On Being Too God-Centered
May 27, 2009 by iMonk
UPDATE: Interesting column on the paradoxes of Calvinism.
Udo Middleman on “The Islamization of Christianity.”
This post is, without a doubt, an experiment in exploration and articulation. Many won’t care for where it goes, but I think a basic question must be answered, not just for the sake of answering atheists, but for understanding our own faith as “Christian humanism.”
A Facebook friend just asked me if I wanted to become a “fan” of Jonathan Edwards.
Too bad there’s isn’t a “NOT a fan” option, because I’m not a fan.
One of my consistent critics- who is also a respected friend- called to mind a statement I’d made in the past about the problem of being “too God-centered.” He was obviously wondering it, with time and reflection, I’d thought better of that phrase and wanted to repent.
Answer: No. It still concerns me. Not whether all things are centered in, related to, dependent on, destined for and exist to glorify God, but whether some expressions of Christianity can become so God-focused that the significance of what is not God- including all things in human experience- are devalued and even distorted to the point of confusion in the minds of God loving/God believing people.
I’ve sensed, as long as I have been around my intensely theological Protestant (mostly reformed and evangelical) brothers and sisters, a kind of clumsiness with the subject of the significance of anything in human experience. By clumsiness I mean that these matters are handled, but the constant pressure to be singularly God centered and God focused makes it difficult to handle both God and human life at once without one overwhelming the other.
I have felt this clumsiness and awkwardness throughout my life. For example, as a young Christian, I found myself at a post-citywide crusade prayer meeting with people involved in a James Robison crusade. Robison was speaking about the kind of prayer needed to bring revival to our city. He used a very dramatic illustration of having a vision of an open grave, where God asked him if he were willing to give the life of his child in order for revival to come. In highly emotional terms, Robison enacted this prayer where he laid his daughter in this grave, thereby signaling his willingness to sacrifice for revival.
I bring this up after reading, just today, an account of a sincere, God-loving Christian processing an incredible tragedy involving the loss of a child, and seeing the significance of the child’s death as a necessary requirement for God to bring the Gospel to many people who would otherwise not hear.
These incidents- and many more that I could tell you- seem to be clumsy, awkward, painful attempts to hold together the glory of God and the realities of human life: love, family, loss.
Regular IM readers will have heard me express my admiration for the book The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism by Louis Bouyer. Bouyer was a Lutheran convert to Catholicism. His assessment of Protestantism is amazingly generous, being founded on the idea that what Protestants value most is best expressed in Catholicism.
Bouyer commends the solas of Protestantism and especially the idea of soli deo gloria, but then he begins a detailed examination of Calvin and Calvinism’s focus on the singular significance of the glory of God as compared to anything else. Bouyer finds that Calvin’s focus on the glory of God reduced worship to a shred of its Catholic self, eliminated the significance of the eucharist, replaced everything in worship with scripture alone and made the significance of human life consisting solely of eternal worship. Following this track, Bouyer suggested, the glory of God becomes the only kind of significance that “weighs” anything in the experience of these Christians.
I was deeply affected by this insight, and I feel its impact in my own experience of evangelicalism.
For example, were it not for the work of N.T. Wright on eschatology (See Surprised by Hope), I would be approaching a point of despair with the evangelical “eternal praise and worship concert” view of the afterlife. Wright’s recovery of the doctrine of the resurrection and the connection of this world with the new world to come has been a sanity saver and a faith expander.
As I listen to evangelicals discuss the significance of the church, I can sense the exact process Bouyer described. More and more churches are now nothing but music and Bible teaching. Discussions of other forms of the church that embody community, encourage incarnational ministry or embrace servanthood are under deep suspicion among the heirs of Calvin. Why? Because the glory of God is at stake, the Bible is not being given enough emphasis and there are too many dangers in these human-level activities.
Many Evangelicals see a frightening and dark world. They are suspicious of art, music, literature and the imagination. Books are dangerous. Culture- be it high or low- is of little value. Those evangelicals who are not of that mindset know full well what the arguments are: How is this serving the glory of God? What is the value of this activity as compared to theology or worship? What is any of this when compared to God?
The reformed doctrines of depravity and corruption are applied to everything, and the only answer is God. But can the world of being human gain and keep its significance in and through the glory of God, or must it give way to the glory of God? That discussion seems to be going on in many different ways and places, with varying levels of helpfulness.
I am sad to say this, but there is a point at which the relentless God-centeredness of some believers makes them into the adversaries and almost the enemies of much that is good in human life. They become the enemies of normal, especially in the lives of young people, creative people and people who feel that life in this world is good and shouldn’t be devalued by religion. My recent experiences regarding the rosary at solamom.net are a perfect example. Soli deo gloria was the only reason anyone can have for anything at all, and that is not to GIVE significance, freedom, liberty and beauty, but to question the purpose for anything other than the constant study of God, God and more God.
Christianity bears a weight in this area, and not all forms of it have handled that challenge equally well. Bouyer would have some questions from me about celibacy and many other aspects of Catholic practice (especially the marriage of Joseph and Mary,) but I get his point.
I see the erosion of significance in endeavor after endeavor, area after area of evangelicalism. I see artists and servants being hounded. Standards becoming meaningless. Beauty and heritage tossed in the trash. Theological abstractions set up higher and higher as the goal of any genuine Christian.
I find myself wondering how Jesus lived a God-centered, God-glorifying life, and was fully, wonderfully, completely, healthily, human?
I see that humanity and love of God in the lives of many people, both past and present, but in the articulation and proclamation of the church, there’s the clumsiness; the disconnect. There is, sometimes, the outright adversarial attitude towards whatever is not God and God Alone.
What Bach was able to sign at the end of each piece of music….can it be signed on all of human life? Even what is not religious? What is ordinary? Normal? Merely human? When Piper says we can drink Orange juice to the glory of God, is he opening the door to finding a way for God-centered theologians and preachers to relax about people who want to do dozens and dozens of other things, in their own simple, human way, to the glory of God?
My thoughts are incomplete, but important to me at this point in my journey. I believe the glory of God preserves and fills human life with meaning and significance. I do not believe that meaning and significance only comes when we overtly, consciously allow our sense of God to make all things meaningless compared to Him.
Is our humanity validated? Or obliterated?
Something is wrong and I feel it. Perhaps my friend is right and I need to repent of what I’ve thought, felt and written. Or perhaps, as is so often true in these pages, I’m far from being the only one who’s noticed.
Michael,
I’m pretty sure that’s exactly where I’ve been heading for awhile. I’m not very good at articulating my thoughts, but I’ll try. I have to say that I agree with you on this subject. I definitely think that there is too much of God-focused living. I see the church doing exactly what you say, which is making anything that doesn’t have to do with God unimportant. Either that or trying to connect God to every little thing and decision that they make, which is another problem in itself.
I believe that this world is a huge part of our lives as Christians, and everything in it has meaning and should be part of our lives. I think that God gave us this world to enjoy and be happy. And I think that the after-life is going to be very similar to where we are now. I don’t think that God would’ve put us here just to jerk us out into something that is unkown or unrecognizable.
Sorry if that’s not very clear, but all of that is to say that I don’t think that you need to repent at all. I think you’re right on target.
I deeply believe God has to do with every little thing. I’m not a deist. But I am struggling, as an evangelical, with how all things relate to the God/the Glory of God in a way that gives significance down to the smallest details of the most obscure person or the least known detail.
The relationship between God and the world is a deep subject. It doesn’t help me to make God distant. Scripture clearly is telling me that God is both emminent and transcendent. But scripture is not telling me that the Glory of God “eats up” everything but sentences about the Glory of God! And that’s where I feel like many evangelicals are heading.
I’ll predict now that this thread won’t go very long until someone strongly criticizes me for even discussing this question. And that’s the problem in a nutshell.
I don’t see the error as being to God centered – but too bible centered – by this I mean the TR seem afraid of the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding our lives and instead replace the Holy Spirit with the Bible. For the bible can be controlled, but the Spirit cannot. So they must have exactly the right theology, and they must know and understand every scripture and have the right bible answer to every question.
I dunno. I see your point, but I wonder if we’ve simply platonized God’s creation.
If we truly believe that God is creator of the world, and that the world was “very good” and will be once again, we shouldn’t be freaking out about this stuff as much.
What happened to “The whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3)? I mean is the whole earth, every bit, full of God’s glory (or at least the potential to be full of God’s glory since evil does still lurk around)?
Ironically, it is this vision of the earth being filled with God’s glory that makes Isaiah say: “I am a man of unclean lips.” (vs 5). How on earth did we get it backwards and let our depravity prevent us from seeing God’s glory?
Sometimes I wonder if the ultra emphasis in the reformed camp on human depravity is really a game of one-up-man-ship: “I’m soooooo depraved that by wallowing in my depravity I’m actually holier than the rest of you sinners who don’t realize how depraved you are.” Or to put it another way, when might our depravity might make us focus too much on our depravity instead of on the image of God in all humans?
I would imagine that someone out there could pick this apart, but what’s swirling in my mind right now is the idea that “All Truth is God’s Truth”…also that all good things are from Him, that He called his creation good…I believe, personally, that God delights in beauty for beauty’s sake. He created beauty. Music, form, figures, relationship. Is my fellowship with a Godly friend and mentor somehow less beautiful to Him if our conversation is about the mundane details of the day and how cheered one of us was by a bit of song…yet we didn’t say out loud, “To God be the glory for having given us music, and while we’re at it, let’s get down to ‘Real Life’ and speak of Heavy Things like Theology and did you pray The Prayer today?” Hmph. GOD hard-wired me for the intense love I have for my children and spouse, to seek companionship of other humans, to feel joy in worldly hard work…and to place those relationships conspicuously behind some stiffly proper “Godly” priority…to say that they aren’t important, to say that they aren’t important to God…that strikes me as missing the point, somehow.
When I discovered that worship as taught in the NT is one’s lifestyle (Rom 12:1 and Col 3:17) the wall of separation between my “life for God” and my “life for me.” I can now dedicate every non-sinful act/thought to God as an act of worship. I realize that playing with a new grandbaby, doing laundry, serving my sick wife, yes, even watching the various lists I’m on are as much, perhaps more, worship as what happens in our small church building at 11am each Sunday.
Dan
i think it’s not so much of being too God-centered as much as over-spiritualizing matters. one can appreciate the beauty of art, enjoy food and wine and engage in sports and other worthwhile life pursuits and passiion without too much theological musings and still bring glory to God. the thing that you describe is i believe a distortion of soli deo gloria. it is a legalism that tries to justify ourselves before God by claiming everything we do or do not for His glory, when all it is just trying to impress God with our being “not of this world”. It does not speak well of our freedom in Christ and shows how insecure we really are and doubt the power of His atoning work and sovereign grace which should make us more courageous to enjoy Him forever. isnt this our chief end?
Bouyer’s points about Calvin’s changes of worship- white walls, plain music, scripture only, etc- and then the Puritan take on this, followed by the evangelical deconstruction— it all adds up to me.
There’s the world….and then there’s God and the Bible. God matters. The world is toast. Make your choice.
That’s evangelicalism in the main. The folks who aren’t thinking like that are- stand by- holding on to some of the good Catholic stuff that didn’t go out in the reformation.
ms
i totally get what you are saying, and thanks. you are very articulate and i am glad to have words to the thoughts that i can’t get out sometimes.
after going to a music and teaching church for almost 20 years, my husband and i left when he was diagnosed with a mental illness. they could not or would not deal with this and how it was affecting our lives. we have always been on the edge of needy-ness and relied heavily on our church family. but i always thought that we contributed in our own ways back. but i guess having a name to the crazyness was too much for them. there was no sense of community and living the human condition. i think we got it and they have not so far. i think we would have left eventually. it’s hard now to see the few friends we have who are still there struggle with this, not understanding what is missing. i pray that the pastor and elders will get it and embrace it and move on in it.
thanks for giving a voice to those who may not understand what is wrong, but who know that all is not right, thanks and peace.
I need to write about the evangelical war on science, and how glibly many of us toss out science as anything worth studying. We zero it out with dumb statements like “Were you there?” Again, it’s reject the study of the world as useless and embrace a God only and everything view.
i also wanted to say that this reminded me of the whole point of grace. some people can’t make a move unless they think that it’s “ordained” by god. if we are fille with the spirit of god and we live in his love, then the natural extention of that is that we live our lives that way. we just flow through life, not having to worry about if we are doing the right thing or not. because in grace it’s all ok. it’s ok to make a mistake, it’s ok to enjoy life. it’s all ok. (i know that it’s license to sin… i’m not a moron) but, you know, we can’t be afraid to live and be happy. we think the church is going to church, not being the church.
sorry to write again, but i had more to add!
I don’t think even God is God-centered enough for some folks. After all, near as I can tell from the Bible, He spends most of His time and energy on creation and humanity. There was that whole being born thing, and walking around talking to folks, and dying, and grilling fish over a campfire for His friends, and going to such incredible lengths to try to get across to people that He loves them, that they’re made in His image, and that if they really thought about that long enough they might start acting differently.
God’s problem is that He’s just too man-centered.
Absolutely right.
In my family growing up, we made a disinction between dirty jokes and “earthy” jokes. Because it was possible to recognize the wild, wonderful ride of living on this blue marble, without mocking or devaluing the sacred (which is everything the Lord made). For awhile I saw this as two faced hypocracy, until i realized it was wisdom born of an impossibly difficult tension. And while we might be not be right on target in our practice of living in this enigma, we can be reminded by Manning that we are ragamuffins that can never get anything right, anyway.
Great post. I think this ultimately has to do with us having a very narrow view of God where religion is really just something else to do, and if you want to be a really good Christian then you have to do lots of Christian stuff with all available time . . .
One thing that clicked for me while reading “Surprised for Hope” was how meaningless everything in life can become if you have this Plato-istic view of the disembodied soul and heaven. Nothing matters. All flesh and material is sinful. (Which, if you follow that thought logically, would mean Christ was sinful, but I digress)
More coming . . .
I struggle with this, too. How exactly does one change a messy diaper to the glory of God? Take a shower to the glory of God? Clear a blocked drain to the glory of God? Those are all highly recommended activities, but I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer on exactly how one performs menial, seemingly meaningless tasks AMDG.
I think we have largely lost sight of God as the Creator. Yes, creation is fallen, but to reject the creation and creaturely existence as worthless is to reject the goodness in which the Creator made it. If we demonize created things, we also demonize the Creator- we reject part of his very nature. Which smacks of idolatry. (Shocker.)
Imonk,
Thank you so much for writing this post; I know exactly how you feel…
I remember one time my Calvinist friend told me God is the only being that is allowed to be selfish. Further more, he said God saved us, humanity…or the elect anyway, because it glorified God…not because God loved us…
I really do think people take some of the “sola”s way too far.
Everything is for God’s glory, EVERYTHING!
Renoah,
“How exactly does one change a messy diaper to the glory of God? … I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer on exactly how one performs menial, seemingly meaningless tasks AMDG.”
Seriously? Changing a messy diaper and clearing a blocked drain are acts of love. They aren’t meaningless at all. How many times in the Bible does it say to die to ourselves, pick up our cross, love others, etc.? Well, that messy diaper is your cross. (And mine, too.) It’s the burden that God put in your life so that you could have the glorious opportunity to sacrifice something (small though it may seem at times) for love, love of the baby and love of Him.
If you in fact DO these chores, and if you do them in an attitude of service to the family and to God (as opposed to an attitude of resentment for being suckered into it – hah!), then you are glorifying God through your actions (I dare say, whether you realize it or not).
As for taking a shower, I consider that a pleasure rather than a sacrifice. So each time I shower, I try to spend at least half a second thanking God for the gift of hot water, a gift many don’t have. I would count that as taking a shower for the glory of God, personally. The same thing might apply to choosing vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate – enjoying the gift of vanilla, preferably thanking God for it, means you are doing it for the glory of God.
“I need to write about the evangelical war on science, and how glibly many of us toss out science as anything worth studying. We zero it out with dumb statements like “Were you there?” Again, it’s reject the study of the world as useless and embrace a God only and everything view.”
This has got to be the most bizarre case of cognitive dissonance I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard many “dedicated Christians” talk about how “you can’t trust science” while working as a lab chemist or IT networking support and loving their iPhones, digital cameras, GPS’s, etc…
It’s hearsay but some friends of ours say a pastor told them during an intense discussion of old earth / young earth that “maybe the church should just ignore people who pursue science as a career”.
And they really do like having an MRI as an option when gravely ill.
I really don’t understand their goals.
I understand fully where iMonk is coming from. The phrase that comes to mind is “He’s so heavenly minded that he’s no earthly good” and that isn’t usually meant as a compliment.
However I wish we could find a different way of describing this aberration than calling it “God-centered,” or even “Bible-centered”.
The suggestion by alvin_tsf, that the problem is “over-spiritualizing” rather than God-centeredness or Bible-centeredness, looks good to me.
You see, if we are really centered on the God revealed in the Bible, we will enjoy wine (because He says that’s why he gave it to us) and all creation (for the same reason). We will serve others (because He loves them and tells us to love them), we will feed the poor and clothe the naked (because He loves them and tells us to take care of them), etc., etc.
Restricting ourselves to theology, prayer and singing would reveal a very restricted image of God which is not really compatible with the God revealed in Scripture.
Have mulled over this particular issue for some time and also tackled it as an assignment for Philosopy course. There are what have been described as modern tool pairs in our thinking today (unconscious to a large degree). These tool pairs are located on a continuum as ‘either or’ scenarios, for example:
subjective……..objective
religion……..science
creationism…..evolutionism
positive…….negative
sacred…….secular
And so the list could go on and on. There are a number of problems with this erroneous thinking. Firstly, in reality, there are no clear lines between the distinctions made. For example one can never be completely objective. Scientists like to think of themselves as being objective whilst theologians are seen as subjective. In truth, each one has an underlying worldview which influences his or her work/opinions/decisions etc.
This reductionist thinking has infiltrated the church in many forms for example the ‘New earthers…..Old earthers’.
Regarding the issue at hand though, the particular focus of your topic falls into the ’sacred……secular continuum’ and here is some background to this particular split in thinking. This split by the way did not only start in the church but also within the sciences and philosophies. To begin with, medieval philosophy consisted of an intermeshing of philosphy and theology and its basic concern was the relationship between faith and knowledge. Aquinas believed that theology and philosophy were two different ways for pursuing a common aim, namely the search for truth. However, modern philosophers and scientists have suspended the idea of God from their works. Willaim Occam (14th Cent) saw human capacity for knowledge as finite. His principle of economy is encapsulated in the maxim known as ‘Occams Razor’ which stated that entities are never to be multiplied beyond necessity. In other words all superfluous explanations of anything are pointless and should be avoided (ie religion). Modern rationilism in many places severed the mystic ribbon connecting the meaning of things, human understanding and the divine.
Now back to the church and its role in this ’split thinking’. Historically she has also played a major role in the growing antagonism between religionists and scientists. As Martin Luther King so eloquently puts it, “through edicts and bulls, inquisitions and excommunications, the church has attempted to prorogue truth and place an impenetrable wall in the path of the truth seeker”. He also said that the church has often looked upon reason as a “corrupt faculty”. This dualistic thinking (sacred….secular) has been further excacerbated by an overemphasis on spiritual matters like healing, tongues, prophecies etc to the neglect of more mundane matters like the physical needs or aspirations of man(sic). These were less frequently considered the isuues of the church and are often labelled ‘humanistic’ or ‘liberal’. I say this carefully knowing there are and have been many exceptions to this.
I have often come across a demonising of academic/artistic pursuit within the church. Somehow many in the church deem it necessary to suspend the use of one’s intellect in the pursuit of faith as if the two are mutually exclusive. I struggled with this for many years and am pleased to see that there are many others out there who have recognised this too.
Jennifer Graham
South Africa
I live in New England and there is no concern here that Christians may be too concerned about bringing glory to God. The Christians I know resemble the world in every way. There is no distinction. We are not a peculiar people. We fit right in with the world. I can only hope that the tide will turn and that I and the Christians I know will become more “God-minded” and be concerned that everything we do should be bringing glory to Him. We need the pedulum to swing in the God direction. Imonk, I envy the fact that you need to wrestle with this concern among the Christians you know and worship with.
Excellent post – and I love Wolf Paul’s suggestion that we need a different term for this mindset than “God-centered,” because being truly God-centered means enjoying the world He created. I would add, though, that Calvin knew this very well, even if some of his followers seem to have forgotten it.
Look at Calvin’s own teaching: “Now then, if we consider for what end he created food, we shall find that he consulted not only for our necessity, but also for our enjoyment and delight. Thus, in clothing, the end was, in addition to necessity, comeliness and honour; and in herbs, fruits, and trees, besides their various uses, gracefulness of appearance and sweetness of smell.
Were it not so, the Prophet would not enumerate among the mercies of God “wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine,” (Ps. civ. 15.) . . .Has the Lord adorned flowers with all the beauty which spontaneously presents itself to the eye, and the sweet odour which delights the sense of smell, and shall it be unlawful for us to enjoy that beauty and this odour? What? Has he not so distinguished colours as to make some more agreeable than others? Has he not given qualities to gold and silver, ivory and marble, thereby rendering them precious above other metals or stones? In short, has he not given many things a value without having any necessary use?”
Calvin appreciated beauty, and I wish Christians were more aware of this fact. (Oh, and I think a plain white Protestant church is very often one of the loveliest places on earth — ravishingly beautiful.)
Once heard Jerram Barrs speak at a L’Abri conference about the doctrine of creation. Two things were emblazened on my mind that day.
First, Barrs began to happily and gently sing, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus…and the things of earth will grow strangely dim.” After finishing the song he said something to the effect that the song was complete hogwash and that in fact when you turn your eyes on Jesus the things of earth into focus with all their bright and colorful wonder. Good stuff.
Second, Barr asked the simple question, “Did God make Adam to be satisfied in God alone.” The answer? No! It is God who looks at Adam and says, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” God decided Adam needed something more than God. Go figure!
I was a Christian humanist before then, but my convictions were tamped into the depths of my soul that day.
RonH…I like your “God’s problem is that He’s just too man-centered.” I know you are using the word “problem” in kind of a tongue-in-cheek way. But the point is that God loves human beings and wants all to be united to him in love.
And I have always loved the part where Jesus cooks up fish for his friends. Someone has printed up a T-shirt that says, “Take out the boat” and then gives the passage in the Bible where Jesus says that. Fishermen have their commandment from God and can show that to their spouses, saying, “God told me to go fishing!”
This reminds me of something that was helpful to me… Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison where he says:
“For a man in his wife’s arms to be hankering after the other world is, in mild terms, a piece of bad taste, and not God’s will. We ought to find and love God in what he actually gives us… we mustn’t try to be more pious than God himself and allow our happiness to be corrupted by presumption and arrogance, and by unbridled religious fantasy which is never satisfied with what God gives.”
Of course, the entire quote is much better and more complete, but that’s the gist. Additionally, in his incomplete work on Ethics, Bonhoeffer states things to the effect of–the incarnation of Jesus being a “yes” to being a man, including the mundane everyday things that one encounters that have no apparent religious significance. I’d have to skim to find an appropriate quote.
That Bonhoeffer quote was one of the most formative ideas in my thinking on Christian humanism. I read it in high school- got the book as the one book my parents ever gave me- and have been thinking about it ever since. I call it “being more religious than God.”
Peter+:
We have a popular chorus that says “This world has nothing for me.”
I hate that line.
Reading this reminded me of Luther’s idea of vocation. When he started talking about the priesthood of all believers it seemed that he meant that their vocation was priestly–not that they should all become priests or add priestly duties to their life. Also that just as God is working almost incarnationally through the priest in service to the church (we are blessed by His hand through the priest)–God is working through the doctor, truck driver, waiter, blessing us by His hand through their work.
Thank you for once again putting into words what I have been feeling for a long time. I recently was rescued from further despair by Frank Viola’s new book From Eternity to Here. I’d commend it to you.
Excellent post as it pertains to Edwards and the Puritan wing of Calvinism.
But to be fair to our saner Reformer brothers, I must note that this is the sort of attitude Francis Schaeffer and the continuing ministry of L’Abri have fought against. They’re Calvinists I still have a lot of respect for, but I get the impression they’re influence more by Continental Reformed theology.
One must also note how quickly the Puritan Congregationalists devolved into what would eventually become the United Church of Christ and various forms of New England liberalism.
It may be that the problem is not so much one of being too “God-centred”, but too much centred on “my own view of God”.
Possibly also the emphasis on the Bible containing all that is necessary turned into the Bible containing EVERYTHING that is necessary, and running from the Scylla of man-made traditions and works righteousness, they ended up in the Charybdis of “I’ve told you about Jesus, I’ve put the Bible into your hand – that’s it, job done, you’re on your own now.”
(We Catholics of course have the opposite problem of not going to the Bible enough – or even sufficiently – but we’re trying to address that now).
As to “How is this serving the glory of God?”, I’ll give you the poem we learned for Leaving Cert. English at school (warning: Jesuit alert! Just in case anyone has a fit of the vapours over a poem by a Jesuit priest in a discussion of the glory of God)
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things —
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
I think the problem is that many evangelicals are simply too dualist in a world which requires us to be more nuanced. I’ve found great solace in the attitudes inspired by Celtic Christians wherein all of life is indeed a hymn of worship. God created this world for us to enjoy, not ignore.
While here, our soul is not separate from our body and mind; we shouldn’t treat ourselves as if it were.
So … I hear what you’re saying. But I’ve moved away from it awhile ago because it was just too distressing. The answers didn’t make sense to me, so I kept looking.
I need to read through the other comments more thoroughly before posting. I see Peter+ has already brought up L’Abri. Kudos to his entire post. Barrs is awesome.
I believe in the absolute sovereignty of God, but I also believe that we must erode the sacred/secular distinctions in this life. In my understanding and experience, doing everything for the glory of God doesn’t mean that we place blinders on with our Bibles. While I ascribe to the solas, I also think that God is glorified through the ordinary, “normal” activities of life. It is not about repressing things that make up our humanity, but about acknowledging that all good gifts are from God. I think that it is less about our activities and practices and more about where our heart/focus is directed in the process of enjoying this life that God has given us. I think the problem is that some Calvinists have too narrow a view of what glorifies God. Matt Chandler’s teaching strikes a fairly good balance on this.
As Protestants most of us have been systematically taught that humanity and being human is full of wretchedness. We can’t trust ourselves, we can’t trust other people, we can’t enjoy life…because we are all so desperately wicked.
Yet…this is not how God interacts with us now or in the Scriptures. He values creation. He values humans. He is not interested in obliterating us, but in redeeming us. He is not interested making us less human, but making us more human….perfectly human in the same way Jesus is perfectly human.
God wouldn’t go to all the trouble of salvaging creation if it weren’t for His love for us…despite our messiness and sinfulness.
Making God’s defining characteristic his Power or his Glory will always result in a twisted view of the relationship between God and man.
God is not an ego-centric maniac interested only in his own gratification.
He is a Father who loves what He has made.
If we focus on God’s goodness and love as his most important characteristics, it will revolutionize the way we see Him, ourselves and life.
/lecture over/
Sir,
Jacques Ellul is one of many that have provided huge pieces helpful to me in my own journey. I’ve always described my faith as a struggle. This was not well received by some. They argued that I should be at peace and settled because blah blah blah. I didn’t like that it was a struggle and would be more than happy if it were not. But then Ellul wrote that to be a Christian is to live in tension; tension between living in the world but not of the world, tension between the choice of God and ours, and on and on. To read this gave me the first sense of peace I’d felt for a long time. I could be at peace that I was not at peace because I was living in a world not yet fully redeemed and recreated. I too, was unfinished. But it was OK.
A study of Eastern Orthodoxy provided me the same relief you found in N.T. Wright’s eschatology. They see us as beings created by God as mind-body-soul-spirit people who will always be mind-body-soul-spirit people. We will be united to new bodies like Jesus had after he was raised and live together on a new earth in a fully redeemed and renewed universe. Cool! We’ll party like it’s 1999 forever. And I’ll finally find time to learn to play an instrument well so I can jam deep into the night. It’ll be like what is good now, but better. I can live with that. All that praising God forever stuff always made be want to go to hell. But this, I can live with. I can even get excited about it.
This piece also made me think about the tension between being too God centered vs. too man centered. I may comment on that later. For now though, I’m with you that God is on the side of our humanity. Jesus Christ is a humanist. Thank God he is! It is this piece that Catholics have often done better than protestants. I grew up in St. Louis, a city at least half Catholic. The Catholics I knew and know there are much better at being fully and comfortably human than the Christians I’ve come to know in the town I now live in that is mostly Baptist and Assembly of God. The Simpson’s have a great cartoon that catches this perfectly. Youtube Simpson’s along with Catholic Heaven. You’ll love it. Maybe God will let us go to Catholic heaven.
I think one of the problems with “being too God-centered” is that you end up devaluing things that God values. Many that advocate a “God-centered” theology have a lot of disparaging things to say about a theology that exalts God’s love. If God loves people so much that he wants to see all come to him and be saved, he is thought to be an idolator. This dichotomy between loving God and loving others is driven into theology like a wedge as if the two could never be done together.
Sola Mom is shocked at what you just said.
Good thoughts Michael. I wonder whether my low regard for many seminary student’s ability to “over-spiritualize” every aspect of life is actually tied into your observations. I don’t see the problems just among my overtly calvinistic fellow students though; but Calvin’s influence reaches beyond just those who overtly follow after his teachings.
I appreciate the sentiment but am often bothered by the immediate reaction I hear from most Christians, and it is more pronounced among seminary students, whenever anyone voices a decision they are dealing with. So often, the first thing that is asked is “have you prayed about it?” And while prayer is never a bad thing, sometimes Christians ought to just think out loud and discern the decision they ought to make in fellowship, rather than in individual prayer time. The idea that God’s will in any given circumstance will always be revealed through prayer seems naive to me. I don’t pray nearly as much as I should but I don’t believe my life is any less open to and directed by God’s purposes simply because of my own failings.
I think there is a tendency to assume not only that glorifying God is the only thing worth doing, but also that in to keep from screwing up that affirmation we have to seek out God’s will to glorify himself in regards to every little decision we make. Some don’t seem to believe that God can guide them and lead them to make the “right” decision unless they explicitly ask for and receive an answer from God. Is the question of whether I have the time to help with the children at church this Sunday really that weighty a matter? Is whether I have time to go get milk needing that kind of special attention? Certain things simply don’t demand a direct word from the Lord concerning whether we should do them now or ever.
We kind of hit on this the other week in the home Bible study group I conduct. A fairly new Christian mentioned that a very religious man he worked with said that since we must tithe ten percent of our money to God then we should give 10 percent of our time as well. This was bothering him and had him worrying that he should be at church more for things during the week etc.
I explained to him that such a view was incorrect and smacked of Phariseeism since we don’t owe God ten percent of our time,but all of our time is his. He seemed kind of confused until I told him that getting up and going to work in the morning to take care of his family was just as much worship as going to church on Sunday morning.
I think many Christians have developed a kind of Gnostic/Plato-ish view of life as anything ‘wordly’(like mowing your grass) is a waste of time. Just think of how many people you could witness to in the time it took you to mow all that grass, I mean how vain can you get! It’s going to grow right back up and you’ll have to do it next week etc etc.
Even though we may mow our grass and do the other things that are part of life we still have this nagging guilt in the back of our minds that we should be doing something ‘holy/spiritual’ instead.
I think Bouyer had the dogs on the trail, but may have given up too soon.
Protestantism has a deconstructive principle at work at its core. Bouyer was right. But the next step is identifying the TOOL that’s doing the job. And there I would suggest that the tool is a definition of “glorifying God” that is violent, narrow and ultimate oppressively negative toward much of human existence.
At the end of this road, the list of things that have been turned into “just think about God’s sovereignty and don’t think about anything human” is long and getting longer.
I have to wonder if many of those who fall under your classification of “too God-centered” are actually (and ironically) not God-centered enough, for they have made Him in their own image. I have heard on more than one occasion, “This instance occured to glorify God, and here’s how.” I’m in agreement with the first clause and the second clause makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
Re: Your sentence that starts “When Piper says we can drink orange juice to the glory of God…” — I don’t know what’s in Piper’s heart, but that’s how I interpret it. Much of evangelicalism is gleefully drowning in Manichaeism (particulary its dualism). A statement such as Piper’s or (if you prefer a more authoritative reference) 1 Corinthians 10:31 pretty much blows that away.
Leland Ryken gave two lectures last October at Southeastern Seminary (though I’m sure he’s probably given these elsewhere) challenging evangelicals–and particularly those of us enamored with biblical theology–on a similar point; in this case, how much we are leaving behind in our approach to the Bible. Particularly interesting are the anecdotal stories he shares from his struggle to get fellow evangelicals to see his point. You can hear them here: http://www.sebts.edu/news-resources/chapel/default.aspx. Scroll down 3/4 of the page.
Michael: yes and amen.
Brendt:
I thought that “How to drink OJ to the glory of God” was a great statement….But…
Where does it go? It seems to go to think less about OJ and think more about God. It goes in the direction of eventually seeing THROUGH OJ to only see God. And from there it’s very hard for me to see how we don’t wind up at “I don’t need to drink/enjoy OJ. I just need God.” Read Piper on fasting and see what you think.
Steve Brown said the same thing about Piper’s idea of glorifying God while watching a movie. The challenge was to consciously relate everything in the film to God. To think more and more about God. In addition to being a new legalism imo, isn’t that what Bouyer is saying we get to?
ms
Interesting thesis, I’ve read something similar developed by analogy by Father Dwight Longenecker a former Anglican now Catholic priest. In any case his point of reference were two competing attitudes that existed in the Catholic Church, both had value and both were flawed because they were incomplete. The first example he gave was the vertical arm of the cross signifying people who are focused solely on their relationship with God and in Catholicism such folk get engrossed sometimes to the point of obsession in the details of liturgy to the detriment of their neighbor. The second example is the horizontal arm of the cross: those who love the community and the service of neighbor but loose sight of God when, in extreme cases, worship becomes fellowship and doctrine becomes distorted or even ignored. The analogy is clear enough: both must be perused and balanced and that only if they are unified do they represent salvation in the cross.
I think it was De Sales who said (roughly from memory) that we can measure our love of God through our love of neighbor. Meaning that if we neglect our neighbor we also neglect the love of God.
When you love someone you tend to find yourself attracted to or at least become open to the things they like. Their music their tastes in food etc. At least that’s my experience. If we love God then we must naturally become open to loving our neighbor simply because He loves our neighbor. In this love of neighbor we become engaged in the ordinary world, to some degree. Being Christian does make you an alien in this world because of the nature of sin, but it should also make you more human as grace makes you whole and thus closer to the image of God. You can expect the product to perform better when you follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
Nice topic Imonk you’re on a very thoughtful streak.
To be a Christian who is unwilling or unable to allow themselves to be swallowed up and dehumanized by the good intentions of other Christians will always have to live with non-acceptance and disapproval from the very people they would hope to be united with. Christ certainly did.
One of the things you do well is that you take the best of each tradition, it’s gold if you will, and incorporate it into your own faith and understanding. It is a grace of God that this present moment in history makes this more possible to do than it has been at any time prior to ours.
As I read your comments, I’m also reminded of my conclusion that all the denominations I’ve studied seem to have begun with a genuine work of the Holy Spirit. There is in each of them, a spirit of life and truth worth finding and being changed by. The problem with them all is that, with good intention, people build monuments to God’s original act of grace to try to protect and preserve it. It’s what Peter wanted to do after the event with Jesus and the transfiguration. Jesus just shook his head saying more or less, “Peter, I love you but you’re more than a little dense at times. Let’s not build any monuments, OK? Just take this into yourself and be changed by it.”
The reformed, for instance, have a saying “Reformed and always reforming.” I liked that, but found they only ever wanted to be reformed, which meant they were totally resistant to always reforming. To always be reforming would mean they would have to stop being “Reformed.”
They also had a saying that “All truth is God’s truth.” Again, I like that a lot. That means the truth found in science, art, film, comedy, whatever, is as good as truth found in church. The two go hand in hand. The truth found by the pagan is to the glory of God whether he knows it or not.
For some years now, I’ve found it to be a grace of God that personal weakness causes my messy humanity to keep spilling out even when I try hard to contain it. Others are just more disciplined than I at keeping theirs hidden away, but I know what hides behind their mask of professional Christian witness. And it’s not pretty, but it is human.
Sometimes it seems we are like children trying to get the Fathers attention with our religious antics, or chasing ‘heavenly butterflies’ rather than sitting with Jesus in heavenly places looking with “compassion on all He has made”.
The question I ask, what are the Religious antics in my life? Maybe the answer is not to ask the question and get side tracked but rather love Him with all our heart soul mind and strength. After all our positing this is what really counts. The depth of our love for God will be reflected in how we do the second part of the great commandment, “and love your neighbour as yourself”.
Here is an old Testament discipleship style..
1 Chronicles 28:8-10 “So now I charge you in the sight of all Israel and of the assembly of the LORD, and in the hearing of our God: Be careful to follow all the commands of the LORD your God, that you may possess this good land and pass it on as an inheritance to your descendants forever.
“And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a temple as a sanctuary. Be strong and do the work.”
Unfortunately the wisest man on earth got somewhat distracted and summed up life as Everything Is Meaningless. But having said that, there is a redemptive insight to his wanderings in Ecc 2:24-26 “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God”.
So what do we say to being too God-centered? It’s how we define what is being God-centered. What was God’s centered approach toward us ie the world? Wasn’t it to “dwell among us” by sending Jesus. Shouldn’t we do likewise and dwell among people like us who don’t know their way to the Father and show them the treasure of forgiveness and share the “ministry of reconciliation” we have found?
The Father’s focus was on a fallen world and we bring glory to him by administering his grace however we may, by music, art, culture or a simple smile and conversation.
God alone does not mean only God and nothing else. It mean our individual struggle with the Deity. Others my guide us but in my relationship with God alone no one else enters in.
Your post interests me in that I see the opposite! To me Evangelicals are too people focused. Jesus gave us a commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart and strenght and love your neighbor as yourself. He didn’t say love and study a book about God. Learn what you are suppost to do and do it. God is Love. Where is the Love in that?
God does not will the death of a child. He does not will the death of anyone. That is why Jesus died on the cross to give us eternal life. So the stories about being willing to scarifices a loved one are overdone. What God is asking us is are we too attached to anything in this world more than Him?
God loves people. He created us for His own pleasure. He became incarnate to be with us. He created the world for us to live in and be joyful. One thing about being Eucharistic is that the incarnation is always before you. Gospel based means being centered in the four Gospels where Jesus is alive and living amoung us.
Every denom has strenghts and weaknesses. In my opinion, Baptist weakness is denying the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit and in not being being incarnational. (Don’t feel pick on I can do this for every tradition including my own)
Love of God needs to tranlate into love of neighbor and also a healthy humble love of self.