Spiritual Transformation

Without responding to God’s call and provision, spiritual transformation is stunted and we do not participate fully in the development and enjoyment of kingdom living. Our lives are formed, whether by default as driven by the tides of cultural environment, personal proclivities, or spiritual forces; and they are lived according to that forming. Speaking of Christian forming Gordon Mursell says, “The essence of this spirituality is . . . namely the relationship between the gracious God and the saved sinner.”[1] Our lives, when formed by cooperation with God are transformed lives—a reference that indicates the changed and higher nature of such a life. It is a life that increasingly conforms to the image and likeness of God.

There has been an insufficient focus on Christian spiritual transformation within the church for the preceding two hundred years.[2] Although there has been a beginning turnaround, history lamentably exposes an essential need for more people, and communities, to come into a full knowledge of God’s call to discipleship. It is a discipleship manifested in the kingdom life as recorded in both the history of the Bible and extra-biblical writings. Kingdom living is transformed living. We do not enter into this kingdom living without transformation. A transformed life expresses the kingdom life just as winged flight and bird song express a measure of the bird kingdom. This Christian kingdom life is expressed in numerous passages such as Matthew 5-7, Romans 14:17, 1 Corinthians 4:20, Galatians 5:22, Ephesians 4:24, and Colossians 3:10-17.

Kingdom life is holiness and wholeness. It is a life that goes on from, and is above, accepting doctrine to living with God and expressing him. Kingdom life is the transformed life. As far as the transformed life is full and mature it is synonymous with the kingdom life. Where the transformed life falls short it falls short of expressing the kingdom life. If Jesus Christ is the kingdom life (Matthew 4:17; 18:20; John 14:6-7; 18:36; Acts 8:12), my basis here, then to live the kingdom life is to live Jesus (Galatians 2:20). Jesus is the Kingdom life, and by that this author means that the life of Jesus is the realm in which we are to live, and move, and have our being. Jesus claimed that he is "the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) in which we should live, in which we should live the kingdom life. Living in him (abiding in him) is living the kingdom life. It is to live the life Jesus would live if he were living the disciple’s life today.[3]

Practicing spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation, fasting, silence, celebration, and abstinence facilitates kingdom life. The kingdom life is lived in God, through God, by God, and in expression of God. It is a life that is increasingly salt and light, does not retaliate, and loves our enemies (Matthew 5:13-16, 38-48).  It is our life in which we come to God with the acceptance, dependence, and innocence of a child (Mark 10:14-15). The kingdom life expresses “the fruit of the Spirit [which] is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22, 23a).[4]

This kingdom life is that to which God has called us. The kingdom life expresses the beatitudes and the fruit of the Spirit. It is the transformed life matured and a life made more reflective of God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26; Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthian 3:18; Colossians 3:10). Moreover, God provides the means to such a life. He enables us to live this life in increasing spiritual maturity (Luke 8:14; 1 Corinthians 14:20; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 4:13; Colossians 4:12; Hebrews 5:14-6:1). This call from God is for the kingdom life to which we are to respond.

We have the opportunity and privilege of responding to God’s calling and provision for spiritual transformation. Additionally, this response leads to the expected spiritual progression that should naturally follow after the new birth described in the Gospel of John. John 3:16 Unfortunately, this passage is popularly quoted for proof of salvation without much attention usually given to the changed nature of the new life that should proceed from the new-birth. This new life, in growing maturity, is the transformed life. It is the kingdom life to the degree it expresses God’s image and likeness.

Although more than two billion people in the world call themselves Christians,[5] what too many “lack is a disciplined life and a critical mind to resist the temptation to conform to what just anyone might think or do (Rom 12:1-3). Decisiveness is the mark of true discipleship.”[6] Too often, those of us concerned with living an example of Christianity are focused on law keeping as a means to that end. Many others are willing, in an almost antinomian (lawless) manner, to agree that such a life is desirable but without restrictive requirements. That is, they might contend, no requirements can be made of the disciple. This spiritual life, if it is possible, they argue, must be spontaneous and confessed as a reality despite possible evidence to the contrary.  Some further argue that the demands of such passages as Matthew 5-7 may only be interpreted for a future kingdom of God in the new heaven and earth.[7]

Nominal Christianity in the forms of undisciplined living and self-justified antinomian tendencies hinder the great commission (Matthew 28:18-20). In this commission Jesus directed his followers to make disciples. This, of course, is preceded by conversion. Indeed, conversion is the prerequisite to discipleship. Jesus spoke of his authority to fulfill this disciple-making commission when he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18b).

This authority supports the disciple-making commission. We are to observe what Jesus taught his apostles. God calls and provides, and we must respond. This process, not reserved for a future time, results in spiritual transformation as the expression of kingdom life.

Four considerations are helpful to this pursuit: (1) An examination of the meaning of Christian spiritual transformation, (2) what God’s call is to his disciples for Christian spiritual transformation, (3) how God calls disciples to Christian spiritual transformation, and (4) how disciples cooperate with that call and avail themselves of God’s provision for Christian spiritual transformation and kingdom living. We will examine these in future posts.

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[1]Gordon Mursell, gen. ed., The Story of Christian Spirituality: Two Thousand Years from East to West (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press 2001), p.167.

[2]Eugene H. Peterson, Subversive Spirituality (Grand Rapids, MI: Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Regent College Publishing, 1997), p. 3.

[3]Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1998), p. 283.

[4]Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible references come from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

[5]Adherents.com “Major Religions of The World
Ranked by Number of Adherents,” Preston Hunter; available fromhttp://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html: Internet; accessed 29 February 2008.
[6]Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study Of The Christian Life (Downer Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 69. 

[7]Frank E. Gaebelein, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: The Zondervan Corporation, 1984), vol. 8, Matthew-Mark-Luke, p. 127.

Story

Søren Kierkegaard hit home regarding my view of story when he said that “people held in the grip of an illusion cannot be directly reasoned with. One must assault them with appealing but apparently absurd stories and even contradictions in the desperate hope that indirect communication can accomplish what direct communication cannot.”

As valuable as direct, unhindered truth is, it is often missed, unaccepted, or misunderstood. Story, among a number of things, is a means to break through the preconceptions and presuppositions that hinder our minds from seeing different perspectives and truths. Our tremendous capacity is limited by packed-in, “received” knowledge.  Story disarms us and allows the assault of counter-grain views and visions. This is often the meaning of story in the scriptures. But our proclivity looks for facts and twists the story into science and western concepts of history thereby missing the intent and spender of the affect of story which is often called myth.

I plan to further examine these preliminary thoughts in my ongoing doctoral studies dedicating a chapter to its understanding and application.  Yes, I know whole books have been dedicated to this study, but unless the subject of my PhD is modified a chapter will have to suffice. Thoughts? Resources? Discussion?

Communion in God's Communion

Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communio. One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the Triune God- a "foursome," as it were-- for the Christian God is not a private deity. Communion with this God is at once also communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God. Hence one and the same act of faith places a person into a new relationship both with God and with all others who stand in communion with God.--Miroslav Volf (After Our Likeness: The Church As the Image of the Trinity)

Tired, Poor, Huddled, Refuse, And Homeless

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!--Emma Lazarus, @ the foot of the Statue of Liberty

Many enjoy hailing the earlier days of this country and yet fail to recognize its failings to live up to its spoken vision. What do such words mean in light of the present issues with immigration, gender struggles, and the poor, disenfranchised, outcast—basically the "huddled masses"?

Understanding

The average effort to understanding is wholly inadequate, and it screams ignorance, bigotry, xenophobia, hate, self-serving, and darkness.

Factual Goodness

Character assassination and general ad hominem attacks do not negate the factual goodness of what one may have spoken or accomplished. The rhetoric that often passes as reasonable argument is a tragic display of the misuse of the intellect and of one another. Sadly, this behavior is often a misguided response to fear, lack of understanding, and hate.

Lables

To be labeled by someone who does not claim the same designation is often to have been defined as something pejorative in the mind of the one attaching the label: liberal, conservative, gay, fundamentalist, atheist, Christian, homosexual, white, feminist, progressive, Muslim, emergent, agnostic, politician, minority, socialist. . . . The list is as long as varying opinions. Our image and feelings about these labels, and those labeled, is usually, spontaneously driven by where we stand on the continuum of their definitions, their goodness, and the condition of our hearts.

Lavishly Inclusive

To be inclusive is to reflect God’s heart. He didn’t only die for your house and clan or mine. He died for the house and clan you and I might marginalize for their differences, their “bad” theology and company, their different cultural expressions, and their different orientation. Lay your head on Christ’s bosom and be mindful for whom he was and is available: the prostitute, the thief, the adulterer, the murderer, the disenfranchised, . . . and you and me. If we would stay there, then we must also be availably and lavishly inclusive.

Means

Even if the purpose is attainable, the question must be, “Is it the right purpose?” Moreover, we must pursue the right no matter the outcome, which belongs to God. The means are not justified by the ends. Having said that, I never support killing, for all people are created in God’s image and likeness. However, I expect a non-Christian, non-theocratic state to pursue and protect its interests. That is its purpose, despite that we are part of God’s kingdom and submit to its demands and, therefore, follow a different call than the state where it contradicts God’s kingdom. No flag can cover a violation of loving God and neighbor.

Chicken Little

One day the first grade teacher was reading the story of Chicken Little to her class. She came to the part where Chicken Little warns the farmer. She read, “. . . and Chicken Little went up to the farmer and said, ‘The sky is falling!’” The teacher then asked the class, “And what do you think that farmer said?” One little girl raised her hand and said, “I think he said, ‘Holy sh*t! A talking chicken!’” The teacher was unable to teach for the next ten minutes.—Anonymous.  How often we only see the expected. What is behind the surface?

The Offer

I was interacting on another blog about a homosexual couple in which several people had some disparaging things to say. I briefly addressed these issues there, and I have invited the dialogue to this blog to give the couple on the other blog space to celebrate without ugly and myopic comments. The follow was my most recent response:

Revelation

What is important about revelation is not that we seek to interpret it in the same way but that we all love it and are transformed by it. To fail to recognize this would be similar to an art critic saying that what is important when considering a piece of art is that we interpret it correctly rather than loving it and being challenged by it. Indeed, this is what happens when we see various groups and denominations being set up that are founded upon the supposedly 'correct' interpretation of revelation. While joining together in groups that share the same Christian tradition has an important role, the problem arises when we claim that we have the right interpretation while all those who disagree with us are ignorant, deluded or sinfully turning their eye away from the clear light of revelation.—Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press,  2006),  p. 17.

Adam and Eve and Science

What, if anything, does evolution do to the Christian faith? Click on the title above for a video to get the discussion going. Then listen to what N. T. Wright has to say on the same subject: http://biologos.org/resources/nt-wright-on-adam-and-eve/

Green Fields

There is a fossilized and often frightened part of us that does not want to be unsettled by different than we are. We find defense and support for our too often moribund opinions in unexamined creeds, anachronistic institutions, and hackneyed cant. To think with fresh insight may threaten our worldviews and thereby our stability and protected enclaves. To question authority and the “known” may bring down upon us the wrath of present orthodoxy. We often speak past one another with different definitions of the same terms in our attempts to be diplomatic. Or we rail against those in disagreement with us—those who “stupidly” don’t see things the way we do. It may be frightening to question foundational understandings and doctrinaire presumptions, but it is this that leads to green fields and fills our hearts with existential knowing. To become unsettled in truth seeking is the joy in the pain of birthing.

Christian Atheism

No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God.—George H. Bush

—Echoes of Caesar. It is enlightening to know that early Christians were referred to as "atheists." They came along not believing in any of the many gods of Rome or in Caesar as god. When the state foists a particular religion onto its citizens with the judgement that they are not "citizens" or "patriots" because they do not believe in the subscribed gods, the people of the state are no longer free, and the minds and hearts of its people are enslaved. It seems to me a good thing to be "atheistic" or at least agnostic regarding the cant of the establishment whether political, secular, or religious. 

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure—that is all that agnosticism means.—Clarence Darrow

What Do We Do with Spiritual Disciplines?

Let's have a conversation on the increasing controversy about Christian Spiritual transformation. As you may know, many Christians are concerned about, what they regard as, the rise of Catholic and Eastern mysticism in Protestant churches practicing the various techniques intended as means to spiritual transformation.Lectio divina, meditation, centering prayer, imaging, and a host of other practices or disciplines have been offered to the spiritually hungry as means to intimacy with God. 

What say you? Is there reason for concern or caution? Or should these kinds of practices be employed without discrimination? So as not to sway the beginning discussion, I will wait for the first comment before I give my take on the issues.

To Be Wrong

The claim that Christ died for the sins of the world rests upon who Christ is. That is, Christology will inform Christian beliefs regarding the all-important work, acceptance, status, and accessibility of salvation as provided by Christ. To be wrong here is to miss the mark and to believe a lie.

God-Man

Jesus Christ is the agent, foundation, center, and completion of salvation. All that is required for lost creation is found in the salvific work of Christ. God’s incarnation pointed to the need of Jesus' suffering on the cross, and nothing was allowed to get in the way of that mission, not even those who were closest to him (Mark 8: 31-33). This was God communicating his will in his incarnation to affect salvation. The God-man’s free-will action demonstrated an unimaginable union of God and man for the satisfaction of God and the salvation of man.

One Person

To suppose that a man, Jesus, was assumed by God proposes two minds and two wills. Minds and wills belong to persons. So in order for Christ to have two, he would have to be two persons. One mind and will belonging to God and the second set to the man Jesus. Jesus would possess his own mind and will before God’s incarnation and assumption of him and, if it were of necessity, after God were to leave him. Not only so, but these two minds and wills would be active in the God-man. This incredible proposition of schizophrenia, in the bearer of the world’s salvation, violates the accepted axiom that “Christ is one person with two natures; therefore, whatever goes with natures, Christ has two of, and whatever goes with persons, he has one of.” Christ’s self-consciousness and self-determination are established and found in and only in the God-man as two natures and one person. Christ’s nature found itself only in union with the divine and has no being apart from that union.

Fundamentalism Isn’t Too Violent, It Isn’t Violent Enough

By Peter Rollins

The title for this post comes from the title of one of the talks I have been giving on the ‘Lessons’ tour. The main gist of the argument lies in exploring how the fundamentalism we witness at work today is, at its core, a movement that conserves and preserves the status quo. Its violence at the subjective level (e.g. defending the evils of misogyny, homophobia, unjust conflicts and self-interested foreign policy) is the direct outworking of its ultimate impotence when it comes to instigating real change.

Take the example of so many wars today. Amidst all their violence they are more often than not fought in order to preserve the way things are, to protect people in power, or to accumulate more resources. Thus their horrific violence at the subjective level hides the fact that they preserve the deeper objective violence of the system itself. The bloodshed thus helps to maintain the injustice that currently exists, ensuring that structures of oppression remain unchallenged.

In the same way fundamentalism, while violent at a surface level (at the level of everyday life) is simply a mask that hides the fact that it does not rock the very foundations of worldly power. Its frantic posturing and aggression is ultimately in the service of those with power, money, and voice. In this way their various highly funded projects designed to change society actually ensure that nothing of any significance really changes (those who are oppressed continue to be oppressed, the rich continue to get richer, the poor continue to get poorer).

Let us not then attack such a position for being too violent (apart from anything else, this is what such a movement thrives on; seeing itself as the church militant), rather we must pull back the curtain and show the impotent wizard for who it really is.

In contrast to fundamentalism it is people like Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King who, in their pacifism, are truly violent (who are the true church militant). In their non-participation and uncompromising actions they lived out an alternative vision of how the world could work, directly challenging the foundations of worldy power. In their seductive vision of an alternative world and their unrelenting quest to pursue it they ruptured the systems of power that surrounded them and thus expressed the true violence of Christianity. A violence that shifts the underground by allowing the outsider to be heard.

Thus, the next time we hear of some blustering speaker attempt to bolster their support by making themselves sound like the follower of a cage-fighting, bodybuilding Jesus, we should avoid the trap of arguing that their image of Jesus is too violent and instead show how it isn’t nearly violent enough. Drawing out how, amidst all their seeming machismo they are little more than a timid sheep in wolves clothing.

By Peter Rollins

http://peterrollins.net/blog/?cat=14