Crooner…

I just downloaded Call Me Irresponsible by Michael Buble and am really enjoying it.  He is of the likes of the old crooners like Sinatra, Dean, and Crosby.  In fact, he has redone a few of Sinatra’s tunes and Mercer’s.  It is very good if you care to try him out.

Chapter 3…

The Christian Tradition is still great. Sometimes I feel it is eating my lunch – as the saying goes, but I am learning a lot. Most of the content in volume 1 has been subjects with which I am quite familiar. What I like about Pelikan is that he about as unbiased as an author can be when writing on these things. I have found very few opinions expressed – only fact. Therefore, although I know some about the subjects at hand, the knowledge I gained was from a very biased point-of-view. Much of the doctrine and history that I was taught, although factual, were somewhat skewed. I suppose when you are as accomplished as Pelikan, there are not too many with whom you must try and win favor.

Chapter 3: The Faith of the Church Catholic

In response to heretics and their doctrines (heresies), the Church decided it must have a confession. It must state what it believes in order to have a quantifiable way to anathematize someone. So, the church catholic began to meet in what were known as synods and councils to outline what it believed.

To begin, the church decided that all doctrines must be foremost filtered through one idea – apocalypticism.

“Apocalypticism…was the mother of all Christian theologies.” The earliest christology was not expressed in the cool identification of Jesus with the Logos as the rational principle of the universe, but in the fervid vision of the Son of man breaking the power of the demons and ushering in the new aeon with divine judgment and mercy…Each major tenet of primitive Christian belief must be understood in this apocalyptic context: the very charter of orthodoxy, the command of the risen Lord to the apostles to make disciples and to teach them to observe everything that he had commanded, was predicated on the promise and the prophecy that he would be with them until the consummation of the age.

As anyone who has read the New Testament has noticed, not only Jesus himself, but also the apostles (particularly Paul) wrote often of the second coming of the Son of man. Paul emphatically urged his readers to look to the coming of Christ. He spoke of it as if it would happen in his day.

Many of the sacraments and doctrines had a direct relation to the apocalyptic vision. Take for instance baptism and the Eucharist: “Baptism was a radical renunciation of the past and of this world, the breaking through of the kingdom into this present age.” “The eucharistic liturgy was not a compensation for the postponement of the parousia, but a way of celebrating the presence of one who had promised to return.”

However, although the second coming was a primary force of the New Testament, “the apostolic tradition had very little to say about the details of eschatology.” Therefore, many eschatologies in the beginning were not all agreed upon, but many accepted as a valid opinion to keep. Yet, the fathers did decide that if any eschatology denied the creed, it would be labeled heresy and its teacher anathematized; “eschatology that went beyond the creed was tolerated as a private opinion (as in the case of Origenism and Millenarianism.”

Most of the early church teachings on eschatology had an already/not yet implication. This is still a very prominent understanding of the apocalyptic vision. A great contemporary theologian who explains it in a very understandable way is George Eldon Ladd. Another author who is more philosophically bent who explains this understanding in a more academic (philosophical: metaphysical) way is Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy.

The Supernatural Order. The primitive church also decided that an order of the supernatural had to be decided upon. Questions that begged to be answered were: Who are the angels? On what level in comparison to God are they? What is to be said of miracles? What about the relation of prayer to providence? Many of the discussions generated from these questions generated new questions regarding man and free will, a personal God, and fatalism.

The Meaning of Salvation. In speaking on salvation, the church threw out many ideas and several stuck. The idea of imitation of God as the end of salvation came from Platonic thought. Imitation was “laden with connotation which it had acquired in Platonic usage, where imitation had come to mean “the process by which the poet or actor assimilates himself…to the person whom he is portraying and thereby extinguishes his own personality for the time being” and where the imitation of God was the ideal.” Many liturgical writings of the fathers speak of Christ’s death as a sacrifice; a term echoed in Old Testament and pagan ideas of worship (an idea we still hold over today – a time in which we no longer even have sacrifices). Tertullian cited pagan worship for “the appropriateness of the idea.”

A major contribution to the meaning of salvation in the early church was Irenaeus’s paraphrase of Matthew 12:29 -

“He [Christ] fought and was victorious; for he was man doing battle for the fathers, and by his obedience utterly abolishing disobedience. For he bound the strong man, liberated the weak, and by destroying sin endowed his creation with salvation.” From these statements of Irenaeus…it is evident that not only the resurrection of Christ, but especially his passion and death belonged to the description of salvation as the victory of Christ over the enemies of man.

By 370, the Western church was teaching that the “atonement [was] a sacrifice and increasingly [was] an act of satisfaction offered by the death of Christ.” The eastern church stayed more along the lines of Irenaeus (quoted above) which assigned the death and resurrection “the triumph celebrated by Christ over the devil and his legions.”

I also like what Clement of Alexandria had to teach. Pelikan describes it as, “The good tutor, the Logo, healed the body and soul, granting restoration of health to the sick and forgiveness to the sinners; and to both he was “the Savior.”"

All in all, Pelikan concludes “that the church could not regard “salvation” as simply a restoration of what had been lost in the first Adam, the original creation; it had to be an incorporation into what had been vouchsafed in the second Adam, a new creation.”

Lastly, Pelikan describes the primitive church’s deliberation about what the means of grace are. They included: the Church, the Scriptures, the priesthood, the sacraments, and the indwelling of the Logos. The rest of this long chapter talked of each of these and how they made grace available to a person. I made many notes in this section and could probably write an entire seminary paper on my opinions of the “means of grace” articulated not only in the early church father’s but also today, but I am going to defer to later post.

I have almost completed the book. It is only seven chapters long, but the book is 400 pages in length. I only have one chapter to go; therefore, chapters 4,5, and 6 are to follow.

I’ve already prayed for you…

Earlier today, my wife and I were listening to a talk given by a friend of ours. It was entitled “How God Changes Us.” We both took away different things, but both of us found a particular part of the talk very encouraging. He was teaching at this point on Jesus’ and Peter’s dialogue regarding Peter’s future denial.

To recall the story, it goes something like this: Jesus mentions to Peter that Satan had requested to sift him like wheat. He also tells him that Peter will deny him 3 times before the cock crows. Lastly, Jesus tells him that he has already prayed for Peter that his faith will be strengthened and that he will come back to encourage the others.

Now it used to be that when I read this story, I felt so poorly for Peter. I had known the shame and frustration and doubt that Peter must have felt. Of course he wanted to be confident that he would not deny Jesus. He told Jesus that he would die for him. He tried to reassure Jesus that he was mistaken. However, we have all read the rest of the story. Peter does deny Jesus, and he then feels great remorse. Now I could really identify with Peter here. More shame, more guilt, more doubt, more questioning whether or not I really was devoted to Jesus as I thought I was just a few hours ago. Maybe I really wasn’t saved, maybe I really was still evil and apart from God. I am sure he, like I, thought that Jesus had to be so disappointed in him; maybe even ashamed of him.

But God has done something to me in this past year or so that has caused me and my wife (and our friend giving this talk) to read this story from a whole other vantage point. I replay the dialogue in my head and I am sure it would go something like this.

Jesus says, “Peter, Satan has requested to sift you like wheat.” Peter responds, “Oh, well you told him that he couldn’t, right?…Right, you did tell him, ‘No,’ right, Jesus?” Jesus smiles and says, “Peter, you will deny me three times before the morning, BUT, I have prayed for you that your faith will remain and even be strengthened and that you will be an encouragement to our friends – those here with us.” Peter then goes on to explain his devotion and so on and so forth.

I had never noticed before that Jesus didn’t repspond to Peter in anger or disappointment. He responded to him the best way possible. Jesus already knew that Peter would fail and sin. Knowing this, he simply prayed on behalf of Peter to the Father that Peter would remain confident in his devotion. For Jesus certainly knew Peter’s heart and that his devotion really was there. But, he also knew that Peter did not rest firmly enough in Father’s care to remain faithful this time. He probably also knew, that about 40 years later, Peter would no longer deny him, but would give his life for his name.

The Jesus I once knew, would have more appropriately responded, “Go and stay in your home for the next few days. If you go out in that crowd you are going to sin and shame me, so please, whatever you do, stay in your home and do not tempt yourself to deny me. You should do all you can to keep from stumbling, so hiding is going to be the best and most righteous strategy for you.” Sad I know, but I don’t think I am alone in that thinking unfortunately.

The good news here is that Jesus didn’t attempt to blame or shame Peter. He knew Peter would sin, but looking past the sin, Jesus prays for him and intercedes knowing that Peter needed not be concerned with the denial, but with the fact that Jesus cared for him.

For those of us who have lived in legalism for a time (a long time), seeing little nuances like this in the gospel stories can be quite encouraging.