Kara Powell (Fuller) / practitioner
LaRon Shults (Bethel) / theologian. LaRon got his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary and studied under Dr. Wentzel van Huyssteen
Kara Powell: Masking
We tend to wear clothes that are normal, but we tend to think about the mask that we will wear that will help us to best fit in to whatever context we are in. We find out the type of image that people expect us to be, and we attempt to be just that.
What are some issues that pastors/leaders deal with? Stress? Burnout? No.
Three of them are:
- the leader can do anything
- the leader doesn’t struggle with sin like the rest of us
- the leader is always happy
When you add all of these things up, you end up with the Superpastor Syndrome: which is a time of denying our humanity.
But what about with emergent? Are these really issues of us? There is a Superpastor Denial, but on the other end, there is the struggling-pastor despair.
LaRon Shults: The Theological Significance of Facing
Facing: why is this theologically significant
In the OT, there is a great longing for the face of God, Moses wants to see the face of God, in Numbers 6, “may the Lord make his face to shine upon you….countenance upon you and give you peace…”
In the NT, the Glory of God is manifest in the face of Jesus Christ.
Why face? In human infants, there is a very early desire for a face, to notice the pattern of a face – there is a desire to come into a face-to-face relation. Within a few months, only a certain face would be the one that would bring grace and peace.
Face = presence (in Hebrew/Greek, face means presence)
Jacob & Esau: a story about a family reunion and “facing”
7x, the word ‘face’ is used – Jacob is very anxious about ‘facing’ Esau – that night is when Jacob struggles with the man. After he ‘wakes up’ – he sees Esau coming – Jacob instead sends ahead of him wives & children. After their reunion Jacob says “To see your face, is to see the face of God.” That face has been mediated to him through Esau.
Isaiah 53, one will not hide his face from us. 2 Cor 4: in the face of Jesus Christ, the glory of God is manifest. Ezekiel 39, the LORD will never more hide his face from him.
Facing and masking is what humanity is, in the presence of Jesus Christ, in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Close your eyes: “What is the expression on God’s face when God looks at you….”
Reforming the Doctrine of Humanity:
There has been a general switch from the focus of substance to the focus of relation, from the focus on the individual to a focus on community.
Substances & Individuals
Two sides: everything is “bad” (sin) about humans, and then everything is “good” (image of God) about humans. Early modern period, sin is something that is in my individual soul (which is a substance) ‚Üà then salvation declares that they are switched, even though we still suck. It is about me as an individual.
The image of God is the rational substance of my soul – rationality is key. Newtonian mechanics are individual substances bumping into one another, and it all works out. It’s all about the individual.
Relationality & Community
Within fields of energy, material knots are emerging in ever more complex ways – it’s more about how we relate to the other (object relations theory, I-Thou personalism) – to be human means that we are in a context, facing others.
What if we articulated an understanding of both sin and the image of God that started both with relationality and community.
Sin: Sin is any way of relating to the other, in which I use my presence to either control or oppress the other, or in which I use my mass to appease the other in a co-dependent relation – any way of facing or being faced that is broken and ungracious.
Salvation is the healing of relationships – reconciliation – it’s Jesus way of finding his own identity, as he learned how to face God.
Image of God: It never says that we lost the image of God. Genesis 1.28, it says we are created “according to” the image of God. In the NT, Jesus is the image of God in such a way that in his face the glory of God is manifest. Community is not an extra thing we add on to humanity, the doctrine of humanity has to do with our communal interactions.
The baptized community – if baptized happens to an individual soul – it had a causal effect. But, in the NT, baptism in the Spirit is mentioned almost twice as much as baptism by water – this is the baptism into the community, which finds its identity immersed in the presence of the Spirit.
Eucharistic community: if we start with substance, we get into all these debates about transubstantiation. What about if it’s just about the real presence of Christ, because the Spirit is there bringing us into relationship, it’s there in the relational dynamics in the Eucharistic community. This is not about individual substance souls that focus on themselves while they are waiting for their little piece of bread — but rather, it’s about the real relational transformation of our lives together around EVERY table of community.
Q. Aren’t there appropriate times to wear masks?
Comment: I think some of the most effective pastors are the ones who know what mask to wear when…
Tim Keel: Paul’s self-identification as the chief of all sinners…gets very leery whenever we talk about using masks. It’s not about mask – it’s about levels of authenticity or levels of disclosure as to what we are going to share.