NEWSFLASH

I am moving!!! This blog will now be continued at wordpress, here
Please make any comments on the new site, rather than this one... see you there!

In the embrace of the crucified

"For worshippers of a crucified Lord, embracing God requires embracing innocent suffering: the child dying on Peed Onk, the Alzheimer patient abandoned by his adult children, the Sudanese mother unable to feed her family. A visible reminder of this Christian reality can be found in the cathedral in Wurzburg, Germany, where a large crucifix stands in a recessed arch to the side of the nave. The battered body of Christ has gaunt, Gothic features, his eyes fixed upon the viewer, his hands, pulled from the arms of the cross, extended outward in a gesture of embrace, inviting the viewer to enter. In pulling his arms from the arms of the cross, however, this carved Jesus still carries the spikes that nailed him there, embedded in his hands. There is no way to enter that embrace without feeling the iron instruments of Jesus' torture. The loving embrace of God in the flesh necessarily involves entering the pain of that flesh. for Christians, this is how we become what God intends us to be." Shuman & Volck, "Reclaiming the Body", p45.

A Question of Politics... and Greek

When Paul was writing his letters, including instructions for those who were under the thumb of the government, he was writing as one who knew government persecution. Considering himself a slave of Christ, he wrote instructions to slaves; considering himself a Roman prisoner, he wrote instructions to those under Roman rule; considering himself condemned to death, he wrote instructions to those who suffered.

If Christians should continue to always be a voice of the political outsider challenging the mainstream (so Yoder, Hauerwas), what should they do if they happen to find themselves in a position of political power? This question was driven home for me by something interesting I saw in Caesarea: The inscriptions above have been excavated in ancient tax collection centres from the Byzantine (ie Constantinian) period: Here, adorning the floor, are quotations from the apostle Paul (Romans 13), warning those who enter that if they want to live without fear, they should "do good" in relation to the authorities! The voice of the Roman prisoner has been co-opted by the Roman government as a means of enforcement... I'll let you do the translation, dear reader* - it's quite easy Greek.

*note use of the singular

Fat Jesus

Imagine if we encountered the risen Jesus, and found him to be fat. He was picked on, after all, by being labeled a glutton and a drunkard. I'm not claiming he was fat - just wondering what issues it would raise for us.

I just read a review of a book called "The Fat Jesus" by Lisa Isherwood. It explores body issues from a feminist theological perspective. I found this so intriguing that I have ordered a book by Isherwood - but not the "fat Jesus" one... I've ordered her book "Introducing body theology" - because I think that "the body" is a topic surprisingly under-explored in Christian theology, and especially in my own area of Pauline studies. This is becoming more and more surprising to me, given that the body has such a prominent place in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Philippians, etc - the body of Jesus, the bodies of believers, the ecclesial body of Christ.

Have a look through the book of Romans, and you'll notice that sin, judgement, atonement, sanctification and future glory are all described using bodily terms...

- God gave them up... to the degrading of their bodies (ch 1)
- Their throats... tongues... lips... mouths... feet... eyes (ch3)
- Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies (ch6)
- You have died to the law through the body of Christ (ch7)
- If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. (ch8)
- We groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (ch8)
- I appeal to you... to present your bodies as a living sacrifice (ch12)
- We who are many are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another (ch12)
etc...

...and don't get me started on 1 Corinthians!!

Israel in Pictures

I'm back from Israel. It's a place of great contrasts. I'll try to capture them with a few pictures I took along the way...

Old and New
In the foreground of the first picture is Herod's Palace in Caesarea, complete with his own private swimming pool - which now melts into the sea. The second picture, of course, shows Herod's Temple wall.












Promise and Menace
It's a place where the best and worst elements of humanity are on display - hopes and visions, alongside prejudice and fear. The first picture is from coastal Caesarea, the second from the Palestinian side of the wall that emphatically divides Israeli territory from Palestinian territory.












Achievement and Failure
The first picture includes part of Herod's Temple foundation - an astonishing achievement, being easily the size of a couple of football fields side by side. The second picture was taken in the Garden of Gethsemane.












Glory and Hiddenness
The Dome of the Rock is surely the most impressive building in Jerusalem, with its famous gold-topped roof. The second picture shows a little-known room hiding in the back of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - a dark, tiny, largely empty room in which a couple of empty tombs dating from the Second Temple period can be found, just metres away from the location which is widely agreed to be Golgotha...











"We have seen his glory..." John 1:14

Trip to Israel

Tomorrow morning I'll be leaving for Israel for two weeks, with a group from the Theology Department at the University of Nottingham. We'll be visiting significant locations, archaeological sites, and a conference on Early Judaism and the Gospel of John at Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva. I'll also have the opportunity to present a little discussion paper at the university, on "Issues Relating to the Literary Integrity of Sacred Texts, Using 1 Corinthians as a Case Study".

In short, I'll begin by summing up arguments against the unity of 1 Corinthians: Over the last hundred years, a number of influential scholars have argued that apparent incoherence in 1 Corinthians (inconsistencies, unclear flow, etc) is best explained by seeing the letter as a "letter-collection", pieced together by a redactor who wanted to create a systematic Paul-Corinth collection, for particular purposes. Having surveyed these applications of Redaction Criticism to 1 Corinthians, I'll then briefly explore three major hesitations that I have about this direction in 1 Cor scholarship: These hesitations are, respectively, methodological, hermeneutical, and exegetical.

In short, I don't think apparent literary incoherence in 1 Corinthians is best explained by appeal to Redaction Criticism - I believe we're on surer ground seeing the letter as a unity.

If you would like a more light-hearted illustration of Redaction Criticism, click here and read through the comments.

So be good while I'm away, and don't forget to vote in my poll!

exalted in my body

If you come to the postgraduate study room for theology students at the University of Nottingham, you will discover that above the door on the way in, there is a little sign saying "The Ivory Tower" (actually, we are situated just beneath the clocktower in the Trent building)... and as you leave the study room, you will see a little sign above the door announcing your exit to "The Real World". The little signs were placed there a few weeks back by a particular Australian theology postgrad, as egged on by certain other inhabitants of this room.

Of course, the point is an ironic one... but it does provoke me to think each time I come in and go out. Why didn't Paul say what I wanted him to say: "It is my eager expectation and hope that... Christ will be exalted now as always in my study"... I'd be much more comfortable with that...

"In the bodily obedience of the Christian, carried out as the service of God in the world of everyday, the lordship of Christ finds visible expression and only when this visible expression takes personal shape in us does the whole thing become credible as Gospel message." Ernst Kasemann

Final Easter post: How to get funding for a documentary

1) Carefully wrap up scholarly integrity and chuck out window
2) Practice facial expressions: Aim for the look of an earnest enquirer desperately trying to get to the "real" Jesus
3) Use the word "bombshell" a lot
4) For main points, interview fringe scholars (including at least one wild-eyed Nag Hammadi expert)
5) For fringe points, interview mainstream scholars
6) Refer to medieval legends as "evidence"
7) Hold out hand for $$$ from Channel Four

Suggested ideas for future Easter Specials:
- "The Hidden Years: Jesus in Shropshire"
- "Mary Magdalene: Husband of Thomas?"
- "Faith or Fiction? In Search of Ratings"

blessed are those who do not see

Why was Thomas in a less favourable position to ourselves? Why is it a blessing to believe without seeing? Again, this is related to the opening questions in this blog...
I think it all has something to do with this: God wants us to know him as the one who gives sight to the blind, and life to the dead - and so he withdraws the risen Jesus from our sight, offering us only the testimony of the cross and resurrection, delivered by followers of the hidden Lord.

So is our positive reception of this message effectively a nullification of all of our previous contemplations and searchings and ponderings? Does grace, in this sense, destroy nature - or does it come as the corrective perfecting of our previous groping for God? Of course, there is a long and heated theological debate. Luther and Barth are often thought of as being the key representatives of the idea that grace destroys nature, in opposition to Aquinas, who represents the idea that grace perfects nature.

I wonder if it would be fruitful to think about it like this: Grace resurrects nature... that is, the grace of God is not continuous with any human foundations - it crucifies human pride... on the other hand, the grace of God does enliven and bring to fullness the genuine personhood that had been crudely existent before the coming of salvific grace. In this sense, grace genuinely destroys and perfects.

Easter Saturday... death

I have no intention of posting every day on this blog, but the first three days are pretty important - yesterday's post, made on Good Friday, was really all about the cross... Today is Easter Saturday - the in-the-middle, nothing-happening, still-in-the-tomb day.

My favourite song about death is "Letter to Alan" which appeared on Cold Chisel's best album "Circus Animals"... the song is about - no - here it is (the beginning, anyway):
When it's time for your reflection,
As you wait till help arrives,
See our good friend's face on the dashboard,
And you know you cannot leave that cab alive...
Do you know I'd reach for you, from later times?
Once I knew... now I'm walking in the dark.
Like bells, our dogs are yelling all across Centenial Park,
And the Sunday morning light just sends me blind,
And I'm only feeling useless, cause there's nothing I can blame:
Every person, thing, and circumstance, that moves this perfect day,
you've left behind.

There is something a bit stupidly incongruous about a fine-weathered Easter Saturday - why have the earthquakes stopped? "Gold's in the sky, and in my blue eyes - you know it feels unfair: there's magic everywhere".... stupid weather.
But, looking outside, we are having our first proper icy snowfall of the year.... hmm - not always stupid, perhaps

crypto-theology

Here is a crucial question: Why did the ascension happen? Why was it "better" (John 14-16) for Jesus to leave the disciples with only his indirect presence - via Spirit, Word, and Sacrament?
And why did he picture the Kingdom of God as something which is hidden until the climactic harvest?
Here is a parallel question: Why was Saul of Tarsus struck with blindness as his fundamental experience of the risen Jesus?
And one more related question: Why were the Corinthians so emphatically wrong to act as though they could see clearly in the present (1 Cor 13)?

Perhaps one way to express the Corinthians' problem is "over-manifest spirituality" - an error at home in the pre-parousia age, in which Jesus can only genuinely be known and celebrated as the Crypto-Kurios... the Lord who is hidden from the world's esteem by the disgraceful curse of the cross. Consequently the cruciform hiddenness of the Crypto-Kurios is witnessed to by the cruciform mission of Paul, the original Crypto-Theologian.