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Stumbling toward Zion: Recovering the Biblical Tradition of Lament in the Era of World Christianity
In this powerful and challenging book, David W. Smith identifies a crisis at the heart of the church. It is the crisis of triumphalism - the tendency to avoid honest engagement with brokenness and suffering, privileging victory while rejecting the practice of lament. This imbalance, Smith argues, threatens to undermine the credibility of faith for a watching world, alienating those experiencing hardship and oppression; those wrestling with doubt, uncertainty, and loss.
In Stumbling toward Zion , Smith reclaims the importance of lament throughout Scripture - from the Old Testament to the gospel narratives and Paul's letters - and explores the history and impact of its loss within certain church traditions. World Christianity, with its heartlands in contexts of poverty, war and persecution, has a crucial role to play in recovering an understanding of God's love for a suffering creation capable of restoring the credibility of Christian witness in the midst of our brokenness. Containing practical application for church life and mission, Smith offers an opportunity to reengage with biblical lament, rediscover neglected aspects of Christian faith, and reawaken to God's heart for a suffering world.
In Stumbling toward Zion , Smith reclaims the importance of lament throughout Scripture - from the Old Testament to the gospel narratives and Paul's letters - and explores the history and impact of its loss within certain church traditions. World Christianity, with its heartlands in contexts of poverty, war and persecution, has a crucial role to play in recovering an understanding of God's love for a suffering creation capable of restoring the credibility of Christian witness in the midst of our brokenness. Containing practical application for church life and mission, Smith offers an opportunity to reengage with biblical lament, rediscover neglected aspects of Christian faith, and reawaken to God's heart for a suffering world.
166 pages, Paperback
Published February 29, 2020
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December 31, 2021
"We're marching to Zion." That's how the old hymn goes. But maybe you feel like you're actually just stumbling toward Zion? If so, you can be thankful for this book by David Smith.
David Smith challenges the West's triumphalism and narrow focus on celebration in public worship. Such worship, he argues, ignores the real struggles of Christians, burdens them with guilt when they don't feel celebratory and undermines Christianity's credibility in a suffering world.
In response, he urges us to learn from Christian family elsewhere and rediscover the Biblical tradition of lament. He gives a Scriptural tour to show "a questioning, honest faith is exactly what we find in the Bible, and… is the normal pathway to spiritual maturity" (6).
He shows this is true of the New Testament, as well as the Old. Post-Pentecost Christians may marginalise lament out of a feeling that it's no longer needed; this is sometimes an unspoken assumption in contemporary Christianity. But Smith shows that, if anything, Jesus' coming increases the need for lament. In Jesus, we see a dramatic turning point in history. But we also see the ongoing reality of suffering. There's a tension. Honest biblical faith involves interaction between a "core testimony" of faith and a "counter-testimony" arising from the realities of human history. In Paul, we see lament language in a number of places, not least the inward groaning of Romans 8. This is the result of a "dissonance" between promise and reality – although it is still a groaning that leads us to God, in whom we find real hope in the midst of suffering.
Although the prosperity and security of the West has led us to marginalise lament, we all face realities that demand lamentation. Quoting K. O'Connor, there are still "normal human losses to lament, deaths, disappointments, and hidden depression with which to contend" (24). This should all shape our posture in evangelism. Our broken world is not a place we occasionally visit. It's our home too. We share the gospel "not with a triumphalist spirit, but with humility, compassion and a transparent honesty concerning faith's own struggles" (47).
He lost me a bit in chapter 5, which draws heavily on Fretheim and Moltmann to challenge the doctrine of divine impassibility. But there's still good stuff here, not least his proposal that the neglect of lament has left us unable to tackle difficult questions of justice. Why have Christians often been silent in the face of atrocities like the Holocaust and Rwandan genocide? Is it because "unremittingly affirmative" spirituality makes the only appropriate response to suffering a "reverent submission to the divine will" (95)?
The last chapter urges us to hear global voices on lament. Our culture suppresses feelings of despair and fears of death. If we exclude lament, we're "complicit in this tragic denial" and contribute "to a cover-up which deepens the hidden pain of those who suffer" (110). David Smith is powerfully blunt in some of his conclusions. "How can Christianity appear as the source of credible hope in the twenty-first century if it knows only the language of praise while the world burns?" (127-8)
Ultimately, we still hope, with joy - but we are not triumphalistic. The difference? Hope does not ignore or suppress the continuing reality of suffering, and hope acknowledges that "the removal of all causes of grief, loss and weeping remains in the future" (129).
This is a very good book on an important topic. It may make you uncomfortable and you may not agree with it all. In my case, I don't agree with his favourable quotes of Moltmann or the minimal discussion of lamentation over personal sin (hence the four stars rather than five). But Smith's basic challenges are much-needed. And along the way, you'll meet some theologians who aren't white Western men, which is surely a good thing.
David Smith challenges the West's triumphalism and narrow focus on celebration in public worship. Such worship, he argues, ignores the real struggles of Christians, burdens them with guilt when they don't feel celebratory and undermines Christianity's credibility in a suffering world.
In response, he urges us to learn from Christian family elsewhere and rediscover the Biblical tradition of lament. He gives a Scriptural tour to show "a questioning, honest faith is exactly what we find in the Bible, and… is the normal pathway to spiritual maturity" (6).
He shows this is true of the New Testament, as well as the Old. Post-Pentecost Christians may marginalise lament out of a feeling that it's no longer needed; this is sometimes an unspoken assumption in contemporary Christianity. But Smith shows that, if anything, Jesus' coming increases the need for lament. In Jesus, we see a dramatic turning point in history. But we also see the ongoing reality of suffering. There's a tension. Honest biblical faith involves interaction between a "core testimony" of faith and a "counter-testimony" arising from the realities of human history. In Paul, we see lament language in a number of places, not least the inward groaning of Romans 8. This is the result of a "dissonance" between promise and reality – although it is still a groaning that leads us to God, in whom we find real hope in the midst of suffering.
Although the prosperity and security of the West has led us to marginalise lament, we all face realities that demand lamentation. Quoting K. O'Connor, there are still "normal human losses to lament, deaths, disappointments, and hidden depression with which to contend" (24). This should all shape our posture in evangelism. Our broken world is not a place we occasionally visit. It's our home too. We share the gospel "not with a triumphalist spirit, but with humility, compassion and a transparent honesty concerning faith's own struggles" (47).
He lost me a bit in chapter 5, which draws heavily on Fretheim and Moltmann to challenge the doctrine of divine impassibility. But there's still good stuff here, not least his proposal that the neglect of lament has left us unable to tackle difficult questions of justice. Why have Christians often been silent in the face of atrocities like the Holocaust and Rwandan genocide? Is it because "unremittingly affirmative" spirituality makes the only appropriate response to suffering a "reverent submission to the divine will" (95)?
The last chapter urges us to hear global voices on lament. Our culture suppresses feelings of despair and fears of death. If we exclude lament, we're "complicit in this tragic denial" and contribute "to a cover-up which deepens the hidden pain of those who suffer" (110). David Smith is powerfully blunt in some of his conclusions. "How can Christianity appear as the source of credible hope in the twenty-first century if it knows only the language of praise while the world burns?" (127-8)
Ultimately, we still hope, with joy - but we are not triumphalistic. The difference? Hope does not ignore or suppress the continuing reality of suffering, and hope acknowledges that "the removal of all causes of grief, loss and weeping remains in the future" (129).
This is a very good book on an important topic. It may make you uncomfortable and you may not agree with it all. In my case, I don't agree with his favourable quotes of Moltmann or the minimal discussion of lamentation over personal sin (hence the four stars rather than five). But Smith's basic challenges are much-needed. And along the way, you'll meet some theologians who aren't white Western men, which is surely a good thing.
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