Open Theism for Dummies, Parts 1-2

 

 

Guest Post: Open Theism for Dummies – Part One – What is the Open View of God?

http://jeffkclarke.com/2012/08/29/guest-post-open-theism-for-dummies-part-one/

 

by Tom Belt, guest post

August 29, 2012

 

I’m going to risk a very brief explanation of open theism in laymen’s terms. The advantage of a brief explanation is that it requires us to find the core, defining claim of the open view in contrast to positions that often get attributed to it but which aren’t essential per se. In this post I’d like to focus on the core, defining claim of open theism and in the next discuss three supporting convictions that all open theists hold to. Now, the disadvantage of using popular lay terms is that they tend to be imprecise while philosophical terms can be extremely precise, and with brief explanations we need precision. So we’ll have to make use of just a couple technical terms, but they’re easily understood along the way.

PART 1

 

The defining claim of open theism states that the future is epistemically open for God so far as it is in fact causally open; and epistemically closed for God so far as it is in fact causally closed. Now, that’s a mouthful, so let’s take it a step at a time. Some things about the future are presently ‘settled’. That is, given everything at present that has anything to do with influencing or bringing about the future, some things about the future are presently determined to be. You might say they’re inevitable given the present moment. That’s what’s meant by saying the future is causally closed. The causes and influences that presently exist limit future to a single possibility.

 

 

To say the future is causally open on the other hand is to deny that what occurs is inevitable or in some way determined by the past. That is, it’s to say that some event “might” happen and that it “might not” happen. A good way to think of this is to imagine the future in terms of a tree that branches out as you move up the trunk. We’re essentially saying there are a number of ways the future could turn out given the present moment. With a closed future we face a single branch or path that the future can take whereas with an open future we face a branching of possibilities. Lastly, it’s important to remember that open theists think the future is partly open and partly closed, not entirely one or the other.

 

Saying the future is partly (causally) open and partly (causally) closed isn’t very controversial. In fact, many non-open theists would thus far agree with me. The controversial, defining claim that open theists make is to say God’s knowledge of the future reflects the truth of the future’s being closed or open, whatever the case might be. So when we (and the Bible) describe the open future in terms of what “might” and “might not” be, our language doesn’t just describe what we don’t know about the future, as if we have to say it “might” turn out this way or that way because we don’t know the truth about the one path it will in fact take. Open theists attribute this “might” and “might not” to the way the world really is and how God knows it.

 

So to say the future is epistemically closed for God in some respect is to say God’s knowledge of how the future will turn out is also ‘settled’. For some (e.g., Calvinists), the future is exhaustively closed, so there’s only one determined route the future takes because God determines all things and determined that one route our world is to take. In this case God knows the future exclusively in terms of what “will” or “will not” occur. There aren’t any “might’s” and “might not’s” so far as the future is concerned. But for open theists who don’t think God determines everything and who think human beings exercise a certain freedom to choose (a freedom that’s incompatible with its determined by God), the question is: How does God know the open future? And here is where open theists make their unique claim mentioned above—where the future is in fact open, God knows it as open, and where the future is in fact closed (or settled), God knows it as closed. It’s really that simple. So for open theists the established belief that God eternally has a snap-shot or a single blueprint of exactly how the world’s history unfolds is false.

 

Is what we’re calling God’s epistemic openness (his knowledge of the open future in terms of what “might” and “might not” be) incompatible with divine omniscience? No, not if omniscience means God knows all truths, which is the established understanding of omniscience. The question is: What is the truth about an open future? Open theists differ on which theory of truth and semantics (which can be mind-numbing to study) they think best answers this question. One popular view (the one I hold to) claims that statements of what “will” occur where the future is in fact open are all false, for it is false to say of what “might not” occur that it “will” occur and equally false to say of what “might” occur that it “will not” occur. So on this view “might and might not” expresses the truth about the open future, the truth that an omniscient God would know. The thing to remember is that for non-open theist believers, God’s knowledge of the truth is expressed exclusively in terms of what “will” and “will not” occur. That’s the settled view that open theists challenge by arguing that God’s knowledge of the future should also include statements of the “might and might not” sort if in fact the future is open. For us, open theism is the only way to maintain that the future is in fact open and God is in fact omniscient.

 

In my first post I focused open theism’s defining claim: the future is both “partly closed” and “partly open” and God’s knowledge of it is accordingly closed or open. And I suggested that to say God knows what is closed about the future is to say God knows what “will” or “will not” occur while to say that God knows what is open about the future is to say he knows what “might and might not” occur. Both types of statement express the truth about the way the world is. In the end, God isn’t presiding over the unfolding of a blueprint eternally known to him and whose contents contain the world’s one pathway from creation to consummation.

PART 2

In this post I’d like to share three core convictions which open theists share. These convictions express what open theists believe about God’s purpose in creating, how God acts in the world providentially, why there is evil, how biblical prophecies are understood, what prayer is and how it works, and what trusting God looks like in a risk-filled world.

 

Love with respect to divine purpose

 

First, it’s no exaggeration to say that at the heart of open theists’ understanding of God is the belief that he is love. We might say that all the distinct attributes of God we discuss (truthfulness, justice, holiness, etc.) are just the ‘differentiated truth of love’. Like the colors of light that are split into an observable order when dispersed through a prism, so the attributes of God are essentially just the observable acts of a single reality at work in the world and that reality is ‘love’. The triune God is essentially (and apart from any created order whatsoever) the eternal act of self-giving-and-receiving love the fullness of which is the fullness of God’s own necessary being and existence, and it’s this God who has purposed us to know and reflect his love in the fullness of all our created capacities.

 

Freedom with respect to creation

 

Secondly, our "being persons who love unfailingly" is not something that even God could have created—poof—from the get-go. As created beings, we have to ‘become’ loving, and we become so through the free and responsible exercise of our will. So with a view to our becoming persons who love unfailingly, God endowed us with the capacity to determine ourselves through responsible choice. And not only must we be free in this required sense, but many of us argue that the material, created order must also be in some sense free and self-determining to be an appropriate stage upon which our choices play themselves out.

 

Risk with respect to providence

 

By “providence” we mean God’s administration and maintenance of the universe in the achieving of his purposes. And this is where things get complicated because many will agree that God is love and that because God has purposed us for loving relations he gave us the capacity to decide whether or not we will enter into such relations. But open theists embrace a third conviction they believe follows from these first two, namely, that in endowing us with this freedom God takes a certain ‘risk’, namely, that we would misuse our freedom and corrupt ourselves in ways God neither intended nor decreed. Traditional views of providence are ‘risk-free’ in the sense that whatever evils occur they are precisely what God decided must occur in order to bring about the good God is after.

 

It is reimagining the world to be in some respects a ‘risky’ venture (risky even for God in terms of his always getting the outcomes he wants) which is perhaps the thing that makes open theism most unlike the traditional understanding of God we Protestants grew up with. It means essentially that God doesn’t always get what God wants and that it’s not the case that every particular evil represents the ‘necessary means’ to some specific good that God is after.

 

Once we accept that our universe is a sometimes risky place of intersecting and often competing divine, angelic, and human wills where much of the good God desires to achieve is by God’s own loving plans is conditional upon our partnering with God, we gain a new and sobering appreciation of all those acts of devotion and obedience that we are called by God to engage in—prayer, missions, counseling, etc.

 

We can never comprehend how all these relevant factors combine on each occasion to determine outcomes. But we can enjoy profound assurances.

 

First, we may know that God always does all God can do given his purposes and the context in which the world finds itself to maximize good and minimize evil. A second assurance is knowing that however grave may be our suffering, God is resourceful enough to redeem our circumstances when we cooperate with him (Rm. 8.28-29). A third assurance we possess is knowing that those who trust God with the well-being of their souls cannot possibly be disappointed whatever else may occur in this life, and in the end no present evil will be worth comparing to our final state.

 

Let me end with a few suggestions. There’s no better way to study open theism than along the lines of three sorts of evidence: (i) biblical/theological, (ii) philosophical, and (iii) existential/practical:

•  The best place to begin investigating the biblical evidence is Greg Boyd’s God of the Possible (Baker, 2000). Have your Bible open and keep a journal of questions and observations. Take your time.
 
• A second type of evidence for the open view is philosophical, and for the brave at heart I suggest Christian philosopher Alan Rhoda’s articles (http://www.alanrhoda.net/papers.htm).
 
• A third type of evidence is existential, that is all the practical implications of believing this or that view. You’ll find some help in sorting through these issues in my MTh thesis on petitionary prayer and open theism (http://www.scribd.com/doc/23300607/A-Critical-Evaluation-of-the-Religious-Adequacy-of-Open-Theism-Toward-an-Open-Theistic-Theology-of-Petitionary-Prayer).
 
• Lastly, you’ll eventually want to work your way through John Sanders’ The God Who Risks (IVP, 2007 edition). It’s a treasure trove of all three sorts of evidence.

 

_____________________________________________________

 

Tom Belt and his wife Anita live in Minneapolis, MN where he is Spiritual Life Pastor at Emmanuel Christian Center. Among other things he directs their Recovery Ministries. They were Assemblies of God missionaries in the Middle East for over 20 years. Tom has also been a frequent adjunct instructor in Bible/Theology and has his MTh from the University of Wales.

 

 

 

Derek Minor - "I'm Focused" (on Jesus)

 

"Welcome to our newest brother in the Lord"

- R. E. Slater

 

"May God be Glorified by all we do and say"

- Derek Minor

 

 

 

 

Derek Minor - I'm Focused

(Formerly Known as PRo)

 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bSrVD3RwScA#!



Derek Minor (fka PRo) talks why the name change (@thederekminor @rapzilla)

 

 

Website

http://derekminor.com/

 

Biography

https://www.facebook.com/#!/thederekminor?sk=info

 

The appeal of southern Hip Hop has long been country vernacular over crunk beats that keep heads bangin’ and bodies movin’. While the head bangers and dance anthems haven’t ceased, in recent years, authentic Hip Hop and true lyricism have taken a back seat to commercial success. In steps Pro; while not on a mission to resurrect real southern Hip Hop--having been redeemed and commissioned to influence the culture--Pro certainly brings a nostalgia for what was and a hope for what is to come, as part of a greater movement infiltrating Hip Hop with a powerful message.

 

Born Derek Johnson Jr. in Pontiac, MI, Pro relocated to Tennessee with his mom at a young age, which meant more distance between him and an already detached father. After moving, Pro and his new stepfather’s relationship was plagued by an ever-growing tension, as he had grown accustomed to being the man of the house and helping to raise his younger sister. Beyond that, he knew his step-dad was consuming drugs while Pro’s strict, devoutly Christian mother was juggling a rigorous work schedule and life at home. As Pro watched her struggle, he decided that, once he could, he would save money and become rich through education or music.

 

Music had always been a part of his environment growing up, as Gospel songs flooded the house and his mom sung in the choir and around the city. But it was Pro’s dad, a jazz musician, who would supply him with the inspiration to actually pursue a career in music. When Pro was 12, on a summer visit to his dad’s house, he started rapping about God and adolescence over beats his dad produced with his new ASR-10. That summer, he was also introduced to DJ Quick and 2pac and headed home with a stack of tapes filled with different beats--the stage had been set.

 

After a visit to Middle Tennessee State University at 15, Pro was convinced that he wanted to enroll in the music program there and someday make his ambitions a reality. His mom joined the cause by buying him his own production equipment; by the time he entered college, he was in a rap duo and had gotten a job to pay for studio time. In relentless pursuit of his dream, Pro recalls using a bunk bed as a mic stand before turning 21 and signing a record deal with an independent label. While on the label, he released a mix tape, but the company folded and life began taking a morbid turn. Removed from the dos and don’ts of his strict home, Pro reveled in the forbidden. Music, women and money became idols in his life until “the season of death” woke him up.

 

Within a short time span, Pro loss his grandfather, grandmother and godmother. As a result, he began to understand that life was fleeting; growing weary, he cried out to God and surrendered his life and talents. Some time later, after forming Reflection Music Group with his friend Doc Watson, he released his debut album The Black Out, on which he wrestled with being East Coast or Southern; and cocky, yet still Christian. The album wasn’t received well within Christian circles, so Pro took a break from rapping long enough to be challenged and influenced by two guys he met at his new church. “Lecrae and BJ challenged me to let the Gospel truly affect my heart,” he recalls, and as he did, his perspectives and artistic style were completely changed.

 

Since then, Pro has collaborated on several noteworthy projects and released PSA, a mix tape he calls his first full-length installment of mature Christian music; Redemption; and PSA Vol. 2. His second album, Redemption, debuted at No. 3 on the iTunes Gospel chart and No.8 on Billboard Gospel, while also topping other mainstream and Gospel charts. With the success of his sophomore album and the growing popularity of tracks he has either produced or been featured on, Pro has established a unique presence in CHH. As the opening act for the “Unashamed Tour” in 2010, Pro won over audiences around the country with his amplifying performances and gritty lyrics. His latest release, PSA Vol. 2, is the second installment in an ongoing series of topically diverse, sonically evolving and authentically Hip Hop music that also introduces listeners to upcoming Reflection artists.

 

A self-described blue-collar artist, Pro embraces his ability to get listeners amped, but ultimately, he wants them to feel and be inspired to pursue something greater than themselves. He currently resides in Nashville, TN where he is an active member of Fellowship Bible Church along with his wife. And while his popularity grows with each release, past experiences have taught him that, “Peace is more important than anything,” so his enduring ambition and motivation to continue making quality music is simply to glorify God with his life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unashamed Tour 2012 Chicago! Lecrae, Andy Mineo, Pro, Tedashii, Trip Lee, 116

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Mraz - Living In The Moment

There are sooo many cool Emergent themes here that I just had to share!

Enjoy and Rejoice in the Lord, the Lover of our souls.

- R. E. Slater, 9.10.12

Jason Mraz - Living In The Moment (Official Audio Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUFs_1vKYlY

Top Tracks for Jason Mraz - http://www.youtube.com/artist/Jason_Mraz?feature=watch_metadata

Wikipedia Info on the Artist - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_mraz

Jason Mraz - Website - http://jasonmraz.com/four-letter-word/

Send "Living In The Moment" Ringtone to your Cell

"Living In The Moment""Living In The Moment"

If this life is one act

Why do we lay all these traps?
We put them right in our path
When we just wanna be free

I will not waste my days
Making up all kinds of ways
To worry about all the things
That will not happen to me

So I just let go of what I know I don't know
And I know I'll only do this by
Living in the moment
Living our life
Easy and breezy
With peace in my mind
With peace in my heart
Peace in my soul
Wherever I'm going, I'm already home
Living in the moment

I'm letting myself off the hook for things I've done
I let my past go past
And now I'm having more fun
I'm letting go of the thoughts
That do not make me strong
And I believe this way can be the same for everyone

And if I fall asleep
I know you'll be the one who'll always remind me
To live in the moment
To live my life
Easy and breezy
With peace in my mind
With peace in my heart
Got peace in my soul
Wherever I'm going, I'm already home

I can't walk through life facing backwards
I have tried
I tried more than once to just make sure
And I was denied the future I'd been searching for
But I spun around and hurt no more
By living in the moment
Living my life
Easy and breezy
With peace in my mind
With peace in my heart
Got peace in my soul
Wherever I'm going, I'm already home

I'm living in the moment
I'm living my life
Just taking it easy
With peace in my mind
Got peace in my heart
Got peace in my soul
Oh, wherever I'm going, I'm already home

I'm living in the moment
I'm living my life
Oh, easy and breezy
With peace in my mind
Peace in my heart
Peace in my soul
Wherever I'm going, I'm already home
I'm living in the moment

Wikipedia - Jason Mraz
Jason Mraz in March 2011
Background information
Birth name	Jason Thomas Mraz
Born	(1977-06-23) June 23, 1977 (age 35) Mechanicsville, Virginia, U.S.
Genres	Pop rock, blue-eyed soul, alternative rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, mandolin, mandola, banjo, ukulele, baritone ukulele
Years active	1999–present
Labels	Elektra Records (2002–2005) Atlantic Records (2005–present)
Associated acts	Tristan Prettyman, Bushwalla, Jack Johnson, Colbie Caillat, James Morrison
Website	jasonmraz.com
Notable instruments
Taylor Guitars

"STILL PAINTING" by Rob Bell

 

 

"STILL PAINTING"

Rob Bell Live from The Viper Room in Los Angeles




Still Painting

 

 

The Rob Bell Channel





 

Book Review & Videos: Emergence Christianity by Phyllis Tickle

Emergence Christianity:

What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters

by Phyllis Tickle

Amazon Book Link

Phyllis Tickle (Author)

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Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2012

Whatever else one might say about Emergence Christianity, says Phyllis Tickle, one must agree it is shifting and re-configuring itself in such a prodigious way as to defy any final assessments or absolute pronouncements. Yet the insightful and well-read Tickle offers us a dispatch from the field to keep us informed of where Emergence Christianity now stands, where it may be going, and how it is aligning itself with other parts of God's church. Through her careful study and culture-watching, Tickle invites readers to join this investigation and conversation as open-minded explorers rather than fearful opponents.

As readers join Tickle down the winding stream of Emergence Christianity, they will discover fascinating insights into concerns, organizational patterns, theology, and most pressing questions. Anyone involved in an emergence church or a traditional one will find here a thorough and well-written account of where things are--and where they are going.

Emergence Christianity by Phyllis Tickle

(click on the blank screen to begin)





Phyllis Tickle - "Emergence Christianity" - Session 1





Phyllis Tickle - "Emergence Christianity" - Session 2





Phyllis Tickle - "Emergence Christianity" - Session 3





Embracing Emergent Christianity
Phyllis Tickle on the Church's Next Rummage Sale

Product Details

Hardcover: 240 pages

Publisher: Baker Books (September 1, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0801013550

ISBN-13: 978-0801013553

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Welcome to the story that's still being written . . .

Whatever else one might say about Emergence Christianity, one must agree it is shifting and reconfiguring itself in such a prodigious way as to defy any final assessments or absolute pronouncements. Yet in Emergence Christianity, Phyllis Tickle gathers the tangled threads of history and weaves the story of this fascinating movement into a beautiful and understandable whole.

Through her careful study and culture-watching, Tickle invites you to join this investigation and conversation as an open-minded explorer. You will discover fascinating insights into the concerns, organizational patterns, theology, and most pressing questions facing the church today. And you'll get a tantalizing glimpse of the future.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Emergence Christianity

"You will find many wonderful things between the covers of this book: provocative questions and astute observations about sacred space, hierarchy, authority. Tickle's insights will help the church reflect on a larger question: How can we best serve the kingdom of God right now?"-- Lauren F. Winner, author of Mudhouse Sabbath and Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis

"Phyllis Tickle is in a unique position by reason of experience, education, and personal courage to say things that many cannot say--or cannot see. Here she does it very well--once again. Christianity is emerging with or without Phyllis Tickle, but she is sure helping the rest of us to emerge along with it!"--Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico

"Finally someone has put the emergence conversation in the wider historical context it deserves--showing how what is now emerging owes so much to contributors over the last century. Phyllis Tickle gets it right and conveys it beautifully, so more and more readers can be a part of it . . . with a clearer understanding of what 'it' is!"--Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker/networker

"What a fascinating read! A page turner! I read through each story with anticipation as I eagerly awaited the next set of connections Phyllis Tickle would make between seemingly unrelated people, movements, faith, and culture. Never in one volume have I seen such a diverse set of Christian movements not only listed but analyzed for their meaning as it related to the bigger picture. As we have come to expect, Tickle has done her homework, and the result is a unique contribution to the conversation about what Christianity has and will become in the twenty-first century."--Ryan Bolger, associate professor, Church in Contemporary Culture, Fuller Theological Seminary

Evangelical Hermeneutics vs. Pauline Hermeneutics

Would Paul Have Made a Good Evangelical?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/05/would-paul-have-made-a-good-evangelical/

 

by Peter Enns

May 24, 2012

Comments

 

No.

 

Even when you account for 2000 years of cultural differences between Paul and Evangelicalism, the answer is no.

 

Why? Because Paul didn’t treat the Bible the way mainstream Evangelicalism says you need to.

 

The way Paul handled his Bible–what we call the Old Testament–would keep him off the short list for openings to teach Bible in many Evangelical seminaraies and Christian colleges. Heck, John Piper, John MacArthur, and R. C. Sproul probably wouldn’t let Paul lead a home Bible study, at least not without supervision.

 

Here is the main reason why:

 

• For Evangelicals, the Old Testament leads to the Gospel story. For Paul, the Old Testament is transformed by the Gospel.
 
• For Evangelicals, the Old Testament, read pretty much at face value [(literally)], anticipates Jesus. For Paul, the Old Testament is reshaped in order to conform to Jesus.
 
• For Evangelicals, the Bible is God’s final authority. For Paul, Jesus is the final authority to which the Bible must bend.

 

You see, Paul had a monumental theological and hermeneutical task before him. The Old Testament is centered on Israel’s need for obedience to the law of Moses in order to stay in God’s favor–what the Old Testament often calls “life.” God’s favor is most clearly demonstrated by Israel’s remaining in the Promised Land–if they obey, they stay; if they disobey, the are cast out (which is what the exile to Babylon was all about). And, as an added benefit, when Israel is faithful to God, the other nations will take notice and also bend the knee to Yahweh, Israel’s God.

 

1. Obedience to law;
2. Holding onto the land (and along with it worship in the temple);
3. Conversion of the Gentiles. All central elements of being an Israelite.

 

The Gospel of Christ that Paul preached said:

 

1. Law was a parenthesis, a temporary measure;
2. Holding on to land is now a non-issue;
3. Gentiles can claim Israel’s God as their own as Gentiles.

 

Clearly something has to give. For Paul, it was the Old Testament.

 

Paul cites the Old Testament 106 times; 59 times in Romans. For example, look at the string of quotations in Romans 9:25-29. Paul is arguing for Gentile inclusion in the plan of God–Gentiles do not need to be circumcised, thus following Jewish law. They are included as Gentiles simply by faith in Jesus the messiah.

 

Paul could have simply said, “Jesus is here and we are turning a new page. From now on we welcome Gentiles with open arms without them becoming Jewish first.”

 

That would have been a pretty radical message all by itself, but Paul gets even more radical. He argues that in the Old Testament itself teaches that Gentiles are to be included among Israel solely on the basis of faith–not obeying the law. Paul claims that Gentile inclusion without circumcision was God’s plan all along.

 

If you’re familiar with the Old Testament, you would be right to wonder how Paul is going to pull that off, since the Old Testament is so adamant about maintaining the distinction between Jew and Gentile.

 

In this string of quotations in Romans 9, Paul cites two passages from Hosea and two from Isaiah to support his claim that Gentile inclusion is part of God’s plan. The problem, though, is that all four of these passages have nothing to do with Gentile inclusion. They are all aimed at God’s mercy at restoring Israel.

 

This is not a minor point. Paul is not getting a little creative with some passages, tweaking them a bit, teasing some fresh angle out of them. He is saying that these passages support his Gentile agenda, even though a plain reading shows unequivocally that they are about Israel.

 

Flip over to Romans 10:5-8. Paul places two passages from the law of Moses side by side–and he pits them against each other.

 

The first is Leviticus 18:5, where Yahweh tells Moses that the Israelites are to “Keep my decrees, for the man who obeys them will live by them.” Note that keeping the law is assumed to be attainable and a benefit to those who do so.

 

But in very next verse Paul brings in another passage from the Law, Deuteronomy 30:13-14. In Deuteronomy, these verses have a very clear meaning. The commands that God is giving to the Israelites are doable. They are not out of anyone’s reach. They are not up in the heavens or somewhere acoross the ocean. They are right here–”in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.”

 

The Israelites were expected to keep these laws, and keeping them brings life, which is sort of what Leviticus 18:5 says. The two passages are in complete harmony.

 

But Paul contrasts these two verses to pit law against faith.

 

For Paul, Leviticus 18:5 is correct insofar as it goes, but Paul clearly does not present obedience to the law as a benefit to anyone–which contradicts the point of the passage.

 

Paul’s handling of Deuteronomy 30:13-14 should, by all standards, drive mainstream Evangelicals crazy. In Deuteronomy, God tells the Israelites to keep these doable-written-on-your-heart commands. Paul says it is not about commands at all but about having faith in Christ, apart from the law of Moses.

 

Either Paul can’t read or something else is up.

 

Something else is up.

 

Paul handles his Bible the way he does for two reasons:

 

(1) Judaism has a long history of manipulating scripture in the interest of supporting theological arguments. Paul, in case you need reminding, was a Jew trained in this way of using scripture.

 

(2) Paul’s grand goal in Romans is to make the case that Jews and Gentiles are on equal footing before God; Paul’s angle is to show how the law itself made that same point all along–which requires Paul to take get very creative with the Old Testament.

 

If anyone else were doing this–me, you, the Pope, Jehovah’s Witnesses, an emergent pastor, a liberal theologian, a first year seminary student–Evangelicals would call it “distorting the inerrant Word of God.” Paul, however, either (1) gets a free pass because Paul is an apostle (and apparently it’s OK for apostles to do this), or (2) Paul’s reading of the Old Testament is defended as being consistent with the Old Testament meaning (which leads to overly subtle and back-breaking arguments).

 

Here is the great irony. Without question, as a first century Jew, Paul believed his scripture was God’s Word. He had what Evangelicals like to call a “high view” of scripture.

 

That is correct. It’s just that Paul’s high view and an Evangelical high view are clearly not the same. I’m just glad Evangelicals weren’t around at the time to try to stifle Paul, to keep him from landing his gig as apostle to the Gentiles. We would have missed out on a lot.


 

Trying to Imagine the Age of the Bible in Our Contemporary Present

Long, Long Ago, in a Land Far, Far Away…. (What I’m Saying is the Bible is Really, Really Old)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/08/long-long-ago-in-a-land-far-far-away-what-im-saying-is-the-bible-is-really-really-old/

 

by Peter Enns

August 28, 2012

Comments

 

This is the eve of a significant event in Jewish history. 2532 years ago tomorrow, August 29, 520 BC, according to Haggai 1:1, God gave the command to rebuild Israel’s temple, destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC.

 

That’s a long time ago, is all I’m saying.

 

Think about it. Just 1/5 of this length of time takes us way back to about 1500, the days when Europeans were just staring to explore (and exploit) the known world by ship and people still thought the earth was the center of the cosmos.

 

If we were transported back to those days, only 500 years ago, many of us would probably be dead within a week, unable to negotiate the dos and don’ts of daily life.

 

Take just half of 2532 years and we are back in the mid-8th century. Vikings began invading Europe, the stuff of legends. Paper was introduced to the Arabs by the Chinese.

 

We live in a world where huge numbers are thrown around daily: trillions upon trillions of dollars of national debt, billions upon billions of galaxies each containing billions upon billions of stars, trillions of cells in the human body. We can’t wrap are heads around numbers that large, but they are part of our daily consciousness.

 

With numbers that large floating in our heads, we tend to forget how large numbers like 500 years, or 1000 years, or 2532 years are when seen from the point of view of our daily human experience.

 

So, Haggai began urging his countrymen to rebuild the temple over 25 centuries ago. 100 years, 25 times.

 

Imagine living to be a hundred–and doing that over and over again 25 times. Frankly, I have a hard time truly “experiencing” in my minds’s eye what just one 100-year span looks like. I am currently watching Ken Burns’s excellent series The Civil War, with photographs of soldiers, wives, children, slaves, buildings, and farmland 150 years old. I am taken by the profundity of how much time has elapsed, how foreign this world is to mine.

 

And the Israelites began rebuilding their temple 2532 years ago.

 

This bit of the human drama will forever remain outside of my capacity to comprehend. The distance of it all. I cannot get inside of it. I remain a foreigner to this ancient landscape, and outsider looking in.

 

I guess my point is this. It seems many of us, myself included, can get a bit careless, even cavalier, about the Bible, thinking that we “get it” because we happen to read it regularly in our native tongue. Perhaps we should regain a sense of respect for the distance this book has travelled to land on our coffee tables and work desks.

 

Perhaps we should remember that in the Bible we are coming face to face with a very foreign (and small) slice of the human drama–with customs, habits, a whole consciousness, that we do not share–and so we should be respectful enough not to claim for ourselves too great a familiarity.

 

We can study it and even teach it, as I do. But we kid ourselves if we think we control it.

 

Perhaps we can try to keep that in mind when we disagree over what it means. We are all on foreign soil.

 

 

 

 

How God Became King: Putting Creed and Canon Back Together Again

How God Became King

http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/webexclusives/2012/august/how-god-became-king.html#.UCUjVHBEeTE.facebook

by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
August 2012

Putting creed and canon back together.

For the past decade I've endeavored to be something of street preacher in my neighborhood. Granted, when I came here it wasn't my neighborhood. I was marked as an outsider, not only because everyone around here seems to know everyone else, but also because I'm white. And in this Southern town, white folks don't belong in Walltown.

 

Everyone knows this, but no one communicated it more clearly than the young guys who used to stand on the corner, just four doors down from our house. I used to wave when I'd pass by them. They wouldn't wave back. For months, they never said a word. They only glared.

 

The month we moved here, one of these guys on the corner was shot in the street by another guy who drove by, stuck a gun out the window, and pulled the trigger. A friend happened to be driving behind the car that slowed down to shoot. He stopped his car, jumped out, and asked the guy who'd been hit in the elbow if he needed a ride to the hospital. "Naw," this young man said, gritting his teeth and pressing his hand against the wound. "I'll be alright." The next evening, the same car drove by again, taking better aim this time. We learned at his funeral that the young man shot dead on our corner was named Robert.

 

When our household of outsiders invited a guy from Walltown who was returning home from prison to come and live with us, we started to hear secondhand what the guys on the corner were saying. When we first came, they'd thought we were a police house, sent to monitor drug traffic. Then some said we were a plant from the local university—part of a secret plan to take over the neighborhood. Finally, they settled on calling us a church house because every Sunday and Wednesday they watched us go in and out of the Saint Johns Missionary Baptist Church, our Bibles in our hands.

 

About this time, the guys on the corner start talking. I learn their names and they learn mine. A couple of them start stopping by the house for dinner. Whenever I get a chance, I stop by their corner to catch up. One day, a fellow named Andre—who likes to rap when he talks—says to me, "You're a preacher, uh huh. / You want to talk theology, don't you?" I ask him what's on his mind. "Well, I'm a Muslim," he raps, hands flying up and down, "I'm a Muslim because / Christianity's about what you believe in your heart, / but Islam is about how you live."

 

I'm a Christian who grew up singing "King Jesus is all / he's my all and all." I get up every morning and go to bed every night praying, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." But I cannot argue with Andre. The Christianity he has seen is a feel-good spirituality, a get-me-through-another-week kind of faith. "Crack religion," some folks around here call it. But Andre prefers the real thing. Still, these theological conversations on the street corner are what make me into a street preacher—not the "turn before you burn" type, but something more akin to Paul on Mars Hill, always probing to see where God fits in. Always asking questions. One day I say to a guy who's run the streets since he was thirteen, to a young man who thought he was king when other people started selling his drugs for him, "Jesus said, 'If you live by the gun you'll die by the gun.' " There's no good use for a gun in this neighborhood, I tell him. And he says to me, "You oughta tell that to the police." Jesus is well and good for the church house, but out here on the street, he says, religion can get you killed.

 

He asks the same question Andre asks, the same question these guys have been asking me for a decade: What does your Jesus have to offer a guy like me? "As I have both studied and written about Jesus and the gospels," writes N.T. Wright in his newest offering, How God Became King, "I have had the increasing impression, over many years now, that most of the Western Christian tradition has simply forgotten what the gospels are really about." This celebrated scholar and former bishop of the Church of England seems to agree with the guys who hang out on the corner in Walltown. "What we need is not just a bit of fine-tuning, an adjustment here and there. We need a fundamental rethink about what the gospels are trying to say."

 

For the scholarly Wright, the first question to ask is, How did we ever forget the main point? How did the Jesus who ignited a popular movement by promising abundant life to marginalized people like the guys on the corner in Walltown become an irrelevant idea that scholars write about or an otherworldly deity that pious people worship? The answer is not simple, but Wright makes it comprehensible. It is a tragic accident of history, the sad result of thinking that the gifts the Holy Spirit offered at one moment in history can simply be packaged and delivered to our contexts today.

 

Wright's gift for clarity rests in his ability to make crucial distinctions, and the one most central to this book's argument is the historical difference between the creeds and the canon. The creeds, Wright observes, are doctrinal statements that Christians developed to answer the particular challenges of the 4th- and 5th-century church. In their context, they make perfect sense. But because they are a response to particular heresies, they necessarily do not say everything that must be said about who God is, why Jesus came, and what the Spirit is doing in the world today. This, Wright says, is why we have a canon—four gospels that have their own story to tell. And most of what they have to say is about the gap that comes between Jesus being "born of the virgin Mary" and "suffering under Pontius Pilate." That is, the gospels, by and large, cover ground that the creeds skip over with a comma.

 

In the great storehouse of Christian tradition, we have both creed and canon. But in the midst of the particular challenges that the Western church faced at the dawn of the modern era, creed trumped canon and doctrinal claims seemed more important than the story that the gospels tell. Wright masterfully demonstrates how this tendency is common to those groups that have most vehemently disagreed with one another in the church and the academy—conservatives and liberals, fundamentalists and progressives. We all seem to have agreed that creed and canon are separable, some clinging to doctrine whatever the cost, others saying that Jesus is an interesting historical figure, even if he wasn't God.

 

At the core of this book is an invitation to re-read the gospels—to hear them as the story of how God became King by paying attention to the ways they make claims about four themes that were central to the hopes and longings of 1st-century Israel. Those themes are:

1. the story of Israel,
2. the story of Israel's God,
3. the hope of God's renewed people, and
4. the conflict between God's rule and the kingdoms of this world.

For all of its value as a clear and concise argument about the meaning of Christian faith itself, this book is at its best highlighting Wright as a Bible teacher. The gospels come alive in these central chapters, singing the song that all of creation longs for, flowing like living waters in a dry and weary land. I wanted to stand on the corner and read several passages aloud.

 

But for all of his gifts as one of our best contemporary Bible teachers, Wright is not content to end this exploration with applause from guys like me who love the Bible anyway: "Part of the tragedy of the modern church, I have been arguing, is that the 'orthodox' have preferred creed to kingdom, and the 'unorthodox' have tried to get a kingdom without a creed. It's time," Wright says, "to put back together what should have never been separated." This work of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again is the work of communities that read the gospels and recite the creeds, living God's mission as the body of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Wright concludes by saying that the answer to this riddle isn't in the power of "all the king's horses and all the king's men." It's in little communities who try to live by the power of the Spirit in a place like Walltown.

 

This, I fear, is where Wright is most likely to be misunderstood: after so many years of Christendom, the news that the gospels are really about "how God became King" may come to some—especially those who worry that the Western church is in decline—as an invitation to rebuild our institutions, renegotiate our relationship with the power structures, and reclaim a sort of theocracy. I live in the Christ-haunted South. We're always susceptible to the promises of a Jerry Fallwell. But this is not the hope that the guys on our corner ache for, nor is it the good news Wright is proclaiming. "The implicit ecclesiology of all four gospels is a picture of the complex vocation of Jesus himself," Wright says. It is "to be kingdom-bringers … first because of Jesus' own suffering and second by means of their own." The Revelation is right: we will, one day, rule the nations. But we'll only get there the way Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father—by suffering with those who've been pushed to the margins until we learn to see together, through creed and canon alike, that another world is possible. Indeed, it's beginning to appear right now in our conversations on the corner and around the dinner table.

 

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is an associate minister at St. Johns Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina. The Rutba House, where Jonathan lives with his family and friends, is a new monastic community that prays, eats, and lives together, welcoming neighbors and the homeless. He is the author most recently of The Awakening of Hope: Why We Preach a Common Faith, just published by Zondervan.

 

 

 

An Evening with Peter Rollins (Emergence Christianity in the Present Tense)

 

 

 

Thinking of Christianity in the Present-Tense: The Politics of Discipleship

(Emergence Christianity)

 

 

 

An Evening with Peter Rollins

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQwkj_UbZYI&feature=plcp

 

Peter Rollins at Cornerstone University, Monday, April 16, 2012.

Presented by the Cornerstone University Society for Philosophy.

Chaired by Dr. Michael Van Dyke.

 

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg1Fz_epKqbS30h6XZZx5NQ

 

 

 

 

The Legacy of the Christian Blogosphere

a deeper story

 

 

 

A History of Outrage

http://deeperstory.com/a-history-of-outrage/

 

by Mason Slater

August 3, 2012
 

Chick-Fil-A, Love Wins, the maelstrom over a particular post about 50 Shades of Gray – sometimes I find myself worrying that this will be the legacy of the Christian blogosphere, that these controversies (and hundreds like them) will be all that people remember in twenty or fifty years.

Sure, we wring our hands at the unpleasantness of it all, but that’s usually while we are busy rolling out the outrage machine and the language of persecuted minority or righteous-defender-of-all-that-is-good-and-true.

We say we wish it wasn’t like that, that we don’t want to be this way, that they started it.

But, sometimes, I really don’t think that’s the case.

I think much of the blogosphere can’t do without it. We have become the outrage-industrial complex, building a digital empire by speaking in the vitriolic language of us vs. them.

I think that if there wasn’t a conflict we would have to start one.

I worry that if people twenty years from now remember the Christian blogosphere as driven by controversy, outrage, and infighting, tragically they might be more right than wrong.

How many blogs would soon fall silent if there wasn’t an “enemy” to oppose? We get a high off it, but like any junkie we are quite talented at denying we have a problem, no matter how much damage we are doing, no matter how out of control it has become.

And it’s a shame, because so many of you have beautiful stories to tell, and incredibly brilliant ideas to share. So many bloggers are writing and doing things that are redemptive, imaginative, an outworking of the Gospel story.

But those bloggers, the sort who don’t want to play the game, they often tend to drop out over time, exhausted and disheartened by it all. Or, these wise and quiet voices get passed over in our mad dash from one controversy to the next. And so, one way or another, we never hear them.

I suppose that is part of what I appreciate about this community. True, it is not afraid to address difficult or controversial issues – but it finds its identity not in outrage but in grace, love, and the little bits of life that we share through our stories.

I think if all the controversies went away, by some miracle of God’s mysterious grace, the people here would have just as much to say. These writers would not fall silent.

Because it isn’t simply writing about a controversy that’s the issue, it’s when we start to confuse these controversies with the Gospel, and confuse our stance on them with our identity as children of God. These controversies are not our story, or at least, they shouldn’t be, because our real stories are far better.

And it’s those stories, those stories about love and grace and resurrection, that I hope people remember long after the controversies have been forgotten.


About Mason: Mason is a husband to Melinda, seminary student, blogger, and freelance writer in Grand Rapids, MI. He is passionate about theology, community and justice. What little time is left amidst his busy schedule is devoted to reading, coffee snobbery and a new adventure in home brewing.

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