pat loughery

MONDAY 6/9

Today is a transition day in class. Last week gave us foundations in global Christianity, theology of place and specifically of the city, and tours to several ministries.  Today we focused on the underpinnings of the BGU approach and then a theology of work.

Brad Smith spoke in the morning about the piping underneath the BGU experience.  The first week is intended to give us a lot of stories and immersions into different ministry contexts.  This for me has primed the pump, getting me thinking creatively and with a long term vision.  It has also re-invigorated me with possibilities, and also reignited dreams and passions that I hadn’t realized were dimming out.

Brad described the historical-grammatical approach to Scripture that BGU uses.  In it, we seek first for the historical meaning:  what did this mean to the original audience?   Next, we look for the timeless meaning – what does it mean at all times to all audiences.  Finally, we move to seeking how this text applies to me (and us) today in my own context.  This approach is familiar to me – it’s essentially the same approach that I’ve been taught in the Vineyard for years, and it works well to provide some grounding.  It particularly contrasts to the allegorical method of interpretation that I’ve seen in some circles, where the preacher or reader would jump directly into some interpretation that never would have made sense to the original author or hearers.  This method has always been upsetting to me, and I find the historical-grammatical method much better grounded in the reality of the text, rather than the flights of fancy of someone who can make a text mean whatever they feel would be applicable at the time.

Brad then spoke of an undergirding theology for BGU:  That God chooses to reveal himself to us because he loves us, and he has chosen specific ways to reeal himself to us.  Firstly, he chose the incarnation as the highest form of revelation.  Then he revealed himself through the Bible, and Jesus came to personalize and interpret the Scriptures to us.  Next, church history and tradition show us how God has chosen to act in human history.  Finally, there are the general revelations, including how God reveals himself through culturally embedded stories, or how God reveals himself through the majesty of creation.

I agree with these ways, and even with the hierarchy that Brad describes.  However, on reflection, I notice that there is no category for revelatory gifts or the charismatic phenomena.  As a charismatic, I certainly would include that activity as God revealing himself to us.  I would place that work around the same level as church history and tradition, and would have to think more about whether I would place it above or below that on the ladder.  My first inclination would be to place it below tradition, as I believe the charismatic gifts operate in a way that confirms the church’s history (and its history of charismatic revelation), but I also know that in some traditions, there is no such thing as a God who actively speaks today through the Holy Spirit’s revelation.  For this journal, I would simply like to place that item on the ladder for inclusion.

The next piece of Brad’s discussion was very interesting.  He reminded us that each of us in humanity has a set of glasses or lenses through which we see Scripture and our world.  Some of those glasses are our gifts, our personality, our culture, our experiences and our families.  Brad does not want us to discount these, or to try to shed these lenses for some theoretical pure center, which would be impossible to attain.  However, he sees them as God-given gifts to us, so that we can contextualize the Gospel for our own situations.  This was an exciting approach.  I’ve seen others attempt the removal of these lenses, but they always are removed in a biased fashion.  Those lenses are seen as hindrances, but I now see them as strengths provided that we recognize that they exist, and that we see through them.  If we think we don’t see through the glass dimly, as Paul wrote, we are fooling ourselves.  The challenge to us was to understand what our lenses are, and then figure out how to speak and act the Gospel to our culture.  This struck me as a mature approach, or a trusting approach.  It presumes that we students will do the hard work of contextualizing, not just cut and pasting what we learn in BGU classes indiscriminately.

Brad moved next into a lecture on stewardship.  He wanted us to see that we are to steward the Gospel story.  If the first two and last two chapters of the Bible are about humanity in perfect relationship with God, then those chapters’ challenges to us are important.  This is the controlling story in Scripture for Brad, as compared to the Great Commission which evangelicals tend to take as primary.  In this view, we are commissioned to worship, work the creation, work in community, and to multiply.  In this model, Brad sees that commerce (business) happens in the garden before humanity’s fall, and so we can establish a theology of work that is central to how we do mission.

In this model, we have to steward our resources for God’s purposes.  We specifically cannot run from stewarding power, money, sex or fame – which often are misused.  We sometimes choose piety, avoiding them entirely.  Or we choose consumerism, claiming them as our right and to use as we wish, as proponents of the prosperity gospels claim.  We may choose to be pragmatic, using them to achieve our own results.  In this role, we find our own strategy and we serve our strategy more than God.  Or, we may steward power, money, sex and fame, realizing that they are God’s resources to be used for God’s purposes using God’s strategies.  This challenge is difficult but necessary.  In describing a theology of work, we plainly state that business is good, if stewarded well.

After lunch with a board member that included more discussion of theology of work, Lowell spoke more on the topic form the context of the Bakke family.  He used the illustration of Ray and Dennis Bakke.  Ray is a prophet, preacher and visionary; Dennis is a steward, a builder and a businessman.  Both working together represent the fullness of the Kingdom of God. In taking both sides seriously, we can bridge the gap between the church and the city.   During this discussion, Lowell claimed that attraction and sending (mission) are polar opposite forces, and cannot exist together.  As much as I am in favor of incarnational, missional approach to theology, I do still think that attractional models can be effective for a particular people group.  I do think that they are less successful in creating deep, disciplined disciples.  But there was something attractional about Jesus’ ministry in signs and wonders, and teaching the reality of the Kingdom, which he accomplished through incarnational mission.  In Jesus I see both sides.

Finally, we watched and discussed the documentary movie Power Trip about Dennis Bakke’s company, which purchased electrical power generators in Georgia in the former Soviet Union.  I saw a broad range of leadership and power styles in this move, which showed us how truly difficult it is to do business in a Kingdom honoring way.