Author: Jonathan Dodson

Things I Re-Learned and Experienced This Easter

Posted on April 8, 2007

1. The audible and silent power of God in the hearts, minds, and bodies of his people during corporate worship done well. I wept in repentance and praise as I sang this Sunday of the glory and grace of Christ.

2. The power of hospitality during our post-Easter family lunch. We were the recipients of lavish hospitality in food, fellowship, and aunts and uncles lovingly caring for our children.

3. The joy of making up alternate lyrics while singing repetitive praise songs. Anytime I do this, I find myself increasingly focused on the Person(s) whom we praise.

4. Singing “Jesus is Lord” is robust trinitarian praise. In an earlier post I briefly explained that the phrase, Jesus is Lord, is more than a Christian catchphrase, but a distinctly New Testament way of referring to Jesus as part of the identity of God, one with the Lord (YHWH). To sing Jesus is Lord can only be done by faith through the Spirit of God. Therefore, anytime I am singing Jesus is Lord or “Hallelujah,” I am worshipping the Father and Son by and in the worship of the Spirit.

The Post-Postmodernism: A New Humanism

Posted on April 6, 2007

As many academics will agree, Postmodernism is an implausible philosophy constructed on logical fallacies. Linguistic forms of postmodernism claim that texts have no determinate meaning. This, of course, assumes that the reader is able to ascertain a determinate meaning in that sentence by interpreting and understanding correctly the author’s intent–a logical fallacy (for more see Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There Meaning in This Text?).  If there are no fixed truths, science is a bankrupt endeavor, which is precisely why the renowned biologist and Harvard professor E. O. Wilson has joined Salman Rushdie and others to promote “The New Humanism.”  As French and English philosophers have avered, the post-Postmodernism is a return to humanism but with a twist.

Check out the details in Harvard’s New Humanism conference. Better yet, go to the conference and send me your notes. For more on the development of post-Postmodern philosophy, see Jamer Parker III’s chapter, “A Requiem for Postmodernism: Whither Now?” in which he discusses the development of Transmodernism in Reclaiming the Center, ed. Justin Taylor et. al.

God Crucified: Brief but Profound Easter Reading

Posted on April 5, 2007

Among shorter works on Jesus, God Crucified by Richard Bauckham is easily the most profound and informative book I have ever read. The book revolves around the concept of monotheistic christology, a term coined by N. T. Wright in Climax of the Covenant. Bauckham and Wright read the New Testament with Jewish lenses, seeing and hearing what Paul meant when he writes that Jesus is Lord (read=YHWH).

The phrase, Jesus is Lord, so often underappreciated today, communicated depths of meaning to the Jews. Whenever Jesus was described as Lord, the Greek word for YHWH of the Old Testament, they were struck with the offensive claim that the carpenter’s son is part of the identity of God!

Moreover, as Bauckham points out, the path of God’s greatest of glory is through His own death. For God in Christ, the way up is the way down. These insights and truths continue to exalt Jesus to new heights of glory and adoration in my own heart and mind.