The Popes! (The 1st Pope, Saint Peter, rating 4/10)

As a fun way of examining the history of the church, I have decided to go through all the Popes of the Roman church and give them a rating as well as a brief explanation for the score given. I will start with Saint Peter and work my way up through Christian history until all 266 Popes have been covered. The rating system will be out of 10 with two subcategories accounting for five points each. The two subcategories will be generally called Integrity and Grace. While there is certainly overlap between the two categories, Integrity will be based on the individual's willingness to hold to the teachings of Jesus and the Bible (in whatever compilation it may be at the time of that Pope's reign.) Grace will be based on that individual's desire to show compassion and forgiveness. I will try to pump out a new Pope rating ever 1-7 days.

Saint Peter (1st Pope)

Integrity 2/5

Grace 2/5

Total Score: 4/10

While Peter appears to have a brief moment of revelation in declaring that Jesus is "The Messiah, the Son of the Living God" in Matthew 16, he shows a rather hot and violent temper in cutting off a soldier's ear (Matthew 26). While I would be willing to chalk that up to simply having a love for Jesus, he than betrays Jesus by denying him three times only a few chapters later.

Now, one of the joys of the Gospel is that in being given grace we are often more willing to show grace. That doesn't seem to happen with Peter. Whether they deserve it or not Peter has no sense of grace for Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, and is on the wrong side of the Gospel when he chooses to favour legalism over grace in his debate with Paul over the role of Circumcision (Acts 15).

One shouldn't mistake my critique of Peter for believing that Jesus was wrong to choose him however. I think Jesus chose Peter to be a leader of his church because the central point of Christianity is that we are fallen and need God's grace.

 

Post-Liberal vs. Contextual Theology

A major problem in Modern Christian theology has been the tendency to emphasize methodologies like historical critique and the contextualization of scripture over and above understanding scripture as God’s word preserved by him throughout time as his canonical revelation through the church. Post-liberal theology wants to affirm that God was in control of the canonical process, and continues to speak to us to through his word in the here and now. Furthermore we should not be so arrogant to assume that God’s voice was muffled in Christian theology before the modern age. The theology of Irenaeus, Luther, and Augustine should be taken just as seriously as modern historical critical thinkers like N.T. Wright and Marcus Borg. At the end of the day, the revelation of Scripture speaking into our lives is God’s work not our own. The methodology of inter-textual canonical reading is used heavily by post-liberal theologians along with examining the patterns in past Christian theology to see how God was and is continuing to work in the Scripture. Post-liberal theologian David Yeago, as an example, likes to show how past theologians like Martin Luther would actually agree a lot with what folks like N.T. Wright and the New Perspective on Paul have to say. In his commentary on Matthew Stanley Hauerwas gave himself rules that he would not fall into the historical critical trap of theorizing Matthew’s historical context. Instead his only exegetical reference would be scripture itself (how does a passage in Matthew relate to other passages in the Old and New Testament?) and how it applies to our current context today.    

While Contextual theologians like Sylvia Keesmaat, Brian Walsh, and Ellen Davis understand the danger of thinking historical critical lenses will allow us to more objectively understand scripture, examining our context as it potentially relates to the context or narrative of scripture is seen as important in understanding how God might be moving in our lives. When we see the human context of the scripture, we are able to relate to each in other in our joys and our suffering...