CLFM Final Review - Lecture notes 1-13 PDF

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Great to know for Professor Bruner's Min 108 class! ...

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CLFM

Wesleyan Quadrilateral 

4 sources of authority for where we go to find truth o 1. Scripture - grace that facilitated deeper understanding of the ways o and will of God; and the primary way of knowing truth. o 2. Tradition - provides us with the wisdom of the past and provides guidance in the o present o 3. Experience - a vital experience of God’s grace, which is affirmed within o the broader Christian community, and which holds us accountable to the Gospel o 4. Reason - a God-given gift that enables us to interpret Scripture, tradition, and o Experience

 Problems of the 4 sources: 1. Scripture is not emphasized & one’s experience becomes primary 2. Tradition must sometimes be broken away from 3. Experience can be interpreted as one’s own personal experience apart from the broader Christian community 4. Reason as a guide doesn’t take seriously enough our fallen nature, and that our reason fell, as well.   

What do I believe and what should I believe are equally important questions. Nature of Sin – it’s supposed to “feel good.” It’s not literal if it’s an interpretation, vice versa. → In essence, literal interpretation is NON-EXISTENT.

“Jesus is Lord.” Interpret: Jesus Christ is the proclaimed Son of God, making Him Lord.  A lot of people assume that the Truth is a size of a POINT. → The truth is a CIRCLE in which you can have different truths.  Muslims believe that God becoming human is BLASPHEMOUS. → But, God is so great that He could be one of us w/o losing the essence of who He is. Chalcedonian Formula- God is both fully human, and fully God. → “It’s almost as if the Bible is above God.”  Jesus grew in wisdom and stature → reference from LUKE. At what point did Jesus know he was God?  You can’t approach the Bible as an ANSWER BOOK, but it’s for the Christian’s life.  Different accounts of the Gospel have different viewpoints in the same timeline, because it actually happened. Hermeneutics - the science of interpretation

The Bible has the Words of Life. We are all created with the need to read Scripture. → The human nature yearns to READ SCRIPTURE.  A lot of things yearn for our attention, but the Bible is always whispering.  We can live a life in getting what we want, in turn forgetting what we need. → The way we get confused in what we need, is because we’ve surrounded in what we want.  The besetting sin in America is MATERIALISM , because we assume that if we satisfy our desires we’ll be happy.  “It’s the nature of desire to never be satisfied, and most people solely live for the fulfillment of it.” - Aristotle  The Bible is pretty much about us than it is to God? → A reflection of us.  The Scriptural Hermeneutic - Scripture interpreting Scripture  Calling the U.S. a “Christian Nation” is untrue and unpatriotic. Many Views of the Bible 1. INERRANT - No mistakes in the Bible (BIOLA) 2. INFALLIBLE - There are no important mistakes, FACTUAL AND TRUE (APU) 3. INSPIRED - There are some mistakes. (BRUNER) 1. INTERESTING 2. INFURIATING  The Bible is the inspired word of God, with unique authority, that remains factual and true about Jesus Christ.  A fact is something you could prove or disprove. May or may not be proven. → You can OVERTURN facts.  Falsified Theory  The resurrection of Jesus is not a fact, BUT it’s true.  FACT DOES NOT EQUAL TRUTH It’s not that it didn’t happen, it’s just that it can’t be proven.  Doevs Asconis - “God hides.” → God want us INVOLVED.  Love has to be a choice we make.  Why would an inspired story have a tree in the middle for Adam and Eve to not partake? o In order for us to love God, He gives us a CHOICE. o Kicking out Adam and Eve is actually an act of Grace.  Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life.”  

The “canon” of the Christian Faith differs from other denominations  Roman Catholic Church wrote more books compared to the Protestant Church.  The “canonized” scriptures, made by any Church Council with a specific denomination, either were added or taken out because it aligned with their inspiration. We read the Bible by how our traditions were taught. Religion and Religious are two different variable w/ the same concept. → Whatever facilitates your faith.  “Spiritual is more about belief.” ANYONE CAN BE SPIRITUAL, just believe in a “higher power.”  “Spiritual, but not Religious” = ZERO Commitment

Being religious means that you care about HOW you live that life. → To follow Christ, you can’t just help it.  Christianity is a religion, and there is more than just your relationship with Jesus. → Having a good relationship with other people. + What you believe and what you do are two variables that go hand-in-hand with each other.  “The Trinity does not want attention.” Relationship w/ Jesus DOES NOT EQUAL ground sum of all things. “Jesus does not want us to focus on Him, He wants Us to see through Him in the world.” - CS Lewis  God is ONE Father, Son, and Holy Spirit  “Double-Love Command”  Cannot escape from your inheritance, but can reform and be conscious with it. → Once you step foot out of your parent’s home, you create your own decisions; thus, crafting your own traditions. → There will be decisions that will be made for the next 3-4 years that will impact your great-grandchildren,  Norris says, “We didn’t have a choice, choosing to be born, etc.”  You cannot love God, if you do not love other people.  Important to not hand religion hierarchy in a world as diverse as this.  We’ve inherited a blessing and a curse; tradition.  “Suitable” - Lukewarm, mostly not following Christ.  “There is a vast difference between blindly running away from old “nothings” and running w/ mature awareness toward something new.” o God is interested in your major (run w/ interest) ask yourself, WHY DID I CHOOSE MY MAJOR? o IS THE MAJOR THE ONE GOD WANTED ME TO BE BLESSED IN? o Network to get out of your comfort zone/Running with mature awareness o WHAT KIND OF STUDENT WILL I BE?  We have inherited a lot of things from our parents for better or for worse.  You can honor your parents by not being them or pray for them. Norris is saying. “So many people call themselves “Christian” but are not acting like one.” → Can being Christian mean having a sense of identity?  We separated from belief to practicality.  The word “Christian” has a very mixed connotation.  America is NOT a “Christian Nation.” → The Christian Faith in America is vastly misinterpreted.  About 80% of Americans are Christians, 45% attend Church, 17% attend Church on a WEEKLY BASIS. HOW DO YOU MEASURE WHAT A CHRISTIAN IS?  They do it because Jesus Christ asked it of them, not just to do good. “If I am a Christian, I would be the last to know because I do not do that.” -Norris Christianity is a “LOUSY” label to be carrying.  WHAT AM I DOING BECAUSE OF CHRIST?”  WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE TO LOVE YOUR ENEMY?  SHOULDN’T OUR LIVES LOOK DIFFERENT WHEN WE FOLLOW CHRIST?

Buechner- “...Their (Israel) responsibility was to suffer and die for the world.” Blessed = SACRIFICE? The Church is called the “New Israel.” → Man fighting God. The Kingdom of God is not a place, it is a condition. - Buechner Jesus expects us to TRY to love Him. → AM I TRYING TO FOLLOW CHRIST? The love of MONEY is the root of all evil. The Church IS NOT a building, the Church is the PEOPLE. When 2 or more are gathered, it is a Christian Fellowship. There is no such thing as an “individual Christian.” COLLECTIVE IDENTITY > INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY “Unequally yoked” - a spouse who does not believe in Christ. Differences between Catholics and Protestants 1. Mary 1. In Roman Cathoic, Mary is “venerated”, because she is the “mother” of Jesus Christ → It was to protect Jesus Christ from his “sinlessness.” → They do not pray TO them, they pray through them. b. Mass 1. A sacrifice is being “reoffered” to God b. Magisterium 1. Infallibility of the Pope. 2. Roman Catholic believes the Pope is not infallible, unless he speaks in a “Cathedral.” b. Faith Through Works Stoicism- “If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.” → Scrutiny, takes God out of the equation. If you water down the problem, you water down the solution. Stoicism and Prophecies are VERY DIFFERENT. → Not predictions of the future, telling of the present. Faith is complex, not simple and easy. Scriptural Hermeneutic = Scripture interpreting Scripture.  If you let Scripture interpret Scripture, you will rise to see a biblical view.  Paul “brackets” off his own opinion, which would mean the Lord is not speaking through Him at the moment. We use reason to determine what is universal, what is cultural, etc. Ordination of Women:  Acts. Luke tells about the formation of the Church. Culturally, a man’s name is supposed to come first but, in this case, Paul mentions “Priscilla and Aquilla” because Priscilla is the Head of the Church. There is nowhere in Scripture that does not say that women are not allowed to preach/teach. The very first person to preach for Easter: Mary - “He is Risen.”

Exodus - God takes Israel and rescues them from slavery of Egypt. The Bible REJECTS slavery, supports EQUAL TREATMENT of ALL PEOPLE. In many cases, WOMEN are usually the heads of the household. Reason is a thoughtful way to meet a conclusion.?? Problems with Reason: 1. Reason is often unreasonable. → You can only defend reason by using reason. 2. Reason HAS limitations. Every Christian understands that the Creed you hold can be unreasonable in both the good and bad thing.  Reason can only take you so far. (Leap of Faith.) Our brokenness can drive us back to God. God USUALLY speaks most intimately to us during a struggling season. God meets us during times of hardship. Faith Seeking Understanding.  The equation when it comes to whether God exists.  You will see it, you believe it.  You won’t actually get it, until you choose to believe.” We find it difficult to believe in God because He does not “make sense.” Suffering and God go together because God understands that we have to “choose to love Him” or there would not be any love. He promises to redeem all suffering, asks us for patience, love, and Faith. If God doesn’t exist, suffering is in vain/not redemptive, etc. “The heart has its reasons, that reasons do not know.” - Pasca; Walking can be a MYSTICAL experience. Find what is Holy each day. It is mysterious because it is so real. If we take the time to understand what God is doing in our lives, we will probably arrive in a doctrine. → being a Christian does not make a person immune to tragedy. False doctrine - God will always be faithful to you. People living on a lie, take in denial. → taking false doctrines as real. (ex. If I am faithful to God, he will bless me with monetary things.” You will never have enough money. (ex. God will reward you if you are faithful.) Being faithful in Christ = Life is much more challenging. The Christian faith and Christianity are two separate things.

Christianity = A culture. Christian Faith = resists easy solutions, welcome thoughts that compete w/ each other --. Challenges you to go deeper to your experiences. In order for sin and death to be destroyed, an innocent man (Jesus) had to die. Nonetheless, we still believe in God is still with us. Sex does not have the power to create intimacy, but will only reflect if it is there or not. You are responsible for your own experiences; How are you going to respond to it? → Taking responsibility is maturity.  

Sometimes Scripture contradicts itself. “God is with us through all trials.” “There are seasons we have to go through to experience God.” → They do not obviously necessarily end well. Jesus sometimes leads us to storms, because storms can heal us. God will send you through difficult experiences not for your sake, but for the sake of others.

Buechner: 1. CHRISTIAN. 1. It is only by living, participating in, being caught up by the way of life that God has embodied is when one can “come to the Father.” → “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” 2. Possible for a person to be on Christ’s way and with his mark upon you without ever having heard of Christ. 3. A Christian is no better than anybody else, just “informed.” b. QUESTIONS 1. Don’t start looking in the Bible for the answers, start listening to the questions it asks. 2. We are involved with questions about things that matter a good deal today, but at the same time we tend to lose track of who we really are in our own depths and where we are really going. 3. When you hear a question, that is your question. It is when you have reached a certain point in life, that you are able to find the answer of your central question. 4. Humans tend to think and stress more about questions that involve daily life, but don’t think of things that has purpose or value. b. YHWH 1. YHWH (Yahweh) - God’s name, derived from Hebrew verb “to be.” → “I am what I am” or “I will be what I will be.” 2. Original text of the Old Testament did not include vowels, hence “YHWH.”

3. Only the high priests on special occasions was able to use “YHWH”, while other people replaced it with the “Lord.” 4. The result of this was that no one had remembered the original name and it was now lost. → Believed to YAHWEH. b. BIBLE 1. A way to describe the Bible would be that it is a disorderly collection of books which are filled with inconsistencies and contradictions. 2. BUT just because it is a book about both the sublime and the unspeakable, it is a book also about life the way it really is. → A book about US. 3. It is also a book about God. If it is not about the God we believe in, then it is about the God we do not believe in. The story we find in the Bible is our own story. 1. Do not start at the beginning and try to plow your way from start to end. 2. If you find yourself lost along the way, try a good Bible commentary that reflects the significance and the meaning. (Even when the meaning is perfectly clear, a commentary can give you great understanding.) 3. Try reading the Bible in a different language which can contains different interpretations between different languages. 4. IF you do not know a foreign language, try an English version that you have never tried before. 5. Do not let it worry you that it might sound like fortune-telling. 6. Do not take the Bible literally. 7. BE OPEN-MINDED. 5. GOSPEL a. Gospel means Good News. b. What makes it Good News is the wild claim that Jesus did not simply tell us that God loves us even in our wickedness and folly and wants us to love each other the same way and to love him too, but that if we will let him, God will actually bring about this unprecedented transformation of our hearts himself. c. “ “ - is the mad existence that Jesus lives among us not just as another haunting memory. d. The Gospel is not only Good and News, but if you take it seriously, it can be a Holy Terror. e. “Childbirth may be occasionally be painless, but rebirth is never.” f. Part of what it means to be a slob is to hang on to our slobbery.

a. b. c. d.

6. WORD In Hebrew the term dabar means both “word” and “deed.” → To say something is to do something. Words are power, essentially the power of creation. “Jesus as the most just of God.” Jesus as the Word made flesh means take it or leave it: in this life, death, life, God finally manages to say what God is and what human is. 7. PARENTS

a. No matter the relationship or circumstances w/ your parents good or bad, always respect them because in the end they gave your LIFE. b. Honor your parent by being the person they should have been. 8. ISRAEL a. 2 reasons why God elected Israel: i. Special privilege - but the tragedy of their history abused them of that. ii. Terrible responsibility b. 2 answers of Israel’s given responsibility by God: i. Impose the world w/ the knowledge of God... but failed. ii. To suffer and die for the world. (Jesus did.) 9. KINGDOM OF GOD a. It is not a place, but a condition. b. KINGSHIP is a better word. c. Because we are part of the Kingdom of God, it is then a part of our tradition. 10. REASON/REVELATION a. Two different ways of describing how you came to know something: i. YOU FOUND IT OUT. ii. IT OCCURRED TO YOU. b. Classic Christianity is not primarily reasonable or something we have found out or worked for ourselves. Christ came. c. Nobody figured Christianity out, it happened. → Called a “revealed religion.” 11. SCIENCE a. Tendency in people to suspect that anything that can’t be measured, weighed, or put in a test tube is either NOT REAL or NOT WORTH TALKING ABOUT. b. If you can prove God, then he would not be God. - people tend to lose interest on something that is already proven, but w/ searching and seeking God is a constant development of faith and knowledge in Him. c. Buechner compares the knowledge of a scientist to God and a theologian to a cold as nonsense as either one does not have knowledge of both. 12. DOCTRINE a. IT WAS A HUMAN EXPERIENCE FIRST b. It does not mean anything to believe it unless it happened to yourself, but believing in it can lead you to experiencing the reality the doctrine holds. c. Take the time to understand how and who God is, we will arrive at our doctrine. 13. HERETICS a. Heretics are people who hold opinions at variance with established religious beliefs. b. Modern-day heretics are less opposed to religion than they are simply left cold by it.

14. ZACCHEUS a. Expect the unexpected because Jesus will do things out of the ordinary, that includes Zaccheus who is a notorious tax collector. 15. ESCAPISM a. “Escape not from reality but into it.” b. Naive and cowardly to solely rely on God as a source of escape whenever one is in trouble as they should stand up and face the trouble rather than leaving it to God. 16. FAITH a. Is an off-and-on-again rather than once-and-for-all. b. Faith cannot prove anything or a blessed thing. NORRIS READINGS 1. PREFACE 1. Human infant and how it follows the parent’s movements. 2. To say “yes” is to make a leap of faith, to risk oneself in a new and often scary relationship. → Unsure for what is to come and commit ourselves to affirmation. → Faith begins. 3. The confidence that faith requires is easier for small children than adults because our trust, allegiance and confidence is badly battered in the process of growing up. 4. NORRIS walked out of faith temporarily. → Grandma Charlotte Totten brought her back in. 5. NORRIS was bombarded by the vocabulary of the Church after not going for 20 years. “-church seemed a place I needed to be. But in order to inhabit it, to claim it as mine, I had to rebuild my religious vocabulary.” 6. A student questions Norris, “but I just don’t understand how you can get so much comfort from a religion whose language does so much harm.” → Norris answers, “This religion saved my life, my husband’s life, and our marriage. It is not comfort, but salvation.” 7. This book is an account of change of faith, the accommodation of and reconciliation with the vocabulary of Christian faith that has been the measure of Norris’ conversion. b. GOD TALK 1. When a sermon is little but biblical or theological language that the preacher did not take the trouble and time to digest, to “incarnate.” it is worse than no sermon at all. 2. Interests Norris to find so little God-Talk in monasteries. 3. Immersing people so completely in poems that speak about the human relation to God serves to be the correct form of religious code language. 4. The monastic life seems to mediate against God-talk in all forms, in which God-talk is a form of idolatry - a way in making God small and manageable. Then God’s presence in the Benedictine rhythm of work and prayer is too large, too various, too unpredictable to be contained by it.

5. The idolatry of God-talk is a symptom of our desire for control and the Benedictines admit too much of the Bible into their daily lives to keep God neatly packed into their comfort zones. 6. One might say “I just can’t handle it” which brings about how people minimize and belittle God. “If we seek a God that we can HANDLE, that will be exactly what we get.” b. THEOLOGY 1. By definition, theology is “the study of the nature of God...rational inquiry into religious...