Confessions of an Evolving Baptist

Confessions of an Evolving Baptist

http://theamericanjesus.net/?p=11179

by Nathan Hale

November 27, 2013

I will never forget the shock and confusion in my wife’s voice when I told her that I believed in evolution. I wasn’t ready to come out of the closet quite yet, but secret conversations about my belief in evolution were on the verge of being exposed and I knew I had to confess before she found out from someone else.

I could tell implications of such a statement passed like a whirlwind through her mind. She knew I had been struggling with the church and my faith for quite some time – but this?

I had not talked to her about it before. I was embarrassed and scared. How did I explain that it took embracing evolution before I found a faith that was real and meaningful?

* * *

I’m not interested in debating the specifics on why I’ve come to believe in evolution. I’m happy to talk about it, but it’s really not that important actually. The more important question is how I found my footing in the aftermath.

A year of honest inquiry left me with an overwhelming certainty about evolution and an overwhelming uncertainty about my faith. I was miserable. Everything I thought I knew was turned upside down.

I suddenly found myself dangling on the edge of the cliff holding on with one hand that was slipping. I could feel the crossroad quickly approaching – do I choose science or my faith?

Many Christians would point to my example as evidence of the damaging influence of secular science on the faith of believers. I don’t think so – at all.

In the midst of the chaos I stopped and asked myself a simple question – who said I had to choose and why?

That simple question sent me on a quest to understand the relationships between science and religion. I found myself wandering around in this magical place full of undiscovered treasures – the library. Four racks of books all devoted to various aspects of the larger dialogue between science and religion. Treasures left sitting on the racks untouched for 30-40 years.

I was surprised at some things I learned but it didn’t take long to uncover one truth – I do not have to choose.

I’ve been presented with (or perhaps internalized) a false dichotomy.

There has always been some level of tension. In the past however, this tension served to advance dialogue and promote thinking among both scientists and theologians.

What surprised me the most was learning the conflict between these seemingly opposing worldviews is a relatively recent one – the unholy progeny of the more recent culture war between Atheists and Christians.

Evolution has become a philosophical sword wielded by Atheists to strike at the heart of Christian truth claims. Christians on the other hand, have launched a counter offensive by emphasizing a literal reading of the scripture and developing their own scientific explanations for the biblical accounts of creation.

A long, complex, and mutually beneficial dialogue between science and religion reduced to an overly simplistic philosophical choice – a false dichotomy perpetuated.

I’m not buying it.

Being confronted with evolution may have been the catalyst for asking the difficult questions, but the real problem for me was not evolution – it was biblical literalism.

It was the attempts to read science back into the Bible and the ultimatum of believing the Bible is either entirely true or entirely false. That’s a damaging position I contend and has created as many Atheists/Agnostics as it has converts.

I have hurt some feelings with this statement in the past but I think my comments are largely misunderstood.

I’m not attempting to cast doubt on the authority of scripture – it’s simply a plea to better understand the complexity and richness of the text.

I believe the Bible is truth in what is teaches and is the primary authority for guiding the Christian life. In that sense I believe scripture is inerrant.

At the same time I also appreciate the complexity and origins of the text. The Bible is a complex library of history, law, poetry, wisdom, gospel, epistles, and apocalyptic literature – but it was written in a time, place, culture, and language that is not ours.

Those realities should be considered when reading the text.

Does that make it less relevant? No.

To appreciate the complexities of the text is not an insult to God or the Bible – quite the contrary. For me it fosters a deeper desire to understand and appreciate both.

* * *

I’ve come to realize there is another path on the crossroads of having to choose between science and faith. The path is less traveled and overgrown. It’s a path full of briars and thistles growing outward from the two more clear paths. It’s a difficult path to pass but an important one. A path that attempts to reconcile these seemingly opposing worldviews – the path I had to travel.

Reconciling evolution with my faith and gaining a better understanding of the Bible allowed me to grab the cliff’s edge with my second hand and pull myself to the top.

For reasons most will never understand that’s what it took for me to find a real, meaningful faith.

For the most part I’ve been content to keep my journey to myself. However, I recently had a moment of clarity during a very spirit filled communion service.

Even by conservative standards – the issue is not central to salvation.

It certainly poses some challenges and requires a thorough reading of the scriptures and some deep thought. But shouldn’t we be doing that anyway?

Why then, are we continually perpetuating the notion of having to choose between science and religion? Why is the utterance of the “E” word in Christian circles immediately met with condemnation and judgment? Why am I scared and embarrassed to talk openly about it?

I’ve come to realize that if I’m not open about my journey then I’m perpetuating a problem that almost caused me to let go of the cliff’s edge – and for no good reason.

Nathan is the husband to a beautiful wife, father to three wonderful children, researcher, teacher, and occasional writer/blogger. He can be found on Twitter at @evolvingbaptist.

Malcolm Gladwell - "David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants" in the Power of the Spirit

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/books/how-i-rediscovered-faith

Relevant Magazine

January/February 2014

When I was writing my book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, I went to see a woman in Winnipeg by the name of Wilma Derksen.

Thirty years before, her teenage daughter, Candace, had disappeared on her way home from school. The city had launched the largest manhunt in its history, and after a week, Candace’s body was found in a hut a quarter of a mile from the Derksen’s house. Her hands and feet had been bound.

Wilma and her husband Cliff were called in to the local police station and told the news. Candace’s funeral was the next day, followed by a news conference. Virtually every news outlet in the province was there because Candace’s disappearance had gripped the city.

“How do you feel about whoever did this to Candace?” a reporter asked the Derksens.

“We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives,” Cliff said.

Wilma went next. “Our main concern was to find Candace. We’ve found her.” She went on: “I can’t say at this point I forgive this person,” but the stress was on the phrase at this point. “We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to.”

Vulnerability and Power

I wanted to know where the Derksens found the strength to say those things. A sexual predator had kidnapped and murdered their daughter, and Cliff Derksen could talk about sharing his love with the killer and Wilma could stand up and say, “We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to.” Where do two people find the power to forgive in a moment like that?

That seemed like a relevant question to ask in a book called David and Goliath. The moral of the Biblical account of the duel between David and Goliath, after all, is that our preconceptions about where power and strength reside are false.

Goliath seemed formidable. But there are all kinds of hints in the biblical text that he was, in fact, not everything he seemed. Why did he need to be escorted to the valley floor by an attendant? Why did it take him so long to clue into the fact that David was clearly not intending to fight him with swords? There is even speculation among medical experts that Goliath may have been suffering from a condition called acromegaly—a disease that causes abnormal growth but also often has the side effect of restricted sight.

What if Goliath had to be led to the valley floor and took so long to respond to David because he could only see a few feet in front of him? What if the very thing that made him appear so large and formidable, in other words, was also the cause of his greatest vulnerability?

For the first year of my research, I collected examples of these kinds of paradoxes—where our intuitions about what an advantage or a disadvantage are turn out to be upside down. Why are so many successful entrepreneurs dyslexic? Why did so many American presidents and British prime ministers lose a parent in childhood? Is it possible that some of the things we hold dear in education—like small classes and prestigious schools—can do as much harm as good? I read studies and talked to social scientists and buried myself in the library and thought I knew the kind of book I wanted to write.

Then I met Wilma Derksen.

Weapons of the Spirit

The Derksens live in a small bungalow in a modest neighborhood not far from downtown Winnipeg. Wilma Derksen and I sat in her backyard. I think some part of me expected her to be saintly or heroic. She was neither. She spoke simply and quietly. She was a Mennonite, she explained. Her family, like many Mennonites, had come from Russia, where those of their faith had suffered terrible persecution before fleeing to Canada. And the Mennonite response to persecution was to take Jesus’ instructions on forgiveness seriously.

“The whole Mennonite philosophy is that we forgive and we move on,” she said. It had not always been easy. It took more than 20 years for the police in Winnipeg to track down Candace’s killer. In the beginning, Wilma’s husband, Cliff, had been considered by some in the police force as a suspect. The weight of that suspicion fell heavily on the Derksens. Wilma told me she had wrestled with her anger and desire for retribution. They weren’t heroes or saints. But something in their tradition and faith made it possible for the Derksens to do something heroic and saintly.

I never plan out my books in advance. I start in the middle and try and muddle my way from there. When I met Wilma Derksen, I finally understood what I was really getting at, in all the social science I had been reading and in the stories I was telling of dyslexia and entrepreneurs and education. I was interested—to borrow that marvelous phrase from Pierre Sauvage—in the “weapons of the spirit”—the peculiar and inexplicable power that comes from within.

When I told a friend of mine about my visit to the Derksens, he sent me a quotation from 1 Samuel 16:7. It so perfectly captured what I realized David and Goliath was about that it is now on the first page of the book: “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Le Chambon

The final chapter of David and Goliath is about what happened in the small town of Le Chambon during the Second World War. Final chapters are crucial: they frame the experience of reading the book. I put the Le Chambon story at the end because it deals with the great puzzle of the weapons of the spirit—which is why we find it so hard to see them.

I WAS INTERESTED IN THE “WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT” - 

THE PECULIAR AND INEXPLICABLE POWER THAT COMES FROM WITHIN.

Le Chambon is in an area of France called the Vivarais Plateau—a remote and mountainous region near the Italian and Swiss borders. For many centuries, the area has been home to dissident Protestant groups, principally the Huguenots, and during the Nazi occupation of France, Le Chambon became a very open and central pocket of resistance.

The local Huguenot pastor was a man named André Trocmé. On the Sunday after France fell to the Germans, Trocmé preached a sermon in which he said that if the Germans made the townsfolk of Le Chambon do anything they considered contrary to the Gospel, the town wasn’t going to go along. So the schoolchildren of Le Chambon refused to give the fascist salute each morning, as the new government had decreed they must. The occupation rulers required teachers to sign an oath of loyalty to the state, but Trocmé ran the school in Le Chambon and instructed his staff not to do it.

Before long, Jewish refugees—on the run from the Nazis—heard of Le Chambon and began to show up looking for help. Trocmé and the townsfolk took them in, fed them, hid them and spirited them across borders—in open defiance of Nazi law. Once, when a high government official came to town, a group of students actually presented him with a letter that stated plainly and honestly the town’s opposition to the anti-Jewish policies of the occupation.

“We feel obliged to tell you that there are among us a certain number of Jews,” the letter stated. “But, we make no distinction between Jews and non-Jews. It is contrary to the Gospel teaching. If our comrades, whose only fault is to be born in another religion, received the order to let themselves be deported or even examined, they would disobey the order received, and we would try to hide them as best we could.”

“Nobody Thought of That”

Where did the people of Le Chambon find the strength to defy the Nazis? The same place the Derksens found the strength to forgive. They were armed with the weapons of the spirit. For over 100 years, in the 17th and 18th centuries, they had been ruthlessly persecuted by the state. Huguenot pastors had been hanged and tortured, their wives sent to prison and their children taken from them. They had learned how to hide in the forests and escape to Switzerland and conduct their services in secrecy. They had learned how to stick together.

They saw just about the worst kind of persecution that anyone can see. And what did they discover? That the strength granted to them by their faith in God gave them the power to stand up to the soldiers and guns and laws of the state. In one of the many books written about Le Chambon, there is an extraordinary line from André Trocmé’s wife, Magda. When the first refugee appeared at her door, in the bleakest part of the war during the long winter of 1941, Magda Trocmé said it never occurred to her to say no: “I did not know that it would be dangerous. Nobody thought of that.”

Nobody thought of that. It never occurred to her or anyone else in Le Chambon that they were at any disadvantage in a battle with the Nazi Army.

But here is the puzzle: The Huguenots of Le Chambon were not the only committed Christians in France in 1941. There were millions of committed believers in France in those years. They believed in God just as the people of Le Chambon did. So why did so few Christians follow the lead of the people in Le Chambon? The way that story is often told, the people of Le Chambon are made out to be heroic figures. But they were no more heroic than the Derksens. They were simply people whose experience had taught them where true power lies.

The other Christians of France were not so fortunate. They made the mistake that so many of us make. They estimated the dangers of action by looking on outward appearances—when they needed to look on the heart. If they had, how many other French Jews might have been saved from the Holocaust?

Seeing God’s Power

I was raised in a Christian home in Southwestern Ontario. My parents took time each morning to read the Bible and pray. Both my brothers are devout. My sister-in-law is a Mennonite pastor. I have had a different experience from the rest of my family. I was the only one to move away from Canada. And I have been the only one to move away from the Church.

I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN GOD.

I HAVE GRASPED THE LOGIC OF CHRISTIAN FAITH.

WHAT I HAVE HAD A HARD TIME SEEING IS GOD’S POWER.

I attended Washington Community Fellowship when I lived in Washington D.C. But once I moved to New York, I stopped attending any kind of religious fellowship. I have often wondered why it happened that way: Why had I wandered off the path taken by the rest of my family?

What I understand now is that I was one of those people who did not appreciate the weapons of the spirit. I have always been someone attracted to the quantifiable and the physical. I hate to admit it. But I don’t think I would have been able to do what the Huguenots did in Le Chambon. I would have counted up the number of soldiers and guns on each side and concluded it was too dangerous. I have always believed in God. I have grasped the logic of Christian faith. What I have had a hard time seeing is God’s power.

I put that sentence in the past tense because something happened to me when I sat in Wilma Derksen’s garden. It is one thing to read in a history book about people empowered by their faith. But it is quite another to meet an otherwise very ordinary person, in the backyard of a very ordinary house, who has managed to do something utterly extraordinary.

Their daughter was murdered. And the first thing the Derksens did was to stand up at the press conference and talk about the path to forgiveness. “We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives.”

Maybe we have difficulty seeing the weapons of the spirit because we don’t know where to look, or because we are distracted by the louder claims of material advantage. But I’ve seen them now, and I will never be the same.

---

Wikipedia Bio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell

Malcolm T. Gladwell, CM (born September 3, 1963) is an English-Canadian journalist, bestselling author, and speaker.[1] He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He has written five books, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), Outliers: The Story of Success (2008), What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (2009), a collection of his journalism, and David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (2013). All five books were on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Gladwell's books and articles often deal with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences and make frequent and extended use of academic work, particularly in the areas of sociology,psychology, and social psychology. Gladwell was appointed to the Order of Canada on June 30, 2011.[2]

Christopher H. Evans - American Liberalism Isn't What You Think It Is

Christopher Evans' book, Liberalism without Illusions, discusses the affective movement of Christian liberalism upon the Orthodox Church, writing of its more positive religious impact in an historical context across a broader, dissimilar spectrum of lives and cultures incapable of remaining stagnant in time and space as many may think or wish. As such, a liberalism that can cause older, more popular traditions to rethink themselves is a good thing, and one that may create contemporary relevancy in the Gospel witness of Jesus to men and society in need of new ways of hearing the Gospel.

For myself, I regard the wider word "liberalism" as a more helpful word filled with illuminating tendencies evoking human compassion, generosity, greater self-reflection and awareness, and tolerance for other societies and cultures dis-similar from myself. My older tradition would castigate the term and banish all who deem it constructive as unlike themselves and worthy of condemnation. To the mature in Christ, this way of thinking and behaving cannot accede with the dictates and anti-intellectual posturings by this more conservative segment of Christianity. It would be wrong to do so and unhelpful in the study of God's Word. Placing authority in the hands of men and not in the hands of Almighty God through discernment, prayer, contemplation, historical reflection, scientific discovery, and affective scholarship. I give two-thumbs up for Evans' newest book discussing regenerative roots of American liberalism.

R.E. Slater

January 13, 2013

Amazon Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 2010

By the 1930s most mainline Protestant traditions promulgated the key tenets of liberalism, especially an embrace of modern intellectual theory along with theological and religious pluralism. In Liberalism without Illusions, Christopher Evans critiques his own tradition, focusing in particular on why so many Americans today want to distance themselves from this rich and vibrant heritage. In a time when attitudes about “liberal” vs. “conservative” theology have become the focus of the culture wars, he provides a constructive discussion of how liberalism might move forward into the twenty-first century, which, he argues, is indispensable to the future of American Christianity itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly - Starred Review. Evans (The Kingdom Is Always but Coming), a professor of church history at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, makes no pretensions about the scope of his work. This book does not include a comprehensive view or extensive history of liberal theology-that can be found elsewhere, and in much larger tomes. Instead, he sets out to reclaim and rejuvenate this misunderstood, formerly vibrant, and ostensibly weakening movement in American Christianity. To rejuvenate any school of thought, that school must be understood, and here Evans is at his finest. He begins by immediately confronting the pejorative meaning the "culture wars" have attached to the word "liberal" and follows by proposing a new foundation on which to build a more historical, rather than hyped, understanding of liberal Christianity. Finally, Evans transcends the limits of stereotypical "ivory tower history" by offering more than just analysis. He offers solutions. The liberal Christian movement in America is not dead, he concludes, and history shows how to prevent it from dying. Anyone interested in 20th- and 21st-century American Christianity needs to read and consider the suggestions Evans has to offer.

Reviews

A strong argument for the appeal and relevance of a liberal theology. Evans brings the liberal and evangelical stories into a compelling conversation, making a case for a liberal theology that reclaims its evangelical roots and its place in the life and witness of the church. - Gary Dorrien, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, and Professor of Religion, Columbia University.

Evans transcends the limits of stereotypical "ivory tower history" by offering more than just analysis. He offers solutions.... Anyone interested in 20th- and 21st-century American Christianity needs to read and consider the suggestions Evans has to offer. - Publisher's Weekly, 1/26/2010 

Evans is an expert guide for the liberal Protestant tradition, showing us the lost treasure and nuggets of power and wisdom that can and should be harvested. This book is an antidote against those who separate piety and social action, levying a powerful argument that any adequate theology enables church leaders to inspire its members to love justice, seek mercy, and walk humbly in service to the world. It is a prophetic call and important reminder of the dangerous good news of an applied gospel waiting to be lived. - James K. Wellman Jr., author of Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest.

Product Details

Print Length: 234 pages 

Publisher: Baylor University Press (January 12, 2010) 

Liberal = Evangelical and Modern

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/01/10/liberal-evangelical-and-modern/

by Scot McKnight

Jan 10, 2014

Comments

What is liberal theology? When did it start? Who are its major thinkers? Let’s remind ourselves once more how Christopher Evans, in his Liberalism without Illusions, defines it:

Theological liberalism is a historical movement born in the nineteenth century that supports critical intellectual engagement with both Christian traditions and contemporary intellectual resources. As opposed to more traditional forms of Christian theology, liberalism has been characterized by an affirmation of personal and collective experience, systemic social analysis, and open theological inquiry (6).

Notice what’s at work here: a creative synthesis of the Christian tradition (evangelical) and modernism. The result focuses on both personal and collective experience, a clear emphasis on systemics, and a general disposition of opennness. In chps 2 and 3 Evans sketches the dominating voices of liberalism, and it is a sketch to which I will at times turn again.

Human reason matters, and here he dips into both Kant and Hegel, and he rightly (I think) sees the impact of Hegel on liberalism because of his more immanent approach to divine activity in history. God can be known through reason and in historical processes, and this all leads him to speak of the undeniable significance of Schleiermacher for understanding liberalism.

Now briefly:

1. American liberalism emerged out of New England Calvinism.

2. A leading influence can be seen in Charles Sheldon’s famous “What would Jesus do?” question and life. Christology was refashioned in exemplary terms and also in anti-Trinitarian ways with Unitarians (William Ellery Channing’s voice). Then comes Horace Bushnell and “new theology.” He saw Christianity as a historical religion and was one who helped create a more positive sense of human goodness (Christian nurture flowed from this) and he pushed for a sacrifice of his life on the part of Jesus against typical penal substitutionary theories.

3. The pulpiteers included Henry Ward Beecher (anti-slavery) and David Swing (4th Pres Chicago), and it was Swing who perhaps best articulated emerging liberal theology: OT criticism was embraced, as was Darwinian thinking, and cultural conditioned-ness.

4. Kingdom theology, and this means socialistic Christianity, or the application of Jesus’ compassion and justice to national and global problems.  Here he looks at Shailer Mathews.

5. All leading to his specialty: Walter Rauschenbusch and the social gospel and social Christianity. Salvation becomes more robust and the focus is on social problems with the church taking the initiative in justice issues. The social gospel gave important ideas to liberation theologies. He looks, too, at Washington Gladden and Howard Thurman. The social gospel is the most enduring legacy of Protestant liberalism and is in my view here to stay. It can tie hands with Kuyperian thinking to focus the energies of Christians on the public sector, on politics, and on social activism — though the two orientations (social gospel and Kuyperian thinking are hardly the same).

The arena of God’s work was history and society, Jesus’ moral vision and his humanity were central, and they tended to diminish theological centralities of orthodoxy as well as the church. This led in part to therapeutic emphases in the gospel as well as to pastoral care and prophetic theology. Social justice was combined with pastoral care for the folks in their local church (e.g., Ernest Fremont Tittle, from Evanston). It garnered interest in the ecumenical movement… but listen to this observation Evans summarizes from Sidney Mead: “the social gospel was a movement that did not lead to the creation of any new churches, and was largely consigned to the corridors of power within preexistent Protestant denominations” (76).

And it’s focus, even obsession, with economic concerns made it blind often to other concerns, like race and gender equalities.

D. Oiver Herbel - "Turning to Tradition": Why American Evangelicals Turn to Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism

Evangelicals Turning to Eastern Orthodoxy

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/01/13/evangelicals-turning-to-eastern-orthodoxy/

by Scot McKnight

Jan 13, 2014

Comments

It can shock the socks off some ordinary evangelicals when they hear that one of their children or someone they know well decides to jump ship to become Eastern Orthodox. (The same goes for evangelicals who turn to Roman Catholicism, and I have written about this in Finding Faith, Losing Faith, along with Hauna Ondrey.) But it happens — sometimes good Biola kids go Eastern, and good Wheaton kids go Catholic. The bigger fact, of course, is that far more Easterns and Catholics become evangelicals than the reverse (but that’s another story, and that’s in Finding Faith, Losing Faith too).

What happens when someone turns Eastern Orthodox? In Turning to Tradition: Converts and the Making of an American Orthodox Church, D. Oliver Herbel proposes what I think is both a convincing theory but one that could be sharpened. In his book, Herbel examines four paradigmatic converts to Eastern Orthodoxy, only one name will be known to many readers of this blog. The four are St. Alexis Toth, Fr. Raphael Morgan — both of whose stories take us back a century or more — and then Fr. Moses Berry, in Missouri, and the recently deceased Peter Gillquist.

The known figure is Gillquist, who was a leader in Campus Crusade, went on a mission to find the NT church, thought he and others had found it in a kind of Americanized, evangelicalized, Gillquist-ized version of Orthodoxy, then they got some recognition and eventually they moved all the way into the Eastern Orthodox Church. The stories of Toth, Morgan and Berry were just not that interesting to me, though Herbel’s research is careful and judicious. Gillquist’s story, again carefully studied, reveals too much authoritarianism but he and his numerous companions seemed to have submitted more than adequately in the end to the Eastern leaders.

Here is the convincing and compelling thesis of Herbel: American religion fosters individuality, creativity, and newness. Hence, the splits of splits of splits in American denominational bodies. At the heart of many of these splits is restorationism, the attempt to get back to the original way of doing things in the New Testament era.

In addition, at the heart of American religion is an incurable anti-tradition tradition. That is, we Americans by and large oppose a religion that is too old and ancient. We like the new. Our “tradition” is anti-tradition.

So, Herbel now: the stories he focuses on (Toth, Morgan, Berry, Gillquist) are examples of (1) the spirit of restorationism, (2) caught up in the all-too-American anti-traditionalism, which (3) manifests itself in being anti-traditional by being traditional (Eastern Orthodoxy then appeals to both the anti-tradition of American newness while moving into a tradition that is old). He overuses the word “irony” here but it’s a fair and accurate use.

So, let me put this together again: these converts search for the original-est NT church by riding the American encouragement to be anti-traditional. Yet, their restoration spirit encounters the Great Tradition of the Orthodox church as the best form of restoring the NT church so they end up being anti-traditional by being un-Americanly traditional. Clever, and right?

I wish Herbel had compared why the restorationism of the evangelical converts is not on par with the traditionalism of the Orthodox when their theological orientation is more or less the same (and frankly the evangelical-rooted Orthodox converts are some of the best witnesses today for Orthodoxy). The tension appears to be over what one thinks is restoration while the others see it as a millennia long living tradition — rather than (just?) the original faith.

Herbel’s work lacked nuanced analysis of the crises at work in the conversion of his subjects. Rambo and I have both explored this in our books (mine in both Turning to Jesus and in Finding Faith, Losing Faith) while Herbel stuck with little more than general (if accurate) orientations. There are a variety of crises at work when one converts and these could have been explored.

Finally, this book, especially the endnotes, was riddled with typos. I found enough that I got irritated and stopped marking them. OUP ought to be embarrassed with its copyeditors.

- Scott

* * * * * * * * 

A short note here.

To Herbel and McKnight's observations I would like to add my own observation that for some Evangelicals, having become exasperated with the state of affairs of evangelicalism, may also turn to "safe" groups that are perceived as remaining in the older Protestant tradition but differ by degree by practice or worship. Hence, groups like the neo-Anabaptists, or even re-invigorated mainline denominational churches such as the UMC United Methodists, would serve as examples of evangelicals moving left of right (but not too far left) while remaining snug within Protestantism's older traditions. However, I would not include Christian groups such as the Charismatic, Emergent, or non-denominational Bible-fellowships, in this category as they are simply variants of a wider, older, Evangelical tradition, which some may transition into, or out of, for one reason or another over their lifetimes.

R.E. Slater

January 13, 2013

4 Epistemological Approaches to God

4 Attempts at Approaching God

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2014/01/08/4-attempts-at-approaching-god/

by Bo Sanders

January 8, 2014

Comments

Over Christmas my brother-in-law, who is a fellow pastor, wanted to have a conversation about approaches to God – specifically as it related to epistemology.

Although we both went to the same Bible college more then 20 years ago, our paths have headed in different directions. Our hope was to compare notes and see where some common ground might be found for future conversations about ministry and christian spirituality.

I thought it would be fun to throw out my initial schematic here and ask for some help in refining / overhauling it. I started with 4 basic historic approaches and then added a layer where each of the 4 approaches had 2 directions. Each approach has the possibility of starting with the notion of ‘God’ and then working out to the concept or starting with the concept and working toward the notion of God.

ETHICS

Ethics has been a popular approach in the past. It is not as popular after the events of the 20th century (WWII, global pluralism and post-modern theory being 3 reasons why).

The problem here seems to be that starting with ‘God’ does not inherently result in clear ethics. In fact, those who have attempted to take the ethics approach often run into the problem that the two don’t necessarily equate. It is obvious that those who believe in ‘God’ are not [any] more ethical than those who don’t believe in that same God or any God for that matter.

To make matters worse, starting with ethics (the outside-in direction) has a tough time getting all the way to ‘God’ by trying to equate ethics with evidence that there is a God. While you can see that the ethics and belief in God may have some overlap, it is not the most efficient of effective approach and thus it has fallen out of favor.

REVELATION

Revelation is a tried-and-true approach historically. Protestants of almost every stripe love this approach. From fundamentalist, to thoughtful Barthians, and even the Radical Orthodox crowd feast on a steady diet of the revelation approach.

That God reveals God’s-self in creation, in history, in scripture and in experience, is a staple of the Christian religion.

The problem is that there is often a gap. If you start with what is revealed you might not make it all the way to God… and likewise, if you start with God it can be tough to make it all the way out to what is revealed.

The problems come in things like Biblical (historic) criticism, modern science and the pesky pluralism of the post-colonial era.

REDUCTION

Reductive approaches are perhaps the Most problematic. We are haunted in late modernity by this shadow of foundationalism. As we are all aware, the scientific reductionism of the New Atheists is just the flip-side of the coin from fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell. If you start out there, you never make it in to God. If you start with God, you never make it all the way out there.

This approach has left us with a nasty enlightenment hangover and many (if not most) people are weary of the contentious and often combative result of this attempt of making your way in the world.

LINGUISTICS

Linguistic approaches (I include the hermeneutical crowd in this) seem to me the most promising in the 21st century. The problem, however, is that they can often be so different from classic or historic approaches that the uninitiated have a difficult time even recognizing them as the same Christianity one is trying to engage.

Take for instance the much debated sentences of Jack Caputo. What does it even mean that God does not exist but that God insists? Is God just a concept of our highest good? And how does one fend off the Feuerbach critique that religion is nothing more than a human projection by talking about ‘language games’?

Does God ontologically exist or not? Is the linguistic approach just a fancy way of skirting the question of metaphysics?

Most importantly, for the epistemology question that we were originally attempting to get setup, how do you even move forward if linguistics / hermeneutics are your preferred entry point?

So [these are] my “4 Approaches – 2 Directions” schematic. It [may] lead to a fruitful conversation even while it clearly needs some adjustments.

I would welcome your thoughts, questions, concerns, revisions, suggestions and innovations.

p.s. I’m going to start linking to the Kindle version of Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms at the bottom every post. It is only $5 and it is so [very] helpful to new readers of this blog.

- Bo

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SYNOPSIS
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Epistemology (Knowledge of Truth):

• Ethics - Truth  is what I  do 
• Revelation - Truth is what God claims as truth
• Reductive - Truth is what I claim as truth (or, what people have historically attributed to God)
• Linguistic - Truth is interpretive, and I have no private claim to God's truth.

*It should be noted that when speaking of bare intellectual apprehension of God is not enough (sic, God is not an insect to be studied but to be apprehended). That this apprehension must approach our whole being and way of life, and not simply the head alone.

Hence, there must also be room for contemplative practice (worship, prayer, fellowship, etc) or some kind of direct "experience" of the Divine (interpersonally or in community with others) in some way or fashion. Perhaps this falls more into the areas of revelation or reduction (sic, receiving the "word of God") - whether falsely, or truly, can only be evaluated in hindsight by error and omission, ofttimes far removed from the actual occasion of  the revelatory (or inspired) events when reviewing the resulting practice, attitude, or doctrines of the church and its people.

Essentially this affective process speaks to the idea of opening one's heart up to God and others (or within to ourselves, or to God's creation). This divine-human union may also be described as a transformational (or conformational) process, and is spoken of many times in the Bible (described popularly as "divinization" in Christian doctrine, or as "theosis" within the Eastern Orthodox tradition).

In summary, intellectual apprehension of God alone remains barren without the divine touch of God in one's life and in some way showing by attitude or action, word or deed, thought or attitude.

R.E. Slater

January 13, 2013

Thomas Jay Oord - Making Sense of Love & Evil, Chance & Purpose

Making Sense of Love & Evil, Chance & Purpose

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/making_sense_of_love_and_evil_chance_and_purpose/

by Thomas Jay Oord

January 6, 2013

I'm beginning a new book project! Thanks to a generous grant from the randomness and divine providence project, I'm offering a proposal for how we might best believe God acts providentially in our world.

Almost all of us want to make sense out of life. Most of our attempts to make sense of things address immediate questions: Why did she look at me? Why is it so cold? Why can’t my team win a championship? Why do I feel hungry? Why can’t I relax? What’s for dinner? Etc.

Most of us ask the big questions of life too. These questions and their answers make up the heart of the world’s various religions, the impetus for scientific endeavors, and the domain of philosophy. Big questions and our attempts to answer them are a big deal! The disciplines of theology, science, and philosophy explore both the minute particularities and the big picture in their attempts to make sense of reality.

Those of us who believe in God – and I am one – think fully adequate answers to the big questions of life involve God. This does not mean that science, philosophy, the humanities, arts, or other disciplines cannot contribute to our quest to answer well life’s biggest questions. Fully adequate answers involve them too.

The discipline of theology should not play the trump card in attempts to understand reality better. But if God’s presence and influence has the kind of far-reaching effects most believers like me think, theology cannot be set aside in discussions about the meaning of life.

And what an amazing life it seems to be!

Existence as we know it is abounding in information, values, mystery, and more. We experience love, joy, and happiness, along with evil, pain, and sadness. We act purposefully and intentionally to reach our goals, but we encounter randomness, chance, and luck as well. We seem to act freely much of our lives, but circumstances, opportunities, bodies, and environments limit our freedom. At one moment we may be in awe of the goodness and beauty of our lives, while in the next moment we get discouraged by the horror and ugliness we encounter. And most of the time, our lives are made up of the mundane, usual, and routine.

Making sense of life – in light of such wide-ranging diversity – is a daunting task. But it is a task we inevitably take up. In more or less sophisticated ways, we attempt to figure out how things work and what makes sense.  All of us are metaphysicians, in the broad sense.

This book explores the big picture with a special emphasis upon the randomness and evil we encounter in life. This does not mean that purpose, beauty, goodness, and love are ignored. They will not be. But in these pages I offer a theological vision of reality that takes seriously both purposiveness and randomness, both good and evil, both love and sin.

Those who believe in God have for millennia wrestled with what we often call the problem of evil question: "Why doesn’t a good and powerful God prevent genuinely evil events?"

In recent centuries, a different but related question has gained prominence: "How can God act providentially if we live amongst randomness and chance?"

In my book, I will propose a theologically, scientifically, and philosophically informed answer to these questions. In doing so, I face directly the realities of life, in their wide-ranging diversity.

I'm looking forward to this adventure!

Christianity 21 - A Celebration of Church

God Has Died... And He Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2014/01/10/god-has-died-and-he-has-a-wonderful-plan-for-your-life/

by Tony Jones

January 10, 2014

Comments

Engaging great content at Christianity21. (Courtney Perry)

I’m at Christianity21 this week, a gathering produced by Doug Pagitt, Sarah Cunningham, and Your Favorite Blogger. We’re one day in, and it’s been awesome. One of the great things about this event is that there’s no theme, and there are 21 gifted speakers, so we never really know what magic will happen in the chemistry between the talks.

They don’t all agree, but they do tend to dovetail with one another. Yesterday, Jonathan Merritt led off the opening session with a challenge to follow God’s call and listen to the unlikely ways that God speaks. Paul Raushenbush went next with a call for conservatives and liberals to rediscover the social gospel. Noel Castellanos told us five things we can do to engage with people and the gospel. And Nadia Bolz-Weber told us ten things she’s learned about being a pastor and church planter.

In the next session, Kent Dobson gave an amazing reflection on the absence of God, Sarah Lefton challenged us to engage Christians in biblical literacy in the way that she has challenged Jews, Mike Foster reminded us how everyone needs to be loved, and Romal Tune told us that the church needs to compete with gangs for the youth of LA.

In between, we had a couple dozen 7-minute talks by attendees from around the country. Today more talks. And tomorrow, even more, including my call to recover apocalyptic language for the church. Check back here for updates.

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The JoPa Group

Christianity21 is a ground-breaking gathering of leaders who want to fashion

the future of the Christian faith. 21 Talks, 21 Big Ideas, 21 Minutes Each.

Plus, over forty 7-21 Talks by amazing people just like you.

Join us in Denver, Colorado, January 9-11.

FAQS

Q: Are all the presenters for Christianity 21 women?

A: No. One of the first years, we did present an all women roster, which was a great success. But this year, both male and female presenters will join us.

Q: Does Christianity 21 have specific themes? Will everyone be presenting on the same topic?

A: No. We have presented Christianity 21 as a theme-specific event in the past, but have come to appreciate the flexibility and diversity produced when influencers are given free reign to share their biggest and best ideas, regardless of subject. We’re asking presenters to share one big idea this year, which will result in 21 big ideas.

Q: Are there opportunities to share ideas too?

A: Yes, you can go here to suggest yourself or someone else as a presenter or discussion leader.

We will be accepting suggestions until October 1st with a goal of responding with the team’s selections by October 15th. We appreciate your patience until then.

Q: Can I make changes to my tickets?

A: We try to be flexible so some changes are possible. For example, up until 7 days prior to the event, you can transfer your registration to another person, or you can bank your registration fee for a future JoPa Group event. In order to keep all of our events and conferences affordable, The JoPa Group works efficiently. We have a small staff, and we try to keep overhead (like credit card transaction fees) to a minimum. For that reason, we cannot offer refunds for canceled registrations.

History

Birthed in 2009, Christianity21 invites attenders to live a 21st century Christianity with 21 speakers who deliver 21 big ideas in 21 minutes each.

It’s difficult to describe the atmosphere that is created when energized people from across the Christian spectrum come together to imagine a healthier, better faith for the future. But if you didn’t have the chance to join us for the original event, we hope this highlights video produced by Don Heatley will help you get a taste of what happens in this sort of “come together” event.

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21 Voices…Plus Yours.

We work hard to fill the stage with some of the sharpest and most unique voices of the Christian faith.  But this event isn’t just about their voices. It’s about yours as well.

Whether it’s sharing ideas with those seated in your row, around the dinner table, or in your social networks, there are plenty of ways to share your perspective on the content presented. If you’re comfortable facilitating a small group discussion on a favorite topic or getting up in front of people to present a good idea of your own, please feel free to submit yourself as a possible discussion leader or presenter. We’re trying to make room for as many voices as possible!

2014 Presenters

http://thejopagroup.com/

... for information on coming events,
retreats, conferences, and workshops
go to this link here.