Recently, I have been trying to see things from the perspective of a dear friend of mine, who is in the midst of the long and often tense process of growing up to become a wonderful young woman. Being still in the midst (though hopefully closer to the end than the beginning) of my own rather stressful transition into manhood and the responsibilities full manhood entails (that is, to others, instead of just to one's self), I have a great deal of sympathy for my friend. All my life I have been fascinated by the behavior of other people. From early childhood I watched what big people did, what other little people did, and before too long I found myself as a person in between worlds, where in some areas I was like the big people, and in other areas I was like the little people, though I have never found myself very much like the other people my own age. As I have gotten older and (hopefully) wiser, I have still retained a great many qualities from my youth, including my extreme tenderness for little people and my extreme curiosity about the behavior of those around me. Somehow, these things never got lost along the course of my life, and so I often feel both a great deal older and a great deal younger than I am. I can find myself amused by the humorous and innocent antics of small children, feel with the earnest struggles of my teenage friend, and enjoy the intelligent and serious conversations with adults who are often (at least) my parents' age, often in the same day.
Moving in between worlds has its advantages. Each world has its own unique perspective. For children, the world is a very small place, centered around the child and his (or her) wants and needs (and usually the child cannot separate these very well). Hours can pass by quickly while having fun, or minutes can feel like hours in boredom and frustration. For a teenager, there are often great ambitions, and the desire to be as free as an adult, with a fear of the oppressive responsibilities looming, arguing (either out loud or silently) with one's parents, trying to find one's own identity and place in the world. For many (like myself), the struggles to sort out our feelings about ourselves, our place in the world, our families, our destiny, and where we stand with others continue long after the teenage years ends. For young adults, determining who we are in terms of our education, our jobs, and our friends only leads to other questions of a lasting nature--such as our thoughts for eternity (once we realize we are not immortal--though somehow I managed to escape feeling immortal during my youth, and struggled with a different sort of problem), and our thoughts about what sort of responsibilities we wish to take on in our workplaces, as well as dealing with family (such as, do we want to have one of our own?), once the realization that we were not created to be alone means we must take on responsibilities of seeking and becoming examples for others to follow.
I do not know the world of full adulthood, in the sense of being married and having children, but from what I have seen of others, it offers new challenges in dealing with this need to be a good example for those that follow after us. Successful self-control and the establishment of godly relationships with others leads us into greater responsibilities where we exercise rule over others in households, in businesses, in congregations, and in the world at large. Once again, if we are faithful in little, we are given more to deal with. I know even less of what being elderly means, but here again is a change--we leave a lot of the hustle and bustle to younger people, and sometimes must depend on others to take care of us (especially if health becomes an issue), but at the same time there is an entire lifetime of great stories we have to tell others (and I always love hearing the stories people have to tell), as well as a lot of wisdom about how to treat others, and how to view our life over the long term.
I still remember and look back fondly at the times I spent with my great-grandfather Matthias as we drank root beer, he smoked cigars, and we watched football (during bowl season, when there were some college games not on Saturdays). He would tell stories about the other athletes he knew, who he boxed with and played football with, still sound of mind, still full of his dislike of foreigners and Catholics, still full of love for his far-flung family. Among his great-grandchildren, perhaps I was the least like him, bookish and not gifted with much athletic ability. But it didn't matter--I loved hearing his stories and he loved telling them, and somehow I feel I needed to hear them as much as he needed to tell them, and vice versa. He was as uncomfortable with his position in life as I was with mine, but in sharing his stories and wisdom he gave me a great gift in seeing the world, if only for a little bit, through the eyes of someone else. And in having someone who was so interested in his stories, perhaps he realized that even if he couldn't work anymore, that he still had something to give to the world around him.
It seems that in life, if we are living it properly, we are always somehow moving in between worlds. We were created with infinite longing in our hearts, and a miniscule reach, and though that can be tragic (as we may be filled with much angst and worry about our inabilities to deal with the responsibilities and burdens we have been given), it can also be wonderfully liberating as well to know that we are not stuck in little boxes for all time. Because we can grow, can learn, and can mature, we also are faced with the need of developing the ability to see where others come from, in the knowledge that sometimes we have been there before, and sometimes we will be there in time. There should always be something more for us to explore, some new challenge to overcome, some mountain to climb, some story to hear and to tell, some book to read, some relationship to deepen, someone to teach, someone to learn from, some reason to look at the world wide-eyed and enthusiastic about what is to come today, some reason to have hope for what may come tomorrow, and some reason to be glad one had yesterday. We do not choose to be alive, but if we are wise, we choose to live the lives we have been given as best as we may, and to hope and pray that it is enough, for if we are truly blessed, we just may have the opportunity to move beyond this world today into a world tomorrow that we can scarcely begin to imagine. But to live tomorrow, we must live well today.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
On Theonomy
In the course of my theological readings, I have come across a movement that describes itself as a fringe on the fringe of Calvinism, but though it springs from somewhat different denominational origins than my own personal religious tradition, it springs from nearly identical hermeneutical (and presuppositional) assumptions about how to interpret scripture, even if the interpretations themselves are sometimes different. This relatively recent theological phenomenon is called Theonomy, coming from the Greek words for "God's law," and this group of people, mostly from a Protestant Reconstructionist background (more on that in a bit), view God's law as the sole source of human ethics. This particular viewpoint also views the biblical laws (especially those found in the Penteteuch) as remaining valid in Christianity, a view I hold most strongly and that springs from my own personal religious heritage. It almost goes without saying that this view also holds the scriptures to be inerrant and to be the eternal and unchanging standard for how individuals, families, churches, and societies to behave.
Many of the people who are called (or who call themselves) Theonomists spring from a Calvinist and postmillennialist tradition, with the belief that regeneration of society can spring from a conversion of people to biblical Christianity and the adoption of a biblical worldview that leads to actions by believers in line with biblical principles. Many theonomists, particularly those whose believes are in accordance with Dominion Theology, view the millennium as something to be brought about by an ever-more redeemed Christianity whose biblical worldview ever increasingly influences the world around us, thus bringing corrupt and fallen human institutions further and further in line with God's laws, thus eventually bringing the millennium to this earth through the action of the Holy Spirit in believers.
I do not come from that particular tradition, nor am I particularly optimistic about the ability of human society to be redeemed apart from the direct imposition of biblical law by Jesus Christ upon his return to earth. As someone who believes the law to be an enduring covenant between God and believers for all time and also believes the law to represent the way in which God has ordained for society to be run, though, I would have to consider myself a Theonomist in some fashion. Interestingly enough, I find myself in recent years to have found quite a few close friends of mine within the Church of God tradition who themselves have been (almost without knowing it, perhaps) engaging in serious research and Bible study on exactly these lines, and I have been the fond reader (and occasional implementer) of this research. What all of these lines of thinking, many proceeding from independent grounds, have in common is their start from the premise that God's law in its entirety remains a part of the covenant that Christians commit to by accepting a personal relationship with God. This idea of the covenant as containing within it the entirety of biblical law as revealed in scripture leads to interesting implications, and I will briefly examine some of them here.
For example, one friend of mine has recently written a lengthy and quite authoritative study on the biblical precedent for self-defense springing from the case law of the Penteteuch. It follows that if that one considers that law to be authoritative and binding in its entirety for Christians today unless specifically revised by the New Testament, that self-defense remains a right, and the defense of innocent life remains a responsibility for Christians today. The only way one can sever the link is either through dubious interpretations of the NT that are themselves divorced from proper context, or through denying the validity of the entire Bible to the conduct of Christians. If one does not wish to obey God's commands, and is not willing to admit one's self as a sinner (as, unfortunately, is necessary for me to do quite often) one is left to partake of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and face the punishment of a rebel and a traitor to God's kingdom.
Another friend of mine was a co-writer some years ago in a short book about Sabbath observance which has created quite a storm. Though I struggle to put into practice the ideals of that book about Sabbath observance, it did trigger some thinking about how people react when their actions fall short of the standards of, say, Nehemiah. A friend of mine, who disagreed quite strongly with the analysis and found the point of the research to be glaringly obvious (it is), nonetheless conceeded that if Christians are to be an example to the world that it would then follow that these recommendations would need to be followed. Are we not to be an example to the world? We have not been called to retreat from this world, though we are called to be different from the world even as we interact with the world and provide examples of how citizens of God's kingdom should behave, which would automatically make us an example, whether we want to be or not. What this means is sometimes difficult to determine, though it is something we should always keep in mind.
Even in my own writings, without realizing it, I have examined matters from a Theonomic perspective. An example of this is in my work on the development of Christian virtue, in which I maintained that the development of Christian virtue comes through internalizing God's law such that it no longer becomes a list of do's and don'ts, but rather becomes so entrenched that one sees the law as a prompting to behave in love far beyond the minimum requirements of the law (see, for example, the way in which Boaz surpassed the minimum requirement of allowing Ruth to glean and was prompted to show great generosity to her without shaming her). It is in this sense that the law remains, not as a billy club to pound others for not being obedient, but rather as a way to develop, through the habit of obedience, the very loving character of God Himself, so that we may become more like Him in the way in which we conduct our lives. It is also in this way that we can redeem our own families and congregations, one life at a time.
Perhaps it is in this way that my agreement with the Theonomists is most profound, because it is not something to be done from the top-down, but rather from the bottom-up, and all redemption must spring from the free choice of people, one at a time, to accept the divine offer of unmerited grace. It is only then that redemption can work its magic to heal the wounds of life in a fallen world, to turn repentant sinners into fitting examples of godly behavior, and to help redeem the curse that has fallen upon this world.
Many of the people who are called (or who call themselves) Theonomists spring from a Calvinist and postmillennialist tradition, with the belief that regeneration of society can spring from a conversion of people to biblical Christianity and the adoption of a biblical worldview that leads to actions by believers in line with biblical principles. Many theonomists, particularly those whose believes are in accordance with Dominion Theology, view the millennium as something to be brought about by an ever-more redeemed Christianity whose biblical worldview ever increasingly influences the world around us, thus bringing corrupt and fallen human institutions further and further in line with God's laws, thus eventually bringing the millennium to this earth through the action of the Holy Spirit in believers.
I do not come from that particular tradition, nor am I particularly optimistic about the ability of human society to be redeemed apart from the direct imposition of biblical law by Jesus Christ upon his return to earth. As someone who believes the law to be an enduring covenant between God and believers for all time and also believes the law to represent the way in which God has ordained for society to be run, though, I would have to consider myself a Theonomist in some fashion. Interestingly enough, I find myself in recent years to have found quite a few close friends of mine within the Church of God tradition who themselves have been (almost without knowing it, perhaps) engaging in serious research and Bible study on exactly these lines, and I have been the fond reader (and occasional implementer) of this research. What all of these lines of thinking, many proceeding from independent grounds, have in common is their start from the premise that God's law in its entirety remains a part of the covenant that Christians commit to by accepting a personal relationship with God. This idea of the covenant as containing within it the entirety of biblical law as revealed in scripture leads to interesting implications, and I will briefly examine some of them here.
For example, one friend of mine has recently written a lengthy and quite authoritative study on the biblical precedent for self-defense springing from the case law of the Penteteuch. It follows that if that one considers that law to be authoritative and binding in its entirety for Christians today unless specifically revised by the New Testament, that self-defense remains a right, and the defense of innocent life remains a responsibility for Christians today. The only way one can sever the link is either through dubious interpretations of the NT that are themselves divorced from proper context, or through denying the validity of the entire Bible to the conduct of Christians. If one does not wish to obey God's commands, and is not willing to admit one's self as a sinner (as, unfortunately, is necessary for me to do quite often) one is left to partake of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and face the punishment of a rebel and a traitor to God's kingdom.
Another friend of mine was a co-writer some years ago in a short book about Sabbath observance which has created quite a storm. Though I struggle to put into practice the ideals of that book about Sabbath observance, it did trigger some thinking about how people react when their actions fall short of the standards of, say, Nehemiah. A friend of mine, who disagreed quite strongly with the analysis and found the point of the research to be glaringly obvious (it is), nonetheless conceeded that if Christians are to be an example to the world that it would then follow that these recommendations would need to be followed. Are we not to be an example to the world? We have not been called to retreat from this world, though we are called to be different from the world even as we interact with the world and provide examples of how citizens of God's kingdom should behave, which would automatically make us an example, whether we want to be or not. What this means is sometimes difficult to determine, though it is something we should always keep in mind.
Even in my own writings, without realizing it, I have examined matters from a Theonomic perspective. An example of this is in my work on the development of Christian virtue, in which I maintained that the development of Christian virtue comes through internalizing God's law such that it no longer becomes a list of do's and don'ts, but rather becomes so entrenched that one sees the law as a prompting to behave in love far beyond the minimum requirements of the law (see, for example, the way in which Boaz surpassed the minimum requirement of allowing Ruth to glean and was prompted to show great generosity to her without shaming her). It is in this sense that the law remains, not as a billy club to pound others for not being obedient, but rather as a way to develop, through the habit of obedience, the very loving character of God Himself, so that we may become more like Him in the way in which we conduct our lives. It is also in this way that we can redeem our own families and congregations, one life at a time.
Perhaps it is in this way that my agreement with the Theonomists is most profound, because it is not something to be done from the top-down, but rather from the bottom-up, and all redemption must spring from the free choice of people, one at a time, to accept the divine offer of unmerited grace. It is only then that redemption can work its magic to heal the wounds of life in a fallen world, to turn repentant sinners into fitting examples of godly behavior, and to help redeem the curse that has fallen upon this world.
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