All posts by Brian Zahnd

• June 4, 2018

  Christ and the Vilified Other (My Address to Christ at the Checkpoint)

  

  Last week Peri and I attended Christ at the Checkpoint in Bethlehem — a biennial evangelical conference sponsored by Bethlehem Bible College. Peri has posted some of her musings regarding the conference, which I encourage you to read. I would also encourage you to read the Christ at the Checkpoint Manifesto.

  I’m sharing the address I presented at the conference on Christ and the Vilified Other. This is not a transcript; neither is it a manuscript (I don’t speak from a manuscript). But this is very close in substance to what I said at the conference. I can only hope it will be as well-received here as it was in Bethlehem.

  BZ

  Christ and the Vilified Other
  Brian Zahnd

  Let me begin by talking about the land, the Holy Land, the land of the Bible. Geography played a significant role in shaping ancient Hebrew ethics and theology. Situated between the northern and southern superpowers of the ancient Near East, Israel lived under constant threat of invasion and occupation from these economic and military empires.

  (In my writing and preaching I frequently reference empire. Allow me to give a definition. Empires are rich, powerful nations that believe they have a divine right to rule other nations and a manifest destiny to shape history. The Bible gives a sustained critique of empire from Genesis to Revelation — particularly in Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, the Gospels, Acts, and especially Revelation. Empires are an enemy of God’s purposes because what they claim for themselves — a manifest destiny to shape history and a divine right to rule other nations — is the very thing God has promised to his Son.)
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  13 Comments / Theology / Brian Zahnd

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• May 24, 2018

  The Sign That Saves The World

  

  The Sign That Saves The World
  Brian Zahnd

  Look to me and be saved,
  All you ends of the earth!
  –Isaiah 45:22

  Peri and I are on our way to speak at the Christ at the Checkpoint conference in Bethlehem and we’re spending a few days in Florence, Italy exploring the cradle of the Renaissance. Visiting the museums and art galleries, I’ve seen hundreds of crucifixion paintings, and I’ve tried to view each one with a reverent eye. I never look at depictions of Christ crucified with a jaundiced eye. Their religious nature and ubiquitous presence may illicit a yawn from the secular cynic, but not from me — I’m an incorrigible Christian. I believe the cross is where Christ saves the world. Looking at the cross with the right eye, the reverent eye of humble faith, is the locus of salvation. The cross is the sign that saves the world.

  Ten years ago when I first began to connect Fyodor Dostoevsky’s enigmatic phrase “beauty will save the world” with the cross — it is at Golgotha that the ugliness of human sin is overcome by the beauty of divine love — the image of the cross as saving beauty that I most often referred to was Fra Angelico’s fresco. Today when we visited the San Marco Monastery I was able to see this fresco painted by the monk-artist Beato Angelico in 1441. As I lingered in contemplation of Fra Angelico’s Crucifixion, it prompted me to once again ask — what does this mean? Take a moment and ponder this question with me.
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  3 Comments / Art, Christianity, Cross, Theology, Travel / Brian Zahnd

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• April 20, 2018

  How Christians Should Speak About Creation

  

  How Christians Should Speak About Creation
  Brian Zahnd

  This year Earth Day falls on a Sunday, so I thought I’d say a few words about how Christians should speak about Creation.

  First, Christians should never say…

  This world is not my home.

  This world is our home! And it’s the locus of God’s saving work. The blessed hope is not “we’re going,” but “Christ is coming.” Our eschatological hope is resurrection, not evacuation. The risen Christ is not a ghost, he has flesh and bones; he eats fish and honeycomb.

  It’s all going to burn.

  What a horrible, ghastly thing for a Christian to say! Especially when it’s given as an excuse for justifying environmental exploitation. In Christ we have a hopeful eschatology that says, “It’s all going to be renewed.” (And if you want to work from 2 Peter 3:10, say, “It’s all going to be refined.”)

  Environmentalism is idolatry.

  Never say that. Instead say, “This is my Father’s world.” In giving humanity “dominion,” God made us park rangers of Planet Earth. Environmentalism isn’t idolatry — it’s the original vocation given to humanity. Environmentalism isn’t idolatry — but greed is! In Revelation we’re told that God will judge “those who destroy the earth.”

  Instead of saying un-Christian things like, “This world is not my home,” “It’s all going to burn,” and “Environmentalism is idolatry,” listen to how wise Christians have always spoken about Creation.
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  20 Comments / Creation / Brian Zahnd

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• April 18, 2018

  Soil With A Soul

  

  Soil With A Soul
  Brian Zahnd

  “The LORD God formed the human (adam) from the dust of the ground (adamah) and breathed into his nostrils the breath (spirit) of life, and the human (adam) became a living soul.” –Genesis 2:7

  Soil is miracle ground — it’s the matrix of all life on earth. As the second account of creation in Genesis tell us, all life comes “out of the ground” — plants, animals, and humans. We did not fall as pure spirits from the realm of the perfect forms and find ourselves imprisoned in contemptible matter (as Platonism claims); rather we were formed from the dust of the earth, breathed on by God, and became living souls. We are humans from the humus, soil with a soul; we are a mysterious synthesis of the dust of the earth and the breath of God. There is a sense in which humans are very complicated, self-aware rocks — rocks so magnificently complex that we are capable of bearing the Creator’s image and sharing the Creator’s spirit. Indeed the psalmist is moved to praise God by saying,

  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
  Your workmanship is marvelous — how well I know it.
  (Psalm 139:14 NLT)
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  6 Comments / Christianity, Creation / Brian Zahnd

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• March 31, 2018

  Mistaken As the Gardener

  

  Mistaken As the Gardener
  Brian Zahnd

  “Mary Magdalene turned around and saw Jesus standing there,
  but she did not know it was Jesus…supposing him to be the gardener.”
  –John 20:14, 15

  “On the third day the friends of Christ coming at day-break to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of a gardener God walked again in the garden, not in the cool of the evening, but in the dawn.”
  –G.K. Chesterton

  The first person to encounter the risen Christ was Mary Magdalene. It happened in a garden. At first Mary thought Jesus was the gardener. A logical mistake. Or a prophetic mistake. Or a beautiful mistake. Or perhaps not a mistake at all.
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  11 Comments / Jesus, Resurrection / Brian Zahnd

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• March 23, 2018

  Don’t Rush Past Good Friday

  

  Don’t Rush Past Good Friday
  Brian Zahnd

  Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
  –Lamentations 1:12

  Easter is approaching, but between us and the pastel colors of Easter lies a ghastly and bloodstained Good Friday. Don’t rush past it. In your haste to get to the garden of the empty tomb, don’t whistle past the gruesomeness of Golgotha. The resurrection is made as cheap as the fake grass in an Easter basket if we don’t linger long and hard over the catastrophe of Calvary. The cross is the epicenter of Christianity. And it is the cross that is the peculiar scandal of Christianity. As the Apostle Paul said,

  “We preach Christ crucified, a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” –1 Corinthians 1:23

  There is nothing particularly unique about a religion that worships a resurrected god — the ancient world was awash with such religions. But Christianity is the only religion to have as its central focus the suffering and degradation of its God! Easter alone does not make Christianity unique. It’s with Good Friday and Easter together that we find the uniqueness of Christianity.
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  7 Comments / Cross, Good Friday, Jesus / Brian Zahnd

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• March 5, 2018

  Dominus Flevet (The Lord Wept)

  

  Dominus Flevet – The Lord Wept
  Brian Zahnd

  “And when Jesus drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.’” –Luke 19:41, 42

  Today is my birthday and I’m with Peri in the Old City of Jerusalem; we’re spending a few days here before leading a pilgrim tour of the Holy Land. This morning we began our day with prayer in the beautiful Church of All Nations located in the Garden of Gethsemane. We then walked to Bethany so we could retrace Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into the city of Jerusalem.

  On what we now call Palm Sunday Jesus arrived in Jerusalem as the long-awaited Messiah and King of All Nations. Unlike Pilate who entered the city from the west riding a warhorse (there’s always some dude on a horse!), Jesus entered the city from the east riding a lowly donkey in a deliberate embrace of Zechariah’s prophecy about a humble king who would come to teach peace to the nations.
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  4 Comments / Jesus, Peace, Travel, War / Brian Zahnd

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• January 25, 2018

  Water To Wine Gathering

  

  Two years ago I published Water To Wine — a memoir of my spiritual journey out of Americanized pop Christianity into a deeper, richer, more substantive Christian faith. This journey was both the best and most difficult thing I’ve done in over forty years of following Jesus. I describe it as being “born again again” and use the metaphor of water turning to wine. (You can read more about my water to wine journey in this blog post: Twenty-Two Days.)

  I’ve honestly been surprised at how much interest there’s been in the story of my spiritual/theological transition. I think part of the interest is that I did it as a pastor while attempting to bring my congregation with me — a risky endeavor that I more or less succeeded in doing (though not without considerable cost and pain).

  Since the publication of Water To Wine I’ve received messages from hundreds of pastors and Christian leaders from across America and from a dozen or more countries who personally resonate with my story. I find that so gratifying. These days I typically receive three or four of messages a week from pastors who are on what I call “the journey.” Many ask to come visit me and I always say yes, even though it can be a challenge to find the time. A few have even moved to St. Joseph to be a part of Word of Life. I find that so amazing!

  Last fall after meeting with a pastor from Texas, I began thinking about hosting a gathering for people who are on their own “water to wine” journey; I want to tell these seekers what I wish someone had told me fourteen years ago. This will also be a great opportunity for people on the water to wine journey to connect with one another. When I floated the idea on social media, it generated an enthusiastic response.
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  7 Comments / Christianity, Church, Water To Wine / Brian Zahnd

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• January 17, 2018

  Twenty-Two Days

  

  Fourteen years ago I began a journey of faith that led me beyond paper-thin pop Christianity, cheap certitude, and nationalistic civil religion. That’s when the water became wine! In a few days we’ll be announcing a Water To Wine gathering here at Word of Life in St. Joseph in June. But today I thought I would share the first chapter of Water To Wine — the story of my deep discontent and the 22 day fast that began the pivotal year of 2004. (The photo is me in Beit She’an, Israel in November of 2003, shortly before the fast.) -BZ

  Twenty-Two Days

  “No one who has ever tasted fine aged wine prefers unaged wine.”
  —Jesus

  “The only wines that actually speak to our whole lives are authentic wines. Confected wines are not designed for human beings; they are designed for ‘consumers.’ Which do you want to be?”
  —Terry Theise

  “When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.”
  —Henri J.M. Nouwen

  I was halfway to ninety — midway through life — and I had reached a full-blown crisis. Call it a garden-variety mid-life crisis if you want, but it was something more. You might say it was a theological crisis, though that makes it sound too cerebral. The unease I felt came from a deeper place than a mental file labeled “theology.” To borrow some King James style language, my soul was disquieted within me. It was like I was singing over and over the U2 song:

  I have climbed the highest mountains
  I have run through the fields
  Only to be with you
  But I still haven’t found
  What I’m looking for
  —U2, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”

  I was wrestling with the uneasy feeling that the faith I had built my life around was somehow deficient. Not wrong, but lacking. It seemed watery, weak. In my most honest moments I couldn’t help but notice that the faith I knew seemed to lack the kind of robust authenticity that made Jesus so fascinating. And I had always been utterly fascinated by Jesus. Jesus wasn’t in question but Christianity American style was. Read more

  12 Comments / Books, Brian Zahnd, Christianity, Jesus, Water To Wine / Brian Zahnd

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