Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: Documentary History of the King James Bible

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

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Documentary History of the King James Bible

Linking today's modern artists with the viewing and contemporary understanding of the Bible by Makoto Fujimura continues the work of past publishers, authors, historians and linguists in interpreting the Bible for all to read and enjoy. Here is a brief recount of the Bible's recent 400 year journey....

- skinhead

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A beautiful video on the convergance of modern art and
Christian worship, in the work of artist Makoto Fujimura.

Makoto Fujimura - The Art of "The Four Holy Gospels"

http://www.vimeo.com/16501697
by Crossway

The King James Bible

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/07/11/the-king-james-bible/#more-18336

by Scot McKnight

posted July 11, 2011

Last weekend Kris and I were in NYC, in Manhattan, to participate in a wondrous event commemorating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The event was sponsored by the American Bible Society, and their office is on Broadway, and the invitation came from my old seminary friend, Phil Towner, who is now Dean of the Nida Institute at ABS. Splendid event.

The Reception Friday night began with meandering through an incredible museum-display of English Bibles, beginning with Wyclif and Tyndale and Coverdale and Whitchurch and the Geneva Bible and The Bishops’ Bible to the King James. I had not seen most of these Bibles and here they were — originals — beautifully displayed. Perhaps more attention should be given to Wyclif but I was overcome with excitement to see Tyndale. There it was, probably 83% of the King James, done by a man on a mission, a man on the run, and a man who was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English. None of us failed to mention this in the events that followed.

William Tyndale stands against religious authoritiesin order
to present the word of God to the common people.

Though an obscure figure in history Tyndale did more to impact

the English language and English people throughout the world

than would William Shakespeare through translating the Bible,

the most widely read book in English history.

The reception, attended by more than a hundred, finished up with a brief talk by the world’s expert on the King James Bible, David Norton, a professor of English at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. (He didn’t fail to show us his office, a room with a view!)

We had a full day Saturday: it began with a full presentation by David Norton, who strolled through the history of the King James Bible with visual slides to complement his talk. My talk was on the theology of the New Testament translators of the King James as I have been trying to discern specific theological agendas in the KJB, but alas I find very little.

What most don’t know, and it is always worth emphasizing, is that the KJB was a revision, and mostly conservative, of The (already existing) Bishops’ Bible. The KJB sought to find common and acceptable ground between the Bishops’ and the Geneva Bible (the Reformed read this one happily), with some glances at the Catholic Bible (Rheims NT). It did, and that is why we are talking about its 400th anniversary.

My presentation was followed by a splendid sketch of the historical context of the KJB by Euan Cameron, a careful and judicious historian at Union Theological Seminary. Then a stimulating reminder by Marlon Winedt, a native of Curacao, on the significance of the KJB for non-English natives of the Caribbean — so significant I might add that sometimes they say the new translations are in the KJB tradition! KJB means authoritative and original.

The afternoon involved a video on the KJB, and I’d urge you to rent it or get it for your church: KJB – The Book that Changed the World.

(view here)

And the evening meant a special banquet with an oral performance of some KJB passages by Max Maclean and then a stimulating, motivating talk to remind us of the value of Bible translations by Roy Peterson. We were honored to be there, and again reminded of the importance of supporting Bible translations today.

Sunday morning meant a special service, which we were not able to attend, at Calvary St. George’s, with Tom Wright giving the homily on God’s living Word. (Hidden in this was that Tom Wright’s own translation of the New Testament is soon to be published.) On Saturday Tom sat near us and I found him frequently peering into the KJB he was given at confirmation as a youngster. I, too, grew up on the KJB and my first (Scofield notes) Bible sits atop a bookshelf in my library.

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History of the KJV - Part 1