Jesus, Civil Engineering, and Recycling

Among Christians who celebrate the liturgical season of Advent, reading chapter 40 from Isaiah - quoted by Luke in his third chapter - brings thoughts of December, even when read in July. But this famous passage has a meaning not confined to the weeks of Advent:

A voice of one calling:
In the wilderness prepare
the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Depending on which English translation you read, the wording will vary slightly; Luke seems to have used a Septuagint reading which yields a slightly different English rendering. In any case, however, the primary meaning of the text has nothing directly to do with Christmas, Advent, or the birth of Jesus. Perhaps even more surprisingly, its topic is civil engineering.

Planning and constructing roads, bridges, dams, and the foundations for large buildings - that is civil engineering. Knowing about different types of cement and concrete, steel and dirt - that's how a civil engineer calculates his designs. If you read our text from Isaiah carefully, that's Isaiah's theme as well.

Isaiah was writing about what would happen when the captives - Israelites who'd lived in the kingdom of Judah, but been taken as POW's to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian armies besieged Jerusalem - finally got their freedom back. When that city fell, the rest of the countryside was also taken by the invading army. Between 598 B.C. and 583 B.C., groups of Judaeans were deported. They lived in Babylon, at first under the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, then under other later rulers, for approximately 70 years.

King Cyrus of Persia was bad news for the Babylonians, but good news for the captives from Judaea. In 538 B.C., he conquered Babylonia, and allowed them to return to their homeland. The Persians were known for building a system of roads which connected the various territories which they first conquered, and then incorporated into their expanding empire. It is about these roads that Isaiah writes.

Filling in low places, carving notches to create passes through hillsides, straightening winding roads into direct highways: Isaiah is describing the civil engineering projects of the Persians. The captives would have a good trip home.

Although this early freeway project is the primary meaning of the text, it is not the only meaning. Although "green" politics made its appearance in the second half of the twentieth century, God was already recycling long before that. Isaiah received a prophetic message, and even after the end of the Babylonian Captivity, the passage would be reused.

The first time that Isaiah's text was recycled was concerning John the Baptist, as Luke recounts. "Prepare ye the way for the Lord!" meant, not Persia building physical roads for Israelites returning from servitude, but rather now it was recycled to mean that the Messiah was arriving. John's task was to prepare Israel for the advent of its King.

But the recycling didn't stop there. This text finds a continual application in the heart and mind of every human: we are invited to receive the Messiah and the salvation He gives. We receive Him in different ways at different times - He is constantly approaching us - through His written Word, through bread and wine, through the water of baptism. Again and again, Jesus shows up in our lives. Prepare the way for Him!

And, of course, the text from Isaiah is recycled seasonally: every year during the time of Advent, the passage is read again, and we are reminded of God's magnificent sweep through history - He keeps approaching people with His saving love, rescuing the captives from Babylon, rescuing us from the consequences of our own sinfulness.

There are probably more and other ways in which this passage has been, is being, and will be recycled: other ways in which Isaiah's words, "prepare the way for the Lord!" break into earthly human existence with the power and light of God's gracious intervention in our lives.

Saved? Saving?

The verb 'save' and its various forms have been used - overused - in some branches of Christendom, and, as a piece of jargon, disputes rage over the slightest variants in the exact definition of the word - although, to the ordinary layman, its general meaning is clear: the notion that one will enjoy some better type of afterlife.

So, while an intuitive concept of 'being saved' is firmly in place, the details and specifics aren't. Textual evidence about the topic is interesting, in terms of verb forms.

The verb is used in the past tense 'saved' in loci like II Timothy 1:9, Titus 3:5, Romans 8:24, and Ephesians 2:5-8.

The future tense appears in Romans 5:9-10, Romans 13:11, I Corinthians 3:12-15, and I Timothy 4:16, Hebrews 9:28, and Matthew 24:13.

Verbs hint at a present process of "working out one's salvation" in Philippians 2:12, I Corinthians 1:18, I Corinthians 15:2, and Acts 2:47.

The average layman is probably inclined to answer "yes" to the questions "Are you saved?" and "Will you be saved?" A slight rewording to "Have you been saved?" will probably also elicit an affirmative response. The question "Are you being saved?" might evoke more puzzlement than anything else.

These linguistic riddles may serve to remind us that there is a broader meaning to 'save' than merely a ticket into the afterlife. Salvation has implications for humans in this life as well. Aside from what happens to us after death, salvation is both a comfort and challenge in this life, as Kierkegaard put it - both a Trost and a Forderung or even a Herausforderung.

Being "saved" in this life is, then, both an asset and a task. Salvation, in the broader sense, involves the power of God in our daily lives here and now: the power to live through suffering without losing our inner peace. Salvation also includes sanctification, as the Holy Spirit works in us to continually refine us and make us into what God wants us to be.

What Jesus Never Said

Organized religion is constantly in danger of losing touch with its founder; the church must take care that it does not stray from who Jesus is, what He does, how He does it, and what He says. Institutional Christianity is an environment of jargon which is constantly developing - this might be a good thing, or a bad thing, but it is an inescapable thing.

Human beings are linguistic creatures, and also creatures of habit. The development of an "insider" vocabulary is inevitable. We must, however, monitor the emergence and use of this "church talk" to ensure that it does not begin a slow creep away from the documented way in which Jesus presents Himself in the New Testament.

When the habitual speech patterns of the institutional church drift away from the message of Jesus, instead of fulfilling Christ's mission of "drawing all men unto" Himself (John 12:32), we will push men away from Him - and sometimes 'men' specifically, inasmuch as some of the church's bad linguistic habits are gender-specific.

Author David Murrow notes several instances of such phraseology. For example, in some corners of the ecclesiastic

universe you have two kinds of people: the saved and the lost. Men hate to be both. Men can't stand being lost - that's why they don't ask for directions. And the only thing worse than being lost is being saved. Throughout the literature of a thousand cultures, men are always the saviors, while women are the ones being saved. Today's Hollywood blockbusters still follow this ancient formula - Spider-Man rescues Mary Jane, not the other way around. It goes against the cultural grain for a man to assume the feminine role.

While both 'saved' and 'lost' appear in the New Testament, and there is nothing wrong with the use of the terms, it is the elevation of them to technical jargon, and the ubiquitous use of them as primary categories, which strays from the more textually authentic use of Biblical vocabulary.

Another term from the feminine side is sharing. Christians often say things like, "Steve, would you please share with us what the Lord has placed on your heart?" Regular men don't talk this way. It sounds too much like kindergarten. Imagine a gang member saying to one of his brothers, "Blade, would you please share with us how you jacked that Mercedes?"

There really is no precedent for a Greek or Hebrew verb meaning 'share' being used in the sense of 'verbally communicate' - any such verb in Scripture means to 'participate' in an activity, e.g., to "share in work" (II John 1:11) or to "share in sin" (Revelation 18:4), or to 'co-own' something, e.g., to "share in glory" (I Peter 5:1) or to "share an inheritance" (Galatians 4:30). One might argue that to "share the Gospel" is such an instance of the verb being used for communication (I Thessalonians 2:8), but certainly the Gospel is more than words or a personal experience - it is here an objective reality being 'shared' - i.e., being shared as one shares a physical substance like water or bread, not being merely verbally communicated.

Jesus spoke constantly of the kingdom of God. Men are kingdom builders. They think hierarchically. But many churches have replaced the masculine term kingdom of God with the more feminine family of God. Jesus never uttered this phrase. Nevertheless, it's become a favorite of pastors worldwide. "We're a loving family of God, here to worship Jesus," they cry. "We're so happy you've chosen to join our family this morning." They prefer to speak of the church as a "family" because the word resonates with the feminine heart.

To be sure, the New Testament hints at the familial analogy - the noun 'brother' (also in its plural form) indicates this. Yet Jesus clearly leans on the phrase 'kingdom of God' - or its equivalent, 'kingdom of heaven' - more.

Twentieth-century evangelicals coined two phrases that attempt to separate living faith from dead piety. Both have become very popular, and unfortunately, both are somewhat repellant to men.

The first term is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It's almost impossible to attend an evangelical worship service these days without hearing this phrase spoken at least once.

Curious. While a number of Biblical passages imply a relationship between God and man, the term "personal relationship with Jesus" never appears in the Scriptures. Nor are individuals commanded to "enter into a relationship with God."

The main stock-in-trade of folk Christianity, the 'personal relationship with' Jesus Christ, never actually appears in the New Testament! This is noteworthy.

David Murrow identifies the second offending phrase from contemporary evangelicalism:

Just like personal relationship with Jesus, the Scriptures never use the term intimacy with God. And lest you think I'm dirty minded, whenever the words passionate or intimate appear in the Bible, they always refer to sex or lust between humans.

When a man loves another man, he uses the language of respect. "Hey Joe, you're a stand-up guy. I admire you." Men do not speak of passionate, intimate, or even personal relationships with their leaders or male friends.

It is in this way that the church can - unintentionally - repel men. Women may be comfortable with vocabulary talking about 'intimacy' with Jesus, but men aren't. That fact is also a segue to the observation that, among the many things which Jesus never says are: "I'm feeling ..." and "I'm comfortable with ..." and "I'm not comfortable with ..." and the compounded expression "I'm feeling comfortable with ..." (along with its negation "I'm not feeling comfortable with ..."). Christ's earthly life is not about comfort. It's about hardship.

Correspondingly, Jesus never asked questions formulated this way: "Are you comfortable with ... ?" and "How are you feeling about ... ?"

To be sure, Jesus had feelings - emotions - and expressed them at times. It is moving to note that Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35). But Jesus did not privilege emotions, nor did He make them the focal point of many of His lectures.

Another gender-related fact about language is male terseness. Although there are conflicting statistical results, men often tend to be less wordy than women. This is not a value judgment, but merely an observation. But there is an ecclesiastical dimension to this fact:

In my thirty-plus years of attending church, I've heard many a story about some great man of prayer who rose daily at 3 a.m. and prayed four to five hours before beginning his day. These anecdotes are meant to inspire, but they always left me feeling inadequate - like I was shortchanging God if I only had, say, fifteen minutes to give him.

Then I read what Jesus said about prayer. He warned us not to keep babbling on, like the pagans, "for they think that they will be heard because of their many words." He followed with a model prayer of exactly sixty-six words. It can be prayed in fewer than thirty seconds.

Nothing in Scripture suggests that long prayers are better than short ones. The Bible recommends consistency and frequency, not length.

In fact, I'd say that Murrow is already stretching it at fifteen minutes. I'd go for ten. But his point is made. Murrow elsewhere notes other ways in which the institutional church repels men. But the lesson is clear: the church must choose its words carefully.

Heaven Hurts?

Heaven, according to popular imagination and Scriptural text, is a paradise - beautiful music, excellent food and drink, a pleasant garden, streets of gold. Surely, being there would be delightful.

Yet in the allegory written by C.S. Lewis under the title The Great Divorce, Heaven is actually painful, at least for those visitors from Hell who've been allowed to be there on a trial basis. The grass is like nails, the light too bright, the sounds too loud, and a small apple seems like a solid lead weight. Yet for the permanent residents of Heaven, it is indeed delightful.

What was Lewis implying by this detail in his parable? Why would heaven be painful?

Part of the answer may be in remembering that his writing is indeed fantasy. He's probably not making a literal assertion about experiences a human might have in the next life. Rather, he's embodied a spiritual thought in a concrete narrative.

Are there aspects of living as a follower of Jesus - aspect of life in the Body of Christ - which cause joy to those who've given up trying to justify themselves, but which cause discomfort to those who cling to the notion that their works will redeem their lives?

Imagine inviting a person to join an organization which allows him to set aside his own goals and desires, to set the needs of others ahead of his own, and to thoroughly internalize the view that his existence is characterized as service to his fellow human - that being a servant is the core of who and what he is.

Further, imagine that this organization to which you inviting a person will also require him to state - publicly, repeatedly, and frequently - that his innate character is permanently flawed, corrupted, and sinful; that he can never do anything which will atone for, or make up for, his sinful nature and the sins which he has actually committed; and that the best he can do is thankfully receive forgiveness which he has in no way earned or deserved.

Some people will respond to such an invitation eagerly - for some, such a place would be a joy. Yet others will quickly and decisively decline the invitation, seeing such a place as extremely uncomfortable. So, in this life, having a chance to participate in a lifestyle which offers a foretaste of heaven is in fact painful to those who expend energy denying the truth about their sinful natures and their inability to help themselves.

Spener's Plan

Faithful Christians through the centuries have reliably identified, and drawn attention to, the church's flaws. It is the sincerity of faith, not the lack of faith, which motivates the sharpest critiques of the church, and it is the sharpest critiques which yield concrete steps for improving and reforming the church.

The history of Christianity is filled with reformers, from William of Aquitaine's Cluny movement, to the Cistercians, to the Franciscans and Dominicans, to Karl Barth's neo-orthodoxy. All of these efforts were directed toward recalling the church to its original mission and ridding it of errors or corruptions.

Philipp Jakob Spener is no exception. Until his death in 1705, he led the Pietistic movement which he largely created. Although scholars dispute exactly what Pietism is, and whether it is truly orthodox, the sincerity of Spener's faith in manifest in his main text, Pia Desideria.

The last third of that book presents a clearly stated program for reform. In five sections, it can be summarized thus:

1. A more extensive use of the Word of God among us; because nothing good will arise from our nature, something of God must be worked into us. Faith will be ignited by the Gospel, and the Law serves as a rule for good works and gives a drive toward them.
• Preaching services, or services of the Word, alone are not enough. Spener praises the fact that services of the word are found daily in his town (Frankfurt), but more is needed. Even though preachers examine all the pericopes, and even additional texts beyond the pericopes, the listeners are given only small chunks of Scripture at any one time, and those texts are examined only from whichever limited aspect of them is considered in the sermon.
• Everyone should take the Scriptures into his own hands for himself and read it. The father, as head of the family, should read aloud from the Scripture to the family daily; if he cannot read, he can have someone read it. Andreas Hyperius (1511 - 1564) stated the importance of this practice, Georg Nigrinus translated it into German, and Elias Veyel republished it.
• Congregations should meet to read the Bible aloud. Spener advocates for a Bible study program which is a separate event from a worship service.
• Congregations should follow an ancient apostolic pattern for discussion and study of the Bible; a practice is suggested, that under the supervision of the preacher, faithful Christians discuss and mutually edify each other according to an apostolic institution (I Cor. 14).
• Clergy should lead such discussion and study to avoid quarrelsomeness, self-glorification, or self-seeking; the hoped-for benefits of such corporate study.
• Corporate study is crucial in fostering fellowship and spiritual growth; the necessity of diligent engagement with the divine Word.
• Luther considered the reading of Scripture so important that he was hesitant to publish his own books, in case they would detract from people's reading of the Bible; Luther's wish concerning such congregational study.

2. Institution and diligent exercise of the spiritual priesthood
• The papacy had un-empowered the laity; the priesthood of believers was utterly hidden for reasons of worldly politics.
• The laity have become sluggish; Luther demonstrated this priesthood from the Scripture.
• The priesthood does not detract from the office of preaching, but rather supports it; the benefit and usefulness of this priesthood.
• After Luther's death, the laity's priestly work and their diligent study of the Bible has been largely forgotten.

3. Diligently teaching the people that Christianity consists not of knowledge, but in actions.
• Skip no opportunity to do good to one's neighbor; the distinguishing mark of true Christians.

4. How we ought to behave in religious disputes
• Pray for those who err.
• Be a good model for them.
• We should show them their errors.
• But above all demonstrate sincere love.
• A first step toward reuniting the churches; disputation is a proper means for the preservation of the truth.
• Disputes can ruin hearts; not all disputation is useful and good.
• We want to help people in every way; many errors common to disputations and disputants; even the best disputation is by itself the sufficient means; how necessary is the true love of God, and leading people to it.
• Dare the experiment of faith! What the hoped-for results of this may be.

5. Reforming the Study of Theology; the training of preachers at the universities.
• The example of the professor; a good example provided by the professors is necessary.
• Studying and Christianity in action belong together; to impress upon the students that a spiritual life is as important as diligence in studies.
• Theology is a habitus practicus; why theology students should be admonished to this.
• The Holy Spirit is the only true teacher; theology is not merely a body of knowledge; the professors are to supervise the lives of the students.
• It's not a question of the philosophy of religion, but of studying theology; various methods of bringing them to the desired result.
• Professors should not advance students solely on the basis of their giftedness; how far ought one to engage students in controversies?
• Discussions should be conducted in German, in order to learn how one speaks intelligibly to a congregation; what other types of harm might arise.
• The budding student needs a loyal mentor; Luther recommends Johannes Tauler and the anonymous book Theologica Germanica.
• The sum of theology can be brought again to apostolic simplicity; Thomas à Kempis, and the usefulness of similar books.
• Luther recommends the sermons of Tauler; practices which attain to practice as well as theory.
• Theology is not merely an academic structure.
• A proposal: founding Collegia Pietatis for students.
• How can one engage such practices?
• A brotherly fellowship of students could grow out of this.
• The function of the professor.
• Instituting practical exercises.

6. Institution and alignment of preaching toward edification instead of toward theologically educated splendor.
• Never tire of teaching the catechism; common mistakes.
• Sermons should strengthen the inner man; directing toward the inner or new man, and toward the worship service occurring in him.
• Johann Arnd's postil; the blessed Johann Arndt (1555 - 1621) is an example of this; how the current edition of his postil has been improved; comments to the reader of Arndt's works; Bernhard Varenius (1622 - 1650) rescue's the true Christianity of Arndt; the reader is encouraged to pray.

Specific Instructions

The church is always in need of tweaking - semper reformanda as the theologians say. The need for adjustments is nothing new, and history gives us many examples. Philipp Jakob Spener, born in 1635, led a movement called 'pietism' and gave instructions about how to renew the church of his day - and perhaps of our time as well.

The pietist movement is to some extent controversial, and there are competing understandings about what pietism is. Sidestepping those questions, however, we can simply look at some of Spener's texts directly, and not worry about the larger constructs and disputes surrounding them.

One of his most famous books is entitled Pia Desideria, in the last third of which he makes concrete suggestions about ways to improve the church:

Thought should be given to a more extensive use of the Word of God among us. We know that by nature we have no good in us. If there is to be any good in us, it must be brought about by God. To this end the Word of God is the powerful means, since faith must be enkindled through the gospel, and the law provides the rules for good works and many wonderful impulses to attain them. The more at home the Word of God is among us, the more we shall bring about faith and its fruits.

Spener here rightly and powerfully states the case about our original sin, and God's active role in sanctifying us. Where he wrote that Scripture is "the" means by which this can be brought about, we might wish that he had written "a" means - if Word and Sacrament are the means of grace, then are they not both also a means by which God can make it so that there is something good in us? Spener also touches upon the three uses of the law, but in stating that the law "provides ... many wonderful impulses," he might have stretched the law a bit further than it can go. Is it not the Holy Spirit which provides such impulses?

It may appear that the Word of God has sufficiently free course among us inasmuch as at various places (as in this city Frankfurt am Main) there is daily or frequent preaching from the pulpit. When we reflect further on the matter, however, we shall find that with respect to this first proposal, more is needed. I do not at all disapprove of the preaching of sermons in which a Christian congregation is instructed by the reading and exposition of a certain text, for I myself do this. But I find that this is not enough. In the first place, we know that "all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). Accordingly all Scripture, without exception, should be known by the congregation if we are all to receive the necessary benefit. If we put together all the passages of the Bible which in the course of many years are read to a congregation in one place, they will comprise only very small part of the Scriptures which have been given to us. The remainder is not heard by the congregation at all, or is heard only insofar as one or another verse is quoted or alluded to in sermons, without, however, offering any understanding of the entire context, which is nevertheless of the greatest importance. In the second place, the people have little opportunity to grasp the meaning of the Scripture except on the basis of those passages which may have been expounded to them, and even less do they have opportunity to become as practiced in them as edification requires. Meanwhile, although solitary reading of the Bible at home is in itself a splendid and praiseworthy thing, it does not accomplish enough for most people.

Here Spener correctly points out that the Scriptures - pericopes or otherwise - read in regular services, or in additional preaching services which were common in his day and in his town, are not enough. They are good, but there are more and different ways to come into contact with God's Word. It is worth remembering that there is a difference between, for example, devotional reading of the Bible on the one hand, and Bible study on the other. To explore the richness of God's Word, and to allow the Holy Spirit to work through that Word in our hearts, we must encounter the Word more often, and in more different ways, than worship services. In regular worship, we do not encounter all of Scripture, for some passage are not in the pericopes, and will never occur even when the preaching adds extra texts from beyond the pericopes. In worship services, too, we are not exposed the text in its context, but rather it is isolated, and we are not exposed to the text for its own sake, but rather for the purposes to which the sermon will use it.

Body and Soul

The faith given to us through the Old Testament and the New Testament is a faith which recognizes both the balance of, and the complexity of the relation between, man's physical nature and spiritual nature. Rejecting the materialism of a Karl Marx, rejecting the overly-spiritual approach of the some of the gnostics, and even rejecting the overly-simplistic dualism of Plato, the Hebrew worldview sees man not as a soul, and not as a body, but as the sum of body and soul.

Thus is not sufficient, in caring for a human being, to find a teacher for one's mind, a physician for one's body, a psychologist for one's emotions, and a pastor for one's spirit. While seeming to provide for every need, such an approach would forget that the whole is more than the sum of the parts - the human cannot be disassembled like a machine, having each part cleaned and oiled, and then be reassembled. It is in the intersection of body and soul that we find the man.

In the late 300's A.D., or perhaps in the early 400's A.D., an anonymous author living near the river Zab in Persia wrote a spiritual classic called The Book of Steps, also sometimes cited as the Ascents. This writer looked at the complex relation between body and soul, particularly in the context of the practice of fasting:

There is a hidden self-emptying of the heart when it leaves the earth and is raised up to heaven, it is right that we should empty ourselves in the body too of our possessions and inheritance. Then we shall be keeping the commandments of him who gives life to all, and we shall realize that the person who is bound up in our Lord and ponders on him continuously possesses hidden prayer of the heart. Let us pray with our body as well as with our heart, just as Jesus blessed and prayed in body and in spirit; and so too did the apostles and prophets pray. We should not be fools who fail to listen to their parents: we should not lose our spiritual parents and acquire false parents who belong to the flesh, who will cause us to stray from the truth of our Lord and those who preach him.

The text speaks of a 'self-emptying' of the heart - that it surrenders all desires and loves God above all things. The physical analogue is that we rid ourselves of 'possessions and inheritance' - material benefits. In this way, the corporeal body and the metaphysical soul are joined in purpose, in placing Jesus higher than any other affection.

There is a hidden fasting of the heart, fasting from evil thoughts, we should also fast openly, just as our Lord fasted and as did those who have preached him, of old and more recently. Since we know that the body is become a hidden temple and the heart a hidden altar for ministry in the spirit, we should show our eagerness at this visible altar and in this visible temple, so that, as we labor in these, we may have rest for ever in that church in heaven which is free and magnificent, and at that altar which is adorned and exalted in the spirit, before which the angels and all the saints minister, while Jesus acts as priest and effects sanctification before them, above them, and on every side of them.

The author shifts from 'self-emptying' to 'fasting' - perhaps these are mere synonyms in a Semitic parallelism, or perhaps there is a distinction: a self-emptying to prepare for new content, versus a fasting which is an abstinence. The heart empties itself of all other affections, so that it may be filled with affection for Jesus; the heart fasts from evil thought, meaning simply to rid itself of such. In either case, the continued theme is parallel and coordinated action between body and soul, a pious inspiration for all the faithful.

Praying from the Heart - and from the Book

Prayer is one of the central disciplines of Christianity. Over the last two thousand years, Christians have consistently engaged in prayer, and written much about it. Divergent opinions exist about how one ought to pray, and about what prayer is. Certainly, it is clear that prayer cannot be conceived mechanistically - a cosmic quid pro quo in which, if I ask for something in the correct manner, God will grant it. Such an understanding is both wrong, inasmuch as prayer is not a tool by means of which I can make God do something, and incomplete, insofar as less than half of prayer amounts to requests. But beyond these points, a spectrum of views exist, and competing forms of prayer are practiced by different Christians.

One question addresses the issue of spontaneity in prayer. Should I simply tell God what’s on my heart, or should I address Him with the written prayers found in books? Many Christians have found a comfortable middle ground, doing a bit of both. But however people may answer this question, it is also important how they explain their answers, i.e., what they offer in the way of evidence and supporting argumentation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer addressed this topic in a book on prayer which he published in 1940. Eric Metaxas reports:

In the book, Bonhoeffer linked the idea of Barthian grace with prayer by saying that we cannot reach God with our own prayers, but by praying “his” prayers - the Psalms of the Old Testament, which Jesus prayed - we effectively piggyback on them all the way to heaven. We must not confuse what we do naturally, such as “wishing, hoping, sighing, lamenting, rejoicing,” with prayer, which is unnatural to us and which must be initiated from outside us, by God. If we confuse these two things, “we confuse earth and heaven, human beings and God.” Prayer cannot come from us. “For that,” he wrote, “one needs Jesus Christ!” By praying the Psalms, we “pray along with Christ’s prayer and therefore may be certain and glad that God hears us. When our will, our whole heart, enters into the prayer of Christ, then we are truly praying. We can pray only in Jesus Christ, with whom we shall also be heard.”

Bonhoeffer tells us that it is permissible, even desirable, to use the Psalms as our prayers. He doesn’t rule out spontaneous prayer from the heart, but he is giving a clear reason why we should not rule out the use of written prayers. Prayer, he explains, does not come naturally to us. In the Gospel according to Luke, the disciples say to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Praying is a learned activity, requiring a teacher, and as teacher, Jesus provides them with a model prayer. Left to our own devices, we might arrive at some form of pseudo-prayer composed of petitions and intercessions. Confession, adoration, thanksgiving, and praise are, however, foreign to our nature. Jesus teaches us about prayer, and offers models, not only in the Lord’s Prayer, but also - as Bonhoeffer points out - by His use of Psalms.

To pray the Psalms is not to be limited to mechanically repeating them. As we reflect on the Psalms, we enter into the living situations depicted in them, and they enter into our own living situations, and allow us to communicate to God about our lives. Sometimes the Psalms give us new insights about our circumstances, and other times they help us to cope with the difficult insights we’ve already gained.

Bonhoeffer is encouraging us to realize that merely emoting is not truly praying; merely presenting petitions and intercessions is only a part of prayer and is not complete. The Psalms present us with the rich variety of communication we can have with God.

Redefining 'Success'

One of the more gripping slogans among Christians is aphorism that "my role-model for success is a thirty-three-year-old homeless man who was beaten to death." Christians are skeptical about the world's definition of 'success' - wealth, health, fame, pleasure, accomplishment, etc.

Doubting such a superficial understanding of success includes a challenge to propose a different concept to replace it. Hints about what such a new notion of success might be are found in the critique of the old idea of success. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things, the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity. The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds. Success alone justifies wrongs done. Success heals the wounds of guilt. There is no sense in reproaching the successful man for his un-virtuous behavior, for this would be to remain in the past while the successful man strides forward from one deed to the next, conquering the future and securing the irrevocability of what has been done. The successful man presents us with accomplished facts which can never again be reversed. What he destroys cannot be restored. What he constructs will acquire at least a prescriptive right in the next generation. No indictment can make good the guilt which the successful man has left behind him. The indictment falls silent with the passage of time, but the success remains and determines the course of history. The judges of history play a sad role in comparison with its protagonists. History rides rough-shod over their heads. With a frankness and off-handedness which no other earthly power could permit itself, history appeals in its own cause to the dictum that the end justifies the means.

Bonhoeffer here writes about the macro-level of history, but the lesson applies to the micro-level of our lives. The heavy-handed neighbor or colleague who usually gets his way moves forward in life, generally unaffected by the feelings he has hurt in the process. The conversation partner whose opinion is voiced strongly, and who fails to listen to other views, continues voicing his ideas, ignorant of, or oblivious to, his rudeness. How do people react to these powerful figures, who assert themselves at the expense of others and at the expense of any ethical standards?

So far we have been talking about facts and not about valuations. There are three possible attitudes which men and periods may adopt with regard to these facts.

The fact of worldly success confronts each onlooker with a question: was this right? should he have done this? A student who cheats on a homework assignment may have the success of a good grade from the teacher, but was it good, moral, or right for him to do that? The lure of success tempts many to hesitate in pointing out the evil done to achieve the success. Bonhoeffer writes:

When a successful figure becomes especially prominent and conspicuous, the majority give way to the idolization of success. They become blind to right and wrong, truth and untruth, fair play and foul play. They have eyes only for the deed, for the successful result. The moral and intellectual critical faculty is blunted. It is dazzled by the brilliance of the successful man and by the longing in some way to share in his success. It is not even seen that success is healing the wounds of guilt, for the guilt itself is no longer recognized. Success is simply identified with good. This attitude is genuine and pardonable only in a state of intoxication. When sobriety returns it can be achieved only at the price of a deep inner untruthfulness and conscious self-deception. This brings with it an inward rottenness from which there is scarcely a possibility of recovery.

If one has the courage to see clearly that evil has been done in order to achieve success, then one is forced to face the uncomfortable reality that evil in this world sometimes - often? - triumphs. As the Psalmist cried: "why do the evildoers prosper?" - Bonhoeffer continues:

The proposition that success is identical with good is followed by another which aims to establish the conditions for the continuance of success. This is the proposition that only good is successful. The competence of the critical faculty to judge success is reaffirmed. Now right remains right and wrong remains wrong. Now one no longer closes one's eye at the crucial moment and opens it only when the deed is done. And now there is a conscious or unconscious recognition of a law of the world, a law which makes right, truth, and order more stable in the long run than violence, falsehood, and self-will. And yet this optimistic thesis is in the end misleading. Either the historical facts have to be falsified in order to prove that evil has not been successful, which very soon brings one back to the converse proposition that success is identical with goodness, or else one's optimism breaks down in the face of the facts and one ends by finding fault with all historical successes.

One might attempt to point out that justice eventually prevails, goodness eventually wins. This is true in a cosmic sense - eschatologically. Even when it is true in a shorter timeframe, it is often unsatisfying: Hitler was overcome, but only after causing untold human misery; one's cruel aunt eventually died, but only after causing deep emotional pain to family and neighbors. Such a claim of eventual justice is unsatisfying:

That is why the arraigners of history never cease to complain that all success comes of wickedness. If one is engaged in fruitless and pharisaical criticism of what is past, one can never find one's way to the present, to action, and to success, and precisely in this one sees yet another proof of the wickedness of the successful man. And, if only in a negative sense, even in this one quite involuntarily makes success the measure of all things. And if success is the measure of all things, it makes no essential difference whether it is so in a positive or in a negative sense.

Ultimately, a thought-process centered upon success - as 'success' is defined by the world - will collapse.

The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard. Such thought is a denial of eternal justice. Neither the triumph of the successful nor the bitter hatred which the successful arouse in the hearts of the unsuccessful can ultimately overcome the world. Jesus is certainly no apologist for the successful men in history, but neither does He head the insurrection of shipwrecked existences against their successful rivals. He is not concerned with success or failure but with the willing acceptance of God's judgment. Only in this judgment is there reconciliation with God and among men.

The quest for "success" is brushed aside - the goal is reconciliation. The reestablishing of relation between man and God, and between man and man.

We can view this in two ways: either we abandon the pursuit of success for the pursuit of reconciliation, or we redefine 'success' as reconciliation. In either case, we are changing the paradigm. Bonhoeffer, as the reader will know, lived this question in a concrete reality. Risking and eventually losing his life on the basis of these thoughts, he was forced to wonder if his life had been a failure. Historian Eric Metaxas says of Bonhoeffer's notion:

God was interested not in success, but in obedience. If one obeyed God and was willing to suffer defeat and whatever came one's way, God would show a kind of success that the would couldn't imagine. But this was the narrow path, and few would take it.

We might adjust the wording of Metaxas a bit, and say that if in the course of obeying God one suffers defeat, one experiences a type of success that the world cannot imagine.

The Paradox of Prayer

If we define 'prayer' as conversation with God - and this is roughly accurate - we quickly encounter several mysteries. One of them arises from God's omniscience. He knows everything. How does one have a conversation with Someone Who knows everything?

If I start to thank Him, He already knows that for which I'm thanking Him - and He knows that I'm thankful for it. If I confess my sins to Him, He already knows them. If I ask Him for anything, He already knows my request. Why bother talking to Him at all, if He already has gotten the message before I think it?

There is possibly more than one correct answer to this question. The first might be obedience: we pray because He tells us to do so.

Another possible solution to the paradox of prayer is located on the borderline between psychology and spirituality. There is a cleansing effect to a conversation with an omniscient being, if we have meditated on the listener's omniscience. All possibility of pretense is removed.

I cannot pray, "Dear Lord, I want to be a better person," if in fact the personal sacrifices required to be a better person are ones I don't wish to make; I might pray, "I know that I should be a better person, but I really don't want to give up some particular pleasure." This admission can be the first step in God's work of improving me when I can't improve myself.

If I approach the searching light of God's omniscience with a request, I am forced to ponder, not the obvious fact that I want this or that, but rather why I want it; He can see my motives. I am also led to consider whether there might be something better than what I am requesting - an omniscient being will know better than I what all the options are, and what the unintended consequences of granting them can be.

When I confess my sins, He knows my darkest thoughts, and how I can be complacent with myself. His investigation moves effortlessly through the facade I've carefully built - a facade designed to convince myself and others that I'm a pretty decent human being.

When God says, "Be still and know that I am God," (Psalm 46) perhaps this is part of the meaning behind it: that a meditative stillness in the face of His omniscience is an important part of prayer. To stop talking to Him for a bit, and simply realize that I am thoroughly known. His act of knowing us can change us - Christians over the centuries have variously rephrased the truth that one benefit of prayer is to change the character of the one who prays.

It is, in any case, an amazing thing to have a conversation with someone who knows everything.

What Type of Sacrifice?

The concept of 'sacrifice' permeates spiritual thought. There are different types of sacrifices, made in different ways, by different people, for different purposes. The one sacrifice, which accomplished what all the others could not, was the death of Jesus. He, guilty of no sin, voluntarily allowed Himself to be executed as a criminal. Author Scott Hahn writes:

At our remove of two thousand years, it seems natural for us to look upon Jesus' crucifixion as a sacrifice. Christians are heirs to a long tradition of talking that way, praying that way, thinking that way. But first-century Jews who witnessed the event would not and could not have seen the crucifixion as a sacrifice. It bore none of the marks of a sacrifice in the ancient world. On Calvary there was no altar and no credentialed priest. There was indeed a death, but it took place apart from the Temple, which was the only valid place of sacrifice in Judaism, and even outside the walls of the holy city.

The New Testament makes the sacrificial nature of Christ's death explicit. Paul, for example, emphasizes this fact in his letters to the Corinthians. We can understand why this was necessary, given the ease with which it could have been overlooked or misunderstood. Richard Lenski writes:

According to the ancient Jewish rite a lamb was slain, and that slain lamb was made (for each family or for a similar group) the Passover. In a similar way Christ was slain to be our Passover Lamb. The connection of this lamb with Paul's admonition is implied yet is evident and clear: the Passover Lamb slain, and the Passover Feast thus begun, and yet the old leaven not cleaned out of the house - what a contradiction! If such a thing would frightful in the case of the Jews who slew and ate only lambs which were merely types, how much worse is it for us Christians who have our divine Lamb, the antitype, slain once for the deliverance of the world!

This paradox is yet another cause for the misunderstanding of Christ's sacrifice: although it atoned for all sin at once, the world remains in a fallen state. Paul's discussion of sacrifice naturally includes an allusion to the Last Supper, which was, after all, a Passover celebration. Hahn writes:

it was that first Eucharist that transformed Jesus' death from an execution to an offering. At the Last Supper he gave his body to be broken, his blood to be poured out, as if on an altar.

This leads to the words spoken by Moses about "the blood of the covenant" in Exodus. The direct parallel to the words of Jesus are startling - the room in which the Last Supper was eaten is linked, despite the intervening centuries, in an intimate way to the newly-freed slaves, escaping from Egypt, learning more about the God who saved them and loved them. Franz Delitzsch and Carl Keil write about this

sacrificial blood, in which animal life was offered instead of human life, making expiation as a pure life for sinful man, and by virtue of this expiation restoring the fellowship between God and man which had been destroyed by sin.

Like the blood of Jesus, the "blood of the covenant" at the time of Moses brought humans

into the fellowship of the divine grace manifested upon the altar, in order that, through the power of this sin-forgiving and sin-destroying grace, it might be sanctified to a new and holy life. In this way the sacrificial blood acquired the signification of a vital principle endued with the power of divine grace.

In the misunderstood or overlooked sacrifice, a new testament was embodied, as the old testament was embodied in the old "blood of the covenant" in the time of Moses.

What is God Doing Today?

God, in the words of Rich Sheridan, is always "working a thousand stories at once." God is active. Any single event - an airplane's departure is delayed by an hour - affects hundreds or thousands of people. God is in the middle of it all.

God is working a million stories at once - or seven billion, to be exact. They all eventually intersect, and so God is also working on one big story. He is spreading His love to all people everywhere. The New Testament tells us that

in all things God works ... from him and through him and for him are all things ... The Spirit searches all things ... With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment — to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ ... For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Jesus, and through him to reconcile to himself all things.

So what exactly is God doing? What are these seven billion little stories, and what is the one big story into which they all belong?

We certainly can't capture all of that in one moment, but here are a few thoughts:

• God is drawing close to people. He wants to be in relationship with them. He speaks to them - in many different ways: through music, through written words, through the beauty of nature, through the kindness of another person. He is showing and manifesting His love for people, implanting His Holy Spirit into them.
• God is drawing people closer to each other: He is forming communities. Families, neighborhoods, colleagues, congregations - humans knowing each other and being known; humans sharing joys and sorrows; humans helping each other in concrete tasks.
• God is transforming people. Training them, disciplining them, educating them - causing them to grow: pouring ever more of His Holy Spirit into them, and bringing the Fruit of the Spirit out of them. Preparing them for tasks; preparing them to serve.
• God is putting people to work. He has assignments for them. He's moving them to where they need to be, geographically, but more often spiritually. He's giving them skills and ideas to take care of His planet, the people He created (all of them!), and His church.
• God is sending people to spread His message: the news of His love - in words and in actions, in every place and every time, to give people the simple and empowering knowledge that they are loved by the infinite Creator of the universe: and the not-so-simple details of how God has worked that love out over the last 6,000 years of recorded history.

God is at work, everywhere, all the time. Because of His mercy and grace, He sometimes allows us to make decisions or "do our own thing" - and then He's there to clean up the mess when we botch it. The devil is at work, trying to bring spiritual and physical harm to people - but God is there, and for each wound that the devil inflicts, He brings forth a new bit of grace which more than counterbalances the damage: God brings good out of evil, a truly miraculous pattern. For all the atrocities and miseries which humans inflict on each other, or which the devil inflicts on them, God is bringing forth more than enough mercy to keep the world moving on the path toward reconciliation.

Yes, God is very busy, and very active. Look to see what He's doing. He's doing something good!

Truth's Place in History

Sincere scholars are eager to avoid a relativizing of Scripture's truth to a time, place, or culture: to avoid the view that "this was true for Hebrews in 1000 B.C., but not necessarily true for all people." While properly striving to not fall into that error, there is an opposite error which also must be avoided. Brevard Childs describes these two contrasting mistakes, and an effort to avoid both:

One of the hallmarks of the modern study of the Bible, which is one of the important legacies of the Enlightenment, is the recognition of the time-conditioned quality of both the form and the content of scripture. A pre-critical method which could feel free simply to translate every statement of the Bible into a principle of right doctrine is no longer possible.

Faithful scholars have seen, since the establishment of the New Testament canon, and even earlier as the Talmud indicates, that one must a avoid a wooden literalness in exploring the text, and even avoid any principle of direct transference from the text's world into the world of the reader. This was true even prior to the Enlightenment.

Of course, it is a caricature of the history of Christian theology to suggest that such a use of the Bible was universal in the pre-Enlightenment period. Augustine, Luther and Calvin - to name but a few - all worked with a far more sophisticated understanding of the Bible than the term 'pre-critical' suggests.

Although many history books would have us believe that the Enlightenment was the incubator of atheism, it was rather, in fact, an era of reflective believers - not critical of faith, but rather of critical faith. Voltaire earnestly opposed atheism; John Locke wrote commentaries on the Pauline epistles. Certainly, many of the Enlightenment thinkers were not Christians or Jews; but the significant explicit atheists among them can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Many of them were explicitly Christian.

Given their sincere faith, we are not compelled to automatically agree with them, but we are compelled to give them a hearing. Like Augustine and Luther before them, the Enlightenment scholars wrestled with the fact that Scripture was inspired in a finite place by an omnipresent God, inspired in a finite time by an eternal God, and inspired within the conditioning factors of a culture by an unconditioned God. Unlike Luther and Augustine before them, these scholars wrestled in a different way.

Nevertheless, it is still true that the issue of the Bible's time-conditioned quality became a major hermeneutical problem in the wake of the Enlightenment and the rise of the historical-critical method.

The old puzzle was formulated in a new intellectual framework; absolute truth in a relative context, eternal truth in temporal location; universal truth in one specific place; unconditional truth in a culturally-conditioned context. Brevard Childs directs us to focus our

attention on the process by which divine truth acquired its authoritative form as it was received and transmitted by a community of faith. Accordingly, there is no biblical revelation apart from that which bears Israel's imprint. All of scripture is time-conditioned because the whole Old Testament has been conditioned by an historical people. There is no pure doctrine or uncontaminated piety. Any attempt to abstract elements from its present form by which, as it were, to distinguish the kernal from its husk, or inauthentic existence from authentic expression, runs directly in the face of the canon's function.

Professor Childs is suggesting that we cannot simply distill or extract crystalized doctrinal truths or pure dogma from the text. The form and the content are extricably linked. Perhaps especially so of those bits of text which are labeled 'narrative theology', but also in the propositional segments of scripture. Not only can we not extract the unconditional truth from the culturally-conditioned text, but we, as readers, are also culturally-conditioned, so even if our text contained transcendental truths and nothing else, our ability to read the text would not be so pure:

Moreover, to take seriously a canonical approach is also to recognize the time-conditioned quality of the modern, post-Enlightenment Christian whose context is just as historically moored as any of his predecessors. One of the disastrous legacies of the Enlightenment was the new confidence of standing outside the stream of time and with clear rationality being able to distinguish truth from error, light from darkness.

If we were to accept the idea that it is our task to sift the timeless truths of scripture out of the concrete particulars of some time and place, we would be faced with the question, how do we identify those timeless truths? Our ability to spot them would be clouded by the fact that we are products of our particular time and place. Professor Childs indicates a different route:

In conscious opposition to this legacy of the Enlightenment, the canonical approach seeks to approach the problem with a different understanding of how the Bible functions as a vehicle of God's truth. By accepting the scriptures as normative for the obedient life of the church, the Old Testament theologian takes his stance with the the circle of tradition, and thus identifies himself with Israel as the community of faith. Moreover, he shares in that hermeneutical process of which the canon is a testimony, as the people of God struggled to discern the will of God in all its historical particularity.

In this understanding of meaning, Professor Childs is in some ways similar to Wittgenstein's explanations of meaning, inasmuch as community plays a central role discovering the meaning of a proposition for both Childs and Wittgenstein.

In passing, we note that Childs uses 'Enlightenment' as a shorthand - which we well understand - but we remember that there is no simple, clear-cut era or group of thinkers which are ready-made to answer to the word 'Enlightenment' - but rather that it is a convenient historical construct, which runs roughshod over many nuances and ambiguities.

To get at the truth in scripture, then, Professor Childs encourages us to see ourselves as part of the community of faith now, and as part of the community of faith then: part of the current church as the Body of Christ on earth now, and part of God's people to whom the text was first given. Further, we must realize that these two communities, so very different, are nonetheless organically connected. We are striving then to see the text from the inside. We cannot pull extracted propositions out of the text, but we can enter into the text, which is done by entering into the community which formed the text and still maintains the text - into the community which was formed by the text and is still formed by the text.

Does Jesus Like Democracy?

Living through the years of the Cold War, I sometimes heard Christians speak as if Christianity and democracy were almost the same thing. Naturally, the Soviet Union and Communist China were states which actively persecuted, beat, jailed, and executed Christians, and if Christians had to take sides during the Cold War, democracy was the side to take. But how close is the connection between democracy and Christianity?

If we think of ‘democracy’ as a political procedure – allowing citizens to vote, and the majority rules – we find little or no support for this in Scripture. We find monarchies, and we find decisions made by casting lots, but we don’t find much voting. In church history, we see theological giants like Augustine and Luther living comfortably in monarchies, with no expression of a desire for democracy. Democracy, in this sense, then has little or no connection with Christianity. Although my political sensibilities might be offended if I lived under the rule of a king in the Middle Ages or Renaissance, my spiritual sensibilities shouldn’t be.

But if we think of ‘democracy’ as an outlook, as a cultural attitude – we often read the phrase ‘democratic society’ - then we might find a closer connection to Scripture: if we define a ‘democratic society’ as one which imputes an equal value to every human life, and demands of me that I respect that value in the sense of acknowledging the dignity of each human, then we are coming close the Scriptural ideas of ‘humans made in the image of God’ and ‘even to the least of these.’ It is in this sense that democracy may have a closer connection to the faith of Scripture.

Crabb in a Nutshell

Larry Crabb's book, The Pressure's Off, offers a profound spiritual insight, but also a slightly flawed presentation. The central point of the book is simple and ancient, yet also counter-intuitive, because it conflicts with our daily experience and perhaps with human nature itself. The thesis is that we are often misdirected when we view our spiritual life as a cosmic quid pro quo: if I do this that, then I will receive certain spiritual blessings. A logical cause-and-effect schema, it arises naturally enough from our experiences in the physical world, the economic world, and the world of personal relationships.

Yet this mechanistic view is incorrect, as can be demonstrated by careful reading of the text of Scripture. God is in the business of dispensing unearned blessings. If benefits could be obtained by means of such a deterministic system, God wouldn't even be necessary, and He certainly wouldn't have the full decision-making capability of an agent.

Although most Christians will agree to this on a prima facie understanding - we cannot earn God's love, because "while we were yet sinners ..." and we cannot earn salvation, only Jesus can get that for us - more subtle forms of error creep into our thinking. We assume that if we follow certain disciplines (prayer, studying Scripture, worship, giving to the poor, etc.), then we should find happiness or peace of mind or wisdom, etc. We might think that if we practice honesty and kindness and hospitality and generosity, then we should find harmony and joy in our personal relationships. All of these are versions of the thesis that our behavior will direct blessings to us - that God will bless us in response to our behavior.

This error also entails the notion that, when things go wrong in life, it will be because we did something wrong, or failed to do something right - which leads us on a frantic search to find our misbehavior, so that we can change our pattern of action and presumably restore the flow of blessings coming to us. This is the "pressure" in the title of Crabb's book. This error, far from bringing blessings, will eventually, in some time of crisis, intensify our suffering by the thought that our pain is our own fault.

Crabb wisely points us in the direction of trusting God, and relying on God: we should not rely on our own actions. We try to live as God directs, not to earn any blessing, but as a way of expressing gratitude toward God.

The only flaw in the book is that in several passages, Crabb falls prey to the very dangers about which he is warning us. He occasionally writes that, if we give up the error, we can "expect" more peace of mind, or something similar. Here he is ultimately engaging in the causal fallacy: if behave in a certain way, I can expect a certain blessing. The word "expect" is a clue.

Can we, in fact, expect anything from God? Yes, certainly: Scripture gives us specific promises from God. But God's promises, and His fulfillment of them, are not contingent upon my actions. Jesus promises His followers that He will always be with them. He didn't say, "only if you act in a certain way."

Thankfully, there are only a few such small passages in the book. Crabb has a done a good service to the Christian community, and deserves careful reading.

Crabb's Lack of Pressure

Author Larry Crabb, in his 2002 book The Pressure's Off, gives Christians a good reminder that God's blessings to us are freely given and unearned. Although this truth is at least 4,000 years old - going back to the fact that God called Abraham before Abraham had a chance to learn about God or a chance to even try living by faith - we are constantly tempted to live as though we had to somehow manipulate God into blessing us. Our human nature, and the nature of the world in which we live, is such that many other things in life are at least partially earned: our paychecks, our reputations, our physical fitness, etc., are to some extent the results of our decisions and actions. So it is natural, but sadly wrong, to assume that God operates on the same principle - Crabb calls this a 'linear relationship' or a 'linear arrangement' - and so we assume that if we live righteously (honestly and reverently), then we will receive goodies from God.

It takes much reminding and mental self-discipline to systematically internalize the notion that God dispenses blessings with no regard to our having merited them. As Crabb phrases it,

Maybe the Christian life is not about “doing right” to “get blessed.” Maybe the Christian life is not about the blessings of life we so badly want and so doggedly pursue. Maybe our obedience and faithfulness are to be energized by a very different motive than receiving the good and legitimate blessings we long to experience in this life.

Life is about doing the right thing because this is the way we show our gratitude toward God. We can't give anything to God, because if we have anything at all, it is a gift from Him in the first place. Even my faith in Him is a gift from Him, as Paul writes in his letter to Ephesus. We can expect things from God because God has promised those things to us - our confidence is in His promise, not in our actions. We can expect nothing good as the result of our actions. If I seem to do something good, it is His Spirit working in me.

The spiritual journey is not about living as we should so life works as we want. It's not a linear path.

Most, if not all, Christians are aware of this principle to some extent: we readily reject heresies of "works righteousness" or "the health and wealth gospel" (also known as the "prosperity gospel"). We know that we can't manipulate God into giving us a new car by being nice people, or persuade Him to give us perfect health by praying in exactly the right way. But there are more subtle forms of 'linear thinking' which can tempt us in less-than-obvious ways.

Most evangelicals properly reject the teachings commonly known as the prosperity gospel or the health-and-wealth gospel. We know those teachings are wrong. Suffering happens whether people pray or not. Godly people grow old and weak. Faithful servants of Christ fail in ministry. Some die young. Sincere followers of Jesus feel depressed and unsettled and hate the pride and lust and insecurity that remain within them after years of living for Christ as best they knew.

We are, as Luther says, simply beggars. We can offer nothing, we can only receive from God's generosity. We can't control if God gives, what He gives, or when He gives it. Yet sometimes we feel that, if we are really good beggars, and if we humbly realize that we are beggars, then we certainly should receive some spiritual blessing from God, like peace of mind. So we subtly reject grace, and seek to earn God's favor, perhaps without even realizing it.

Though we deplore the notion that health and wealth are available on demand, we like the idea that legitimate blessings are given to those who meet the requirements.

There are certainly bits of Scripture which seem to support this idea, and if we cherry-pick precisely the “right” Bible verses (Deuteronomy 29:9), then we can persuade ourselves that our obedience will earn us a spiritually comforting frame of mind.

But we still maintain that the good life of legitimate blessings is a worthy goal and one that may be reached by living a faithful life of obedience to biblical principles. Good family relationships, good community experiences, good ministry that provides meaning and personal fulfillment, good experiences of God - we can arrange for these blessings to come our way. All we have to do is lead godly lives, pray hard, and expect great things from our great God.

And so we keep slipping back into some ever-more-subtle variation of works righteousness; even as we recognize and reject the error in one form, it reappears in a different disguise and fools us again. “Once we accept this linear arrangement,” Crabb notes, “not only is the pressure on, but failure is guaranteed,” because we can never be as good (or righteous, or faithful, or pious) as we ought to be. The appropriateness of the book's title, The Pressure's Off, is seen in the contrast to a phrase like “pray hard” - a phrase, frequently used with the best of intentions, which causes misery.

If we turn the corner, away from 'linear' concepts of how God might bless us, and toward the notion of resting in His grace,

we no longer depend on a linear relationship between performance and blessing to arrange for the life we want. That arrangement has mercifully been declared obsolete and has been replaced by something new, something better.

Yet, maddeningly, we still encounter the temptation to assume that if we act a certain way, then we will be blessed. Because in the very act of turning away from linear concepts, we are acting: it is we who are turning away. So rather, it must be that God moves us away from the notion of a quid-pro-quo relationship with Him. We cannot turn away from it, expecting something better, because it is precisely that type of expectation which we must not have. Crabb applies a terminology of 'old way' and 'new way' living and thinking.

Describing a friend, Crabb writes,

when things go badly, he's tempted to blame his misfortunes on his failures. "If I could be kinder, just a little less self-absorbed, my marriage would be better. Maybe then God would arrange for a few more blessings."

Crabb cites this as an example of 'old way' thinking, and rightly so. By contrast,

the blood of Jesus has opened a New and Living Way, a different direction to take, whether life is working well or falling apart, whether we're more aware of our kindness or our self-centeredness. In the New Way, the pressure's off. Living better might or might not improve our life circumstances. But now our appetite is different. What want something more than the Better Life of Blessings.

What does life in this 'new way' look like?

Those carrying it out are not at all like many churchgoers. They're decidedly irreligious. They don't live to make their lives better, whether by doing good deeds or praying harder or volunteering to serve on the missions committee.

Remember, religion is a man-made tradition or institution. Jesus wasn't very religious, nor does He want to create and promote religion. He wants a relationship with each human being. Living the 'new way' isn't about improving our organizations, or carrying out our traditions in a better way. It's about removing the focus from the organization and the tradition, and placing the focus on Jesus. It's about Him relating to us. Traditions and institutions will eventually, invariably, and necessarily disappoint us. Those living Crabb's 'new way'

have been disillusioned by the Old Way approach to life. Unexpected troubles, ones that cannot be traced to a specific failure on their part, have shattered their dreams of how their Christians lives would turn out. Senseless suffering, the kind they have no guarantee of avoiding in the future, has confronted them with a choice between two responses.

The first option, according to Crabb, is to 'abandon God,' and the second is to 'abandon yourself to God.'

Crabb's explication is good; however, he encounters difficulties in consistently applying this principle. This is not a criticism of Crabb as much as it is a criticism of humanity: Crabb has done as well as any human could. The problem lies in the finite nature of the human mind itself, which finds it difficult to grasp this worldview.

On the on side, we must understand ourselves as passive, in order that grace may be active: it is not that we need to revise our worldview, but rather that the Holy Spirit revises it for us. On the other side, as we are infused with this new worldview, we must avoid the expectation that 'now we will have the better life' - we cannot view Crabb's "new way" as a solution to our problems. In fact, it might create more problems for us. For Jesus, it yielded rejection, hatred, beatings, torture, and execution. It did, and still does, that for many of his followers. We should not expect some blissful inner joy: sincere Christians suffer from depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders in addition to external and physical forms of suffering.

At several points in the text, Crabb slips: he tells us we can "expect" this or that result from embracing his 'new way' - again, this is not a criticism of Crabb, because no human could do better: how can we expect to explain the mind of God, given our limitations? No human can write a book to completely capture God's wisdom. This also does not mean that I do not find other errors, avoidable errors in Crabb's book: my purpose here is to explain his main idea, not to catalogue the errors in his book. I do not excuse or overlook his other errors: I merely state that this one error is unavoidable.

At his best, Crabb's prose crystalizes - even if the crystal is occasionally cloudy or contains specks - the Gospel principle he calls the 'new way':

nothing, absolutely nothing, is demanded. The passion for a better life, though real and deep and felt without shame, is not at the center. A better life is not the point; it doesn't drive what we do; it isn't the first passion in the heart of a New Way revolutionary.

Finally, one might state the argument in terms of causation: God dispenses blessings in a way uncaused by us. I can't do or say anything to force God to bless me, or to bless you. My faith or my state of mind is not the cause of God's sending me blessings. Wonderful gifts are given to the godless and evil; horrid suffering overtakes the faithful and pious. Blessings might come my way, or they might not. I am to simply live in the awareness of Jesus. That may, in itself, be a wonderful blessing, but I do not do it for the sake of that blessing.

Crabb has opened a brilliant, yet troublingly complex, set of ideas. Let us hope that he and other writers will pursue them further.