Theological Musings

Although reading theology can be a challenge for me, I must confess that sometimes academic theologians are just too brilliant for my finite brain, I still try to plow my way through theology books from time to time to stretch my understanding of the movement of God in our world. I recently finished A Black Theology of Liberation by James H. Cone that was an influential book within academic theology in last 40 years. Much of Cone's discussion of theology is so tied to the plight of African-Americans in the 1960s that I feel it is irrelevant today, although he would argue that that is because I see things from the perspective of white theology which is lumped with the oppression of other groups particularly African-Americans. Still it was an interesting read. Cone's work and others like him is rooted in an attempt to contextualized the changeless message of the gospel, which is what missionaries to foreign countries do. I do not agree with much of Cone's final analysis, but there was one statement that really stuck out to me. "It is the function of theology to analyze the changeless gospel in such a way that it can be related to changing situations" (202). The message of the cross hasn't changed in 2,000 years, but the methods for communicating the gospel certainly have. I might add in light of the discussions going on within the Southern Baptist Convention recently that the methods for supporting, funding, and promoting the work of communicating the gospel sometimes need to be changed too. The cross and the savior have NOT changed but the culture in which we find ourselves in America, Africa, Asia, etc. is not the same as it was 100 years ago or even 5 years ago. If the universal church is going to continue to make an impact for the sake of the Kingdom, then we must realize that the context of doing ministry and proclaiming the gospel has shifted. We cannot continue to do things the way we have always done them and think that we are being faithful to the Great Commission. Perhaps James Cone could see that in ways that many Christians cannot...


Their is a growing debate within Evangelicalism about Paul's teaching of Justification. The two key players are N.T. Wright and John Piper. I am awaiting my copy of N.T. Wright's book on the subject, so hopefully I will be able to share some insights from it later this summer. If you aren't familiar with the debate you can go to Christianity Today's website and see several articles about it. The little bit of reading I have done on the subject leads me to believe that the biggest difference is the starting point for Piper of viewing the death of Christ. Piper is an evangelical who clings unashamedly to the Penal Substitutionary view of the atonement. There is nothing wrong with that view, it is definitely a biblical view, but a surface reading of scripture presents other models or ways that the New Testament writers understood and spoke about the death of Christ. I'm not sure that Wright takes any one position himself. For Piper, everything we understand about the Gospel is rooted in the penal substitutionary death of Christ. I for one cannot deny that that is a view of the New Testament and certainly of the 16th century Reformers, but to speak of Christ's death in only those terms I cannot do and still consider myself being faithful to the complete witness of the New Testament.