Category: Trinity

The Missional Grace of Together: a book review

Missional is one of those plastic terms and it can mean anything depending on who’s saying it (the way Emergent used to mean that people had couches and candles in their megachurch-GenX-service). So when I picked up Larry Duggins’s Together: Community As a Means of Grace, I wasn’t sure what I would get. I mean, I knew it was part of the “Missional Wisdom Library,” and that Duggins was the Executive Director of the Missional Wisdom Foundation. I also knew that Duggins was an elder in the United Methodist Church. But I felt like these facts didn’t tell me all that much. I hadn’t heard of the Missional Wisdom Foundation and Methodists are all over the map.

9781532613050What did Missional mean when Duggins said it? Was it just a strategy or a formula for outreach? Was it a “whole new way of ministry?” Did it just mean pub church and community gardens? Or was Duggins pointing to a more robust theological understanding of what it means to be missional?

Duggins does like community gardens but there is, indeed, rich theological reflection here. Duggins sets to work casting a vision in which to root mission. He does this through the concept of community.

In chapter 1, Duggins discusses the  perichoretic community of the Triune God—and the relational dance of God. Chapter 2 explores the nature of humanity. Duggins posits that humans were created with a need for community. Genesis 1:27 describes the mutual Divine image bearing of female and male persons(9), whereas Genesis 2 underscores how it was “not good” for man to be alone:

It is noteworthy that the first thing that God points out as “not good” is the lack of community, not original sin! God sees that humans need other humans to be “good” as God intended (10).

So, Duggins argues, community with other people is an integral part of what it means for us to be human.

In Chapter 3, tells the story of Grace— human fallenness (beginning in Genesis 3) and God’s loving action and presence in effecting our deliverance (culminating in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection). However, using a Wesleyan understanding of ‘means of grace,’ Duggins describes the ways Jesus lived in concert with God’s grace in daily life, commending Christ’s example to us (18-22).

At the close of chapter 3, Duggins describes  John Wesley’s understanding of prudential “means of grace” as activities, that is activities that bring us deeper into communion with God’s grace but “are not drawn directly from the life of Christ” (22). For Wesley, these were class and band meetings, love feasts, and covenant renewal movements. In chapter 4, Duggins digs deeper into Wesleyan’s communal examples of prudential grace and suggests implications for mission today:

Imagine Christians joined with others in communities that are important to people of this day and age, living as followers of Christ ready to be the hands and feet of Christ in the lives of those who do not yet know how to express their “spiritual but not religious feelings. Christians sharing their stories and experiences with people who are truly their friends, not to push them into conversion or membership, but because, as a friend, they want to share what is important to them. Christian people who model love & inclusion in community. Christians who are willing to help others see the presence of Christ in their midst.” (30-31)

In the remainder of the book, Duggins connects these theological understandings of community (community rooted in Trinity, the Imago-Dei, and Wesleyan Spirituality) and describes the variety of ways communities form today. Duggins doesn’t indicate a particular strategy or format(so no push for pub-church in particular) but he gives examples of theological-rooted communities in: traditional church contexts, in workplace communities, in communities that are centered around food, children’s schools or various affinity groups, and  he commends creative re-imagining discipleship and evangelism.

While I appreciated this latter part of the book, and Duggins’s refusal to prescribe just one form of community but instead describe the variety and experience of communities he’s known, for me, it is the theological visioning stuff at the front that I really liked. I found as I read on, I underlined less and less; yet, it is the latter half where we hear contemporary stories of missional community today and the practical outworking of theology.

This is a short book, less than 90 pages, without a lot of footnotes and extraneous references. It is accessible enough for lay leaders. This is the kind of book that a church leadership team or elder board could read together without feeling bogged down in anything too heady. While it starts with a Trinitarian, biblical, and theological reflections on community and means of grace, this is, in reality, for only 30 odd pages. The rest of the book gives practical examples of what this may look like in different contexts. This could be good fodder for discussion. I give this book four stars. – ★★★★

Notice of material connection: I received a copy of this book from SpeakEasy in exchange for my honest review.

Trinitarian Traces in Sciency Spaces: a ★★★★★ book review

Science and theology are two different disciplines and, allegedly, never the twain shall meet. The hard sciences lay their claim to objectivity, dealing with sense-data and the observable world. Theology, for its part, is relegated to the realm of the subjective and ethereal. But what if theology and science had more in common than it may appear? What if the Triune God has so imprinted reality with His Presence that the resonances between God and his creation create contexts for dialogue between science and theology? What if these distinct disciplines were more coinherent than conflicted?

9781532616846This is W. Ross Hastings’s argument in Echoes of Coinherence: Trinitarian Theology and Science Together.  Hastings is especially qualified to speak across these disciplines. He has a Ph.D. in organometallic chemistry from Queen’s University, Ontario, a Ph.D. in theology from the University of St. Andrews (under Alan Torrance!) and he is the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Associate Professor of Theology and Pastoral Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada.  He has been a working scientist, a pastor, and a theologian. He brings these skills together as he probes how the perichoretic and coinherent Triune God and the incarnation of the Son have stamped humanity with the image of God and left traces of Triune coinherence on all creation.

Hastings details his aims as these:

I am first seeking to describe coinherence as a feature of the Divine life, acknowledged widely in the tradition of the church, both in the incarnation and within the Trinity. Second, I am seeking to support the further claim that coinherence can be seen to have echoes in creation. And third, I wish to propose that we may, because of the first two, predicate coinherence of the disciplines of theology and science. That is, I affirm that coinherence is part of the  Divine life (an ontological statement) can be said to have echoes in creation (a metaphysical statement ) and may be predicated further as a way to frame these two great disciplines of human knowledge (an epistemological statement)(5).

Thus, through the rest of the book, he explores the coinherent relationship between science and theology with special emphasis on the history of ideas, epistemology (how we know stuff), ontology and metaphysics (the nature of being).

Hastings argument unfolds in 8 chapters. In chapter 1, he lays out the aims and scope of this project and the idea of coinherence. In chapters 2, Hastings gives a short history of coinherence in the Theology/Science tradition, highlighting his conversation partners of Theologian scientists (scientists conversant with theology) and Scientist theologians (theologians conversant with the sciences. Chapter 3 describes the intertwining History of Ideas for both disciplines—the development of the sciences within a Christian context, its compatibility with theology during the Medieval-Renaissance, and the growing conflict and the fragmentation of the two disciplines from the late Middle Ages, on through the Enlightenment to today.

In chapter 4, Hastings tackles epistemology. He argues that though science and theology have been described as having two different ways of knowing (i.e. Scientists have evidence, Religious people have faith), both disciplines have a fideistic epistemology (taking on faith that their subject is knowable),  weigh evidence, and enter into a critical dialogue between the knower and their subject. Hastings traces this ‘Critical Realism’ in both the sciences and theology, concluding:

Critical realism is thus a philosophical system grounded in faith that the Revealer of truth in every realm is neither capricious nor obscurantist and yet also not controlling, in that he does not make things plain easily, for he has created persons in his own image who he expects to be inquisitive, and to explore, and to think and to worship. (120)

Chapters 5-7 describe the coinherent ontologies of science and theology. Whereas theologians take as their object the Triune God, the Creator has left his traces on His Creation. This allows for various resonances between the realm of theology and the world of science. the Trinity’s relationality, freedom, goodness, immensity, particularity and agency are written in Creation and God’s goodness, intelligibility and relationality are imprinted on humanity as God’s image bearers.

Chapter 8 draws these ontological and epistemological threads together:

The common doxological aim is what makes the sheer hard work in both worthwhile. It is the reality that the kingdom of God has already broken into history in Christ, which brings with it a doxological orientation in both theology and science. Christ has come to recapitulate old Adam’s orientation. (221)

In the interest of full disclosure, I was a teaching assistant for Ross (Hastings) once upon a time and he was one of my professors at Regent College. This is by no means an impartial review (if there is a such thing). Ross’s perspective and insights have stamped my own thinking in significant ways, particular his Trinitarian thought, ethics and missional theology. But I think the subject matter of this book is significant and worthwhile for our North American, post-Enlightenment context. I know good Christians who are suspicious of the sciences for the way materialist approaches undermine the idea faith. I also have scientist friends who have felt like the church undervalues and fails to appreciate their work. The time is ripe for a deeper dialogue between science and theology, not to blur the distinctions of each discipline—scientists are gonna science and theologians will theologize—but to mutually enrich our understanding of both God and Creation. Coinherence provides a good, missional model for a way forward.

Hastings describes this well:

The great opportunity of our times for thoughtful, missional Christians is to offer fresh articulations of the Christian doctrine of creation, grounded in the Trinity and the incarnation, which allow theology to be theology and science to be science yet which also affirm the mutuality and inter-enhancement of each. That is, accounts for theology and science which manifest the coinherence of the epistemology and the ontology of these disciplines. In an era when scientism is less and less credible, in which global warming threatens our existence, there is, I believe, a hearing for a world-affirming, science-embracing gospel. A gospel that offers a humble apologetic, a holistic and communal worldview, (or better, world-love), a gospel that is grounded in the triune Creator God, supremely transcendent and yet infinitely immanent; a gospel that leads to human flourishing and creational shalom. (93-94)

Vocationally, he also describes his specific hopes for those in the sciences:

My rather audacious hope is that this work may help scientists to value their work and to contextualize their science within a broader creative and even doxological framework this helping them and all humans to pursue their vocations in more satisfying and humanizing ways (15).

I give this five stars and highly recommend it. Hastings is a meaty thinker and this book will demand a slow read. Scientists who are believers will be encouraged in their calling as scientists. Thoughtful Christians will be more open  to seeing the way the Coinherent Divine nature marks not only the things of heaven but the very stuff of earth.  – ★★★★★

Notice of material connection: I received a copy of this book from Wipf & Stock in exchange for my honest review

Dance With the Three Who Brung Ya: a book review

 

556775I had three reasons for picking up The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. First, it is about the Trinity and how belief in the triune Godhead is a game changer.  There are few topics which make me this giddy. My reading of Zizioulas, Volf, Moltmann and Barth in grad school made me a passionately Trinitarian.  Secondly,I read this book because its author is Richard Rohr. I mean who doesn’t love Rohr? He is the reigning guru on all things enneagram, contemplative prayer in the perennial tradition, Franciscan spirituality and the masculine journey. So what if his mystic speak is a little fuzzy and he pushes things in  more of a progressive direction that many of us are comfortable with? His progressive bent is not characterized by a demythologizing, deconstructive tendency, but a desire to squeeze every generous ounce out of God’s grace.  I don’t agree with everything Rohr says, I don’t even understand everything Rohr says (he’s deeper than I am); yet I am always challenged by reading his books and walk away believing and trusting God just a little more.

My third reason was Rohr’s co-author Mike Morrell. Morrell is best known as the organizer of the Wild Goose Festival. One of his seven or eight other day jobs is curating SpeakEasy,a blog review program which has introduced me to some great books the past few years. This book came into fruition when Morrell got his hands on material that Rohr had delivered at two conferences and offered to help Rohr translate them from conference to book form.So the Triune God, Rohr and Morrell conspired. The Divine Dance was born. Um. . .the book, not the dance. The Divine dance has been happening for a little while now.

The book is based on Rohr’s lectures, but the concept came to Rohr during a Lenten retreat. While on retreat, he picked up Catherine LaCugna’s book, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life and read it.  Rohr describes the reading of her book as being brought into conversation with the “big tradition.” For him the Trinity was no longer a “dusty doctrine” to be shelved, but “almost a phenomenology of my own—and others’—inner experience of God” (40-41).

Organizationally this is different from Rohr’s other books (mostly through Morrell’s influence). There is an introduction and three parts. In lieu of chapters there are sub-headings in each section—seventy headings in all. This makes it an ideal book for daily devotional reading; however I wouldn’t say that there is a linear argument running through each section. Instead Rohr steps, sways, and sashays his way across the floor, circling back to aspects of the Trinity, embellish his dance moves with creative flourishes.

Rohr’s introduction  describes how despite Western Christians’ affirmation of the Trinity, it has made little practical impact on our lives. The invitation, Rohr has for us, is not just to see the triune relationship at the heart of God, but to enter into communion with Father, Son and Spirit. Rohr illustrates this by describing Rublev’s Trinity which depicts the Godhood sitting at Abraham’s table. Rohr posits that a mirror originally hung in front of the icon, to help the observer take up her space at the table (29-31). This takes Trinity out of the world of abstraction and invites us into Divine relationship.

Part 1, Wanted: a Trinitarian Revolution is conceptual and philosophically rich. Rohr attempts to answer  how entering into Triune reality changes everything—breaking all our dualisms (including political dualisms), and opens the way for new paradigms and connection with the world. Part II, Why the Trinity? Why Now?, delves deeper into the nature of God and how commitment to the Trinity dismantles our divine caricatures, and showcases a God more loving, welcoming and present to us. Part III, the Holy Spirit, concludes the book with some thoughts on how the Spirit brings helps us engage deeper with God and the world. An appendix describes seven practices for experiencing the Trinity, notably a litany of seventy evocative names for the Holy Spirit (210-212).

Rohr avoids the practical modalism of Western Christianity by looking East to the Social Trinity of the Cappadocians. He writes, “Don’t start with the One and try to make it into Three, but start with the Three and see that this is the deepest nature of the One” (43). Rohr makes the case that the relationship in the Godhead between its members, is the basis of all reality, and understanding and embracing the Divine Dance opens us up to new realities which effect politics and community.

Richard Rohr and I have different starting points He’s a Franciscan friar and  a priest, I’m a low, roving Protestant. But I appreciate the way Rohr urges a recovery of the Trinity and has traced out its implications. I highly recommend this book for several reasons. First, Rohr is all about the great tradition. He cites Protestants, Patristic, medieval theologians and a healthy helping of notable Franciscans. Secondly, Rohr is both gracious and thoughtful in his analysis. Third, there are lots of theology books about the Trinity, but there have been few books that help us imagine what the practical implications are for our spiritual life.  This one delivers. Fourth, even where we may disagree with Rohr,(i.e. his critical  and selective reading of some Bible passages), he asks hard questions which we ought to press into. For example, he writes as a Franciscan priest who doesn’t believe in forensic models of the atonement (131). If we are to affirm penal substitution, how does God’s wrath against the Son on the cross fit into our Trinitarian theology? What impact does our belief about God impact how we live? Our politics? These are great questions. I happily recommend this book and give it four stars.

One final plea, get the hard cover edition instead of the Kindle edition. Reading this as e-book is okay, but because this is a book with no chapters and so many headings. I prefer the orientation and spacial awareness provided by a physical binding. Also, the inside of the front and back covers have a full-color reproduction of Rublev’s icon of the Trinity (the same image in copper hue embossed in copper tone across the dust jacket). Divine Dance is published by Whitaker House. Many of their books reflect  a charismatic aesthetic. They are best known, to me, for publishing Smith Wiggleworth and a slough of deliverance ministers. This may be the most beautiful book they’ve ever published.

Note: I received this book from SpeakEasy in exchange for my honest review. I wasn’t asked to write a positive review. I just can’t help myself.

Good News Lent: Wilderness Introduction

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. Mark 1:12-13

Are you in a wilderness? It could be one of your own making—sin and shame isolating you from others. It could be a wilderness hoist on you through circumstance: the death of a loved one, a broken relationship, a debilitating illness, the loss of a job. Maybe you went to what you thought was the land of promise, and found yourself in a  barren wasteland. However, you got here, you are not alone. Jesus also walked in the wilderness. For forty days he was tempted by the devil.

Jesus’ temptation by Satan in the wilderness is a poignant image for Lent. It is this episode from Jesus’ life that the church got the ‘forty days’ that determine the length of the season. Forty days Jesus fasted, so we fast forty days (minus Sundays). There Jesus was victor over temptation, so we take this time to pursue holiness, attentive to our proclivity toward sin. Yes, Jesus’ wilderness experience is foundational for our experience of Lent. But does the wilderness hold good news for us? Jesus faced the devil in the dry arid air of the desert. He did so, for the joy set before him. I see five reasons the wilderness was good news for Jesus, and is good news for us!

The Wilderness is Where God Wanted Jesus to Be

judean_wildernessWe are told in Mark’s gospel that the Spirit “sent” Jesus into the wilderness.   Jesus emerged from the Jordan, dripping wet from his baptism and the Spirit sent him to the desert. The NIV’s ‘sent’ is a rather tepid translation of the Greek ἐκβάλλει. The word carries the force of ‘drove out’ or ‘expelled.’ Jesus was forced out to the wilderness, there by the Spirit’s compulsion. He was in the wilderness because God wanted Him there.  Why did the Spirit want Jesus there? Matthew gives the reason, “He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by devil” (Matt. 4:1).

There was contest that needed to happen between Jesus and Satan at the outset of his ministry. The ultimate contest would come later, but this wilderness time was important. Jesus had heard his Father’s voice, saw the heavens open and felt the Spirit’s presence resting like a cooing dove on Him. He couldn’t go back to carpentry; his Kingdom mission was inaugurated. God sent him to the wilderness, but he didn’t expect him to stay there.  He went to quote Deuteronomy at the Devil and strengthen his resolve to face what lay ahead

Spiritually the wilderness is a liminal space, it is a place between places. Jesus was stepping out of the life as an obscure Galilean carpenter, to a lifestyle which included itinerant evangelism, divine healing and political rabble-rousing. This was a big change in Jesus’ life, even for the Son of God. The desert gave Jesus the space a place to transition.

Where does God have you? If you are in a wilderness right now, perhaps the Spirit has driven you there because He is transitioning you to something new, something significant. This is a time to pay attention and ask God what He is doing?

 

The Wilderness Clarifies Identity and Allowed Jesus Space to Connect to God

 

God took Jesus to the wilderness after affirming him in baptism. Jonathan Martin writes:

[T]he reason that God sent Jesus into the wilderness was not to weaken Him­—so that his showdown with Satan would become “the ultimate test”—but rather to strengthen Him and cement in His heart the truth of His identity. Fresh from hearing the words of confirmation on which His entire life and ministry would be built, there was no safer place than the wilderness for Jesus to go next. Even though His experience in the wilderness wasn’t easy—He fasted for forty days and forty nights and was confronted by the devil—the devil wasn’t the only one he encountered there. The Spirit sent Jesus into the wilderness, rejuvenated with the affirmation of His identity in God’s eyes, and allowed Him to step away from His day-to-day life until the noise ad hurry of the world around Him was stripped down to the point where He could easily distinguish the voice of the accuser from the voice of the Father. The same can be true for us. [1]

Belden Lane says, “Desert and mountain places, located on the margins of society are locations of choice in luring God’s people to a deeper understanding of who they are. Yahweh frequently moves to the boundary in order to restore the center, calling a broken people back to justice and compassion.”[2] As with Jesus, so with us. We move (or are moved) into wilderness spaces to discover who we really are. It wasn’t enough that Jesus heard the Father affirm Him in baptism. He needed space to clarify what those words meant—to be moved by the Spirit, to connect with Father. He needed time out of the limelight to clarify His identity, and to hear God’s voice.

You are a child of God! The Father declares His love for you, the Spirit of God rests on all who are His. We need this space to understand what it means that we are His. We need to ‘unplug’ and take time in obscurity to cement this and to learn to discern the voice of God for us.

The Wilderness is a Place of Preparation

When Jesus left the wilderness, his public ministry would begin. It would culminate on a Roman cross. Along the way he would cast out demons, heal the sick, announce good news, and challenge the religious and political structures.  He would gather a handful of followers that he would pour his life into, so that they would lead the movement in his absence. There was a lot of work to be done and it would take all of him.  Jesus spent forty days fasting and praying at the outset of his ministry.  This time in the wilderness was preparation for what lay ahead.  These wilderness spaces are our preparatory school as well.  As the desert clarifies our identity—we see ourselves in all our vulnerability, weakness, brokenness and wonder—we sense God’s call to step out in compassion for the world. The obscurity of the margins is where God prepares us for the work ahead.

Do you know what God is Calling You to? Do you have a sense of the type of work he would like to do through you? How are you being prepared for that task? Our wilderness is where we discern God’s call and gain the courage to step into it.

 

The Wilderness is a Place of Purgation

The wilderness is where Jesus is tempted by the devil (Jesus’ temptation is the subject of my next post).  This is also the space where we face those ugly bits in ourselves. The Christian tradition calls this purgation—a purification of the soul from sin. Jesus was the sinless Son of God, but even he faced temptation. The wilderness is the space where we can wrestle our demons all the way down.  We all have comforts and strategies we employ that we use which prevent us from examining our heart’s condition: we use the demands of work and commitments to crowd out self-reflection; we fill our down time with Netflix binge watches of our favorite series; we fill our bellies with a tub of cookie dough ice cream or engage in some retail therapy. We are good at distracting ourselves with work, food, and entertainment. Perhaps we self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. When all these are stripped away through fasting or circumstance, we begin to see ourselves for who we are and to deal with the parts of our soul we work so hard at avoiding.   Lane writes:

The way of purgation involves an entry into what is unnerving, even grotesque in our lives, into what quickly reveals our limits. It seems at first, like most beginnings in the spiritual life, a mistake, a false start, an imperfection in God’s planning, a regression in our own growth. Only in hindsight do we recognize it for the unexpected gift that it is.[3]

The good news of the desert is that as our defenses are stripped away and our sin is laid bare before God, He transforms us. When we emerge from this marginal, liminal space, we are made new. The wilderness is a hard place to be, but it is where God has his way in us.

The Wilderness is Where Jesus ‘Back-stories’ the Good News.

The good news about Jesus is made coherent as part of the larger story of God and Israel’s story.  N.T. Wright’s project has been to show how Jesus fulfills Israel’s messianic hopes.  Jesus does this in two ways: he recapitulates Israel and its sacred symbols around himself and he does the sort of things the Hebrew Scriptures attest that only God can do.  The Hebrew Scriptures, what Christian’s call the Old Testament, provides the backstory essential for understanding who Jesus is and why he came. When we look again at Jesus wilderness wandering, we see God reenacting Israel’s own wandering. The people of Israel went through the Red Sea and spent forty years in the wilderness; Jesus left the Jordan for forty days in the wilderness. Israel was led by God’s presence in a pillar of fire by day and a cloud by night (Exodus 13:21); Jesus was compelled forward by the Spirit. Israel was tested for forty years (Deuteronomy 8:2); Jesus was tempted by the devil. But while Israel grumbled, complained, and failed their wilderness tests, Jesus would emerge victorious.  Jesus’ reenactment showed him to be the New Israel, fulfilling covenant with God, walking faithfully with him.

Something new was happening in the Judean countryside. A Messiah was coming that would fulfill all of Israel’s hopes and longing. A man would stumble out of the desert that would embody everything Israel was supposed to be.

Jesus came. He suffered the wilderness, he overcame the time of testing and he would lead his people to the good land. Praise God that Jesus came to be what we could not be for ourselves. Thank you Jesus for going before us, marking the way through the wilderness and showing us the way forward as we trust in him.

 

Whatever your wilderness is, press into it. Jesus walked this road and there are good things in store.  God will take this time to show you who you are, to help you see clearly who He is, to guide you, to show you the way forward, to prepare you, to cleanse your heart of Sin.  The desert is harsh landscape, and these are difficult days. There are gifts here too.

[Note: I previous edition of this page, titled it “Wilderness Part I.” However I decided to break Jesus’ Temptations into several posts, and treat this an introductory post].

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Jonathan Martin, Prototype: What Happens When You Discover You Are More Like Jesus Than You Think. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, 2013), 51.

[2] Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscape: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 46.

[3] Lane, 27.

Who Ordered the Trinity? a book review

Theologians often distinguish between the Economic Trinity: the God revealed to us in the economy of salvation, and the Immanent Trinity: the Godhead’s relations between the Divine persons. The Economic Trinity is described as Father, Son and Spirit—reflecting the order of God’s self-revelation in enacting our redemption: Creator, Redeemer and Advocate. But this oversimplifies the picture of God and doesn’t do full justice to the New Testament witness of the Trinity.

4378 trinity cover CC.inddRodrick K Durst, professor of historical theology at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary observes that the triadic ordering of Father-Son-Spirit, makes up just 24% of the seventy-five New Testament references to the Triune God (70). Any list of three items can be combined six different ways; Durst observes all six combinations of Divine Persons in the pages of Scripture. In Reordering the Trinity: Six Movements of God in the New Testament he examines the various Trinitarian references and the significance for each ordering.

Durst has a three purposes in this book. First, he wants to challenge the notion that the Trinity is not explicit in the pages of the New Testament. While the word “Trinity” doesn’t appear there, Durst presents enough examples  of triadic patterning in the New Testament to demonstrate the obvious presence of the Trinity. Secondly, he explores the meaning and purposes behind each order in their Biblical context. Third, Durst makes  the case that:

whenever and wherever Christian life and ministry have been God-glorifying, or personally satisfying or ethically prophetic or socially effective, it is precisely because a Trinitarian processional value has been consciously or unconsciously applied. Far from extinction, the Trinity flourishes everywhere and in every way as the agent of causation in which we live, minister and have our being. (60-61).

The book divides into three parts. Part one sets the table. Chapter one examines significant contributions to Trinitarian thought in contemporary theology, including the thinkers that Durst draws on in making his own case for his New Testaement Trinitarian Matrix. Chapter two lays out Durst’s raw data of New Testament triadic references. Durst catalogs each reference that includes all three members of the Trinity and evaluates each example based on intentionality. Chapter three looks at Trinitarian antecedents within the Old Testament, arguing that the Septuagint obscured the plurality of Divine persons in the One God more evident in the Hebrew text. Chapter four examines the Trinity and doctrinal development in Church History.

Part two is an in depth exploration of each of the triadic orders for the Trinity:

  • Chapter 5, Father-Son-Spirit—The missional triad emphasizing that God is sending (117).
  • Chapter 6, Son-Spirit-Father—The saving triad, describing our experience of being saved, forgiven and adopted in God’s household(194-195).
  • Chapter 7, Son-Father Spirit—The indwelling triad.
  • Chapter 8, Spirit-Father-Son—the sanctifying triad, showcasing a liturgical pattern of “Spirit-inspired reverence for the Father [which] leads to dedicated walk and service with Christ” (236).
  • Chapter, 9, Father-Spirit-Son-the Spiritual-Formation triad, God forming believers for witness for Christ (257).
  • Chapter 10, Spirit-Son-Father the ecclesial triad examining God at work in the church (276).

Part three contains a single chapter focused on how a functional Trinitarianism affects everyday worship, life and ministry.

Chapters three through eleven each close with a brief ‘sermon starter’ on the chapter’s Trinitarian theme.  Durst also includes five appendixes. Appendix A provides exhaustive tables on all the New Testament’s triadic occurrences. Appendix B is a glossary of Trinitarian terms. The other three appendixes are more practical:  a suggested exercise for praying to each part of the Trinity through the lens of the triad of your choice, a six week program of mediating on all six triads, and suggestions for explaining the trinity to children and adolescents.

Durst makes a compelling case for the diversity of Trinitarian images in the New Testament. By examining the various orders describing the Godhead, he enlarges our picture of the economic Trinity:

Theological conversations describe in previous chapters spoke of the economic Trinity exclusively as the missional procession of Father-Son-Spirit. However we must not ignore the significant textual evidence studied in this book that either we should be speaking of the “diversity of the economic Trinity” or the “Diverse Triune Economies”(288).

Durst does a good job of spelling out the significance of each triad and its implication for our ecclesiastical and devotional life. He is systematic in his handling of the textual evidence and  I appreciate his comprehensive approach. I give this four stars.

Note: I received this book from Kregel Academic in exchange for my honest review.

Good News Lent: Baptism

 

It began with a baptism. Before Jesus’ forty-day fast—his wandering in the desert to be tempted by the devil—before he took the road to the Calvary, before even his earthly ministry, Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized by John in the Jordan river (Mark 1:9). Baptisms are always good news. They are a celebration of something new: a new birth, a new sense of belonging, a new work of God in the baptized. Jesus’ baptism is no exception. It inaugurated a new phase for the Incarnate Son. He no longer was biding his time until the preordained hour. With his baptism, something new began: Jesus came preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God.

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The Freedom of the Triune God and Our Own: a book review

Paul Molnar, professor of systematic theology at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, previously published a major work on the Immanent Trinity, the inner-relations of the Triune God in eternity–Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology (T & T Clark, 2005). In Faith, Freedom and the Spirit (IVP Academic 2015), he returns to the topic of Trinity, this time exploring the economic Trinity–God’s revelation to us in time, especially as it relates to theeconomy of salvation.  He wrote this book “as a discussion of just how a properly conceived pneumatology would assist such theologians speaking of the economic Trinity to think more accurately about divine and human interaction in the sphere of faith and knowledge within history” His aim is to “explore God’s relations with us and our relations with God within the economy by focusing on the activity of the Spirit who enables faith and freedom” (7). He affirms human freedom and the Triune God’s actions within history; however he refuses to reduce Trinitarian theology and Christology to a historicized versions of it, and reflects thoughtful on the role of Spirit in mediating the gospel of grace to us.

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Faith, Freedom and the Spirit: The Economic Trinity in Barth, Torrance and Contemporary Theology by Paul D. Molnar.

Throughout this book, Molnar is in dialogue with Karl Barth, Thomas Torrance and several contemporary theologians. Molnar has published monographs on both Barth and Torrance. In general, Molnar defends Barth against the neo-Barthian revisionists and uses Torrance to critique Barth in the places where Barth is inconsistent. Barth remains the genius of twentieth century theology, but where Molnar disagrees with him, he tends to follow Torrance. This is especially true when it comes to Torrance’s careful distinction between Christ’s vicarious activity for us and his ‘inner being as the Word’ (341-44).  Barth certainly affirms both, but his writings are inconsistent and allow for confusion regarding Christ’s mission and processions, and the error of subordinationism (339-340).

Faith, Freedom and the Spirit is made up of eight chapters.  The first two chapters explore the role of the Holy Spirit in imparting faith and bringing true knowledge of God through the incarnate Word. Chapters three through six critiques the missteps by contemporary theologians in understanding the relationship between the economic Trinity and the immanent Trinity, as well as contemporary misreadings of Barth. Chapter seven explores the obedience of the Son in the economic Trinity (and why this doesn’t necessitate subordinationism, especially according to Torrance’s reading). Chapter eight unfolds the theology of grace and how it enables true human freedom (freedom to live by the Grace of God through surrender to Christ)–God’s work in human history. A brief conclusion reviews the terrain and declares the necessity of the Spirit’s work for living the Christian life.

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