Untangling Christianity Podcast

In this episode John begins by voicing concern that his current “infatuation” with N. T. Wright may be misplaced: is Wright as good as he sounds (and as right as Gregg seems to think he is)? John explains that he went looking for criticisms of N. T. Wright and found several such podcasts, and so wonders whether he is being persuaded more by Wright’s convincing speech or by his standing in the Christian community?

Gregg responds by highlighting how, relative to the prominent theologians of the past that Wright’s perspective contradicts (Augustine, Luther, and Calvin) Wright is seen by many who champion the views of these historical thinkers as second-tier scholar or even an upstart. So on the question of eminence persons versus evidence of facts, Wright, as an exegete, offers a densely argued factual presentation of his conclusions that other can—and have—engaged with. Yet among scholars Wright’s views have stood the test of counterargument.

In Gregg’s mind, then, the issue here is essentially how rightly to view / understand God, humanity, and the relationship between the two. Yet Gregg argues that this three-part issue cannot be resolved by deciding between Wright’s view and, for instance, a reformed or Calvinist view. Rather, N. T. Wright’s work represents the essential groundwork to address the issue but remains insufficient because it too remains tied to the very terms of engagement according to which the discussion, to this point, has taken place. And these terms are insufficient.

So even as Wright argues that correctly understanding God necessitates expanding how one views and approaches the biblical text (as in the need to understand Jesus covenantally or to understand “the gospel” on the basis of the gospels) [On this latter point see Wright’s book, How God Became King], Gregg argues that one’s approach must be expanded further still: one must consider the questions of God’s nature and identity, human nature and identity, and the interface between the two with the fullest scope of applicable information, gained by employing the broadest range of relevant dialogue partners and human faculties.

In this way, Gregg believes that such disciplines as psychology, biology, philosophy, neuroscience, geology, economics, etc., are not optional but indispensable to reaching our fullest conclusions on such a matter. Similarly, he views each human faculties (not only our rationality but sense perceptions, imagination, emotional responses and memory, all of which combine within and for experiences) as an invaluable asset to coming to the most truthful understandings concerning God’s nature and identity, human nature and identity, and how the two are meant to interface.

Stated otherwise, Gregg argues that because theology and exegesis are not the sole sources of truth concerning humanity, the Christian God, or the relationship between the two they necessarily cannot be the only voices on these subjects that are deemed to be credible (nor likewise should only those human attributes / faculties necessary to successfully engaging in theology or exegesis be so privileged).

The upshot is that we need not only respond to statements about the Christian God, humanity, and the relationship between the two by exchanging theological volleys using exegetical ammunition. Instead, we can reasonably (and necessarily!) ask of someone like John Piper, when he explains that he would have no issue if God did not choose to accept his Christian sons but instead condemned them to hell, whether this makes any sense from the within a parenting model?

By way of analogy Gregg questions whether, if Piper’s wife claimed that she might, at any time, end her relationship with her sons by killing them, would Piper consider this to be healthy (or even viable) marriage? Would he not only tolerate it but celebrate it? How then, if God is not only sovereign but parent, can Piper’s perspective be seen to represent a healthy (or even viable) basis for relating to God?

John suggests that people wouldn’t accept an analogy like this because God is mysterious and can do whatever God wants, yet Gregg immediately retorts: last week’s podcast showed that this is not at all the sense of mystery that the New Testament focuses on!

The post 76: Plug Me Into the Bible Matrix appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg continue their discussion about the relationship between the covenant with Moses and the promise made to Abram (Abraham) in Gen 12:1-3, to bless all the nations through Abraham and his offspring.

John wonders how Gregg would present the gospel, and this past week Gregg spent a number of hours compiling a variety of Accordance search on the subjects of the promise and the blessings (or benefits) promised to the Israelites at the covenant at Mt. Sinai, through Moses as an intermediary). Gregg’s question: how much of the promise to Abraham is included in the (eventual) covenant blessings?

Gregg begins by noting how, in past podcasts, he has presented the relationship between covenant and promise in two ways (presenting them as being both distinct and then overlapping) and so needs to be definitive on this matter. Gregg indicates that further research does not seem to show that the promise (to bless all the nations through Abraham and his offspring) is among the covenant blessings. Instead, the promise of blessing, through Abraham’s offspring, to the whole world, is re-iterated through Genesis (Gen 18:18-19, 22:17-18, 26:4-5, 28:13-15) but then not picked up again until the prophets (particularly Isaiah) seem to pick up and enlarge upon this theme, and Gregg wonders: are the prophets expounding the relationship between the covenant and the promise?

Gregg also notes that the discussion about promise and covenant came up in the context of the Christmas event pamphlets that John had picked up, and that these pamphlets focused on the idea of mystery, but that the “mystery” actually seems quite different from what he pamphlets indicated. So where the pamphlets indicated that reasons for God going to such lengths (i.e., the life and death of Jesus) for the sake of humanity was a mystery, Gregg demurs.

Instead, looking at Eph 2:11 – 3:6 Gregg argues that mystery is not how much God loves us nor that God chose to seek relationship non-Jews (both of which are clearly present in the Hebrew Bible) but that God chose to make no distinction or priority between Jews and gentiles (nor indeed between male or female, slave or free person, as in Gal 3:28-29, Col 3:11). In this case, the promise is linked to the promise to Abraham but rounds out that promise in this most unexpected way.

Gregg goes on to note how the dissolution of categories and hierarchy between Jews and others reinforces the notion that God, in seeking the Jews in order that all humanity should be blessed through them, did not seek out one small group of people in order to replace them with another small group of people. In other words, God’s plan as laid out in the Bible is that right relationship with God should become possible between for all people, on the basis of faith.

In this way Gregg does not accept the Calvinist or Reformed perspective that would see God aiming to choose or “elect” certain of God’s followers and to reject all others. Such a reading makes less sense (and takes less consideration) of the full context of this plan, as laid out within the biblical text.

The post 75: Covenant, Promise and Mystery appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg return to their discussion of the Christmas story (from Episode #73) and the notion that “the gospel” does not begin with Christmas or Jesus’ birth but, essentially, with a promise that God made to Abraham and the reality that the gospel is also the culmination of God’s interaction with Israel, through the covenant.

John wonders both about where the gospel story begins and what Gregg’s summary of the gospel would be.  Gregg notes his excitement while preparing last week’s notes and how both last week’s and the current discussion draw so much from N. T. Wright’s perspective, a perspective which both makes sense of the Bible (though excellent exegesis) and makes sense as a story, by encompassing the whole narrative of the biblical text and the whole story of what God has been doing with and through Israel.  As such Gregg argues that Wright’s perspective is clear and credible, and so is effective in creating the right orientation between listeners and the gospel.

To Gregg’s mind, the typical evangelical messages concerning the gospel appear fragmented, over-emphasizing some portions of the text and the story and under-emphasizing (or omitting) others.  John notes that this is the result of having certain assumptions that are simply normative, and Gregg follows that this likely reduces the reader’s ability to be curious and engage with the text in new ways.

John recalls a N. T. Wright video where he contradicts the notion of the Bible as a phone book or the modernist notions that Christian readers often import into their approach to reading.  Gregg notes that the interaction between artistry and factuality in history writing is different now that it was for ancient authors: the rules of engagement (particularly regarding the use of embellishment for rhetorical or persuasive reasons) were much more flexible at that time.  As such, we must be careful not to assess these works according to modern criteria or to assume that ancient authors are dishonest or unskilled.

So from Gregg’s perspective the covenant and the story of Israel in the Hebrew Bible are what make sense of the gospel / the story of Jesus, not the reverse (although clearly the New Testament offers a new “interpretive lens” through which to view the Hebrew Bible).  Instead, one reason for ignoring this context for the life and death of Jesus is that, in Gregg’s perspective, that people typically want to see themselves as centre-stage: as important.  Yet this is a story in which non-Jews had no involvement.

Finally, in terms of the relationship between the promise to Abram (Abraham) and the covenant that God later made with Abraham and Sarah, Gregg notes that understanding the ancient Near Eastern context is crucial: the process for establishing this covenant, the eventual form of the later covenant at Sinai, even the sacrificial system come from an existing context.  Such things are thus not God’s divinely appointed methods of interacting but are examples of God working with where humanity in order to move us toward better ways of seeing and being.

Gregg highlights how the covenant with Abraham and Sarah (in Gen 15 and particularly 17:1-14) reiterates the promise that God initially made to Abraham (Abram, in Gen 12:1-4).  Further, in Gregg’s view there is actually no link between himself (as a gentile) and Abraham.  Rather, through Jesus’ life and death (which resulted from Jesus keeping the covenant on Israel’s behalf and bearing the covenant’s ultimate penalty for Israel) the way has now been graciously opened, through God fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham and fulfilling the covenant blessings.  As a result all human beings have the possibility to engage in right relationship with God (and thereby, to find themselves rightly oriented with themselves, their fellows, and the created order).

Likewise, through his role as God’s emissary Jesus has inaugurated God’s kingship (the kingdom of God / of heaven).  Literally, Jesus has staked God’s claim over all things and that all things will one day be shown for what they truly are: God’s own.  In this way the gospel is the inception of the kingship of God through Jesus, as lord, wherein all humanity is sought as God’s beloved children.  Stated otherwise, central to the gospel is God’s kingdom, wherein you and I are epicenters of God’s love and truth.

The post 74: The Gospel Doesn’t Start at Christmas appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss several Christmas events that John attended over the holidays. John reads sections from the printed material from these events and then John and Gregg discuss this content.

The first piece is a concert program with a welcome message. John is struck by the end of this message which reflected on “the distance that the Creator was willing to go to redeem his creation” by sending Jesus, and how by taking such steps, this represents “His [God’s] greatest mystery.” Gregg replies that if a given subject or element is both mysterious (i.e., unclear and unfathomable) and plays a key role in in either forming or developing a belief set, then clearly we have a big problem. For example, if a particular element is crucial to maintaining belief in God but is unclear or incomprehensible then how can one reasonably (or perhaps even safely) maintain such a belief?

John feels message has subtle undertones of the unworthiness of human beings to receive such a response and that if God loves his creation as deeply as Gregg advocates, why is it such a “mystery” the lengths God would go to save it? Gregg refocuses by maintaining that the Bible clearly depicts God as very positively disposed to humanity, such that humans might well marvel at the lengths God has taken but have no basis for seeing the reasons for taking such lengths as “mysterious!” Further, Gregg underscores that God’s action in Jesus are not simply an effort to redeem creation but represents that which is necessary for God in order to make good on God’s own promises to Abraham, before entering into covenant with Abraham (in Gen 12, 15).

John reads the second pamphlet titled the “The Manager and the Mystery” and notes it’s very clear and succinct presentation of “the gospel” as he has understood it. John observes how the presentation of this message differs in tone, focus and perspective in contrast to the views Gregg has offered over the past year in their conversations.

Gregg agrees on the clarity and comprehensiveness of the Christian message presented here while disagreeing with key parts of this message, particularly where its story deviates in key ways from the biblical story. For example, the pamphlet reads “When Jesus gave up his life, He was sacrificing himself for us by taking the punishment we should receive for defying God. This is why Jesus was born and why he had to die.” A little further the pamphlet reads, “God measures us by whether or not we follow His Law perfectly . . . and no one meets that standard.” Yet the biblical story does not corroborate this.

Instead, Gregg explains that the Bible offers a story of a nation (Israel) who made a contract (covenant) with God. This nation freely embraced the covenant and its standards, and that covenant itself included the means for repairing any “breaches of contract.” As such, it was quite possible for the Israelites to keep that covenant—Paul did, as he notes in Phil 3:4-6.

The problem then is not breaching the contract but its wholesale rejection (typically while claiming to be maintaining it), on the one hand, and “using” the covenant as object of national pride on the other hand (when Israelites claimed superiority over others because God has chosen them rather than seeing themselves as God’s chosen object of blessing to others, through the benefits that Israel would be able to offer to others by keeping the covenant).

And prior to all of this—prior to Israel existing, the covenant being made or rejected—was a promise that God made to Abraham. God called Abraham from a distant land with the promised that, if Abraham came, God would multiply him into a great nation through which all of the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen 12:1-3). And then God made a series of covenants with Israel, starting with Abraham and then with Moses. This covenant included both benefits (blessings) if Israel kept it and consequences (curses) if they did not, and its chief benefit was the blessing of all the nations through Israel.

So by the time of Jesus’ birth the Israelites were in the woeful position of having repeatedly rejected this covenant and therefore suffering its chief curse: exile. So the Israelites were now estranged from God by their rejection of the covenant and so were unable to fulfill the covenant’s main purpose yet, thereby, God was also unable to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham! Note this: God’s promise to Abraham was not conditional on Israel keeping the covenant (which was made after the promise) yet Israel failing in her calling prevented God from keeping God’s promise!

What was God to do? How could God be faithful to the covenant (which God would not break) and yet fulfill God’s promise (which God must not break)?

The gospel of Matthew does record that Jesus would “save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21), yet it indicates that Jesus’ primary goal concerns the kingdom of heaven: “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (Mt 4:17, similarly in Mk 1:14). Further, the theme of God’s kingdom is prominent throughout the synoptic gospels.

From just this brief, high-level view a few things should be clear. First, Jesus came to fulfill the covenant and, thereby, to renew right relationship between the Israelites and God—not you and me. Jesus acted to excuse the Israelites’ of their rebellion and disobedience—not yours and mine. But by fulfilling the covenant Jesus not only righted matters with Israel but also made possible the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham: the possibility for all people, from all nations, to be in right relationship with God. Thus Jesus’ actions in dealing with sin—as actions and orientations, whether committed or omitted, that put up roadblocks to right relationship between ourselves and God—is important but it is not central.

Rather, Jesus’ life (in keeping the covenant and embodying God’s deep desire to be in right relationship with humanity) and death (in bearing the covenant curses upon himself, both in Israel’s place in place of any others who seek to be in relationship with God) have a) triumphed over the three main opponents and in so doing have opened the way for God’s kingdom to break into this world. The enemies, in ascending order, are sin, death, and the adversary (who is satan or the devil). God’s kingdom—a kingdom from, by God, and for God—is thus Jesus’ central focus, and the importance of this kingdom represents God’s actions in reclaiming all things as what they are: God’s own.

Finally, by engaging with the free and universally accessible gift of Jesus’ life and death human beings have the opportunity to explore and accept living in right relationship with God, a relationship whose knock-on effects include necessarily coming into right relationship with oneself, with others, and with the physical world around us.

However, John is unsure: many people seem to be fine with this perspective. Yet Gregg’s view is that perhaps the playing field is not even—perhaps we’re not comparing apples and apples. He raises two points.

First, what are the “test conditions” under which most people who are satisfied with this presentation of Christianity tend to ‘play out’ their beliefs? Gregg’s hunch is that tougher test conditions might show this presentation to be more fragile than it normally appears.

Second, Gregg wonders what relationship most people who are satisfied with this presentation of Christianity tend to adopt relative to those who present alternate presentations? Gregg’s experience is that many seem both unwilling to discuss the validity of their views and, consequently, appear quite willing to “throw those who disagree with them “under the bus.”

The post 73: The Wrong Kind of Mystery appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss a post, “Are we supposed to balance love and truth?” on Gregory Boyd’s blog.

John is surprised to learn that Gregg has hesitations about the article’s view. Gregg explains that while evangelicals tend to fix truth over love, this article fixes love over truth. Yet in his view both alternatives are problematic: love and truth instead appear to be co-central and in tension with each other, but not fixed in a hierarchy.

For Gregg the lack of biblical references is worrying; for John the references used become far less straightforward when seen in their larger contexts (within the chapters they are situated in). Gregg also finds the terminology to be vague and confusing: what is “the command to love”? In other words, to help readers understand as best as possible why not cite the passages (Matt 19, Mk 10, Lk 10)?

John finds several parts of the article to be unnecessarily confusing: too much mumbo-jumbo. For instance, the author writes: “Any attempt to qualify God’s love with another attribute—God’s wrath, for example—amounts to a fundamental denial of the centrality of the revelation of God in Christ.” From Gregg’s perspective, in these instances the author is not making his point but is simply restating the point (and his view of what constitutes orthodoxy).

Instead, Gregg emphasizes the need to specify the “greatest commandments” as loving God entirely, loving oneself rightly, and loving one’s neighbour likewise. Further, would we not want (and even need) to have these commandments be valid and valuable—in other words, to be true! If these commands are not true then they have no value. So Gregg specifies what he considers to be the essential relationship between love and truth. First, in order for truth to be more than mathematically or trivially true it must be oriented toward my being and my existence. In other words, truth must be oriented toward human flourishing—truth fosters love. Second, for love to have any real significance it must truly be love, and in order to be more than infatuation it must include true knowledge of the beloved. So truth as ‘humanly-oriented truth’ is embedded in love.

For Gregg truth is not only adherence to reality (which is the typical view) but is also openness to possibility. In this latter sense, to a certain degree we access the ‘truth value’ of certain truth claims by using our imagination! This does not mean that we “imagine” things into existence but that we allow for more (such allowing for the possibility that God loves me even when those close to me, because of who I am and how I live, are unable to love me).

The post 72: Too Much Love and Mumbo Jumbo appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg again discuss “God meeting our needs,” and God doing so within the context of furthering / in order to further God’s kingdom (as discussed in episode 68). John is particularly uncertain how Gregg is able to hold this view given the parental sexual abuse that Gregg experienced in his childhood—how Gregg can possibly still see God as good, given these experiences?

Gregg first explains that his view of evil is that people are responsible for their actions—God is not causing people to act in certain ways (i.e., God is not causing parents to abuse their children). Yet John replies that at one time Gregg did seem to hold God responsible. Gregg notes that it was more so that he viewed God as being incapable of doing the right thing—incapable of acting to bring goodness—and that God’s justice was useless: even though he was extremely angry at first, Gregg never ultimately wanted his father punished but rather wanted the relationship to be reformed and renewed because he loved him (see episode 32 for a fuller account).

John nevertheless wonders: isn’t it true that God takes care of Christians? Gregg challenges that in his view there are certain realities that God has set up and does not “tinker” with, like gravity or even the reality that parents are vested with a certain authority over their children. So while Christians may well receive a Spirit or an indwelling that enables a new and better orientation toward God, Gregg is loathe to put too much stock in Christians being better “taken care of” than non-Christians (and notes that such comparisons would need to consider a number of factors, including starting point and context).

John comes back to Gregg’s reasons for becoming a Christian despite God not seeming to “meet his needs” during his abusive childhood. Gregg replies that God’s action in the world remains crucial. So his view is that God acts personally yet not necessarily individually. In other words, we should expect that God acts in an intimate manner—in real people’s lives—yet this is not something that happens individually, to everyone. So part of having one’s “needs met” is encountering and engaging with the stories of such divine action: assessing such testimonies regarding both their credibility and effectiveness.

Next, Gregg argues that it’s important to consider what needs God is aiming to meet—understanding how God acts and what God’s priorities are relative to human beings. Here Gregg returns to God’s central concern being to bring about God’s kingdom, while human beings remain “epicenters” of God’s love. So one the one hand, where love and truth are central to God’s character and to the nature of human relations with God, God may well need to mend our human brokenness in these two regards (and in doing so would “meet our needs” by empowering us to be in right relationship with God, ourselves, etc.). On the other hand, Gregg explains that engaging with God on these terms will typically involve two things: a) better understandings (of oneself, God, the physical world) and b) richer experiences (again of oneself, God, the physical world).

The post 71: Does God Act Individually or Personally? appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John enquires into the result of Gregg’s 6 month stay in Switzerland, at Swiss L’Abri.  Gregg recaps his time by noting that his writing has been very productive, and especially his most recent topic: “everyday” experiences versus exceptional experiences (particularly, ‘experiencing’ God). Gregg is concerned not only to lay out the content of such experiences–his own included–but also to offer sufficient theoretical, theological, philosophical background for the discussion to appear credible.

In brief, Gregg’s view on the matter is that we should expect such exceptional experiences—experiences of God acting currently, in people’s lives—to be personal but not necessarily individual. In other words, we should expect God to “show up” and act in people’s lives but not necessarily our own lives, which raises both the importance of testimony and of understanding who God is and what God’s priorities are (so as properly to set one’s expectations, relative to God’s action, within Christianity).

John demurs on this point: John wants to have these experiences himself, just as many Christians in John’s life, whom John trusts and respects, seem to have had. Yet Gregg questions these experiences of others, wondering whether John has been convinced by the facts of the situations or if John is persuaded due to how respectable the people involved are, noting that he (Gregg) wants to be convinced by the evidence of facts rather than by the eminence of persons.

Thus Gregg’s view is that one of the chief goals of a human being is to be a truth-seeker who, in coming to consciousness of him/herself and her/ his world, does not want to hold illusory “pie in the sky” beliefs. As such Gregg believes that, particularly when it comes to experiencing God, credibility needs to have pride of place.

So from Gregg’s perspective it is important to be cautious and potentially suspicious when hearing accounts of God doing “this or that” in people’s lives, in communities, etc., and dig deeper into such accounts before believing them (i.e., not necessarily taking such accounts at face value). Yet caution and suspicion are not the “final word.” Rather, Christians are to understand not only that God has acted in past and will act in the future but should have the expectation that God is acting now, in the present.

Specifically, when considering such alleged action on God’s part it is important to think about a) how it might take place, b) what it’s end / purpose might be, c) how it interfaces with the picture of God that I interpret in the biblical text. Thus for Gregg it is important to be thoughtful about how any such experience of God shapes my view of who God is (and impacts how I interpret the Bible).

In other words, Gregg is interested to maintain a healthy relationship between knowing about God (through understanding biblical truth claims) and relating with / to God (through exceptional experiences, whether my own or those of others). By doing so we avoid either believing that the only things that we know about God are what we read in the Bible or allowing one’s experience of God to dictate one’s understanding of who God is (i.e., “my experience of God is like this, and therefore this part of the Bible is wrong / can only be interpreted in this way”).

The post 70: Eminence or Evidence | Expectations Around Experiencing God appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

John poses a question to Gregg about his lack of “experiencing God,” but first begins by explaining his personal routines and how this question came about through a book called The MIracle Morning. John shares about his morning and evening routines, both of which include an aspect of reflection and journaling.

In his evening routine, John has been looking to record the experiences of God he’s had in a given day and coming up empty. John wonders if he’s going about this the wrong way while also reflecting on a book he recently read called Start With Why by Simon Sinek that examines customer loyalty, individual drive and purpose.  Using these ideas, John wonders if he’s adopted someone else’s “why” when it comes to Christianity.

John asks Gregg what he thinks about the question of “Where did I see God today?” and if he (John) should get rid of this question or find a better one.  Gregg starts by examining different aspects of rigor. Gregg also suggests examining the deeper reasons a particular view has been adopted and evaluating if those reasons really make sense.

Gregg suggests that the question “Where have I seen God today?” is incomplete and could be broader. He also probes the value and goal of the question.

The conversation turns to the notion of experience, how we understand our experiences and Gregg’s own experience of God’s healing.  Gregg believes the context of “God showing up” and us experience God is the furtherance of God’s kingdom.

John pushes Gregg to be more specific about he experiences God and to give an example from the past three days. Gregg then recounts this experience and reflects on how this might work for other people.

The post 69: Why Didn’t I See God Today? appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg discuss a recent conversation Gregg had with a person at Swiss L’Abri concerning their expectations that God should “meet their needs.”

John’s sees the idea of “God meeting our needs” as one that was over-sold in his Christian experience. John feels this way because he felt that God has rarely met his needs in the way he expected or understood that God was supposed to do so. John’s expectations come from the experiences he’s heard other Christians describe. Gregg is curious how the people giving these testimonies actually validated their experiences of God.

John gives an example of someone in a difficult time who prayed to God for help and support. The person then opened their Bible to a random page where they read something in the Psalms that they found to be very comforting (and so helpful). Gregg replies with some skepticism: by randomly opening a Bible it’s fairly easy to open to the Psalms (which are right in the middle) and the Psalms is very full of supportive, comforting material.

Gregg’s view is that if a Christian is seeking a shift of perspective on our current situation, then reading the Bible in that way may be helpful. Also, Gregg speculates about the role of latent memories: having an inarticulate memory of some biblical verse, someplace in the Bible that “pops up” in our mind just like certain descriptive words in the foreign languages he has studied often “pop up” in Gregg’s mind, and which later prove to be related to the matter at hand.

John is surprised when Gregg notes that he really cannot relate to the idea that God meets our needs. Hasn’t Gregg claimed in past that God has met Gregg’s needs? Gregg explains that his return to Christianity was based on both new experiences and new understandings about God. Particularly, where God is most interested in the furtherance of God’s kingdom (as that which is from God, by God, and for God), Gregg believes that God’s kingdom is central, wherein people are epicenters of God’s love.

In this way, in terms of Gregg’s return to Christianity Gregg did “have his needs met” in terms of having certain things that were broken (due to his history of familial abuse) that got fixed. Particularly, Gregg’s view is that his ability to receive love (as believing himself to be loveable) and to love in return were, essentially, healed his brokeness.

Yet in another context this sense of “meeting our needs” is much more oriented toward the importance of God’s kingdom over the imminent needs that we experience. With this mind, Gregg shares how his marriage experienced unending difficulty over a long period of time, where no amount of counseling had helped. Gregg was at a breaking point and had engaged more people to pray for him and his situation than ever before. He had traveled across the country because he was at the point of separating from his wife and so was evaluating a new place to live and work.

In the midst of this Gregg had a remarkably strong sense from God, that he was simply to continue laying out his graduate work at his blog and share it with a wider audience. And in doing so, Gregg sees the work that he was meant to do as a way of furthering God’s kingdom and yet, at that same time, God did not magically fix Gregg’s marriage.

Note from John: This is definitely an episode the needs to be listened to in order to get the full context and nuance of the subjects discussed. There is also much more to discuss than is covered in this one episode.

The post 68: Hot Dogs & Tow Trucks | Does God Meet Our Needs? appeared first on Untangling Christianity.

In this episode John and Gregg go further on the topic of “rigor,” which they initially discussed in episode # 64.  In that episode they discussed rigor specifically in the context of reading and interpreting the Bible. In this episode they expand that discussion as Gregg suggests that rigor applies broadly to our entire lives.

Gregg explains that, in his view, human beings are not just cognitive machines or solely intellectually focused.  Further, while a Christian perspective focuses on character, God is concerned with more that our character.  Such other concerns would be improvement, diversity, and enjoyment.  So Gregg notes that C. S. Lewis starts his Narnia series with Aslan proclaiming to all of the talking creatures, “I give you yourselves!”  Yet the tendency with Christians is either to overlook this or overemphasize it.

John, however, is doubtful: the notions of God giving us ourselves or of enjoyment being an essential aspect of Christian living is very suspect from John’s Christian upbringing.  For instance, Christians are often taught to “empty themselves” and “be nothing,” and similarly they are taught that they are on this earth to serve God, not to seek pleasure.

On the point of enjoying ourselves Gregg points to the “excessive” and “extravagant” acts of Jesus, where in John’s gospel the first of Jesus “signs” is the wedding of Cana, who not only created wine unnecessarily (John 2:4) but created very good wine (2:10).  Gregg links this to further (and greater) extravagance and enjoyment in Isaiah 2 and 25 (where the wedding of Cana points both back to Isaiah 25 and foreshadows its eschatological fulfillment).  Likewise Gregg notes how Brene Brown writes about  the necessity of play, in order to be “whole hearted.”  Thus rigor is the integration of one’s whole self, in seeking self-improvement but also diversification and enjoyment.

On the point about “emptying oneself,” Gregg draws the (purposely false) analogy with a family expecting a new child and so who prepare their existing child to be loved less, because there is “only so much love to go around.”  Yet clearly love does not work this way.  Rather, love abounds in and through relationship, such that one who loves me does not seek me to be less myself or less present in order to enjoy / love me more–quite the reverse!

When John wonders what constitutes rigor in terms of self-diversification or enjoyment, Gregg suggests that In these regards rigor simply means doing it!  In other words, being rigorous in some senses means being self-aware of my strengths and weaknesses in these areas, being willing to expose myself to new things, being spontaneous, and it may often include trusting others who may have a more diverse background or a more fluid relationship with ‘play’ than I do!

In short, Gregg affirms that life is good and meant to be good. There is good reason to be cautious and suspicious, yet there in an initial created goodness to the physical world and to human being that they have never fully lost.  Thus Gregg also sees great reason for human beings to be enthusiastically involved in their own lives, for their improvement, diversification, and enjoyment.

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