Living Wittily

Karl Barth and Hans Urs Von Balthasar 2. Mutually corrective theologies

Hans Urs Von Balthasar (I love that multi-syllabic name - challenge to Stuart to include it in a sermon!) wrote a major appreciation of Karl Barth's theology. But, Wigley argues, it was a critical appreciation, and what's more it was also a very important correction, by a Roman Catholic theologian, of Barth's misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Catholic theology at its best. Both theologians made the decisive move of building theology around a view of Christ that made Christology decisive, central as the revelation of God. Where they differed was in Barth's insistence that the Word of God revealed in Christ was the sole, exclusive, unparalleled revelation, requiring no supplement further elucidation from philosophy or natural theology. To give natural theology or human philosophy a foothold in Divine revelation would be, for Barth, to allow human thought 'to lay hands on God'.

Von Balthasar argued that Barth's radically Christocentric doctrine of the Word of God was so all pervasive in his Church Dogmatics that it left no room for other doctrines such as Creation and the a Christian doctrine of humanity created in the image of God; within this created order, dependent on God and sustained by grace, 'human nature is not destroyed or turned into its opposite. On the contrary, the natural capacity of a human being to know God continues to function'.

If Barth pushes all knowledge of God into the Christ event which happened in eternity, Von Balthasar  fears for the significance and possibility of human history. 'Too much in Barth gives the impression that nothing much really happens in his theology of event and history, because everything has already happened in eternity.' A Christiocentric perspective  must leave space for a truly temporal history.

These are high-powered disagreements between two theologians both of whom agree that Christian theology must begin with 'that which is the most concrete of all events, with God's word in Jesus Christ'. Von Balthasar is not arguing for an independent order of nature from which knowledge of God can be derived without reference to Jesus Christ- the doctrines of creation and covenant, central to Barth's theology, are equally integral to Von Balthasar's view of nature. 'Rather than any concept of a pure and independent order of nature in addition to that which is encompassed in the  order of revelation, there is only one world as it is, created and restored in the image of Jesus Christ'. (Wigley, page 38).

  Now all of that might seem rarefied, difficult to root in the practicalities of life for those of us trying to faithfully follow Jesus and witness to the Gospel. But I sense in this debate, two theological allies, working together through their mutually correcting theologies, to create a theology which does full justice to the transcendent, eternal reality of God self-revealed in Jesus Christ, and the balancing truth of this created yet broken world into which God in Christ came with redemptive purpose, as God incarnate. At this point my limited understanding of these two theological virtuosos gives way to admiration for two minds probing at the far frontiers of Christian truth. I am glad simply to overhear the exchange - and grateful to Wigley for being interpreter.

And here I have to confess my suspicion of the obsession with practicality, as if all theological truth, knowledge and wisdom were reducible to human activity, actions, practice. I understand, and largely sympathise with the Maclendon, Hauerwas emphasis on practice as proof of belief - but that's a different question from an equally important dimension of christian discipleship - the love of God with our minds, the passion for God that exults in God's beauty, theology more at ease with adoration than explanation, and an inner longing to know, at levels other than the practical, what it means to love God. I mean God on the scale of the picture above, my favourite image from Hubble, the Eagle nebulae, which every time I read John 1 sits alongside it as a way of reminding me of my size relative to the One who inhabits eternity!

Karl Barth, book collecting, and the meaning of life

Ben Myers posts a timely reminder to all of us who like collecting books! It's from the fly leaf of one of Karl Barth's books, which he wrote for one of his friends.

Meaning of life?
Collecting books? No, read them!
Reading them? No, think about!
Thinking about? No, do something for God and for your neighbour!
—Karl Barth, Basle, 2.11.1954

Peace at any personal price. A prayer.

Peace at any personal price: A Personal Prayer, offered today in Worship.

Lord God, Creator of  this world, its beauty, diversity and fertility. You made us human beings in your image, and you made us stewards of your Creation, to act creatively, responsibly, on the side of life.

We pray for those places in our world where human behaviour is not on the side of life, where the resources and provision of your creation, are not used creatively, but with destructive greed, where those with power do not act responsibly, and instead act with cruelty and inhumanity.

We pray for Darfur, and the continuing crisis for millions of refugees, lacking water, food, sanitation and safety. We pray for Zimbabwe, and for those who live under an oppressive, unjust and self-serving regime: the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying.

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We pray for Iraq and Afghanistan, and the millions of those embroiled, day after day, in death dealing violence, and the cycles of hate. We pray for those who work to bring a secure power base yet we recognise the decades of peacemaking that will be needed. We pray for the millions of young Muslim people, born and growing up in an ethos of lethal hostility, that they will not think followers of Jesus to be lovers of violence.

Darfur, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan.

God of hope, God of righteousness and justice, we hardly know for what to pray, except for hope, for justice, for righteousness to be done. But we worship and serve the Prince of peace, and we follow the one of whom it was promised, ‘the government shall be upon his shoulders’.

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So help us, as your church, as ordinary people yet children of God, to bear witness to our faith in Jesus Christ; to do so in ways that act out peacemaking; to inhabit the ways of reconciliation and just practices;to speak outspokenly, to protest, to not ignore, to not shoulder shrug helplessly, to not think a broken world is someone else’s problem.

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Lord make our praying and our living one. Help us to live the faith we sing and preach and believe. Give us courage to lift up hands in holy prayer as a protest against, as a subversion of, the status quo. For we follow a Lord who challenged the status quo and was crucified. We believe in a Lord whose resurrection created a new status quo, communities called to be the people of God, the God of peace, hope, love and justice,

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Darfur, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Lord when we hear the names of these nations, forgive our resignation to evil we think we cannot change. By your Spirit, anointing and indwelling us, propelling and energising us, make us outspoken ministers of reconciliation. Call us to be peacemakers and therefore children of God. And help us to believe that, one way or another, your promise will come true; the promise of a river of life, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb,and on each side the tree of life, and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations.

Lord heal this broken world, for you are the Lord who heals;

Bring peace to earth, for you are the Prince of peace;

Lord reconcile those who hate, for you are the God of love,

Through Jesus Christ, in whom your love is revealed,

By whom peace is given, and through whom our wounds are healed., Amen

Betta Splendens

I spent Saturday helping set up tropical fish tanks. Tropical fish aren't my hobby, but they are my son's passion - in particular the multi-coloured Betta Splendens, better known as Siamese Fighting Fish. Over the years Andrew has become an expert on these diminutive piscine gladiators.

A number of beautiful specimens arrived from the recognised quality source in Thailand and needed proper housing. Such housing must be segregated because fighting is instinctive, instant, territorial - the males of these fish are so antisocial with other males that zero tolerance is written into their genetic code with indelible felt tip pen - or whatever the scientific equivalent to the felt tip pen might be in genetic code writing!

So I now know how to build a condominium for celebrity fish

Here's a couple of samples courtesy of Atisonbetta, the supplier

Karl Barth and Hans Urs Von Balthasar 1: Disagreeing Allies

Karl Barth and Hans Urs Von Balthasar. A Critical Engagement,

Stephen D. Wigley, (London: T&T Clark, 2007),

178 pages. ISBN:9780567031914.

(Review copy courtesy of T&T Clark)

Over many years, two of the greatest theologians of the Twentieth century, both of them Swiss, formed a remarkable theological friendship rich in conversation and mutual admiration. Hans urs Von Balthasar and Karl Barth each wrote their theology out of their own tradition, and each in reaction against what they saw as a dominant wrong turning in their respective traditions. Barth wrote from within the Reformed tradition against the liberal Protestantism of Germany, and Von Balthasar against the 'dry as sawdust' version of Thomism he encountered in his Jesuit training.

For years now I have been reading Karl Barth. Ive done so, not as an academic theologian, but as a preaching pastor who 'kens fine' where to go looking for Alpine theology, those massive themes that should undergird all pastoral preaching which doesn't play around with people, trivialise the gospel or patronise the congregation by keeping it simple and practical. Keeping what practical and simple? Surely not the Gospel - which is not practical but eternal, not simple but the deepest mystery. Barth's passion for God, self-revealed in Christ, Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer, is an awesome response by one mind to the Gospel. And the fourteen volumes of the Church Dogmatics, along with his sensational Commentary on Romans express both the vastness and disruptiveness of a Gospel which comes as God's gracious gift.

  It is only in recent years I have been introduced to Von Balthasar, and by one of his earlier English speaking admirers, Professor Donald Mackinnon. Following a paper on Julian of Norwich which I delivered in Aberdeen, Professor Mackinnon then retired to Aberdeen, sent me a copy of his paper on Von Balthasar. It took some more years before I started reading Von Balthasar and developing a growing interest in his work. Like Barth, Von Balthasar was also impatient with contemporary approaches to theology; in his case those which arrogantly dismissed the riches of the Christian catholic tradition. Like Barth he has left an almost unmanageable array of written theology, but also a magnum opus of 15 volumes. The great organising principle are the three eternal transcendentals of beauty, goodness and truth: The seven volume The Glory of the Lord, is an exploration of beauty as defined by the nature and being of God; the five volume Theo-Drama explores the nature of goodness as revealed in the eternal drama of God and humanity as played out in the gospels; and Theo-Logic provides the foundational nature of truth which, together with beauty and goodness, are defined by the nature of God.

Barth's Church Dogmatics, and Von Balthasar's Trilogy require two metres of shelf space. I've no idea how much space would be required for the rest of their writings, but as Oliver Davies quipped,'Either measuring scales or measuring tape will confirm this is a very Germanic way of doing theology'.

Stepeh Wigley is a Welsh Methodist Minister. His book compares the work of Von Balthasar with that of Barth, and traces the ways in which Von Balthasar's Trilogy is a Catholic response to the Reformed Barth's Church Dogmatics. The central thesis for those interested in the systematic and technical merit of Wigley's work is that Von balthasar's debate with Barth about the analogy of being, and Barth's alternative, the analogy of faith, was definitive and formative in how Von Balthasar worked out his great theological project. So not only was the conversation one between friends, but one between disagreeing allies. Those who want to follow this line of study, can do so in this elegant, ecumenical and sympathetic exposition of Von Balthasar, in responsive conversation with Barth.

My own review over the next few posts on Wigley's book, will be less an analysis of the systematic and philosophical issues that united or divided these two companions on the way, but on the theological richness, spiritual rigour and intellectual vastness of their visions. I say visions, but in truth the vision was one, and it was the vision of God - the Word of God and the Glory of God, revealed in Jesus Christ, and portrayed with a lifelong passionate fascination, expressed in doxological prose. Barth and Von Balthasar are in my view, two of those rare gifts of God, profound theological thinkers whose writing is a spiritual tonic, an intellectual feast, and so big, a lifetime doesn't exhaust it!

A Good Hymn, the Triune God, and poetry in motion

The photo has several times been requested by Margaret and I thought it might help overcome any sense that might arise from the rest of this post, that I have no sense of modern, contemporary fashion statements, whether in dress or in the liturgical activities of contemporary, cutting edge worship occasions.

No need for Andy (not Goodliff) to apologise for the last sentence in his comment on hymn and songbooks a couple of posts ago. This paragraph is by way of response to the implied uncertainty as to the value of hymn / song books. Now let me say, I ain't defending "song" books. However, for me at least, Praise "song" doesn't have the liturgical resonance of "hymn of praise". Hymns we sing to God - songs we sing to...whatever!? Now I don't want to press the distinction - and my tongue is painfully embedded in my cheek - but if forced to choose as my main diet, between what is meant in worship circles by songs and what I mean by hymns, I wouldn't choose the liturgical fast food. I'll come back in a later post to my current research which is an Apologia on Behalf of Disappearing Hymnbooks.

More seriously, I think I'd like to explore some more the dynamic that is played out when congregational singing, other forms of music, when hymns and songs, words, images and sound come together in an act of worshipping together. I mean the dynamic between those whose musical gifts are invited to accompany, enable, support, even lead, the praise of God's people, and how in many contemporary contexts the praise band is now accompanied by the congregation. I mean the inner dynamic between one person's spiritual experience, and the diet of worship songs / hymns on offer to express, enrich, deepen, challenge that experience. I mean that inner and also social dynamic of singing together, merging voices, as a community gives voice (singular) to the praise of God, in words that have to be spiritually accessible, theologically coherent, emotionally congruous.

Long sentence looming. I mean also that difficult to define something that happens, when truth is expressed in artfully crafted phrases, joined together as a richly textured response of mind, heart and will, to the God who is the recipient of worship, and then set to music which is evocative, provocative or otherwise capable of being the vehicle for such spiritual truthfulness, and then played by instrumentalists and singers, content to be the means to the great end of enabling the worship of the whole people of God gathered in this place, until finally, be it song or hymn, the people of God are indeed, enabled, supported, accompanied, in praise which is the collaborative, co-operative offering, of all God's people, to the Triune God into whose eternal dance of loving, holy purpose, we are invited to particpate.

In that sense a true hymn truly sung, would be poetry in motion!

Commemorating Ordination 10: Dorrien the Historian; Wright or wrong on Romans; and James Denney

Nearly finished with this series. And the ordination commemoration book for this year arrived yesterday. Stuart saw me swithering over it in Blackwells at Oxford, and predicted that I wouldn't hold out long. I hate being predictable!

More of that later. Here's the two for 2001-2. The first helped me understand the intellectual and spiritual integrity, as well as the political and social agendas, of American liberal theology. The second is now a standard commentary on Paul's theological Matterhorn, his letter to Romans.

2001 Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology. Volume 1.

Before this book Dorrien the historian wrote a fine history of American Evangelical thought in the 19th and into the 20th Century. This is part of a three volume history of the theology that became a reaction to fundamentalism, both as religious and as political movement. Christianity in America is a rich, diverse, large-scale cultural given, and even today alignments of fundamentalism and liberal theology are largely on predictable party lines. Dorrien's ability to trace influential personalities, unravel cultural changes, understand the reflexive impact of politics on theology, and theology on politics, as well as his sympathy with the religious content of his own national history, make this an important three volume history. It is an account of a way of thinking that remains influential and an important corrective to current perceptions of American right wing Christianity.

2002, Tom Wright, Romans (Included in the New Interpreter's Bible, Volume X)

This completed my set of this major commentary. Like all sets, the contributions are mixed in value. One or two I can do without, and some are far too good to be imprisoned within a major set. Of the latter Wright on Romans, Brueggemann on Exodus, Fretheim on Genesis, O'day on John, McCann on Psalms and Craddock on Hebrews were worth publishing sepearately.

But Wright on Romans? - well of course a lot of folk think he is Wrong on Romans. Me - I think this commentary is one of the most refreshing and passionate treatments of the text I've used. I don't buy into all that he wants to make Paul mean - but neither do I buy into all that Moo, Fitzmyer, Cranfield or Dunn say. But for a readable and different take on Romans, justification and the mind of Paul, I now make sure I read Wright on whatever passage, and then check him with those who say Wright is wrong.

By the way, I have a presentation bound copy of James Denney on Romans, which used to belong to Professor James Orr. It is inscribed in Denney's precise neat handwriting,

"Rev. Prof. Orr, D.D. with kindest regards from James Denney".

It is one of my personal treasures. As much as any, or many, of the books I've bought over the years, James Denney's writing has been a reminder of the centrality of Christ, in whom the grace of God comes to us in holy judgement and merciful love. And whenever tempted to become cynical, trivial or self-serving in ministry, several pages of Denney pulls the heart back to the centre of things, to the Christ of the Gospel and the Gospel of Christ. I gladly gave three years of my life to doctoral studies on the intellectual biography of Denney. It was a debt waiting to be paid.

a kind of boring tune....but cool words

On a Sunday recently I was preaching for the first time at one of our churches. Renewed friendships with several people I seem to bump into only every few years - to my loss, and perhaps their relief. Nah, they like me too!

As in many churches now, worship was led by others and I was only required to preach - I didn't choose the hymns, though my text and theme were known to those preparing the worship service. The closing hymn was introduced unpromisingly as having a kind of boring tune, but the words were judged to be 'cool'. Two things - ONE. I am well impressed with worship leaders who give enough weight to the beauty of words, so that at times a tune can be secondary. TWO - this hymn was by a country mile the best hymn we sang all morning, in the humble but not muted opinion of this preacher.

The words are reproduced below.It appears in a number of hymn books - there will now be a rant on behalf of the Regrettable Demise of the Hymn Book party - [Hymn books - remember those ancient artifacts, they tend to be square, with hard or soft covers, churches had enough of them so that everyone got one, and between the covers there are sheets of paper printed on both sides with numbered appropriate things to sing, part of the intention being that a manageable number of hymns (appropriate things to sing at worship) would be known by the whole congregation and not require performing praise bands to praise God on behalf of a congregation once again patiently learning this cool praise song by miming words that have little rhythm, beauty of arrangement, metaphorical resonance, memorable rhetoric, in which bathos displaces pathos, and emotional me-centred feel good singing eclipses adoration rooted in the sense of God's mighty love in Christ - which yes makes me feel good] - rant ended.....for now.

This hymn could stand being sung as often as some Baptist churches have communion - First  and third Sunday of the month in the morning and last Sunday of the month in the evening. It was an inspired choice, and I am grateful to the worship leader for overcoming personal taste in music to include 'cool words' and bring a worship service to that place of response where we all, in thepresence of God, covenant together to love and serve each other, in church and world, in the name of Jesus.

Brother, sister, let me serve you

  let me be as Christ to you:

pray that I may have the grace to

  let you be my servant too.

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We are pilgrims on a journey

  and companions on the road;

we are here to help each other

  walk the mile and bear the load.

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I will hold the Christ-light for you

  in the night time of your fear;

I will hold my hand out to you

  speak the peace you long to hear.

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I will weep when you are weeping

  when you laugh I'll laugh with you;

I will share your joy and sorrow

  till we've seen this journey through.

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When we sing to God in heaven

  we shall find such harmony,

born of all we've known together

  of Christ's love and agony.

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Brother, sister, let me serve you

  let me be as Christ to you:

pray that I may have the grace to

  let you be my servant too.

Richard Gillard, Baptist Praise and Worship, number 473.

Tread gently, for you tread on my dreams

Here's my favourite love poem, written by William Butler Yeats. It expresses the vulnerability and willing risk-taking that I think always gives love its capacity to make, and break and mend again, the human heart. And if anyone calls me a romantic, or a sentimentalist, I can think of worse epithets.

He wishes for the cloths of heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

But I'm not only quoting a love poem as a piece of emotional exhibitionism. I am at present beginning to build some research and writing around the ideas of vulnerability, love as precarious risk, and self-emptying as a gospel response to self-absorption . There is a paradox in love as risk, because the prayeful hopefulness of our deepest longings arise from our being open to the presence, and the cost of the presence, of the other. Underlying the powerful undertow of Yeats' poem is the recognition of the lover being open to the risk of rejection, hurt and trampled dreams.

The word kenosis is usually used as a term for a certain approach to Christology. But I am interested in kenosis as a spiritual principle rooted in the mind of Christ and characteristic of discipleship as we follow after Christ, carrying our cross, and loving the world by self giving service, generous space creating hospitality and love that eschews calaculation in favour of risk.

'He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty might become rich'. Is it stretching too far to see the self-emtpying Christ of Philippians 2, taking the form of a servant, obedient even to death on a cross, as God in Christ spreading his dreams under our feet....tread gently for you tread on His dreams....for you, and a broken but loved creation.

Commemorating Ordination 9:

1997 J R Watson, The English Hymn.

Another of those sumptuous Oxford hardbacks that cost more than my first car. This is the definitive literary history of the hymn, written elegantly and with both authority and lightness. One of my side interests is Evangelical hymnody and the role of hymns in the formation and re-formation of evangelical theology and culture. Watts and Wesley broke moulds as they expressed evangelical experience in lyrical poetry set to music; Newton and Cowper's Olney Hymns set profound and personal experiences alongside ordinary piety in the Olney Hymn Book; Sankey showed the evangelistic possibilities of spiritual sentiment set to music, and Frances Ridley Havergal was the lyricist of Keswick consecrational praise....and so on.

1998 Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes.

The title is enough to commend this book. It is movingly written as a theology of the desert and the mountain and the wild places, where the only solace is the trust that God is not absent. Intermingled with Lane's reflections on accompanying his mother through terminal illness, this theologian of desert spirituality writes a powerful and at times rather scary account of the love of God that is not always, even often, cushioning presence. God's presence, loving yet at times severe in its mercy, can be aching absence or challenging call to follow into that place where, stripped of all the other things we humans cling to, we finally sense the presence and solace of God. I can't describe this book easily - it was disturbing and refreshing. Bought in a huge bookshop in Hanover, New Hampshire while visiting my good friends Bob and Becky - Becky sometimes visits here, so leave a comment and say we behaved while we were there Becky!

1999 Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (International Critical Commentary)

This book was self recommending, and on the Pastoral Epistles was an obvious choice for an ordination anniversary. Alongside Phil Towner's Commentary in the New International Commentary on the NT Series, also on Timothy and Titus, I'm not sure much more has to be said (in English) beyond these two benchmarks. By the Way, Towner's was the volume I bought in 2006 for an ordination present to myself!

2000 Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology

I can be quite smug about the fact that I was reading Brueggemann avidly long before he became the celebrated, opinionated, brilliant scholar-writer he now is. This is the culmination of a lifetime's provocative, imaginative, bold and creative encounter with the Old Testament text, which he applies with razor sharp intelligence to the political structures, the social oppressions, the moral scandals of the ancient - and the modern - world. American Republicans are not amongst his most devoted admirers! His book of prayers and meditations, Inscribing the Text, is one of the best indicators of the spirituality, personal, liturgical, political and theological - of this Lutheran magister of Old Testament interpretation. I've got a shelf full of this man's writing - and I doubt if there are three consecutive pages anywhere that don't make you grab your Bible and see for yourself if you agree with him - and whether or not you do, how many other writers make you grab your Bible so fast, huh?