Archives For Bible

Lesslie Newbigin on the Bible’s unique interpretation of history

August 28, 2012 — Leave a comment

After some time living in India, the missiologist Lesslie Newbigin was challenged by a well-educated Hindu friend, who said to him:

I can’t understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion — and anyway we have plenty of books on religion in India. We don’t need any more! I find your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.

Newbigin realized his friend was right. This was a turning point in Newbigin’s understanding of the Bible, and in turn, his understanding of mission. In A Walk Through the Bible (Barefoot Ministries), the print version of a series of radio talks, Newbigin presents the Bible as one story that offers a unique account of history and “enables us to understand our own lives as part of that story.”

This is especially crucial, he says, because humans have tended to go in one of two directions in making sense of life. On the one hand have been those who have seen individual human beings as expendable contributors to some ideological project. “The logic of this,” Newbigin says, “has been developed with terrible precision in some of the movements of the twentieth century in which millions of men and women have been sacrificed for the sake of some ideology, some vision of a perfect society in the future.”

On the other hand, many attempt to find meaning and purpose through the pursuit of personal fulfillment, which “inevitably takes [us] away in the end from total involvement in the human project of civilization.” There are many who pursue personal fulfillment without any reference to God, but this approach is at home in religious circles as well. As we all know, “there is a kind of spirituality that leads us away from our active involvement in the business of the world.”

“So the alternatives,” Newbigin summarizes, “seem to be either finding meaning for history as a whole at the cost of no meaning for my personal life; or else finding meaning for my personal life at the cost of no meaning for the story as a whole.”

The Bible, however, read as “a unique interpretation of universal history,” shows us a third way. And it does so by making sense of death. As Newbigin writes, “We die because nothing that we have done or been is good enough for God’s perfect kingdom.” But Jesus, by his death and resurrection, takes care of the problem of sin and death as a barrier to the kingdom, and that, as we know, makes all the difference both now and forever:

So in so far as I commit all that I do, imperfect as it is, to God in Jesus Christ, knowing that much of it is utterly unfit to survive and yet trusting that what has been committed in faith will find its place in God’s final kingdom, that gives me something to look forward to in which both my hopes for the world and my hopes for myself are brought together.

The book of Revelation offers us the vision of a city which is on the one hand the perfection of all human striving towards beauty, civilization and good order, and on the other hand is the place where every tear is dried and where every one of us knows God face to face, and knows that we are his and he is ours. That is the vision with which the Bible ends, and it is a vision that enables us to see the whole human story and each of our lives within that story as meaningful, and which therefore invites us through Jesus Christ to become responsible actors in history, not to seek to run away from the responsibilities and the agonies of human life in its public dimension. Each of us must be ready to take our share in all the struggles and the anguish of human history and yet with the confidence that what is committed to Christ will in the end find its place in his final kingdom.

That means that as I look forward I don’t see just an empty void, I don’t just see my own death, I don’t just see some future utopia in which I shall have no share. The horizon to which I look forward is that day when Jesus shall come, and his holy city will come down as a bride from heaven adorned for her husband.

What would change if we began reading the Bible not merely as a book of “religion” but as “a unique interpretation of universal history”? How can we ensure our lives are aligned, not according to some ideology or pursuit of personal fulfillment, but to the story of the Bible?

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Henri Nouwen on suffering, joy, and the coming Kingdom

March 26, 2012 — Leave a comment

In Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming (Image Books), Henri Nouwen reflects on the well-known parable through the lens of Rembrandt’s classic depiction of it. Over the course of the book, Nouwen sees himself in the waywardness of the younger brother, he sees himself in the self-righteousness of the elder brother, and ultimately, he sees that’s he’s called to become like the compassionate, welcoming Father in his grief, his forgiveness and his generosity.

Near the end of the book, having reflected on the many ways in which we are all the younger brother who squanders what’s entrusted to us, and how we’re all the elder brother standing aloof, thinking ourselves better than our brother, he turns to the wonderful truth that even so we’re invited to the Father’s embrace and celebration. The younger brother enters the party with repentance and joy, but in the parable and in Rembrandt’s painting the elder brother’s story is left unresolved. We don’t know whether he’ll accept the invitation or whether he’ll remain stiff, standing alone, in the shadows.

Our world is marked by much that is not right, much that is broken. We see some of that brokenness in the inner and outer lives of the brothers, in their relationship to each other and in their relationship with the Father. But the Christian hope is that one day all things will be made new, and that will be cause for some real joyful celebration. In the meantime, however, there are small joys. “I don’t have to wait until all is well,” Nouwen writes, ”but I can celebrate every little hint of the Kingdom that is at hand.” We live simultaneously in the already and the not yet:

When Jesus speaks about the world, he is very realistic. He speaks about wars and revolutions, earthquakes, plagues and famines, persecution and imprisonment, betrayal, hatred and assassinations. There is no suggestion at all that these signs of the world’s darkness will ever be absent. But still, God’s joy can be ours in the midst of it all. It is the joy of belonging to the household of God whose love is stronger than death and who empowers us to be in the world while already belonging to the kingdom of joy.

This is the secret of the joy of the saints. From St. Anthony of the desert, to St. Francis of Assisi, to Frere Roger Shultz of Taize, to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, joy has been the mark of the people of God. That joy can be seen on the faces of the many simple, poor, and often suffering people who live today among great economic and social upheaval, but who can already hear the music and the dance in the Father’s house. I, myself, see this joy every day in the faces of the mentally handicapped people of my community. All these holy men and women, whether they lived long ago or belong to our own time, can recognize the many small returns that take place every day and rejoice with the Father. They have somehow pierced the meaning of true joy. (pp. 116-7)

Our hopeful expectation isn’t that someday we’ll be whisked away from this fallen world; rather, it’s that someday Christ will make all things new. It’s a down-to-earth hope, but it’s also cosmic and glorious. It’s truly good news. In the meantime, these already-but-not-yet words of Jesus ring true and make joy a real possibility even now: ”In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

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Weekend Video: “Revelator”

February 25, 2012 — Leave a comment

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I love the music of Josh Garrels. This collaboration project with videographer/artist Evan Mann, vaguely reminiscent of the book of Revelation, is weird and breathtaking and awesome.

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Richard Twiss on following Jesus and being Native

February 14, 2012 — 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago I read One Church, Many Tribes (Regal) by Richard Twiss, a member of the Rosebud Lakota/Sioux tribe and the head of Wiconi International. Through Wiconi, Twiss serves Native groups through education and practical help to improve their quality of life and build relationships that point the way to a hope-filled future for those who have not previously been given much reason to hope. Twiss and his wife started Wiconi with one seemingly simple concept in mind: “You can be Native and a follower of Jesus.”

That may not seem very groundbreaking, but for many it is, since the relationship between Christianity and Native peoples here in North America has never been a particularly good one. Pastor and author Mark Buchanan writes about the arrival of the “people of the Black Book” in what is now Vancouver, British Columbia:

The Tswassens have a prophecy 500 years old. One of their ancient holy men foretold that a people pale as birch would one day come from across the great water in large canoes. They would bring with them a Black Book. The Black Book was Truth, end to end, a gift of inestimable good. The people lived for many years awaiting the prophecy’s fulfillment.

And then one day it happened. The big canoes— bigger than the Tswassens ever imagined—arrived. They teemed with people pale as birch. And, yes, they brought with them a Black Book.

Then the killings started. The Tswassens became an obstacle to the pale men, and the pale men slaughtered them, and those they didn’t slaughter they enslaved.

Given this history, and compared with the justified indignation that saturates the pages of classic accounts like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Twiss’s book is surprisingly hopeful and gracious. He doesn’t skirt around history’s ugliness, but he doesn’t stop there either. He wants to show Native Americans and the rest of us that Native culture isn’t antithetical to following Jesus; rather, the Gospel can be incarnated in Native forms just as easily — and perhaps even more so — than it has been in Western culture. Native Christians don’t need to follow our cultural customs when it comes to church and worship, in other words; instead, they may be better off without them.

But he isn’t out to sow resentment. Instead, he shows how the Gospel is what will bring true reconciliation between us and God, and between Native and non-Native groups. He even suggests that the testimony of Native Christians can be used in powerful ways around the world among others who have also been victims of terrible injustices. In his conclusion he writes:

If we, as Native followers of Jesus, are to emerge from our pain and absence to find our place in the Body of Christ, we need the love and help of all our brethren. Can we be seen as equal partners by the rest of the Body of Christ? Will we be allowed to develop new ways of doing church that honor God’s purposes for the creative expression of our cultures? Will new ministry partnerships and coalitions form? Will you help be a part of this wonderful process of reconciliation, restoration and release?

Twiss is among those I’m most excited to hear speak at The Justice Conference later this month. Here’s a video introducing his topic.

[Photo credit: Rachel Fortney]

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Art, imagination, and liberation

December 13, 2011 — Leave a comment

I don’t normally think of myself as an artist, but being made in the image of the Creator God, all of us have a bit of that God-given creativity in us, I think. We have all been given different creative instincts; we’ve all been called to create something good using the raw materials with which we’ve been entrusted. For many, art is seen as a mostly indulgent, frivolous undertaking. But that’s a narrow view of art. Art takes a million forms, and while it can certainly distract or dehumanize, it can also be used to liberate. Art is liberating when it turns our focus away from ourselves — turns us outward, possibly even upward.

In his excellent book Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity (InterVarsity Press), singer, songwriter and Biblical scholar Michael Card makes the connection between art and the biblical prophets, emphasizing the generally overlooked spiritual significance of the imagination.

“Through the prophets we come to understand that God is out to recapture all that we are or can hope to be,” he writes, “not just the mind or the heart but the mind of the heart, the heart of the mind, which is the imagination.” Looking at the biblical prophets, we see that the imagination is recaptured mostly through images and parables, but also, at times, through what can only be considered “bizarre activity.” The burden of the prophets was to show the people of God the error of their ways, to plea with them to change course, to return to God, and to do so without wasting another day.

The need for the recapturing of the imagination continues today. And there are few tools better suited to this task than art, which in a million different ways can turn us outward and upward, pointing beyond ourselves and to the one in whose image we have each of us been fearfully and wonderfully made.

[Painting credit: Scott Erickson/derekwebb.com]

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