Salvation is A Rescue Mission

Salvation is a comprehensive idea covering the process of God calling a person to a reconciling relationship, leading to repentance, forgiveness, new birth, and a life of following and learning from Jesus. This includes participating in his values and his mission. The culmination of this good life is stepping into the eternal state of an active life with him.
 
Salvation is the plot of history; it is a rescue mission. Salvation is God’s action, his project, and it includes the entire creation. The world’s alternative is to put the world right by good deeds and so to leave God out. To the secular mind, for God to conduct himself in the way he sees fit, even though great human minds cannot fathom it or agree with it, is scandalous. Many think of God as a megalomaniac because he violates their modern sensibilities (Isaiah 55:8-9; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25). But what it takes to turn around the world, save it, and rescue its people is a strong stomach and an absolute commitment. Salvation requires bloodshed. Can we agree then not to trivialize salvation by reducing it to whether a person is safe and secure in the arms of Christ based on a prayer or religious ritual prescribed by the priestly class?
 

 - Bill Hull & Brandon Cook, 

The Cost of Cheap Grace: Reclaiming the Value of Discipleship, 2020.

 

Understanding of 'Salvation by Grace Alone'

Like most clichés, “salvation by grace alone” isn’t wrong. Complicated ideas are often distilled into shorthand phrases to make them easier to access. Over time, however, such shorthand phrases can come to mean something much different from what their authors meant when they crafted them.
 
The following is what we consider the contemporary understanding of “salvation by grace alone.”
 
Salvation. A person is saved from their sins. Their sins are forgiven, and as a result, they gain admission to heaven. Salvation is thus a singular event focused exclusively on forgiveness of sin, partitioned off from any requirement for behavioral change.
 
By grace. Grace is a derivative of God’s mercy, and the greatest portion of it comes to us at our “point of salvation.” This often is called the moment you were “saved” or received new life, forgiveness, new birth—the big moment when you became a child of God. Grace is something you cannot seek or earn; you only receive it. The human’s relationship to grace is a passive one: God is the one who distributes it as he wills.
 
Alone. Alone contrasts grace with human effort. Life in Christ is separate from human action: There is nothing you can do to earn it, there is nothing you can do to lose it, and there is nothing you can do to supplement it. There is something powerful and right about each of these elements. They are profoundly true: All people need to be saved, salvation can only come about by God’s grace, and we are completely unable to achieve salvation on our own.
 

 - Bill Hull & Brandon Cook, 

The Cost of Cheap Grace: Reclaiming the Value of Discipleship, 2020.

 

'Salvation by Grace Alone' is A Cliché

“SALVATION BY GRACE ALONE.” It’s a modern theological cliché—by definition, “a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.” This cliché has become the way you establish your bona fide evangelical credentials. It is meant to bolster a doctrine that emerged from the Reformation, that salvation has nothing to do with behavior. The phrase has provided a secure hiding place for millions, somewhere they could rest from the obvious labor the gospel requires. The divorcing of grace from behavior is responsible for the church relieving itself of the moral burden to live better and be better than the general population. Dietrich Bonhoeffer applied his stinging rebuke of this development in his 1937 manual for ministers, The Cost of Discipleship.

 Cheap grace means justification of sin but not of the sinner. . . . The church that teaches this doctrine of grace thereby confers such grace upon itself. The world finds in this church a cheap cover-up for its sins.

There are actually Christians who proudly proclaim that they are no better behaved than people of other religions or no religions at all. If this is the gospel—that you are saved, you get your sins forgiven, and you gain entrance into heaven but that your morality, behavior, and the collective contribution of the church will not improve life on earth—why would anyone be interested? Any honest person with moral integrity would be repulsed by such an idea. Skeptics would (rightly) say, “Christians go to heaven regardless of life and conduct, but non-Christians go to hell forever, even if they live better and contribute more to society.” Even flawed humans reserve life sentences for only the most heinous crimes.
 
So we can conclude that “salvation by grace alone” is a cliché: It clearly reveals a lack of thought.
 
“Salvation by grace alone” protects the option to live as a partial Christian—to take advantage of religious goods and services, the assurance of heaven, the immediate and unconditional availability of forgiveness. You can come and go as you please, live a selfish life, be critical of the church and its leadership but not help solve the problem—and still get Communion.
 

- Bill Hull & Brandon Cook, 

The Cost of Cheap Grace: Reclaiming the Value of Discipleship, 2020.

笔记：我的第一本人生规划手册

1.用“生命时钟”模型，认清自己的人生规划
 
你没办法好好创业成功，是因为你没有一支执行力非常强悍的团队来落地结果；如果想养一个团队，你必须有一个特别好的营利性项目，而且你得负责协同和跟进；如果你没有跟进和管控一个项目的能力，是因为你不懂统筹协调，没有相关的管理能力；如果你统筹协调的能力不好，就无法带好团队；如果你听话照做都做得一塌糊涂，那必然是你专业知识没有很好地掌握；为什么你很努力地学习专业知识却又学不会，很可能是你不知道自己的天赋优势是什么；如果自己发挥不出来自己的天赋优势，自己的童年大概率过得不怎么好。
  
在自己踏入社会工作之前，前20多年基本上是靠父母的收入来生存的；在我们结束劳动工作之后，后20多年基本上是靠自身的退休金和自身资源来生存的；而后续失去生活自理能力直到最后去世，基本上是靠自己的晚辈来照顾的。如果你父母收入不足以支撑你读完大学甚至深造，有很大概率你会早早踏入社会工作；如果你退休之后无法养活自己，那么退休后的20年你还得为自己的生计而奔波；如果你早年和孩子的关系处得不是很好，晚年在病床上也很难有善终。
 
2. 用“生命时钟”模型，理解自己的人生规划
 
当你的创业生涯规划无法开启的时候，那说明你的事业生涯还需要重修。当你的事业生涯规划无法发力的时候，那说明你的职业生涯规划没有做好积累。当你在困惑自己的职业生涯规划的时候，那说明你的学业生涯规划没有做好规划。当你在迷茫学什么专业的时候，那说明你自己都还没有想明白自己的天赋是什么。
 
3. 用“生命时钟”模型，重构自己的人生规划蓝图
 
当你开始意识到这个收入增长瓶颈问题之后就会发现，因为岗位薪酬设计和工作价值的关系，你大概率可能会被锁死在某一个范围内。如果你想要破局的话，唯一的方式就是重新学习可以承载3～10倍及以上收入的知识体系，或者切换到更高收益的行业跑道或公司。
 
4. 用“三条命”的维度思考自己的生命
 
三层死亡的意义分别是：生命意义上的生理死亡，行业意义上的社交死亡，以及被人遗忘的精神死亡。
 
5. 用角色拆分法，来分解当月任务
 
作为一个××××（角色），我想做×××（意图），并且希望在××××（时间期限）内，以××××（多少资源投入）的成本下，完成这个任务，这样我就可以得到××××（预期结果）。
 
6. 给自己留出一些空闲资源
 
正是因为你能够多留出一部分缓冲时间不去做任何事情，你的“认知带宽”才能站在全局角度思考问题，看清该做什么事情，不用做什么事情，这样才能够让你变得从容不迫。
 
7. 用“1—3—5工作法”来分类工作
 
你所要做的工作类事情无非就是三种，请记住，这时候你是一天中的工作角色。第一类事情是创造价值的工作，创作过程中不可以被他人干扰。第二类事情是你需要和他人协同互动才能推进的工作，另一方不在无法推进。第三类事情是附加值相对低的碎片任务，即使随时被打断都可以继续做的，并且有别于前两者必须你自己去做的事情，可以理解为番茄工作法。
 
一天上班的9小时的时间会被拆分成：3小时创造性任务、3小时沟通类任务，以及3小时左右的琐碎任务。当你开始用这样的分类方法量化自己的工作内容的时候，你就会知道，工作待办事项的性质是什么了。
 
8. 用“乐高积木法”来灵活安排任务
 
其实一天工作时间管理的诀窍无非就是先安排好70%的主线任务，剩下的30%灵活安排。
 
9. 如何复盘自己有没有成长
 
复盘的重要性在于，在下一次行动方案中打上补丁，优化行动方案，提升成功概率，复盘是复盘行动步骤，而不是自己的情绪。
 
10. 成人学习和学校教育的区别
 
教育理论家马尔科姆·诺尔斯（Malcolm.S.Knowles）在ASTD学习发展手册中提到的成年人学习有以下六个特点，具体如下。目标明确：学会权衡收益与代价，付出与收获。独立自主：希望独立学习，自主思考，而不是被灌输。经验学习：带入以往的经验，具有特定的思维和习惯。功利性：意识到学习的必要性时才会准备投入学习，不喜欢被强迫。任务驱动：跟工作任务相关的学习，喜欢实践性主题。问题驱动：喜欢现实的问题解决，愿意学习解决思路。
 
11. 如何反向渗透一个专业知识体系
 
当你开始进入这个阶段的时候，就会开始从专业知识有什么，开始慢慢转化到专业知识我会多少的排序阶段，即哪些专业知识我不用学了，因为已经融会贯通；哪些专业知识我学了，但是不知道怎么用；哪些专业知识我还不会，需要进一步学习；哪些专业知识我都不知道，需要抽出时间来学习。
 
12. 你在用哪一种交换法则来赚钱
 
出售自己的时间，换取金钱；使用自己的技术，换取金钱；整合自己的资源，换取金钱；搭建自己的平台，换取金钱。
 
13. 收入增长的第二阶段，拿技术换钱
 
“拿技术换钱”的最重要的特征就是：开始从重复性的体力换钱，切换到用脑力思考，用各种解决方案来帮助客户搞定定制化问题的方式来换钱。
 
14. 把“犯错积累”变成“试错积累”，你会信心百倍
 
何谓执行力，是理解了未来结果会怎么样之后的行动能力才叫执行力，这个能力不是效率，而是落地结果的能力。不少人误解了忙碌起来就是行动力，所以不少人犯拖延症的主要原因之一就是害怕结果犯错，所以在无限准备。
 

--- 柏永辉，《我的第一本人生规划手册》，2020.

 

高效能 ~ 连接点与点

现在观看电视节目的年轻人减少了，因为在电视上不能挑选自己想看的部分观看，也不能在自己空闲的时间快速观看，其效能太低（无法有效利用时间这种稀缺资源，是对观众宝贵时间的浪费）。将观看电视的人减少的原因归结于“节目没有意思”是不正确的。不管是电视还是网络，或是漫画、书本，都会有有趣的内容和寡然无味的内容。而且，不管是哪个领域，绝大部分内容是没有意思的。电视和网络的区别并不在此。由于电视播放不能检索，也不能由观看者任意选取想看的部分观看，其效能过于低下，才导致在高效能转型发展的未来社会难以持续下去。

做过的很多事情，将来都会互相关联

connecting the dots（连接点与点）-  意思是，最开始看起来毫无关联的相互分散的点，将来很有可能相连成线甚至面。

假设现在有两个学生都还未确定将来的去向，都在一边上学一边思考着将来的发展方向。A同学只去上自己觉得有必要的课，剩下的时间经常出去与人会面，并且买了很多书和电子书籍，利用空闲时间阅读，也积极地与打工的伙伴交流，还用赚来的钱去旅游。B则去上所有的课，没有打工，非常认真地在学习。那么，为了将来能够“connecting the dots”，取得很大成就，哪种方式更可取呢？

我们都会觉得以A的方式进行的经验投资更容易取得成果。这是因为A这种“多方尝试，探寻自己最想从事的工作”的做法在效能上要高于B。因此他可以在很短的时间内积累很多的点，将来再将这些点连接起来构成线或面，因而取得成就的可能性才会更高。如果是那些已经确定将来要从事研究工作的学生，B的方式应该更合适。

可是对于那些对未来依然感到迷茫的学生来说，B的方式恐怕很难称得上高效能了。有些人认为不把精力集中在某件事情上，没条理地同时做很多事情是低效能的，其实这是一种误解。效能与精力的集中程度并不能等同。所谓效能，衡量的指标应该是能够以多少的资源获取“自己想获得的东西”。即便在别人看来是分散的、繁多的事情，对希望通过多接触各种各样的事情，来决定将来做什么的A来说，却是他真正需要的东西。所以，他的行为与提高效能也是绝不矛盾的。

--- [日]知琳，《时间力》，2019.

霍乱与公共卫生

霍乱与工业革命如影随形：工业化和城市化进展使得城市疯狂膨胀——1860年的伦敦是全世界最大的城市，人口达到320万。由于人们生活在骇人听闻的不卫生条件下，这也导致了同样巨大的健康风险。霍乱爆发时，伦敦城里有20万座私人化粪池；废物和垃圾填满沟渠，散落小巷。但工业革命也在改造科学，尤其是医学，传统智慧在逐渐让位于实证调查。

当时的人们相信，患上霍乱是因为吸入了瘴气（受污染的空气）。医生用阿片类药物和浸出液来治疗患者。虽然几百年来的证据都表明放血治疗毫无用处甚至有害，但给患者放血对抗感染，仍是一种被广为接受的处置措施。使用阿片类药物至少能缓解痛苦。

一位名不见经传的医生约翰·斯诺（John Snow）私下认为霍乱是通过水而非空气传播的。1854年8月31日，伦敦苏活区爆发霍乱，让斯诺找到了证明自己理论的机会。不到10天，该地区就死了500人，幸存者纷纷逃离。但斯诺没有逃跑。相反，他去受害者的家里拜访，询问家人，倒推患者染病的步骤，并在街区地图上绘制出死亡情况。他很快意识到，几乎所有的受害者都存在一个共同点：他们住得很近，都是从宽街上的水泵取水的。他亲自去水泵抽了水，放到显微镜下检查，发现了他所谓的“白色絮状颗粒”。他正确地推断出，这些颗粒就是霍乱的根源。

虽然他的理论有违公认智慧，但斯诺还是设法说服了心存疑虑的市政官员，取下了宽街水泵的把手，迫使居民们去别处寻找水源。疫情立即结束。尽管还要过好些年，那些保守人士才愿意接受斯诺的结论，但斯诺观察所得的不容否定的真相，促使规划人员开始着手设计第一套现代城市污水系统。1870年，伦敦地下污水渠开始兴建，它建造得非常好，至今仍维持着良好的运转。

虽然这一努力并未得到大力的宣扬，但不可否认，约翰·斯诺对人类福祉做出了非凡的贡献：在这一领域，他被称为“流行病学之父”。他推动了人们对疾病的整体认识，并提升了公共卫生之于政府的重要性。尽管当时霍乱还在欧洲其他地区肆虐，但它从伦敦消失了，欧洲其他地方也注意到了伦敦的特别之处。没过多久，在每一个发达国家，城市规划人员和政治家都把保护供水放到了最为关键的地位。医学同样向前跃进了一大步，特别是在麻醉剂和消毒剂领域。婴儿死亡率急剧下降，人的预期寿命得到提升，不过，生育率仍然很高。1750年，遭受黑死病袭击期间，英格兰和威尔士的人口不到600万。到1851年，两地人口已接近1800万；到1900年，这个数字达到3300万。人类作为一个种族在生存竞争中遥遥领先。

--- 达雷尔布里克(Darrell Bricker) & 约翰伊比特森(John Ibbitson)，

《空荡荡的地球，全球人口下降的冲击》(Empty Planet)，机械工业出版社，2019。

日本媒体

当全世界纸媒都在苦海里挣扎的时候，日本各大报纸虽然也遭受冲击，发行量出现了一定程度的下滑，但值得关注的是，日本各大报社的日子过得都还不错。原因在于，日本的报纸零售量出现了下降，但订阅数并没有出现太大的跌幅。日本全国120家日报中，这几年只关停了一家。
为什么日本的纸媒日子还能如此好过？这里面有几个重要的原因。

首先，日本国民相信媒体报道的公正性与中立性，他们认为报纸报道的东西都是真的。为什么日本人会如此相信报纸？因为日本六大报业集团都是民营的，政府没有参股，也无法管控这些媒体。也就是说，这些报业集团没有上级管理单位；最大的管理机构，就是报社自己的经营委员会。因此，这些媒体能够保持自己的独立性。

而报社本身又实行经营与编辑体制的分离，一家报社的灵魂人物，不是社长，而是总编。因为社长只负责经营，报纸的采编与立场观点的体现，都属于总编的权限范围。而总编的权限，又受到两个机构的牵制。一个是编辑委员会，负责具体的新闻报道方针和内容的审核；另一个是论说委员会，负责每天社论的撰写。这两个委员会实际上把控了整个报社的报道立场与方针，而不会因为总编的更换而改变一家报纸的色彩。

正因为如此，日本国民中产生了一大批报纸的追随者。比如，思想倾向于保守和民粹主义的读者，喜欢订阅《读卖新闻》；文化与旅游资讯的读者，喜欢订阅《每日新闻》；公司白领和企业经营者，喜欢订阅《日本经济新闻》。这叫“萝卜白菜，各有所爱”。按照现在时髦的说法，就是日本的报业出现了“粉丝经济”。

日本家庭都有订阅报纸的习惯。早在20世纪50年代，日本基本上就普及了报纸，这个“普及”的概念，就是家家户户订阅报纸。因此，半个多世纪以来，报纸已经成为日本人日常生活中必不可少的日用品。早上起来，泡上一壶茶，读刚刚送到家的报纸，成了日本社会的一道风景。这道风景在电影和电视剧里也经常出现。

文章读到这里，大家一定会想到一个问题，报社努力地想保持自己的公正性和中立性，那么，当政府需要其做出配合，或者要求他们不要报道某些敏感的话题，报社会怎么办？

这个问题，在日本并不复杂。首先，政府没有权力对报社和其他新闻媒体指手画脚，更无法发号施令。因此也自然无法要求报社报道什么，不报道什么。其次，政府如果通过其他手段对某一家“不听话”的媒体进行施压，那结果是会遭到所有媒体的报复。

日本人普遍认为媒体的第一功能就是代表读者，也就是国民来监督政府。因此，“批评政府”是报社的第一责任。你批评的越多，读者会认为你的公正性就越强，对于报纸的信任度也就越高。

- 徐静波，《日本的底力》，2019

日本新干线（3）

日本新干线有几项特殊的技术，值得我们关注。

首先是遭遇地震时的瞬间紧急停车系统。日本的新干线大部分线路是在靠近太平洋一侧的沿海地区，这一地区是太平洋板块和菲律宾板块与欧亚大陆板块的交叠处，地震十分的频繁。2011年发生的东日本9级大地震，也是在这一沿海地带。当年地震发生时，在灾区奔跑的新干线列车就有20多列，最终只有一列新干线列车在高架桥上出轨，但是没有人员伤亡。为什么日本的新干线能在如此巨大地震来袭时，依然安然无恙？地震紧急停车系统发挥了很大的作用。当地震发生的瞬间，铁路公司就能在地震波尚未抵达铁路线的十几秒的时间里，通过这一系统实施紧急自动减速，当地震波来袭时，新干线已经处于减速运营状态，最大限度地避免出轨的危险。

新干线不仅设置了对各条线路上行驶的列车进行监视和远距离控制的中央控制系统，每条线路还安装了称为“ATC”的列车速度自动控制系统。这个“ATC”装置可以自动调整新干线列车的行驶速度或停止运行，并不需要驾驶人员操作。如果前方和后方列车接触距离接近1500米时，双方列车都会自动紧急刹车，避免撞车事故的发生。由此可见，日本新干线早已经可以无人驾驶。

日本新干线采用的是动力分散方式，以每节车厢的车轴作为驱动，不需要沉重的机车，由此车厢的轴重便可大大减轻，不仅易于加减速和在大坡度线路上平稳行驶，也降低了噪音和振动，大大提高了旅客的舒适性，同时，由于降低了对轨面的压力，既降低了建设成本又提高了经济效益。随着半导体技术的迅速发展和应用，新干线列车的制动系统由原来的空气制动改为电空联合制动与再生制动，使用再生制动的列车在制动时会将电机的接线反接，这时电动机就变成了发电机，将列车制动时的巨大动能转化为电能，从而节省了能源。日本新干线是目前世界上运营品质最佳的高速铁路。

- 徐静波，《日本的底力》，2019

日本新干线（2）

日本新干线在半个多世纪中，时速从最初的200公里到目前的320公里，只提升了120公里。而我们中国的高速铁路从日本和德国等国家引进才10多年，“复兴号”已经跑出了350公里，为什么日本的新干线跑不出350公里的时速呢？

其实，在中国还没有引进高铁的1997年，日本新干线955系列就已经跑出了443公里的时速。日本为什么硬是把速度降下来，始终控制在300公里左右呢？我采访了JR东海铁道公司的技术部长，他告诉我几个原因。

第一是出于运营安全的考虑。因为日本是一个岛国，大部分地区是丘陵地带，许多新干线线路是不断地穿越隧道的，当列车高速穿越隧道时，车头会产生压缩波，车尾会产生膨胀波，乘客坐在新干线列车上，耳膜会有一种压迫感，影响坐车的舒适度。因此，日本的新干线不宜开到时速350公里以上。

第二是为了防止地震导致的交通事故。日本各地经常发生地震，如果列车速度过快，在地震波来袭之前不能有效减速停驶，那么很可能会飞出铁轨，酿成重大灾难。

第三是出于经济利益的考虑。日本铁路公司经过测算，新干线时速控制在300公里以下，其轮轨的磨损率处于最经济、最合理的区域。如果时速超过300公里，磨损率会出现大幅提高，运营成本也会因此大大增加。

“我们不能因为早到十几、二十分钟而去冒这个险。”这是这位技术部长最后跟我说的话。

- 徐静波，《日本的底力》，2019

日本新干线（1）

日本的新干线诞生于1964年，许多读者朋友可能还没有出生。这一年，日本承办了第一次东京奥运会。为了显示日本战后复兴的成果，日本用了4年的时间，建造了这条从东京到大阪的高速铁路的新干线。当时新干线的时速是200公里，对于还在乘坐时速30公里的绿皮火车的国家来说，日本的新干线已经属于“子弹列车”了。

为什么日本当时能够造出世界上最高速的列车？原因其实很简单，虽然日本在第二次世界大战中战败投降，而且日本列岛还被美军炸得一塌糊涂，但是人还在，技术没有灭亡。因此，在20世纪50年代开始进入经济复兴时期的时候，日本人首先想到的是，如何将东京首都圈和关西经济圈这两大日本的经济核心地区建立起最为紧密的联系？于是想到了建造高速列车。东京到大阪的距离有515公里，当时坐夜行列车需要一个晚上。新干线建成后，东京到大阪只需要4个小时，提速之后，现在只需要2小时25分钟。

从1964年开通东海道新干线以来，到目前为止，以东京车站为枢纽，日本已经建造了8条新干线，从东京始发，可以穿越海底隧道，直接登陆北海道。也可以从东京出发，直接抵达最西南端的福冈市。现在除了冲绳县还没有新干线外，其他大部分地区都已经覆盖了这一高速铁路网络。

日本是一个多灾多难的国家，地震和台风频繁袭击日本列岛。但是半个多世纪以来，日本的新干线创下了两大奇迹：一是没有因为列车自身原因死过一个人；二是准点率以秒计算，东海道新干线的全年平均晚点时间在八秒以内。

为什么日本的新干线能够创下这两大奇迹呢？

日本的新干线从车辆技术到运营管理系统，都是日本自己研发并逐年提高的。长年的技术积累和坚定的安全经营意识，使得日本新干线始终以“安全”为第一考量，“速度”排在第三位，第二位是“经济利益的平衡”。

- 徐静波，《日本的底力》，2019

Constructivist Education: Inventing Your Own Reality

One of the trendiest fads today is called constructivist education. If knowledge is a social construction, as Dewey said, then the goal of education should be to teach students how to construct their own knowledge. Read this description by a proponent of the method: Constructivism does not assume the presence of an outside objective reality that is revealed to the learner, but rather that learners actively construct their own reality.

That’s a pretty tall order: Before kids are big enough to cross the street, they’re supposed to learn how to “construct their own reality.” Teachers are not to tell students that their ideas are right or wrong, either, but merely to encourage them “to clarify and articulate their own understandings.” After all, there are many different possible ways to construct the world, and constructivism cannot rule out any viable theory that encapsulates personal experience.

As one prominent constructivist writes, “To the biologist, a living organism is viable as long as it manages to survive in its environment. To the constructivist, concepts, models, theories, and so on are viable if they prove adequate in the contexts in which they were created.” Notice that the passage speaks of ideas being viable, not true. Constructivism is based on the assumption that we are merely organisms adapting to the environment, so that the only test of an idea is whether it works.

  - Nancy R. Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity, 2004.

 

What Do We Teach Our Children

Are we moving toward something, or away from it? Are we teaching our children to march forward, the banner of their civilization in hand, or to back slowly away from it, watching the shining city on the hill receding into the distance? So, what do we teach our children? What must they know to become defenders of the only civilization worth fighting for?
 
1. Your Life Has Purpose. Life is not a bewildering, chaotic mess. It’s a struggle, but it’s a struggle guided by a higher meaning. You were designed to use your reason and your natural gifts—and to cultivate those assets toward fulfillment of a higher end. That end can be discovered by investigating the nature of the world, and by exploring the history of our civilization. That end includes defending the rights of the individual and the preciousness of individual lives; it includes acting with virtues including justice and mercy. It means restoring the foundations of your civilization, and building new and more beautiful structures atop those foundations.
 
2. You Can Do It. Forge forth and conquer. Build. Cultivate. You were given the ability to choose your path in life—and you were born into the freest civilization in the history of mankind. Make the most of it. You are not a victim. In a free society, you are responsible for your actions. Your successes are your accomplishments, but they are also the legacy of those who came before you and those who stand with you; your failures are purely your own. Look to your own house before blaming the society that bore you. And if society is acting to violate individual rights, it is your job to work to change it. You are a human being, made in the image of God, bound to the earth but with a soul that dreams of the eternal. There is no greater risk than that and no greater opportunity than that.
 
3. Your Civilization Is Unique. Recognize that what you have been given is unique in human history.  Most human beings have lived under the control of others, suffered tyranny and oppression. You have not. The freedom you enjoy, and morals in which you believe, are products of a unique civilization—the civilization of Dante and Shakespeare, the civilization of Bach and Beethoven, the civilization of the Bible and Aristotle. You did not create your freedoms or your definition of virtue, nor did they arise in a vacuum. Learn your history. Explore where the roots of your values lie: in Jerusalem and Athens. Be grateful for those roots. Then defend those roots, even as you grow to new heights.
 
4. We Are All Brothers and Sisters. We are not enemies if we share a common cause. And our common cause is a civilization replete with purpose, both communal and individual, a civilization that celebrates both individual and communal capacity. If we fight alongside one another rather than against one another, we are stronger. But we can only be stronger when we pull in the same direction, and when we share the same vision. We must share the same definition of liberty when it comes to politics, and, broadly speaking, the same definition of virtue when it comes to creating and maintaining social capital.
 

- Ben Shapiro, The Right Side of History, 2019.

The Trinity and the Personal Nature of God

Since September 11, we have heard it said again and again that Islam is just another Abrahamic faith—as though it were not really very different from Christianity. So it may come as a surprise to learn that the God of Islam is actually more akin to the nonpersonal Absolute of neo-Platonism and Hinduism than to the God of the Bible. 

Yet it is true, and the central reason is that Islam rejects the Trinity. Without that concept, it cannot hold a fully personal conception of God. Why not? Because many attributes of personality can be expressed only within a relationship—things like love, communication, empathy, and self-giving. 

Traditional Christian doctrine maintains a personal conception of God because it teaches that these interpersonal attributes were expressed from all eternity among the three Persons of the Trinity. A genuinely personal God requires distinct “Persons,” because that alone makes it possible for love and communication to exist within the Godhead itself. Islam denies the Trinity, however, which means there is no way for its conception of God to include these relational attributes. 

This nonpersonal conception of God also explains why Muslims express their faith in near-mechanical rituals: Muslim believers recite the Koran over and over, in unison, word for word, in the original Arabic.

As sociologist Rodney Stark explains, religions with nonpersonal gods tend to stress precision in the performance of rituals and sacred formulas; by contrast, religions with a highly personal God worry less about such things, because a personal Being will respond to a personal approach through impromptu supplication and spontaneous prayer. 

 - Nancy R. Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity, 2004.

Moltmann’s Perichoretic Trinity

Perichoresis is a concept originally appropriated by Moltmann in order to frame his understanding of an intensely relational, communal Trinity. Derived from the teaching of John Damascene and Richard of St. Victor, perichoresis has come to refer to a circulatory, interpenetrating, relational sharing between two realities or forms of existence, to the point where they co-define each other and share attributes.
 
In reference to Christology, perichoresis was traditionally seen as a one-way interpenetration and exchange between the two natures, flowing solely from the divine to the human—the classic image was the piece of iron (the humanity) heated red by fire (the divinity). But much like his trinitarian radicalization of the Lutheran communicatio idiomata, Moltmann posits a reciprocal exchange in his articulations of perichoresis. For him, perichoresis becomes the great binary blurring device; it is, in essence, the supreme form of “both/and” (rather than “either/or”) reasoning. Dualisms dissolve and conceptual dichotomies disintegrate as perichoretic logic argues for unity and diversity to co-participate as mutually-shaping realities.
 
In Moltmann’s trinitarianism, perichoresis involves a clear kenotic element. His use of kenosis here bespeaks the necessary limitations inherent in relationship, rather than a divestiture of some attribute or another. Moltmann will speak of the trinitarian persons “making room” for each other; they are three distinct persons, and yet are united in all things, through the hospitable perfection of kenotic love.
 
Each one of [the three Persons] is active and passive, giving and receiving at the same time. By giving themselves to each other, the perichoretic community is also a kenotic community. The Persons are emptying themselves into each other. . . . It is divine love which draws a Person so much out of himself, that it exists “in” the other. It is the self-emptying of the three persons in this perichoretic exchange that Moltmann relies on to deflect the charge of tri-theism, which often assails his social trinitarian outlook.
 
Though many of Moltmann’s more impassioned descriptions of his perichoretic Trinity are striking, some scholars have objected to his sometimes inconsistent employment and qualification of such language. But more directly pertinent to our project is how Moltmann eventually applies the concept of perichoresis to his understanding of the two natures in Christ (which is how John Damascene initially employed it). Explicit affirmation of this perichoretic unity of the natures has emerged in Moltmann’s more recent work:
 

Perichoresis describes the unity of Godhead and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. This is not a matter of two who are by nature similar being bound together in inward community. Here are two different natures—that is, the one and the other. . . . In Christology, perichoresis describes the mutual interpenetration of two different natures, the divine and the human, in the God-human being Christ.

Perichoresis, as we noted for his trinitarianism, is a kenotic reality for Moltmann. Thus, when we talk about Moltmann’s kenotic Christology, we must recognize that we are dealing with a dual-leveled kenosis. One level is intra-trinitarian and refers to the continued kenotic relating between the divine persons; this is derived by Moltmann from the way in which Christ relates to the Father and the Spirit in the course of earthly life. The other level of the kenosis is the relationship between Christ’s divinity and humanity, and refers to the humiliation and lowliness undertaken by God in becoming human. Both dimensions of this perichoretic kenosis are operative in his understanding of the incarnation, though they are not always explicitly highlighted and much of the specifics of their mutually exchanging interpenetration (especially any kind of specific ontological commentary) are left without speculation. Moltmann is comfortable to simply say: “This is undoubtedly God’s greatest mystery: his closeness . . . Emmanuel, ‘God with us’—with us, the godless and God-forsaken.”
 
Once these themes are balanced, we can see the truth in Gary Badcock’s assessment that “Moltmann’s position is best understood as a trinitarian intensification of the doctrine of the hypostatic union. . . . Moltmann’s point is not to deny the divinity but to affirm its unity with the humanity, on the basis of his understanding of the unity of the economic and the immanent Trinity.” 

- Samuel J. Youngs, The Way of the Kenotic Christ: 

The Christology of Jürgen Moltmann, 2019 

Radical and Revelatory: Moltmann’s Reading of Kenosis

The beginning of Moltmann’s kenotic Christology is thus neither in the concealment nor abandonment camp; his overarching kenotic theology means that his Christology reads Phil 2 as revelatory for divinity itself. Likewise, Colin Gunton (in the midst of a salvo against radical forms of kenotic Christology) writes that “it seems not inappropriate to speak of a self-emptying of God, but only if it is understood in such a way as to be an expression rather than a ‘retraction’ of his deity.” This well sums the trajectory that initializes Moltmann’s kenotic Christology.
 
Thus, we can call the baseline outlook on kenotic Christology that we find in Moltmann a “radical revelatory” model, for it uniquely combines emphases from both the radical interpretation and the revelatory. It entails real limitations applied to the divinity of Christ in his becoming human, but these limitations are extensions and radicalizations of the already existing kenotic patterns of the God-world relationship. The thematic thrust of this is conveyed by Moltmann in the following key passage:
 

[If] the significance of the Son’s incarnation is his true humanity, then the incarnation reveals the true humanity of God. That is not an anthropomorphic way of speaking, which is therefore not in accordance with God’s divinity; it is the quintessence of his divinity itself. . . . His strength is made perfect in weakness. The traditional doctrine about God’s kenosis has always looked at just the one aspect of God’s self-limitation, self-emptying and self-humiliation. It has overlooked the other side: God’s inward limitations are outward liberations. God is nowhere greater than in his humiliation. God is nowhere more glorious than in his impotence. God is nowhere more divine than when he becomes man.

- Samuel J. Youngs, The Way of the Kenotic Christ: 

The Christology of Jürgen Moltmann, 2019. 

The Interpretative History of Kenosis

There are three general trends in the interpretative history of the passage, and we can identify them heuristically as follows:

• the traditional interpretation (which sees the kenosis as concealing the divine qualities in Christ),
• the radical interpretation (in which kenosis consists in the abandoning of divine qualities in Christ),
• a contemporary interpretation that has lately become quite prominent in exegetical scholarship (wherein the kenosis has been viewed as revelatory of God’s character and action).

 A. Concealment (Traditional) Interpretation

“In the form of God” [morphē theou] was taken as parallel with “equality with God” [einai isa theōi] and thereby glossed as the divine substance of the Second Person of the Trinity (Athanasius called it “the essential nature of the Word”). This reading of the “form of God,” when combined with the Hellenistic assumption of divine immutability,meant that the “self-emptying” (heauton ekenōsen, v. 7) was seen to entail a hiding or concealing of divine qualities in the midst of the human nature’s assumption: “‘[the Word] humbled himself’ with reference to the assumption of the flesh.
 
B. Abandonment (Radical) Interpretation

For these more-properly kenotic schools of thought the “kenosis of Philippians 2:7 and context (vv. 6–11) was . . . taken as a real self-relinquishing, limiting, or emptying of divine attributes, powers, prerogatives, and/or glory by the pre-existent Logos upon the event of the Incarnation.

Thomasius famously distinguished between what he termed the “immanent” attributes (which are divinely essential and necessary) and the “relative” attributes (which are not essential, because they only relate to the governing of the contingent created order). It is this second category of attributes, which includes omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, that Thomasius saw to be relinquished by the assumption of humanity. Thus Thomasius felt he could say that though Christ truly abandoned certain divine properties upon becoming incarnate, he still “lacks nothing which is essential for God to be God.” The immanent attributes of the Godhead—love, faithfulness, holiness, etc.—are retained fully in the incarnation. But the self-emptying of the Logos in the kenotic Christology of Gess was yet more extreme. Whereas Thomasius supported the abandoning of some attributes possessed in the pre-existent state, Gess argued for their complete abandonment in order for the Logos to be transformed, quite literally, into a human person. As Gerald Hawthorne states, for Gess, “the presence of any divine attributes would destroy the reality of Jesus’ humanness.
 
C. Revelatory (Contemporary) Interpretation
Commentators as diverse as Hawthorne, Hurtado, Wright, David Brown, and James Dunn recognize that the hymn is calling the Philippians to account using the example of Christ’s sacrificial humility as a kind of paraenesis.

- Samuel J. Youngs, The Way of the Kenotic Christ: 

The Christology of Jürgen Moltmann, 2019 

 

The Ambiguity of “Emptying” in the Revelatory View

All of the contemporary exegetes we cited earlier as supporting the revelatory interpretation (Wright, Bauckham, Fee, Gorman, etc.) have maintained that the christological kenosis reveals that God is a God who loves in sacrificial ways and is willing to humble himself for the sake of his creation’s redemption. But these same thinkers are so resistant to being identified with the nineteenth-century radical kenoticists that they consistently refuse to follow through on the underlying logical and doctrinal force of their exegetical claims. What does the divine Son sacrifice? In what specific aspects of his existence is the divine Son humbled?
 
These questions are often treated by this group of interpreters as though their position itself does not necessitate any positive answers to them, as seen in the representative passages below:
 

It is not necessary . . . to insist that the phrase ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν demands some genitive of content be supplied [emptied himself of something]. . . . Rather, it is a poetic, hymn like way of saying that Christ poured out himself. - Hawthorne
 
Christ did not empty himself of anything; he simply “emptied himself,” poured himself out. This is metaphor, pure and simple.. . . Pauline usage elsewhere substantiates this view, where this verb means to become powerless or to be emptied of significance.The phrase “emptied himself” in should not be read as a reference to the divestiture of something (whether divinity itself or some divine attribute, or even as self-limitation regarding the use of the divine attributes), but “figuratively,” as a robust metaphor for total self-abandonment and self-giving. - Fee.

All of these statements argue that nothing constitutive of Christ’s pre-incarnational existence is given up (or, for Gorman, even limited) by the incarnational act. But the logic of the Philippians passage does not seem to allow for this; the paraenetic point fails without a sacrifice (a giving-up, a surrendering) of some ability, status, or capacity on the part of Christ. Moreover, these same commentators seem to be tacitly aware of this, for they imply quite clearly that Christ did, in fact, give up something, however vaguely stated, even in the same context in which they deny that he gave up anything.
 
Fee’s example, the second quotation above, demonstrates this most immediately: he claims that no genitive of content is required in Phil 2:7, but he then indicates that Paul’s usage of the emptying language elsewhere does imply some genitive of content—for to become “powerless” (Fee’s own language) is to be emptied of power, and to be emptied of significance (Fee’s own language) is clearly indicative of some content (“significance”) for the emptying. The other commentators use similarly ambiguous or contradictory phrasing. The corrective to such inconsistency can be rendered quite simply: to be sacrificial means to sacrifice something; to be humbled means to be diminished, limited, or divested in some way.
 
Ben Witherington makes the point effectively:

[Ekenōsen] must have some content to it, and it is not adequate to say Christ did not subtract anything since in fact he added a human nature. The latter is true enough, but the text says that he did empty himself or strip himself. . . . The contrast between verses 6 b and 7 a is very suggestive; that is, Christ set aside his rightful divine prerogatives or status. This does not mean he set aside his divine nature, but it does indicate some sort of self-limitation.

In short, some “genitive of inferred content” seems to be necessitated, though this is certainly not to say that we are thereby permitted to speculate in any sort of detail about the precise nature of that content.

But the point remains: one cannot undertake a sacrificial act that does not impose a sacrifice of something; sacrifice and humility imply content, else they surrender meaning. Moltmann gets at this quite strongly with his notion of “active suffering” or willing vulnerability. He argues that loving sacrifice-in-relation entails, at the most basic level, the surrendering of some level of security or status or power, because one has opened oneself up to another in relationship—the “other” can “affect” oneself.

- Samuel J. Youngs, The Way of the Kenotic Christ: 

The Christology of Jürgen Moltmann, 2019. 

Revelatory Interpretation on Kenosis

There are three general trends in the interpretative history of the passage, and we can identify them heuristically as follows: the traditional interpretation (which sees the kenosis as concealing the divine qualities  in Christ), the radical interpretation (in which kenosis consists in the  abandoning of divine qualities in Christ), and a contemporary interpretation that has lately become quite prominent in exegetical scholarship  (wherein the kenosis has been viewed as revelatory of God’s character  and action).

Revelatory (Contemporary) Interpretation

For the ancient Christologies, the majesty of God in Christ as the immutable, transcendent, almighty deity had to be preserved in the face of ancient challenges like Arianism, and so the hymn was appropriated to those ends. For the ninenteenth-century kenoticists, the radical humanity of the incarnation had to be emphasized in the face of ever-growing post-Enlightenment critiques of dogmatic history. Ultimately, however, in both cases, there seems to have been a certain determinative sense in which the passage was commandeered by foregoing doctrinal concerns, rather than being used to formatively direct those doctrinal concerns.
 
Gratefully, much contemporary scholarship has studied the passage with more critical awareness of such ingrained presuppositions, and this more neutral work has opened new avenues in understanding. Thus we now turn to a spectrum of scholarship on the passage that is both recent and integrative, encompassing many of the foregoing interpretive issues into a fresh outlook on the passage. This interpretation takes the kenosis of Christ to be not a concealment of divinity, and not an abandonment of any foregoing aspect of that divinity, but rather a revelation of the divinity’s character and nature. Hence we can call this the “revelatory” interpretation. The major interlocutors who have contributed to such an understanding include Gerald Hawthorne, N. T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, Gordon Fee, and Michael Gorman.
 

Philippians 2:7 and Its Christological Interpretations

The final element of this line of exegesis comes into focus when we consider that the participle hyparchōn has been argued by Moule (and followed more recently and forcefully by Wright, Gorman, and others) as being causative—“because he was in the form of God”—rather than concessive—“although he was in the form of God.”That is, the self-emptying does not provide any sort of exception to or abandoning of the form of God. Rather Christ’s self-emptying is illustrative of the fact that he possesses the form of God. This fundamentally shifts the understanding of kenosis in the passage. For, on this interpretation, it is quite correct to say that when Christ empties himself he is demonstrating his divinity, and not doing something that obscures it (as in the traditional interpretations) or that is an exception to that divine life (as in the radical interpretations).
 
Gorman is emphatic here: “Kenosis, therefore, does not mean Christ’s emptying himself of his divinity (or of anything else), but rather Christ’s exercising his divinity, his equality with God.” Wright expresses it similarly, saying ekenōsen “does not refer to the loss of divine attributes but—in good Pauline fashion—to making something powerless, emptying it of apparent significance. The real humiliation of the incarnation and the cross is that one who was himself God, and who never during the whole process stopped being God, could embrace such a vocation.”
 
Such an interpretation—the kenosis as a revelation of God’s divinity rather than an exceptional mode of being undertaken by that divinity—clearly challenges the radical forms of kenotic Christology.
 
Graham Ward, quoting F. F. Bruce, concurs, saying that “the implication is not that Christ, by becoming incarnate, exchanged the form of God for the form of the slave, but that he manifested the form of God in the form of the slave.” It is in this sense that we can unify also the tapeinotic and kenotic aspects of the hymn, which means that we must go beyond positions that claim “Jesus’ kenosis was sociopolitical rather than metaphysical,” for Christ’s “tapeinosis” (humble bearing of his life in the world) is reflective of the kenotic divine economy at large and involves the real suspension of things that had characterized the divine life “prior to” the incarnation (majesty, glory, splendor, etc. see John 17:5). Here then we find exegetical foundation for discussion of the “humanity of God.” 

- Samuel J. Youngs, The Way of the Kenotic Christ: 

The Christology of Jürgen Moltmann, 2019