Probably the Best Broadly Evangelical Systematic Theology

Millard J. Erickson’s massive Christian Theology is now in its third edition (published in 2013). The hallmark of the 1,200-page book is its evangelical perspective, concern for application to life, and balance in covering multiple perspectives fairly.

There’s also a newly updated abridged version of the work, Introducing Christian Doctrine, which clocks in at a more modest 512 pages.

Introducing Christian Doctrine begins each chapter with an easy-to-grasp one-page summary, featuring “Chapter Objectives,” a short “Chapter Summary,” and a detailed “Chapter Outline.” This makes navigating the work a breeze, especially if you’re after a particular topic–as I am currently, since my five-year-old keeps asking me about heaven!

Erickson offers an engaging read from the beginning:

To some readers, the word “doctrine” may prove somewhat frightening. It conjures up visions of very technical, difficult, abstract beliefs, perhaps propounded dogmatically. Doctrine is not that, however. Christian doctrine is simply statements of the most fundamental beliefs the Christian has, beliefs about the nature of God, about his action, about us who are his creatures, and about what he has done to bring us into relationship with himself. Far from being dry or abstract, these are the most important types of truths. They are statements on the fundamental issues of life: namely, who am I, what is the ultimate meaning of the universe, where am I going? Christian doctrine is, then, the answers the Christian gives to those questions that all human beings ask. (4)

Readers can count on, even in this abridged version, a thorough survey of biblical references and concepts from which to derive a solid theology. Erickson covers well the expected basics: revelation, the nature of humanity, salvation, eschatology, and so on.

Balanced as he is, there are occasional areas that deserve further nuance, even in the unabridged version. In the larger edition, for example (preserved in the abridgement), Erickson says, “Jesus did not make an explicit and overt claim to divinity” (611). He means that Jesus never explicitly said, “I am God,” although verses like “I and the Father are one” seem to counter Erickson’s claim here. What follows, though, is a great read on Jesus: there are what can only be divine “prerogatives Jesus claimed” (611).

To take just one example, Jesus forgives the sins of a paralyzed man in Mark 2:5-10. The teachers of the law object, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” They are right, of course, that only God can forgive sins. Jesus here is exercising a divine role: “But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10). Jesus also exercises an authority reserved only for God when he re-casts the Decalogue in his Sermon on the Mount with a refrain of, “But I say to you.” And when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead in John 11, he displays power over life and death themselves, a power available to no mere human being. This is not to mention Christ’s own resurrection, showing his divine power over death.

Erickson offers some nice turns of phrase, too. Speaking of God’s age, he says God “is no older now than a year ago, for inifinty plus one is no more than infinity” (91). Together with the Scriptural support Erickson gives for God’s being “infinite in relation to time” (91), one easily sees how useful Introducing Christian Doctrine can be in church settings.

The abridged version does a impressive job at condensing Christian Theology without significantly compromising or neglecting the content. One surprising move in the abridged version is that the chapters are re-ordered and numbered differently from the full edition.

This may be inevitable with an abridgement, but most readers will want to be able to know how the two titles relate, for purposes of accurate cross-referencing and further reading. Future editions ought to bring the abridged chapter numbering in line with that of the fuller version. Even the section headings change, so that Part 5 of the condensed version is “The Person and Work of Christ” (spanning chapters 23-27), while Part 5 of the unabridged edition is “Humanity” (chapters 20-24).

The annotated Table of Contents (see them here) in Introducing Christian Doctrine do, however, allow the reader to easily locate a given theme and sub-topic.

There’s much more to interact with in Erickson’s book, but it’s the best broadly evangelical theology of which I’m aware. Erickson blends academic thoroughness with pastoral concern, an approach I love.

And now, some link love: You can find the condensed Introducing Christian Doctrine here (Amazon), here (Baker), and in electronic form here (Logos) and here (Olive Tree). The fuller, unabridged Christian Theology is here (Amazon), here (Baker), and in electronic form here (Logos) and here (Olive Tree).

Thanks to Baker Academic for the copy of Introducing Christian Doctrine, which they sent me for review, but with no expectation as to this review’s content.

What I’m Learning About Preaching, and a Massive Resource that Helps

The Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching (Zondervan, 2005) is a massive and indispensable reference work for preachers. It is true to its sub-title: A Comprehensive Resource for Today’s Communicators. When it comes to the process of preaching–start to finish–there is very little the book does not cover. Virtually all aspects of sermon preparation and delivery are here, such as the call of the preacher (chapter 1), careful consideration of the listeners (chapter 3), sermon structure (chapter 5), delivery (chapter 8), and seeking sermon feedback (chapter 11).

The book’s 201 (!) chapters vary in length. A handful of the articles are barely a page, while others approach ten pages. Not that length correlates with quality. One of the most beneficial articles is the one-page set of self-evaluation questions by Haddon Robinson (“A Comprehensive Check-Up,” 701).

The quality of article is high, with just a few exceptions along the way–perhaps inevitable among over 100 contributors. (A handful of articles feel more vague than I would have hoped.) There is also an overwhelmingly disproportionate inclusion of male contributors, while there are just a few articles from female contributors, and no women on the book’s accompanying 14-track sermon audio CD. The CD is otherwise a great inclusion, since you get to hear great preaching examples in action. My five-year-old loved the first few stories on the disc.

The Art & Craft is a joy to read and a goldmine of a resource. Following are three highlights of the rich book, as well as some reflections on how they have informed my preaching.

1. Preaching with Intensity

“Preaching with Intensity” (596), by my friend Kevin A. Miller, is one of the best essays in the book. I first read the article two years ago, and only realized when re-reading it recently how much of Miller’s advice I’ve internalized. It’s that good.

He leads off by asking, “Why is it that sometimes we as preachers feel a message so deeply, yet our listeners don’t feel that? Why is something that’s so intensely meaningful to us not always communicated in a way that grips the congregation as intensely?” (596) He suggests four factors as to “why intensity doesn’t transfer.” One of these is “the time factor,” and Miller’s point hit me so hard the first time that I’ve never forgotten it. (That’s a rare occurrence for me.)

By the time I step into the pulpit, I have studied for this message all week. I meditated on the text. I read commentaries. I prayed about the message. I gave this sermon from eight to twenty hours of my best thought, prayer and energy.

Amen! say the preachers! But here’s the blunt truth:

But the people listening to me are hearing the sermon cold. What’s become so meaningful to me has had no time to sink in to them. I can’t expect the truths that have gripped me during hours of study to automatically grip a congregation–unless I practice the skills I describe below.

Once you pick up this book, turn to page 597 to pick it up from here. Miller will walk you through what to do next.

Because of “the time factor,” one of my first steps in preaching prep (on my better weeks!) is reading through the text out loud in English, since that is what will happen immediately before the sermon in the actual church service. With note-taking capability ready at hand, I try to anticipate what questions and reactions might come up when the congregation hears it Sunday–that is what will be top of mind for them (not my hours of study!) as soon as I begin the sermon. It’s not that I need to try to come up with FAQ For Sunday-Morning Hearers of This Passage to start off every sermon, but keeping the congregation in mind like this has become an essential part of my process.

One more takeaway from Kevin Miller, since it’s stuck with me: don’t over-nuance your points. I was a philosophy major, and I have an educated congregation, so this is difficult for me. Miller doesn’t mean don’t be nuanced–our faith requires it at times. He just means:

Every nuance and qualifier, though it may add technical accuracy, also blunts the force of the statement we’re trying to make. Even if we believe something intensely, we can drain the energy out of our statement so that the congregation doesn’t sense that. It’s good to be accurate, to use nuance, to balance. But we must never let those good practices dull the share edge of the Bible’s two-edged sword. (598)

I’ve kept this advice close during my sermon editing process in recent months. Almost every draft revision includes taking out an overly (and probably unnecessarily) nuanced sentence or two.

2. Manuscript, Outline, or No Notes?

After my first 60 or so weekly sermons in the church I pastor, I remember moving from a 10-page manuscript to a 2-page outline. That entire fall I thoroughly enjoyed the flexibility of an outline, and found it enhanced my preaching, not made it worse (which I had feared). I swore off manuscripts forever.

The next spring, and ever since, I’ve been preaching from word-for-word manuscripts. (Ha!) Of course I add and delete and rephrase on the fly, once I look at the congregation and make connection with them. But I’m also thinking it’s time again for me to go back to using a more minimal outline.

Whether a preacher should write out her or his sermon, whether she should preach from an outline, or whether he should go into the pulpit with nothing but a Bible is a matter for the preacher to decide. It is, after all, a matter of style and personal preference.

In “No Notes, Lots of Notes, Brief Notes” (600), Jeffery Arthurs explores the benefits and drawbacks of each approach. I was pleasantly surprised by the nuance and balance offered, since Arthurs teaches at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where the modus operandi is to require preaching with virtually no pulpit notes. Arthurs explores “no notes, lots of notes, and brief notes” (600). For each he asks, “Why Use This Method?”, “Why Avoid This Method?”, and, “How to Use This Method.”

The point I found most useful was under the “Lots of Notes” section. Two of the drawbacks to such an approach (as in my current practice of preaching from a manuscript) are, “Most readers cannot read with skill” (604) and, “Eye contact is difficult or impossible” (604). Those two points have not been challenges for me, but the third drawback has been an area of growth: “Most writers write in a written style” (604). Arthurs suggests preachers should write for the ear, and specifically gives tips to that end. “Your writing will seem redundant and choppy,” he says, “But that is how we talk” (605). So I’ve made efforts this year to preach with orality in mind.

3. The Value of Sermon Feedback

Since I’ve been soliciting preaching feedback from a few members recently, I was especially eager to read Part 11, Evaluation. Bill Hybels leads off with “Well-Focused Preaching” (687), one of the longer essays in the book. Hybels shares in detail how he looks for sermon evaluation, especially from his church’s elders. It’s a refreshingly honest essay. Hybels also helped me see again the connection between what the sermon is trying to do in relation to larger church goals and vision. This is a link that is too easy to forget when yet another Sunday message seems to be just around the corner.

William Willimon includes a questionnaire for sermon evaluation: “Getting the Feedback You Need” (698). I’m not sure I would use his numbers for rating a preacher’s sermon, though. To my mind there’s a subtle but important difference between sermon feedback and sermon evaluation. The book speaks in terms of sermon evaluation, but I prefer to use feedback when soliciting input from congregants. The sermon is not a performance to be graded or an initiative to be voted on by the congregation. Using the language of evaluation could easily put a congregant in a mindset of grading a sermon, which feels like a category mistake for something that is supposed to be formative. There may already exist among churchgoers the evaluation of, “I liked it” or, “I didn’t like it,” and asking for “evaluation” could unintentionally encourage that. Of course, preachers need feedback to know what’s connecting and not, and we can always improve in our proclamation of God’s Word. Either way I found benefit in the section on evaluation.

Haddon Robinson’s “Comprehensive Check-Up” (701) is short but sweet. He gives the preacher a host of good questions to ask herself or himself. There are questions especially for the introduction of the sermon (“Does the message get attention?”) and its conclusion (“Are there effective closing appeals or suggestions?”). There is a sense in which some of these questions read as common-sense measurements, but in the press of weekly ministry and preaching, it’s really to forget them. Robinson does preachers (and has done me) a great service by putting so many good self-evaluation questions in one place.

Barbara Brown Taylor offers a refreshing perspective in her “My Worst and Best Sermons Ever” (710). Her account of a sermon at the death of a baby girl is moving:

When it came time for the service, I walked into a full church with nothing but a half page of notes. I stood plucking the words out of thin air as they appeared before my eyes. Somehow, they worked. God consented to be present in them. (710)

She concludes–in a subtle corrective to the use of sermon “evaluation”–that there is value in being “reluctant to talk about ‘best’ and ‘worst’ sermons” (710). Indeed, “Something happens between the preacher’s lips and congregation’s ears that is beyond prediction or explanation” (710). The reader finishes her short piece wishing her writing had been featured more than in this and one other article.

Finally, “Lessons from Preaching Today Screeners” (704), features 10 questions “by which we evaluate all the sermons received by Preaching Today, and some of the lessons we’ve learned from listening” (704). It’s a fascinating read, and a set of questions to use in sharpening one’s own preaching. I was especially convicted by, “Is the sermon fresh?” There Lee Eclov cautions against preaching to the congregation “things they surely already know and believe, and doing so in terms the congregation would probably find overly familiar” (705). This one is a big challenge for me.

Conclusion

The Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching easily lends itself to both quick and sustained study. Whether you just pick it up and read what you need to give you a boost one week, or whether you spend hours poring over its advice, it’s an outstanding resource to keep at the desk or quick-access bookshelf. In “How to Use This Book,” the editors wisely say, “A manual like this–overflowing with helpful information–must be managed. …You will consciously focus on one important principle from a chapter for weeks or months. Eventually it will become second nature, and you will be ready to focus deliberate attention on another principle” (15).

As a production note, the book’s glued binding is an unfortunate choice for a rich reference book like this.

The editors are right in their expectation: “We expect this manual is one you will grow with for years to come” (15). I’m looking forward to my own continued growth as a preacher, and grateful to have this resource to help me to that end.

Here are all the main sections in the book, with the questions they set out to answer:

Part 1: The High Call of Preaching (“How can I be faithful to what God intends preaching to be and do?”)

Part 2: The Spiritual Life of the Preacher (“How should I attend to my soul so that I am spiritually prepared to preach?”)

Part 3: Considering Hearers (“How should my approach change depending on who is listening?”)

Part 4: Interpretation and Application (“How do I grasp the correct meaning of Scripture and show its relevance to my unique hearers?”)

Part 5: Structure (“How do I generate, organize, and support ideas in a way that is clear?”)

Part 6: Part and Style (“How can I use my personal strengths and various message types to their full biblical potential?”)

Part 7: Stories and Illustrations (“How do I find examples that are illuminating, credible, and compelling?”)

Part 8: Preparation (“How should I invest my limited study time so that I am ready to preach?”)

Part 9: Delivery (“How do I speak in a way that arrests hearers?”)

Part 10: Special Topics (“How do I speak on holidays and about tough topics in a way that is fresh and trustworthy?”)

Part 11: Evaluation (“How do I get the constructive feedback I need to keep growing?”)

You can find the book at Amazon or at the publisher’s page. It’s available in both Accordance and Logos Bible software programs, too.

Thanks to Zondervan for the review copy, given to me with no expectation as to the review’s content, and certainly not with the expectation of a 2,000 word review essay!

New Bonhoeffer Title: Engaging Bonhoeffer

I learned today of a new Bonhoeffer studies title releasing (in days!) from Fortress Press. It’s called Engaging Bonhoeffer: The Impact and Influence of Bonhoeffer’s Life and Thought. Here’s the blurb:

Engaging Bonhoeffer documents the extraordinary impact of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life and writing on later thought. Despite his lasting legacy, little substantial scholarship has been conducted in this area. In this magisterial collection, leading international scholars fill this striking gap and critically demonstrate the ways in which Bonhoeffer has been one of the most original, inspirational, and provocative writers of the twentieth century.

Bonhoeffer’s work has proved foundational for a wide variety of thinkers and movements across such areas as ecclesiology, Christology, spirituality, ethics, hermeneutics, phenomenology, epistemology, and systematic theology more generally. Whether one considers his writings to have been faithfully interpreted, critically adopted or justifiably rejected, Engaging Bonhoeffer describes those who have engaged with Bonhoeffer’s work, been inspired by his actions, and found a way to express and explain their own ideas through interacting with his life and thought. In addition to shedding light on the different theological trajectories that Bonhoeffer’s work may forge, this challenging volume offers a critical window through which to view and appreciate the ideas of many leading voices of modern theology.

There are 15 essays in all, the titles of which are all here. The ones I’m particularly interested in are:

1. A Tale of Two Bonhoeffers?—Keith W. Clements
2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Death of God Theologians—Eleanor McLaughlin
7. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Liberation Theologies—Geffrey B. Kelly and Matthew D. Kirkpatrick
14. On the Phenomenology of Creation—John Panteleimon Manoussakis
15. “Let your light so shine”—Medi Ann Volpe and Jennifer Moberly

Kudos to Fortress Press for keeping the Bonhoeffer goodness coming! Last fall they published reader’s editions of four classic Bonhoeffer titles. Kudos also to Fortress for publishing a Bonhoeffer book with a fresh photo of the man! Looks like a young Bonhoeffer, probably when he was a teenager getting ready to fire off a couple of dissertations.

If/as I learn more about Engaging Bonhoeffer, I’ll post again here. In the meantime, the publisher’s book page is here. It’s on Amazon here.

Systems Thinking 101: How Your Church Family Works (Steinke)

A “system” is a process with its distinct yet interrelated parts. Interlocking systems (nervous, skeletal, respiratory) make up the one human body. The human body is itself a sort of system of systems.

The Bible uses systems imagery when it describes the body in Romans 12: “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” In a healthy body, all the systems do their part and work together as one toward balance and health. As Peter L. Steinke says in Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach, “Health is a continuous process, the ongoing interplay a of multiple forces and conditions.” One thinks of the biblical notion of shalom, where health, wholeness, peace, and justice are all present.

Systems thinking offers what Steinke calls “a way of thinking about life as all of a piece… and how the relationships between the parts produce something new.” The key is not just the individual parts, but the interrelatedness of the parts and the dynamics they produce and reinforce together.

In How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems, precursor to Healthy Congregations, Steinke suggests that the church is “an emotional unit” and that “the same emotional processes experienced in the family operate in the church” (xvi). Just like the hand cannot say to the foot, “I don’t need you!”, the budget-setting process of the church cannot say to the strategic planning process, “I don’t need you!”

Similarly, anxiety in one part of the system or church affects what is happening in another part of the system or church, as when a parishioner loses a loved one and directs the anger outward at a church leader or other member. (Steinke later refers to this as shifting the burden.) Systems crave homeostasis, and sometimes anxiety in the system causes its members to pursue survival in less than healthy ways.

* * * * * *

In How Your Church Family Works Steinke aims to

conceptualize emotional processes so that we can recognize them and, ultimately, let them serve rather than corrupt the purpose of our bonding together–“for the sake of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13), that “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11).

There are two main parts to the How Your Church Family Works. First there is “Conceptualizing Emotional Processes.” Here Steinke talks about systems and their “emotional processes” (“anxiety and reactivity,” “stability and change,” and so on). Second is “The Congregation as an Emotional System,” which uses anecdotes to show the theory of the book’s first half in action.

The Whole, Not (Just) Parts

How Your Church Family Works is one of the most insightful books I’ve read in a long time. My first exposure to systems thinking a decade ago (through Peter Senge’s book The Fifth Discipline) permanently altered how I make sense of relationship dynamics, especially in an organizational setting. The idea of systems thinking is generative for creativity and problem solving. “Instead of seeing isolated, unrelated parts, we look at the whole” (3). But it’s far easier in pastoral ministry to fixate on isolated parts, or to fail to see an interaction as situated within a larger system. I have personally experienced what Steinke says, that systems thinking “deepens our understanding of life” (4).

Anxiety and Its Targets

I loved Steinke’s section on anxiety. He remarks, “The most vulnerable or responsible people in the relationship network are the usual targets” (15) when anxiety hits. This would explain why pastors (and other organizational leaders) serve as lightning rods when the people’s anxiety is high. It’s not that anxiety itself is bad, Steinke says. It can provoke positive change (16), but only if it’s regulated. Otherwise, “what is stimulus becomes restraint” (16). In part this is because of the automatic reactive processes from the 15% of our brain’s functioning that is rooted in the brain stem (“survival processes”) and limbic system (“emotional response”) (17).

I’ve been in the Church long enough to no longer expect that a Christian community should magically be conflict-free. Neither do I expect that conflict is always handled in a healthy way. Steinke brilliantly notes just what is going on when anxiety is high in the body of believers: “Threatened, any of us may dispense with our Christian convictions and values. Anxiety is no respecter of belief systems” (21). Indeed, since the stakes are higher in Christian communities (centered as we are around the deepest truths of life), unchecked reactions to anxiety may ripple throughout the system with even more impact.

Difficult? Do It

So how should church leaders respond to anxiety? Here was one of my favorite takeaways from the book for my own ministry. Leaders ignore anxiety in systems at their own peril. (People-pleasing pastors will especially be attempted to just keep the peace.) Steinke cautions:

But “benign neglect” only reinforces malignant processes. Moreover, ignoring is as reactive as placating or attacking. VICIOUS CIRCLES CAN ONLY BE DISABLED THROUGH EXPOSURE. They are enabled by secrecy and avoidance. (27, all caps are original to Steinke)

Exposure is difficult, but a Christian calling. One thinks of the warnings in the New Testament about deeds of darkness and bringing them into the light. I was fortified by Steinke’s quotation of Rainer Maria Rilke: “That something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it” (43). Difficult ministry-related conversations get easier the more experience I have, but a part of me would would rather just keep the peace. However, to apply Steinke’s insight, that risks perpetuating anxiety and reactivity in a system, in a way that is less than helpful. The better thing is to seek (in humility, love, and confidence) to expose and address those parts of a system that seem to be exacerbating problems. (Realizing, too, that I myself am part of the system and capable of contributing for good or for ill.)

Case Studies

The book’s second half provides ample case studies to help the reader better understand the concepts. Steinke breaks down one church’s dysfunction into a series of triangulations, which he diagrams for clarity (84-5). Earlier in the book he describes a church he consulted with, where he encouraged them to redefine problems they’d articulated “without focusing solely on a person or issue as presented in the original problem” (57).

His “Presenting Problem” vs. “Redefined Problem” chart is a model for how to reframe conflict. His ten group reflection questions that follow are virtually alone worth the price of the book. Here are two highlights: “What would it take to have a pastor stay here ten years, twenty years?” (59) and, “How would you be willing to invest yourself in the process of creating the image you defined above?” (60) I photographed these ten questions and saved them to my Evernote, so I can access them for future work in church evaluation.

I’ll be mulling over these systems thinking concepts for years to come. Both of these books by Steinke are worth reading a.s.a.p.

Where to Find out More

How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems: Amazon / Publisher’s page

Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach: Amazon / Publisher’s page

Thanks to Rowman & Littlefield for the review copies of both books, given to me for review purposes but with no expectation as to the content or nature of my evaluation.

Bonhoeffer’s Last Words, Before He Was Hanged (71 Years Ago Today)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in the Nazi concentration camp of Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945, just two weeks before the U.S. military came to liberate it.

John W. de Gruchy describes the lead-up to that day in his Editor’s Introduction to Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, volume 8):

On October 8 [of 1944], Bonhoeffer was taken to the cellar of the Gestapo prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, where he stayed until February 7, 1945. From then on, all correspondence came to an end, and contact between Bonhoeffer and the family and [Eberhard] Bethge was broken. From there Bonhoeffer was taken first to Buchenwald and then, via the village of Schönberg in Bavaria, to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, where he arrived on April 8. That evening he was tried by a hastily rigged court and condemned to death. Early the next morning Bonhoeffer was executed along with several other coconspirators.

He was hanged April 9. His family would not learn about it for several months.

The July before he had written to his trusted friend (and later biographer) Eberhard Bethge, one day after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler’s life. He wrote:

How should one become arrogant over successes or shaken by one’s failures when one shares in God’s suffering in the life of this world? You understand what I mean even when I put it so briefly. I am grateful that I have been allowed this insight, and I know that it is only on the path that I have finally taken that I was able to learn this. So I am thinking gratefully and with peace of mind about past as well as present things. …

May God lead us kindly through these times, but above all, may God lead us to himself.

His final recorded words before his hanging are especially appropriate in these days that follow Easter Sunday:

This is the end–for me the beginning of life.

This post is adapted from a post I wrote around this time two years ago, as part of the “Tuesdays in Lent with Bonhoeffer” I was doing. See other gathered posts here.

Preaching at the Crossroads (of Postmodernism, Secularism, and Pluralism)

David J. Lose, in his Preaching at the Crossroads (Fortress Press, 2013), helps preachers respond to three significant cultural trends: postmodernism, secularism, and pluralism. Postmodernism, according to Lose, asks an epistemological question: “How do we know for certain whether anything is true?” Competing metanarratives mean that the Christian story has become one among many.

A second related trend, secularism, is “marked first and foremost by a loss of transcendence.” Long says, “[I]f postmodernity challenges us to explore the possibility for claiming the Christian story is true, secularism demands to know how Christianity is relevant.” Faith is still important to people, to be sure, but it “no longer plays as meaningful a role as it did for our parents in helping us navigate our day-to-day lives in a secular world.”

Third, Lose addresses pluralism, noting that we are more than ever “faced with a plethora of religious and spiritual options,” many of which are just a click, tap, or scroll away from us. He notes one estimate that on a daily basis everyone is “subjected to more new information than a person in the Middle Ages was in his or her entire lifetime.” Even so-called digital natives “yearn for the sense of stability that tradition lends.” But when seeking wisdom or making decisions, “even those that are rife with ethical consequences, we are far more likely to consult our iPhone than the teaching of our denomination or even our pastor.”

* * * * *

Postmodernism, secularism, and pluralism are not problems to be fixed, per se. Or if they are, Lose focuses more on how the preacher can envision them as opportunities to reimagine preaching, rather than as challenges for which preachers need to seek a new panacea. Sure, preachers could reach for better use of multimedia or development of new homiletical techniques. But the cultural shifts in front of us, Lose argues, require more than just tinkering from the pulpit. They call for a paradigm shift:

The choice is before us. We are at a crossroads—one where not only the outcome is unclear, but also the primary challenge and perhaps even the alternatives. We can either continue adapting and refining established techniques or be willing to call into question our fundamental practices by leaning into and listening carefully to the world in front of us.

Lose is as engaging a writer as I imagine he must be a preacher. He sweeps the reader up in a compelling childhood narrative at the book’s beginning. He speaks as one who knows and loves the culture around him, but who is not afraid of it. He writes as one who loves preachers and is faithful to the Gospel, but is not afraid to freshly envision creative contextualizations. I can’t remember the last thing I read that got me this excited about preaching in the 21st century—even while the cultural challenges Lose presents were not lost on me.

Much of Lose’s analysis was sobering to me as a pastor. It’s not that I haven’t observed postmodernism, secularism, and pluralism having an effect on the congregation (myself included). And I knew that the days of pastor-as-assumed-authority were gone. But to read (again) that the pastor is no longer the assumed spiritual authority was an important reminder (even if I find this cultural trend short-sighted). Mileage varies, of course–how congregants view the pastor differs according perhaps to generations and a number of other factors. And we preachers do speak to the authority that is really found in the Word of God (and not in ourselves). But preachers, if Lose is right, will have to be ready to work from the pulpit to gain a hearing with a congregation listening to a million other voices and Tweets in a given week.

* * * * *

Preaching at the Crossroads is short (124 pages) but inspiring. It has already given me action steps and sermon illustrations that I’ve started in on—and this was true even before I had finished the book! He quotes from a W.H. Auden Christmas poem, which, it turns out, provided the perfect perspective for me to preach about resurrection on the Second Sunday of Easter. He recommends asking congregants this difficult but brilliant question (which I plan to do): “What biblical stories provide you with comfort or courage when you are struggling with a problem at home or work?” And he reminds preachers of our rightful place, and how we can pray: “Our job is to testify; it is up to God to make that testimony potent.”

The whole book is great, but chapter 4 (“Preaching the Grandeur of God in the Everyday”) was a real highlight and gift to me. He calls for preachers to help congregants connect their Sunday church-going worlds to their Monday morning work-going worlds. He wants preachers to go to parishioners’ workplaces and ask them things like “where they see God in this place.” But, he wisely offers, “be prepared to help with an answer, as we have not trained our people to look for God anywhere outside of church.”

Lose is convicting throughout his book, but never without also encouraging the preacher and giving her or him practical ways forward. Especially good is Lose’s focus on how preachers can equip the congregation for the work of ministry, where ministry is much more than just what happens on Sunday morning. He paints an inspiring picture:

Over time… your congregation may grow from being a place where the word is preached more fully into a community of the word where all the members take some responsibility for sharing the news of God’s ongoing work to love, bless, and save the world.

In the end, Lose draws on the Internet’s shift to “Web 2.0” (more interactive, socially networked, and user-focused) as a metaphor to envision the sermon as the locus of not passive but “active identity construction.” His closing suggestion is:

If we can imagine making a leap similar to that made by users and programmers who left the static world of Web 1.0 to inhabit the more dynamic and interactive world of Web 2.0, we might be able to offer the sermon as, indeed, a “transport mechanism, the ether through which interactivity [between God’s word and God’s people] happens.”

I don’t read many books twice, but I’ll be back for more of this one.

Find Preaching at the Crossroads on Amazon here, and check out the publisher’s product page here, which includes link to some .pdf samples.

Thanks to the book’s publicist for a review copy, sent to me so I could review it, but with no expectation as the the review’s content.

New Commentary Series: T&T Clark International Theological Commentary

Users of technical and original language-oriented commentaries are familiar with the International Critical Commentary series. The publisher of ICC has just announced the new International Theological Commentary series.

The publisher’s description of the series is as follows:

The T&T Clark International Theological Commentary (ITC) offers a verse by verse interpretation of the Bible that addresses its theological subject matter, gleaning the best from both the classical and modern commentary traditions and showing the doctrinal development of Scriptural truths.

A companion series to the long-running International Critical Commentary (ICC) the ITC bears all the same hallmarks of scholarly rigour and excellence. The two series will be published alongside each other with the ITC’s focus being on the theological significance of biblical texts.

The series editors are Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, both of Reformed Theological Seminary. The books sport a high price tag, like the ICC counterpart–the just-published Joel volume is $94 in hardback. (A bit cheaper on Kindle.) You may wish to ask your local library to get these volumes so you can check them out.

Learn more about the series here.

Breaking the iPhone Addiction I Didn’t Think I Had: Notification Weaning

“How do you discern an addiction?” Richard Foster asks. “Very simply, you watch for undisciplined compulsions.”

I’d add, watch also for things that enable those compulsions.

If checking a tiny screen is a compulsion, notifications enable the habit.

In my case, I chose to delete Facebook off my phone altogether, but still having an account led me either to (a) check it through a mobile Web browser or (b) re-download the app to my phone. And Facebook for me, was not worth working toward the discipline of even limited interaction. Why not just be done with it and spend my time on other things? So I am finding other ways to stay in touch with the friends and family members that constituted my final reason for remaining on that platform.

* * * * *

But I still experience a desire to check my phone–for something. I could never not have an email account, and I use text messaging too often to go back to a ground line alone. And I am out and about enough that Google Maps and Safari are useful to me when on the go.

What about notifications?

I was in the working world way too long before I realized that (a) you could turn off new email notifications in Microsoft Outlook and (b) you could close Outlook and open it only when you wanted to check email. I know. Novel ideas.

They apply to the phone, too. You don’t need email notifications on your phone–you can turn off sounds, lock screen notifications, and badge app icons, so that you only know if a new email comes in when you are checking at a designated time. That way you don’t have to resist the urge to see what new email just came in while you’re changing lanes on the highway! The compulsion-enabler that is a notification won’t even be there.

Same thing with text messages–it’s rare that you’ll receive an urgent cry for help via text or email, so make sure your phone ringer is on, and put some or all text messages on Do Not Disturb. You can still keep your badge app icon on, so that if you have gone a whole two hours without texting and can’t stand it anymore, you can simply look at the icon on your screen and see if you’ve gotten anything new. But we don’t really need a noise or vibration every time one comes in.

So, too, with other apps–I’m glad to know, Ebay, that there are new items available for bidding that match my saved search, but can’t it wait? That notification–whether it’s a banner or a badge app icon I MUST PROCESS AND CLEAR OUT–is unnecessary.

* * * * *

If I may be so bold as to advise you, reader: allow yourself to go through your apps. Which ones do you really need notifying you there is something new, and which ones merely enable a compulsion to check your phone? And, most of all, relax–you can always pick up the phone to check anything you need to at any time. But with notifications at bay, you will start to experience the constant device checking less and less as an undisciplined compulsion.

* * * * *

Stay tuned for more related confessions and reflections:

On Facebook, Off Facebook, On Twitter, Off Twitter… On Instagram
Taking Email Off Your Phone (Mostly)
Why I’m Taking the 16 GB iPhone Upgrade over 64 GB
Pre-Dinner, Child-Induced Frenzy and My Escape Screen
Analog Again

Breaking the iPhone Addiction I Didn’t Think I Had: Facebook

Facebook Checking — Dado Ruvic | Reuters

It took my quitting Facebook to realize I have an iPhone addiction.

I’ve quit Facebook in the past, signing off with an epic status (soon to disappear, of course) that detailed why I was leaving. It’s not you; it’s me… but also you. I wasn’t intending to be pietistic. It’s just that it’s difficult for the “Why I’m Quitting Facebook” line-in-the-sand not to come across as a little holier-than-thou.

So the last time I quit—and I trust it really is the last time—I didn’t comment on it. I don’t even remember if I had a “Here’s my email” post—I just sort of left.

I’d taken the Facebook app off my iPhone at least a dozen times—only to re-download it again within a few days each time. It’s so inefficient to look at a tiny, few-inch screen and just keep swiping through. I could see more of my News Feed (or whatever they call it now) way faster on a computer! But the phone was so handy, and the Facebook app—as poorly developed as it is—was just a-reach-into-the-pocket away.

* * * * *

No, I didn’t go through Facebook withdrawal. That social media platform is actually pretty unremarkable, my wonderful friends and family members notwithstanding. It’s just that I was right back on my phone, now flicking through my Twitter feed.

If you read the tech pundits long enough, you’ll wonder: How is Twitter even in business anymore? But leaving Facebook made me latch on to that bizarre platform even more tightly.

It got even worse once I downloaded Tweetbot. (This is usually the point in my blog post where I give you an App Store affiliate link, on which I earn approximately 0.00000000000001% commission, but nobody needs to be on Twitter more, and the App Store is an enabler, so I eschew the hyperlink.)

Tweetbot allows you to set up adjacent columns, each of which can be a curated list of folks you follow on Twitter. How fun it (really) was to check out all my “Writing Implements” people on Twitter and see what they had to say about fountain pens. And my “App Developers” list? Those folks are hilarious—some of the best social commentary (especially about Twitter-the-company) that you’ll find anywhere.

But I had simply replaced Facebook with not-quite-but-still-kind-of-Facebook, and then started spending even more time on Twitter.

* * * * *

The same process followed—delete Tweetbot off the phone, check it on the computer. Re-download it to my phone since I was accessing it on the computer anyway. Get frustrated with myself. Check Twitter to assuage the feelings of Twitter-induced guilt. Etc.

So I finally gave up browsing Twitter for Lent. Tweetbot is gone, and I only still have my Twitter handle because this blog automatically Tweets with a link to a new post. I’m otherwise not on it, for the most part.

“How do you discern an addiction?” Richard Foster asks. “Very simply, you watch for undisciplined compulsions.”

You know you’re addicted to your phone when you delete one social networking app and—within a day—your compulsion to just check something leads you to replace it with another.

* * * * *

Stay tuned for more related confessions and reflections:

On Facebook, Off Facebook, On Twitter, Off Twitter… On Instagram
Notification Weaning
Why I’m Taking the 16 GB iPhone Upgrade over 64 GB
Pre-Dinner, Child-Induced Frenzy and My Escape Screen
Analog Again

Bonhoeffer Reader’s Editions: Now Published, and a Look Inside

The Bonhoeffer Reader’s Editions are now available for public edification. Check out the details here.

The set covers four classics: Discipleship, Life Together, Ethics, and Letters and Papers from Prison.

Here is the full publisher’s description:

Using the acclaimed Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, these new editions of Discipleship, Ethics, Letters and Papers from Prison, and Life Together feature the latest translations of Bonhoeffer’s works, supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett, and insightful introductions by Geffrey B. Kelly, Clifford J. Green, and John W. de Gruchy.

Originally published in 1937, Discipleship soon became a classic exposition of what it means to follow Christ in a modern world beset by a dangerous and criminal government.

Life Together gathers Bonhoeffer’s 1938 reflections on the character of Christian community, based on the common life experienced at the Finkenwalde Seminary and in the “Brother’s House” there.

Ethics embodies the culmination of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theological and personal odyssey and is one of the most important works of Christian ethics of the last century.

Letters and Papers from Prison presents the full array of Bonhoeffer’s 1943–1945 prison letters and theological writings, introducing his novel ideas of religionless Christianity, his theological appraisal of Christian doctrines, and his sturdy faith in the face of uncertainty and doubt.

This four-volume set of Bonhoeffer’s classic works allows all readers to appreciate the cogency and relevance of his vision.

If you’re new to Bonhoeffer, I’ve got a collection of posts gathered here. The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works is already a well-done series; the idea of an even more accessible, annotated Bonhoeffer is also appealing.

Check out more here, and when you click on the individual book images on the right side of the page, you can read samples from each of the volumes.

Share this:

1. Preaching with Intensity

2. Manuscript, Outline, or No Notes?

3. The Value of Sermon Feedback

Conclusion

Share this:

Share this:

The Whole, Not (Just) Parts

Anxiety and Its Targets

Difficult? Do It

Case Studies

Where to Find out More

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: