The Hell dynamic

Good post on the wiles of the enemy at Christian Scholar's Review. Here are the first few paragraphs to whet your appetite, but please, read the whole thing! As my seminary theology professor, Dennis Kinlaw, used to say, "You owe it to yourself!"

Lately, I have been especially attentive to outbreaks, like a rash, of what I call to myself the “Hell dynamic.”

It is a spirit of domination and destruction, in that order. It begins with a struggle for power, exerted with greater or lesser straightforwardness. (This is “domination.”) It ends with a reckoning full of blame and punishment. (This is “destruction.”) It is a subtext underlying all sorts of trivial-seeming conflicts: a quibbling workplace disagreement; a cruel sport on a children’s playground; a face-off between mother and daughter; boasting and whispering at a family reunion.

The “Hell dynamic,” I believe, is simply the result of intelligent existence unmoored to God. It creates abusive hierarchies. Where God, the living water, is absent, ego needs are satiated by bids for control (among the strong) or bids for approval (among the weak). The result, taken to its end, is always Hellish. It is always an arena of shame and punishment.

The strong, unsatisfied by their conquests, externalize their self-blame onto the weak. And their victims, who have sought approval, quiver at what feels like negation. However, even as they are punished, these unfortunate victims are not “seen,” for their tormentors are (unknowingly) looking in a mirror.

This is Hell, well and truly. This is the day-to-day-life, I think, of the demons in their echelons, deprived of God’s presence and forever punching down to slake their misery. When we mimic the demons’ twisted dynamic—which is any time we sneer, judge, shame, or dehumanize—we amplify it through resonance, expanding the reach of deepest Hell.

She goes on to examine academia in particular...

As a side note, my notes from Kinlaw's classes are full of bibliographic references of stuff he suggested we read. Would that I had read more of them!

Why study theology?

There are different ways that one can come at Old Testament theology, but my concern is that too often we separate theology from worship. If the goal of theology is the knowledge of the true God, the end result of that experience ought to be adoration and praise and prayer.—Dennis Kinlaw, Lectures in Old Testament Theology, 13

<idle musing>
I was interacting via text message yesterday with someone about some theology, and this quotation came to mind. I had Kinlaw for Old Testament theology (among other classes with him) in the summer of 1983. He would say things like this all the time. His stated goal was that every pastor would be a theologian and every theologian would be a soul-winner.

He modeled that in his teaching. I took every class he offered in those two semesters when he taught at Asbury Seminary after resigning from the presidency of Asbury College. A few of us even coralled him into teaching an independent study of Aramaic one semester and Syriac the next.
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Augustine had it right!

As a young student, I shook my head when reading how St. Augustine would interject prayers into his exegetical writings. Is this not bad scholarship? Based on my understanding of the book of Job today I would say: No! This is the very foundation that allows true interaction with the text and the reality contained in it.—Job's Journey, page 99 n. 41

<idle musing>
I've got to read this book! Isn't that a wonderful sentiment? Reminds me of something I read (and posted) back in 2013:

[T]rue theology ought to end in prayer. If theology is the study of God, the knowledge of God, and if God is God, then the end of our study ought to be worship. If it is not, if it has been only a study about a subject and our thoughts on that subject, that is idolatry; I have made God a thing. It does not matter how accurate my thought is; if it does not bring me to Him as a living Person, I have only found a substitute for Him, a knowledge of something other than God. When one comes to know the true God, the only response is, in the language of the Old Testament, fearful worship.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, pages 15-16

Good stuff, indeed!
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The purpose matters

[W]e dare not come to the place where we let the Scripture become something we control instead of the Word of God being something that controls us. All unwittingly, the text has become an end in itself for us to study, master and control, instead of a means for an encounter with God.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 458

<idle musing>
An appropriate final excerpt from the book. I hope you have enjoyed the excerpts from the book; it definitely would be worth your effort to read the whole thing. If you want to read more of Kinlaw, I would suggest We Live As Christ or The Mind of Christ. Both are transcriptions of lecture series that he gave.

He is best when lecturing. He only wrote one or two books as books—the rest are transcriptions of his lectures. The books he wrote as books don't have the same feel to them and I wouldn't recommend them.
</idle musing>

You thought you understood it...

Now I have heard, “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy” [Psalm 126:5] applied to prayer. The ideas is that if you pray sincerely enough, weeping, that the weeping will make your prayer more effective. However, I do not think that is what is being talked about at all. I think you and I ought to be sincere in prayer, but the key to interpreting this psalm is in the linkage between sow and tears. When you sow, your interest is tomorrow, not today. And the probabilities are that when you sow, your interest is in somebody beyond yourself. But when my circumstances go wrong, I do not want to think about the future; I want to forget all about it. The last thing I am interested in is spending what energy I have left thinking about something way down the road and preparing for it. Despair makes you captive to the moment. But the psalmist says, when despair comes, don’t let it capture you; keep thinking about tomorrow and planning. He does not say to stop weeping; but he does say not to let the weeping prevent you from sowing in faith for the future.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 437

<idle musing>
Vintage Kinlaw. As I've said before, he had a way of taking something we had read a hundred times and then getting us to see it in a new—and more accurate—way.
</idle musing>

(Not so) Blind Faith

The Israelites’ faith did not blind them in a way that prevented them from seeing the evil or the unanswered questions—their faith did not express itself superficially. They found nothing in their faith to demand that they deny reality. Sometimes we use religion as an escapism. But you do not find that in Ecclesiastes.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 433

Real faith

As I said above, the more I have lived with this psalm [89], the more grateful I have become for it. It says to us that it is all right to ask questions, when things do not seem to fit in our faith. But it also says that present distress need not diminish the reality of our faith. The psalmist did not question that God really is the God of hesed and ’emunah, steadfast love and faithfulness. It was just the question that those did not seem to be present in the circumstances. By the same token, genuine faith does not require us to deny our pain and uncertainty.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 423

Thought readjustment needed

The verse [Isa 53:6] says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord [Yahweh] has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Now, I checked through every translation of that verse I could find, and it is translated that way consistently. But let me tell you what the literal Hebrew is for that last sentence in the verse. It says, “Yahweh has caused to meet in him the iniquity of us all.” For me, “to cause to meet in him” gives a totally different picture than “to lay on him.” When I think about “laid on him,” I see a judgment in a courtroom. The legal obligation of one person is “laid” on another person. But the word iniquity used here is the strongest word in the Old Testament for the evil that is within us, the wrong that is within us, the depths and the great extent of our wrongness before God. So the picture here is of all our wrongness before coming into this Mediator in whom is all the goodness of God and meeting that goodness there.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 404

<idle musing>
Can you tell he studied theology under Torrence? Shows, doesn't it? As I read that, I felt my brain doing a rewire—in a good way.

Kind of puts the popular versions of atonement in the trashcan (which is where they belong, anyway!)...
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But maybe not

So clearly, from a human perspective this text cannot mean what it appears to. You see, we decide how God is supposed to act. Every people group decides how God is supposed to act, and the hardest problem that God has with us, I think, is to disabuse us of our wrong notions of who His is and what He is like. So here they are describing the way they think He must be. If He is going to win, and they are sure He will, He can only do so by power and by might.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 399

<idle musing>
I neglected to write down the passage he is referring to, but that's really immaterial to the argument. The point is that we think God is like us. And where he isn't, we're right and he's wrong! Oh, we don't do it consciously, bit it's there just the same...no wonder we need repentance and new birth!
</idle musing>

Who's on first

Reconciliation is not something wrung out of God against His will by some application of magic. The sacrificial system only has effect because Yahweh wills to offer reconciliation out of His own heart. That means that if we are to receive that reconciliation, there have to be corresponding personal overtures from us. There has to be something from within us that says we recognize what we have done and want to be reconciled.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 381

Take that, you monergists!

Intercession is not our attempt to persuade God to do something He would rather not do. Instead, God is looking for someone who will intercede. It is Yahweh Himself who wants to initiate the intercession. Why is that? Why is intercession important? I wish I could answer that question more fully than I can. It is not that we add something to the work of salvation; salvation is in God and God alone. But there is something in Him that causes Him to invite us to enter into that process, and that entering in seems vital to the completion of the process.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 373

About that list of qualifications...

Now, who would be the perfect ruler, and what would he be like? The Old Testament offers many snapshots in order to create a composite picture for them so they can conceive of who the perfect ruler and the perfect mediator would be. For instance, there is Moses. How would you describe him as the leader of Israel? What is his primary characteristic? Was he a priest? A political figure? A figure of power? The thing that impresses me the most is that he was a mediator, and more particularly, an intercessor.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 373

<idle musing>
When was the last time you saw that on the list of job requirements? Can you see it?
Wanted, top level executive. Must be experienced in spending hours interceding with God on behalf of a wayward group of people. Must be willing to sacrifice him/herself for the survival of that same group. Oh, and incidentally, they are more than willing to stone you if you don't do what they want.

Think there would be many takers? Me either...
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Deus ex machina? Hardly

When one takes the Old Testament from the beginning, God’s purpose is redemptive; God is never first a judge. Furthermore, salvation is not going to come from the throne. It originates there but it won’t be accomplished there. It is in time and space that redemption takes place. And redemption is not going to be done without us. Yet, although it is not going to be done without us, there is no salvation in any of us. All salvation is in Him and comes from beyond, but it takes place in the here and now and not without human involvement.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 363

Implications of God as Father

God has this concern for the world. He is a Father. He was a Father before He was Lord, and He will be a Father in the end. And when He created us He put us in families, In other words, He put us together like Himself and He wants us to have that kind of paternal relationship with Him. But He is a holy Father. And His holiness, His otherness, is especially expressed in an ethical purity unlike anything found in humanity. As such, He is offended by wrong; it repels Him. But that repulsion does not make Him want to let us go. Rather, it makes Him want to get His arms around us and not let us go, because He knows that when we have chosen wrong, we have chosen something detrimental to us, the ones He loves. He wants to deal with the evil, not just to punish us as a Judge. So, what is it that creates evil? It is when I shut the door on the Source of life, When I shut the door on God, when I shut my heart on God, then evil develops because the source of virtue, the source of righteousness, the source of holiness, is cut off. By my shutting the door on Him, I have created something alien to Him, something that will be my destruction.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, pages 351-352

<idle musing>
I love that about Kinlaw; he makes a straightforward observation. Then he turns it in a way that causes you to see something totally new in it. Sure, God is Father—but here are the implications. And God is a holy Father—but here are the implications. And God is a Judge—but here are the implications.

That's why his classes were such a joy to be a part of. That and the fact that he was continually making reference to a whole library full of books to read. He'd mention a book and say, "You owe it to yourself to read this." How can you not want to read it when it is introduced like that?!
</idle musing>

Thought for a Friday

Paganism sees existence as a struggle between chaos and order, with chaos being “bad” and order being “good.” These two principles have always existed and always will, and we simply need to face the fact that disorder, evil, is as necessary a part of existence as order, good, is. It is all right to attempt to maximize order and to minimize disorder, but disorder is always going to be there, and you are just going to have to learn the tricks to try to hold it at bay. So the universe is full of these forces of disorder. To all of that the Old Testament says a resounding “No!” Evil is nothing more nor less than the results of a refusal to submit to the creative purposes of our Father. In the sense that He made a world where that refusal is possible, He is responsible for the existence of evil in the world. That means that when you face the realm of evil within you and without, He is the only One you need to deal with, and if you have Him in the right place in your life, you can forget about your fears.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 345

Careful, he just stole the show

[Dorothy] Sayers says that if a playwright introduces the Devil into her cast of characters, she immediately has a great problem on her hands. The problem is how to keep the Devil from becoming the hero. Since the human spirit is so attracted to evil, even if you just make Satan one of the minor characters, you are going to have trouble keeping him from getting center stage.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 343

<idle musing>
And that's true in theology too, isn't it? I suspect that is the reason you don't find a fully developed theology of satan in the scripture...and why it is so easy to see "a demon behind every bush" if you aren't careful.

A good illustration of this is the movie Fantasia from Disney. The part where good finally triumphs at the end is boring! But the preceding Night on Bald Mountain is fascinating...we need the redeeming power of the Holy Spirit even to see evil as repulsive.
</idle musing>

Escapist literature

Of course there is prediction in the true prophets, but the purpose of that prediction is something very different from divination. Divination seeks to let you know what the future is so you can escape it. The purpose of true prophecy is to let you know who God is so you an get right with Him, and in that way guarantee your future.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 310

<idle musing>
Escapist literature at its best : )
</idle musing>

Front and center

Once again, you see [in Psalm 51], Yahweh is standing right at the center of the situation. The big issue everywhere you turn in the Old Testament is Yahweh. It is not first of all about truth, or about the Law. It is not first of all about power, or about guilt. It is not first of all about sacrifice. The central overriding issue is: Who is Yahweh and how do I relate to Him?— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 259

<idle musing>
I just read an interesting post on theological systems over at Missio Alliance. It's actually a two-part post; I linked to the second post, but you should read them both. Anyway, the upshot is that we all too frequently put theology in front of our reading. Instead of reading the text that is, we read the text that our theology says is there...I know, no big news, but it is big news if we allow the Holy Spirit to break through those shackles and really speak to us. That's what this excerpt from Kinlaw is all about—at least, that's how I read it! : )
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A fairy-tale world

We live in a cause-and-effect world. One of the most deadly things you can do to your children is always to shield them from the consequences of their actions. They will grow up living in a fairy-tale world that does not exist. And they will never be able to cope with the real world where actions have inevitable consequences. We depend on that fact, as does science. What kind of world would it be if we never knew what the effects of our actions would be? We, in our fallenness, insist on getting the just rewards of all our good (or almost-good) actions, but assume that the consequences of all our bad actions can just be forgotten. It is not true. For forgiveness to exist in the cosmos, there has to have been created some mechanism whereby the just consequences of sin can be fully suffered. Jesus Christ and His Cross are that mechanism, and so much more than a mere mechanism.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 256

<idle musing>
Amen! Good preaching! When the kids were young, they used to say, "That's not fair!" And I would agree, but I also reminded them that "not fair" plays both ways...I wonder if they remember that.
</idle musing>

Automatic response

We are persons and we do not want to be used or mechanically controlled. But that was at the heart of much of the sacrificial system of the ancient Near East. The right words, the right ceremonies, should work automatically in a naturalistic cause-and-effect manner. These same ideas are found around the world. Studies of Polynesian culture have made a couple of their terms—taboo and mana—part of the English language. Both of them are that ex opera operatokind of thing. It does not matter what your motive was; it does not matter what the circumstances were. If you did it so that it is wrong in terms of that other world, then the consequences are automatic. The only way to avert those consequences was for you to do something to counter them.— Lectures in Old Testament Theology, page 251

<idle musing>
Sadly, that same theology is at work in much of the church—a candy machine god. "Name it, claim it, stomp on it and frame it!" "Blab it and grab it!"

What a perversion the promises of God. That kind of theology never wants to put God first. Indeed, it makes the self the center of the world and then uses scripture to try and justify it. That's not Christian theology!
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