New Book on Early Christian Worship

I am pleased to announce that my third book, New Testament Christological Hymns: Exploring Texts, Contexts, and Significance, is being released this summer on Aug 7 by IVP Academic. Click here for the link to the publisher’s page. Focusing on the passages in the New Testament that describe Jesus in a hymnic style, this book touches on early Christian worship, the Greco-Roman and Jewish cultural contexts of the New Testament, and the development of early Christian belief. Comparing these early Christian compositions to other first century expressions of hymnic praise helps provide new perspective on the significance of these fascinating and rich passages. It also gives us a lot to think about for contemporary worshipers of Jesus. Please check out the web site and see what you think.

If you were to ask me for a little more detail about what the book is about, here is what I would say:

This is a book about worship in the New Testament in which I show that praise of Jesus uses some of the same language that was used in praise of the Roman emperor, in part, to emphasize that Jesus was greater than the emperor. This language, which just sounds religious to us (savior, Lord, son of God), actually had very significant political implications. To worship Jesus in this way was to affirm a view of reality that was counter-cultural and anti-imperial. But this worship of Jesus did not arise from nowhere; it draws on a long tradition of Jewish resistance poetry that can be traced back through to some of the oldest poetry of the Hebrew Bible. It also draws on prophetic promises of divine renewal that were still alive in first century Judaism. So in the book I argue that we should seek to understand worship passages in the New Testament in light of their interaction with these larger cultural factors. When we do so we gain new insight into some of the richest passages in the New Testament and also into what the earliest worship of Jesus was about. And, if we take them seriously, there is a challenge for modern Christians in terms of how we engage with our culture and with the prevailing political powers today.

The book is currently available for pre-order at a discount on the IVP Academic site as well as on Amazon, and will ship on Aug 7, 2018.

Not Your Usual Commencement Address

Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, Inc., a non-profit that provides work opportunities to former gang members in Los Angeles, delivered an incredibly challenging address at Carlow University's 2018 commencement ceremony last weekend. He also delivered the homily at the baccalaureate mass earlier that morning and spoke on the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). I can’t do justice to the simple yet profound thoughts that he shared, but I thought I’d highlight a few things he spoke about.

From his years of working with individuals at the margins he had some very rich insights into the parable of the good Samaritan and into the nature of mercy. One particular insight which I had not heard before was one idea that he kept repeating as a theme of his homily: We don’t go to the margins to rescue people; if we do, then it becomes about us. And it is not about us. Instead, we go to the margins because that is where transformation occurs. Father Boyle kept returning to Jeremiah 33:10-11 where Jeremiah says, “In this place of which you say it is a waste, there will be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voices of those who sing.” In the place of waste and desolation God envisions a transformed community. And we can each be changed by a genuine human encounter with our fellow human beings who are at the margins. He illustrated this with some examples from his ministry. And finally, he suggested that the good Samaritan in the parable was changed through his encounter with the victim on the road. Yes, he took action that did result in the wounded victim being changed for the better; but that action arose from an encounter in which the Samaritan was changed as he encountered the wounded victim and was moved with compassion. The good Samaritan did not set out on his journey hoping to reach someone or change someone. But as he encountered a fellow human being in need, his own plans and priorities changed. This idea connects really closely with what I shared in my last blog post about the concept of theology as interruption.

In some of his writings, Father Boyle has put it this way: “We do not rescue anyone at the margins. But go figure, if we stand at the margins, we are all rescued. No mistake about it.” In his commencement address he raised a couple of other related points. Specifically, the kinship of all people; the “exquisite mutuality” and inter-connectedness of all people. In addition, he pointed out that when those of us in privileged positions choose to go the margins and be present at the margins, it actually erases the margins. He pointed out that “God’s own dream for us, that we be one, just happens to be our own deepest longing for ourselves.” He added that, related to Jeremiah’s vision of social transformation, “the widow orphan and stranger will be your trustworthy guides since they know what it is to be cutoff.” Rather than go simply to rescue those at the margins, we can learn from those at the margins.

His final challenge to the graduates was to “Go forth to create a community of kinship such that God might recognize it” and to make those voices, the voices of the marginalized, heard. Though he made his point with powerful examples of gang members he had worked with, his message was simple: Treat all people like human beings. Honor the dignity of each person we encounter.

That is something we all can do. And in our current contentious and potentially dehumanizing cultural context, this is something we must do.

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For more on Father Gregory Boyle, see his biography here.

Carlow University posted the commencement ceremony and you can watch Father Boyle’s address by clicking here and selecting “on demand” and then “commencement.” His talk begins at about the 1-hour mark immediately after his receiving anhonorary doctorate and continues to the 1-hour and 13 minute mark.

Finally, Father Gregory gave a similar talk at Notre Dame’s commencement in 2017 where he received the Laetare Award. You can read the transcript or see the video here.