18 Theses on Eschatology (so far)

I've been tweeting out Theses on Eschatology this week. Here's the first 18. If you want read these and other thoughts as they come, click here:

Thesis #1: The leading motif of a Christian eschatology ought to be the parousia of Jesus Christ.

Thesis #2: Eschatologies that are overdetermined by concepts of divine justice or love and/or human destiny or decision are sub-Christian.

Thesis #3: The telos of God's love/justice and humanity's decision/destiny occur in the one God-human, Jesus, and so are known only in him.

Thesis #4: The telos of Jesus Christ in his divine-human unity is his living presence as the one who died and rose for us.

Thesis #5: In the first instance, the telos of Jesus' life is his death. The one who will return at the end is the one who died for us.

Thesis #6: But Jesus' death was not his final end. He also rose from the dead. So the one who will return at the end already LIVES for us!

Thesis #7: Therefore the one who died (#5) and rose (#6) for us not only will be present at the end but is already present with us now.

Thesis #8: Eschatology is not futurology. It is knowledge of the risen Christ who was and is and will be present (i.e., parousia, cf. #1).

Thesis #9: Eschatology is possible ONLY if the Jesus who will return at the end is the SAME as the one who came before and is present now.

Thesis #10: JESUS IS RISEN! So resurrection hope conditions all eschatological concepts--immortality, the soul, judgment, heaven, eternity, etc.

Thesis #11: Hope for the resurrection of the dead embraces the individual, communal, and cosmic dimensions of Christian hope.

Thesis #12: Christians aren't obligated to believe in the immortality of the soul.

Thesis #13: Christian are permitted to believe in the immortality of the soul as long as it does not render resurrection hope superfluous.

Thesis #14: Immortality of the soul is not the object of hope. It's just a theory that addresses questions raised by resurrection hope.

Thesis #15: Only the living God is by nature immortal. Human immortality is a gift, given for the sake of fellowship with the risen Christ

Thesis #16: Since for living beings death and time are existentially intertwined, immortality is functionally synonymous with eternal life.

Thesis #17: Eternal life IS fellowship with the risen Christ in his self-attestation. Eternal life is therefore irreducibly social.

Thesis #18: Sociality is mediated bodily, so resurrected bodies are indispensable to eternal life.

Temporality (Dis)continuity and the Reformation of our Mental Furniture

Two weeks ago I attempted to sketch some of the pastoral implications of the resurrection in critical conversation with Wright. The essay was also posted at another blog set aside for a course on Wright's work. A student in that course wrote the following lengthy reply, to which I offered a lengthy response below. I have decided to post this discussion here because it brings out in more detail some of the issues pass over in the original post.

Keas writes:

Impressive summary of Wright’s view of resurrection. I think you’re right by honing in on the continuity/discontinuity of creation and redemption in Wright’s presentation. 1 Corinthians 15:58 is a godzilla verse for him.

I especially liked your paragraph on discontinuity, and you definitely “sounded it loud and clear”. I’m interested in the last line or two of that riff, the bit about eternal life not simply extending time and space but transcending them – and how this is “a distinct and essential note of discontinuity between creation and redemption in the fundamental structure of Christian hope.” I hadn’t thought of ‘time’ in new creation in terms of such radical discontinuity. Wright definitely emphasizes the continuity of time in the eternal state since he fears the average churchgoer images eternity to be when “time shall be no more” (p. 162-163). Why do you feel it’s important at this point to sound the note of discontinuity of time in eternity? Isn’t that what the majority of us were fed large doses of growing up? And are there other authors (e.g. Torrance) you feel stress this better?

I know you’ve also been working through Wright’s big boy, The Resurrection of the Son of God. Does he do a better job there of articulating the “proper symmetry and proportion” of continuity and discontinuity or do you sense this emphasis lacking in his eschatology overall? In other words, is his timidity with the discontinuity of new creation in Surprised by Hope the result of a short book or a shortcoming of his theology?

You really started revving up when you got to your third proposal for funeral reform. I found your comments there, as well as in your fourth, to be incredibly helpful in how we might begin evaluating and tweaking our current funeral practices. I think you yourself have a nice dialectical tension of the continuity/discontinuity of funeral practices that Wright’s resurrection theology should bring about.

Having said that, I want to pose a question in response to your 3rd proposal, “Add Resurrection Language to Already Existing Forms.” There you said, “We can still talk about grandpa going to heaven and being with Jesus. We just need to also talk about grandpa coming back with Jesus to reign with us in the new heavens and the new earth.” I was surprised to hear you using this “up there, down here” language. Wright spends an enormous amount of his book ranting against the dualistic Gnostic worldview that manufactured such language and mental furniture. I really appreciate your pastoral concern here, by the way, and that’s why I’m interested to dialogue more. Do you think it’s wise for us to leave intact the “up there, down here” mental furniture and only add resurrection language to it?

Along those same lines, I’d like to bring the myth of the immortality of the soul into the discussion. I would contend that the church’s borrowing of this idea from Greek philosophy is chiefly responsible for muddling up Christian hope and the New Testament’s teachings on the after-life. Wright is obviously not happy about it either, but I’m not sure if he’s offered much in its place (the intermediate state, that is). What he does offer is Polkinghorne’s analogy that, “God will download our software onto his hardware until the time when he gives us new hardware to run the software again” (163). In my mind such word pictures come awfully close to what Wright had been combating in the previous 162 pages: the inadequate and simplistic body/soul dichotomy which always prioritizes the soul, or something like the soul, as the real essence of a person. Has does the software/hardware analogy paint a different picture for us?

So to reintegrate my question with the addition of the above paragraph, I’m wondered how much we, as pastors, should challenge notions of dualism and the immortality of soul at funerals. You are clear that communicating resurrection should be our fundamental concern rather than addressing all the “speculation” surrounding the intermediate state, but how much of this speculation should we try to deflate or rework while bringing the focus back on resurrection? Are there valid pastoral concerns that might lead us to keep alive some of the folk theology so popular today?

And, of course, brilliant way to cap off your essay with your fifth and final proposal. A Christocentric focus is the way forward as we continue to rethink and reform our funeral practices. Your Barthian blood is showing through!

_________________________________________

John replies:

Thanks for the opportunity to post here and the props you gave in your comment. You raised at least three issues: (1) temporal discontinuity, (2) Wright's other works, and (3) the reformation of our mental furniture. The third contains a number of interrelated material issues: (a) dualism, (b) the immortality of the soul, and (c) the intermediate state, all of which were aimed at (d) the pastoral question of whether, when and how to challenge such assumptions. I will treat each of these issues in the order they were raised.

(1) Temporal Discontinuity.

Although the issues under (3) are more numerous and more popular, let me try to say enough here that my response to those questions can be briefer. I say this not just to save time but because I think the issue of time itself is the most complex and most fundamental among the issues you raised.

You referenced a line towards the end of my riff on discontinuity. Let's get that in front of us first so I can comment on it, then I'll address your questions directly.

"The gift of eternal life includes within itself time and space, so it is not strictly timeless or spaceless. But the gift of eternal life transcends time and space, so it is not simply the infinite extension of time and space."

Note the note of continuity: eternal life includes time and space. So I would join Wright in critiquing concepts of eternal life as timeless and spaceless. [I'll focus on time since that's what you asked about, but most of the logic of my answer can be transferred over to space, as we'll see when we come to souls and bodies.] Eternal life is not a state of timelessness. Eternity is not simply the negation of time. This is one of the lessons God teaches us in raising his son Jesus from the dead. If we cease to inhabit time and space, we would cease to be human, for the human category of time is basic for self-consciousness and time is basic to creation as historical in character. What God has made has purpose and meaning and therefore has history. Redemption is the end of history, but "end" in the sense of consummation and goal, not in the sense of ceasing to be. Creatures are by definition temporal, so to cease to be temporal is to cease to be creatures, and that's not good news.

To cease to be temporal would also not mean that we become divine, for God himself has permanently taken on temporality in Christ and so, in light of God's immutablity, God's eternity cannot be sheer timelessness. God's eternal triune life must be ready for this assumption of time. God's eternity is God's self-sufficient possession of an interminable life. God is the living God, and this God has time for us. God's time is not our time. God's time embraces our time so that our time might be enveloped in God's time.

With the talk of God's eternity in front of us, we can begin to see where the discontinuity comes in. At first it seems as though we have read temporal continuity all the way back into God's being. And in a sense we have. But in reality the arrow runs the other way. God in his eternal life creates us in our temporal life. So there is a fundamental distinction between God and creation. But God purposes to share his eternal life with us, giving us something beyond our temporal life. We will receive this gift of eternal life as a gift, and will continually receive it as such. Eternal life is not the actualization of a potential inherent in human beings. Eternal life is the determination given to temporal human beings in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Now (most of) all this is very conceptual in form. So let me recast it back into the narrative terms from which it arises: God raised Jesus from the dead. God does not remove Jesus from the space-time continuum (that would be discontinuity without continuity). But neither does God simply extend Jesus' life further along the space-time continuum (that would be continuity without discontinuity). Rather, God gives to Jesus a life that has death behind it; God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus has death in his past. That is unprecedented, so unprecedented that it is hard to conceive of a "life" without "death" as its end-point. This is why we tend to think of "heaven" as boring, which in fact it probably would be if resurrection was merely the infinite extension of time as we know it. But the gift of eternal life is a life re-defined with death not as its end-point, but as a piece of its past. This relocation of death in the narrative logic of human life underlines the birth-and-death word games found in the New Testament (e.g., "unless it dies, it cannot bear fruit," "firstborn from the dead," etc.). Such a relocation entails a radical transformation of the experience of time as we know it, and so the note of temporal discontinuity which I believe must be sounded in a Christian doctrine of resurrection.

Okay, with that sketch in front of us, let me answer your questions directly.

Q: Why do you feel it’s important at this point to sound the note of discontinuity of time in eternity?

A: By understanding our future time as a new act of God, this note of discontinuity helps secure the gift-character and finality of eternal life. In other words, resurrection is grace and glory. Resurrection is grace: it is an act of God to which we contribute nothing. Resurrection is glory: death will be defeated so that it no longer determines human life. He is the light of life; in him there is no darkness at all.

Q: Isn’t that what the majority of us were fed large doses of growing up?

A: Probably not if the discontinuity is construed as I have sketched above. And if what I suggest bears some resemblance to what you were fed growing up, then that may just point to the grain of truth in all that stuff and therefore identify a pedagogical point of connection.

Q: And are there other authors (e.g. Torrance) you feel stress this better?

A: Big surprise: Karl Barth, Robert Jenson, T F Torrance, and Hans urs Von Balthasar have all contributed to my thinking on this matter.

(2) Wright's Other Works.

I won't say much here, as I cannot comment on the entirety of his corpus nor do my critiques so require me to do so. When one writes a book on a topic, one is responsible for what one says on the matter. If I were making an argument from silence, then Wright's other works would be germane. But I do not in fact claim that he has no discontinuity, but rather that his argument is so formulated to reveal that continuity is more basic. It is a matter of accent and emphasis (or, better yet, the function of concepts), which can be ascertained by a careful reader from even the smallest of books. But everything else I have read from Wright has confirmed that this is where the accent lies. He affirms discontinuity almost always within the greater continuity, which is his dominant note. That's his driving point, and again perhaps justifiable given the church's tendencies of late and perhaps warranted on the basis of a different doctrine of creation that the one to which I am committed. Note: this fits his historiographical orientation, as an emphasis on the continuity of the created order under-girds an evidentialist apologetical enterprise such as Wright's. In other words, you would only try to "prove" the resurrection on the basis of historical evidence if you understand resurrection according to the terms set by creation as such, rather than as an event that happens to creation.

(3) The Reformation of our Mental Furniture.

(a) Dualism.

Q: Do you think it’s wise for us to leave intact the “up there, down here” mental furniture and only add resurrection language to it?

A: Briefly: “up there, down here” language is inadequate, but so are all such world-pictures. The language itself is found in the New Testament, so I wouldn't stress out about the imagery for relating heaven and earth. The point is how you fill out the conceptual content and the way you work out the narrative. Perhaps some such imagery must go, but the alternative imagery will have its troubles too. Better to be on constant guard to explain yourself than to purify yourself of all potentially misleading imagery. That's a puny answer, but it will have to do for now. A fuller answer would make analogous moves with regard to space as made above with regard to time.

(b) The Immortality of the Soul.

Q: Along those same lines, I’d like to bring the myth of the immortality of the soul into the discussion...

A: This is of course a huge topic, and I have written on it elsewhere, though not to my satisfaction. See my eschatological musings at drulogion (click here) and my article entitled "Gregory of Nyssa's Dialogue with Macrina: The Compatibility of Resurrection and Immortality" in Theology Today 62:2 (Jul 2005) pp. 210-222. I'll just put a few things out there for now:

(i) Immortality and resurrection are not mutually exclusive concepts.

(ii) Soul-talk is not necessarily dualistic, inasmuch as we can attain a concept of "soul" that is conceptually distinct from the body yet materially existent only as that which animates the body. In other words, a commitment to embodiment does not require rejection of soul-talk.

(iii) The soul as materially existent (i.e., embodied) is not in itself immortal. Any immortality attributed to the human person is a divine gift and permanently retains its gift-character. Note: the soul as a concept may be spoken of as immortal, but only in the dull sense that concepts don't die. So the soul is only as immortal as the triangle or the number four. It is not ontically immortal in the robust sense of an existent that defies death, ala God.

(iv) Immortality is a function of resurrection. All theoretical talk of an immortal soul must serve and submit to the sure faith in the resurrection of the dead. The idea of the immortality of the soul is only a theory to explain whatever kind of existence we may have in the intermediate state, and that's all it is. Which brings us to our next point.

(c) The Intermediate State.

Q: Wright is obviously not happy about it either, but I’m not sure if he’s offered much in its place (the intermediate state, that is)...

A: You have raised a crucial question here. Needless to say, what I said about temporal continuity and discontinuity above has direct implications for the notion of an intermediate state. In my original post, I stuck with Wright's "two-stage post-mortem narrative" because it is so clear and is able to account for most of what needs to be said. But my own constructive inclination is to abandon the notion of an intermediate state altogether. Doing so would require thinking through the implications of the gift of eternal life and what they might mean retrospectively for the dead in the time between the times. One of the disappointments I felt with N. T. Wright's work is his lack of imagination on this front (see my comments to that effect here). This is a place where one must engage in the difficult but rewarding work of revisionist ontological reflection, the sort of thing N. T. Wright avoids because, among other things, he is too locked in to the continuity of created time to imagine the kind of discontinuities at work here. But I must heed my own warning to tread lightly with such major revisions. Don't cast out the intermediate state until you are ready to fill its place with something positive that can perform its theological function, or the demon will return bringing seven more demons with it and you'll be worse off than before (cf. Lk 11:24-26). It takes time and care to figure out what function a concept has performed in the tradition, which I am still sorting out. But once I have a better handle on the theological function of the intermediate state and I've found something else to perform that function, I'd be happy to dump it entirely, since it consistently proves distracting to resurrection hope.

(d) Pastoral Implications.

Okay, now to your final questions:

Q: How much should we, as pastors, challenge notions of dualism and the immortality of soul at funerals?

A: I don't think a funeral service is the setting for direct challenge. Perhaps this just comes from my own pastoral experience, but my tack was to teach clearly and critically on this matter as we went through the bible and/or topics, but when someone got sick or died I gave the people freedom to speak in their own familiar language even while I followed through on mine. Pastors are not theological or liturgical police officers. They are teachers and guides. We cannot control people's thoughts or language, nor should that even be our goal. We can, however, discipline our own thoughts and language, and thereby model to others and guide them over time. But a funeral service seems an inappropriate setting for a frontal attack. Better to prepare them all along than to hit them all at once.

Q: How much of this speculation [concerning the intermediate state] should we try to deflate or rework while bringing the focus back on resurrection?

A: As indicated above, I am not interested in reworking the intermediate state other than finding what function it performs and finding other things to play those roles. But I am also not interested in deflating it either, because I find it superfluous rather than pernicious. I am confident that the beauty and truth of the resurrection of the dead is more than sufficient to compete with the potential distraction of the intermediate state. Keep the main thing the main thing, and let it crowd out all else.

Q: Are there valid pastoral concerns that might lead us to keep alive some of the folk theology so popular today?

A: Well, there's always the pastoral concern of not being a jerk. Also, listening to the linguistic habits of a congregation is a crucial pastoral skill. One can only shape clay that one has felt and dug one's hands into. When you have a sense of the inner logic or grammar of a community's theological speech, then you can start to tweak and adjust. So the professionally-trained pastor must become a kind of folk theologian if he or she ever wishes to shape the thoughts of his or her people. In the process, one may discover that the folk have some insights one might have missed, so listening is not just a trick to get a hearing of one's own, but a genuine openness to be taught by the people as you also teach them.

Thanks for your thorough engagement, Keas. I hope these responses are somewhat satisfying to you and keep the conversation moving forward.

-John

The Political Implications of Resurrection Hope

Last week I addressed some of the pastoral implications of the resurrection in conversation with N. T. Wright's new book Surprised by Hope. This week I would like to address some of the political implications of the resurrection. If Jesus is risen, then how should we live, not only in relation to those in and around our churches, but also in relation to those in the wider human community to which the church has been called to serve? In order to answer this question, I'll follow a similar pattern to last week's post by (1) sketching briefly how Wright approaches the sociopolitical implications of his doctrine of resurrection, (2) identifying some points of criticism, and (3) laying out some points of orientation.

So, first, how does Wright squeeze something political out of resurrection hope? It seems odd at first that the resurrection would have anything to do with contemporary sociopolitical realities. Wright sets his sights on this apparent oddity, exposing that our inclination to separate eschatology and public policy is a reflex of our confused views of the afterlife. If we understand resurrection as a code word for life-after-death, some other-worldly spiritual destiny that has no continuity with our life lived here and now, it is no wonder that we would think of resurrection hope as irrelevant to issues of state and society. Wright's move is to suggest that the element of continuity between creation and new creation entails a responsibility for the structures of society and the care of creation. If resurrection means new creation, then what we do now matters later. So this should expand our understanding of the church's mission to include not only evangelism but also works of justice and beauty as God begins to restore his creation through us and we build for his coming kingdom.

Now N. T. Wright is careful to remind us of the element of discontinuity between the work we do now and the divine judgment to come. This is why he harps on the distinction between building the kingdom and building for the kingdom -- a linguistic distinction the adoption of which I would strongly recommend. But nevertheless, the argument is controlled by the element of continuity. Discontinuity primarily functions in his argument as a limit concept: it keeps us from overstating the significance of our human efforts. But it does not seem to provide any substantial contribution to his political theology. Rather, his doctrine of creation (confirmed by God's resurrection of Jesus) is doing most of the work. We are obliged to work for justice in the world because we are responsible to the created order. This is a responsibility carried in hope, and so we do not carry it alone. But it is a responsibility first and foremost owed to God as the creator, and so not defined from the start from the redemption wrought in Jesus Christ.

Why is this a problem? Well, let me identify a symptom of this creation-centered continuity argument, and then say a word about what is provided by more substantive attention to the element of eschatological discontinuity. It is symptomatic of Wright's overall orientation that he treats justice and evangelism as two categories that need to be related. His intention is great: namely, to overcome any false dichotomy between the two, which a purely spiritual interpretation of Christian hope leads to (i.e., justice is either irrelevant or strictly subordinated to evangelism, as the former concerns our bodies in space and time while the latter concerns our immortal souls). But his attempt to overcome this dichotomy fails because he continues to treat them as two poles to be related rather than challenging their separation at the root. Note: I am not suggesting that merely discussing justice and evangelism under distinct headings is an error. We must create sub-topics in order to move discursively through an argument. Rather, I am suggesting that Wright's fundamental orientation toward the continuity of the created order lends him to define justice primarily in terms of the preservation and restoration of the created order, which necessarily separates it from evangelistic activity that by definition points forward to the new and different work of God beyond the potentialities of God's good creation. So justice and evangelism from the beginning of his argument point in different directions, and therefore all his moves to unite them are bound to fail. In my view, it would be better simply to start with the radical discontinuity of Christian hope, and then speak of the calling of Christian witness to hope in Jesus Christ which takes form both as word (aka "evangelism") and deed (aka "justice"), both of which are parables of God's reconciling love and neither of which can be strictly identified with the word and work of God for us in Christ.

The separation of justice and evangelism is just one symptom that highlights a more fundamental problem of dominance of created continuity Wright's theology. What's the alternative? I believe that we can relocate many of Wright's moves and goals within a framework that gives proper attention to the radical discontinuity in God's redemptive purpose in such a way that we can say much of what he says without some of the problems. Of course, I can't do such relocation in a comprehensive fashion here. But I can point to the central benefit that comes from a greater emphasis on discontinuity with specific reference to the political implications of resurrection hope.

The central benefit of an emphasis on the element of discontinuity is the critical focus given to Christian thinking and action. When the element of discontinuity functions as a limit concept (as I suggested it does for Wright), then it only serves to curtail the optimism of an otherwise generally reformist agenda, one which takes the realities of civic life for granted and seeks adjust the systems in such a way to favor the victims of the current status quo. Wright does a very good job of curtailing such optimism in favor of realistic Christian hope, and should be commended for it. But if the element of discontinuity played a more critical role in his eschatology, then his political theology would move in the direction of a more radical agenda, one which calls into question the potentialities of all social systems. If God's resurrection of his son Jesus from the dead tells us not only that God has confirmed himself as creator and sustainer of all things but also that God has revealed himself as the reconciler and redeemer who makes all things new, turning on their heads even the "realities" of the created order, then God's politics is not merely reformist but radical in orientation. Thus we who believe in the resurrection of the dead will challenge the adequacy of even the most progressive sociopolitical agendas, for our hope is found in nothing less than the living Jesus Christ. The political implications of resurrection are progressive in their leanings, but even as such these progressive implications cannot be identified with the word and work of God. They are at best parables of God's reconciling and redeeming work, and should be treated as such from beginning to end, and not merely limited as such from time to time. This is not a call for cynicism in the face of the evils and injustices of this world, but rather for a deep criticism sensitive to the idolatry of all worldly political arrangements.

As with the pastoral implications of Wright's work discussed last week, my critique of Wright does not undermine his key insights, but rather modifies them by placing them in a different conceptual context. So, with these critical lenses firmly in place, we can still draw on Wright to sketch some of the political implications of resurrection hope. I will identify three points of orientation to direct us in our political thinking, deciding and acting. It should be evident that these points, while by no means neutral, keep at a distance from endorsing particular parties or candidate. This is first of all a result of the critical distance appropriate to any exercise in sketching the political implications of Christian theology. But it is also an exhibition of the kind of political reasoning Christians can and should engage in -- one that is both affirmative and critical, creating alliances without strict loyalties. Finally, the breadth of these points is a reminder that political life includes much more than merely casting ballots. So, here goes:

(1) The hope of resurrections points us toward a critical appropriation of the politics of life.

By raising his son Jesus from the dead, God has shown himself to be the God of the living, not of the dead. In the living Jesus Christ, God has taken humanity to himself in order to make and keep life human. The resurrection of the dead is the ultimate act of humanization: the gift of eternal life. So God falls on the side of life against death.

The politics of life in the U.S. and elsewhere is tragically divided into divergent "issues," ranging from the protection of life at its beginning and end to the taking of life for the sake of security. Very few politicians have found a way to take the side of life in every issue, those some have tried harder than others. Those who hope for the resurrection of the dead should have an unwavering bias towards life. How this works out at a policy level can and should be debated and discussed. But the overwhelming orientation must be towards the affirmation of all human life: both our unborn and dying friends and near and far away enemies.

This political orientation must be self-critical, eschewing all strict identification of the exercise of political will with the reality of the living God. It also must materially criticize the creation-centered argumentation of much Christian reflection on these issues. What we owe to a fellow human cannot be reduced to her rights or sanctity or goodness as a creature. Such reflection needs to be re-ordered toward the telos of human life in fellowship with God, and thus concerned not only with the protection of life but also with the flourishing of life. Most importantly, the critical edge of resurrection provides a firm basis for a bias against death and its powers in this world. Too much public policy treats death as just a part of life. The resurrection of the dead teaches us that death is the last and greatest enemy of God. Those who hope for resurrection take sides with those who fight against the forces of death in their myriad of forms as a parabolic witness to the resurrection.

(2) The hope of resurrection points us toward a critical appropriation of the economics of generosity.

By raising his son Jesus from the dead, God has shown himself to be the God of grace. God gives to the creature beyond its inherent merits and resources. Resurrection is not merely the affirmation of the goodness of the created order but the gift of eternal life beyond any inherent potential. The resurrection of the dead is the ultimate act of generosity, giving what is undeserved and unattainable and unimaginable without the gracious initiative of the living God. So God falls on the side of generosity against scarcity.

Economic thought and policy in the U.S. and elsewhere is dominated by the logic of scarcity. The common assumption is that there is one pie, and the debate is usually only over who or what should get which piece. Such zero-sum thinking does not have to be greedy in its intention to foster greed as its result. So attacks on greed (often in the context of quasi class warfare) do not get beyond the logic of scarcity, and thereby only perpetuate the problem. Those who hope for the resurrection of the dead should have an unwavering bias towards generosity. This means not only personally seeking opportunities to share one's blessings with a neighbor but also contributing to expand the common goods shared by the wider human community. This requires thinking outside the scarcity box and so seeking to develop forms of economic life that entail the sharing of common goods. Of course, this means we need to stop thinking of the economy in reductively financial terms. In doing so, however, we may rediscovery the classical theological sense of the term "economy" as God's household, which is revealed by the resurrection to be run according to the logic of generosity, not scarcity. (Check out 2 Cor 8-9 for more on the complex interplay of God's grace, human gifts, and the Christian virtue of generosity, all of which turn our usual economic thinking on its head. Also, check out Kathryn Tanner's book, Economies of Grace, which develops this line of thinking in great detail.)

Any appropriation of the economics of generosity must be critical, and the key critical move that must be made here is the realization that the created order itself does not have the infinite resources God has. Remember: resurrection is not an inherent possibility within creation, but a transcendent transforming gift. So we may very well encounter scarcities, especially of natural resources. So we must be aware of our limits even as we pursue renewable and sustainable common goods. More fundamentally, we must not identify human giving and sharing with God's act of grace in Jesus Christ. This means that we should resist absolutist systems that promise generosity, for they are idols--false images of the true God of grace. But we nevertheless seize every opportunity not only to act generously but to develop generous ways of life in the wider community. Those who hope for resurrection take sides with those who develop systems of generosity as a parabolic witness to the resurrection.

(3) The hope of resurrection points us toward a critical appropriation of the rhetoric of hope.

By raising his son Jesus from the dead, God has shown himself to be the God of hope. In the living Jesus, God speaks a word of promise to the whole creation that by his Spirit he will make all things new. Resurrection hope is not a vague desire for progress or a path of escape from this world, but a sure and certain promise that God is for us and not against us and that he will triumph in the end. The resurrection of the dead is the ultimate word of promise, giving confident hope to the fearful and hopeless. So God falls on the side of hope against fear.

Political rhetoric in the U.S. and elsewhere all too often degrades into an appeal to our fears. Whether our woes are fiscal, cultural or military, politicians exploit our fears in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Such appeals are electorally effective, and so will not go away any time soon. But occasionally, politicians break out of this mold and realize that what people need in times of crisis is not more fear but hope for something new. This is part of the reason why Barack Obama has captured the imaginations of so much of the American public, for like FDR and Reagan he offers hope rather than fear in the face of crises and challenges. Those who hope for the resurrection of the dead should have an unwavering bias towards hope. This should not mean we are gullible to those who speak in platitudes, but it does mean we will give a fair hearing to those who ask us to think beyond our own self-interest and look to the future for new possibilities. Such rhetoric befits the orientation of resurrection hope.

As with the politics of life and the economics of generosity, the appropriation of the rhetoric of hope must be critical. Perhaps here more than elsewhere the criticism needs to be penetrating, for the rhetoric of hope can so easily turn out to be mere rhetoric, mere words, mere talk of things to come without genuine transformation. But the danger of mere words should not undermine our appreciation for the formative power of words. Our political rhetoric contributes significantly to the moral formation of the civil community. So we should take seriously the kind of rhetoric employed by leaders and would-be leaders. But there's a deeper level of critical consciousness that we must keep in mind with regard to the rhetoric of hope. We must never identify our hope in the living Christ with our hope in this or that politician or political program. This does not mean politics should be more "realistic" or even "pessimistic," but rather than we keep a critical distance between the hope to transform a society and the transcendent hope that transforms the world. Such critical distance has no patience for messianic civil religion, even as those who hope for resurrection take the side of those who speak a word of hope into a hurting world as a parabolic witness to the resurrection.

Any thoughts?

• Where have I missed Wright's point? Where have I got him right?
• Does the continuity/discontinuity issues apply in the same way here as it did for the pastoral implications of resurrection last week? Or are there some important differences?
• Are there some points of direction that you would add to the three listed here? Do you have any concerns with the way these points where put?
• What attitudes does Christ's resurrection commend to us when engaging in political discourse and action?
• Although electoral politics is only one aspect of a wider democratic life, given the timing of this post I gotta ask: what parties and/or candidates might one support who followed these points of political orientation?

N. T. Wright's Suprised By Hope (Part Four)

At the end of the second part of Surprised by Hope, Wright turns his attention to the personal dimension of Christian hope. Here he addresses the New Testament teachings on bodily resurrection of individuals at the coming of Jesus (ch. 10) as well as the question of an intermediate state and the final destiny of the damned (ch. 11). I have a brief comment on each of these chapters.

The material in chapter 10 is pretty straightforward and quite helpful. I recommend that chapter alone as an excellent treatment of personal Christian hope. I just want to comment on one particular exegetical move Wright makes that I find fruitful. He argues that the "spiritual body" of 1 Cor 15 does not imply a spirit/body dualism but rather that the resurrected human body will be animated by God's Spirit. The contrast is not between two types of bodies but the between two animating principles, and he offers grammatical support for this. So the risen body will be one driven by God's Spirit rather than the flesh (i.e., fallen powers). If accurate, I think this is a helpful and fruitful approach. Although it fits Wright's tendency to emphasize the note of continuity with the created order, this view helps affirm the bodily character of resurrection without avoiding "spiritual" categories when talking about future hope. And it is fruitful because it grounds this new bodily life in the activity of God's Spirit, thereby providing raw material for developing a more thoroughly trinitarian account of Christian hope. In fact, the whole of Part II of Surprised by Hope can be organized under a trinitarian rubric: the cosmic dimension as the confirmation of God the Father's good creation, the central figure of Jesus Christ as the Son of God coming in glory, and the personal dimension of resurrection as the outpouring of the Spirit of life on all flesh. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that this re-framing of the material brings it closer to the form of my recent catechetical reflections on eschatology.) Anyway, that's just a riff off Wright in order to tease out the dogmatic detail of his argument.

Regarding chapter 11, I must register a bit of a complaint. Although his critique of purgatory is strong and his argument on behalf of God's justice is a helpful response to critics of eternal damnation, his use creative imagination appears in the wrong place. He is decidedly uncreative and unimaginative in his description of the intermediate state, while he is overly creative and overly imaginative in his speculations regarding the fate of the damned. Regarding the intermediate state, he does an excellent job undermining traditional problematic concepts of purgatory and paradise. But when he comes to his own position, he ends up in the same place, speaking of disembodied human identities subsisting in God's presence for the meantime. His view does not seem to be fundamentally different than the alternatives he rejects. It is rather just a tinkering with the details. What he needs is to apply his creative imagination (displaced elsewhere!) to explore what kind of "existence" and "identity" we might have between our death and our final resurrection. Do time and space really operate in the same way here as the do in other discourses? Could it be that the dead have an immediate experience of their future resurrection? Could it be that the whole notion of an intermediate state can be overcome with some creative thinking in light of Easter and New Creation? Again, Wright's emphasis on the continuity of creation (in this case, it's temporal categories) limits his openness to the otherness and newness of our future hope.

This lack of creativity can be set in stark contrast with the creative imagination he employs to speculate about the kind of sub-human existence the damned might have unto eternity. I think he is right to avoid falling into the trap of too easily emptying hell in order to make God look good. But such a stance does not require that one comes up with a speculative model of hellish existence that befits God's justice. This just seems to me to be a misplaced use of imagination. Where was this imagination when trying to wrestle with the pressing practical issue of "where we go when we die"? It seems to me that the intermediate state requires the best creativity to overcome confusion, while the threat of hell should remain a dull point, warning us simply to avoid going there and not consuming our speculative energies. That's how I would prioritize the matter at least.

Well, these are just some explorations and some picky things about chapters 10-11 of Surprised By Hope. The book as it stands is on the right track and remains a strong defense of the bodily resurrection of Jesus and its implications for our own bodily future. Next week we will turn with Wright to discuss what this all means for the present.

Any thoughts?

• Does Wright's exegesis of 1 Cor 15 work?
• What are some of the implications of our resurrected bodies being wholly animated by God's Spirit?
• What do you think of Wright's speculations concerning hell? Am I right to identify a misplaced use of creative imagination?

N. T. Wright's Suprised By Hope (Part Three)

Having sketched the cosmic context of God's future plan, N. T. Wright turns his attention to the central role of Jesus in this plan. He dedicates three chapters to Jesus as the central figure of new creation: the first on his ascension into heaven (ch. 7), the second on his return (ch. 8), and the third on his role as judge (ch. 9). In this post I will focus on Wright's understanding of the parousia of Jesus Christ, which comes to the fore in chapter 8. However, we will consider chapter 7 as well, because, as we shall see, his understanding of the parousia relates to his understanding of the ascension. I'll say at the start that while I agree with Wright's main point that Jesus returns to stay not to take us away, his understanding of the parousia is inadequate. Specifically, his view defines Christ's parousia in exclusively future terms and consequently construes Christ's ascension in terms of absence. By way of contrast to Wright's view, I'll briefly present an alternative construction of the parousia drawn from the later theology of Karl Barth. But first, let's get Wright's position before us.

How does N. T. Wright define the New Testament concept of parousia? Although this one Greek term does not carry all the conceptual freight that some think it does, parousia is a key term for describing the future of Jesus Christ. This technical term "is usually translated 'coming,' but literally it means 'presence'--that is, presence as opposed to absence" (128). The term had two major uses in Greco-Roman culture: (1) supernatural presence, such as "the mysterious presence of a god or divinity," and (2) royal presence, such as "when a person of high rank makes a visit to a subject" (pg. 129). Early Christian expectation of the paraousia of Jesus revolted against Greco-Roman imperial presumption. By so co-opting the concept of parousia, the early Christians give us a glimpse into the character of Jesus' return: namely, that he will come again not to take us away but to stay, transforming us and reigning with us forever in his transformed world. And so the parousia of Jesus, in conjunction with the other terms often found in its close proximity, refers to the royal appearance of Jesus when he comes again to stay.

Now the general trend of this position is right. It counters the world-denying mistakes of rapture theology without abandoning the personal return of Jesus Christ. And it keeps in view the crucially future dimension of the parousia of Jesus Christ. However, Wright so exclusively links the concept of parousia with this future dimension that he construes the meantime in terms of absence. His use of the language of "absence" is not just to explain the basic terminological sense of parousia (as quoted above). He is making a theological claim: "When we put together that big picture [ch. 6] with what we've said in the previous chapter about the ascension of Jesus [ch. 7], what do we get? Why, of course, the personal presence of Jesus, as opposed to his current absence" (123, emphasis original). According to Wright, if Jesus's future relation with us is one of presence, then Jesus's present relation with us must be one of absence. It is not a coincidence that he refers to his chapter on the ascension here, which, despite its helpful insights regarding heaven as the "control-room" of earth, ultimately defines Jesus's ascension in terms of his absence from the church and the world. Now surely there is some sense in which Jesus is absent from us in the time between the times. But in my view there must be a way of understanding the future parousia of Jesus that does view Jesus as strictly absent from the church and the world in the present. Fortunately, such an alternative can be found in the later theology of Karl Barth.

In a sub-section entitled "The Promise of the Spirit" (Church Dogmatics, Volume 4, Part 3, §69.4), Karl Barth explores what he calls the threefold parousia of Jesus Christ. The context of these reflections is important to note: Barth is arguing that Jesus Christ in his resurrection supplies his own transition from his atoning and revealing life-history to its effects and consequences in our sphere. The central claim in this argument is that universal revelation is objectively accomplished in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Barth is aware that such a claim is audacious, and makes one wonder why the world doesn't simply comes to its end on Easter morning. In order to answer this question, Barth appeals to the three forms of the parousia that he argues makes sense of the complex temporal dynamics of the New Testament.

Parousia in its most basic sense means effectual presence, used to speak of the visitation of God to his people in judgment and grace. When predicated of Jesus Christ, it refers to the coming again of the one who came before. The first coming again of Jesus is quite obviously his being raised from the dead. And so Easter is the first form of the parousia. It is the primal and basic form of Christ's effectual presence. But it is only the first form. For it points forward to the final return of Christ, the final or "third" form of the parousia. Between the primal and final forms of the parousia, we find not empty space-and-time but the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which is the second or intermediary form of the parousia. Jesus Christ wills that there will be a time between the times, not as a delay of his parousia but to give time and space for his people to go to the ends of the earth, working alongside him as bearers of the promise of the Spirit. So there are three forms of the one parousia of Jesus Christ: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the outpouring of the Spirit, and the final return of Christ.

The point of all this for our purposes here is that none of these forms should be seen as less than the others. Each form of the parousia has the same content: the personal and powerful presence of Jesus Christ. And so the time between the times, the missional space opened up between the dawn of new creation on Easter morning and the consummation of all things at the final return of Jesus Christ, must not be construed as a time of absence. Such an absence too quickly invites the church or some other human venture to fill in the gap left by Jesus. Wright is right to not strictly identify the risen Jesus with the church, but such a proper distinction between Head and Body can be maintained without appeal to the absence of Jesus. Jesus is present with his church in the outpouring of the Spirit. This is the second or intermediate form of his parousia. It cannot be collapsed into the first form, for we do not walk with Jesus now the same way as the apostles did during the 40 days. Nor can it be equated with the final form, for we are not yet like him for we do not see him as he truly is. But in all its distinction, the form of his parousia with us today is real, personal, and, most importantly, sufficient for the gift and task of Christian mission to which we are called.

Any thoughts?

• How do you understand the parousia of Jesus?
• Is Wright's general point (that Jesus comes not to take us away but to stay) a helpful one?
• Does my critique of Wright hit a nerve, or miss the point?
• What do you think of Barth's threefold parousia? Does it account for the temporal dynamics of the New Testament as he claims? What problems are there in his position?
• In what sense does the ascension of Jesus entail his absence? In what sense does it commence a different kind of presence?
• Just for fun: What was Jesus' relation to his apostolic community in the ten days between the ascension and pentecost? [This is a speculative but perhaps revealing question]

Druchesis IX: The Lord's Prayer

[Note: This material will be divided over two weeks in the course I am preparing for this fall. But since I need to get done by the end of summer, I'm lumping my reflections on the Lord's Prayer into one big blog post. I will do the same for the Ten Commandments next week.]

Over the last eight weeks we have shared reflections on Christian faith as it comes to expression in the Apostles' Creed. This week we turn our attention to Christian hope as it comes to expression in the Lord's Prayer. This not only follows the traditional pattern of catechetical instruction, but also flows from the final words of the creed. The first and second article of the creed have a predominantly backward-looking orientation, as they narrate the mighty acts of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. The third article of the Creed, however, is consumed with the forward-looking works of the Spirit: the life of the church and the life of the world to come -- ecclesiology and eschatology. At the center of the life of the church is the practice of prayer. And the focus of prayer is the future: asking God to act for his ends and for our good. Prayer is hope in practice. So ecclesiology and eschatology pave the way for reflection on prayer.

Prayer is human words addressed to God. There are many kinds of prayer, each of which can take a multitude of forms. The two most basic types of prayer are praise and petition. There are other important types, such as confession, contemplation and lament. But these are two are the most basic. As we say in Sunday School, "Does anyone have any praises or prayer requests?"

The creed is proclamation: human words about God addressed to other humans. But the creed is also praise: human words addressed to God in gratitude for who he is and what he has done. Praise is saying "Thanks" to God. The creed is such a word of thanks and praise. It is a doxology to God. Thus we have been exploring prayer-as-praise all along.

Now we are turning to prayer-as-petition: making requests to God. Petition is saying "Please" to God. The shift from praise to petition brings with it a certain openness, a loosening of restraints. That is not to say the creed is oppressive, for it points to the source of true freedom. But the creed is concerned with ortho-doxy: right praise. We try our best to line up our words of praise to God with the story of God. Such "lining up" is a sign of faithfulness. Accordingly, praise is consumed with its object: God.

When we turn to petition, however, the door is flung wide open for our own subjective needs and desires. Petitionary prayer is open and free. It is far less concerned with rightness and faithfulness. It is far more concerned with honesty and forthrightness. In petitionary prayer, we express to God our hopes and dreams.

However, this does not mean we don't need guidance. For hope too is consumed with its object, though in a different way than faith. Genuine hope in God includes not only the desire for God to meet our needs but also the desire for God to achieve his own ends. By placing our hopes in God we make God our hope, thereby opening ourselves up to his hopes for us. How can we ensure that our petitionary prayer opens us up to God? There are no guarantees, but there is guidance. The Bible not only tells us the story of God, but also tells us how to pray. The Bible is full of stories, poems and teachings related to petitionary prayer. Although we can and should draw on all these, there is no better place to start our search for guidance than with Jesus's teaching on petitionary prayer. The central character in the story of God with us took the time to teach us how to pray. What better place to start than with the Lord's Prayer?

In the Lord's Prayer, we find Jesus's most concise yet comprehensive instructions on prayer. It is therefore worthy of our sustained attention, both to help us understand better what we mean when we recite it and to draw on its guidance as we craft our own words of prayer. The Lord's Prayer appears in both Matthew 6 and Luke 11. In our reflections, we will follow the traditional liturgical form that synthesizes the phrasing of each, though we will attend to matters of difference as needed. The traditional form is structured as follows: an invocation, six petitions, and a doxology. The six petitions can be easily divided into two halves: the first three concerning God ("your"), the second three concerning us ("our"). We will reflect on the invocation and the first three petitions this week, leaving the remaining petitions and the doxology for next week.

Our Father, who art in Heaven

Jesus teaches his disciples to address God as Father. We have already discussed the fatherhood of God, both as an analogy for describing God's character and an identification of the first person of the trinity. Although by the end of the creed we had learned to address our praise to the Father and the Son together with the Holy Spirit, in the Lord's Prayer we are taught to address the Father. This fact ought not be dismissed as sub-trinitarian. For, although we may prayerfully address each and all of the persons of the trinity, we address God primarily as Father. Why? Because the Father is the source of divinity, the one from whom the Son generates and Spirit proceeds, and thus the one from whom we ask for all that we need. Because the incarnate Son is the risen Lord Jesus who as a human being addresses his Father in prayer and invites us to join our voices with his. Because the Spirit is the love who eternally unites Father and Son in their giving and requesting and so in him we are freed to make our requests to God. So, in addressing God as Father, we are caught up in the fellowship of the triune God. In the Lord's Prayer, we address the God who is in heaven.

Hallowed be Your Name

The Lord's Prayer begins its petitions with the holiness of God. Because we address the true God, the God who is in heaven, we are humbled by his holiness: his otherness, his superiority over us and his difference from us. We are like Isaiah before the throne of the Holy One of Israel. We must be cleansed of our unclean lips so that we may hear and perhaps join the angels as they cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy." But the Lord's Prayer does not merely ask us to praise God for his holiness. It also calls us to petition the Lord to hallow his name, to keep and make his name holy. We are asking God to sanctify: to set apart himself as the creator and to set apart his creatures to worship him and him alone as creator. We are asking, "God, please keep being holy and ensure that your world treats you as holy."

Specifically, we are asking God to sanctify his name: the divine name revealed to Moses through the burning bush, the name that the Israelites were commanded not to take in vain, the name that took up residence in the Temple at Jerusalem, the name that God sought to protect through his prophets. God's name is his very own self as he relates to his people. It is God's mode of introduction, by which initiates a relationship with his people, through whom he spreads his reputation to the ends of the earth. So the first petition is not concerned with God's holiness as an abstract attribute, but rather with God's holiness as he enters into relations with his less-than-holy creatures. When we pray "Hallowed by your name," we are asking, "God, please protect your reputation." In so praying, we adopt God's own zeal for his name as our own driving passion. Negatively, that means we submit ourselves to discipline for the ways in which we have undermined his reputation. Positively, that means we begin share God's desire for the world: that it would know and hallow his name.

Your Kingdom Come

The second petition moves from God's name to God's kingdom. We ask, "Your kingdom come." Since it hits on some crucial themes, let's linger here a bit and ask three questions corresponding to the three terms in this petition.

First, whose kingdom are we asking to come? It's God's kingdom! Not the world's kingdom. Not our kingdom. Not some truncated divine kingdom of our imagination. Your kingdom come. It is because of our continuing desire to seek our own kingdoms that we must be taught by Jesus how to pray for God's kingdom. As you ask God for his kingdom to come, ask yourself: "In what ways do I try to seek my own kingdom? In what ways do I co-opt God's kingdom for my own purposes?" These are good diagnostic questions, both to root out distractions and to keep in mind that it God's kingdom, not ours or anyone else's, that we seek.

Secondly, what kind of kingdom are we asking to come? What is the kingdom? The text does not give us much here. We could treat the next line as parallel and thus an indicator of the meaning: God's kingdom is wherever God's will is done. Although not false, such a move too quickly conflates the petitions together, and doesn't yield all too much anyway. Thankfully, the kingdom of God is a big theme in the New Testament, so we are not left to our devices. It is the content of Jesus' preaching, his parables express what it is like, it is present in his person and work, and it is the driving expectation of his apostles and evangelists. We have already addressed the kingdom initially within the context of the eschatological portions of the creed. Here we need only to think through its significance for the life of prayer.

As we survey the Biblical material on the kingdom, certain themes emerge which ought to shape our prayer. Specifically, the kingdom consistently means God vindicating his people and taking the side of the oppressed. God's kingdom turns everything up-side-down. Yet even this consistent vindication of the underdogs of history is consistently full of surprises. How God's justice is achieved and the form it will take is hard to predict and impossible to control. The implication for praying the second petition is that we should consistently cry out to God on behalf of the needy of this world. That means making ourselves aware of who the underdogs are, and taking their side in prayer and therefore also in society. Yet at the same time we must remain open to the surprising means by which God might answer our prayer.

Lastly, we must ask when does the kingdom come? On the one hand, the idea of God's kingdom is spatial. It is the domain or reach of God's reign, where a fallen world operates in conformity with God's character and purpose. On the other hand, the idea of God's kingdom is temporal: it is something future, something which is to come. Thy kingdom come. We wait for it. We look for it. We anticipate it. It comes like a thief in the night, an unannounced apocalyptic event. Yet the timing of the kingdom is not only future. It is also spoken of as a present reality. The kingdom of God is among you. It is advancing. It is here. So the kingdom is both already here and not yet here.

We have already addressed this temporal tension before in relation to eschatology. All we need to do here is think through this already-but-not-yet dynamic of the kingdom from the perspective of prayer. On the one hand, we must not dismiss the kingdom as if it were a distant future reality that has no relevance for today. The kingdom is not just some big divine intervention that we should "leave to God" while we do our own thing now. If so, then we would not be instructed by Jesus to pray for it. We should be passionately looking for signs of the kingdom and waiting on the in-breaking the kingdom. In other words, we should earnestly pray that God's kingdom would come.

On the other hand, we must not try to control the kingdom as if it were already completely here in some manageable form. The kingdom is not the church, the world, the state, the family or another other member of creation as is. The kingdom is new creation, something beyond and above our creaturely control. So we must pray for it. We should be zealously looking through the present signs of the kingdom for the radical transformation to which they point. In other words, we should earnestly pray that God's kingdom would come.

Your Will Be Done

In the third petition, we pray for God's will. Now this is a place where we need guidance even more than with the previous petitions. Just as with God's kingdom, we are told by Jesus to prayer for God's will. Many of us may not struggle with the pretension of making God's kingdom into ours, but certainly all of us struggle with the temptation to bend God's will in service of our own.

But here a difficulty immediately emerges: Are we not also to petition God for our will? Are we not to make our needs and desires known to God? Does not God care about our will too?

In order to address this theological problem head on, let's employ a different interpretive strategy. With the second petition, we follow our common method of meditating on each word in order unpack its significance. With the third petition, let's use a comparative method: bringing in some related texts to see how they bear on the topic. Let's take two texts from the Gospels, each of which point in seemingly opposite directions:

In the all three synoptic gospels, Jesus prays in the garden before his arrest: "Not my will, but yours be done" (Mt 26:39; Mk 14:36; Lk 22:42). In the Gospel of John, Jesus instructions he disciples in his farewell discourse: "Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it" and "the Father will give it to you" (John 14:14; 16:23). Here we have set alongside each other two trajectories, both of which appear near the climax of Jesus's mission. On the one hand, we have the resignation of human will to God's will, based on a contrast between divine and human willing. On the other hand, we have the response of God's will to human will, based on a promise of the divine willing to satisfy human willing. How might we reconcile these two trajectories that flow out of the simple prayer for God's will to be done?

Now both of these aspects must be retained within Christian prayer for God's will. On the one hand, the resignation trajectory rightly identifies the element of struggle in prayer. There is a distinct tradition in Scripture of wrestling with God. In fact, this is where the lament and complaint find their place in Christian prayer. Genuine prayer is a struggle. On the other hand, the response trajectory rightly points to the element of blessing in prayer. God really does love us and wishes to shower us with blessings. There is a distinct tradition in Scripture of God giving unmerited rewards to those who ask, seek and knock. Both struggle and blessing are a part of Christian prayer, and to ignore either is a mistake.

However, either trajectory followed exclusively and to the extreme results in a distortion of prayer. The resignation trajectory places God and humanity in a false conflict, portraying God as a capricious God who would never want to give his children what they want. The response trajectory places God at the service of humanity, portraying God as a great Santa Clause in the sky to whom we send our wish-list prayers. Both fail as an exclusive picture of prayer to the extent that both conceive of divine and human willing in competitive terms. Either God or humanity get there way.

The clue to how these trajectories come together in the third petition of the Lord's Prayer is the rhythmic little phrase Jesus adds: "on earth as it is in heaven." How is God's will done in heaven? Simply put, with joyful obedience. The saints in glory do the will of God both out of resignation to his desires and because they want to. Prayer in heaven is neither a demoralizing conflict nor as a presumptive demand, but a free partnership with God. Jesus teaches us to pray like that now! He calls us to pray like God's children. He calls us to pray like saints, for that is who we truly are. To be a saint, to be sanctified, is to not only do the will of God but to want to do the will of God. It is the alignment of our will with God's will. It is this kind of alignment that forms the context in which both the resignation trajectory and the response trajectory must be interpreted. Only a will that submits to God fully can say, not my will but yours be done. Only a will that shares God's desires can pray "in Jesus's name" with integrity. We are called to pray that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. Let us joyfully and obediently pray that joyful obedience would be found on God's earth.

Our Daily Bread

With the fourth petition we turn to the second half of the Lord's Prayer. The shift in focus is signaled by the pronouns: after three petitions using the second person singular ("your") referring to God, we encounter a series of petitions using the first person plural ("our" and "us") referring to us. Although we must learn to start our prayer with God purposes, Jesus also invites us to bring our own needs to God in prayer. The first of these needs is the most basic: our daily bread.

Bread is a basic human need. It may not be an exciting food, but it is the dietary staple of many societies, and certainly the near eastern agrarian society in which Jesus taught. The fact that we put things on it or put it with other things just shows how basic it is. Bread goes with everything. Bread is life.

Now we shouldn't obsess to much about bread in particular. It is not as though those who live in agricultural systems without bread as its basic component are left out of this prayer. For, as we all assume without thinking much about it, "bread" is used her to figuratively refer to all sustenance. Bread is a synecdoche for food. Jesus teaches us to ask God for food. Without food, we cannot live. We are asking God for our most fundamental concern: that we would live. We not only thank God for every breath we take, but ask God to keep giving us breath by providing us with the sustenance of survival. To petition for bread is to petition for life. To ask for bread is to ask for freedom from death.

It is therefore not inconsequential that Jesus begins with bread. When it comes to our needs, the most fundamental need is life. All the remaining requests presuppose that we are alive. As we turn to the remaining requests, we move on up Maslov's hierarchy of needs. If we don't get our life-bread, the rest doesn't really apply. Dead people don't ask for forgiveness. Dead people don't ask for deliverance. Surely God can forgive and deliver the dead. But they are not in a position to ask him. So life is humanity's bottom line, and so bread is our first petition.

Before turning to those remaining petitions, we should comment on the adjective "daily" that is attached to the bread for which we ask. Now the Greek word in the original is notoriously difficult to translate. It appears to have been coined by early Christian preachers, perhaps to translate into Greek an Aramaic phrase that went back to Jesus and the early Christian community in Palestine. "Daily" is an appropriate translation, but it obscures the sense of sufficiency implied by the term. We are taught to ask for enough bread: not too little so as to starve, but not too much so as to spoil. It could even be translated "tomorrow," as in "give us today enough bread for tomorrow," which is of course exactly how the daily labor cycle in an agrarian society works. That's the full sense of daily bread.

This theme of just-enough-bread not only reinforces the "means of survival" meaning of the fourth petition sketched above, but also implies an allusion to the manna given in the desert to the people Israel. A strange bread-like substance fell on the wanderers each day, but they were told to only take enough for one day or it would spoil. In other words, they were taught to take only their daily bread. Whether this connection was intended by Jesus, the early Christian preachers, and/or the Gospel-writers is difficult to decide. But there is a long Christian tradition of allegorical interpretation that seeks to make these sorts of connections in Scripture. Contrary to what some suggest, allegory is not just a license to interpret however one desires, though there were certainly abuses in this direction. The point of allegory is to show for the deep unity of Scripture and especially the unity of the Old and New Testaments. The search for allegorical connections does not replace the literal sense, but draws on it to highlight pervasive themes in Scripture.

In the case of the fourth petition, the literal (ad litteratum means "to the letter") sense of bread is food. The allegorical sense is the bread of heaven, a theme which ties together the manna of the Old Testament and Jesus as the bread of life. The fathers of late antiquity added two further "spiritual" senses: the tropological and the anagogical. The tropological sense is the moral sense, the personal virtues called forth from the reader by the text. The tropological sense of bread is the word of God, for man does not live by bread alone. The anagogical sense is the eschatological sense, the ultimate future hope revealed by the text. The tropological sense of bread is the great marriage feast of the Lamb, of which a sign and foretaste comes in the bread and cup of the Lord's Supper.

And so with the bread of the fourth petition we can see exemplified the practice of the "fourfold sense" of Scripture. Now you may or may not be in to this sort of interpretive endeavor. However, an initiation into the Christian tradition without it would pass over a deeply influential practice of the church. This is not to say there are not good reasons to question its value. In the case of the fourth petition, such spiritualizing can easily forget the crucial literal sense of praying for our basic needs and so ignore the many hungry stomachs of this world on whose behalf we must pray. We are taught to pray for our daily bread, not just my daily bread. Perhaps the spiritual senses of Scripture bring a text like this to life for you, but that does mitigate the fact that there are many for whom the literal sense of this petition is a life-or-death request. So even as we explore the rich world of allegorical interpretation, we must never forget the basic needs of ourselves and our near and far neighbors.

Forgive us our Debts

After addressing the most pressing need for today, the Lord's Prayer turns one of the more complex needs of daily life: debt. In today's borrowing and lending economy, we know a lot about debt. And when things goes wrong, we know how oppressive the chains of debt can be. However, most modern societies no longer have debtor's prisons and indentured servitude. So, even though we understand difficulties of debt, it is not nearly a big of a threat as it has been historically. This is important to remember, because Jesus is teaching his disciples to pray for the very concrete complexities of debt. Is there a spiritual sense to this petition? Absolutely. Our debt to God is the one absolute debt we owe. But that does not rule out our shared concern over the relative debts we owe one another. As can be seen from Jesus's numerous teachings on money, debt concerned him. It got to him. And so he taught his disciples to take up that concern and make it theirs.

Of course, all this talk of debts may be throwing some of you off a bit. Isn't it trespasses? Well, that is the language of the traditional Anglican prayer book, and so has become familiar to many English-speaking Christians. But it does not have strong support in the original Lord's Prayer texts, so it is probably better to go with debts. The advantage of debt-language is its wider meaning. The fifth petition is not concerned narrowly with the moral category of trespasses, but includes the concern for financial woes. Furthermore, as we expand to the spiritual sense of debts, we are being taught to ask for forgiveness not only for how we have wronged God and one another but also for what we owe God and one another. Debt-language has a much wider application and so is relevant to all of us, all the time.

What do we owe God? Everything. God the Father Almighty is the creator of heaven and earth. That means everything. So we have God to thank for everything we have, including our own selves. And we have God to ask for everything that we will have. In other words, we owe God everything. In the fifth petition, we come before our heavenly Father and ask, "Please, don't make me pay back so great a debt. I don't have the resources. Let this one slide. Tear up the I.O.U. Forgive us our debts."

Although debt language is wider than the moral category of trespasses, it does not exclude but includes issues of morality. The New Testament and the Christian tradition mix financial and moral metaphors all the time. Just think of phrases like "debt of sin" or concepts such as "imputed righteousness." So in the fifth petition, Jesus teaches us to ask God to cancel the debt of sin we owe to him and one another. And Jesus himself has answered this prayer in his life and death, and as the risen Lord speaks the word of forgiveness to us through his Spirit. In light of this good news, the Christian prays that simply prayer, "Lord, have mercy on me, a poor sinner" and joins the church in praying, "Forgive us our debts."

Yet the fifth petition does not end there. It adds a subordinate clause signaled by the little word "as." Father, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debts. This as-clause adds a caveat to the request for forgiveness. The meaning of the word "as" is ambiguous here. Is it a condition: forgive us if we forgive others? Or is it a consequence: forgive us so that we can forgive others? Although one can debate the grammar of the text, I do not think we are forced to choose between the two theologically. The point is the correspondence between God's forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others. The two actions go together. Clearly an ontological priority must be given to the former: God's forgiveness is initiated eternally by his grace and executed in Christ while we were still sinners. But the chronological relation in our own experience is not predictable. Some of us may need to learn to forgive others in order to accept that we too are forgiven by God, while others of us may need to be assured of God's forgiveness before we can be freed to forgive others. The point in either case is that the heart of Christian ethics is that we forgive us others as God forgave us (Col 3:13; Eph 4:23). As the parable of the unmerciful servant illustrates, God's forgiveness is a great unmerited gift to us, which both permits and demands that we forgive the debts of others (Matt 28:21-35). The bumper sticker gets it half-right: "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven." It's just missing the as-clause: "as we forgive others." Yes, Christians aren't perfect: they might cut you off. But Christians are called to live a life worthy of the gospel: when you cut them off, they must not hold it against you. Christians are not just forgiven, but also forgiving, for they are the ones who pray "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

Deliver us from the Evil One

Whereas the fifth petition asks for freedom from past obligations of debt, the sixth and final petition asks for freedom from future encounters with the devil. Here the hope-character of the Lord's Prayer returns in full force -- not in the cosmic terms of the coming kingdom of God, but in the personal terms of temptation and deliverance. Jesus teaches us to ask God to please keep us from temptation and deliver us from the tempter.

Now there are a couple of things to notice here. First of all, I have chosen to treat the last two clauses as one petition and not two. Although I am not alone in this, their is no consensus in the catechetical tradition on this matter. Most famously, Luther distinguished these two petitions, so that all tolled there are seven petitions in his exposition of the Lord's Prayer. The reason of have chosen to combine them is not to de-emphasize them or just to have an even number. Rather, it is because the two go so naturally together as contrasting aspects of one request for salvation, signaled by the conjunction "but." The first aspect is preventative: we ask our heavenly father to prevent temptation. Lord, do not lead us into temptation. The second aspects is interventionist: we ask our heavenly father to intervene on our behalf when we do face temptation. Lord, do deliver us from the evil one. Do not lead; but rather, deliver. The two together form one prayer: "Lord, save us!"

The second thing to notice is that from which we are delivered: not evil, but the evil one. The traditional liturgical form of the Lord's Prayer speaks in the abstract terms of "evil." Although a possible translation, the original Matthean text speaks of evil in personal terms: the evil one. The reason to go with the more personal language is to counter the tendency in our time to speak too abstractly and therefore vaguely of evil. Now there are good reasons to not speak in personal terms about evil. Evil is not personal in the same way you and I are, and certainly not in the way that God is personal. Evil is the anti-thesis of true personhood. The evil one is a parody of God's triune personhood, seeking power in a self-aggrandizing rather than self-giving way. The evil one's "personality" is self-enclosed and destructive and therefore falls short of the true personhood of God and the human personhood to which we are called. Evil is the privation of good -- its absence or twisting. And so the evil one is the privation of personhood.

But it is precisely as a parody of the triune God that we can and must speak of evil in personal terms. Evil is not only the sum total of moral wrongness nor even the powerful forces behind all evils, but at bottom is the accuser, the biblical sah-tan, the one who makes the case against us, the one who laughs at us in our misfortune and failure, the one over whom God has triumphed in Jesus Christ. Despite the potential embarrassment and abuse of such "mythological" language, Christians speak of evil in personal terms. When we cry out to God for deliverance, we ask to be delivered from the evil one -- the devil, satan, beelzebub and his demons. Christians take the evil one seriously, precisely because God has taken him seriously -- so seriously that he has faced him off in person and defeated him on his own turf. In light of the death-blow already struck against the evil one in the death and resurrection of Jesus, we pray with confidence and hope to God the Father: deliver us from the evil one!

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Having asked God to feed us, forgive us, and deliver us, the Lord's Prayer turns its attention back on God. The pronouns shift back from "our" to "your," yet not to make one last petition on God's behalf but to speak a word of praise, a doxology. Now it is worth noting that this doxology is not in the original versions of the Lord's Prayer found in the gospels. It did, however, make its way into the church's liturgical use of the prayer very early, as evidenced by its inclusion in the Didache's version of the Lord's Prayer. Although it is not original, it is an unobtrusive addition that employs typical early Christian doxological language and fits the themes of the prayer quite well. It therefore serves as a reminder of where our focus ought to be: on God. By praising God for his kingdom we remind ourselves whose kingdom it is we seek. By acknowledging God's power we remind ourselves to submit to his will. By giving God the glory we remind ourselves to hallow his name. So the emphasis here is not on the three terms but on the pronoun. Next time you pray the Lord's Prayer whether in public or private, try placing the accent on "thine" or "your," just as a reminder of who it is to whom we prayer and in whom we place our hopes. "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."

Any thoughts?

• Did you follow the transition from faith as expressed in the Apostles' Creed to hope as expressed in the Lord's Prayer? Or were the connections made the beginning of this lecture obscure to you?
• How do you balance praise and petition in your own prayer life? Is "balance" even a value here? What other types of prayer are there, and how do they relate to these two basic types?
• What is the best use of Scriptural guidance for prayer? Should we pray the very words of Scripture? Do they only provide principles for prayer? How do you draw on Scripture in your prayer life?
• Are you more inclined towards prepared prayers or extemporaneous prayer? Can arguments be made for one or the other? Or is it just a matter of preference?
• Do you consider it appropriate to locate the Lord's Prayer within a trinitarian context as I have done? What benefits does this bring? What drawbacks does it have?
• What does it look like to hallow God's name?
• Does our prayer hasten this kingdom's coming? Can we do anything for the kingdom? Do we just ask and wait? Do we even need to ask? What role do we play in the coming of the kingdom?
• How do you balance praying for your own will and wrestling with God over his? Do find yourself leaning one way or the other? What steps can blessing-seekers take to become God-wrestlers, and vice-versa? In what ways can we learn to pray both joyfully and obediently?
• What would happen if we not only thanked God for our meals but also asked God for our meals? Would it change the way we look at food?
• What are the benefits of allegorical interpretation? What are the costs?
• What sorts of things can be included under the umbrella of "debt?" Is it helpful to use this wider category? Is something lost by abandoning the more strictly moral category of "trespasses?"
• Do you agree that the last two lines of the Lord's Prayer are really one petition? Can you make a case why or why not? What difference does it make for the interpretation of that portion of the prayer?
• Ought we to speak of evil in personal terms? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages?