My Secrets Video

If you find that you have no words after viewing this video you will be in good company. The pain and heartfelt emotions shown here ache for embrace and love. To all those who have travelled this road or know someone who had, please know that our prayers and sympathies go out to you. If ever an example of strength can be seen, it has found a home  in this young woman's brave spirit.

"God heals the broken heartened.
He binds up their wounds."

- Psalms 147.3

My Secrets Video

"I love and miss you, mom"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ENZIaXjVAc4#!

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[spoiler alert]

Please view the video first before scrolling down

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National Suicide Hotline
With Help Comes Hope - http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/


How to Talk about Suicide.

How to Intervene - http://ub-counseling.buffalo.edu/suicide.shtml

Introduction

After accidents and homicides, suicide is the third leading cause of death among young adults ages 15-24. It can be prevented. Men are more likely to commit suicide than women. They usually use violent means to end their own lives. Females, on the other hand, are more likely to attempt suicide. They usually use drugs or poison to try and end their lives. You should note that a suicide attempt is a "cry for help" and a request for social support. The suicidal person is letting his/her feelings be known. His/her problems seem overwhelming and too difficult to handle.

Why do College Students Kill Themselves?

Because each individual is unique there is no single reason as to why a student commits suicide. However, there are several factors that may contribute to a student having suicidal thoughts. These include:

• Major life transition, such as loss of a loved one, breaking up with a boyfriend/girlfriend, moving to a new town or school, failing an exam or course, not getting into one's choice of major, etc. These major life changes can cause a college student to feel unloved, depressed, isolated and lonely.
• Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Problems in living seem more than one can bear. No matter what one does things do not seem to be getting better and no one seems to care or can help.
• Negative feelings about oneself. A student who is suicidal experiences feelings of worthlessness and of being a failure. He/she may not be doing well in school or may not be excelling in academic or social areas that are of interest.
• Wanting to end unbearable pain/problems that are so overwhelming.
• Alcohol and substance abuse can cause a student to lose self control and engage in impulsive suicidal behaviors.

Note that depression is a major contributing factor to suicidal thinking. Depression may result from several factors, including the recent loss of a family member or friend, disappointments in romantic relationships, or failure to live up to one's own or others expectations.

Myths and Facts About Suicide

There are many myths about suicide:                                   

MYTH

• Asking a student if he/she is thinking about suicide will put the idea into his/her head.
• Once a student decides to commit suicide there is no way of stopping him/her.
• Suicide happens without warning.
• Students who commit suicide are mentally ill.

FACT

• Discussing the problem openly shows the suicidal student that someone cares and wants to help.
• Most students who are suicidal do not want to die. They are making a "cry for help".
• 75% of the people who attempt or commit suicide have shown some warning sign(s).
• Students who are suicidal are not necessarily mentally ill.

 

Warning Signs

There are verbal and non-verbal warning signs of suicide that will let you know that your classmate or friend is crying for help.

NON-VERBAL warning signs include:

• Giving away personal or prized possessions.
• Increased alcohol or drug use.
• Sleeping too much or too little.
• Lack of interest in personal appearance.
• Lack of interest in friends.
• Lack of interest in social activities that were formerly of interest.
• Poor performance in school.
• Boredom, restlessness, and loss of concentration.

Please note that many of these warning signs are signs of depression. Depression does not necessarily mean that a person is contemplating suicide. But depressed people often think of suicide.

VERBAL warning signs include such negative statements as:

• "Instructors, classmates, families and friends do not care."
• "Life isn't worthwhile."
• "People are better off without me."
• "Everything seems to be going wrong."
• "I don't need this any more."

 

Ways to Help

• Talk openly and freely and ask direct questions about the student's intention.
• Listen to what is said and treat it seriously. Do not add to your friend/classmate's guilt by debating, arguing or lecturing about whether or not suicide is right or wrong.
• NEVER leave a student who is suicidal alone.
• Encourage the student to seek help.
• Get help immediately.

Seeking a Postmodern Re-definition of Classic Theism

"Much as Newtonian classical physics has been re-expressed by quantum mechanics,

so too may Emergent Christianity move classic theism into a postmodern form of expression."

An Introduction to Process Theology

Evangelicalism, Emergent Christianity, and Progressive Christianity are as different from one another as they are alike in confessing God, the Bible, Jesus, man and sin. Each have a formative theosophic (theology+philosophy) view of God in relation to His creation which affects each one of their espoused beliefs in doctrine, dogma, practice, worship and world-and-life view:

• God, as separate and above, His creation - Classic Theism (Evangelicalism)
• God, as part of and next to, His creation - Panentheism (Progressive Christianity)
• God, as between these processes - a hybrid (or syncretism) of Classic Theism and Panentheism as yet unnamed and unformed (Emergent Christianity*)

*cf. http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/search/label/Theism%20and%20Process%20Theology?updated-max=2011-11-14T10:53:00-05:00&max-results=20

Here then begins a discussion as to the "why and what" of  Process Theology which is clearly unlike Classic Theism in its structural foundations as a panentheistic structure (as discussed in an earlier article here - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/08/process-theology-terence-fretheim.html).  BUT, there are many qualities to Process Theology's structure that are attractive to Theists searching to re-express Classic Theism into postmodern terminology and structural life.

What are those attractive qualities?

(1) Process Theology provides the flexibility that the Emergent church is committed to while avoiding relativism, purely apophatic spirituality, and deconstructive postmodernism. Interestingly, most forms of process theology are contrasted as constructive postmodernism.

(2) It encourages as much openness to other religions as possible while remaining rooted in a (constantly evolving) orthodox Christian tradition - a kind of "Confessional religious pluralism."


Where to Start?

So then, right from the start it would be important to know which expressions, or "elements" of process theology are substantive and which are pervasive:

• By substantive is meant what elements can only be part of process theology's structure not found within some other structure, like Classic Theism.

• And by pervasive is meant what elements are transportable characteristics that can be found in other dissimilarly disconnected structural systems. Elements that are not necessarily unique to one system or another, but tag-along progenitors found as non-unique descriptors.

In other words, what are process theology's pervasive elements (both identifiable and non-identifiable) that cling to process theology like adopted orphans until discovering that their real "mom and dad" are gypsies like themselves. Or, by way of another example, we all share personality traits but they are not necessarily the fuller definitions of ourselves. So too are pervasive structural elements that are shareable or, non-unique, as structural "traits" but not as structural "qualifiers." This is what is meant by pervasive.


Creating a New System

And so, if it is possible, we should "raid the hen house" as it were, and recover any spiritually pervasive elements clinging to process theology that are being championed by insightful panentheists as theirs alone. Mostly because I suspect (1) there are no other good competing systems to share these with, and (2) that with another competing system it would force theorists to streamline their systems to their lowest common denominators.  Along the way stripping out any "dangling metaphors," as it were, so that the foundation may first be seen before the theological house is built upon it (whatever shape, color, material or district that it is built in). And given the right structural concept, similar pervasive concepts would be as shareable as substantive qualifiers could not be.

As an example, one such concept I find in process theology that might be "shareable" or "pervasive" is that of synchronicity (see Catherine Keller's brilliant discussion of Spiritual Entanglement and Interconnectedness earlier reviewed - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/11/catherine-keller-on-entanglement.html). An updated revision of Classic Theism might include this pervasive element into its future theosophic structure, however, left in its classic form, synchronicity can only be described in Classic terms as a miracle. Or, as a miraculous, confluence of events and opportunity. Either as an event of nature in itself. Or as an event intersecting nature and ourselves with event between the same.


Introducing Relational Theism

I further suspect that there are other pervasive relational elements to be found as we become more conversant with process theology and are better able to distinguish what is, and isn't, appropriate to a newer, updated re-definition of Classic Theism which I now propose to rename Relational Theism. Why? Because I like the term and because it carries with it an inherent definition of "process" that I think can carry us forward from our Classic roots into a postmodernised, revisionistic, structural context.

One of Classic Theism's biggest drawbacks has been its very large, ontologically imposed gap of God being distant to His creation. A gap that process theology has closed in giving us a God who is intimately involved in His world. Not cold, sterile, inhuman as could be construed in theism's more classical expressions. But showing a warmer, relational correspondence between Himself, His creation, and man. One not so completely separate from sin and evil as to be unaffected by it. But One who suffers with us and groans with creation.

Where I would differ however, is that Process Theology so draws God into the process of involvement within creation that God has become defined by that process. So intertwined and interdependent as to be non-separate within His being, essence and substance, from creation. And in the process uplifting creation into an interdependent, intermodal realm of ontological existence with metaphysical imports as we see here. Hence "creation" becomes "c/Creation" and "God" becomes "G/god".

Perhaps Relational Theism could better treat these lamentable outcomes within a structural framework of personal-relational disruptions between the Creator and His creation. And not as a mere unfeeling, impassively separated God on the one hand, nor as a God so intricately intertwined within the mechanism of creation as to be un-God like (in the classic definition).


Relational Theism as Process

And so, when I think of Relational Theism perhaps I might also wish to think of it in terms of relational-process theology as it relates to God's creation within the time-bound constraints of love, anger, justice, hope, patience, and any other humanly anthropomorphisms that we wish to add. Anthropomorphic traits that are reflective of time-bound relational correspondences. And perhaps these traits are pervasive elements to Process Theology, and not substantive elements, that can be transported to the postulated framework of Relation Theism.

These are only suggestions of course. Most likely crude suggestions in hopes of being given a clearer vision by other like-minded Emergent Christians who are similarly unsatisfied with Classic Theism but not fully convinced by Process Theology's claims either. Who are "tweeners" wishing to evolve Christian doctrine from its antiquated Hellenistic foundations to a more appropriate Hebraic foundation. In the meantime we'll be content to live within the tension of Classic Theism and that of the  more liberal quantum panentheism of Process Theology, and try to evolve this discussion to something more satisfying, more complete, more God-like and creation-like.


A Final Word to Process Theologians

Lastly, I would like to give thanks - with deepest of appreciations - to all the hard work that has gone on by studied process theologians who have shared their lives, and life work, in this quantum branch of theology. Perhaps some could join us and help Emergent Christianity better express a more relational type of process theology that is not panentheistic. For now has come the time to determine Classic Theism's cycle of life, death and evolution.

RE Slater

November 15, 2011

*Related Links (Fred Schmidt) - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/11/progressive-christianity-must-be-more.html

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Why Progressive Christianity Needs Process Theology

(by Bruce Epperly)
http://pastorbobcornwall.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-progressive-christianity-needs.html

Posted by Robert Cornwall
October 19, 2011

What do progressive Christians believe, and why? How do they get to their positions on questions like the nature of creation, authority, morality, and our relationship with God? What are the resources and the sources, especially if one doesn't hold to a view of biblical inerrancy or infaillibility? One key resource over the past half century or more is Process Theology. With its embrace of concepts like panentheism, Process has opened new avenues of thought and practice. The major drawback is that the ways in which Process has been laid out have been rather difficult to understand.

One Process theologian who has taken care to better explain ideas is Bruce Epperly, whose writings appear at this blog quite regularly. In this brief posting Bruce offers up a helpful overview of Process Theology. I invite you to check it out and offer your thoughts and responses. At the end of the text there is a brief bibliography. Each of the books is linked to Amazon, so you can purchase books if you'd like.

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 Why Progressive Christianity Needs Process Theology,

by Bruce G. Epperly

In a recent Patheos piece, Fred Schmidt criticizes progressive Christianity for “not articulating in theological categories what it believes in.” While I disagree with Schmidt’s stark evaluation of progressive Christian theology – the The Phoenix Affirmations: A New Vision for the Future of Christianity of Eric Elnes or the EightPoints of the Center for Progressive Christianity provide a broad summary of progressive affirmations, nevertheless progressive Christianity needs to deepen its theological foundations. It needs a theology with the stature to embrace its vision of divine hospitality, partnership with science and medicine, commitment to social justice, and affirmation of cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity and pluralism. While progressives do not need to formulate absolute and inflexible doctrines, greater doctrinal gravitas will strengthen the progressive theological, ethical, and social voice. I believe that process theology provides the most comprehensive and sound basis for a fluid and flexible progressive Christian theology.

Process theology is identified with the philosophical insights of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Like other theological approaches (for example, Augustine and the Neoplatonists, Aquinas and Aristotle, Bultmann and existentialism), process theology uses the philosophical visions of Whitehead and Hartshorne as a lens through which to understand God’s presence in history and creation and to formulate a Christian vision of reality, including the nature of humankind, authority of scripture, revelation, science, and ethics.

Process theology affirms that our vision of God and the world are interdependent. God is not an exception to our understanding of reality, but both shapes and reflects the nature of reality. Good theology, process theology asserts, reflects our lived experience. Briefly put, process theology undergirds progressive Christianity with the following theological affirmations relating to divinity, creation, and humankind. Process theology believes that our lived experience points to the following affirmations about nature and humankind:

• Reality is dynamic and interdependent.
• The world is composed of living, experiencing entities. The universe is lively and enchanted, not mechanistic and insentient
• The universal nature of experience points to the universality of value. Non-human creatures are valuable and deserve ethical consideration apart from our use of them.
• Mind, body, and spirit are intricately connected and shape one another.
• To exist is to have some degree of creativity and experience, albeit minimal.
• The future is open-ended and will emerge in part as result of human decisions.
• We are in constant dialogue with God, giving and taking, in a dynamic web of call and response in which God nurtures our freedom and creativity.

Our vision of God reflects our understanding of the world as interdependent, lively, creative, and open-ended.

• God is intimately connected with the world – God provides a vision of possibilities for every moment of experience.
• God’s influence on the world and human life is invitational, relational, and persuasive, rather than unilateral and coercive.
• God really experiences the creaturely world; God is influenced by everything that happens. God is the “most moved mover,” whose influence on our lives is connected with our impact on God’s life.
• The nature of God can be understood as panentheistic in contrast to pantheism (God and the world are one reality) and theism (God acts on the world from the outside unilaterally and supernaturally, and is not influenced by the world). Panentheism sees God in all things and all things in God. God embraces all things experientially, but is more than all things, in God’s ongoing experience and shaping of reality.
• God’s influence in the world is shaped in part by creaturely decisions – our openness to God enables God to be more active in the world. How we use our freedom, individually and corporately, conditions the nature and impact of God’s vision for our lives.
• God’s aim in the universe is toward beauty and abundance, and this vision embraces both human and non-human life.
• God is constantly injecting new possibilities to promote personal growth and planetary and cosmic evolution.
• Divine omnipresence and activity mean that God truly influences all things, working within the natural cause and effect relationships.
• God inspires wisdom, creativity, and love in every culture and spiritual tradition.
• Diversity reflects God’s aim at beauty. God seeks the greatest freedom, creativity, and diversity congruent with the well-being of our communities and planet.
• In the divine-human call and response, Jesus reflects the fullness of God’s vision for human life. Jesus’ uniqueness is grounded in both God’s call and choice and Jesus’ openness to divine energy, possibility, and vision.
• While Jesus embodies God’s vision of wholeness and beauty, God is also present as the inspiration for other transformational religious leaders (Gautama, Lao Tzu, Mohammed).

The process vision of God and the world leads to certain affirmations about human and non-human life.

• Our vocation is to be God’s companions/co-creators in healing the world.
• We are constantly receiving divine inspiration and guidance. God’s light shines in and through us and all creation.
• All creatures are touched by God, regardless of their previous decisions. God’s grace is intimate and also unending.
• The heart of ethics and spirituality is to bring beauty and joy to the world, given the limitations and possibilities of our particular context. Our calling in the spirit of Mother Teresa, is to do something beautiful for God. The quality of our lives and actions truly shape God’s experience and activity in the world.
• When we truly open ourselves to God’s vision and energy, “miracles,” leaps in energy and inspiration occur. While these events are not “supernatural,” they reflect a heightened sense of God’s presence in the world.
• God’s impact on the world opens the door to mystical and healing experiences. We can truly experience God’s presence in our lives.

Process theology serves to give a fluid foundation for the key elements of progressive theology: its creative affirmation of diversity and pluralism, its commitment to the liberation of all people, its concern for planetary well-being, and its affirmation of our responsibility to care for the most vulnerable members of our society. Process theology enables us to understand prayer and healing in “naturalistic” ways as heightening of God’s presence within the causal interdependence of life. Moreover, process theology articulates a vision that affirms the progressive partnership of faith and science, the importance of interfaith hospitality and global spirituality, and the value of this world as a realm of divine-human interaction.

(You can explore the connections between process theology and progressive Christianity in my Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides For The Perplexed) Continuum, and my upcoming Emerging Process: Adventurous Spirituality for a Missional Church, Parsons Porch Books.)

SELECTED TEXTS ON PROCESS THEOLOGY

Bruce Epperly, Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides For The Perplexed)

Bruce Epperly, Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living

Bruce Epperly, The Center is Everywhere: Celtic Spirituality in the Postmodern World

John Cobb, Christ in a Pluralistic Age

John Cobb and David Griffin, Process Theology

Monica Coleman, Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology (Innovations: African American Religious Thought) (Innovations: African American Religious Thought)

Catherine Keller, On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process

Jay McDaniel, Living from the Center: Spirituality in an Age of Consumerism

Robert Mesle, Process Theology: A Basic Introduction

Marjorie Suchocki, God Christ Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology

Marjorie Suchocki, In Gods Presence

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Book Review (from Amazon.com)

http://www.amazon.com/Process-Theology-Guide-Perplexed-Guides/dp/0567632555/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0

by A. J. Roberts (CA)

June 26, 2011

This review is from: Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides For The Perplexed) (Paperback)

Of the seven or eight other introductory texts I have read on process theology, this one by Bruce Epperly is the best overall, even though it does not replace the others. This is indeed a bold claim to make for someone who loves the works of John Cobb and Marjorie Suchocki, both of whom have written many classic books on process theology. But one of the greatest strengths of Epperly's introductory level book is in his synthesis of many of the most important ideas of other leading Christian process-relational thinkers from the last few decades, including Cobb and Suchocki, but also David Ray Griffin, Charles Hartshorne, Catherine Keller, Bernard Loomer, Thomas Jay Oord, Rita Nakashima Brock, Robert Mesle, Lewis Ford, Jay McDaniel, Monica Coleman, and last but definitely not least, Bruce Epperly himself. Additionally, he quotes widely from the complex works of Alfred North Whitehead throughout the book, highlighting some of his most memorable passages and explaining them in a way that makes them more accessible.

Asecond strength of this book is due to Epperly's emphasis in practical theology. He is concerned, first and foremost, with the way in which process theology works within the lives of individuals and communities, impacting churches and preaching. This adds up to a real gift in clear communication, but also great sensitivity to the actual lives of people outside the academy, leading him to concentrate less on complicated academic debates and more on issues like prayer, life after death, ethics, and holistic healing practices.

Here are a few things that stood out to me about the book:

1) Epperly goes through every important area of Christian theology and explains the various ways that process theologians understand them - christology, soteriology, sin, anthropology, eschatology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, and the trinity. This is pretty much standard for process theology intro books, but Epperly is particularly clear and thorough in his explanations of the various process interpretations of systematic theology. Beyond the basic areas of systematic theology, Epperly also explains process views of miracles, scripture, revelation, and mystical experiences.

2) A very helpful overview of process ethics is included on issues like abortion, euthanasia, ecology/animal rights, and economics/justice (which draws heavily on Cobb's work). Such a wide variety of important issues are not always a part of other introductory level process texts, so this was a great addition to the book.

3) As previously mentioned, Epperly synthesizes other key process thinkers in this book and summarizes many of their most important contributions to the process theology conversation:

• Cobb's logos/Wisdom Christology and work in ethics
• Suchocki's theologies of original sin, eschatology, and prayer
• Epperly's own work in holistic healing practices and eschatology
• Griffin's work in the area of theodicy*
• Oord's work on a theology of love
• Coleman's Womanist theology
• McDaniel's work in ecology

*theodicy noun, plural -cies.

a vindication of the divine attributes, particularly holiness and justice, in establishing or allowing the existence of physical and moral evil.

Lastly, in the final chapter of the book, Epperly considers the possibility of the "amorphous, yet dynamic" emergent church movement adopting a process theology framework. He argues that process theology provides the flexibility that the emergent church is committed to while avoiding relativism, purely apophatic spirituality, and deconstructive postmodernism (most forms of process theology are contrasted as 'constructive postmodernism'). It encourages as much openness to other religions as possible while remaining rooted in a (constantly evolving) tradition - a kind of 'confessional religious pluralism.'

Indeed, citing Brian McLaren, Epperly believes process theology can provide a truly inspiring philosophical and theological grounding for a "New Kind of Christianity." Although only a few self-identified emergent Christian writers/leaders/pastors are explicitly aligned with some form of process theology at this point, there are certainly overlapping emphases with process in many emergent/emerging books and blogs. As such, Epperly's invitation to emergent Christians (who are largely post-evangelicals) to consider process theology as a viable option in their search for new forms of faith makes a great deal of sense for anyone familiar with McLaren or Doug Pagitt.

While process theology is anything but easy to understand for many beginners, Bruce Epperly has done a fantastic job of making it accessible without oversimplifying the incredible depth of process thinking.

To "Believe Out" the Church First Needs To Know What It "Believes In."

To "Believe Out" the Church First Needs

To Know What It "Believes In."

The words spoken here by Frederick Schmidt are as good as any words can be spoken in declaring that Christians first and foremost speak Christ and stay to their mission of outreach and discipling. Any other activity is secondary to the Church's primary missions of speaking Jesus to a world seeking life and deliverance.

And to help with the answer to Frederick's question I would submit that Emergent Christianity is a fresh, new movement seeking Evangelic AND Progressive Christianity's participation in re-speaking Christ to the world. Emergent Christianity is focused on Jesus, on ministering to people, on assimilating into society as many Kingdom constructs as can be created until Jesus comes again for his Bride, the Church, while living out His command to love one another.

The welcome mat is out then, to other Christian groups of similar interests, seeking the new life of rebirth found in Christ Jesus. Let us join with one another and work together as one body of Christ focused on the work of Church, first and foremost, of outreach, ministry and discipleship. And not get lost in the many issues of nation building and government. We have political parties to do that.

RE Slater

November 15, 2011

*For more on Progressive Christianity see - http://www.tcpc.org/template/index.cfm

* * * * * * * * * *

Believe Out Begins with Believe In

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Believe-Out-Begins-with-Believe-In-Frederick-Schmidt-05-16-2011.html

by Frederick Schmidt

May 15, 2011

"If all that Progressive Christianity has going for it is that it is politically progressive,

then there is really no reason to wrap churchy language around it."

- Frederick Schmidt                 

Jim Wallis is often galvanizing public opinion, but I am sure that he regrets having done such an effective job of it this week. The decision to refuse airtime to an on-line ad from Believe Out advocating a welcoming posture toward LBGT adults and their children has precipitated a firestorm of criticism. And Wallis' effort to explain Sojourners' position has done little more than throw a damp rag on the conflagration.

The debate quickly became more than a debate over inclusion, however. It also became a debate over the viability of "Progressive Christianity" itself. Speaking for many, Jim Naughton, Canon for Communications and Advancement for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington wrote:

I was more or less in favor of the big-tent strategy pursued by progressive religious leaders in Washington in the wake of Barack Obama's election as president. The thinking—as I understood—went that in reaching out to moderate evangelicals on a certain set of issues it might be possible to make legislative progress on behalf of the poor. One upshot of that strategy was that Jim Wallis . . . became the embodiment of the Progressive Christianity in the eyes of the Obama administration and the Washington media . . . So here we sit, us religious lefties, with a movement led by a man who occupies a position to the right of Dick Cheney on LGBT issues. I am assuming people savvier and better connected than I am will understand that this situation is not tenable. The big tent collapsed this weekend, and it was Sojourners who yanked out the tent poles. Someone needs to alert official Washington that Jim Wallis and his minions no longer speak for us—if they ever did.

There is little to be accomplished by adding to the fire. So I won't break into the supply of well-cured wood behind the house. (It has been raining today and it's wet anyway.) But I have found myself wondering why the debate is about political agendas and the way in which the Progressive Christian voice is represented to the White House.

The answer, I think, is this: A debate is never over the issues it should be when the adjectives in a movement's label are more important than the nouns. Put another way: "Progressive" Christians have yet to articulate in theological categories what they believe in, so it is hard to identify what they believe out—except by resorting to political assumptions.

That's a problem for the movement and, if it isn't addressed, it will not last. Why?

Quite simply, the answer is this: If all that Progressive Christianity has going for it is that it is politically progressive, then there is really no reason to wrap churchy language around it. There's a political party for that. It is far better financed and organized. It's a bigger player than the church will ever be. And it doesn't need to worry about how it is represented to the White House. It can occupy it. Put another way: A religious movement shaped by a political agenda will never have significant traction, if it isn't fundamentally religious.

Of course, this is as true of conservative versions of Christianity as it is of progressive versions. And it raises serious questions about the perennial effort to rebrand the faith at all.

But be that as it may, the point is this: No expression of Christianity can give a convincing case for its existence without defining what it means to be a Christian. Without doing that, in fact, every debate like this will be more about politics and policy than about something spiritually definitive.

So, where does the conversation begin? With explicitly religious and spiritual questions, perhaps like these (though there is nothing fixed about the list):

• Who is God?
• Who is Jesus?
• What is the reign of God?
• What does life under the reign of God look like? How and where is it given expression?
• What do human beings need from God?
• What is the relationship between God and human beings meant to be?
• What is the purpose of the church in giving expression to the reign of God?
• How are those purposes realized?
• What does the reign of God suggest about the membership, shape, and mission of the church?

I can't offer the answers to those questions. I am not even sure that it is important to institutionalize the "progressive" brand. Christianity, properly understood, has always struck me as a pretty progressive thing anyway and the noun has had more staying power than any of the adjectives. But in the absence of a conversation shaped by questions about the meaning and nature of our faith we will inevitably find ourselves talking about politics, the White House, and "wedge issues."

To "believe out" the church needs to know what it "believes in."

The Reverend Dr. Frederick W. Schmidt, Jr. is Director of Spiritual Formation and Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality at Southern Methodist University, Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas. An Episcopal priest, he also serves as the director of the Episcopal studies program. He is the author of several books, including Conversations with Scripture: The Gospel of Luke (Morehouse, 2009) and What God Wants for Your Life (Harper One, 2005).

Schmidt's column, "The Spiritual Landscape," is published every Monday on the Progressive Christian portal. Subscribe via email or RSS.

Classic Evangelical Epistemology, Part 3

Bounded or Centered Set?

Part 3a

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/08/17/bounded-or-centered/

August 17, 2011 in Bible Thoughts with 18 Comments

As I have been in my grudge match to the death with the Rule of Faith as a “rule,” one critique I regularly find myself bringing is that it creates a bounded set. My instinct has been that so conceptualizing the Christian faith is not only a category mistake but ethically disastrous.

In short, once we have defined Christianity as a set of beliefs that must be maintained in order to be faithful Christians, then Christian ethics boils down to maintaining “the faith” that is so delineated.

What should Christians do? Defend the borders.

I have recently stumbled upon the work of Paul Hiebert. Here is what he says about bounded sets:

1. The category is created by listing essential characteristics something must posses in order to belong to the set
2. The category is defined by a clear boundary
3. The objects form a homogeneous group
4. “Bounded sets are essentially static sets”
5. Within Western conceptual categories, bounded sets tend to be ontological sets, reflecting an absolute, unchanging nature of reality.

Two things strike me here: the quote, point 4, is the one that I most often rail against here. Christian theology is not a static set, but something dynamically in process in the ongoing story of the church. 

The church has to grow up to the fact that things are not simply givens, so we cannot take an 1800 year old statement as the defining marker of who we are and what we should do.

But here’s the other problem, as Hiebert lays it out. On point 2, the category is formed by a clear boundary.

What does this mean in practice? He says:

Most of the effort in defining the category is spent defining and maintaining the boundary. Not only must we say what an apple is, we must also clearly differentiate it from oranges, pears, and similar objects that belong to the same domain but are not apples. The central question, therefore, is whether an object is inside or outside the category.

The ethic entailed in a bounded-set system is defining and maintaining the boundary.

When we envision Christianity as a bounded-set, we are consigning ourselves to a lifetime of boundary guarding. Absent from all this, of course, are other measures of Christian fidelity–such as embodying the self-giving love of Christ or even walking in accordance with the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount.

Christianity-bounded by the “Rule of Faith” becomes, throughout Church History, a self-referential religion, concerned with keeping itself together, and keeping out the heterodox.

This is not to say, of course, that it is without biblical precedent. There were, after all, the disciples who bravely fended off the would-be intruders upon their bounded world: “Lord, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, but he was not with us, so we forbid him!”

So what is a centered set? Stay tuned…

About J. R. Daniel Kirk: Professor at Fuller Seminary, resident of San Francisco, consumer of dark chocolate, brewer of dark beer, reader of Flannery O'Connor, watcher of the Coen Brothers, listener of The Mountain Goats.

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Bounded or Centered Set?
Part 3b  

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/08/18/bounded-or-centered-pt-2/

August 18, 2011 in Bible Thoughts with 16 Comments

Yesterday I talked about why bounded set thinking is problematic for the church: It is static and it is self-referential. In particular, I am not happy with a theological statement, such as a creed, defining what a Christian truly is, how we read the Bible, and how we are supposed to act.

As I’ve been thinking about this, however, I have more than once wondered if I might, in the end, have to affirm some sort of “bounded set,” because I do think that what makes someone a Christian is being “in Christ.” Is Christ the boundary on our Christian set?

Enter, once again, Paul Hiebert.

In contrast to bounded sets, Hiebert explains, other ways of conceiving sets include “fuzzy sets” (I’ll bypass this one for now) and “centered sets.”

Here is what he says about centered sets:

…a centered set is created by defining a center or reference point and the relationship of things to that center. Things related to the center belong to the set, and those not related to the center do not. Kingship groups… are relational categories.

Relational categories.

That’s more like it.

We all belong together, not because we are circumscribed by a common speech recited on Sunday mornings that tells us how to read the Bible, but because we are all related to Christ, and to God as God’s children, in Christ.

That is a better way to conceive of our identity.

Centered sets have a couple of advantages over bounded sets in terms of being a conceptual framework for Christianity. There are two variables that this way of conceptualizing relations can account for.

One: some folks will be closer to the center than others. All might be in some sort of relationship, but there are degrees of proximity to the defining center.

Two: people might be in motion toward or away from the center.

Part of the flexibility of this is that individuals aren’t the only ones who might be related to a Christian center (= Jesus). Whole churches, denominations, or even the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic church might at times be closer, at times farther, at times moving toward and at times moving away from Christ.

If Christ is the center of our set, the church resumes its rightful place as people who are always in a dynamic relationship with him rather than being erected as a static framework that, itself, defines the set.

Both in its move from the church as defining agent (Rule of Faith) to Christ (the center of our centered set), and in its recognition of the inherently dynamic nature of all relationships and reality, the centered set more faithfully depicts what Christianity is, and therefore opens up better possibilities for interpreting the Bible and acting faithfully in the world.


About J. R. Daniel Kirk: Professor at Fuller Seminary, resident of San Francisco, consumer of dark chocolate, brewer of dark beer, reader of Flannery O'Connor, watcher of the Coen Brothers, listener of The Mountain Goats.  

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Classic Evangelical Epistemology, Part 2

When I was a child

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/08/15/when-i-was-a-child/

August 15, 2011 in Bible Thoughts with 7 Comments

When I was a child I thought that the world of my elders was an infinite set of givens.

I took it as a given that my parents were married. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I realized that marriage was never a given. Being married was a dynamic process that, at times, threatened to blow itself up. And it almost did. But not quite.

I took it as a given that people had certain jobs, or that they were employed. I took it as a given that I would enter into a world of employment and do certain things. It was in the waning months of my time at home and into college that I began to see that this, too, was an illusion.

My child’s vision had seen a given. Because it was all I had seen, I thought it was permanent.

But the problem was that life does not work this way. Not ever.

SPOILER ALERT: There is no “arriving” in life. Single people: you don’t “arrive” at your life goal on your wedding day. There’s a marriage that follows. And, as I say above, that relationship is always a dynamic process.

In The Sparrow, the wise older married woman says she has to decide afresh every ten years if this new person who is completely different from the man she married (and from the man she recommitted to ten years previously) is worth learning to love afresh.

Married people: you don’t “arrive” at your life goal when your kid is born.

Grad students: you don’t “arrive” when you get your job. In fact, landing that great job, sometimes landing a large amount of dollars in a cool city to go with it, can make the failure to experience “arriving” a thoroughly depressing affair.

I was at a fortieth birthday party a few months ago. At one point, the conversation turned to words of wisdom from other men who had passed that milestone. One that stuck with me was this: “If you’ve been diligently pursuing your vocational goals, you have probably accomplished most of them by the time you turn forty. Now you have to figure out how to look toward the future without that kind of hopeful vision for the future driving you.”

In other words, the idea that you’ve done it all already, and haven’t yet arrived, is where the midlife crisis comes from.

Life is full of dynamic processes. We are part of that dynamism as we change, grow, and contribute to our world. And, the world itself is ever changing and opening up new possibilities and heading in unexpected directions and, sometimes, leaving us behind.

There’s a point in all this for theology, but I’m out of space and will have to take it up tomorrow. So here’s a teaser: the baby church in AD 200 had the luxury of thinking its faith was a given for all places and times. The church in AD 2000 should be looking at the world with a more sober grownup’s vision.

Theology Doing Away with Childish Things

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/08/16/theology-doing-away-with-childish-things/
 August 16, 2011 in Bible Thoughts with 8 Comments

In yesterday’s post, I waxed… um… something… about life being dynamic, and not simply a set of givens. Where I had intended to end up was this: the church once upon a time had the luxury of thinking that Christian faith was a set of givens, and that accepting these givens was a necessary and sufficient expression of Christian faith.

The content of this childhood dream was The Rule of Faith.

It wasn’t a bad dream. But it was a child’s dream.

The Hobbit wasn’t a bad story, but it was a child’s story. It was a there-and-back-again tale. The story of Frodo was no child’s story, but a tale of death from which there was no “back again,” even if one was fortunate enough to arrive back home.

After 2,000 years, we know that the world, and the philosophy through which we assess it, is not simply a set of givens.

We, as Christians, are part of the dynamic process through which the church’s faith continues to be articulated. We live in a world that is changing, and the transformed context of knowledge and experience changes what we must say and how we must say it. And, God is still at work in the world, and so we must allow that God, too, is a dynamic participant in this ever-changing process.

These are some of the realities behind the failure of a rule of faith to bind the church as one. When Irenaeus said to his opponents, “You are wrong because the church has always said…” He was, in essence, claiming, “You disagree with us – because you disagree with us! Hah!”

There comes a time when we have to recognize that the continuance of the church itself cannot lean on the given of two millennia ago. Perhaps that church needs, now, to be disagreed with.

Perhaps what we thought was a given needs to be reaffirmed, restated given that the parties in the agreement (the church and its members) are both completely different now.

The idea that one statement, or a cluster of like statements, can continue to define the relationship for two thousand years rests on a static view of the world that does not measure up to reality. The church did not “arrive” when it articulated the rule of faith. It said what needed to be said circa AD 200.

But this does not answer the question of what is necessary or sufficient to be said or done in AD 2000. We must regularly say afresh what needs to be said. This is not only because the world is dynamic and in flux, and not only because the church is dynamic and in flux, but also because God continues to be dynamically at work in both the world and the church.