Introducing Animate's "Faith Formation Series" for Adults, Teens, and Kids by Sparkhouse

Animate - Faith Formation Series - Intro Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5SLfvMcCZvk

For more information -

http://wearesparkhouse.org/

Published on May 2, 2012 by wearesparkhouse

Seven leading Christian voices.

Seven big conversations about faith.

All you need is seven weeks.

Animate is an exciting series that leverages the knowledge and experiences of a diverse set of leading Christian voices. Together, they helped us create a new introductory course that creatively explores central topics of Christianity.

The first course in the series is Animate: Faith. The session titles are listed below. Learn more at www.wearesparkhouse.org.

God | Faith Is a Quest

Brian McLaren

Religion | Spirituality Is Not Enough
Lillian Daniel

Jesus | The Revolution of Love
Mark Scandrette

Salvation | Abundant Life Now
Shane Hipps

Cross | Where God Is
Nadia Bolz-Weber

Bible | A Book Like No Other
Lauren Winner

Church | An Imperfect Family
Bruce Reyes-Chow

Holy Moly - David & Goliath

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNBt6IjYlnE&feature=relmfu

Updating outdated flannel graphs to today's new media Holy Moly is a new Sunday school curriculum that irresistibly captures the imagination of kids by bringing the Bible to life! Kids walk away from class excitedly retelling the stories they just learned and eagerly awaiting what's next.

Each lesson invites kids into the story with animated Bible story retellings, reinforces the lesson through the colorful pages of the Holy Moly Storybooks and Holy Bible, and encourages creativity and imagination with activities that bring the stories to life.

Holy Moly Field Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAYKwyVW8zg&feature=relmfu

When we created our new Sunday school curriculum, Holy Moly, we had a feeling kids would be jumping out of their seats with excitement for God's Word, we just didn't expect quite so much jumping.

Check out clips from this recent Holy Moly Field Test. We went directly to the source to be sure we were on to something good. It's probably safe to take the excited squeals as a "yes!"

Holy Moly is coming out in May. More info coming soon! Stay tuned.

Yes, Relationships Between Equal Married Partners Does Work Better (And it's Biblical!)

It’s not complementarianism; it’s patriarchy
http://rachelheldevans.com/complementarians-patriarchy

by Rachel Held Evans
May 3, 2012
Comments

Russell Moore is concerned that too many evangelical marriages are complementarian in name only.

The dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Seminary recently said this at the Together for the Gospel Conference is Louisville, Kentucky:

“What I fear is that we have many people in evangelicalism who can check off ‘complementarian’ on a box but who really aren’t living out complementarian lives. Sometimes I fear we have marriages that are functionally egalitarian, because they are within the structure of the larger society. If all we are doing is saying ‘male headship’ and ‘wives submit to your husbands’ but we’re not really defining what that looks like...in this kind of culture, when those things are being challenged, then it’s simply going to go away...”

He’s right. Whenever I speak or write on this topic, I hear from men and women who say that they went into their marriages expecting to impose upon them the hierarchal structure advocated by the complementarian movement, but who found that, practically speaking, a relationship between two equal partners just worked better than a relationship between a boss and a subordinate.

“It just didn’t fit,” they often say. “Hierarchy felt awkward and imposed. It made so much more sense to work together as a team, to settle into roles based on giftedness rather than gender.”

This is exactly what happened to us. Even though Dan and I were both raised in a complementarian culture, our marriage was “functionally egalitarian” long before we began reevaluating our interpretation of those passages of Scripture so often used to support hierarchal-based gender roles.

We make decisions together. (No one holds a trump card.)

We share household chores. (No one gets out of doing the laundry or helping with the yard work based on gender.)

We don’t impose gender-based absolutes on one another. (I like football more than Dan, and nobody’s particularly concerned about that. Roll Tide!)

We don’t have a single leader. (Dan likes to say that “leadership” requires context. It’s not something you are; it’s something you do. So depending on the circumstances, sometimes I lead, and sometimes Dan leads. Sometimes I support, and sometimes Dan supports. We see our gifts, particularly our spiritual gifts, as complementary. We function best—as individuals and as a team—when we do what we’re good at and what we love, and when we cheer one another on. We also function best when our leadership looks more like service than authority, just like Jesus said.)

Moore is right. Complementarians are losing ground. And they’re losing ground for several reasons:

1. They are losing ground because more and more evangelical theologians, scholars, professors, and pastors are thoughtfully debunking a complementarian interpretation of Scripture and doing it at the popular level through books like The Blue Parakeet (by Scot McKnight), Discovering Biblical Equality (by Ronald Pierce, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Gordon Fee), How I Changed My Mind About Women in Church Leadership (by a who’s who of evangelical leaders), through evangelical colleges and seminaries that celebrate women’s giftedness to lead and are producing record numbers of female graduates, and through organizations like Christians for Biblical Equality.

2. They are losing ground because their rhetoric consistently reflects a commitment to an idealized glorification of the pre-feminist nuclear family of 1950s America rather than a commitment to “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood”—terms that many of us recognize as highly selective, reductive, and problematic. This reactionary approach often comes at the expense of sound biblical interpretation. (I touched on this in a post about Mark Driscoll’s interpretation of Esther and Vashti a few months ago. We’ll be talking about this a lot more in the weeks and months to come.)

3. And they are losing ground because, at the practical level, evangelicals are realizing that complementarianism doesn’t actually promote complementary relationships, but rather hierarchal ones.

Complemenarianism is patriarchy—nothing more, nothing less. (Though sometimes it is referred to as "soft patriarchy.") This was made crystal clear when John Piper announced months ago that Christianity is inherently masculine. Such a view can hardly be described as “complementary” when it excludes one gender entirely! We experience the same discomfort when we realize that, based on the “complementarian” understanding of gender, Fred Phelps would be more qualified to speak to your church on Sunday morning by virtue of being a man than someone like Lois Tverberg or Carolyn Custis James or Christine Caine. When a man with no biblical training whatsoever is considered more qualified to teach than a woman with a PhD in theology or a woman whose work in New Testament scholarship is renowned the world over, we are not seeing complementariaism at work, but patriarchy. (And, I might add, we are missing the Apostle Paul’s point to Timothy about teaching entirely—but that’s a topic for another day.)

Furthermore, as Russell Moore himself has observed, even married couples who identify as “complmentarians” are functioning as equal partners rather than forcing a hierarchal pattern onto their relationship that is highly prescriptive regarding gender. This should come as no surprise seeing as how a truly complementary relationship is one in which differences are celebrated, but not forced. If your marriage is like mine, this means that the complementary differences between you and your spouse often fall into gender-influenced norms (I am more emotional; Dan is more even-keeled), but not always (Dan is better at nurturing relationships than I am; I am more competitive). Rather than trying to force our personalities and our roles into prescribed molds based on gender, it just makes more sense to allow our natural difference to enhance and challenge one another. We lead where we are strong; we defer where we are weak.

Complementarianism isn’t working—in marriages and in church leadership— because it’s not actually complementarianism; it’s patriarchy. And patriarchy doesn’t work because God created both men and women to reflect God's character and God's sovereignty over creation, as equal partners with equal value.

In June I’ll be running a more in-depth series on the Bible and gender in which we will tackle some of those passages of Scripture that are used to promote hierarchy in the home and in church leadership, because I realize and respect the fact that that, particularly among evangelicals, it’s not enough to say that hierarchal-based gender roles don’t work; we must also be able to show that they are not required by Scripture. So stay tuned for that discussion!

See also:
Complementarians are Selective Too
Esther and Vashti: The Real Story

What do you think? Are complementarians losing ground? Should it be called “complementarianism” when it’s really just patriarchy?

Review: Matt Chandler's "Explicit Gospel" misses on many fronts...

The Gospel from the Air

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/05/03/the-gospel-from-the-air/

by Scot mcKnight

May 3, 2012

Comments

 

Matt Chandler, in his new book, The Explicit Gospel, makes a case for two dimensions of gospel — one on the ground, which is basically individual salvation, and one from the air, which he calls the meta-narrative of the Bible. The former focuses on God, man, Christ, response; the gospel from the air focuses on Creation, Fall, Reconciliation, and Consummation. The former is expounded through Romans 11:23-26, which permits Chandler to focus on the gospel as about God’s glory; the latter permits him to focus on Romans 8:18-24. He brings in other biblical passages but these two texts set the central themes for him.

 

Does Chandler’s “gospel from the air” contextualize his “gospel from the ground”? Or are they more or less the same thing? Why do these studies on the gospel ignore Israel’s Story so much? Is christology central enough in Chandler’s view of the gospel?

 

A few words about each of the chapters in this second part of his book:

 

1. On creation: he has a lengthy diatribe against science because it is unstable, and he sees instability in that people change their minds — he calls it a “constant state of subjectivity and do-overs” (95). Well, what he’s getting at here is that his view of the Bible and theology and creation don’t mesh with evolution (he takes a shot at BioLogos) … and says theistic evolutionists “have to believe that [evolution] in order to stay in science’s good graces” (98-99), which is both uncharitable and uninformed. This game of “I know their motive” goes both ways: one could counter and say that his crowd sustains its view in order to keep specific watchdogs happy. I’ll stop with this except to make the observation that the same kind of changes occur in theology and hermeneutics over time and if he applied his logic to them he’d be in a heap of trouble. This whole section harms the book as amateurish, and the book would have got along fine without it. The rest of his stuff here on creation is unexceptional but sound: creation leads us to worship God and that things went haywire.

 

2. On the Fall: this chp did not do what I thought it would but instead has a rather innovative, and at times witty, sketch of Solomon and Ecclesiastes as indicative of the fall.

 

3. On Reconciliation: here he sketches the view that ultimate reconciliation is cosmic. He somehow managed to avoid discussing universalism and how theology from Barth and Torrance onward has pondered this very question. His focus here is that the work of Christ is not just individual salvation but epic — “national redemption, covenantal restoration, and ‘real world’ reconciliation” (137). The one observation that I have to make is that he has not developed this theme in his own head, or at least in this chp, because there are all sorts of issues that arise when one begins to discuss this idea of cosmic reconciliation. It’s about individual salvation “and more” — and the reader wants him to clarify in details what this “and more” entails. And he sees reconciliation as generating a reconciling mission on our part — so he gets into missional (attractional and incarnational). For Chandler it is very clear that on the ground gospel sets in motion a systemic reconciliation.

 

4. On Consummation: this seems to be the heart of his concern about the gospel from the air. Chandler confesses he’s not a fan of much of Christian (zany) eschatology, so he focuses on the larger themes: new creation, kingdom, etc. He has a long, long quote from Tom Wright. Most who are attracted to new creation themes immediately work them into social justice and peace and political actions, but Chandler appears to me to be decidedly a-political.

 

Some observations:

 

1. His gospel from the air is really a larger version of his gospel on the ground with a cosmic eschatology. Which means…

 

2. His explicit gospel proposal is a thoroughgoing soterian gospel that ignores the Bible’s plotline and instead finds a salvation story line, and I have previously described this approach as “covenant soterian” gospel. His gospel more or less skips from Genesis 3 to Romans 3 and lacks any interest in the Story of Israel, the Story of Jesus (his references to the Gospels simply do not have shaping influence), that Jesus is Messiah/King is of little concern … and this means…

 

3. His proposal needs more attention to Israel and Church as the locus of God’s work in this world. Even when he brings in the cosmic stuff in part two of this book I kept wondering what role Israel and the church play in his gospel from the air. It seems to me that his church is individuals who are saved. Trevin Wax is but one who has pushed hard to incorporate ecclesiology into our understanding of the gospel; Chandler seems to me to be avoiding that theme.

 

4. His method is to use favored soteriological texts (Romans 11, Romans 8 ) that are filled in with other texts, and he does use a number of biblical texts but they fit within categories established in these two important texts. He needs to spend more time expounding 1 Cor 15, the sermons in Acts, and to examine why the Gospels are called “gospel.”

 

At the core of my King Jesus Gospel proposal is methodology: where do we go to define the gospel? Do we go to “gospel-defining” texts (which I attempted to do) or do we go to “salvation-defining” texts, which Chandler does. I suggest the former approach is sounder.

 

 

 

 

The Story of Re/Creation - "Aha, My Dear Watson, the Game's Afoot!"

Ah, the mystery of creation, unlearned in the story of Genesis, but known in our heart of hearts that there is a God who rules the deep and the heavens above with a soaring majesty that only He alone holds, and has, as Sovereign of creation, Ruler of mankind, righteous Lord of life and love.... Who dwells in the mystery of creation and furthest reaches of man's heart. Who comes on the wings of the wakening dawn and in the black still of the heavenly night. When all about shouts for attention soon lost upon the heats of the day and the cold of unfeeling mankind busied with the tasks of life's harshest demands unfailing in misery's blight.

Just what do we know of this dear Sovereign who calls Himself Yahweh (YHWH) unspoken in name by His ancient people Israel worshipped as their Protector/Keeper from a world of woe that earlier Jewish generations discovered all too true in their subservient bondage from Egypt's brick fields to Assyria horrific holds, from the Philistines foul servitudes to Babylon's exilic lands, when not keeping faith to their eternal Suzerainty-Lord who cut covenant with them under Abraham and Moses? Spoke blessings and curse to all who beheld this covenant cut for their protection and keep. Upheld unconditionally by the only one who could keep this covenant through the power of the Suzerainty's own sacrifice, heavenly Priest and one-day Ruler. He, who would rule not only the heavens and the earth - but one and all - through a divine wisdom mere seekers but pray to glimpse or discover. With a patient love and gracious heart full of compassion and mercy. Whose anger knows no bounds and whose holy justice must be propitiated. Just who is this God who calls himself  the great I AM refusing all heathen worship except that which subscribes to His sense of holiness and purity?

It is this same God whom all mankind wishes to know and has grasped by any number of religious instructions and institutions both man-made and divine, secular and holy, yet failing to apprehend the Divine's great mystery while pursuing this great God with equal passions of work and play, worship and prayer. "Yes, the game's afoot, my dear Watson," as all humanity lunges after the mighty works and power of this great God still unknown but speaking to our poor and trembling hearts with a majesty unbroken by our sin and hate, jealousies and despairs. Who is this God? What does He want? Where is His truth and love and beauty in a world driven by insanity and self-fulfilling psychoses and mania too disturbing to plumb except through escape, remorse or guilt?

Nay, this very God has come at a time when humanity's worlds have crashed and burned. When all around us feels like unknowing and baldest lies coming from the most learned mouths we dare hearken to yet falling short whilst beholding the wisdom of a God lying unknown at our very doorstep, bound in the darkness of our weary hearts, ignored by the work of our hands, our unseeing eyes and unhearing ears. What does He want? Nay, we know its very truth - our very selves! Who is He? Nay, none other than what our poor heart fears, the only Ruler who can rule our unruly hearts. Who rises with the dawn speaking peace on the whisper of the wind through the tender drops of rain and gentle birdsong instilling sanity within the roar of our uncertain dawns, humanity's fierce whirlwinds, and the blundering brass sound of a created world's nethering darkness, speculative fantasies and endless pursuits of the unholy - or the divine - by sundry human works and endeavor, organization, government and worship.

When all around crumbles at our feet and nothing feels right to our broken hearts. Where love is lost in selfish pleasure, cruel injustice, or maudlin pursuits lost and empty. Where Chaos is everywhere around and no less than within us in the relentless break of sound and fury making senseless the very thing that stands before us, around us, in us, and through us, within our very society's structures, and everyday worlds should we stop, look and listen. Man has not been left alone to seek mysteries unobtainable, unknowable, unfelt. Those very mysteries began at the very dawn of creation when all ancient men could but stop and hear with all the power held within the primordial breast to its undying soul and restless minds seeking for the divinity of the universe. Upheld by the only Creator who cast Himself within the hue-and-cry of lost Israel's plight in a land of lost pyramids risen to the hail of wicked Pharoahs vouchsafing their divine rulership over the land of the lost and damned. A Creator who came upon the wings of the dawn, in the freshness of the day, on the untold beauties of love and grace, speaking fey peace to our wandering hearts with a surety unlost and true. A Creator who holds within the folds of His heart those deepest truths of love found in a Savior's impassioned cross of selfless shame and unmitigated atonement through Calvary's bowed nob hill. Risen on a cross of sacrificial love-and-death for a creation lost-and-alone wandering a desert wilderness of skulls and valleys of dry bones unrisen and dead.

Nay, we have a great Shepherd and burning bush. His name is Jesus. The bible tells us so. From Genesis' first opening passages we meet this God as the Creator of our souls; through its Old and New Testament passages proclaiming our need for this God against a sin that would prevail; even to its ending chapters of triumphal reign and rule in the fiery/doomed book of Revelation where ends man's nethering reign. Where tells of a heavenly Kingdom come like the Temple of God to rule with a righteous order over a world created in holiness and death relenting heavenly rule against the will of sin and death. A Temple once begun on creation's dawn in the opening chapters of Genesis and built again to the resounding trumpet of hail-and-conquer in the last of Revelation. Whose occupant is the very God that created all that once rested in creative rule but listed to immediate fracture under willful sin's grievous weight. Whose Temple all mankind was invited as co-rulers to find beauty and worship in the things of God soon lost at the behest of sin and death. Now awaiting restoration and renewal through the only thing that can restore and renew - that Day of Atonement - come through Messiah Jesus, Israel's sent Deliverer and mankind's hope. Once come in the spoils of a rude manager blessed as God's very living temple to embracing joyful hearts. This day give all, give all to the Lover of our souls, the only Redeemer that makes sense to our untempled hearts of rebellion and shame. Who heals our flesh, baths our wounds, binds solve into the scars of guilt and terrible hurts through His very blood and shame, brokenness and own deep wounds. To this living Paschal cup of blessing we lift with thanksgiving as healing drink. Breaking the bread of fellowship with like-wounded supplicants and warriors to the bread of life. He who is the wine of eternal waters. The God of life and light. Lover of our souls in a world of wickedness and death.

R.E. Slater

May 3, 2012

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

Sherlock: A Character Who's More Than Elementary

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/02/151852747/sherlock-a-character-whos-more-than-elementary

by John Powers

May 2, 2012

Listen to the Story

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=151852747&m=151853230

AP Basil Rathbone (right) as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce asDr. Watson in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1945.

One of my favorite professors, the late Ian Watt, taught that there were four great myths of modern individualism: Faust, Don Juan, Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe. This always got me wondering which, if any, pop-culture heroes might endure in the same way. James Bond? Luke Skywalker? The Avengers? C'mon. In fact, there's only one who I feel sure will last — Sherlock Holmes.

In the 125 years since Arthur Conan Doyle created the world's greatest detective, 75 different actors have played him in the movies, and scads more on TV, not to mention the countless knockoffs like The Mentalist or Mr. Spock, who once claimed Holmes as his ancestor.

EnlargeHartswood Films/BBC for Masterpiece

Benedict Cumberbatch plays a modernized Holmes who

carries a cellphone and gets his buzz from nicotine patches.

We've had him as a teen in Young Sherlock Holmes, as a wise-cracking action star played by Robert Downey Jr., and as a retired beekeeper in Michael Chabon's terrific little novel The Final Solution, where he encounters the crime of the century — The Holocaust. Now he's been updated as a present-day Londoner in Sherlock, the British TV series that offers the best version of Holmes and Dr. Watson I've ever seen.

The obvious reason for Holmes' enduring appeal is that, while he possesses no superpowers — his parents weren't wizards, no radioactive spider bit him — his gifts are cool enough to be superhuman. Playing to our fantasies of being smarter than everyone else, Holmes performs jaw-dropping feats of perception.

Like the one in the first episode of Sherlock: Martin Freeman's Dr. Watson has known Holmes all of 90 seconds when Sherlock, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, talks about renting a flat together — and gives Watson a taste of just who, or maybe what, he's dealing with: an astute observer who picks up intimate details about Watson's personal life seemingly out of thin air. This Holmes is a bit of a showman, one who feels sure that he ought to be mythic.

He's right. Like all mythic figures, Sherlock embodies an archetypal aspect of the human psyche — in his case, the power of rational thought.

"I am a brain," he tells Watson in one story, "the rest of me is mere appendix." And as a brain he is the embodiment of the scientific mind. A relentless empiricist, he not only notices details that ordinary folks don't, but he also treats all of reality — from tobacco ashes to a dog that doesn't bark — as a collection of clues. He puts these clues together to solve baffling crimes, which can involve a pygmy murderer, a poisonous snake or a gigantic hound.

Now, lasting mythic heroes tend to emerge during periods of psychosocial tumult when old values are being threatened by new ones. Holmes came to life in 1887, during the waning years of a Victorian era in which everything from the traditional social order to the belief in God was being subverted. It's no accident that this same period produced three other literary creations who spoke to a sense of chaotic darkness bubbling beneath the surface of things: the blood-drinking Dracula, the murderously schizoid Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and, of course, Peter Pan, who refused to grow up into the complicated world of adulthood. Their mythic power still persists, but mainly as metaphors like the Peter Pan Complex, or in the welter of hip vampires roaming our pop culture.

Sherlock remains Sherlock. Of course, darkness bubbles in Holmes' world, too. If he lacks the tragic dimension of Faust — a fellow thinking machine, but one with ambitions so grand they damn him — he's not a cipher like 007 or Hercule Poirot. His monomaniacal genius borders on sociopathology. It cuts him off from humanity.

He has but one friend, Watson — his Sancho Panza and our surrogate — and but one great love, Irene Adler, whose appearance opens Season 2 of Sherlock with a bang. When he's not solving crimes, boredom and melancholy lead Holmes to the violin — or cocaine.

Yet if Holmes' desire for oblivion hints at the lonely man lurking beneath the brilliant superman, it remains less potent than his sheer joy in asserting rational control over purveyors of chaos like his archenemy, Professor Moriarty. Detective stories are about learning the truth and restoring order. That's their power. And for Holmes, that's also their fun.

Indeed, one reason why Sherlock still feels so fresh is his pleasure in the chase. Never dull nor moralistic, he embodies that part of us that's turned on by a mystery, who when he hears of a murder, feels that special tingle and cries, "Come, Watson, come. The game is afoot!"


Related NPR Stories

The Enduring Popularity Of Sherlock HolmesDec. 19, 2011

In 'Sherlock,' A Classic Sleuth For The Modern AgeOct. 15, 2010

Two Responses to the Book, "Against Calvinism" by Dr. Roger Olson

Recent responses to Against Calvinism

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/05/recent-responses-to-against-calvinism/

by Roger Olson

May 1, 2012

Comments

Here I post two e-mails that typify responses I’ve received from individuals about Against Calvinism. I’m not going to comment on them, just reproduced them here. I’ll let you, my faithful readers, decide what you think and comment on them. I’ve removed anything that would identify their authors.

The First Example:

“I recently read your book, Against Calvinism. I first became aware of your work when I heard the debate you participated in with Dr. Horton on the White Horse Inn podcast. I have leaned towards the Calvinist view of God’s sovereignty and will for the past few years and was eager to read your response to the parts of the TULIP that are particularly difficult for my finite mind to fully understand, being distorted by my sinful nature. To make it more interesting, my friend and I actually purchased both your book and Dr. Horton’s book to have a well-rounded presentation from both sides of the argument. My sincere hope is to be challenged in my understanding of this topic because I affirm what was said in your debate, that this is not a small theological matter but one of great importance, influencing everything from how we evangelize to how we view the Church.

I don’t want to waste any of your time because I know that you are a busy man, so I will cut straight to the point. I am very concerned with the way in which you approached your stance against Calvinism in your book. While I understand that you may disagree with the TULIP and many of the “young, restless, and Reformed” crowd, I do not believe that you made any compelling case for a non-Calvinist view. What I was most disappointed in with this work was the lack of Scriptural support for your views. I am certainly open to the plausible arguments that challenge my understanding of theology (because I stand firmly convinced that God uses the Body to sharpen itself) but these views MUST be based from Scripture. My concern is that the same “Reformed” pastors that you make sure to rebuke, all boldly offer Scriptural support for their statements, even if you do feel that it is being used out of context. Instead of rebuking them with Scripture that you believe says something on the contrary, it felt as if you went for an almost secular, agnostic approach to point out what you believe to be cracks in their philosophical foundations.

Secondly, while trying to point out what you feel is erroneous or even heretical within the TULIP, it often felt much more like you were putting God, the Omnipotent, on trial. I feel like I must warn you of the dangerous ground you inhabit by suggesting that if God is indeed the God of Calvinism, that you would not only cease to worship Him, but would refuse Him entirely. You and I are fallen creatures with distorted perceptions of truth, goodness, love, etc. For us, having been given revelation by God and redeemed by the blood of Christ, to suggest that if our theology is challenged on this subject that we would walk away from this God, who has no need to prove Himself to us, is utterly foolish. This kind of spiritual immaturity painfully parallels that in Romans 9.

Dr. Olson, I believe that you are fellow brother in Christ but I pray diligently that you would reconsider your argument as well as your words. Such talk seems much more suited for causing division and stumbling than for building up the Bride of Christ. While I will remain open to reproof concerning this argument, because I believe that we are biblically called to do so, I hope that are reminded that we have finite minds and must take great caution while pointing our finger at the Infinite God. Thank you for your time.”


The Second Example:

“It is hard for me to express my thankfulness for your work in putting Arminianism back on the intellectual table as well as broad Evangelicalism. I am completing a book I will shop around. My wife says the title is too bland. It ought to be “Confessions of an Evangelical.” A little voyeurism could help sales!!!! Anyway, I finally switched categories and self-identified as an Arminian. While reading your blog, a most excellent contribution, and your books, I found a way to move beyond the fatal determinism of High Calvinism. It has been a bondage of sorts to me over the last 30 years since my Westminster days. I could never look a man in the eye and say “you might have been chosen for eternal damnation for God’s own pleasure.” I mumbled something or other. But I never had my heart in it. Yet I could find no credible way out. You shined the flashlight on the path I could take. I took that path and feel a freedom theologically I have not had before. The path was there all along, but I couldn’t find a fellowship of careful thinkers who could partner with me. At Westminster the real opposite of the reformed christian was not the lost man but the Arminian man, as the Roman Catholic. This always amused me when I was there. It was like the phenomenon of Roman Catholics thinking their opposite was a Baptist rather than a non-Christian.

I think there are many Christians who are Calvinists because they want to have a high view of God’s glory. They love him with all their heart and want a theology that lifts him up as worthy and full of honor. Deep down they have questions about the deterministic soteriology. It does not ring true to them. But what to do? How can God be God without a Calvinistic ordo salutis? Street version Arminianism, which is mostly semi-Pelagianism, as you so often remind us, has so tarnished Arminianism in many minds, that it is not an option for thinking Christians.

You are also arguing for an inclusive Evangelicalism. High Calvinists are very suspicious of it. For them, it’s watered down Christianity. By my measure I would like to see you confront this at levels that are as sustained as your defense of Arminianism. This is an area where the Calvinists do significant damage. It’s not their beliefs that are so much at issue here but their sheer inability to welcome into fellowship sincere Christ-believers and Christ-followers from other traditions. This is fundamentalism of the Bob Jones kind and its inbreeding creates all manner of strange life forms.

Evangelicalism, for me, is a kind of preservative that keeps the laity from giving any one church the prerogative to claim all that is Christian as their own. With regard to this, I am not a severe critic of denominationalism. The development of denominations of many kinds not only keeps Christians from killing one another but it also leads to an awareness that there is a core that all Christians share. If there was only one denomination, everything that one denomination believes would be all that Christianity is. On the face of it, that could not be true, not in this world. The existence of many denominations forces the laity to an awareness that there is a center. And that center is Evangelicalism.”

  

End.



Books by Dr. Roger Olson
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=roger+olson

• Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities by Roger E. Olson (Sep 5, 2006) 
• Against Calvinism by Roger E. Olson (Oct 18, 2011) 
• The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform by Roger E. Olson (Apr 1, 1999) 
• The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity by Roger E. Olson (Sep 6, 2002) 
• Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical Theology (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology) by Roger E. Olson (Oct 1, 2007) 
• How to Be Evangelical without Being Conservative by Roger E. Olson (Feb 19, 2008) 
• God in Dispute: "Conversations" among Great Christian Thinkers by Roger E. Olson (Oct 1, 2009) 
• Questions to All Your Answers: The Journey from Folk Religion to Examined Faith by Roger E. Olson (May 1, 2007) 
• Pocket History of Theology (The Ivp Pocket Reference) by Roger E. Olson and Adam C. English (Oct 6, 2005) 
• The Trinity (Guides to Theology) by Roger E. Olson and Christopher A. Hall (Apr 4, 2002)

continue to -

 

Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

 

 




 

The Shalom of God, Restorer and Healer of All Things

God on a Mission—Freedom and Love

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/god_on_a_mission_--_freedom_and_love/

by Thomas Jay Oord

May 1, 2012

In this, the final installment of my missional theology series, I look to the liberation and love a missional God provides.

Free, Free, Set Them Free

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” said Jesus. Standing in his hometown temple, he continues reading a passage from Isaiah: “he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18-19).

Among the many ways biblical authors talk about God seeking and saving, the themes of healing and freedom from oppression appear often. Healing and deliverance are part of the well-being/abundant life/favor the Lord generously offers. And we desperately need the well-being – shalom – of God’s salvation.

In a world of brokenness, wholeness breaks in. This wholeness is evident in the local church I attend, in which a robust Celebrate Recovery ministry has emerged. Those in this group believe God empowers them to overcome hurts, habits, and hang-ups. God is their deliverer. Through this and other avenues in the church, many find God’s healing and deliverance.

The Apostle Paul says liberation comes from the Spirit and becomes effective through Jesus. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death,” he says (Rm. 8:2). In this liberation, we see God again empowering us in ways that provide salvation from destruction.

A look at the overall scope of Scripture leads one to believe humans are the focus of God’s seeking and saving. But the Bible also says God cares about nonhumans. [1] In fact, Scripture says God intends to redeem all things. “The whole creation” hopes to be “set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rm. 8:21-22).

We play a vital role in this mission. We can be co-laborers with God’s work for the redemption of all things. God acts first to call, empower, and guide us in love – prevenient grace. But God seeks our cooperation. This becomes clear in the Revised Standard Version’s translation of Romans 8:28: “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (emphases added).

We can work for good with God. The healing and deliverance God has in mind involves our participation.

Love is On the Move

A God on a mission is a God on the move. And love is the primary and persistent intent of our God-on-the-move. A robust missional theology is a theology of love.

To love is to act intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.[2] God’s initial and empowering action makes response possible. We live in community with others to whom we also respond. We are not isolated individuals, and God desires the common good.

God’s love establishes God’s kingdom – or what I call God’s loving leadership. Here again, it is through Jesus we believe such things. Jesus preached God’s loving leadership as both possible and actual here in this life. And he proclaimed its fulfillment in the life to come.

As a young child, I learned a chorus I now sing to my kids. It derives from 1 John 4:7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God, and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. The one that doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.” John says our best clue about what love entails is this: God sent Jesus.

The God who seeks and saves is revealed best in Jesus Christ. This God of love desires that all creation live shalom. God works powerfully through love to fulfill this desire, and we are invited to join in this love project. The result is the healing, restoration, and liberation of all held captive to sin and death. This holy God revealed best in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is on a mission of love.

John takes these truths about God, love, and Jesus a bit further and concludes with this logic: “Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another” (4:11). Thankfully God makes love possible, says John: “We love, because he first loved us” (4:19). The empowering God enables us to love.

A missional theology supporting the endeavor to seek and save the lost is not based primarily on an evangelistic canvassing strategy. Nor is it based primarily upon duty and obedience to God. It’s not even based primarily upon worship. Strategies, obedience, and worship are all important. But missional theology is based primarily on love.

We ought to be “imitators of God, as dearly love children, and life a life of love, just as Christ loved us...” (Eph. 5:1, 2a). This missional ethic emphasizes generosity, listening and speaking, both influencing and being influenced by, enabling, mutuality, and community. It’s a strategy that cares for the least of these and all creation.

Conclusion

In short: God loves us, and we ought to love one another and love God. We ought to imitate God’s full-orbed love – agape, eros, and philia as we cooperate with God’s mission to seek and save the lost.

The God on a mission invites us on an adventure of love.

---

[1] For an exploration of a Wesleyan doctrine of creation, see Michael Lodahl, God of Nature and of Grace: Reading the World in a Wesleyan Way (Nashville, Tenn.: Kingswood, 2003).

[2] I explain the details of this definition from philosophical, scientific, and theological perspectives in my book, Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2010).

Evolutionary Creation: "Where to go next..."

c o n t i n u e d     f r o m  -

Thinking About Evolutionary Creation
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/05/biologos-thinking-aloud-together-parts.html

by Scot McKnight & Biologos




Where to go next...

R.E. Slater

May 1, 2012

Below are listed articles from Relevancy22's sidebar: "Science & Faith: Human Origins." As can be seen, there are other sidebars in the science/faith section each designed to - (i) help us ask better questions, (ii) think larger thoughts about Christianity and evolution, (iii) enable the Christian view to better sync up with 21st Century science, and lastly, iv) help us meld/integrate each position with the other. Please use them. I think the reader may find many questions answered if not in one article than in another when this is done.

Furthermore, I offer the "Proposed Theory" & "Eusociality" articles below as guides to this conversation but caution the uninitiated Christian non-evolutionist that these articles will be top-heavy with an evolutionary discussion of theology-in-process. Please note that they are written as gracious articles to help think through evolution from a Christian-Science perspective on how evolutionary creation can accord with the Genesis story of origins. And more importantly - of God's narrative to us of Himself.

However, before undertaking those reads one might first read the Nat Geo (National Geographic) articles also listed below (re: Neanderthal Man; Genome Studies) along with Dennis Venema's Biologos post and other similar articles on origin while asking how the traditional Christian understanding of Genesis relates to these academic findings from a theological perspective? When I did I found myself writing "How God Created by Evolution" and contributing to the "Eusociality" articles in the context of how it affected my traditional understanding of God, Adam and Eve, original sin, death, and Jesus as the second Adam, to the facts of evolution from a theological standpoint.

Importantly, I wanted to base these discussions of evolution from the viewpoint of an authentic-authoritative bible (sic, see the sidebar sections under Bible, and Hermeneutics, in this web blog) while avoiding any nuanced discussions about inerrancy.... That is to say, my concern lies with historical context versus an evolving sociological context that gradually removes itself from the historicity of the ancient Near Eastern texts. Asking questions like "What did the narratives first mean when they were written?" And "What have they come to mean now, rightly or wrongly, removed from those ancient cultural settings?" What will be discovered is that with the correctly applied hermeneutic the bible remains authentic and authoritative for the Christian faith, witness, worship, teaching, and ministry, without having to do any special kinds of scriptural gymnastics with the biblical texts when asking these questions. What also will be discovered is that our own theologies, pet dogmas, personal ideologies, convictions, and beliefs must first change to accomplish this understanding.... And I will warn you right now that this can be hard to do. Creating fear, threatening personal dogmas, dissettling our world-and-life view, and challenging our protective experiences. However, there's many articles on this web blog that can help the seeking postmodern Christian to usefully accomplish this task and discover that, in the process, it was well worth the time, effort, and anxiety.

So forgive my shorthand and scribbled thoughts here in this post. They were written based upon collecting the many hundreds of other previous articles I've reviewed through this past year's long-and-tedious labors in an attempt to formally update my own 20th Century modernistic faith into a 21st Century postmodernistic faith. In the process I found release from a dated evangelicalism into a more progressive form of evangelicalism that is better known as emergent Christianity. One which seems to comport well with the Christian faith I held, but which must, from time-to-time, "emerge" from its former self (or dogmatic cocoons) into a more "relevant" faith that is necessary for its progression, adaptation and survival (to put it into evolutionary terms!). We call this a process of deconstruction and reconstruction. Every believer goes through this when coming to Jesus as Lord and Savior. So each believer must continue to go through this process in all aspects of his/her life. Even academically.

Thus, when I first began this spiritual journey I thought it would only require a 500 year leap from the Renaissance Age until now when in fact it required a 2000 year leap from the New Testament era of the early Church until now. That was quite a leap and has left my head spinning. Overall, my spiritual journey began in 1999 and seems to have finally culminated this past year of 2011 making it a 12 year pilgrimage of seeking God's story and putting it aright with what I've been observing for so many past decades. It's a trek I'm glad to have made and think now that it can be useful to others coming from similar backgrounds to mine own. Hopefully this will be so.

Consequently, one of those fundamental changes will be in moving from a Young Earth creationism to an Evolutionary creationism requiring God's mediation of evolutionary process. It is not necessary to do this. But it will be one of those processes that must eventually be faced by a Christian when considering the discoveries of science and reading the Genesis Story of Creation within scientific context. During this time of investigation I always had told myself that God is big enough to create the earth and its humanity by either theory - with, or without - using the process of evolution. But the natural evidence suggests that God has chosen to create through the process of evolution (despite the Darwinian atheist/agnostic who claims that God was never - or maybe never! - (with)in this process!). It seems like heresy to speak of an evolutionary creation from the text of Genesis when literally read from the viewpoint of a subjective dogmitism. But in time this line of evolutionary reasoning will prove to be tremendously enriching to the Christian faith as I've attempted to provide through the "Science and Faith" sidebars of Relevancy22.

It uplifts the Bible back to its place of authority and authenticity when read in this fashion rather than when read by the unbelieving evolutionary public of a Bible containing storybook ideas couched in mythological imagery and limited by an ancient cosmogeny mindset that speaks more like a fairytale at best. And useless for today's more nuanced, scientifically-minded public. It is the argument here that both the Christian believer and the non-Christian believer each have mis-representational (if not fanciful) beliefs about the true Genesis story. And that organizations like Biologos are doing a greater justice in helping Christianity, and the reading public at large, the greater service in declaring both for science and the proper reading of Scripture as we have discussed here again and again and again.

Thus, I'm fine with those who wish to say "But God has created creation immediately and without process." That is a personal choice and one that must be allowed. But if we are to go by the cosmic, geologic, and biologic fossil records as true and not deceptive, then creational origins will require a "mediated process" such as we have now constructed by the evolutionary sciences of physics and astronomy, geology and environmental sciences, human anatomy and the biological-psychological-sociological human sciences. These latter speak with one voice - and that voice is saying that science is observing a mediated process of creation known as evolution. To which the Christian evolutionist will say required the ever present hand of God through a time period of birth and evolution - even until now as God's Kingdom continues to break into the kingdoms of man!

Lastly, throughout my personal journey I've sought to re-discover basic epistemic/theological truths of God (cf. sidebar: Theism), questions of life and death, and our place in the universe. Thus, I've created this blog as a way to further help other believers exploring similar biblical themes of contemporary interest. I trust it may be of help to you as a fellow explorer with me of the theological themes of the universe. My confidence comes from the power of the Holy Spirit who will lend His holy light of illumination and inspiration within our critical exploratory searches and examinations of God's Word and revelation through nature. Thank you for your consideration.

R.E. Slater

May 1, 2012

		View	Biologos Video Series - From the Dust				4/18/12
		View	Eusociality and the Bible, Part 2 of 2				4/18/12
		View	Eusociality and the Bible, Part 1 of 2				4/17/12
		View	Critique of Tim Keller's "Creation, Evolution, and...				4/11/12
		View	How God Created by Evolution: A Proposed Theory of...				1/6/12
		View	Dennis Venema + Biologos - Genomic Observations on Adam and Eve				11/8/11
		View	Pete Enns - The Evolution of Adam, Parts 1, 2, 3				11/8/11
		View	Human Migration Maps				10/21/11
		View	NatGeo - 2008 Human Genome Study				8/9/11
		View	The Neanderthals				7/4/11
		View	Christianity Today - The Search For the Historical...				6/3/11
		View	NatGeo - The Human Genome Project after 10 Years				6/3/11