If you listened to the White Horse Inn broadcast The Glory Story (mentioned in the previous post) you heard a quote from Gerhard Forde. Forde is professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. The quote was from his book On Being A Theologian of the Cross. In the same book, on pages 89 and 90 Forde says:
True knowledge of God, therefore, does not come on a theological platter. We are predisposed to distort things, to see wrongly, and to speak falsely. We construct a doctrine of God amenable to our projects. So the only way to know God is through suffering, the suffering of the one who saves us. God, so to speak, has to get our attention so that we will see at last. Knowledge of God does not comprise sets of doctrinal truths that may be taken or left at our discretion, not even if those truths call themselves “A Theology of the Cross,” which we subsequently take steps to put into practice. Whether we take it or whether we leave it makes no difference. As long as we think the matter is at our discretion, we remain the acting subjects. God is ultimately an insignificant cipher. There is no way through here. God can be known and had only through suffering the divine deed of the cross. The cross does not merely inform us of something, something that may be “above,” or “behind” it. It attacks and afflict us. Knowledge of God comes when God happens to us, when God does himself to us.
Would you agree or disagree? Is this quote even understandable? If we can understand this, and agree with Forde’s statement, does it line up with what Tim Keller says about suffering in the chapter we are now reading? Any and all thoughts are welcome.
randy
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On Wednesday night I preached the feast of St. James service. Ironically, a lot of what I preached about is similar to what you are talking about in the theology of the cross subject. St. James, like all of our Lord’s faithful servants, had his own personal sins to deal with. While he and his brother St. John had a great zeal for serving their Lord, you’ll recall that their zeal also drifted into the area of personal ambition and self promotion. Right after Jesus told them that He must go and die a horrible death on the cross, the privately asked him for positions of honour on His right hand and on His left. They wanted a position of personal power and authority.
All of God’s servants must guard against this. It would be an ever so easy sin to fall into. Look at some of the great preachers and teachers that have had their ministries ruined by falling into and ego driven, personal ambition laden trap and have lost their ability to serve. This is what happens when it becomes all about us and we take our eyes off the glory of the cross.
I ended my sermon with the verse “Let he who is chiefest amongst you be the servant of all”. That’s what this is all about. Serving one another with the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not some watered down version either. But the PURE WORD OF GOD.
This is my take on the quoted passage and on Christian suffering.
Corrupted by the Fall, we tend to create God in our own image, and we design theologies that suit our goals. History confirms this. For example, 17th and 18th century preachers and politicians distorted Christian theology to support slavery, westward expansion, and war. World history is replete with examples of corrupt politicians and cowardly popes using twisted theology as a rubberstamp for all sorts of vile goals. {Christianity, of course, isn’t the only religion or worldview that has been manipulated by power-hungry politicians. I point to these Christian flaws as part of Keller’s invitation to critically examine our own faith.}
Though for things less evil, we continue to distort Christian theology today. We build theologies that domesticate our sins and approve of our selfish goals. At the center of much modern theology is God as a cosmic concierge. If I want to reserve a nice parking spot at the beach or land a promotion at work, all I have to do is dial up The Big Guy. And so our tithes become more like tips—we give our 10% as a thank you for the good work he did the week past, but we also slip in a little extra with a wink; and we hope that he’ll hook us up with something really nice in the coming week.
But this is not so for the Christian whose revived spirit knows the God of the cross. Once a Christian has been seized by Christ’s ineffable suffering—the humiliation, the blood sweat, the nails, the dried tongue clinging to the cheek, the bitter taste of gall, the pierced side, and terrifying cry of dereliction—he knows that suffering is central to Christian life. The light-beer theologies of materialism and self-esteem are put aside for the 200-proof reality that our lives were bought with blood. And Christ’s blood is a bitter drink for a sinful man. It destroys our pride, mocks our vanity, and disrupts our plans. But we know that it’s the only drink that’s good for our soul because it frees us to do the one thing that is truly satisfying. That is, it allows us to follow Christ up Golgotha and unite with his crucifixion, so that we might also unite with his resurrection, freeing us to love God with all our mind, heart, and soul. Thus, no true theology can exist apart from Christ crucified. And anyone who has made the spiritual trip to the foot of the cross and looked up at our suffering Lord will necessarily reject all of these saccharine-filled half-truths about the Christian faith as a path to prosperity.