Category Archives: Books

History by the Earful

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A couple of months ago I purchased two new audio books to listen to while cycling. Often, while cycling, I listen to novels: they do not seem to demand as much concentration. Listening to non-fiction is harder, and I seem only to get a portion of what I am hearing.

The first of the books is Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. The sub-title indicates the bold, perhaps grandiose, vision of the book. Of course it is impossible to write a complete history of the world; that would be beyond any possible scholarly capacity.  Frankopan, however, has achieved much of what he has set out to do.

Frankopan argues that Asia and the Middle East constitute the “heart of the world,” and that major trading cities were strung across this region, across “the spine of Asia,” like a string of pearls. These cities became centres of mercantile activity from ancient eras to the present, and indeed, the world as a whole is pivoting back to this region as it once more fulfils its role (destiny?) as “the heart of the world.”

Frankopan’s history is deeply fascinating and somewhat depressing. He manages to include enormous detail and great sweeps and movements of history as he exploits the imagery of the “silk road.” The origin of the term refers, of course, to the trade routes linking China to the west so that silk production in the former might find its way to the latter. In Frankopan’s hands, the silk roads become the “road to heaven” (the crusades) and the “road to hell” (the Black Death or the plagues). He speaks of the “slave road,” and the “road to the Christian east;” the roads of furs, gold, silver, and black gold. The roads to compromise, genocide, and super-power rivalry; the roads of catastrophe and tragedy.

There is much in the book to inform Christian interest in church history, though Frankopan seems to regard religion as a human capacity. His treatment of the modern world, as expected, is more detailed than that of the ancient world. The British are portrayed as a particularly wicked empire, followed closely by the Americans, though Hitler is worst of all, simply and utterly evil. In contrast to the British, other brutal tyrants of history such as Genghis Khan seem almost tame by comparison. But perhaps I missed some of Frankopan’s nuance, due to the cycling.

So why was it somewhat depressing? Because the story is one of warfare, conquest, exploitation, bloodshed, and tyranny, and all this based on economics and the desire for power or glory. While trade has certainly opened up the world and brought its varied peoples into contact and communication with one another, it has also opened doorways to violent military conflicts that have devastated entire peoples and regions.

As I listened I was glad for relatively recent developments in international relations and law which serve to constrain some of these worst impulses, though obviously not entirely. I was also very aware that the privilege I enjoy as a member of a first-world society has been funded at least in part by injustice in previous generations and centuries.

Is there hope that the future might be different from the past? Might new systems and mechanisms of trade and development emerge that somehow privilege the under-developed nations and allow them to space to prosper, even if “economic growth” and “standards of living” in the wealthier countries do not continue to grow at the rates we seem to desire? Might warfare and violence be constrained, and its devastating impact on civilian populations (especially children) reduced? Can the international community find better ways of relating than via stand-off and conflict?

I am not overly optimistic about this. It seems humanity is fatally incapable of learning that the way of hubris and greed leads inevitably to destruction, both for others and ultimately, for oneself. Perhaps works like Frankopan’s will help stimulate deeper reflection across many constituencies, and so result in new movements towards peace and justice. Such movements are welcome and are to be encouraged.

In the end, however, I find I hope most in the eschatological and apocalyptic vision of the New Testament: that is, I hope for the return of Jesus Christ and the establishing of the kingdom of God. As Christians, it is this in which we hope, this that we are to image now in our life together, and this that we are to work toward.

I found this a very worthwhile book, one I will listen to again. I have also bought a Kindle edition and hope one day to read it as well. I can recommend it.

Credo (A Review)

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St Bega's Church
St Bega’s Church

This is the only novel I have read in over twelve months—a very sad state of affairs! I began it last year and finished it a couple of weeks ago. I have managed to listen to a number of novels however, so it hasn’t been a complete withdrawal from the world of fiction.

Melvyn Bragg was labelled by The Times as a “novelist, television presenter, and arts doyen.” He has led a quite public life in the UK and was made a peer, Lord Bragg, in the 1990s. This is the first novel I have read by Bragg, though I have another on the shelf. The story-telling in this novel is quite good and the style, while neither riveting nor overly-memorable, does its duty of maintaining sufficient interest to keep the narrative moving.

Credo is a large work, over 750 pages, telling the story of Bega, a young Irish princess who becomes a nun at Whitby Abbey in the mid-seventh century, and establishes her own convent shortly afterwards. Based faintly on historical events, characters and writings, Bragg has imagined how things might have been, drawing especially on the work of Bede the Venerable, who features in the book as a child. The story follows the life and love, the faith and service, prayer and miracles, struggles and triumphs of Bega in a world dominated by political ambitions, warfare, and ecclesiastical factions (the Roman church and the Celts) striving for their own versions of Christianity.

The portrayal of the faith of these early British Christians was interesting. Bragg presents them as dedicated and devout, and in their pre-scientific culture, credulous, even superstitious. Their asceticism and their focus on prayer is emphasised while the presence and influence of the Scriptures is peripheral. Bega is shown as specially marked out and gifted by God with special grace and powers, though her exceptional humility keeps her from any self-aggrandisement.

The relationship between Bega the Christian leader and Reggiani a local pagan wise woman and healer is explored, with Bega often—from a modern perspective at least—appearing backward and ill-informed. Yet her faith and faithful prayer triumphs in the midst of much adversity, suffering, and self-abasement.

CredoThe historical record of Bega is slight. In an afterword Bragg notes that she “hovers between the historical and the mythic,” although traces of her life still exist in place names, and a tiny lakeside church by Bassenthwaite in the Lakes District named St Bega’s (752, 756f.). She is said to have inspired miracles until about 1300.

I had never heard of her, although I have known of and visited the abbey at Whitby, know the story of Hild, and am aware of the important synod held there in the mid-seventh century. Bragg brings these events and their personalities to vivid life, though to what extent the portrayal is an accurate reflection of the reality, I am not sure.

Reading this book has kindled a desire to read—sometime—Bede’s history of the English church, and perhaps other works of history to learn more of these faithful Celtic Christians, and the extraordinary devotion and service they appear to have shown. Thus I have found the book worth reading, and not simply for a fascinating and enjoyable story.

Strange Glory – Reflections

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Strange GloryWhen I am on my bike or on the train or doing some housework, I often listen to audio books. Mostly I have listened to fiction, but I recently began listening to other genres, including this wonderful biography by Charles Marsh: Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Knopf, 2014), 528pp.

I cannot write a review of the book because listening, especially when doing something else, means I do not give the book my undivided attention. Nor can I provide page numbers or citations. Yet I thoroughly enjoyed this biography and intend some time to read the book itself.

So what did I enjoy? Strange Glory was well written and beautifully read by Paul Hecht. It covered the whole life of Bonhoeffer with a great deal of detail, insight and connection. It presented Bonhoeffer as a complicated human being, brilliant and needy, a member of the privileged elite with a great concern for the common man. It was theologically rich and informed, not compromising the depth of Bonhoeffer’s thought in the telling of his story. It relied extensively on primary texts, especially the letters and journals of Bonhoeffer himself. It provided an entrée into Bonhoeffer’s personal thought and relationships, his prejudices and commitments, his loves and affections, his misgivings, self-doubts (at times) and determinations. It charted his development as a person, churchman and theologian across the course of his life. It explored his dedication to the ethical character of the Christian life without reducing Christianity to ethics.

CharlesMarsh

Much discussion surrounding Marsh’s book concerns the author’s portrayal of Bonhoeffer as gay, as in love with his friend, confidante and confessor Eberhard Bethge. He does not assert that the two friends had a sexual relationship, but that Bonhoeffer, at least, was in love. Marsh does provide many details to support his case, though whether his argument is convincing is disputed amongst reviewers. I am not sufficiently acquainted with Bonhoeffer to make a firm determination on the matter—is anyone?—but I am not wholly convinced by Marsh. In the end, the issue is peripheral and should not detract from the major aspects of his story.

Far more important in my estimation, is the portrayal of Bonhoeffer as a man of great passion and compassion in addition to his penetrating intellect. Despite his elitism and eccentricities, he loved those he ministered to, struggled to find his place in the world of German Christendom, and was amongst the first to understand that the Nazi oppression of the Jews was a betrayal of the gospel. His life exemplified both the “cost of discipleship” as well as a fulsome embrace of the delights of the world and culture. One of the most interesting aspects of the story for me, and something I want and need to return to, was the way that Marsh was able to correlate Bonhoeffer’s Finkenwalde “experiment” with the theological development that occurred in the prison years. Bonhoeffer’s “religionless Christianity” constituted new growth in the field of his thought, but not disjunction with that which preceded it.

Anyone interested in Bonhoeffer’s life and theology will gain much benefit from this extensively researched biography. Formal reviews of the book can be found at First Things, the Gospel Coalition, the New York Times, and the usual theological journals.

Baptized in the Spirit (Review)

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Baptized in the SpiritMacchia, Frank D., Baptized in the Spirit:
A Global Pentecostal Theology
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 296pp.
ISBN: 13: 978-0-310-25236-8

Frank Macchia argues that although the Pentecostal emphasis on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit has been marginalised in recent Pentecostal theological reflection, it remains “the crown jewel of Pentecostal distinctives” (20). Nevertheless Pentecostal articulation of the doctrine has remained too narrow, disconnected from the broader contexts of theological and ecumenical reflection. Macchia aims, therefore, to expand the parameters of the doctrine, and to use the biblical metaphor as a lens through which to understand the broader pneumatological vision of Scripture.

Baptized in the Spirit is not a systematic theology in the proper sense of the term, nor an examination of the theology of the Pentecostal movements. Rather, it engages with particular theological loci using Spirit baptism as a starting point and organising motif. The first two chapters provide an orientation and rationale for the study. Macchia identifies four primary reasons for the marginalisation of the doctrine in recent Pentecostal theology. He affirms the Pentecostal desire for the pneumatological renewal of the church, and the understanding of Spirit baptism as an experiential, empowering reality in the lives of individual Christians and churches.

Macchia is clear, however, that Spirit baptism is much more than a singular event in these lives and churches. In its biblical and theological contexts Spirit baptism is a richly textured concept with trinitarian and eschatological dimensions. It refers to the original outpouring of the Spirit by the ascended Spirit-baptizer on the day of Pentecost, by which the triune God redeems a lost world, entering into fellowship and solidarity with it. It refers also to the final eschatological outpouring in which the Spirit is poured out upon all flesh such that the renewed cosmos becomes the dwelling place of God. It is the work of divine grace preceding water baptism that opens and prepares a human life for the reality of God. It speaks, too, of ongoing and subsequent experiences of the Spirit’s presence and power in the lives of individual Christians and churches. Macchia explores these aspects of Spirit baptism in the following chapters, which address Spirit baptism in relation to Christian initiation, Spirit baptism in trinitarian perspective, and Spirit-baptised ecclesiology.

Perhaps the most significant move Macchia makes is to link Spirit baptism with the idea of the kingdom of God, thus providing the doctrine with a powerful eschatological orientation. Just as the metaphor of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit fills out the concept of the kingdom of God, so the idea of the kingdom extends the vision and function of Spirit baptism. Ultimately, the two concepts are co-extensive for Macchia, with the character of the kingdom being understood in christological and pneumatological terms.

Decisively inaugurated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the kingdom of God becomes a dynamic within history through the outpouring of the Spirit that is directed toward the divine indwelling of all of creation so that all things might be conformed to Christ’s image. … This dynamism has its roots in the fact that the kingdom has to do, not with a place, but rather with life, the life of the Spirit of God (Matt. 12:28; Rom. 14:17), opening up the creation to new possibilities of renewal and hope. The life of the kingdom is the life of the Spirit in which God’s reign actively conquers the dark forces and liberates lives to new hope. It is thus not only a divine attribute but the participation of the creature by God’s grace in the divine nature. Accordingly, it is not primarily about religion but about a life in God, filled with the fruit of the Spirit and dedicated to God’s righteousness on earth (97).

Another significant move concerns Macchia’s understanding of the nature of Spirit baptism, which he characterises as God’s self-gift of all-embracing love.

All of the fractures that have plagued the Pentecostal theology of Spirit baptism can be healed ultimately by an understanding of love as the substance of life in the Spirit, love that fills us to overflowing as a purgative, empowering, eschatological gift of communion and new life (260, emended slightly).

Spirit-baptism is fundamentally a relational event which issues in the creation of the church as a new community with renewed human sociality. Indeed, the Spirit is “the ecclesial Spirit” and Spirit baptism is baptism into an ecclesial dynamic (167). The church is to echo and embody the relationality and open hospitality of the holy Trinity.

The Spirit is the Spirit of communion. Spirit baptism implies communion. This is why it leads to a shared love, a shared meal, a shared mission, and the proliferation/enhancement of an interactive charismatic life. Spirit baptism thus implies a relationship of unity between the Lord and the church that is not fundamentally one of identity but rather communion. … Spirit baptism has a relational structure that has communion at its essence, the communion of self-giving love (156-157, 160).

Macchia makes the implications of this quite clear:

The self-giving God of Spirit baptism produces a self-giving people in mission. The God who seeks to save the lost produces a people who do the same. To love God is to be shaped by that love so as to share its affections and passions (264).

The love which shapes the life of the Spirit-baptised includes both love for God and love for others. Perhaps pre-eminently, it is an experience of the love that God has for us: “the love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5)—a verse cited by Macchia more often than any other, including Matthew 12:28, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Acts 1:8 or Acts 2:4.

This focus on Spirit-baptism in terms of divine love can save the Pentecostal church from forms of triumphalism that neglect the reality of suffering and the necessity of solidarity with and ministry on behalf of those who suffer. The power with which the church is endued is the power of love manifest and made known in the suffering love of Christ. “Spirit baptism as an experience of empowerment is not just renewed energy to do things for God. It is rather the power of self-transcending, self-giving love” (281). The tongues of Pentecost were “a broken speech for a broken body of Christ till perfection comes” (281). Understood in terms of love, Spirit-baptism can become an ongoing and repeated experience in which believers are caught up ever and again into the love of God. If this understanding is correct, then Spirit-baptism may also function as a continual source of renewal for the church.

In my estimation Macchia has successfully expanded the boundaries and understanding of Pentecostalism’s “crown jewel,” and in so doing has made a welcome contribution to Pentecostal and ecumenical theology. While I am not yet convinced that the biblical metaphor of Spirit baptism can function as the organising principle of a comprehensive systematic theology, Macchia has demonstrated that it may shine new light on old doctrines.

Macchia’s Pentecostal roots are clearly displayed in the biblical orientation of his work; hardly a paragraph goes by without a biblical reference. Nevertheless, his most prominent interlocutors are not other Pentecostals (although they are not ignored), but Moltmann, Volf, Küng, and documents of ecumenical consultations. His work represents a considered attempt to draw Pentecostal theology from the margins toward the centre of the ecumenical theological enterprise. In the process some aspects of the classical Pentecostal doctrine are sacrificed. There is no discussion of the gift of tongues as a devotional practice, let alone as “the initial evidence” (though see pp. 212 and 281), although it does symbolise the unity of the church in the midst of its increasing diversification. Whereas classic Pentecostals insist that the Baptism with the Holy Spirit is separate from and subsequent to conversion, Macchia insists that no separation is possible, although he does keep a form of subsequence, whether in terms of the believer’s experience of the Spirit’s presence, or as ongoing experiences of the Spirit’s “coming” throughout the Christian life. It is surely no accident that the final climatic section of the book is titled “Spirit Baptism as Love’s ‘Second Conversion’” (280).

I do not want us to lose our emphasis on the experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit as something that Christians should expect in the life of faith at some point during or after their acceptance of Christ as Lord and as an ongoing experience of charismatic enrichment. The experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit can be a renewal of faith, hope, and love as well as an enhancement of power for mission. It is an enhancement of our conversion to Christ but also a “second conversion” that turns us in Christ’s love toward the world in prayer for its renewal and in our participation in God’s mission. … The Pentecostals ask us to experience a foretaste of that glory in the here and now as a force for renewal in the Christian life and the life of the church. I think we should listen (282, original emphasis).

Baptized in the Spirit 7 (Frank Macchia)

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Baptized in the SpiritChapter Six: The Spirit-Baptized Life

Macchia’s final chapter provides his overarching definition of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit: it is a baptism into divine love (258). Indeed, the climatic section of the whole work is “Spirit Baptism as Love’s ‘Second Coversion’” (280).

All of the fractures that have plagued the Pentecostal theology of Spirit baptism can be healed ultimately by an understanding of love as the substance of life in the Spirit, love that fills us to overflowing as a purgative, empowering, eschatological gift of communion and new life (260, emended slightly).

In Spirit-baptism God does not simply give us something or some spiritual gift or benefit; God gives himself. Spirit-baptism is God’s self-gift as all-embracing love. The transcendent God is also personal and communicative. Just as the God of Jesus Christ gave without reservation in the incarnation, so at Pentecost God has given all that God is.

The God of Pentecost self-imparts in abundance and limitless expanse in witness to Christ, reaching out to all flesh in forces of liberation, reconciliation, and communion. What is self-imparted is divine love, a love that bears all things, including our sin, sorrow, and death. The God of Spirit baptism is the “crucified God” (262).

Macchia makes the implications of this quite clear:

The self-giving God of Spirit baptism produces a self-giving people in mission. The God who seeks to save the lost produces a people who do the same. To love God is to be shaped by that love so as to share its affections and passions (264).

The love which shapes the life of the Spirit-baptised includes both love for God and love for others. Perhaps pre-eminently, it is a transforming experience of the love that God has for us: “the love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5)—a verse cited by Macchia more often than any other, including Matthew 12:28, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Acts 1:8 or Acts 2:4.

This focus on Spirit-baptism in terms of divine love can save the Pentecostal church from forms of triumphalism that neglect the reality of suffering and the necessity of solidarity with and ministry on behalf of those who suffer. The power with which the church is endued is the power of love manifest and made known in the suffering love of Christ. “Spirit baptism as an experience of empowerment is not just renewed energy to do things for God. It is rather the power of self-transcending, self-giving love” (281). The tongues of Pentecost were “a broken speech for a broken body of Christ till perfection comes” (281). Understood in terms of love, Spirit-baptism can become an ongoing and repeated experience in which believers are caught up ever and again into the love of God. If this understanding is correct, then Spirit-baptism may also function as a continual source of renewal for the church.

Christianity Today’s Book of the Year, 2017

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Fleming RutledgeChristianity Today have nominated Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion as 2017 Book of the Year. 

“Fleming Rutledge has always had a reputation for bold, relentlessly scriptural, and Cross-centered preaching. In this book, the work of a lifetime, she pulls back the lid on the deep well of exegetical, theological, and spiritual reflection that has nourished her ministry. If previous generations of evangelicals looked to John Stott’s The Cross of Christ as their definitive work on Christ’s atoning work, I predict future generations of evangelicals will return again and again, in the same way, to The Crucifixion. This book is a classic in the making, one that will go on nurturing gospel-rich preaching for decades to come.” —Wesley Hill, assistant professor of biblical studies, Trinity School for Ministry

An excerpt from the book:

It makes many people queasy nowadays to talk about the wrath of God, but there can be no turning away from this prominent biblical theme. Oppressed peoples from around the world have been empowered by the scriptural picture of a God who is angered by injustice and unrighteousness. If we are resistant to the idea of the wrath of God, we might pause to reflect the next time we are outraged about something—about our property values being threatened, or our children’s educational opportunities being limited, or our tax breaks being eliminated. All of us are capable of anger about something. God’s anger, however, is pure. It does not have the maintenance of privilege as its object but goes out on behalf of those who have no privileges. The wrath of God is not an emotion that flares up from time to time, as though God has temper tantrums. It is a way of describing his absolute enmity against all wrong and his coming to set matters right….

Where is the outrage? It is God’s own; it is the wrath of God against all that stands against his redemptive purpose. It is not an emotion; it is God’s righteous activity in setting right what is wrong. It is God’s intervention on behalf of those who cannot help themselves.

Baptized in the Spirit 6 (Frank Macchia)

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Baptized in the SpiritHaving outlined his approach to ecclesiology, Macchia continues his discussion by considering three classic biblical metaphors for the church in their relation to Spirit-baptism: the church as the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Baptism with the Holy Spirit serves to distinguish the old and the new people of God, forms the church as the body (and bride) of Christ, and continually adds new members to it. The Spirit-filled body and temple is a missional entity, testifying in the world to an alternate—eschatological—reality.

The Spirit-filled temple reaches in priestly ministry and prophetic witness for the four corners of the earth in order to foreshadow the coming new creation as the final dwelling place of God. … The church as the temple of the Spirit becomes the harbinger of the sanctification of creation into the very image of Christ as God’s dwelling place to the glory of God (204).

Turning from the classic metaphors to the creedal marks of the church, Macchia identifies a variety of ‘marks’ which have been used by various groups in Christian history to describe the nature and activity of the church. He suggests that all these various marks are mutually supporting and informing lenses through which the classical marks—the church as “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic”—have continuing relevance. Macchia views the marks as describing the eschatological people of God, and therefore as a vision to be pursued and embodied by the church in the present, in discipleship, service, and witness.

The classic marks are not replaced by these other ‘marks’ but are qualified and read through these others as lenses. The marks as eschatological gifts of the Spirit bestowed by Christ are also goals in which we are constantly to be renewed and toward which we strive (209).

Understanding the marks in the light of Spirit-baptism provides interesting insight into the nature of the church. The unity of the church is not uniformity or the formation of one “world-church,” but communion in the midst of an increasingly diversifying plurality of Christian experience and expression, though within a common confession. The tongues of Pentecost bear witness to this dynamism, so that “the unity of Pentecost is thus not abstract and absolute but rather concrete and pluralistic” (218). This is a unity that “respects and fulfills the scattering and diversification of peoples from Babel. Otherness is not denied but embraced in this differentiated and complex unity of the church at Pentecost” (218). Thus the church embraces the tensions of diversity, respecting others and avoiding uniformity or conformity.

The holiness of the church is secured by the Holy Spirit who mightily indwells it as the presence of a holy God who transforms his people. The church is sanctified through the gospel, its members through their incorporation into the holy community, and by being set apart for a holy task. They are continually being transformed as they live in accordance with Word, Spirit and the community.

Macchia understands catholicity in terms of “fullness” rather than universality, and discusses the term in a sense analogous to his discussion of unity. The Spirit blesses the church with a rich variety of spiritual, historical, denominational, and cultural gifts, no one group or church being the true fullness all on its own. Here Macchia also discusses the ecumenical challenge, as well as what he calls the “Catholic claim.”

We cannot discuss catholicity in avoidance of this Catholic claim. It must be taken seriously. We must ask whether or not we are guilty of gazing so intently on the pneumatological constitution and eschatological fulfillment of catholicity in the new creation that we are blind to the christological institution of the church and its historic continuity as the visible body of the faithful. I believe that Küng is right that there is historical validity to the “mother church” idea. The Roman Catholic Church has a certain “parental” role in the family tree of the Christian church in the world (227).

He continues, however:

Suffice it to say here that the “mother” Catholic Church belongs herself to a heritage in the outpouring of the Spirit to which she is as accountable as any of us and on which she can, in my view, lay no privileged claim. We as her children and grandchildren respect her role in history in passing on to us a precious heritage in the form of witness. But our reception of this witness draws us to the same source from which she has received it and must continue to receive it. There are thus limits to how far one can stretch the metaphor of her maternal role in relation to us (228, original emphasis).

A Spirit-baptized view of apostolicity understands it in terms of leadership and mission. Apostolic succession is a characteristic of the whole church and not simply one office in it. “If Pentecostalism is anything,” says Macchia, “it is ‘apostolic’ by intention. Its original mission was dedicated to the ‘apostolic faith,’ and many Pentecostal churches around the world since then have raised the banner of ‘apostolic’ quite high” (229). The whole church shares the original faith, experience and mission of the earliest apostles and the churches they founded (230). Just as the Spirit led and gifted the original churches, so the Spirit continues to supply the church with guidance and gifts for its contemporary mission.

Macchia concludes his ecclesiological reflections with consideration of the sacraments, and “marks” more specifically associated with the Pentecostal churches—charismatic fullness and preaching. Sacraments and spiritual gifts are means by which the Spirit’s gracious presence is mediated to and experienced in the church and the world. Water baptism can only be understood in relation to Spirit-baptism: the two are inseparable, even if in one’s experience, one is not conscious of this relation (249). Macchia thus maintains the unity of Spirit and water baptism, while still allowing space for distinction between the two in terms of one’s experience. So, too, the heart of the sacramental meal is the epiclesis in which the Spirit’s presence and work in invoked. Too often, however, the liturgy “does not linger over this. It does not wait for this to happen” (253). Macchia therefore argues for a more interactive liturgy whereby participants are encouraged to “open up to deeper experiences of divine infilling than they might be prone to have if sitting in isolation on a pew” (254).

We should shift the focus from the transformation of the elements to Christ’s participation by the Spirit in the communal act and our communion with him and one another by means of the same Spirit (255).

Baptized in the Spirit 5 (Frank Macchia)

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Baptized in the SpiritChapter 5 Toward a Spirit-Baptized Ecclesiology

At 101-pages, this is easily the longest chapter in the book. The first half of the chapter is devoted to a number of sections in which Macchia details the approach he takes to ecclesiology, before an exploration of the classic marks of the church, and a consideration of preaching, sacraments and charismatic fullness as additional marks of the Spirit-baptised church. “The central thesis of this chapter is thus that Spirit baptism gave rise to the global church and remains the very substance of the church’s life in the Spirit, including its charismatic life and mission” (155, original emphasis).

Macchia begins with two sections that argue for a relational ecclesiology, in which koinonia is the central motif. The Holy Spirit is the mediator of communion both within the divine trinity and between God and humanity. Spirit-baptism is fundamentally a relational event which issues in the creation of the church as a new community with renewed human sociality. The church is to echo and embody the relationality and open hospitality of the holy Trinity.

The Spirit is the Spirit of communion. Spirit baptism implies communion. This is why it leads to a shared love, a shared meal, a shared mission, and the proliferation/enhancement of an interactive charismatic life. Spirit baptism thus implies a relationship of unity between the Lord and the church that is not fundamentally one of identity but rather communion. … Spirit baptism has a relational structure that has communion at its essence, the communion of self-giving love (156-157, 160).

Thus, “Baptism in the Spirit is baptism into an ecclesial dynamic, the ecclesial Spirit” (167, original emphasis). The church, grounded in the gift of the Spirit, is a network of “graced relationships,” a foretaste of the redemption to come. The ecclesial Spirit sanctifies and transforms us. The power of the Spirit for witness is not some external naked energy which comes upon the church for mighty works, but is primarily “the power of love at work among us” (177).

Koinonia is not simply a matter of redemption, for human being is ontologically relational—this is part of what it means to be in the imago Dei. Yet this relationally has been decisively distorted by sin. In redemption, the self is not obliterated but renewed. Macchia develops a relational and ecclesial anthropology in which the dialectic of the self-in-relation and the self-in-solitude (before God) constitutes true and free human being, and which issues in non-oppressive relations. Spirit-baptism decentres the self, renewing and re-establishing it on a new foundation in the love of God.

The Spirit is the one in the many. This Spirit brings people into the common life of the divine communion in a way that does not abolish their otherness but rather enhances and fulfills it. They are stripped of their self-centered tendencies and liberated to be all that they were meant to be in the midst of their uniqueness (176).

A second set of sections deals with problematic matters in ecclesiology, the challenge of pluralism on the one hand, and the relation of church and kingdom on the other. With respect to the challenge of pluralism, Macchia insists that the claim of the church is grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who, as the risen and ascended Lord, is the Spirit-Baptizer, the one alone who can and does bring us into fellowship with God. His gift of the Spirit demonstrates and confirms his deity, and hence his uniqueness and pre-eminence.

Yet, the Pentecost event is also inherently and radically plural and inclusive—as witnessed in the gift of tongues from all nations. Thus, the church also is a plural and inclusive company, rather than a hierarchical and domineering institution. Macchia insists that ecclesiology must be both christological and pneumatological. To emphasise only one side or the other is to lose the dynamic of the church which is grounded in the pre-eminence of Christ as the saving revelation of God, and/or the diversity and relationality of the church grounded in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

At Pentecost, the legitimate reaching for God implied in various cultures and religious expressions finds fulfillment in the grace of God revealed in the crucified and risen Christ as the one who imparts the Spirit in the latter days. Their differences and past histories are not dissolved but affirmed and granted a new loyalty and a new direction. In the process all idols are forsaken and the cultures are pruned. But the critical pruning is demanded of the church as well. Though the church is the central locus of the kingdom of God in the world, the church is also a loving fellow traveler with the world’s religions while pointing them to the superiority of Christ. Spirit baptism can be developed so as to respond to [the] critique of ecclesiastical superiority in the world but in a way that rejects [the] reduction of Jesus to simply one symbol of the sacred among others (188).

The offence of the Christian claim remains:

Drawing the boundaries of the Spirit Baptizer to Christ alone is exclusivistic Christologically, but…we deal here with an exclusivism of Christ “and not with the self-serving principle of sectarianism.” It is an exclusivism of the one who is uniquely inclusive on the ecclesiological level. … There is simply no way of eliminating the risen Christ as the Spirit Baptizer from the gospel without affirming another gospel (189, original emphasis).

Finally, Macchia argues that the relation of the church to the kingdom must be understood dialectically, whereby there can be neither separation nor identification of these two realities. The church is not the kingdom, but is established by the kingdom as its witness and sign (191-192; cf. 165).

There is no critical dialectic between Jesus and the Spirit. He is the king and the Spirit the kingdom. But, as noted above, there is such a dialectic between the Spirit/kingdom and the church. Thus, the church is not the final word but a penultimate witness to the word of the kingdom who is Christ (192).

Indeed, Macchia suggests that the church will ultimately “exhaust” its purpose when in the eschaton it is “caught up in the more expansive new Jerusalem” (166). This eschatological reserve, together with the knowledge that the church is the church of the Crucified, helps keep the church from being triumphalist. Any continuity between the kingdom and the church is established as a gift by divine grace and is never the possession of the church in itself. The church may strive toward the kingdom, but does so in a spirit of repentance, witness and obedience (197).

Baptized in the Spirit 4 (Frank Macchia)

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Baptized in the SpiritChapter Four: Spirit Baptism in Trinitarian Perspective (Cont’d)

Macchia considers the Baptism with the Holy Spirit in its trinitarian dimensions, first by reflecting on the significance of Jesus as Spirit-baptiser for an understanding of his divinity. Macchia suggests that Jesus’ resurrection alone is not sufficient to assert his divinity, but that his role as Spirit-baptiser also supports this claim, for only God can give God (110-111). If the risen Jesus gives the Spirit who is also God, then Jesus, too, must be divine. He was raised to be the Spirit-baptiser, the one who give the life-giving, life-transforming eschatological Spirit.

Without the role of Jesus as the one who bestows the Spirit, his resurrection would have lost its eschatological goal and the relationship of Jesus to his heavenly Father would have lost its strongest clue (111).

Second, BHS is itself a trinitarian act, being the inauguration and advancement of the cosmic and eschatological reign of the Father by the Son and in the Spirit. Through Jesus Christ, the breath of the Father is proceeding to all creation animating and renewing it that it may return to the Father in the Spirit and through Christ. In Spirit-baptism the triune God opens his life to embrace, gather and indwell the creation. Macchia is clearly influenced by Moltmann in this discussion as he grounds his discussion of the triune life in the biblical narrative of Jesus’ life, and adopts a relational view of the trinity.

Spirit baptism accents the idea that the triune life of God is not closed but involved in the openness of self-giving love. … The reign of God comes on us through an abundant outpouring of God’s very Spirit on us to transform us and to direct our lives toward Christlike loyalties. From the trinitarian fellowship of the Father and the Son, the Spirit is poured out to expand God’s love and communion to creation (116).  

Macchia attempts to side-step the question of the inner life of the triune God (125), but still favours a social trinitarianism that yet maintains an economic monarchy of the Father in which the “Son and the Spirit share the monarchy of the Father in mutual dependence and working in a way that implies the Father’s dependence on them as well. … Spirit baptism in the context of the inauguration of the kingdom of God means that the Father’s divine monarchy is not abstract but mediated by the Son and the Spirit in the redemption of the world” (124). God the Trinity is open to the world including human suffering:

In Spirit baptism, God seeks to tabernacle with creation in empathy with the suffering creation and toward its final liberation. After all, the Spirit of Spirit baptism is the one who groans with the suffering creation for its eventual liberation through Christ. Spirit baptism reveals profoundly what is implied in the incarnation and the cross (126).

Macchia brings this long chapter to a conclusion by considering Spirit-baptism in relation to the primary elements of Christian life which he identifies as justification, sanctification and empowerment. Although “Spirit-baptized justification” includes an alien element—that is, the gift of righteousness given to the believer by God ever remains grounded externally in Christ as his righteousness rather than our own—Macchia’s emphasis falls on justification’s transformative elements: through faith in Jesus the believer receives the Holy Spirit and so is united with Christ, is granted the imputation of his victory over sin and death, and thus participates in the new creation. Justification, in Macchia’s vision of the Spirit, is not simply a legal or forensic act which leaves believer unchanged, but includes the regenerating and sanctifying work of the Spirit. To be justified is to be “righteoused” by God (130). The “righteousness” involved in justification is a liberating and redemptive concept that reorders life toward justice and mercy (132).

Justification loses connection with the full breadth of its concrete substance in the life of Jesus as the Spirit-anointed Inaugurator of the kingdom of God if it is defined essentially as an abstract declaration realized in a juridical transference of merits (138).

Justified existence is thus pneumatic existence, Spirit-baptized existence. … In the here and now, the righteousness of justification produces a life dedicated to the reign of God on earth, to the weighty matters of the law, to reconciled and reconciling communities of faith, and to the justice and mercy of God in the world (139).

Turning his attention to “Spirit-baptized sanctification” Macchia insists that justification and sanctification are not two sequential aspects of Christian life, but the entirety of Christian life portrayed by one or the other of these two overlapping metaphors (140). Spirit-baptized sanctification concerns participation by the Spirit in the consecration of Jesus to the Father for the world, in solidarity with their misery. Sanctification refers primarily to an objective accomplishment through the Spirit as a sanctifying presence.

Like Jesus, the disciples were sanctified for faithfulness in the world and not for escape from the world (Jn. 17:15-16). Their sanctification and consecration was unto a holy purpose that required their engagement with the world, not their avoidance of it. If Jesus fulfilled all righteousness by bearing the burdens of the sinners, how can we interpret kingdom sanctification as an avoidance of the sinners? (143-144)

Finally, “Spirit-baptized witness” concerns charismatic or vocational empowerment for the service and witness of the kingdom. If sanctification implies being set apart for a holy task, empowerment is being granted the capacity for the fulfilment of it.

The sanctifying work of the Spirit needs to be released in life through powerful experiences of renewal and charismatic enrichment that propel us toward vibrant praise, healing reconciliations, enriched koinonia, and enhanced gifting for empowered service (145).

Macchia rightly identifies this idea as an essential aspect of the Spirit’s work in Christian life, and a particular contribution Pentecostalism can make to the wider Christian family. Christian initiation must include, says Macchia, a sense that the grace of God gifts Christians for ministry and mission (151). “There is no Christian initiation by faith and baptism in the full sense of the word without some sense of commissioning to service” (156). In this respect, Spirit-baptism as the initiation of Christian life indicates the inherently missional character of Christian identity. Nevertheless, the work of the Spirit is not simply initiatory but progressive and eschatological. Therefore, Christians may and indeed must, continually seek for a greater fullness of the life of the Spirit, anticipating fresh experiences of the Spirit’s sanctifying and empowering presence, so that they might truly participate in the life of God’s kingdom.

Baptized in the Spirit 3 (Frank Macchia)

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Baptized in the SpiritChapter Four: Spirit Baptism in Trinitarian Perspective

This chapter focuses on the relation between Spirit-baptism and the kingdom of God, utilising a phrase from Gregory Nyssa’s exposition of the Lord’s Prayer: “the Spirit is a living and a substantial and distinctly subsisting kingdom with which the only begotten Christ is anointed and is king of all that is” (cited on 89). Macchia’s thesis is stated thus:

If, as Gregory tells us, Christ is the King and the Spirit the kingdom, Spirit baptism is the means by which creation is transformed by this kingdom and made to participate in its reign of life. Spirit baptism brings the reign of the Father, the reign of the crucified and risen Christ, and the reign of divine life to all of creation through the indwelling of the Spirit (89).

Macchia’s intent in this chapter is to set the classic Pentecostal doctrine into a broader theological framework (101). He argues that the connection between Spirit baptism and the kingdom of God is obvious in the New Testament and so sets out to explore this connection theologically (91). The outpouring of the Spirit by Christ the Spirit-baptiser is an eschatological and cosmic event that both inaugurates the kingdom and progresses toward its consummation when God will be all in all. Just as the metaphor of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (BHS) fills out the concept of the kingdom of God, so the idea of the kingdom extends the vision and function of the BHS. Ultimately, the two concepts are co-extensive for Macchia, with the character of the kingdom being understood in christological and pneumatological terms. “The ultimate goal of Spirit baptism is thus also the goal of the kingdom of God: the final domination of life over death as all of creation becomes the dwelling place of God’s Holy Spirit” (103). The individual’s BHS is a foretaste of this ultimate purpose—divine indwelling and participation in the divine life, and a co-optation into the eschatological movement of God’s redemptive purpose.

Decisively inaugurated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the kingdom of God becomes a dynamic within history through the outpouring of the Spirit that is directed toward the divine indwelling of all of creation so that all things might be conformed to Christ’s image. … This dynamism has its roots in the fact that the kingdom has to do, not with a place, but rather with life, the life of the Spirit of God (Matt. 12:28; Rom. 14:17), opening up the creation to new possibilities of renewal and hope. The life of the kingdom is the life of the Spirit in which God’s reign actively conquers the dark forces and liberates lives to new hope. It is thus not only a divine attribute but the participation of the creature by God’s grace in the divine nature. Accordingly, it is not primarily about religion but about a life in God, filled with the fruit of the Spirit and dedicated to God’s righteousness on earth (97).

Macchia’s connection of Spirit-baptism and kingdom does indeed have the advantage of extending the Pentecostal idea of BHS to include salvific, charismatic and eschatological emphases. “Spirit baptism encompasses repentance and new life, cleansing and infilling” (100). It both sanctifies and empowers, and drives recipients outwards in witness and mission. “The breath of God through Pentecost inhales the people of God into God’s holy presence and exhales them outward into all the world to proclaim the good news and to continue Jesus’ ministry of deliverance for the sick and oppressed” (101). The outpouring of the Spirit constitutes the church and sends it forth in mission. But the Spirit also transcends the church for the whole creation is meant for the indwelling of God’s redeeming presence.