Not one square inch!
Recently I’ve become acquainted with (and intrigued by) the thought and work of Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch theologian who served as prime minister of the Netherlands a hundred years ago. I’d heard (and instantly loved) his most famous quote before I ever knew much about him:
There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, “This is mine! This belongs to me!”
Regrettably, I must confess that I haven’t yet read any actual books by Kuyper himself, though the recently released English translation of Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art (Christian's Library Press) will soon remedy that. Thus far my introduction to Kuyper has come through a couple of books by Richard Mouw, recommended to me by Gideon Strauss. The first, which I wrote about in January, is a more general book on common grace theology, rooted in Kuyper’s thinking and published a decade ago.
The other is a new book called Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction (Eerdmans). It really is both short and personal. The first half is an overview of Kuyper’s thought on a number of issues related to theology and culture, and the second half is a sort of appropriation of that thinking for the twenty-first century. Mouw focuses on the parts of Kuyper’s thinking that have meant the most to him and that, in his view, have the most relevance for today’s reader.
Among the ideas Kuyper is most well known for is what is called sphere sovereignty. In this way of thinking, culture is composed of a number of distinct spheres. A sphere, as Mouw defines it, is “an arena where interactions take place, and where some sort of authority is exercised.” So the family, church, state, business, art, and university are each spheres, and each “has its own place in God’s plan for the creation, and each is directly under the divine rule.”
That concept may at first seem abstract or irrelevant to some, but to me, it provides a cohesive way of viewing the world, a language for talking about it, and it hints at both the why and the how of Christian cultural engagement. In this view, God intends for the family to be a family, for the church to be the church, for a business to be a business, for the state to be the state, and so on. These different spheres have different purposes and limitations, and it’s important to recognize both. And it’s important to recognize that in the Christian view, Christ is Lord over them all. He’s not unconcerned about any sphere; no sphere is to be tossed aside.
This has huge implications for how Christians view faithfulness in terms of vocation and citizenship and church membership and family life and, well, faithfulness in every square inch of creation.
Anyway, I wouldn’t say I’m ready to label myself a Kuyperian just yet, but I’m wondering if maybe David Brooks was onto something in his column on Friday:
For generations people have been told: Think for yourself; come up with your own independent worldview. Unless your name is Nietzsche, that’s probably a bad idea. Very few people have the genius or time to come up with a comprehensive and rigorous worldview.
If you go out there armed only with your own observations and sentiments, you will surely find yourself on very weak ground. You’ll lack the arguments, convictions and the coherent view of reality that you’ll need when challenged by a self-confident opposition...
The paradox of reform movements is that, if you want to defy authority, you probably shouldn’t think entirely for yourself. You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of thought that has been developed over the centuries and that seems true.
What about you? Which influential thinkers or traditions have shaped how you see and live in the world? What does it look like to appropriate an old tradition for the twenty-first century?
Chris Wright on faith in the marketplace
Last week, Dr. Chris Wright was in town for a couple of events, one of which was a gathering put together by the Surge Network, where he spoke on the topic, “Saints in the Marketplace: The Mission of God in the Public Arena.” Wright is the international director of Langham Partnership, an organization started by the late John Stott, which serves churches and pastors all over the world.
In his talk he began by defining “marketplace” in broad terms, suggesting that it basically means all that happens in society. It could also simply be called the public square, or, to use Old Testament language, “the gate.” His fundamental premise, which he made clear from the start, is that God is interested in what happens in the marketplace. This seems obvious, but too many Christians seem to live with a suspicion that the things we need to spend most of our time doing are things that don’t really matter to God. That belief is dead wrong.
He gave his talk in three sections, at least according to my notes. First, he spoke on why the marketplace matters to God. Second, how Christians are called to act in the marketplace. And third, the church’s dual task in relationship to it. Since it was all such wonderful stuff, I thought I’d more or less reproduce the talk here, to the best of my memory, with little commentary by me. I’ve included Scripture references (a lot of them), and when possible, great questions Wright left with us on the basis of these principles.
THE MARKETPLACE MATTERS TO GOD
1. God created work (Genesis 1, 2). The Fall corrupted it, but it’s still something God made good. We need to understand that work is not some necessary evil; rather, it’s a means of glorifying God. For the pastors and teachers among us, do we teach the importance of work the way the Bible does?
2. God audits it (Psalm 33:13-15; Amos 5:12-15, 8:4-7; Jeremiah 7:9-11; I Samuel 12:1-5). God is the auditor of the marketplace, at both a personal and a corporate level. According to Scripture, God requires justice in the public square just as much as he requires worship in the Temple (or, in our case, the church). He hears what’s said and sees what’s done in the marketplace, and he even examines the attitudes in our hearts. He is the independent scrutineer of all that happens in the marketplace. How and when do you submit to God’s audit of your daily work? How does accountability to God affect the way you work?
3. God governs it (Joseph in Genesis 50:19-20; Isaiah 19:1-15; Daniel 4). We tend to speak of the marketplace as if it is autonomous, but the truth is that events are the product of human actions, and we’re therefore responsible for what we do. But God is sovereign, and his sovereignty doesn’t stop short of the marketplace. How and where do you discern the governance of God in the marketplace? What does it mean to “seek first the kingdom and his justice” Monday through Friday?
4. God redeems it (Isaiah 65:17-25; Colossians 1:16-20; Romans 8:19-21; II Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:24-27). Our eschatology and our understanding of the story of the Bible affect how we view the marketplace. If we believe everything in the world is all going to be zapped someday, why would we care what happens in the marketplace? The truth is that God loves everything he’s made; it’s all twisted and we’re all twisted, but the Bible teaches that God will redeem creation, not obliterate it. God will create a new heaven and a new earth. All things are created by Christ, sustained by Christ, and redeemed by Christ. Because of the resurrection of Christ, all we do under the sun is not vanity! We don’t know precisely how everything will turn out, but we believe in the resurrection. How is our daily work transformed by the knowledge that it contributes to the new creation, redeemed by God?
WE’RE CALLED TO ENGAGEMENT AND DISTINCTIVENESS
1. Engagement. This can happen through serving the state (i.e., Joseph & Daniel); through prayer and “seeking the welfare of the city” - not just Jerusalem, but Babylon too (Jeremiah 29:7; I Timothy 2:1-4; Erastus in Acts 19:22; Romans 16:23); through ordinary, honest daily work - it’s instructive to look up the number of times in the New Testament Paul refers to doing good (I Thessalonians 4:11-12, 5:14; II Thessalonians 3:6-13); through encouraging fellow Christians in the true value of the marketplace.
2. Distinctiveness. We’re called to be saints who are holy, different, salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16; Daniel 6:3; I Chronicles 29:17; Genesis 18:19; Colossians 3:22-23). If Christians are to be salt and light, the assumption is that there are dull and dark places in the world, and we’re to actually change things in those places - like salt, we get rubbed into the meat; like light, we break the darkness. Whatever we do, we are to do it as unto the Lord - in other words, as if the other person is Christ himself. Worldview distinctiveness - we live by a different story (biblical narrative rather than British imperialism or the American Dream, for example). When we follow Christ, we enter the biblical story, and we’re to build that story into our lives. As we do so, it’ll challenge ourselves and others - it cuts through all peoples and cultures.
THE CHURCH’S PROPHETIC AND PASTORAL TASK
1. The prophetic task. Pastors and Christian leaders must speak out in the midst of a synchetized and idolatrous culture with a voice of evaluation and critique. It requires, at times, speaking truth to power. We can’t just bless everything society does, or bless church members who willingly go along with corruptions of God’s good design for the marketplace. The prophetic task can be costly, a rough road to travel, as all the biblical prophets knew.
2. The pastoral task. Pastors and Christian leaders must support those who work in the marketplace, meaning those who participate in all spheres of society every week. God didn’t create the church to support the clergy; rather, the pastor comes every Sunday to support the church as it then goes out into the world to be salt and light in the marketplace, knowing that their work matters to God.
As you can tell, he gave us plenty to chew on. If we were to summarize his main points, though, we could say this: The marketplace matters to God. It can go terribly wrong, but work was created by God, is audited and governed by him, and will ultimately be redeemed by him. Christians are called to engage in the marketplace with distinctiveness. And, finally, the church is to challenge distortions in the marketplace as well as to equip its members to help it flourish as it should.
If you’d like to see and hear Dr. Wright for yourself, here he is in the five-minute video speaking on the importance of confronting idols and making disciples - which in fact has everything to do with faithfulness in the marketplace (thanks to Jake Belder for sharing it).
Confronting Idols & Making Disciples from Medri Kinnon Productions on Vimeo.
What are your reactions to this basis for Christian engagement in the marketplace? How does it challenge your understanding of the relationship between faith and work?
Wilderness, grace and the journey to the common good
Seeking the common good is something that most Christians, at least in theory, consider integral to the faith. But what does it actually look like? Where do we find inspiration or instruction for the journey? And where will the journey take us?These are the questions Walter Brueggemann explores in Journey to the Common Good (Westminster John Knox). As a world-renowned Old Testament scholar, he sets out to locate the answers in three places:
- Exodus, which sheds light on the journey from anxiety to neighborliness;
- Jeremiah, an invitation to choose life over death; and
- Isaiah, which helps us move from loss to restoration.
I won’t attempt to do justice to his arguments here, but each of the three is an important way of understanding the journey to the common good.
I found the section on the Exodus particularly meaningful. In the Exodus, we see how those living lives dominated by anxiety and scarcity aren’t likely to seek the common good; they’re going to be too busy simply trying to survive. After God uses Moses to lead his people out of “the anxiety system” of Egypt, God miraculously provides manna (or “wonder bread,” as Brueggemann calls it), demonstrating divine generosity and abundance.
But as the biblical narrative makes clear, the people of God didn’t find it easy to move from the culture of scarcity to the culture of abundance overnight. That’s because having left the anxiety system of Pharaoh, they found themselves not in an ideal place of safety, security and comfort, but rather in the wilderness. Brueggemann writes:
“Wilderness” is a place, in biblical rhetoric, where there are no viable life support systems. “Grace” is the occupying generosity of God that redefines the place. The wonder bread, as a gesture of divine grace, recharacterizes the wilderness that Israel now discovered to be a place of viable life, made viable by the generous inclination of YHWH.
Brueggemann goes on to argue that for us today a similar “departure” is required -- if not from a literal Pharaoh, then from adherence to whatever twenty-first century anxiety systems we find ourselves in. If we buy his argument that living in a culture of anxiety and scarcity all but precludes the pursuit of the common good, then the flip side is that when we experience God’s generosity and abundance (“our daily bread,” you might say) and recognize it for the grace that it is, we are freed up like never before to be good neighbors and to seek the common good.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” says Jesus. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
The journey to the common good takes us from scarcity to abundance, and from abundance to the practice of neighborliness. The challenge for all of us, then, is to cultivate lives of neighborliness right here in the wilderness. It may not be a place entirely to our liking, but it is a place of viable life, “made viable by the generous inclination of YHWH.”
Do we truly believe that the wilderness in which we live can be a place not of scarcity but of abundance? How does that shape our understanding of the journey to the common good?
[Photo credit: Thomas Dwyer/Flickr]
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