EngineeredTheology

All Dressed Up and No Place to Go / Puzzled About Paradise
The first two chapters review some of the confusions about heaven. The first reviews some of the different beliefs floating around – the main point being to describe them and contrast against orthodox Christian belief. The second chapter turns to the Christian belief and how much confusion there has been within Christianity.

Early Christian Hope in its Historical Setting
Starting from Judaism, the word resurrection was always description of life after “life after death”. The next step after heaven – and describes a very physical reality. Christianity took this Jewish idea of resurrection and mutated it, focused around Jesus. While mutated, the idea of Christian hope was never a disembodied bliss.

Strange Story of Easter
Why did Christianity mutate and so strongly focus the Jewish idea of resurrection? Our understanding of what happened depends on our world-view. The historicity of easter is reviewed, and the possible explanations quickly refuted. History cannot be proven like science – it is not repeatable. Although a resurrection appears to be the most reasonable explanation of the historical aspects, these details only take us to the Red Sea. It is our decision to pass through it.

Cosmic Future: Progress or Despair?
The prevailing ideas of what we can hope for in the future come in two flavors. The first is evolutionary optimism that “the world can become everything we want it to be by working a bit harder and helping forward the great march into the glorious future” (82). This idea fails because it does not ever solve the problem of evil. The second is that the true reality is beyond space, time, and matter. Once we remove our decaying bodies we can live how we were meant (“go to heaven when you die” (90)). This view is what Christians are supposed to believe.

What the Whole World’s Waiting For
The true Christian hope is not gradual improvement or escape into the spiritual. As for the optimistic evolutionaries, they falls short biblically because “the world is created good but incomplete” (102). For the Gnostics, the climatic scene in Revelation 21-22 is the marriage between heaven and earth. They are “radically different, but they are made for each other in the same way …. as male and female” (105).

Jesus, Heaven, and New Creation
We must seriously acknowledge that the resurrection and ascension are two separate events.

..many people think that Jesus, having been divine, stopped being divine and became human, and then, having been human for a while, stopped being human and want back to being divine (111)

The ascension confirms the trinitarian separation between God the father and Jesus. Jesus was resurrected as a human, and “more solidly embodied human than we are” (114). He has taken his role not as a part of the church, but the director and chief of the church (but separate from the church). When the marriage of heaven and earth come, so will the acknowledgement of his direction of the entire world.

When He Appears
The misinterpretation of the word parousia has led to the misunderstanding of the second coming of Jesus to the idea of a rapture. The word is something that is applied to the coming of foreign dignitaries or rulers. The implication is that the king, who is currently not present, will soon be come. We will then know him in person, where before we only knew him from a distance. It implies not our leaving of this place, but the coming of the king to us.

Jesus, the Coming Judge
The coming judgement of Jesus will the the final verdict for those who are oppressed and against an oppressive power structure. Our current justification in faith is the assurance that we will be judged righteous at this time.

The Redemption of our Bodies
Resurrection is life after life after death. Jesus talks of preparing a place (monai) for us – but this is regularly used in Greek as a “temporary halt on a journey that will take you somewhere else” (150). Our resurrected bodies will be different from our current, but still hold some continuity.

Purgatory, Paradise, Hell
There is much current talk about heaven and hell, but this is not what Christianity is about. Purgatory is a “late, Western innovation, without biblical support” (170). Paradise is the temporary resting place for the saints (a title of all Christians, regardless of actions). Hell is difficult. To acknowledge that there is something wrong, we must acknowledge that “evil must be identified, named, and dealt with” (179). There are people who have totally ceased to reflect any form of God’s image who will continue to be “human” and punished for their inhumanity.

Rethinking Salvation: Heaven, Earth, and the Kingdom of God
Salvation is not about how we get rescued from death, or our private spirituality.

It is the story of God’s kingdom being launched on earth as in heaven, generating a new state of affairs in which the power of evil has been decisively defeated, the new creation has been decisively launched, and Jesus’s followers have been commissioned and equipped to put that victory and that inaugurated new world into practice (204)

Building for the Kingdom
How do we put this new world into practice. We must be careful of the optimistic evolutionary and believe that we can fix things of our own strength and implementing the right social and political structure. We must then not swing to the other side to say there is nothing we can do about it and just have to wait until Jesus comes to sort it all out. We must act as God’s redemptive agents, not to create the new kingdom, but knowing our actions somehow will last into this future kingdom develops into the mission of the church. Evangelism then flows naturally from this as the church invites others to be a part of this new creation by proclaiming (and acting accordingly) that Jesus is lord.

Reshaping the Church for Mission (1): Biblical Roots
While very important, the message of the apostles was not about “his parables, healings, or even his atoning death… (it is that) he is now enthroned as Lord” (243). This then works out that the mission of the church is not about “trying as hard as we can to be good but of learning to live in the new world created by Easter, the new world we publicly entered in our baptism” (253).

Reshaping the Church for Mission (2): Living the Future
In light of this new understanding of Christian hope, we must evaluate what the church is to do. This involves how we celebrate easter, worship, work towards justice, and celebrate the sacraments. This all culminates in love, not just as another thing in our list of requirements, but that “people who truly hope as the resurrection encourages us to hope will be people enabled to love in a new way” (288).

Much of what we consider Christian orthodoxy is based on what the church has taught for thousands of years. It is assumed that as long as our theology is aligned with some of the ancient creedal statements (Nicene Creed, Apostles Creed, etc) that we are in safe theological territory. I wonder, is this really the best place to start. Is it safe to wonder if Augustine was mistaken on some things?

I think we are pretty safe to say that the early church was no friend of Judaism. Even from the book I just read, the epistle of Barnabas is entirely anti Jewish, and the martyrdom of Polycarp has jabs to the Jews (indicating that of course they were front and center to find wood to burn him with). It would be no surprise that the early church would favor a more Greek viewpoint of the scripture, bringing in Platonist thought. To counteract this, there currently is a movement against dualism (God vs. Satan, body vs spirit, heaven vs earth) into a very monotheistic stoicism (bringing creation into harmony).

I wonder how much of this hellenisitic influence impacted our christology. Most of the early epistles warned against Docetism. I wonder how much of this herecy has made its way into and against true christology? It is clear from the new testament that Jesus deserves praise and worship that is reserved only for God. Where is the dividing line between god and man safely drawn? I honestly have no working concept of trinitarian theology (nor does anyone else). How much of that is due to an unhealthy view of christology?

The difficult part is to change christology is to make him incompatible with the Nicene Creed. This would then make the theology outside the normal realms of christianity (and a cult belief). Is it safe to walk down these paths?

The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
This letter is in response to the church in Corinth removing all of its leaders and replaced them with new ones, and is a letter to keep church unity. Church leaders are either direct apostles from Jesus, or men appointed by these apostles after they died should not be removed (as they are faithfully fulfilling the role). He remarks how before (1 Cor 3:4), they have had divisions – but at least all three choices were good ones. Things have now gotten worse from there. His appeal is to be like Moses who stood by the Israelites, even to death, as God threatened to kill them all (Exodus 32:32). If there is any disunity, it would be better for one person to sacrifice themselves to keep the church together.

Ignatius
The letters of Ignatius all have similar messages. First, the appeal for unity and to obey their Deacon and insists on the authority of episcopal succession. Secondly he warns against heresies, specifically that of Docetism (that Jesus’ body was only an illusion, so his passion was not real, so therefore it is of no worth to suffer and die for Christianity). He insists on the humanity of Jesus that he was born and died a man. From this, he discusses his impending martyrdom favorably (and requests that others don’t attempt to free him and steal his victory).

Epistle of Barnabas
This is less of an epistle and more of a treatise, mainly comprised of old testament quotes. The argument is for a completely allegorical reading of those scriptures. Certain passages and practices are pulled out and interpreted allegorically, arguing that the literal meaning has never been meant. Of these, the logic goes from plausible, to somewhat far fetched.

Didache
This is possibly one of the first written catechisms of Christianity. The first part is a contrasting of the ways of life and death (using sayings of Jesus also found in the gospels). The second part is a church manual describing what should be said during baptisms, Eucharists, etc.

I went into the book knowing I would have issues with the Jesus Seminar textual criticism. I don’t understand how someone in one breath can acknowledge there is little information on Jesus outside of the NT, and in the next make proclamations that the information about Jesus in the NT is not factually accurate (using their a priori assumptions). I don’t see the need for the dualism of a pre and post easter Jesus. In fact, I believe these two pictures must into one in order to have any solid understanding of Jesus.

Putting that aside, the second half of the book was very interesting (but since the book is a little old, it isn’t treading new ground). We put a lot of focus on Jesus as being “God”, without real substance behind what that works out to actually mean. The best direction I have is what Borg proposes in viewing Jesus as the embodiment of the “wisdom” and “word” aspects of God (both already being reserved as divine in their own right and extremely significant in the Talmud). In this aspect, the worship reserved for the word of God is naturally applied to Jesus – and a title that he could reasonably apply to himself (which also makes sense of the I am statements that Borg has such a difficult time with).

Finally, I think he is right on in our current overemphasis on the sin story – overshadowing the major themes of exile and exodus. Instead of seeing these as three separate stories, it makes more sense to have three very intertwined. There are some people who need to come to grips that the world does not revolve around them. There are others on the opposite side that need an open door with a smile to tell them that they are now home. The bible offers both.

Meeting Jesus Again
The book starts with Marcus Borg’s search for Jesus through history. It starts with him as a child, believing whatever his parents tell him about Jesus. His doubt grows through college and seminary where he learns about the historical Jesus. He breaks up the views of Jesus into the historical Jesus (pre-easter), and the Jesus of faith (post-easter). The second based on the collective experiences of the church.
What Manner of Man
Borg goes through the historicity of Jesus, claiming that much of what we read in the NT about Jesus is material added by the early church. What is true about Jesus is that he was a spirit person, a wisdom teacher, a social prophet, and a movement founder. He is not unique as a “spirit person” or “mediator of the sacred”, and is in company of other such as Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, or Black Elk (Souix spirit person) – and pre-easter Jesus was certainly not God (37)
Jesus, Compassion, and Politics
Jesus’ ministry focused on compassion. This was very subversive to the culture of the time that defined culture on purity. Purity drew strict social and economic lines of who was in and out, and was upset by the inclusiveness of Jesus. Similar purity lines are drawn in current society by issues like homosexuality.
Jesus and Wisdom
There are two types of wisdom, conventional wisdom and alternative wisdom. Conventional wisdom is what everyone knows, so it has some specifics to individual cultures (manners, customs, social norms), and some generics across culture (basics of rewards and punishments – you reap what you sow, righteous will prosper). The alternative wisdom is what Jesus taught, which subverted conventional wisdom (the last will be first, god lets the sun shine on the good and evil). It is a movement from a rule based lifestyle to a relational lifestyle.
Jesus, the Wisdom of God
Through the OT, concepts such as wisdom (sophia) and the word (logos) are personified. The grandiose terms applied to Jesus that all was created through him, that he was begotten before all worlds, etc are the same phraseology applied to sophia and logos. With a more critical reading of the gospels and Paul, we find that these passages are relating Jesus to sohpia or logos. Therefore Jesus is better understood as the physical representation of sophia and logos, rather than what we find in the trinitarian creeds.
Images of Jesus and Images of the Christian Live
We can see four main thematic stories in the bible, exodus, exile, and priestly. Unfortunately, current Christianity focuses only on the priestly story – dealing with guilt and our distance from God. This myopic view leads to many problems, trying to apply a story where it is not applicable

would be like saying that Moses should have gone into Egypt and said to the Hebrew slaves, “My children, your sins are forgiven.” They would properly have responded, “What? What does that have to do with us? Our problem isn’t that we are sinners, you idiot. Our problem is that we are slaves, oppressed by Pharaoh!” (132)

It is only until this story is added with the other three in harmony that these problems disappear.

This is the last of the books read over vacation, discussing the rise and current state of string theory. It begins with some history of the theory and describes the basic principles (most of which are well covered, but I suspect would be confusing if this was someone’s first book on string theory). The interesting portion of the book describes the current cult following of string theory and how it may be bringing about the end of science.

I’ve always had a problem with string theory because I have never really understood it. I understand the high level concepts, but the reasoning behind it always seems elusive. The main reason behind this is because no one really understands string theory. This is partially because there is no one string theory, and string theory isn’t currently testable (or falsifiable). In fact, it is so varied, you can make just about anything into string theory.

This last point is where the author sees the problem. There has been so much hype about string theory finally bringing about a theory of everything, it is career suicide to do anything but research string theory. Any other competing science is blocked out because there has been such widespread belief that string theory is IT. Unfortunately after 20 years, string theory hasn’t developed into much, and we aren’t any further into understanding it. His argument is maybe it is time to look at the theory on its merits, and not what it might be able to do.

Having a theory that is not falsifiable and can encompass everything is no longer science. One main aspect of science is that you are never truly done. The overwhelming majority of theories are proven wrong sooner or later. This is what fuels are understanding of the world. It is ok to work feverishly on a direction, thinking it describes the world, only to change directions in a few years. In science, it is crucial to be able to be wrong. Once you stop having the ability to change directions, all scientific progress stops as well.

After being interested in string theory for many years, this is the first new book that even touches that there might be something besides string theory.