark the death of a martyr. The apostle Paul was also a peaceful social revolutionary who likely died a martyr’s death at the hands of the Romans. For many people, Paul was an uptight social conformist who encouraged slaves to remain with their masters (Ephesians 5-9). Martin Luther King knew better. One thing he probably knew is that Ephesians is one of the many forged letters. Martin Luther King’s letter from Paul is the post for today, but first a few comments on Paul, and why he fits so well with MLK.
Continue reading Martin Luther King’s letter from the apostle Paul: two revolutionaries
The Grand Inquisitor, then and now
The Grand Inquisitor, then and now
“The Grand Inquisitor” is a short story by the Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov (1880). It is told by Ivan, an atheist, to his brother Alyosha (Alexi), who is studying at a monastery. Ivan’s fable begins with Christ’s brief visit to Spain in the middle of the Spanish Inquisition. Rather than arriving on clouds of glory, Christ quietly appears amid a crowd of people, healing some, and raising a dead child. Though he speaks not a word, everyone knows who he is. The Grand Inquisitor has Christ jailed.
The people don’t want you, says the Inquisitor, because all you can offer them is freedom and salvation. What people really want is magic, mystery, and authority. Add bread, and they will follow you anywhere. Christ made the mistake of offering them freedom.
Instead of the strict ancient law, man had in future to decide for himself with a free heart what was good and what was evil, having only your image before him as a guide. (Karamazov, bk 5, c 5)
Paul, the first Jew for Jesus
Paul, the first Jew for Jesus
The apostle Paul has gotten a bad rap. He is supposedly anti-Semitic, anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-sex. This reputation is undeserved. In some ways he was more socially revolutionary that Jesus. Not more revolutionary than Christ in terms of thought, the Word and deed, but more concerned with social revolution as the beginning of a new age. Contrary to his reputation, Paul does not want people to stay in their places, or at least it’s a lot more complex than that.
The main reason for this misunderstanding is that almost half of Paul’s letters are now considered forgeries of varying quality.
Real letters: 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Romans.
Forged letters: Colossians, Ephesians, Titus, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 2 Thessalonians.
Several legitimate letters are probably composites of additional Pauline letters. Furthermore, later scribes seemed to have felt free to make additions, especially concerning Paul’s attitude toward women (Wright, pp. 80-81, 424-425; Wills, pp 89-104). Finding the real Paul is a task in itself.
Does Reinhold Niebuhr believe in God?
Around the middle of the twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr was the most prominent Protestant theologian in America. He was on the cover of Time magazine (March 8, 1948). More recently, Barack Obama called Niebuhr his favorite philosopher (Brooks). Niebuhr is author of the well-known serenity prayer.
God give us the grace to accept things that cannot be changed.
Courage to change the things that should be changed.
And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.
While many readers admire Niebuhr’s wisdom, fewer have been able to discern his theology. Some find none at all. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. spoke for many agnostics in wondering whether Niebuhr’s wisdom on human nature had anything to do with his Christian theology (Crouter, p 96). He was wrong. Niebuhr’s theology is deep, sophisticated, and informs the two concepts by which he understands the day-to-day world: idolatry and sin. Yet about one of the most terrible issues of our age, annihilatory evil, Niebuhr is led astray by his own theology.