Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Saturday, April 16, 2011

A Letter of Welcome (April 2011)

by skinhead
April 16, 2011
revised March 26, 2012

Relevancy22 is an Emergent Christian blog and webjournal that is now ready for exploration and review. It is hoped that it can continue to develop as an Emergent Christian resource that may help in re-framing the many newer, theological trends that are being uncovered in post-modernday 21st Century Christianity. A journey that I started while being presently occupied with writing poetry and verse describing mine own personal narrative of apprehending the mysteries of God through story and insight.

But here, I must stop what I am doing and take the time to open up my heart and mind to a younger generation of Christians seeking direction, knowledge, inspiration and reconciliation to the many confusing voices presently being found in Christianity. For mine own Christian pilgrimage has been one that has been hard fought and hard won... and, it seems, much too often, and at too many significant times of my life. It has cost me time and money. It has created loss in my life. It has been inconvenient. It has been demanding. But it is something that I must now share of mine own experiences and journey - as both a mentor and fellow disciple of Christ.

For we are together found in this veil of life too often become a vast wilderness fraught with sin and dissension. Deceits and lies. False teachings and wasteful endeavors. A wilderness that at all times needs the guidance of God to lead us beyond its fastness to the highlands of God's own heart and mind that can show us the mis-directions and confusions of man-made arguments, futile religious endeavors, and misleading sincerity. I have been led by God to many good teachers of the Word and I have sat under some preachers that were undergoing the same significant change and growth that I was going through. Theirs was public. Mine, thankfully, was private. So that I understand, I think, what drove them to speak out expediently and prematurely. With a lack of clarity but from a heart filled with conviction.

Similarly, my Christian journey has been a pilgrimage where both practice and theology has been an exciting adventure - but not a place to settle in or defend, per se. My mind ever changes - if not easily nor with every cultural wind that blows - as a result of personal reflections and enlightened discoveries as I seek to become unbounded by my past and uncluttered from my past cultural entrenchment. And with these journeys have come some years of frustrations and personal quandaries. While at other times deep satisfaction and growth. Lately I have found myself in the mesmerizing and perplexing world of Emergent Christianity which for years has left me unable to explain until lately with the publication of Love Wins and the severe backlash of public opinion that I witness from Evangelical Christianity.

As a result, my  most recent theological explorations and considerations are giving rise to newer, more significant revelations to this present day's cultural movements and events. For it is at this time that I am come to a significant road that is both broad and narrow. One that must be explored carefully, diligently, prayerfully, with discernment, in fellowship and in hope. It is my wish to explore a type of Christianity that is less limiting and more free to discover God at work in this ever evolving world of ours. To remove the limitations of systematic theology and to go back to the roots of biblical theology. To remove the church's bounded philosophical mindsets and to propose a more unbounded way of thinking. To show the uselessness of debates when centered in hearts of fear and uncertainty, and not in trust and faith upon the Living God of Creation. To learn to re-learn. To reject ourselves as the only basis of truth. To become comfortable with not knowing. And overall, to live in the sublime wonder, thanksgiving and humility of the Christian faith as it was meant to be. Not as a carefully constructed series of formulaic creeds and religious statements devoid of life and blood, breath and soul. In all these areas Emergent Christianity promises the hope and freedom rightly expressed in the Christian faith.

So then, let us join this conversation together for it is my wish that this blog may serve as both resource and guide. And it is my desire to keep it updated enough to stimulate fresh thoughts and ideas that are provocative as well as inspirational. It is an emergent blog, but one of mine own flavor as it must be, as one who is in the process of leaving a conservative evangelical Christianity heritage. A heritage I deeply respect and am thankful for, but one that must be decisively move away from towards a more postmodernistic expression of Christianity known as Emergent Christianity.

May God's Peace be yours...



The Objectives of Relevancy22

- Relevancy22 is a neo-conservative (but non-liberal) Emergent Christian website

- Written to give insight into the general state of affairs of Christianity today

- Written to encourage reflection upon God's reality in the world today

- Written to encourage fellowship, devotion, missional witness, and community participation

- Is less sympathetic to systematic (or creedal) theology, esp. Calvinism (Arminianism has
   been used to counter its arguments)

- Is more focused on biblical theology (from which systematic and creedal theology derive)

- Is very focused on contemporary theology that takes both biblical and systematic theology
   and integrates it into modern day discussions for Christians and non-Christians alike

- Actively investigates cultural, philosophical and scientific trends

- Utilizes a variety of Emergent Christian voices to create a kind of Christian news journal

- Actively supports historical Christianity (unlike some Emergent sites) that finds value
   with remembering the past and appreciating the journey of traditional orthodoxy starting
   from the first century unto the present; while wishing to avoid repeating past sectarian, 
   Gnostic, and cultic errors

- Differs in culture and orientation from Evangelicalism. Though voicing the same concerns,
   Emergent Christianity approaches those areas from a different perspective that is less
   limiting and more open to cultural opinion

- Is actively engaged in showing the relevancy of God, and the centrality of Jesus, to the
   world's endeavors

- Is actively engaged in determining what Emergent Christianity is, and isn't

- Is actively engaged in voicing Emergent concerns, issues, topics and news

- Was written to journal my experience and current understanding of Emergent Christianity

- Was written to clear up the confusion that was found in Emergent Christianity's earlier
   versions of itself (late 1990s to 2011)

- Was developed to help this blogger write a deeper style of poetry sometimes called
   theo-poetry

- Is to be used more as an Emergent Christian reference site than as a personal journal
   or "blog"

- Should be read topically (however, a sequential reading will show this blogger's own
   personal development in each area listed on this blog)

- And generally, can be viewed as a personal commentary, written in prose, on various
   Christian subjects and topics



What is a PostConservative Evangelical?

Addendum
Let's call Emergent Christianity what it is and enough of the word games and positional theological hedging. Postmodernistic Christianity is emergent Christianity, not neo-evangelicalism, not postconservative, not progressive evangelicalsim. Be bold and be boldly willing to allow theology to breathe again! Let God be God who speaks to us without more labels, more "careful creedal statements", more anything! We are on a pilgrimmage. We can never stop exploring and trying to interpret this tremendous revelation that God gave to us of himself through his Son, his Spirit and his Word. It is never static but ever fluid and dynamic because God is and because we bear his image! Let us then journey together and be willing to change when we must, speak out when we should, and be ever humble in our walk, our knowledge, and our relation with the Godhead Three! Get involved with the conversation and stop sitting on the sidelines. We are in this together! Speak out!

- skinhead

(ps. Well done Roger. It'll be a privilege to walk with you on our pilgrimmage)

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

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Roger Olson
http://rogereolson.com/2011/04/13/a-good-description-of-postconservative-evangelical/

I’ve begun reading a relatively new book (2010) by one Steven B. Sherman entitled Revitalizing Theological Epistemology: Holistic Approaches to the Knowledge of God (Cambridge, UK: James Clarke & Co.).

The author begins with my category “postconservative evangelical” and defines it thus (pgs 9-10):

“Basically, they [postconservative evangelicals] compose a loose coalition of thinkers who are seeking to facilitate a number of ‘beyond’ moves, theologically:
  1. beyond the agenda of the modernist/fundamentalist dichotomy toward what they see as a more holistic theology;
  2. beyond classical foundationalist epistemology toward alternative concepts of knowledge;
  3. beyond concentration on rationalism toward incorporating additional ways of knowing; 
  4. beyond inerrancy debates and concerns toward an instrumental use of scripture; 
  5. beyond academy-centered theologizing toward ecclesial and community-oriented thinking; 
  6. beyond gatekeeping on boundary-setting doctrinalism toward a generous orthodoxy with pietistic emphasis; and finally, 
  7. beyond what they view as a fixation on the concerns of modernity often motivated by a fear of liberalism, toward a more positive view and selective appropriation of postmodern insights.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself!

The only addition I would make is that:

     8. “postconservative” does NOT mean “anti-conservative.”

“Post” added to a word does not indicate rejection but sublation. (Please don’t ask me to define sublation; look it up!)

Do Christians Exist?

How do we think of ourselves when we think of our Christianity and of ourselves as Christians? What does this thought or label imply to us? Does it fill us with humilty and brokenness? With contradiction and the understanding that it is only in Christ that we find our new identification? That without his filling, his presence, his being we are but unredeemed, sinful, empty vessels of the old humanity we had no desire to leave behind until we met Jesus. That Jesus has become our new humanity, who fills us with his divine essence, his love, mercy, grace, hope and peace. Who would destroy all of our sinful humanity, our hate and jealousies, wickedness and lies, selfishness and lusts. Even death itself. For the divine is now near through the person of the Christ and it is his resurrected life that fills us with newness and hope and re-definition.

skinhead

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.emergentvillage.com/weblog/do-christians-exist

By George Elerick
April 12, 2011

Watch - "Why Christians Don’t Exist" – George Elerick from Bubble Up TV on Vimeo - http://vimeo.com/22002741

cogito, ergo sum’ ubi cogito, ibi non sum – Lacan

once you label me, you negate me – Kierkegaard

There is no such thing as Christian.

Let me explain. Philosopher Rene Descartes once posited the renowned phrase, “I think therefore I am”, and more recently Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan reformed this philosophy by adding that "Where I think 'I think, therefore I am', that is where I am not." Whatever is the representation of something else is negation of that very reality. Theology tends to be the fantasy behind our representations of God, so the fantasy claims to be true, all the while is still itself, nothing more than a fantasmagorical spectre of reality.

Essentially what we think isn’t who we are, rather what we think is itself an element of fantasy and our beliefs are framed by this fantasy rather than our beliefs framing the fantasy itself. Some Christians define themselves by certain criteria of belief or doctrinal adherence, but this itself is not a Christian. Lacan takes this notion a step further and proclaims that our alliance to what is represented by our thoughts & definitions are not true about ourselves.

The very claim that we are any type of Christian is the negation of that very claim.

The reality is that the only way to discover Christianity is to dismantle the perverse historical narrative we have adopted as the very framework for our identity. The very idea of ‘Christian’ must itself come to a place ideological atheism to re-discover itself in light of its inherent negation.

Christianity isn’t meant to fulfill us, it’s meant to remind us of our lack, [that] the thing we desire isn’t fullness. There is tendency to define fullness in some sort of heavenly end or utopian socialist ideal where everyone will get along and we will forget the sins behind us.

Christianity is meant to scandalize our very existence. It’s meant to destroy the very presumptious foundations of our identities. This is the very place of discovery we see Jacob come to when he wrestles with the Angel.

The Angel represents God, the transcendental signifier, and it is only when Jacob chooses to wrestle with a representation of the divine that he begins to find who he himself is meant to be. Christianity isn't meant to be a faith of acceptance, but a religion of ideological denial and self-nihilism. When I use the word ‘I’ I am aligning a part of myself with the concept I choose to follow such a claim. For example, when I claim ‘I believe that the sky is blue’ – I am making an objective statement about something I believe in.

‘I’ then am in two places, ‘I’ as a subjective (experiential) person am making a objective truth claim. These are the very things we must wrestle with when encountering a representation of God. We must not merely wrestle with the theology of God, but with the very representations that these theologies claim, and even at times, we must be willing to come to a point of nihilistic optimism, which I claim is the hope that something much more positive will eventually take the place of the theological idea we gave up. Jacob discovers this, when he in a moment of full de-constitution, encounters another reality where Israel is his new identity and Jacob is no more. Being a Christian is this very encounter suspended in infinite animation. The core of Christianity and the representations within must die so resurrection can embody itself with those kernels and allow for new transformation.

It is not we who embody Christ but rather Christ who embodies up.

It is not that we embody truth but rather truth that embodies. It is not that the we exist in the saviour but rather the saviour exists in all. Exampel: Paul and the new humanity: Jacob is attempting to embody something he is not; he is claiming something not true about himself and the divine injunction is to wrestle with this. It is in the grappling that we began to discover the inherent emergence of our identity already present in us. To be a Christian is to allow the Christ element to emerge from a place of nowhere.

Paul expands this dichotomy of embodiment by explaining that the second Adam is Christ (Romans 5:12-6:5). The name Adam is of Hebrew origin which is fundamentally defined as the plural of mankind, or modernised humanity. Paul is doing something revolutionary and inclusive here, he is making the assertion that Christ is embodied in humanity. That the whole of humanity already is embodied with the attributes of Christ. Jesus claims the similar idea when he utters the words, ‘The Kingdom of God is near’, the Hebrew word for near means within or inside. Jesus doesn’t presume that people have to earn this or even attempt to label themselves something else, he simply assumes that the Christ element is already within them. This is why the Christ element is so revolutionary because it is something already true of humanity: past, present and future.

George Elerick is an author and speaker. Find more about him at theloverevolution.org.uk



Justice or Mercy? What if You Had to Pick One?

http://lovinggodcenter.blogspot.com/2011/01/justice-or-mercy-what-if-you-had-to.html

Posted by Julie Ackerman Link on Saturday, January 08, 2011

Last night Jay and I watched a Dateline program about Brooks Douglass, the son of a Baptist preacher, and his long road to forgiveness. Douglass has produced a movie about the journey that started with the murder of his parents and near-fatal injuries inflicted on him and his sister.


The title of the movie, "Heaven's Rain," is taken from one of my favorite passages of Shakespeare, a section from "Merchant of Venice," a play that is seldom studied or performed because some consider it anti-Semitic.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'T is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

When I was searching for the Shakespeare quotation on my computer, I came across an article written shortly after 9/11. I am using the quote without attribution because some consider the author to be anti-Islamic.* In it he says,

Judaism integrates the qualities of strict justice and mercy,
in harmony and in proper measure.
Christianity took only the quality of mercy
while Islam took the quality of strict justice.

I am a Christian, yet I do not consider the comment anti-Christian. I don't take offense at it because it's a position worth considering. Is it true? Is he correct? Is this what Christians have done? Is this what Christians should do?

He's right in claiming that Judaism requires both justice and mercy:

Execute true justice, Show mercy and compassion. (Zechariah 7:9)

But is he right in claiming that Christians practice only mercy?

I have trouble finding evidence to support that.

But how about the question, Should Christians always choose mercy?

This question leads to one of my favorite Bible verses. In the words of the half-brother of Jesus,

Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.
Mercy triumphs over judgment! (James 2:13)

According to this, mercy does have a superior position in the Christian faith. But the Christian Bible does not negate the importance of justice. Jesus said,

Woe to you,
teachers of the law and Pharisees,
you hypocrites!
You give a tenth of your spices —
mint, dill and cummin.
But you have neglected
the more important matters of the law —
justice, mercy and faithfulness.
You should have practiced the latter,
without neglecting the former.
(Matthew 23:23)

The truth is, none of us can practice our faith perfectly, but I can't imagine anyone surviving in a "pick-one" society. To separate justice from mercy is like using the sword on the baby brought to Solomon's court. Death is the only possible outcome.

Justice or mercy? Perhaps the problem is not that we practice one and not the other but that we have a warped concept of both and thus practice neither one well.

To figure out the proper balance, we can't rely on either emotion or intelligence. Only as we increase in love for God (with heart, soul, mind, and strength) and for one another will we gain the wisdom to balance mercy and justice.

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

*Those who want to know the author's identity should be able to find it easily enough. I just don't want certain other things he has said to detract from this statement, which I think raises a question worth considering.


Friday, April 15, 2011

My Emergent Letters to Friends: Learning to Trust God

My Emergent Letters to Friends: Learning to Trust God


“can anything be less plain than the intent of our speech
as versus the composition of the correctness of our speech?”
– skinhead

Hey skinhead,

I have to disagree with what you’re saying about Rob's views on heaven, hell, love, etc. after watching his livestream from NYC. I think he would even say that he doesn't agree on the traditional views of these things. And not even going off what Kevin Deyoung said but in just reading quotes from the book itself, mocking a God who would send someone to literal, eternal hell if they got hit by a car w/o believing in Jesus.

And so, though I appreciate your response to my emails I have to disagree & point out that Rob neglects major chunks of scripture in order to try and make points in the book. It's grievous to me to read and hear the things he's saying and I lovingly want to caution you to see that what he's saying in many places in the book are unbiblical and even mock the God of the Scriptures:

"Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way according to the person telling them the gospel, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell. God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them in that moment of death, a different being to them forever. A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormentor who would insure that they would have no escape from an endless future of agony." – from Love Wins by Rob Bell

Thanks again for your emails.

- your brother in Christ
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear brother, Hi! -

I have yet to read Rob's book but am very familiar with his convictions having been engaged with his ministry the past dozen or so years. After a third reading of the Rob quote above I would give him a pass by saying the following: he’s not questioning the eternal torments of hell and its reality as it would seem on the surface. But that he’s saying that when that time of finality comes in a person’s life it will be finally and solemnly at that free-willed being’s rejection of all things Christ. Here’s my summary of “Love Wins” for which I’ll give to Rob partial inspiration and to the Lord the greater portion of inspiration:

“We are to over-expound and over-preach the hope and the grace that is in God as we preach the solemnity of the horrors of hell found in this life as it is in the next without Christ.

Furthermore, this message isn’t simply for others, but it is for us to know too - of the hope and grace that is in God and is ours both now, as heaven touches earth through Jesus, even as it will be ours later, in heaven.

That we as Christians do not live with a gospel that has become an evangelical-evacuation policy from earth, but with a gospel that is every-much as good news to us, as to those around us, in this present day of the here-and-now because of the presence of the Kingdom of God enacted at the Cross and through the Holy Spirit in response to Christ's atonement on the Cross.

As is the solemn reality and responsibility of the hell we deliver to people around us by living unChrist-like; or the hell that non-Christians live in each day in their brokenness apart from Christ; or the hell that humanity is experiencing at its own hands, when the love of God through Jesus is not being lived, shared, breathed and experienced.

Ultimately, the last book of the bible, Revelation, shows us in exquisite grief the finality of mankind rejecting the love of God when love doesn’t win; as well as the finality of God’s resurrection (and resurrected kingdom) because love did win.”

- skinhead

But asked another way, I think the broader reading of Rob is more to the point that my fellow classmate Scot McKnight has earlier observed these past several weeks in the links that I have sent to you:

Link 1 - My horror, then, was three-fold [to the evangelical response to Rob Bell's book, LOVE WINS]: first, the image of God that is depicted when hell becomes the final, or emphatic word to the world [as evangelicals missionize the Gospel]; second, the absence of any context for how to talk about judgment in the Bible [in the evangelical kit of 'Becoming Saved']; and, third, the kinds of emotion [we are seeing] expressed [to Rob's book, which isn't pretty]. We saw too much gloating, pride and triumphalism on both sides of the LOVE WINS issue. I felt like those watching the sinking of the Titanic but who didn’t cringe at the thought of thousands sinking into the Atlantic to a suffocating death. We were instead singing and dancing to a jig that we were right or had been predicting the sinking all along.

Link 2 - To talk about wrath apart from this depiction of the grace-consuming God is to put forward a view of God that is not only unbiblical but potentially monstrous. And, to put forward a view of God that is absent of final judgment, yes of wrath, yes of eternal judgment, is to offer a caricature of the Bible’s God.

No one should begin to talk about hell without spending fifteen minutes in pausing prayer to consider the horror of it all.

Further, I find some people can get intoxicated on wrath and it can lead them in a triumphalist dance of anger. And I find some who get intoxicated with a flabby sense of grace. Isn’t it better to get lost in the dance of God’s good and triumphant grace and of making things right? If we are to be intoxicated, let it be from imbibing the hope and grace of God’s love which will both win and be right in the End.

- Scot McKnight

By way of summary, and as I’ve repeatedly have said in the past, the enigma that is Rob Bell can be a slippery-sloop to those who chose to listen selectively (and this is truth of both sides - both of his detractors and well as of his supporters). He too easily can mean whatever we wish him to mean. And maybe I think of Jesus when I write this too. For his listeners also had all types of responses to his messages as well.

And so I think I get Rob more than I had in the past, in his cynicisms, his irreverent apologies and statements, in his quirkiness that comes with an impassioned heart and soul, and a mind overwhelmed with speaking God better to the misunderstanding lost masses. He's willing to bend on exact statements to allow his congregants and audience to become further engaged with the ministries and the minitrations of Jesus and Jesus' flesh-and-blood fellowship on this side of heaven. He's willing to entertain extra-biblical suppositions and questions to raise the awareness of both personal and corporate introspection, trusting in the Spirit's overall leading to teach and to guide in questions of mis-understanding and mis-statement.

But it is still my and your responsibility to cut through his words to get to the sense of the argument (as versus just dumping on him as a brother in Christ). The quote you gave is hard to defend in-and-of itself but then again, I don’t wish to. Nor do I wish to defend Rob. I stand with him, I pray for him, and I treat him in love as my brother in Christ as we and many other emergent Christians re-learn God’s heart for the lost and for our fellowship of brothers and sisters.

Too, when I get a chance to read LOVE WINS I’m sure I’ll see a lot of similar statements just like there were in his past books. Still, I know that Rob believes in the evangelical doctrines of Hell, Heaven, Sin, Judgment, Jesus. So the fight isn’t there. The fight is over evangelicalism's words and formulaic statements of correctness that have lost the heart of God in their zeal for the truth of God, and for which postmodernistic books and writings wish not to similarly evidence. You have an austere evangelical readership wanting correct, specific statements as versus a "mellow" emergent body of believers wishing to lovingly retell the gospel to a non-Christian world through relational and service ministries about Jesus; a world that is totally unfamiliar with the centuries-old church dogmas and doctrines that have overtaken the evangelical church, and have removed the life and heart of God in the process.

Doctrines? Yes, if they are biblically received. But no, if they are more important than the people that those doctrines minister to. I'm all for correct doctrines but I'm also for allowing people to express their fears and misunderstandings and to allow for further personal expressions of God. We can correct their (and ours) misunderstandings later through biblical study, but it is more important first to find the heartbeat of God and to resurrect it into the pulse of dying mankind. Let us do the hard work of ER first and then later get the whole man healthier over a process of time and involvement, benevolent engagement and practice, faithful living and endeavor, merciful love and living.

So then, in order for us as evangelicals to be able to read postmodern/emergent writings it will require that we put away our theological formulas, our compendiums of exact scientific speech, and re-double our encryption efforts to hear and read Rob’s (and others) words for the intent that is being conveyed. It’s not easy to do and after 12 years of listening, investigating, questioning I think have adapted enough now to do it. And by “adaptation” I don’t mean that I’ve left my doctrinal heritage or legacies but that I’m re-learning how to better speak my heritage in more relevant forms and fashions using postmodernistic methods that are highly creative and deeply personal and loving to the non-Christian, non-churched audience.

Peace,

skinhead


My Emergent Letters to Friends: Learning to Discern

My Emergent Letters to Friends: Discernment

by skinhead
March 15, 2011

Dear Ed.  I found Kevin DeYoung’s and Justin Taylor’s statements last week inflammatory about Rob Bell’s position on hell, sin, atonement, justice, and etc. Kevin and Justin made up stuff about Rob that is not true and the response has been typical of what you’re getting on Facebook (from friends and colleagues alike). I really don’t wish to respond to each of their statements publically other than to say what I already have said. Rob fully believes in the evangelical hell, heaven, Jesus, etc. and made it clear again Sunday night at a Q&A held at church when he was questioned.

But Rob uses imprecise language (as I also have stated) which leaves him open to being accused of things that aren’t there. These accusations then amount to false judgments about him in the name of Christ by Christians feeling threatened by his missing imprecisions. Personally, I don’t really wish to defend Rob so much as to point out to my fellow Christians that they are making the very point Rob is making in his book… that we judge each other really fast and aren’t comprehending how deeply grievous spiritual truths like hell, heaven, love, Jesus, really are beyond making our safe creedal statements about them.

With Rob I’ve learned a long time ago to listen to the intent of his speech rather than to the precision of his statements. Too, he loves to talk about theological paradoxes within biblical narratives which cannot be resolved and must be left open-ended. For traditional Christians who are use to hearing “definitive” summary statements within carefully crafted theological formulae, the emergent method can be found to be irritating, frustrating, inspecific, unnerving and angering. Personally, I believe Christians have been spoon-fed for so long that their minds have turned to mush and water and that they don’t know how to think for themselves anymore. How to study, how to investigate, and most importantly, how to listen and think other than to spout off their feelings and emotions as "gospel" to those enablers willing to listen around them.

When I try to parse what Rob is saying against my traditional Christianity upbringing it leaves me blinded from hearing God’s word that is shouting in my ears while I debate God and refuse him his grip on my heart. Said differently, I’ve been too fast to judge Rob on what he should be saying in my mind (wishing to feel safe and content) than to listen to him on what he is really saying. Once I re-orient myself away from those traditional arguments in my head I then can hear him better as to what he is saying…. And, when I do, its spiritually overwhelming - like scales coming off my eyes that I may fearfully come and tread into the holy-of-holies before the presence of our Almighty God.

For you see, Rob still is claiming traditional evangelical doctrinal tenets no less than what DeYoung or Taylor ascribe to, but he is re-framing or re-defining these tenets into a postmodernistic framework of emerging Christianity as he uses the emergent language to help us better hear God's Word. And if anything, emergent language is all about ambiguity and mystery, the high holiness of God and the complete gulf that we have put up to God's eternal redemptive purposes. It is this latter part of postmodernism - its emergent language and mindset - that so engage traditional Christians towards anger for the "truth". They don’t get postmodernism and it unnerves them. Rob will say it more simply -

“If we think we know God, than that "God" we think we know isn’t God. For God is infinitely above what we know and think, and the God we have is the one we’ve put in our religious faith-box, whom we’ve idolized and have told what he should and shouldn’t be doing.”

At least that ‘s my current understanding of all this after 12 years of struggling to listen more completely while trying to figure this postmodern emergent stuff out as an older-generation adult 3 generations removed from generations X,Y and Z. Historically, evangelicalism itself is a new movement birthed from the fundamentalist movements back in the 1880’s-1940’s (the Industrial Age) and has, itself, become the “new fundamentalism” of modernity. Thus, today’s evangelicals control the presses and the schools, the media and the pulpits and are crying foul to its newest challenger and usurper, emergent Christianity. But emergent postmodernism has arisen as an updated version of evangelicalism these past 10-20 years (c. 1990-2010, the "Social Networking" Age) and intends to displace, disrupt, destroy, burn everything that we as evangelical Christians espouse that we think know about God and doctrine and faith and Jesus... or more correctly, impiously think we know. And I don't think for a minute that emergent Christians will be re-writing the bible with false doctrines and lies. More correctly, I do think that emergent Christians will be authenticating their historic faith and as they do we'll discover how close it will be to past creedal statements written in blood, sweat and tears of our past forefathers in the faith.

Emergent Christianity isn’t clearly defined b/c it is so new and no one really knows what it is and where it’s going. The conservative form of "emergent-ism" is an “emerging Christianity” that holds to its orthodox-evangelical roots while trying to not to be too quick to jump into the “emergent ship”. Thus, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Matt Chandler are kinda caught out as “tweeners” between wanna-be neo-evangelicals and emergent Christians while DeYoung and Taylor are still in the evangelical camp of strict Calvinistic reformed doctrine (at least that's how I understand it). But for the emergent, the argument isn’t to abandon evangelic doctrine but to better speak it to a postmodern era (or rather, let evangelicalism go as irrelevant and unnecessary parts of the continuing conversation of authentic Christianity in its haughtiness and judgmentalisms). And so, it is the emergent's newer-language which “feels” like a "must-hear" better re-interpretation of church dogma as it thrashes around trying to “speak God better”.

Now I have my differences with Rob but its more along the lines of the various emergent strains of Christianity as each emergent position works to define their foundations of where they should be vs. what they are teaching. The spectrum goes from conservative to neo-evangelic to a more liberal abandonment of everything that is church doctrine over the past 2000 years (called “pyro-theology” or “deconstructionism”). And to some degree this latter endeavor may have to be done b/c we have simply “boxed” in God with too much argument and thesis and have missed his heart and soul and consequently, the heart and soul of our faith.

I think of Jesus in the gospels who so greatly upset the Sadducee's and Pharisees as he re-aligned and re-established the OT Abrahamic faith that had gotten lost in the religious rhetoric of his day. Jesus kept to the past, but he re-explained it through himself, and then continued to re-define it in the lives of each soul he met, individualizing it and expanding it, just like the paradigm he was so fond of using, that of "new wine skins for new wine". Without new wine skins the new wine would burst the old wine skins as it fermented. Jesus words were doing the same to the religious institutes of his day. He was re-adjusting and re-framing God, faith, sin, life, living, love, justice, etc. to the faithful (and unfaithful) traditionalists of his day. And so I think that this is what emergent Christians are doing today... searching to speak God better to a sinful, needy, lost world.

And at this point I believe Rob to be an emerging Christian like myself who is making adjustments as he goes along – trying on new suits of clothes for size and fit, freewheeling off of new wake boards as he tests new equipment and theories, in an attempts to determine the necessary fundamental emergent directions he thinks postmodern Christianity should be taking.

And unlike me, he is more committed to destroying the past more completely (which takes a lot of courage b/c of all of the vilification that he gets). But I think he’s more gifted to do this like the old-time preachers of the past - the Billy Sundays and George Whitefields, the Jonathan Edwards and Charles Spurgeons, the John Wesleys and D.L. Moodys, and the David Otis Fullers of their day. They didn’t take any crap and they loved dishing it out in extremely convicting hellfire-and-brimstone sermons. They wielded the pulpit like a bully club and they struck down anything and anyone that didn’t worship Jesus first and foremost. Rob is not very different from these old-timey preachers but I think that he is hated even more. And so, we would do well to shut our mouths and listen first, before hastening to judgment and vaunting ourselves and our bruised egos up in inflammatory rhetorical displays. God is not pleased by our harsh judgments, words and labels. We are to speak truth in love, and in love speak truth, and use God's wisdom in both directions. Amen! and Amen!

Consequently only time can tell what will be, and it’ll be at least another 10-20 years before everyone really knows what emergent Christianity will was about. But outlandish statements made by both sides as they create point-and-counterpoint arguments against each other can be as much constructive as they are destructive to the fellowship of God's church over time. Bell, like myself, will continue to modify his position in light of newer developments and spiritual insights based upon Inauguration Eschatology (cf. my writings and NT Wright's among others). It must be done and is being done by Mars Hill Church and others.

Thus, emergent Christianity is in its own “discovery-and-analysis” phase of what postmodernal Christianity may look like. But we don’t know. It’s too soon to tell. And when we get there our traditional brethren can thank us then for plowing the hard ground that is ahead and has been behind. Because they have not helped with their harsh judgements and inciteful words, working against any form of plowing being done by humble, faith-driven, obedient servants of God. But I would that my brethren team with their newest cousins and work with us together towards figuring-out this thing we call the Christian missional message of Jesus.

- skinhead


My Emergent Letters to Friends: What is Emergent Christianity?

My Emergent Letters to Friends

by skinhead
March 14, 2011

Hi. Attached is a Christianity Today review of Rob Bell’s book. My comments are in green to help elucidate the mis-statements I’ve been noticing in popular discussion websites. I think that if we wish to critique emergent Christianity that we should look past Rob to the thing itself. To do that I’m reading through “Church in the Present Tense” by Kevin Corcoran (a Calvin prof) and Scot McKnight (formerly of Cornerstone). The first chapter made all the difference for me in discussion of philosophical realism versus antirealism and its social apophaticisms. Too, McKnight’s candid comments on emergent Christianity should be helpful like his blog, “The Jesus Creed”.

http://www.amazon.com/Church-Present-Tense-resources-communities/dp/1587432994

http://www.patheos.com/community/members/scotmcknight/

Overall I believe Rob's critics to continue to mistake him as a non-evangelical rather than as a neo-evangelical or more popularly knoewn as an emergent Christian. In fact, Rob’s portrayal of Christ makes the relevance of Christianity even more awesome, hopeful, useful as people have become redeemed, reconciled, Spirit-filled, disciples of the Gospel.

Fearing postmodernism, orthodox/evangelical/modernistic congregations have responded by fleeing backwards into time-bound, traditional church institutions and contemporary evangelical mega-churches that seem to become less and less relevant for this new age of the 21st Century, as they seek to update their liturgies without updating their foundations and the introspections to their faith. You can't dress up something that is already dead or dying. It needs to be buried and left in the ground. Evangelicalism is dead. Let's give it a proper, thankful burial and move on.

Emerging Christianity is doing just that in the continuum of 2000 years of church history as it rescinds from the industrial/scientific age of language specificity to a postmodernistic form of communication known for its looser language rules (thus, the squawk re Rob’s imprecise language).

Lastly, it’s not so simple to say that Love Wins or that Jesus Wins or that Justice Wins through our competing Christian labels and syllogisms. Rather, we had better find out what Jesus wants of us and to do it better, together and not separately apart... for that is where our real strength lies as well as the devil's divisions and inner man's pride.

- skinhead

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

syl•lo•gism [ síllə jìzzəm ] (plural syl•lo•gisms)
noun

Definition

1. a logical argument involving three propositions: a formal deductive argument made up of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. An example is, "All birds have feathers, penguins are birds, therefore penguins have feathers."

2. deductive reasoning: reasoning from the general to the specific

3. example of deduction: an example of deductive reasoning

4. specious argument: a subtle piece of reasoning, or one that seems true but is actually false or deceptive

McKnight - A Critique of Love Wins 7

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/04/15/exploring-love-wins-7/

Exploring Love Wins 7

by Scot McKnight
April 15, 2011
Filed under: Atonement

The 5th chp in Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, is called “Dying to Live.” I am asking that you pause quietly and slow down enough to pray this prayer as the way to approach this entire series:

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing:
Send your Holy Spirit and pour into my heart your greatest gift,
which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue,
without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you.
Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God,
now and for ever. Amen.†

In this chp Rob seeks to communicate into today’s idiom the significance of the cross and resurrection. Which means he’s touching on atonement theory, surely one of the most discussed topics of our day, but he shifts the conversation from atonement theory to another topic. More of that below.

How would you explain what Rob says about cross and resurrection in this chapter? Do you think it is adequate? Do you see a shift in topic — from salvation and atonement theory to moral theory?

The big theme of this chapter is that the Bible speaks of the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection through a variety of images, each designed in different ways to speak to humans/Israel/church. In other words, this chp enters into atonement theory. Bell then proposes looking at the cross through the lens of elemental features of the universe.

Here are the atonement images in the Bible: Sacrifice, reconciliation, justification, victory, redemption.

Which is the correct one? His answer, “Yes.” Which is to say, each is true. Rob Bell then tries to get to the bottom of atonement theory. Here are his words: “The point then, as it is now, is Jesus. The divine in flesh and blood. He’s where the life is” (129).

First cross, and then resurrection, and in this he works out what I’m going to call an “elemental theory of the cross.”

It is clear that his “elemental theory” is neither the Christus Victor theme made so clear in Tom Wright nor the solidarity theory seen in the writings of Moltmann. Here’s where he goes:

1. Death gives way to life in all of nature, and in relationships. “It’s how the world works” (131). The cross is a “symbol of an elemental reality.”

2. The resurrection is cosmic — “The tomb is empty, a new day is here, a new creation is here, everything has changed, death has been conquered, the old has gone, the new has come” (133-134).

3. The resurrection is personal: “When we say yes to God, when we open ourselves to Jesus’s living, giving act on the cross, we enter in to a [new] way of life. He is the source, the strength, the example, and the assurance that this pattern of death and rebirth is the way into the only kind of life that actually sustains and inspires” (136).
And: “Lose your life and find it, he says. That’s how the world works. That [sic] how the soul works. That’s how life works when you’re dying to live” (136).

A few points:

First, I summarized where all those atonement theories were headed in Rob’s view just before the jump, and I think he’s shortchanged and simplified them. Again, he says the point is Jesus. He is where life is. No one wants to disagree with that, but even if I agree, that’s not how to get to the “point” of all those atonement words. The point of each one of them is this: humans are sinners and enslaved and entombed, God has done something mighty to rid them of their sin problem, and what God has done can be expressed as sacrifice, reconciliation, justification, victory and redemption. Yes, the point is Jesus and Yes the point is life, but the Jesus of these images is the Savior — the one who steps in and gives himself in our place (vicarious) and who removes our sins at the cost of his own life — and who by his death and resurrection brings us into new life. Inherent to each of these is the removal of sin as precondition with the forgiving, etc, benefits that follow.

As I read this chp, Rob shifts the topic from sin removal to cross as paradigm of elemental factors.

Second, Jesus, too, says there’s something elemental about death and life. John 12:24. But I can’t quite comprehend how the atonement-sacrifice work of Christ can be so elemental and at the same time a “scandal” and a “rock of stumbling.” There’s not enough here about sin removal and not enough here about something God does, and more an elemental principle that death leads to life — but why death? How does death work? These are the elemental things atonement theories work out, and his “elemental theory” doesn’t explore that.

Third, I agree with Rob in that the cross and resurrection have to be tied together — one without the other is no gospel. Too many today have a Good Friday only gospel. Rob wants it to be cross and resurrection.

Fourth, I’m all for seeing atonement language as various metaphors (see A Community Called Atonement: Living Theology - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0687645549/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=jescre-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0687645549).

And I’m all for finding a way to bringing them into our modern world. And how we do that matters. But however we do the transfer, it needs to be comprehensive. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s got to retain and sustain the various dimensions of those biblical metaphors.

Here’s how I see what I see as a shift in this chp: the “elemental theory” seems to drop the sin and drop the Savior and instead explores perhaps the most significant moral theory in the entire Bible, and it is a cruciform moral theory: we die and in dying we learn to live.

And I want to emphasize how much I agree with Rob on this moral theory: the essence of flourishing is loving God and loving others; the essence of loving is giving to the other and that means surrendering — it means dying to our ego and living to God and to others. So, yes, totally, dying to live. I agree. But that’s not atonement, nor does it explain the meaning of the cross of Jesus as atoning.

On the cross Jesus shouldered the sins of all. 2 Corinthians 5:15: “And he died for all…” and 5:19: “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.” 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This is the stuff of atonement.

Humans today — modern and postmodern — experience guilt, and they experience broken relationships, and they experience a sense of being out of sorts with God so that they experience God’s displeasure/wrath, and they experience a sense of futility and being trapped and being captured in the systems and in their own private worlds, and they experience being enslaved — and so those old Bible images still work. And they work well. I see no need to say they are just back then. There is a way to bring those very images into our world to speak to the conditions of postmoderns.


Thursday, April 14, 2011

Book Review - "Islam & Christianity" by McKnight, Parts 8 & 11

The Same God, Part 8

by Scot McKnight
March 2011
Filed under: Religions

Miroslav Volf, Professor at Yale, on the dedication page of his new book — Allah: A Christian Response, says this:

To my father, a Pentecostal minister who admired Muslims, and taught me as a boy that they worship the same God as we do.

Volf’s quest is to build a theological basis for peaceful co-existence and peaceful cooperation among Muslims and Christians, and his quest is to contend that the God of the Christians and the God of the Muslims is the “same” God.

In chp 8 of his book, Volf asks if God is love in both religions. Is the God of Islam a God who is love? Is the God of the Bible a God who is love?

For Christians, it is not enough to say God loves; for Christians, God is love. God’s essential attribute is love. Do Muslims believe God is love in this way?

Here Volf distinguishes the theologians in Islam from the spiritual masters, and he appeals to the Sufi masters for whom God is love — that is, that love is an essential attribute of love. He appeals to Reza Shah-Kazemi, who knows that some didn’t see love as essential to God.

Volf observes that with a non-Trinitarian God, Islam sees God’s love as self-love, and God’s own self-love overflows into love for his creation. Christianity’s God is about other-love within the Trinity.

The difference, then, between Christians and Muslims is about what kind of love is ultimate: self-love or other-love. Volf knows the distinction and knows the implications: it has to do with God’s creation of the world. Creation of the world spills not from self-love but from other-love within the Trinity.

There is a debate between Christians and Muslims over whom God loves. The Christian view is that God loves even the ungodly, but that God distinguishes between loving sinners but not their sin. Among Muslims there are strong traditions that affirm that God loves the obedient, etc., but not the sinners. God loves some but doesn’t love others. On p. 175 Volf has a helpful chart. (I can’t produce it here.)

For some this indicates conditionality in God’s love in Islam, but Volf observes that there is conditionality in God’s love in the Bible (eg. Exod 20:6; John 15:9-10). Volf resolves the tension in this: “when people do God’s will, God loves the doer and the deed; when people fail to do God’s will, God loves the doer but not the deed” (177).

What about love of enemy, a distinct Christian teaching of Jesus? Clearly, Jesus teaches this, even if many Christians have not practiced this. But Islam, while teaching God as Merciful and that such is an option for Muslims, is not as strong on this one. But he finds a strong spiritual tradition in Islam that values even love of enemies.

There are differences between Islam and Christianity. But God loves creatures; God is just; and justice is an aspect of God’s love for creatures; humans are called to love neighbors.

This sets the stage for how Christians and Muslims can work together. Check back next Tuesday [for more reviews].

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

The Same God, Part 11
http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/04/14/the-same-god-11/
.
by Scot McKnight
April 14, 2011
Filed under: Religions

Miroslav Volf, Professor at Yale, on the dedication page of his new book Allah: A Christian Response, says this:

To my father, a Pentecostal minister who admired Muslims, and taught me as a boy that they worship the same God as we do.

Volf’s quest is to build a theological basis for peaceful co-existence and peaceful cooperation among Muslims and Christians, and his quest is to contend that the God of the Christians and the God of the Muslims is the “same” God. What he means by “same” is not “identical” but “sufficient similarity.”

A major issue arises: the relationship of monotheistic faiths and government. Does loyalty to God clash with loyalty to the state? Can two faiths live under one government? Or, and this is what many think today, is belief in one God the source of political strife?

Put differently: Is monotheism so exclusive that it it is “theoclastic”? (Does it destroy all other gods?) Is monotheism the source for intolerance of other faiths? Politics and faith are connected in history.

But monotheists have sought to explain themselves over against the intolerance charge:

1. Monotheism is no worse than polytheism.

2. Monotheism can be democratizing: instead of just top-down it can be bottom-up.

3. Monotheism is inherently inclusive because if there is one God then that one God is for all people.

And it is there that Volf camps.

A state needs to be politically pluralist by not favoring one religion and each religion is permitted to bring its vision of reality into the public forum. Religious exclusivists can be political pluralists.

So he examines monotheism’s capacities for political pluralism:

- Belief in one God gave religion an essential ethical dimension (justice, law and freedom arose in monotheisms).

 - And more importantly: Monotheism decoupled religion from the state and from ethnic belonging because if there is one God, then that one God is God of all, regardless of political condition or ethnic heritage.

This leads him to his major stance of how monotheism makes political pluralism acceptable: the one benevolent God relates to all on equal terms; love of neighbor implies granting to the other freedom; there should be no coercion in faith.

Which means that proselytism is acceptable: each person has the right to practice his or her faith, and each person can practice the faith he or she chooses. This is justice at the most basic level.

So Volf has three principles:


1. There is no identity between state and religion.
2. There is no complete separation between religion and the state.
3. The state is to be impartial toward religions.

Understanding Islam

http://tgcreviews.com/reviews/allah-a-christian-response/

Allah: A Christian Response

by Miroslav Volf
March 27, 2011 Review by Joel S

Miroslav Volf, Allah: A Christian Response (HarperOne, 2011), 336 pp., $25.99.

“Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? Does the answer to that question have significant implications for how Christians and Muslims engage each other in the world today?”

It was in answer to those two questions that Miroslav Volf wrote Allah: A Christian Response. It was not written to answer whether or not Muslims are saved; that is, his goal is to discuss a political theology, not soteriology. My review will focus on two areas: (1) stimulating practical points and (2) points of theological and biblical concern.

Stimulating Points

Volf writes as one who has seen the bitter hostilities between Muslims and Christians and wishes to see those hostilities cease. Accordingly, he makes several points that provide excellent stimulation for Christians who are considering how to think about and engage with adherents of Islam.

First, Volf helpfully summarizes key similarities and differences between normative Islam and normative Christianity. This is not to say that the conclusions he draws from them are necessarily correct, but he highlights...


six areas of formal similarity between the two faiths:

1. “There is only one God, the one and only divine being.”

2. “God created everything that is not God.”

3. “God is radically different from everything that is not God.”

4. “God is good.”

5. “God commands that we love God with our whole being.”

6. “God commands that we love our neighbors as ourselves.” (110)

Citing both Christian and Muslim sources, he makes a clear case for each of these elements within both religions. He goes on to cite...


four more areas of agreement:

1. God loves. (158)

2. God is just. (158)

3. God’s love encompasses God’s justice. (158)

4. Human beings should love their neighbors as themselves. (159)


In all 10 areas, Volf acknowledges differences. In particular, on the issue of love, he highlights some significant ones:

1. Christians affirm that God is love. (182)

2. “Most Christians say that God’s eternal love includes love of the other, the divine other

within the triune godhead and, derivatively, a creaturely other.” (182)

3. Christians affirm that God loves “the ungodly,” and that this love cannot be earned (182).

4. Christians must love even their enemies. (183)


Volf’s patient engagement on these issues shows that while he openly desires to focus on the similarities for the sake of the common good, he still recognizes significant differences. Christians ought to listen to how he works through the similarities and differences on these points. I am not yet evaluating the conclusion that he draws from all of this—that Muslims and Christians refer to the same God when they speak of God. Rather, I simply note that his look at each of these areas is helpful, as he does truly attempt to lay out what Muslims and Christians believe on these crucial issues.

Second, Volf presents a careful model of engagement with both Muslim and Christian theology on one of the most contentious issues between the two communities. He puts a great deal of effort into clarifying exactly what the Qur’an affirms about God’s unity and what it denies about the Trinity.


A list of five [Islamic] objections to the doctrine of the Trinity in the Qur’an:

1. God cannot beget a Son. (133)

2. God cannot have an associate. (134)

3. God is not one of three divine beings. (134)

4. God cannot be Christ, because then the sovereign Creator would be contained in a creature. (134)

5. “Christians worship persons they associate with God in denigration of the one true God” (134).

He explains how each of these denials refers to a misunderstanding of the Trinity, basing his views on classic orthodox formulations of the doctrine (136).


Additionally, Volf explains several elements that indicate that Qur’anic teaching on the unity of God does not deny orthodox Trinitarianism.

First, he argues that Christians do not divide God’s one essence in the doctrine of the Trinity (136-139), demonstrating this biblical and theologically.

Secondly, he argues that the terms we use to describe God, including the numbers one and three, cannot fully express the reality about God (139-142).

Volf clearly wants to accurately understand Islam, and he also wants Muslims to accurately understand what Christians believe about the Trinity. Such engagement, contrasted with the prejudice he later criticizes, models how Christians ought to approach Islamic views.

Third, Volf articulates clearly what many Christians (and Muslims) have sadly missed in the history of Christian-Muslim relations: We must apply the Golden Rule to mission. He applies it in several ways. First, we must witness only if we allow others to witness to us (211). Second, we should witness how we wish others would witness to us, that is, without coercion, bribery, seduction, or unfairly comparing the worst of one religion with the best of another (211-212). While the first rule has generally been violated more by Muslims than Christians, the second has been the domain of both parties. Volf strongly urges Christians that if they are to love their neighbors, they must do it in how they witness.

Fourth, Volf provides much food for thought in how we lose our prejudices and exercise our rights concerning issues of blasphemy. He suggests that when we apply love of neighbor to trying to understand those of another religion, we will actively try to compare our self-perception with how others might perceive us. This “double vision,” Volf says, “is a way of coming to know the other truthfully, an application of the command to love the neighbor to how we seek knowledge of the neighbor” (205). Much prejudice, misunderstanding, and conflict can be avoided by following this simple process.

Arising from this concern to see through another’s eyes, we can come to see that having the right to speak in a certain way of another religion does not mean that such a way is a responsible exercise of the right (250). He applies this to the Danish cartoons of Muhammad that sparked riots and uproar among Muslims globally, arguing that while many Muslims responded inappropriately, Christians must consider both the safety of others (250) and civility (251) in how they approach things that they have the right to say. His reminder to express ideas with respect—even on questions of significant difference—is timely in a volatile atmosphere such as we have today.


Points of Concern

Notwithstanding those positive aspects of the book, there are some areas that are at a minimum, a cause for concern, and at a maximum, a cause for serious disagreement.

First, Volf’s entire argument for the God of Muslims and the God of Christians being the same depends on his understanding of “sufficient similarity.” He argues repeatedly that identical sameness is not needed, since even Christians—Calvinists and Arminians, for example—disagree about some aspects of the nature of God (90), though he admits that Muslim and Christian descriptions of God should not be “radically different” (90-91). Accordingly, as noted above, he patiently examines several major areas of agreement and notes a few areas of difference.

What is concerning in this approach though is that crucial word, sufficient. On what basis can sufficient similarity be determined? As Christians, we ought to go to Scripture in order to receive guidance on how to approach establish criteria for the sufficiency of our similarities. Instead of doing this, Volf quickly (pages 97-102) notes four areas of similarity (which are helpful, as noted above), and then claims to have presented a “tight and persuasive” argument that Christians and Muslims refer to the same God (102).

But in order to determine whether there is sufficient similarity, it seems that it would be helpful to develop a set of criteria that would, if not show clearly, at least indicate where one crosses from an inadequate understanding of God to a different God altogether. In other words, what constitutes a “radical difference”? Volf later admits, “If we have misidentified God—say by subscribing to a seriously erroneous description of God—we are talking about the wrong God (which for all monotheists means that we are not talking about God at all)” (113). So, again, I ask, how does one determine a “seriously erroneous description”?

One might rightly object that since we do not have any list for determining sufficient similarity, Volf has done the only thing that can be done: comparing major descriptions about God to see if they are similar or not. And certainly, Volf makes a clear case for (1) that on the issues he mentions, Christians and Muslims hold similar beliefs, and (2) that the issues he mentions are necessary similarities for claiming that both refer to the same God. Necessary does not equal sufficient, and the following considerations should at least make us pause to consider whether or Volf has proven the former but not the latter.

While he acknowledges the essential Christian teaching of Jesus as the self-revelation of God (147), he does not interact at length with any biblical texts that discuss Jesus’ necessity. One of the only texts that he does mention is John 14:7-9, which says:

“If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?"

These verses follow on the heels of John 14:6, which famously proclaims that Jesus is the only way to the Father. About them Volf says,

"Certainly, John’s Gospel affirms that Jesus is the self-revelation of God. If you know Jesus as the incarnate Word, you know God, and you know God truly (though not exhaustively!). And yet, according to that same Gospel, if you reject Jesus, you can still be worshiping the God whom Jesus truthfully revealed. (92)"

The connection between Volf’s last statement and the text in question is not apparent. Particularly given the connection to verse six, it seems more natural to take the text as saying that from then on, because they knew who Jesus was, they would know the Father—not that after they rejected Jesus, they would still know the Father. These verses, on the surface at least, seem to suggest the opposite of what Volf proposes.

More importantly, there is one other thing to note about his use of Scripture. Volf refers to precious few other Scripture passages to determine sufficient similarity. While this does not mean that he is mistaken, as there may very well be no passages that illustrate the error of his view, I find it curious that a book written to convince Christians does not include more biblical interaction. Indeed, one can’t help but wonder about passages such as 1 John 4:2-3 and 5:20:

"By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already."

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

I am quite sure that Volf would have a response to these, but nevertheless, given the clarity with which Scripture teaches on the nature of the true God (and the incarnation), and 1 John’s descriptions of those who deny these things (“liar” in chapter 2 and “antichrist” in chapter four), it seems reasonable to expect that Volf should have dealt with the Scriptures in a more coherent fashion on this topic.

Second, even if we grant that Muslims and Christians have the same God as their referent, further questions remain about actual worship of that divine Being. Can we legitimately claim that they both worship, love, and give their allegiance to that same God? Can we say that right actions (love of neighbor, for example) can please God if they exist without right beliefs? [sic, re Jesus, pointedly – sh]

Volf answers these questions in the affirmative; indeed, he bases his vision for joint Muslim-Christian effort for the common good on an affirmative response to these questions. In his own words, “From a Christian standpoint, might it be that some Muslims (and some Christians!) who have a deficient view of God’s nature and God’s commandments nonetheless worship the one true God by means of their godly lives? I think so” (119-120).

To clarify, Volf is not arguing that Muslims therefore have salvific standing before God, but rather that they do “everyday acts that honor God” (120). Citing the often-noble example of Saladin during the crusades, he concludes, “To the extent that people love their neighbors, they worship the one true God, even if their understanding of God is inadequate and their worship is seriously lacking in other regards” (122).

Indeed, he goes on to suggest that fear of the one and common God—the God who loves and commands love of neighbor—would make a difference. Fear of that God will nudge Muslims and Christians to emulate God and therefore to pursue the common good, for, by definition, the common God to whom they are accountable is the God of both as well as the one Lord of their common world. (247)

In other words, Volf suggests (without stating it in quite this way):

1. that Muslims can love, honor, and fear God apart from Christ;

2. that this love, fear, and honor can form a common basis on which they can work with Christians for the common good.


Summary

Biblically and theologically, those statements are concerting, despite their obvious practical pull. The following considerations illustrate my concerns:

First, this is not simply a question of inadequate propositions, but broken relationship. Scripture teaches that sin has broken the relationship between God and man such that man can do nothing to please God. Isaiah 64:6 shows that even the best deeds done by man outside of a state of salvation are as filthy rags before God. This renders suspect Volf’s insistence that one can honor God or please God with inadequate beliefs.

Further, given that this book is written to persuade Christians, one wonders how at this point Volf can think that the message of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-19) is not a central means of loving neighbor for Christians. That is, if we take Scripture’s words about the broken relationship between God and man seriously, it seems patently unloving to encourage Muslims who deny Jesus’ true identity to see their deeds as pleasing to God apart from Christ.

Second, while Muslims and Christians may very well agree that God commands that people love him, Christians cannot be faithful to the Scriptures and to Christ if they accept that Muslims, apart from Christ, do indeed love God. John 5:37-42 shows that those who reject Jesus as Savior do not love God:

"And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, this form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you."

His words are clear: if one does not accept Jesus for who he actually is, he does not have the love of God in him. Put differently, no amount of right action—of which many first century Jews had plenty—can offset wrong belief about Jesus when it comes to love for God. The painful conclusion is that Muslims do not love God, and that to appeal to them on the basis of their love for God to work for the common good is to deceive them about their true status before God.

Third, Volf’s claim that one can be a practicing Muslim and 100 percent Christian lightly dances around a crucial issue separating the two communities: the person of Muhammad. As the front cover and publisher’s blurb note, Volf believes, “A person can be both a practicing Muslim and 100 percent Christian without denying core convictions of belief and practice.” Volf cites two examples of this, an Episcopal priest who claimed to also have become a Muslim (195) and a Muslim-background believer who claimed his new faith in Jesus was compatible with valid interpretations of Islam (196).

This is not the place to fully enter into the debate over C-5 contextualization and other related issues. Nevertheless, in all of Volf’s discussion over this “hybrid religiosity” (200), he only once mentions in passing the question of the person of Muhammad (with relevance to this particular issue). He argues that if people are baptized, confess that Jesus is Lord, and receive the divine gift of new life through Christ, “and believe that Muhammad was a prophet (not ‘the Seal of the Prophets,’ but a prophet in the way in which we might designate Martin Luther King Jr. ‘a prophet’),” then they “would still be 100 percent Christian” (199).

[Though an Islamic prophet of God, Muhammad never declared salvation through Jesus, simply that Jesus was a prophet like himself. This view then would consider Jesus not Incarnate Savior but simply an empowered human prophet or would unnecessarily lift Muhammad up to that of a God-like status. Both views would be untendable biblically. Today, to the non-Islamic outsider's view, Muhammad is little better than a cultural Islamic icon for nationalism; further, he is not a Christian icon for Jesus like the NT apostles were. – sh]

The problem is that the shahada, the Islamic confession, does not mean that Muhammad was simply a prophetic voice like Martin Luther King, and the rest of the Qur’an does not allow for such an interpretation. Christians can certainly approach Muhammad respectfully. But ultimately, the question of his prophethood is far more central than Volf makes it seem to be. Any proposed union between two faiths that so lightly jumps over such an integral question makes the conclusion, at least in my mind, ring hollow.

Fourth, Volf’s claim that having a common God is necessary to avoiding conflict seems unproven. Given that this is a book for Christians, the simple command to love God and neighbor ought to be enough for Christians to approach Muslims with love. Certainly, Christians will fail, but Christians do not need for Muslims to look to or worship the same God for Christians to treat them as they would wish to be treated. If indeed unconditional love is a hallmark of Christian teaching, then whether one is Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i, or atheist, Christians ought to follow Volf’s helpful material on how to view life from the perspective of others, participate in dialogue, and love their neighbors as themselves.

Joel S is a student at Reformed Theological Seminary and is under care in the Presbyterian Church of America. His ministry focus is the Arabic-speaking world, and he writes at http://joelws.com.