Part one of a series. Jenn Woodruff Tait is right that one of the biggest theological lacunae in the movement is our inattention to the sacraments. Having already written a post for this blog entitled “Let’s Bicker about Eschatology!“, naturally if Jenn invites me to bicker about the sacraments my only response is: “Challenge Accepted!” So here’s a blog series…
It’s a late spring day in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I’m standing in front of the Ravoux high rise apartments, a public housing project. When a bright, multicolored bus pulls into the complex, the waiting crowd outside includes several residents. The Twin Cities Mobile Market has arrived. For the past two years, this grocery-store-on-wheels stops at Ravoux every Friday at noon, bringing…
Recently, Greg Forster addressed in this space the question of whether or not the faith and work movement is overrun by Reformed folks, or at least by their theology. His answer surprised me. He thinks the answer is “no.” Greg actually says a lot of great things in that post which I agree with, but his contention that the theological leadership…
By Alistair Mackenzie (see our interview with Alistair here) Previous posts in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 There were a number of specifically faith-related responses that surfaced frequently in my survey work, including: All Christians equal, but some more equal. Regularly I heard comments that amounted to something about all Christians being equal, but those involved in “full-time…
Charlie Self delivered the closing address at Karam Forum 2018, “Poets and Prophets for God’s People and World.” He cast a vision for theological and educational institutions to raise up Christians who can inspire and instruct in a polarized and embattled world. In seeking the shalom of the church and the nations, our institutions of higher learning will find their own shalom – a path out of their present troubles.
If you enjoy this talk, mark your calendars to join Miroslav Volf, David Miller and more at Karam Forum 2019!
Self opened his address with the story of a church that sought unity in the midst of Election 2016 by having local leaders from both political parties serve the Eucharist to one another and the congregation. Christian leaders contribute to local economic development, scholarly knowledge and much more by serving as poets and prophets of the kingdom.
Our world is facing two crises of paramount importance, Self observed. There is a crisis of anthropology, as the world forgets that human beings are made in God’s image. And there is a crisis of epistemology, as the world struggles for coherence and certainty amid the wreckage of worldly philosophies in both modern and postmodern movements.
The answer lies in whole-life discipleship – which, Self pointed out, is actually a redundant phrase. “Whole-life discipleship” is simply discipleship, because our God made and cares for all aspects of life. Living as disciples of Christ empowers us to “live the future now,” bringing a foretaste of the future consummation in to the present. “Connecting Sunday’s ecstasies to Monday’s ethics is of paramount importance,” he remarked.
Our theological schools strive to provide an “eschatological education” for this life, which is what sets them apart from departments of religious studies. Overcoming the mental and practical bifurcation that prevailed during the Enlightenment, privatizing religion, we integrate knowledge and take on tough issues from the standpoint of God’s present reign – and an awareness of our own limitaitons.
This integrative intellectual mission entails a role of “worldview leadership to the larger world.” We are able to think about the challenges of our time free from captivity to political and ideological polarization. Without common moral commitments or shared narratives, the world around us becomes less and less able to think outside its comfortable but ultimately enslaving mental boxes. Christian higher education can lead the way to fresh insights in such an environment.
With an abundance of examples and illustrations, Self showed how we can raise up poets and prophets to serve God’s people and God’s world. As poets, we discover the ways of life and worldview in the Bible, distill its insights with the help of history and the Holy Spirit in community, and disseminate them contextually and creatively. As prophets, we faithfully call people back to the principles and praxis of the covenant, stand fearlessly against idolatry, immorality and injustice, and provide visions of the future – ultimate, but also penultimate and culturally contextualized – in which God reigns.
Institutions are part of God’s plan, and Christian higher education has a tradition of innovation that can be called forth in our own efforts to steward the knowledge tradition handed down to us: “From the desert fathers to the Irish monks, from the early universities to our modern Bible colleges, God’s people have always preserved more than mere practical knowledge. We have a deposit of scriptural truth, and a deposit, providentially, of the truth of other sciences, and we’ve preserved it when the economies are up, when they’re down – because it matters, in the character and content of what we bring to the world.”
Reprinted from the Oikonomia Network
The purpose of the Faith@Work Summit is to gather active participants and leaders in the faith at work movement from every industry sector to learn from each other and work together to extend Christ’s transforming presence in workplaces around the world. The next Summit will be in Chicago on Oct. 11-13, 2018. Go to fwsummit.org to sign up for updates and to learn more about the Summit. Register for the Summit here!
Vocational faithfulness is not only about individual character but also about applying a biblical-theological lens to the work of the institution in which one labors. (“Institution” here refers to the social sector in which the organization where one works is situated.) We are called to image-bearing in our vocational sectors, which involves practices of both personal discipleship (e.g., prayer, functional dependency on the Spirit) and public discipleship (in love, advancing justice and shalom for the common good).
The public expression of vocational image-bearing is at least threefold:
REFLECT & RESPOND
1. Most vocational expressions of public discipleship have focused on white-collar professionals. In what ways can/do blue-collar workers bear Christ’s image for the common good?
2. One way of “going deeper” in vocational faithfulness is the progression from individual to institutional thinking. What other shifts or progressions mark a “2.0” understanding of “faithful presence” in various vocational sectors?
Dr. Amy L. Sherman, a Senior Fellow at the Sagamore Institute, was named by Christianity Today in 2012 as one of the 50 evangelical women most influencing the American church and culture. She’s the author of six books and over 80 articles in periodicals including First Things, The Public Interest, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, and Books & Culture. Her most recent book is Kingdom Calling. You can read a reflection on her talk at TGR here.
This week I was on a conference call with a bunch of fellow faith-and-workers, and one person said that a certain theologian has done a lot of work on vocation “because he’s a Calvinist.” I commented that it would be better to say he’s done a lot of work on vocation in spite of the fact that he’s a Calvinist,…
Getting richer is not making us happier. At the 2018 ON faculty retreat, Brian Fikkert of the Chalmers Center for Economic Development spoke to why that is, why it represents a radical challenge to the narratives that dominate the discipline of economics, and how the church can help people recover a holistic anthropology as a basis for economic thinking and…
Ten years on from the Great Recession, the faith and work movement finds itself growing in momentum and impact. Alongside our effort are other movements that have challenged our collective sense of America and how she is governed: the unique candidacies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the #metoo movement, Marches for Women, the Tea Party, Black Lives Matter, and…
By Greg Forster; part four of a series. In this final post on MLK’s profound speech at Barratt Junior High, I want to focus on how his famous faith-and-work “street sweeper” image draws together the elements we’ve seen so far in the speech, but also adds something more. So far he has looked back to describe our origins (creation design)…
The Green Room 