RNS Report: "N.T. Wright extends debate with John Piper by releasing Apostle Paul tome"

http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/11/06/nt-wright-john-piper-paul-debate-tome/

by Jonathan Merritt

November 6, 2013

N.T. Wright is one of the top five theologians alive according to Christianity Today, and given his accomplishments, it’s a difficult claim to dispute. Wright is currently Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at University of St. Andrews, and before that, he served as Bishop of Durham for The Church of England, and taught New Testament studies for 20 years at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford Universities. He has written a stack of widely-acclaimed and bestselling books, both academic and popular, and has a cult following among young Christian thinkers in the United States and Europe.

But Wright has also become a controversial figure in recent years, igniting a heated debate among American theologians with his so-called “New Perspective on Paul.” Many prominent Christian leaders wrote rebuttals of Wright’s perspective–most notably pastor John Piper, who devoted an entire book to the matter (The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright).

How does one respond to such controversy? If you’re N.T. Wright, by penning a 1700-page tome on the life and theology of the Apostle Paul–the most comprehensive published work on Paul in the history of Christianity. It’s called Paul and the Faithfulness of God, and it promises to extend the debate he sparked years ago. Here, we discuss the book’s thesis, how it may inform gender and political debates, and what he thinks will make John Piper most upset.

JM: Is it possible to give shorthand to the new way of reading Paul you’ve explored in this book? How would you describe your approach to Paul succinctly?

NTW: I offer a holistic reading of Paul in which the different emphases many have seen, between ‘juristic’ or ‘lawcourt’ thought, and ‘participationist’ or ‘incorporative’ thought, are reconciled; in which what some call ‘apocalyptic,’ and what some call ‘salvation history,’ are brought together in a larger framework of a new-covenant theology; in which Paul’s Jewish, Greek, and Roman backgrounds are all taken fully into account. Paul emerges as a three-dimensional figure, passionate about the very Jewish message of Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true Lord, and aware that in announcing this message he was engaging with the philosophy, religion and imperial dreams of his day.

In particular, Paul emerges as the one who invented what we now call ‘Christian theology’ – prayerful, scripture-fueled meditation on God, God’s people, and God’s purposes – to meet the particular need: a community which had to be united and holy but which lacked the Jewish cultural symbols that had helped the Jews with their version of this vocation. “Theology” as Paul was doing it, and more importantly was teaching his churches to do it, was the way to corporate-and-individual human and Christian maturity and to sustaining the church in its life and witness.

JM: And how do you anticipate that this historical and theological study of Paul will reframe Christian theologies of salvation, justification, and law?

NTW: The main point is that most second-temple Jews weren’t discussing “salvation” and “justification” in anything like the way later Christians did. They were anxious about how Israel’s God was going to unveil his long-awaited covenant purposes, returning in person to deliver Israel from subservience to pagans and to launch “the age to come”. That, for them, was [their] “salvation”  and “justification” - not that they discussed it much - [but it] was about how you could tell in the present who God would vindicate in the future. Their debates focused on how all that would happen, and what they should be doing in the meantime.

I have shown how Paul’s teaching on justification, the law, etc. is best understood as the radical reworking of these debates around the new fixed point: that Israel’s God had returned in the person of Israel’s Messiah and that, in his crucifixion and resurrection, he had not only launched but had also redefined the “age to come” – right in the middle of ongoing and contested history. For Paul, this sovereign, saving act of the Creator, and covenant God, was then being implemented through the work of the Spirit and in the announcement of the “gospel” to the pagan world. We only “get” what he means by “justification” and “salvation” when we put it all in this larger context. Nothing of value is lost thereby from older traditions (though some cherished formulations, themselves unbiblical, will need to be revised in the light of what Paul actually said); but much, much is gained, particularly the large and utterly coherent vision of his whole thought and work.

JM: Your views on these topics have upset some American Christians in the past, particularly those in the Reformed movement. Which parts of this book will John Piper be most upset with?

NTW: Far be it from me to put words into Dr. Piper’s mouth. I am sorry he and I have never met; we share so much–a commitment to the great Reformed tradition, a commitment to the cross as the center of everything, a commitment to scripture, and to the faithful and patient investigation and exposition of it.

I think what stands behind some of the ongoing disagreements and challenges which come from that quarter is the awareness that, in locating Paul (and Jesus for that matter) within the world of first-century Judaism, I am invoking the first-century Jewish sense of an ongoing narrative reaching its shocking and unexpected climax. Most Protestants assume that an ongoing narrative is a form of Catholicism, leading to an assumption that all you have to do is to belong to the story and all will be well–and leading thus to a carelessness about the radical inbreaking of the gospel both in history and individual lives. This may indeed be a danger; but it is far more dangerous to ignore the ways in which both Jesus and Paul believed that the Messianic events of Jesus, and the work of the Spirit, were in fact the fulfillment of the ancient covenant with Abraham.

Here’s another irony: I would expect that a Reformed theologian like Dr. Piper would welcome a “covenantal” reading of Paul. Perhaps he yet may. Of course, he has said many times before that he thinks my reading of Paul screens out “imputation” in his sense, and he’s right: Paul doesn’t say what that theory wants him to say. But the underlying meaning Dr. Piper and others are seeking in that theory are, I believe, [are] not only retained, but enhanced in the larger and more textually grounded reading which I have offered. I have no interest in maintaining an either/or. I am interested in seeing how what Paul actually says holds together the multiple emphases, which scholars and preachers have discerned, in his writings.

The other thing which I think is underneath the rather sharp opposition, not only from Dr. Piper but from some others, is my insistence–in line with Paul’s own vision of renewed creation in Romans 8 and elsewhere–that Paul saw the gospel and “salvation” not in terms of a “spiritual” escape from the present world but as the transformation of this present world.

JM: Some modern Christians have criticized Paul as “sexist” or even “anti-women.” How does your book inform conversations about gender?

NTW: This view is depressingly shallow. Paul, like the other early Christians, and like Jesus himself, lived in a complex world where, despite what some think, many women were able to live independent lives, run businesses, travel, and so on, while many others were part of traditional structures which still curtailed their options. A world much like ours, in fact! Into that, the main message was what Paul says in Galatians 3.28: in the Messiah, Jesus, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, no “male and female”. We can see this working out when he refers to Junia as an “apostle”, and in the same chapter (Romans 16) mentions several other women who are in positions of leadership in the church–and where, too, he gives Phoebe the task of taking the letter to Rome, which almost certainly meant that she would read it out and explain it to the house-churches.

At the same time, Paul was a deeply creational theologian, who believed passionately that men and women were created differently and that this God-given difference was not obliterated but had to be navigated appropriately and wisely. As with his political views, so here, he may seem to us to be saying two different things, but this only shows that we are trying to fit him into the Procrustean beds of our late-modern imagination. It’s like criticizing Shakespeare for not writing in 140-character Twitter sound bytes.

JM: You mention Paul’s political views, and in the book, you argue that Paul founded and maintained communities loyal to Jesus  across a world owing allegiance to Caesar. How will your work impact modern Christians’ allegiance to governments, political parties and power structures?

NTW: Just as, in the sixteenth century, western Christians came to the text with certain questions shaped by their culture–and we can now see how much that has caused people to misread him–so now western Christians come to the New Testament with the questions of modern western democracy in our minds, and within that the questions of the “culture wars” of late 20th Century America. Was Paul a Republican or a Democrat? Was he right-wing or left-wing? One of the things we must urgently learn is that our rather shallow polarizations do not at all correspond to the ways in which ancient Jews or Greeks or Romans saw public and civic life.

We too easily grasp Paul saying “obey the government” and assume he was an unthinking right-winger in our terms. Or we latch on to the fact that he says “Jesus is Lord” and assume he will line up with every neo-Marxist movement, eager to overthrow the present authorities. This is naïve.

Paul has a great deal to say about power, government and so on–not so much about “political parties” because that’s a fairly modern idea, one particular localized way of “doing democracy”–but we only understand it all when we really dig deep into his cultural, philosophical and political roots [of his time]. That’s what I’ve tried to do in this book. My hope is that the book will open people’s eyes to the powerfully subversive early Christian vision of Jesus as Lord, and to the shallow and often self-serving ways in which the western world “does politics”, whether to the right or to the left. One thing is sure: follow Paul, and any idea that “theology” or “spirituality” has nothing to do with public life will be gone for ever.

One of the peculiar things about transatlantic theological debates is that in America people who are right-wing theologically are often right-wing politically, whereas in England theological conservatives are often left-wing politically–though again the “right” and “left” mean different things at different times and places. Paul can help us get beyond the shallow stereotypes and enable us to see what it really means, in geopolitical as well as “spiritual” terms, to say “Jesus is Lord”. And, as pietists have always taught, if he is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all.

- “Go on,” Paul would say. “Think through what that’s going to mean for Christianity in the 21st century.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDHs8S1Se3E

- See more at:

http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/11/06/nt-wright-john-piper-paul-debate-tome/#sthash.qHMIlGi2.dpuf

- N.T. Wright extends debate with John Piper by releasing Apostle Paul tome - See more at:
http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/11/06/nt-wright-john-piper-paul-debate-tome/#sthash.qHMIlGi2.dpuf

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Jonathan Merritt is senior columnist for Religion News Service and has published more than 1000 articles in outlets like USA Today, The Atlantic, and National Journal. His most recent book is "A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars."

- See more at:

http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/11/06/nt-wright-john-piper-paul-debate-tome/#sthash.qHMIlGi2.dpuf

 

Continue to Index -

 

Index to the "New(er) Perspective(s) of Paul"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Index - Christmas and Advent

Index to Christmas and Advent

Advent

"Rise Up Ye People Rejoice!" - Christmas Advent Stories, Songs & Choirs

Lutheran Hour Ministries - Advent & Lenten Devotionals

The Radicalness of God's Incarnation: "For God So Loved the World that He Couldn't Stay Away"

Celebrating Advent, It's Timeless Meaning and Discovery

Advent Season 2020 - The Process Christ of Advent's Being & Becoming

24 Advent Poems for Christmas

All Things Christmas: The Rythm of Time, Christian Calendars, Advent, and Christmas Future


The Origin of Christmas

How December 25 Became Christmas


The Story of Christmas

The Meaning of Jesus' Birth to the Romans of the Ancient World

An Aussie Children's Christmas Story

Remembering the First Christmas: The Killing of Innocent Children

Christmas Stories

The Hobbit and the Riddle of Christmas

JRR Tolkien's Rich Hobbit's Riddle, "Christ, the Arkenstone of Christmas"

A Christmas Story of Common Sense and Baby Jesus

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Christmas Advent in a Cold Prison

5 Myths of Christmas

Charley Honey - Remarkable Stories of the Christmas Season

Songs of Christmas

Select Christmas Songs

For King & Country - Little Drummer Boy Christmas

Pentatonix's Lindsey Stirling Rejoices in the Lord playing "Hallelujah" & "Shatter Me"

Pentatonix - Medleys of Christmas

Buddy Greene, "Mary, Did You Know?" with Lyrics

"Rise Up Ye People Rejoice!" - Christmas Advent Songs & Choirs

Christmas Traditions

Merry Christmas from Sweden!




                       

Peter Enns, "ETS and the Evolutionary Controversy in Evangelicalism"

 

 

An outsider eavesdrops on the Evangelical Theological Society

and the Adam/evolution controversy. Oh no.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/11/an-outsider-eavesdrops-on-the-evangelical-theological-society-and-the-adamevolution-controversy-oh-no/

 

by Peter Enns

November 29, 2013

Comments

 

Just this past week, the Economist ran a story on the evolution controversy in evangelicalism. I can’t say I saw that one coming.

 

A reporter went to the Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Baltimore and sat in on the session with the authors of the recent publication of Four Views on the Historical Adam (part of Zondervan’s Counterpoints series–see Inerrancy volume here).

 

The piece is entitled “All about Adam: The Furious–and Political–Debate about Human Origins.”

 

Political? Ya think?

 

Here are quotes to get a feel for the piece.

 

The glue that underpins such faith [biblical literalism] is the principle of Biblical inerrancy—a certainty that the Scriptures are infallibly and unchangingly true.

 

Some discussions [at the ETS meeting] were a trifle arcane, it is true, with sharp exchanges about ancient Hebrew cosmology and the degree to which the Book of Genesis draws on Mesopotamian creation and flood motifs. But a bang-up-to-date, and distinctly political, dispute hummed along underneath the scholarly sparring: what to do about core principles threatened by new facts. Evangelical Christianity is being shaken not only by the irreverence of the young but also by new discoveries flowing from genetic science.

 

Recent research (notably cross-species comparisons of gene sequences rendered non-functional by mutations) has greatly strengthened the case that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. A creationist speaker in Baltimore shrugged such discoveries off, declaring that “science changes, but the word of God never changes.”

 

A few weeks ago, I commented briefly on the book itself, and I remain discouraged on two fronts: (1) the subtle maneuvers often made in evangelicalism to hold together science, ancient Near East, and a “historical Adam” seem desperate to me; (2) some carry on by essentially ignoring contrary evidence entirely and persist in presenting models of Christianity that can only operate in a climate of intellectual isolation.

 

The value of the book, for me, is largely centered on Denis Lamoureux’s essay (“No Historical Adam: Evolutionary Creation View”) and Greg Boyd’s pastoral reflection (“Whether or Not There Was a Historical Adam, Out Faith is Secure”).

 

Concerning the other authors, I respect John Walton and his work, but I find his “archetypal view” difficult to track with. John Collins’s old-earth historical Adam view remains idiosyncratic for me, though I applaud his attempts to bring the Adam issue before a conservative audience.

 

Most discouraging for me was to read Phil Ryken’s (president of Wheaton College) pastoral reflection, where he patiently outlines 7 reasons why “We Cannot Understand the World or Our Faith without a Real, Historical Adam.” Though his candor is to be noted, it is hard to hear this from the president of a (if not the) flagship evangelical college with a reputation for academic rigor and integrity. I am also not sure what is “pastoral” about creating cognitive dissonance, which, as the author of the Economist piece points out, has young people turning away from the church because it is perceived to be “anti-science.” Protecting theological boundaries and showing pastoral concern are not the same thing.

 

At any rate, the article is worth the read. I would have liked to have attended the session, but my own session on inerrancy ran parallel to it.

 

 

related posts -

 

The Evangelical Theological Society's (ETS) Dispute of Evolution:

"A Crisis of Bible and Faith"

 

Peter Enns Book Review: "The Apostles of Reason:

The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism," by Molly Worthen

 

 

 

 

Peter Rollins, "New Atheism/Religion and the Death of God"

“We should use and look upon nothing as separate from God, which indeed is a kind of practical atheism...

[God's] intimate presence holds them all in being, who pervades and actuates the whole created frame,

and is, in a true sense, the soul of the universe.” - John Wesley

 

 

Peter Rollins, Lawrence Krauss, The Guardian, Australia

http://peterrollins.net/2013/11/new-atheism-and-the-death-of-god/

by Peter Rollins
with commentary by R.E. Slater
November 15, 2013

Over the coming weeks I wish to write a few reflections concerning the discussion that took place between myself and Lawrence Krauss. This will be used as a means of getting to the heart of some critiques I have of the New Atheism movement as a whole. The main one mimicking the critique that psychoanalysis has with regards to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (namely that the latter doesn’t deal with the unconscious). Something that become evident in the debate with Krauss when he showed that he simply didn’t understand what is meant by the “death of God” and when he couldn’t fathom the way that fundamentalism was (structurally speaking) not an intellectual position but a means of protection against a trauma.

Anyway, for now I simply wish to publish a discussion Krauss and I had that was originally for The Guardian in Australia (but which wasn’t published because of the different lengths of response). The question that The Guardian asked us to talk about was: "Have the new atheists won the battle of ideas by proving that religion isn’t true?"


PR: This question might help us get to the heart of my problem with “New Atheism” (a term that is as problematic as “New Religion”). For the problem is not that it has gone too far in its critique, but rather that it hasn’t gone anywhere far enough.

I think the first great critic of the approach summed up in “New Atheism” was the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who, at the twilight of the nineteenth century wrote a scathing parable attacking the cultural elite who took joy in proclaiming the end of religion.

The story goes that a madman finds himself in a marketplace seeking God. Because he’s surrounded by enlightened nonbelievers he’s ridiculed for his pursuit. But then the madman tells them that the God he seeks is dead and that everyone in the marketplace has killed him. At this point in the parable we find an interesting antagonism, for the madman is telling those who don’t believe what they seem to already know, namely that God is dead as an anchoring point in their lives, that God is an idea whose time has passed: But he is precisely accusing them of not knowing it.

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*My limited understanding of the phrase "God is Dead" refers to the historical death of Jesus on the cross... at which point God (through Jesus=God) cedes provisional caretake of the earth and humanity over to the church and His Holy Spirit. This then countermands the normal meaning that "there is no God, never has been a God (or gods), and never will be one" kind of understanding. The first takes the "Death of God" in a  deeply theological sense, while the latter in a common vernacular (atheistic) sense. - R.E. Slater

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He goes on to say that, like a lightening strike in which we have not yet heard the crash of thunder, the impact of this insight has not yet hit them. They walk around feeling great about their “insight” without actually feeling the mad and horrific consequences of it. Hence, in a different passage, Nietzsche refers to a myth about the shadow of the Buddha remaining on a cave wall after the Buddha had died, commenting that the shadow of God still remains after the death of God and that the task set before us is the removal of the shadow.

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*Here too it seems that in the proper sense of being a biblical sinner is one that places us fully in charge of our lives so that as a disbeliever (or atheist) one must fully remove God from very life itself as is possible. From religious holidays to momentous occassions (weddings, death, taking office, graduation, etc), from societal observances to personal tragedies and joys. To as literally remove God from one's life as can be possible while leaving in this space as much nothing, or human godlessness, as can be made. Leaving in its wake "mad and horrific consequences." For this is the truth to every lost sinner's life... that God is dead, and must be dead, so that there is no God found in this life or the next. Of course, as has been demonstrated in this link here, atheology is as fruitless a task as it is impossible task to achieve. Hence, Peter Rollins is pointing out the obvious in his own way. - R.E. Slater

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In simple terms we can understand what this means by reflecting upon how none of us really believe that having a bigger house or better car will make us happy, and yet we continue to materially act as if it will. Or we might know that a loved one has died, yet we protect ourselves from the grief of that knowledge through a type of security blanket: such as keeping the room of our beloved exactly as it was.

The bigger house/better car/preserved room act as a fetish in the psychoanalytic sense of the term in that they act as objects that we know are not magical yet treat as if they are. A fetish object does not hide us from some kind of knowledge, but protects us from experiencing the psychological impact of the knowledge we already have. Just like an actual security blanket carried by a child doesn’t prevent them from knowing that they are in a room full of people, but rather protects them for the impact of that knowledge.

The critique then that “New Religion” offers against “New atheism” is a precise one… it has not felt the impact of its own claims, indeed it hides from the horror and madness of its own insights through its often bourgeois, detached elitism.

New Religion admittedly doesn’t sound like a very attractive proposition, for it is the place that one enacts this terrifying insight in a bodily way (through [new] music, poetry, ritual and liturgy). It is for the mad men and women, like Nietzsche, who are ready to hear the crash of the thunder in their lives.

My larger argument is that this experience of the “death of God,” far from being against the insight of faith, is its subversive, scandalous heart. That the event one wishes to experience in the New Religion’s “church” is precisely that cry, “my God, my God why have you forsaken me.” This is not an intellectual atheism [so much as it is] an existential one. It is an atheism that is felt at the core of our being (an experience which is open to those who are, intellectual speaking, theists, atheists and agnostics). However far from being depressing, it is in confronting this experience that leads to a fuller and more enriching life. So the argument of New Religion is not that New atheists have gone too far by proving religion isn’t true in the marketplace of ideas, but that they’ve failed to go all the way.

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One further thought (though this thought must be tested as true since I am very new to the new kind of language, and philosophy, being used here as I had cautioned earlier) is that Pete, like other Radical Theologians, is saying to torch all religion down. To burn down every last filament of our religious idols so that nothing exists in its place but a religionless landscape of godlessness. Because the very things we hold so dear in our religious lives have become the very things that have caused us to forgot God, and place in-and-around us, God-like structures of comfort and insurance. Hence, it is better to be a Christian-less believer than to be a faithfully church-going believer. And it is in this place of anarchy and destruction that God will be found all the clearer in the dismay, disbelief, and mayhem.

However, my counter-argument to this line of thinking, is that humanity must always be thought of as visual, symbolic beings always in need of their comforts and supports. To remove them is to remove the very essence of our humanity. Rather than seeing these as things as existential idols I rather see them as evidences (or testaments) to one's God-belief.... The trick is to not replace this Creator-Redeemer God with some lesser god, thing, or even self, as the Bible clearly narrarates time-and-again in the bankrupt lives of castaway believers and nonbelievers alike. Instead of torching everything down, the Christian is commanded to torch down all idols and let Jesus reign as fully as is possible within this life of ours. Which doesn't mean one must become a professional cynic, or monk-like stoic, which projects have been tried time-and-again within both Catholic and Protestant movements. However, even in these wild places the God one seeks can be as far away as our sinful, and proud, hearts will take us. This is the seriousness of the sin/atheism that we bear within our hearts and spirit, and the absolute necessity we correspondingly bear for a Redeemer God to come to us to recreate, rebirth, renew, and resurrect us within the cores of our beings. - R.E. Slater

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LK: To the extent that I understand your point, I am a bit surprised. Why would one want to replace an old religion that doesn’t work with a new one that relies on angst? Moreover, at least where I live, the old religion is quite alive even if it is not well in the first world (in the developing world things are quite different. I do agree with you that it is experiencing slow death throes of realization that god simply doesn’t cut it anymore, but the response here is largely to retrench, to fight anything that might further god’s demise, and that fight can be extremely dangerous, and that fight is what many of the new atheists are trying to address. I can’t speak for others, but from my point of view, there are two messages: (1) hey, lighten up, this stuff is as silly as sex or politics, let’s treat it that way and, (2) the real universe is so amazing that we shouldn’t feel the loss of god is a loss, it is a gain, it opens us up to more wonder and awe.


PR: As a brief aside, the point I’m making is not that we need to replace the old religion with a new one but rather to discover the new that exists as a potential within the old religion. In other words, to draw out a liberating kernel operating within the actually existing religion, one that will crack it open like new wine in an old wineskin. While this might seem like splitting hairs the point is an important one. For I would argue that the most effective tools for ridding the world of reactionary religion are found within it.

I will however spend my response reflecting on your concerns over the idea of having a religion that “relies on angst.” This is where I must turn to Kierkegaard and respond that I’m not trying to create angst but rather draw out the way in which we are already full of angst and show how the best way of working through this is in facing it and tarrying with it.

There are broadly two ways to cope with our [existential/spiritual - res] angst: one involves hiding it/projecting it. The other involves making peace with it.

For Kierkegaard, the problem with angst was that it lurked within both everyday happiness and sadness. For him one could be happy and yet still be full of angst. Something we witness in the average nightclub, were one can’t help wondering what would happen if the lights went up and the music went down. Amidst all the pleasure it’s hard not to feel that the lights and the silence, combined with the awkward moment of looking each other in the eyes, would uncover in many an underlying sadness that didn’t just lie beneath their pleasure, but actually motivated their pursuit of it.

But in the same way that angst is deeper than both happiness and sadness, he argued that so too is joy. One can have joy even when facing difficult and sorrowful times. The point of the “New Religion” is to create spaces were people can encounter their angst, not so that they become enslaved by it, but so that they are freed from it just as talking about ones pain doesn’t strengthen it but helps to rob it of its sting.

In terms of the retrenchment you speak about in religion we simply diverge on our interpretation of it. The re-entrenchment of religion as seen in fundamentalism would, to me, signal not a security but precisely an insecurity. For instance, if I say to a friend that I think her partner is having an affair and she kicks me out of the house, telling me that she never wants to speak to me again, that is not evidence that she disagrees with me, but rather that she agrees with me but doesn’t want to directly confront her agreement. If what I said was something she didn’t know in some way her reaction would more likely be mere shock. The violent response is evidence of her own inability to face what she already suspects.

Within the religious world Fundamentalism is more often than not the externalization of an internal crisis. And here, once more, I would say that the most dangerous thing for these communities in crisis is not the position of the new atheist, but of those who attack from within (the “heretic” rather than the “infidel”).

You finish with two points. The first is that religion, like politics and sex, is silly; and the second being that the universe is amazing. I’m not sure I see why the first is necessarily silly while the second is not. Those who are depressed generally can’t place any value on anything while those who embrace life find it all incredible. In theological language, the latter experience a depth dimension in existence.

The majority of people who seek therapy go precisely because their desire is not functioning properly and everything seems pointless. The point of the “New Religion” is to help people face their angst, embrace life in the midst of unknowing and, in so doing, get themselves to the point were they can take seriously all of life.

What opens us up to awe and wonder is not a universe any more than a god: it is love. For those who do not love, the universe is experienced as meaningless even if they believe it is meaningful. While for those who love, the universe is experienced as saturated with meaning even if they believe it is not.


LK: Firstly, I agree there are seeds within the old religion to liberate people, and one can exploit some of the successful tools of religion, ritual, community etc. and we need to replace those positive aspects of religion with other sources when we get rid of it. Secondly, you misunderstand me. I agree the retrenchment is due to insecurity. However I don’t see that embracing that insecurity and that entrenchment will help. I see that ridiculing it will help. Thirdly, I am in awe of the universe, but I also think it is meaningless. Fourthly, the doctrines of religion are silly by any standard I can conceive. Moreover, taking ourselves too seriously is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Peter Rollins, "A Miracle Without Miracle"

http://peterrollins.net/2013/11/a-miracle-without-miracle/

by Peter Rollins

November 17, 2013

Here’s a little parable from The Orthodox Heretic. For the next couple of weeks you can listen to an audio version of this by clicking here and pressing the play button beside the name “Miracle Without Miracle”.

After Jesus had descended from the Mount of Olives he came across a man who had been blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he cannot see?”

            Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.. We must carry out the works of him who sent me while it is day for night is approaching, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “My friend, go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” So he went and washed and returned in jubilation shouting, “I can see, I can see!”

            The neighbors and those who knew him as a beggar began to grumble saying, “Has this man lost his mind, for he was born blind.” Some said, “It is the same man who was blind.” Others said, “No, it is not, but he is like him.” In response to this grumbling, the old man kept repeating, “I am the same man. Jesus anointed my eyes and said, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and now can see everything.”

            To ascertain what had happened they brought him to the Pharisees. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know that this man Jesus is a sinner.” But the old man answered, “Whether or not he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

            But the Pharisees began to laugh. “Old man, meeting Jesus has caused you to lose your mind, you had to be carried into this room by friends, you still stumble and fall like a fool, you are as blind today as the day you were born”.

           “That may be true,” replied the old man with a long deep smile, “as I have told you before. All I know is that yesterday I was blind but today, today I can see”.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

Brownscombe, (The Pilgrim's) First Thanksgiving

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give him thanks and praise.

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and every-

where to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of

heaven and earth.

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have

done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole

creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life,

and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for

the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best

efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy

and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures

that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the

truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast

obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying,

through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life

again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and

make him known; and through him, at all times and in all

places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen.

- The Book of Common Prayer, pp. 367 and 837

David Crowder Song & Video Mix

I Am a Seed

Heaven Came Down

Everything Glorious

Come Thou Fount

Never Let Go

I Saw the Light

Come and Listen

How He Loves
[may play together as stereo]

Sometimes

Shadows

To the Only God





Doxology

A Short History of Thanksgiving & Thanksgiving Theologies

In an earlier post Tom discusses How Does God Move and Act in the Universe? - "Eight Positions of Divine Sovereignty,"  reviewing each position one-by-one. Today he takes the practical side of this chart and makes it relevant through the American holiday of Thanksgiving, which many believe was an institution originating with the Pilgrims for their safe passage and survival in the wilds of early America thanks to their Indian friends, whose relationships with one another quickly soured (cf. The Landing of the Pilgrims and The Pilgrim's Mayflower Compact). But the early story of this holiday is is not true.

However, it was more true that the holiday became a later Calvinist thanksgiving established by the Puritans of New England based upon earlier English Protestant Reformations made under King Henry VIII. Whose radical Protestant reformation groups wished to remove the many Catholic holidays down to two special kinds of observances: "Days of Fasting," for remembering times of sorrow and destruction; and "Days of Thanksgiving and Feasting" for remembering especially noteworthy, and joyous, events.

Wikipedia - Thanksgiving (around the world)

In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is commonly, but not universally, traced to a poorly documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.^[9][10] According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden.^[11] In later years, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planned a thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623.^[12][13][14] The practice of holding an annual harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.^[15]

Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress,^[16] each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes.^[17] As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".^[18]

"The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth" (1914) By Jennie A. Brownscombe

Wikipedia - The Pilgrims (Thanksgiving)

"First Thanksgiving"

The autumn celebration in late 1621 that has become known as "The First Thanksgiving" was not known as such to the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims did recognize a celebration known as a "Thanksgiving", which was a solemn ceremony of praise and thanks to God for a congregation's good fortune. The first such Thanksgiving as the Pilgrims would have called it did not occur until 1623, in response to the good news of the arrival of additional colonists and supplies. That event probably occurred in July and consisted of a full day of prayer and worship and probably very little revelry.^[43]

The event now commemorated in the United States at the end of November each year is more properly termed a "harvest festival". The original festival was probably held in early October 1621 and was celebrated by the 53 surviving Pilgrims, along with Massasoit and 90 of his men. Three contemporary accounts of the event survive: Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford; Mourt's Relation probably written by Edward Winslow; and New England's Memorial penned by Plymouth Colony Secretary – and Bradford's nephew – Capt. Nathaniel Morton.^[44] The celebration lasted three days and featured a feast that included numerous types of waterfowl, wild turkeys and fish procured by the colonists, and five deer brought by the Native Americans.^[45]

Now let us turn our attention to the idea of Thanksgiving for both the religious, and non-religious alike, from a theological point of view....

R.E. Slater
November 28, 2013

Thanksgiving Theologies

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/thanksgiving_theologies/#.UpZjayQorlE.facebook

by Thomas Jay Oord

November 22, 2013

The Thanksgiving holiday is a terrific time to talk theology. But some theologies make more sense when offering thanks to our loving Lord.

Whether the setting is private or public, secular or sacred, hundreds of millions express gratitude. Often, even the day’s newscasts are laden with words of Holy appreciation.

For what, however, are we to thank God? What credit is due the divine? And which theologies best account for our desire to express gratitude?

Atheists

One group giving thanks consists of those who consider theology a mere form of language without a Referent. There is no Holy Reality, they say, to which their rituals relate. Theology is nothing more than anthropology. Giving thanks to God is merely an expression of a shared cognizance that life is not entirely within our control.

These folks can utter the words, "Thank you, God." But their disbelief in a Being exists to whom they should be grateful makes their theological sleight of hand far from satisfying.

A Controlling God

Many eager to express their indebtedness at Thanksgiving have ties to a second option in Christian theology. This view says God either directly or indirectly controls everything. When someone from this tradition says, "Thank you God for _____," he or she can fill the blank with any event.

Such events in that blank may be joyous and hopeful. But others are utterly evil and horrific. The God of this theology is responsible for respect and rape, peace and pain, havens and holocausts. God directly or indirectly controls everything.

Most in this theological tradition express gratitude at Thanksgiving only for events they deem good. Reminding them their view implies God is also responsible for evil dampens their holiday spirit.

Classical Free-will Theology

A third theological alternative at Thanksgiving takes the form of classical free-will theology. Those in this tradition believe they sidestep theological potholes in which other believers fall. They thank God for good and benevolent acts, while blaming free agents or natural forces for evil.

A closer look at classical free-will theology, however, reveals that the God of this theology is culpable for failing to prevent genuine evil. Classical free-will theology says God voluntarily gives freedom to others, but God essentially retains the ability to prevent genuine evils by taking that freedom away or failing to provide it in the first place.

The God with the capacity to control others entirely by either failing to provide, withdrawing, or overriding their freedom is ultimately culpable for failing to prevent dastardly deeds. Although free creatures initiate evil in classical free-will theology, the view implies that God is ultimately culpable for whatever occurs. After all, this God has the capacity to control others entirely should God so decide.

Those affirming classical free-will theologies could insert any event into the “Thank you God for _____” phrase. The God they espouse voluntarily permits free creatures to use their freedom to cause genuine evil.

Essential Kenosis Theology at Thanksgiving

A fourth option may be more adequate as the theological framework for this year’s Thanksgiving prayer. I call this framework “essential kenosis,” because it says God necessarily loves in each moment without ever trumping creaturely agency and/or freedom.

Essential kenosis says God’s eternal nature of love includes giving freedom and/or agency to creation. Because God’s nature is this kind of love, God cannot fail to provide, cannot withdraw, and cannot override the freedom and agency God necessarily gives.

Essential kenosis theology says God’s loving actions in each moment present a spectrum of possibilities to each creature for response. This is not deistic theology, in which God sits uninvolved on the sidelines.  Instead, God actively creates, provides, and interacts with creation.

Not only does the God of essential kenosis offer possibilities, God also calls creatures to respond to the best possibilities. Our loving Creator inspires and empowers creatures to love. Genuine evil results from the responses these creatures make contrary to God’s call.

Essential kenosis theology affirms at Thanksgiving that every good and perfect gift originates in God. God alone is the source of good. But the good things we enjoy also require creatures to respond well to God’s loving activity. In other words, we should thank God for being the source of goodness, but we should also thank the chef for making a great Thanksgiving meal!

Without scruples, the Christian adopting essential kenosis theology can offer thanks to God for being the source of all this good and not the one responsible for causing or allowing evil. She can also thank God for inspiring, empowering, and creating others to act in love, peace, and beauty.

A Short Thanksgiving Prayer

"Our loving God, in deepest gratitude, we thank You for the good you have done and are doing. We thank you for empowering and inspiring us to respond well to your perfect goodness. We are grateful now and forever. Amen!"