Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label Pauline Theology as Political. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pauline Theology as Political. Show all posts

Sunday, January 7, 2024

The Apostle Paul's Refugee Experience






St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles'
Itinerant Life and the Refugee Experience

by Pope Benedict XVI


St. Paul's 'all things to all peoples' an incentive to solidarity

For the upcoming 95th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, to be celebrated on 18 January 2009, the Holy Father has written a Message to honour the 2,000th anniversary of St. Paul's birth. The following is a translation of the original Italian texts of the Papal Message, dated 24 August, Castel Gandolfo.


Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This year the theme of the Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees is: "St. Paul migrant, 'Apostle of the peoples'". It is inspired by its felicitous coincidence with the .Jubilee Year I established in the Apostle's honour on the occasion of the 2,000th anniversary of his birth. Indeed, the preaching and mediation between the different cultures and the Gospel which Paul, "a migrant by vocation" carried out, are also an important reference point for those who find themselves involved in the migratory movement today.

Born into a family of Jewish immigrants in Tarsus, Cilicia, Saul was educated in the Hebrew and Hellenistic cultures and languages, making the most of the Roman cultural context. After his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus (cf. Gal r:13-16), although he did not deny his own "traditions" and felt both esteem and gratitude to .Judaism and the Law (cf. Rm 9:1-5; 10:1; 2 Cor 1:22; Gal 1:13-14; Phil 3:3-6), he devoted himself without hesitation or second thoughts to his new mission, with courage and enthusiasm and docile to the Lord's command: "I will send you far away to the Gentiles" (Acts 22:21). His life changed radically (cf. Phil 3:7-11): Jesus became for him his raison d'être and the motive that inspired his apostolic dedication to the service of the Gospel. He changed from being a persecutor of Christians to being an Apostle of Christ.

Guided by the Holy Spirit, he spared no effort to see that the Gospel which is "the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek" (Rm 1:16) was proclaimed to all, making no distinction of nationality or culture. On his apostolic journeys, in spite of meeting with constant opposition, he first proclaimed the Gospel in the synagogues, giving prior attention to his compatriots in the diaspora (cf. Acts 18:4-6). If they rejected him he would address the Gentiles, making himself an authentic "missionary to migrants" — as a migrant and an ambassador of Jesus Christ "at large" in order to invite every person to become a "new creation" in the Son of God (2 Cor 5:17).

The proclamation of the kerygma caused him to cross the seas of the Near East and to travel die roads of Europe until he reached Rome. He set out from Antioch, where he proclaimed the Gospel to people who did not belong to Judaism and where the disciples of Jesus were called "Christians" for the first time (cf. Acts 11:20, 26). His life and his preaching were wholly directed to making Jesus known and loved by all, for all persons are called to become a single people in him.

This is the mission of the Church and of every baptized person in our time too, even in the era of globalization; a mission that. with attentive pastoral solicitude is also directed to the variegated universe of migrants — students far from home, immigrants, refugees, displaced people, evacuees — including for example, the victims of modern forms of slavery, and of human trafficking. Today too the message of salvation must be presented with the same approach as that of the Apostle to the Gentiles, taking into account the different social and cultural situations and special difficulties of each one as a consequence of his or her condition as a migrant or itinerant person.

I express the wish that every Christian community may feel the same apostolic zeal as St. Paul who, although he was proclaiming to all the saving love of the Father (Rm 8:15-16; Gal 4:6) to "win more" (1 Cor 9:22) for Christ, made himself weak "to the weak... all things to all men so that [he] might by all means save some" (1 Cor 9:22).

May his example also be an incentive for us to show solidarity to these brothers and sisters of ours and to promote, in every part of the world and by every means, peaceful coexistence among different. races, cultures and religions.

Yet what was the secret of the Apostle to the Gentiles? The missionary zeal and passion of the wrestler that distinguished him stemmed from the fact that since "Christ [had.] made him his own", (Phil 3:12), he remained so closely united to him that he felt he shared in his same life, through sharing in "his sufferings" (Phil 3:10; cf. also Rm 8:17; 2 Cor 4:8-12; Col 1:24). This is the source of the apostolic ardour of St. Paul who recounts: "He who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles" (Gal 1:15-16; cf. also Rm 15:15-16). He felt "crucified with" Christ, so that he could say: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20), and no difficulty hindered him from persevering in his courageous evangelizing action in cosmopolitan cities such as Rome and Corinth, which were populated at that time by a mosaic of races and cultures.

In reading the Acts of the Apostles and the Letters that Paul addressed to various recipients, we perceive a model of a Church that was not exclusive but on the contrary open to all, formed by believers without distinction of culture or race: every baptized person is, in fact, a living member of the one Body of Christ.. In this perspective, fraternal solidarity expressed in daily gestures of sharing, joint participation and joyful concern for others, acquires a unique prominence. However, it is impossible to achieve this dimension of brotherly mutual acceptance, St. Paul always teaches, without the readiness to listen to and welcome the Word preached and practised (cf. 1 Thes 1:6), a Word that urges all to be imitators of Christ (cf. Eph 5:1-2), to be imitators of the Apostle (cf. 1 Cor 11:1). And therefore, the more closely the community is united to Christ, the more it cares for its neighbour, eschewing judgment, scorn and scandal, and opening itself to reciprocal acceptance (cf. Rm 14:13; 15:7). Conformed to Christ, believers feel they are "brothers" in him, sons of the same Father (Rm 8:14-16; Gal 3:26; 4:6). This treasure of brotherhood makes them "practise hospitality" (Rm 1 2: 13), which is the firstborn daughter of agape (cf. 1 Tm 3:2, 5:10; Ti 1:8; Phlm 17).

In this manner the Lord's promise comes true: "then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters" (2 Cor 6:17-18). If we are aware of this, how can we fail to take charge of all those, particularly refugees and displaced people, who are in conditions of difficulty or hardship? How can we fail to meet the needs of those who are de facto the weakest and most defenceless, marked by precariousness and insecurity, marginalized and often excluded by society? We should give our priority attention to them because, paraphrasing a well known Pauline text, "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God" (1 Cor 1:27).

Dear brothers and sisters, may the World Day for Migrants and Refugees, which will be celebrated on 18 January 2009, be for all an incentive to live brotherly love to the full without making any kind of distinction and without discrimination, in the conviction that any one who needs us and whom we can help is our neighbour (cf: Deus Caritas Est, n. 15). May the teaching and example of St. Paul, a great and humble Apostle and a migrant, an evangelizer of peoples and cultures, spur us to understand that the exercise of charity is the culmination and synthesis of the whole of Christian life.

The commandment of love — as we well know — is nourished when disciples of Christ, united, share in the banquet of the Eucharist which is, par excellence, the sacrament of brotherhood and love. And just as Jesus at the Last Supper combined the new commandment of fraternal love with the gift of the Eucharist, so his "friends", following in the footsteps of Christ who made himself a "servant" of humanity, and sustained by his Grace cannot but dedicate themselves to mutual service, taking charge of one another, complying with St. Paul's recommendation: "bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ" (Gal 6:2). Only in this way does love increase among believers and for all people (cf. 1 Thes 3:12).

Dear brothers and sisters, let us not tire of proclaiming and witnessing to this "Good News" with enthusiasm, without fear and sparing no energy! The entire Gospel message is condensed in love, and authentic disciples of Christ are recognized by the mutual love their hear one another and by their acceptance of all.

May the Apostle Paul and especially Mary, the Mother of acceptance and love, obtain this gift for us. As I invoke the divine protection upon all those who are dedicated to helping migrants, and more generally, in the vast world of migration, I assure each one of my constant remembrance in prayer and, with affection, I impart my apostolic: Blessing to all.


Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
15 October 2008, page 27

L'Osservatore Romano is the newspaper of the Holy See.
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Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Apocalyptic Theology, the Gnostic Community, and the Spirit of God





"The sad fact is, we as human beings, are sinful and given to sinful wrath and not solidarity
with one another. The solidarity of God rests with the solidarity of humanity where Jesus
is the great binder to all divisions, enmities, and hatreds. Without Jesus as Christianity's
center - or any religion's center - there can be no peace. No goodwill. No fellowship."
                                                     - r.e. slater, 12.8.15


Friend and theologian Scot McKnight has been observing the misapplication of "apocalyptically-informed hermeneutics (bible interpretation based upon a gnostic spirit of divine illumination) against the narratival and historical approach of NT Wright's "new perspective of Pauline theology" which projects God's self revelation through His people into the New Testament.

For Wright, to understand the Apostle Paul aright is to better understand Jewish theology as versus a Christianity that has developed its church doctrines (Reformed, Lutheran Catholic) apart from this perspective. Hence, Wright proposes a Jewish approach to Paul's teachings as versus a Protestant or Catholic approach to Paul. One is more natural while the other is more contrived.

Now comes yet another perspective of Paul (and of Jesus) more related to the gnostic communities of Jesus and Paul's day found between the intertestamental period of the Old and New Testaments and within the pagan/Christian communities which arise after Jesus' death and resurrection. These communities rely on a kind of "Spirit knowledge" obtained from God than on the historical narratives of either Testament of the bible. As such, their knowledge is privileged, or secret, to themselves alone without opportunity to be questioned or known except through themselves. To Christian theologians these communities of "specialized revelatory knowledge" are deemed "gnostic communities" of marginally Christian believers adding to, or subtracting from, the revelation of God more broadly (or publicly) given to His people through the Old and New Testaments.

Moreover, gnostic theology is guilty of personal motives - or subjective trajectories - of a community's more basic "wants and needs" than it is of God's "specialized secret knowledge" and missional outreach of salvation. To be a gnostic believer then is to be a believer who is more-or-less a Christian (or, more-or-less pagan, and therefore less Christian) in their theologic and missional views of Jesus. The hallmark of a non-gnostic Christian is a Jesus-led community of believers who ceaselessly examine, question, or even doubt themselves and their theologies, so that Jesus is more clearly seen rather than one's own subjective beliefs and dispositions.

Thus, church doctrine and tradition matters to a Jesus-community of believers who rely on examining the Scriptures to inform their faith as well as examining past theologians from previous historic eras set within their own philosophical paradigms and constructs. As such, this "objective" method of study must always be under examination so that a theologian (or church fellowship) uses all methods of self-assessment (including its own contemporary era) which may be helpful in ridding the church of any pagan doctrines or dogmas which are misleading to the gospel of Christ.

For some church denominations and fellowships, this study has been regulated to only acceptable church traditions (or religious folklores) which carry forward their own unique brand of Christian belief (whether Reformed, Lutheran, Catholic, or some admixture of these beliefs). This would also include the unconscious  (or subconscious) interpretation of Scripture based upon past philosophic eras a church fellowship may have developed them within. Eras such as New Testament Hellenism in Paul's day, or later Medieval Scholasticism before the Renaissance, or pre-Reformational Enlightenment, or last century's Secular Modernism, or even today's millennial Postmodern, Post-Christian examinations of Scriptures and theology.

"If you must have blind faith, center it in the Crucified
and be faithful to who He is, and what He says.
But question everything else."
- Jeff Robinson (friend of Michael Hardin), 12.6.15

More simplistically, a gnostic theology would discount all previous church histories, doctrines, or theologies in favor of its "more-enlightened" view of inscripturated knowledge. A knowledge which is more secret, more subjective to its needs, more forced by its community to be believed, than what is commonly perceived amongst other Christian communities. But rather than being simply a "movement of theological perspectives" within a church community - however pagan or spiritual - these gnostic communities will claim a divine guidance that replaces all previous divine revelations in favor of their own special brand of beliefs.

Consequently, Christians who purport a kind of "secret knowledge" of God's revelatory plan today are more dependent upon their own informed sense of God's movement than they are upon God's historical portrayal of Himself through Scripture and especially through the Christ event of the New Testament or even of church history. They perceive themselves as a "cut above" other Christian communities and so, their belief structure is selectively more special than any other acclaimed doctrinnaire as well.

Hence, a gnostic apocalyptic theology is a different kind of apocalyptic theology than the standard Christian one. It pretends to inform that group of believers of God's intentions and motives according to its more selective knowledge given to it from the Spirit of God. Though one would wonder if it was from God's spirit or from their own spirit of sinful man. Nonetheless, from this basis a gnostic community would then re-interpret the Scriptures to selectively bear out its own aims and objectives becoming a "revelation" to themselves as kept from God's broader revelation in Christ to the world. A revelation which was more truly apocalyptic in its nature than these secret communes of believers would have us believe.


"Verily then, it becomes the old game of 'misdirect and subtle evasion.'
If you don't like something you're hearing, than chose to ignore it by
making your approach  more approved by God."
                                                     - r.e. slater, 12.8.15

So then, back to McKnight's observations. There is gnostic kind of perspective being applied to the Gospels and Pauline theology purporting itself as an interpretive tool, or hermeneutic, for Scriptural reading and study. The error here is not in reading of the Christ event as an apolcalyptic event to subsume all other apocalyptic trajectories/theologies of the bible unto itself. But to take that event and claim a special "gnostic insight of reading the bible" which would inform one of God's movement amongst men today. Basically, its the idea of who is more informed to read the bible - the studied student or theologian of the bible or, the Spirit-led mystic, who claims to see more broadly then his brothers and sisters.

Though there is an element of truth here related to the necessary leading of the Holy Spirit into the illumination of Scripture, it really is a misapplication of this truth using a more charismatic spirit of division and illumination. As an example, the church today is beset by religious conservative politics - should it exclude gays, women, minorities, and unbelievers from God's commands to embrace, love, welcome, and reach out to all? If so, how can this be done if past theological dogmas are being shown as artificially constructed in today's more-enlightened postmodern approach to Scripture? Perhaps by using the "apocalyptic method of interpretation" these sinful discriminations might be upheld and purported as righteous rather than self-righteous?

Verily then, it becomes the old game of "misdirect and subtle evasion." If you don't like something you're hearing, than chose to ignore it by making your approach more approved by God. Create a new way of interpreting the Scriptures more to your liking and thus, ignoring the very Spirit of God who you are claiming is leading you in your spirit of division and alienation. How many times has the church done this through history? Many! It doesn't take a gnostic community of believers to do this, even the people of God will do this when it favors their prejudices and bigotries.

The sad fact is, we as human beings, are sinful and given to sinful wrath and not solidarity with one another. The solidarity of God rests with the solidarity of humanity where Jesus is the great binder to all divisions, enmities, and hatreds. Without Jesus as Christianity's center - or any religion's center - there can be no peace. No goodwill. No fellowship. Only darkness, bitterness, and cold.

Peace,

R.E. Slater
December 8, 2015

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Search Results for: apocalyptic theology

NT Wright vs. Apocalyptic Theology: How Adams Goes Wrong about Wright

The showdown in Pauline scholarship today is between the new perspective, in particular as articulated in the narratival theology of NT Wright, and apocalyptic theology as articulated by J. Louis Martyn and those who follow him (e.g., M. de Boer, B. Gaventa, D. Campbell). Samuel Adams, in his new book The Reality of God and Historical [Read More...]

The Apocalyptic Challenge to NT Wright: Method

This blog has given plenty of attention to the works of NT Wright, in part because his books are valued by our readers and in part because his books are accessible for the blog and in part because he’s in “my camp” (the new perspective on Paul). But with that comes challenges to NT Wright [Read More...]

N.T. Wright Responds to the Apocalyptic Paul School

The major debate about the apostle Paul shifted in the 21st Century from a debate between the “old” and the “new” perspective of Paul to the new perspective vs. the apocalyptic Paul. In saying that, the tussle ends up being between NT Wright (a version of the NPP) and Lou Martyn and his followers (e.g., [Read More...]

The Apocalyptic Paul — His Biography

Douglas Campbell has become a major player in the world of Pauline studies with his last two books in this sense: he has not only proven his competence in exegesis, theology and history but has proposed a re-centering of Pauline theology around the theme of apocalyptic. (Some have said Barth’s had his share of influence, [Read More...]

Challenging NT Wright: Knowing God

NT Wright is committed to “critical realism” and Samuel Adams — and his book The Reality of God and Historical Method is endorsed by Douglas Campbell, Douglas Harink, Bev Gaventa and Alan J. Torrance — thinks critical realism is insufficient to the task of theology. History, it is being argued, can only go so far. [Read More...]

Is the “Old” Better? NT Wright Responds

It may simplify but this formula may explain a major difference between at least the most widely-read version of the “new” perspective and the standard “old” perspective: Old Perspective scholars are soteriologians while the NT Wright version of the New Perspective makes him an eschatologian. I am re-reading NT Wright’s Paul and His Recent Interpreters and the chapter [Read More...]

The New Perspective(s) on Paul Begin with EP Sanders

In the mid to late 90s I began to hear traditional, mostly the Reformed with hints of Lutheranism Christian leaders begin to accuse the “new perspective” of weaknesses and in the criticism I was hearing descriptions of what “new perspective on Pau” (NPP) theologians believed — as if the NPP had a systematic theology worked [Read More...]

NT Wright, Paul and His Interpreters, the Cover

The cover of N.T. Wright’s new Paul and His Recent Interpreters, in the English edition (sadly not the USA edition), goes to the heart of the book. Some might not notice that the cover of the book is Rembrandt’s self portrait as the apostle Paul. (Image credit) Rembrandt painting himself as the apostle Paul, think of [Read More...]

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Paul and the Crucifixion: Neither Modern Nor Postmodern in Radical Theology

I have been participating in the "Rupture, Revelation, Revolution" classes each week and must share what Badiou's "Event and Being" means to me on a rudimentary level. I say "rudimentary" because I am not a philosopher but am interested in the creation of a new postmodern philosophical language (or linguistic scaffolding structure) in which to inspect and/or construct/deconstruct a new postmodern language for present day theology. 

Moreover, last summer I met and studied under Alain Badiou at the insistence of a new friend who was conducting podcasts with Pete Rollins and John Caputo out of my office from the week before. And well that I did, because Badiou was the kind of free-ranging thinker whose system concepts bode a greater expansiveness to my own enlightenment/modernistic background from which I had been attempting a resurrection from through the utilization of postmodern thought.

Anyway, today's blog article is a crude summary of what we have been talking about the past 2 weeks which I hope helps when reading Pete Rollins article following immediately below.

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"I have been taking a 6 week primer on philosophic radical theology using Paul's theology as a type of profound revelation that ruptures one's previous world systems by displacing and deeply revolutionizing all succeeding thoughts and acts against past cherished paradigms personally or sociological ingrained in society.

By using Alain Badiou's "Event and Being" as a juxtaposition we moved last week from the poet/prophet act of receiving (or discerning) revelation (the Event) to this week's transformative stages of Being which becomes radically transformative in the Christ event for the Apostle Paul (even as it is for the Christian believer).

As such, all past hermeneutics interpreting Jesus must radically fall away for Paul as he became consumed in Jesus as a rupturing Event to his life's theology, mission, and identity. Similarly, post-modernism's anthropological-existential hermeneutics may now displace all previous enlightenment and modernistic theologies themselves having become radically transformed upon the very foundation these systems had built for their own demise.

In lay terms this means that even as Paul was profoundly changed by Jesus in doctrine, service, and identity so will the new postmodern Christian become profoundly moved fundamentally to his/her state of being with its acquisitions and proclivities. And as individuals are changed so will the church in its doctrine, mission, and identity.

Thus, Paul no longer sought to fit Jesus into his bible but the bible around Jesus. (In existential terms Paul was the one to be fit around Jesus even as the Christian believer becomes radically transformed in the same way). He knew the reality of his experience (the subjective response to the objective) and though he could not explain it he knew he must become neither Jew nor Greek but God's servant.

Even so, this is the philosophical scaffolding of a new theology that brings God's kingdom into the present through gracious acts of servitude towards others when overwhelmed by Spirit-filled revelatory light and illumination. A new consciousness which sees world systems and Jewish or Christian laws as antithetical to Jesus' apocalyptic event and being.

Correspondingly, this becomes the scary stuff that we most fear because it radically changes us should we allow it to do so. But without this personal admittance it cannot displace nor disrupt nor revolutionize the very person seeking to be claimed by the event itself.

Likewise must theology flow in its disruption to all past theologies that it might proclaim the event through a new essence of being. An essence which deconstructs old-line systems and traditions in order to reconstruct the self to the newer radicalized rectitudes and discontinuities obtained by the rupturing revelation to consumptive lives, routines, and activities.

R.E. Slater
March 31, 2015


Comments

Anon: "I concur with all of this. I hope you'll keep us/me updated as you move through the course. Sounds interesting and wise.+


Myself: "Thanks. It's even more radical than this. I am looking for a new philosophical framework on which theology might further expand and transform the bible beyond perspectival hermeneutics to radically lived kingdom lives. Lives as very poets and prophets themselves. I met Badiou and studied with him last summer but even though I didn't understand it I felt there was in his way of thinking a way to reinterpret the bible beyond itself. Moreover, it's also a continuation of reviewing what radical theology can become stripped of western thinking and infused in Christ. Basically it's left of liberalism but center on with Jesus at its core."


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Paul and the Crucifixion: Neither Modern, Nor Postmodern
http://peterrollins.net/2015/03/paul-and-the-crucifixion-neither-modern-nor-postmodern/

by Peter Rollins
March 03, 2015

As some of you know, I’m currently teaching a course with Tripp Fuller that explores the turn to Paul found among atheist philosophers. In contrast to the “New Perspective on Paul” found in contemporary theology, people like Badiou, Zizek and Taubes are celebrating a militant, political Paul who provides a model for combating postmodernism.

One of the questions that has come up during the course concerns why on earth these political atheist thinkers would find an ally in Paul when they share nothing of his dogma or commitment to the largely conservative, pietistic community that claims his legacy. More than this, the Resurrection of Christ is Paul’s overriding belief, it is the sun around which everything else orbits.

How then can thinkers who view this part of the Jesus story as a fable, possibly champion the controversial apostle?

In order to approach an answer we have to briefly reflect on how Paul held the belief in Christ’s resurrection. Bearing in mind the centrality of the belief, it is hard not to be struck by the fact that he doesn’t actually argue for it in the traditional way. Indeed he specifically claimed that the event was foolishness in terms of reason, and a stumbling block for those who sought a sign. In this way Paul neither resembles the modern apologist who employs philosophy to back up his claims, nor the postmodernist who sees her claims as relative.

Paul can’t be placed into either of these camps, and instead opens up a different mode of discourse: Proclamation. For Badiou, this opens up the figure of the apostle over-and-against the figure of the philosopher and the prophet.

To understand the atheist philosophers’ enlisting of Paul we have to understand the nature of this third discourse in relation to the statement “Christ is Risen.” The main thing that strikes us when reading Paul’s claim is the way that it isn’t a theory to defend, it is rather an event that is proclaimed and verified in the formation of what Paul Tillich would call, the New Being.

In Badiou’s excellent book on Paul he uses the example of how the belief in the gas chambers used by the Nazis function for us today.

The claim that millions of Jews where executed in these gas chambers is an historical one that is open to verification and falsification. However the way that this claim functions for us cannot be reduced to this level. When someone attempts to draw us into a debate about whether or not these murders really happened, we not only refuse to enter in, we expose how the very reduction of the event to a type of detached historical debate is already a betrayal of the event it signals.

For most of the world the historical belief in the mass murder of Jews in Nazi death camps articulates an event that demands an unconditional stance. The historical record is encountered as something that makes an absolute claim on us. It reflects a horror that we must attempt to ensure never happens again. The contingent historical reality is thus a site of demand. It houses an event that cannot be reduced to the location it was birthed in. An event that is eclipsed the moment we treat the gas Chambers in a cold, detached way.

For Paul, the resurrection is a historical reality, but he holds it like one might hold the belief in the gas chambers, i.e. the event housed in the historical claim is not something one debates, holds lightly or defends. For Paul it is proclaimed in the life of the one caught up in the event. For Paul, the idea of playing into the Greek discourse of reason is not simply misplaced, but a fundamental betrayal of the event. In a brilliant reflection from St. Paul, Badiou shows that even Pascal failed to grasp this in its entirety.

This is analogous to the event of love. A contingent, imperfect other becomes, for us, the site for the love-event. The love-event is birthed from the other, but the lover doesn’t engage in apologetics to defend their claim that their beloved is the most beautiful person in the world. Yet neither are they an apathetic relativist about their beloved. That contingent person who they met through a random set of events becomes the site for that which cannot be reduced to a mere philosophical argument. [cf., Something I explore here.]

To grasp this means that one can begin to see why some radical political philosophers are drawn to Paul. For Paul is a clear example of a militant who is committed to a truth-event, a truth-event that is based in the world but that is not reducible to it.

This is powerfully portrayed in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. In one particularly incredible scene the firebrand apostle is preaching the resurrected Christ when Jesus confronts him and calls him a liar. When Paul pursues him Jesus says, “I was never crucified, I never rose from the dead. I’m a man like everyone else.” In response to this news Paul retorts, “I don’t care if you’re Jesus or not. The resurrected Jesus is what will save the world and that’s what matters.”

In this scene Paul is faced with the reality that the historical claim that birthed his vision of a universal community (of neither Jew nor Gentile), is false. But rather than despair he thanks Jesus. For he knows that the event is what counts. The historical claim opened up the way for the event, but the event is what counts.

In the same way, a person transformed by love, but who later finds out that their lover was a scoundrel and a fraud, can still be faithful to the transformed life that arose from the love. [sic, not that Jesus was either rogue or scondrel]

For Paul there is probably as little doubt about a historical resurrection than there is doubt for us about the gas chambers in Nazi Germany. But the resuscitation of a body is not what Paul is concerned about: he proclaims Resurrection (with a capital “R”). This means that he proclaims New Being.

Whether one thinks that the historical site of the event is actual or not, one can be caught up in the event and committed to fighting for the universal community that is opened up by the event.

So then, for people like Badiou, Paul provides a great ancient example of what we so need today, a figure committed to fighting for a universal community. A figure who doesn’t get bogged down in modernist apologetics or in postmodern relativism.


jesus meet saint paul ----from temptation




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Philosopher's on Paul
http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2015/03/10/philosophers-on-paul/

by Tripp Fuller
March 10, 2015

Why in the world are philosophers getting so excited about Paul these days?

Well I would tell you the answer but Tripp and Pete decided to do an entire High Gravity class investigating this turn to Paul among political philosophers. Last week the class kicked off with an initial session on the Bible with Daniel Kirk and now in the second session we turn to the philosophers. This podcast includes the general introduction to Paul and the philosophers that kicked off session two. Check it out and think about joining us for the rest of the class.

In the second half of this session we discussed Jacob Taubes‘ seminal work The Political Theology of Paul. His lectures were what paved the way for two of the most talked about texts in political philosophy. In weeks 3 and 4 we will walk through Alain Badiou‘s Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism. In weeks 5 and 6 we will do a close reading of Slavoj Zizek‘s The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity.

The class includes over 10 hours of live-streamed nerdiness for just 30 bucks. Each session will be a live streamed video-cast w/ some introductory remarks about the thinkers, conversational walk-through the texts, and interaction with the participants. Following the session it will be available for download on the class page along with links to the archived video, supplemental reading material, and the class discussion board. Each session will begin at 6pm pst (9pm est). Go HERE to join.

Make sure you check out our sponsor Deidox Films. They create short films takes which show how different disciples in different walks of life embody their faith. If you like using films in your teaching, preaching or learning then get wise and click on over.

You can also check out the downloadable package of three High Gravity classes Tripp and Peter Rollins taught together. It includes all the audio from Atheism for Lent, Radical Theology, and Christology classes totally over 27 hours of material for 50 bucks.

Head over HERE for info about the March 17th Theology Nerd Bootcamp in Chicago before #PYM15.