FRUSTRATION AT THE INTERSECTION OF THEOLOGY, ORTHODOXY AND MISSIONAL

At times the frustration level is high. An admission, I enjoy theology a great deal. Maybe that is something God had in mind when He called me over a decade ago in my middle years. I have this sense that if we are to be a people living for and by Jesus, on the ground, that is in the concreteness of living in this world every day, we must come to an understanding of what it means to be a community, not merely of people who do good things, but an enfleshed community of followers of Jesus.

My frustration is with, at times, the over-intellectualizing of the Gospel, and part and parcel of the Gospel is coming to an understanding of theology and orthodoxy, that is the study of God and the formation of right thinking about God. As for my frustration for instance, I was browsing a theological blog, the post was about the atonement, the meaning of the Cross, and a line I read in one of the responses suggested using an Augustinian realist anthropology when considering the question of Jesus' solidarity with humans. Respectfully but what?

But countering that frustration is a seemingly adamant refusal and lack of understanding of theology and resulting orthodoxy. On that same blog, the Augustinian reference was an effort to respond to another posting to the effect that if Jesus is now alive in Heaven, His death was just an illusion and there never was a real sacrifice. That response went on to urge a view that the atonement makes sense only if we think of Jesus more as a human and less as immortal God. Respectfully but what?

My sense is that if we understand our calling as living, and learning to live, out the Gospel message that was and is Jesus, and proclaimed by Jesus, not only on Sundays but every day in the world, we, both individually but more importantly as the church, must enflesh that Gospel. That generates both social and justice impulses in the culture we find ourselves in (Micah 6:8, CEV with my amplifications, "The Lord has told us what is right and what He demands: see that justice is done, that is do justice not demand justice for me, let mercy be your first concern, that is for others and not solely a cry out for mercy for me, and humbly obey your God"). The mission of God is an attribute of God - not just an activity of the church. In Jesus that mission became a living concrete reality that we have been invited in join in.

That does mean that while I may not quite grasp that Augustinian realist anthropology, I do get that the Jesus I worship is the Son of God who is both/and fully God as well as fully human, who died a real death and who was raised from the dead. I don't want to suggest we listen to lectures and read and study heavy duty texts but we must do theology sufficiently, and within a missional context, so His life, sacrificial death and resurrection become not merely historical events in a book we call the Bible, but are living realities we need to come to understand (that is, do theology), however dimly as we are able to on this side, but an understanding that is profoundly necessary to live embodied lives.