Rebirth: Towards An Open Bible and Emerging Faith

What seems heretical to the enfranchised must be mandatory

for the disenfranchised in order to regain some semblance of

a living faith unsheltered from this present day world of

postmodern angst, agnosticism, disbelief, and atheism. - R

A little while ago a Facebook friend and I bantered over the meanings of the new Pew report showing how Americans voted in the 2012 Presidential elections between Republican and Democratic party lines (posted at the end of this post).

Our observations ran like this -

"From the survey it is very interesting to look at the voting patterns of Black Protestants, Black Other Christians, and Hispanic Catholics. I think this pattern suggests a difference in interpretation of the Christian message along racial and ethnic lines. Or is there another interpretation? Are the teachings of Jesus better represented by the voting patterns of White Evangelicals, Mormons, White Catholics, Black Christians, and Hispanic Catholics? And if so, is there an implication by the headline of the Pew report that a vote for Mitt Romney was a test of Faith?" - J

In response I made the following observations (which I now take full liberty to elaborate upon!) -

"Good points all J - . Which is why I wanted to put up the link in the first place in order to show how various people groups of faith differed in their perceptions of political issues and events. And how those perceptions then created differing voting patterns amongst those same faith groups.

"This same reasoning lies behind Christianity's history of denominationalism... that the dominate theology of the dominate people-group usually ruled. This has been true since time immemorial (sic, the Church eras of the Early Church Fathers that led to Catholicism's wide acceptance; then its separation into Eastern Orthodoxy's forms of faith; which then led many years later to the Lutheran and Protestant Reformation; and finally, to some form of Evangelicalism in the 19th and 20th Centuries).

"I grew up in a predominately fundamental and evangelical region of the country which means that I have experienced a high degree of religious and social conservatism. However, this same region is now experiencing an influx of newer, non-native people-groups migrating into this area (new students, workers, minority and refugee groups). Which means that the church's traditional evangelicalism is being challenged as to its right to "rule," and "king-making" privileges, within our city/county governments, public and private schools, and churches of varying stripes and colours." - R

I went on to state in a more abbreviated fashion than I do here -

"Moreover, we should be aware that if we fall into a dominate people-group (like I have experienced) that its views of life and, its biblical interpretations of the bible, doesn't get to rule for all other peoples in that area. Living in a pluralistic society will not allow this. Pluralism requires listening to others and adjusting our thoughts and behaviors, practices and beliefs, lest our Christian faith no longer remains relevant to today's multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, societies.

"For myself, I have personally witnessed the boundaries of Evangelicalism as self-limiting (and excluding) in its expressions, beliefs, doctrines, practices and dogmas. It thus must now require a broader, more pervasive, interpretive philosophic framework that must also include the widest number of Christian viewpoints without unduly diluting the original message of the gospel as expressed through Jesus in the pages of the New Testament. As example, when asking "What does the Gospel of Jesus mean to you?" We will find within this topic (dependent upon a respondent's background) a combination of stricter views of religious interpretation as well as less formalized views of interpretive meaning." - R

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

Now let me digress for a bit -

For the past dozen years or more I have been on a new spiritual journey away from the Evangelicalism that I was familiar with towards a more open, post-evangelical expression of Christianity. Not long ago I started writing down my thoughts using Relevancy22 as my preferred medium of choice to document my journey seeking the broadest philosophic (or theosophic) frame of reference that would no longer delimit the gospel message to any one particular religious group. I first began this effort by listening to mine own group's rhetoric and disappointments. This meant that I had to evaluate the state of affairs that now existed within Evangelicalism while determining whether its version of the gospel of Jesus could be modified to other forms and frames of Christian reference.  And if not, to determine whether a newer expression of Evangelicalism, or some other form, may be a better representation of the Christian faith. One that might be more rigorous to the original intent of the New Testament Scriptures where the Gospel of Jesus is found. And yet less rigorous to the preponderance of itself as a religious institution. And if so, I would need to address the very foundations upon which this religious expression of faith existed while removing any past claimants become useless, or unhelpful, in the evolving dusts of historical progress.

Of course, this type of effort is being done everyday within the many branches of Christian ministry and education, and under a wide variety of religious views and -isms. However, not all views are as dominate - or as durable - as the Evangelic view. Which, for me, was the very one that was demanding my response to its present contemporary beliefs and practices. It necessitated that I step back from my own faith background and look at larger ecumenical forms and perspectives of Christianity. And specifically, those forms and perspectives that were relevant to today's postmodern (or, post-postmodern) generations while staying faithful to the testimony of Scripture. Along the way I discovered other similar research as my own being conducted that correlated present faith practices and dogmas across the Christian spectrum to one another, and to the NT Gospel itself. This I considered rather encouraging and have made all efforts to correlate and incorporated those newer, more relevant, discoveries and progressive responses to mine own. Thus providing a "hosts of witnesses" to this same effort as mine own so that no one should think that I am alone in my mind and heart on these dis-settling matters.

Overall, the key for me was that of determining the broadest possible philosophical and theological perspectives that might present the widest possible interpretations within the biblical faith without doing harm to Christianity's original content, intent, and message. It would require a broader, more open Bible, and the willingness to leave behind ingrained (conservative) Evangelical (or Fundamental) concepts that have for a long, long time been considered sacrosanct to the church's dogmas. Thus began my journey towards a more progressive form of Evangelicalism I have been calling Emergent Christianity.*

Moreover, I am acutely aware that Emergent Christianity has received bad press and, at times, poor representation amongst its more public adherents. However, rather than throw all out I am preferring to reshape it against the many Christian doctrines being held hostage within the impregnable fortress walls of high Calvinism and Evangelical folklore. Once released and given newer expression of life within the broader philosophic/theosophic interpretations of the bible, I will expect a better PR reception to what Emergent Christianity is now receiving. And if not, then we'll rename it something else with a less disparaging history and move on. Names don't matter. But better biblical interpretive work does matter. As does resultant practice, worship, and mission. The gospel of Jesus needs reclaiming and can no longer go any further along in its present day witness when held imperfectly by all other non-Emergent faith disciplines. Emergent Christianity when done well will reshape each-and-all while respecting the many flavors of Christianity remaining however they evolve. Relevancy22 has hoped to capture this effort through the works of others intent on sharing Jesus to the world.

What seems heretical to the enfranchised must be mandatory for the disenfranchised in order to regain some semblance of a living faith unsheltered from this present day world of postmodern angst, agnosticism, disbelief, and atheism. I want a Gospel that can speak to today's lost generations of disbelievers far removed from God not realizing that Jesus is as much their Savior as He the church's Savior. That Jesus' gospel message of salvation is for all men everywhere and not restricted to those few believers who dance to the required tunes of Evangelicalism (or to any religion for that matter). That Jesus, through the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit, lives and breathes throughout the spaces of His creation - even in the hearts of the wicked refusing His will and word. That there is no place one can exist without God being everywhere present and sharing His love within this wicked, sinful world. That His light can dispel darkness. His grace bring peace and forgiveness. His wisdom deliver us from the wickedness of our own hands. That we live and breathe firstly to love and serve all around us unto the glories of God's holy redemption found in the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus His Son and Second Person of the Trinity.

Foolishly, we speak neither of Evangelicalism nor of Emergent Christianity, but of the church of God sent to minister and to save through the Gospel of Jesus. We are neither of Paul nor Apollos. Of Peter nor John. Of Calvin or Arminius. Of Wesley or Billy Graham. We are but one body. And must learn to listen to one another and serve together as we can. That what once mattered in ages past must be re-jigged and re-configured to meet the needs of the world today. First it means opening up our closed bibles to see humanity afresh. And this then means that it does no good to deny scientific discoveries and findings by twisting its results to something we think it should (or should not) be saying; by refusing gender equality under the banners of hierarchical male domination; by repressing the rights of homosexual couples desiring civil union; by refusing to adapt our religious practices and worship to dissimilar non-native groups that are Hispanic, Asian, or Muslim; by declaring God's judgment upon one-and-all for refusing an evangelical (or Western) view of life; by showing an intolerance and exclusion to those (un)faithful daring to speak out on behalf of the church today; and so on, and so forth.

We do both God and His Word an injustice by keeping our hearts closed and refusing the rightness of His reign and ministry. Yes, we struggle to understand God's heart and the meaning of His words. Yes, we do imperfectly see what Jesus wants us to truly see - did not even His own disciples struggle with their religious ignorance and steadfast ways? Yes, the task is too hard, too foreign, too demanding, too unlike us to dare trying. Yes, we feel ill-equipped and out-of-sync with today's societies gyrating to the newest beats of heathen practice and ideologies. But God is for all men and not just the church. The church of God must get its hands dirty and be willing to give up (as it can) its exclusive religious practices and steel-tight religious boundaries. To be willing to see people as men and women loved by God and not as hell-bound souls. A more open mind, heart and soul can begin this next step. The willingness to doubt ourselves and trust God can help. And throughout this spiritual journey Relevancy22 is committed to lending what help it can to this perplexing landscape of disbelief and disjointed wilderness of religion. In mine own journey I have been sharing both my doubts and discoveries suspecting others to have a similar journey to mine own. And throughout its undertaking I pray that God will be honored and His Word declared as true and righteous. Even as it is given for our edification, reproof and rebuke. Be therefore at peace and know that God is gracious and ever true in leading all who wander upon the darker paths of illuminating self-doubt His own guidance and fellowship. Though singularly alone many times the biblical prophets of their day stood for God and declared His Word to the distress and ignoble arguments of His people. Not all will come but still God's Word must be proclaimed.

Finally, in gracious reply my Facebook friend then said in conclusion -

"Thanks. You are a person with whom I could always discuss religion and politics and come away smarter, happier, and know that I have been heard. "- J

It was a nice reply and made me feel encouraged against too many times when there has been little, to no, encouragement given. Even so, I have felt the same way with my friend as with any seeker who likewise journeys through this vale of tears. It is always best done together with an open heart and inquisitive mind sharing doubts and concerns, prayers and hopes, cheers and dismays. For nothing is definitive unless it is our own shut minds and closed souls unreceptive to God's mighty works within our midst. Let us pray then that God's Spirit not allow us this final definition of ourselves. Be therefore at peace and let God's love shine through all that we say and do within our imperfect lights of His great love.

R.E. Slater

November 15, 2012

Revival

by R.E. Slater

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

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*... Should we be thinking in terms of denominational labels let me say that Emergent Christianity (EC) is a bit of a step further to the left of Post-Conservative Evangelicalism (PCE). A cumbersome name at the least! And one I dislike in its witness to the world as it still retains the name of "evangelical" within its much misunderstood label amongst the press - though readily identifiable to the knowledgeable Christian seeking affiliation with the church's historic past. And yet, EC should not be thought of as so far left as to fall into Progressive Mainline Denominationalism (PMD) active in social works, equitable justice, and minority empowerment, but less-focused on Jesus and His Word; nor even left of that into Liberal Theology (LT) concentrated on pure anthropological construction of the biblical text and devoid of Jesus altogether. Why these distinctions? Because many of my evangelical friends believe these things and continue to tell others of these untruths.

Moreover, I have come to believe that EC's present job is to remove the structural restrictions of classical Evangelical expression while making all efforts to create a postmodern Christian orthodoxy that is updated from its current classical expressions of itself. Releasing itself at once from its extra-biblical, non-orthodox past, of disseminated church dogmas and traditions, while immediately seeking truer (more biblical expansive) expressions of historic orthodox doctrines and theologies within the fluid contexts of contemporary, (post-)postmodern global society filling with the unborn generations yet to come. As such, Emergent Christianity - undergirded by an emerging theology - should embrace church movements both right-and-left of itself while providing the Scriptural judgments and spirit of revival requisite for the job at hand for Emergent Christian expression in the 21st Century.

Something classic evangelical churches may attempt to do, but be unable to fully do, if remaining unyielded to critiquing their movement, belief, expectation, hope, and social mores. Even so, it is hoped that migrating PCE congregations will adopt a more progressive tone-and-tenor of toleration within their congregations as they search the Scriptures to determine God's revelation for today's generations. But to simplistic describe one's church as being a "missional church" or a "progressive fellowship" will not be sufficient in the demanding head winds of today's (post-)postmodern societies. To be truly missional, or progressive, is to challenge one's past beliefs and knowledge, relying on the wisdom and power of God's Holy Spirit whom we know as the Fire of God's burning heart alive with the eternal heats of God's divine love unwilling that any be excluded from the Kingdom of God. It is a task we must all unite around.

And because the gospel of Jesus seems to get overlooked in the many good works of PMD, and lost altogether in the biblical redactionism of LT, I don't believe any further movement left by EC is warranted. Consequently, I would like to see the tent of EC expand over all definitive Christian canopies, if possible. Built upon newer, ex-Reformational (ex-Calvinistic) structures, that are more Jewish, more postmodern, more scientific, more pluralistic and expansive. When it does, it will require a global language, symbolism, unity, and faith, that will look wholly unlike anything it does today. In fact, Christianity's postmodern expression will take several generations to accomplish, if not longer. One which we hope to begin here within this era, and by the enterprises of other forward-looking Christian groups, regardless of their heritage and denominational background. Think of these emergent fellowships as "Christian Think Tanks" which will push (lovingly) against the sacred boundaries of the present day Church.

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How the Faithful Voted: 2012 Preliminary Analysis

http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/How-the-Faithful-Voted-2012-Preliminary-Exit-Poll-Analysis.aspx

ANALYSISNovember 7, 2012

In his re-election victory, Democrat Barack Obama narrowly defeated Republican Mitt Romney in the national popular vote (50% to 48%)¹. Obama’s margin of victory was much smaller than in 2008 when he defeated John McCain by a 53% to 46% margin, and he lost ground among white evangelical Protestants and white Catholics. But the basic religious contours of the 2012 electorate resemble recent elections – traditionally Republican groups such as white evangelicals and weekly churchgoers strongly backed Romney, while traditionally Democratic groups such as black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated backed Obama by large margins.

Vote Choice by Religion and Race

Religiously unaffiliated voters and Jewish voters were firmly in Obama’s corner in 2012 (70% and 69%, respectively). Compared with 2008, support for Obama ticked downward among both Jews and religiously unaffiliated voters in the exit polls, though these declines appear not to be statistically significant. Both of these groups have long been strongly supportive of Democratic candidates in presidential elections. Black Protestants also voted overwhelmingly for Obama (95%).

At the other end of the political spectrum, nearly eight-in-ten white evangelical Protestants voted for Romney (79%), compared with 20% who backed Obama. Romney received as much support from evangelical voters as George W. Bush did in 2004 (79%) and more support from evangelicals than McCain did in 2008 (73%). Mormon voters were also firmly in Romney’s corner; nearly eight-in-ten Mormons (78%) voted for Romney, while 21% voted for Obama. Romney received about the same amount of support from Mormons that Bush received in 2004. (Exit poll data on Mormons was unavailable for 2000 and 2008.)

Compared with religiously unaffiliated and Jewish voters on the left and white evangelicals and Mormons on the right, Catholics and white mainline Protestants were more evenly divided. Among white mainline Protestants in the exit poll, 54% voted for Romney, while 44% supported Obama. This is virtually identical to the 2008 election, when 55% of white mainline Protestants voted for McCain and 44% backed Obama.

White Catholics, by contrast, swung strongly in the Republican direction relative to 2008. Nearly six-in-ten white Catholics (59%) voted for Romney, up from 52% who voted for McCain in 2008. Three-quarters of Hispanic Catholics voted for Obama, and Catholics as a whole were evenly divided in 2012 (50% voted for Obama, while 48% backed Romney).

Vote Choice by Religious Attendance

As in other recent elections, those who attend religious services most often exhibited the strongest support for the Republican presidential candidate. Nearly six-in-ten voters who say they attend religious services at least once a week voted for Romney (59%), while 39% backed Obama. Romney received as much support from weekly churchgoers as other Republican candidates have in recent elections.

Those who say they never attend religious services were again among the strongest Democratic supporters in the presidential election. More than six-in-ten voters who say they never attend religious services voted for Obama (62%). Voters who say they attend religious services a few times a month or a few times a year also supported Obama over Romney by a 55% to 43% margin.

Religious Composition of the 2012 Electorate

The religious composition of the 2012 electorate resembled recent elections, though there are signs that both the white Protestant and white Catholic share of the electorate are gradually declining over the long term.

 Slightly more than half of 2012 voters describe themselves as Protestants (53%), compared with 54% in each of the three previous elections. Roughly four-in-ten voters were white Protestants in 2012 (39%); by comparison, 42% of 2004 and 2008 voters were white Protestants, as were 45% of 2000 voters. The decline in white Protestants’ share of the electorate is most evident among non-evangelicals, whose share of the electorate has declined slightly from 20% in 2004 to 16% in 2012. White evangelical Protestants constituted 23% of the 2012 electorate, compared with 23% in 2008 and 21% in 2004.

One-quarter of 2012 voters were Catholics, including 18% who were white Catholics. By comparison, white Catholics constituted 21% of the electorate in 2000, 20% of voters in 2004 and 19% of the electorate in 2008.

Jews accounted for 2% of the 2012 electorate, and Muslims and members of other non-Christian faiths together accounted for 7% of the electorate. The religiously unaffiliated made up 12% of 2012 voters; the religiously unaffiliated share of the electorate is unchanged from 2008, even though the religiously unaffiliated share of the adult population has grown significantly over this period.

For more election-related analysis from the Pew Research Center, see "Changing Face of America Helps Assure Obama Victory,”Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, Nov. 7, 2012, "Latino Voters in the 2012 Election," Pew Hispanic Center, Nov. 7, 2012 and "A Milestone En Route to a Majority Minority Nation," Pew Social & Demographic Trends, Nov. 7, 2012.

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Footnotes:

             

1 This preliminary analysis reflects data for 2012 as published by NBCNews.com as of 10:15 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2012. If data are subsequently re-weighted by the National Election Pool (NEP), the consortium of news organizations that conducts the exit polls, the numbers reported here may differ slightly from figures accessible through the websites of NEP member organizations. As in previous years, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life plans to conduct a more detailed analysis of religion in the 2012 campaign once the raw exit poll data become available.

© Joshua Bickel/Corbis

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Index to past articles on "An Open Faith and Open Theology"

Why Do We Need a Historical Adam? The Bible Doesn't.

"...Does Paul need Adam to be a historical figure in order to make his argument in Romans 5?

No, not really.... It is a fundamentally anological link, not a fundamentally historical link."

 

"Genesis is not best understood as a textbook on natural history."

 

"But it is getting harder and harder to make a case for a historical Adam."

 

"But, really, who needs a historical Adam? I don’t think Paul does. Nor do I think

that the essential trustworthiness of the Bible depends on Adam’s historicity."

 

- dm Williams

 

On August 16, 2011, I reported on a NPR broadcast questioning the existence of Adam and Eve, which then led to another follow up article on January 6, 2012. Rather than be annoyed and bothered by NPR's program it more-or-less spoke to me of moving in the right directions in apprehending how to read the bible from its own perspective rather than from my own perspective. That our epistemologies often get in the way of hearing God's Word because of what we think it is saying rather than what it is saying.

 

Unknown to me at the time, another fellow listener likewise responded similarly as I did by making analogies to another more recent figure, the little-celebrated physicist Robert Oppenheimer, by relating his atomic research to that of the Greek legend Prometheus, the god of fire. From there he correlated the apostle Paul's primitive understanding of the ancient biblical world to that of the creation story of Adam and Eve. His conclusions echoed mine own written many months earlier causing me to repost this more recent article here below so that when we turn our attention to the Genesis story of Creation at some later time we may have a little background in which to think through these areas of interpretation and dogma. One that sees the obstacles of a literal hermeneutic within a traditional Christian epistemology prohibiting an expanded bible deepened in its usages of prose and poetry. One that is set against the cultural regards of earlier, non-scientific, epistemologies built upon religious folklores and presumptions rather than upon historic renderings resulting from within the ancient biblical cultures themselves. Apparently, the durability of folklore was as true then as it is now, but with the significant difference that we should know better in our 21st Century scholarship, and should likewise be informing our congregations of this literary insight rather than withholding certain knowledge from them.

Consequently, Paul had no excuses because modern science would not be around for another 2000 years. And God's illumined inspiration did not intend to revise ancient man's understanding of the natural world, but to inform Paul and his readers of Christ's redemptive work of spiritual life relative to sin's ingress through humanity bringing death. The purpose of revelation then was to speak to God's salvation through His Son Jesus. It was not to correct the culture of Paul's day towards a more informed scientific understanding. No. They did not have the mindset to understand it. They did not have the scientific tools to prove it. They did not have the academic disciplines to study it (biology, math, chemistry, quantum physics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc). They did not have the academic communities to discuss it. They did not have the support of either their religion nor their communities to go forward in their investigations with it. Nor did they have the funding, students and livelihood to provide it. No, God spoke to Paul about the spiritual value and physical accomplishment of Jesus' death and resurrection. Not to correct their primitive understanding of the Earth and its environment. Nor to scientifically inform their creation stories based upon eons of oral legends handed down to them through their generations. In Paul's day, Adam may have been considered a real historical fact - or so we think - but Adam may as well have been considered a historic legend. Regardless, evolutionary theory dispels all creation accounts as myth and legend, regardless of the culture or society (be they Chinese, Mayan, Sumerian, Greek, or some other), else it is our sciences that have over reached... which does not seem to be the case. Consequently, it is our own epistemologies that now over reach and require dispelling when strictly interpreting the Genesis account of creation as literally true, rather than as an allegorically true revelation by the God of creation (and specifically, the Hebrew story of creation and none other).

But lest we become prideful we should always have the mindset to be testing our present day's knowledge against Scripture because both our mindset, and our knowledge, can-and-will change over time-and-circumstance. And for the record, God's understanding isn't the one needing to be changed here. No. It is our own. Our own epistemologies of interpretive language that we think we know but never conclusively in the promised light of future languages of discovery and means. God's Word is profound and we are no less committed to its revelation than previous generations of believers. However, it is we ourselves that must learn to be critiqued so that God's Word becomes more fully revealed and made known. That is the hope of updating the Christian faith within that of today's postmodern discoveries throughout its upcoming generations. We do not lessen the Word of God but do by these progressive acts make it more relevant to our times and generations. Should we not, we do then create an unwarranted skepticism and undue prejudice against God's Word causing it to feel more like a dying religion and irrelevant dogma to today's postmodern academia and cultures than the marvelously living faith that it really is.

This then is the task we have set before us as Christian men and women. Not to rewrite science according to our prejudices and religious beliefs. But to rewrite our epistemologies to better embrace God's holy Word. It is we ourselves that must stand in judgment. Not the bible. But our creeds and doctrines refusing the revelatory light of postmodernity's discoveries both old and new. As a Christian, we should never fear change and progress. But embrace it as it makes sense however belatedly we come to its acceptance after due time of prayerful study and theological review. And so it is now that the time has come to do this task. That our past 500 years of Reformation faith must now update itself if only by the evidence that the church's present laity, like myself, are beginning to notice that we are unnecessarily clinging overlong to yesteryear's dogmas and traditions. And that our pulpits and universities must likewise change. And as they do I suspect that God will survive our thoughts and imaginations for my trust in God is infinite. But my trust in man's knowledge is cursory at best knowing how we like to change things towards our own way of thinking (I speak both of the church and of our scientific communities). To that end we do the best we can in academic discipline and honesty while holding in tension multiple levels of understanding God's Word knowing someday all will become clear and light. To that end, may God's peace and blessing be upon you this day. And may this present task set before us grant God's loving guidance and faithful care. Amen.

R.E. Slater

November 13, 2012

 

Other articles that may be helpful -


Do We Have an Open Bible or a Closed Bible? Or, What Makes an Open Bible Closed?


Peter Enns Responds (to the Sola Scriptura view)


Evangelicals Question The Existence Of Adam And Eve

 

 

 

How God Created by Evolution:

A Proposed Theory of Man's Evolutionary Development

 

 

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Who Needs a Historical Adam?

http://resurrectingraleigh.com/2012/10/19/who-needs-a-historical-adam/

Posted by dmwilliams83

October 19, 2012
 

The other week I picked up the biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant theoretical physicist who played a key role in the Manhattan Project, helping to develop the world’s first nuclear weapons. After World War II, however, he worked unsuccessfully to prevent a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, fearing the devastating power of his own invention. Naturally enough, his biographers liken his story to the myth of Prometheus, writing in the preface of the book:

 

Like that rebellious Greek god Prometheus–who stole fire from Zeus and bestowed it upon humankind, Oppenheimer gave us atomic fire. But then, when he tried to control it, when he sought to make us aware of its terrible dangers, the powers-that-be, like Zeus, rose up in anger to punish him. (xiii)

 

It would be hard to think of a more apposite comparison, a better metaphorical lens for understanding Oppenheimer’s place in our world. But of course, there are a few differences between Prometheus and Oppenheimer, chief among them being the fact that Oppenheimer is a historical figure of recent memory and Prometheus is a fictional character of a mythic past. But no one in their right mind would say that that fact diminishes the validity or the power of Bird and Sherwin’s comparison. No one would say that Bird and Sherwin’s likening of Oppenheimer to Prometheus commits them to the historicity of Prometheus’s story, or that believing that Prometheus’s story is mythological somehow undermines one’s grounds for believing in Robert Oppenheimer.

This morning I was reading the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans where he likens Jesus to Adam. Paul writes:

Therefore, just as (hosper) sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned–for sin indeed was in the world before the Law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type (typos) of the one who was to come. (5:12-14, ESV)

With Bird and Sherwin’s biography in the back of my mind it struck me today as never before that Paul’s comparison of Jesus to Adam is fundamentally just that, a comparison. More specifically, Adam’s role in the comparison is that Adam is the typos, the figure, the pattern, the model for Jesus, “the one who was to come (tou mellontos).” Jesus, like Adam, is one man whose singular decisive action has had ramifications for all of subsequent humanity.

 

The analogy isn’t perfect, as Paul acknowledges:

 

But the free gift is not like (ouk hws) the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like (ouk hws) the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:15-17, ESV)

The analogy isn’t perfect. Whereas Adam’s action (like Prometheus’s) was catastrophic, Jesus’s action was, to borrow Tolkien’s word, eucatastrophic. Whereas Adam’s was an act of disobedience, Jesus’s action was one of obedience. Whereas Adam’s action was a betrayal of God, Jesus’s action was a gift of God. Whereas Adam’s action brought about a regime of death, Jesus’s action brought about the victory of life. Jesus, in other words, is like Adam turned right-side-up.

The more I look at this passage, the less I see how it makes a lick of difference to the force of Paul’s argument whether Adam is a historical figure or not. To my mind, the fundamental analogy still holds even if we were to add one more disanalogous element to those we have already rehearsed: whereas Adam was a fictional character of a mythic past, Jesus was for Paul a historical figure of recent memory. No matter. The comparison still holds. Jesus is, in some important ways, like Adam, just as He is said elsewhere in the New Testament to be like Moses, like Jonah, like Jeremiah, like Elijah, like a lamb, like a vine, like a door, like a shepherd, and like dozens of other things.
 

Rembrandt’s “St. Paul at His Writing Desk,” 1630
 

 

So did Paul personally believe in a historical Adam? Probably. He was a first century Jew. I’d be surprised if he didn’t (and I’d also be surprised if he didn’t believe in a geocentric cosmos, for that matter).

 

But does Paul need Adam to be a historical figure in order to make his argument in Romans 5? No, not really. And I would say the same, mutatis mutandis, for his argument in 1 Corinthians 15. The link between Adam and Jesus that he is making is more like Bird and Sherwin’s link between Prometheus and Oppenheimer than it is like the link between, say, Jesus and Pontius Pilate. It is a fundamentally anological link, not a fundamentally historical link.

 

All of this, of course, matters for those of us who take the New Testament to be our primary source for thinking about life, the universe, and everything, and who are keeping abreast of conversations in both the natural sciences and biblical scholarship which suggest that Genesis is not best understood as a textbook on natural history (see, e.g., this story by NPR). The evidence isn’t all in. It never is. But it is getting harder and harder to make a case for a historical Adam and that is disconcerting in excelsis for many Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and others who see the Christian faith itself as being on the line in these discussions.

 

But, really, who needs a historical Adam? I don’t think Paul does. Nor do I think that the essential trustworthiness of the Bible depends on Adam’s historicity.

 

So who needs–really needs–a historical Adam? Adherents to a traducian account of the soul and a peculiar understanding of original sin? Devotees of the Westminster Confession of Faith? Biblical literalists?

 

But these are all varieties of Christian faith, not Christianity per se. There have always been within the Christian tradition (better?) alternatives to these particular theological stances, some of which do not logically depend upon the historicity of the Adam story. If the evidence should continue to mount against the historicity of Adam, the choice before us should not be whether we will be Christians or not, but whether we will be these sorts of Christians or those sorts of Christians. Christianity itself is simply not at stake.

 

So do you need a historical Adam? If so, help me understand why you do. If you don’t, you can tell me about that too.

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

 

 



The Apostle Paul
Illustration by Denise Klitsie



 

Does Paul’s Christ Require a Historical Adam?

http://cms.fuller.edu/TNN/Issues/Spring_2013/Does_Paul_s_Christ_Require_a_Historical_Adam/

 

By J. R. Daniel Kirk

Spring 2013

The Christian tradition has made much of Adam. We in the Western church speak regularly of the Fall of humanity that took place in Adam’s primal disobedience. Theologically, we speak of inherited sin and guilt—an original [(corporate)] sin that renders us all complicit. We are guilty of humanity’s first great act of disobedience and enslaved to sin’s power.

Such theological claims derive more from our reading of Paul’s reflections on Adam than from the Genesis story itself. For many, the most significant theological reasons for affirming a historical Adam have to do not with what Genesis 1–3 may or may not teach about human origins, but with the theology of Adam that Paul articulates in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. In short, if there is no historical Adam with whom we are enmeshed in the guilt and power of sin, how can we affirm that in Christ we participate in the justification and freedom of grace?

The levels of freedom (or lack thereof) that many of us experience with regard to the question of Adam as a historical person is inseparable from the theology that we see bound up with him. For some, to reject Adam as a historical person is to reject the authority of Scripture and trustworthiness of the very passages within which we learn of justification and resurrection.¹ Others are concerned that to deny a historical Adam is to deny the narrative of a good world gone wrong that serves as the very basis for the good news of Jesus Christ. In short, if there is no Fall, there can be no salvation from it and restoration to what was and/or might have been.² Even more expansively, Douglas Farrow concludes that “there is very little of importance in Christian theology, hence also in doxology and practice, that is not at stake in the question of whether or not we allow a historical dimension to the Fall.”³

High stakes, indeed. But I want to suggest that things might not be so dire. Specifically, I want to open up the conversation to the possibility that the gospel does not, in fact, depend on a historical Adam or historical Fall in large part because what Paul says about Adam stems from his prior conviction about the saving work of Christ. The theological points Paul wishes to make concern the saving work of the resurrected Christ and the means by which he makes them is the shared cultural and religious framework of his first-century Jewish context.

Christ and Adam

Paul has an important story to tell. It is the story of God’s new creation breaking into the world through the surprising mechanism of a crucified and resurrected Christ. This conviction about the new creation being brought about by Christ provides Paul with the ground to stand on as he draws Adam into the conversation in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15.

One crucial dynamic of Paul’s Adam Christology is representation. Christ does, is, and becomes what we need to participate in, be, and become in order to be God’s eternal family. For this reason, Paul takes hold of the “image of God” language with which we are so familiar from Genesis 1, and uses it to describe Jesus as he stands in relation to us: “he decided in advance that they would be conformed to the image of his Son.”⁴ Christ represents who we are, and who we are becoming, as members of God’s new-creation family.

This representation is focused on two particular aspects of Christ’s saving work: his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Romans 5 develops Paul’s Adam Christology around Christ’s death. Throughout the latter half of Romans 5, Paul outlines how Christ’s act entails benefits for many: it brings about God’s gracious gift in a manner that more than undoes the work of Adam, even reclaiming humanity’s privilege of ruling the world for God (5:15–17; cf. Genesis 1:26).

Similar dynamics unfurl in 1 Corinthians 15, where Adam is viewed as the progenitor of death in contrast to Christ who, as God’s new representative human being, anticipates humanity’s coming resurrection life (15:21–22). A new humanity has been inaugurated by the resurrected Christ.

This theological framework positions us to step into Paul’s statements about Adam. Paul is working with the stories of Israel, as told in the Old Testament, but from the perspective of someone who knows, now, that God’s great act of salvation has come in Christ.

Christ, the Law, and History

This brings us to our central question: To what extent do we need to affirm a historical Adam in order also to affirm the saving dynamics of Paul’s Adam Christology?

Romans 5 presents us with what are arguably the most pressing reasons to affirm a historical Adam. There we find these striking words from Paul:

• Sin entered the world through one person (5:12).
• Many people died through what one person did wrong (5:15).
• The judgment that came through one person’s sin led to punishment (5:16).
• Death ruled because of one person’s failure (5:17).
• Judgment fell on everyone through the failure of one person (5:18).
• Many people were made sinners through the disobedience of one person (5:19).

Paul is clearly appealing to both the common experience of enslavement to sin and death and the normative narratives of Israel regarding Adam to explain the reality that Christ overcomes. Moreover, the consistent point of comparison is that one person, Adam, represents the rest of humanity in coming under the guilt, the power, or the condemnation of sin.

One of the first questions worth confronting is whether this passage allows for various understandings of how Adam might represent humanity. Thus, for example, might there be room here, not for a physical, natural progenitor of all subsequent human beings, but for a person who was chosen by God from a developing or, at any rate, numerically numerous, human race to play the role of representative in obedience and disobedience?

But the question that will clamor for the attention of many is whether such a moment in which sin’s guilt and power are unleashed as the lords of humanity is required at all. There seems to have been death in this world millions of years before human beings came on the scene. Is it possible to affirm the point Paul wishes to make—that God’s grace, righteousness, and life abound to the many because of Christ—without simultaneously affirming the assumptions with which he illustrated these things to be true?

Writing to the Romans, Paul wished to argue that God’s people are found in Christ, and thereby cut off other possible ways of construing idealized human identity and what salvation and the people of God might look like. In claiming that Christ is (un)like Adam, Paul was simultaneously taking other options off the table. What difference might it make to our discussions about a historical Adam that Paul was claiming, “Christ, is (un)like Adam, therefore God’s people are not demarcated by Torah”? This latter statement is, in fact, the point of Paul’s argument in Romans 5 (cf. 5:12–14, 20–21). Paul’s Adam theology is an avenue toward affirming that God has one worldwide people; therefore, the specially blessed people are not defined by the story of circumcision. But he does not ask the question of whether an evolutionary account of human origins might stand within the story of God’s new creation work in Christ, and his argument is not aimed at denying such an explanation of where we came from.

Retelling the Story of Origins

 When the ancients told stories of human origins, it was never simply to tell people “what happened.” Instead, such narratives indicate why their particular people and their particular god played the roles of sovereigns of the world. Genesis 1 is an introduction to the covenant story of Israel, in which God promises to make fruitful Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and also multiply them (17:6; 28:3; 35:11; 47:27; 48:4). The story of Adam in Genesis is written with the latter story of Israel in mind, so that the reader can see that Israel is destined to fulfill God’s primordial promise of not only filling the Earth but also ruling over it (cf. 17:6).

Similarly, Paul employs the story of Adam based on his new understanding that Christ is the man through whom God has chosen to rule the world and that the churches are the people who are the fulfillment of the promise of numerous descendants. For neither Paul nor the writer of Genesis does the story of Adam exist as a standalone narrative to which later history must correspond. Instead, the convictions about what God has done at a later point in history determine how the Adam story is read.

New Testament scholarship over the past half century has developed the insight that the first data point in Paul’s Christian theologizing was his understanding that the cross and resurrection formed the saving act of God. In the 1960s, Herman Ridderbos argued that this fundamental conviction becomes the great act of God by which all other acts and ideas are understood.⁵ The significance of this focus on Christ is that it ripples out in all directions: not only does Paul rethink the future in light of Jesus’ death and resurrection, but he also reinterprets what came before. Thus, Ridderbos concludes that “Paul’s whole doctrine of the world and man in sin . . . is only to be perceived in the light of his insight into the all-important redemptive event in Christ.”⁶ A decade later E. P. Sanders concurred, claiming that Paul reasons “from solution to plight.”⁷ Because Paul knows that God has provided the solution to the problem of human sin in the crucified and risen Christ, he therefore reassesses the place of the Law, in particular, in God’s saving story. Romans 5 is one particular outworking of this.

Both Ridderbos and Sanders have come to the same conclusion: what is a “given” for Paul is the saving event of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The other things he says, especially about sin, the Law, and eschatology, are reinterpretations that grow from the fundamental reality of the Christ event. Recognizing this relieves the pressure that sometimes builds up around a historical Adam. Contrary to the fears expressed by Douglas Farrow, we can now recognize that Adam is not the foundation on which the system of Christian faith and life is built, such that removing him means that the whole edifice comes crashing down. Instead, the Adam of the past is one spire in a large edifice whose foundation is Christ. The gospel need not be compromised if we find ourselves having to part ways with Paul’s assumption that there is a historical Adam, because we share Paul’s fundamental conviction that the crucified Messiah is the resurrected Lord over all.

Where, then, are we left, if the pressures of scientific inquiry lead us to take down the spire of a literal, historical Adam? What might it look like for us to faithfully receive Paul’s testimony not merely by saying what he said, but by doing what he did? Might it be possible that we could retell the stories of both Adam and evolutionary sciences such that they continued to reflect our conviction that the endpoint of God’s great story is nothing else than new creation in the crucified and risen Christ? For many, the cognitive dissonance between the sciences and a historical Adam has already become too great to continue holding both.⁸ We therefore have to carefully determine whether the cause of Christ, and of truth, is better served by indicating that a choice must be made between the two, or by retelling the narrative about the origins of humanity as we now understand it in light of the death and resurrection of Christ.

The task of reimagining a Christian story of origins for our modern era has already begun.⁹ As it continues, faithful articulation of our story will have to attempt to hold together for our day what Paul’s articulation held together so beautifully for his own: humanity as a whole, not one particular race or ethnicity or nationality of people, is the purview of God’s saving work in Christ; humanity’s final destiny has been determined by the advent of the new creation in Christ’s resurrection; and this solution in Christ indicates that the problem to be solved entails not only personal estrangement from God, but a whole world that fails to live up to the harmony, peace, fruitfulness, life, and eternality of the God who created it. Perhaps most importantly, we must not allow biology or physics or chemistry to have the last word about the destiny of humanity. The reality of our lives as creatures limited by death and decay must stand in subordinate relationship to the eschatological reality of new creation that God has granted us in Christ.

To accompany Paul on the task of telling the story of the beginning in light of Christ, while parting ways with his first-century understanding of science and history, is not to abandon the Christian faith in favor of science. Instead, it demands a fresh act of faith in which we continue to hold fast to the truth that has always defined Christianity: the crucified Messiah is the resurrected Lord over all. Belief in Christ’s resurrection was a stumbling block for the ancients, and it is a stumbling block for us moderns as well—and increasingly so as we learn more about our human story and the biological processes entailed in life on this Earth. We do not give up on the central article of Christian faith when we use it to tell a renewed story of where we came from. On the contrary, we thereby give it the honor which is its due.
 

Retelling the Story of Origins
When the ancients told stories of human origins, it was never simply to tell people “what happened.” Instead, such narratives indicate why their particular people and their particular god played the roles of sovereigns of the world. Genesis 1 is an introduction to the covenant story of Israel, in which God promises to make fruitful Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and also multiply them (17:6; 28:3; 35:11; 47:27; 48:4). The story of Adam in Genesis is written with the latter story of Israel in mind, so that the reader can see that Israel is destined to fulfill God’s primordial promise of not only filling the Earth but also ruling over it (cf. 17:6).

Similarly, Paul employs the story of Adam based on his new understanding that Christ is the man through whom God has chosen to rule the world and that the churches are the people who are the fulfillment of the promise of numerous descendants. For neither Paul nor the writer of Genesis does the story of Adam exist as a standalone narrative to which later history must correspond. Instead, the convictions about what God has done at a later point in history determine how the Adam story is read.
New Testament scholarship over the past half century has developed the insight that the first data point in Paul’s Christian theologizing was his understanding that the cross and resurrection formed the saving act of God. In the 1960s, Herman Ridderbos argued that this fundamental conviction becomes the great act of God by which all other acts and ideas are understood.⁵ The significance of this focus on Christ is that it ripples out in all directions: not only does Paul rethink the future in light of Jesus’ death and resurrection, but he also reinterprets what came before. Thus, Ridderbos concludes that “Paul’s whole doctrine of the world and man in sin . . . is only to be perceived in the light of his insight into the all-important redemptive event in Christ.”⁶ A decade later E. P. Sanders concurred, claiming that Paul reasons “from solution to plight.”⁷ Because Paul knows that God has provided the solution to the problem of human sin in the crucified and risen Christ, he therefore reassesses the place of the Law, in particular, in God’s saving story. Romans 5 is one particular outworking of this.
Both Ridderbos and Sanders have come to the same conclusion: what is a “given” for Paul is the saving event of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The other things he says, especially about sin, the Law, and eschatology, are reinterpretations that grow from the fundamental reality of the Christ event. Recognizing this relieves the pressure that sometimes builds up around a historical Adam. Contrary to the fears expressed by Douglas Farrow, we can now recognize that Adam is not the foundation on which the system of Christian faith and life is built, such that removing him means that the whole edifice comes crashing down. Instead, the Adam of the past is one spire in a large edifice whose foundation is Christ. The gospel need not be compromised if we find ourselves having to part ways with Paul’s assumption that there is a historical Adam, because we share Paul’s fundamental conviction that the crucified Messiah is the resurrected Lord over all.

Body, Soul, and Human Life
Joel B. Green
(Baker Academic, 2009)

Exploring what Scripture and theology teach about issues such as being made in the divine image, the importance of community, sin, free will, salvation, and the afterlife, Green argues that a dualistic view of the human person is inconsistent with both science and Scripture.

MORE

Where, then, are we left, if the pressures of scientific inquiry lead us to take down the spire of a literal, historical Adam? What might it look like for us to faithfully receive Paul’s testimony not merely by saying what he said, but by doing what he did? Might it be possible that we could retell the stories of both Adam and evolutionary sciences such that they continued to reflect our conviction that the endpoint of God’s great story is nothing else than new creation in the crucified and risen Christ? For many, the cognitive dissonance between the sciences and a historical Adam has already become too great to continue holding both.⁸ We therefore have to carefully determine whether the cause of Christ, and of truth, is better served by indicating that a choice must be made between the two, or by retelling the narrative about the origins of humanity as we now understand it in light of the death and resurrection of Christ.
The task of reimagining a Christian story of origins for our modern era has already begun.⁹ As it continues, faithful articulation of our story will have to attempt to hold together for our day what Paul’s articulation held together so beautifully for his own: humanity as a whole, not one particular race or ethnicity or nationality of people, is the purview of God’s saving work in Christ; humanity’s final destiny has been determined by the advent of the new creation in Christ’s resurrection; and this solution in Christ indicates that the problem to be solved entails not only personal estrangement from God, but a whole world that fails to live up to the harmony, peace, fruitfulness, life, and eternality of the God who created it. Perhaps most importantly, we must not allow biology or physics or chemistry to have the last word about the destiny of humanity. The reality of our lives as creatures limited by death and decay must stand in subordinate relationship to the eschatological reality of new creation that God has granted us in Christ.
To accompany Paul on the task of telling the story of the beginning in light of Christ, while parting ways with his first-century understanding of science and history, is not to abandon the Christian faith in favor of science. Instead, it demands a fresh act of faith in which we continue to hold fast to the truth that has always defined Christianity: the crucified Messiah is the resurrected Lord over all. Belief in Christ’s resurrection was a stumbling block for the ancients, and it is a stumbling block for us moderns as well—and increasingly so as we learn more about our human story and the biological processes entailed in life on this Earth. We do not give up on the central article of Christian faith when we use it to tell a renewed story of where we came from. On the contrary, we thereby give it the honor which is its due.

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ENDNOTES 

1. E.g., A. B. Caneday, “The Language of God and Adam’s Genesis and Historicity in Paul’s Gospel,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011): 26–59.
2. E.g., C. John Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why You Should Care (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 133–35; John W. Mahoney, “Why an Historical Adam Matters for the Doctrine of Original Sin,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011): 60–78; Stephen J. Wellum, “Editorial: Debating the Historicity of Adam: Does It Matter?” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011): 2–3.
3. Douglas Farrow, “Fall,” in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (ed. A. Hastings, A. Mason, and H. S. Pyper; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 233–34.
4. All scriptural citations are from the Common English Bible unless otherwise indicated.
5. Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 44–90.
6. Ridderbos, Paul, 137.
7. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1977), 474–508.
8. See, e.g., John R. Schneider, “Recent Genetic Science and Christian Theology on Human Origins: An ‘Aesthetic Superlapsarianism,’” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 62 (2010): 196–213.
9. E.g., Daniel C. Harlow, “After Adam: Reading Adam in an Age of Evolutionary Science,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 62 (2010): 179–95.

 

My Faith Journey from Evangelicalism

 

"...In hindsight, my faith didn't require abandonment. No.

Simply a better resonance with what it wasn't hearing

in today's current generations of God's faithful."  - re slater

 

Years ago I began the process of investigating what evolution might mean to me as a Christian and found myself in the long process of re-thinking the fundamental progress that science has been making these past many years without my personal involvement and investment. However, about a year ago I began reporting on the Christian understanding of evolution and all the affects this understanding would have upon Christian doctrine if it were to be incorporated into a normalized view of Scripture (see the sidebars under "Science" on the right hand column) . I began by splitting articles up between anthropological and cosmological studies starting with what we know about hominids and the homo sapien genome structure and progressing forward towards Earth studies and studies related to the universe. Along the way I discovered a Christian organization by the name of Biologos to be deeply involved with the same concerns as I had and so, began utilizing their research and opinions to help more quickly form some basic ideas of what evolution means for the Bible and for the Christian dedicated to understanding the Bible's ideas about God as our Creator-Redeemer.

Having been risen in a culture of Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism requiring a form of biblical literalism and inerrancy, and holding to the more stricter view that evolution was fundamentally anti-biblical, I felt led of the Spirit of God to place these categories to the side and hold them in tension so that I could begin a re-investigation into what my faith might mean in light of all that we now know about ourselves and our world in evolutionary terms. From that day until this present I have undergone a radical change that has uplifted my reading of the bible and understanding about God. I have come away richer and more satisfied with the journey I've taken and now regard my past with some little bit of skepticism. The bible is no longer as literal as it use to be for me and in exchange I've come away with phenomenal spiritual insight to what God is presently doing in this world of ours. How I read the bible (cf. the sidebars Hermeneutics, Bible), how I understand Jesus in His many redemptive aspects (Gospel, Sin, Salvation, Love, etc), how I understand God (Theism, Narrative Theology), what I expect for the future (Kingdom, Eschatology), and for the church today (Faith, Church, Christianity) has become greatly enriched and fundamentally deepened. I did not expect this when I began. In fact, I expected quite the reverse (if not hell itself! according to disconcerted friends and family). But am amazed at how untangled I've become from the many binding cords of my more traditional faith heritage. An heritage which I can only have the deepest appreciation for, but one that I must transform away from towards  a type of one that I've been writing and describing as Emergent Christianity... which itself is in a similar state of transition. This is important to know as newer adherents like myself seek to gather into a broader space of faith acceptance, practice and worship. One more richly filled with an orthodox biblical tradition expanding outwards. But perhaps not spoken as well as it could be by some of our earliest emergent advocates.

In essence, I've evolved, or am emerging, into a Christian that is more open and freer of my more-restrictive, past traditional Christian beliefs and structures. And if you had started with me last April of 2011, when writing under the pseudonym of skinhead, you would've read of my dismay with Evangelicalism and my perplexity over a newer direction called Emergent Christianity that had gotten a lot of bad press and was being plied with a lot of misinformation. No less from the fact that I had to also sort out what my Emergent brethren were saying as they seemed to blindly stumble about the theological room examining differing parts of the same elephant and declaring "Aha, this is what faith means!" Or, "Oho, this is what it means now!" Each one using a differing non-rigorous structural, theosophic or philosophic, element to re-create a Christian faith that needed re-birthing, re-ordering, re-examination, and re-discovery. And it was this very thing that I felt I could do and had quickly become burdened to express. Driven by the Spirit of God as it were. Relentlessly. Tirelessly. Till I've arrived here in this present space tired and weary and glad for the burden to do what little I could in the area of Christian epistemology set within a postmodern framework. And since then have endeavored to take all the parts and pieces of my past training and understanding to reconfigure an expanded sense of evangelicalism that is more progressive. Less judgmental. More open to broader ideologies and methodologies. That is global. Transformative. Multi-generational. Pluralistic. And more attune to the postmodern cultures and societies of our times. Regardless of whether we call it Emergent or not. I needed a faith that saw Jesus in all His many forms and beauty. And this I believe is what God gave to me as my vision.

Thus, I have begged, borrowed and reconfigured every helpful idea that I could find among the brotherhood. And have dearly tried not to limit the power of God in this endeavor even as I've tried to recreate a more open conformity to Scriptures. Overall, I have first and foremost sought biblical direction and support for these newer (Emergent) ideas than simply stating mine own preferences and opinions. Or when I do, admit it while investigating these newer transformative ideas and insights. If ideas like evolution is true, or that God is closer to us today than He ever has been before, or that the essence of the Christian faith is Jesus, than I need to know how to arrive at these conclusions from a biblically supportive structure. At first this task was one of redefining Evangelicalism's ingrained "definition" of itself. I found those definitions self-limiting and fast becoming the very sacred altars of a church no longer living in this present world but in the past worlds of yesteryear's Christian endeavors, confessional commitments, and sanctified organizations. As such, it was no longer useful except for historic guidance and orthodox support. Otherwise, it seemed like all things Christian needed the probing scalpel of deep re-examination and re-orientation. This deconstructive effort was painful (both personally and corporately) but it promised a brighter re-constructive future. One that I've had the great, good joy of sharing however solitary its serpentine road of travel. There was no one road to follow but dozens of scattering bunny trails that went every which way requiring the sleuth of a detective to hunt out its main branches and estuaries.

And much like solving a Sudoku puzzle where one finds solutions to answers that are not there, so I began to examine my earlier Christian antecedents and theological structures for what they were not saying (not simply Evangelicalism this time, but denominationalism, and Christian traditionalism itself) to glean fundamental directions not earlier apparent to me. What I found was a space that was deafening in its silence and fearfully darkened to the willing traveller. But it was there behind the shut door (or doors in my case) and when pushed open, came upon a labyrinth of competing ideas and misdirections each requiring the lamp of discernment and patient examination. To venture into this mass of entanglement required a sturdy compass and the help of the Spirit, for without either I would be lost, and left either destroyed of faith or abandoned all together.

Consequently, my first 6-8 months of articles will speak to my dismay with the Christian rhetoric I was listening too. This then began the first part of my awakening. Part of that dismay was in Calvinism itself which I played off against with Arminianism to help re-balance my systematic heritage with a broader scope of heaven, hell, sin, and judgement. I needed to hear and see that God's mission of restorative fellowship to a broken creation is even now being remitted with His great, good love, and understanding of man in his human condition of pride and fallenness. From there I began to positively expand upon what a more progressive structure of Emergent Christianity may look like from topic-to-topic as I had time or insight. In the process I gained more confidence and began to use my own name for propriety's sake and in the great good tradition of journalistic ethics when doing the work of an essayist. At this point I knew I was moving in the right direction but that it needed further definition and structure as I could lend to it given time and information.

Where once I had been committed to writing poetry over the previous two years as a lifetime goal, and quite removed from the sacred worlds of ivory towers and flaming pulpits. Now my heart was burdened to lay my pen down for awhile and pursue, as I could, this newer task of re-igniting our Christian thinking imperiled by so many frailer (and untrue) epistemologies of what the Christian faith was traditionally considered. It had become a folk religion instead of a living faith. A divisive institution rather than a living fellowship. A political polemic rather than a compassionate faith ministering to the suffering masses around itself. A religion requiring too many rotten supports built upon the sinking sands of human idealism and disillusionment; and not upon the truer, time-tested bedrock of Christ Himself. As such, I began to write in prose using a combination of academic and devotional tracts. And before I could write I could only quote sympathetic Christian sources that were thinking aloud with me what I was thinking in my head. But speaking it much better than I could. And with much better background and information. From then until now I have been learning to blog my thoughts more openly, more intelligently, and hopefully, in a way that is helpful to other Jesus followers having the same questions, dismays and experiences as myself.

Eighteen months later I believe the burden of this webblog to have attained some semblance of transition and maturity that it did not hold when it first was begun. As marks of graduation, I can now read and listen to a wider branch of ideas and discoveries, and reconfigure them into a more helpful understanding of my faith, where earlier those same elements would've been ignored, discarded or heavily criticised. (But not all ideas or discoveries have been helpful, as in my experience of beholding the misdirectional, cultic expressions of New Ageism or Gnostic Mysticism of the Christian faith. Within them may lay some biblical truth that they have apprehended and made their own. But it is not the biblical truth that I recognize within my transformative Emergent faith based upon orthodox doctrine and biblical principle. To those groups my Christian faith will ever be at odds with, refusing to be waylaid along the highways of misguided inspiration.)

This journey is but a small beginning - but one that was necessary. And as encouragement, however imperfectly I may have written, I offer this blogsite as a source of direction into any-and-all areas requiring the postmodern care and acumen of Emergent Christianity. I have tried to create this blog as a wikipedia of sorts to theological questions. To my readers I give it away for comfort and guidance to be used as it can.

In hindsight, my faith didn't require abandonment. No. Simply a better resonance with what it wasn't hearing in today's current generations of God's faithful. These are my brethren, not my enemy. My brothers and sisters requiring better leadership and shepherding. And in its absence - constricted as it were by fearful judgmentalism and naive condemnation - I suspect that God is working diligently within the very rank-and-files of His body to help lead, guide, pray, and shepherd His fellowship until the church's pulpits and university staffs become more properly engaged with society's needs and advancements. At least this is my prayer.

Therefore, be at peace and know our God is great and will not be muffled by the ignoble speech and acts of men. Nor by his ignorance and pride whatever their positions in the church or in the ranks of men. God is great. And greatly will His works show forth both now-and-forevermore despite our best efforts to stop-up His voice. He speaks as a mighty river unbounded to the generations to come yearning for the sustenance of His gracious, compassionate, loving heart. No words of man may prevent His salvation to all men everywhere. This God is the God who will lead His Church unto salvation - by vision, by dream, by pen or by will. Sanctified in the blood of Jesus. Blessed by the power of the Word. Protected in the depths of the Spirit. May our almighty Redeemer be ever praised. May His glorious name be lifted up unto the high hills in shouts of acclamation. Amen and Amen.

 

R.E. Slater

November 13, 2012



 

The Merton Prayer

The Merton Prayer

http://www.mertoninstitute.org/aboutThomasMerton/TheMertonPrayer/tabid/64/Default.aspx

 

In Thoughts in Solitude, Part Two, Chapter II consists of fifteen lines that have become known as "the Merton Prayer."

 

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"
© Abbey of Gethsemani 

 

 

 

Frank Peabody, artist

The Merton Institute Board

 

 

About Thomas Merton http://www.mertoninstitute.org/aboutThomasMerton/tabid/57/Default.aspx   Thomas Merton's remarkable and enduring popularity indicates that he touches the hearts of people searching for answers to life's important questions. For many, he is a constant spiritual companion; for others, his writings provide guidance through life’s difficult moments. He takes people into deep places within themselves and offers insight to the paradoxes of life. He shares how to be contemplative in a world of action while offering no quick fixes, no ten easy steps to a successful spiritual life. At the core of Thomas Merton's spiritual writings is the search for the "true self" and our need for relationship with God, other people, and all of creation. He finds that when we are apart from God, we experience alienation and desolation. Merton believes that we must discover God as the center of our being. It is in this center that all things tend and where all of our activity must be directed. Merton's writings were prophetic; they highlight the major issues that confronted society in his time and still confront society today. They illustrate the growing alienation of humanity. Whether it is war, social and racial injustice, violence, or religious intolerance, the source of the problem is that man "has become alienated from his inner self which is the image of God." The degree of humanity's alienation is reflected in the unrelenting violence of our time. Wars and acts of nations around the globe caused the death of more than 500 million people in the 20th century. Closer to home, schoolchildren kill their fellow students in schools, and incidences of racial and domestic violence and child abuse occur with appalling frequency. The violence surrounds us. We must change direction or perish. This requires a social conversion, a turning away from destructive behavior and a turning toward a relational way of being. The first step in this turning is a transformation of consciousness. Thomas Merton is a preeminent guide in this first step and throughout the journey. There is in the world today athirst for God. People are seeking a reversal of the trends toward consumerism and materialism, prejudice and violence. They are discovering that what one does must be a means of both self-fulfillment and service to others. Throughout history, the role of spiritual master has been recognized and valued. Thomas Merton is a spiritual master whose influence crosses generations and religious affiliations. His message offers us bracing and brotherly advice on how we can be conscious and attentive to God in order to hear the answers to the difficult questions in our lives. Thomas Merton's message and life helps us build a new paradigm for living, one that integrates the contemplative in each of us with our external activities. His message is a source of deep change in a culture of superficial solutions, a window through which we see the possibilities for a peaceful and just world.

 

 

 

Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
A Brief Biographical Sketch

Thomas Merton is one of the most influential American spiritual writers of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, has sold over one million copies and has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Merton wrote over seventy other books and hundreds of poems and articles on topics ranging from monastic spirituality to civil rights, nonviolence, and the nuclear arms race.

After a rambunctious youth and adolescence, Merton had his first experience with Roman Catholicism at the age of sixteen in a church in Italy. On December 10, 1941, he entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, a community of monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), one of the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic orders.

The twenty-seven years he spent in Gethsemani prior to his untimely death in 1968 stimulated profound changes in his self-understanding. This ongoing transformation impelled him into the political arena, where he became, according to Daniel Berrigan, the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960's. Referring to racism and peace as the two most urgent issues of our time, Merton was a strong supporter of the nonviolent civil rights movement, which he called "certainly the great example of Christian faith in action in the social history of the United States." For his social activism Merton endured severe criticism, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who assailed his political writings as unbecoming of a monk.

During his last years, he became deeply interested in Asian religions, particularly Zen Buddhism, and in promoting East-West dialogue. After several meetings with Merton during the American monk's trip to the Far East in 1968, the Dalai Lama praised him as having a more profound understanding of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known.

It was during this trip to a conference on East-West monastic dialogue that Merton died, in Bangkok on December 10, 1968. He was the victim of an accidental electrocution. By a sad coincidence the date marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance into Gethsemani.