Open Bibles—Open Minds

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/divergence/2020/09/19/open-bibles-open-minds/

by Darrell lackey

September 19, 2020

Something I found growing up in the fundamentalist-evangelical world, was that having a closed mind was almost championed as a good thing. The more one knew about Scripture and the less one knew about “secular” literature, science, movies, music, popular culture, and philosophy, the more “spiritual” one was considered to be. Ignorance of things outside the Bible was often worn as a badge of honor.

Looking back, I think, how very sad. Also, how very contrary to the Christian faith and narrative. An open Bible should lead to an open mind. An open Bible should lead to an ever expanding and growing realization that we know very little. As we learn about the deep things of God and creation, the more curious we should become. After all, creation/existence is a big thing. The moment we think we know all we need to know, about anything, we reveal a disturbing lack of curiosity and a fairly shallow mentality.

I’m amazed at the people who because of their supposed Bible knowledge, tell us they don’t need to really delve deeply into other areas like science, political science, philosophy, social science, or all the other areas of knowledge. Holding up their Bible, they boldly claim all they need to know is contained in its pages. They then to go on to pontificate about subjects they have very little knowledge of (admittedly, proudly), beyond popular opinion, sheer prejudice, or stereotypes. They become the guy at the end of the bar blathering on about his latest conspiracy theory, which he’s “researched” deeply on the internet. Got it.

They view experts and academics with suspicion; and also news stories that don’t confirm or support what they already believe (which explains many of the anti-maskers). They are sure the fact they have memorized large portions of Scripture qualifies them to summarily dismiss people who have spent much of their lives studying, writing, publishing, and speaking in areas where they are widely recognized as experts or scholars. But what are years of learning at the highest levels, recognized learning, when one can just memorize portions of the Bible or follow some guy on the internet?

I’m stating nothing new or novel. Historian Mark Noll pointed this out back in 1995 with his book, “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.” It was supposed to be a wake-up call and yet, here we are. It is 2020 and it may be worse than it was in 1995. We have supposed intelligent evangelicals calling widely recognized facts, “fake news.” Fake? No, it’s just news they don’t like—news that doesn’t support the world they’ve constructed in their closed universe. Or we have appeals to the “common sense” of conventional “wisdom,” in whatever area.

Here is a good example:

“Think about it. Why have Americans been able to do more to help people in need around the world than any other country in history? It’s because of free enterprise, freedom, ingenuity, entrepreneurism and wealth. A poor person never gave anyone a job. A poor person never gave anybody charity, not of any real volume. It’s just common sense to me.”

To the contrary, we read:

“Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, ‘Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.’” (Luke 21)

So much for, “common sense.” Falwell, Jr. probably believes because of his upbringing and history, that he knows the Bible well. But statements like his (and recent events?) prove the opposite. Somewhere along the line his supposed Bible “knowledge” became a closed room, a dead end, something much smaller than the wide expanse of creation and what creation can tell us. Or it became secular understandings with a religious veneer, but simply assumed to be true, even “biblical.”

Closed quarters, where all one can see is walls, and is familiar with everything in the room, leads to the illusion this is all there is, that we “know” it all. It becomes a very small world. And yet, a look out the window, if any still remain, reveals such not to be true at all. To wish to remain in ignorance, as even a virtue, is shameful. It’s certainly not the sign of a mature Christian.

Truly knowing the Bible, which really means knowing its author, should always lead to an open mind, a mind that recognizes how little it really knows. It should lead to a mind that realizes all of existence (including the poor) has something to teach us (Psalm 19). Further, such knowledge will often come from sources and places well outside our culture, ethnic group, religious tradition, education level, historical time frame, or familiar worldview.

In Daniel we read:

“As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom…” (Daniel 1:17)

Notice this is something God gave, and it was in “all” literature and wisdom, not just in what these young men were used to, already knew, or brought up with.

As Christians, we believe all truth is God’s truth. But not everything we believe, or think, or were taught, or interpreted, or heard somewhere once from our favorite preacher is true. Too often what we think is “common sense” is nonsense we just assume is true. A closed and uncurious mind is nothing to be proud of.

Open Bibles should lead to open minds, not the opposite.

Center-Set v. Boundary-Set Maintance - "The Ties that Bind that Must be Broken," Parts 1-3

There is No Spoon: Christian Boundary Maintenance

http://johnwhawthorne.com/2013/11/25/there-is-no-spoon-christian-boundary-maintenance/

by John W. Hawthorne

November 25, 2013

I have been fascinated with the idea of social networks since taking a great course in grad school when social network analysis was just beginning. In some ways, the question of who’s in and who’s out is a connecting thread that runs across my career.

My dissertation was on people who regularly attend church but never join (I saw them as boundary poachers, although the findings proved more complicated than that). I used network analysis to study three congregations and their relationship patterns in the early 90's (but I didn’t pay enough attention to bridging capital — more [on that] later).

Perhaps that research is what led me to be so critical of the effort we put into maintaining boundaries. I distinctly remember hearing a Focus on the Family broadcast telling of a group of school children playing at a newly constructed playground. Well-intentioned psychologists, it was argued, believed that they didn't want to limit the children's sense of adventure and so didn’t put fences around the school yard. The children, not knowing where the edges were, huddled anxiously in a clump being afraid to venture out. The chagrined psychologists had fences put up and then the children played happily in their new playground.

Parenthetically, I once put my university library staff along with the psych department to work to locate the original source [of this study]. It appears to be apocryphal though regularly repeated in blogs, sermons, and parenting articles. (A google scholar search just now came up pretty empty.)

Trafalgar Square, London, England

Anyway, when I heard the report I knew what was wrong. They were looking in the wrong direction for meaning. It’s not at the edges but at the center. I suggested to a friend (as I have repeated for years) that the solution isn’t to focus on the fences but the build a monolith in the center of the playground and tell the children they can play where ever they want as long as they can see the statue. The picture of Trafalgar square is as close as I’ve come to capturing what I had in mind.

The same ideas apply to Christian identity. If we spend all our time exploring the edges that separate us from others, we’re investing in creating and maintaining boundaries that function to that end. If this boundary weakens, we have to go and repair it right away like a rancher keeping the cattle in.

Instead, we can rest in the New Testament image of the Shepherd who knows His sheep and walks in their midst. They listen for him and move when he moves.

But we keep trying to build fences. I think this is a normal sociological process. We like to be with people like us. So we spend our energies creating points of separation that keep the outsiders out (and the insiders in). It’s an effective form of social control and identity marking, but it is a far cry from the outreach of the Gospel.

Spend just a few days reading Facebook or Twitter and you’ll see this in operation. We find things about which to be offended: how dare you say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas? Women can teach Sunday School but not preach (there was a great blog but I lost it). We have church trials surrounding a Methodist minister who officiated at his gay son’s wedding. We separate the Wesleyans from the Calvinists. We separate over science and faith. Don’t get me started on the Christians engaged in political fights on Facebook, calling each other out for not being True Christians.

In my Spirituality, Faith, and Justice class Thursday night, we were discussing the role of narrative in the pursuit of justice and the common good. This combined readings from Michael Sandel’s Justice and Walter Brueggemann’s Journey to the Common Good. Attending to story can bind us together. The real task, paraphrasing Brueggemann, is to reconstruct community in such a way as not not privilege one group over another but validate all stories.

The Strength of Weak Ties, by Mark Grannovetter

I was attempting to illustrate this by drawing on the distinction between "bonding social capital" and "bridging social capital." In that context, I returned to a classic piece of modern sociology — Mark Grannovetter’s The Strength of Weak Ties. Grannovetter argued that tightly bonded groups are good for social support but bad at building connections. For that, we need weak ties — the acquaintanceships that tell us about job prospects or allow information to be tested against reality.

The tightest relationships are not the most powerful when

we need to broaden our reach within the organization.

For a quick explanation, check out this link from Information Week (where I got the graphic). The implication of the graph is that the energy in a strong tie group is expended inward. This provides a clear sense of who is in and who is out. The energy of a weak tie group is always expended outward — one never knows which of the surrounding circles is the source of potential contacts or information.

In the context of the class discussion, I was attempting to connect this to my prior work on millenials. One of the reasons they are concerned about the church is because they’ve maintained connections through social media with a diverse group of folks from different spheres of their lives. In short, they live in a weak-tie world.

This weekend Zach Hoag filled in on Zack Hunt’s blog (Zack has a cute new baby, but I’m a little biased about smart and beautiful babies since my granddaughter was born). Hoag wrote about the false fronts that are involved in our never-ending search for niceness. We stay away from the real messiness of the world because we’re maintaining face. Erving Goffman was a pioneer in exploring the ways in which we manage cues and props to create and maintain impressions. Boundary maintenance is another outcome of the same process.

One can find people who are less concerned about boundaries. Jonathan Fitzgerald wrote a profile of Nadia Bolz-Weber in the Daily Beast that defies membership in a single group (while acknowledging the danger of creating yet another Christian celebrity). In any case, Bolz-Weber fits a weak-ties model of social capital.

When I was talking to my class last week explaining the notion of social networks, I was struck by a new insight.... The notion of inside and outside are fictions. They’re helpful fictions and we find them comfortable. But they are fictions nonetheless.

I felt compelled to start quoting The Matrix (I’d already done a riff on Life of Brian). I found myself thinking of the boy Neo meets when he visits the Prophet. The boy can bend a spoon with his mind. Then Neo is told “There is no spoon“.

That made me think again about the Weak Ties diagram. The notion that we have all these little circles we’re part of isn’t true. It’s one big circle. And we’re all part of it.

God’s circle is bigger than we imagine and is not bounded by time or space much less by simple distinctions on who gets to preach or who gets to marry or who reads which science books.

What would happen if the evangelical church caught a vision of the bigger circle and the ways in which our stories are being co-written with each of us as influencers in every other story. Yes, I really liked the Day of the Doctors! What if all the energy we expend on separateness was spent building linkages to those different than ourselves?

It’s a great narrative — a storyline that starts at creation and runs throughout history to the restoration of that creation on earth as it is in heaven.

* * * * * * * * * *

Bruegel the Elder, the Tower of Babel, Genesis 11

Ripping Down Towers of Babel

http://johnwhawthorne.com/2014/02/17/ripping-down-towers-of-babel/

by John W. Hawthorne

February 17, 2014

The picture [above] is Bruegel the Elder’s take on the Genesis 11 story of the Tower of Babel. In the scripture, we’re told that there was only one language and the people came together to build a city with a great tower that would reach to the heavens. In response, the LORD comes down to check it out and confuses their languages and scatters the people across the nations.

I’m not a biblical scholar — I’m a sociologist. So my first inclination is to treat this story as a cosmological allegory of “why the people down the road don’t talk like us”. It’s the kind of story that fits within an oral tradition explaining to children why things are the way they are.

But I did do some quick internet research and was pleased to find this entry from the Oxford Bible Studies Online. I was pleased for several reasons. First, the author is Brent Strawn from Candler Seminary at Emory and I’ve been friends with his father and brother for several years. Second, because the piece also used the Bruegel painting as illustration. And Third, because Brent’s analysis is directly applicable to the issue of religious group boundaries I’ve been exploring for several months.

Brent suggests that there are two interpretations of why the tower was a problem. One option is that it has something to do with pride. Building a huge edifice would let everyone know that these were cool people who had things together. He goes on to say that this chapter stands in stark contrast to the calling of Abram; there it is God who does great things through people. The second option Brent explores is the role of fear. They needed the city to protect them from being scattered across the earth (as was God’s plan). The “hunkering down” as he calls it, is in resistance to the world as they found it [and are discovering it].

As I said, I’ve been reflecting on the ways in which evangelical groups build artifices to separate those on the inside from those on the outside (for samples, see here and here). And I’ve come to a useful image that helps explain the process.

We tore down the Tower of Babel and then used the self same

bricks to build enclaves of our own desiring.

And we did it for the same two reasons that the Tower was

built in the first place: Pride and Fear.

Pride

Pride comes in when we attract hordes of followers to show that we are right. Zack Hoag has consistently exposed the ways in which the evangelical church (both conservative and progressive) have been seduced by the culture of celebrity. I am not immune. I want page views, retweets, Facebook likes, and recognition. I want people to tell each other about my writing. I want to have access to publishing empires that turns a lecture series into a book and a set of DVDs.

We build our enclaves because it allows us to sit inside our secure walls and lob critiques at those walled enclaves down the block. We hope that doing so will prove how smart we are, how right we are, how close to God we are. Especially if we can demonstrate that by comparison to those wrong-headed folks next door.

Rachel Held Evans posted a great piece today discussing what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the critiques lobbed over the wall. It’s a story of hurt and misunderstanding, of false accusation and presumption. But it also contains some deep introspection to make sure that parallel assumptions don’t result about other groups.

I’ve been reading Christena Cleveland’s Disunity in Christ. It’s a wonderful book (not surprisingly, it’s chock full of good social psychology!). I’m only partway through, but already the implications are powerful. We find comfort and identity through our groups within our walls. But that very comfort and identification contributes to our misreading and misunderstanding the other groups. Our pride causes us to overstate our own position and not really listen to others.


Fear

If pride makes us overstate our correctness, fear calls us to demonize all opposition even if we can’t name them. We build our walls so high that we don’t know what’s out there. We just know it can’t be good because it’s not what we have in here.

This post was prompted by one shared by Peter Enns over the weekend. It was about a conference announcement about a regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. The brochure is titled “The Liberal Seepage into the Evangelical Culture” and shows a scary wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’ll let the word “seepage” go for now (sounds like a medical problem). But the very identification of “evangelical culture” as a thing is the very essence of wall-building. See, THEY are infiltrating into the space WE have created for ourselves. Even if our concerns about them are based on irrationality and exaggeration.

In the words of Elmer Fudd, "Be afwaid. Be vewy afwaid."

Fear take us to funny places. It makes it easy to do things or say things about brothers and sisters we would not otherwise do or say. Because somebody has to. Otherwise, how would we protect the walls from intruders? Don’t you know what the stakes are?

Neither Pride Nor Fear

Christians aren’t motivated by pride. Christians aren’t directed by fear.

We are following in the way of the Christ who sacrificed his status and position to inaugurate a new way of living through death on the cross and launching of a Kingdom at hand. We have an assurance running throughout scripture that we are not alone but have the very God of the universe with us.

What happens if we tear down our walls? I’m still working on this but I think we find that we are able to engage those around us. [We may find] reasonable people who ask interesting questions, who have fascinating life stories, who have real struggles. In short, we find them to be people created in the image of God. People who, if we take Matthew 25 seriously, are both representatives of Christ and perhaps unaware Kingdom-builders (“When did we do that?”).

In short, trusting Christ and his Kingdom journey means that we don’t need walls and boundaries. Because God is already at work building the Kingdom. We’re just along for the ride to offer water when asked.

I’m also reading Prodigal Christianity by David Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw. Their writing both resonates with my thinking and makes me feel like they’ve already said it better. The central thesis of their book is the God went into the Far Country (where we live) and we are called to do likewise.

Going into the Far Country requires trust in God and deep courage. In that way it becomes a matter of testimony to the Greater Story of which we are all apart.

As Mr. Reagan said to Mr. Gorbachev [re the Iron Curtain of Berlin, East Germany], "Tear Down Those Walls!"

* * * * * * * * * *

How Social Networks Can Harness

the Power of Weak Ties

http://www.dashe.com/blog/social-learning/power-weak-ties/

by Jon Matejcek

May 11, 2013

While everyone seems to be expounding with great awe about the speed of change on the internet – especially the uptake of social media technologies like Facebook – it is interesting to note that there are really two factors being discussed:

1)      The social networking technology

2)      The human dynamics related to social networking

The technology hype is natural.  The power of tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Yammer, are pretty astounding.  These tools give us a way to connect with people faster and more easily than ever before.

A lot of the Social Media Mavens, however, are really ranting, not about the technology, but about the human dynamics related to social networking.  These dynamics have been around for thousands of years, and have been written about extensively for decades – like in this 1973 article by Mark Granvotter in the American Journal of Sociology, The Strength of Weak Ties.

If we separate the human aspect of social networking from the technology, we can learn a lot more about the power of networks – not just from today’s pundits, but from many years of sociological research on the topic.

For example, Harvard professor Andrew McAfee sums up the Strength of Weak Ties theory nicely, describing how acquaintances with whom we are less familiar are more likely to tell us things we don’t already know:

… People we don’t know all that well are hugely valuable in our work. They’re sources of novelty and innovation (because they know quite different things than we do) and bridges to other social networks (because they know quite different people than we do). 

This implies that digital social tools aimed at facilitating our professional lives might not want to focus too much on helping us stay in touch and work with our closest colleagues. Instead, they might want to help us build, maintain, and exploit a large network of weak ties.

After reading this, I started thinking about this new LinkedIn utility I recently installed.  Initially it seemed like a fairly useless novelty, but I realized that there may be some value in it after all.  If we apply the ‘weak ties’ theory, we might be able to spot people in our network who are both:

a)      Loosely tied to us (i.e., people with whom we don’t share too many connections)

b)      Themselves near the edge of a cluster, with links to one or more other clusters.

Here’s how a typical LinkedIn network might look:

Your weak ties are smaller circles, not at the center of a cluster

I heard more support for the Weak Ties theory while attending a Knowledge Management conference in 2005. At the conference, a representative from Raytheon Corporation spoke about a study they had conducted among their vast employee population.  By taking inventory of employees’ “connections” (this was still a novel concept in 2005), they found that people had grouped into natural clusters.

The clustering of employee groups was not the surprising thing.  The real discovery came when they posed problems for various employees to solve.  They found that the employees near the edge of a cluster were more effective at problem-solving than those in the middle of a cluster.

Why?  Because the people on the edge were more likely to be connected to other network clusters, and therefore had access to information that was not available to people who were “buried” at the middle of a cluster.

Learning and development professionals should remember the Weak Ties theory when designing social learning systems.  It’s not enough for people within functional areas (clusters) to connect.  The real challenge, and value, is to find tools and processes that help people connect  and think “outside the cluster.”

[ois skin="Social Learning White Paper"]

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Index to past articles on "An Open Faith and Open Theology"

Confessions of an Evolving Baptist

Confessions of an Evolving Baptist

http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=11179

by Nathan Hale

November 27, 2013

I will never forget the shock and confusion in my wife’s voice when I told her that I believed in evolution. I wasn’t ready to come out of the closet quite yet, but secret conversations about my belief in evolution were on the verge of being exposed and I knew I had to confess before she found out from someone else.

I could tell implications of such a statement passed like a whirlwind through her mind. She knew I had been struggling with the church and my faith for quite some time – but this?

I had not talked to her about it before. I was embarrassed and scared. How did I explain that it took embracing evolution before I found a faith that was real and meaningful?

* * *

I’m not interested in debating the specifics on why I’ve come to believe in evolution. I’m happy to talk about it, but it’s really not that important actually. The more important question is how I found my footing in the aftermath.

A year of honest inquiry left me with an overwhelming certainty about evolution and an overwhelming uncertainty about my faith. I was miserable. Everything I thought I knew was turned upside down.

I suddenly found myself dangling on the edge of the cliff holding on with one hand that was slipping. I could feel the crossroad quickly approaching – do I choose science or my faith?

Many Christians would point to my example as evidence of the damaging influence of secular science on the faith of believers. I don’t think so – at all.

In the midst of the chaos I stopped and asked myself a simple question – who said I had to choose and why?

That simple question sent me on a quest to understand the relationships between science and religion. I found myself wandering around in this magical place full of undiscovered treasures – the library. Four racks of books all devoted to various aspects of the larger dialogue between science and religion. Treasures left sitting on the racks untouched for 30-40 years.

I was surprised at some things I learned but it didn’t take long to uncover one truth – I do not have to choose.

I’ve been presented with (or perhaps internalized) a false dichotomy.

There has always been some level of tension. In the past however, this tension served to advance dialogue and promote thinking among both scientists and theologians.

What surprised me the most was learning the conflict between these seemingly opposing worldviews is a relatively recent one – the unholy progeny of the more recent culture war between Atheists and Christians.

Evolution has become a philosophical sword wielded by Atheists to strike at the heart of Christian truth claims. Christians on the other hand, have launched a counter offensive by emphasizing a literal reading of the scripture and developing their own scientific explanations for the biblical accounts of creation.

A long, complex, and mutually beneficial dialogue between science and religion reduced to an overly simplistic philosophical choice – a false dichotomy perpetuated.

I’m not buying it.

Being confronted with evolution may have been the catalyst for asking the difficult questions, but the real problem for me was not evolution – it was biblical literalism.

It was the attempts to read science back into the Bible and the ultimatum of believing the Bible is either entirely true or entirely false. That’s a damaging position I contend and has created as many Atheists/Agnostics as it has converts.

I have hurt some feelings with this statement in the past but I think my comments are largely misunderstood.

I’m not attempting to cast doubt on the authority of scripture – it’s simply a plea to better understand the complexity and richness of the text.

I believe the Bible is truth in what is teaches and is the primary authority for guiding the Christian life. In that sense I believe scripture is inerrant.

At the same time I also appreciate the complexity and origins of the text. The Bible is a complex library of history, law, poetry, wisdom, gospel, epistles, and apocalyptic literature – but it was written in a time, place, culture, and language that is not ours.

Those realities should be considered when reading the text.

Does that make it less relevant? No.

To appreciate the complexities of the text is not an insult to God or the Bible – quite the contrary. For me it fosters a deeper desire to understand and appreciate both.

* * *

I’ve come to realize there is another path on the crossroads of having to choose between science and faith. The path is less traveled and overgrown. It’s a path full of briars and thistles growing outward from the two more clear paths. It’s a difficult path to pass but an important one. A path that attempts to reconcile these seemingly opposing worldviews – the path I had to travel.

Reconciling evolution with my faith and gaining a better understanding of the Bible allowed me to grab the cliff’s edge with my second hand and pull myself to the top.

For reasons most will never understand that’s what it took for me to find a real, meaningful faith.

For the most part I’ve been content to keep my journey to myself. However, I recently had a moment of clarity during a very spirit filled communion service.

Even by conservative standards – the issue is not central to salvation.

It certainly poses some challenges and requires a thorough reading of the scriptures and some deep thought. But shouldn’t we be doing that anyway?

Why then, are we continually perpetuating the notion of having to choose between science and religion? Why is the utterance of the “E” word in Christian circles immediately met with condemnation and judgment? Why am I scared and embarrassed to talk openly about it?

I’ve come to realize that if I’m not open about my journey then I’m perpetuating a problem that almost caused me to let go of the cliff’s edge – and for no good reason.

Nathan is the husband to a beautiful wife, father to three wonderful children, researcher, teacher, and occasional writer/blogger. He can be found on Twitter at @evolvingbaptist.

The Church's Struggle Today, Not Unlike Paul's Struggle Then, with Inflexible, Dying Traditionalism

Presented here today are two articles by Peter Enns reflecting on American orthodoxy's need to embrace today's youth and multi-ethnic, global cultures of postmodernism in theologically relevant ways as respecting Jesus' personage and ministry. For the past two years Relevancy22 has struggled to revitalize a Jesus-first theology held in check by the church's more conservative attitudes towards postmodern movement and cultural expression. In continuing effort we have recently reviewed talks and articles these past 2-1/2 weeks related to the pressures put on today's twenty-somethings (curiously, my wife and I's single-adult ministry's were entitled the "Roaring Twenties"); posted an interview with NT Wright reflecting on hot-button theological issues; spoke to God's loving rule as different from the more popular (but errant) view expressed by meticulous sovereignty; reflected on our role in the universe when helped by God's guidance and partnership; presented several views of homosexuality that asked today's Christ-followers important questions of bigotry and openness; we shared how Christians might present a win-win discussion with today's postmodern generations using the more positive findings of game theory; spoke to an evolutionary understanding of tool=making even now being observed in today's contemporary cultures; suggested another way of presenting the Gospel of Christ differently from today's more popular approach of penal-substitution; explored some theological approaches to evolution through Wesleyan theologians; presented a couple of articles on sexual abuse ("You Are Safe Now"), and recited elements that destroy a marriage ("16 Ways I Blew My Marriage"); we've thought through issues of transformance art, supercessionism, and process theology in politics and religion; expressed the developmental stages of faith over a lifetime of spiritual growth and observation; dwelt on being amazed by God's weakness as against God's strength and power; and asked importantly what theology is, and what it should be doing, in today's faith communities.

 

The Apostle Paul could be found doing the same thing with his churches as he struggled with updating Israel's OT faith in Yahweh which had been held for over 2000 years (its final 1000 years saw Israel's faith ritualized by religious laws, institutions, and dogmas). We read of Paul's struggle to uplift the faith of the Jews in culturally relevant ways when confronted with the revelation of God through His Incarnation in Jesus. Initially, Paul himself failed to understand the radical nature of Jesus' Incarnation, believing "christians" to be a new kind of cultic sect needing suppression and eradication. But soon, God confronted Paul in his own religious life of rites and rituals, telling him in very clear terms that he needed a radical change of heart and life.... That his theological beliefs and unloving faith were bankrupt and in deep need of godly burial. That his religious zeal to persecute Jesus would be fruitless. That his personal misbeliefs refusing to embrace God's atoning message and work of salvation were ill-spent and like kicking rocks down the road as he rebelled against God's authority and made life even harder on himself (Acts 9.5). That the life of resurrection must infill his previous life of death-and-religion so that God's Son might be hailed as Paul's own Lord and Savior. At that moment, upon realizing his deep error, Paul went from believing Jesus as a deluded mistake to God's wondrous mystery and paradox. He discovered that he had Yahweh's revelation all wrong-and-backwards. And from that moment forward strove to serve His Risen Lord and Savior to the end of his natural, human life with all the power and resources he had and could muster.

This same Jesus even today is doing the same in the life of the church and its many lives of servants and participants. Each are being asked if whether the faith and beliefs that they hold conforms with the love of God and the sacrifice that He has demonstrated to all of humanity through His Incarnation and Resurrection. To question if whether orthodoxy proper is not orthodoxy updated and in action; or if whether it lingers on the tree of death holding each believer upon similar crosses of shame and contamination. To the Galatians, Paul repeated time-and-again that they must let go of their OT faith, and allow that faith to transform in the NT love and service of Christ their Lord. And through the ages of the church, from her earliest church fathers until now, pastors and theologians have encouraged each follower of Christ to examine the Scriptures, listen to historical testimony, and be transformed by the relevancy of God's revelation in Christ Jesus. Placing orthodoxy in its proper place of uplift and movement, and not on the dusty bookshelves of irrelevance and death.

 

As Christ-bearers we each must step forward and be willing to be confronted by God on our own roads to Damascus. To allow the burdens of our past to be rolled off our backs just as "Little Christian" found in John Bunyan's 17th Century "Pilgrim's Progress" when thrown in jail and physically separated from his congregants. That our stories of faith must demand our questioning of ourselves - and our previously constructed faith - that our faith in Jesus match up with Jesus' words and actions towards others. That we do not find ourselves gathered around our Lord whilst throwing a harlot at his feet demanding judgment and recourse - to then find to our horror our own names being written in the sands of time detailing the "logs in our own eyes" as we slink away unrepentant and angrier than ever at the God who is our life and faith. Let this not happen. Be wise. Learn to doubt yourself. To doubt what you think you know about God. To be guided by the Spirit of God to the enlivening truths that is still God's holy Word. To know how to read it and properly interpret it, whilst discerning the more impolitic speeches of pulpit or theolog. To not hold the Bible in culturally moribund causes, bombastic refrains, and ungracious arguments. But to learn to read the Bible in its unrestrictive, redemptive terms of divine freedom and love. A freedom and love that would stake the meanest religious unrepentant upon the cross of Christ releasing God's fullness and majesty. A Biblical word of revelation that would cause the sincerest "Paul's" of our Postmodern age to fall on their knees proclaiming a truer Gospel sight than ever thought possible before the commanding voice of heaven speaking our earthly name. Let this be our God. Our faith. Our Bible. Not man's moiling words and moth-eaten commands of inflexible tradition and short-sighted death in the name of Jesus who never was according to the words of ill-discerning men.

 

R.E. Slater

June 18, 2013

 

 

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Tradition: It’s not an anchor to weigh you down,

but a sail to move you forward

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/tradition-its-not-an-anchor-to-weigh-you-down-but-a-sail-to-move-you-forward/

 

by Peter Enns

June 16, 2013

Comments

 

I came across this blog post, now over 3 years old, while meandering through the internet this morning. The point is made so succinctly  and expresses so well my own thinking, I wanted to post it to see what you think.

 

The author is Fr. Ted Bobosh, a priest at St. Paul the Apostle Church, Dayton, OH (Orthodox Church in America). He has degrees from the Ohio State University, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and Fordham University, and was for 12 years an adjunct professor at the University of Dayton, Religious Studies Department.

 

The title of the post is “Tradition: The Ship of Salvation’s Sail Not Its Anchor.” Bobosh makes a point that is vital for adherents to any Christian tradition.

 

Tradition, like Scripture, is not made holy by being carved into stone, but rather by being interpreted within a community, by being the heart of the community’s relationship to God and the world.  Tradition is thus alive and constantly relating to the world, not written in stone and frozen in some past understanding.

 

His basis for this claim is how the New Testament writers transformed their own tradition–what we call the Old Testament. Paul use of the Old Testament, for example, shows how tradition is “dynamic, creative, vivifying and renewing and keeps people focused on the goal – where God is leading us to, not the past and where we were.”

 

Bobosh cites New Testament scholar Sylvia C. Keesmaat, and I can’t resist reproducing the entire quote.

 

When a tradition is handed on unchanged it loses its potency and has little meaning for the present. Some would go so far as to say that an unchanged tradition is dead, it has been killed…a vibrant tradition must be not only a conserving (conservative) force, but also an innovative one.

 

The past tradition needs to be revivified for a new cultural and historical context….The only hope for survival lies in a tradition’s ability to provide a fresh word of hope in a new situation…this dynamic can be described as the interpretation of tradition; what gives a tradition its life is an effective interpretation for a new time and context. The success or failure of such interpretation (or re-interpretation) can result in either the life-giving continuation of the tradition, or its lifeless end…

 

In addition, in a situation of crisis, fraught with uncertainty, entrenchment seems a safe path to walk… To those in the Galatian community, who would revert to the tradition unchanged, Paul emphasizes that this tradition must not be merely mimicked. It cannot be simply passed on unchanged, the community in Galatia needs to hear the word of God’s radically new thing, of God’s revelation in Jesus, of the end of order. For this community Paul ‘defines and defends the radically new in terms drawn from the old’… That is why abandoning the tradition is not an option for him. However, that importance is evident partly in the ability of the tradition to provide a fresh word of hope for a new situation…. Paul transforms tradition so that it continues in the living world.

 

Expecting the Bible to maintain the type of precisionistic, propositional, consistency–that all of Scripture speaks with one voice as required in some conservative Protestant views of Scripture (i.e., inerrancy, etc.)–fails to embrace Scripture’s own necessary dynamic quality, a quality the New Testament authors were so diligent in expressing.

 

A very new thing happened in the Gospel that previous iterations of God’s word were not able to grasp–namely a Messiah who was executed by the Romans rather than defeating them and then raised from the dead. The tradition had to be transformed to account for this.

 

To miss this dynamic sells not only the Bible short, but the Gospel and God himself.

 

At least that’s what I think.

 

 

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What I’ve Learned about Reading the Bible from Reading the

Church Fathers: One Pilgrim’s Perspective (guest post)

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-ive-learned-about-reading-the-bible-from-reading-the-church-fathers-one-pilgrims-perspective-guest-post/

 

by Peter Enns

June 17, 2013

Comments

 

Today’s guest post is by David W. Opderbeck, professor of law at Seton Hall University Law School, and Ph.D. Candidate, Systematic and Philosophical Theology, University of Nottingham.

 

One of Opderbeck’s area’s of interest is science and faith, and he likes to bring into the evangelical discussion the often neglected work of the Church Fathers. While studying at an evangelical seminary, Opderbeck was introduced to the notion of the “theological interpretation” and did some basic reading in the Church Fathers. He then began to study the Fathers more closely.

 

He came to appreciate how the practices of biblical interpretation from the early Church can help Protestants recover a more robust understanding of the scriptures, which can absorb new challenges and insights from the natural sciences without becoming defensive, and which also can help build bridges between diverse church traditions.

 

Opderbeck writes on complex matters in an accessible manner at his blog Through a Glass Darkly, and has also blogged on theology, law, and scripture at Jesus Creed (for example, here).

 

Over the past few years, I’ve had an opportunity to read some of the writings of the Church Fathers. I was particularly blessed to audit an introductory Patristics course at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (Yonker, N.Y.) with one of the world’s leading authorities on their writings, Rev. John Behr, which covered Patristic writings prior to Augustine.  I still consider myself very much a student and not an expert on Patristic writings, but here are some key things I’ve learned about theology and scripture from reading the Fathers.

 

The Fathers read the scriptures and constructed their theologies through the lens of the Church’s living experience of Christ.  They did not use the scriptures to prove Christ.  They used their experience of Christ to authenticate the scriptures and then used the scriptures to clarify their experience of Christ.

 

In fact, the Fathers began to define the canon of scripture from among a wide variety of early Christian writings based in large part on what they understood to be the central “story” of the universe (referred to by some of them as the “Rule of Faith”):  the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

 

The Fathers knew that the scriptures are confusing, messy, and even self-contradictory.  They did not impose upon the scriptures an expectation of rigorous systematic analytic logic.  They understood very well that there is a finality to truth that inheres in the simplicity, unity and rationality of God’s own person as Father, Son, and Spirit, so that the scriptures ought to be interpreted to speak with a kind of polyphonic harmony.

 

The doctrines of the Trinity and Christology that were developing – and much debated – leading up to (and after!) the First Council of Nicea (AD 325) and the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) also dealt with this same theme of unity-in-plurality.

 

The fulcrum for the Fathers concerning the doctrines of the Trinity and Christology was the same as for their interpretation of scripture: the Church’s living experience of and witness to Christ.

 

The Fathers knew that the doctrines of the Trinity and Christology they were attempting to articulate finally are mysteries.  Nevertheless, they were rigorously philosophical in their efforts to articulate those doctrines.  These were erudite, highly educated and sophisticated men (yes, the writers I’m referencing today were all men – but that is a subject for another day).

 

In fact, without some background in Greek philosophy, it’s impossible to understand much of what they were saying.  Theologians today continue to debate the Greek thought categories the Fathers employed in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition.

 

Yet even with all their philosophical rigor, the Fathers themselves knew that their linguistic and philosophical categories were approximations or analogies for truths that finally lay beyond human comprehension.  Their efforts to define these doctrines carefully were not so much attempts to state final truths as efforts to avoid idolatry and blasphemy – to avoid saying too much, and to avoid inaccuracy as much as is humanly possible.  They knew this was necessary not only for formal doctrinal creeds and definitions, but also for the scriptures.

 

Just as the Trinity and the divine-human natures of Christ are mystical truths that defy the bounds of human capabilities, so the scriptures, for them, were mystical texts that point to something beyond the words on the page – that is, to the mystery of Christ.

 

Given their approach to theology and scripture, the Fathers were not univocal concerning how to read many of the Biblical narratives, including the creation texts.  Many of them thought the Genesis 1 and 2 narratives were in some sense mystical rather than “literal.”  Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395 AD), for example, puzzled over the mention of two trees in the middle of the Garden of Eden:

 

There was only one paradise.  How, then, does that text say that each tree is to be considered separately while both are in the middle?  And the text, which reveals that all of God’s works are exceedingly beautiful, implies the deadly tree is different from God’s.  How is this so?  Unless a person contemplates that truth through philosophy, what the text says here will be either inconsistent or a fable.” (Gregory of Nyssa, Sixth Homily on the Song of Songs).

 

It was common for the Fathers to take this sort of approach based on the nature of the text itself.  As theologian Michael Hanby notes in his difficult but fascinating book No God, No Science: Theology, Cosmology, Biology,  although we often think of John 1 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” – as a commentary on Genesis 1, “we must recognize that in the theological mindset of the early church and the Fathers, it is more appropriate to regard the opening verses of Genesis as a kind of commentary on the Prologue to John’s Gospel….”

 

That is, for them, the interpretive principle for scripture, theology, and indeed all of history and creation, was the living, [erudite] Christ.

 

 

Comparing the Stages of Cognitive Development (Jean Piaget) to the Stages of Faith (James Fowler)

New Ways of Thinking — Part One

http://johnwhawthorne.com/2013/05/28/new-ways-of-thinking-part-one/

John W. Hawthorne

May 28, 2013

I’m working on a book chapter summarizing literature on social psychology and learning as it relates to students attending Christian universities. Today I worked my way through Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development and James Fowler’s stages of faith.  It helped me think about three things: 1) the transitions described by Piaget and Fowler may be particularly difficult for evangelical young people to navigate, 2) Christian colleges are especially significant as that navigation is taking place, and 3) the transitions of thought process or the lack thereof is at the center of many of our issues in the evangelical church.

Stage theories have their limits, which I’ll speak to shortly. But there’s something significant about exploring shifts in cognitive processes. They suggest that students aren’t simply involved in learning new stuff — they’re developing entirely new ways of thinking.  Those new ways have their own risks and challenges.

Jean Piaget identifies four stages:

1. Sensorimotor Stage: infants respond to environmental stimuli
2. Preoperational Stage: pre-school children acquire language and learn to take the perspective of others.
3. Concrete Operational Stage: roughly equivalent to school years. Children adopt rigid categories and classifications. Imagining situations other than the current is very difficult.
4. Formal Operational Stage: begins in the teen years. Child is able to use formal processes to consider hypotheticals, alternatives, and contrasts between situations.

James Fowler, adopting ideas of Piaget and Kolberg, identifies six stages of faith development:

1. Intuitive Projective Faith: young children have an imagined sense of things, clinging to stories but operating in a free-form sense
2. Mythic-Literal Faith: school children see faith as connected to right and wrong and have a tendency to take metaphors literally
3. Synthetic-Conventional Faith: teens are balancing a high commitment to conform to religious authority with simultaneously working through issues of personal identity
4. Individuative-Reflective Faith: young adults begin to take responsibilities for their own personal views but struggle with difference from their past patterns
5. Conjunctive Faith: associated with mid-life periods, faith is able to handle paradox, conflict, and abiguity. Certainty is not as highly valued.
6. Universalizing Faith: for a limited number of individuals, faith becomes generalized rather than particular with an openness to justice for all people.

When I consider the students I deal with on a daily basis, they’re generally in transition between Piaget’s concrete operational and formal operational stages. In terms of Fowler, they’re moving from Synthetic-Conventional to Individuative-Reflective. A central component of the educational experience is to provide the context in which these new ways of thinking are explored.

There are many problems with stage theories but I’ll mention three. First, people move through the stages at their own pace. Not everybody who enters college is ready for formal operational thinking. (I’ve known some professors who are more comfortable with synthetic-conventional faith!) Second, the movement between stages is really more of a sense of back and forth. Some days are conjunctive and others are individuative-reflective. Some topics are concrete operational while others are formal operational. Third, these transitions are not easy. When students start to individuate their faith, they often feel like what they “have known” (that is, adopted from their parents) is crumbling. They need solid support as they’re exploring transitions.

I’ve written before about the young evangelicals I’ve been reading. As I said in that post, these are characteristically people of deep faith who are trying to think in new ways (individuative-Reflective). In my first post on this blog, I wrote of Rachel Held Evans’ story from Evolving in Monkey Town. Hers is a classic story of moving from concrete operational to formal operational thinking. The more she works out her questions in public forums, the faster she’s moving toward Fowler’s Conjunctive Faith.

There are some more sociological implications of these developmental stages. There are subcultures that inhabit a particular stage and place normative pressures on their members to think accordingly — not just to agree with conclusions but to process information in a particular way. They take pride in holding to a concrete, conventional faith. (I worry that some really desire the mythic-literal faith of elementary aged children.) If folks in the membership start thinking otherwise, they’ll feel great pressure to get back in line or leave. Pete Enns’ post yesterday gives voice to what it’s like to be in that pressure-filled situation.

I have other friends who valiantly attempt to engage concrete/conventional thinkers in dialogue on Facebook (looking at you, James McGrath and Karl Giberson). I’m always impressed by their efforts to confront those who claim evolution is of Satan or that Obama is destroying the world. They want their dialogue partners to engage in a level of thought Piaget would admire but it never seems to happen.

These notions of how people think are related to the general patterns we’re seeing in the evangelical world. The more today’s youth embrace the open postmodernism of cultural diversity, the harder it is for them to manage synthetic-conventional faith. The more they cling to mythic-literal faith, the hard it is to navigate the society. Kinnaman’s work on disaffected youth is consistent with such a pattern. Even if they aren’t lost to Christianity (as one Christianity Today headline worried) they are thinking about that faith differently.

Another very interesting pattern is occurring later in the age cycle. The Barna group found that church involvement for those over 40 has dropped significantly over the last decade. Michelle Van Loon has been conducting some informal online surveys (reported here) to unpack that result and we’ve been exploring ideas about what factors contribute to the change. It may be a family-focus that doesn’t speak to empty nesters. It may be burnout or care for aging parents. It may have something to do with our focus on seeker-sensitive services. I wondered today if it might not be that some of the 40+ crowd are moving into Fowler’s Conjunctive Faith while their congregations are barely making out of Synthetic-Conventional.

In short, how we organize our thinking appears to matter a lot. It speaks to how information is (or isn’t) processed and the kinds of conclusions that are open for consideration.

My next post will look at some of the same issues from the perspective of mental schemas, heuristics, and other patterns of meaning-making.

New Ways of Thinking — Part Two

http://johnwhawthorne.com/2013/05/28/new-ways-of-thinking-part-two/

John W. Hawthorne

May xx, 2013

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