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 from 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

Showing posts with label Emergent Letters to Evangelicals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emergent Letters to Evangelicals. Show all posts

Thursday, October 20, 2022

Reading the Tea Leaves of American Christianity...


Phyllis Tickle, Evangelist of the Future for
the Church and Common Good


The Future of Faith

September 22, 2022


September 22 marks the seventh anniversary of the death of Phyllis Tickle (1934 –2015), remembered for her contributions to religious publishing and as an author in her own right.

I think of her as a prophet.

In the last years of her life, Phyllis wrote the most influential book of her career: The Great Emergence. She invited Christians to think about the future of their traditions, theology, congregations, and spiritual practices. She was honest about what was ending and celebrated what was being newly birthed among us. That was her genius and joy — her unrelenting optimism about the future of faith. It was glorious to see her, in her mid-70s, speak about church and the future in a roomful of younger people with hope and confidence. Her exuberance for what could be coming earned her the nickname, “Evangelist of the Future.”

It was a privilege and honor to be one of her thought partners on that journey. We first met in 1998, when I was 39 and she was 64, and we worked together for the next seventeen years. She was a formative influence on my writing career and a trusted friend. I can’t remember how many times we shared a stage or followed one another in a pulpit. Most of it has melded into an embracing, expansive memory of “Adventures with Phyllis.”

But this week, one particular event came to mind. In 2010, she and I were invited to speak to the entire house of bishops of the Episcopal Church about the “emerging church.” (Aside for my Episcopal friends: the Rev. Stephanie Spellers led worship for this gathering.) It was a remarkable event that generated some of the most insightful and hopeful conversations I’ve ever had with denominational leaders. I felt energized — and believed that genuine institutional change would result from the work we’d done.

After the event, Phyllis and I drove back to the Houston airport together — and what happened in the car surprised me. I remarked on how well it had gone. And Phyllis replied, “It seemed to.” She paused, “I hope they listened. I’m not sure they realize how little time they have left.”

“What?” I asked, more than a little shocked.

“If you really look at the numbers, mainline churches don’t have much more than twelve to fifteen years left. The Episcopal Church is doing some things well. Maybe they’ve got a little longer.” The sentence hung in the air. “There’s not much time to change the future.”

I didn’t know what to say.

And I didn’t know how long she’d been thinking that the future was closer than most people imagined. Her predications for evangelical churches weren’t much brighter. In the decade we’d known one another, that airport drive revealed the most worried and least optimistic Phyllis I’d ever heard.

And, in the next five years, I’d hear her say it out loud. At clergy conferences, seminary gatherings, and publishing conferences. With wit and a smile, she’d warn her friends and critics alike: time is short.

* * * * * *

This week — the same week in which Phyllis died seven years ago — Pew Research released a report modeling the potential future of Christianity in the United States. While Phyllis worked on intuition and experience to think about the future (less data was available even a decade ago on these trends), Pew developed a model to draw four possible futures for American Christianity and released the report a few days ago.

Pew’s conclusion? By 2070, Christianity in the United States (the whole thing — all forms of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy, all racial and ethnic Christian communities in a single category) will be a minority faith in a nation with a majority of “nones.”

The study states:

While the scenarios in this report vary in the extent of religious disaffiliation they project, they all show Christians continuing to shrink as a share of the U.S. population, even under the counterfactual assumption that all switching came to a complete stop in 2020. At the same time, the unaffiliated are projected to grow under all four scenarios.

The Pew research team insists that they aren’t prophets, and that their formal demographic models are not set in stone — “These are not the only possibilities, and they are not meant as predictions of what will happen. Rather, this study presents formal demographic projections of what could happen.”

Yet they are also convinced that all their probable futures result in a far more religiously diverse America with a minority Christian population. “Of course, it is possible that events outside the study’s model – such as war, economic depression, climate crisis, changing immigration patterns or religious innovations – could reverse current religious switching trends, leading to a revival of Christianity in the United States. But there are no current switching patterns in the U.S. that can be factored into the mathematical models to project such a result.”


The Pew Report Research summarized in three charts





Perhaps 2070 seems a long way off — anything could happen between now and then. But, when you are trying to re-imagine and re-structure large religious institutions with complex histories and traditions, fifty years isn’t much time to prepare and retool them for a future of being a minority in a largely secular nation. Indeed, most churches probably should have started this process with honesty and courage at least a decade ago.

In short, Phyllis was right. The Pew study shows that probability has finally caught up with the prophet.

I hope people will listen

Demographics are not destiny; trends are not predestination. Although Christianity probably will be a minority faith in a much more pluralistic nation in the next few decades, those of us who are Christians still have much work to do in advance of that huge, historic shift. Denial is a terrible strategy. Nostalgia is a dangerous choice. Letting the future take its own course is a kind of surrender of responsibility.

What will be the shape of the Christianity in that future America? Will we welcome how different it will be or fight it? Will Christianity be part of the problem of our political future or contribute to a flourishing pluralistic democracy? How Christians respond to both prophets and probabilities of the future is a big deal — not only for our children and grandchildren, but for American Christianity right now. The choices that this generation makes impress themselves on those who will follow us.

Because the future is right around the corner.


Monday, November 8, 2021

Introducing SuperScholar Diana Butler Bass



 
Diana Butler Bass (Ph.D., Duke) is an award-winning author of eleven books, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America's most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality, especially where faith intersects with politics and culture.
Her bylines include The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com, Atlantic.com, USA Today, Huffington Post, Christian Century, and Sojourners. She has commented in the media widely including on CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, CBC, FOX, Sirius XM, TIME, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and in multiple global news outlets.
Her website is dianabutlerbass.com and she can be followed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. She writes a twice-weekly newsletter - The Cottage - which can be found on Substack.

Amazon Link


How can you still be a Christian?

This is the most common question Diana Butler Bass is asked today. It is a question that many believers ponder as they wrestle with disappointment and disillusionment in their church and its leadership. But while many Christians have left their churches, they cannot leave their faith behind.

In Freeing Jesus, Bass challenges the idea that Jesus can only be understood in static, one-dimensional ways and asks us to instead consider a life where Jesus grows with us and helps us through life’s challenges in several capacities: as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence.

Freeing Jesus is an invitation to leave the religious wars behind and rediscover Jesus in all his many manifestations, to experience Jesus beyond the narrow confines we have built around him. It renews our hope in faith and worship at a time when we need it most.

The Grassroots Movements which preserved Jesus's message of Social Justice for 2,000 years and it's impact on the Church today.

For too long, the history of Christianity has been told as the triumph of orthodox doctrine imposed through power. Now, historian Diana Butler Bass sheds new light on the surprising ways that many Christians have refused to conform to a rigid church hierarchy and sought to recapture the radical implications of Jesus's life and message.


Amazon Link

Diana Butler Bass, one of contemporary Christianity’s leading trend-spotters, exposes how the failings of the church today are giving rise to a new “spiritual but not religious” movement. Using evidence from the latest national polls and from her own cutting-edge research, Bass, the visionary author of A People’s History of Christianity, continues the conversation began in books like Brian D. McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity and Harvey Cox’s The Future of Faith, examining the connections—and the divisions—between theology, practice, and community that Christians experience today. Bass’s clearly worded, powerful, and probing Christianity After Religion is required reading for anyone invested in the future of Christianity.







The Cottage

Drop in. Sit down. This is a place to explore faith and spirituality. Especially for those who feel dissatisfied, discomforted, or uncertain about religion — and who need a different angle, a new view of things of the spirit. Here you’ll find both inspiration and thoughtful commentary. My door is open.

Notice: this space isn’t The Sanctuary or The Parsonage or even The Retreat. This is The Cottage. That’s because I’m not a clergy person or a paid religious professional. I’m a writer, speaker, and itinerant teacher.

And The Cottage is a real place in my backyard where I write, think, reflect, and even meditate and pray.

Virginia Woolf famously wrote that a woman needed a room of her own to write. My house is too modest for a separate office (I wrote two of my early books in my family room!), so we built this cottage in our yard to accommodate my library and my work. From here, I’ve written blogs, articles, essays, and books – and these days it serves as a makeshift television and recording studio! I look out of the Cottage to the garden and from there out to the world, which means that I view spirituality, religion, and faith from my backyard.

But unlike Virginia Woolf, I didn’t want to keep the cottage as my “own.” I wanted to open it up, invite in my friends and readers, to share the magic and the hard work of this space — and so I created The Cottage on Substack. Here, I’ll share what I’m writing, what trends I see, how faith is growing and changing, issues of concern, and things that I find interesting or challenging or beautiful. And, as The Cottage community grows, I’ll host conversations and threads so we can get to know each other — and share our questions, concerns, hopes, and gratitudes. It is good to have friends in these hard days. To feel less alone.

And, by way of full introduction, I am a Christian (even though that label is more than a bit awkward these days) and I write from that perspective, with a generous heart toward wisdom wherever it is found. The “creed” that guides me most closely aligns with these 1,000 year old words from the mystical poet Ibn Arabi:

There was a time I would reject those
who were not of my faith.
But now, my heart has grown capable
of taking on all forms.
It is a pasture for gazelles,
An abbey for monks.
A table for the Torah,
Kaaba for the pilgrim.
My religion is love.
Whichever the route love’s caravan shall take,
That shall be the path of my faith.

Or, in the simple words of Jesus: “Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Wherever you are on your journey, I’m glad your route has led to The Cottage.





Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality.

Diana’s passion is sharing great ideas to change lives and the world—a passion that ranges from informing the public about spiritual trends, challenging conventional narratives about religious practice, entering the fray of social media with spiritual wisdom and smart theology, and writing books to help readers see themselves, their place in history, and God differently. She does this with intelligence, joy, and a good dose of humor, leading well-known comedian John Fugelsang to dub her “iconic,” the late Marcus Borg to call her “spontaneous and always surprising,” and Glennon Doyle to praise her “razor-sharp mind” and “mystical heart.”

She holds a doctorate in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of eleven books. Her bylines include The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com, Atlantic.com, USA Today, Huffington Post, Spirituality and Health, Reader's Digest, Christian Century, and Sojourners. She has commented on religion, politics, and culture in the media widely including on CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, CBC, FOX, Sirius XM, TIME, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and in multiple global news outlets. In the 1990s, she wrote a weekly column on religion and culture for the Santa Barbara News-Press, which was distributed nationally by the New York Times Syndicate.

Her work has received two Wilbur Awards for best nonfiction book of the year, awards from Religion News Association for individual commentary and for Book of the Year, Nautilus Awards Silver and Gold medals, the Illumination Book Award Silver medal, Books for a Better Life Award, Book of the Year of the Academy of Parish Clergy, the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize for Church History, Substack Fellowship for Independent Writers, and Publishers Weekly’s Best Religion Book of the Year.

She and her husband live in Alexandria, Virginia, with their dog and their sometimes-successful backyard garden.


Saturday, June 23, 2012

How Evangelicalism Changed in 1978-79 with a Call to Fundamentalism

I thought when reading through Roger Olson's observations of Evangelicalism in the late 1970's that it would be helpful to remember to those of us caught in similar changes "up north" in the Western Michigan area of Grand Rapids (which we famously nicknamed in good humor the "New Jerusalem" of Christianity) because of its many Christian publishing houses (Zondervan's, Kregals, Baker Book House, Eerdmans), Christian organizations like Mel Trotter, Uncle Charlie's Children's Bible Hour, and the plethora of churches (nearly "one on every block").

To this one may add the global synod headquarters of the Reformed Church of America with its corresponding college/seminary Hope College and Western Theological Seminary of Holland, Michigan, and Kuyper College of GR; the Christian Reformed Church of North America and its correspondent Calvin College and Seminary; several Regular Baptist and Dispensational schools (Cornerstone University and Grand Rapids Theological Seminary (both my college and seminary experience), Grace Bible College, and the Grand Rapids School of Bible and Music, now past); and an excellent Catholic school Aquinas College now guided by a friend of mine, Juan Oliverez, whom I met while serving as a trustee for the Grandnet Community Project under the city's Delta Strategies initiatives of the 1990s to provide technology services for area non-profits and the Grand Rapids Public Schools through city and county help and coordination.

To this may be added our area preachers (of which I'm only familiar with a few not being raised in the area's Dutch population of Reformed and Christian Reformed churches) such as Dr. Richard DeHaan of Radio Bible Class fame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Bible_Class) and one-time pastor of my former church Calvary Undenominational (a Reformed church that would later become associated with the Independent Fundamental Churches of America (IFCA). Whose association bore within it connections to Dallas Theological Seminary of John Walvoord and Merrill Unger; J. Vernon McGee of Los Angeles; Charles Ryrie of the Ryrie Study Bible; Charles Feinberg of Talbot Theological Seminary, and John MacArthur; all well known to me, especially McGee's Texas drawl and beloved Thru the Bible Series that I grew up on). Before attending and ministering at Calvary Undenom (as a lay person only, I might add, in the college and single adult areas) I attended the very fundamental IFCA church of Grace Bible of Ann Arbor under the strong preaching of Raymond Saxe a converted Jew from South Africa who gave a steady modern day picture of what Billy Sunday of the early 1900s must've been like in his heyday as he preached Christ to the world around.

Then there was David Otis Fuller of Wealthy Street Baptist Church (my wife's aunt and uncle's church) that gave birth to a new church plant that would later become my long time childhood church of Calvary Baptist under Dr. Matthews and later, Dr. John White from Iowa (himself, trained at Dallas Theological Seminary), who was one of the best bible teachers and pastors I've ever met, and now has become largely forgotten. To Calvary Undenominational's rosters I might add my pastor Louis Paul Lehman (associated with Anthony Zeoli of Chicago who himself (Zeoli) had preached with Billy Sunday in a much earlier life. I later would meet A.Z. in his great age and have preached a 4-minute, late-night, mini-sermon to myself at my election using only the furniture of the Marriot Hotel room about us to tell of Jesus our Lord as I stowed away his luggage from check-in). Also George Gardiner, my wife's pastor of Calvary Undenom who, with my pastor John White, would together marry us in the unusual practice of a "double shotgun wedding" (my wife's and mine own humorous description of our wedding ceremony - not theirs!) but one they gladly cooperated in to our great delight.

Many years later, my wife and I left Calvary Undenom to begin ministry at Calvary's newest church plant under Ed Dobson, to be known as Mars Hill Church, pastored by Rob Bell of Love Wins fame and one of the reasons for the formation of this emergent blog. Our ministry didn't last more than several years before the many changes at Mars replaced us with specialized staff members (though by that time I needed a time of spiritual rest and more energy for my family and small consulting practice). Curiously, Anthony Zeoli's son Billy had begun Gospel Films (Muskegon, MI) that was supported by Radio Bible Class (DeHaan) and Amway Corporation's original founders Richard DeVos and Jay VanAndel, whose son Richard Jr. attended Mars Hill as one of its founding and current members. It is curious in that the plethora of Christian connections in our lives seem to ebb and flow through time as one would expect when God is stitching together a tapestry of support and nourishment around - and within - our lives, from cradle to grave, as He would eternity's net of recreation for this lost world He intends to redeem.

Thus, the saying goes in Grand Rapids that "everyone is related to everyone else in some way or in some fashion." This seems very true of my wife and mine own past histories of churches, Christian education and societal networks of associations, mission agencies, and friends. Consequently, when reading through Dr. Olson's review of Evangelicalism's change in the late 1970s it perked my interest to discover how my church's and college experience would later change because of those alarmist changes occurring in other parts of the country. And consequently, as one steeped in biblical fundamentalism, and later evangelicalism, I would have the new experience of being provided an incipient form (that is, a very early and immature form) of Emergent Christianity through Rob Bell who himself was home grown from my former church Calvary Undenom that I would later marry into from Calvary Baptist Church with my Regular Baptist roots and heritage (otherwise known as the GARB). Interestingly, the president of the General Association of Regular Baptist's (GARB) was Joel Stowell's father; Joel himself was the past president of Moody Bible of Chicago, and now current president of my former school and seminary (Cornerstone University & GRTS).

So then, forgive me for boring you with my personal background aside from the thought that it may be relative to the article posted below to help us understand how a religious group's ideas and changes can impact the lives of so many others in very unpredictable ways and fashions. What my southern brothers and sisters were going through were no less our experience in the northern churches with our austere and challenging church histories and denominational relationships. Relationships that stretch all the way back to England, the Netherlands, Scandinavia (the Swedish Lutheran Church of my mother's heritage), Germany and Poland for us here in West Michigan, Holland, and Grand Rapids. Which at one time or another God would use to call out a people for His name that Jesus might be preached to the four corners of the world through a variety of missional agencies and humanitarian missions such as International Aide of Spring Lake, MI (restored by the son of Robert VanKampen of the VanKampen/Merrit fund whom I met when building his palatial lakeside manse in the 1980s... sorry, I couldn't resist yet another connection!). Hence, to move forward it is important to remember our affective pasts and presents. Enjoy.

R.E. Slater
June 23, 2012

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


The Way We Were
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/06/the-way-we-were/

by Roger Olson
June 18, 2012
Comments

I realize nostalgia is not for everyone; I’ve always been a nostalgic person. I’m one of those people who walks up to your front door and says “I grew up in this house. Would you mind if I came in and looked around? I want to refresh my memory because I think about it a lot and some of the rooms are getting quite fuzzy in my memory.” You feel like slamming the door in my face, right? So I don’t do that. But I am tempted to it when I’m in a town where we lived when I was a child or teenager.

I’ve explained here several times why I can’t give up calling myself an evangelical. I won’t go back over that again except to say it’s part of my identity.

One instrument of forming that identity was a magazine called Eternity. I’ve mentioned it here before, too. I don’t remember exactly when I first began reading it, but it was sometime around 1973. Then I read it religiously until it stopped publishing sometime, I think, in the 1980s.

Eternity played a huge role in my theological development out of extremely sectarian Pentecostalism and fundamentalism into the larger, broader evangelical world. It was articles and book reviews and even advertisements in Eternity that intrigued me and caused me to look beyond my limited horizons and even beyond “normal” evangelical horizons. Eternity published articles by non-evangelicals such as Helmut Thielicke and reviews of books by non-evangelicals such as Hans Kueng. (I picked those names just because I saw an article by the former and a review of a book by the latter in a bound volume of Eternity from 1973 that I own.)

I own three bound volumes of Eternity—1973, 1974 and 1975, volumes 24, 25 and 26. Which tells me it began publication in about 1949. It evolved out of an earlier magazine called Revelation which was founded by Donald Grey Barnhouse in 1931. Eternity was published by The Evangelical Foundation headquartered in Philadelphia and somehow affiliated with Tenth Presbyterian Church which Barnhouse pastored for many years. Barnhouse was a well-known and influential fundamentalist-turned-neo-evangelical Bible teacher who had a radio program and wrote numerous books and commentaries. (He was somewhat unusual in being both Reformed and dispensational.) His successor as pastor and Bible teacher (on the radio program) was James Montgomery Boice (1938-2000)a pastor and theologian who studied with Karl Barth in Basel. Boice was my homiletics professor in seminary; I still have three written sermons I wrote for him. He seemed to like them. (Boice took a sabbatical from his pulpit and the radio program in 1976 to teach a “January term” at North American Baptist Seminary. It was there that I studied under him.)

Boice eventually became publisher of Eternity and then suspended it. For me that was a black day (or month). I was sad to see it go as it had served as one of my main avenues of socialization into evangelicalism. I do not know this for sure, I am speculating, but I suspect the Evangelical Foundation somehow or other turned into the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and that, in some sense, Modern Reformation is Eternity’s successor publication. I know that Boice was an early leader in the Alliance and I’ve always wondered where the money for Modern Reformation came from. Perhaps from The Evangelical Foundation? I’d be glad to know. I can’t find anything about the latter on the internet.

So what do I mean by Eternity representing “the way we were?” Eternity was by all accounts a mainstream evangelical publication; it leaned neither to the “right” nor the “left” although it published articles by evangelicals who “leaned.” Most of its regular contributors and editors, however, were middle-of-the-road evangelicals. If it had any agenda or editorial mission it was to serve as an instrument for expression of mainstream evangelical views.

As I’ve said many times before here, something happened within American evangelicalism around 1978. That was the year I graduated from seminary. That was also the year Harold Lindsell’s truly awful book The Battle for the Bible, about inerrancy, was published. I saw its effects close up. Suddenly, my mainstream, middle-of-the-road evangelical seminary was forced to adopt an inerrancy statement and professors who had been hired without any such expectation were forced to sign it or leave. I witnessed professors who had taught against inerrancy in classes sign the statement to keep their jobs. One refused and left. This happened all over the country.

Within just a couple of years the whole atmosphere of evangelicalism changed. Suddenly fundamentalism was rearing its ugly head within the ranks of mainstream “neo-evangelicalism” and in the Southern Baptist Convention. I went directly from North American Baptist Seminary to Rice University to study with Southern Baptist theologian John Newport who had taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and then, after I arrived, left Rice to go back to SWBTS as its provost.

The year was 1979. I sat in seminars with Newport as he reported to us blow-by-blow the “fundamentalist take over” of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Convention’s annual convention was meeting in Houston just a couple miles from the room where we met with Newport for seminars. He was attending the convention and pastors conference. He was dismayed by what he was hearing—that allegedly there were “liberals” teaching in the SBC seminaries! He had been one of them (according to some of his critics) because he wrote a book (co-authored with William Cannon) entitled Why Christians Fight over the Bible in which he denied strict inerrancy. Anyone who knew John, however, knew he was anything but “liberal.” If there ever was a God-fearing, Jesus-loving, Bible-believing Christian scholar, philosopher and theologian, it was John Newport.

Back to Eternity.

When I look back at those three bound volumes of Eternity what strikes me is the irenic approach the editors and authors took to issues. And how progressive and courageous many of the articles were—in confronting fundamentalism. For example, the January 1973 issue contains and article by a professor at Calvin College and his wife entitled “Was Paul a Woman-Hater?” The carefully crafted and biblically defended answer is “no” and the authors go so far as to argue that Junia was a female apostle. The implications are clear: they (the authors) believed in equality of women with men in ministry. The article purported to be a critique of feminists’ dismissals of Paul as a woman-hater, but, in fact, it was also a critique of conservative evangelicals’ dismissal of women as unworthy to be ministers.

Also in the January, 1973, issue of Eternity was a very well-written and insightful review of several movies (e.g., Straw Dogs starring Dustin Hoffman) entitled “Does Violence Have a Place?” by Karen R. DeVos. Her answer is yes—but not in the way Hollywood presents it. She complains that too many movies glorify violence as an initiation into true manhood.

The February, 1973 issue contains an article by Lewis K. Glanville entitled “How to Succeed as a Middle-Class Christian.” The title, like many Eternity article titles, is ironic. The thrust of the article is anti-middle class values and pro-social justice.

The same issue contains a book review of two books by Rudolf Bultmann by Nancy B. Barcus. While she is mainly negative toward Bultmann’s demythologizing hermeneutic, she points out positive contributions as well. Like most Eternity book reviews, it looks for the light even in unexpected places and advocates that evangelicals read scholars like Bultmann discerningly. (In contrast to fundamentalism that would usually forbid reading the likes of Bultmann!)

The March, 1973 issue contains a review of David Moberg’s The Great Reversal by Ronald Enroth. Enroth strongly commends the book for telling the story of evangelicalism’s abdication of social responsibility between the early 19th and early 20th centuries.

Many articles in Eternity during the 1970s promoted evangelical social action that today would be labeled “liberal.”

The April issue contains a ringing call for irenic evangelical relationships in spite of serious disagreements over secondary doctrinal matters by Vernon Grounds, president of Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary (now Denver Seminary). The article’s title is “How to Keep the Peace.” Grounds concluded “As Christians concerned about keeping a genuine and permanent peace among ourselves, we must labor together according to these principles. There is no reason in the world why our charity, harmony and unity should not compel the reluctant tribute even of unbelievers , ‘Behold, how these evangelicals love one another’.” (p. 38)

How terribly that advice was ignored in the coming decades as evangelicals began to devour each other over different views about the Bible, politics, women, predestination, God’s foreknowledge, the salvation of the unevangelized, postmodernity, and creationism.

The May, 1973 issue contains an article on prayer by Helmut Thielicke—a leading neo-orthodox pastor and theologian of Germany. Chances are he wouldn’t get published by any mainstream evangelical publication two decades later because of his view of Scripture.

The same issue contains an article by David Hubbard, president of Fuller Seminary, entitled “Should Evolution Be Taught as Fact or Theory.” Hubbard served on the California Board of Education’s committee responsible for textbook selection for public schools in that state. His treatment of this thorny issue is a model of common sense balancing with a cautious "yes" to evolution and resounding no to "[scientific] naturalism".

The issue also contains an article by Lewis Penhall Bird entitled “Can a Christian Ever Consider Abortion?” This and other articles on abortion in Eternity routinely referred to fetuses as “potential human life” (as opposed to full human persons). The article is definitely anti-abortion on demand but recommends compassion toward women who feel they have no other option.

Also in that issue was an article by D. Garth Jones entitled “Does ‘The Genesis Flood’ Solve All Our Problems?” Like many Eternity articles it is anti-young earth creationism.

That’s enough to illustrate “the way we were.” Mainstream, middle-of-the-road evangelicalism was, in the 1970s, irenic, open-minded, culturally-sensitive and inclusive. At least compared to today’s evangelicalism.

Eternity was a popular, not scholarly, magazine, but most of the articles were by scholars. Many of them were by Donald Bloesch, Bernard Ramm, Vernon Grounds and others who later came to be considered dangerously liberal by neo-fundamentalists who somehow managed to manipulate evangelical (and Southern Baptist) opinion to become paranoid about alleged creeping neo-orthodoxy and liberalism among the ranks of the biblical scholars and theologians.

What’s the evidence of that change? Well, of course, it will be called “anecdotal” and “impressionistic” by my critics, but I will simply claim insider experience and knowledge and let you, my readers, decide whom to believe.

During the 1990s I served as editor of a leading evangelical journal called Christian Scholar’s Review. For five years I listened to complaints by our editorial board (representatives of fifty mostly evangelical colleges and universities) about attempts to get colleagues to submit manuscripts for our consideration for publication. Very common was the answer “I’m afraid to” even among very evangelical scholars at conservative evangelical institutions. The opinions and results of research they wanted to write about were not radical or extreme; they were very much like those reported in more popular form in Eternity earlier. Suddenly they were grounds for investigation and possible firing.

A professor of theology at a leading evangelical institution was fired because his wife wrote a book promoting egalitarianism. (In response Eternity published an excellent article entitled “Why Do the Absolute Absolutists Always Win?”)

A leading evangelical professional society moved toward expelling a well-known and highly regarded evangelical scholar over his opinion about the infancy narratives in Matthew’s gospel. (The scholar resigned from the society before his expulsion came to a vote.)

Suddenly, increasingly throughout the 1980s and 1990s, evangelical voices were raised in anger and hostility against fellow evangelicals. A spate of publications decried the alleged defection of evangelical scholars from the faith “once for all delivered”—by Charles Hodge. Of course, that wasn’t what was said, but it was the subtext of many of those books. “The Stout and Persistent Theology of Charles Hodge” (article title by David Wells) was being turned into the norm for all evangelicals—something unheard of in the 1950s through the 1970s.

I taught in two evangelical institutions of higher education from 1982 to 1999. At the first one, in 1983, under pressure from conservative constituents, the entire theology faculty was asked to fill out a doctrinal questionnaire that contained questions such as “Do you agree with B. B. Warfield’s doctrine of the inspiration of scripture?” We took them uncompleted to the administration—all together—and laid them on the provost’s desk in protest. Fortunately, we never heard about it (at least while I was there). Suddenly, the president began talking about “inerrancy” from the chapel pulpit whereas he had never mentioned it before and no faculty member had ever been queried about it before.

Gradually, throughout the later 1980s and throughout the 1990s, the mainstream, middle-of-the-road evangelical college where I taught for 15 years came under tremendous pressure from angry, inquisitorial pastors and lay people. One Bible professor who suffered much was a conservative Old Testament teacher who dared to teach amillennialism (!). Dispensational premillennialists in the denomination wanted him fired even though the denomination had never had a doctrinal position on millennial views. Increasingly throughout the 1990s the college’s and denomination’s irenic evangelicalism was tested again and again and began to melt away as neo-fundamentalist pastors, inspired by leading neo-fundamentalist biblical scholars and theologians, began to bombard the college’s administration with complaints about alleged faculty defections from “the received evangelical tradition.”

Eternity is the way we were. It’s not the way we are. But what I want to do with this blog, at least occasionally, is point back to the way we were and urge contemporary evangelicals to return to that irenic spirit and broad-mindedness about secondary matters. My hope, faint as it is, is to convince evangelicals to turn a deaf ear to the loud, angry voices of the neo-fundamentalists who have crept in and stirred up completely unjustified fears of heresy among the laity and pastors.

Let me close with just one example of the kind of thing I think we need to ignore or perhaps call out as unjustified. A leading conservative evangelical scholar and professor wrote “I cannot escape the dreadful feeling that modern evangelicalism in the West more successfully effects the gagging of God…than all the postmodernists together.” Really. This is just one example of what I regard as the over-the-top, breast-beating, “sky-is-falling” evangelical warning that wouldn’t have been given a hearing in Eternity in the 1970s. And yet it is all too common today.

- Roger Olson


Postscript by RE Slater:

And lest their is any doubt, postmodernism is where it is at today for those of us choosing to upgrade our fundamental/evangelical heritage towards an Emergent Christian perspective. Which, of course, is the stated purpose of this webblog. One which is in large agreement with Dr. Olson's post-conservative Evangelicalism but which finds the identity of Emergent Christianity a more open and welcoming form of Jesus expression to the non-Christians to whom we wish to minister.

Those Evangelical, progressive Evangelicals, and Fundamentalist Christians who wish to join us are welcomed by Emergents, but no longer at the expense of the ministry and witness of the Word of God's revelation of God's love and salvation come to man because of religious barriers and dogmatic concerns. As has been shown time and again herein, those barriers and dogmas can come down, and nicely, without losing God or His Word. It is more ourselves that need the changing.... Our posturings and biblical perspectives. Our culture and attitudes. Our fears and disappointments. This calling to Grace that we have must not be impeded by ourselves, our churches, our associations, schools or denominations.

And it is to this gracious background that I recall in mine own earlier days of involvement in Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism that I elect now to return to under a larger umbrella of thought and practice, academia and worship. One that I now chose to define and understand as Emergent Christianity. Though it practices vary widely, and its adherents are scattered and diverse, I believe there is a time and place that we may begin joining in to this newer definition of a Christianity that is expansive, permitting, gracious, and inviting to all men and women everywhere. And that Jesus' message may be seen, heard, felt and experienced through His people, the Church, by the rightful power of the Holy Spirit of God. I invite all readers to join in and rebuild the Church of God to the glory and honor of God's holy name magnified above all heaven and earth. Whether emergent or not, we are all of one brotherhood and sisterhood of Christ.

Amen.

R.E. Slater
June 23, 2012


Come [then], ye who are weary, and take my yoke. Learn of me.
For I am gentle and lowly in heart. And you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Mt 11.29-30)

Be now my faithful laborers...




Saturday, December 31, 2011

Emergent Christianity - Relevancy22: Becoming an Emerging, or an Emergent, Christian


Dear friends,
Lord of the Harvest

On the last day of the year 2011 I would like to express gratitude for your support and a continuing prayer that Jesus be lifted up in our lives. This blog site is a story not only of mine own journey, but the journeys of so many others, seeking to lift Jesus up in their lives in as many ways as is humanly possible. May God bless you in your service and ministry as we proclaim the name of Jesus to all nations.

First, let me say that I am thankful for the wide spectrum of Christian fellowship that has been discovered in this journey. I have found many Christians who are as disquieted with the directions that modern day Christianity has strayed as I am. Who understand that postmodernism has brought with it a differing set of concerns, issues and topics that must be addressed. That by ignoring those concerns we do a disservice to the church at large and to our local fellowships specifically.

Secondly, in addressing a wide variety of Christian topics through this web blog I have found that God has been addressing as wide a spectrum of humanity as we could imagine in all its many lives and involvements. From scientists to liturgists. From philosophers to theologians. From humanitarians to Gospelers. From work-a-day worlds to high-level disciplines. From sports writers and columnists to poets and novelists. From disconnected communities of faith to global societies seeking greater positive communication with each other. God is providing a lens to Himself for all of humanity to see. That is being expressed in-and-through the many activities of man. And it has been exciting to behold the Spirit of God at work on so large a cosmic scale.

A Personal Story

For myself, my experience with Emergent Christianity took a long time to warm up to. About ten years altogether. At first I considered it a rouge Christian sect. Then a Gnostic sect dressed up in the postmodernism of Christian garments (for those new to this blog postmodernism wasn't the problem... gnosticism was). At times it felt overtly political and biased. Or as a new form of retrograde OT worship with its emphasis on Jewish customs, dress, calendar dates and diets. Or simply a revitalized Protestant liturgy providing a visual warmness to the stark barrenness of evangelic worship. But when any of these events occurred and ran their course God would do an amazing thing. He would always bring the discussion back to Jesus. Why? Because the people around me had their heart set on God. They were sincere. And wished to sincerely follow God wherever He would lead. And in their sincerity they veered off course from time to time. But God blessed them and moved them back into the truer Gospel of Jesus. One that could be discerned, and debated, and reasoned. They were learning to disengage and refocus back to the core of their beliefs. It was messy. It was not perfect. We had side discussions that tried to become core discussions. But eventually became seen for what they were. God was blessing this congregation of sincere followers and it was evident.

So then, Emergent Christianity's birth for me was by those who spoke it unclearly. Who were searching for this new postmodern day movement's core message. Its themes. Its character and distinctions. Who saw the parts but not the whole. Who had a limited grasp of interconnecting doctrinal subjects. Who viscerally reacted against a brand of Christianity they did not want but would only later learn to speak more fully. And in more positive terms to the brotherhood at large. In less scandalising terms of provocation. Who belatedly would emphasize community, growth, unity, wisdom and discernment. They were learning to be confident in God's love and peace rather than continuing to harshly judge the same folks who were harshly judging them. It took maturity to do this. It began with repentance. And a newer patience with people who reacted to the stings of Emergent Christianity's very different themes from their own evangelical or progressive themes. And mostly a patient trust in God's leading.

For this movement was as new to this congregation of emergents as it was for myself when it was first introduced. What we were witnessing was the birth of an unknown thing called Emergent Christianity. It was unformed and immature. It was in its stages of infancy. No one really had a clear idea of what it was. Just what it wasn't. Or didn't want to be. As an example of its many changeling forms let me speak to one of its earlier ideas....

As introduction, usually when observing something new its meaning for the Christian believer brings about a certain amount of wariness and concern, as we think critically about the teachings of a heretofore unemphasized, or unknown, perhaps popular, insight or teaching. There is at first a personal/public resistance that occurs. Along with some historic provisioning of support for - or against - the present Christian tradition or popular understanding of the Christian faith. Too, its newness might simply be a counterfeit truth arising from its proponents in an unbiblical direction. A direction that takes the focus off Jesus and puts it onto some other aspect of worship or intermix of religious dogma with pagan beliefs. Rather than being a positive, directional change in attitude, foundation or theme of Christian doctrine, it could also be a negative, misdirectional change that had lain dormant within, or beside, Christianity until now. For 2000 years Christians have reacted to cultural and historic events by adapting their faith to these type of events. To changes that may later become cultural tradition that would last century after century. Or that may last no longer than the lifetime of its proponents.

Because of Emergent Christianity's relative newnessmistaughtmore personal, inside knowledge of God. His truths. And His teachings. And in the case of this fledgling movement that I found myself unsuspectingly in the middle of, I beheld a form of early Christian Gnosticism that claimed a freshness of insight that would revitalize personal worship. "All well and good!" I thought, until seeing that its adherents were claiming a level of secrecy or mystery about themselves (and of Jesus himself!) that the rest of us more common followers of Christ seemed unable to obtain for whatever reason. Apparently we weren't privy to a certain knowledge; or did not act in a certain way; or believed certain things. Largely it was an excluding form of faith and worship warmly performed by various mystical followers believing they had the inside track to God. It was a gnostic form of what these untrained laymen were claiming to be "Emergent Christianity." It threw me off at first and made me very wary of "Emergent Christianity." But later I was to discover that it was the teachers, not Emergent Christianity itself, that had gotten it wrong. In their fervency to discover God's mysteries and wonders these brethren had added a gnosis of understanding to the Gospel which the Gospel did not need nor require.

And so I waited. Patiently. Praying for God's leadership and discernment. Seeking illumination from the Holy Spirit to guide me in my thoughts and heart. Participating where possible. Listening. And interacting. Attempting to discern the many nuances that were being presented to me by a wide variety of people. It took time. Lots of it. About ten years before I could make a reasonable decision on how to interact with the material that I was being given and digesting.

The Start of a New Story

But at the last I finally decided on what the Emergent message was (or at least should be). And decided to become a self-proclaimed spokesperson for this movement to friends, family and any who would listen. I came to this decision in the spring of 2011 when listening to hasty Evangelical messages of judgment and condemnation made upon Rob Bell's book, Love Wins. God's love didn't seem to be winning at all, I thought. It was only serving to create hard-and-fast boundaries between Christian brothers and sisters. I was ashamed. And embarrassed for my faith. How could a book on God's Love so divide so many assemblies of believers as to shout out harsh sentiments that caused so many to scratch their head and wonder why?

And it was from those self-same speeches, sentiments and articles that a whole new world opened up to me of  mankind. I now better understood the Emergent Christian message. And better knew where I should go with it. The heated Christian rhetoric and dissension was moving me from a place of neutrality towards a discriminatory position that would actively seek to re-construct my historical faith in postmodernistic terms. It was a good place to be. It seemed like the first place where we had once begun with God at rebirth when all things were new and possible. I liked that place. And having turned to follow the Lord into this direction am glad that I have.

Now whether Emergent Christianity is a true movement or not, or just an attitude implanting itself into the various vicissitudes of the Christian culture I don’t know. At present, I take it as a general church movement. One that is without boundaries and owned by no denomination or movement. It is a movement unto its own that is widely supported by both local and global Christian writers, theologs, pastors, and fellowships, as each explores its meaning for the revitalization of their Christian faith.

Overall, I take the position that however God wishes to use it, it’s ok with me. It’s His to use or not use. We are but God's vessels that He uses to carry streams of living water to humanity. Its basic message is Jesus. Who He is and what He would look like if He were with us today. His message and ministry is given to His followers to proclaim. It is our task, then, to resemble Jesus. To speak God's love and grace. To disciple. To mentor as many as we are given in Christ Jesus.

Moreover, it is mine own journal of discovery birthed this past spring from the confusion and affliction of words I was hearing by evangelical Christians not understanding emergent Christian concerns. Nor making any attempt to understand it. They had deemed it a threat to their traditional faith as they made it out to be. And sought to protect its religious dogmas by pulpit, by word, by printing press, news article, and digital blog. I knew then what had to be said. And it needed to be said well.

The Postmodern Themes of Emergent Christianity

In my attempt to create an Emergent Christian web blog I have had the following criteria and goals:

First and foremost it must somehow capture in writing Emergent Christianity's structure, thought processes, and arguments. As much as possible this web blog has attempted to do just that by journalizing as many emergent articles and subjects as possible for future referential material.

Secondly, this blog will attempt to be open to new emergent discoveries. Especially when pertaining to postmodern discoveries. To be open to self-examination while reviewing past church traditions and historical interpretations of Scripture. To allow irenic debate and discussion. And examining all models of church, doctrine, worship, and ministry against the newer postmodern models as they arise.

It will not argue for one way or another. One style or another. But remain upon to a multitude of ways as can be adapted by followers of Jesus. Consequently there is no wrong way of apprehending Jesus to humanity. It is as wide as we are imaginative. There are no restrictions so long as God's love and grace are received and dispatched.

But it will also argue its idea of Emergent Christianity against other more conservative, or more radical, ideas of Emergent Christianity. Overall, it will seek to be faithful to Scripture without abandoning Scripture's relevancy or authority for the Church today. But it will not pretend to cling to church dogmas and traditions should those efforts not reflect the same singularity of purpose. It will be critical (in a positive sense) of those interfering humanistic structures as they are found and discovered.

Too, this blog was developed as “An Emergent Christian web journal for contemporary doctrinal expression and theology with web links to authors, speakers, institutions, and organizations.”

As such, the lowest common denominator I will use when writing is the expression of God's love demonstrably seen in service of people to one another. Who exampled Christ in their lives and considerations regardless of their faith distinctions.

It should also be partly academic, partly devotional. Academic to re-teach Christians their living faith. Devotional to keep us humble before God.

In it I intend to communicate what I know while exploring things I don’t know. It’s my own spiritual journal that I wish to share with both followers of Jesus and with those who don't know Jesus.

But it is also a reference site. As such, when I blog on a subject I may go back and re-edit it until I feel I have it right as I think about it in later hindsight as an evolving discussion. Or as a series of discussions.

And because it is a reference site I will try to compact large topics into a single blog space. This may make for longer blogs - though I try to keep these within reason. For most readers anything beyond a couple of paragraphs will be too long. But there are better blog sites for this type of reader that I have listed as helps for daily input (see the Blogger Link List along the sidebar).

At times newer sidebars will be created to re-filter past topics with newly discovered topics that I've found in order to help streamline research efforts.

Jack awakening in the first and last
moments of LOST
Within the blog itself I try to provide direction. Not answers. And if answers, then baseline discussions that instill further exploration and discoveries. If you’re a LOSTIE (used of followers of the TV show LOST) you’ll know what I mean. The Christian faith seems to raise more questions than it provides answers. God is that large. And so is humanity.... But I firmly believe that the answers must come through us. We just need better questions.

Sometimes I must un-teach what Christians think they know. At other times I must better teach what we all assume that we think we know.

I use mine own words along with the words of others. Mostly, they are from emergent speakers and writers, theologs and preachers, as I can find them. They will be posted either without comment or with comment. But always with a correspondent link to the site or blog being reviewed. This is the journal side of this blog.

Generally I try to speak lucidly about the distinctions of the Emergent Christian faith with other faiths to the right or left of Emergent Christianity.

Because it is an emergent Christian journal of exploration it asks modernistic Christianity to lay down its own modernisms and to recover Christianity through postmodernistic discovery. This affects both language and the linguistic mechanisms behind that language to better help widen the scope of our conception of God. Of His Gospel. Of our place in this world. Consequently it may feel unfamiliar. Different. Odd.

It intends to be radical. To be provocative. To unsettle readers. To broaden the basis of contemporary discussion in a fast-paced world networking with dissimilar faiths and beliefs. I make no apology for this.

It requires deconstructing the Christian faith as much as reconstructing the faith (most think emergent Christianity is simply the first idea!). My gifts lie in the latter. Others the former. I try to include both.

Working towards a Christianity that works

It is asking for another way. One that untangles itself from the verbiage of Catholic and Protestant statements built-up over 2000 years of church ideologies. It is meant for recovering Calvinists and for Latinists both! It is meant as a help. A guide. A new line of thinking beyond our parochial understandings given to us by our parents. Our teachers. Or the hard lessons we have received from life's over-eager and broken hands.

The Global Themes of Emergent Christianity

It is a blog whose task must be global. That is missional to all religions and faiths of the world by declaring Jesus to all nations. To the philosophies of man. To his private theologies. And to his myopic belief structures.

It is one that tries to see beyond Western Civilization’s judgments upon the Gospel. To de-Westernize it. To de-Americanize it as much as is possible. But with an attitude of thanksgiving to the hosts of legacies given to this same task over the many centuries behind us. From these legacies we can and must improve!

To uncover and declare cultural and national missional outreaches through global perspectives, ministries, and writings, as they are performed and enacted.

To globalize doctrines that were not meant for exclusive cultural consumption. It is the right of the Gospel to do this. Emergent Christianity wishes to recognize that right and not limit the Gospel by our cultural, or personal, biases.

As such, Christianity needs to find ways to talk to Muslims, Hindus, and Oriental cultures. Jesus came to all humanity. Not simply our own American, Westernized, Christianized societies. He is not our own. Jesus belongs to all men everywhere. It must be so.

Offering streams of living water
to all nations
Globalizing the understanding of the Gospel by Emergent Christianity is a very necessary task. It is integral with the uplifting of Christianity in general. Evangelicalism has done a lot in this regard. But it has also delimited the Gospel by its own regional and popular dogmas. Emergent Christianity wishes to build upon these efforts and proclaim Jesus to the Nations beyond popular folklores and sentiments.

Emergent Christianity must allow for global input. And for global assimilation. But this does not mean that Christianity gives up its fundamentals of the faith when assimilating Christ to the Nations. It simply means that we do a better job of expanding the Gospel of Christ to the Nations. Of unhooking it from its many local, regional, and societal preferences and religiosities.

Some Concluding Thoughts

Additionally, this web blog is focused on contemporary theology. My academic background is in biblical theology but my concern is speaking the bible’s passages into contemporary thought and actions.

There are other blogs which can provide more extensive biblical dissertations than this one. But if a strict biblical section were to be added it would occur as a whole other sidebar that would run parallel to the one that is already present. And it would be labeled as "biblical theology” providing word and contextual studies; more focused biblical narrative/story development; and tying all these subject matters into the larger meta-narratives of the bible.

Consequently, other websites can provide biblical passage denouement and explanation. Mine is to take those sites’ discoveries and relate them back into the real world. As contemporary theologies. With an emergent focus.

The ancient Greek Titan Atlas
holding up the heavens before
St. Patricks Cathedral, NYC
This blog seeks to lend direction to the Emergent Christian faith. To provide a sense of continuity from modernistic Christianity to postmodernistic Christianity. To give followers of Christ a more relevant faith in sync with the world at large without losing its “saltiness.”

It is wholistic. Intending to meld together the many separate discoveries of the Christian faith into one Theistic whole of ideologies and practicums.

It is imperfect. It is subjective. It is specific in its interests and focus. It is limited in its subject matter. It is limited by myself. And in my understanding. And by my spiritual gifts. And by my makeup as a person with specific interests, perspectives, and desires.

Because of these imperfections I have conjoined my thoughts and insights with other emergent blogger's thoughts and insights in hopes of providing a fuller space of ministry to a wider-range of audience and issues than I alone can hope to provide.

It also proves that there is a community of writers, thinkers, doers, and activists, who are likewise investigating these similar Emergent truths and themes with myself. That it is not a solo effort by an elite, mostly ignored,  movement of people charged with the oblique tasks of re-righting Christianity's ponderous oversights and neglects. But one showing a community of effort from many differing realms and avocation's. And hopefully one providing a wisdom of unity and accountability as it is being worked out. Studied. And put into action.

It is therefore my hope that in the telling of this new story of Christianity - an Emerging story - that some of its qualities and uniqueness may be better understood. Thank you for your support in these efforts and your willingness to consider new territory. And through it all may Jesus Christ be proclaimed as Lord and Saviour to all men everywhere. May God's peace and blessings follow you through the remainder of your days.

R.E. Slater
December 31,1 2011

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/

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For further follow up please go to this next article that identifies everything that we have been talking about here. (It's short, by the way!) - Emerging Church, Version 2.0