"Is the Bible True" or "Is The Bible a Collection of Myths?"

How is the Bible True if it is Mythic?

Often I here the comment from someone questioning the Bible in a way that I don't consider questioning it. Now don't get me wrong, I question the Bible a lot. In fact, much of Relevancy22 is dedicate to questioning the Bible. But the questions I raise are questions I ask myself about life and God and why it is the way it is. Or, I may question my approach or my interpretation of the Bible in a way that may differ from my past conservative Christian heritage. Questions that I now consider quite healthy and appropriate to undertake.

However, I don't question the Bible in the sense of treating it as a compendium of narratives that is only human without divine intervention. Nor do I question the Bible in the cynic sense of disbelief that it is simply a piece of human literature. No, I don't come to it as one refusing to see its pages pregnant with the Spirit of the Lord.

And though I may question how my faith reads of God in the bible and learns from His Spirit in the narratives of the bible I reserve the right to read its script within the holy vernacular (or conversation) of God-speak to us by its many forms and ways and means. This doesn't mean that some sections of the Bible aren't written in mythic form. But it also doesn't mean that there aren't other sections written historically, poetically, as music, or prayers, or odes, sonnets, and songs. Remember, the bible is literature displaying all its ancient forms.

The list can go on and on but it is a list that contains a vast matrix to the person and story of God Himself. The story of His love and grace and mercy and forgiveness to us today as much as to those personages of the past. Hence I do not treat the Bible so simply as a mythic read.

Question: "Is the Bible true?"

Me: "Yes."

Question: "In what sense is the Bible true?"

Answer: "In many ways."

Question: "Is the Bible a myth that points to something that is more true than it is literally true?"

Answer: "Yes. But there's the catch isn't it? In what ways do we read of God and tell of God and think of God that might box us in away from God?"

  

The Story of Joseph Campbell

Now there was a man by the name of Joseph Campbell who made a living investigating the myths that human society lives by. Myths that are self-empowering as much as they can be self-defeating. Myths that can destroy our community with one another as much as they might re-invigorate our communities with one another.

Here's his story:

Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: "Follow your bliss." - Wikipedia

To this study Dr. Campbell made some life-long observations. Observations that are not necessarily disagreeable when you think through the Christian faith in these terms. A faith that can be "mythic" to some people. But for myself, a faith that is very much historically rooted in the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ as an actual person.

Jesus was more than a man. Jesus was very God Himself come in flesh and blood to minister, live, and die as the our sin-sacrifice. And afterwards, to be bodily raised from the dead, and then seen and declared for 40 days as alive by those who ate and talked with the glorified Christ-man:

Acts 1:1-9

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

4 And while staying[a] with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me;5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

The Ascension

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

---

Now if the Christian faith is mythic in this sense of the definition than fine. I have no problem with calling myself or the Christian faith mythic. But unlike a Greek mythology the Christian faith is more a God-pronounced metanarrative or histor-ology than myth-ology.

And though many conservative Christian groups build a lot of importance on particular interpretations of cornerstone biblical texts that are actually a form of ancient mythic text-stories this does not mean that the spiritual or ontological truth within those mythic texts are untrue. For example....

I consider Genesis 1-11 to be written in mythic form. Of course this is where we find the creation narratives of mankind, its sin, judgment, flood, and restoration. Moreover, I may wish to read these mythic narratives from a Christian evolutionary perspective realizing that I will not find any scientific statements written herein by ancient (non-scientific) societies.

But this is not to say that God did not create the world. A world that became broken by the freedom given to it, and requiring a restoration of fellowship that only God can give to it. Here we may have broad agreement despite whether we read Genesis 1-11 as a literal historical account or as an ancient Near-Eastern mythic history (a style which most of the ancient wrote in during this time).

But I do not read Genesis 1-11 in the agnostic or atheistic understanding of its ancient "human-myths." No. Though I might subscribe to some of the Bible's literary narratives as mythic this does not discount for me its very real, very true, theistic implications. That is where I and those like Joseph Campbell will disagree with one another.

It is a disagreement in substance more than it is a disagreement in kind.

---

Let's go a bit farther here now. Because when I read of some of Dr. Campbell's broader teachings it gives me pause to reflect on my faith and the community of those I am in Christ with. That is, Campbell's observations are not necessarily untrue.

The rub is that for Campbell "Jesus was a myth." Whereas for myself - and my Christian brothers and sisters - we believe that Jesus is a true-true myth. Or, a very real, flesh-and-blood, Son of God, come to heal the sin gulf between us and God. 

The Functions of myth (from Wikipedia)

Campbell often described mythology as having a fourfold function within human society. These appear at the end of his work The Masks of God: Creative Mythology, as well as various lectures.

The Metaphysical Function - Awakens a sense of awe before the mystery of being

According to Campbell, the absolute mystery of life, what he called transcendent reality, cannot be captured directly in words or images. Symbols and mythic metaphors on the other hand point outside themselves and into that reality. They are what Campbell called "being statements"[29] and their enactment through ritual can give to the participant a sense of that ultimate mystery as an experience. "Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of reason and coercion.... The first function of mythology is to reconcile waking consciousness to the mysterium tremendum et fascinans of this universe as it is."

The Cosmological Function - Explains the shape of the universe

For pre-modern societies, myth also functioned as a proto-science, offering explanations for the physical phenomena that surrounded and affected their lives, such as the change of seasons and the life cycles of animals and plants.

The Sociological Function - Validates and supports the existing social order

Ancient societies had to conform to an existing social order if they were to survive at all. This is because they evolved under "pressure" from necessities much more intense than the ones encountered in our modern world. Mythology confirmed that order and enforced it by reflecting it into the stories themselves, often describing how the order arrived from divine intervention. Campbell often referred to these "conformity" myths as the "Right Hand Path" to reflect the brain's left hemisphere's abilities for logic, order and linearity. Together with these myths however, he observed the existence of the "Left Hand Path", mythic patterns like the "Hero's Journey" which are revolutionary in character in that they demand from the individual a surpassing of social norms and sometimes even of morality.

The Pedagogical Function - Guides the individual through the stages of life

As a person goes through life, many psychological challenges will be encountered. Myth may serve as a guide for successful passage through the stages of one's life. - Wikipedia

Now as you can see Campbell's understanding of the functions of myth quite nicely dovetails with some of the ideas found with Christianity. The Christian faith will:

• awaken a sense of divine presence,

• perhaps provide some kind of explanation for why we are here, while

• validating and supporting our existential awareness of self, presence, and relationships,

• which may guide us through the various stages of life whether good or bad.

There is no refusal here. In fact, I remember reading through Greek mythology during my freshman year of humanities and simply loved the many stories I found because they so very well paralleled with my own tribalistic brand of Christian faith at the time. Those Greek myths gave me reason, purpose, awareness, wisdom, hope, and proverbial truth - even as my own Christian did.

Who'd of thought!?

But then again, this is the wisdom of God, is it not?

Comparing Attic Greek Myths with Ancient Hebrew Myths

And so I think it was more because I felt the rhythm of an ancient Greek Attic society hundreds of years before Jesus that was very much in tune with what I was also reading in the Bible as it was composed during that same ancient time in Hebrew society. A society returning from Babylonian exile that would recapture its faith under Nehemiah under his formidable bands of priests, teachers, and scribes. A Jewish society that dedicated itself to the preservation of its ancient faith through its many stories and legends and narratives from many hundreds, if not thousands, of years previous to itself.

And so, Joseph Campbell doesn't disturb me. However, his personal story disturbs me as one rejecting Jesus as the Christ and perceiving the Saviour of man as but a myth made up by societies requiring myths. It is that disbelieving faith-interpretation that disturbs me. A faith indwelling the soul of a skeptic who never became any more convinced of Jesus than that of a figure inscribed at the tip of a pen from the imaginations of societies wanting more from life than its own perception of reality.

Doubt is one thing. Disbelief another. For myself, Jesus is the reality of God come to mankind both then and now to disspell the disbelieving myths of our deceptive heart groaning in sin, burdened by disbelief, overspent in woe and suffering. The reality is that God has come to heal us, our hearts, our lives, with His renewing presence through His atoning grace on the Cross of Calvary. It is this kind of faith-reality that so many Christians have testified to through Christ their Saviour from the first century till now.

---

In conclusion, let me leave with you Rob Bell's response to Pete Holmes in a recent interview. Rather than be drawn into an argument about the veracities of the Christian faith, Rob, in Christ-like style, simply responds to Pete's questions and leaves undone the further task for Pete to discover for himself all that wasn't said in his interview with Rob.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

April 16, 2015
rev. April 17, 2015

Is the Bible True?

Pete Holmes Interviews Rob Bell

publ. April 15, 2015

The Anvil of God's Word

“Last eve I paused beside the blacksmith’s door,

And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;

Then looking in, I saw upon the floor,

Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.

“‘How many anvils have you had,’ said I,

‘To wear and batter all these hammers so?’

‘Just one,’ said he, and then with twinkling eye,

‘The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.’

“And so, I thought, the Anvil of God’s Word

For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;

Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,

The Anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone.”

—Attributed to John Clifford

Remembering an All-But-Forgotten, Extremely Influential Theologian: Christoph Blumhardt

Remembering an All-But-Forgotten, Extremely

Influential Theologian: Christoph Blumhardt

Source link

by Roger Olson

March 29, 2015

Comments

Much to their credit, a few historical theologians are trying to revive memory of German theologian-evangelist Christoph Blumhardt. My friend and co-author Christian Collins Winn (Bethel College, MN) is one of them. (He and I collaborated on our recently published book Reclaiming Pietism: Retrieving an Evangelical Tradition [Eerdmans, 2015].) In my opinion, however, Blumhardt is one of those great Christian thinkers and leaders who has been pushed to the deep background and only remembered (vaguely) by some as an influence on Karl Barth’s theology. However, even some books about Barth and his theology neglect to mention Blumhardt who deserves much more credit for helping launch theological renewal in the twentieth century.

Christoph (1842-1919) would consider it a disservice to himself not to mention his father Johann (1805-1880). The father was catapulted to fame in Germany and the Christian world by the story of his months-long exorcism of a demonic spirit possessing a young woman. Johann was a fairly ordinary Lutheran pastor in Southwestern Germany when she was brought to him by a friend. He did not consider himself an exorcist and had hardly given a thought to the subject of demon-possession but discerned that this young woman’s problem was supernatural. He was reluctant to engage in exorcism but agreed to pray for her. Eventually the demonic spirit left her and she was miraculously freed from spiritual bondage to evil. The elder Blumhardt went on to found a Christian retreat center for spiritual counseling, prayer and healing that became famous not only in Germany but also in Great Britain and America.

Christoph grew up in that atmosphere under the influence of his famous father and eventually took over his father’s ministry moving the retreat center to Bad Boll. It still exists although much changed. Now it is an ecumenical center for peace studies.

Christoph Blumhardt was a phenomenon in his own lifetime, much revered and criticized. He refused to fit into any traditional religious category and eventually surrendered his ministerial credentials in the state church under tremendous pressure from the tradition-bound hierarchy. Christoph was, like his father, a renowned exorcist and “faith healer.” (I prefer the term “divine healing evangelist” because in that tradition it is God who heals, not the person who prays. “Faith healing” is a journalistic term that does not do justice to that tradition’s beliefs.) People came from all over the world to Bad Boll to meet Blumhardt, hear him preach, receive spiritual counseling and advice from him and to be prayed for. He was widely regarded especially in Germany as a prophet, evangelist and political activist.

Blumhardt (from here on when I use that name I mean Christoph) picked up his personal motto from his father: “Jesus is victor!” This was the prophetic phrase declared by a woman present at the end of the famous exorcism carried out by his father over months. Blumhardt believed and taught that the future Kingdom of God is breaking into history through Jesus and the church. He believed and taught that miracles ought to be expected signs of this presence of the future. But he also believed socialism is the social order of the Kingdom of God and that Christians ought to model socialism in the church and state. He joined the Socialist party and became a member of parliament for a few years. He was also a universalist and pacifist. He believed that “Jesus is victor!” also means that God’s coming Kingdom through Jesus will eventually be all inclusive.

Barth gave Blumhardt credit for influencing his theology and social views. But Barth was not alone in being strongly influenced by Blumhardt. Scholars writing about Jürgen Moltmann almost always refer to two major influences on his thought—Barth and Bloch (Ernst). However, Moltmann himself credits Blumhardt with being the single most influential person on the development and direction of his theology. (See “The Hope for the Kingdom of God and Signs of Hope in the World: The Relevance of Blumhardt’s Theology Today” in Pneuma 26/1 (Spring, 2004). Donald G. Bloesch used Blumhardt’s motto “Jesus is Lord!” as the title of his little book on Barth’s theology and referred to Blumhardt many times in his writings.

My long time readers will already know how influenced I am by theologian Emil Brunner on whose Dogmatics I cut my “theological teeth” in seminary. Brunner dedicated Volume 3 of Dogmatics (The Christian Doctrine of the Church, Faith, and the Consummation) to Blumhardt: “This book is dedicated to Christoph Blumhardt. It was he, the prophetic witness to Jesus, who in the days of my youth by direct personal contact and, later, through men like Kutter and Ragaz, rooted me deep in the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. I have always loved and honoured him as one of those in whom the divine light shone forth, and in gratitude I regard my theological work as the harvest of his sowing.”

What did Barth, Bloesch, Brunner and Moltmann have in common that they might have inherited from Blumhardt? The answer is obvious: their Christological concentration. But it is better expressed as their “concentration on Jesus.” Some people talk endlessly about “Christ” but rarely mention “Jesus.” The difference may seem subtle, but it’s not to a true Pietist. One can believe in and talk about “Christ” as (for example) “the New Being that appeared in Jesus” while pushing the living Jesus, our contemporary (as Kierkegaard put it), to the background. Blumhardt believed Jesus is alive and busy wherever God’s people invite and allow him to be busy—bringing in the Kingdom on earth among us. Barth, Bloesch, Brunner and Moltmann all developed Christocentric or “Jesus-centered” theologies that, like Blumhardt’s theology, were infused with Pietism without Quietism. (Yes, I know Barth was highly critical of Pietism, but I am convinced his critiques of Pietism were aimed at a particular German expression of Pietism in his time and place and not at Pietism in general. He was very appreciative of Zinzendorf, for example, calling him a modern father of the church.)

All four of those theologians drew from Blumhardt their Jesus-centered hermeneutic of Scripture that relativized the Bible as witness to revelation with “revelation” being Jesus. Brunner’s “I-Thou encounter” is usually traced back (as a concept) to Martin Buber and Ferdinand Ebner, but I recognize it as just as much or more influenced by Blumhardt. When I first encountered Brunner in seminary I detected a certain “spirit” or “ethos” that resonated with my Pentecostal-Pietist spiritual formation. I now realize that ingredient in Brunner’s theology was Blumhardt in him.

We need a rediscovery of Blumhardt in contemporary theology.

The Gift of Reading the Bible Dynamically

is there payoff for the church in reading the Bible critically?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/11/is-there-payoff-for-the-church-in-reading-the-bible-critically/

November 25, 2014 by Peter Enns Comments

Theologian Peter Enns

At this year’s annual “help me I’m wearing tweed in San Diego” conference (a.k.a. Society of Biblical Literature) I was part of a panel discussion on “Reading the Bible in the 21^st Century: Exploring New Models for Reconciling the Academy and the Church.” On the panel with me were N. T. Wright, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Lauren Winner. John Dominic Crossan was scheduled to be there but his flight was delayed.

At any rate, we were each given 10 minutes to address the topic and here is what I said.

* * * * * * * * *

About 10 years ago a friend of mine, who teaches systematic theology at an evangelical seminary, told me of a faculty meeting held to discuss my recently published book Inspiration and Incarnation.

During the faculty discussion, a biblical scholar pointed out, “You know, there’s really nothing new here”—which, of course is not only true, but largely the point of the book: well known and widely accepted things like the presence of myth, contradictions, and numerous historical problems in the Old Testament, not to mention the New Testament’s midrashic use of the Old, have not been handled well within evangelicalism.

My friend chimed in, “Wait a minute. There’s nothing new here? I never heard of this stuff—and I graduated from this school and had you as a teacher.” The Bible professor replied, “Our job is to protect you from this information.”

Or consider the following: it’s been known within the evangelical community to encourage promising seminary students to pursue doctoral work at major research universities, but for apologetic purposes: infiltrate their ranks, learn their ways, expose their weaknesses. Or, related, they are told to “plunder the Egyptians”—a phrase actually used. To appropriate whatever in critical scholarship can aid the cause and either ignore or fight against the rest.

And so you have three postures by this faith community toward the threat posed by the academic study of the Bible: gatekeeper, spy, or plunderer. What lies beneath these postures is a deep distrust of the academy.

But the academy isn’t just a problem for evangelicals or other conservatives. On the other end of the spectrum we have the mainline church and theological interpretation—which is a movement to recover scripture for the church (the mainline church) in the wake of the historical critical revolution, which has not always been friendly to life and faith.

This is no rejection of the academy, though. What’s done is done. We’ve passed through what Walter Wink calls the “acid bath of criticism,” which has done the necessary job of stripping us of our naïve biblicism. But now, what’s left? What do we do with the Bible? How does it function in the church? What does it say about God? What should we believe? So, whereas evangelicalism distrust the academy, the mainline has felt a bit burned by it.

What binds both groups together is the problem of the academic study of scripture for the church—though there is also an important difference between them that goes beyond simply their different attitudes toward biblical criticism. Let me explain.

Evangelicalism’s suspicion of the academy appears to be justified by the mainline church’s embrace of historical criticism at first only to wind up advocating for theological interpretation as a corrective to it. “See, I told you so. Biblical criticism is a dead end. Look at the mainline churches and their shrinking numbers. They’re on life-support. Let’s learn from their mistake, not repeat it.”

I can see the point, but not so fast. Evangelicalism can’t simply adopt as its own the mainline response to historical criticism. The mainline embraced historical-critical insights; it’s had its acid bath and is working toward, as Gadamer and others put it, a second naiveté that acknowledges the critical revolution. In other words, the mainline church is postcritical, and there is no going back to the way things were before.

Evangelicalism, by contrast, hasn’t gone through the acid bath of criticism, nor does it seek the second naiveté. They are certainly willing to acknowledge that critical scholarship has shed some light on scripture, but the overall critical “posture” as it were is largely a mistake that one should be suspicious of, guard against, infiltrate, or plunder. In a sense, the evangelical reading of scripture is more at home in the precritical world, lamenting the slow erosion of biblical authority and inerrancy at the hands of biblical criticism.

If I had to pick, I’d rather be postcritical and wounded than precritical and defensive, but this is not to say that the mainline project of theological interpretation holds the key to binding together church and the academy—at least I don’t see it yet.

For example, I remember 25 years ago reading Brevard Childs’s excellent commentary on Exodus, but feeling frustrated. He acknowledges throughout the undeniable insights of historical critical methods, and even explains the text’s incongruities on the basis of source critical analysis. But when it comes to the theological appropriation of Exodus, all his learned critical analyses is left behind—because source criticism won’t get you to theological reflection. In fact, it gets in the way.

A lot has happened since Childs, and I respect the larger project championed by Walter Brueggemann, for example, but my experience of theological interpretation in general is that the relevance of biblical criticism for the church’s life and faith can be hard to discern. It’s not always clear to me how the academy is brought constructively and intentionally into the theological life of the church.

In fact, at times I see little more than a bare acknowledgment of the “importance” or “necessity” of biblical criticism, but when it comes to theology, it’s sometimes hard to see the importance or necessity. Biblical criticism seems to be more of a negative boundary marker to distinguish the mainline from the religious right—“We’re not fundamentalists; we embrace criticism”—but where’s the payoff?

As I see it, the academy and the church have at best an uneasy relationship when it comes to the Bible, whether for evangelicals or mainliners. In my opinion, true reconciliation of academy and church must strive for a more intentionally theological synthesis of the academic study of scripture and how that contributes theologically to faith and life, to seeing—perhaps in fresh ways– how God speaks to us in and through scripture today.

As I tell the story in The Bible Tells Me So, I’ve been captured by this synthetic idea since my first few weeks of graduate school—and some of how I put the pieces together has made its way into the book, albeit on a popular churchy level (which is exactly where it needs to be). For me, one payoff of this synthesis is a Bible that is remarkably dynamic and therefore personally meaningful.

For example, when I understand Deuteronomy as a layered work that grew out of the late monarchic to postexilic periods, I get happy. I see canonized a deliberate, conscious, recontextualizion, actualizion, indeed rewriting of earlier ancient traditions for the benefit of present communities of faith.

The same holds for Chronicles—a realignment and reshaping of Israel’s story for a late postexilic audience. Or taking a big step back, we have the Old Testament as a whole, which has woven into it the exaltation of the tribe of Judah, a theme that reflects the present-day questions and answers of the postexilic Judahite writers that produced it. Scripture houses a theological dynamic that is intentionally innovative, adaptive, and contemporizing.

Scripture’s inner dynamic provides a model for our own theological appropriation of scripture. As Michael Fishbane reminds us, within scripture the authoritative text of the past is not simply received by the faithful but is necessarily adapted and built upon. And this is a noble quality of the Old Testament that continues in Second Temple Judaism and, for Christians, the New Testament, where Israel’s story is profoundly recontextualized, reshaped, and re-understood in light of present circumstances.

And what the Christian Bible does is continued as soon as the church got out of the gate in the 2^nd century and beyond: reshaping the ancient Semitic story in Greek and Latin categories, giving us creeds; and then through the entire history of the church, where everywhere we look people are asking the very same question asked by the Deuteronomist, the Chronicler, and Paul:how does that back there speak to us here? 

And answering that question is a transaction between past and present that always involves some creative adaptation.

I don’t see this dynamic as a problem. It’s a gift. What more could the church want from its scripture? Don’t make a move without it, but when you move—you may need to move, not just remain where things have been. This is what I mean throughout The Bible Tells Me So when I say that the Bible is not an owner’s manual or an instruction guide.

It is a model of our own inevitable theological process, because the question is never simply what did God do then, but what is God surprisingly, 

unexpectedly, counterintuitively, in complete freedom, doing now?

Historical criticism doesn’t get a free pass—and I’m thinking here for example of Brueggemann’s critique. But it has nevertheless helped us understand something of this dynamic.

If I can put this in Christian terms, scripture bears witness to the acts of God and most supremely to the act of God in Christ. But scripture bears witness in culturally and contextually meaningful ways. This is where historical criticism comes into the picture—not as an enemy to be guarded against or plundered, and not as an awkward relative you don’t know what to do with, but as a companion, a means of understanding and embracing the complex actualizing dynamic of the Bible as a whole.

This is what I am aiming for in The Bible Tells Me So, albeit at a popular level, because that is where this discussion needs to be—with those who feel they have to chose between accepting academic insights or maintaining faith. I don’t believe that is a choice that has to be made, and miss out on a lot when we feel we need to.

* * * * * * * * *

Related Articles -

The Many Voices of the Church - A Quick Assessment

of the 2014 ETS & AAR Conference Meetings

On Knowing in the Bible: How Can We Know That We Know? Part 1 & 2

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

Should Church Creeds and Confessions Change with Advances in Human Knowledge?

…while the reality of God and God’s acts for human salvation in Christ remain constant, human apprehension of their truth and significance changes and develops. Our access to the truths is through historically, culturally and socially conditioned interpretations.

Credal statements do not escape this and are therefore not immutable. That we live in different, and equally limited and partial, historical, cultural and social conditions entails…that, even when we repeat the same words as the writers of Scripture or the formulators of the creeds, their meaning for us is not guaranteed to be the same as it was for them.

The consequence is not that all doctrinal truth becomes relative but that the Church in succeeding generations, through it theologians and teachers, through its worship and practice, is inevitably involved in the hard work of interpretation of the truths that shape its life. It should not be surprising that advances in knowledge throw up problems that require rethinking the tradition. After all, one of the tasks of theologians is to explore and restate central doctrines in the light of developments in human knowledge.

The doctrine of creation is now rethought in the light of what is taken to be the case in respect to cosmology or evolution or genetics but nevertheless it is still a doctrine of creation when it affirms that the universe and its life as we know them depend for their existence on a divine Creator.

- Andrew T. Lincoln, Born of a Virgin?: Reconceiving Jesus in the Bible, Tradition, and Theology, pp. 293-94.

At Relevancy22 we have explored the question of "stasis and knowledge" frequently and often. By this is meant the idea of whether the church must remain in a state of doctrinal equilibrium - or spiritual imbalance - as caused by the equal and opposing forces we see occurring today demanding perceptive scientific, and philosophic, advancement to that of the church's lagging creeds of Christian dogma and understanding.

Relevancy22 was birthed on the heels of this reflection a short three years ago causing this author to necessarily reflect upon the present state of theology when confronted by the separate contemporary activities we do now see and hear propounded all around us.... From observed short-sighted statements to publically outlandish remarks made in print and media while all the while attempting to bring some idea of biblical centering to the many faith topics at hand.

To accomplish this task at once required identifying the theological barriers we have built around our Christian psyche (or is it psychosis?) that would disallow any kind of movement or questioning of a past orthodox system that had become outdated and outmoded. Having no previous examples or leadership in this area I began to undertake this task alone with the strength and passion laid upon my heart by the Holy Spirit. It became a body of work that slowly evolved requiring a newer epistemology that challenged past beliefs and religious training. But one that would utilize the best of the postmodern, post-evangelic church movement with all the resultant discoveries flowing forthwith in the burgeoning swells of delight and enlightenment.

Basically it required moving the goal posts if not the entire lines on the playing field in order to ask better questions while discovering more relevant data sets of  doctrinal reflection. My old set of "biblical" rules and logic could no longer keep pace with the many newer reflections and interpretations challenging the fundamental areas of systematic and biblical theology as I was observing it. All had to change. And change it did with a drive I had little expected.

The first order of business was to burn all spurious beliefs down to the ground and begin to rebuild again. This was my period of deconstruction and re-learning. It was a period in which I never had despair even though I did have a great heaviness of heart that Christian theology must be upgraded if it were to even pretend to meet the needs of our postmodern societies and faith. It was as if the Lord drove me to re-capture the very ideas He would have for His church if it should listen with a new heart, new mind, and new spirit. That the past church doctrines built upon Greek classicism and secular modernism could no longer effectively reach beyond today's newer thoughts and ideas about the Lord's Spirit and grace, work and rule. It required new words. New ideas. A new language. And most importantly, a new mindset seeking better questions - and not for solutions alone. A more liberal attitude that was less restrictive and restricting.

My task became one of not defending God but of discovering our Redeemer-Creator past the words of His people. Past the deeds of His serving church. And past the attitudes of fear and apologetics meted out by public pulpit and Christian rhetoric. At once these platitudes must be deconstructed, and when done, necessitated a holy fire of Spirit-reconstruction based upon the new theologies I next began to uncover beyond my older bible education, ingrained background, and formalized church training. It was as if my black-and-white glasses were replaced with a new kind of spectral vision lenses letting in all the colours of the rainbow and beyond. Colours that admitted the ultraviolet and infrared spectral frequencies of sight and sound. I felt overwhelmed and became burdened to share my journey on a day-by-day basis lest loss and become stillborn by working through my own questions and observations  by the medium of digital argument and dissertation.

To do this, I knew I must reflect on all the doctrines of the church including its "many spirits of beliefs and darkened knowledge" if ever I was to break past its withholding traditions and intolerant religious ideologies that went under the several disguises of a Christian faith. That I must resurrect its classic orthodoxies onto a more contemporary plane of grace-filled orthodoxies that were more flexible and self-reflective. More humble and less judgmental (unless it were to a judgment upon the church itself). That I must write of a new orthodoxy that was every bit as classic as its past 2000 years but one that moved those doctrines and dogmas forward into - and beyond - today's postmodern era of thought and inquiry.

That might reset the Reformational-Evangelical barriers of the church to be more centered around a post-Reformational, post-Evangelical Jesus, and not around its own enculturated doctrinal preferences, syllogisms, and traditions. One that might act with more introspection than I was presently observing. That learned to behave itself around scientific discovery rather than beat against it. To see our Creator-God on a larger plane of knowledge than the one we had fitted for Him to remain stoutly framed within. To question our need for those beliefs rather than to allow the Christian faith to become obscured or irrelevant should we entertain broader religious overtones to our Christian faith.

And to this end I strove to re-envision how church doctrine might become less evangelical and more post-evangelical. Less static and irrelevant, and more integrated with the larger discoveries of science and philosophic thought. A church whose orthodoxies were updated to the trends of human renewal. Whose dogmas and folklores could be delineated for what they were... dogmas and folklores. But the dilemma was how to do this without losing the centering foundations of the Bible and of the Christ within its holy pages.

Anyone can go about writing their own Bible. But the trick is to not do this when renewing its faithful pages. If not, we have only created a new gnosticism. Or a new set of cultic doctrines that have broken from its proper continuity to past church history and theology however imperfect and imperfectly conceived. But if done well, then we'll see a more enhanced view of an orthodoxy that is enriched, postmodern, and relevant, to societal needs and perceptions. Names like NT Wright, Peter Enns, Scott McKnight, Roger Olson, or John Caputo (all whom we follow here) have shown a willingness to update church doctrine while discussing along the way their reasons for doing so. Even as I and other fellow bloggers would do apart from the plausible restrictive confines of school or college, church synod or fellowship.

Hence, this newer vision of God and His Word comes at the expense of re-adjusting our minds and hearts to better bear the Spirit's message of new wine. But if we remain within the older cocoons of our old doctrinal wineskins and traditional outlooks than like the worn-out skins of our past we may expect all to break and spill upon the ground. It can be a nasty business causing personal loss of faith and even great disillusionment. However, in constructing a newer wineskin of epistemology and belief structure the new wine of the Gospel of our Lord should serve well all who would pour its gospel message of good news out onto the contemporary forums and public thoroughfares. One that can meet the needs  of the lost while binding up the wounds of the broken.

And so, it is the task of the theologian to lead church pastors and congregants towards this newer wineskin. How to properly let go of the old to rightly receive the vision of the new without loss of faith or pretention to "biblically unsupportive doctrines." It is by asking better questions that are less demanding of answers and specific-outcome solutions. By receiving a gospel more open-ended than its more recent forebearers squawking heresy and judgment. It is realizing that God is far larger than we had first imagined or been taught. And that His Word is fundamentally relevant for today despite the fact that it would seem irrelevant by our current attitudes towards its biblical structures and narratives as we now presently preach it through outdated apologetics of fear and uncertainty.

As with every new era, we must be patient in discussion by allowing all things to work out. As example - and in response to Andrew T. Lincoln's idea of the Virgin Birth of Christ quoted above - I do continue to understand this event as miraculous and do not wish to explain it away as an un-miraculous event. Even so have I written of it once or twice on this blog against other ideas dismissing its validity from the pens of more eminent theologians and scientists. Today's quote above would be from yet another pen seeking its dismissal (or "newer" understanding). Though I favor his remarks on the church necessarily updating it creedal confessions - even as we have been working through here - I find his Webb-like "cultural interpretation" of Jesus' birth  unuseful as a proper anthropologic hermeneutic. Hence the tightrope we walk when updating church orthodoxy. It must be done. But it must be done properly.

However, I will be patient in the discussion and more discriminating about its spirit of conjecture without closing off its debates. For myself, it does indeed butt up against the other biblical doctrines of miracle, prophesy, and the nature of the incarnation of Christ. But these types of discussions do not dissuade me though they do tell me why it is all the more important to reset our conventional thinking within a larger epistemological framework of inquiry and investigation.

Hopefully this is being done well here at Relevancy22 while at the same time providing the balanced ingredients of Christian hope and devotion from other pens and tongues than mine own. As such, I have created this blogsite as a reference site that both teaches and inspires and not simply as my own personal blog. As a place one may go to ask meaningful questions and perhaps find helpful direction. That might point us towards newer theologies and contemporary thinking we once never thought to ask, study, or contemplate.

But it may also require the painful passage of disorientation. Of de-centering one's "biblical" beliefs with the harsher realities I had experienced before the Lord as He spiritedly began the renewing task of re-constructing the new wines of His Gospel about my spinning mind, heart, and spirit. The Christian faith is not an easy thing to comprehend. Even less when constructed about religious pride and misleading teachings. It can be as full of darkness and death as it can be of life and light. I pray that with me, your journey becomes one of proper sorrow and of a greater joy at its renewal and resurrection. Even so, may the God of grace bring His great love and peace to you this and every Lord's day.

R.E. Slater

March 26, 2014

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

Addendum

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

In which this is for the ones leaving evangelicalism

http://sarahbessey.com/ones-leaving-evangelicalism/

by Sarah Bessey

March 29, 2014

I walked this path years ago: it is not an easy path. But there are a lot of us out here waiting for you.

Can we ever really leave our mother church? Perhaps not. The complexity of tangled up roots isn’t easily undone. And yes, I think there is a way to reclaim and redeem our traditions with an eye on the future.

But maybe this isn’t your time to do that. Maybe this is your time to let go and walk away.

I know you’re grieving. Let yourself grieve. It’s the end of something, it’s worthwhile to notice the passing of it, to sit in the space and look at the pieces before you head out.

In the early days, when you are first walking away, you might feel afraid. You don’t need to be afraid. It can be confusing to separate from what so-and-so-big-guy-in-the-big-organization says about you or people like you. It can be disorienting to walk out into the wilderness on purpose. It can be lonely. It can be exhilarating. It can be terrifying.

My friend, don’t stay in a religious institution or a religious tradition out of fear. Fear should not drive your decisions: let love motivate you.

Lean into your questions and your doubts until you find that God is out here in the wilderness, too.

I have good news for you, broken-hearted one: God is here in the wandering, too. In fact, you might just find, as Jonathan Martin wrote, that the wilderness is the birthplace of true intimacy with God for you.

Jesus isn’t an evangelical. You get to love Jesus without being an evangelical.

Your pet evangelical gate-keeper isn’t the sole arbitrator of the Christian faith: there is more complexity and beauty and diversity of voices and experiences within followers of the Way than you know. Remember, your view of Christians, your personal experience with Christians is rather small sample size: there are a lot more of us out here than you might think. A lot of us on the other side of that faith shift, eschewing labels and fear-tactics, boundary markers and tribalist thinking.

There are a lot of us out here who aren’t evangelical theologically or politically. There are those of us who are evangelical perhaps in our theology still (I think I am but who can keep track these days of the master list we’re supposed to be checking?) while separating from evangelicalism culturally or politically.

I’m someone who believes that we are in the midst of major shift within the Church – what Phyllis Tickle calls a “rummage sale” – similar to the Great Schism, and the Reformation. The Church is sorting and casting off, renewing and re-establishing in the postmodern age and this is a good thing. The old will remain – it always does – but something new is being born, too. If it is being born in the Church, it is first being born in the hearts and minds and lives of us, the Body.

Maybe evangelicalism as we understand it doesn’t need our defense anymore: maybe we can open our fist, lay down our weapons for the movement or the ideology or the powerful, and simply walk away.

It was helpful when it was helpful. Now, perhaps, it is not. Evangelicalism doesn’t get our loyalty: that fidelity is for our Jesus.

Sometimes we have to cut away the old for the new to grow. We are a resurrection people, darling. God can take our death and ugliness and bitterness, our hurt and our wounds, and make something beautiful and redemptive. For you. In you. With you.

Let something new be born in you. There is never a new life, a new birth, without labour and struggle and patience, but then comes the release.

Care for the new life being born in you with tenderness. It will be tempting to take all the baggage with you – to bring the habits or language or rules with you. That’s okay. You might need to be angry for a while. That’s okay. You might need to stop reading your approved-translation-of-the-Bible and only find Scripture in The Message. That’s okay. You might need to stop praying the way you were taught and learn to pray as you work, as you make love, as you walk at night. That’s okay.

I’m not afraid for you: you are held.  You are loved and you are free. I am hopeful for you.

Nothing has been lost that will not be restored. Be patient and kind with yourself. New life doesn’t come overnight especially after the soil of your life and heart has been burnt down and razed and covered in salt.

Don’t worry about the “should-do” stuff anymore. It might help to cocoon away for a while, far from the performances or the structures or even the habits or thinkers that bring you pain. The Holy Spirit isn’t restricted to only meeting with you in a one-hour-quiet-time or an official 501-3(c) tax approved church building.

Set out, pilgrim. Set out into the freedom and the wandering. Find your people.  God is much bigger, wilder, generous, more wonderful than you imagined.

The funny thing for me is that on the other side of the wilderness, I found myself reclaiming it all – my tradition, the habits, the language. Your path may lead you elsewhere, but I’m back where I began with new eyes, a new heart, a new mind, a new life, and a wry smile.

Now, instead of being an evangelical or whatever label you preferred, perhaps you can simply be a disciple, a pilgrim, out on The Way, following in the footsteps of the man from Nazareth.

You aren’t condemned to wander forever. Remember now: after the wilderness comes deliverance.