"re:framing repentance", Part I

Ever since February I've been working on a book that's all about repentance. In February I intended for it to be around 80 pages, but the more studying I did, and in my own desire to be thorough (which often translates into being long-winded), I realized that an "essay" on repentance wouldn't cut it. And so I decided to write an entire book on the subject, which I hope will be the first in a four-part series on the Christian understanding of salvation. I've finished the first third of the book. It clocks in around 100 pages. Here's what I have so far:

Chapter One: Who Demands Our Repentance? In the first chapter--which is 12 pages long--I give an ever-so-brief sketch of the Judeo-Christian God, doing so (mostly) by tearing apart some modern conceptions of God. The four I look at are pantheism (and its cohort panentheism), deism, the "lovey-dovey" romantic God, and the God of the Health & Wealth gospel. With each of these I show how the Judeo-Christian God is similar in parts and wildly different in others. I conclude the chapter with an examination of God revealing himself to Moses at the burning bush, then defining himself both as a rescuer and as a promise-keeper by leading his people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.

Chapter Two: The Drama of God. In the second chapter--which is a whopping 30 pages long--I look at what's been called the story of God. There's Act I: Creation, followed by Act II: The Fall; then there's God's rescue operation set into motion, the calling of Israel, Act III. In Act IV we find Jesus walking around Palestine, preaching the kingdom of God and exorcising demons and healing the sick, eventually being killed and then rising from the dead. This is the inauguration of God's promises and the culmination of what he had always intended to do with Israel. In Act V, the Act which we currently find ourselves in, the kingdom of God is advancing. In Act VI, we find Jesus appearing, the great judgment, the recreation of the heavens and the earth, all of that. And Act VII is the act where mankind, so-to-speak, "begins again", fulfilling his original vocation as God's image-bearer. I hash all of this out in some detail, though I prevent myself from saying too much. I'm not writing a book on the drama of God, after all, but on repentance.

Chapter Three: The Call to Repentance. In the third chapter--which is 14 pages long--I look at several texts found in the New Testament emphasizing the necessity of repentance (over and against those who says that it's really not a big deal). I look at repentance in the life and message of Jesus. I look at repentance in the Acts narrative. I spend a considerable amount of time on the writings of St. Paul (who, for the look of it, doesn't have much to say on the subject; however, that's entirely not the case). Then I look at repentance in the later New Testament, Hebrews through Revelation. Finally, the icing on the cake: repentance in the apostolic fathers. A few mentionings from Clement of Rome and from the pens of a few others. The point I make is that repentance is a pretty big deal, and anyone who says otherwise has really not wrestled with the text as the text deserves to be wrestled with.

Chapter Four: Re:Defining Salvation. This is my least favorite chapter of all, if only because I feel like I have done a somewhat shoddy job and not tied up all the loose ends. Writing about salvation itself would (and will, eventually) take up its own book. In this chapter, which is 18 pages long, I focused on the death of Jesus and framing the atonement within that; I looked at propitiation/expiation and redemption/liberation. I examined the present aspects of salvation in contrast and conjunction with the future aspects of salvation; in other words, looking at how there is no real tension between "we have been saved" and "we will be saved."

Chapter Five: The Human Condition. Clocking in at 21 pages, this chapter is all about the current condition human beings find themselves in. I look at the legal ramifications of our condition-you know, guilty because of sin--and at the ontological ramifications of our conditions--being infected, consumed, indwelt with sin. Much of the chapter is devoted to mini-exegeses of selected texts (one from Romans 1-3, the other from Romans 7, and the final one being a sweeping look at Genesis 4-11). After all of that I define a few key terms to the best of my ability (evil, transgression, and sin).

The first third of the book is all about laying the foundation for understanding repentance. I'm of the conviction that you cannot simply leap into a subject and think you've gotten your point across. Everyone is so consumed with so many assumptions about everything that to assume that everyone assumes what you do is a ridiculous, illogical, and foolish assumption. (That's a lot of assumptions!) Everything I've written about so far in these chapters is, in my opinion, necessary to really grasping what repentance is all about. Now I'm faced with the most challenging part of the book: defining repentance. I've got seven chapters lined up:

(1) False Trails in the Quest for Repentance

(2) The Meaning of Repentance

(3) The Necessity of Repentance

(4) The Choice of Repentance

(5) Repentance & Faith

(6) Repentance & Loving God

(7) Repentance: Four Themes

coffee of the week: anniversary blend

My P.D.P. (Partner Development Plan) at work is basically an analysis of all our different whole beans. Taste, texture, history, pairings, experiences of which drinking the select whole bean would be conducive to making exponentially more enjoyable. Essentially looking at, as I told Tony, "the nature of the bean itself." This week's was our Anniversary Blend, a seasonal blend that comes out every September and lasts (I believe) through the end of November (or Thanksgiving), at which point we get our Christmas Blend on the shelves. I'm not a big fan of bold coffees, but Anniversary Blend is admittedly pretty good. It's the spiciest coffee I've ever had, with light citrus undertones, a heavy body, and a lingering taste on the palate. It's special in the sense that it's an Asian/Pacific coffee (Sumatran, to be exact) that is aged 3-5 years. It's great with our pumpkin selections--our pumpkin scones and our pumpkin loaves, to be exact--and it's the coffee I prefer to drink when sitting on the front porch watching the leaves falling from the trees and enjoying my evening cigarette. I've got two pounds of it sitting in my room but am saving them for winter, when the whole bean won't be available in stores (I'm not going to sell it; I'm just going to use it for myself, getting a fix for my cravings when the store can't help me out). This is the perfect whole bean for anything autumn related--fire pits and fireplaces, thanksgiving dinners and football cookouts, waking up in the chilled morning and even (for us addicts) watching the blood-red autumn sunset.

journal entry - 9.11

I love autumn. I really do. It's beautiful. But for some reason, it carries with itself an odd sense of sadness. Maybe it is the way that the beauty is but a precursor to when death will wrap itself about the world. I don't know. At work today I was hit with a wave of sadness. Dead-end job. Dying car. Fruitless life. A life characterized by broken dreams and overwhelming disappointments. It's not what I expected. And now I'm more cynical--albeit wiser--than I was. This world sucks. It's a shadow of what's coming. I want the future to be NOW. I want Jesus to appear, to finish what he started. There's no solid hope in this life. There's no genuine happiness, only echoes of it; and I'm craving the real thing.

walkin' tall against the rain

Last night I dreamed I lived in Ketchikan, Alaska. I worked at a small church and wore flannel and jeans and cowboy boots all the time. I drove a beat-up Chevy with rust and dents along the side. Every morning I had eggs and toast at a local diner and then walked the boardwalks and felt the rain. I woke up sad. Alaska still haunts me. I From what I've heard, Alaska holds some sort of mystical power: even those who have never been there long to be there. Having been there, if only for a week, the longing grows and grows within me. I dream of it often, waking and sleeping. Not simply Alaska, mind you, but the Inside Passage; especially Ketchikan, where the picture above was taken. I would do anything to just move there, get a house, and then advance God's kingdom in that rainy place. But, alas, here I am in Dayton, Ohio. Still living with my parents. Driving a dying car. Not making enough money to get my own place and barely paying the bills that I have. *sigh* I do want a change. I want to get my own place and build my own life. The economy is so bad here that all I can really do is make coffee; don't get me wrong, I love the job, and never really dread going in. The people I work with are fantastic, the customers are great, it's a wonderful job. But I can't afford my own place with it. Oh, if Alaska were here right now, or if I were on a plane there with a job and place awaiting me... That would be wonderful. But I guess I'll just keep it real "down south" (as those Alaska people would say) and keep doing my thing, walking tall against the rain (to quote one of my favorite house songs).

the dayton days (33)

Centerville Starbucks

Labor Day. Jessie & Tony came in to my work to visit me for a bit: it surprised the hell out of me! For some odd reason, Destini and Aubree love working with me. I think it's cause I'm always relaxed and funny. 

Tuesday. I had the day off work. Clare came over for a bit. We sat on the front porch and then made out pretty Hot & Heavy. Dewenter and I had China Cottage for lunch, and I spent the day lounging around and writing.

Wednesday. Sarah called me last night, said she got a part-time job at a deli in Blue Ash. I told her about Clare, and she seemed happy for me. I worked 6:30-3:00 and had eggs and toast for dinner. Dylan & Tyler came over for Mario-Kart, beer, and cigarettes (and good theological discussions).

Thursday. I slept in till 9:00 and had Chipotle for lunch. I worked a weird shift, 1-7:00. Cincinnati is INFESTED with bed bugs. A lady in Dylan's house church died of leukemia. I had a big headache after work and took some aspirin and called Jobst for a bit.

Friday. Clare came over around 9 AM, and we made some cocoa-coffee smoothies and had grilled cheese and cuddled and made out. She went to work and I went to Starbucks for my check and Carly was there, and we talked about sexual purity. I ran to the bank and then to the store and checked out some netbooks. My Inspiron 6000 is threatening to die. I spent the evening at Starbucks: Mariah from Southwest had a surprise birthday party there.

Saturday. I worked 10-5:00. Dylan & Tyler came over, and we went to DLM for dinner. I got some sushi and a salad. Clare and I were going to hang out, but she's sick, so that fell through.

Sunday. Dewenter couldn't do M.C.C. or China Cottage today (the latter will be made up for next week). I worked a pointless shift, 2-6:30. More work drama: Tony may be transferred to the Route 48 Starbucks as a shift. He's well-liked, has a warm and inviting personality, clicks really well with everyone, so obviously he's a top choice. I can't help but wonder why I haven't been considered. Really, it's politics. Mariah and Sabrina visited me at work, and after work I went to North Park and walked around for a while. Aubree's last day with us is next Sunday. She's one of my favorite people to work with. I feel trapped into Starbucks with nowhere to go, and I have so many bills and financial woes that I can't even get my own place. Ams broke up with Chris (again) but may be getting back with him. Sometimes I want to be a monk. But, then again, I always do when the stresses of life exponentially multiply.

my upcoming week

It's Sunday morning and I'm up earlier than expected. I woke up at 8:00, sleeping eight straight hours, and fixed coffee and had my cigarette. I work a really short shift later - 2-6:30 - and I work every morning next week, in at least by 6:00. The only evening I work is Thursday, but one of the shifts is trying to get me on as an opener instead that morning, which I would prefer. My week will thus be spent working, shift-after-shift, and then I have the weekend off. It's strange, having two days off in a row. I'm really looking forward to it. Amidst my seven-day work week, here are some things I'm looking forward to:

1. Finishing the first five chapters of "Re:Framing Repentance." I'm 1/3 done with the fifth chapter. I hope to get it to 2/3 by tonight and, by Friday, have the fifth chapter entirely done. It's a pretty intense chapter so I'm going through it quite slowly. Once I finish chapter 5, it's on to the meat of the book: "What is repentance and how is it practiced?" I'm very excited about this book.

2. Finishing "Justification" by N.T. Wright. I'm halfway through it and loving every minute of it. The first several chapters are really good, but in regards to justification, you don't really learn anything you wouldn't have learned in a careful reading of Wright's "What Saint Paul Really Said." The meat of the book, I think, is in the second half: exegeses on Romans, Galatians, and several other letters in reference to what they say regarding justification.

3. Good food! On Monday or Tuesday, Clare and I are checking out a new Indian restaurant in town, Namaste India. All the evening crew from work loves that place, orders from there all the time. I still haven't been and am looking forward to it. On another afternoon, Pat D. and I are going to hit up China Cottage. The reason we go there all the time is because it's so damned good. And I'm sure I'll be spending time with the regulars: Dylan and Tyler. Last night we went to Dorothy Lane Market for dinner: sushi and a gourmet salad!

4. Lose 3 pounds. I've gone from 141 to 144, thanks to not eating well over the last week. Sometimes, and I don't know if this is just me, but I want to celebrate whenever I hit a goal in weight-loss, which means essentially eating a lot. It's very paradoxical. Regardless, I want to get back to 141 by the end of the week and continue my journey towards 135. I'm glad I'm able to fit into all my autumn clothes from freshman year, but I still want to lose more weight. And don't think I'm going to become anorexic or anything: I'm still chubby. If I get below 135, which is, I think, the farthest I can go before being underweight, I'm going to stop.

Now to decide whether or not I'll be going to church this morning, and if so: "Where?"

"Evil & The Justice of God"

Having finished N.T. Wright’s “Evil & The Justice of God”, all I can say is: “Wow.” The entire book is extremely enlightening, captivating, enlivening. While a lot of the material is “nothing new”—in the sense that he’s written about it in even more depth elsewhere—he focuses on several things that help bring “the problem of evil” into focus, and these things are matters integral to the Christian faith.

I like how Wright doesn’t say “Here’s what evil is, here’s what evil isn’t,” etc. He acknowledges that there are various ways of looking at evil, categorical systems prominent in systematic theology, but he says that they don’t really take evil seriously enough. Aside from the definition of evil in theology, he looks at the definition of evil in politics, especially from a western perspective: the “us vs. them” ideology, seen most vibrantly in “capitalism vs. communism” or “democracy vs. dictatorship.” His words in the first chapter should be necessary reading for those Christians all in hoopla about the current political currents of Islam in America (he writes about 9/11 several times, acknowledging that the terrorists were, indeed, evil; but that the whole situation has brought into the cultural mind a framework of evil that embraces the faulty “us vs. them” mentality). Ultimately he says that any theological definition of evil must acknowledge that the Bible doesn’t say where evil came from; Genesis 1-11 is more of an analysis of evil, a diagnosis of the situation, that about its origins. And throughout the Old Testament, the question of evil, while addressed, isn’t solved. The paradoxes and struggling of the saints are evident throughout scriptures, not least in the Psalms. The fantastic ending of Job—often called the classic Old Testament theodicy—doesn’t really shed any light on the subject. So what does God do about evil? In the Old Testament we see him restraining it, containing it, not letting it have its full reign, and even using it sometimes to further his own purposes (sometimes God uses evil in such a way that he gets his own hands bloody, as we see in the Israelite conquering of Canaan). Nevertheless, there’s no solid theodicy in the Old Testament; what we find is that anything resembling a theodicy (with the exception of Job, which is widely misread) is focused upon God’s covenant with Israel: God will deal with evil through the covenant, though as to how, no one (at least in the Old Testament) really knows.

Which leads to what I think is the best chapter of the book: “Evil & The Crucified God.” Wright advances the Christus victor approach to the cross (originated with Gustaf Aulen, and a very interesting approach to what God did when Jesus was crucified): that on the cross, Jesus defeated the powers of evil in all its forms. We find in the Old Testament God restraining and containing evil; but on the cross, evil is given free reign, allowed to rise to its fullest. It thrusts itself against God and with all its might kills him. It is the ultimate act of evil. It seems like a loss for God, but then Jesus raises from the grave: the resurrection (at the least, and that’s an understatement) shows that when Jesus died, he defeated the powers of evil, often invoked as death and sin. Death—the ultimate, God-defacing, human-defacing, creation-defacing act of evil—is undone, showing that evil itself has failed. It burned itself out when it threw itself against Jesus. It exhausted its powers and came to a loss. This is the New Testament conviction seen in the gospels and in the epistles of St. Paul. The cross is God’s answer to evil.

But, of course, as Wright continues to say, things aren’t completely better. Yes, the victory over evil has been won. Evil has been defeated and dismantled and, in a sense, destroyed. Yet it still seems to flourish and even prosper. We feel evil’s affects every day, and sometimes the affects are so deep and wounding that we’re scarred for the rest of our days. Wright acknowledges this and says that the cross and resurrection is but the first step of God’s answer to evil. Not that the cross is thus no big deal, or unnecessary, or not that important—no, it is a cosmic victory, an apocalyptic turning-point in history. God’s new age, where evil is vanquished and exterminated forever, has been inaugurated; and on a future day, it will be fully consummated. Evil has been judged and on that day, the sentence will be carried out.

The question becomes, “So what do we do now?” In this “interim” period, in this “now but not yet” moment in history, what are Christians to do? The isolationist technique of holing up isn’t feasible, and nor is the apathetic position of saying, “Well, God’s going to sort everything out in the end, so let’s just keep to ourselves.” Wright talks a lot about justice—what it is, what it isn’t, etc.—and has a lot of interesting things (as an aside) to say about the current prison system in America. Christians, as servants of God and agents of Messiah and his kingdom, are to implement the victory over evil by pursuing justice. He also talks about beauty, art, creativity—various ways of advancing God’s kingdom. And then, in the final chapter, he talks about forgiveness. I put it in italics because this is one of the best chapters I’ve ever read in my life; everything Wright says about forgiveness is mind-blowing, intrinsically tied to the defeat and dismantling of evil, and I would recommend every Christian buy this book, no matter your views on Wright, and read this chapter on forgiveness. He talks about what it is, what it isn’t, what it means, all of that. And he puts on the table a perspective of forgiveness that takes forgiveness seriously. Anyone who says Wright disregards or discredits the atonement should be put to shame just by reading this chapter; as a believer in the atonement, I find this chapter on forgiveness—forgiveness granted by God and given man-to-man—to be illuminating on the entire subject.

A small book. A handful of chapters. Decently-sized print. And worth every penny. One of the best Wright books I’ve read thus far, hands-down.