Room for Mystery

A temptation of our time is to present Christianity as logical and reasonable by the standards of this world. Many years ago Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of theological liberalism, attempted this move in On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultural Despisers (1799). He conceded that science and the Bible were incompatible and argued that “religion” deals with human “affections” and as such was a matter of faith, not fact. Schleiermacher’s work marks a beginning point for the current divide between public facts and private faith. Thus, in our time, politics belongs to the world of facts while religious beliefs live in the realm of private preferences. Neither have defenders of the Christian faith always helped. John Toland, for example, wrote a work called Christianity Not Mysterious (1693). Since the beginning of the Enlightenment, both liberal and conservative writers have attempted to remove mystery from the Bible and from Christian thinking. Oddly, both approaches accept that human logic and science should and can support all truth claims.

Not much has changed in this regard. Liberals still tend to reject anything in the Bible at odds with (the current state of) science and conservatives, using the exact same empirical tools, seeking to show that (what they call “true”) science supports the Christian faith, not realizing that they treat biblical truths as accountable to human logic. Some claims in the Bible cannot be reduced to being reasonable or answerable to the dictates of science or logic! Despite this, Christians should boldly announce these claims even when, by the world’s standard, they are considered foolish to science and contradictory to logic. (I am not arguing that logic and science have no role in how we know, but that reason and logic have limits when it comes to comprehending divine mystery).

The very centre of Christian theology, the incarnation (literally, the enfleshing) of God in the person of Jesus Christ, is one such mystery. Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, once labelled the incarnation the “absolute paradox.” This paradox, God becoming human, the creator becoming (in some sense) created, was not, for him, a problem for the intellect to unravel but a mystery for the human spirit to experience and to hold in awe.

Beyond debate, the Bible declares that God became human. This, however, is a logical impossibility as what it means to be God does not line up with what it means to be human. For instance, God is all-powerful; humans are not. Humans can die, and presumably, God cannot. If God could die, then, it would seem that he would cease to be God. The logical contradiction—that God could become human—is what Christians believe. There is no way to prove, in any way science accepts, that Jesus was both human and divine; yet the Christian faith hangs on accepting this very “contradiction.”

To explore this further, the Bible, as most Christians believe, is the word of God. This is a bold claim but also impossible to prove through science or reason. To complicate matters, the Bible is also the product of human authors. At least forty writers over a period of fifteen hundred years composed the contents of the Bible. Additionally, many thousands participated in the formation of the canon and the preservation of the texts in that canon throughout the centuries. Christians believe that the Bible is both a human product and the medium through which God reveals his Son to the world and continues to speak to the church today. Because of this, we revere the Bible as sacred Scripture carrying the very authority of God, and yet study it as a textbook with insights into human history.

This confidence in the human-divine origin of the Bible is not reasonable from a logical or scientific perspective. Christian belief in the incarnation (and the Bible) transcends human logic and the empirical observation of science. Thus, our faith and our thinking must have room for mystery.

This mystery only intensifies when we explore the meaning of the incarnation. Why did God become human? The incarnation is a necessary precondition for the atonement and our subsequent reconciliation with God. We believe, and the Bible teaches, that Jesus, the God-man, gave His life to save humans and bring them back to God. As Christians, we generally accept this so matter-of-factly that we do not reflect on how unreasonable this claim is. We believe the death of one person is sufficient to cover the sins of everyone who has ever lived. If Jesus were just a human, then there is no way He could pay for another’s sins and possibly not his own. Even if Jesus were just a sinless human, then His death might cover one other person—a life for a life. However, because Jesus is God he can cover the sins of the world. Thus, the mystery of our religion is that God took our sins upon himself; He paid the price for human sin. If true, then Christianity is far more mysterious than we usually comprehend.

Yet this is precisely what the Bible teaches: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5.20). The Greek, however, is even stronger: “God made the one not knowing sin [into] sin for us.” This Sinless One not only bore our sins, but He took our sins into Himself, a thought teetering on the edge of nonsense … a mystery.

If that is not enough, Paul, in a seeming slip of tongue, suggests that God himself experienced death in the crucifixion of Jesus when he urged the Ephesian elders to “be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20.28). God’s own blood? This bothered later scribes who altered manuscripts from “church of the God” to “church of the Lord” to avoid the obvious meaning of the text. We might say that these scribes struggled with the mystery of God dying.

Finally, since faith will always have room for mystery, how then should we respond to things we cannot explain? Paul may give us an example here. At the end of his discussion about God’s mysterious ways of dealing with Israel that resulted in an influx of Gentile believers into the church, Paul can only express awe: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?””For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (Romans 11.33-36).

Thus, when Paul encountered this mystery, he worshiped. So should we. There remains for us, then, room for mystery. May our strivings be not toward a knowledge that seeks to unravel the mystery, but toward faith that embraces more than science or logic can ever explain.

Adapted from my April 2008 Gospel Herald article by the same name.

No Room for Family

Christian people speak often of family values, the sanctity of marriage and the horrors of broken families. We definitely care a great deal about family, as we should, and the Bible has much to say about family. For instance, Jesus himself taught that God’s ideal for marriage was a man and woman in life-long partnership and that a marriage should only dissolve when a spouse has chosen another’s bed. Moreover, several New Testament writers speak of the commitment a husband and wife should have for one another, and that children and parents should treat one another with appropriate respect. Yet, Jesus placed marriage (and family!) second to following him. Accordingly, marriage and family are important, but they are not our most important commitments as Christians.

One only has to spend a few moments in western Canada to find that family is important in the Churches of Christ; one soon finds out that family is often the glue holding our congregations together. Shortly after moving to Canada, I learned how interconnected church and family were. When we introduce ourselves here, we immediately follow with which family is ours. Because of this, ministers and elders in western Canada also need to be part family counselors. In addition, families are the earthen vessels that pass the gospel from one generation to another. Family ties are one of the strengths of the church in Canada—however, it may also be a serious weakness in participating in God’s mission.

Sociologist Reginald Bibby has done some serious cultural analysis of the state of “Christianity” in Canada. In Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada (2002), he addresses the place of family in the life of Canadian churches. “For all the talk about evangelism,” says Bibby, “groups of all kinds were failing to demonstrate much success in recruiting people outside their own boundaries. Most were growing by adding people who were primarily their own—children and geographically mobile members” (p. 24).

In another place, Bibby asserts that churches in Canada generally grow in two ways: birth and marriage. That is, either we give birth to future members or our children marry people who then also become members. In his earlier work, Unknown Gods: The Ongoing Story of Religion in Canada (1993), he observes that churches in Canada were often “family shrines.” In these churches a few families hold all of decision-making posts, both formal (elders, deacons) and informal (highly respected members). Regarding a congregation he once attended he states, “For all the external signs of engaging in outreach, I increasingly had a great difficulty being convinced that people in my small church really wanted things to change. New people would have upset the organizational applecart” (269).

Some of what Bibby observes rings true for us as well. It is entirely possible that we have so much biological family around us that we do not feel the need to invite new people into our church family. Even if folks try us, they might not find the welcome they seek. I often ask church leaders in workshops I hold, “Whom does your church exclude?” The first response is usually that their congregation is very friendly and welcoming. I quiz deeper, “Would the handicapped find a welcome here?” Most of our older buildings are not up-to-date and so we usually have to admit that a wheelchair-bound visitor would find it difficult to move around. We could ask the same about the blind and the deaf, although most of congregation would probably adapt if they had a member with such needs.

But let’s look even deeper. As the morning service adjourns, do we have room at our families’ tables for those who are not physical family? Do people have to know the same people as you know to be welcomed? Do people have to have attended the same (unnamed) school to be part of the circle? If a visitor really wanted to become a member, could they find a clear way in? If they had leadership potential and desire, could they learn what it would take to be a Sunday school teacher, deacon, or elder in your congregation? Before answering these questions, think about how successful your congregation has been in the past ten years at bringing in new people and assimilating them into the common life of the church. (If this concerns you, see Lyle E. Schaller, Assimilating New Members [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1978]).

While Bibby’s research may help us take a hard look at ourselves, we depend ultimately on the teachings of Jesus to place family, church and discipleship in proper perspective. One time, Jesus’ family came to take him away because they believed he was crazy. When his family, which included Mary and his brothers, approached where he was teaching, they sent word to see him. To this Jesus asked the messenger, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Looking around at the rag-tag crowd listening eagerly to his message, Jesus said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3.32-35). To feel the sting of this, imagine your son or a significant family member saying something like this about you. Jesus gave preference to his seeking-God’s-will family over his physical family.

However, Jesus has more to say regarding family. Luke records Jesus teaching, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14.26-27; cf. Matt 10.37-38).

This topic is of personal importance to me. My mother and father were strangers to the people of God. I am a Christian today because a Christian woman invited me to a Vacation Bible School when I was seven years old. I had no physical family in the church and the physical family I had was not able to teach me God’s ways. I was a stranger and the church took me in and gave me a place to belong. Consequently, I have always looked to the church to be my family wherever I have lived. I understood that when I accepted the call to follow Jesus that my present family—my wife, my daughter, and any extended family I have—all come second to my loyalty to Jesus.

This topic has become important to me for another reason. I now live in this country and I want our churches to grow and to prosper in every way. We all know that we are not growing and I have come to suspect that in some degree we are the problem. The protection and nearness of our families may give us the false illusion that we are doing well, yet all the while church after church is on the verge of closure; as many as four have closed in Saskatchewan since I arrived here in 2003. As these churches die, they often find themselves being mostly members of a single-family group. I know several such families and they are my heroes for keeping the doors open, but they know that if revival is to occur, it must involve those who are not biological family.

I do not write this as a final word, or even as a word of judgment, but as a place to begin a very difficult conversation. I recognize I could be butchering a sacred cow here, but we must be willing to lay this one on the altar if we are serious about following Jesus. I may have overstated my case a bit here or there, but maybe not. Is it possible we are not inviting people into the family of God because we have “enough” family on earth?

Adapted from my May 2008 Gospel Herald article by the same title.