Emergent Christianity's Voice Is More Than Emergent Village's Assertions

Emergent Christianity is Not Progressive Christianity

As introduction, I should point out that I do not automatically associate "Emergent Christianity" in the same category as that of "Process Theology" - as is being billed by Emergent Village (a progressive Christian group more than it is an Emergent group) in its upcoming 2012 conference.

Just as Classic Theism and Open Theism are part of the Emergent movement's discussion, so too may Process Theology be part of that discussion. But unlike Emergent Village's bold statement, process theology is not the sum-total of Emergent Christianity, but part of a larger conversation between itself and Theism. Regardless of its Christian claimants.

What I am saying here is that Emergent Christians are investing themselves in all forms of discussions about God - who He is in His nature and essence - and in His relation to creation and time via His authoritative divine will and ourselves. Hence, it is for this reason that this blog has been created to speak more clearly about what Emergent Christianity is, both in it's diversity, as well as in its central core of beliefs. It is my intent (as well as others similar in intent as mine own) to add to that discussion, and lend it directional support. To uncover, renew or remake older expressions of the orthodox Christian faith into updated, postmodernistic forms of expression.

Accordingly, we must acknowledge that Emergent Christianity has a larger audience than that of Evangelicalism - for it includes progressive Christians and mainline denominationalists as well; has a broader orthodoxy and orthopraxy consequently; and more of a postmodern mindset. But, it cannot be simply defined by Tony Jones and Emergent Village's belief statements any longer -  though neither should it be lessened by those same sentiments. Emergent Christianity must be as mainline as it is radical. And it behooves Emergents to understand and know who they are, what they are, and why they are, from the right to the left of its participating groups.

Consequently, we should not be content in simply stating that Progressive Christianity (or Big Tent Christianity) is the completing definition of Emergent Christianity. It is not. If anything, Progressives are further left of Evangelicalism than Emergents are. And there are large distinctions too (more on this in later posts).

However, like Emergent Christianity with its mix of conservative denominations and post-conservative evangelicals, Progressive Christians are seeking to expand their assemblies and associations both right and left of their movement... not unlike what Emergent Christianity has been doing since its break out about ten years ago (1998? 2004?). And both groups are each seeking to discover a more progressive form (or, updated form) of Christianity over and beyond traditional orthodoxy and classic Calvinistic associations and assemblies.

For me, Emergent Christianity is simply understood as any-and-all participants who can define themselves around Jesus as Redeeming God and Savior. Assuredly syncretism will occur (more probably for the right side than the left side of the religious line of pluralism)  but hopefully at the cost of apprehending Jesus more clearly than we have at present through our delimiting religious cultural expressions found currently in its classic or traditional expressions. Expressions that we leave with thankfulness and appreciation for its many years of declaring Christ to the world. But one that must be left in today's marketplace of postmodernism.

The central focus of Emergent Christianity must then be an understanding of Jesus (i) unhindered by past Reformational decrees and Calvinisms - including worship practices, demeanor and missional statements. As well as (ii) deliverance from Liberalism's unbelieving assertions of Jesus' non-divine personage, mission and ministry, and denial of the Bible's divine revelation. (And by Liberalism is not meant Progressive Christianity - which has formed the rear-guard of discerning mainstream Christianity from Liberalism's Continental incursions into America.) And finally, (iii) Emergent Christianity includes all those frustrated Christians unwilling to submit to either branches of Christianity because it is the popular thing to do. Or the politically correct thing to do. Who find themselves as moderates and independents seeking better expressions of Jesus to the world than is currently being offered from either the right or the left. Culturally, politically, societally, religiously.

Emergent Christianity is a spectrum unto itself. A third man as it were. Neither Catholic nor Protestant. It is stateless and wishes to remain so while offering a broader outreach to the world's religions and mankind than can currently be done within present institutional systems and parochial beliefs. This then would be the true spectrum of Christianity: one without boundaries and barriers, stateless and universal, color-blind, gender-neutral, disavowing all human limitations to its mission and charter (http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/09/four-views-of-evangelicalism-emergent.html).

And with that said, and in an effort to (i) better our understanding of Process (Relational) Theology; and to (ii) explore and create some kind of theosophical alternative within the folds of Classic Theism that doesn't require a panentheistic base, but a theistic base; (iii) Emergent Village is hosting a 3 day event at Claremont School of Theology, Jan 30- Feb 2, 2012. Below may be found Emergent Village's itinerary, guest speakers, and registration links. Thank you.

RE Slater

November 13, 2011

Join Us For the Theological Conversation

http://www.processtheology.org/sample-page/

    

The Emergent Village Theological Conversation has quickly established a reputation for deep thought and rich interaction. This year’s conversation will engage Process Theology as we explore the dynamic conception of the living and life-giving God. Monica A. Coleman, John Cobb and Philip Clayton will lead the conversation engaging with Jeanyne Slettom, Bruce Epperly, Julie Clawson and Daniel Shroyer

Cobb has proclaimed that the church should “join God in working for the salvation of the world.” This strong assertion flows right out of the open and relational vision of theology he has pioneered throughout his career. It is our belief that in conversation with Cobb a progressive, missional, holistic, and radically relational theology with legs will emerge.

After setting the context with an introduction to process theology we will immediately turn towards the biggest challenges facing the world, making those essential conversations for all creation the location for doing theology. Through practical engagements of Process and Emergence we will reflect on how God relates to the world, works within the world, and do what all theology is suppose to be doing: seeking to engage and transform the world as it exists in reality. This will take us into ecology, economics, religious pluralism, secularism, and the relational ramifications for the Church both locally and globally.

Come join us in Claremont California, January 30- February 2, 2012 for the conversation.

Partners: This event is sponsored by the Emergent Village & hosted at Claremont School of Theology in partnership with Process & Faith

Hotel: Our event hotel is the Hotel Claremont. They are giving our participants a special deal with rooms for 59 – 69 bucks a night for bed, breakfast, and a shuttle to the campus. Just let Steven Mercado know you are part of the ‘emergent village’ when reserving your room. Email him: reservations@myhotelclaremont.com

Sign up: Registration is limited in order to create the conditions for conversation. For now it is just $99 bucks until the New Year when it will go up to $119 or when we cap it off. So sign up now.

5 Sessions

 http://www.processtheology.org/5-sessions/

The Emergent Village Theological Conversation 2012 will carry forward some of the best aspects of previous conversations. It will also feature some innovations that appropriately reflect the topic of this year’s gathering.

Here are some highlights of what you can expect:

• Process Theology emphasizes an open-ended and relational view of faith. The 5 sessions will integrate a format that is thoroughly relational and open-ended.

It is important that the information being presented match the organization

• Process Theology introduces new concepts and vocabulary. Each of the 5 sessions will begin with a ‘keynote’ presentation from a scholar, who will then be in dialogue with two other practitioners and thinkers. The conversation will then be expanded to the gathered participants – with each session utilizing an appropriate format for the themes of that session.

Use of technology like the Twitter-Tumbler and an empowered moderator will facilitate real-time interactions with the presenter during the session.

• The structure of the five session are organized in a chiastic format. Monica A. Coleman will lead us in session 1 and 5. John B. Cobb will host session 2 and 4. Philip Clayton has agreed to provide the ‘hinge’ session 3.

Session 1 is Introduction with Monica Coleman
Session 2 is Expansion with John Cobb (Christian Belief and Pluralism)
Session 3 is Dissection and Doubt with Philip Clayton
Session 4 is Application with John Cobb (Economics and Ecology)
Session 5 is Construction for Ministry with Monica Coleman

• Julie Clawson, veteran of Emergent Conversations, pointed out that most conferences don’t build in a time to question, disagree, and push-back. Great ideas are presented and insightful questions are asked … but the real wrestling is done either individually or after hours.

We still want personal wrestling and after-hours conversation, but we have also purposefully built in a session for wrestling out loud. Session 3 will let us debrief with Philip Clayton who navigates the worlds of Emergent and Process, Church and Academy in a masterful way.

• Each session will be followed up with related break-out tracks. One will focus on ministry specific issues.Jeanyne Slettom, director of the Center for Process & Faith and co-Pastor of a process-centered congregation will be helping us with this. Another track will be theological-conceptual. The third will be a wild-card showcase.

Five times we will come together for the main sessions to hear a presentation, listen to a dialogue, participate in a conversation, and then disperse for break-out sessions. These four expanding levels of engagement will allow for both learning and expression in each of the five chapters.

Here is a potential picture of Session 5: Monica Coleman will present ideas and stories about her ministerial experiences and context specific opportunities and challenges for ministry with a Process framework. Then Danielle Shroyer and Bruce Epperly will join her to tell a bit about their context and their engagement of Process in ministry. Next, we will break down into smaller circles to compare notes in order come into the Question & Response time. This main-session conversation will propel us into the the breakout sessions. One breakout will have two pastors talking about preaching Process. One will be about comparing theological vocab & concepts between different schools of thought. Another will address sexuality in the church & community.

For John Cobb’s session 4 on Ecology and Economy, a conversation partner like Julie Clawson (author of Everyday Justice) and another thinker would be followed by breakout sessions that correlate.

This is going to be a wonderful time – come to the registration page and sign-up now.

How Should We Read the Bible?

Listening to Catherine Keller recently http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/08/cahterine-keller-process-poetry-post.html) as she spoke on process theology (though not one myself), I became intrigued with several of her concepts related to how the Word of God is a living document that dynamically interacts with our lives. She spoke about letting the Word become incarnate in our language and within our relationships; to let language have a chance to become more of an event as it would be in a very intense, savory poem; and through language's linguistic openness discover its interaction within our very hearts and lives and those we meet. She was picturing God speaking to us, within us, through us, to the world that we live in. And that through this process God would be making his Word incarnate among us. That is, the divine Logos would incarnate his Word (his being, presence, person) to his creation to be Logos hosts-and-bearers of his incarnating Word. Speaking, living and breathing-out the life-giving Logos in real and daily circumstances where, in essence, both man and creation breath-out the Logos as the Logos breathes-in man and creation.

Catherine went on to say that God thus becomes enmeshed and entangled within our worlds as much as we become enmeshed and entangled within his being. That both Godhead and creation are in the transitional states of becoming (again, this is all process thought).  That these entanglements are delicate and are in the state of "blooming," as it were, delicately within us, and extending outwardly to those whom we meet, and even towards creation itself (within its various stages of evolving or blooming). And in all this process God is becoming in us, and in his world, through this expression and involvement of "God speak" (logos) through his Holy Spirit. True, this is all process language with its own theological foundations, but to my classical theistic mindset, I felt this language elevating and enhancing what I would normally describe as the living, breathing, Word of God through his Holy Spirit who leads and guides us in the Word's illumination, inspiration and revelation.

And so, as the divine Logos entangles within us, and we, as human logos' entangle ourselves within others, and within the world, both Creator and creation are enfolded one to the other or, one within the other. Hence, we are in a state of becoming embroiled and enfolded within the divine as the divine is embroiled and enmeshed within us. That we are each participants in-and-of the other: God in us and his creation, and we and creation in God. A foursome square as it were. I like to think of it as a rhombian fellowship, based upon the geometrical figure of the rhombus that evolves (for lack of a better word) from the Trinity's 3-part triangular fellowship, to a 4-part rhombian fellowship. Or, as another way of visualizing it, creation becomes part of a secondary triangular fellowship that completes the Godhead. Where all of creation, - and within it, mankind, - grows closer and closer in the becoming of one. Entangled, enmeshed, enfolded, until the Trinity (or Triunity) becomes complete as four in a four-pointed rhombus of fellowship. Which is carried out on a metaphysical, and not an ontological, level. As a fellowship retaining the distinction between of Godhead and creation. Where neither becomes the other, except in proximity or closeness in desire, plan, purpose, and intent evidencing a wholeness of will and fellowship.

And I think this is what Daniel Kirk is getting at in his two articles below where he at first removes the necessity of having an "inerrant Bible" (which is a late-addition evangelical idea voted on in the 1980s as a test of evangelical fellowship). But nonetheless, we do attest to having a divinely-inspired, authoritative  Bible (sic, http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/07/nt-wright-how-can-bible-be.html) as many post-conservative evangelicals and emergents are declaring without need for additional tests of fellowship being artificially and subjectively placed upon God's Word, which rests solely on the historical critical and contextual hermeneutical interpretation of Scripture.

Kirk then goes on to state that the divinely inspired revelation of the Bible is also a very human production. A divinely-inspired document that can slip from view when we spend so much effort redacting its historical, linguistic, and literary settings within its fleshly pages in neglect of its theologically revelatory material. And I would go on to add that because the Bible is the uniquely inspired revelation of the Godhead, and that because of its vital human authorship, we actually get a wide variety of views that each helps in individual-witness, as together in corporate-witness, towards completing a larger picture of God than if it were not a human autograph angelically-messengered, as it were, to receiving mankind.

An autograph based on the many separate lives of its authors tasked by the Holy Spirit with the Bible's inspired construction. Each of whom are writing and interacting with the source material from their separate backgrounds, their distinct insights, their separate cultural orientations and ethnicities, their unique timelines and historic eras, using a wide variety of literary forms - some essay, some biographical, some poetic - etc and etc. And because of all of these intermixed elements, the Bible dynamically re-discovers, re-tells, re-envisions God uniquely to us, its subtended recipients, who are as many and un-alike as the Bible's authorship is wide and deep. Presenting to us God's divine revelation in an enhanced, full-stereo techo-colour, rather than a silent black-and-white version of itself to mankind. A version that one wouldn't get if the Bible was a singular, undiversified, formulaic, ahistorical manuscript. Or written in a sterilized, mechanistic, culturally-bound, temporally-bound, singular historical setting, using robotic amanuenses (e.g., a secretary-like person that simply dictates revealed will without personal interaction upon the same material).

And so, knowing this, we must adjust our redactionary work accordingly - to take in all the richness of the Word of God, its heritage, diversity, and composition, - while stepping back behind its humanly constructed, but divinely inspired pages, to allow God to speak to us again on a relational, spiritual, theo-logos level. One where God would enfold us into himself, enmeshing and entangling himself into us, as Catherine Keller would say, in this most human of all processes of becoming, of being, within the divine mysteries of incarnating fellowship!

RE Slater
August 26, 2011

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The Miracle of Scripture 

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/08/24/the-miracle-of-scripture/

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

on August 24, 2011

What is so special about the Bible? Why do we keep talking about it? Why must Christians continually point to it as the way we know what is true about God?

Is there something miraculous about scripture? If so, what?

The answer that many of us encounter, and many of us cling to, is that the miracle is the perfection of scripture itself. Some might express this in terms of “inerrancy”: we believe the Bible, at least in part, because God has kept it perfectly free from error for us. Others might more generally refer to the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, majesty of style, and consent of all the parts.

No really. Some people do. I swear.

Such lofty exaltation of scripture can come at a price, however. For example, if someone holds scripture in high esteem based on a valuation of its inerrancy and then discovers that there are historical mistakes (e.g., Luke 2), unfulfilled prophecies (Haggai, Revelation), theological disagreements (Gen 1 & 2; Mark & John), or scientific problems (all the animals in the whole world on that Ark?), this can come with a loss of confidence in God, Christianity, the church, and one’s personal faith.

Might there be another way forward?

Karl Barth argues quite strongly that, yes, there is another way forward (Dogmatics §19).

The miracle of scripture does not consist in the fact that God kept the Bible free from taint of humanness, and especially of human limitation or sin.

Instead, the miracle of scripture consists, as in the salvation of humanity more generally, in the fact that God makes himself known through what is all too human, all too limited, all too often mistaken.

… the prophets and apostles as such, even in their function as witnesses, even in the act of writing down their witness, were real, historical men as we are, and therefore sinful in their action, and capable and actually guilty of error in their spoken and written word.

To the bold postulate, that if their word is to be the Word of God they must be inerrant in every word, we oppose the even bolder assertion, that according to the scriptural witness about man, which applies to them too, they can be at fault in any word, and have been at fault in every word, and yet according to the same scriptural witness, being justified and sanctified by grace alone, they have still spoken the Word of God in their fallible and erring human word.

And finally, this, which probably ends up going further than I’m entirely comfortable with, but by and large sums up some things I’ve been dancing around for years:

If God was not ashamed of the fallibility of all the human words of the Bible, of their historical and scientific inaccuracies, their theological contradictions, the uncertainty of their tradition… but adopted and made use of these expressions in all their fallibility, we do not need to be ashamed when He wills to renew it to us in all its fallibility as witness, and it is mere self-will and disobedience to try to find some infallible elements in the Bible.

In other words, this is the Bible we actually have. To demand another, an inerrant one for example, is to demand of God what God has not seen fit to give. It is to spurn the gift given and demand something better.

If God is not ashamed of an all-too-human Bible, we should not be either. This human collection of documents is the actual Bible that is the Word of God.

About J. R. Daniel Kirk: Professor at Fuller Seminary, resident of San Francisco, consumer of dark chocolate, brewer of dark beer, reader of Flannery O'Connor, watcher of the Coen Brothers, listener of The Mountain Goats.

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Word of God and Theological Interpretation 

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/08/25/word-of-god-and-theological-interpretation/

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

on August 24, 2011

Yesterday’s post probed a bit of Karl Barth’s doctrine of scripture. Today I want to think a bit about what such a view of the Bible as the Word of God might mean for how we conceptualize theological interpretation of the Bible.

The conference I attended in New Zealand last week was on theological interpretation. In short, the movement is designed to muster Christians to read the Bible as Christians, and not as ostensibly detached historians.

Scholarship has been mired by the idea that our goal is to use scripture to find a history behind the text that is the actual history we are concerned with. In general, scholarship has worked to assess the human hands’ work in inscribing the Bible, setting God entirely to the side.

So what does it look like for Christian scholars to embrace our conviction that this scripture is the means God has chosen to speak to the world in order to reveal, ultimately, the redemption offered in Jesus Christ?

I typically approach this question with a hermeneutical type answer: we read the Bible Christianly when we read it as a witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. A christological reading strategy keeps our readings focused rightly on Christ and on the fact that our calling is to live faithfully after him and in him.

An interesting question that was raised at the Colloquium last week, however, had to do with the fact that many of us spoke as though theological interpretation is an ecclesial practice. What does it mean to read the Bible as something written in, with, and for the church?

Many of us used such language in our presentations. But all of us were academics. Ok, there were one or two folks who were also ordained ministers. But we were engaging in a decidedly academic task.

All of this (Barth plus the Colloquium) got me wondering: if theological interpretation is predicated on the notion that the Bible is the word of God, is it viable to think that we can read the Bible theologically in the academy at all? If the Bible as the word of God depends on the fact that God chooses to take quite humans words and make himself known afresh through them, does that make academic study of the Bible, by definition, the wrong kind of practice for hearing the Bible as the word of God?

I think academic study of the Bible is crucial. And my seminary classroom regularly becomes a place where that academic study confronts the church with a demand for more faithful practice.

Moreover, rigorous scholarship opens our eyes to the thought world within which the scriptures made a certain kind of sense and bore various connotations that are too often lost on current day readers. So academic study of the Bible is crucial for hearing what was said. And, such study should help us see more clearly how, in fact, the Bible speaks about God.

But after we’ve said all that, can we expect that the Bible, studied in the academy, will be the Bible as word of God? Or will that experience of scripture depend upon participating in the hearing of scripture with a body gathered to hear it–or at least, listening to it as proclamation?

Or, to put things differently, might we expect that a group that has gathered to study the human hands at work, the human history as such, will be inherently less likely to be confronted with those human hands as “word of God” than a group gathered to hear (and listen!) to and for the word of God?

These really are questions, and I’d value your feedback. At root what I’m trying to figure out is whether Barth doesn’t offer us a doctrine of scripture that offers a helpful way forward in doing historical biblical scholarship without growing anxious that it does not immediately address us as word of God.

Given that the word is spoken in such historically contextualized modes, and that these are what God has chosen to speak through, might the process of shaping understanding of what the scriptures “meant” be the best way forward for Christian academics?

About J. R. Daniel Kirk: Professor at Fuller Seminary, resident of San Francisco, consumer of dark chocolate, brewer of dark beer, reader of Flannery O'Connor, watcher of the Coen Brothers, listener of The Mountain Goats.

Catherine Keller - Process, Poetry & Post-Structuralism

Process, Poetry & Post-Structuralism

by R.E. Slater

Side Note: I write this in 2021, ten years after posting here in 2011, to tell the reader that relationality is an immanent quality of process theology even as it cannot be entertained in classic theistic structures which lean heavily on transcendence of the divine - or God's apartness - from creation. Thus panentheism (not pantheism) must go hand-in-hand with relationality.

Too, I came up from the biblical side or Arminianism to get to this point not realising that "Open and Relational" theology is a major tenant of process theology and is more aptly described as "Open and Relational PROCESS" theology. Hence, two sides describing the same coin - one biblically and the other philosophically. Coincidental? Perhaps. Beautiful? Absolutely!

One last, it seemed natural to me to place together open theism with relational theism. Apparently many scholars resisted this joining which felt better together and apart from one another. Which is why I shall go on to always place an open future with a relational future. Eventually Tom Oord go on to become great friends who also came up from the Arminian (sic, Wesleyan) traditions even as I did my own Baptist traditions. Too, we both had to excised Calvinism from our biblical constructs in order to better grasp process theology. - re slater

I would like to propose a synthetic position between Classic Theism on the one hand, and Process Theology on the other hand. To borrow a term from process theology - that had once been considered but later rejected - to call it Relational Theism and go on to then explain this position as "Seeking a Postmodern Relational definition of Classic Theism."

It is an attempt to reconcile classic theism's theistic base without finding the need to move to the alternative panentheistic base of process theology. It neither disavows nor declaims process theology's statements of the Divine but wonders aloud if these statements couldn't better be described through relational terms from a theistic foundation that separates the substantive vs. the pervasive elements of process theology's discoveries back into relational theistic terminology.

And to those open and process theologians who are better versed in this philosophical research than myself, I ask for their help and assistance in developing the argument for the case of Relational Theism as a mitigating position between the classic and postmodern positions. I believe there is a validity to this effort that needs further exploration and a positive voice of research.

I should further note that this synthetic position may be unrelated to Thomas Oord's similarly voiced position that I only later discovered shortly thereafter. And although Oord does seem to lean in the same direction with mine own thinking it seems to require the correspondent terminology and language that currently fills process theology's research and development.

Perhaps, however, I am totally off base and we can only declare for either classic theism/open theology on the one hand, or for process theology on the other, with neither of the twain intermingling between their philosophical bases. Perhaps too, these are simply different halves of the coin, one looking at the Godhead from a deterministic viewpoint and the other from a non-coercive viewpoint. Only time and effort will tell if this is true. In the meantime I would suggest a better familiarity with both positions theological in this post-structural / post-modern age of philosophical denouement within the mystery of the Divine.

R.E. Slater

December 29, 2011

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Post-Structural Process Theologian
Catherine Keller

Process, Poetry, & Post-Structuralism

with Catherine Keller:

Homebrewed Christianity 112

Homebrewed Link

by Tripp Fuller

July 20, 2011

Catherine Keller is clearly one of the most brilliant theologians taking residence on our planet and she is our guest this week on Homebrewed Christianity!! We have done a bunch of process theology on the podcast but we haven’t had a process thinker who connects Whitehead with Deleuze and Derrida so sit back, relax, and get ready for a whole world of new ideas for your theological imagination. Catherine has a ton of books (On the Mystery is a book for everyone), Facebook author page, and a super-spiffy Professor page at Drew University (plus tons of free lectures\chapters for your reading).

Catherine is a theological poet…theology needs more poets!!! Many thanks to Catherine for sharing her imagination and time. May you all join the Nicolas of Cusa fan club.

- Deacon Chris from Australia Calls In (Twitter \ Blog)

- Nick & Josh Podcast & Nick’s Book of Hopeful Skepticisms

- Join us at Soularize for Homebrewed Christianity 3-D & Get the BIG HBC DEACON SPECIAL!!!

Homebrewed Audio Interview

(1 hr 23 min)

Enter website below and press the "play" button on the bottom:

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2011/07/20/process-poetry-post-structuralism-with-catherine-keller-homebrewed-christianity-112/

* * * * * * *

~ Some Definitions ~

Structuralism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism

Today structuralism is less popular than approaches such as post-structuralism and deconstruction. There are many reasons for this. Structuralism has often been criticized for being a/historical and for favoring deterministic structural forces over the ability of people to act.

In the 1980s, deconstruction and its emphasis on the fundamental ambiguity of language - rather than its crystalline logical structure - became popular. By the end of the century structuralism was seen as an historically-important school of thought because of the movements that it spawned, rather than structuralism itself, as having commanded attention.

Deconstructionalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction

A term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading. Heidegger's term referred to a process of exploring the categories and concepts that tradition has imposed on a word, and the history behind them. Derrida opted for deconstruction over the literal translation destruction to suggest precision rather than violence.

In describing deconstruction, Derrida famously observed that "there is nothing outside the text." That is to say, all of the references used to interpret a text are themselves texts, even the "text" of reality as a reader knows it. There is no truly objective, non-textual reference from which interpretation can begin. Deconstruction, then, can be described as an effort to understand a text through its relationships to various contexts.

Post-Structuralism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism

Writers whose work is often characterised as post-structuralist include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler and Julia Kristeva.

The movement is closely related to postmodernism. As with structuralism, anti-humanism, as a rejection of the enlightenment subject, is often a central tenet. Existential phenomenology is a significant influence; one commentator has argued that phenomenologists are post-structural existentialists."

Some have argued that the term "post-structuralism" arose in Anglo-American academia as a means of grouping together continental philosophers who rejected the methods and assumptions of analytical philosophy. Further controversy owes to the way in which loosely-connected thinkers tended to dispense with theories claiming to have discovered absolute truths about the world. Although such ideas generally relate only to the metaphysical (for instance, metanarratives of historical progress, such as those of dialectical materialism), many commentators have criticized the movement as relativist, nihilist, or simply indulgent to the extreme. Many so-called "post-structuralist" writers rejected the label and there is no manifesto.

Metanarrative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative

In critical theory, and particularly postmodernism, a metanarrative (from meta/grand narrative) is an abstract idea that is thought to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge. According to John Stephens it "is a global or totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience". The prefix meta- means "beyond" and is here used to mean "about", and narrative is a story constructed in a sequential fashion. Therefore, a metanarrative is a story about a story, encompassing and explaining other "little stories" within totalizing schemes.

In postmodern philosophy, a metanarrative is an untold story that unifies and totalizes the world, and justifies a culture's power structures. Examples of these stories are nationalisms, religion, and science, to name a few. Metanarratives are not usually told outright, but are reinforced by other more specific narratives told within the culture. In the case of Christianity, the school Nativity play is a good example of this.

Process Theology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_theology

A school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) and further developed by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000). While there are process theologies that are similar, but unrelated to the work of Whitehead (such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) the term is generally applied to the Whiteheadian/Hartshornean school.

For Major concepts - See:

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/08/process-theology-terence-fretheim.html >

• God is not omnipotent in the sense of being coercive. The divine has a power of persuasion rather than coercion. Process theologians interpret the classical doctrine of omnipotence as involving force, and suggest instead a forbearance in divine power. "Persuasion" in the causal sense means that God does not exert unilateral control.

• Reality is not made up of material substances that endure through time, but serially-ordered events, which are experiential in nature. These events have both a physical and mental aspect. All experience (male, female, atomic, and botanical) is important and contributes to the ongoing and interrelated process of reality.

• The universe is characterized by process and change carried out by the agents of free will. Self-determination characterizes everything in the universe, not just human beings. God cannot totally control any series of events or any individual, but God influences the creaturely exercise of this universal free will by offering possibilities. To say it another way, God has a will in everything, but not everything that occurs is God's will.

• God and the universe are interdependent realities (panentheism, not pantheism or pandeism). Some also call this "theocosmocentrism" to emphasize that God has always been related to some world or another. This speaks to the idea of immanent relationality.

• Because God interacts with the changing universe, God is changeable (that is to say, God is affected by the actions that take place in the universe) over the course of time. However, the abstract elements of God (goodness, wisdom, etc.) remain eternally solid.

• Charles Hartshorne believes that people do not experience subjective (or personal) immortality, but they do have objective immortality because their experiences live on forever in God, who contains all that was. Other process theologians believe that people do have subjective experience after bodily death.

• Dipolar theism, is the idea that God has both a changing aspect (God's existence as a Living God) and an unchanging aspect (God's eternal essence).

Alfred North Whitehead

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead

Gilles Deleuze

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Deleuze

John B. Cobb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Cobb

* * * * * * *

Our "Spooky Connectedness"

or

"Why I Love Catherine Keller"

http://processandfaith.org/blog/2011-11-08/our-spooky-connectedness-or-why-i-love-catherine-keller

by Jeanyne Slettom

November 8, 2011

People who write about process theology can be eloquent and inspiring, or intellectual and demanding, but for sheer poetic beauty no one surpasses Catherine Keller. Catherine writes as a theologian, yes, but also as someone who could as easily have gotten an MFA in writing as an MDiv and PhD in theology. Her writing aims for the liminal space in your psyche, where it emits flashes that illuminate your understanding and point you toward new possibilities.

I was reminded of this all over again as I read Beatrice Marovich's interview with Keller in Religion Dispatches (November 2, 2011, "Quantum Theology: Our Spooky Interconnectedness"). The interview is about a book Keller is writing, called Cloud of the Impossible: Theological Entanglements. In it she brings together Nicholas of Cusa and quantum physics, specifically, quantum entanglement, to reflect on the multiplicity of relations--between people, between disciplinary fields, between human and divine--that comprise our lives.

More than that I hesitate to say--I haven't read the book, only the interview! But her comparing Cusa's either/or "cloud of impossibility," where, as she says, "two different things that you believe come into conlfict and contradict each other," with the particle-wave uncertainty of quantum physics reminds me of my favorite comparison between Whitehead and Jung. Whitehead writes of turning conflicts into contrasts; Jung writes of holding the tension of polar opposities long enough for a "transcendent third"--a third element that includes and transcends the two--to emerge. In both Whitehead and Jung, a useful metaphor is a container large enough to hold opposing ideas without obliterating one or the other.

Our world is in terrible need of that container, give the increasingly dire struggle between economies of life and economies of death. And of course the transcendent third is not necessarily the best solution. We have already seen the polarity of Republican/Democrat resolved into the larger container of Wall Street and shadowy plutocrats--a disheartening development, to say the least, but one that calls not for despair but the search for a still larger container.

It is this--the insistence of possibility within impossibility--that appeals to me about Keller's project. Her language is both theological and scientific, but in preaching language, "possibility within impossibility" boils down to one thing: hope. And no matter what language we speak, that is something we all need.