The Dead Theologians Society

Faith and the Creeds

2009-05-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

C.S. Lewis defined faith as the "art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods" (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 141). Lewis was very realistic about the ways in which our various emotional states affect our religious beliefs. For Lewis, our moods change constantly. If our beliefs are based solely on our moods, then our beliefs would change constantly as well. Therefore, our beliefs must be anchored by something stable, constant, and unchanging--namely, the virtue of faith. If you are not anchored by this virtue, then you will be "just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion" (Ibid., 142).

Lewis describes faith not as an emotion or a mood but as a "habit." It is something that you develop by training, practice, and exercise. Faith, in this sense, can be compared to the habit of shooting free throws. If you want to be a good free throw shooter, you must practice, that is, you must shoot hundreds of free throws day in and day out. This takes discipline: anyone who practices free throws only when he or she is in the right mood will surely not become a good free throw shooter. The one who attends to the practice everyday, in spite of one's moods, will eventually shoot a high percentage foul shot. It is the same with faith: faith is a habit which comes by way of disciplined practice.

Practicing faith, according to Lewis, includes something very specific: "Once you have accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe" (Ibid., 142). Lewis goes on to say that most people who leave Christianity do not do so because they have reasoned their way out of Christianity, but rather because they have not kept the faith alive in their minds.

Worship, among many things, is a time when we are continually reminded of what we believe. It is a time when we are trained into the faith. We are reminded of what we believe through music, scripture reading, preaching, and the Eucharist. All of these things are practices. By attending to them with discipline, we develop the virtue of faith. These practices enable us to "hold on to things that our reason once accepted, in spite of our changing moods." Worship, in this vein, is more like a habit than an emotional experience. To be sure, there are times when worship will powerfully evoke our emotions. There are times when we will be in the mood to worship. There are also times, however, when we will not feel like worshipping. There are times when worship does not evoke emotions. That is okay. Worship is not about our ever-changing emotions but rather about being continually reminded of and shaped by the story of God reconciling the world to himself in Christ. By attending to that story day in and day out, in the midst of our various emotional states, we will acquire the virtue of faith.

Reciting the creeds over and over in worship is one of the best ways to remind ourselves of our beliefs. Jaroslav Pelikan, one of the greatest church historians of our time, was once asked why we need to recite creeds in worship. Pelikan said that our spiritual life fluctuates: there are ups and downs, hot spots and colds spots. Therefore, during Sunday morning worship, we are not asked, "As of 10:30 am, what do you believe?" Rather, we are asked "Do you choose to be part of community which has affirmed these things?" The creeds set for the basic things that the church catholic has affirmed throughout space and time. By reciting the creed continually--by practicing it over and over--we are able to keep the faith over the long haul.

Tenth and Final Meeting

2009-04-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

The Contemporary Era: Part 3

Time: May 4, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Location: RCN Coffee Room (233)

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Books will have to be purchased or found on your own. (Half Price books usually has about 3-4 copies of it for $5.00.

This would be a great discussion to invite a friend to. Lewis defines the essence of the Christian tradition in this book in a way that is simultaneously profound and simple.

For an audio clip of the last few chapters of Mere Christianity, click here. These are the only parts of Lewis' 1941-1944 BBC radio addresses that have survived.

Compassion and Prayer

2009-04-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

Henri Nouwen provides a refreshing account of how prayer relates to the compassionate life. For Nouwen, prayer is the "first and indispensable discipline of compassion precisely because prayer is also the first expression of human solidarity." Nouwen's theology of prayer, however, challenges the theology of prayer which is often espoused in the church. I would like to share a long quotation which captures this theology.

"One of the most powerful experiences in a life of compassion is the expansion of our hearts into a world-embracing space of healing from which no one is excluded...Prayer for others cannot be seen as an extraordinary exercise that must be practiced from time to time. Rather, it is the very beat of a compassionate heart. To pray is not a futile effort to influence God's will, but a hospitable gesture by which we invite our neighbors into the center of our hearts. To pray for others means to make them part of ourselves. To pray for others means to allow their pains and sufferings, their anxieties and loneliness, their confusion and fears to resound in our innermost selves...To pray is to enter into a deep inner solidarity with our fellow human beings so that in and through us they can be touched by the healing power of God's Spirit...it is in and through us that God's Spirit touches them with his healing presence."

Prayer is a "hospitable gesture," not a "futile effort to influence God's will." Do you agree with this statement? How might this idea affect our practices of personal and corporate prayer?

Disillusionment and Christian Community

2009-03-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

All of us have been disillusioned with Christian community. All of us have had dreams of what the church ought to be, and all of us have had those dreams shattered by the harsh realities of life together. Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew about disillusionment. After all, he lived during the "German-Christian compromise," a time when most of his brothers and sisters in Christ swore allegiance to Hitler. What is striking about Bonhoeffer, however, is that he did not wallow in his disillusionment. In point of fact, he warned his seminary students of the dangers of developing "wish dreams" for Christian community. "Wish dreams" are the source of disillusionment itself and a detriment to true community. "Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter..." (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 27).

For Bonhoeffer, disillusionment occurs when we come to Christian community as demanders--better yet, as consumers--and not as "thankful recipients." I will leave you with his challenging words on Christian community and disillusionment.

"Because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what he has done for us. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness, and His promise. We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what He does give us daily. And is not what he has given us enough: brothers, who will go on living with us through sin and need under the blessing of His grace? Is the divine gift of Christian fellowship anything less than this, any day, even the most difficult and distressing day? Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal life, is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom I, too, stand under the Word of Christ? Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Jesus Christ? Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and Deed which really binds us together--the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship" (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 28-29).

Ninth Meeting

2009-03-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

The Contemporary Era: Part 2

Time: April 13, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Location: RCN Coffee Room (233)

Compassion by Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison

I have a couple copies that you can borrow, so let me know if you are interested. Otherwise, this book will have to be purchased on your own.

Eighth Meeting

2009-02-26T19:30:00.000-08:00

The Contemporary Era: Part 1

Time: March 16, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Location: RCN Coffee Room (233)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

We will also be watching a few clips from the 2003 Doblmeier documentary film Bonhoeffer. For a preview of the film, click here.

There are no online versions of this book. If you need a book, contact Scott Dermer as soon as possible (If you are buying a book, I recommend the HarperSan Francisco version, translated by John W. Doberstein).

For an introduction to Bonhoeffer's life and work, see the post below.

A Brief Introduction to the Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Scott Dermer

2009-02-26T19:21:00.000-08:00

In the opening lines of The Cost of Discipleship, the Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bohnoeffer (1906-1945) exposed the most fatal enemy of the church—cheap grace. For Bonhoeffer, cheap grace is essentially “grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system.”[1] Cheap grace is “intellectual assent” to a doctrine of forgiveness without any real attachment to Christ’s person, Christ’s suffering, and Christ’s cross.[2] In other words, cheap grace is doctrine devoid of embodiment, intellectualism devoid of action, belief devoid of discipleship. Cheap grace is impractical theology, that is, theology removed from the burdens of history and the mission of the church to bear such burdens. The life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is an indelible witness to the utter inseparability of theology and practice. In the midst of the vexing problems his time, Bonhoeffer was in every way a practical theologian, for his theology manifested itself in a costly performance of the Christian faith.
Just three years before Adolf Hitler became the Reich Chancellor of Germany, Bonhoeffer completed his Doctorate at the University of Berlin and published his first dissertation entitled Communion of Saints. A year later Bonhoeffer published a second dissertation, Act and Being, and argued in it that the church is the community where persons encounter Christ in the other. Bonhoeffer’s promising early work on ecclesiology reflects a theme which would persist throughout his entire theological and pastoral career: namely, the theme of what it means to be a member of the Body of Christ. Such a theme could not have been more vexing for the Christian living in Germany during the Third Reich. For the majority of Christians in 1930s Germany, being a member of the Body of Christ meant unqualified participation in the German national church. In the eyes of Germany’s despot, however, membership in this body was nothing other than exclusive allegiance to Germany itself, for, as Hitler once asserted, “one is either a German or a Christian.” After securing their position in the German Christian Church, the Nazis commenced their anti-semetic ideology and called all Lutheran pastors to undivided loyalty to Hitler. In the minds of many German Christians, Paul’s admonition to “let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God” required complete conformity to the laws and ideology of Nazism.[3]

In light of this German-Christian compromise, Bonhoeffer cast a radically alternative ecclesiological vision for Christians in Germany. For Bonhoeffer, “the church is the church only when it exists for others.”[4] During his time at Union Theological Seminary in the United States, Bonhoeffer had a formative experience at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. It was here that Bonhoeffer witnessed a church that existed solely for the oppressed and suffering African-Americans of Harlem. Returning to Germany after this experience, Bonhoeffer turned his theological and pastoral attention to the question of how the church in Germany might exist for others in light of the increasing dangers of German nationalism and militarism. Bonhoeffer became one of many Lutheran pastors to join the Confessing Church, a church which aimed to speak prophetically to the German Christian Church as well as resist Nazi totalitarian ideology. In 1934 Bonhoeffer was invited to found and direct one of the seminaries established by the Confessing Church. While at the seminary in Finkenwalde, Bonhoeffer’s attention was drawn to the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the beatitude about peacemakers. Bonhoeffer held that Christ’s command to be peacemakers is binding on every Christian. The disciple is to do nothing other than “establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate.”[5] Pacifism, a doctrine at the core of Bonhoeffer’s theology and teaching, was by no means a speculative doctrine divorced from real life. For both Bonhoeffer and his students, pacifism had costly political implications, for if one resisted the military draft under Hitler’s regime, one risked being “lined up and shot.”[6] Bonhoeffer could do nothing but pray, along with some of his students, that God would grant them the power to resist the draft. In 1935 the seminary at Finkenwalde was dissolved by the Gestapo, and two years later Bonhoeffer returned to the United States to avert an imminent draft. Less than two months after he arrived in the United States, Bonhoeffer realized that he had made a mistake in leaving his country and his people. Here one observes the utter integrity of this practical theologian: “I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share in the trials of this time with my people.”[7] Shortly after returning to Germany, Bonhoeffer resolved that the Christian must not only bind up the victims of the wheel, but must “put a spoke in the wheel itself.”[8] Thus, Bonhoeffer joined a resistance plot which aimed to overthrow Hitler and establish a new government. Bonhoeffer, who assisted Jews in escaping Germany and worked as an international liaison for the conspiracy, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943. He was executed on April 9, 1945 at the Flossenburg concentration camp. The inscription on his monument at Flossenburg is a quite fitting portrayal of his life and work: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Pastor.

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, (New York, NY: The Macmillan Company, 1937), 45.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Rm. 13:1
[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge, (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1953), 382.
[5] Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 126.
[6] Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Memories and Perspectives, (Vision Video, 1994). This phrase was used by one of Bonhoeffer’s students.
[7] Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 16. Emphasis mine.
[8] Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Memories and Perspectives, 1994.

Seventh Meeting

2009-02-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

The Modern Era

Time: February 23, 7:00 pm

Location: RCN Coffee Room (233)

John Wesley's sermon "The Scripture Way of Salvation." Click here for the reading.

Jonathan Edward's sermon "God Glorified in Man's Dependence." Click here for the reading. Also, for all you zealous readers, "God's Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men." Click here for the reading.

Brother Lawrence and Love of Neighbor

2009-02-04T11:15:00.000-08:00

Where do we see love of neighbor in Brother Lawrence's vision of the spiritual life? Brother Lawrence describes the spiritual life in terms of a "general loving awareness of God." Does such constant, loving awareness of God exclude awareness of neighbor? Is the neighbor simply an interruption or distraction to one's contemplation of God?

Here is my take on these important questions. I think Brother Lawrence simply assumes that if one is truly loving God, one will be loving neighbor. Love of God entails love of neighbor. If one lives with a "general loving awareness of God," one will have a general loving awareness of the neighbor. Brother Lawrence recognizes that if one is not attentive to the presence of God--a presence which, as Augustine put it, is closer to us than we are to ourselves--then one will not be attentive to the presence, let alone needs, of the neighbor. Cultivating a deeper attentiveness to God in all activities of life ought to result in a deeper attentiveness to one's neighbors in all activities of life. If it does not, then one must wonder if one is truly being attentive to God.

I think Brother Lawrence realized that love of neighbor must be rooted in practices of solitude and silence. Sometimes we must withdraw from community in order to maintain communion with God. It is in solitude, however, that one discovers once again the importance of community. Thomas Merton, a more modern spiritual writer, said it like this: "It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them…Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are..." (Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (New York: Harcourt, 1953), 258.

Thus, the ongoing communion with God which Brother Lawrence recommends does not result in neglect others; rather, it results in deeper communion with others, a true engagement with the needs and burdens of one's neighbors.

George Fox

2009-01-28T18:14:00.000-08:00

I wanted to give you a bit of historical background on George Fox. I think it might help us put the story from his journal in context. I will fill in more of the details on Monday night. Enjoy the readings.

George Fox was born in England in 1624. He lived during a time when Europe in general and England in particular were experiencing much religious conflict. Fox was in many ways a dissenter of the state church in England, and thus he was heavily persecuted. The following is a basic summary of his work from Justo Gonzalez' The Story of Christianity.

At that time there were in England many religious sects, Fox attended all without finding contentment in any. Finally, he felt called by the Spirit to speak out at a Baptist meeting, announcing the inner truths in which he now believed. From that point, such urgings of the Spirit became more frequent. In gatherings of various sects, Fox would declare that he had been ordered by the Spirit to announce his spiritual vision of Christianity. His words were often received with contempt and hostility, and he was repeatedly thrown out of meetings, beaten, and stoned. But such incidents would not stop him...the number of his followers grew rapidly.

There were many who disliked the teachings and practices of Fox and the Quakers. Religious leaders resented the manner in which these "fanatics" interrupted their services in order to preach or to read Scripture...all this seemed disrespectful and an intolerable insubordination. As a result, Fox was repeatedly beaten, and he spent a total of six years in prison. He was sent to prison for the first time for having interrupted a preacher...On other occasions he was accused of blasphemy, or of conspiring against the government...On another occasion, when he was serving six months for blasphemy, he was offered his freedom in exchange for service in the republican army. He refused...and from that point on, the Friends have been known for their staunch pacifist convictions.

Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol. 2 (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1985), 198-201.

Sixth Meeting

2009-01-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

The Reformation Era: Part II

Time: February 2, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Location: RCN Coffee Room (Room 233)

A short story from George Fox's Journal (Fox was the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, also known as the "Quakers"). Click here for the story.

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God. Click here for an online version of the book. This is a very short book (about 20 pages).

I think you will find these readings highly interesting and meaningful. Invite a friend!

Ecclesia semper reformanda est?

2009-01-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

This Latin phrase, coined by the Reformers, means "the church always needs to be reformed." The following are my musings on the meaning of this phrase.

When we confess the Nicene Creed in worship, we claim that the church is "holy." That is true. The church is holy because Christ has called it his bride (Eph. 5:25-26). The church is holy because it is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Yet because the church is a fellowship of human beings, it is also sinful. It is blemished and imperfect. The church, therefore, is holy and sinful. Losing sight of this paradox can cause us to become either too pessimistic or too optimistic about the church.

The saints in the Christian faith always have a deep awareness of their sinfulness, and thus a deep awareness of their need to be constantly reformed. I think the same ought to be true of the church. "The church always needs to be reformed" because we recognize that it is broken and corrupt.

How do we go about that reform?

Here I think Martin Luther's life is instructive. Luther did not critique the Catholic Church from the outside; rather, he critiqued it from within. In point of fact, Luther's very ability to critique the church was the result of the fact that he had been positively shaped by the church. Luther's voice was not one of "external criticism but of a conscience reared within the tradition which it denounced. If Luther condemened the church on the authority of what he read in the Bible, or in the writings of St. Augustine, it was the church...who had put these documents into his hands" (Collinson, Oxford History of Christianity, 246). When Luther posted his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg--a document which boldly critiqued the church's brokenness--he was not trying to start the "Protestant Reformation." He was trying to reform the church he loved.

To all zealous reformers of the church--the church needs your creativity, passion, and critique. It also needs your love. The church needs you to reform from within. I will let Derek Webb, a Christian artist who has written many songs about the church, have the last word.

"If you love me [Christ], you will love the church" (She Must and Shall Go Free, INO Records, 2003).

Fifth Meeting

2008-12-16T19:33:00.000-08:00

The Reformation Era

Time: January 12, 2009 at 7:00 pm

Location: RCN Coffee Room (Rm 233)

Short Readings from Martin Luther and John Calvin

For Luther's Preface to Romans, click here.

For Calvin's writings on eternal election, click here.

We will also be watching a few clips from the 2003 film "Luther." Invite a friend!

Environmental Stewardship

2008-12-15T14:11:00.000-08:00

In our last meeting, we read a short story about Francis of Assisi preaching to a wolf that was at odds with a local village. Francis asked the wolf to repent of his ways (he had been eating some of the villagers!) and make peace with the village. The wolf listened to Francis; he promised to be gentle. The villagers, in turn, promised to feed the wolf for the rest of his days.

In our discussion of this fun little story, we asked the question of why Francis would preach to the animals. The best answer that we came up with was this: the gospel is good news to all creation. In its original state, all creation lived in peace and harmony. In its current state, however, all creation is broken. The creation is, as Paul says, "groaning in labor pains" (Rm. 8:22). Christ initiated a peacable kingdom which is bringing about a restoration of the broken creation. St. Francis believed that there will come a time when the kingdom will be fulfilled, and all creation will be restored to its original harmony. His preaching to the animals is a hopeful anticipation of that time. His life is a testament to the fact that we need to, as best we can in the here and now, live in harmony with God's creation.

Interestingly, John Wesley held a similar belief about the restoration of all creation: "Will the creature, will even the brute creation, always remain in this deplorable condition? God forbid that we should affirm this; yea, or even entertain such a thought. While the 'whole creation groaneth together,' their groans are not dispersed into idle air, but enter the ears of Him that made them...The whole brute creation will then, undoubtedly, be restored...whatever affections they had in the garden of God, will be restored with vast increase...They will be delivered from all irregular appetites...no rage will be found in any creature, no fierceness, nor cruelty, or thirst for blood." (The Great Deliverance).

If this is how creation will be restored in the end, then how should we relate toward creation in the here and now? How could we imitate the Fransican spirit with specific practices of environemtnal stewardship?

Christianity and Asceticism

2008-12-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

Both Thomas a' Kempis and Francis of Assisi emphasized the importance of ascetical practices in the spiritual life. Asceticism comes from a Greek word which means "training." An ascetical practice is a practice of self-denial. It is a matter of denying yourself something so that you can learn how to control your passions. The "passions" include your desires for earthly goods, such as food, drink, relationships, knowledge, possessions, sex, etc. From time to time these desires can become disordered. They become disordered when you want too much of something or when you become bound to something. So, in the monastic tradition, it is important to restrain your desires for some of these goods, with the hope that by learning to control your passions you will achieve true spiritual freedom.

For Thomas a' Kempis, asceticism leads to growth in grace and deeper union with God: "The more completely a man renounces worldly things, and the more perfectly he dies to self by the conquest of self, the sooner will grace be given, the more richly will it be infused, and the nearer to God will it raise the heart set free from the world.” --Imitation of Christ 4.13

There are certainly extremes in asceticism of which we need to be aware. What, though, are the advantages of these practices? What are the dangers? What would it look like to practice some form of asceticism in your own life? Comments are welcome.

Fourth Meeting

2008-11-26T07:35:00.000-08:00

The Medieval Church: Part II

Time: December 8, 7:00 pm

Location: Richardson Church of the Nazarene, Room 233 (Coffee Room)

Selected Writings from Francis and Clare of Assisi

Click here for pdf document which has all the reading.

This document includes St. Francis' "Admonitions," "The Early Rule" for the Franciscan monastic order, "The Canticle of Brother Sun" (a poem), and "The Testament" of St. Clare. (The document is only 30 pages!)

Augustine and Lord of the Rings

2008-11-17T10:51:00.000-08:00

As we discussed in our second meeting, Augustine believed that evil is a privation of good. Like darkness is the absence of light or cold is the absence of heat, evil is nothing in itself, but simply an absence of a good thing. Augustine summarizes his position in the Confessions: "If things are deprived of all good, they cease altogether to be; and this means that as long as they are, they are good. Therefore, whatever is, is good; and evil, the origin of which I was trying to find, is not a substance, because if it were a substance it would be good…So it became obvious to me that all that you have made is good, and that there are no substances whatsoever that were not made by you " (7.12).

I think this concept is beautifully depicted in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Robert Barron, a Roman Catholic theologian, has a youtube video which discusses how this concept is on display in the film. Click here to watch it.

Questions/comments are welcome.

Third Meeting

2008-11-17T10:35:00.000-08:00

The Medieval Church: Part I

Time: November 24, 7:00 pm

Location: Richardson Church of the Nazarene, (Room 233, Coffee Room)

Book: Thomas a' Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

For a free online version of the book, click here. Copies are available for purchase ($5). Contact Scott Dermer if interested.

Second Meeting

2008-10-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

The Ancient Church: Part II

Time: November 3, 7:00 pm

Location: Phil and Debbie Lindquist's home. Click here for directions.

Book: Augustine's Confessions (Books 1-10 only, or as much as you can).

Questions to consider as you read: What is the relationship between knowing yourself and knowing God? Why does Augustine need to "confess"? What is it about Christianity which finally convinces Augustine to convert?

For a free online version of the book, click here. Copies are available for purchase ($8). Contact Scott Dermer if interested.

Reflections on First Meeting

2008-10-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

Our first meeting on Athanasius was excellent. For those who could not attend, I thought I would do a post on the main themes of our conversation.

We approached Athanasius' work on the incarnation as a story with five acts.

Act I: Creation

God created the universe out of nothing. Because we were created out of nothing, we were originally mortal beings. In our original state, however, we had the opportunity to become immortal by contemplating God. God created us in his image. We were created so that we could share in God's own life. God created us for union with himself.

Act II: Fall

Human beings turned away from contemplating God by their own free will. The consequences of this turning were 1) we became subject to physical death, that is, we lost our potential for immortality and 2) we became subject to spiritual death, that is, God's image in us was broken.

Act III: Incarnation

God's answer to the Fall was the incarnation, that is, the Word becoming flesh. When Christ took on our fallen human nature, he united it with his divine nature. Because of this union, we can once again share in God's own life. Because the divine and human natures are united in Christ's own body, we can be brought into union with God.

Act IV: Death

For Christ to truly take on our human nature, he had to take on our mortality. Because Christ united himself to our nature, he represented all of us in his death on the cross.

Act V: Resurrection

Because our mortal nature was in Christ, when Christ raised himself from the dead he raised our mortal bodies. As Athanasius says, he "put death to death." Thus, our mortal human nature can now share in God's immortal nature.

For Athanasius, the acts of incarnation, death, and resurrection all fit together. You cannot have one without the others.

His entire book can be summarized in the concept of deification:

"He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God." (p. 93) In other words, God became human so that humans might become God. We do not become God in a literal sense. Rather, we become sharers in God's own life. Through Christ we become "deified." We participate in God's qualities of immortality, goodness, love, and holiness. Scott Daniels described this in a unique way: God became like us so that we could become like God.

In light of this story with five acts, Athanasius challenged us to become "monuments of Christ's victory." In his view, the greatest evidence for Christ's victory over death is a transformed life. In Athanasius' context, such transformation included martyrdom, a complete willingness to suffer and die for the sake of Christ. We considered this question in conclusion: what would it look like if our lives and our church became monuments of resurrection, God's victory over death?

Comments are welcome.

First Meeting

2008-09-23T19:57:00.000-07:00

The Ancient Church: Part I

Time: October 6, 7:00 pm

Location: White Rock Coffee Shop. Click here for directions.

Book: Athanasius' On the Incarnation

For online version with modern translation and introduction by C.S. Lewis, click here.

Copies are available for purchase ($14). Contact Scott Dermer if interested.

Historia magistra vitae est

2008-09-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

Why study the books of dead theologians?

The Roman philosopher Cicero said that "history is life's teacher" (historia magistra vitae est). We study historical books ultimately because they provide invaluable instruction for our life in the here and now. To say that history is life's teacher is to say that the past illuminates the present. C.S. Lewis captures this idea quite well in the introduction to our first book: "every age is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books." By reading dead theologians we come closer to finding solutions to our contemporary problems. We find out--much to our surprise--that many of the ambiguities that we face in our current life, spirituality, and church are not so new after all.

History also provides examples for our imitation. The greatness of the books that we will be reading does not lie in their theological content alone; it also lies in the exemplary character of the authors who wrote them. In these texts we will meet some of the most extraordinary figures of church history. If we are open, the witness of these "dead" theologians will call out to us, evoke our minds and hearts, and teach us something new about God and the world. We will find much to praise in their examples, and by imitating their examples we will ultimately become better people.

At other times, these "dead" theologians will perplex us, frustrate our minds and hearts, and disagree with our deeply held modern assumptions. If we are honest, we will find something to blame in their examples. That too will make us better people, for in acknowledging the mistakes of these figures we will be less likely to repeat them. When we look at the past through the lens of "praise and blame," history will become one of our greatest teachers.

As we read these Christian classics over the next few months, we will discover that these "dead" theologians are still living. They are all part of a living Christian tradition. A living tradition is simply an ongoing conversation about the things that matter. We are all participants in the great conversation of the Christian tradition. By reading these old books we will make room in the conversation for voices besides our own--namely, the remarkable voices of the Christian past.