Tags: Wrestling with Theology
And I do mean wrestling....
We just finished up going through Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis in our Sunday School class this last week. It's one of the books that was very formative for me a few years ago.
I hope the rest of the class got as much out of it as me. It asks some interesting questions and makes you think deeply about theology and hermeneutics, etc.
I'm going to roll the final chapter into the inauguration of our study of the whole Bible, so I chose this past week to spend a little more time on the ideas laid out in the Christ is Lord vs. Caesar is Lord part of the book, which much like anything Rob Bell does paints a whole new layer of understanding on the scripture. For more reading on that subject, check out Ray Vander Laan, or N.T. Wright, two of my other favorites.
To drive the point home, I used the Nooma video, You, one which I had in my collection, but had never used because it took me a while to really figure out how to present it. But after about the seventh time through it, I finally wrapped my head around the general idea. To claim that your God was raised from the dead wasn't that unique in the 1st Century. What was unique was that Jesus' disciples and the witnesses went out and confirmed it was true by living it.
Most of the disciples are believed to have died martyr's deaths, refusing to recant on what they had seen with their own eyes (not just their belief in something they had heard about, but something they had seen/experienced). Paul doesn't spend his time trying to convince people that Jesus did what he said he did, he spends it telling them about how to respond to it. He does say, that if you want to know about it, go ask someone else who was there.
All of which is why I found this thread on CRNinfo fascinating. The commenters are really wrestling (often times more literally than figuratively) with these ideas. I think their commentary is really a microcosm of the divide in American Christianity: Is it a social Gospel? a personal Gospel? Or is it really both?
Here's a follow-up posting by the CRNinfo guys about the discussion.
trying to follow Christ, husband of Jamie, father of Anna, a senior designer who does web and print work, an alumnus of the University of Alabama, interested in the emerging church, a Mac fan, a Camp Sumatanga junkie, a program coordinator for high school camps in the United Methodist Church, a music snob, a budding oenophile, too busy to update his resume/portfolio, debt-free*, a geek
Oct 21st 2009
Social vs. Personal is the big question. Or I should say the big struggle. We addressed this question recently in our study of “Seeing Gray” as you can imagine Adam Hamilton says we should strive for both. My struggle is on the personal side. I get the social gospel. I’m still stumbling around on the personal gospel side.
And I do love “Velvet Elvis.” We recently finished a study of the book with the Youth SS class. I was glad to read it again. I think I’ll try to read it every few years. Lots of good meat in there.