Lead Time
Lead Time
Faith and Reason: Navigating Theology in Secular Academia with Dr. Joshua Hollmann
Can faith and reason coexist in today's secular academic world? Join us in a compelling discussion with Reverend Dr. Joshua Hollmann, professor of systematic theology at Concordia University in St. Paul, as we navigate the complex landscape of integrating faith into academic life. Dr. Hollmann shares his profound insights from his article "Faith Seeking Understanding: Theological Paradigms for Lutheran Universities," shedding light on the unique role Lutheran universities play in fostering a faith-based educational environment for a diverse student body. We also dive into the ongoing debate about the mission and identity of Concordia universities, emphasizing a balance between theological education, critical thought, and unwavering love and care for all students.
In a captivating journey through early church history, we recount the transformative story of Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist whose quest for philosophical truth led him to Christianity. We reflect on the historical tension between faith and reason, drawing parallels between Justin Martyr's time and our modern educational contexts. We address the challenges of reconciling scientific understanding with religious belief and explore the dynamic interplay between secularism and faith. Dr. Hollmann enriches this conversation by discussing the concept of the "buffered self" and emphasizing the importance of personal connections and meaningful engagement within Christian institutions.
Our episode also explores the intersection of theology with various fields, the church's mission in a secular society, and the unique contributions of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) to worship and mission work. We discuss the theological distinctions between Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism, the importance of engaging in Christian-Muslim relations with love and understanding, and the proactive role of everyday Christians in evangelism. Concluding on a lighter note, we share a fun moment of camaraderie and gratitude, ensuring you that more invigorating discussions about leadership and church life are on the horizon. Tune in for a thought-provoking and enriching conversation with Dr. Joshua Hollmann as we navigate the intricate interplay of faith, reason, and education.
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Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman, here with Jack Calberg I don't know where you're taking this in today. Our prayer is that the joy of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the hope of the resurrection is infusing you in whatever vocation you have, with a life of meaning and purpose, new identity in your baptism as you follow after Jesus, who is your leader and Lord, the lover of your soul. Jack, how are you doing today, man?
Speaker 2:I am doing well. It's a beautiful, very hot but also beautiful day here in Arizona, coming off of many days of rest. For you and I both, this is the summer season a lot of time to get projects done, a lot of time to kind of recuperate and regroup and get ready for uh, you know, another minute season of ministry coming up here. So it's exciting, uh, to take ground. I'm looking for it.
Speaker 1:It is. I'm excited I get to play in my brother's member guest golf tournament next, uh, next week, in in Westminster, colorado. He's, he's, uh, he and I get to spend some good brotherly time. And I'm really excited because I've played in this tournament for the last I don't know three, four years or so. I'm really excited to show up because you make friends, you hang out for like four days, you know, and I'm excited to show up with my newly minted stash. It's going to be, it's going to be really great to rock that stash and, uh, it won't last for long. I'm just riding it out through the golf tournament, jack, because I think I'll be better with a stash, I think.
Speaker 2:I'll play better. Well, I've been telling people to vote in the comments if Tim should keep the mustache, and what I've been telling people is if there's enough votes, then we're going to have to honor that. He's going to have to abide by the rules of the audience here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no. Well, do you know whose vote matters? My wife.
Speaker 1:Your wife is she's got a short leash on the stash right now. So hey, our guest today, our guest. You don't have to listen to Jack and I talk about stashes. Praise be to God, because we get to listen to Reverend Dr Joshua Holman, who is a professor of systematic theology at Concordia University in St Paul. He actually is teaching adjunct at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne a missiology class in the PhD program right now, so that's kind of where his mind is. He has a PhD from McGill University in Christian and Muslim relations and he's currently working on a second PhD.
Speaker 2:What At Radbo?
Speaker 1:Radbo, baby Radbo University out of the Netherlands, and he teaches on a variety of subjects, including systematic theology, historical theology, and he previously taught for about eight years, he told us, at Concordia, New York, Concordia, Bronxville, before it closed down. He has 19 years as an ordained pastor. He's a classmate actually of Ben Haupt. I didn't know that, Joshua, so Ben is a friend. His podcast was released a few weeks back now. So how are you doing, brother? It's great to hang out with you today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks. Thank you for the invitation to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, the honor is ours. So I read your article. I don't remember who referred it to me in the Lutheran Forum, and that kind of is what primed the pump for our conversation today. You wrote an article called Faith Seeking Understanding Theological Paradigms for Lutheran Universities. What led you to write that article, josh? Very fascinated. Thanks for hanging again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's really my vocation as a Lutheran University professor for these many years now. The article is a reflection of what I seek to do in the classroom and it's also a reflection on what I do in the classroom. So a meta-reflection, and it's also a reflection on what I do in the classroom. So a meta-reflection. The aim of the article was to offer and invite reflection on Lutheran theological paradigms for Lutheran universities, which I think is always important to reflect upon. The article developed really as an assignment for me in my department, one of my departmental duties.
Speaker 3:Our academic theme for the year this last year was called by name, based on the verse in Isaiah, and we were integrating that into our classes at Concordia, st Paul. So I was asked to prepare some systematic thoughts and outlines on that and I reflected on that and really became this article. I thought would be edifying for the church at large. So you think of my 10 plus years of experience of teaching in a Lutheran university, and that includes to Lutherans, to Christians of various kinds, then to non-Christians and adherents of other religions of the world. So I also think it's important that Lutherans understand that we're part of a larger Christian intellectual tradition on that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love that. Can we just pause?
Speaker 2:there.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts regarding? Well, there's a lot of controversy right now. In the Concordias right We've talked, we have mission drift, because should our Concordias be for Lutherans, by Lutherans? Should our concordias solely be for church work, formation, and, on the other extreme, are our concordias there for mission, for inviting critical thought centered in Scripture, to be sure, but then expanding from Scripture to welcome as many people as possible who may not have a Christian worldview? Can we have a missiological lens as we look at the Concordias? Just general top-of-mind thoughts for you, josh. I think that's very appropriate for us to dig in there a little bit deeper.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the Concordias are universities and colleges of the church, but they also serve everyone who attends there and they are missiological you could think of it that way or a mission to the students that are there to not only teach them but to love them with the love of Jesus. And I think really, you know, maybe the tension where you're talking about goes back to the origins of the Lutheran Church, right, you think of the Augsburg Confession. I tried to reflect on that in the article. It's the founding document of the Lutheran Church, and mission both makes it clear that Lutherans are not a new sect, right, it's a reform of the Christian Church.
Speaker 3:I like to think of it as I approach the classroom, as I'm a confessing Lutheran, you know, I confess the gospel evangelical. I'm also Catholic, universal, so I seek to talk to all Christians as well. And I'm also, you know, believe and worship a certain way that God comes to us when we respond. You know word and sacrament, amen, right, and also reforming, always in an academic setting, to always realize that I could be wrong and the word of God is our standard as we confess it.
Speaker 3:And I think, when I looked at the larger Christian intellectual tradition, right, you have this tension which I think we see in our concordias and I like to explore that as a really creative tension. It's a wonderful place to be, but the tension is, I believe so that I may understand, right, and then I understand, so that I may believe I may understand right, and then I understand so that I may believe. So, attention of within the faith and then attention of using reason for those outside of the faith, and so I think the Concordias do that. I'll just say a few things on that. I believe, so that I may understand, really comes from Augustine, faith-seeking understanding, right, so you have to kind of know what you believe and to understand that more deeply in our lives.
Speaker 3:But also, you know, the universities in the Western world really come out of the church, right, and there's a theologian named Abelard who said it this way I understand, so that I would believe, and I want to use universities as a place, you know, to study the universe University, that's where the word comes from. Let's see how everything there is really seeking its purpose and its meaning, ultimately in the triune God. So I think that tension is there. I would say that tension, as I reflected on it, has always been there in Christian universities and we have our unique LCMS nuances, you could say. But that tension is there in the Augsburg Confession as part of the larger movement and then with universities in the larger Christian tradition.
Speaker 2:That's interesting, I would say like in today's context it seems like university is more about a person's vocation more than anything. Right, a typical student is going to get a business degree so they could go, or a finance degree or an accounting degree. Get a business degree so they could go, or a finance degree or an accounting degree or a teaching degree so they can prepare for vocation. But in the, let's say, the historical liberal arts context it's about I want to understand the universe around me in a better way. So it's interesting to think that way that you know that's probably more of the pure university context, what it comes out of.
Speaker 3:That's a great point, that it is vocationally grounded. So it's not just theory, but the best of the Christian tradition puts theory and practice together. But in our vocations we do want to think how can our vocations be fulfilling and how can we find vocations of purpose? That would include for Christian and non-Christian students. So vocation is a wonderful Lutheran touch point to connect, I think, what we're talking about here God's word and the reality of daily life and the questions that people have in seeking truth.
Speaker 1:I think the Western there are benefits. A lot of times we're quick to throw under the bus the Enlightenment and kind of the Western tradition. But at its best the university, and especially a liberal arts degree, provides a universal and I love that. I've not ever really reflected deeply on that a universal perspective of a variety of different disciplines, right From math to STEM or whatever you know STEAM, if you want to add there. So we add like I am a holistic being, it really is anti-gnostic because I'm going to do things with my hands. I'm going to discover how I'm gifted, how I'm not, but I'm going to be able to be hands. I'm going to discover how I'm gifted, how I'm not, but I'm going to be able to be a thought partner, a creative thought partner, with people in a variety of different vocations. I think at its best and I can then enter in as a learner to say it's another way to just see the body of Christ at work in a variety of different vocations.
Speaker 1:My liberal art degree at Concordia University, nebraska I got to rub shoulders with people that were going to be lawyers, doctors, businessmen and women before I went and said, hey, my primary vocation is going to be husband, father, then pastor, right, so that I had at least a framework and understanding of all of the disciplines, anything more to say. And I think that that's huge right now for us to see the Concordia as a place toward that end, especially when the liberal arts agenda, the secular agenda at our public universities has gone so far away from that sort of a universal God. First article reality God as the creator of all of these disciplines. So anything more there, josh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. That sums up a lot of the points from the article, I think, well and connects it a little more to where we are today. But you think of the complexity of faith. You know, as I thought about this too, you know faith is a complex topic for many Christians and today, as you mentioned, faith is contested, and it's definitely contested in the secular university.
Speaker 2:So what.
Speaker 3:Lutheran's university provide is a Christian grounding. You know, to be Lutheran, I gave some of those distinctions of being Lutheran already, some nuances, right, but that's important and, as I reflect in the article, you know there's different aspects of faith, right, and this is helpful to think in a university setting.
Speaker 3:So you know, faith on one hand is very simple. It's trust in God, it is grounded in God, it's passive, it receives from God Right All that God gives to it Father, son and Holy Spirit. But also faith is wonderfully complex and rich. In Lutheran tradition we got this wonderful quotes all over the place from Luther about before this, good deeds needs to be done. Faith does it, faith doesn't wait around. I think of it as faith works. It's not works in faith, but faith without works is dead. So faith just does it. It works. Faith obeys. Yeah, faith works in your life and that's wonderfully complex and it includes, you know, neighbors.
Speaker 3:And then you know, think of faith as contested today. And I think that's where, looking at the larger Christian intellectual tradition, we can get some help on that. So it's not like faith has never been contested before. And in looking at this article I started looking at the early apologists, you know from the early church, especially Justin Martyr, who has a wonderful coming to the faith story. He discovers the Christian philosophy. But also in the Middle Ages, when the universities were these points of faith and reason and the tension therein.
Speaker 1:Tell us. I'm curious, remind me. I'm sorry, Jack, but tell the. Justin Martyr story. How did it remind me? I'm sure it's something I've forgotten, yeah.
Speaker 3:So the Justin Martyr story is a dialogue with Trifo. He shares a story how he was taking long walks on the beach. Okay, so he liked to take walks on the beach and you know he was a philosopher, he took walks like Socrates. So the walking really is wanting to walk in the way of the truth. So the walking was looking for the truth. You're always going towards it. Socrates never really finds it in Greek philosophy. And he's taking a walk on the beach and we know from this dialogue he has that he's studying philosophy.
Speaker 3:In the ancient world, philosophies were a way of life. So you go to a school right to study these ways of life. They weren't academic disciplines like we have today. And so he's trying these different ways. And he's met on the beach by an old man, an old man by the sea. And the old man by the sea says I've been looking for someone lost who belongs to my household, and Justin's you, justin's intrigued by this. What do you mean? And he's really referring to John right, the gospel. I have other sheep too, that I might bring them in to this fold, but Justin doesn't get that yet. But he walks him along and uses an apologetic approach of asking him listening first. Well, what are you studying, what are you looking for?
Speaker 3:And Justin shares how he goes through Pythagoras and from Pythagoras to the other views and then finally to Plato, and the whole time the man listens and engages, he dialogues with him. You know the word dialogue, right. Dialogue us through the word right. He dialogues with him in order to get to Jesus. And he dialogues so much where he realizes limitations of Plato and he presents a very clear, christ-focused message. At the very end, the old man. And then he leaves. Now Justin said he never saw that old man again, he didn't know who he was. He's an angelic right, a messenger of God. But he does say, like in Luke 24, that there was something, you know, burning within me, my heart, that I just couldn't stop. And he's, you know that's when it led him to the Christian philosophy, and so he then became a philosopher of the way of life of Jesus. I think that's a wonderful example from church history of you know, what I've seen can happen at Lutheran universities too.
Speaker 2:So what do you think, based on what you're seeing right now, should be the primary? Do you believe we're in a season of apologetics and what do you think should be the primary apologetic approach?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I often reflect if we're in, is this a time to tear down or a time to build up Ecclesiastes 3. And there certainly are things to tear down intellectually or have been torn down already for us. I teach a little philosophy. I sort of dabble from the Christian side, but one of my favorite classes I teach is Athens and Jerusalem, and we set it up with Justin Martyr, as I said, who you know. You go from Athens to Jerusalem, from reason to faith.
Speaker 3:But then the counter to that is Tertullian in the early church, who said what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem, philosophy and the cross? Nothing. And so you know that argument apologetics is that. Look, you believe it because it's absurd. That's why you believe it, you know. And so you have both that tension, and I think you know, in one way we're in a morass. It's already been torn down. Another way to build up, though, towards Christ, out of the basic drive today, is the need for fulfillment, and his masterwork is called the Secular Age. It's been studied by Andy Root and others and applied to Christian theology. But you know to look at the secular age and say, all right, on one hand it's secular, on one hand we see loss and negation. You know church not being there On the other hand though, it's wonderfully diverse intellectually.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of spiritual yearnings, there's still a lot of superstition and you know, my take on Taylor is that it's not that any of this past goes away. It's sort of like, intellectually, we have this closet right where we've just stuffed everything in and then you open it sometimes and you realize everything starts falling out and you might want to put it back, but but we can't so much and Taylor reminds us. Well, that's where we're at. You know, we have to kind of discern from that. So in a sense, you know it is is tearing down but also building up, building up always in Christ.
Speaker 3:And I think, as a professor I love the verse of his favorite of Augustine. But you know from Paul that knowledge puffs up. It's good for me to remember as a professor. Knowledge puffs up but love builds up and I think we can see how knowledge has puffed up. But as Christians we really want to always go to the love and that's really the way through and the love building up towards Jesus. I think that was the same for Justin Martyr, right, go back all those years. And when I share Justin Martyr with students, when I read him today, it's boy. That sounds so contemporary. You know that searching feeling that everything's falling apart and yet being found as a human being, as a person loved for the sake of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:So my observation this is just kind of an apologetic conversation is that people's struggle in faith is less about science and more about the ethos of God that they're struggling with. Well, I just heard this comment on the radio God can be all-knowing and he can be all good, but he can't be both right. And this is the struggle that people are having. Is, you know, if God is, if God is real, is he good, right? And? And we're struggling because we're looking through the lens of what is good, through a human lens, right, through a, through a civil, ethical lens, which isn't necessarily how God approaches everything. He doesn't, he's not fair with us, he doesn't give us what we deserve, he gives us grace, and grace is almost of of human ethics, right. So what are your, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think to build on that.
Speaker 3:That's. That's wonderfully said. But you know, charles Taylor has this idea of he calls the buffered self. So today we buffer ourselves.
Speaker 3:It's almost like I'm wearing those big headphones that are like this right, and I'm just looking at the screen, you know, and it's hard to see anything else. So it's hard to see how science relates to religion. We want to demarcate. I heard once in the church you know, look what I do on Monday at work, how does it relate to Sunday? Right, and so how to connect all this? I think even for Christians it's difficult, but then for non-Christians, you know, it could seem so confusing.
Speaker 3:So the buffer itself, what Taylor wants to do is to get us to kind of take off the headphones, all right, or look beyond the screen, and that's a lot of what I think Lutheran universities do at their best Look at everything, all right, and then we can use, as Lutherans, law, gospel approach to that. It's a wonderful tool we have, right, we can sort of tear down and build up, but we can do that. That's the tool we have, the way of approaching it. But yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 3:I think we want to get past the headphones here, and you know Justin Martin. To go back to that, he was someone that was worth seeking out right. He wasn't just a number or another statistic, and so I really seek to look at all my students that way and I know my colleagues do too but for all of us to really engage personally with one another and it reminds me of a Charles Taylor quote from there. He says the future is really going to rely on, especially in Christian circles, of institutions, of individuals reaching out to individuals. So the institutions are places that seek to do that Right.
Speaker 1:This is great. I think it's a wonderful time to be alive. I think I get to coach right now with a lot of young people at a Christian small high school and to cast vision for their life as one who's enveloped in Christ and to really focus on training to live the way of Jesus, which is radically different, to have a life that's exemplified by the fruit of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, etc. Joy is the fuel of the brain, that there's going to be a lot of peers and that we're going to need the wise next gen or two above the elders, I think, in the church to re-engage, because they're looking for someone who's gone beyond and lived a life of meaning and purpose that's radically different, that's not centered in the self, that's centered beyond and lived a life of meaning and purpose that's radically different, that's not centered in the self, that's centered beyond the self. So I'm praying for a revival of young people, just kind of rejecting all, and there are just a lot of lies that have been brought to them that are confusing, disjointed. I like the, you know they open up any kind of cloth and it just falls apart, while the Christian worldview centered in Christ and him crucified.
Speaker 1:It is a bit absurd, like it seems kind of wild. But for then for us to say and I'd love to get your take on this I think, if you really are honest, rationally honest, there's only one of two. The secular agenda is only one of two extremes Radical nihilism on the one hand, fatalism or radical hedonism, and neither of those two extremes satisfy. Jesus meets us as our greatest desire. Why? Because he desires us and our life is centered in mission and purpose now and obviously ratified with the resurrection when he returns on the last day.
Speaker 1:It just it's absurd. But through the absurdity, through the weakness, through the vulnerability, it actually is very reasonable too, because we all die and we all recognize that death is not good, and that is why Jesus came to defeat death through his life, death and resurrection for us. Anything more to say about the day and age in which we live and how you meet kids at one of those two extremes you see kids going in one of those two extremes and how you meet them with the love and the law too, which orders our lives toward the way of God. Anything more there, josh?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think I do meet students like that. You've diagnosed the problem really well. Charles Taylor is good at diagnosing the problem, giving a few ways forward, but I think that's where theology comes in right and Christian witness really is the way forward in Christ.
Speaker 3:You know, you see that in the zeitgeist right now, with stoicism is everywhere you know, stoicism, and I think it's really this kind of distance that I don't want to be hurt. You know, I think that's kind of a crass stoicism. Stoics are a little deeper, to be fair. They talk about logos and reason, and when you get into that it sounds similar and it was similar for many of the early Christians. But you know, it breaks down in the sense where Christianity is not really stoic, it's a passion. It's a passion, and to be passionate, you know, so we call Jesus death and resurrection. To live that way is messy. It loves people, even when you're hurt, and it keeps loving, and so that's what I try and push through there as well. I think a university provides a wonderful place, though, to explore this. You know, I use primary texts, and these primary texts deal with these basic struggles right, and just to engage that in your life. But that's what we try and do.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the definition of paradigm. You break this down in your article as two ideas side by side, and how that relates to faith and reason.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you don't reason someone to faith, of course, and reason has its limitations, like Clint Eastwood. Right, you got to know your limitations, so reason does. But being at a university, we use our reason all the time, and a helpful way to approach this then, on reason I'll get to paradigm here in a second is you know, luther's first article explanation in the Korean is third article. Right, so God has given us our reason. That's a beautiful thing. He wants us to use our reason to praise him and serve him. And then you know, sin is just totally unreasonable. Right, it's all confused. And the third article I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, but the Holy Spirit enlightens me to now use reason.
Speaker 3:We could say in a ministerial way as it talks about in the Christian tradition, right as a minister to faith, but always under faith. So paradigm then, you know, originally meant side by side, or to literally show para side by side or kind of around right. And as I reflect on this there's a famous book called Paradigms and the Scientific Revolution, thomas Kuhn. He's a philosopher of science and this was just by way of comparison, but he says science doesn't really work. I'm sort of paraphrasing in my own take on the book Thomas Kuhn Nature of Scientific Revolutions. But science doesn't really work by progress, it works by kind of paradigm to paradigm. And what happens is you get a new paradigm which sort of you have to go around and kind of orbit, in a sense it kind of replaces the old one. So if you think about the paradigm of the Middle Ages, where the earth was the center, everything in science revolved around that right. And then you get to Copernicus, galileo, well, now it's not the center. And then you get to Einstein. You get another revolution right, it's not the center. And then you get to Einstein, you get another revolution right, and so we kind of look at the history of that side by side. But that's kind of how science works. Maybe we can think of that, just in kind of the nature of things, how things work, and that was helpful for me and as I got into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, paradigm, you know, is side by side and I think a lot of it too is compare and contrast. You know, it's what academics are kind of prone to do, right, I think, in terms of paradigm. And, you know, I think this is what Paul is doing a little bit. I know there's different ways of reading that passage in Athens, but you know, for example, paul sees in Athens they're religious, you know and then he moves on to the critical uniqueness of the resurrection of Jesus, right, but he's sort of living side by side with these two worlds, right, and he's able to do that with his Roman passport, you know, think of what we're able to do today with our passports and the worlds that we live in, side by side. That might be science and, you know, religion, obviously in people's minds, but also other religions and so on. And so how to think of this in terms of being both, then, critical and constructive, or tearing down and building up. And you know, I also reflected that's a lot of what we do at a Lutheran university, you know. So, if you just walk down the halls, it is sometimes just to see what the classes are. You get marketing, you get biology, you get Old Testament. They're all there right Just one day. You know the same time, side by side.
Speaker 3:Now the danger, of course, is that theology doesn't just become side by side. I think in the Middle Ages, helpful theology is the queen of the sciences. I play chess, right. Theology can move in all these directions like the queen queen, and theology can extend and reach everywhere. That's right, and I think that's what we do too as well. But at least as a starting point, the paradigms where we are, and then leading to kind of the integration of theology as the study of God, which include then how God has made all things and how God saves us. Ultimately, you know Jesus Christ for all those who believe and I think that's what Charles Taylor is getting at too and to see kind of secular and sacred not as always verses and so on. It's much more complicated than that and the sacred and secular do exist side by side and I think that takes a little more of applying our reason to decipher that and to read the signs of the times.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good jumping off point into how we live life today in relation to a secular world. And you just say secular and sacred are side by side today, is it? And this is Niebuhr? Sacred are side by side today, is it? And this is, uh, niebuhr? Right, richard Niebuhr? Faith in culture, church in church and culture I. Is it church against? Is it church for? Is it church within, um, church above I? You know what? What is our appropriate response?
Speaker 1:I read Niebuhr back in college a long time ago. You know, I'm like this, this, what does? Just got to think this is kind of silly stuff, you know, but like it's very, very applicable today Philosophically. How does the church posture herself in a secular, post-christian culture? Do we throw up the walls or do we open up our arms? Are we against with? We must fight, fight, fight. Or do we recognize there's an enemy, the evil one? Deliver us from the evil one. Shout out to our last podcast with Pastor John. Deliver us against the evil one and therefore mobilize for mission to seek and save those who are lost, who the shepherd, the good shepherd, wants to bring near to himself. Anything in relation to Niebuhr and faith and culture that you'd like to speak into, josh?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So Niebuhr puts Lutherans as faith or Christ and culture in paradox, right, and I think we can critique that a little bit. He says maybe they're more Christ and culture in a kind of paradigm with one another or the relationship of Christ and culture. So you never have Christ without culture. Jesus is Jewish culture. You know that. We know that right. Peter had an accent because they could tell he was a Galilean in the gospel accounts. We have our accents, we have our culture and of course Jesus doesn't just transcend that Revelation. You know all languages. Language is key to culture. They're before the throne, right, and so I think it's very appropriate, like in missiology we study anthropology and culture. We remember the church has always been multicultural or not just one culture.
Speaker 3:That's important, and so I think you know this in paradigm is a good way to look at it. We don't want to give the impression that, you know, faith just becomes part of everything, and faith isn't primary, of course, but we do live side by side, don't we? And that's important, and we are engaged in our cultures, and instead of always wanting to win that culture or something, and instead of always wanting to win that culture or something right, we seek to serve people who are, in cultures you know, enculturated, and so I think it's much better to build up in love, and that's not winning or losing, that's giving, that's serving, that's sacrifice, and I think that's the way forward. I think it's important to us to recognize, though, that the tension they're in and I just found paradigm a more helpful way to do that you think of a mode of thinking.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, jack. Any observations?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, we're just thinking about practically speaking. We again, this is like. I don't know as much about the theory. What I do know is that churches have always done mission through engaging with culture right, not necessarily by creating a barrier against it. Somehow it's reaching into the felt needs of the community and it's addressing those felt needs at the same time that it's also preaching the gospel. So it's building relationship.
Speaker 2:And you can't do that apart from understanding and respecting and embedding yourself within the culture. You know, I think the best analogy is to be an ambassador right, an ambassador for a country. You go there and you represent a foreign country, but you're also a part of that community and you do everything possible to understand the traditions, the language, you know the customs so that you can, within you know, within your mission to represent your country, your nation, to go and be that bridge. Right and I think that's kind of the way that we can kind of think about church is that to be a missionary right is to be an ambassador, which then says well, within the amount of freedom that I have, I have to respect this culture right.
Speaker 1:Well, this is what the entire book of Acts is about is Christ crossing culture, jerusalem, judea, samaria, to the ends of the earth? And I find the Apostle Paul such a fascinating character, not only his conversion, but then the leader that he was in partnership with Peter. He's the Jerusalem guy, kind of the home turf guy, but then he starts to build all of these bridges with very unique characters Barnabas, silas, obviously, luke carrying the gospel forward, timothy he's able to cross cultures as well. So anything more about the book of Acts. Obviously you've got Acts 15, and they're making a cultural distinction and the theological distinction in the Jerusalem Council.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:Anything more to say there, Josh?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely in Acts. You know the culture, or cultures were against Christians.
Speaker 2:And so we shouldn't be surprised today.
Speaker 3:So it's not like we're just agreeing with culture to agree with culture. No, you know, we stand for God's word and the truth. We boldly confess that. But yeah, that's Acts. And you know, in Acts, just whenever you reflect on Acts, right, boy, they're just trying to keep up with the Holy Spirit crossing those boundaries.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 3:You know that's all they're doing. It's the Acts of the Holy Spirit through God's word. Right, I think of you know, confession and missiology there I've been teaching a missiology course, but you know they go together. Right, you know they confess Jesus Christ. Clearly Paul does this in Athens. Wherever he goes, whoever will listen, even those who don't listen. But they're keeping up with the missio Dei, the mission of God. It's God's mission and I just love how Luther puts it in the large catechism God's will and kingdom happen. They are happening, they will happen. May we have the eyes to see it right through faith. May you know, may it be done to us and through us as well. But it's happening, and I think, as Christians, to really approach that we're part of that larger mission.
Speaker 1:You know, we confess but we're part of this larger mission of confessing. You're a longtime LCMS guy. You told us your parents are teachers and obviously I'm third generation Jackson, newer Lutheran, but geeking out about our theology nonetheless. Praise be to God. How in your mind did we come up with this dichotomy of confessing confessional Lutheran over and against mission missional Lutheran? I've done some writing on this and it's just. It's unfortunate how that dichotomy and even those of us within the LCMS are sometimes at odds when we're all confessing that God is on a mission to get his kids back. I hope we could agree on that, that he found me and he wants to find others through means which include word and sacrament, and me, us, the body of Christ, to seek and save the lost. How did we come up in your mind? Because you've been in academia, you guys think deeply about these things how did this distinction and this pull happen within the Missouri Synod around missiology and confessional Lutheranism? It's unfortunate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's important to keep confession and mission together. Yeah, absolutely. And if we do a little case study here, I think what you're maybe asking about, if we look at Matthew 28, historically, as a historical, theolog, missionary, right, the missio of God from father to son and then father, son to Holy Spirit, and that's very appropriate, that's right, that's the heart of it, right, and that needs to be stressed always and confessed to keep those words right. But then, you know, you think of the modern missionary movement of the last 200 years. It's remarkable.
Speaker 3:I don't know of anything as outstanding as far as impact in church history. Perhaps I mean the greatest reach now we talk about, you know, the global south and Christians really being around the world, really the last 200 years, which also then looked at Matthew 28 as the Missio Dei being sent in this, as the church to the nations, right, and so being caught up in that Missio Dei and then taking that forward, right, for the sake of the gospel. And so I think those go together and I think they should be together. And church history gives us sometimes that big picture. Right, it's helpful to be part of a church. That's part of a larger history. And if you look at the origins of the LCMS and the development of the LCMS and the history right.
Speaker 3:It happens during this period of the great mission movement globally of the church. That's it, and I think to always kind of keep that in mind as wherever we are found right To always be part of that missio Dei, to confess that and let God's word through word and sacrament kind of work through us and in our lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we have the tendency to think we're in such an extraordinary time. It's a very common time.
Speaker 2:It is common.
Speaker 1:You know it's a common time. I mean people need the gospel.
Speaker 1:People will have all sorts of idols, self being the main idol and we have to let them know, by the Spirit's power connected to the Word, that there is a God and we're not Him. And he sent His Son because he loves the world so much and Lutherans have so much to offer. Our paradigms, our tension points, I mean, what makes you proud to be? I think we should talk about this pride in our church, local, pride in our church, national. What makes you proud to be a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, especially as we think theologically, josh, anything top of mind there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's unfortunate that we always go to the criticism sometimes all of us, myself included or I think it's what could be better. But yeah, thank you for what's really wonderful about it. You know, it's such a wonderful church to grow up in and I think, as I reflected as a historical theologian on it, a systematic theologian is seeing how the Lutheran Church developed, the Augsburg Confession. As I go back to be confessing that we are gospel-focused, evangelical, but also Catholic, non-sectarian, we can learn from the church past. We are part of that. We say we're the best of it as far as theologically right, because focused on Jesus and faith alone, and then that affects how we worship and our mission work and all that. And, as I've kind of gone deeper in that, it's been so affirming of what I grew up and it's wonderful to kind of see that all together. So, yeah, thanks for that.
Speaker 3:You know, and I think too, in the best of the Lutheran tradition it affirmed, you know, there's faith which believes right, I make this in the article and then there's faith that is believed. So there's faith. And there's doctrine. So the doctrine's there, the teaching of scripture, and we believe it, we follow it. But to have faith without doctrine. It's maybe the best of Lutheran tradition. Right is to have a mess and to have doctrine without you know. Faith is to have a museum, and so I think the best of the Lutheran tradition is this confessing tradition and a church confessing movement which is also a missional movement, a missio dei. And so I love that about the LCMS. I think it's right in our origins and I think it's something that we should affirm today and celebrate and keep on keeping on it.
Speaker 1:When someone asks you because you probably get this, and there's some non-Lutheran, non-christian students at St Paul, I'm sure what does it mean to be Lutheran? What do you?
Speaker 3:say Well, I always try and point to Jesus Christ as a starting point, that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and oftentimes others will see it in the way we live first. We don't want to just keep it at that, we want to get to the truth which leads to eternal life. But that's one way. So I always make sure that I'm reflecting Jesus as an ambassador as best that I can. But also, I think the way I explain it to go a little deeper is that I think all these denominations, faith traditions, revolve around a center right, and the questions then kind of flow from there.
Speaker 3:So if it's in Roman Catholicism, historically it's the questions of authority and the tradition, but for Lutherans it's really a question at the heart of Scripture is justification by faith alone and that saving relationship that we have in God. For me that's the most beautiful of all and that is my center. And because Augsburg Confession you know to use the theological terms for is my center right, there it is Justified by faith alone for Christ's sake alone, right, not my own, and I usually like to get right to that as well. And from there then we can have, you know, perhaps some cultural expressions which are different and so on. But I think then you know worship and all that flows from there. You know and hopefully you bring people into that the way, the truth of the gospel saved by grace through faith alone in Christ, alone, then the abundant life we have in Jesus.
Speaker 1:I love it. This has been so much fun. I would it would be inappropriate if I didn't ask a question around Christians and Muslims today. There's a lot in our world going on, gaza strip, et cetera right around this kind of battle. What is what? Was your? Go deeper into your research in battle? What was your go deeper into your research in Christian-Muslim relations and our perspective toward our Muslim neighbors? My next-door neighbors are Muslims, very Orthodox Muslims. So yes, talk about that, josh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this is something which I've studied and lived both in Montreal and in New York, then in St Paul. I think it's good for Christians to keep in mind a couple of things that Muslims have, as one Christian scholar put it, you could say a superficial knowledge of Christianity. But we need to go deeper with them and partly we go deeper with them also in understanding that Christian-Muslim relations has been a challenge historically.
Speaker 3:I think that's the best construction on it and I think you know to work through that is to go back to loving them and to think also is helpful is that you know we love everyone as Christians and our disagreement is with the teachings sometimes and people don't always follow the teachings of the religion, either right Christians or non-Christians.
Speaker 3:So I think these distinctions are helpful to keep in mind as we approach that, but also, I would say, just to have of love and openness. One Christian missiologist put it this way is that when it comes to Islam, christian missiologists put it this way is that when it comes to Islam, christians have always kind of had this fatalistic oh it's impossible, right, and nothing's impossible with God. And when love is there and when there's a willingness to engage about Jesus and to go deeper from the superficiality to the truth of God's word, but to be always grounded in love which builds up, amazing things can happen and I think that's important. But no, it's important to realize that Christian and Islam indeed have some similarities but the difference is really over the person and work of Jesus Christ. And to really get to that and oftentimes others will see Jesus first in our actions, right, hopefully we follow that up with proclamation in our words of Jesus Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen. I went to a Muslim wedding for my next-door neighbor, a family member of them, and I was the only non-Muslim that was invited and I don't know if they thought I was going to come and that I showed up and they're like, wow, I'd RSVP. I think they still thought I wasn't going to show up because it was very, very orthodox men on one side, women on the other side. They had so in their tradition. They had a very private kind of ceremony with their imam. You know who spoke the final words, but then they had a more public party but still the men and the women were separate. So I just camped out and had about a three-hour long theological, love-filled conversation with three, four very orthodox guys about my age, businessmen in Phoenix here and man. It was invigorating and I got a coffee set with one of them coming up here in the next couple of weeks and I'm very excited just to keep the dialogue going. And they're very eager. They were very eager to talk about Jesus. They just have different views about who he is and what he did, just have different views about who he is and what he did, which are significant differences. But we left as those who recognize there's a creator and we're not him, at least for them, not right now. And so it was. Yeah, it was very, very invigorating.
Speaker 1:I invite anybody like let's get out of our Christian bubble wherever. If you're this is the cool thing. If you don't work in a church or like, you get to be a missionary. Josh, I'm a missionary in my various, in my various contexts, right, but most of my life is is in the church. Like are we, are our congregations set up as a catalytic centers to invite people, to train people, to train people, to disciple people toward having Jesus-centered conversations, to understand the macro narrative of Scripture, but then to use our reason to understand the worldviews of others and to draw that through line, like Paul did at Athens, to say I see you're very religious, very spiritual. Let me tell you about the Creator and what he did for His fallen, broken, rebellious creation. So I hope there's a revival of missionaries, just everyday missionaries today, who are eager to talk about the one who has found them, christ and Him crucified, anything more to say toward the posture of evangelists today, Josh.
Speaker 3:You want to avoid extremes. You know Lutherans sometimes can be seen as being shy, at least maybe in the Western world, right, sort of almost sheepish about it. That's not good. I think we want to not only keep the dialogue going but looking for moments to engage with the gospel of hope, right, to share that that we have and to be clear about that, you know, hopefully in winsome ways, but to just be clear and faithful, and so I think that's important to really to train and teach opportunities for that. On the other hand, the other extreme would be to be so bold that you just like not listening anymore, right? So you're just going to not treat people as people and so on. That's not good either, and so I think you know, looking for opportunities to proclaim, but all the time being grounded in love, being grounded in love which builds up, and God will, you know, work out the purposes for which he sent his word. He will make it happen, right.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean, it's his work. The Spirit's going to work. I can't reason, argue anybody into the faith. That's what I love about our theology right, it's God's work, passive faith, and so just share the word liberally. It's about the only time I'll use the word liberal. But share the word liberally with those that are fallen from Him. Yeah, jack, anything more to say? Yeah?
Speaker 2:share the word and let the Holy Spirit do the hard work, right? That is ultimately kind of what we're confessing that we cannot believe by our own reason in God, that it's actually the Holy Spirit that's repenting us, basically converting us, making us into Christians, but also, at the same time, faith comes from hearing. So they have to hear what it is that the Holy Spirit wants them to trust in. So you know we are sharing in ministry by preaching, you know, proclaiming the gospel, doing, you know, administering the sacraments, which, by the way, proclamation is very relational. You know, the word of God means something differently from a person that actually invests in building a relationship with you than just some random stranger.
Speaker 2:But both kinds of speech can be great. So I think you know the church has to be excellent in both of those and then, yeah, the Holy Spirit coming in there. So I think you know sometimes and this is, you know, given to us as Christians, as the priesthood of all believers, we can pray for other people, and sometimes we discount even. You know what it means to pray for the faith of other people. Right, that other people may come to know Christ, that God would give his spirit to them, that other people may come to know Christ, that God would give His Spirit to them, and so that is a part of ministry, that is a part of mission, is actually relying on the Holy Spirit to do the hard work after we've shared God's love with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. Every single week. A new practice for us, josh, is think of your neighbors who don't know Jesus and pray for them. We do that every.
Speaker 1:We just pause and man there's so many people who's your one, who's your two, who's your three? Just pray for them that the Holy Spirit would bring them into a saving relationship with Christ crucified. So, josh, final question what is your? If you look, I like this question to close a lot of our podcasts here with lead time, but you look at Lutheranism in America in 10 years, specifically in paradigm-filled, tension-filled middle way in American Christianity today. Hopefully we can work out all of our stuff so that we can be united in mission. So what do you pray? We look like in the LCMS 10 years from now or so.
Speaker 3:Well, I pray that to put those together, as we've talked about, we still confess God's word and Christ clearly, and the Missio Dei is still working through us in new and surprising ways. Yeah, yeah, I don't know what that totally looked like, but I think it's important that we seek to remain a national church body, so truly national right, and not just in select areas, that we're stronger together, that our confession really goes with mission and that we're aware of the demographic shifts that are going on and we seek to reach out as best as we can in that way, but to be faithful to God's Word and our confessions, which is more than a heritage for us, that's our theology Christ crucified, and it's living through us, but also the Missio Dei at work in us, and so I hope that continues. I think the LCMS at its best really combines those two and we'll see what God has in store, right.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. This has been a fantastic time, josh. Thank you for your generosity of time. If people want to connect with you, how can they do so?
Speaker 3:You can reach me by email at my university site. It's holman H-O-L-L-M-A-N-N at cspedu.
Speaker 1:I love it. Shout out to Concordia, st Paul. I've actually put a bug in my son's ear, who's a sophomore right now. Maybe he wants to go and play football he's a football player at St Paul into the future and learn from amazing, amazing academics, leaders, teachers, professors like you, josh. This is lead time. Sharing is caring, like, subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in these podcasts, be it on YouTube. I have to say this as a connoisseur of hair my wife does hair. You have fantastic hair, josh. I don't know if any of your students ever comment on that but man, I'm just saying it's flowing it's rocking, it's working.
Speaker 2:So praise me to God, no anyway.
Speaker 1:Jesus loves you. Listener, pray. This brought a smile to your face and we promise to have more invigorating theological and practical conversations around leadership and the life of the church in the coming weeks. Thanks so much, Josh. Thanks Jack, Excellent work.
Speaker 2:God bless, thank you.