Thanks for this, Chris. It was so enlightening to listen tk John Behr's exposition of Athanasius. My YouTube algofythmn also brought me to his lecture on being human with an exposition from Gregory of Nyssa. It makes me wonder how so much modern Protestant theology may have gotten some of the basics just wrong. The God of these early Christians was obviously so much bigger and salvation so much more magnificent than the thin transactional propositions we present as Chrisfianity today.
You've put your finger on something: we (American Evangelical types) are enslaved to literal-mindedness and stuck in problem-solving mode, which suffocates our imagination and makes wholeheartedness impossible. Hence, as you said, our talk about salvation is thin and transaction. Lord, deliver us!
I know it's different person to person and place to place, but this I think holds true for us all: we preachers must come to that moment truly intoxicated with the goodness and beauty of God. I'm not sure it means we'll be safe, but I am sure we should want our hearers—*especially* those who say we're heretics!—to know we're more delighted by God than we are disturbed by their doubts and disagreements.
This is such a great passage. I’ve found that one decent way to “poke at” folks (like friends and family) who espouse troubling theology is to note the two different gospel stories we tell.
The larger arc, the “Good God cannot leave us to die, so he steps in and saves” is proclaimed openly and often. It is the message of our songs and sermons and, in the ACNA, our Eucharistic liturgy.
But then the smaller arc, the “but, by the way, in the fine print not all are included and actually they aren’t because they were never meant to be and God obviously had this in mind when he started” is taught when the topic is election in Sunday school or when you get into a “deeper things” level of discipleship.
The two arcs cancel each other out, but they are also, almost always, partitioned from one another and so we usually preach a self-contradictory message without realizing it.
Athanasius never lets his qualifications disqualify the larger story. I’m grateful!
Thanks for this, Chris. It was so enlightening to listen tk John Behr's exposition of Athanasius. My YouTube algofythmn also brought me to his lecture on being human with an exposition from Gregory of Nyssa. It makes me wonder how so much modern Protestant theology may have gotten some of the basics just wrong. The God of these early Christians was obviously so much bigger and salvation so much more magnificent than the thin transactional propositions we present as Chrisfianity today.
You've put your finger on something: we (American Evangelical types) are enslaved to literal-mindedness and stuck in problem-solving mode, which suffocates our imagination and makes wholeheartedness impossible. Hence, as you said, our talk about salvation is thin and transaction. Lord, deliver us!
Since I'm still a preacher at my ripe age, I wonder how in the world to get some of this across to a congregation without being cast out as a heretic.
I know it's different person to person and place to place, but this I think holds true for us all: we preachers must come to that moment truly intoxicated with the goodness and beauty of God. I'm not sure it means we'll be safe, but I am sure we should want our hearers—*especially* those who say we're heretics!—to know we're more delighted by God than we are disturbed by their doubts and disagreements.
This is such a great passage. I’ve found that one decent way to “poke at” folks (like friends and family) who espouse troubling theology is to note the two different gospel stories we tell.
The larger arc, the “Good God cannot leave us to die, so he steps in and saves” is proclaimed openly and often. It is the message of our songs and sermons and, in the ACNA, our Eucharistic liturgy.
But then the smaller arc, the “but, by the way, in the fine print not all are included and actually they aren’t because they were never meant to be and God obviously had this in mind when he started” is taught when the topic is election in Sunday school or when you get into a “deeper things” level of discipleship.
The two arcs cancel each other out, but they are also, almost always, partitioned from one another and so we usually preach a self-contradictory message without realizing it.
Athanasius never lets his qualifications disqualify the larger story. I’m grateful!
Yes. I learned this from Jens: theology's entire purpose is to make sure that our preaching isn't self-contradicted.