“The incarnation, at the center of Christian faith, provides a touchstone for understanding the world as God’s good creation and human beings as called to embodied, dialogical relationship with their creator.” ~J. Richard Middleton, theologian.
Loren Wilkinson explains how creation is a work of love and self-giving in his book, Circles and the Cross: Cosmos, Consciousness, Christ, and the Human Place in Creation. On pages 270-73, Wilkinson tags John Polkinghorne’s edited volume, The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis. “God’s self-giving creates space for each creature to be its own self….. Polkinghorne would also agree with Julian of Norwich that without God, creation would become nothing. But he identifies creation as the work of both power and love–and love looks sometimes like powerlessness…. The picture of a controlling Creator is corrected by the incarnation: The Logos of creation became flesh and moved into the neighbourhood. (John 1:14). Creation is “safe” because God never stops loving it”
Grok, operating as my research assistant, replied to my inquiry as follows: In Circles and the Cross: Cosmos, Consciousness, Christ, and the Human Place in Creation (2023), Loren Wilkinson—a professor emeritus of philosophy and interdisciplinary studies at Regent College—presents a lifelong theological and personal reflection on humanity’s relationship to the created world. Drawing on over 50 years of teaching, writing, and hands-on environmental engagement (including life on Galiano Island, British Columbia), he weaves together science, philosophy, poetry, biblical exegesis, and autobiography to argue that Christian faith demands a profound ethic of creation care. Central to this is the Celtic cross as a unifying symbol: the circle evokes the repetitive, interconnected cycles of the natural cosmos (birth, death, renewal), while the cross—intersecting and extending beyond it—represents Christ’s disruptive, redemptive intervention into those cycles through incarnation, suffering, and resurrection. Wilkinson relates the incarnation (God’s self-emptying kenosis in becoming human flesh, as in Philippians 2:5–8) to creation care by emphasizing its cosmic scope and ethical implications. He critiques Enlightenment-era anthropocentrism and linear “progress” narratives, which he sees as fostering human domination over nature and exacerbating ecological crises. Instead, the incarnation reveals God’s intimate solidarity with all creation—not just humanity—as vulnerable, interdependent stardust within the vast cosmos. This “deep incarnation” (echoing theologians like Elizabeth Johnson, though Wilkinson grounds it biblically) means Christ enters not only human history but the entire web of life, sharing in its beauty, pain, and finitude. As Wilkinson writes, the incarnation holds together divine transcendence (God beyond the circle) and immanence (God within it), affirming creation’s intrinsic value as a gift from a loving Creator.
This theological vision motivates creation care as an extension of Christ’s incarnate love. Humans, as image-bearers, are called to “step into the cycles of nature” with empathetic, self-emptying actions—mirroring Jesus’ precarious vulnerability on the cross—that disrupt destructive patterns and foster life-giving renewal. Wilkinson illustrates this through personal stories (e.g., his family’s stewardship of land) and figures like Gerard Manley Hopkins, whose poetry celebrates “pied beauty” in creation’s diversity. The cross’s hope breaks the circle’s potential despair (endless ecological decay), offering resurrection as a promise of cosmic healing, but it demands active participation: reducing consumption, restoring habitats, and pursuing justice amid climate grief. In essence, for Wilkinson, the incarnation isn’t an abstract doctrine but a mandate for embodied hope. It liberates Christians from escapist eschatology (fleeing a doomed earth) toward a “cross-shaped” vocation of healing the planet, as one reviewer notes: a “compelling case for how Creation Care…should be a central concern for Christians.” This relational ethic counters modern alienation, inviting wonder at the “miracle of the cosmos” and our conscious place within it, all illuminated by Christ’s light.
I agree with this analysis, having read the entire book recently, and with great enthusiasm, for our lecture with Martin de Wit from South Africa. The book is a real statement of hope in an age heavily influenced by nihilism. I do, however, disagree with Wilkinson’s use of Richard Rohr, who is actually a panentheist, and not a trinitarian theist. He should at least have made a footnote in this regard. One final quote from Loren Wilkinson: “The whole cosmos could never have arisen if the self-giving love of God–which resulted in the incarnation, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Christ–had not been at the centre of the universe” (Loren Wilkinson, Circles and the Cross, 309).
~Dr. Gordon E. Carkner, Graduate & Faculty Christian Forum at University of British Columbia, author of Towards an Incarnational Spiritual Culture. Find upcoming lectures at https://ubcgfcf.com.
Feel free to write gord.carkner@gmail.com if you want to be added to the Graduate Christian Union information list
Professor of Environmental Governance at Stellenbosch University
Responsible Creation Care in an Age of Conflicting Perspectives
Thursday, October 2, 2025, @ 4:00 PM
Response: Dr. Loren Wilkinson, Professor Emeritus Interdisciplinary Studies, Regent College; Author of: Circles and the Cross: Cosmos, Consciousness, Christ, and the Human Place in Creation. Cascade Books, 2023.
Abstract
Based on a rigorous understanding of the biblical discourse, there is no credible evidence to support the claim that authentic Christian spirituality conflicts with a responsible view of creation care. Some scholars do agree, however, that a critique is called for: This includes certain perspectives on God’s relationship with creation, on humankind’s spiritual, but also earthly, bodily and material value, on the implications of salvation for all of creation, and on certain future escapist expectations. Biblically, the narrative clearly articulates this world as God’s creation from Genesis to Revelation. Guidelines for an effective response are that creation care needs to arise from the core of Christian faith and that Christians cannot responsibly act as if there is any part of creation or human action that falls outside the scope of the gospel as revealed in Scripture.
Biography
Martin de Wit is Professor of Environmental Governance at Stellenbosch University, South Africa and coordinates the School of Public Leadership’s Postgraduate Diploma and Master’s Programmes in Environmental Management. His research work focuses on care for creation, the interactions between the economy and the environment (notably climate, ecosystems, energy, and waste), and on the place of the human person in environmental governance and social order. His latest book, written in Afrikaans, is called Skeppingsorg: ‘n Aanset tot interpretasie van sekere Bybeltekste oor die mens se verhouding tot die natuurlike omgewing [Creation Care: An Onset to Interpreting Certain Biblical Texts on Humanity’s Relationship to the Natural Environment] (Durbanville: AOSIS, forthcoming). He serves on the Board of Directors of the creation care organization A Rocha.
UBC Graduate & Faculty Christian Forum,
&
Canadian Science & Christian Affiliation
Thanks to UBC Murrin Fund
Martin de Wit:
“A theology and ethics of creation care is a whole-gospel issue, but with a specific entry-point in the person and work of Jesus Christ. A Christian ethic of responsible stewardship, earthkeeping or creation care needs to start with a high christology as the revelation of God’s will has reached its finality in the revelation through his Son.”
“In its critique, the aim of a theology and ethics of creation care would not be to be novel in the first place, but to bring improved clarity to the Christian faith confessed by the church throughout the ages and to living in this spectacular “universe [that] is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God.”[1]
“A reformational approach is proposed, which starts with the authority of God’s Word, and the holy, catholic, Christian churches’ faithful confession of that Word. A central feature of a reformational approach is that it is Christocentric and Trinitarian. These are not abstract theological doctrines but deeply affects Christian lives. Christian identity formation in Christ challenges the natural desires of the human being through the text and calls for a renewal of our minds.”
Build Your Own Reading List on Creation Care
Steven Bouma-Prediger, For the Beauty of the Earth
Steven Bouma-Prediger, Earth-Keeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue Ethic.
R. J. Berry & Laura S. Meitzner Yoder, John Stott on Creation Care.
Loren Wilkinson, Circles and the Cross: Cosmos, Consciousness, Christ, and the Human Place in Creation.
Darrel Falk, On the Divine Origin of Our Species.
Dennis Hollinger, Creation and Christian Ethics: Understanding God’s Design for Humanity and the World.
Faith Skinner, Living Green, Loving God: A Christian Guide to Creation and Conservation.
We live in a world marked by crises of various kinds, but perhaps most deeply and fundamentally by a crisis as to the nature of our humanity. What does it mean to be human?
For example, are human beings essentially minds, trapped temporarily and regrettably in physical bodies? Certainly many artificial intelligence enthusiasts see the world in precisely this way. Marvin Minsky, for example, believes that the mind is all that is really important about life, over against that bloody mess of organic matter that is the body. Out of this conviction arises another: that mind machines represent the next step in human evolution. We ourselves, in our godlike state, ought to create this new species—Machina sapiens instead of Homo sapiens—passing the torch of life and intelligence on to the computer (Rudy Rucker). Our ultimate goal is the conversion of “the entire universe into an extended thinking entity . . . an eternity of pure cerebration” (Hans Moravec).
From this single example we gather what should already be obvious to us in any case: that our governing ideas about human nature inevitably have significant consequences. They matter individually, affecting how I look at myself, what I agree to do to myself or have done to me, and the goals I set for myself. They also matter communally, affecting how I look at and treat other people, and what kind of society I am trying to help build. In fact, the answer to this question about humanness affects everything else that matters in life. And this means that arriving at good rather than bad answers to the question is a high-stakes game. It means that arriving at the truth of the matter is crucially important. Is it really true, for example, that we are essentially minds that happen to possess bodies that we may or may not consider satisfactory? If we can manage it, should the physical body be discarded like a piece of clothing in pursuit of something more glorious, with the help of technology?
Read: AI Snake Oil by Arvind Narayanan for deeper insights into the world of AI, the good and not-so-good implications, the true and false claims of what it can offer.
It is into the very centre of this kind of contemporary discourse that Gordon Carkner has inserted this new book Towards an Incarnational Spiritual Culture, with a view to encouraging readers to ground their identity in Christ, rather than somewhere else. He invites us to consider the great difference between incarnational spiritual culture, on the one hand, and both ancient and modern anti-material Gnosticisms, on the other—rejecting the latter in favor of the former. He explores the incarnation of Christ as the center point of history, giving dignity to embodied persons everywhere, and enabling us to rethink human wisdom and knowledge. He pursues the implications of this incarnation for human community and communion, contrasting the contemporary will-to-uniqueness that tears us apart to the will-to-community that reintegrates us. And he discusses, finally, the transformative nature of divine goodness, and its necessity for healthy human freedom.
We need all the help we can get in remaining human in these markedly inhumane times. This volume draws on deep and varied resources in offering such help, and I know that many people will benefit from reading it.
~Dr. Iain Provan Founder of the Cuckoos Consultancy; Author of Cuckoos in Our Nest: Truth and Lies about Being Human.
See also: Miraslov Volf et al, Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Open Field, 2023.
Dr. Thomas Fuchs, a psychiatric expert from Germany, gave an excellent lecture on September 25 at Green College, UBC on the contrast between a disembodied, narcissistic, post-humanist AI Utopian Self of the Singularity, and the concept of Humanistic Embodiment of Merleau-Ponty (conviviality, inter-corporeality, ecological and personal connectedness). It was entitled: “What is to Become of the Human Being?: A Plea for the Embodied Personhood.” ~sponsored by the Houston Centre for Humanity and the Common Good.
GCU, Graduate Christian Union, exists to help you reach your full potential as a graduate student, and to discover your best self–within community. You can help us build a network and a friendly learning community among postgrad and postdoc students. We respond to those pursuing the deeper life, those who want to grow in character as well as academically. We would be delighted to meet you and hear about your journey, your passion and your area of research inquiry. This is an active group of curious people from around the globe. We love the view from the cutting edge of thought and culture. Are you looking for community with other like-minded graduate students?
Dr. Gordon E. Carkner, PhD University of Wales
A Service of Outreach Canada’s Campus Work & Dialogue to Support Young Scholars and Scientists
I am really enjoying the wisdom of Dr. Loren Wilkinson, Professor Emeritus Regent College, in his capacious discussion on science, religion, and personhood:Circles & the Cross: Cosmos, Consciousness, Christ, and the Human Place in Creation. Cascade, 2023. Loren has a tremendous grasp of a wide range of scholarship and handles controversial subjects with grace and acuity. This is a must read for anyone interested in the big and small picture of cosmos and Creator. I once spent two full years studying this subject and I find this refreshing and positive. He shows the birth of the environmental movement and his personal part of the narrative. ~Gordon
The Kindle version of this Wipf & Stock book will be available on Amazon for FREE ($0) Summer, 2025. Take advantage of this special deal and tell your friends. Buy a copy for a friend.
Gordon E. Carkner’s Towards an Incarnational Spiritual Culture: Grounding Our Identity in Christ (2024, Wipf and Stock Publishers) is a philosophical and theological exploration of human identity in late modernity. Drawing on thinkers like Charles Taylor, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and James Davison Hunter, Carkner critiques contemporary cultural trends and proposes an “incarnational spirituality” as a robust alternative. The book argues that grounding personal and communal identity in the Incarnation of Christ fosters flourishing amid fragmentation, offering both intellectual rigor and practical wisdom for engaging culture.
Main Points: Here are the core arguments and themes, distilled from the book’s structure and key contributions:
Diagnosis of the Late Modern Identity Crisis: Carkner identifies a pervasive “cultural identity crisis” driven by modern revivals of ancient Gnosticism, such as expressive individualism, the “will to uniqueness,” and a disembodied quest for autonomy. These lead to fragile, truncated selves vulnerable to manipulation, isolation, and nihilism. Influenced by Taylor’s analysis of authenticity and the buffered self, the book unpacks how these ideologies prioritize self-expression over relational depth, resulting in fragmented communities and a loss of transcendent meaning.
The Incarnation as the Epicenter of Identity: At the heart of the book is the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation—God entering embodied human life in Christ—as the foundation for a “thick” identity. This contrasts Gnostic dualism (spirit over body) by affirming the integration of spiritual and physical realities. Identity is rooted not in isolated autonomy but in an I-Thou relationship with a speaking God, where grace nurtures resilience, perspective, and moral depth. The Incarnation provides explanatory power for personal flourishing, reading “backwards into history and forwards into our future.”
Six Pillars of Incarnational Wisdom: Building on von Balthasar, Carkner outlines six interconnected pillars that embody this wisdom:
Embodied Relationality: Marrying spirit and body in covenantal bonds, rejecting disembodied spirituality.
Transcendent Speech and Dialogue: God’s communicative action through Christ invites ongoing moral conversion and “moral language skill.”
Faithful Presence: Echoing Hunter, this calls Christians to incarnate wisdom in culture through humble, engaged witness rather than withdrawal or dominance.
One-Anotherness: Shifting from individualism to embodied communities that foster stability, hospitality, and mutual sacrifice.
Grace-Circulated Vitality: The Holy Spirit as the source of dynamic goodness, enabling love of self and world despite inherent brokenness.
Sacramental Outlook: Viewing creation and human life as signs of divine glory, participating in re-creation.
Practical Implications for Spiritual Culture: Incarnational spirituality demands radical praxis: self-sacrifice for community, hospitality rooted in transcendent goodness, and a “resounding yes to life” (per Jürgen Moltmann). It equips readers for cultural critique and engagement, promoting moral intelligence, resilience, and epiphanic encounters with grace. Carkner emphasizes “infrastructure” for faith—plausibility conditions like dialogue and presence—that counters reductionism and fosters flourishing in personal, communal, and societal spheres.
Vision for Human Flourishing: The book culminates in a hopeful alternative to postmodern fragility: an incarnational ethos that restores dignity, vitality, and purpose. By rooting identity in Christ, individuals and communities access “abundantly more” through arts, ethics, and relationships, ultimately glorifying God amid late modern challenges.
Carkner’s dense, provocative style—packed with philosophical dialogue—makes the book ideal for reflective readers seeking intellectual and spiritual depth. It positions the Incarnation not as abstract doctrine but as a transformative horizon for 21st-century life.
If you like this book, you will also treasure David P. Gushee & Glen Stassen, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context; and also Life Worth Living by Miraslov Volf et al https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5cnbY6xO0U
Jesus Cares About Who We Are, How We Think, and How We Live
The Moral Teachings of Jesus: Radical Instruction in the Will of God
by David P. Gushee
You Will Become Salt, Light, & Good Deeds
Jesus’s moral teachings are an ongoing message of our living Lord, the best account we have of the will of God; its constitutes a way of life that respects the broader discourse of Scripture. Christians are meant to be those who commit to obey/incarnate, to give voice to and defend these teachings. How can we embody the Gospel in our daily lives? Sadly, it seems that the moral teachings of Jesus are too poorly emphasized in many of our churches: sometimes morality and spirituality are shockingly taught as contestants. There are historical reasons but no excuses. This has proven disastrous to the moral health of the church and society at large. Our culture and our campus communities are also in serious need of these teachings: We grapple with a fragmented society of relativism, contestation, and polar ideological extremes that seek to divide us.
Below are some imaginative, life-inspiring/life-saving quotes from David P. Gushee that capture the momentum and pertinence of Jesus’s powerful moral teaching in the Four Gospels, but especially in Matthew 5-7, The Sermon on the Mount. Jesus shows a wise, transcendent brilliance as he interweaves key elements of human flourishing with the will of God: knowledge, truth, holiness, justice, grace, and love. As historian Tom Holland notes, this teaching and Jesus’s exemplum are the foundation of Western ethics of human rights, sanctity of life, justice, and dignity. David P. Gushee is distinguished university professor of Amsterdam. The elected past-president of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics, Gushee is the author or editor of twenty-nine books. He has an international reputation as one of the leading Christian moral thinkers of this era. McGill University philosopher-emeritus professor Charles Taylor also reveals the inescapable nature of moral frameworks in his brilliant tome, Sources of the Self, Harvard University Press, 1989 (pp. 3-107). It helped me deal with issues of moral/spiritual identity and self-creation in French philosopher Michel Foucault in my University of Wales PhD work in philosophical theology. Can we avoid a moral lobotomy in our day? Let’s hope so.
~Dr. Gordon E. Carkner, Meta-Educator, Blogger, Author, YouTube Webinars
The Church’s Incarnational Stance(Salt, Light, & Deeds): 52. We let our light shine by living in such a way that people see (perceive, discern, experience) our good works and that motivates them to give glory to God…. Through our lives we point people to God so clearly that they honor God’s name because of what they have seen in us…. In short, followers of Jesus constitute an alternative community (salt), living towards the reign of God, distinct from the world but engaged in a caring, constructive way within the world (light), with our deeds of obedience to Christ the greatest evidence of our identity and of God’s glory.
32. For Jesus, it is most often sins against neighbor, against the poor, against children, against widows, against the outcast, against the vulnerable, that attract his greatest attention—as in the [Hebrew Scriptures] prophetic tradition.
53. Jesus refuses to declare himself an abolisher of the Law of Moses or of the prophets whose main job was to exhort Israel to keep God’s Law truly…. His teachings represent a fulfillment rather than a negation of Jewish Law…. He wants to show people how to obey the Law from the heart. Jesus sternly warns against any loosening or weakening of God’s Law. His goal is not to set aside God’s will but to do it, obey it, and teach it to others. (Matt 5:20)
56. Jesus cares about the state of our hearts, the deepest recesses of our motives, thoughts, and feelings. Example: Jesus wants us to prioritize a life path of peace-making, which is the answer to the escalating patterns of anger and hate, together with its destructive, death-dealing power.
72. Jesus says that it is God rather than people who sets the agenda for how God will relate to people, and God’s agenda is love. He is inviting us to enter this sublime freedom of love, rather than allowing the worst actions of others to entice the worst in us.
73. People who are determined to love their enemies are the freest and the most powerful people in the world. They set their own agenda, and no one can distract them from it—making the journey through fear, through anger, even through hate, all the way to love. This is what we see in Jesus.
80. Jesus routinely appears to make God’s forgiveness of us contingent on our forgiveness of others. 81. God’s perspective: We are loved, we are understood, we are forgiven, and we are called to higher ground.
86. Mammon(Worship of Money as an End in Itself) entails turning wealth into an idol that displaces God in the human heart. It invites God’s wrath. This is why Jesus encouraged some of his followers to sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor and needy. Such idolatry is not just something in the human heart, but it is encouraged in the ethos and structures of economic life and human culture. Jesus’s answer to Mammon involves cleansing the eye of covetousness and fear, cleansing the heart of anxiety and greed, cleansing the behavior of stinginess, exploitation, and indifference to the poor—this can transform one’s relationships with the material world and economic culture—to set one free from a kind of slavery. Let enough be enough! Jesus taught: “Save up your treasures in heaven.”
Morality matters immensely to both God and human society, so laissez-faire relativism doesn’t work. 93. Even while we must make human moral judgments—as parents, teachers, governors, judges, citizens, church members, fellow humans/neighbours—we must do it in a spirit of generosity, mercy, and humility, always remembering that moral scrutiny begins with ourselves, and that ultimate judgment on a human life belongs to God alone. We are called to continuous peace-making and community-building.
98. There is a “heart,” an inner moral core, in every person. It is formed in part by what we treasure. Out of it flow life-shaping words and deeds. Action also forms character, just as character drives action—a spiritual feedback loop. 100. Overall, Jesus exhorts his followers to obey God’s will out of a humble, meek, just, merciful, pure heart that is seeking God’s kingdom (a higher road lifestyle). This builds real substance into a life and shapes our identity towards true flourishing. Jesus’s teaching is all about the solid rock of love: this leads to joy, peace, justice, and covenant love.
121. The Greatest Commandment (agape) is the moral centre of Jesus’s moral teaching. Love God with all you have and love your neighbour as yourself…. The obligation is stated positively…. [We are never done.] Jesus pairs love of God and neighbor.… We cannot love God if we do not love our neighbor…. We cannot love neighbor without the in-filling love of God that makes neighbor-love possible. Jesus defines love in the Good Samaritan story in one word: mercy. Love requires insightful vision, heartfelt compassion, and effective action. It is a matter of doing not mere sentiment.
Love sees with compassion and enters into the situation of people in bondage.
Love does deeds of deliverance.
Love invites people into community.
Love confronts those who exclude others.
176. In John 17, Jesus prays for Christian unity, and launches a theological conviction that the unity of the church is a historic part of Christian confession. Peace and unity are not easy, and Christians are often bitterly divided in reality. But every time we Christians bear with one another, choose to seek peace, and remain in relationships that defy our natural human tendencies to selfishness, something special is happening. At these times, we see Jesus’s high priestly prayer for unity in his followers being answered. We must never give up on the quest for Christian unity; it is central to our witness.
191. Jewish listeners at the time would hear Jesus emphasizing in Matthew’s Gospel, chapters 5 to 7 (Sermon on the Mount), and 25:31-46 things like: Food for the hungry, hospitality to the stranger, almsgiving to the needy, care for the sick. These were basic expressions of justice, mercy, and love. The idea is that this kind of behaviour is what God cares about most—it resounds throughout the prophets (Isaiah 58:6-11). Jesus identifies himself with the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, and imprisoned. What about us? 192. There will be an eternal judgment for all humans, and it will be based on how we treat our fellow human beings, especially the most vulnerable and needy. This is one of the most significant/unsettling of all Jesus’s moral teachings—an incarnational identification of the righteous Judge with the least/those who suffer/the marginalized/the broken ones. God sends them to us. He say to us a did Mother Teresa: This was me.These are my people.
In Summary, Jesus’s Moral Teaching is the Opposite Stance to Much of Contemporary Culture
194. We look at the world, our lives, and our aspirations basically upside down, in a complete reversal of how we ought to think and live. Our religious values are shockingly often the opposite to God’s. 196. Human culture, as we have set it up, is a set of interconnected and idolatrous abominations to God, although celebrated robustly by many people. We need to repent, and change radically, to get things right (return to the path of holiness and righteousness).
We over-hype our needs.
We constantly seek status, importance, validation among our peers. We are willing to sacrifice others to get it.
Jesus is deeply aware that humans lie, a lot: We lie to God, to ourselves, and to others out of shame, self-protection, or in order to manipulate the narrative.
What is it that really matters, what makes a good, fruitful life? Jesus’s moral teaching is counter-cultural pointed in the direction of the highest good: love of God and neighbour.
Culture reinforces faulty approaches/goals to life and selfish values. Sinful human practices and attitudes are thoroughly baked into society and its norms. We naturally strive for the wrong goals and ignore the needs of others–run with the crowd.
David Gushee’s Healing Vision of the Deeply Moral Kingdom of God: 196. God is all and is in all…. God wants people to give their whole-full-complete-true-pure-hearts, selves, souls, and lives to him. This is way beyond rules and obedience. It’s devotion. It’s submission. It’s love. God wants people who are humble in heart, hungry for truth and justice, merciful, and reconciling. God wants people who will secure themselves by trusting in him rather than in foolish/prideful human strategies and schemes that are so constantly self-defeating…. God wants to radically reorient us. It is a matter of doing not mere sentiment.…. We need retraining into new creational, Jesus-like practices and attitudes. Jesus taught peacemaking, forgiveness, economic simplicity, mercy and generosity, turning the other cheek, enemy love, covenant fidelity, truth telling, Good Samaritanism, standing with the vulnerable, valuing all people, leading by serving while not seeking human honour or glory for oneself.
From his other key boo, Kindgom Ethics, (40) by David Gushee & Glen Stassen: “The biblical virtues are keys to community well-being: peace-making, hungering for justice, doing mercy, integrity, humility, and caring for the poor and the mourning. They are the way of participation in community with God.”
“Jesus taught that participation in God’s reign required the disciplined practices of a Christ-following countercultural community that obeys God in its inner communal life and by publicly engaging in works of love, justice, and protection of the dignity and sacred worth of human life.” (195)
Key Questions for Further Investigation: 1. Why have so many theologians in the history of the church avoided or repressed Jesus’s moral teaching in the Sermon on the Mount? It was the most important/central discipleship material in the early years of the church. 2. “How do we avoid a cultural moral lobotomy amidst our current crisis of affirmation?” (grande pensée Charles Taylor in Sources of the Self). AI probably will not solve this dilemma; it has no soul.
As the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is important to the discussion of goodness and freedom. As stated in previous posts, morality is essential to freedom. Although it exceptionally helpful, can humans live by the example of Jesus alone? If goodness is a dynamic, mysterious gift, and cannot be achieved by human effort alone, even heroic effort to build one’s character, then where does Taylor’s motivation of the constitutive good come from? How is quality of the human will enhanced to a higher level? Michel Foucault’s aesthetic self struggles to attain this level of goodness through autonomous, creative self-making alone. Many young people today struggle to build their identity from the ground up and promote this self to the world.
How is moral goodness/right relationship mediated in this transcendent turn beyond/followint through from the life example and moral teaching of Jesus of Nazareth? Clearly, there must be a source of empowerment for living in this positive, inspiring relationship to the good, also called a new creation, for the practices of the good, for mediating transcendent goodness in everyday life. If one pursues it on one’s own, how can transcendent goodness avoid the charge of unattainable idealism? Are we not sure to fail? What is the nature of its human possibility? With these questions in mind, it is crucial knowledge that the Holy Spirit is a key inspirational and transformational factor in human goodness, that is, the human actualization and mediation of divine goodness in society. D. Steven Long (2001) is optimistic about the human quest for the good because of this key factor. He believes that with the Holy Spirit, moral self-constitution can be intimately and fruitfully related to the goodness of God, and that this will rejuvenate ethics and moral consciousness and self-constitution significantly. It offers a reconstitution of both goodness and freedom for the moral individual. Dostoyevsky spoke this in his idea of the ‘circulation of grace’.
The Holy Spirit infuses a goodness into us that makes us better than we know we are by ourselves. This better is what theologians mean by grace. People find themselves caught up in a journey that results in the cultivation of gifts and beatitudes they did not know were possible. They discover that this journey was possible only through friendship.… The mission of the Holy Spirit is to move us towards the charity that defines the relationship between the Father and the Son, a charity so full that it is thoroughly one and yet cannot be contained within a single origin or between an original and a copy, but always, eternally, exceeds that relationship into another. The Holy Spirit is that relationship. (D. S. Long, 2001, 302-3)
Divine transcendent goodness is made available as a gift by means of the Holy Spirit for the transformation/transfiguration of a person. The Holy Spirit offers relationship and empowerment towards doing and promoting the good. Humans can thereby become entrepreneurs of divine goodness. This is the truly magnificent message of the Apostle Paul’s letters to the early church (Ephesians for example).
This is an example of the epiphanic experience of encounter of the I-Thou sort that I talked about in previous posts in this series. The Holy Spirit is central to the moral life because he gifts individuals for works they cannot achieve in their own autonomous power, within the limits of their own human resources. He makes them capable of forgiveness, reconciliation, justice and love in the agape sense. He makes actual and effective the mission of goodness of Jesus Christ and his followers, the church. He represents the ongoing presence of Jesus in the church and the world, and makes possible the personal transformation within community–towards love in communion, the deepest human longing.
The Spirit catches humans up into the life of God in a personal way, into the communion of love within the Trinity. This process of self-constitution opens up the horizon of human moral thinking and action, first towards God, but secondly, connecting oneself through compassion with the human suffering and deprivation of others. This empowers the individual to move beyond consumeristic self-interest into servant leadership. Within this trinitarian plausibility structure, the answer to Taylor’s question, ‘Can we sustain our world benevolence?’ is a resounding Yes because the Holy Spirit enriches and empowers people to form one-another community as the abundant and fecund source of goodness–the empowerment of human good beyond the imagination of any one individual.
Dr. Steven Long has an important addendum: Along with Christoph Schwöbel, he finds that the kind of ethics (as in Foucault) that emphasizes the will, power struggles, and absolute freedom of choice, is dysfunctional and ill-focused. It leads to the human temptation to set one’s own standard of goodness as the final standard, and thereby to manipulate the language of the good in the direction of vices such as pride and self-indulgence. Humans are quite capable of using their freedom in contradiction to God’s goodness: to coerce other humans or abuse the natural world through their own controlling interest in prestige, promoting a negative moral currency. Long and Schwöbel promote an ethical focus on the constitution of the self as it relates dynamically to, and embraces, God and transcendent goodness as a moral a priori. This is parallel to the thought of Charles Taylor who noted that the first question of ethics is Who or what do you love? The quality of the will, the quality of freedom, comes into play at exactly this point. Long believes that moral self-constitution must be rooted in, and animated by, a love of God and a relationship with the infinitely superior goodness of God. This is the route of self-transformation and a correction to narcissistic human false claims to the good and virtue.
The picture of a lone will choosing between good and evil, or embracing both in an aesthetic move of self-mutilation, or choosing to define self, constitutes a distraction from moving into the goodness-which-is-God, being captivated and transformed by this goodness. Long’s focus is to build one’s life-orientation, one’s identity, one’s lifestyle around this high goodness. It ought not be reduced to a mere achievement of the human will. Goodness-making is not a faculty within the self that can be conjured. He puts such transformation this way:
Human freedom is not about the capacity to choose [merely] between good and evil. Human freedom occurs when our desires are so turned toward God and the good that no choice is necessary.… Jesus shows us that such a life is possible in our humanity—not against it. (D. S. Long, 2001, 46)
Real moral transformation comes through a commitment to the good, not through seeking a controlling knowledge of good and evil or through creative strategies for self-control or manipulation of power relations or truth games. Human creatures as self-legislating beings do not possess the moral capacity within themselves to enact such goodness. They tend to mess it up. Acts of the will do not automatically constitute acts of goodness, as we know from hard experience. Goodness is rather discovered, not invented. Long, somewhat further along the trajectory of Charles Taylor, concludes that the primary question for the moral self, for human morality itself, is “What or who is the good I seek and that seeks me?” (D.S. Long, 2001, 130) There is that notion of quest once again. Christoph Schwöbel sums up these thoughts:
The reconstitution of created freedom through the appropriation of the revelation of God’s goodness in Christ which is made possible in the Spirit is characterized by the acknowledgement of the limitations of human freedom that become evident where this freedom is no longer understood as self-produced, but as a gift of grace. The liberation from the abortive attempt of self-constitution of human freedom discloses the reality of the other person and the non-human creation as the one to whom good action is directed. Human goodness is realized where it is acknowledged that it is not self-produced, but the gift of God’s creative, revealing and inspiring action. (C. Schwöbel, 1992, 75)
Through the Spirit, goodness becomes a communicable and accessible human reality as gift/grace. The individual is not left alone to fend for herself, left to her own devices and resources to make her way in the world, and continually fight to justify any behaviour. This connection of human goodness to the transcendent brings an appropriate hopefulness of reviving and continuing the ancient language of the good, and yet shows humility regarding any human claim to, or construction of, the good. The conversation about the good in moral self-constitution is enhanced to the next level.
This is a qualitative paradigm shift away from Foucault’s position: where he assumes that individual humans are the origin and controlling agents of moral currency and the moral life through his ethics as aesthetics, life as a work of art. The moral self, in his picture, seeks for autonomous resources apart from God in the pursuit of a radical freedom of expression and self-construction (Taylor’s expressive individualism). In the debate between Foucault and Taylor, at a preliminary level of discussion, it does come to a watershed between the sovereignty of the self or the sovereignty of God (who is goodness of the most excellent sort) in ethical self-constitution/self-discovery , the telos of self or the telos of divine love and will. It makes an exponential difference whether God and agape love are allowed to enter the map of one’s moral horizon.
Application: In the moral teaching of Jesus, “Mammon entails turning wealth into an idol that displaces God in the human heart. It invites God’s wrath. This is why Jesus encouraged some of his followers to sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor and needy. Such idolatry is not just something in the human heart, but it is encouraged in the ethos and structures of economic life and human culture” (D. P. Gushee, 2024, 86). “Greed constitutes insatiable desire, excessive or rapacious desire, the unsatisfiable quest for more, usually in relation to material possessions” (D. P. Gushee, 2024, 126). “Overall, Jesus exhorts his followers to obey God’s will out of a humble, meek, just, merciful, pure heart that is seeking God’s kingdom (a higher road lifestyle). This builds real substance into a life and shapes one’s identity towards true flourishing. Jesus’s teaching is all about the solid rock of love: this leads to joy, peace, justice, and covenant love” (D. P. Gushee, 2024, 100).
Gordon E. Carkner, PhD Philosophical Theology, Meta-Educator with UBC Postgraduate Students, Author, Blogger, YouTube Webinars.
Florensky, P. (1997). The Pillar and Ground of the Truth. Princeton University Press. (Letter Five: The Comforter).
Gushee, D. (2024). The Moral Teachings of Jesus: Radical Instruction in the Will of God. Cascade Books.
Long, D.S. (2001). The Goodness of God. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press.
Schwöbel, C. (1992). God’s Goodness and Human Morality. In C. Schwöbel, God: Action and revelation (pp. 63-82). Kampen, Holland: Pharos.
Smith, G. (2021). Welcome, Holy Spirit: A Theological and Experiential Introduction. IVP Academic.
Thursday, October 2, 2025, @ 4:00 PM, Martin P. de Wit, Responsible Creation Care in an Age of Conflicting Ideologies.
Abstract: Based on a rigorous understanding of the biblical discourse, there is no credible evidence to support the claim that authentic Christian spirituality conflicts with a responsible view of creation care. Some scholars do agree, however, that a critique is called for: This includes certain perspectives on God’s relationship with creation, on humankind’s spiritual, but also earthly, bodily and material value, on the implications of salvation for all of creation, and on certain future escapist expectations. Biblically, the narrative clearly articulates this world as God’s creation from Genesis to Revelation. Guidelines for an effective response are that creation care needs to arise from the core of Christian faith and that Christians cannot responsibly act as if there is any part of creation or human action that falls outside the scope of the gospel as revealed in Scripture.
Biography: Martin de Wit is Professor of Environmental Governance at Stellenbosch University, South Africa and coordinates the School of Public Leadership’s Postgraduate Diploma and Master’s Programmes in Environmental Management. His research work focuses on care for creation, the interactions between the economy and the environment (notably climate, ecosystems, energy, and waste), and on the place of the human person in environmental governance and social order. His latest book, written in Afrikaans, is called Skeppingsorg: ‘n Aanset tot interpretasie van sekere Bybeltekste oor die mens se verhouding tot die natuurlike omgewing [Creation Care: An Onset to Interpreting Certain Biblical Texts on Humanity’s Relationship to the Natural Environment] (Durbanville: AOSIS, forthcoming). He serves on the Board of Directors of the creation care organization A Rocha.
2. Tuesday, November 25, 2025, 12:00 PM, John Owen, International Authoritarian Challenges to Democracy.
Abstract: Democracy is wobbling in a number of countries at once. This is no accident, because no democracy is an island: countries share a complex social environment that, depending on its content, can “select for” either democracy or authoritarianism. One reason why the environment has lately come to favour authoritarianism is the rise and reassertion of the authoritarian giants, China and Russia. Dr. Owen will discuss the effects of these countries and their policies on world politics, recent developments in the United States, and finally why Christians today ought to cherish constitutional democracy and work for a world that enables its flourishing.
3. Tuesday, January 27, 2026 @ 12:00 PM Kevin Vanhoozer, Three Documents of the University: Reading Nature, Culture, and Scripture Theologically.
Abstract: Universities arguably exist to make the universe legible (readable) and intelligible (understandable). In Christian tradition, what the Second Helvetic Confession calls the “Book” of nature is as readable as the book of Scripture, for both ultimately precede through the Logos in whom all things hang together. The “book” of culture, human history, is similarly legible, because it is written by those created in the image of the Logos. Modern secular universities, however, struggle to make sense of these three documents. What Hans Frei termed the “eclipse” of biblical narrative led to a “great reversal” in hermeneutics in which the biblical narrative gave way to other frames of reference. This presentation argues that the prevailing metaphysical frames of reference used today in the natural and human sciences, as well as in biblical studies, are ultimately unable to read rightly their respective texts. Brief examples from each of the three books – the laws of nature; human dignity; the historical Jesus – illustrate both the problem and also the way forward. This involves a retrieval of a theological frame of reference that privileges biblical narrative and enables faith-fueled scholarship to gain a deeper understanding of reality.
Biography: Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Ph.D., Cambridge University on Paul Ricoeur) is Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Previously, he served as Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (1990-98) and as Blanchard Professor of Theology at the Wheaton College Graduate School in Chicago (2009-2012). He is the very articulate author of twelve books, including The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology; plus Faith Speaking Understanding: Performing the Drama of Doctrine, and his impressive 2024 volume Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What it Means to Read the Bible Theologically. He is presently at work on a three-volume systematic theology. In 2017, he chaired the steering committee and drafted A Reforming Catholic Confession to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. He is currently Senior Fellow of the C. S. Lewis Institute. He is an amateur classical pianist, and finds that music and literature help him integrate academic theology, imagination, and spiritual formation.
4. Wednesday, March 18, 2026 @ 12:00 PM, Rev. Dr. Yohanna Katanacho, Unleashing Palestinian Christian Orthopathos: Empowerment and Missional Justice Amidst Suffering.
Abstract: This lecture unveils the transformative power of Palestinian Christian Orthopathos – a potent understanding of suffering that fuels empowerment and missional justice. The lecture will delve into the Sermon on the Mount, explore the profound suffering of the Apostle Paul, and illuminate other scriptural insights. The exploration forges a powerful connection between missional justice and radical peacemaking within the crucible of Palestinian suffering, revealing Christ’s suffering and teachings as a vital orthopathic worldview for navigating immense challenges.
Biography: Yohanna Katanacho is currently the academic dean at Nazareth Evangelical College in Israel. He is a Palestinian Israeli Evangelical Christian who studied at Bethlehem University (B.Sc.), Wheaton College (M.A.) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Master of Divinity & Ph.D.). He has taught at colleges and seminaries in many countries. He has authored or contributed to dozens of books and numerous articles in Arabic and English. Professor Rev. Katanacho is also the Lead Translator of the Colloquial Galilean Bible which is in the North Levantine Arabic dialect.
Born to Read
John Owen, The Ecology of Nations.
Anne Applebaum, Autocracy Inc.
David Gushee, The Moral Teachings of Jesus.
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What it Means to Read the Bible Theologically.
Judith Wolfe, The Theological Imagination: Perception and Interpretation in Life, Art, and Faith.
Calvin Miller, Walking with the Saints: Through the Best and Worst Times of Our Lives.
Jonathan A. Anderson, The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art.
James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love.
Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference.
Transcendent divine goodness is present and accessible in the human sphere through the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth. Transcendence does not thereby mean aloofness and indifference, a burdensome or unreachable standard of perfection. It calculates instead as a creative, fruitful engagement with the world, society, and institutions. Transcendent divine goodness takes on an historical and christological determination in order to impact the human moral, political, and cultural world. By reading the moral life through the life of Christ (David Gushee, The Moral Teachings of Jesus, 2024), one cannot espouse a minimalist and juridical conception of the moral life that merely acts on what is permitted or forbidden. Instead, we find a moral life that makes sense in the light of a Christ who is himself full of goodness (an exemplum), who incarnates goodness in human flesh, articulates it historically and culturally with integrity. D. S. Long appeals to the moral normativity of the life of Jesus.
In Christian theology, Jesus reveals to us not only who God is, but also what it means to be truly human. This true humanity is not something we achieve on our own; it comes to us as a gift.… The reception of this gift contains an ineliminable element of mystery that will always require faith. Jesus in his life, teaching, death and resurrection, and ongoing presence in the church and through the Holy Spirit … orders us towards God. He directs our passions and desires towards that which can finally fulfil them and bring us happiness … [and] reveal to us what it means to be human. (D. S. Long, 2001, 106-7)
This immanence offers the option of life of the self, lived not autonomously but in cooperation with divine wisdom and goodness. In the incarnation of Jesus Christ, goodness is made accessible, personal, and real; it is not left as an abstract unattainable ideal, or a wholly other reality alone; it is transcendent goodness expressed in immanent, here-and-now reality. Jesus is claimed to be the very image of the invisible God (John 1:1-4). The incarnation is a statement about how God has chosen to use material reality to reveal the divine self. J. Richard Middleton writes:
The incarnation, at the very centre of Christian faith, provides a touchstone for understanding the world as God’s good creation and human beings as called to embodied, dialogical relationship with their creator. Dr. Carkner in his book contrasts the incarnational Christian vision with contemporary permutations of ancient Gnosticism, teasing out philosophical implications of an incarnational spiritual culture for human identity in the twenty-first century. (J. R. Middleton, Towards an Incarnational Spiritual Culture).
Within this particular plausibility structure, the roots for the ethical life, i.e., the transcendent condition for the moral life, lie in God himself, not in a mythological ontology of freedom nested within the ideology of the aesthetic. Jesus and his followers, the church, form the dynamic unity between the transcendent and the temporal, the absolute and the contingent. The relational goodness of God is discovered, not by means of a mere abstract speculation, but in real human lives that are oriented toward God. This entails a subjectivity engaged and inspired by the needs of the human other, as well as by the goodness of God. It is inspired by both top-down and bottom-up movements. Therefore, the first human life to consider for this position of hope is the life of Jesus of Nazareth depicted in the Four Gospels. The brilliant interdisciplinary thinker William Cavanaugh puts it this way: “The very idea of the Incarnation means that Jesus takes on, while also transforming, the particulars of human life in a particular time and place.” (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 340). Yes, this trinitarian goodness is a gift, and profoundly it is the gift of Jesus Christ. He is God’s goodness embodied historically in the complex dynamics of the ancient world. This is God’s own self revealing his love for humans in profound ways. The big paradigm shift from Foucault’s interpretation is that the human self, in this case, is constituted by its engagement with the divine self in the process of discovering spiritual and moral epiphany. This is an encounter which provides transformation/transfiguration of the self or human identity. The focus here is not power, but love and humility (servant leadership). We can become fully and genuinely ourselves through a relationship with a transcendent self who is goodness, and love in the communion of the trinity.
The veracity of the gospel–the claim that, in Christ, God has decisively reconciled humans to God–hinges on Christ being fully human, subject to the conditions of bodily life where people and things are related to one another in a way appropriate to the spatiality of the created world. But the gospel also hinges on the Son being at every point the eternal Son of the Father, sharing the Father’s being and life, living as the one through whom all creation is upheld and held together. That is to say, the incarnate Son inhabits both the “space” of the triune God (primordially) and the space of the world. God’s immensity, God’s uncontaianbility by created space–therefore has nothing to do with the impossibility of fitting God’s enormity into a finite container. It has everything to do with the pressure of divine love–with God’s desire to relate creatively and savingly to the entirety of the world as spatial, and yet without that spatiality being compromised in any way. John Webster writes: Immensity and embodiment … are not competing and mutually contradictory accounts of the identity of the Son of God. Incarnation is not confinement, but the free relation of the Word to his creation–the Word who as creator and incarnate reconciler is deus immensus. (J. S. Begbie, 2023, 141-2)
There is a second aspect of incarnation, beyond Jesus’ particular presence on earth. It is God the Son’s presence in his church, who he wants to represent his values and vision. The church offers, at its best, an historical and cultural presence, performance and embodiment of God’s goodness, socially locating divine goodness in a human community and a lively, transformative narrative. Christoph Schwöbel (1992, 76) notes that divine goodness “finds its social form in the community of believers as the reconstituted form of life of created and redeemed sociality.” D. W. Hardy (2001, 75) underlines that the task of the church is to face into “the irreducible density of the goodness that is God in human society.” William Cavanaugh finishes the point in his climactic statement: “Central to the Incarnation is a profound sense of communion, both with our contemporaries and with those who have gone before us…. The Incarnation reveals something true about the world and makes possible a different way of living in the world. The Incarnation opens possibilities not just for Christians but for the world more generally” (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 346). We cannot read God off the face of humanity; we can, however, read a renewed humanity off the face of Jesus Christ.
Thereby, one’s own self-constitution is seen to require the flourishing of the other, the honouring of the other, as well as receiving from the other in mutuality, in this wonderful communion of love. Other people change in significance within this calculus: from a categorical threat, a potential dominator in the world of will to power and disciplinary practices in Foucault’s ethics, to an esteemed opportunity for creative mutuality or one-anotherness. She is highly valued as an end in herself. In this case, one discovers and re-articulates oneself within community, exhibiting a moral inclusiveness that involves the pursuit of peace, forgiveness, compassion, rather than pursuit of radical autonomy.
However fragile or imperfect this incarnation of trinitarian goodness in Christian community appears, it is no less profound for the transformation of the individual according to a strong transcendence of depth. Human creatures are called upward morally and spiritually to image and give witness to the dynamic being and activity of the triune God. This imaging transforms one’s moral vision in a dynamic way. It enhances human possibilities for action towards the common good of all of society.
That most poignant image of hope, the Kingdom of God, expresses the relation of free divine love and loving human freedom together in depicting the ultimate purpose of God’s action as the perfected community of love with his creation. (C. Schwöbel, 1995, 80)
This entails a transcendent moral turn for the self, beyond alienation, fear of domination and mutual competition (agonisme) or pursuit of self-indulgence (an anti-humanist stance), to a pro-humanist, self-giving, self-sacrificing love. Jesus identified the divine nature with giving.
At its weakest, the institutional church can obfuscate this goodness, reneging on its most fundamental mandate. But at its best, as Christ’s representatives on earth, it produces people on a quest for goodness of this higher quality, people who seek to mediate this transcendent goodness in society. The church at its best still believes that God speaks and acts, that the triune God is present to the world, cares deeply for individuals, wants to open dialogue. At its best, religious experience and spirituality are a seamless experience of God that has both an inner and an outer dimension: a personal and communal experience of God that leads into wisdom, ethics, self-sacrifice and kindness/compassionate care. Authentically, the church also believes that it is vital to engage and love this personal Good and allow ourselves to be loved/affirmed/validated by God. It is vital to seek the divine personal Good and be sought by him. God’s transcendence does not mean God is far away. As creator of all, God is wholly other to creation, and precisely therefore God is not another thing competing for space with created things. As the ground of all being, God is innermost to all beings. God is both wholly transcendent and wholly immanent in all things. One does not have to leave the world to escape into some gnostic space to experience such transcendence (epiphany).
In fact, this renders problematic the seeking of the good or goodness apart from seeking God, making up morality on our own terms, the pursuit of the good while walking away from a relationship to God. The always ends up in a form of idolatry. Ethics within the economy of human relations changes from a contest within a general will to power, to the economy of grace within a communion of agape love. It is not the economy of a naked, free human will choosingto follow a moral law or choosingto design self autonomously (expressive individualism). Goodness is no mere achievement of the human will; it is truly a mysterious gift of God. Once again, Cavanaugh captures the pulse of it: “The community receives its identity not by looking in a mirror narcissistically but by looking toward the weakest among them, who are icons of the self-emptying God whose power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9). (W. T. Cavanaugh, 2024, 383)
Practical Application: Meditate on the Psalms of Ascent 120-134. Our movement towards God must be metaphorically upward, like climbing Garibaldi Mountain or Everest. Focus and effort are involved in growing in virtue, and in moral strength. Then reflect on the lives of faith in Hebrews 11. What made the difference in these personal spiritual journeys and how is their freedom discovered within the exercise of their calling? There is endless potential for those who set out to focus on finding freedom in Christ, hope in Christ, meaning in a relationship with the Logos become flesh, creating a robust identity rooted in the great drama of the ages. It is existentially yours to discover. David P. Gushee (2024) does a splendid job of showing how the moral teachings of Jesus set people free in a creative direction.
People who are determined to love their enemies are the freest and the most powerful people in the world. They set their own agenda, and no one can distract them from it—making the journey through fear, through anger, even through hate, all the way to love. This is what we see in Jesus. (D.P. Gushee, 2024, 73).
See especially Chapter 26. The Greatest Commandment.
Gordon E. Carkner, PhD, Author, Blogger, YouTube Webinars and Lectures, Meta-Educator with UBC Postgrad Students and Faculty.
Begbie, J. S. (2023). Abundantly More: The Theological Promise of the Arts in a Reductionist Age. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Carkner, G. E.. (2024). Towards an Incarnational Spiritual Culture: Grounding Our Identity in Christ. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishing.
Cavanaugh, W. T. (2024). The Uses of Idolatry. Oxford University Press.
Gushee, D. (2024). The Moral Teachings of Jesus: Radical Instruction in the Will of God. Cascade Books.
Hardy, D.W. (2001). Finding the Church: The Dynamic of Anglicanism. London: SCM Press.
Long, D. S. (2001). The Goodness of God. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press.
Schwöbel, C. (1992). God’s Goodness and Human Morality. In C. Schwöbel, God: Action and revelation (pp. 63-82). Kampen, Holland: Pharos.
Schwöbel, C. (1995). Imago Libertatis: Human and Divine Freedom. In C. Gunton (Ed.) God & Freedom: Essays in historical and systematic theology (pp. 57-81). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
Easter is a profound narrative that leaves us grappling with the full depth of its meaning. Heaven meets earth in a dramatic way in this historic, cataclysmic series of events from Palm Sunday through the trial, cross, and resurrection of Jesus. Bishop Robert Barron gives a beautiful message for Palm Sunday, to show how Jesus, in his flesh, is indeed the glory of God returning to the temple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpVbF1k0h-o
One lens through which we can view the narrative of Easter is the love of the Father for the Son. We see an expression of the exponential love of God that is unparalleled in human history. Jeremy Begbie helps us unpack this high calibre love.
In Christ’s life, we discover what it is for divine love to be uncircumscribable by the world’s finitude. In the faithfulness that takes Jesus to the cross and raises him from the dead, we find the ultimate measure of what cannot be thought or spoken. In his cruciform victory over evil, confirmed on Easter Day, we encounter power-for-the-good-of-the-other. And here, in one utterly “possessed” by his Father’s love, we see God being who God will be. (J. Begbie, Abundantly More, 137).
At the end of the day, Easter is not about death but rather infinitely more about unconquerable new life and new creation. God’s life is a ceaseless dynamic of giving—a constant generation of new life and superabundant love. The unfathomable love of God gives life to all, inaugurating an economy of grace and goodness in the world. Love is writ large in the cross of Christ, the love between the Father and Son, but also love between God and humankind. Who could imagine a greater demonstration? The Son-Father relation of eternal love forms a central theological nerve within John’s Gospel.
This high form of love reaches its apogee, its most intense ‘living out’, in the crucifixion—where the Son and the Father give themselves wholly to each other in extremis, to the point of the Son’s death—and in the raising of Jesus to new life, even the nothingness of death must yield to God’s love-driven giving of life. God loves out of the abundance of his generosity. (J. Begbie, Abundantly More, 165)
William Cavanaugh adds pertinent words about the Word made flesh: “On the cross, it is hard to recognize the invisible and all-powerful God in the tortured body of Jesus. At the same time, God is manifested in the self-sacrificial love that the cross reveals. Jesus offers himself as a sacrifice of reconciliation and a new covenant to gather the nations” (W. T. Cavanaugh, The Uses of Idolatry, 363). Amidst the betrayal and defection of close friends, the false testimony of hostile witnesses, injustice, poor government leadership, hatred and revenge, mocking and scourging, divine love prevails. Jesus, our Lord and exemplar, took the lowest place, rejected and marginalized as a common criminal. The cross breaks the power of violence, evil, and scapegoating in human culture.
There is a divine confidence in Jesus’s John 17 prayer at the Last Supper even amidst the coming chaos, anguish, and doom. Jesus prayed for an eschatological, dynamic oneness, offering his disciples joy. He knew that they would experience hatred and persecution (forces of dissolution and deconstruction) someday. It is by facing such hostility that they were to enter his joy, to experience his glory. True disciples of Christ must descend before they ascend. The Easter narrative continues today as we make space for the Father’s love for the Son in our hearts, within our communities. The Christian life consists in our sharing, by the Spirit, in the intense and immense love relation of Father and Son. Life of this eternal quality and love co-dwell. This is God’s strategic genius: The eleven disciples and those to follow in centuries to come, are situated in the real world with one missional tactic, to live out the love of Jesus Christ together—a further incarnation. This is our existential opportunity to access the full meaning of that rich and costly love in 2025. Like Abraham, we get to offer the thing we most love for service to the King of the Jews, who loves us to the end.
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