Via Media Podcast, Episode 34 Creation in God�s Crossharis Mark DeVine February 20, 2020 https://www.beesondivinity.com/the-institute-of-anglican-studies/podcast/2019/creation-in-gods-crosshairs Announcer: The Institute of Anglican Studies at Beeson Divinity School welcomes you to Via Media, a podcast exploring the religious and theological worlds from an Anglican perspective. Here is your host Gerald McDermott. McDermott: Welcome to Via Media. Today is the second in our series on Creation. Last week we talked with Professor Adam McLeod about natural law. Today we�re going to talk to theology professor, Mark DeVine; Associate Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School. A colleague of mine, right down the hall. Dr. DeVine has a fascinating background. He was a missionary in Bangkok, Thailand, speaks Thai. He has published several other very interesting books. He�s taught at other Baptist Divinity Schools. Now, Beeson is not Baptist for those of you out there in the listening audience, it�s interdenominational. But Dr. DeVine wrote a book on Bonhoeffer, titled, �Bonhoeffer Speaks Today.� He did a book called �Re-plant,� and he can tell us maybe a tiny bit about what that�s all about. The book I want to talk with him about today is �Shalom: Yesterday, Today, and Forever.� It�s about a theology of creation, something close to my heart, and that�s why I wanted to have him on. So, professor DeVine, Mark, welcome to Via Media. DeVine: Thank you so much for having me, Dr. McDermott. I�m so glad to be here, and I appreciate you giving attention to this book that I�ve brought out just this past spring. McDermott: Yes, it�s published by Wipf and Stock and you can run, not walk, to your closest cell phone, just grab it out of your pocket and look it up. �Shalom,� by Mark DeVine. That�s D-E-V-I-N-E, not D-I-V-I-N-E, even though when he comes to my office it is a divine appearance. So, Mark, why did you write this book? DeVine: Well, I had been directing for a couple of years a grant focused on the intersection of faith, work, and economics. That led me to a reconsideration of the doctrine of creation and how it relates to the doctrine of redemption, because those issues of faith, work, and economics really call upon you to reflect upon, among other things, the material world � our physical existence. The upshot of the answer was that the whole creation is the object of redemption. The whole creation is in the crosshairs of the redeeming work of our triune God. That really took me into a re-consideration of great heresies, like Marcionism and Manich�ism and the Gnostic heresy � all of these kind of creator hating and creation hating sorts of heresies. It ended up being a very rich kind of re-engagement with the whole canon of scripture. McDermott: Mark, what shapes do these heresies take today in church and society? DeVine: Well, for one thing I would say that these anti-creation and anti-creator heresies are great heresies. A great heresy is one that strikes at something fundamental to the revelation of God in holy scripture. Another indicator of a great heresy is that it won�t go away. So, you try to free yourself and get yourself disentangled from a great heresy and it�s like playing whack-a-mole. I mean, you can smack it down and it will come back, because it�s great. These heresies, they have resilience ... this one does ... partly because of suffering. The fall brings about suffering of all kinds, but also a physical kind. We die. We�re mortal. Whoever observes suffering with sensitivity and seriousness and whoever actually suffers is going to have occasion to cry out like the Psalmist did, �Why?� and �How long?� So, these heresies get our attention, because they really affirm our repulsion from suffering and from pain. They kind of drive a wedge between us and our desire to praise the Creator. McDermott: So, let�s get specific and concrete. Name the on the ground shape of one of these heresies. DeVine: Well, when a preacher tells us that it doesn�t matter how sick you are, it doesn�t matter how poor you are, it doesn�t matter where you are, space and time, all of these things are the mere stage upon which the real show plays out of redemption. That�s that God, after the fall, is really scrapping and abandoning the physical creation, and what God is aiming at now is to salvage what�s still valuable, and that�s the invisible world, that�s the disembodied soul. So, we�re encouraged to practice our faith very often by being dismissive of, or marginalizing everything except that which is non material. That notion will not stand up to the teaching of holy scripture. So, we need to rethink this. We need to press this question back on the scriptures. What does it mean that God created the world, both its invisible and visible parts? And what does his redemption entail? What�s the scope of it? So, therefore, what meaning does the physical world have in light of the fall? McDermott: Now, the physical world is made of matter, and you�re suggesting that contrary to this heresy of Gnosticism that reality is only about the spiritual, the immaterial, you�re suggesting that God loves matter. He loves matter so much that he created it and he made his own son out of ... well, he clothed his own son with matter. But let�s talk about the material manifestation of this heresy. I know you�ve done a lot of work with economics and you talk about economics here in this book. What shape does this heresy take when Christians think about economics? DeVine: Well, one of the things that is really kind of agitating to the mind of evangelicals just now, as it should, is the rise of the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel is a heresy. The prosperity gospel teaches that our God wants all of his children to be wealthy and to be healthy all of the time and right now. That�s a lie. So, we should say that that�s the case. But the response, this denunciation of the prosperity gospel as a heresy, it is emerging with this particular energy and cockiness from the most affluent people in the world. What�s playing out in my mind is that the prosperity gospel preachers, they are hunkered down on all of the pro money and pro wealth and pro health passages in the Bible that treat material wealth and physical health as blessings of God, and they�re all over the Bible. The just double down on those passages. The anti-prosperity gospel crowd, they double down on all of the bad press ... that desire for physical health and for money has in the Bible, and they�ve got truck loads of passages, too. So, they�re in a stand-off and neither group really takes seriously the passages of the other. At the heart of the problem here, I think, or at least ... I mean, you talk about a manifestation of it ... is the notion that once something is identified as less valuable than something else then it�s often viewed as then an enemy to that which is more valuable than it is. That�s wrong. The hierarchy of values indicates the particularity, the multiplicity, the beauty of how God has put the world together in terms of a hierarchy of value and values of authority and submission, and it does inform, for example, a sequence of sacrifice-ability, for example. There�s no amount of dogs that can be running after my child that I wouldn�t shoot. I would never decide, �No, after 99 dogs I won�t kill the 100th one.� McDermott: That�s so cruel of you to shoot a dog. So, cruel of you to shoot a dog. DeVine: But the fact that I would take down an infinite number of dogs to save my child doesn�t mean it�s okay to go out Saturday night and just go, �Let�s have a dog murdering party.� McDermott: Because of the hierarchy of values. DeVine: The hierarchy of values. McDermott: Humans are more valuable than dogs. DeVine: That�s right. But because something is lower on the hierarchy of values or because something in creation is a means to something else says nothing about it essentiality. If that were the case then we need to be eliminated, because we�re a means to the glorification of God, but we�re also essential to his eternal purposes by God�s grace. So, identifying something that is lower ... now, here�s another problem that happens, is because of the fall everything God made is fallen. It is corrupted. It is put to bad use. The wrong response to that is to say, �Well, so we�ve got to eliminate that which has gone wrong.� And we can see that with Roman Catholics. Oh, money is gone wrong, so okay, I�ll take a vow of poverty. Oh, look how sex has gone wrong, I�ll take a vow of chastity. Oh, and authority relationships have, too, oh, I�ll take a vow of obedience. When really all of these things that were made good need to be redeemed and put to right use. They�ve become disordered. Our desires for them have become disordered. We try to make them serve purposes that they cannot. So, we end up with a baby out with the bathwater approach and then we end up in this notion that what we really need to do is just think about this disembodied soul or this non material person, and everything else is scrap-able. McDermott: Now, our Roman Catholic listeners are going to say, �Hey, Dr. DeVine, are you saying that God never calls anyone to take a vow of chastity, or a vow of poverty? Are you condemning people like St. Francis of Assisi or the nuns down the street?� DeVine: Well, here�s what I would say; I think that the Bible clearly makes a place for the ascetic, as a needed response to our disordered desires, but I think we need to always keep in mind that this is necessary because of the fall. What we�re not being taught is that a person who denies themselves something that God made good is now on a higher spiritual plane than others. So, the person who denies himself, I don�t find anybody denying themselves money, by the way. The Pope gets the best medical care the world has to offer. So, I don�t care how old his Fiat is that he goes around in he�ll get the best that capitalism and the best surgery ... so, he�s rich, he�s doing what he wants to with his life. That�s one part of it. But I think we need to be very careful in going the Gnostic route and imagining that you�re somehow more spiritual because you�ve denied yourself something material. The way we use the word �spiritual� needs to be revamped. We need to not think of spiritual too often as that which is not material, but usually we should think of spiritual as that about which God cares; that about which he has a claim upon. Yes, pastorally it may be right and good sometimes for us to deny ourselves something, because of disordered desire, but the goal is not to be without it forever, or to suggest that there�s some two levels of following Christ. The people who deny themselves things that God made good are now on a higher spiritual plane than others. What I say to those who want to take a permanent vow � my question to them, what I want to see from them, my question is: How is this serving the community? What I�m concerned about is if the whole world, now, is to function for them to become spiritual themselves. No, I want to see them serving others. McDermott: Well, I would say that just as there are perversions of all good things, and that�s the principle you�re mentioning here, abusus non tollit usum, the abuse of something doesn�t invalidate the proper use of that same thing. DeVine: Yes, right. McDermott: So, too, with monastic vows. I mean, I have friends who have taken these vows and I don�t think they would ever say that they�re better because they�ve deprived themselves ... because of these vows. It�s just that God has called them to a different way. But now you�ve mentioned the prosperity gospel and capitalism, you just mentioned the �c� word about two paragraphs ago. Prosperity gospel, it strikes me from reading your book, and I really like what you have to say about the prosperity gospel, that those who repeatedly condemn it are often the prosperous who are telling the poor they shouldn�t be prosperous. Yes? (laughter) DeVine: They don�t mean to be saying that, but ... McDermott: No, no, they don�t mean to be saying that. Just like the not all Catholic monks mean to be saying that they�re better than others. DeVine: Absolutely. I think it�s important to note, I have my own friend, Catholic monk, Francis the friar, in my book. McDermott: Oh, yeah you mentioned ... yes. DeVine: That�s right. Exactly. He spends his life in service and so forth. On the protestant side, self denial is a prominent feature of how protestants have understood the Christian life, and I think these things are very much related. McDermott: Yes. DeVine: But they�re needed because of the fall, and they often can become badges of virtue. I�m glad you�ve never met anyone who has gone down that road, but if you meet enough people you�ll find some that have put it to ... they�re a little bit proud of their humility. You know? McDermott: Some day. DeVine: Some day. McDermott: Well, let�s get into some really nitty gritty stuff that�s in the news today, and that you discuss in this book. That is capitalism and socialism. Now, I�ve spent some time in England and I spent most of my life in academia where the common presumption, even amongst many of my Christian colleagues is that the only Christian economic system is socialism � that that�s Jesus� way. If you even hint that you think there�s any virtue at all in capitalism, even if you say it�s amoral, as opposed to immoral, and not even saying it�s particularly moral, but it�s amoral, it�s outside of the realm of morality per se, before you get to how it�s used in particular ways by particular people, you have really missed the boat and you really don�t understand the gospel. So, I will challenge you, Dr. DeVine, how in the world can you say that Christians can support capitalism? DeVine: Well, it�s been hard, because I�ve been helped ever since I entered the university system to hate capitalism and to love socialism. So, it hasn�t been easy to get myself disentangled and the game that socialism speaks is very, very attractive. I mean, everyone is happy, everyone is cared for. It never happens in actual life, but the talk is very, very high-falutin and very, very attractive. When I read the scriptures I find it to be friendly to private property and I find it to be friendly to charity. But that�s not what socialism is about. We have a lot of experience in this world with attempts at socialist ways of organizing ourselves and I just don�t find any good examples. The promises that are made turn out to be false. Socialism has delivered over and over again the opposite of what it promises; in Russia, in the Warsaw Pact nations, in Venezuela, in Albania, in Cuba � it goes on and on. Now, I don�t think capitalism came down on plates in upstate New York. And I think that any way that we organize ourselves politically or economically, we will put it to bad use. Because everybody involved in it is going to be eat up with sin. But for those I think one of the problems is that if you live in a world, in the west, where supposedly much of capitalism prevails you then feel free to blame anything bad that happens on it. It�s not really very deep thinking. We�re living in a time now when actually poverty globally is shrinking. And it�s shrinking wherever free markets and capitalism take hold. Now, we see problems with this. There are giant corporations who monopolize and who work the system in ways that hurt others. But I think for anyone who is willing to let themselves be taught, they will find that the rise of capitalism and free markets has been the greatest shrinker of poverty globally by far. So, whenever someone asks me about this question the first thing I say is if I didn�t care about how many people were poor, then I would be for socialism. McDermott: If I�m an atheist I really have no philosophical reason to care about the poor. But if I�m a Christian I have a mandate from Genesis to Revelation to care about the poor, and to do something to help the poor. And what you�re arguing here, Mark, is that the greatest lifter out of poverty, of poor people, and giving them prosperity or at least a decent living in human history has been capitalism. DeVine: You know, it�s not as attractive sometimes, I think, because the way capitalism leads to the deliverance of hundreds of millions of people, multi-generationally, out of poverty really doesn�t accrue to my praise. If I help someone through charity, which is very biblical and very good and I encourage everyone to do that. I encourage you, for example, to be charitable to me, Mark DeVine, whenever you want to. McDermott: (laughs) DeVine: I�m just poised to received whatever gifts you have. And it�s very, very biblical. But when you do that, then that leaves me in a situation to say �thank you, Gerry.� But capitalism, what it does is provide conditions. How do we know this? Because of the playing out of it in history; it provide conditions where more people will find themselves not poor. And I don�t get thanked for that. I don�t get praised for that. So, it�s not as attractive. Of course, one of the main critiques we get about capitalism is that it depends upon greed. Number one, greed has been around long before capitalism. Greed just doesn�t need capitalism to flourish. It�s one of the seven deadly sins. It will do fine without capitalism. So, capitalism doesn�t create more or less greed. But what we find in capitalism is a way of organizing ourselves in which when we seek our own needs and seek that which we want, we find ourselves benefitting all of society and history is telling us this. It doesn�t mean that we�re saying capitalism, it cannot be critiqued, it cannot be in any way managed or improved, but we�re saying that we know enough now to say that this direction, with freedom and with capitalism and private property, it leads to a lot less poverty and a lot more human flourishing, by the indices most people would identify. McDermott: Two quick things. One, capitalism is built on service. I will not succeed if I�m a business man unless I am serving my customers in a way that meets their needs. If I�m not, they�ll stop buying my product and I�ll go out of business. The more I meet their needs at a good price, cheaper than my competitors, to serve my customers, the more prosperous I�ll be. Now, did I ever tell you that I lived in a socialistic state? DeVine: I don�t think you did. McDermott: Totally socialistic state. It was called Christian Community. I lived in a Christian ... In fact, I lived in several Christian communes and they were all socialist. The people who had jobs on the outside brought their money and they turned over their paychecks, just like in Acts 2:42, and we used to claim Acts 2:42 as our communitarian theme and principle. They�d turn over their paychecks and from those who have it was given to those who were in need, and whatever the needs are of the community. After a few years ... and so it was socialistic. I ran the schools and I got zero money for running those schools. But after awhile I realized that this socialistic community ran only because of capitalism. It was only because of those on the outside, who worked in the capitalistic system (laughs) and brought their paychecks in, and it was only because of people who earned money on the outside who gave gifts to our little Christian community that enabled it to continue as a socialist enterprise. DeVine: Yes. McDermott: So, as Maggie Thatcher once said, after awhile you run out of other people�s money. You have to produce well and socialism doesn�t produce well, it just spreads it around as a recent president famously said. DeVine: It fixates on distribution and assumes the creation of wealth, and that can�t be assumed. McDermott: Once again, this is an Anglican podcast and we Anglicans are Christians, in case anyone doubted that, or at least we claim to be Christians, we hope to be Christians, we hope to be followers of Christ. Christ, who was poor, came to share his wealth, and Christ commands us to be concerned about the poor. That�s why you and I are both promoters of capitalism because it does a far better job of helping the poor, creating wealth to spread, than socialism does. Now, before we run out of time, as I said, this is an Anglican podcast, Via Media, the middle way. I think, Mark, that you�re actually becoming an Anglican and I want to tell you why. You have been telling me for some years here, you�ve been educating me, an Anglican theologian, you�re a Baptist theologian, and I don�t know if I said that at the beginning, I should have said that � Mark DeVine is a Baptist theologian. You�ve been telling me these last few years about the Baptist tradition of sacraments. Sacraments are all about matter, they�re about creation. God ministers to us through matter. God loves matter so much he created it for six days and each day he said it was good, good, good. Sacraments are about God�s life coming to us through matter. And you have told me about the Baptist tradition of sacraments there they�re actually called sacraments and not just ordinances. You have a wonderful theology of creation, a theology of matter, so I think you�re becoming an Anglican. What do you think about that? DeVine: Well, that might be a little exaggerated, but what is true is that I discovered in my own tradition in the first century and a half that both baptism and the Lord�s Supper were treated by most Baptists as means of spiritual benefit. And we lost that. McDermott: So, not just a time of remembering. DeVine: That�s right. McDermott: But something, some extra grace is communicated through the sacrament. DeVine: That�s right. And that we lost that and I would say lapsed into mere symbolism, but I don�t like the word �mere.� If God gives us a symbol, that�s a good thing, that�s nothing to denigrate by appending the modifier �mere� or �just� and no one should be saying anything bad about remembering, because the Lord�s Supper is a memorial. We don�t need to pit these things against each other, but where I think we go wrong is when we feel the need to deny that spiritual benefits are being offered. They�re offered in the symbol, they�re offered in the remembering and they�re offered through the physical acts. I think what anti-sacramentalists got right was any notion that by a mere act or that benefits are laid hold of, or that God has invested some act or some material with his power. No, God�s always involved in the outgoing of his spiritual benefits. He�s always acting himself. He never pulls it up over there, and I go over there and snatch it like I snatch it off of a shelf. No, we lay hold of these things by faith. I�ve found that among Baptists, I can talk to them about these things nowadays, partly for a bad reason and that is that Baptists, like other people, they don�t know their own traditions, so they don�t know when they�re supposed to be upset at me when I�m talking about these things. (laughter) Which I wish they did. But I always start with them this way, Dr. McDermott, is that what if I said to you, �Don�t you dare go listen to that sermon and expect to get a spiritual benefit out of it.� Well, no, of course we do. Why would you imagine that the Lord would require us to baptize and practice the Lord�s Supper but then be anxious to deny we didn�t get any spiritual benefit out of it? I find this is a good way to get them into this. Then, of course, as a Baptist I can always say what they want me to say about what I don�t mean when I talk about the sacramental character of baptism and the Lord�s Supper. So, I�m excited about retrieving some of these earlier Baptist voices and moving us to a place where we can speak more positively about baptism and the Lord�s Supper, the way the Bible does. McDermott: Let me ask you one more thing. I think we�ve just got a few minutes left. But I think we can squeeze this in, and it also comes out of your book � you talk about place. I�m going to relate to things in your book that I think are connected and ask you to connect the dots. The importance of place, the importance of matter � God made matter. God put us in particular places. The Bible talks about holy places. Take off your shoes, this is holy ground. Even the New Testament talks about Jerusalem as the Holy City. I love the fact that you talk about Israel in here. You and I have had many conversations about Israel, ancient biblical Israel, and also modern Israel and thinking about the connection between the two. You say in here that Jesus never became a Christian. Now, I think I know what you mean, but I wonder if you could connect the dots here between these two statements about the importance of place and Israel on the one hand and Jesus never became a Christian on the other hand. DeVine: One of the patterns that I see in the whole Bible and I deal with in the book is the pattern of gathering and scattering and re-gathering. Gathering is associated with the blessing of God. We were made to be gathered together in a place with God where he puts his name upon us and upon the place where he gathers us. Sin results in scattering, dispersion, sojourn, pilgrimage, movement � and then mercy and blessing involve re-gathering. So, when we sin in the garden we�re expelled. It�s a scattering, it�s an expulsion. When God blesses, he gathers us together. Now, he doesn�t want just any gathering. If we try to gather in our own name and make our own name, like at Babel, then he�ll scatter us, but that�s a punishment. Ultimately, what�s he going to do? Gather you ... in the place where I�m going to put my name. When the people of Israel are in exile, yes, they learn that they actually can worship him there in Babylon. But not so that they scrap Israel, no. If you are faithful I will take you back to the place where I�ve put my name. Post Pentecost what we see is a scattering that leads to a gathering. The scattering is in order to plant churches, to gather people into churches. And we have promised out in front of us a gathering of all of us in the New Jerusalem that is coming. But even in this scattering, it�s not a flattening of place. When Jesus says that there�s a time coming, to the woman at the well, when not on this mountain, Gerasene or Jerusalem, but wherever two or three are gathered, he�s envisioning this church planting. When God exerts his power and places his name on a place like he does in Zion, he�s actually showing that every place belongs to him. But he is ... this highlights his election, it highlights grace, but I�m going to place my name here differently than I have in other places. Then that happens in the Church. So, when church planting happens, post Pentecost, what we�re seeing is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham to all the nations and a staking of his claim of the whole earth. But that�s not in competition with the center around which it all revolves. Now, let�s talk about this Jesus didn�t become a Christian. What I want to emphasize here is the continuity between the Old and New Testament; fulfillment does not mean replacement. But to the extent that Jews don�t recognize Jesus as the Messiah, they�re the ones perpetuating another religion. Jesus is not. But they are, to the extent that they give him the back of their hand, give him the Heisman. So, yeah, Jesus was a Jew, he never did become a Christian. It�s a bit of a scandal isn�t it? Never converted. McDermott: Well, Dr. DeVine, I wish we could go on, because we�re just getting into things, but our listeners have to go. They�ve got other things to do. And you do, too ... to write your next book. So, thank you so much for being with us. I want to thank everyone listening, today, to this segment in our little series on Creation. I invite you to tune in to the next episode of Via Media. Announcer: You've been listening to Via Media with host Gerald McDermott, the director of The Institute of Anglican Study Studies at Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The Institute of Anglican Studies trains men and women for Anglican ministry, and seeks to educate the public in the riches of the Anglican tradition. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Via Media.