I think there is a connection between the development of eucharistic theologies like transubstantiation and consubstantiation and the loss of a future-oriented eschatology. As medieval Christianity turned from looking for a future hope to a transcendent hope, the expectation of meeting Christ shifted from the future parousia to the repeated sacrament. For all that certain traditions have much that is good to say about Eucharist, and I think low church Protestantism is deficient and rudimentary in its understanding, nevertheless it remains the case that certain forms of eucharistic theology are not consonant with the NT eschatological hope.
Interestingly, it seem to me that transubstantiation is better off than consubstantiation here. Transubstantiation suggests that the elements somehow become the actual body and blood of Christ. Although this has odd and important ramifications… more
Evangelical theological method is so concerned to root revelation in the Bible because most of them in theory, and virtually all of them in practice, have lost any sense of the Holy Spirit doing anything beyond illuminating their reading of the text. Without any space in their theology for the idea that the Holy Spirit might say anything to them directly, evangelicals only have the Bible left as a locus for supernatural revelation. Yet since it is a text, the Bible is therefore suitable for rational investigation (thus the dominance of the historical-grammatical hermeneutic in Evangelical thought). Thus exegesis becomes the mode of divine communication today, and the role of the Holy Spirit is to guide and guarantee the correctness of that exegesis and the subsequent application.
This fundamental shift to cessationism (whether doctrinal or merely practical) sets Evangelical thought… more
McMartin argues for an understanding of the image of God as the capacity for a (certain sort of) relationship with God. This, however, is not just a relational understanding of the image, but is in fact an ontological and relational and functional model. This is because capacities are structural (i.e. properties of beings, like the capacity to think, to hear, to jump, etc.) but moreover are teleological. Furthermore, McMartin notes that this teleological aspect means that capacities need to be understood in terms of potentiality and actualization. Defining a “nature” as (at least in part) a set of capacities, McMartin therefore is able to conclude that natures have this teleological potentiality/actualization multivalence.
McMartin also notes that capacities have a hierarchical structure, giving the example of the ability to see. A lower level capacity for sight deals with whether… more
On Dec 16, 2012, Dan Wilt posted this on the SVS Facebook group (now available on the SVS forum):
I need some clear, benevolent, instructional statements from as many as possible for our Vineyard worship leaders. Worship leaders tend to have a more romantic, idealistic approach to other movements, and particularly the music that flows from them. For them, everything is simply a “style difference,” rather than a core theological or philosophical difference. In your own words, could you help us recover why music created from a uniquely Vineyard vantage point is so vital for us, and for the Body of Christ. (In moments, feel free to graciously compare that ethos to Bethel, Hillsong, and Passion). We’re trying to inspire our worship leaders to write well, and choose well, in their worship work.
I gave a couple of responses in the ensuing conversation:
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