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

-----

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

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Review: Christian Smith - The Bible Made Impossible, Parts 1 and 2

I have selected Dr. Roger Olson's reviews to help in the assimilation of Christian Smith's book since he interacts with a multitude of Christians either in favor of, or in opposition to, the subject matter. As prelude, I would encourage a reading of the introductory post earlier submitted for this project - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/10/read-christian-smith-bible-made.html.

- RE Slater
**********

Review: Christian Smith - The Bible Made Impossible, Parts 1 and 2
by Roger Olson

Posted on September 17, 2011
Summary - http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson?s=christian+smith

Part 1 - An invitation to read and discuss (here) an important new book
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2011/09/an-invitation-to-read-and-discuss-here-an-important-new-book/

by Roger Olson
September 17, 2011

In about a week I plan to begin discussing here The Bible Made Impossible by Christian sociologist Christian Smith (Notre Dame). The book was recently published by Eerdmans. I consider it one of the most important challenges to evangelical theology ever written. The subtitle is Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. I invite you to get the book and join in the conversation about it. It is only 178 pages long and easy to read, but it packs a real punch.

I read the book in manuscript form about a year ago. The author sent it to me and asked for my feedback which I offered. Now I’m reading it in its published (hardback) form. I will discuss it here two chapters at a time. I will wait, however, until those interested in reading with me have time to obtain a copy. (Books ordered from amazon.com usually take less than a week to arrive.)

Smith is a well-known sociologist of religion whose studies have been reported on in major newspapers. A recently article in our local newspaper reported on a recent survey of America’s youths regarding their attitudes towards morals. The results were shocking and dismaying.

In this book Smith dabbles (and I don’t mean that in any demeaning way) in theology. He studied at three seminaries and has a life long interest in theology. He graduated from Wheaton College and has, until recently, considered himself an evangelical Christian.

In The Bible Made Impossible Smith takes on what he calls evangelical “biblicism,” arguing that it is an impossible approach to the Bible and doctrine. By “biblicism” he means “a particular theory about and style of using the Bible that is defined by a constellation of related assumptions and beliefs about the Bible’s nature, purpose, and function.” (4) He lists and describes ten such assumptions and beliefs that together make up “biblicism.” (4-5) I will enumerate those for those who choose not to read the book, but I think it will be extremely helpful (thought not necessary) to read the book along with me as I discuss it. In fact, to a certain extent, I will assume my readers are reading or have read the book. Others can listen in and will get the gist of the book, but they may not understand everything being said about it.

I plan to discuss the first two chapters on Monday, September 26. If you order the book (I get no kickbacks!) this Monday you will have it by September 26. You can certainly get it sooner by ordering the Kindle (or similar) version.

I will be posting here between now and then–on whatever topics come to my mind. So keep reading!


Part 2 - Preview of my discussion of The Bible Made Impossible

by Roger Olson
September 22, 2011


Like some of you I’m very much looking forward to our conversations here about Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible. Christian sent me an autographed copy and expressed a wish that he would hear what my students think of the book. Well, I won’t be using it as a text anytime very soon, but perhaps Christian will listen in here and find out what I and you think about the book.

Christian sent me a manuscript of the book about a year ago and asked for my feedback which I gladly gave him. He (or Brazos Press) didn’t ask for my recommendation for the jacket of the book. I guess he/they didn’t think my feedback was positive enough. I will say that I am in overall agreement with his proposals, but I doubt they are going to be a cure for the disease of biblicism he identifies and describes. And I think the very term “biblicism” is broad enough to encompass what he suggests. (I don’t give up on good words like biblicism easily. Christian tends to equate it with fundamentalism. I don’t.)

One criticism I have is that most, and perhaps all, of Christian’s proposals are old. He is a master at packaging and defending ideas moderate and progressive evangelicals have been promoting for decades. I would call his book a model of what I call postconservative evangelical theology. But much of what he argues for (as an antidote to what he calls evangelical biblicism) was offered by Stan Grenz. And yet Stan isn’t even mentioned in the book except in a list of theologians in a footnote. I guess Christian came to the same conclusions independent of Stan, but there are striking resemblances between their approaches to the Bible. Also, Christian’s approach is very similar to Kevin Vanhoozer’s (and he does mention Kevin). I get space in the book (for my dogma, doctrine, opinion taxonomy) and I can tell Christian read Reformed and Always Reforming.

None of this detracts from the value of Christian’s book. To get the same ideas (without his book) you’d have to read quite a few books. He pulls much together in a way not elsewhere between two covers in less than 200 pages.

So watch for my first review of the book this coming Monday. I will discuss two chapters at a time which will take four messages here. The fourth one will be over only one chapter and the conclusion. If at all possible, please read the book before Monday or during the discussion.




No comments:

Post a Comment