How Might We Interpret the OT for Today?

 

 

Suffice it to say that today's article would be a great beginning point in the postmodern Christian's understanding of how the OT might relate to the NT. However, at first blush it would seemed that there may be a few more things going on here than we might currently admit. Mostly, we must think about why certain societal rules or cultural norms appeal to us. A postmodernist will question everything, and one of the things s/he must question is ourselves, then our social group, our church fellowship, and lastly our society.

 

But rather than saying everything is relativistic we should be asking how the Bible might help illuminate us as we find ourselves in our time-and-place when re-enacting God's great love that He has shown to us through His Son Jesus. Not judgmental love even though proper love will judge both its challenger as well as its motivation to meet that challenge. But to love in the sense of bringing peace and justice, reconciliation and purpose, back into a person, a situation, or a society. Even so, it must all begin with Jesus even as He questioned everything, teaching an ethic that stood everyone on their head, and spun them around in their thinking, from what they thought He might say to what He was actually saying TO THEM.

 

Further, a good historian of the Bible knows that ancient biblical culture - both in the OT as well as in the NT - are mostly lost to us in the sense of knowing how people thought and behaved back then. Oh yes, we can make our conjectures based upon our comparative readings of ancient histories, but most of these histories were written much later after-the-event-had-occurred! Even in the Bible's recorded histories by the biblical writers themselves as they too wrote from their cultural-and-historical perspectives (sic, via an  enculturated boundedness, personal biases and judgments). In its present form the Jewish OT was written in the Second Temple era from records as much as a thousand years earlier, many of which had been lost to time and inattention. Truly, we mostly are at a lost as to what people were thinking back 2000 years ago (the NT period), let alone 4000 years ago (the Torah period).

 

Which also gets us to the idea of remembering that language by its nature is both fluid and ambiguous. Even today, amongst our literate societies news-events are continually questioned as to their correctness of interpretation! Whether they are punning towards a particular view, outcome, or bias - or whether, it is in sincere search of the truth - our words carry multiple meanings to multiple hearers and societies. How much more than has the church done the same with its own ancient records and traditions as demonstrated by the vernacular speeches and commentaries held forth by today's current crops of Christian writers, pulpiteers, and media outlets? Words carry meaning. But they also carry ambiguity. Words are not mathematical symbols with strict mathematical properties. The best words of poets know this. And those kinds of lucid poets will write in a way that will carry an idea as expressed in a poem on many levels of meaning to many kinds of ears and eyes. Even in the church's traditional creeds we find our postmodern thinking wanting more (or less) when reading those grand confessions of faith. Especially when couched in the newer terms of process theism, relational thought, open theology, and the emergent strains of radical theology in its pithy cores and poignant questions to Christianity's truer meanings.

 

For all these many reasons, and many more, today's articles by Christianity Today and Scot McKnight make for a great beginning point of conversation. But not an ending point. Why? Because CT's expression is couched in the church's traditions and classical creedal expressions. Whereas McKnight's is showing a more nuanced reading of those traditions and expressions which may help guide the street-level Christian in his/her's reading of the OT. But still, we may push forward by asking even more questions. Questions of our preferred hermeneutical interpretation of the Bible: whether it pushes us far enough from our comfort zone, or if whether it keeps us too smugly wrapped up in our biases and bigotries towards those whom we should share God's love with. Whom we should advocate and mediate justice for. Whom we should forgive and reach out to. If whether we might lay down our religions clubs and shields long enough to work together in irenic debate and peaceful argumentation.

 

At the last, it is a beginning point. And hopefully, as we have discussed here at Relevancy22 in previous articles about the Bible and biblical interpretations, we might have been asking the hard questions of how we might discover Paul's readings aright in light of his Jewish orientation and not his Calvinistic or Reformed interpretation that we have covered him in. Or his Americanized, Western dress that we see Paul in. But not only must we learn to rethink the OT, so even must we learn to rethink the NT. When making our brazen speeches that "Paul said this or that" we may only be marking ourselves by our own (biblical) shortsightedness to what Paul may or may not actually be saying (or not saying!). Issues of gender equality, same-sex marriage, homosexuality, political rightness, poverty, victimization, and injustice continue to challenge us by God's Word. Let's just say that it would be a fearful thing should Jesus return today within our lives and churches. Just how many of our judgments and biblical assurances might you think remain?

 

In Paul's day, even this great Rabbi of the Jewish faith (I'm speaking of the Apostle Paul) found his faith impoverished, his ideas conflicted, his ministries oppressive, his love hardened before he met the Resurrected Jesus on the Damascus Road. An experience that burned up the chattel of his life and reapportioned his livelihood to the re-righting of his earthly calling to public ministry. A ministry of love-and-reconciliation rather than of one of oppression-and-judgment. So too must we each must be confronted by our own Damascus Road experience beginning with how we might skew (or unskew) our interpretations of the OT text and NT principles we think we understand today in the postmodern sense. No, we do not speak of a relativism, but of a loving God's guidance of His church to err on the side of love, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. To do all in the name of Jesus as we are able or gifted by our separate callings. No more, and no less. And to abandon our guilt, and the oppression of our conscience, by taking all to the Lord as He gives us insight into our lives, our calling, our purpose here in this life when confronted by the crucified Christ.

 

At the last, how did Jesus answer his accusers? To Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. And to Love your neighbor as yourself. Even so may this be prayer and admonition be in our lives this day, as difficult as it is. As challenging as it can be. To do good to everyman... and even more, to love in the power of the Holy Spirit by God's grace and mercy, peace and forgiveness. May this be so for you as God gives you strength and confession, repentance and trust. Amen.

 

R.E. Slater

July 25, 2013

 

 

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

Chris Wright on Old Testament Law and Today

by Scot McKnight

Jul 25, 2013

Comments

 

Introductory comments from an article in Christianity Today:

But just as well, we should never say, “Oh, we don’t bother with those things because they are just Old Testament rules.” There are principled reasons why Christians not only need but also should not observe certain Old Testament laws simply as written. And regarding two kinds of law, the New Testament itself provides those reasons. 

The sacrificial laws: The New Testament makes it clear that the religious system of temple, altar, animal sacrifices, priesthood, and the Day of Atonement has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ through the Cross and Resurrection. He has accomplished once and for all what that great system pointed toward. The Book of Hebrews stresses that, whether we are Jewish or Gentile believers, we must not go back to that system, because we already have all that it represented through Christ’s sacrificial death and ascended life in the presence of the Father. 

The food laws: The distinction between clean and unclean animals and foods was symbolic of the distinction between Israel as God’s holy people and the Gentile nations (Lev 20:25–26). In the New Testament, that separation is abolished in Christ, as Paul says in Ephesians 2. Through the Cross, God has made the two cultures one new humanity. And as Peter discovered through his vision in Acts 10; before going to the home of the Gentile Cornelius, what God has called clean should no longer be called unclean. Today some Messianic Jewish believers choose freely to observe the kashrutregulations as a mark of their Jewish community and cultural identity. But in their unity, believers are free from food laws. 

But just because we no longer keep these laws literally does not mean they can’t teach us anything. We are called to present our bodies as a living sacrifice in the service of God. We are called to offer the sacrifice of praise. We are called to cleanness of life in a corrupt world. In fact, if we are tempted to mock Jewish fastidiousness over kosher food in the kitchen, we might ask if we have any sustained commitment to the moral and spiritual distinctiveness that the New Testament upholds. 

We can find principles even in Israel’s civil laws to apply today. The urban Christians in Corinth did not see oxen grinding corn in their city houses. But when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he took an Old Testament law about allowing working oxen to be fed from the product of their labors (Deut 25:4) and applied it to Christian workers in Corinth. He sees a principle in the case law—originally meant for the benefit of animals—and applies it to working humans. The principle: Work deserves reward. Later he applies another commandment about how manna was to be collected (totally irrelevant to Corinth, you might think), and applies it to the principle of equality between Christians (1 Cor 9:8–10; 2 Cor 8:13–15). These are biblical examples of creative application of biblical laws in nonliteral, but very appropriate, ways.

 

 

Additional Comments from Scott McKnight:

 

In Blue Parakeet, I advocated that we learn to read Moses’ laws as God’s ways in Moses’ days, and it seems Chris Wright gets close to this view by advocating a hermeneutic of questions that then get re-asked in our day:

The best way to derive principles from the Old Testament law is to ask questions. All laws in all human societies are made for a purpose. Laws happen because people want to change society, to achieve some social goal, to foster certain interests, or to prevent some social evil. So when we look at any particular law or group of biblical laws, we can ask, “What could be the purpose behind this law?” To be more specific: 

● What kind of situation was this law intended to promote or to prevent? 

● What change in society would this law achieve if it were followed? 

● What kind of situation made this law necessary or desirable? 

● What kind of person would benefit from this law, by assistance or protection? 

● What kind of person would be restrained or restricted by this law, and why? 

● What values are given priority in this law? Whose needs or rights are upheld? 

● In what way does this law reflect what we know from elsewhere in the Bible about the character of God and his plans for human life? 

● What principle or principles does this law embody or instantiate?

Now we won’t always be able to answer these questions with much detail or insight. Some laws are just plain puzzling. But asking questions like these leads us to a much broader and deeper grasp of what Old Testament laws were all about: forming the kind of society God wanted to create. 

Then, having done that homework as best we can, we step out of the Old Testament world and back into our own. Ask the same kind of questions about the society we live in and the kind of people we need to be, and the kind of personal and societal objectives we need to aim for in order to be in any sense “biblical.” 

In this way, biblical law can function sharply as a paradigm or model for our personal and social ethics in all kinds of areas: economic, familial, political, judicial, sexual, and so on. We are not “keeping it” in a literalist way like a list of rules. But more important, we are not ignoring it in defiance of what Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16–17. We are studying and using it as guidance, light for the path, in the joyful way of Psalms 1, 19 and 119.

 

Repost: Christian Music: Why It Sucks and What Can be Done?

 

 

Christian Music…Why Does It Suck? What Can Be Done?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geekgoesrogue/2013/07/christian-music-why-does-it-suck-what-can-be-done/

by Jonathan Ryan
July 23, 2013

Comments

 

By Geek-About-Town Editor, Alan Atchison:

 

What does it mean to make music with purpose or inspiration in this day in age? On one hand, it can be argued that everyone who makes music is inspired toward some sort of purpose. But specifically, what does it mean for Christians to make music in today’s culture? And what on earth is “Christian music” anyway? And how does it differ from any other kind of music that tries to tell an honest story? And is saying you only listen to Christian music the same thing as saying you only use Christian toilet paper?

 

How can today’s world listen to music that encourages them to get to know the counter-cultural person of Jesus when all they hear from Christian-based media are cheesy, regurgitated catch phrases? When it comes to music as an encouraging, sympathizing, and teaching tool, singer/songwriter, Derek Webb says, “A lot of what I see coming out of the church in terms of Christian music unfortunately deals in probably the most spiritual 2 percent of life and culture. And yet, the Bible gives us a framework and a language to deal with all 100 percent of stuff that we come up against in life. So it’s no wonder when people look at the art that comes out of the church in Christian music on the whole, that they see Christianity as this one-dimensional, irrelevant worldview to modern life that only deals with transcendent moments of worship and the afterlife.”

 

Despite much of Christian music’s apparent lack of depth, the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) industry is continuing to thrive financially. Can it really be considered a coincidence that most CCM artists tend to churn out the same soft, fluffy messages? This, of course begs the question of whether or not the monetary motives of the CCM are no different than those of the standard mainstream record industry. If American Christians are eating up what the CCM is putting out, why would it fix what isn’t broken?

 

In a 2003 episode of South Park entitled “Christian Rock Hard,” eight-year-old Eric Cartman, upon realizing the potential for financial gain, and the ease in which Christian music can be crafted, decides to start a Christian rock band with two other kids from school. Cartman explains that “it’s the easiest, crappiest music in the world…all we have to do to make Christian songs is take regular old songs and add Jesus stuff to them…cross out words like ‘baby’ and ‘darling’ and replace them with ‘Jesus’.” (Spoiler alert!) Cartman’s band, Faith+1, goes on to sell a million copies of its first album, thereby achieving the fictitious “myrrh” status. Some may say that South Park shouldn’t be taken seriously as an indicator of social relevancy, but when most of today’s popular Christian songs make Jesus sound like our boyfriend, TV shows like this make a strong statement.

 

Christian rock music today includes little mention of loving and serving the poor, reconciling with enemies, being a presence in rough neighborhoods, sexuality, dealing with really difficult temptations, or even funny life situations (exception: Reliant K did a pretty sick version of “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything”). When these bands play live, their sets usually include tons of catchy songs full of clichéd lyrics followed by mushy, emotionally-charged “altar calls.” I’m not saying altar calls haven’t changed the lives of a certain contingent of the population. But all that these bands usually end up accomplishing is convincing a bunch of 12-16 year-olds to stand up at their seats, or at the very least, raise their hands when presented with the (often times vaguely-explained) challenge to “accept Jesus.” As these kids grow up and face real-life problems, it’s unlikely they’re going to turn to songs that simply tell them to ask Jesus to “wrap me in your arms.” If music truly is the universal language of the world, then this sort of production just isn’t going to cut it.

 

Music plays a huge part in shaping our culture, and vice versa. There is much that can be gained by listening, enjoying, and taking note of what today’s mainstream and indie musicians are saying in their lyrics and then responding accordingly in ways that build up Christ’s kingdom on earth. What would it look like if more people started being “musicians who are Christians” rather than cookie-cutter “Christian musicians?” What would it look like if Christians ripped down the sacred/secular divide and took notice of what so many artists around us are screaming about regarding the messed up state of our culture? We’ve fallen a long way from the days of Larry Norman, one of Christian music’s pioneers, who wasn’t afraid to perform songs that dealt with social issues, politics, spiritual warfare, and hypocrisy. Thankfully, a handful of scattered independent artists are beginning to take up Norman’s mantle and continue this radical, cross-cultural movement. But until the CCM decides that it loves money less than producing positive spiritual change in the world, we’ve still got a long way to go.

 

Alan Atchison is an Online Editor at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also pursuing a Masters of Liberal Arts in Creative Writing. He is currently writing a fictional novel about a couples’ journey through the domestic adoption process. He lives with his wife and daughter in Philadelphia, PA.

 

 

 

Catching Up with Radical Theology

 

 

 

This summer, in my spare time, I thought it would be fun and interesting to join Tripp Fuller and Peter Rollins each Thursday night in a reading group centering on what Radical Theology is, and how it is important to the Christian faith. First, I wanted to know more about the subject itself, and second, to be with a group of Christians who are interested, like myself, in updating our thinking about God and Christianity. Especially as it relates to today's 21st Century's global communities.

 

Importantly, the reading group's discourses have been from a Christian philosophical approach whereas mine have come at it from a postmodern/emergent theological one, as I, and others, have tried to develop and underscore Christianity's relatedness to today's living churches and global societies. Especially since my own, personal faith has evolved out of an evangelic past once focused on a Jesus-faith and Spirit-movement, away from an evangelicalism that now seems to have become dogmatized, institutionalized, and rhetorically excluding to my ears.

 

I believe evangelic Christians who can adopt the spirit of a postmodern, emergent Christianity will find their fellowships and churches busier in the work of the harvest than if they were to remain content with their present-day church forms and teachings that are non-critical of themselves while remaining intensely critical of others. But to begin down this road is to let go (or undo) some of the things we have clung too tightly onto. Confusing worship forms, dogmas, and religious mindsets that have usurped centrality to the Christian faith but in hindsight seem filled with extra-biblical socio-religious boundaries holding the church back from progressing forward.

 

Over the decades it seems that the Christian faith has been broken into thousands of belief systems and centering doctrines, each one emphasizing a portion of Scripture that is thought most important to one's faith-fellowship. But according to the Lord, the church is one, and should utilize its unity as a strength, and not as an opportunity to point out how one group is closer to God than another because of what they believe or practice. Moreover, it seems that Christianity has gotten too defensive of itself rather than listening to the councils of the Spirit everywhere present through this world of ours - as harsh as they sometimes are. We are but burden-bearers and servants, and are not to behave as unthinking, strident voices protecting our dying cultures and decaying time periods. We cannot cling to the past simply because we feel comfortable there. But must allow others in, and in doing so, must learn to bear other's burdens and become servants to their spiritual needs.

 

After many long years of witnessing this state of affairs within the church I began more recently on a journey that would culminate in discovering a postmodern, emergent Christianity that was more expansive and progressive. One without denominational or institutional boundaries. That sought a new voice amongst the din of religious voices everywhere abounding. An assimilating faith that would try to put into words the gleaning processes necessary for an evangelic faith I believed had become irrelevant to a global society's needs and questions. Towards an historic faith that is in the process of becoming more relevant to both believers and non-believers alike. One that might uncover the heart-and-mind of our living God whose handiwork is everywhere present amongst us though our spiritual sight seems too foreshortened to recognize it. One that might allow the updating of a classically-expressed faith delved from its Medieval and Reformational moorings, towards a newer postmodern, emergent orthodoxy that would embrace the past. But would also be more willing to move beyond its classical limitations once culled from within the dark fires and suffering turmoils of the Dark Ages and that of the twin kindred ages of the Enlightenment and Industrial Modernity as expressed by their syllogisms, logic, and humanism. An orthodoxy that has become out-of-date with today's present scholarship and academic discoveries as it clings to fading transitory truths that no longer work but serve only to separate the church from its missional calling as well as from itself.

 

Enter Radical Theology, a philosophical approach that has been 200+ years in the making through the likes of Kant and Kierkegaard, Spinoza/Hegel and Nietzsche, Marx and Freud, in their good, and bad, and ugliness. To be translated and moved forward by this past century's existential and phenomenological philosophers by the names of Ricoeur and Heidegger, Bonhoeffer and Tillich, Caputo and Zizek (not to forget Derrida and Whitehead who turned it all around). Whose insights have now become the responsibility of today's newer Christian disciples in relating God's Word and Self, Spirit and ministry, to a sin hardened world-and-church become blind-and-deaf to the sonorous sounds of God everywhere abounding. And when combined with a postmodern, emergent theology searching for linguistic expression and fluidity of biblical message, Radical Theology seems to be a partial answer along the road of life as we live and die, suffer and laugh with one another. Thus my interest.

 

As Christ followers, we wish to bear forth as expansive a gospel message as is possible given today's social technology and expanding pluralistic, global communities of trade and commerce. A message that might resound from as many sources as is legitimately possible. Nor do we wish to qualify those avenues of help based upon previously built-in religious exclusionary thought. But to listen to all voices - both sacred and secular - while trusting the Spirit of God to lead and direct His Church throughout this period of seismic epistemic growth and assimilation. To begin, we need to look at our own faith and fellowship - both the good and the bad of it - and to judge where it has failed as well as where it has been a blessing. And upon this judgment move it forward towards a more holistic faith that would do justice to God's Word and Mission for this day-and-age.

 

As such, what messages have been bourne here upon the pages of Relevancy22 have not come easily nor without cost. It has been bourne through a very long process of evaluation and learning, research and listening. Of sharing a burden that might allow similarly burdened souls the Spirit's freedom away from the old epistemic boundaries that would bind and kill. That would legalize God's love as Law. A Law that would crucify again the Son of God upon the altars of human pride and religious zeal. That repented not of its judgmental spirit. Nor asked the Lord to open the doors of a closed-minded heart. Nor sought God's grace and mercy to fall afresh from the living councils of His Holy Spirit. An Incarnating God, who came as the Messiah/Savior Jesus to lift the sorrows we bear for the joy of the Cross set before Him.

 

These things have not come easily but at a cost... a cost of giving up old ways of thinking and doing. Of no longer clinging to the older doctrines intemperate of all things unlike itself. Of praying for spiritual wisdom and discernment so that God may again be seen as clearly today as He was eons earlier by Israel and the early church. Of learning to write a new language unlike the evangelic one I've grown too accustomed. A language that lives again under foreign names, tongues, symbolisms, and new theological categories; that is expansive, embracing, enjoining, and enlightening; that is reforming, reclaiming, renewing, rebirthing, and resurrected. May these things, and this mindset, become yours as well, as we pursue the Lord and His mission together by all the avenues made available to us by the Lord's Spirit. Amen.

 

R.E. Slater

July 23, 2013

 

*Side Note - Interestingly Bo Sander's article came out after mine own (Bo works with Tripp at Homebrew). So I have included it below, along with Peter's helpful outline, to help us better understand what Radical Theology intends or subtends.

 

 

 

 

High Gravity Radical Theology Reading List

http://peterrollins.net/?p=4657

 

by Peter Rollins

posted July 23, 2013

 

Recently I’ve been leading an in-depth, online reading group with Tripp Fuller that aims to introduce people to some of the seminal thinkers behind the movement often called Radical Theology.

 

With two hundred people having signed up for the six weeks the whole thing has been a great success and is something I’m keen to experiment with again. Anyway here is a list of what we covered in the course. If you sign up you can still access all the articles and video lectures.

 

Week 1 – Paul Ricoeur

 

“The Critique of Religion” and “The Language of Faith”

Union Theological Quarterly, 28, no. 3 (1973)

 

Week 2 – Martin Heidegger

 

“Phenomenological Explication of Concrete Religious Phenomena in Connection with the Letter’s of Paul”

 

The Phenomenology of Religious Life

 

Week 3 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

Excerpts from Letters and Paper’s from Prison

 

Letters and Papers from Prison

 

Week 4 – Paul Tillich

 

“God above God” and “Two Types of Philosophy of Religion”

 

Theology of Culture

 

Week 5 – John Caputo

 

“Theopoetics as the Insistence of Radical Theology”

 

The Insistence of God

 

Week 6 – Slavoj Žižek

 

“The Fear of Four Words: A Modest Plea for a Hegelian Reading of Christianity”

 

The Monstrosity of Christ

 

Over Lent in 2014 we will be running another online reading group as part of Atheism for Lent. More information to follow.

 

 

 

For Additional Reading:

 

Paul Tillich's "God Above God" and, the "Restlessness of the Human Heart"

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2013/07/paul-tillichs-god-above-god-and.html

 

 

 

 

 

 Radical Theology Cliff Notes

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2013/07/23/radical-theology-cliff-notes/

by Bo Sanders
July 23, 2013

Comments

 

Sometimes you stumble into something so wildly different than anything you have encountered before that it can give you a bit of whiplash.

 

When this happens in the realm of theology – it can cause a level of trauma to your faith that it feels as if it will never recover.

 

This is where translators and apologist can come in and play a healthy role.

 

I am not a practitioner of Radical Theology per-se. I am more of a practical theologian who is in dialogue with (or informed by) schools of thought that might be challenging to the population as a whole (or at least those who occupy the pews).

 

I received this week’s notes from one Mr. Tripp Fuller that he intended to utilize on the most recent episode of the High Gravity reading group co-hosted by the incomparable Peter Rollins. I took one look at them and thought to myself:

“Self… folks may not know what some of this stuff means. This is sad because much of it has deep implications on living out faith in the 21st century and even deeper implication on the cultural conversation that each of us finds ourselves caught up in the middle of.”

SO I thought it might be interesting to throw a few of the notes out there and to attempt to attach a helpful note on a few items.

 

Here is what I am up to: if you feel like you are interested in a Radical approach but find it out of reach or unclear … please respond in the comment section and we can either A) figure this out together or B) I will point you in a helpful direction if I know of one.

 

Before we start – a couple of overly-simplistic definitions: 

• Radical Theology – a theological approach that is not tied to a congregation, denomination or other sanctioning body. The freedom of not being anchored in a confessional approach allows thinkers to interact with daring, innovative and contemporary schools of thought without consequence of consideration of how the outcome will impact faith communities (at least not primarily). 

• Confessional Theology – a theological approach rooted in both historic tradition and local expression. Confessional theology takes classical perspective and either tries to update it for the current context or attempts to return to some previous incarnation with the hopes of a purer expression or acceptable orthodoxy/practice. 

• Theo-poetics – born out of an awareness that all of our god-talk is both perspectival and provisional. When we speak of god/the divine we do so in imagery, metaphor, and symbol. This awareness of our limitations of language release us to confess that our signifiers (symbols) can never fully or truly represent that which they signify. The result is a freedom to explore, innovate, ratify, renovate and adapt our god-language in order to both expose idolatry and inspire creativity in how we express our beliefs. 

• Big Other – The father-figure in the sky who watches over those [‘s/he’] loves and keeps track of who has been naughty and nice. This being can be called upon to bail one out of a jam or to intervene in some unpleasant situation. This Being also rewards those who live right with good things on this earth as well as eternal rewards and punishments as appropriate.

 

Here are some of Tripp’s notes:

Radical Theology v Confessional

 

 

1) Radical Theology is parasitic to Confessional Theology… on its behalf. Radical Theology is being faithful to what is harbored in the name of ‘God’ – the event & not the tradition on the tradition’s terms.

 

2) Radical Theology reserves the right to ask any question. Because Confessional Theology is accountable to a tradition & its institutions there will be places where questions-conversations-operating conclusions will serves as “conversation stoppers.” Places in which that activity of critical thinking puts one out of the building. (ex. Trinity or Same Sex Marriage)

 

3) Radical Theology seeks to be EXPOSED to the Event w/in the Confessional Theology tradition but not PROPOSE a new articulation of the tradition.

 

4) Radical Theology rejects both the apathetic silence about the Big Other & the theist\atheist debate about the Big Other. The Big Other does not exist.

 

5) Radical Theology displaces the boundaries & certainty of ‘belief’ w/in Confessional Theology – the “how” w/out articulating another ‘what.’ Why? Whatever the ‘what’ is w/in a tradition doesn’t correlate to ‘how’ it is enacted.

 

6) Radical Theology affirms the Event contained IN but not BY Confessional Theology.

 

7) Radical Theology is a material (therefore a political) theology. God’s insistence is about our existence, here in the world, in relationships, & not about our continued or reanimated existence elsewhere. Radical Theology is about faith enacted for this world, not faith in another.

 

8) Radical Theology leaves the logos of Confessional Theology behind for theo-poetics. For the Radical Theologian there is no divine-logic to be learned or sacred syllogisms to be mastered. When ‘words’ are used to close the circle around the truth, the poet protests ‘words’ enslavement… their demonic possession of the impossible possibilities that vanquished on behalf of the actual – the certain – the final – the verdict of Confessional Theology.

.....................

I thought it would be helpful at this point to outline how [John] Caputo frames the turn from Confessional to Radical Theology in his amazing and short book “Philosophy And Theology” . In chapter 5 he illustrates 3 turns that converge together to make the BIG turn:

 

 First up is the Hermeneutical Turn – this a confession we each read a text or interpret our experience from an angle [(e.g., "...from our own personal, socio-religious, point of view." - re slater)]. We all have a location and that means that we all see things from an angle.

Second is the Linguistic Turn – this is a recognition that every discipline and every tradition has its own set of vocabulary and [ideological] concepts that form the ‘rules of the game’ [(or, the rules of our religious faith or religion. -re slater)]. Just as one can not play ‘Sport’ but plays A sport (football or baseball) so one can not speak ‘Language’ but A language. One can not practice ‘Religion’ but A religion. One must learn and abide by the rules of language game that one is playing.

 

Third is the Revolutionary Turn – this is an admission that things change… or rather that the way we see things changes. Working off of Kuhn’s idea of ‘paradigms’ and scientific revolutions, we readily admit that even where the data does not change (the universe) the way that we conceptualize it does periodically alter in radical ways.

 

These three come together to form the Postmodern Turn. They are also helpful for illustrating the sort of thing that Radical Theology is up to [(e.g., Relational Theology will help one to "de-construct" his/her's images of God and faith so that it stands out more clearly, or more purely, against the idolatrous images we unknowingly would serve without thought or question otherwise. It is a form of deep spiritual insight or awareness.

A purity of aspiration or revelation to unlink from ourselves as religious beings, and to leave the "window-dressing" of our faith for its more singular elements of devotion, trust, belief and love. As example, its like becoming a monk without leaving the world; or becoming a more tolerant form of Christian without exposing more rules and confessional creeds; or becoming more devout in your heart, mind, and soul, without seeking the external dresses of devoutness so that others may see it about you. - re slater)].


 

How Postmodern Hermeneutics Helps in Reading The Bible

Today's article rehearses once again a subject we have spoken to in earlier discussions (please refer to the sidebars under "Science," "Creation," and "Genesis"). To rehearse, today's discoveries states that "ex nihilo creation" is probably untrue according to quantum physics. This means that matter had to be present in order for it to be "re-purposed, re-arranged, and re-ordered" (in the thermodynamic sense of energy conservation).

What it doesn't mean is that God cannot create matter from nothing (as most infer when jettisoning the idea of "ex nihilo creation) but is simply a testament that God re-created, re-formed, or re-fashioned, the matter present in the early universe into the universe we know today. Since this idea is usually misunderstood by the traditional Christian reading of Genesis we may leave the possibility open at both ends dependent upon our ideas of "God being God" (simplistically put: Is God "above/beyond the universe?" per classic doctrine. Or, is God "beside/alongside the universe?" per process theology and various perambulations of panentheism). Again, we have addressed both concepts in previous posts under the sidebars by the same name and shall defer to those ideas without rehearsing them here.

In earlier eras - and without the practical help of science - biblical theologians and church philosophers subjugated their answers within previously formed philosophical opinions (e.g., Greek Platonism or Greek Aristotelianism). As such, Justin Martyr argued for Platonism while Tertullian argued for Aristotelianism. Many years later, and with the advantage of many years of church discussion, thinking, and evaluation, we find ourselves with a few more options than just those of Plato and Aristotle. Especially so since the science of biblical hermeneutics has rapidly developed beyond these classic dualistic Greek approaches to the study of the universe and man, God and the bible.

 

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

 

Platonism - noun (philosophy)

 

The philosophy of Plato (428 - 348 BC) or his followers that taught the belief that physical objects are impermanent representations of unchanging Ideas. And that the Ideas alone give true knowledge as they are known by the mind.

 

Aristotelianism - noun (philosophy)

The philosophy of Aristotle (384-322 BC) speaks to logic, metaphysics, ethics, poetics, politics, and natural science; "Aristotelianism profoundly influenced Western thought." As a philosophy it placed emphasis upon deduction and logic upon the investigation of concrete and particular things and situations.   ----------------

Events like our singular universe's birth at the "Big Bang" - or the birth of Multi-verses in similar, simultaneous events - demonstrate the idea mathematically that "ex nihilo creation" is untrue contra ancient ideas. This means that it would be wrong to approach Gen 1-3 scientifically and to read our 21st Century ideas into the Hebraic text's ancient cosmological myths and observations (I like to refer to the bible's ancient accounts as historic(al) theological narratives rather than so crudely as myths).

... As an aside, I should note that the Genesis text was written in the 7th or 6th century BC from an Ancient Near-Eastern perspective that would fall into the category of comparative mythology to the other ancient societies around it (Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Egypt, etc).

What this means then is that the later Greek philosophers deduced their philosophies upon what they then knew (even as we do today). Which may have been considerably more material than what the early church theologians had to work with later after so many long years of devastating world war by the kingdoms of Persia, Greece/Mesopotamia, Rome in their lootings and burnings of the treasuries of the surrounding nations and one another. By inference the ancients - like the Greek philosophers and historians - probably had demonstrably more resources at hand than perhaps the latter day theologians of the early church like Justin Martyr and Tertullian who were working off the remaining Greek ideas of their day, along with what they could find of surviving ancient Near-Eastern documents lost within the ancient libraries of Alexandria, Athens, and Rome. Even now this is our problem today as we rely on surviving archaeological resources and archived documents over the many long eons of chaotic world history.

That said, Greek philosophy (Hellenism) was captured by the church and drawn into itself as its resident-cobbled-dogmas of the day. To this perceived knowledge was added regionally formed opinions that either survived, or did not, as the church's theology developed through early and late Medievalism until theologians like Thomas Aquinas came along to restore some order to Christian thinking and philosophy along the lines of Scholasticism. As a 12th Century Catholic monk and scholar Aquinas "was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy was conceived in development or refutation of his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. The works for which he is best known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa contra Gentiles." Scholasticism is "not so much a philosophy or a theology as a method of learning. Scholasticism places a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference, and to resolve contradictions."

... But I digress and only mention this abbreviated history of Christian Thought to show how the church's received tradition of classical Christianity is being re-applied under today's postmodernistic biblical studies that must de-construct and re-interpret past historical contexts within the evolving fluidity of contemporary language and its linguistic ambiguity from one era to the next, from one culture to the next. To so simply state with assurance that one believes in "ex nihilo creation" or not is to carry with these phrases many unqualified assumptions. Assumptions that don't get us anywhere except into ad naseum discussions round-and-round-and-round without accomplishing anything.

For me, I am interested in the logic, the deductions, and the context of these statements. Practically this means that a simplistic literal reading would weigh out each word without regard to cultural and historical development of this statement's background (including us today as modern interpretive redactionists). Whereas a non-literal reading would weigh out the content of what is being said, why its being said, who is saying it, and explore the reason for such observations. In my estimation, "ex nihilo" discussions then cannot be formed from a literal reading and should be politely put to bed as uninformative, unhelpful, and passé. They only serve to show our short-sightedness about God, His paradoxical Creatorship, and His Sovereign rule, as He moves heaven-and-earth towards redemption completion.

To debate the Creed, as one had said, is to debate its philosophical and theological orientations only. For Justin Martyr, he adopted Platonic ideas, while Tertullian on the other hand moved towards a straightforward deductionism about the one eternal God. To me, this is all well and good, but it seems more helpful to rely on today's postmodern sciences, philosophical ideas, and their gathering theological import for biblical studies, while resisting overtly reading our religious preferences backwards into the creation texts of Genesis as interpretive (classic) redactionists. This means that from today's scientific discoveries it seems very apparent that God created from the material than extant in our pre-existent universe. This doesn't mean that He didn't create that material, simply that He used that material, thus voiding the early church's arguments for one view over the other. Such arguments limited our expanding knowledge of God, the cosmos, ourselves, and globally responsible communities.

Under a postmodern frame of theological development we may do this, and not be so dependent upon ancient church observations for our contemporary derivations today. And this would include even that of the biblical writers viewpoints couched within their ancient cosmologies! What is more important is to try to determine why those biblical writers wrote their observations. And why God chose to utilize their observations and understanding towards a formed biblical revelation. This then frees the postmodern theolog to focus on the biblical content using all that we know (against what we have lost and have failed to recover through death, time, war and prejudicial bias) in the ancient world of biblical cultural and sentiment. And to not treat the bible so naively. Nor our heritage as so emphatic. Nor language as so propositional and definitive. Nor even time itself as without its dithering effects and affects upon God's Word and our accumulating understanding of it.

Consequently, a postmodernistic hermeneutic gives back to us God's Word in an amazing array of complexity and spiritual import more so than if we were to relax and fall back upon the church's classical doctrines, beliefs, and arguments. Arguments too often deemed more important than God's Word itself. For me and my house, I would chose the postmodern route of narrative and anthropologic hermeneutic (among others).

I leave you with these thoughts:

Genre (Genesis 1-2 as myth, history and science)
See also: Literary genre, Myth (disambiguation), and Narrative

The genre of a piece of writing is the literary "type" to which it belongs.^[79] The meaning to be derived from the Genesis creation narrative will depend on the reader's understanding of its genre: "it makes an enormous difference whether the first chapters of Genesis are read as scientific cosmology, creation myth, or historical saga".^[80] Misunderstanding of the genre of the text - meaning the intention of the author/s and the culture within which they wrote - will result in a misreading.^[81] Bruce Waltke cautions against one such misreading, the "woodenly literal" approach which leads to "creation science" and such "implausible interpretations" as the "gap theory", the presumption of a "young earth", and the denial of evolution.^[82] Another scholar, Conrad Hyers, sums up the same thought in these words: "A literalist interpretation of the Genesis accounts is inappropriate, misleading, and unworkable [because] it presupposes and insists upon a kind of literature and intention that is not there."^[83]

Genesis 1-2 can be seen as ancient science: in the words of E.A. Speiser, "on the subject of creation biblical tradition aligned itself with the traditional tenets of Babylonian science."^[84] It can also be regarded as ancient history, "part of a broader spectrum of originally anonymous, history-like ancient Near Eastern narratives."^[85] It is frequently called myth in scholarly writings, but there is no agreement on how "myth" is to be defined, and so while one scholar can say that Genesis 1-11 is free from myth, another can say it is entirely mythical.^[86] (Brevard Childs famously suggested that the author of Genesis 1-11 "demythologised" his narrative, meaning that he removed from his sources (the Babylonian myths) those elements which did not fit with his own faith.)^[87]

Whatever else it may be, Genesis 1 is "story" [or "narrative" - res], since it features character and characterisation, a narrator, and dramatic tension expressed through a series of incidents arranged in time.^[88] The Priestly author of Genesis 1 had to confront two major difficulties. First, there is the fact that since only God exists at this point, no-one was available to be the narrator; the storyteller solved this by introducing an unobtrusive "third person narrator".^[89] Second, there was the problem of conflict: conflict is necessary to arouse the reader's interest in the story, yet with nothing else existing, neither a chaos-monster nor another god, there cannot be any conflict. This was solved by creating a very minimal tension: God is opposed by nothingness itself, the blank of the world "without form and void."^[89] Telling the story in this way was a deliberate choice: there are a number of creation stories in the Bible, but they tend to be told in the first person, by Wisdom, the instrument by which God created the world; the choice of omniscient first-person narrator in the Genesis narrative allows the storyteller to create the impression that everything is being told and nothing held back.^[90]"

- Ibid, Wikipedia
 
R.E. Slater

July 22, 2013 

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

 

Creation Debates Are Not New

 

by Scot McKnight

July 22, 2013

 

The first two centuries of the Christian church included serious debates between major theologians — like Justin Martyr and Tertullian — and they debated one essential idea: Did God create out of nothing or, did God create from pre-existing material? A problem actually arises from the translation of Genesis 1:1-2.

KJV: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

NRSV: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Notice how this works: in the KJV, after God created the heaven and the earth, there was “without form, and void” while in the NRSV God’s creation turned things from formlessness and voidness into created order. The KJV, in some sense, has a problem setting up the possibility of a two-stage creation: first matter, then order out of matter. The NRSV’s translation could well imply the same, but perhaps not. Both translations are legit.

We talk about creation and science often on this blog, mostly through the posts of RJS (who is a professional scientist), but creation is not just a debate. It is an affirmation about God, that God is Life and that God is responsible for creation. Do you see any prospects for a resolution among Christians of a traditional bent to see legitimacy in theistic evolution or evolutionary creation or creationary evolution? Or is this a make or break issue?

All of this is discussed in Ronald Heine, Classical Christian Doctrine, because the first lines of the Nicene Creed says:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth, 
of all that is, seen and unseen.

At the time of Jesus and the apostle Paul, and a set of ideas still central by the end of 2d Century AD, there were two basic views: the Platonic view was that God “created” out of pre-existing materials while the Aristotelian view was that matter existed eternally.

Christians differed, too. Justin Martyr was like Plato in thinking God created out of existing materials while Tertullian argued — and his view captured the church — that God created out of nothing (ex nihilo). Tatian said God created matter and then out of matter created the order we see.

The fundamental issue comes down to the doctrine of God: if God alone is the origin of life, matter depends on and comes from God, and therefore the Aristotelian and pre-existing theories are defined off the map. If God alone is Life and if God is creator, then at some point in time matter did not exist and came to exist. Thus, creation is ex nihilo in orthodox thinking.

Of course, this says absolutely nothing about how God chose to create. A creationary evolution that affirms all comes from God coheres with orthodoxy as much as the creationist’s view.