God's Incarnation into the World - Before, During, and After Jesus

A Christmas message.

During this time of the season Christians often think of Jesus as the incarnation of God come into this world to affect God's plan of salvation... which is true. But by saying this we should be careful not to think God was in any way uninvolved with the world before this time. Or that He was not in someway "incarnate" in both man and creation before this time - if by "incarnate" we mean God's presence was, in some way, always actively involved with redeeming both the world and creation before the advent of Christ. Usually, the church uses the term "incarnate" to refer to God's "special incarnation, or presence, or infilling, in Jesus - become "God amongst us" - as different from God's past "incarnations" in the world.

We can say this when observing in the bible this same idea when God used men and women, angels, and creative events in the Old Testament to affect His divine will by His presence in a way different from His other kinds of "presences" borne within the world. These might be considered instances of a "special incarnation" too - or "special infilling of His Spirit" - upon people and objects. However, before rushing off to declare all things profane but some things holy, let us step back once again to consider the psalmist and prophetic messages of how God becomes "incarnate" in all men and women - even creation - and on all occasions when partnering with His obedient creation. It is how God translates His divine presence into the world from time immemorial to this present time. In this way, all the world may be considered holy, or all activity made holy, though sin can profane this presence of God in mankind and creation.

By thinking in this way we would be broadening the idea of God's "incarnation into the world" not simply through a one time act in Christ Jesus at the time of His conception and birth but continually through the eons of the world both now and in the past and forward into the future. The world has never known a time when God has ceased to be present in its history. As such, perhaps we might speak of this act of God as His "general incarnation" or "presence" in the world as versus His "special incarnation" through Christ or other biblical events, acts or people. A divine incarnation familiar in recall to His past infillings of the Spirit upon prophets, priests, and kings but especially in Christ Jesus as the divine God made flesh within this sinful world.

By saying this we can then say that God has never been absent from His creation from the very first day of its creation until now. Who has always been actively involved with creation's salvation, reclamation, rebirth, regeneration, and transformation unto the fellowship of His love, mercy, forgiveness, and hope. This process is then especially culminated through Jesus Christ born as "God-Immanuel" (God with us) to complete the process of salvation of God through the atonement of His divine Self.

Such a divine atonement had foreshadowings in the past when displayed in God's servants both then and now. But it is in Jesus that God's atonement for the world is made complete and efficacious (meaning, a provision or remedy to an unsolvable problem). Jesus is God's personal satisfaction that salvation has come, is here, and is in process of always becoming. That it will never go away, will ever be a divine force fully activated into this world, and will make whole a broken, sinful creation. 

Which, in hindsight, is really what God has been doing through the Old Testament up until of His full presence in Jesus, who was-and-is wholly man and wholly God undivided (cf. hupostasis). By the witness of the biblical record, at every instance of failure by God's covenanted people it was God Himself who "solved" or "redeemed" His people not based upon judgment and wrath - which events Christians have interpreted as the failings of Israel but are more the evidences of man's (our) inability to be sinless, perfect, or righteous. As such, the only sacrifice - or restitution - for our failings (negatively viewed) or inabilities (positively viewed) has ever-and-always been God Himself.

By examples, this can be seen in the Abrahamic Covenant when God divided the sacrifice by His own hand as there was no other hand which could make sacrifice for man's sin; or in the Mosaic Covenant when kingdom restoration could only come by God's grace and mercy rather than through the obedience of His covenanted people who continually broke His covenant; or in the Davidic covenant when very few Israelite-Judean kings measured up to God's goodness and holiness (out of 42 kings 8 were good, 3 were better than good - David was one, and 1 best - Josiah). All of which eventuated into the need for a New Covenant binding up all previous biblical covenants of God unto Himself through the personage, ministry, and passion of Christ Jesus. This is what made Jesus especially special - as one who only in Himself could effect the binding and healing of all past covenants through Himself alone. And why? Because He was the very God who could unbreak that which was broken. There was none other - or no other means - which could unbreak what was broken but upon His divine personage.

This then is the wonder of the Christmas season. Not that God was absent in the world but was ever fully involved with a willful world unable to stay its course in God's love but for God's personal presence and sacrifice in its life every step of the way culminating and continuing through the incarnation of God in Christ Jesus. This is the good news of Christmas that God came into the world through one man to save the world from its failings that it might find a fullness of fellowship reflective of the plans and purposes of a Sovereign God in love with His creation and unwilling to forsake or abandon it.

And it is a Christmas message for ourselves as well to be inspired to be/come God's incarnations of His divine Self into a world broken by sin and thus suffering from sin's affects. It is a true statement to say "God is present in His creation." He has always been present in His creation. He has moved it, infilled it, partnered with it, directed it with willing cooperation, and so on... but God has never been absent from creation as its Creator.

In effect, God has always been in the process of incarnating His presence amongst us - but especially in His Own Personage through Christ Jesus who was made the fullness of God's efficacious New Covenant amongst men through whom salvation has come, will always be present, and cannot be broken even by our sin. The promise of God to redeem the world has been wholly enforced with the restitution of Christ Jesus, God made flesh. It is God's covenant of salvation to man that mediates for our sin, covers our sin, pays the penalty of our sin, and brings fullness of divine fellowship with our Creator-Redeemer.

And finally, within us, within His church, God's incarnation may come again and again and again as we, His (re/newed) covenanted people, allow God's divine incarnation be reflected through us by the movement of His Spirit through us making whole a broken world. We, as Christians, are the "Jesus's" or "Christ's" to this world. Not by war, anger, wrath, intolerance, sexism, discrimination, hate, injustice, or disfavor. But in all the ways which Jesus came to disrupt the sin and breakage of this world that it might be made whole again through love, mercy, forgiveness and hope. This then is the Christmas message we, the church of God, His covenanted people, must bear, share, and be/come. There can be no other message than that we "bear Jesus' name" to all when we bear God's love and mercy as His "especial incarnations."

Peace,

R.E. Slater

December 12, 2017

Biblical Salvation: How It’s Possible To Be A Christian And Still Not Be “Saved”

Biblical salvation seems to be heavily focused on being saved from an old way of living, and saved into a new way of living– a way of life that Jesus described as “eternal.” - BLC

Biblical Salvation: How It’s Possible To Be A Christian And Still Not Be “Saved”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/biblical-salvation-possible-christian-still-not-saved/

by Dr. Benjamin L. Corey [edited by r.e. slater]

February 17, 2107

Growing up evangelical, one of the primary questions we were taught to ask strangers was: “Are you saved?” Or, better yet: “If you died tonight do you know where you’d go?”

The concept of being saved was pretty simple, really: You’re a sinner headed for hell, Jesus died to take your punishment, and if you “ask him into your heart” you’ll go to heaven instead of hell.

Salvation as understood this way has taken root in much of Americanized Christianity, and even global Christianity thanks in part to the American way of packaging and exporting an Americanized version of the faith.

It is a simple, non-costly understanding of salvation that has little biblical precedence even though it is so commonplace.

This truncated version of salvation turns it into something elusive, something secret. Like a membership card tucked into the deepest corner of your wallet, you have no way of knowing who has one, and who does not. This is precisely why-and-how so many Christians came to see Donald Trump as “saved” and one of us: leaders like James Dobson reported rumors that he “accepted Christ” (as if it’s like accepting an offer for a low interest credit card) and from that moment on, Trump is seen by many to be “saved” and thus one of us.

But that’s not biblical salvation– biblical salvation has little to do with a secret transaction that points you toward heaven or sends you to hell, in the commonly understood sense.

Biblical Salvation - What It Is Not

While the NT term salvation can hold a variety of nuances, the ultimate contextual meaning of salvation in the NT is in reference for one who joined God’s Kingdom as proclaimed by Jesus. Joining God’s Kingdom is much like joining any other Kingdom that has one who rules from a throne: you join by pledging your allegiance and obedience to the King– and then living that out.

In Americanized Christianity, salvation often only includes half that equation, or at least offers a footnote to the idea of living out Kingdom principles. They’ll often say things like,

“Well, we don’t have to emulate Jesus in this particular area of life because he was unique”

or,

“Well, the Kingdom of God isn’t fully here yet, so Jesus was just describing how we’ll live one day in a perfect world.”

Readers Digest version: As long as you have the card in your pocket, you’re saved. The second half is nice, but not totally necessary, because there’s a lot of “reasons” why we don’t always do what Jesus did. In this case, the faux version of salvation we grew up with was an easy, individualized transaction that was focused on where you’ll go when you die, not on how you live in the here and now.

Biblical Salvation - What It Is and Means

However, biblical salvation is directly linked to net-result of actually doing what Jesus said (aka, living the principles of his Kingdom). This is precisely because biblical salvation has little to do with life after death (though it does some), but has a lot to do with life right now. In fact, when Jesus uses the term “eternal life” in the NT, he often uses this term in the present tense.

Since the Kingdom Jesus proclaimed is founded upon very specific principles, a specific culture that must be lived out (see the Sermon on the Mount for his full manifesto), biblical salvation seems to be heavily focused on being saved from an old way of living, and saved into a new way of living– a way of life that Jesus described as “eternal.”

For those who reject Kingdom principles,

for those who oppress the poor,

for those who reject the immigrant,

[for] those who refuse the way of nonviolent enemy love,

[for] those who refuse to live out the culture of the Kingdom right now,

it would be a stretch to say they are “saved” in the biblical sense,

because until they put down their guns,

feed the hungry, and

welcome the immigrant,

they have not yet entered God’s Kingdom

[nor have they] and begun living in it.

They may have “asked Jesus into their heart”

but they have not yet joined

the Kingdom -

and that’s what salvation is about.

- BLC

Thus, salvation is not a transaction that is open and shut, taking place in totality within the recesses of one’s heart. It surely begins in the heart, but salvation doesn’t end there– it is not possible to be “saved” in the biblical sense if one is not actively striving to be obedient to the King and the culture of the Kingdom– and Scripture speaks quite forcefully on this point.

This is precisely why Jesus said it is possible to be deeply religious, to be a lover of the Bible, and to still not be saved (Matthew 21:31, John 5:39-40).

It is also why he said that many who are thrown into the lake of fire on judgement day will be Christians who did not care for the poor and needy, and thus never actually entered the Kingdom (Matthew 5:31-46).

Certainly, other NT writers back up this concept of salvation, such as the author of James who wrote that faith which is not followed up by caring for the poor and hungry cannot save you (James 2:14-17).

Does biblical salvation have anything to do with the afterlife? To a degree, yes. God’s Kingdom will be eternal. However, the bigger issue is this: If one is not willing to live in the Kingdom now, no matter who they ask into their heart, the chances that they’d even want to live in the Kingdom then seem slim. God, of course, sees that– and the Bible warns us in that regard to not think that simply raising our hand at the end of a sermon means we’re headed to paradise when we die.

There’s little point in talking about being saved then, if we aren’t first saved right now– because salvation isn’t as much a distant event, but a present reality.

Post-Structuralism in the Life of Prophetic Christianity

Post/Movement:

Sturcturalism - PostStructuralism-Structuration

As you know, I love anything preceded by the word "post" in it. Like, post-structural, post-foundational, post-fundamentalist, post-evangelical, post-religion, post-faith, post-ideology. Why?

1 - Because "post" conveys movement away from something. Usually something that is broken, not working, unrealistic, disconnecting with reality, oppressive, etc.

2 - It also is filled with the idea of disenchantment, personal or societal chaos, unhappiness, brokenness, darkness, unknowing, confusion, etc.

3 - Lastly, it is always used in relation to something immediately preceding itself: an era, a movement, a troubled period in one's life, a lostness, people, etc. But it revolves and reflects and bounces off relationships to things and ideas.

To admit to this kind of personal or societal movement must always be accompanied by abandonment to one's past fidelities, opinions, commitments, beliefs, old world values, habits, or way of life. This can be dangerous for many when foundations in life are removed. Especially epistemologic foundations.

But it also requires hope above all things. Plenty of courage. And sometimes a deaf ear to what people are saying around you. Why? Because usually they don't understand, or don't want to understand, or feel threatened, or, too often, serve as obstacles to growth and change.

And many times there must be a deep willingness to push past barriers, fears, and uncertainties to discover a new paradigm, new epistemologic, even ontologic, structures and foundations, and ever more questions without answers and uncertainties without resolve. to say the least, this can be difficult if not impossible.

For someone to say then that they wish to explore or live in a post-everything world is to measure the rapidity of change from one lone heartbeat to the incredible, the impossible, the unheard of, the nevermore, or the other side of the Looking Glass filled with obsurantism. It goes by many names. Many of them we know through the bible. Bible concepts like reclamation, reformation, recreation, renewal, revelation, resurrection, or just plain rebirth.

To think of these grand concepts in terms of the old vs the new, the past and the present, what is and what can be (eschatological hope) is also very biblical, very ancient, very present in the distraught human breast seeking transformation if not reformation. The Apostle Paul called it new birth. Jesus called it being born again. The Apostle John also reflected upon birth coupling it with the love of God present in the troubled soul seeking fundamental change. The church has come to call it revival, repentance, salvation.

But usually we think of all these wonderful terms as something that is experienced by the "other guy". By someone other than ourselves because, well, when or if this experience occurred within our lives it was many, many years ago and not something we think of in our present context. But what if rebirth and renewal, repentance and transformation were a continual experience rather than a one time, "Come to Jesus" moment? Then what? Well, for the theologian as for the philosopher this might be known as an "overthrow" to all the old world structures we have learned but must now unlearn. Which can be difficult. In fact, very difficult if not impossible.

The word "post" then conveys this sense of forward movement away from one's past formations. Perhaps a fine-tuning, if you will, but more likely, a complete overall of body and soul. When people in our acquaintance go through this experience it disturbs us. Mostly because we don't understand it or know what to do when its affects conflicts with our own "structural" understanding of life. A structural understanding which we don't want disturbed in any way, sense, or word. Then we become the toxic person in the equation of post-structural reform. The one who obfuscates against the penitent seeking deep reform making true transformation even more difficult than it already is. Learning to live in a "post-everything world" can do that. It threatens people as much as liberates them. The same can be said of a society in the throes of anarchy. Whether a true rebirth can be discovered in the chaos or whether all is lost to fundamental idealism unrelenting in its prevention of societal transformation to occur.

A second question. Can this period of life be identified as a prophetic period in one's life? Certainly it seems to bear all the characteristics of prophetic grief and lament over the way things are. As well as all the joy and hope for the way things could be. It also can be a burden of inspiration and illumination heaven sent by the Spirit of God in pressing into this weary world with prophetic insight radiating with laser light understanding for how things must change or be overthrown.

And so, yes, a post-structural reformation or rebirth can be prophetic, even spiritual, and certainly necessary. But as stated earlier, it can also be resisted, obstructed, rejected, ignored, and refused. As example, Jesus discovered His mission to be one of constructing a post-Old Testament, even post-Jewish, view of old world versus new world. In this task He fulfilled the role of a prophet - even as do God's more perceptive servants tasked by His Spirit today. He suffered, was rejected, ignored, and was finally refused. For those luminaries presently within our society the sin of ignoring or refusing is every bit as possible as the honor of accepting and blessing those living prophets around us laboring in our midst.

But like all willing workers no one can say the time or the hour for the completion of God-ordained toil and labor. The prophet senses its burden. Sees its necessity, struggles with its acceptance, and finally succumbs to its call. Struggles too with its implications. Resists the Spirit. Then re-submits to the Spirit to proceed by labor of blood, sweat, and tears into fields of mockery, scorn, abuse, and rejection. And perhaps finally to find death's oppressive cloak drawn upon everything before surrendering to the inevitable as his or her's deepest burdens are witnessed in its greatest harms and destructions upon a people with stopped ears, dead eyes, and deader spirits. Its death can be as much existential as it is physical. And it is a hard death for the prophet to witness against the horrors of his illumined imagination. An imagination unwanted, undreamed, unsought. But an imagination which finally enters into a societies deepest darks unless repentance and change are allowed in.

And so today's living prophets, like Jesus of old, are most typically underappreciated, overlooked, even damned individuals, who would offer us celestial airs in exchange for the burdens we bear. This then is what it means to live prophetically in a post-everything world as bounded by the Spirit of God.

Peace.

R. E. Slater

October 1, 2016

Rebecca Trotter - Defiance is a Christian Virtue

Defiance is a Christian Virtue
http://theupsidedownworld.com/2011/11/18/defiance-is-a-christian-virtue/

by Rebecca Trotter

November 18, 2011

Comments

The moments in my life that have been most sure and which have left me with the most peace and joy have been moments of defiance. The times when, even though no one else would get it, I knew the path I needed to take forward and I took it. These are my reckless moments. Those things that caused offense, consternation, even concern for my sanity among those watching.

I am often a very cautious person. I don’t go shopping without knowing what I’m going to buy and how much I’ll pay for it. I skip the “trust” part of “trust, but verify” and go straight to verify. I can explain the things I do and the choices I make down to a level of detail that could put a hyper-active 7 year old to sleep. I think of what I’m going to say before dialing the phone. I think of questions I can ask people and topics to discuss before I get into conversations. I bite my tongue often. I handle my relationships with kid gloves lest I damage them or hurt someone unintentionally.

So these moments of defiance must seem out of character to anyone who doesn’t understand what’s going on beneath the surface. But these moments of defiance are my most true moments. They are the moments when what is beneath rushes to the surface and propels me forwards, regardless of all the consequences. Because I already know all the consequences. And not one of them – not disapproval, the loss of relationships, poverty, pain or anything else – is nearly enough to stop me from doing what I know I need to do. I can be reckless because I know that I’m doing something I have been specifically called by God to do or because I know that the damage done to myself if I do not do them is far greater than any of those consequences could be. I can be defiant because I have examined the matter through and through and I know that it’s coming from a pure place in my spirit. You have to be willing to be defiant if you are going to follow God and allow him to restore your heart.

This defiance is something I love about Christianity. The bible is filled with people recklessly defying expectations, norms, social pressures, sometimes reality itself. When Peter or Paul sat in a prison cell, often beaten, and sang songs of praise to God, that is defiance. When Hosea married a faithless woman and wooed her back to himself over and over, that’s defiance. When the woman with her jar of perfume washed Jesus feet with her hair, that was defiance.

Some of the strangest stories in the bible are one where God appears to approve of or reward those breaking the rules. The prophets who bargained for a better deal from God to protect their people from the full blast of God’s wrath. Jacob who deceived his own father and wrestled with God. The parable of the crooked steward who bargained with his master’s debtors to gain favor with them when he realized he was going to be fired or even imprisoned. These are all stories of people who said, “not good enough” and bargained, schemed and acted to forge a different path in defiance of all expectations.

Jesus’ entire life and ministry were defiant. He wasn’t the warrior the Jews were looking for. He talked to people he wasn’t supposed to talk to. Made outcasts - the inconsequential and the unclean - the heroes of his stories. When faced with an attempt to force him into a damned if you do – damned if you don’t choice (should we pay taxes? stone the adulteress?), he found a third answer no one else had seen before. He broke rules that were misinterpreted and misapplied and made those who tried to shame him for it look the fool. When he did not even say a word to stop his own execution, it wasn’t the enemy gaining the upper hand as it appeared, but a defiant willingness to walk a path no one could have predicted. And in the end, he defied death itself.

All these millenia later God is still calling us to be faithfully defiant. So we sing through our tears. Forgive the unforgivable. Confront those who spread pain, fear and suffering about them. Love the filthy and mean and undeserving. When we serve small children and drug addicts and those left behind. When we fall down and get back up and fall down and get back up and repeat as many times as it take until we succeed or we die, we are faithfully defiant.

This sort of defiance is freedom and peace and goodness in action. It washes away doubt, discards baggage, untangles unhealthy entanglements. When we follow in the footsteps of the defiant faithful who have gone before, we truly are taking the road less traveled. It’s not paved or smooth or even particularly safe. It’s the narrow winding road that few find and fewer stay on. Often to those watching, it looks like we’re wandering in the wilderness with no direction and no sense. And yet, as long as we continue to use our spiritual eyes, nothing can convince the faithfully defiant to abandon it for the more sensible, well traveled path. Because a journey begun in faithful defiance is guaranteed to lead us closer and closer to God – no matter how dire our circumstances. If we end up alone, despised, poor, crushed and even dead, we do so gladly, in defiance of all expectations and external pressures. And I would rather be crawling on my belly in filth and misery along the narrow way than walking in comfort on the wide path that my God has told me leads to no where I want to be.

140 years ago, a man and his family were living a blessed life. The father was a successful lawyer, with healthy children and a wife who was admired and respected in the community. They lived in Chicago where the family fortune was largely invested in a thriving real estate market. They moved in prominent circles and were good friends of DL Moody, the famed evangelist. 139 years ago, their only son died at age 4. 138 years ago the family’s wealth was wiped out in the great Chicago fire. 137 years ago, the man placed his beloved wife and four daughters on a ship to England to start a new life in England working with Moody. He stayed behind to attend to loose ends before following them across the sea. But the ship his family was on collided with another ship on the open sea. His precious daughters were ripped from their mother’s arms by the force of water that sank their ship in only 12 minutes and drowned. On the voyage across the ocean to join his wife in her grief, one of the great, defiant songs of Christianity was written. Because defiance is a Christian virtue:

David Phelps, "It Is Well With My Soul"

What Is Radical Theology?

WHAT IS RADICAL THEOLOGY?

R.E. Slater

Radical Theology at its most radical extreme would promote the death of God in all things, instances, and being within society and without. That theology in its most radical form is a theology that is an anti-theology. In essence, not simply saying "there is no God" but that "the God who exists has left us with only the residual effects of His image and being still lingering in its latency."

Meaning, that as the Creator-Redeemer, when God died on the cross of Calvary He purposely, and affectively (not effectively), left mankind to its memory, and lingering effects, of Himself. A memory now clothed upon by creation itself and by humanity itself. In this way, all traces of God still linger in God's creation without the actually presence of God Himself within that creation. In effect, God has been reborn into His creation as part of His creation in a more intricate way than before His death.

So that in God's absence rest His divine DNA - or imprint - upon a world that struggles to reconcile itself with the fact that it alone now stands in the place of God as remnants - or testimonies - to once was before God's transformance as Spirit to Incarnated Spirit.

In another sense, the eternal God not only "left" Himself as He once was before He died, but was substantively transformed by His "divine death" to be "resurrected" from His divine "otherness" into a divine "oneness" with a creation which was once excluded from His holiness and divinity. Meaning that the God who might have been separate from His creation in some sense by His very nature is now more a part of that creation by resurrection and transformance than ever before.

In essence, Christianity awaits a future resurrection in Christ that has already occurred within Christ Himself personally. Ontologically. Metaphysically. Within very God Himself. That God's own death eventuated into His immediate transformance by resurrection within, and into, the very world He created and was separate from. Thus, the Redeemer is transformed by His own death and resurrection which same event now resurrects and transforms this very world we live upon. Even ourselves.

And so then, the disturbance we feel within our spirits is to the "void of God's absence" to His other presented-ness is now a fuller, truer disturbance to our very selves and this very world. That God has died but has also been transformed, or raised, within the very creation He to and for - to effectively create both a void and to fill it in the same instance with Himself.

Thus, leaving creation and mankind with the awesome, and very disturbing, task to "fill that void" by acting as God in the place of God who fills us with His absence, and resurrected presence, into a world once separate from God.

Not that we - or creation - have become God ourselves. But that in the vastness and the diversity of the world as we know it, God's image PERSISTS in some sense of an INSURRECTED form. A form that would resist sin while aslo transforming creation as a holy residence for God's holy spirit that pervades itself very nature with the God that was and is and is now becoming. Not simply become... but becoming. With us. And with this world.

Thus, filling the Christian image of "renewal by rebirth" or "salvation by being born again" with a more profound meaning than when we first thought. That God has birthed Himself within His created world. Making sin and death even more pregnant with meaning because of His very presence that sin and death would struggle against to refuse its fundamental transformance of the constitution of our intent and promise as transformed creations of God.

So who do we pray to if God is dead? A mystery that is marked as a paradox  wrapped up in an enigma to the Christian man or woman seeking a God no longer "out there" but "within here"?

Are we praying to ourselves? To a created world/creation as an incorporate entity of divinity? To a collaboration of the past, present, and future "NOW" of  synthetic and pervasive redeemed event?

Or, better yet, "Where is God?" If He is no longer here with us as an anthropomorphosized "personable" God of spirit? Or no longer here with us as a Greek/Hellenized subject of deified heavenly Being? As finite beings we find God's "otherness" to our "humanness" unnerving and  much misunderstood.

Or, asked yet another way, "Was this God of Christianity that we worshipped ever as separate and other from us as we once had thought?" Which gets to the ideas of panentheism v. pantheism. The former attests to God's separateness from creation but joined-ness to creation by presence and image (basic Christianity). The other attests to God's unreality and that creation was ever its own creation and divinity (basic Hinduism).

Purposely, Radical Theology addresses these questions by questioning our very epistemologies and theologies we have grown up with. It is an anti-theology to our Christian traditions and classic doctrinal statements. But at its heart is the very Christian doctrine of redemption and resurrection that says "If ever God was once separate from His creation He can be no longer (or is no longer)." That by His salvific death through Jesus God has been transformed within His very being to become us even as He Himself as died to Himself. This is radical theology's radical message.

So, who do we pray to? We pray to God who has become part of us, and with us, and in us, and of us ourselves.

Is humanity divine? In a sense, yes. We are filled not only by God's image, and by His presence, but by His very Self both in Spirit, in purpose, and in redemption.

Was God ever separate from His creation? Perhaps yes and no. Yes, as its creator. And no, because creation was ever an instance of God become "unspirit" to a created world given volition by His decree. And separated from its Creator by this very divine fiat that gave to it its volition. A volition that chooses both life and death. Good and sin. Holiness and evil.

And lastly, for an atheist to claim "There is no God" is the very same reason an atheist will doubt just as the Christian will doubt. Each feels God's absence "in their bones" but each come to differing testimonies and conclusions.

Perhaps the point of agreement between both is God's absence and what this now means. For the atheist it means God is here amongst us in our midst in a radically transformed way that we don't even realize.

For the believer that God is also here amongst us in our midst in a radically transformed way that we don't realize by our classical statements, doctrines, and theologies.

For a radical theologian to say God is dead is not the complete statement of radical theology's belief. It must also say that God is here amongst us in our midst in a radically transformed way that we don't even realize. An event that has historically occurred with fundamental future consequences like yeast is to bread, fire to our spirits, and blood and water to our rebirthing in God.

R. E. Slater

October 19, 2014

* * * * * * * * * *

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby1

Introduction by Peter Rollins

The People are Naked… Don’t tell the Emperor!

http://peterrollins.net/2014/09/the-people-are-naked-dont-tell-the-emperor/

by Peter Rollins

September 9, 2014

One of the popular trends within the church today involves affirming that doubts are a part of faith alongside the claim that God is faithful to us throughout these doubts. The most recent example of this comes from the Archbishop of Canterbury who said that he sometimes questions whether there is a God. In the same interview he goes on to claim that his faith is not however about feelings, “it is about the fact that God is faithful,” indeed he goes on to claim, “the extraordinary thing about being a Christian is that God is faithful when we are not.”

What we see here initially strikes us as incoherent, for the Archbishop effectively questions whether God exists, while at the same time believing in the “fact” that God does exist. As such, this could be laughed off as the dying attempts of a religious individual to maintain their beliefs (or their job).

However the approach taken by the Archbishop might actually expose a much more ubiquitous structure, one that operates widely within both theist and atheist camps: a structure that the practice of Radical Theology seeks to free us from.

To begin with, let us call the God that the Archbishop continues to affirm (following Lacan) “the Big Other.”

The Big Other is a slippery phrase, one that is initially hard to get one's head around. So let us create a scenario that might make this term a little easier to understand. Imagine being in a teeming nightclub at three in the morning. Looking around the room it appears that everyone is having a great time. There is energetic music, dancing, drinking, flirting and animated conversation everywhere.

Yet, as you look more closely, you begin to suspect that some, many, or even all, of the people in the room are actually concealing a lack of enjoyment. Indeed it feels like there is a veil of fun covering the room that is obscuring another dimension, a veil that seems to be getting thinner and thinner as the night wears on. As you stand in the middle of the room you can’t help feeling that everyone in the club has agreed to keep up a façade. In fact, as you stand there, deep in thought, a series of people become agitated and say things like, “cheer up,” “smile,” or “have another drink.” It is as if you are breaking some kind of taboo by looking pensive.

This fictional scenario is obviously very possible; indeed it might even be very common. While thinking about it, two questions immediately arise,

Who is everyone trying to fool?

What is the point of the pretense?

It is possible that people are trying to convince their colleagues that they are having a good time. But most of us are dimly aware that everyone else in the room is as insecure and awkward as we are. So it starts to seem like we are all actually trying to fool someone else who isn’t in the room.

Those in the nightclub can be said to be engaged in a structural deception of the type found in church. When people sing contemporary worship songs that proclaim “all they want is Jesus,” they are obviously not claiming what is being sung (after all they want lots of other things). Instead they seem to want to convince the God they are singing to that they are the type of person who only wants Jesus (affirming what is called their “Ideal-ego”). In the nightclub the same logic is at work in that some outside god is being treated as a figure that we must attempt to fool by our actions. Of course no one in the nightclub actually believes in such a figure. Yet the belief functions in a material way regardless. There is a subject who must remain fooled by our actions, a subject whose ignorance causes us to avoid a confrontation with our own struggles.

This is a version of the Emperors new clothes, except that we, the people, are naked. Maintaining the illusion only as long as the Emperor [within us] is fooled.

This, in a nutshell, is an example of the Big Other. It is that non-existent entity that we submit to in order to avoid a confrontation with our own internal crisis.

What we witness clearly in the interview with the Archbishop is a doubt over the God proclaimed in the actual existing church, which is cloaked in a belief in a Big Other. For simplicity's sake we can say that there are broadly three possible positions he could take about the God proclaimed overtly in church,

I believe

I doubt

I don’t believe

But none of these need touch his more fundamental commitment to the Big Other.

In the same way, someone could affirm one of these three positions while rejecting the Big Other. Indeed I would say that this is the project of Radical Theology.

The point of all this is to say that an atheist could very well claim “I don’t believe in God,” while still making the move of the Archbishop: unconsciously affirming a Big Other who is able to protect them from accepting the consequences of their position. Just as we witness in the nightclub example, such a belief in the Big Other always betrays itself in some way (such as prayer, listening to religious music, supporting ones parents beliefs etc.).

This is why Radical Theology makes the claim that popular atheism is not atheistic enough. For it only attacks the easy target that is the anthropomorphic God of contemporary Christianity. It has nothing to say about the Big Other. Radical Theology, on the other hand, seeks to expose how the Big Other – that protects us from confronting our own personal, religious and political crisis – is a fiction. Indeed Radical Theology is a project that claims this assault on the Big Other is the core message of Christianity.

What would have been more scandalous and insightful than this interview with the Archbishop would be to hear a high profile church leader saying, “I happen to believe in God much of the time, but I know that, in those moments, the God who would protect me from myself does not exist.”

OneRepublic - Come Home (prodigal son)

OneRepublic - Come Home (prodigal son)

"Wherever home is,

Whatever home is,

Return,

Begin anew,

Become again."

- R.E. Slater, August 12, 2012

Parable of the Prodigal Son

Luke 15:11-32 (ESV)

11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he dividedhis property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to[a] one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’[b] 22 But the father said to his servants,[c] ‘Bring quicklythe best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

Footnotes

Luke 15:15 Greek joined himself to

Luke 15:21 Some manuscripts add treat me as one of your hired servants

Luke 15:22 Greek bondservants

Thomas Jay Oord - On Salvation: God's part and ours

On Salvation: God's part and ours

by Thomas Jay Oord

A short Wesleyan explanation of God's offer of 

salvation and free creaturely response

Related

How Does God Move and Act in the Universe? - "Eight Positions of Divine Sovereignty"

*preferred: "Essential Kenosis Freewill Theism"

Comments

• 

  Russ Slater Thanks Tom. I kept waiting for an open kenosis view where a new band comes in, pushes the old band off the stage, and plays hip hop or something, which neither partner knows, and must learn together. 

  June 16 at 3:59pm · Edited · Like · 3

• 

  Kenneth L. Harrell Thomas Jay Oord, thanks for this. I am glad you distinguished views 2 and 3. Many from view 1 insist that 2 and 3 are the same. In a lecture at Calvin College a professor insisted that Wesley and all Arminians are semi-pelagian. While I am sure that is true of Finney and that that view of conversion is still popular among Southern Baptists I do not believe that it does justice to the Wesleyan-Arminian position. Will you show how your view is not just more attractive but more biblical?

  June 16 at 3:58pm · Like · 1
• 

  Thomas Jay Oord Thanks, Kenneth. The arguments for showing the view is more biblical come from arguments about love, covenant, and moral responsibility found in Scripture. Find the details in books such as "Why I am a Wesleyan and Not a Calvinist," by Jerry Walls or "Arminian Theology," by Roger Olson
• 
  

Ron Hunter

This is good and consistent with the revelation of God's action to humanity in scripture. It is important to note that the freedom and ability to respond to the invitation and the dance is a God ordained, created dynamic of humanity. People do not have any agency removed from God's design. That said, the ability evokes a responsibility that is either directed cooperatively with God or otherwise. In the conversations I am in the objection to the third option in favor of the first is the perception that we on the other side of the dance floor are dead, incapable of response. 

Thomas Oord

I agree entirely, Ron. We Wesleyans think God's grace makes us alive to respond freely to the gift. So while we are dead abstractly speaking, in reality God's grace enlivens us to the possibility of responding to God's call and living abundant life!

Nick Carpenter

Love the analogies, even though it sounds odd to hear of a Nazarene dancing haha. The third part you discussed, with free agency in dancing, would that be considered divine-human synergism?

Thomas Oord

Thanks, Nick. Yes, the third part involves synergism, but with God acting first -- preveniently -- to empower and inspire response.

Bob Luhn

I love this image of the dance ! There is one other scenario as well, God stays on His side of the "gym" and makes us work our way all the way to Him. You may have to crawl on hands and knees over broken glass, or pray x- number of prayers or in some way earn enough merit to gain His attention and favor. Only when He thinks you have done enough does He stoop to save you. How wonderful to realize that God comes all the way to us and then graciously, humbly, non-coercively " asks for our hand." I just love this!!

Thomas Oord

Thanks, Bob. You describe even better the second way I mention briefly in this video. I wish I had added the additional "works righteousness" examples you offer!

Jeremy Lyon

Great explanation of the Wesleyan view of salvation. Prevenient Grace + Free Will.

Cathy Lyon

Dance on! And follow His lead.