Participation in / Union with Christ: Papers from the 2017 Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture at North Park (Part 1)

Every 4th weekend of the September month (Thurs evening to Sat afternoon), in conjunction with the Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship, North Park Theological Seminary holds its annual Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture. This year's theme is: Participation in / Union with Christ, a most fitting topic given that the year 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. 

Bruce Fields delivering the 1st paper of the Symposium

     On the opening Thurs evening (Sept 28, 2017), Bruce Fields, Professor of Faith and Culture at Trinity International University, gave a plenary paper for the 1st session entitled: "The Christology of Augustine's City of God: Participation in Christ That Compels the Pursuit of Justice in the Human City." Describing Augustine's understanding of two cities as two loves (i.e., a love of self [= contempt for God] that characterizes the earthly polis or city versus the love of God [= contempt of self] that characterizes the heavenly city), Fields provocatively explains how for Augustine justice is interchangeable with love (charitas). Participation in the life of Christ takes place in the church where members internalize love as justice, but participation also takes place out in the world where the church, acting on that internalization, practices love-justice in the earthly realm.

The paper response was given by George Kalantzis, Professor of Theology at Wheaton College and Director of the Wheaton Center of Early Christian Studies, whose main criticism was the use of Augustine in support of Field's (evangelical) reading of Paul's letters when Augustine, in the opinion of Kalantzis, should simply be read for his own sake. 

     The next morning (Sept. 29), the 2nd session featured a paper read by Grant Macaskill, The Kirby Laing Chair of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Aberdeen, and entitled: "Union(s) with Christ: Colossians 1:15-20." Macaskill picked up where he left off in his Lund Lectures and further interpreted Col 1:15-20. 

Grant Macaskill giving the second paper of the Symposium

Here he argued that, building on the foundation that all things connect through the mediator Christ to God (see his Lund Lecture), we can now talk about unions (plural) with Christ. The level of participation is different depending on the type of union. God’s covenantal relationship with Israel is not just salvific. He cares about the way they farm, and the way they built houses, and under Isarel's covenant there are different levels of participation in the life of God. Covenant bears differently also concerning the alien or foreigner who lives in the midst of Israel. They are with Israel but not covenant members, and so a different kind of reciprocity is expected of them as they participate with Israel in the life of God. 
     It should be noted that Macaskill is careful, however, not to talk about unions as if it was a kind of flat universalism (a critique of Douglas Campbell's work in The Deliverance of God). Macaskill is not a universalist and does posit the unique union of believers with Chrsit but also recognizes it as a fullfillment of all previous types of unions established in the history of God with His people. The link to the video of the 2nd session of the Symposium is below: 

The paper response was given by Constantine Campbell, Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, who has also written his own separate monograph on Paul and Union with Christ. 
     It was a lively response and engagement with Macaskill's paper. Con (not be confused with Doug) Campbell engaged Macaskill's reading of Col 1:15-20 from the minute details of whether the genitive's attached to the word "first-born" were partitive (Macaskill's view, which makes the phrase a temporal reading, i.e., "first-born of all creation") or subordinate (Campbell's view, which would then read "first-born over all creation") to addressing larger historical issues as: which covenant (Abraham, Mosaic, David, creational) does Paul refers to at specific points in the biblical text. 

    The following 3rd session featured a paper by Olli-Pekka Vainio, Lecturer of Systematic Theology at the University of Helsinki, entitled: “Why Bother with Participation? An Early Lutheran Perspective." Vainio has written a "few" books and articles (195+), the most important of which for the symposium's theme include: Justification and Participation in Christ and Engaging Luther. Vainio represents the new Finnish school of interpretation on the theology of Martin Luther. Vainio paper's focuses on a second-generation Lutheran reformer named Martin Chemnitz (1522-86) who expanded on Luther's teachings and used the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ as a way of framing the separate divine and human agencies of participation. 

Olli-Pekka Vainio giving the 3rd paper of the Symposium

The response was given by North Park's own Stephen Chester, Professor of New Testament at the seminary, who just published a phenomenal book (deserving of its own blog post review) with Eerdmans entitled: Reading Paul with the Reformers. Chester notes that the most helpful contribution of Vainio was providing a way forward through Christology for the Finnish school who has been accused in the past of collapsing Creator and creaturely categories, divine and human.
     The link to the video of the 3rd session of the Symposium is below: 


    The 4th session that afternoon was from Julie Canlis, Lecturer at Regent College and author of the book Theology of the Ordinary, who read a paper entitled: "The Geography of Participation: In Christ Is Location, Location, Location." 

Julie Canlis giving the 4th paper of the Symposium

Her paper focused on the theology of John Calvin, where she pointed out that location is very important for Calvin who had a particular trinitarian Christology where Christ sits at the right hand of the throne of the Father with the Holy Spirit sent from the throne to the ends of the earth. Calvin uses the metaphor of "upward" or "heavenly-ward" to describe how the Ascension of Christ provides a framework for participation. Our participation is oriented to, and our future is tied to, Christ's resurrrected body. At the same time, Christ has descended to meet humanity in the ordinary. Our human bodies, especially the collective Body of Christ, becomes the locus or place for participation with God. 
    If all of this sounds a little abstract, Julie and her husband, a pastor, have put together an adult curriculum with accompanying video that offers Bible study, commentary, and best spiritual practices for participation in the life of God through the daily details of the ordinary. 
     The paper response was given by Mary Patton Baker, Lecturer at North Park University and Pastor of Community Formation at All Soul's Anglican Church. The link to the video of the 4th session of the Symposium can be found below: 


      Coming soon: Part 2 of the 2017 Symposium on Participation in/Union with Christ with links to video and remarks on Sessions 5-8. MJL

The NT Lund Lectures 2017: Grant Macaskill on the Mystery and Sufferings of Christ

Prof. Grant Macaskill, the NT Lund Lecturer for 2017

Today (Sept 28, 2017), the New Testament series for the Nils W. Lund Memorial Lund Lectureship was given by Dr. Grant Macaskill, the Kirby Laing Chair of New Testament Exegesis at King's College in the University of Aberdeen, who spoke on theme of participation in Christ. But unlike past tendencies in scholarship to frame Paul's participation language vis-à-vis justification, Macaskill framed Paul's participation language with God's providential working of history to its eschatological end, and under the category of Providence is the unique participation of the believer in the sufferings of Christ.
    But I'm actually getting ahead of the series. The 1st lecture, entitled: "The Mystery of Revealed: Christ and Cosmos," focused on the Christology of Colossians 1:15-20 as the starting point for reading all of Scripture as a whole. Using the movie The Unusual Suspects as an example (spoiler warning!), Macaskill explained that no one can watch the movie a second time without remembering the plot twist: that Kevin Spacey's character is actually Keyser Söze, the main villain of the story. Likewise, the Christian cannot read the Bible without remembering the mystery unveiled anticipated by both Wisdom and the Torah is Christ. Creation and the Law are not the last word on reality. Christ is. 
    The link to the 1st Lecture is below: 


     Building on the theoretical framework of set forth by the 1st lecture, Macaskill's 2nd lecture drew out the implications of the church's participation in the mystery of God unveiled in Christ. The 2nd lecture was entitled: "In the Likeness of the Image: Participating in Providence." This lecture started off slowly and methodically but ends on a pastoral crescendo. Wow! Probably the most powerful insight was the discussion of the believer's participation in the sufferings of Christ as part of participating in God's providence. 
     A believer's suffering is not like Jesus' suffering, nor is it analogous to the sufferings of Christ, but rather it is a participation in Christ's sufferings. Christ died a senseless death. When the Son needed the Father the most, it appears that God had abandoned him on the cross. When our experience of suffering lacks glory or purpose, when our suffering seems senseless, this lowest point of human experience can manifest Christ-likeness that no other experience can duplicate. Suffering does not have to be redemptive to be meaningful. There is a particular way that a person can suffer or even be martyred, and it resembles Christ. The person who suffers Parkinson's disease, the still-born baby, and any apparent senseless death can resemble Christ. God's providential care becomes evident only in retrospect, not at the moment of suffering, but only afterwards when ultimately He works out his purposeful end even in what, at the time, seems senseless.
     To hear more, follow the link to the 2nd Lecture below. MJL

The OT Lund Lectures 2017: Brent Strawn on the Bible as Poetry, Not Narrative

Prof. Brent Strawn, the OT Lund Lecturer for 2017

This week we're right in the middle of North Park Theological Seminary's annual Lund Lectureship and Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture. Each year, for the Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship, the seminary invites one Old Testament scholar and one New Testament scholar to speak on cutting edge issues in biblical studies but to present their work in a way that theologically informs the mission and ministry of the church. The audience to which they present are ordained pastors, church leaders, seminary graduate students, undergrads, and the wider church body. Nevertheless, as a scholar, I myself always learn and benefit from our lecturers.
     Yesterday (Sept 27, 2017), we had the privilege of hearing from our OT Lund Lecturer Dr. Brent A. Strawn, Professor of Old Testament and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at the Candler School of Theology in Emory University. His OT series was on the theme: The Difference between the Right Word and the Almost Right Word (of God): On the Nature of Holy Scripture. It was a very provocative series.
    In his 1st lecture, entitled: "The Greatest 'Story' Never Told: Rethinking the Bible's Macrogenre," Strawn argues against seeing the Bible as story. The Bible is not a narrative, and if it is presented as such, it is because the interpreter has constructed its contents in story form. The dangers of presenting the Bible as story is reductionism. Narrative is an imposition on Scripture. It imposes an orderliness and sequencing to Scripture leaving out, at times, important themes, messages, and experiences. The cost is too high. 
    As an alternative maco-genre, Stawn suggests that the Bible ought to be construed and read as poetry. One pastoral note worth making is the difference reading the Bible as story vs. reading the Bible as poetry makes. With the former, a person races through the narrative to get a sense of its plot and with much of Scripture's content slipping through the cracks in the reading experience. But with the Bible as poetry, the reader wrestles with every word, thinking about its meaning, slowing down to see the connections of the word with the rest of the sentence and with the entire poem as a whole. 
   The link to the 1st Lecture video is below: 


Note: the video of the lecture is done through Facebook. The tech crew is experimenting with FB's chat function for online participation


     In the 2nd lecture, entitled: "'I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes': The Poetics of Scriptural Contradiction," Strawn describes several reasons why the Bible's macro-genre as Poetry is a better way to understand the nature of Scripture and how to interpret it. One of the most striking observations he made was what he called the Bible's "re-utterability." Often when we think of the Bible as a story "back then" or as history, this model of reading creates significance distance between the text and the reader. The reader is tempted to dismiss the content of Scripture as something for the people of that time not ours. But poetry is re-utterable. It closes the gap between the text and interpreter. We are invited to experience poetry, and Scripture does the same. The rawness, candor, and perspective of the text is something the reader enters into; it is a sacred space from which we experience the text as God's word. It changes the reader. It transforms. To this, I say: "Amen!" 
     The link to the 2nd Lecture video is here: 


I hope you are challenged and blessed as much as I was by the series. Next up: the NT Lund Lectures by Prof. Grant Makaskill which was today. I'll post on this soon. MJL