Reflections: Unpacking "COVID-19 as the End of the Modern World? Part Three: Reconsidering Anthropology"

In previous editions we sought to break down some of the key themes from Rev. Dr. Clement Wen’s articles. In this edition we want to present you with some key questions and quotes to reflect on. We pray God uses these as we seek to walk closer in trust with God. May you engage with this article series and find yourself challenged to sharpen and deepen your spiritual walk with God.

On Being Fully Human:

Rather, I simply want to point out the way in which the definition of “what it means to be human” can easily become curtailed in a particularly specific task-based way when evangelism inadvertently, in terms of importance, becomes framed as supplanting all other human tasks, values, callings, meanings, and priorities in life. Ironically, what perhaps is the most compelling form of evangelism, which also organically opens doors for explicit evangelistic conversation, isn’t about “doing” something so much as it is about “being” fully human in Christ in a way that responsibly and lovingly captivates those in our midst to become curious and to therefore desire the same type of fullness for themselves.

How did Jesus live and what does His life show about what being “fully human” looks like?

On Vocation:

… What happens is that every aspect of our lives within the created world—and not just those aspects that seemingly have “churchly” or “evangelistic” value—becomes ensconced and enfolded within our Christian faith as we carry out the whole of our humanly lived lives in Christ, by the Spirit. It is this broader human vocation that led the Christian East to representatively define humans as the “priests of creation” (thus, very aptly helping to explain why all of creation fell with Adam when he sinned, as well as why Christ, in His humanity, can represent the renewal of all creation in His person through His obedience to God unto death and, importantly, resurrection).

How can Jesus renew creation through your vocation (calling)? What does the world look like in your vocation now and what can Jesus bring that would make it better/fuller, more as the way God intends?

On Evangelism’s Relationship with Vocation:

While such a point may suggest to some that the Great Commission is therefore of greater urgency and is thus of greater importance in the present than the other aforementioned aspects of our vocation, I think that as Christians, we do ourselves a great disservice when we place these vocational categories into competitive relationship with each other… What we need, instead, is to take up the Great temporary Commission without, in a sense, ceasing to “be human” in its more original and permanent sense.

How could it look for the Great Commission to intertwine with your work without seeing Evangelism as “competing” with your vocation? Imagine and picture what this could look like.

On Being & Doing:

Somewhat related to this, the typical “modern” evangelical handling of scripture has been to look for ways in which we might be able to “apply” scriptural truth (a move that places emphasis upon “doing”) while I think the more correct approach, as helpfully reappropriated by Darrell Johnson, is to recognize the “implications” of scripture upon our lives (which, different than our aforementioned tendency towards “application,” rightly emphasizes the way in which “doing” flows forth from “being”—or in grammatical terms, the way in which the “imperative” flows forth from the “indicative” as an inherent “implication” of it).

How can we see Scripture’s implications on our lives instead of “only” applying it to our lives? What is the difference between applying Scripture vs. seeing implications of Scripture?

On the Image of God:

Hence, while all who continue to be “in Adam” (i.e., non-Christians, including those who are hostile to God or hostile even to the idea of God, for example, atheists) continue to participate in God (and, hence, in “His image”) in a dynamically broken way (“dynamic” here in the sense that their maintaining of “God’s image” is inversely proportional to the extent to which their relationship with God is distorted—and this distortion is metaphorically capable of both “increase” and “decrease” as God’s image is refracted through the quality of one’s relationship with Him), those who now participate “in Christ” (and, particularly, in His humanity) not only borrow Christ’s human righteousness in a way that, in God’s eyes, Christ’s righteousness has objectively actually become their own (i.e., “justification”), but as we await future “glorification” (when Christ comes again), there is also a subjective dynamic at play in the present by which there is actual movement towards (and, perhaps, at times, also away from) “God’s image”—a movement which also hinges upon the movable extent to which we are (with fits and starts) progressively growing and maturing, in Christ, by the Spirit, to become more and more like Him (i.e., “sanctification”). In other words, to grow in “sanctification” is to become more fully “human.”

…

What thus characterizes what it means to be “human,” then, is the extent to which one’s relationship with God is “right.” And yet, importantly, this participatory relationship with God unto “divine imaging” naturally carries a reciprocity with the way in which we relate to ourselves, the way in which we relate to others, and the way in which we relate to the created world around us (bringing to mind again the four-fold relational understanding of salvation that we’ve been speaking of since part one of this series). Holistically speaking, then, being “fully human” (in the “fully” theological sense that I’m trying to put forward here) means that all four of these relationships are “right,” with the latter three stemming from the first. [Editor’s bolding]

If we see being formed in the image of God as including our relationship with God, what is an example of growing more towards the image of God and what is an example of growing away from the image of God? What does it look like to be in a “right” relationship with God? And what are its ramifications in how we relate to ourselves, those around us, and creation? What does it look like to be in a “right” relationship with ourselves, others, and creation?

On Next Steps:

Nevertheless, to the extent that we’re realistically able within the very real confines of concerns regarding health and safety, how might we be able to be as “fully human” as possible in these challenging times? How might we “be” in as right relationship with God, with ourselves, with others, and with this created world as possible? In what ways are we particularly called to “be” fully human in a participatory way as divine image-bearers in our “post-modern” COVID world? And what implications do such anthropological thoughts also have for our practice of church and our living out of salvation?

Imagine how we might be, take action, and reflect as the Church in such a way that builds up relationship with God as the core which flows into our relationship with ourselves, those around us, and creation. Seek God and ask Him to show you if there is any way He is calling you to live into Christ differently in this season to come.