Month: April 2006

Posted on

Sons

My wonderful Eerdmans editor asked me whether I could change some of my references to ‘sons’ to ‘sons and daughters’ to make it seem a bit more fair. On the spur of the moment I couldn’t say why I didn’t want to make the change. But now I have found the admirable Ken Collins deftly explaining what is at stake.

You are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26-28)

Paul did not write â??sons and daughters of God,â?? because he wasnâ??t thinking of sons as masculine offspring. He was thinking of sons as legal agents. If Paul had written â??sons and daughters,â?? he would have been empowering the men but not the women. By saying that women are also adopted sons of God, he is saying that women are equally Godâ??s agents in this world. Now we have a whole new idea about what it means to be a Christian.

In the household of God, we are slaves who are being adopted as sons of God through the blood of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. In our new status of sons, we are heirs, but more importantly we are Godâ??s business agents in this world. God gives us a commission to preach the gospel, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and to do all the good deeds that He has set out for us to do. When Scripture says that we are adopted sons, it does not mean that we are only loved and cuddled, it means that we are the agents of Godâ??s providence, the distributors of Godâ??s blessings, the instruments of Godâ??s grace, and the ambassadors of Godâ??s love to sinners, because it is for sinners that Christ died. It is through our words and deeds that God answers other peopleâ??s prayers, because we are His agents in this world.

Ken Collins Cultural Differences – ‘Son’

Posted on

More from D'Costa

Roman Catholics need to revisit their universities in the United States, promoting a genuine difference in scholarship and curriculum so that in five generations a Catholic intellectual culture might possibly be present and transformative of society. The Christian Church at the heart of the university will facilitate such genuine developments that can only enrich intellectual and cull life, facilitate real pluralism and dialogue, and serve the common good. Liberal society owes itself religious universities. American Catholics owe it to their Church and nation.

The other group of critics, those against ‘sectarian’ projects such as mine, and those against outside interference (the Church) in the university, are to be found in strength – within the churches, as well as from non-religious camps. I argue that such criticisms are misplaced and even self-deluding. Since all enquiry and methods of enquiry are tradition-specific, all forms of education are sectarian in certain ways. There is no high ground in this debate, only differing forms of sectarianism, be they liberal, religious, feminist, psychoanalyst, and so on. But there is an advantage to Catholic sectarianism: its conviction, founded in revelation and beautifully expounded by Thomas Aquinas, that reason has a rightful autonomy.

Gavin D’Costa Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy and Nation.

Posted on

the unity of the Church waits outside for us

To the extent that the church of England bishops only go to church of England parishes and churches, they have forgotten what the office of bishop is. To the extent that Methodist bishops (in the States) only go the Methodist congregations they have not understood that office of bishop is intrinsically ecumenical, because it is intrinsically the very office of Christ, who calls all men to obedience. He commands them, and they must hear and obey. The ecumenism is not an option but the evangelical command of God, the assertion, for our sake, of his lordship. And what we have said for bishops is so for all Superintendents and Moderators, who if they know themselves to be under the discipline of the whole Church are all bishops by another name.

So it is the job of the bishop to knock humbly on the door of every church in his diocese, not only those churches which ostensibly recognise bishops because their structure is Anglican or Episcopalian, but most particularly those who do not recognise bishops and assure us that they are independent of all that hierarchy. He must go to every charismatic assembly and little house church and wait until they get over themselves and let him in, and with him, the rest of the catholic Church. Until that time he must wait out in the rain. He is the icon of Christ, the sign of unity of the whole church that is presently waiting out on the street for each of us in our assembly to let them in. He is the icon of the Church because the suffering of Christ is visisble in him – for those who can see it. It is us who are making our Lord wait for us out there.

Posted on

The Son and his people

The one Son does not replace the many people who belong to him. He is the guarantor of their continuing manyness. He starts a community, and is its definition, but he does not represent its end. He rather grows and expands it without limit. The manyness of these witnesses to the Son, themselves provided by him, are our protection against the intensity of his otherwise unmediated presence.

Scripture prepares us. To this end it protects us, and in stages removes this protection from us. The resurrection has already raised this protection from one of our number. It is his unity with the Father, that effects the unity and efficacy of scripture. The patriarchs are presently mediated to us as one single instantiation of Israel, the co-presence of the whole company in the one person, Jesus Christ. As one and complete, he is the arrival of the many. We are being trained to perceive and receive this host in him, the one they have sent ahead.

Posted on

Gospel and 'pluralism'

Chris Seitz

Christian ministry in a pluralistic society begins with the capacity to speak the faith intelligently and persuasively to ourselves and to one another within the household of faith. We should not be ashamed or concerned to have this as our primary goal. For the pluralism the Gospel seeks to address is as omnipresent as the air we breathe, and exists within our midst as much as outside of it. The challenge is not how to address pluralism with some sure thing we presume to know that then must be adapted or modified in order to get an effective hearing; the challenge is how to identify the faith we claim to hold, that laid hold on us in baptism, in the face of a pluralism that is already our daily bread

Christopher Seitz