Evangelical Rejects 2/4 - Refusing to Reject Evangelicals

An Evangelical Reject Who Refuses to Reject Evangelicals 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2011/06/14/an-evangelical-reject-who-refuses-to-reject-evangelicals/

by Kurt Willems

June 14, 2011

Last week I posted an article called “You Might Be an Evangelical Reject If…” Many of you read with laughs, perhaps at the picture I created in PowerPoint (as I know zilch about graphic design) or at the clearly tongue-in-cheek nature of the article as a whole. Yet some folks resonated on a deeper level. For you, it spoke into a deep part of your encounters with many evangelicals in local churches.

You know rejection and as fun as it is to poke fun at this, much hurt remains. Sometimes church-ianity within evangelicalism can be brutal.

One theme that comes through the comments is that “its not that we sought to be alienated from the evangelicals in our faith community, but that they rejected us.” This certainly demonstrates where I come from on this issue. Some of you have lost jobs within the church or leadership positions because of some of the “ifs” that I listed or some that fit on your own unique list. Fear gives birth to this rejection.

Many in our evangelical churches are afraid. Afraid to explore. Afraid to disrupt the status quo. Afraid to have congregations turn on them because what is accepted as the Truth in the pew. This reflects the sad state of evangelical discipleship. For us rejects, “easy answers” fluster our souls and present an intellectual gap for missional dialogues. Postmodern culture won’t settle for the so-called right answers and neither should the people of God!

A second theme in the comments of the first post was “what kind of evangelicalism are you hanging around because this doesn’t reflect my experiences?” To answer this, I have a bit of a theory. In the evangelical academy, there’s more freedom to explore than in the average church. Radio preachers and pop-theology influenced the average congregation. Anything that poses a threat to the hyper-literal box conservative modernism put God into relinquishes trepidation for many church attendees. Evangelicalism of this form looks oddly similar to its fundamentalist roots.

A final theme that came through was “yes! Let’s reject evangelicalism!” May I kindly say: no, no, no, NO! I understand this impulse, but in my own journey of becoming a reject, I’m now convinced that an essential truth of Scripture is that God is reconciling all things. Consider the passage in 2 Corinthians 5:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

I want to draw out three levels of this passage as it pertains to reconciliation.

1. Cosmic Reconciliation. The new creation has been kick started in Christ’s accomplishment of resurrection. This began the process of God reconciling all of created reality. God is redeeming the cosmos and will return one day to make this process complete. Heaven’s justice will purge earth’s corruption!
2. Personal Reconciliation. From out of the cosmic healing we’re invited into personal reconciliation as well. Any person who chooses to walk into the relationship that God offers all people, leaves behind alienation and discovers a life made whole as image bearer of the Divine.
3. Social Reconciliation. Finally, reconciliation is a reality between humans. If God is reclaiming ever square inch of the cosmos and if this includes every individual open to the opportunity, then it follows that we be reconciled to each other. And this includes those who would reject us! This is our message!

Therefore, may those of us who know rejection refuse to reject those in the evangelical church who alienate themselves from us. May we open up our arms to those who would reject us, in order to seek reconciliation to them as much as it depends on us. And may we "rejects" reject anything that appears to reject the reconciling nature of the Gospel of Jesus, including rejecting those who reject us.

I end with a final “if” to consider: You might be an evangelical reject if… you refuse to reject evangelicals.

Evangelical Rejects 3/4 - C.S. Lewis Should Be A Reject Too!

C.S. Lewis Should Be An Evangelical Reject Too! (John Janzen)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2011/07/18/c-s-lewis-should-be-an-evangelical-reject-too-john-janzen/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thepangeablog+%28Blog+-+Pangea+Blog%29&utm_content=FaceBook

by John Janzen

July 18, 2011

I am one of the ones who, after reading Kurt’s post on evangelical rejects, felt even more at home [link: article and follow-up]. Coincidentally, I read the post the day after listening to an interview with Richard Rohr, where he mentioned that it was vital for people who desire to be change agents to stay on the “inside edge” of their faith communities. His point was that once you position yourself on the outside, it is much easier for the resisters of change to write you off as irrelevant. You are then a heretic, and heretics are best ignored – not engaged.

I am not good at staying on the inside edge. I find it easier to take an all-or-nothing sort of stance. I remember years ago having a discussion with an evangelical friend. We were discussing salvation – who will make the cut, and how exactly Jesus is going to sort us all out. I was telling him how my views were being altered by, among other things, a passage from C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle that seemed to suggest that salvation might be possible for those outside the explicitly Christian fold. The discussion ended with him telling me that if that is what I believed, then I couldn’t really call myself an evangelical anymore.

My response at the time was to say: fine, who cares, if I’m not an evangelical then so be it. I find much of the culture grating anyway.

I suppose that is a fairly typical way for a young, arrogant know-it-all to react. It’s perhaps also typical that a decade later I find myself missing home. Alright, so maybe it’s not exactly like I’m off eating pig’s feed somewhere and am ready for a humble return, but it has been hard to shake the feeling that there are aspects of the culture and theology I grew up with that are still a perfect fit. Kurt says that “if evangelical means the belief in repentance and conversion into a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit,” then he should still qualify. But experience seems to be telling him otherwise. I know that feeling.

I will say, though, that for all the people who have implied that I’m not a proper evangelical, there are just as many who hold to a much broader definition. Mostly this just highlights the confusing space we are living through at the moment: no one really knows what an evangelical is anymore!

Perhaps we never really did. I mentioned before that it was one of the 20th century’s biggest evangelical heroes, C.S. Lewis himself, who caused the very black and white thinking of my youth to fade into a more honest grey. The scene in The Last Battle, where Emeth, soldier of Aslan’s enemy, Tash, is accepted into paradise on account of his righteous seeking, was just the starting point. As I read further I found that in both Lewis’s fiction and apologetic works there were themes significantly at odds with what I had come to regard as “evangelically orthodox.”

Yet Lewis, during his life and still now, is up there with the likes of Billy Graham as one of the evangelical world’s greatest champions. How is it that Lewis gets a pass on the same subjects that get guys like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren cast into outer darkness?

Questions like this led to me making Lewis’s apparent “heresies” the subject of my M.A. thesis. By the time I had worked my way through a mountain of research, I was convinced that evangelicals should pay closer attention to their hero. Lewis may have been writing more than half a century ago, but it is remarkable just how relevant his thinking is to the arguments that rage even now.

Too bad he wasn’t around for the Rob Bell controversy. Anyone who has read The Great Divorce knows that Lewis’s atypical take on hell, while it might not please the traditionalists, offers a carefully considered alternative view. Residents of hell on a visit to heaven are offered the chance to stay. Apparently, God doesn’t condemn us to hell. We choose to stay there ourselves. Even long into the afterlife.

To most evangelicals, that is an unorthodox thought. Yet somehow Lewis proved adept at avoiding arguments over “sound doctrine.” I think he managed this by presenting his conceptions of hell as imaginative guesses instead of as a rigid theological party line. In fact, there is a passage in The Problem of Pain where Lewis seems to defend a more traditional conception of hell, with a discussion of what it might mean to be in a state of eternal conscious torment. Lewis understood that in some areas it is simply necessary to hold somewhat incompatible views in tension. Perhaps, when it comes to ideas and realms that are far beyond our own reality and ability to grasp completely, this approach is the most honest, and maybe even the most accurate.

I get in to all of this a little more in depth in a short book that I adapted from my thesis work. If you are interested in this particular conversation, the book is on Amazon as Kindle Single-length digital book, but if you’ll send it on to a friend or two, I’ll gladly send you a copy for free.

——————————————————————————

John Janzen is a Canadian living and working in Nagoya, Japan where he and his family have spent the last 9 years trying to figure out what “ foreign mission” might look like in the 21st century. His writing, fiction and non-fiction, has appeared in academic journals, literary magazines, and recently in Quakebook, a compilation of responses to the March 11th Japan earthquake. He recently completed an M.A. thesis on C.S. Lewis, which has been adapted in Heresy in Narnia: Departures From Evangelical Orthodoxy in the Writings of C.S. Lewis, available on Amazon. You can connect with him on his blog .

Evangelical Rejects 4/4 - Is ANYone evangelical enough anymore?

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2011/07/20/is-anyone-evangelical-enough-anymore/

by Deacon Bo

July 20, 2011

I saw two interesting bits of controversy this past week. I wasn’t necessarily surprised by either of them but I was disturbed by the way they overlapped.

The first item was a post as part of a series at Pangea (on Patheos). This one was reeling over the evangelical credibility of C.S. Lewis. Apparently his views on the subject of hell were a little too open-ended and remind some self-proclaimed watchdogs of the views in a recent controversy surrounding you know who and his book.

Over the past decades there has been an increasingly contentious debate about the invisible boundary of evangelicalism. Apparently some have become so concerned that even historical figures who were previously safe (even adored) are in danger if their views are found to be too loose for the contemporary conservative backlash.

I was only mildly concerned by this whole line of reasoning. Then, I found out that this past Sunday, the NY Times called Michelle Bachman the evangelical candidate in the Republican primary pool.

So my question is:

• what are the criteria that we are using for this public label of evangelical whereby the quintessential embodiment from the past century (C.S. Lewis) is out and tea-party candidate Michelle Bachman is in?
• who is in change of making these determinations?
• what are the demarkations that signify whether someone is “in” or “out”?

This is something that I care deeply about as a Methodist minister (UMC) who is the son of a Methodist minister (Free Methodist) we are both proudly Wesleyan in theology. I think that whatever definition we use it should at least be inclusive of our most historical marquee figures and flagship franchises.

I like to use the definition from British Historian David Bebbington as a starting point. We should at least establish a historical framework. [here is an interview with evangelical scholar Mark Noll where he talks about it]

The four keys are:

conversionism: new birth and a new life with God

biblicism: reliance on the Bible as ultimate religious authority

activism: concern for sharing the faith

crucentrism: focus on Christ’s redeeming work on the cross

Admittedly, those four emphasis take on a different tone and tenor in each generation. They take on different manifestations in each generation. The presence of these four however is a stabilizing theme that runs through the many historical maturations through the centuries and around the globe. These four themes also hold together whether ones utilizes a bounded-set mentality for marking boundaries or a center-set framework to encourage a shared focus.

I celebrate these four themes and find them even amongst my more progressive friends. They could say these four things with confidence:

• Relationship with God changes you personally internal and your relationships (external) .
• The Bible is central as the Christian Scripture and sets both the agenda and the example.
• One’s faith should both be shared (relationally) and will consequently impact the world around you.
• God’s work in Christ is what illuminates and inspires the life of the Christian – Christ revealed God is a unique and significant way. Jesus’ way is to be our way.

This kind of faith is something that I am inspired by and find deep fulfillment by participating in. I am nervous that a reactionary period of retrenchment by the religious right , moral majority, or other politicized conservative groups would see evangelicals like myself and C.S. Lewis pushed out and figures like Michelle Bachman made central.

Rob Bell - Conformation (1 John 3.11-18)

1 John 3. 11-18 – OPENING YOUR SPLANCHNON

http://marshill.org/teaching/2011/07/17/1-john-3v11-18-opening-your-splanchnon/

(Click on this link to hear or download the .mp3 file)

1 John 3.11-18 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3&version=ESV)

Love One Another

¹¹For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

¹²We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. ¹³Do not be surprised, brothers,^[c] that the world hates you. ¹⁴We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

¹⁶By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. ¹⁷But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? ¹⁸Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

SPLANCHNON: Though a strange expression in our modern
cultures here is a recent example of its use -
 

"My Stomach is full of anger and I want to take my revenge"
                                                                                          - Andy Schlech

 

Andy Schleck comments on Alberto Contrador's

tactics of passing him when seeing his bike chain

come off on Stage 15 of the 2010 TDF

SPLANCHNON as a motivator months and months later -

2011 TDF Update: Andy Schleck takes his revenge on Stage 18 one year later:

 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/more-sports/cycling/Schleck-moves-closer-to-Tour-de-France-revenge/articleshow/9322521.cms

 

 

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/22825103/vp/43842371#43842371

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Great Emergence of Christianity

There has been a lot of discussion lately as to whether we are in a time that is a game changer described as the very early stages of postmodernism and its seeming correspondent form of Christianity known as Emergent Christianity. As said earlier, I'm not sure whether Emergent Christianity is real or not, whether it is a movement or not, or whether its is a separate branch of Christianity or not (hopefully not!).

But if I were to choose I would think of it as an ecumenical postmodernistic Christian movement composed of a wide variety of believers from many different walks of life and doctrine, theology and practice, who are investigating postmodernistic expressions (as well as responses) to their Christian faith, whether orthodox or not. The idea of a Great Emergence is an attempt by its author Phyllis Tickle to explain her understanding of the historical import of this introductory era that we seemed to have entered into - its creative expressions and recapture of the Christian faith, as well as the  frustrations of non-emergent believers resistant to change and movement within their traditional faith expressions, structures, beliefs and practices.

For myself, I come from the conservative side of orthodox Christianity that is looking for faith's life and breath again against all the quantified statements that have formed themselves into rigid theological structures within our modernistic era. Not that they aren't good, solid, acceptable expressions of God, his Word and our faith communities, but that they seemed to have lost the life of God, his Word and the essence of communal living. Some of this I attribute to the constant reparsing and redefining of the Christian tradition until it has become trapped in a dark tunnel unable to see the life and hope and beauty that God has intended for us. At other times because we fear change as unhealthy or unproductive and wish to prove and discern new movements before accepting their questionable foundations and philosophies.

Which is all well and good but my charge to my conservative friends is twofold - don't so over criticize what could be a legitimate God-sent movement so as to kill the thing itself and in the killing kill your own faith's hope for salvation and life. And secondly, if there is some remnant of fact or heartfelt experience that is attractive within this Emergent movement than get on board and allow faith to grow again. Do not try to capture it and re-work it backwards into a dying expression of faith. But through listening and discerning Emergent Christianity's heartbeat let it wash back over all the past into something cleansing, renewing, revitalizing and refreshings.

For without active orthodox acceptance and support this movement can become stillborn and left to less traditional proponents of Christianity which may then take generations to recapture and express again. But don't come to emergent Christianity seeking to only put on its new dress, new clothes and new shoes! For this movement requires a radical change of thinking, of re-orientation. It requires a change of heart and a change of spirit that is found underneath the new clothes and shoes.  And once that is done postmodernistic Christianity will be a thing of beauty unlike its older, modernistic self dressed in its dark grays and death-filled colours.

Overall, I am thankful to my past which contained enough kernels of faith and truth that it could be rebirthed into the freedom of investigating a larger, less restrictive paradigm to the Christian faith. But it took awhile to hear again God's word and Spirit partly because I was to blame and partly because what I was listening to was inconsistent and ill-defined - rough as it were in its early stages of expression. It took a long while to hear this new paradigm's heartbeat and for its message to be sorted out and better understood and streamlined by its proponents. But its message is one that the Belfast Irishman, Peter Rollins, (cf. the last four videos below) has summed up quite neatly and shows in postmodernistic fashion what real faith can mean again by allowing Christianity's traditional creedal and religious statements to live and breath and find expression like they once had had.

And with that said, let me say that this is the very reason why this web blog has been developed - to help elucidate the best of what Emergent Christianity could be, as it interacts with both the older and newer traditional beliefs and practices of Christianity. So then, let me place a charge of responsibility to every believer that each of us be involved with enhancing this conversation of our Lord and Savior to the best version of itself that we can express this side of humanity. This is my prayer, my hope, my desire for today's postmodern church in its communal witness, ministry, worship and spirit-filled life.

- skinhead

The Great Emergence, October 2008

In 2008, Phyllis Tickle and Peter Rollins discuss

the spirit and theology of the emerging church

movement and what is happening abroad.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

What Evangelicals think of Emergent Christians

I came across these older videos below made by well-respected evangelical leaders arguing against Emergent or Emerging Christianity back in the years 2007, 2008 and 2010. And whether young or old, each respondent made strong, assertive statements as to what they believed Emergent Christianity and Emergent Christians to be. Now, I'm not even sure whether Emergent Christianity is real or not, whether it is a movement or not, or whether its is a branch of Christianity or not (I'm thinking an ecumenical movement, as a descriptor, if I were to choose). But I am sure that its is composed of Christians from many walks of life and doctrine and theology who are investigating postmodernistic expressions (as well as responses) to their orthodox Christian faith.

And I am also confident that when all is said or done, that we will discover that this updated expression of orthodoxy will be both radically new and yet strangely familiar with its old-line predecessor. That Jesus will still be Redeemer, the Bible still God's word, its language still to be trusted, the church still God's faithful remnant witnessing and living for their Lord, and so on and so forth. And for all the criticism leveled at Emergent Christianity from several years ago until now in 2011 (sic, Love Wins), we will discover that our faith investigations, worship practices, and missional outreach will have provided to Christianity a much needed quantum expression to its previous classical forms that has been modified innumerable times over the past 500 years since the Reformation period.

And so, in light of this, rather than be hurt or mad or disappointed over what these videos present by popular evangelical preachers of the pulpit and graduate schools, let us learn to understand their critique of  a movement they believe they understand but yet by their very words show that they don't. For by Emergent Christianity's very nature, it will continue to modify itself from its originating and earlier self into a legitimate and dynamic reformulation of all things God, in a good way, and not in the bad ways that are being expressed in these videos here.

This is my belief. And this is our task. For what has been said in previous years by earlier Emergents will not be the last things said by their revisionists, their critics and friends. For Christianity has ever embraced, adapted and adopted the cultural era that it is in, and so will we in this new postmodernistic era that is still in its infancy and but hardly begun! 

At least that is my belief with the Emergents writers that we have been following here on this blog. I don't find these Emergent friends or institutions any less biblical, any less truthful or insightful; nor any more liberal or deceptive. They are respected men and women of God who have patiently endured evangelical mis-statements all the while praying for those believers in disagreement to not be alarmed or distrustful. To become patient listerners and discerners of Emergent engagements with contemporary global culture.  And so shall we, and so will do . Be at peace.

skinhead

ps - please note that Mark Driscoll become despondent with Emergent Christianity (2005-2006?) and has since become one of its critics.

**********

November 17, 2007

R.C. Sproul, Al Mohler, and Ravi Zacharias discuss

post-modernism, modernism, liberalism, and the emergent church.

August 15, 2008

The Albert Mohler Program, Part 1

with host Dr. Russell Moore and

guests Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

August 15, 2008

The Albert Mohler Program, Part 2

August 15, 2008

The Albert Mohler Program, Part 3

John Piper, February 28, 2010

Phrases and Adjectives Describing Emergents

Emergents are motivated by "white guilt"

Come from upper-middle class whites

Are burned-out evangelicals

Attract trendy college kids

Portray a hip or cool image

Attract twenty-somethings

Espouse a postmodern ethic

Is a rebirth of liberalism

Known for coffee, candles and couches

Dislike systematic theology

Prefer narratives and stories

Are new-age Christians

Are Catholic mystics

Are wolves in sheep's clothing

Are heretics, false teachers, liberals

Are left-wing voters

Are gen-Y cynics

Are jaded and think the church stinks

Liked reading The Shack

Is a short-term fad

Don't believe in absolutes

Reject theological truths

Break down language

Teach relativism

Are socially conscious

Are not cognitive believers

Are non-critical and anti-doctrinal

Wish for peace-and-love over truth-and-justice

Are allergic to church traditions and creeds

Have abdicated Christian responsibility

Have abdicated Christian conviction

Have abdicated Christian courage

Are allergic to mega-churches

Have left orthodoxy

(Thankfully the list stops here)

What is Theological Liberalism?

http://www.patheos.com/community/rogereolson/2011/07/14/what-is-theological-liberalism/

by Roger Olson

posted July 14, 2011

One of my biggest pet peeves is people throwing labels around when they don’t understand them. I teach at a seminary often accused by the ignorant of being “liberal” because it allows women to study for the ministry. I’ve been asked when I “became liberal” and started believing in women’s ordination and women as lead pastors. The first denomination to ordain women as pastors was the theologically conservative but socially progressive Free Methodist Church and it did that way back in the mid-19th century. (Quakers, or Friends as they prefer to be called) had women leaders before that but they didn’t exactly “ordain” anyone or have lead pastors in our modern sense.) I grew up in a very conservative denomination that ordained women. We had women pastors and evangelists. Both my birth mother and stepmother were licensed to preach.

People tend to throw the label “liberal” around without regard to history. Most of the time it means little or nothing more than something they don’t like or agree with and perceive to be too progressive. When someone says a person or church or institution or book is “liberal” I have no idea what they mean until I press them for a definition. Usually they can’t give a real definition; they can only say something about their disagreement or dislike.

Looking up “liberal” in the dictionary doesn’t really help. Most ordinary dictionaries don’t include theology among their definitions. You can look up “liberal” in most dictionaries and be enlightened about politics and society and perhaps philosophy. But you are unlikely to find anything there about liberal theology. Besides, it is a mistake to think words have essences. There is no “essence” out there corresponding exactly with the sound “liberal.” The label “liberal” has a history theologically and we should stick to that as closely as possible while recognizing flexibility.

Once again, as before here, I want to suggest a helpful distinction. This time between “liberalism” as a movement and “liberalism” as an ethos. (And now I am restricting my comments to theology.) It is anachronistic to refer to anything as theologically liberal before Friedrich Schleiermacher, the early 19th century “father of liberal theology.” Schleiermacher was certainly influenced by previous and contemporary thinkers in philosophy and theology, but he almost single handedly created “liberal theology.” On this most historical theologians are agreed. (Before Schleiermacher there were “free thinkers” and deists and unitarians but not liberals per se.)

But even Schleiermacher did not found a movement. In many ways he serves as the paradigm of a liberal ethos in Christian theology. But that ethos only began to breathe with him; even Schleiermacher was not consistently liberal. Compared to many later movement liberals such as Adolf Harnack he would be considered relatively conservative insofar as he strove to hold onto as much of Christian tradition as he thought possible in the modern world.

So, the liberal ethos pre-dates the rise of the Christian liberal theological movement that I call “classical Protestant liberalism.” The latter appeared first with German Lutheran theologian Albrecht Ritschl and his followers in the later 19th century. Ritschl founded a movement. His followers came to be called “Ritschlians.” Classical Protestant liberal theology is tied to the METHOD of the Rischlians (not necessarily to all of their conclusions). The leading Ritschlians were Harnack and Willhelm Herrmann. There were, of course, many others. They disagreed among themselves about many things, but they agreed on theology’s basic method which followed that of Schleiermacher but in a somewhat altered way.

After WW1 and the existentialist revolution in philosophy and theology in Europe classical liberal theology struggled as a movement. It didn’t exactly die out, but it underwent some significant changes so that historical theologians tend to call its mid-20th century heirs “neo-liberals” or “chastened liberals.” The main difference was the recognition of a tragic dimension to human existence and history that was lacking in the pre-WW1 liberals.

[Strictly as defined] the liberal theological movement has had its ups and downs and perhaps doesn’t really exist anymore although I have met and read people who seem to agree with it to a large extent. But, again, I would tend to call them liberal in the “ethos” sense. Some have come along and tried to breathe new life into the liberal community to restart the old liberal theological movement but with little success. There are many freelance liberal theologians running around, but I look in vain for an actual movement that includes all or even most of them.

------------------

So what is the liberal theological ethos started by Schleiermacher that defines theological liberalism (including the Ritschlian movement and the neo-liberalism of its post-WW1 descendents)? And where do we find it today? Who are its contemporary spokespersons?

Schleiermacher introduced into the stream of Christian theology a “Copernican revolution” in theological method that regarded it as necessary to adjust traditional Christianity to the culture of the Enlightenment–what we call “modernity.” To be sure, Schleiermacher did NOT do this uncritically. However, he clearly felt it necessary to rescue Christianity from the “acids of modernity” by redefining Christianity’s (and religion’s) “essence” so that it did not and perhaps could not conflict with the “best” of modern thought [(thus, liberalism was a reaction against modernism - skinhead)]. He redefined Christianity as PRIMARILY about human experience [(existentially - skinhead)]. That is, as he put it, doctrines are nothing more than attempts to bring human experiences of God (God-consciousness) to speech. Schleiermacher placed universal God-consciousness at the center of religion and Christ’s God-consciousness communicated to the church at the center of Christianity. All doctrines and all teachings of Scripture became revisable in the light of human God-consciousness.

What Schleiermacher accomplished was to separate religion (including Christianity) from the realm of “facts” discoverable by science and philosophy. He rescued religion and Christianity from the acids of modernity by reducing them and restricting them to an entirely different realm. Also, rather than objective divine revelation standing at the center or bottom of the theological enterprise, human experience was placed there. This was Schleiermacher’s “Copernican revolution” in theology. All liberal theology (whether by ethos or tied specifically to a liberal theological movement such as Ritschlianism) is defined by that move first made by Schleiermacher.

Ritschl borrowed heavily from the philosopher Immanuel Kant to distinguish between two types of propositions–facts (which belong to the sciences) and values (which belong to religion). Religion, including Christianity, has to do with the way things ought to be (the Kingdom of God) and not with the way things are. If Ritschl was right, religion (rightly understood) and modern philosophy and science (kept where they belong) cannot conflict.

Harnack is the paradigm of the classical liberal Protestant theologian. He reduced Christianity to a minimal ethical core–it’s true “essence”–which cannot be undermined by science or philosophy. The liberal theologians did not throw out belief in the Trinity or the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, etc. They simply reduced their importance (they are not of the essence) and reinterpreted them non-metaphysically [(into existential terms - skinhead)].

The leading Ritschlian theologian in America (at the same time as Harnack in Germany) was Henry Churchill King, president of Oberlin College. His book Reconstruction in Theology was published at the same time as Harnack’s What Is Christianity? (1901) King’s “reconstruction” of Christianity theology was done under that influence (viz., Ritschl). The leading Ritschlian public figure was Harry Emerson Fosdick, Jr., pastor of Riverside Church in New York City and author of numerous books of liberal theology. Fosdick’s countenance graced the cover of Time magazine twice in the 1920s. He was widely considered THE leading spokesman for liberal theology in America.

After WW1 in Europe and after WW2 in America theological liberalism underwent some changes. The main one was the death of its historical optimism and adoption of a more realistic sense of human existence and history (largely under the influence of Reinhold Niebuhr). But it retained its basic attitude toward modernity as an authority for theology’s critical and constructive tasks. (This was often more implicit than explicit.)

Gradually the liberal theological movement associated with Ritschl and his followers died out. But the ethos it embodied remained–entering into the warp and woof of mainline Protestant life and thought. Today it is represented by public intellectuals such as Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong. Several theologians are attempting to breathe new life into it. Among them are Gary Dorrien (perhaps THE leading scholar of liberal theology especially in America), Peter Hodgson, Donald Miller (of USC, not the author of Blue Like Jazz), and John Cobb.

So what are the usual, if not universal, hallmarks of true liberal theology or family resemblances among true liberal theologians? First, here are books you MUST read if you want to discuss liberal theology intelligently (read at least one of these):

• Alan P. F. Sell, Theology in Turmoil
• William R. Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism
• Kenneth Cauthen, The Impact of American Religious Liberalism
• Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology (3 volumes)
• Peter Hodgson, Liberal Theology: A Radical Vision
• John Cobb, Progressive Christians Speak
• Donald E. Miller, The Case for Liberal Christianity

So what do all these people from Schleiermacher to Dorrien have in common? I think the liberal theological ethos is best expressed in a nutshell by liberal theologian Delwin Brown (a convert to liberal theology from evangelicalism) in his dialogue with Clark Pinnock in Theological Crossfire: An Evangelical/Liberal Dialogue. There Brown asks THE CRUCIAL QUESTION of modern theology: “When the consensus of the best contemporary minds differs markedly from the most precious teachings of the past, which do we follow? To which do we give primary allegiance, the past or the present?” Brown rightly gives the evangelical answer: “We ought to listen to the hypotheses of the present and take from them what we can, but ultimately the truth has been given to us in the past, particularly in Jesus, and the acceptance of that is our ultimate obligation. Everything the contemporary world might say must be judged by its conformity to biblical revelation.” (Of course evangelicals differ among ourselves about WHAT biblical revelation says, but all evangelicals agree that the revelation of God given in Jesus and the biblical message takes precedence over the best of modern thought WHEN THERE IS AN UNAVOIDABLE CONFLICT between them.)

Then, Brown speaks for all liberal theologians when he gives the liberal answer to the crucial question: “Liberalism at its best is more likely to say, ‘We certainly ought to honor the richness of the Christian past and appreciate the vast contribution it makes to our lives, but finally we must live by our best modern conclusions. The modern consensus should not be absolutized; it, too, is always subect to criticism and further revision. But our commitment, however tentative and self-critically maintained, must be to the careful judgments of the present age, even if they differ radically from the dictates of the past.” (p. 23)

(Now, a good illustration of the difference between fundamentalism and evangelicalism can be given in an anecdote about the Pinnock-Brown dialogue in this book. Some years ago I used the book as a textbook in an elective class. One of the students, a theology major, objected strenuously to having to read it. He argued vehemently that dialogue between liberals such as Brown and evangelicals has no value and that Pinnock’s attempt at it proves he is not a true evangelical. I would consider that an expression of a fundamentalist as opposed to an evangelical attitude.)

Pinnock well expresses ALL evangelicals’ response to Brown, this in the context of a disagreement about eschatology in which Brown expressed skepticism about belief in a final triumph of good over evil. Pinnock to Brown: “Here we are back to where we started in the book, back to the difference between us concerning the nature of the authority of the Bible. … You allow the Bible a functional but not a cognitive authority; that is, you will not bow to the content of Scripture but accept it only as a power that authors your life in some (to me) vague way. This means in the present case that you are not able to rest your hope on the revealed promises of God concerning eternal life in Christ beyond death. Usually I appreciate your modesty in the way you do theology, but when it comes down to your not affirming clear promises of God in the gospel, the modesty is being taken too far. Lacking guidance from the Scriptures and, as if to underline my anxiety, you are forced to resolve the issue rationally and then cannot do so. Thus is the problem of liberal theology highlighted.” (p. 249)

In a nutshell, then, the liberal theological ethos accords to “the best of modern thought” the weight of authority in theology alongside or stronger than biblical revelation (and certainly than tradition). This is what Yale historical theologian Claude Welch meant when he wrote that liberal theology is “maximal acknowledgement of the claims of modernity.”

What is ironic is that Pinnock has been labeled “liberal” in spite of his strong rejection of real liberal theology in this and many of his writings. Those who called Pinnock a liberal simply revealed themselves as neo-fundamentalists (who often if not usually use “liberal” as an epithet for anyone and anything they think deviates from their version of “the received evangelical tradition.”)

There are, of course, other family resemblances among theological liberals such as:

• a tendency to emphasize the immanence of God over God’s transcendence,

• skepticism about anything supernatural or miraculous (if not rejection of those categories entirely),

• out-and-out, open universalism (a true denial of hell as opposed to a hope for eventual ultimate reconciliation),

• an emptying of the “dogma” category and corresponding reduction of all Christian beliefs to the opinion category.

Someone like Pinnock is called a fundamentalist by those on the “left” and a liberal by those on the “right.” These are fallacious and invalid uses of these labels. They have NOTHING to do with history. Theological labels should not be torn away from history and used in such an informal manner as epithets to insult or marginalize people. That is why I have written this post and I hope it helps people who want to use labels with integrity to do so. I realize, of course, that many people don’t care about that; they just want to demean other people they don’t like by slapping negative labels on them.

In which I promise not to call myself fat

http://www.emergingmummy.com/2011/06/in-which-i-promise-not-to-call-myself.html

Sarah

June 26, 2011

Dear Anne and Evelynn,... Here are the lies, my dears:

You are only as good as you look.
You are only lovable if you have a rock hard body.
You can conquer your feelings of inadequacy by being skinny.
Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.
Everyone judges you by how you look and talks about you behind your back.
Beautiful is defined by your culture (and so it is beautiful to be frightfully skinny with bolted-on boobs and an identi-kit face).
You are not worthy of love if you are not beautiful.

I'm raising you in a world that thinks you're only as good as you look. And you're being raised by a woman who is still overcoming these lies herself.

The other day, I did an exercise video at home. You were with me, Annie, while the two littles slept and we leaped and kicked our way through jumping-jacks together. "Oh, Mum!" you glowed, "Even your tummy is having fun! Look at it jumping around!" and for a moment, oh, it stung.

I just gave birth to Evelynn two months ago and so yes, my tummy is "jumping around" when I jump around and part of me wanted to sit down and cry for the sudden cacophony of worthlessness and shame that rose up but then you were there. You were there, looking up at me, having fun exercising and I thought, no. No, I will not cry about how I look in front of you. Instead I told you that this was fantastic and yes, my tummy was having a marvellous time. When you asked me why we were exercising, I had to lock my lips tight against the "to lose weight because I'm fat because I just had a baby" that threatened to spill out and instead spoke of having fun exercising for energy and playing together to be healthy and strong and hey, later, did you want to go bike riding?

I am looking for the small ways to spare you just a few battles of body-image that seems to strangle and entangle so many of us in the war against women. Like the girls that post their supper every night on Facebook for "accountability" and the ones that over-exercise to punish their own bodies. The ones that starve themselves and so carve their own flesh with the word "Forgotten" and "Invisible." Like the ones that are apologetic to their husbands because they have a body marked by childbirth. The ones that are terrified of aging. The ones that feel like they are never, no, never not keenly aware of how they look or what they ate or what they will be eating, the ones chained to a scale or a number or a glossy Photoshopped-ideal.

Sure, I will talk and teach and train but I am learning this: you will sing my songs.

And so I will sing a song of wonder and beauty about womanhood for you to learn from my lips.

I will lead the resistance of these lies in our home by living out a better truth.

I will not criticise my sisters for how they look or live, casting uncharitable words like stones, because my words of criticism or judgement have a strange way of being more boomerang than missile, swinging around to lodge in your own hearts.

I'll wear a bathing suit and I won't tug on it self-consciously. I will get my hair wet.

I will easily change my clothes in front of your Dad, proud of my stretch marks that gave us a family, of breasts that nourished his babies.

I will prove to you that you can be a size 12 and still be sexier than hell.

I will prove to you that you don't have to be all angles and corners, that there is room for some softness because you all love to hug on my soft bits, burrowing into my arms and my breasts to rest for a while.

I will eat dessert and raise my glass and laugh my way to deeper smile lines.

I will celebrate your own beauty, my tall girls, but I will do my best to praise your mind, your heart, your motives as much as I praise your beauty.

I will not let the words "I'm fat" cross my lips - especially in front of you, my beautiful girls.

I will celebrate beauty where I find it, in a million faces uniquely handcrafted by a generous God with a big tent of glorious womanhood.

I will tell stories of women and surround you with a community of women who are smart and strong, crazy and hot-headed, gentle and kind, women who love and you will see that this is what is beautiful, that a generous love is the most gorgeous thing you could ever put on.

I love you.

Mummy

 

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The War on Women Worldwide

In which I am part of the insurgency
http://www.emergingmummy.com/2011/07/in-which-i-am-part-of-insurgency.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EmergingMummy+%28Emerging+Mummy%29

Sarah

July 13, 2011

Sometimes I think that there is a war on women. It may be unofficial but oh, sisters, it's pervasive and horrible in some ways, culturally acceptable and mundane-but-devastating in others. The battles go from the rape tactics of war in Sudan to the sex trafficked of eastern Europe, from the pervasiveness of girlie-girl hyper-sexualised stealing of childhood to the proliferation and acceptability of pornography.

I am even beginning to wonder if the evangelical culture war about "biblical" womanhood - narrow stay-at-home vs. working, from complementarian vs. egaltarian (full disclosure: unapologetic egaltarian here) - is disingenuous at best and neutering half the church at worst and, to be honest, completely missing the point. And then when I wrote this small post of promise to my own glorious girls, I was surprised by the response, by the women that are still sharing and sending it and saying that they, too, will make that promise because we all feel the battles there on the scale, too.

I've always had my ear to the ground for women in the news but then when I read this piece about almost an entire generation of missing girls in India and China due to gender selection, the only word I could think of is holocaust because this attack on women, world-over, from womb to grave is truly a reckless slaughter and destruction of lives, in big and small ways, isn't it?

Forgive me the analogy if it offends. That is not my heart ever. But maybe our culture, our world, is the good German, just going along with the flow, keeping their head down and eyes on the work that applies only to them and their family.

If it is a war on women, I can't be Winston Churchill. I am not the one leading the charge and very few listen to my small voice with its strong Canadian accent. I may not be a Katie Davis or a Christine Caine or a Dorothy Day. I may not be a Nancy Alcorn, let alone a Mother Theresa or an Oprah Winfrey or any other well-known woman fighting some small or large battle in this war against our sisters, mothers and daughters, our friends. Our big voices of freedom and workers for the wholeness of women stand as the generals and governments, the tacticians and leaders are our Allied forces.

No, I am not that important. I am small.

And my life is a bit small.

So I will be the French Resistance.

I will be the small underground movement, the insurgency, the one taking every opportunity, however small, to strike a blow for the Kingdom's way of womanhood.

It's in the small ops then. The monthly cheque sent off to Mercy. The determination to value my daughters and sons for their intrinsic worth, their mind and hearts as well as their appearance. To give respect and honour to the stories of women around the world - and in my neighbourhood. The raising of my tinies to follow the example of Christ first. It's in the refusal to ignore the stories - however much I want to stick my head in the sand and act like it's not happening. It's even in the writing of the letter to a small girl in Rwanda who lost her parents to AIDS every month. Even in the honouring of my own gifts to give (ack! Such a hard one). It's in opening our homes with true hospitality especially to the lonely. It's in foregoing Christmas presents to buy a goat for a family overseas. It's in using my words to love us all.

It is making space for God behind enemy lines.

If the big moments, the opportunities to rise up for something bigger come up, I will be ready to jump in, to cast off my underground status, ready to leap to the front lines. (I hope. Who knows? Are you ever ready?)

In the meantime, the Allies depend on us, ma soeurs de coeurs, to dismantle the enemy from inside enemy lines. From inside of our own hearts, from inside of our daughters and sons, from our friends and then, lending our hearts, our hands, our ears and our voices for our sisters world over.

So friends, what is your role? What tactics are you using to undermine the enemy?


Places to get involved that I love:

Mercy Ministries of Canada (or the United States or the UK) - For women that struggle with life-controlling issues such as drug and alcohol abuse, physical and sexual abuse, depression, eating disorders and self-harm.

The A21 Campaign - fighting against sex-trafficking

SheLoves HalfMarathon for Living Hope - a local endeavour to raise funds for women who have had their faces cut off by the LRA to receive restorative surgery and therapy.

World Vision - sponsor a child or a family around the world.

Compassion - sponsor a child or a family around the world.

Watoto - an orphan and widow care ministry in Uganda.

Image source

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