Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Monday, August 8, 2011

What is Emergent Christianity? Part 2


Reviewing Dr. Olson's comments on the Emerging Church or Emerging Movement has made me feel "right at home" with his passion and desire to see the best for God's people. Though we are "denominationally unrelated" and "strangers to one another" I have discovered in him a brother in the Lord willing to put aside all doctrine and conventions in order to re-discover God as God, without man's institutes or institutions. (This seems most demonstrable to me in the type of young men and women whom he has taught and discipled now serving the Lord in their many capacities). For we both have come out of backgrounds that have rigorously examined Scriptures and Church history and yet still feel the need that our studies have not been enough. Not that we would abandon our knowledge, so much as to improve our knowledge, to be more open to the times and movements allowable to the eras and insights of our day among seeking men and women. And in what Dr. Olson and others like Gibbs and Bolger have expressed, I like the smell of it, the heartbeat of it, the taste of it, at least in its generalizations and thematic expressions.

As reported, the Emerging Church Movement crosses all denominational lines and at its center is its reaction to either, too rigid or, too progressive, expressions of the Christian faith. For biblical faith is neither (1) restrictive - as proposed by modern day evangelicalism, nor (2) so loose and amorphous as to be useless, subjective, endlessly open-ended - as proposed by liberalism and mainline denominations. Emergent Christianity senses that it must "put aright" the extremes of conservative-and-liberal-expressions of Scriptures, God, Worship and Faith in general. (This was also observed by NT Wright in his article on the "Authority of the Scriptures" as earlier reported on this blog).

Secondly, the Emerging Church Movement is the POSITIVE expression of its faith shown below in its characterizations 1-5 as witness by Dr. Olson and concurred to by myself. For both our personal and corporate faith must be (1) self-critical and introspective; (1b) non-conformist to legalistic religious conventions; (2) separate from the world (or world era) that we live within (whether modern or postmodern; while at the same time utilizing the good found within those eras); (3) open to the Spirit of God's leading and impress upon our lives, thoughts and heart as it flows in line with the Scriptures (a most critical point, I might add); (4) a faith that is spiritually transformative and reformative; (5) and lives and breathes within communal worship, ministry, acts of charity, outreach, and very life itself.

This to me is what Emergent Christianity is, as I believe we can find in many churches from the ages past - regardless of label or distinction - and we pray to find in churches future. These are some (but not all) of the spiritual hallmarks of Christ's living body, his bridegroom and beloved, what we call the Church universal, and of His remnant people we call believers and followers of Jesus.

- skinhead

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More Thoughts on the Emerging Churches Movement

by Roger Olson
August 7, 2011

First, is it even really a movement? If so, it’s a very amorphous one!

Second, I strongly recommend that people wanting to discuss the Emerging Church Movement (or, ECM) (or conversation or network or whatever you want to call the phenomenon) read this: Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger (Baker, 2005). It’s the best book I know of on the ECM; it’s written on the basis of exhaustive research including extended interviews with leading emergent/emerging church leaders.

Today I will be on Doug Pagitt’s radio program out of Minneapolis. I’m not sure what we will talk about, but I’m glad to be interviewed–especially if I can sneak in a word or two about my forthcoming book Against Calvinism! :) Of course, most of you know Pagitt is a leader looked up to by many in the ECM. I have been privileged to get to know him over the past several years. We don’t see eye-to-eye on some things, but I appreciate his search for authenticity in contemporary Christianity and church life.

As Gibbs and Bolger make abundantly clear, the ECM is not monolithic; it is a movement made up of very different congregations with a few exemplary things in common. I would say one of those is a determination to be authentic with Christianity and church life and to discard all that is merely traditional (“traditionalism”) and institutional (focus on survival for its own sake).

Gibbs and Bolger offer several brief, “nutshell” definition-descriptions of emerging churches. Here is one: “emerging churches are missional communities arising from within postmodern culture and consisting of followers of Jesus who are seeking to be faithful in their place and time.” (p. 28) Remember that no single definition-description is going to fit all emerging churches equally or in the same way. And there are certainly non-ECM congregations that would fit that description.

The first congregation I remember reading about that was described as “emerging” or “emergent” was Minneapolis’ Spirit Garage. (Google it!). Spirit Garage began in the mid-1990s as a mission to Uptown by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. There’s proof that SOME emerging churches are definitely rooted in the so-called “mainline” of American religion. (However, I think there’s something anomalous about anyone involved in the ECM calling anything “mainline” because if being postmodern means anything it means rejecting the very idea of “mainline” anything. “Mainline” is never a merely descriptive label; it always carries the connotation that what is so described is normative.)

Another early emergent church I encountered was House of Mercy which began at First Baptist Church of St. Paul (where I was a member for some years)–an American Baptist congregation. eventually left that church and denomination and has since associated itself more (if anything) with the Presbyterian tradition community. Like Spirit Garage, House of Mercy began in the mid-1990s and gained a lot of attention because of its willingness to experiment and embrace non-traditional forms of Christian life and worship. It attracted many young (and not so young) Christians interested in the arts.

Then, of course, emergent churches exploded across the American and British landscape. (I’m not implying that those two emerging churches were somehow the “originals” of which everything else is copy; I’m just saying I first became aware of the ECM through them.)

Many of my students have gone on to pastor or co-pastor or somehow lead emerging churches around the country. I have spoken in a number of those and at retreats and gatherings of emerging church leaders and church planters.

One things is painfully obvious to anyone who knows much about the ECM: It is very difficult to generalize about these congregations. As soon as you say anything about the movement as a whole you’ll encounter someone or something that doesn’t fit the description. However, as Gibbs and Bolger helpfully point out, certain common features or family resemblances TEND to be true of MOST of these congregations and ministries.

Again, I strongly recommend that people interested in understanding what these common features and family resemblances are read Emerging Churches by Gibbs and Bolger. (Yes, I know there are other books on this phenomenon, but I have found this one most helpful for now.)

I think there is a general fear among some observers that the ECM will fail to make the kind of impact it could have IF its leading spokespersons simply ally it too closely with already existing Christian movements whether conservative evangelical or so-called “mainline liberal” (or establishment progressive Christianity). One of the promises of the ECM is to develop a form of Christianity and church life that is constantly and forever adaptable which implies frequent, ongoing internal examination and openness to especially internal critique.

One of the failures of traditional forms of Christianity is being closed to criticism and calls for change. Conservative evangelicalism tends to be convinced it is already wholly right (or was at some point in the past). It at least appears impervious to even internal constructive criticism of its traditions. So-called mainline, progressive, liberal Christianity tends also to be convinced it is or has been wholly right–at least about its basic methods and approaches that have to do with adapting to modernity.

If the ECM offers anything new it has to be AT LEAST forging a third alternative (not necessarily a “via media”) to these “right” and “left” wings of contemporary Christianity.

Some emerging churches and leaders work out of a generally evangelical background. Some work out of a generally so-called “mainline” background. Hopefully, however, none of them will succumb to the temptation to align themselves too closely with the established hierarchies and traditions of these movements. Hopefully they will keep a critical “distance,” as it were, and refuse even financial support from anyone who requires them to toe a party line. Hopefully they will resist the subtle temptation even unconsciously to adopt the habits of either the “left” or the “right” of contemporary church life and thought.

I am of the opinion that SOME emerging churches and their leaders HAVE ALREADY succumbed to the temptation to develop a veneer of being different (avant garde, radical, etc.) while adopting the ways of conservative evangelicalism beneath the surface. SOME others have succumbed to the same temptation with regard to so-called mainline, progressive, liberal Protestantism. What I mean is, these emerging congregations (I’m not going to name them here–if the shoe fits, wear it or put it on someone you know!) LOOK very non-conformist but are actually very conformist in their beliefs and practices beneath the surface. In other words, just wearing a certain kind of glasses and using PowerPoint during sermons and mouthing naughty words occasionally DOES NOT make you emergent! Neither does adopting Celtic spirituality (whatever that is, exactly!) or worshiping in a dark space with scores of candles and a dozen TV monitors. Being truly emergent MUST mean something more than these surface features put on top of either conservative or progressive foundations. These CAN be present, of course, but what makes a congregation or mission or organization truly “emergent” MUST be below the surface at the deep level of commitment.

1 - I would argue that one such commitment MUST be self-criticism and willingness frequently to change combined with rejection of hierarchical models of leadership or absolutizing of tradition or being new and different for their own sakes.

2 - Another commitment MUST be rejection of modernity as the foundation or norm for belief and life and mission and service. Both conservatives and progressives have (often unwittingly and even against their own intentions) adopted modernity as the cultural norm even for Christianity and church life.

3 - What will that mean? It must mean an openness to new things the Spirit of God wants to do among his people that do not fit the modern box. It must mean a refusal of control, manipulation and orderliness.

4 - It must mean a refusal to reduce Christianity to either doctrine or ethics and a determination to discover it as transformative spirituality that is not privatized or individualized.

5 - It must mean attempts to discover the meaning of true community without confining structures, rules and protocols that put these before persons and relationships.