The Suffering God?

In my systematic theology class last week, we had a rousing discussion about theopachism. This topic arose during my presentation of the two natures of Christ and the communicatio idiomatum (communication of attributes.).

The Lutheran Confessions clearly affirm that "the Son of God suffered" because of the communication of attributes; yet at the same time, is reticent to speak of divine suffering. Because of the hypostatic union, "not only the bare human nature (which possesses the characteristics of suffering and dying) suffered for the sins of the entire world, but the Son of God himself suffered (according to the assumed human nature) and, according to our simple Christian creed, truly died--though the divine nature can neither suffer nor die" (The Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article VIII).

Since the mid-twentieth century, however, a whole spate of theologians--Catholic and Protestant--have reconsidered the traditional teaching of the impassibility of God and affirmed theopaschism. In an article entitled, "The Suffering of God: A New Orthodoxy," Ronald Goetz remarked that after the atrocities of World War II, "talk about an impassible, immutable God was for many simply inconceivable. How could God be love and not lay wounded on the battlefields of France? Only a God who suffered with the victims of the war could speak to the disillusionments created by the war."

A counter-perspective was recently offered by Thomas Weinandy in "Does God Suffer?" Weinandy thinks this "new orthodoxy" leads down a dangerous road theologically. He states that while "we may intellectually grapple with the mystery of God in the midst of our suffering," theologians must resist the idea of theopachism and reaffirm God's impassibility. He writes,

In the Church’s most important public task of communicating the gospel, speaking of the God who does not suffer as we suffer may go against the cultural grain, but such is the God of Scripture and normative Christian tradition. As I have tried to show, the truth that God does not suffer is at the heart of the gospel, making it truly good news. This is especially in contrast to the bad news, which has become something like a “new orthodoxy,” that God is in as much trouble as we are.

I admit that my own perspective has been shaped more by perspective of the "new orthodoxy," but I also believe that Weinandy's concern warrants some serious reflection and response. Though written well before Weinandy's piece, Richard Bauckham (a Moltmann disciple) offers these intial thoughts in response to the kind of concerns that Weinandy raises. In "Only the Suffering God Can Help: Divine Passibility in Modern Theology," Bauckham writes:

It seems increasingly obvious that the Greek philosophical inheritance in traditional theology was adopted without the necessary critical effect of the central Christian insight into the divine nature: the love of God revealed in the cross of Christ. For the Greeks, suffering implied deficiency of being, weakness, subjection, instability. But the cross shows us a God who suffers out of the fullness of his being because he is love. He does not suffer against his will, but willingly undertakes to suffer with and for those he loves. His suffering does not deflect him from his purpose, but accomplishes his purpose. His transcendence does not keep him aloof from the world, but as transcendent love appears in the depth of his self-sacrificing involvement in the world. Finally, if Christians know anything about God from the cross, it is that 'the weakness of God is stronger than men' (1 Cor. 1:25). The cross does not make God a helpless victim of evil, but is the secret of his power and his triumph over evil. This is why 'only the suffering God can help.'

A New Vision for Marriage?

The February 2007 issue of The Journal of Lutheran Ethics focuses on human sexuality. Laurie A. Jungling joins other Lutheran theologians and ethicists who are finding resources in the Lutheran tradition (such as Jacqueline Bussie's "Scarred Epistemologies: What a Theology of the Cross has to Say About the Gay Marriage Ban") to support same-sex marriage. In her article, "A 'New' Vision for Marriage as Vocation in the Lutheran Tradition," Jungling argues:

During this time of discernment for the Lutheran church as it attempts to define and understand the various social and sexual relationships from which Christians follow their vocational call, Lutherans need to consider alternatives to form-based definitions of marriage and sexuality. Instead, a better criterion is the call itself – the call to serve life with and for the neighbor – as the fundamental criterion for defining marriage. Definitions and understandings of marriage that use "appropriate to form" as the primary criterion in defining marriage not only exclude certain relationships from being a legitimate support to society for little reason other than physical form and its humanly constructed meanings, but they also construct a social order that is often hierarchical, exclusionary, and oppressive to those who do not fit certain forms.

For awhile now, I have been convinced that the theological debate over same-sex marriage needs to engage more robustly questions of theological anthropology (in particular, what it means to be created imago dei). A couple of years ago, I came across this article in the Christian Century that is helpful in this regard: "An Argument for Gay Marriage" written by Eugene Rogers from an Orthodox perspective in which he takes on the "complementarity" argument against same-sex couples held by Karl Barth and others.

Bishop Elizabeth Eaton

Yesterday I attended the installation of the Rev. Elizbaeth A. Eaton as the Bishop of the Northeastern Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She was elected to this office on December 2, 2006, the first woman to be elected bishop of the Northeastern Ohio Synod and the first in Region 6 (which includes six synods covering Ohio, the lower peninsula of Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky). Her election brings the total of female bishops in the ELCA to nine (out of sixty-five), two of whom were elected last year. This is a hopeful sign that the "stained glass ceiling" is beginning to crack, but there is much to suggest that women still have a way to go to achieve equity with their male colleagues in ministry.

The installation was poignant for its historical signficance, but in my case, it was also poignant for its personal significance. In the fall of 1980, Liz arrived at my home congregation, All Saints Lutheran Church in Worthington, Ohio, to be our intern (she ended up being called as assistant pastor and stayed another 10 years)! I was a member of her high school youth group that year and she became an important mentor for me, eventually serving as the sponsor at my ordination. Until I met her, I didn't even know that women could be pastors. She has been a model for me and my pastoral ministry in many ways. It was an honor to be at her service and to have been among those asked to participate in the service (I read the second lesson). [Note: The picture of us above is from her 25th Ordination Anniversary Celebration this past June, at Messiah Lutheran in Ashtabula. For pictures from the installation, click here].

I know that the Northeastern Ohio Synod will be led ably by Bishop Eaton, who will bring energy, compassion, wisdom, a love for the whole church, and a clear passion for sharing the good news and speaking out for the poor and marginalized to her new office (not to mention a killer sense of humor). Godspeed to you, Liz, and the people of the Northeastern Ohio Synod, as you begin your new call and ministry!

Faith as a Way of Life--A Vision for Pastoral Leadership

One of the neat things about the blogosphere is that you never know who you will "meet" on it. Christian Scharen, a fellow Lutheran theologian and pastor, posted a response to my first post. He is the director of the Faith as a Way of Life Project, an initiative of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He is also in the process of revising a book on this topic, entitled "Faith as Way of Life: A Vision for Pastoral Leadership" (Eerdmans Publishing Company, due out in fall 2007).

Here is what he says about the project and book (and those who know me will see why I am excited about it):

The Christian faith is a coherent vision for a way of life in response to Jesus' invitation to “follow me.” The life of faith lived in response to Jesus’ invitation--and the leadership called to guide and foster faithful lives—follows a basic pattern. That pattern is one of gathering and scattering; gathered into the life of God in Christ the life of God in Christ through the power of the Spirit and scattered for the sake of witness and service in daily life. In an era when many churches focus almost exclusively on gathering, the reassertion of this pattern has very real power.

Yet simply pointing to this pattern isn’t enough. It needs to be further said that the new way of life this pattern implies finds its intellectual and moral content in God's action for us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is, faith is a shorthand way of saying the creedal orthodoxy of the Christian faith--the beliefs summarized at the climax of Peter’s Pentecost sermon in Acts of the Apostles 2:38 “God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” The story of Jesus Christ as gospel is the faith we confess and that faith, rather than some conglomeration of vague beliefs, is the shaping force orienting Christian faith.

Yet our way of life is not simply an interconnected set of beliefs, either. We must go one step further to finally get the necessary picture. The Christian faith as belief gives shape to a life lived daily in and for the sake of God’s reconciling work in the world. Yale theologian Miroslav Volf, who wrote the proposal for the FWL Project, argues that “the core task of pastoral leadership today—and a signal mark of its excellence—is the task of shaping persons and communities for living faith as a way of life in the world.” Christian discipleship, and the life of the Christian ministry that serves such discipleship, is, as Volf so plainly states, a way of life not for its own sake, as if sectarian purity were the goal, but for the sake of the world. Christian ministry is deeply concerned with connecting faith to the daily lives of
disciples.

Pastors will be able to impart this vision of faith only if they themselves are compelled by it and if their parishioners find that the model helps them make sense of life as a whole. One of the most pressing needs of pastoral ministry is therefore to develop, sustain, and legitimize reflection on Christian faith not simply as a set of propositions to believe, commandments to obey, or rituals to perform but as an orienting force that impacts every aspect of daily life."

The Religious Cancer of Racism

Almost two weeks ago, our country observed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I attended an MLK event at my alma mater, Wittenberg University. Michael Eric Dyson--pastor, professor, author, NPR commentator, and cultural critic--was the keynote speaker. As expected, he was both inspiring and provocative (yes, he went after Bill Cosby). His message to the white people in the audience was to stop investing in the psychological privilege of whiteness.

Dyson's challenge brought to mind an article by James Cone that I first read a few years ago called "The Religious Cancer of Racism". In this piece, Cone calls on white theologians to study racism as seriously as they study the historical Jesus. "From Jonathan Edwards to Walter Rauschenbusch and Reinhold Niebuhr to the present, progressive white theologians, with few exceptions, write and teach as if they do not need to address the radical contradiction that racism creates for Christian theology," states Cone.

He continues, "Race criticism is just as crucial for the integrity of Christian theology as any critique in the modern world. Christianity was blatantly used to justify slavery, colonialism, and segregation for nearly five hundred years. Yet this great contradiction is consistently neglected by the same white male theologians who would never ignore the problem that critical reason poses for faith in a secular world. They still do theology as if white supremacy created no serious problem for Christian belief. Their silence on race is so conspicuous that I sometimes wonder why they are not greatly embarrassed by it. "

I have made it a goal to address racism in all of my theology courses. I also am committed to doing what I can to work for long term anti-racist tranformation in the institutions in which I work and do ministry--with the help of organizations such as Lutheran Human Relations Association and Crossroads Ministry. Would you join me?

Finally up and running!

Last spring, the students in my "Being Lutheran in America" course told me that I needed to create a blog so that I could share theological resources with them once they graduated. Since then, I have been pondering what name to give this blog. I almost went with "Blogylonian Captivity" (my spouse's contribution) but I decided that was a bit arcane. So I am calling my blog "Theology for the Church" because that describes how I understand my own call as assistant professor of systematic theology at Trinity Lutheran Seminary. The seminary's mission is to "form leaders for Christ's church at work in the world." I understand my call as teaching theology for the church, that is, to help the church reflect critically on what it believes, as it is sent out to bear witness to the gospel. So, as promised, I will post thoughts, book and article suggestions, links to resources for doing ministry and mission, and anything else I can think of that could help Trinity graduates and anyone else serving in Christ's church at work in the world!