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

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Church and Kingdom as Inaugurated Eschatology in Process of Finality


Amazon Link

Book Description

According to Scot McKnight, "kingdom" is the biblical term most misused by Christians today. It has taken on meanings that are completely at odds with what the Bible says. "Kingdom" has become a buzzword for both social justice and redemption so that it has lost its connection with Israel and with the church as a local church.

McKnight defines the biblical concept of kingdom, offering a thorough corrective and vision for the contemporary church. The most important articulation of kingdom was that of Jesus, who contended that the kingdom was in some sense present and in some sense in the future. The apostles talked less about the kingdom and more about the church. McKnight explains that kingdom mission is local church mission and that the present-day fetish with influencing society, culture, and politics distracts us from the mission of God: to build the local church. He also shows how kingdom theology helps to reshape the contemporary missional conversation.


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The Biggest Mistake in Kingdom Talk
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/11/21/the-biggest-mistake-in-kingdom-talk/

by Scot McKnight
Nov 21, 2014

The most common mistake I hear when people are talking about kingdom is comparison talk. It goes like this or this or this or this:

  • “So you think kingdom and church are the same (but not identical), then you need to come to my church because that will show you the difference.”
  • “Kingdom is the ideal, church is the reality.”
  • “Kingdom is justice, but church is injustice.”
  • “The church is but an approximation of the kingdom, a manifestation of the kingdom, but it is not the kingdom because the kingdom will be a utopian, perfect, just, reconciled, loving society.”
  • “The church is now but the kingdom is not yet.”

Each of these fails on a fundamental element of how the NT talks about kingdom. So, I want to provide a crash-course in just a few paragraphs in what is often called “inaugurated eschatology.” (I am using Kingdom Conspiracy in what follows.)

Present, Future, Both Present and Future

Instead of providing an RSS feed-length listing of Bible verses, I will give two statements of Jesus for kingdom as present and kingdom as future.

The kingdom as present:

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15)

Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:20-21).

The kingdom as future:

Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God (Mark 14:25).

While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once (Luke 19:11).

No matter how you cut your bread – lengthwise or crosswise or just nip off the crusts – these texts indicate with clarity that the kingdom of God, that long awaited promise, was already present and still in the future. It is reasonable then to argue that for Jesus the kingdom was both present and future. It was, to use the terms of the arch inaugurated kingdom scholar, George Eldon Ladd, “present without consummation.”

The Church as Inaugurated Reality

Back to our point about the big mistake: What do we compare the church to? The present inaugurated kingdom or the future complete and glorious kingdom. Read on because the church too is an inaugurated reality.

Church as Now and Not Yet

There is one fundamental observation that changes the whole perception of what church is and once we do we will be able to compare church and kingdom more accurately. The church is an eschatological reality as well. The futurity of the church is often ignored. We now need two columns on the board: on the left write “Church Now” and on the right write “Church Not Yet.”

The Church Now

For the Church Now we think of Paul’s constant struggles with his churches, and who can ignore Corinth and the back and forth letters and travels all over morality and theology and division and … well, the church at Corinth was a mess. The same messiness is found in all other churches.

The Church Now is the church gathered in broken leadership, broken fellowship, broken holiness, broken love, broken justice, and broken peace. Every page of each of Paul’s and Peter’s and John’s letters and the Book of Hebrews and Jude leads to the same observation: the Church Now falls short of the Church Not Yet.

(Dan Kimball, what say you?)

At this point we need to make an observation: because so much of “church” thinking focuses on the Church Now without examining the Church Not Yet, any comparison of church with kingdom, which tends (as I have said already) to focus on the Church Now over against the Kingdom Not Yet, tends to conclude that they cannot be the same.

Yet, if we compare Kingdom Now and Church Now we arrive at the same place, and as we are about to see, if we compare Kingdom Not Yet with Church Not Yet, we will discover once again a full overlap.

The Church Not Yet

For the Church Not Yet I think not only of the promises that the church will inherit the kingdom (Matthew 16:17-19; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; Romans 8:17; Ephesians 1:18; Philippians 3:20) but even more of Ephesians 5:25b-27, where you can see the Church Not Yet in full glory:

… just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (see also Colossians 1:22).

Notice the terms Paul uses of the Church Not Yet: radiant, without stain, without wrinkle, without any blemish, holy and blameless. These terms do not describe the Church Now except in part; they instead describe what the church will be.

When?

When the kingdom’s fullness arrives or, to use now completely appropriate terms, when the church’s fullness arrives. I think, too, of Revelation 21-22, but especially of the long, beautiful passage about the church as the bride of the Lamb descending in full glory into the New Jerusalem in the New Heavens and the New Earth, proving once and for all that the church, like the kingdom, is an eschatological reality with a Now and a glorious Not Yet [aspect to it]. I quote Revelation 21:9—22:5:

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. - Rev 21-22

Kingdom describes the people governed by King Jesus. All we see of that kingdom now is an inauguration creating a tension between Kingdom Now and Kingdom Not Yet.

But church describes the very same realities: the People of God (Israel Expanded to be sure), is an eschatological reality, a People of God that has a Now and a Not Yet.

C.K. Barrett, a leading New Testament scholar of the former generation, called the church an “eschatological monster, a prodigy.” And he defines the church as “the people of the interim.”[ii] He’s right: the church is now and not yet, partially redeemed on its way to full redemption. So, what is said of the kingdom in the New Testament is said of the church in the same New Testament. To quote Bonhoeffer:[iii]

… the church according to Paul’s understanding presents no
essential difference from Jesus’ ideas [about the kingdom].
- Bonhoeffer

If we want to make comparison, we need to compare Kingdom Now and Church Now or Kingdom Not Yet and Church Not Yet. To compare, as so many do, Church Now with Kingdom Not Yet is not fair to the church (or the kingdom).

The mistaken notion that only the kingdom is the final form of God’s redemptive community drives the current inability to see the important overlap of kingdom and church today. If kingdom is the future perfection and the church the modern mess, then kingdom and church are not comparable.

The mistake is to compare the incomparable:

  • To compare present church to future kingdom is to compare the incomparable. (Kingdom wins.)
  • To compare the present kingdom with the future church is to compare the incomparable. (Church wins.)
  • To compare present church with present kingdom is to compare the comparable. (The same.)
  • To compare future church with future kingdom is to compare the comparable. (The same.)

So let’s return to that opening and I’ll rework the whole by comparing present kingdom with the future perfect church:

  • “So you think kingdom and church are the same (but not identical), then you need to come to my inaugurated kingdom group because that will show you the difference.”
  • “Church is the ideal, kingdom is the reality.”
  • “Church is justice, but kingdom is injustice.”
  • “The kingdom is but an approximation of the church, a manifestation of the church, but it is not the church because the church will be a utopian, perfect, just, reconciled, loving society.”
  • “The kingdom is now but the church is not yet.”

Let’s get our analogies straighter.

Let’s not diss the church in the name of the kingdom. The church is the Body of Christ and Jesus is the king of the kingdom. You can’t have one without the other.

Thank you. God bless.

- Scot


References

[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a seminar paper for his theology professor at Berlin (R. Seeberg), all but identified church and kingdom but found two (mistaken) distinctions: the church is present while the kingdom is both past Israel, the present church and the future completion. I see the church as Israel expanded and I see the church as future as well. See “Church and Eschatology (or Church and the Kingdom of God),” in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Young Bonhoeffer, 1918-1927, ed. Hans Pfeifer et al, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 9 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 310–324, here referring to p. 314. On p. 315 he says the church and the kingdom in the here and now are “temporally identical entities.” But see his more expanded sense of kingdom of God when it includes the state’s mandate for order in Bonhoeffer, Berlin: 1932-1933, 292–295.

[ii] C.K. Barrett, Church, Ministry, and Sacraments in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1985), 13, 25.

[iii] Bonhoeffer, The Young Bonhoeffer, 1918-1927, 316.


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