Immanence & Transcendence

Immanence vs. transcendence
This is one of the key dichotomies which drags the various arms of Christianity apart. There are those which emphasize God’s transcendence – i.e. the holiness, pentecostal religions whereby God is seen as far and above us and what is sought is the transcendent moment – the power encounter (slain in the spirit), the great time of worship etc. These types can be very easily removed form culture and inaccessible to the outsider with their message that negates human life; to go that far is error;

The immanence religions are the ones that see God in human life and emphasize natural theology. These seek to see God in all people and in all good works and in all of our inclinations and culture. The danger could be to equate our culture with God’s ideal, and to lose the transcendent and transforming element in our religion. God can become so close as to think that we are God or even to descend into pantheism

The ideal is to transcend dichotomies (Dialectics?) and to see how the truth of these two poles can be embraced together. This would be the approach of the mystic who finds the transcendent in the ordinary – who sees the infinite in the finite and is transformed by the encounters had in the everyday – through peak experiences, transcendent moments etc. Surely this is one way forward for Christianity

Some of this thinking comes from Erich Fromm’s book “The Art of Loving” which said that real love is an attempt to transcend ourselves and our separateness from each other.

The Relationship Between Heaven and Earth

One of the key things that we have tended to misunderstand in the church is the relationship between heaven and earth. In particular, we have always located heaven as a place far away, only accessible through divine intervention, or as a place we arrive at after we die, or worse, the place that our soul goes to – our final destination.
As Moltmann makes clear in my post below (Why we no longer have hope for this world) this has been a reduction and a distortion of the Christian message. Orthodox theology has always regarded salvation as the uniting of heaven and earth – of heaven coming to earth and of a perfected earthly existence (hence the New Jerusalem imagery in Revelation).
Much of the confusion regarding our salvation has been due to our loss of the Jewish idea of heaven and our replacing it with a more Greek (some would say Platonic) view of heaven. In our view, Heaven is a immaterial dimension inaccessible to the material person, where God dwells in perfection and where souls will go to be with God in a disembodied bliss. The Jewish idea of heaven is very different. For the Jewish mind, heaven is all around us. The heavenly realm is a place where God rules, and which is a reality which the earthly (I use this word to differentiate our realm from the heavenly) realm is connected to and influenced by. It is a parallel existence where God’s will is done – it is part of the spiritual realm. Moltmann has some insightful and challenging things to say about Heaven and Earth:

“The dual world described in the words ‘heaven and earth’ is the goodly form of God’s creation; it is not a conflicting and divided world… ‘Heaven’ is the word used to describe the sphere of God’s creative potentialities and energies … ‘The earth’ is the term we use for the sphere of created reality and the possibilities inherent in that reality. … But the distinction also leads to an understanding of thr continual communication between God’s creative potentialities towards the world, and the worldly potentials themselves; for the worldly potentials are made possible by the divine ones.

The continual making-possibilities-possible keeps the world in existence and its life systems alive; for it keeps the future open for all open systems, and opens that future anew. To put it in theological terms, creation lives from the continual inflow of the energies of the Spirit of God. To put it symbolically: because heaven is open, and as long as it is open, the world has a future.” (God in Creation, 182.)

What Moltmann makes clear here is that Heaven and Earth are not separate, but Heaven is the place where the newness and potentials of God’s intention for creation exist, and from there, they can inform and shape the realm of the earth. This is called God’s Kingdom breaking in. One day, when his will is done on earth as it is in heaven, then his kingdom will have fully come. This is what Jacob saw when he dreamed of the ladder between heaven and earth – a free interchange between this world and the world where God’s will rules perfectly. It may not be too great a stretch to say that Jacob’s ladder was a type of Christ. For in Christ, heaven and earth are united, and through him they will be finally and completely united. But this surely must be the topic of another post – perhaps on Deification.

Having Our Lives Stolen from Us

Continuing my study of Jurgen Moltmann’s thought, I came across another startling quote today which summarises why we must correct our understanding of Christian Hope – of heaven, resurrection and eternal life and the relationship that these things have to our lives in the here and now. Here’s the quote:

“The thought of death and a life after death can lead to fatalism and apathy, so that we only live life here half-heartedly, or just endure it and ‘get through’. The thought of a life after death can cheat us of the happiness and the pain of this life,so that we squander its treasures, selling them off cheap to heaven. In that respect it is better to live every day as if death didn’t exist, better to love life here and now as unreservedly as if death really were ‘the finish’. The notion that this life is no more than a preparation for a life beyond, is the theory of a refusal to live, and a religious fraud. It is inconsistent with the living God, who is ‘a lover of life’. In that sense it is religious atheism.” from The Coming of God.

Who isn’t challenged by this quote? Too often we are told that this life is merely the preparation or the ‘test’ for the life to come. But the resurrection of Jesus makes it clear that it is this life and no other which becomes the life to come - resurrection is the transforming of this life – taking through death and out into incorruptibility on the other side. But it’s this life and not some other life that gets transformed – it is this earthly/spiritual life which will become spiritual/earthly life in the future.

Therefore; to invest in this life in hope and in love and in faith is to invest this life with the elements which will remain eternally. All that is done apart from these motivations will not last; even our preaching, prophecy, service, tongues etc etc. Since as Paul makes clear in 1 Cor 13 – only these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. And he makes this point just before he goes on to explain how they will remain in 1 Cor 15. The discussion in 1 Cor 14 is a practical discussion of the kind of common life of love practised by the church which will make it through death and out the other side into an eternal, common life of love together.

The church must get busy again demonstrating to the world that the glory of God is humanity fully alive. Because that will reveal to the world who God is, who we are, and what life is – the fullness of us in God and God in us, and in all of creation.

We must take life back – it belongs to us, not to the hedonist or those who deny God. 

Why We No Longer Have Hope For This World

I have been studying the theology of Jurgen Moltmann recently – he is one of the most significant theologians to write in this century. In his book God in Creation I came across the following quote which summed up the heart of where much of evnagelical theology has taken a wrong turn:

“1. The first reduction of heaven to something quite different was made in the Christian church itself. As the realistic eschatology of the kingdom of God receded, heaven was increasingly – and to the same degree – declared to be the place of salvation for the soul. The prayer for the coming of the kingdom ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ was replaced by the longing ‘to go to heaven’ oneself. The kingdom of God’s glory and the salvation of the whole creation was reduced to heaven; and heaven was reduced to the salvation of the soul.

This religious reduction led to the heedless neglect of the earth and to the surrender of its future. Anyone who confuses the kingdom of God with heaven transforms his hope into resignation.

2. If heaven is reduced to God himself, it ceases to be a part of creation, and is as uncreated and eternal as God himself. It is then God’s essential Being before he resolved to become the creator. A heaven divinized in this way contains the potential for creation’s destruction. The reduction of heaven to God himself therefore delivers the earth over to the apocalyptic ‘annihilation of the world’.”[1]

Basically, what this is saying is that we have lost the correct understanding of salvation as the coming of the Kingdom of God and have reduced it to the salvation of the soul in heaven. The net result of this is that we no longer see the relevance of any meaningful engagement in the world as Christians, except for the purpose of “getting people saved.” We have lost the heart of Jesus message that “The Kingdom of God is at hand” and have thereby abdicated our responsibility to bring it about, to the degree that it is in our power to do so. And in the vacuum that has been left by our abandonment of our vocation to “bring the kingdom” or “build for the new creation” (to use the terms I have been using so far in this blog), other forces have been free to shape culture and society in ways that are unjust, dehumanising and in many ways obviously evil.

In order to recapture the world with the vision of what God intended it to be, and what human existence within this world was meant to look like, we need to again understand what heaven is and what it’s relationship to the earth is. It is the place where God reigns and which is open to his possibilities. God’s destiny for the creation below (as opposed to heaven, the creation above, since is heaven is clearly one of God’s created works) is that it would become the place where is will is done ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. Until this becomes a central part of our gospel again, we will continue to neglect our vocation to bring Christ’s lordship into this creation and we will allow the world to be shaped by what is not from God, and ultimately, by what is evil.

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[1] J. Moltmann, God in Creation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 181.

 

The “So what?” Question.

I was talking with a friend the other day about these ideas and he asked me the “So what?” question – what difference do these ideas make to the way we live our lives?

And the answer to that is that it changes everything! Most of all, it changes our Monday to Saturday life. Instead of church meetings  being the focus of our Christian life, we are now urged to see everything to do with our engagement with this world as the focus. Our mandate to be stewards of creation is renewed, and we can get on with subduing it, filling it,developing it and making it new. N.T. Wright says it best in Surprised by Hope:

That is what Paul insists on when he says that the whole creation is waiting with eager longing not just for its own redemption, its liberation from corruption and decay, but for God’s children to be revealed: in other words, for the unveiling of those redeemed humans though whose stewardship creation will be brought back into that wise order for which it was made. And since Paul makes it quite clear that those who believe in Jesus Christ, who are incorporated into him through baptism, are already God’s children, are already themselves saved, this stewardship cannot be something to be postponed for the ultimate future. It must begin here and now.[1]

Instead of an ‘on fire’ Christian being defined by attendance at church meetings and their participation in church events, the role and work of the Christian is defined by their engagement with and transformation of the world around them. We will truly begin to be salt and light – understanding that the world was meant to reflect God’s glory and that we are the ones who can make it do so – by imprinting the image that has been restored in us on everything in the world around us.

That’s the difference it makes. It is a huge one. But it needs this generation to work out what that will look like in practice.

This is what it looks like to be a Christian 'on fire' for God

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[1] Wright, Surprised by Hope, 200.

What Difference Will this Understanding Make?

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This is the key question really: Will this way of understanding the gospel make any difference to anything or is it just another idea which changes nothing?

In case it isn’t obvious, let me make it clear: It changes EVERYTHING.

The most important difference for me is that it changes the way the church (and therefore the way individual Christians) think about our mission in the world. In the old view, our mission has been to get people to believe that Jesus died for their sins – a very difficult task in this day and age; one that seems irrelevant to most people, and one that the church is not having a huge amount of success in achieving.

But when we understand that God wants to create (and has already begun) a New Creation, then we have a message that we really want to put over the loudspeaker at the mall, or put in an ad on the radio, without feeling embarrassed. Because our message is no longer: Come believe in Jesus and be saved from the hell that everyone is doomed to go to otherwise. It is:

Come and join the church as we carry on Jesus’ mission of making everything new and right and good again. Come and be part of the renewal of all things: hearts, lives, families, neighbourhoods, schools, the earth (,the cosmos).

All of a sudden I am proud and excited about the mission of the church and no longer feel as if I’m supposed to be standing with the weirdo on the street corner yelling that we must repent because the end is near. All of a sudden we have a message of hope for the whole world!

And that is a big difference. There are other far-reaching differences which I am sure will be unpacked in later posts, but this is the key one for me. This is why I am excited about being a Christian again

The Old View vs. The New View

Here are some points I wrote down for my sermon this Sunday. This is to explain to the church why once every six weeks we are going to get out into the community and ‘make things right’ in some area. We are doing this as our Sunday service – not in addition to it – since to me, this encapsulates part of our vocation of being the church.

Anyway here are the major differences between the old view of the gospel and the new view:

1. 1. The old model:
   1. Salvation is about being forgiven
   2. The goal is to get to heaven
   3. The problem is sin – we are guilty
   4. Jesus was all about dying for our sins, so we can be friends with God again
   5. We live in this life to get others saved for heaven – “being a good witness”
   6. Church is a lifeboat which we try to pull people into to save them from the world which is all going under.
   7. God needs to punish someone before we can be close again.
2. 2. The New Model
   1. Salvation is about the restoration of the whole world and universe to what it was meant to be – a place full of the glory of God.
   2. The goal is the New Creation – an earthly paradise where we live lives one with God
   3. The problem is “fallenness” – things are broken; we are broken, the earth is broken, the universe is broken – out of harmony with God; he is not Lord.
   4. Jesus judged and ended the old creation and in his resurrection began a new one in himself. He is coming back to finish what he has begun.
   5. We live life to start this New Creation now – knowing we won’t finish it, but that the life of the age to come has already started amongst us with the coming of God as The Spirit.
   6. Church is an oasis in the desert – a place of new creation which is meant to grow and fill the earth and reveal the glory of God to the earth.
   7. God sent his own Son to make everything new.

Actually, the old view is part of the new view – it is one part of the restoration of everything – but it is not the whole picture.

So, we are going out to do good works

NOT to be a good witness

NOT to do good PR for the church

NOT primarily to build relationships with the community

It is about doing something that we believe will last forever – making things right, making the world the way it is supposed to be.

It is this view of the gospel which makes sense of what we are supposed to do with our lives now! It is an idea which will reshape the way we do church and the way we live our lives.

What is the “New Creation”?

Off the top of my head and without getting too technical, the phrase “New Creation” best encapsulates what God has done through Jesus.

That statement alone would have got me burned at the stake a few years ago, but more and more people (and theologians particularly) are coming to see this as the central idea in redemption. And this idea goes something like this:

In Jesus Christ, God began a New Creation. It began while the old one was still going. In fact, it was a transformation of the old one. This New Creation exists in the church and in individual Christians (if there are such things – we’ll save that for another post). It is the presence of God’s perfect world – the Creation where everything is right and in tune with God, where God’s will is done on earth, as it is in heaven. In fact, this New Creation is ultimately the union of heaven and earth.

Now, immediately you will protest by saying that everything is not perfect in the church or in the lives of Christians. There is no union of heaven and earth in their lives! Perhaps not yet, but through trust in Jesus, we anticipate the New Creation – we begin it now, even though it won’t be completed until Jesus returns to finish the job.

Need a few scriptures to support these ideas?

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

(2Co 5:14-17)

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

(Col 3:3-4)

This what being born again is all about. Except that its not just about us! Everything will be made new. Even more importantly: everything is being made new. As the rest of that passage from 2 Corinthians goes on to say – we in the church have been given the ministry of reconciling all things with God – not just people – all things.

What does that mean and what does that look like?

What do you think?

Why Building “For” the New Creation

I was originally going to call this blog “Building the New Creation,” until I read Surprised By Hope, by NT Wright. In his book he describes the vocation of the church as building for the New Creation, which captures the tension between us contributing to the future world that will come to be at the resurrection, and the fact that only God can ultimately bring about the new Creation — but that it will somehow be the completion and the transformation of what we have done to re-create the world, to fulfil our vocation as stewards of creation and cultivators of the earth.

NT Wright also provides a metaphor to help us grasp what it means to be building for the New Creation. While it has its weaknesses (as all metaphors do) it captures the idea that we are contributing to the creation of a world, but one which we are unsure of what it will look like, or how our contributions will become part of it. But the key truth it communicates is that anything done for God to make things right in this world will somehow be seed for the New Creation.

Here is NT Wright’s metaphor in his own words:

“The image I often use in trying to explain this strange but important idea is that of the stonemason working on part of a great cathedral. The architect already drew up the plans and passed on instructions to the team of masons as to which stones need carving in what way. The foreman distributes these tasks among the team. One shapes stones for a particular tower or turret; another carves the delicate pattern that breaks up the otherwise forbidding straight lines; another works on gargoyles or coats of arms; another is making statues of saints, martyrs, kings or queens. They are vaguely aware that the others are getting on with their tasks, and they know, of course, that many other departments are busy about quite different tasks as well. When they’ve finished with their stones and their statues, they hand them over without necessarily knowing very much about where in the eventual building their work will find its home. They may not have seen the complete architect’s drawing of the whole building with their bit identified  in its proper place. They may not live, either, to see the completed building with their work at last where it belongs. But they trust the architect that the work they have done in following instructions will not be wasted. They are not, themselves, building the cathedral, but they are buildingfor the cathedral, and when the cathedral is complete their work will be enhanced, ennobled, will mean much more than it could have meant as they were chiselling it and shaping it down in the stonemason’s yard.” (p.209-10).

Of course, if you have no idea what I mean by New Creation or what I am talking about, then I have a lot of ground to cover in future blogs. And I will cover it.

But that is why this is called what it is.