Godspell and “The Westminster Captivity of Evangelicalism”

Warning: My non-American readers may want to skip this one.

I have been planning to respond since reading Regent Divinity School’s Dale Coulter blogging about the perceived dominance of Westminster Theological Seminary in evangelical Christian theology in America. To crudely summarize a nuanced argument, Coulter believes that Reformed folk generally and Westminster Seminary particularly--news flash!--pursue an overly intellectualized form of theology that downplays the affections and experience. The occasionally strident emphasis of the so-called “New Calvinists” (some of whom are identified with Westminster Seminary-California) on defending the doctrine of justification also puts him off. Coulter’s comments on dropping the term “justification” from English language Bibles are also worthy of a comment.

I still plan to address both directly but attending Sunday's production of Godspell by the Regent University Theatre (I know, I know. You’re asking yourself: Why do they persist in the Anglophilic spelling of “theater”? But I digress.) gives me a chance to do a two-fer (or maybe even a three-peat).

The show was outstanding. The costumes, choreography, music, vocals, acting, staging, and every other production value were outstanding. Typical of Regent I hasten to add. We’ve owned season tickets for years and have gotten far more bang for the buck than we could rightfully expect.

But what has Godspell to do with Reformed theology, Westminster Seminary, or justification? Absolutely nothing. And that’s the point. Godspell purports to be drawn from Matthew's gospel but as I watched I saw nothing of any of Matthew’s accounts of Jesus’ birth or miracles. I listened attentively and heard only the most oblique reference to Jesus’ assertions of his divinity. And, for the life of me, based on Godspell, I have no clue why Jesus died. The purpose of his resurrection--in the words of Godspell’s Jesus--was to enable his post-intermission monochromatically-clothed followers to “build the city of man.” The Sixties live!*

Are the New Calvinists a bit obsessive about the doctrine of justification? Perhaps; it seems unlikely that N.T. Wright was in Paul’s sights in Galatians. Might they be guilty of an overemphasis on the intellect at the expense of the affections and experience? Hard to argue with that. Is the atonement more than forensic? Absolutely; it is grounded in union with Christ. Is the Gospel more than rectification of a legal relationship? You bet; the "gospel" is the announcement of the coming of God's Kingdom. But “god-spell” without what the old and new Calvinists called the penal substitutionary atonement is far less than the Gospel.


*Lest anyone mistake my critique of Godspell for criticism of the Regent University Theatre, remember (as I fully acknowledge) that Godspell is a musical, not systematic theology.

“You Can’t Take It With You”

Went Friday night to the Regent University production of Kaufman and Hart’s 1936 comedy, “You Can’t Take It With You.”  As usual, Regent’s acting and production values were top notch:  Does any theater company design better sets?

The experience was enjoyable but only mildly humorous because, I think, the theme is definitely dated.  The play describes the collision between members of the wildly eccentric Vanderhof family, who live to have fun regardless of social expectations, and the uptight, straight-laced Kirbys, who live to work and live up to the standards of their class.  It’s a comedy so in the end, of course, the Kirbys come around and go the free-spirited, bohemian route.

A valuable lesson (or at least diversion) in Depression-era 1936 but out of place in the nothing-but-fun second decade of the twenty-first century.  (See Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death.)  The data from Chris Smith's Souls in Transition shows that today’s emerging adults (and, I suspect, most Americans who came of age in the 1960s and thereafter), live for little more than fun with commitment to work seen as a means to socializing, not an end in itself.  YCTIWY opens a window to a past that barely exists in America except in memory; the play hasn‘t aged well.

Missing from both YCTIWY and today is a notion of vocation.  My colleague Mike Schutt has written an excellent book about this Christian teaching in Redeeming Law (see here).  His blog is a good place to learn more about how the Christian tradition frames work and play in light of a Sabbath shalom (promised and delivered) in Christ.  Living either for only work or play misses the bigger picture: one is a calling of God; the other pictures the feast of the Lamb and his people to which we can look forward.  Both are oriented toward something more than ourselves and social expectations.