Why Process Theology is NOT an Evangelical Post-Conservative Theology

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Postconservative theology may be said to parallel with “postliberal theology” at its best. Orthodox, biblical, but open to new insights about how to interpret Scripture. But the new insights must be faithful as well as fresh. Postconservative theology is not the same as "progressive theology,” which tends to lean toward indeterminant faith expressions, whereas “postconservative” allows for particular faith commitments and expressions but understands that the constructive task of theology is never finished. Authors emphasize various interpretive theological lenses used for doing theology among various postconservative theologians, rather than emphasizing the philosophical background to hermeneutical theory present in other works, such as past influential thinkers (including Gadamer, Grondin, Ricoeur, Heidegger, etc.). This resource could also function as a companion to Evangelical Theological Method: Five Views (2018). This emphasis of the chapters will not be on the nuts and bolts of “how to” interpret, but rather on the theological impulses that govern various lenses (Bible, cultural context, etc.) for doing theology and the way Scripture functions with respect to the practice of interpretation.

CONTENTS

My response: R.E. Slater

A cursory view of the above book seems to say this is a handbook on evangelicalism from a continental view (or more broadly, a global view) claiming it is postconservative in a postmodern sense. Which is all well and good but process-based philosophical theology cannot be said to be a real participant in evangelical post-conservatism. Moreover, Process is also the truer heritage of Open and Relational Theology (ORT) though Thomas Oord has been paring it down to be more palatable for evangelics to accept.

Secondly, the three titles mentioned in the last photo above (Cambridge, Blackwell, Routledge) may hold some interest for those like myself who wish to branch out away from evangelicalism's acclaimed post-conservative look.

And thirdly, I dearly appreciate Roger Olson as he was my way out of Calvinism in the early years of leaving evangelicalism however, Roger stopped short of Whitehead's process-based implications for Christianity back between 2014-2017 when I was following him. Thus my inclusion of Roger's Fall 2018 article further below on "What Is a Post-Conservative Evangelical?" 

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Why Process Theology is NOT an

Evangelical Post-Conservative Theology

 

by R.E. Slater

The simple answer is that process theology is altogether different from traditional Christianity. It's philosophical basis is different. It's emphasis is different. It's gospel is different. And it's God is different. Let me introduce what I mean in rather ineloquent, if not crude illustrations:

Process' Philosophical Basis

Process philosophy, otherwise described by Whitehead as a "Philosophy of Organism," is organic, relational, experiential, and spiritual. It is more related to the Eastern philosophies than it is to the Western philosophies wherein Christianity was birthed and described by Hellenised Jews.

Alfred North Whitehead was a British scholar who late in life felt Einstein's physics needed a more sufficient basis metaphysically than what he was hearing from the scientists of his day. So he picked up where Hegel had left off a hundred-plus years ago and described cosmology in terms of a living, sentient-like, organism which can only be described in the momentary present. Years later, today's quantum physicists are describing a universe very much like Whitehead was in the early 1900s.

Then theologians like John Cobb came along, picked up Whitehead's metaphysic, and fleshed it out in Christian terms such that there is a God which "organized" the universe into a "becoming" essence from the "static" hot mess that it was; Cobb declared this Creator-God to be "ever-present" in the moment at all times with creation.

And should we go back into antiquity to explore the Semitic cultures such as the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Jewish Israelites we will find many, many, many ancient mystics and religious view expressing something similar about God's creation (the universe) as a living, evolving, hot mess that yearns for freedom, connection, and meaning. In short, this is process philosophy and theology.

Processual Emphasis

We live in a universe which isn't "living" unless it is connected to other processes. As "no man is an island" so too "no man or woman can have any sense of being without finding connection with something." Thus, a process-based cosmogeny is one that is relational. And with relationality comes experiential reaction.

For example, even as an atom or a quark responds to another atom or quark they do so because of their relation to that atom or quark and their consequential act of experience resulting from that relationship. Nothing in the universe can be described without these two metaphysical building blocks... that of relationality and a resulting experience from a relationship.

In Christian terms, God's eternal nature is one that reaches out for connection (relationship), responds to that connection (experience), which then creates new connections for God and for that thing (or soul) interacting with the divine. In Whiteheadian terms, God is the Primary Cause to all Secondary casual effects.

Further, as God is related to all things so all things are related to God. There are two things here:

One, God's Image is not only a part of everything, but deeply integrated, or embedded, into the fabric of creation. I commonly think of this as a panentheistic (not pantheistic) relationship between God and creation where God is God and creation is something other than God.... However, because God is the Primary Cause God's Image or God's DNA is an integral part of creation wherever it is and whatever it is.

In practical terms, tather than describing man theologically as being a sinner born with a sin nature, man was - and is - made in the Image of God wherein there is no sin or sin nature in creation nor humanity. So the question must be ask, "How does sin result?" In process terms, NOT from our presumed "sin nature" (which is a Greek philosophical idea) but from our freewill choices, otherwise known as creaturely "agency".

This "sin nature" then is part of evangelicalism's Western assumptions about man's creation when reading the bible and building a "biblical systematic theology." But there is nothing "biblical" about it... the ancient Semitics didn't posit this but the Greek's did. Process theology therefore is more Semitic than it is Greek. (As an aside, the bible was collected from oral traditions but it's collection was occurring during the Hellenistic Age, hence the Jewish scribes were already being influence by Greek thought even as the NT disciples were many years later. One further observation, Jews don't believe in original sin... so a study of earlier semitic religions might help distinguish this idea a bit further).

Two, evangelicalism teaches that in Jesus the idea of redemption became "fully understood" as it was related to the Old Testament's evolving teaching on the motif of atonement. Examples: God was Abraham's own atonement when walking between the sacrifices indicating covenant. Moses rehearsed atonement time-and-again throughout Israel's Wilderness experience. The Kingdom Era gave solidarity to the Atoning/Redeeming God by purity of worship to the one-and-only God. And the New Testament book of Hebrews proclaimed Jesus as Israel's High Priest and Redeeming Lamb of the world.

Process theology agrees with these observations but goes many more steps farther when asserting that these mercy-based forgiveness-and-rectifying events were every bit as personal as they are today in Jesus (my old teacher Leon Wood had said that once). Moreover, the history of the earth is rife with everyday cruciform events from Eden-like respites to salvation from evil.

Each-and-all of these cruciform events find there fulfillment in Jesus... however, in process theology Jesus can also be said to be illustrating the Image of God which is birth throughout all processes of the universe... that is, until creational agency disrupt's God's generosity, benevolence, protection, and generally divine activity of redeeming all things to himself. Point being, Jesus's atonement was part-and-parcel of creation's essence in God; Jesus may have been the signifier but he wasn't the only cruciform event in the universe's history. I like to think of Jesus' atonement as being birthed "from the ground up" in affiliation with, and reconcilement to, creation's own "becoming."

The Gospel is Different

God is not to be feared because of God's anger and wrath... no, the medieval idea of "fear" is that of respect and honor, as one would a "king or potentate". Process theology's central core is that God is love above all other divine attributes. Moreover, those attributes of holiness, mercy, caring, justice, etc, all have their basis in divine love.

That is to say, evangelicalism states - even as traditional Christianity had previously taught in centuries past - that the basis for human interaction with the Creator God was a relationship built on fear of the divine because of God's perchant to judge sinful lives with all kinds of "reaped" terrors and horrors ("...as ye sow so shall ye reap"). Example: the story of Job.

In comparison, process theology declares that God is never evil but at all times loving. That God's love is "an always condition" and how God's relationship to creation acts... this also includes all of mankind.

But, this doesn't mean that our sinful acts don't processually evolve over time into horrible things... it simply means that our sin is on us... including what may evolve from our sinful actions. Hence, as God is love let us love. Not to avoid harm and tragedy... but as being faithful to whom God created us to be as loving creatures willing to love and forgive.

So then, the good news (or gospel) of Christ is that God loves and loving forgives and redeems at all times in our lives. Every horrible situation can be redeemed in some way... even if it can't be stayed from it's culmination... even so, a gospel shoot of redeeming love can be planted for some future day. Thus and thus, the evangelical idea of "propitiation" or "expiation" for our sin is both true and untrue. True in that it declares what was said in the first sentence of this paragraph -  God loves and forgives. But untrue in that we are sinners born with a sin nature... rather, we are sinner's who bear God's Image who can be redeemed.

And, this God is Different

Lastly, traditional Christianity likes to emphasize God's power, dominian, and presence - and yet, God's power isn't immediately obvious, nor his godly dominian, nor God's presence. God , like Santa Clause, is here when we are good, and not here when we are bad.  Yet Process theology says God's power is mitigated upon our circumstances - a tornado cannot necessarily be diverted nor a hungry bear from it's prey.

That is, God helps as God can but creation must lean into God's activity to assist as well. Which places the onus on us. For instance, we might learn how to protect wives and children from abusive husbands but this is more of a process-event thing than a one-time act. Ditto with migrants and refugees fleeing terror.

So we must ask, "What is our responsibility for earthly terror and what can we now do to alleviate it?" We must ask this as politicians and generals... as business and church leaders... as civil servants and environmentalists... what positive roles can we better inhabit than we have done over the years past?

Similarly, process theology states that NO future is ever determined but all futures are open and pregnant with possibility, opportunity, hope, and forgiveness. God has given to us and the universe evolving futures with infinite possibilities from one moment to the next. And because God's Image is embedded in creation we have the additional hope that every event may bear goodness rather than evil.

In Conclusion

In the above paragraphs and illustrations I have shown how process theology differs from Westernized Christian philosophy - however "post-conservative" they wish to describe themselves. Over the years I have elucidated these process motifs by explaining and demonstrating how process can work in social, scientific, political, and ecological situations. It is why I far prefer process-based Christianity over any past traditional Christianities. And it is my hope to take the good of the Christian past and heighten it through process thought. Ditto with all human endeavors in life.

Lastly, I describe my site as being "post-evangelical" and not simply "post-conservative"... I do not wish to any longer build upon any forms of traditional, denominational or evangelical theology. Nor is progressive evangelicalism the same this as progressive process-based Christianity. Rather, I wish to take these past forms of Christianity and fill it with a better language... a (metamodern) processual language.

Peace and Blessings,

R.E. Slater

October 29, 2024

Edited: October 30, 2024

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What Is a Postconservative Evangelical?

by Roger E. Olson

October 22, 2018

This is how I describe myself and many others who think in a way similar to my way—about being “evangelical.” For a fuller explanation see my books Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical Theology (BakerAcademic) and How to Be Evangelical Without Being Conservative (Zondervan).

Not many theologians I know want this label slapped on them. However, N. T. Wright accepted it and named me in his book Justification. I thought I coined the label back in the 1990s in an article for Christian Century entitled “Postconservative Evangelicals Greet the Postmodern Age.” Then I found out Fuller Seminary Professor Jack Rogers actually wanted his book Confessions of a Consevative Evangelical titled Confessions of a Postconservative Evangelical. That would have fit the book better. Also, Clark Pinnock used the word “postconservative” in his book Tracking the Maze, but his use and mine are not identical.

I coined the term (or thought I did) to describe a new breed of evangelicals who do not privilege “the received evangelical tradition” over fresh and faithful biblical scholarship (such as is being done by N. T. Wright and others). The “foil” for postconservative evangelical theology is evangelical theology deeply influenced by Charles Hodge, B. B. Warfield, and the whole Old School Princeton Theology following them (e.g., David Wells, Roger Nicole, Millard Erickson, et al.)

Postconservative evangelical theology is evangelical theology that does not consider the constructive task of theology finished. Conservative evangelical theology is evangelical theology that considers the constructive task of theology finished. These theologians are primarily interested in the critical task of theology—discovering heresy and exposing it. They are also interested, of course, in translating older versions of “the received evangelical tradition” (e.g., Hodge) into contemporary idiom.

Postconservative evangelical theology does not elevate “biblical inerrancy” to the status of an evangelical dogma or (to borrow Carl Henry’s term) the “super badge of evangelicalism.” Postconservative evangelical theology does not privilege epistemological foundationalism and finds some ideas of postmodern epistemology helpful.

Postconservative evangelicals like: Lesslie Newbigin, N. T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, James McClendon and Nancey Murphy, Stanley Grenz, Clark Pinnock, et al. We mostly stay apart from the Evangelical Theological Society and attend events of the Missio Alliance and Ekklesia Network.

But the main difference between postconservative and conservative evangelicals in theology is attitudes towards the constructive task of theology. For postconservative evangelicals every doctrine is subject to revision in light of fresh and faithful biblical interpretation (not cultural accommodation). The Bible absorbs the world and is our authoritative narrative (but not a “not-yet-systematized systematic theology). Doctrine is important but secondary to Scripture.

The manifesto of postconservative evangelicalism is the late Stanley Grenz’s book Revisioning Evangelical Theology (IVP).

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The article below is from the conservative evangelical viewpoint

which refuses Dr. Olsen's wisdom for it's own... - R.E. Slater

Reformed and Always Reforming:

The Postconservative Approach

to Evangelical Theology

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Written by Roger E. Olson

Reviewed By Adonis Vidu

There seems to be a growing recognition that the evangelical world is deeply fragmented. Some have even gone as far as to say that the word “evangelical” has lost any discriminating force, that it no longer identifies a homogenous movement. Olson agrees with the diagnosis of the fragmentation, but argues that the movement has in fact always been inherently at conflict with itself. The historical root of this specific make-up is the twin inheritance of Puritanism, with its accent on right belief, and Pietism, stressing spiritual experience. The present outgrowth of that tension is reflected in the intense and sometimes unfair debates between conservative and postconservative evangelicals. This book sets out to chart that tension, from the perspective of a postconservative.

Olson’s thesis is that “it is possible to be more evangelical by being less conservative” (p. 7). He does not believe that conservative evangelicals have a monopoly on the essence of evangelical Christianity. In fact, their own manner of asserting a certain cognitive component of Christianity is tributary to a modernistic epistemology. On the other hand, postconservatives, without denying the importance of the cognitive, tend to see the enduring essence of evangelicalism, its contribution to world Christianity in its transformational vision. The latter see Christianity first and foremost as a religion of transformation. If doctrines are important, they are always secondary to the ongoing work of the Spirit, transforming the lives of people into the divine likeness.

The itching point in this conflict is how one conceives of the authority of the Word of God in relation to Scripture and whether theological revision is consistent with being an evangelical. Olson argues that conservatives are actually betraying the authority of Scripture when in practice they hang on to certain “classic” doctrines just because they are part of the “established evangelical position.” Although sometimes they confess that their ultimate authority is Scripture, in practice they show almost no willingness to revise a theological position in light of what might be “fresh” understanding of Scripture, as Olson likes to describe it. On the other hand, postconservatives locate ultimate theological authority in God and the Holy Spirit, who speaks through the Scriptures. Olson is ambiguous on this score, since on the one hand he claims that he is ascribing more authority to Scripture than conservatives, but on the other hand he rejects an “unnuanced equation of Scripture with God’s Word” (p. 108) and prefers to locate authority directly in the continuing work of the Spirit in the contemporary church through Scripture. As a result, the past is binding, but not in the sense that it has to be repeated. Rather, theological construction is free to be creative, to draw on the truth that is found in culture, to use its imagination in order to re-perform (Vanhoozer) the script that is found in Scripture. However, the bottom line for Olson, as for many postconservatives, is that if Scripture is authoritative, it is only by its being included in an ongoing drama of redemption, which began at creation and is presently unfolding towards its eschatological consummation.

Although the essence of evangelicalism is experience rather than right doctrine, orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy, Olson insists against popular misconception that doctrine remains important for postconservatives. But doctrine is a second-order reflection upon the experience of the church. Of course, once one puts it like that one must also be ready to explain why this is not Schleiermacherian liberalism. It is common place that Schleiermacher made the starting point of theology a universal human experience. The difference, Olson contends, is that postconservative theology appeals to a particular and supernatural, rather than a universal and natural, experience of being saved and being constituted into a redeemed community by the Holy Spirit.

The reason that it is possible, therefore, to be more evangelical by being less conservative lies precisely in the second-order nature of theology. If theology is subservient to an experience, then what is primary is the authenticity of that experience. What distinguishes evangelicals is not primarily right doctrine, but having one’s life centered on Jesus Christ, experiencing spiritual transformation after his own image through the power of the Spirit. Olson explains this by arguing that evangelicalism is a centered set rather than a bounded set. What defines it is its experience of the risen Christ, rather than boundary-setting right doctrines.

It is hard to do justice to such a wide-ranging book in such a short space. It is even more difficult to properly critique it, since restraint due to space might be mistaken for hurried dismissals. It is rather clear that American evangelicalism is facing years, possibly decades of intense theological debate and perhaps confrontation. This is what I believe will, or should, set the agenda of those conversations.

First, Olson makes a compelling point about the inherently unstable nature of evangelicalism. I am not sure that can be resolved short of a magisterium that legislates what belongs and what does not. I think more work needs to be done on the understanding of the cohesion between Puritanism and Pietism, as well as other influences that have contributed to the development of modern evangelicalism, including modernity and postmodernity. But sociological designators are themselves inherently unstable. There are no universal encyclopedias to tell us what the essence of an evangelical is. At the same time, I found Olson’s identification of the essence of evangelicalism with an experience to be only a partial description of its contribution, as long as no mention was made of justification by faith. If one were to use a classic pair of concepts, Olson does tend to place the emphasis more on sanctification than on justification, when in fact a creative dialectic should be preserved between them.

A second issue that Olson leaves pretty much hanging is the relation between the cognitive-propositional and the transformational aspects of revelation. Although he does acknowledge that there are propositional aspects to revelation, he does not seem willing to allow them to carry through into doctrine so that there might be certain doctrines which are epistemically primary, so to speak. This becomes even more important given his acceptance of holism (not a very nuanced one, for that matter), which in its more extreme forms holds that any belief whatsoever can be abandoned in the face of compelling evidence or for the pragmatic purpose of keeping the balance of the system. But if any belief can be relinquished, in what sense does it continue to speak of the authority of the Holy Spirit that speaks through the Scriptures? Moreover, and this pertains to his set analogy, how is it possible to even identify the center apart from some description of circumference? Unless we speak of circumference, even if we allow variation in distance from the center, what we will have identified is not a center, but simply a dot, a point in space. However, it is analytic to a point being a center that it is in some relation to circumferences.

Finally, Olson’s understanding of the role of tradition is somewhat self-contradictory. On the one hand he does relocate theological authority from the past (Scripture) into the present (continuing work of the Spirit), by circumventing tradition, but he seems not to realize that this present is precisely tomorrow’s tradition! He forgets that Eastern Orthodox Christianity views tradition as precisely the life of the Spirit in the church. So the direction in which I can see more research being done is the relationship between Scripture, the Great Tradition, and the epistemic relevance of the continuing work of the Holy Spirit. Admittedly, much evangelical theology is pneumatologically underdeveloped, but it remains to be seen whether compensating for that weakness should lead precisely in the revisionist direction favored by Olson.

What Franklin Graham says about his Christian brothers and sisters...

rotflmao

What Franklin Graham says about his Christian

brothers and sisters...

I usually have made it a policy not to bring up personal names and institutions at this website which I disagree with; rather, I prefer to speak more generally to the problem, or issue, at hand using generalized categories, if I can. But from time to time I will... as is the case today.

"Cynically, I can't imagine what Franklin Graham would say about Post-Evangelical Process Christians if he thinks my Evangelically Progressive Christian brothers and sisters in Christ are going to hell... oh, wait a minute... I really don't care." - re slater

Many of us who are interested in living out our Christian faith in all facets of our lives also realize that to do this will be the great temptation to always judge other people and their passions. As a Process Christian (or as a Progressive Christian for those who are still in the evangelical camp) we prefer to lead with love and forgiveness even though its one of the hardest things to do around those who do not carry this attitude.

One of the major reasons I moved away from my former conservative evangelical faith was because its center was fixated in condemnation and judgment upon everyone around itself. In order to know who we were we learned that our "Christian" identity was bound up around isolation and exclusion rather than around Jesus whom we gave lip service to but unlike Jesus we struggled with reaching out in love without personal bias or condemnation upon others. Or the world around us. Or even those in our church fellowship.

One of the other major distinctives of my former dominionist church (one which wishes to govern government by removing the imaginary barrier between church and state with its own exclusionary church laws of morality led by racism and white supremacy) is that it is centered in division, hate, and perhaps even self-loathing.

Which is why we know conservative evangelicalism today as a Trumpian form of Christianity having chosen to be led by the infamous ex-President, Donald Trump, and his gangster gang of thieves and rogues. An unhealthy popular personage which many progressive/process Christians will recognize as an antichrist than as Christ's representative on earth. A fellow sinful human being who is a very poor, and tragic idol, for any Christian of faith to follow... and yet, they do, vociferously.

At the last, the Church of Jesus must resist, challenge, re-center itself, and recommit itself to Jesus fully... and in repentance. Loving is hard. Loving others different from our church dogmas and self-beliefs can be even harder. And having been taught not to love has to be the hardest learned trait to break.

But, with Spirit-led confession and repentance it's what must be done. To live in love. Lead in love. Reach out in love. And to determine to center all theological beliefs and teachings around the God of Love. A God who does not condemn and consign to hell but who loves through-and-through-and-through despite what idolatrous church leaders teach and preach.

R.E. Slater

August 30, 2022

...how non-Christians see the Christian faith...

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Do Franklin Graham’s accusations

against progressive Christianity

hold up against truth?

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PATRICK WILSON  |  AUGUST 25, 2022

i

Franklin Graham was one of six ministers selected to pray at Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. (Photo/Matt Johnson/Creative Commons)

Back on May 1, 2022, Franklin Graham, CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, posted an article in Decision Magazine titled, “The Eternal Peril of Progressive Christianity.” In this article, Graham expressed many poignant statements about the progressive Christian movement and numerous unsubstantiated allegations, including that it is “no gospel at all.”

This soon was followed by a social media blitz that blasted: “Progressive Christianity is dangerous for your soul.” Subscribers to the post received an email with a free (donation requested) PDF document titled, “Progressive Christianity Can Lead You to Hell.”

The PDF includes Graham’s aforementioned article along with Alisa Childers’ recommendations to counter progressive Christianity, Al Mohler’s remarks about theological liberalism, Michael Brown’s call to spiritual warfare, and Erwin Lutzer’s caution about “making the door wider” to be inclusive.

It is apparent that these authors are creating a straw man to demonize. If you build it, you can certainly tear it down.

This is a common tactic among fundamentalists, who seem to be discontent with merely preaching the gospel and need to have someone to theologically villainize and verbally assault. Graham, and others like him, expend their resources to malign other Christians whom they believe follow “a godless liberal media” and are “bent on casting doubt and undermining the foundational principles of God’s word.”

“This is a common tactic among fundamentalists, who seem to be discontent with merely preaching the gospel and need to have someone to theologically villainize and verbally assault.”

So, let us examine the actual views espoused by progressive Christians and see if they align with the allegations expressed by Graham and his cohorts. While there is a large spectrum of views held among adherents of progressive Christianity (as in most religious communities), the following are the eight points of progressive Christianity and the comparable statements from Graham’s article. Since progressive Christianity is not a denominational entity, the following statements are not creedal. Thus, proponents of the movement may agree with or vary from the perspectives provided here from progressivechristianity.org:

“By calling ourselves progressive Christians, we mean that we are Christians who:

“Believe that following the path and teaching of Jesus can lead to an awareness and experience of the Sacred and the Oneness and Unity of all life.” 

Graham cites Paul’s description of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, which identifies the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus as central to the gospel of Christ. Moreover, he applies “the exact same warning” of Galatians 1:6-9 to the advocates of progressive Christianity. He infers that just as Paul called down a curse on those who preach a “different gospel,” so must modern-day preachers (like himself) condemn the false teaching of progressive Christianity.

Even though Paul’s strong rebuke to Christians in Galatia is over an unknown issue, Graham’s hermeneutic emboldens him to weaponize the passage against people who (as stated above) seek to follow the path and teaching of Jesus.

“Graham’s hermeneutic emboldens him to weaponize the passage against people who seek to follow the path and teaching of Jesus.”

Jesus called his followers to a sacrificial life of self-denial and cross-bearing. This true way of living is found in the Jesus whom progressive Christians affirm and seek to follow. The centrality of the atoning death and resurrection life of Jesus is exemplified, not ignored, by progressive Christians, who seek to live in the others-first way modeled and commanded by the Lord.

“Affirm that the teaching of Jesus provide but one of many ways to experience the Sacredness and Oneness of life, and that we can draw from diverse sources of wisdom in our spiritual journey.” 

Graham cites Paul, who certainly gave additional, interpretive explanation on the teachings of Jesus. Paul even suggests that God’s “invisible qualities, eternal power and divine nature” leave us without excuse to relate to and experience God (Romans 1:20). It is not, as Graham claims, “undermining the foundational principles of God’s word” to affirm that the Spirit of the creative God continues to move, direct and use everyday experiences to guide us to the wisdom of God on our spiritual journey.

“Seek community that is inclusive of ALL people, including but not limited to: conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, believers and agnostics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, (and) those of all classes and abilities.”  

Graham, and others like him, accuse “proponents of progressive Christianity (of) twist(ing) and distort(ing) the truth of God’s word on sexuality, focusing on such nonsensical trends as gender identity.” He continues, “They deny God’s distinction of the sexes, and instead invent their own misguided standards, unguided by the word of God.”

While many in the progressive Christian movement may differ in their interpretation of God’s word on passages of the Bible, including but not limited to passages that may refer to sexuality, it is commonly done so with an intentional exegesis of the biblical text and not to distort the Bible with nonsense. Progressive Christianity attempts to understand the historical background and culture, the genre and literature, and the deeper complexities of the Bible, which leads to a greater appreciation, a more contemplative understanding, and a stronger application to the Christian life.

“Know that the way we behave toward one another is the fullest expression of what we believe.” 

Graham says progressive Christianity is not “forward thinking” but regresses into “unbiblical thinking and living.” Yet there is nothing more rooted in the teachings of Jesus than to live out a devotion for God through loving others.

Progressive Christianity is not an attempt to develop a new way of living the Christian life; rather, it is an effort to live out the Christological worldview, steeped in the Jewish teachings in Scripture to care for others, especially those in need (such as the widow, fatherless, poor and foreigner).

“Progressive Christianity emphasizes the importance of putting into practice what we preach and living by the biblical code of ethics Jesus modeled for us.”

The “new” commandment given by Jesus is to love one another as demonstrated by Christ’s love for us. Progressive Christianity emphasizes the importance of putting into practice what we preach and living by the biblical code of ethics Jesus modeled for us.

“Find grace in the search for understanding and believe there is more value in questing than in absolutes.” 

Nine times in his writing, Paul speaks of the truth of God as a “mystery.” To oversimplify the Bible to black-and-white, clear-and-clean truth is to minimize the majesty of God to the finite nature of our limited comprehension.

Graham makes outlandish and unsubstantiated claims that progressive Christianity denies the deity of Christ or the fullness of the Trinity, which “can send a person to hell.”  Progressive Christianity, as a whole, does not deny any such theological doctrine; rather, it embraces the mystery, leaving room for people to doubt, question and search for truth and application.

Loving God with all our mind and seeking to have the same attitude of Christ Jesus necessitate a humble embracing of our limited state and a yearning to grow through being teachable, striving to learn and accepting the divine as greater than what we can fully fathom.

“Strive for peace and justice among all people.” 

Graham takes issue with progressive Christianity’s stance toward social and racial justice (which he admits the Bible addresses) because it “neglects the far more fundamental issue of God’s justice.” His fallacy here is an argument from silence; simply because progressive Christianity emphasizes the importance of social and racial equality does not preclude its adherents from affirming and advocating for divine justice.

For many progressive theologians, it is actually out of a deep recognition that how the marginalized are treated by Christians is a reflection of our devotion to God, the ultimate and only rightful judge of us all.

“Strive to protect and restore the integrity of the earth.” 

Graham does not specifically address environmentalism in this article, but he does incorrectly state that progressive Christianity seeks to earn salvation through good works. Progressive Christianity does not deny the atoning work of Jesus on the Cross as the means of salvation. Instead, progressive Christians seek to live out a fruitful life of faith.

James reminds us that faith without works is dead, which does not mean our good deeds save us but that they should accompany the life of the saved. Hence, progressive Christians affirm the commission in the Garden of Eden in the opening chapters of the Bible to care for creation and all created things.

Graham also states that progressive Christianity “most frequently fails to see the ruinous consequences of mankind’s depraved, sinful state.” This is simply not true. Progressive Christianity identifies human greed as the cause behind climate change, bigotry to lie behind racism, and poverty to be perpetuated by indifference.

“The depravity of humanity is of utmost concern to progressive Christians, who value the care of our world and of people enough to dismantle systems that perpetuate sin.”

The depravity of humanity is of utmost concern to progressive Christians, who value the care of our world and of people enough to dismantle systems that perpetuate sin.

“Commit to a path of life-long learning, compassion, and selfless love.” 

Graham charges, “Progressive Christianity denies the divinely inspired, authoritative truth of the Bible as it intersects every facet of living.” Yet, he gives no explanation to back this claim.

The most prominent progressive theologians and pastors affirm that the Bible is divinely inspired and authoritative. While fundamentalist and progressive theologians have widely debated the form of inspiration or the definition of infallibility of the Scriptures, it is a complete misrepresentation to state that only one side holds to a high view of the Bible. Furthermore, Graham’s claim that a more literal interpretation of the Bible is more “orthodox” denies the 19th century development of biblical literalism as a response to the previous centuries of the Enlightenment.

In sum, Graham’s concluding statement in his article is just as true for progressive Christians as it is for Graham and other conservatives: “Evangelicals need to guard the truth of genuine scriptural preaching and living, remaining true and bold about exactly what the Bible clearly teaches.” Such a statement begs the question raised by Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?”

Graham seems to have a decisively clear understanding of what he believes and thinks everyone else should hold as truth, but such presumption and self-righteousness is the very concern that leads many to a progressive approach.

Franklin Graham’s scare tactic that “progressive Christianity can lead you to hell” further illustrates the aversion many have to his approach to Christianity. Many people are leaving conservative Christianity not because they are dissatisfied with Jesus but rather because of the repulsive approach of people like Graham who are so unkind and degrading to others and who seek to align with the political establishment to gain power to propagate their version of faith.

This approach is too pharisaical and self-righteous for many, who are finding community in progressive Christianity. The outcome of such an approach will only continue to widen the chasm among followers of Jesus. Such divisions were the very concern that Jesus had in his priestly prayer, where he centered on praying for unity among his followers (John 17:20-21).

Jesus chose quite an eclectic group of disciples who had different approaches to life and faith. He brought them together amidst their differences to work for the expansion of a kingdom that is not of this world. Jesus continues to do the same today.

I hope and pray that as we leave behind the kind of divisive dichotomy espoused by Graham, we will beat our swords into plowshares, and we will unite together — for the love of God.

Patrick Wilson

Patrick Wilson has served as a pastor for 25 years in Dallas and Austin, Texas, and most recently in in Rolla, Mo., where he currently is starting a new community of faith, CrossRoads. He is a graduate of Baylor University, earned two master’s degrees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a doctor of ministry degree from Logsdon Seminary.

 

Related articles:

Franklin Graham says he’s not a preacher of hate, so let’s roll the tape and see | Opinion by Rodney Kennedy

Why is anybody still giving money to Franklin Graham? | Opinion by Mark Wingfield

Evangelical Anxiety by Charles Marsh

Author Charles Marsh

Growing Up Evangelical:

An Interview with Charles Marsh

University of Virginia professor of religious studies Charles Marsh on the ‘cosmic entitlement’ and ‘mental torment’ of the white American evangelical mind and why Donald Trump is Christianity’s ‘most influential grace pimp’

by Alex Morris

June 18, 2022

[comments or italics are mine - re slater]

• "The dangers of the American evangelical project and its nationalistic or messianic ambitions..."

• "It also has an effect of obliterating difference or of prescribing political and social strategies that obliterate difference..."

• "[It has attached to itself a] narcissistic identity. An identity that is totalitarian in its understanding of the world and its understanding of truth. It doesn’t admit difference. If it sees difference - whether sexual, political, or racial - it wants to obliterate that [difference], or consume it, or overwhelm it, by its own powers.... [Evangelicalism] simply cannot abide difference. It can’t ignore difference; it has to remove it.

A Man praying holding a Holy Bible | Duncan Andison/Adobe Stock

Charles Marsh was a teenager in Laurel, Mississippi, when, on the edge of the woods one day, he came across a jettisoned Playboy. He dared take a look, to see the naked breasts that graced the magazines crumpled, mildewed pages. To, in other words, grievously sin.

It’s a memory that makes multiple appearances in Evangelical Anxiety, Marsh’s memoir, out this week. And it’s a moment that’s emblematic of the freighted nature of the evangelical upbringing Marsh details within the book’s pages, an upbringing steeped in conservative, white evangelicalism and the psychological baggage such an upbringing can bestow. For Marsh, now a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, the imperatives of “purity” inherent in his religious education, the ever-present narrative of a cosmic battle between a righteous God and the ruinous temptations of Satan, led to both crippling anxiety and years of afternoons spent on an analyst’s couch. For the reader, the book is an erudite glimpse into the psychology of white evangelicalism and how the current proliferation of white Christian nationalism could spring from the religious imperatives Marsh details. Rolling Stone recently talked with him about religion, mindfucks, and mental health.

As I was watching the January 6th hearings, I kept thinking about your book, and white Christian nationalism and its psychological effects.

I mean, we’ve seen the evangelical commentary industrial complex crank out hundreds, thousands of stories on the strange, dangerous, shocking behavior of white evangelicals over the years, but I don’t think we’ve really understood or tried to understand the psychological shape of that worldview. One of the things that is not typically conveyed in all the stories about evangelical harm—and the dangers of the American evangelical project and its nationalistic or messianic ambitions—is that an evangelical childhood is a total mindfuck. I mean that in a multitudinous sense: it may have a kind of rapacious quality, but it also is exciting and thrilling.

Author Charles Marsh | Photo by Tina Boyadjieva

How so?

The world of the evangelical is really overcharged with meaning. I mean, there is nothing more associative than the evangelical mind at first blossom. It’s a psychedelic kind of world that you inhabit. In those times when you are in worship and celebration and repentance and in the deep community of evangelical fellowship, you feel that you are right in the center of the metaphysical whirlwind, and you have been invested with a divine, almost superhuman destiny. That excess of emotion and feeling and energy leaves its mark.

It puts white evangelicals at the center of history, the center of the human story.

This kind of evangelical formation does create a profound sense of entitlement, cosmic entitlement. But I think it also has an effect of obliterating difference or of prescribing political and social strategies that obliterate difference.

Can you explain?

Well, let’s propose that the next issue of the DSM includes a diagnosis called evangelical anxiety. It would have descriptions of rapture fears and terrors of the body and all these attendant manic and panic types. But also, I think, it would need to somehow ground that in what is finally this narcissistic identity. It’s an identity that is totalitarian in its understanding of the world and its understanding of truth. It doesn’t admit difference. If it sees difference—whether sexual, political, or racial—it wants to obliterate that or consume that or overwhelm that by its own powers. The awakening into a new identity, a born-again identity, is also an awakening in too many cases to a sense of having an answer for every question and a prescription for every kind of sexual behavior, human behavior, of having such supreme confidence that you’ve been brought into this one truthful, eternally enduring identity. And so when it observes difference, it simply can’t abide difference. It can’t ignore difference; it has to remove it.

Having supreme confidence in one’s intolerance—that sounds like a pretty good definition of Trumpism.

Honestly, I’ve asked myself, “What did Trump offer white evangelicals from a psychological perspective?” Well, he is quite obviously not a man troubled by doubt. Donald Trump is not a man who has any worries about the second coming of Jesus Christ or his eternal salvation. I mean, he may be a slow-moving apocalypse, but he is not worried about the Day of the Lord, right? And so he offers a kind of balm, a temporary balm, to evangelical anxiety of a certain sort. He speaks unapologetically to and beyond our deepest resentments and paranoia and cultural anger. He’s an antidote. Unlike [George] W., who may have tapped into white evangelical, global, militaristic ambitions, Trump is like Christian history’s most influential Grace Pimp. You know, “God not only forgives your prejudices and your nativist, nationalistic attitudes, but God loves them.” These nativistic beliefs have become like sacred dogma.

That’s amazing. I will forever refer to him in my mind as “Donald Trump, the Grace Pimp.”

I mean, I was part of the first fully integrated school system in Mississippi. We imagined that it was our mission as white evangelicals to preserve the purity of the sovereign, sacred South and to preserve the purity of the South’s attendant expressions of purity: the white woman’s body, the sexual body, the body of the church. This Jesus we professed and the idea of the Christian life was very much a projection of these cultural and psychological fears and anxieties.

In my mind, I always think that the number one value of fundamentalist Christianity is a certain conception of purity while the number one value of more mainstream Protestantism is a certain conception of justice or fairness.

Yeah. I mean, we saw race, we saw sexuality, we saw the federal government, we saw civil rights acts as defiling forces that not only would soil our cultural and regional ideals but would wreck us as men and women. It would unsettle us in the same way in which I learned that losing my virginity or losing my purity would bring about a profound and inescapable psychic ruin, that young people who had lost their purity had also lost something central to the integral self, to the self as a coherent functional unity.

If we’re talking psychology, of course we’d end up talking about sex.

God is exceedingly interested in your genitalia and my genitalia and what we do with it. I heard in the earliest sermons on the meaning of life and our eternal destiny and the cosmic import of every decision we make in our life and matters of heaven and hell, that sex is right at the center of that. And so, you know, it’s literally a world charged with the insatiable erotic energies of God, with God and your religious authority figures as micro-managers of your sexual desires and of the things you do with your body.

That sounds healthy. [an expression of cynicism - res]

And there was a sense in which these predatory forces, these little demonic forces, were always after me. I was very enamored by all the persecution passages in the New Testament because I understood, as a young man of God seeking to remain pure and do God’s will, that I was under a constant state of persecution by the forces of the world, and they could take many forms but the intent was an assault on purity and on this ideal of coherence that followed from that. I remember I went out to dinner one night my freshman year in college with this guy from my youth college ministry, and we were talking about sexual temptation and he told me, “Well, you know, Charles, the way I feel about it is that if I ever succumbed to desire and in the excitement of the moment had premarital sex, once I came to my senses, I would have to kill myself.” And I was like, “Oh, wow, that’s awesome. I feel the same way. I’d have to kill myself too.” And we were both like, “Yes!” The irony, of course, is that I technically followed the straight and narrow and kept my purity and went crazy anyway—maybe as a result of that. It was just absolutely too much for my mind and body to bear.

But you ended up on a psychoanalyst’s couch instead of a white nationalist rally or, God forbid, the capitol [riot] on January 6.

Yeah, the fire has to go somewhere. The fire would have, in my instance, led to suicide, which is a violence. I mean, I do think that violence is the end of both of those trajectories if there’s not an interruption of grace in some form or fashion.

Why don’t more “recovering Christians,” as they’ve been called, seek out the sort of grace you did?

I mean, the white evangelical project is wracked by inner anxieties, but [for many] it feels that it would be somehow unholy or unseemly, if not even sinful, to interrogate those inner anxieties. There is still a pervasive fear of the psyche and a sense that most mental health problems, depression and anxiety in particular, may find some relief through talk or through medication, but their real source is a spiritual lack, an absence of a certain kind of commitment to the disciplines of the Christian life. 

[Here, at Relevancy22, I have proposed a God of Love in place of a God of wrath and judment and have restated my own evangelical theology with a strong current and central theme built upon a theology of love using Process Theology built upon my former Calvinism and Reformed Theology. It seems to have cured a lot of the turmoil I've grown up with as my virtual brother in Christ has stated here in his own experience. - re slater]

And yet, as the book details, you still consider yourself a Christian even if you no longer have the same commitment to those disciplines?

Yeah, you just have to figure it out on your own in fear and trembling. But I do think in this country, in this time, it takes a certain detachment to maintain that sense of hope and loyalty.

Does anyone escape this upbringing totally unscathed?

I think in some ways evangelical culture in its non-lunatic forms is much healthier than it’s ever been. I mean, my wife is an evangelical campus minister, and she hosted a queer evangelical event about six weeks ago, and there were 45 evangelical Christians who found themselves here. I feel like this is a voice now that has a place within evangelical culture more broadly. I also think, with the rise of psychotherapy programs in churches and psychotherapy graduate programs at places like Fuller Seminary, that things are better. I have to say, though, that just on the announcement of this book, I have been surprised to hear that this trope, “too blessed to be stressed,” is still pervasive within evangelical culture. That it’s just such a formula for mental torment. It’s a cruelty that really needs to be exposed.

* * * * * * *

OTHER BOOKS BY CHARLES MARSH

Amazon Link

Evangelical Anxiety: A Memoir Jun 14, 2022, by Charles Marsh

In this riveting spiritual memoir, the writer, scholar, and commentator tells the story of his struggles with mental illness, explores the void between the Christian faith and scientific treatment, and forges a path toward reconciling these divergent worlds.

For years, Charles Marsh suffered panic attacks and debilitating anxiety. As an Evangelical Christian, he was taught to trust in the power of God and His will. While his Christian community resisted therapy and personal introspection, Marsh eventually knew he needed help. To alleviate his suffering, he made the bold decision to seek medical treatment and underwent years of psychoanalysis.

In this riveting spiritual memoir, Marsh tells the story of his struggle to find peace and the dramatic, inspiring transformation that redefined his life and his faith. He examines the tensions between faith and science and reflects on how his own experiences offer hope for bridging the gap between the two. Honest and revealing, Marsh traces the roots of shame, examines Christian notions of sex, faith, and mental illness and their genesis, and chronicles how he redefined his beliefs and rebuilt his relationship with his community.

A poignant and vital story of deep soul work, Evangelical Anxiety helps us look beyond the stigma that leaves too many people in pain and offers people of faith a way forward to find the help they need while remaining true to their beliefs.

Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers

The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice from the Civil Rights Movement to Today Jul 31, 2008, by Charles Marsh

A noted theologian explains how the radical idea of Christian love animated the African American civil rights movement and how it can power today's social justice struggles

Speaking to his supporters at the end of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, Martin Luther King, Jr., declared that their common goal was not simply the end of segregation as an institution. Rather, "the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community." King's words reflect the strong religious convictions that motivated the African American civil rights movement. As King and his allies saw it, "Jesus had founded the most revolutionary movement in human history: a movement built on the unconditional love of God for the world and the mandate to live in that love." Through a commitment to this idea of love and to the practice of nonviolence, civil rights leaders sought to transform the social and political realities of twentieth-century America.

In The Beloved Community, theologian and award-winning author Charles Marsh traces the history of the spiritual vision that animated the civil rights movement and shows how it remains a vital source of moral energy today. The Beloved Community lays out an exuberant new vision for progressive Christianity and reclaims the centrality of faith in the quest for social justice and authentic community.

Sold by: Hachette Book Group

Wayward Christian Soldiers Freeing the Gospel from Political Captivity Apr 5, 2022, by Charles Marsh

In Wayward Christian Soldiers, leading evangelical theologian Charles Marsh offers a powerful indictment of the political activism of evangelical Christian leaders and churches in the United States. With emphasis on repentance and renewal, this important work advises Christians how to understand past mistakes and to avoid making them in the future.

Over the past several years, Marsh observes, American evangelicals have achieved more political power than at any time in their history. But access and influence have come at a cost to their witness in the world and the integrity of their message. The author offers a sobering contrast between the contemporary evangelical elite, which forms the core of the Republican Party, and the historic Christian tradition of respect for the mystery of God and appreciation for human fallibility. The author shows that the most prominent voices in American evangelicalism have arrogantly redefined Christianity on the basis of partisan politics rather than scripture and tradition. The role of politics in distorting the Christian message can be seen most dramatically in the invasion of Iraq, he argues: Some 87% of American evangelicals supported going to war, while every single evangelical church outside the United States opposed it. The Jesus who storms into Baghdad behind the wheel of a Humvee, Marsh points out, is not the Jesus of the Gospel. Indeed, not since the nazification of the German church under Hitler has the political misuse of Christianity led to such catastrophic global consequences.

Is there an alternative? This book proposes that the renewal of American churches requires a season of concentrated attention to faith's essential affirmations--a time of hospitality, peacemaking, and contemplative prayer. Offering an authentic Christian alternative to the narcissistic piety of popular evangelicalism, Wayward Christian Soldiers represents a unique entry into the increasingly pivotal debate over the role of faith in American politics.

"With Wayward Christian Soldiers, Charles Marsh again shows that he is one of the most astute observers of evangelicalism today." --Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics

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Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Apr 29, 2014, by Charles Marsh

In the decades since his execution by the Nazis in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor, theologian, and anti-Hitler conspirator, has become one of the most widely read and inspiring Christian thinkers of our time. Now, drawing on extensive new research, Strange Glory offers a definitive account, by turns majestic and intimate, of this modern icon.

The scion of a grand family that rarely went to church, Dietrich decided as a thirteen-year-old to become a theologian. By twenty-one, the rather snobbish and awkward young man had already written a dissertation hailed by Karl Barth as a “theological miracle.” But it was only the first step in a lifelong effort to recover an authentic and orthodox Christianity from the dilutions of liberal Protestantism and the modern idolatries of blood and nation—which forces had left the German church completely helpless against the onslaught of Nazism.

From the start, Bonhoeffer insisted that the essence of Christianity was not its abstract precepts but the concrete reality of the shared life in Christ. In 1930, his search for that true fellowship led Bonhoeffer to America for ten fateful months in the company of social reformers, Harlem churchmen, and public intellectuals. Energized by the lived faith he had seen, he would now begin to make what he later saw as his definitive “turn from the phraseological to the real.” He went home with renewed vocation and took up ministry among Berlin’s downtrodden while trying to find his place in the hoary academic establishment increasingly captive to nationalist fervor.

With the rise of Hitler, however, Bonhoeffer’s journey took yet another turn. The German church was Nazified, along with every other state-sponsored institution. But it was the Nuremberg laws that set Bonhoeffer’s earthly life on an ineluctable path toward destruction. His denunciation of the race statutes as heresy and his insistence on the church’s moral obligation to defend all victims of state violence, regardless of race or religion, alienated him from what would become the Reich church and even some fellow resistors. Soon the twenty-seven-year-old pastor was one of the most conspicuous dissidents in Germany. He would carry on subverting the regime and bearing Christian witness, whether in the pastorate he assumed in London, the Pomeranian monastery he established to train dissenting ministers, or in the worldwide ecumenical movement. Increasingly, though, Bonhoeffer would find himself a voice crying in the wilderness, until, finally, he understood that true moral responsibility obliged him to commit treason, for which he would pay with his life.

Charles Marsh brings Bonhoeffer to life in his full complexity for the first time. With a keen understanding of the multifaceted writings, often misunderstood, as well as the imperfect man behind the saintly image, here is a nuanced, exhilarating, and often heartrending portrait that lays bare Bonhoeffer’s flaws and inner torment, as well as the friendships and the faith that sustained and finally redeemed him. Strange Glory is a momentous achievement.

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Welcoming Justice: God's Movement Toward Beloved Community Nov 20, 2018, by Charles Marsh, John M. Perkins, Philip Yancey

We have seen progress in recent decades toward Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of beloved community. But this is not only because of the activism and sacrifice of a generation of civil rights leaders. It happened because God was on the move.

Historian and theologian Charles Marsh partners with veteran activist John Perkins to chronicle God's vision for a more equitable and just world. Perkins reflects on his long ministry and identifies key themes and lessons he has learned, and Marsh highlights the legacy of Perkins's work in American society. Together they show how abandoned places are being restored, divisions are being reconciled, and what individuals and communities are doing now to welcome peace and justice.

Now updated to reflect on current social realities, this book reveals ongoing lessons for the continuing struggle for a just society. Come, discover your part in the beloved community. There is unfinished work still to do.

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Can I Get a Witness?: Thirteen Peacemakers, Community-Builders, and Agitators for Faith and Justice Feb 28, 2019, by Charles Marsh, Shea Tuttle, Daniel P. Rhodes

How do we transform American Culture through our religious convictions?

Discover here the compelling stories of thirteen pioneers for social justice who engaged in peaceful protest and gave voice to the marginalized, working courageously out of their religious convictions to transform American culture. Their prophetic witness still speaks today.

Comprising a variety of voices—Catholic and Protestant, gay and straight, men and women of different racial backgrounds—these activist witnesses represent the best of the church’s peacemakers, community builders, and inside agitators. Written by select authors, Can I Get a Witness? showcases vibrant storytelling and research-enriched narrative to bring these significant “peculiar people” to life.

CONTRIBUTORS & SUBJECTS:

Daniel P. Rhodes on Cesar Chavez

Donyelle McCray on Howard Thurman

Grace Y. Kao on Yuri Kochiyama

Peter Slade on Howard Kester

Nichole M. Flores on Ella Baker

Carlene Bauer on Dorothy Day

Heather A. Warren on John A. Ryan

Becca Stevens on William Stringfellow

W. Ralph Eubanks on Mahalia Jackson

Susan M. Glisson and Charles H. Tucker on Lucy Randolph Mason

Soong-Chan Rah on Richard Twiss

David Dark on Daniel Berrigan

M. Therese Lysaught on Mary Stella Simpson

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God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights Dec 31, 2019, by Charles Marsh

In the summer of 1964, the turmoil of the civil rights movement reached its peak in Mississippi, with activists across the political spectrum claiming that God was on their side in the struggle over racial justice. This was the summer when violence against blacks increased at an alarming rate and when the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi resulted in national media attention. Charles Marsh takes us back to this place and time, when the lives of activists on all sides of the civil rights issue converged and their images of God clashed. He weaves their voices into a gripping narrative: a Ku Klux Klansman, for example, borrows fiery language from the Bible to link attacks on blacks to his "priestly calling"; a middle-aged woman describes how the Gospel inspired her to rally other African Americans to fight peacefully for their dignity; a SNCC worker tells of harrowing encounters with angry white mobs and his pilgrimage toward a new racial spirituality called Black Power. Through these emotionally charged stories, Marsh invites us to consider the civil rights movement anew, in terms of religion as a powerful yet protean force driving social action.

The book's central figures are Fannie Lou Hamer, who "worked for Jesus" in civil rights activism; Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi; William Douglas Hudgins, an influential white Baptist pastor and unofficial theologian of the "closed society"; Ed King, a white Methodist minister and Mississippi native who campaigned to integrate Protestant congregations; and Cleveland Sellers, a SNCC staff member turned black militant.

Marsh focuses on the events and religious convictions that led each person into the political upheaval of 1964. He presents an unforgettable American social landscape, one that is by turns shameful and inspiring. In conclusion, Marsh suggests that it may be possible to sift among these narratives and lay the groundwork for a new thinking about racial reconciliation and the beloved community. He maintains that the person who embraces faith's life-affirming energies will leave behind a most powerful legacy of social activism and compassion.

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Lived Theology: New Perspectives on Method, Style, and Pedagogy Oct 3, 2016, by Charles Marsh, Peter Slade, Sarah Azaransky

Lived Theology contains the work of an emerging generation of theologians and scholars who pursue research, teaching, and writing as a form of public responsibility motivated by the conviction that theological ideas aspire in their inner logic toward social expression. Written as a two-year collaboration of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia, this volume offers a series of illustrations and styles that distinguish Lived Theology in the broader conversation with other major approaches to the religious interpretation of embodied life. The book begins with a modest query: How might theological writing, research, and teaching be expanded to engage lived experience with the same care and precision given by scholars to books and articles? Behind this question lies the claim that theological engagements and interpretations of lived experience offer rich and often surprising insights into God's presence and activity in the world. Answers to, and explorations of, this question form the narrative framework of this groundbreaking volume. Lived theology is shown to be an exceedingly curious enterprise, transgressing disciplinary boundaries as a matter of course, examining circumstance, context, and motivation, and marshalling every available resource for the sake of discerning the theological shape of enacted and embodied faith. Understanding the social consequences of theological ideas is a task with wide ranging significance, inside the academy and in the broader forums of civic discussion.

Contributors consider Lived Theology from a diverse array of experiences and locations, including towns in Mississippi struggling with histories of racist violence and murder; a homeless shelter in Atlanta; churches in the Democratic Republic of Congo; faith based volunteer organizations in Columbus, Ohio; and a college classroom in the Midwest.

This innovative work offers a fresh and exciting model for scholars, teachers, practitioners, and students seeking to reconnect the lived experience of faith communities with academic study and reflection.

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The Last Days: A Son's Story Of Sin And Segregation At The Dawn Of A New South Apr 29, 2009, by Charles Marsh

Seeking to come to terms with the haunting memories of his childhood in the deep South-Charles Marsh has crafted a memoir of small-town Southern life caught up in the whirlwind of the Civil Rights movement. As minister of the First Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi, Charles Marsh's father Bob Marsh, was a prominent man who was beloved by the community. But Laurel was also home to Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Mississippi KKK and the director of their daily, unchallenged installments of terror and misery. Bowers was known and tolerated by the entire white community of Laurel. This included Bob Marsh, who struggled to do the right thing while reeling between righteous indignation and moral torpor, only slowly awakening to fear, suffering, and guilt over his unwillingness to take a public stand against Bowers. At the same time, The Last Days examines the collision of worlds once divided-white Protestant conservatism, the African American struggle for civil rights, and late 1960s counter culture-that propelled the dramatic changes in everyday life in a small Southern town.

Sold by: Hachette Book Group

Reclaiming Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Promise of His Theology Sep 5, 1996, by Charles Marsh

In this book, Marsh offers a new way of reading the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian theologian who was executed for his role in the resistance against Hitler and the Nazis. Focusing on Bonhoeffer's substantial philosophical interests, Marsh examines his work in the context of the German philosophical tradition, from Kant through Hegel to Heidegger. Marsh argues that Bonhoeffer's description of human identity offers a compelling alternative to post-Kantian conceptions of selfhood. In addition, he shows that Bonhoeffer, while working within the boundaries of Barth's theology, provides both a critique and redescription of the tradition of transcendental subjectivity. This fresh look at Bonhoeffer's thought will provoke much discussion in the theological academy and the church, as well as in broader forums of intellectual life.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Der verklärte Fremde. Eine Biografie (German Edition) Mar 23, 2015

by Charles Marsh, Karin Schreiber, Sonderausgabe zum 75. Todestag

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, das ist der große, anständige Theologe im Widerstand gegen Hitler, einer der Heiligen des 20. Jahrhunderts! 75 Jahre nach seinem Tod scheint seine Geschichte erzählt, sein Leben begriffen zu sein. Aber: Stimmt das auch? Charles Marsh blickt hinter die Verklärung Bonhoeffers und bringt in seiner kritischen Biografie dessen Fremdheit neu zur Geltung. Ein intimes und überraschendes Porträt von einem verletzlichen und witzigen, erfolgsverwöhnten und zweifelnden, entschlossenen und doch immer wieder zaudernden Mann auf dem Weg zu sich selbst. Fesselnd und unterhaltsam erzählt.

Die erfolgreiche Biografie endlich als Sonderausgabe

Der etwas andere Blick auf den Menschen Bonhoeffer

Überraschend, fesselnd und unterhaltsam erzählt

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Mobilizing for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins Aug 1, 2013, by Peter Slade, Peter Goodwin Heltzel, Charles Marsh

Born into a sharecropping family in New Hebron, Mississippi, in 1930, and only receiving a third-grade education, John M. Perkins has been a pioneering prophetic African American voice for reconciliation and social justice to America's white evangelical churches. Often an unwelcome voice and always a passionate, provocative clarion, Perkins persisted for forty years in bringing about the formation of the Christian Community Development Association--a large network of evangelical churches and community organizations working in America's poorest communities--and inspired the emerging generation of young evangelicals concerned with releasing the Church from its cultural captivity and oppressive materialism.

John M. Perkins has received surprisingly little attention from historians of modern American religious history and theologians. Mobilizing for the Common Good is an exploration of the theological significance of John M. Perkins. With contributions from theologians, historians, and activists, this book contends that Perkins ushered in a paradigm shift in twentieth-century evangelical theology that continues to influence Christian community development projects and social justice activists today.