Blinded to the Real Issues

Theological Comfort Foods

http://masonslater.com/

by Mason Slater

January 12, 2012

Over the holidays I read through For Calvinism and Against Calvinism, by Michael Horton and Roger Olson respectively. Both authors were thoughtful, persuasively argued for their given position, and showed a rare level of graciousness towards their theological opponents. You could hardly ask for better guides if you are set on wrestling with the theology of Calvinism.

I couldn’t help but think, however, that the entire Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate increasingly seems like a sort of theological comfort food.

 

It’s a foray into a classic argument with well worn arguments, nostalgic turns of phrase, famous theologians, and most importantly everyone is playing by more-or-less the same rules. We know this argument, and although it may seem intractable, that is almost a part of the charm now as the two Titans battle it out endlessly in college dorms, classrooms, pulpits, and pews.

That predictability, that comfort in the familiar, draws us in and reminds us of simpler days. Because, no matter how heated it gets, the history of the Calvinist and Arminian debate usually plays out by a well defined set of rules and keeps us far from the troubling questions raised in contemporary debates over evolution, sexuality, the New Perspective (or post-New Perspective), postmodernism, and gender roles: questions like “What sort of book is the Bible actually?” or “How do we go about reading the text after assuming for so long our lens is objective when it has now proved to be anything but?” or even “What does it mean to take the Bible seriously in its historical context and narrative instead of seeing it as a repository of timeless doctrines?”

Those questions of contextualization and hermeneutics, raised by everyone from N.T. Wright to Christian Smith, play out in every area of theology and are some of the most pressing discussions facing the church today.

One glance down that path and it is easy to see the potential for it to lead towards a significant rethinking of many areas of theology, and so, wary of even beginning, we revert to the comfort of bashing the heartless Calvinists or theologically inept Arminians – because they’re not really the enemy, just the opposing team in a game we’d really prefer to keep playing.

In other words, it is theological comfort food.

continue to -

 

Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

 

 




 

Review - Peter Rollins "Insurrection"

Insurrection (pt. 1)

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/12/23/insurrection-pt-1/

by J.R.D. Kirk

December 23, 2011

We want to believe, says Peter Rollins. It’s natural. We want to know that someone is watching. We want to know that things beyond our control will get better. We need to hope for a brighter future.

And, he says, this is just the problem.

In his book, Insurrection, Rollins makes the case that our ideas of God are, pervasively, sub-Christian, precisely because they hope too much for a happy tomorrow rather than embracing the broken today.

Rollins warns the reader early on that the purpose of this book is, in essence, to slash and burn: this is a work of “pyro-theology," not constructive theology–an attempt to burn away the husk that has accrued to Christian faith and practice and return to the source.

In the end, this will be both the book’s strength and its failing. Its strength in that it holds up the mirror to the church and demands of us that we take a long hard look at what we say and do–and how these things fail to embody the gospel we confess to believe.

But it is also the book’s weakness as Rollins insists on a “not/but” where he should have constructively engaged in a “both/and.”

First, then, the strength of the book and what the church desperately needs to hear.

The book begins with reflecting on the significance of crucifixion. Christ was crucified. We are co-crucified with Christ.

And, on the cross, Christ was abandoned by God.

Thus, to live into our co-crucifixion is to live in a space where we experience and acknowledge that we are forsaken, that there has been no miraculous deliverance. The church has to create space for this embrace of darkness. Rollins speaks of our common mythology–the one that makes us all want to believe in God–that things will get better because God is present to deliver.

When we suffer, there will always be an army of Job’s comforters

who attempt to save our mythologies, and like Job, we must resist them.

What does this have to do with the church? The church, wittingly or not, creates structures that reassure people that the experience of crucifixion isn’t what is truly real. The church’s confident sermons, its songs of comfort, tell us that the co-crucifixion is not ultimately determinative.

“The structure acts as a security blanket that enables us to speak

of the Crucifixion without ever undergoing its true liberating horror” (48).

The problem as Rollins outlines it is that when we have people celebrating divine presence in dozens of ways, we are enabled “to admit that absence and forsakenness are part of our faith without experincing the transformative trauma of this admission” (70). And, of course, while being the agents of certainty, many pastors secretly harbor the very doubts that they are covering other for others.

Instead, the community should be helping us acknowledge and find life in the midst of suffering. The “new life” of resurrection that Rollins will turn to in part two of the book is lived now as life is found within the suffering and trauma of the world.

Although he uses language and takes it to a level that I am not always comfortable with, Rollins makes a strong and important case in the first part of his book that crucifixion is a crucial component of the Christian life experience–not something to be overcome in order for us to know and live what is true, but something that is to be lived in as where we discover the truth about ourselves in the Christian story.

Next time, we’ll turn to what he says about resurrection. And this is where I’m going to want to part ways with Rollins, in order to embrace a paradox of saying yes to what he advocates while simultaneously saying yes to the hopes of traditional Christian piety.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the Speakeasy on Tap book review folks. The Federal Government wanted to make sure you knew this, so that you could have all the information you needed to determine whether I was basically paid advertising rather than an objective reviewer. Of course, I never told the folks at Howard that I’d write a positive review, but they gave me a copy anyway. So, now that you know, you can decide for yourself: will I buy the book, or is this word of Kirk simply too tainted to be believed? I hereby fulfill my duties to the Federal Government.

Insurrection (pt. 2)

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/12/28/insurrection-pt-2/

by J.R.D. Kirk

December 23, 2011

The first part of Peter Rollins’ Insurrection was an exposition of the crucifixion as definitive of the Christian life (see part 1 of my review here).

Next, he turns to resurrection.

This is the part of the books that elicited the strongest reactions from me, both positive and negative. I knew I was going to have problems with the chapter when its epigram read:

“I am God,” says love. -Marguerite Porete

God is love. Love is not God. This is a fatal mistake that haunts the chapter. It begins well, however.

Rollins leads us through the realization that we tell stories about ourselves. We have ideas about ourselves. But these do not match the reality of what we do. The true us, Rollins argues, is found in what we do; the explanation of what explains our actual actions is a more realistic depiction of us that the ways we idealize or even demonize who we are and what matters to us and what motivates us.

We say that we know money and a larger house and a different neighborhood will not make us happy, and yet we devote all our time and energy to obtaining those things. Which is the real us? The one that says she does not believe it? Or the one who acts like she does?

This part of the book is pure gold. It helps put more meat on an assertion that I make regularly: the hardest part of preaching is convincing people that the message is calling them to repentance. We tell ourselves stories about who we are and what we believe, blind to the fact that our lives belie every bit of it. We need stories to unmask our self-deceit.

Rollins argues in compelling fashion that “our actions do not fall short of our beliefs–our actions are are beliefs.”

Ch. 7 is where things get more complex.

Rollins articulates here the best of what biblical scholarship will tell you as well: the kingdom of God, and even eternal life, are not categories simply about the future, but categories about a transformed here and now that we are called to participate in.

But Rollins mistakes the presence of the transcendent God within our world for the falsehood of the idea of a continued transcendence. And he mistakes the presence of the kingdom here and now for the falsehood of the idea of a future and perfect reign.

The biblical narrative maintains a tension between the already-and-the-not-yet, as well as between the immanent-and-the-transcendent. This dialectic is lost in Insurrection.

Thus, I find myself celebrating much of what Rollins affirms–because presence and realization are central to the gospel. And yet I find myself parting ways with Rollins in what he denies–because transcendence and futurity are core components to the gospel as well.

Here’s the problem, that manifests in the chapter, with confusing the statement “God is love” with its pagan counterpart, “Love is God.” This confuses God with the activity and attribute of God; it invites us, in fact, to worship and serve the creature–better, our own creation–rather than the creator.

In Rollins’s words, “God is the name we give to the way of living in which we experience the world as worthy of living for, fighting for, and dying for.”

God is a label of value we append to what we find beautiful in the world. God is an idol of our own making, rather than a being who is at work to make the world worthy of living for, fighting for, dying for. Far from a splitting of hairs, labeling God aright in relationship to the creation is the difference between Christianity being a projection of our imaginations, or a reality in which we are called by Another to participate, the difference between true (all of life-)worship, and idolatry.

Thus, while Rollins rightly challenges us with his claim that we cannot claim to love God while hating our neighbor, Christianity can never ground this on the claim that God is the love that exists between one person and another.

Heeding Rollins’ urgent pleas, we will find ourselves more invested in the world, never guilty of that classic failure of being so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good. But we must so engage the world with the understanding that the kingdom is God’s and not ours, and that there is a future for this world because the resurrected Lord is at work in it here and now.

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.

Khurram Dara Shares his Muslim Story for Christians to Hear

Ask a Muslim... (Khurram Responds)

http://rachelheldevans.com/ask-a-muslim-response

by Rachel Held Evans

January 10, 2012
Comments

Today I’m thrilled to share Khurram Dara’s response to your questions about his Islamic faith as part of our ongoing interview series.

Khurram is an American Muslim from Buffalo, New York, and the author of The Crescent Directive: An Essay on Improving the Image of Islam in America. Khurram graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, and is currently studying law at Columbia University in New York. If you frequent CNN’s Belief Blog, you may recognize him for his recent post there defending TLC’s “All American Muslim” against Muslim complaints. You can follow Khurram on Twitter and find the Crescent Directive on Facebook.

From Khurram: Before I answer these great questions I wanted to thank Rachel for inviting me to join this wonderful series and also thank the readers for such intelligent discussion. I’m accustomed to seeing distasteful comments and allegations, so this was a nice change of pace.

I do want to point out that I am NOT a religious scholar or an expert on Islam. I’m by no means a perfect Muslim, and my mother is quick to remind me that I don’t go to mosque enough! My work focuses on Muslim imaging, particularly, how to combat negative perceptions about Islam. My belief is that forums like these are very helpful, but can only go so far, given that most people with negative views towards Islam are unlikely to participate in an open-dialogue such as this.

So I didn’t answer some of the questions about specific teachings, not because I’m trying to dodge the questions, but because I’d prefer not to give you wrong information. I think a great resource is Imam Suhaib Webb’s “Virtual Mosque,” where he has a lot of information to answer some of the questions that were asked. Also, for more on what my views are on the relations between Muslims and other Americans, I’d encourage you to read The Crescent Directive, where I really lay out my positions in full.

1. Justin asked: Can you provide some background about yourself? I'm curious to know for how long you've been a Muslim and what keeps you in the faith today. Is it an inward conviction? Some type of evidence that supports the Quran? Something else?

I was born in Houston, Texas, but with the exception of a short stay in Kentucky, I’ve pretty much spent my whole life in a suburb or Buffalo, New York. My parents, now U.S. citizens, are immigrants from Pakistan. As far as my religious background I was born and raised Muslim, and would certainly consider myself to be a person of faith. I don’t really think about faith in terms of evidence, in fact, faith by definition is belief absent proof. It’s tough to explain why I have faith, it’s just a sort of feeling I get—that I know God’s up there and that there was a reason I was born into this faith.

2. Wesley asked: What Islamic tradition are you a part of? Shi'ite? Sunni? Sufi? (And is this the correct way to ask that question?)

I'm Sunni, and yep that's a fine way to put it.

3. Steve asked: What is it like to live openly as a Muslim in America? How much suspicion/discrimination/fear is directed at ordinary Muslims?

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Muslims live with more freedom in America than we could anywhere else in the world. I’m certainly not oblivious to the fact that there is fear and suspicion, even discrimination of Muslims at times. But a lot of the blame for the fear should go to terrorist groups and radicals who are soiling my faith and crippling the voices of the overwhelming majority of peaceful adherents.

And while it is sad to see some of the suspicion and discrimination, we do have many of our fellow Americans on our side, who stand up to these incidents. More importantly, the discrimination is not systematic or institutionalized; we don’t see restaurants refusing to serve Muslims or businesses refusing to hire Muslims. This gives us American Muslims an incredible opportunity. It is even more critical for American Muslims to build bridges with other Americans while we can, and really positively integrate into American society so that we can ensure this discrimination doesn’t spread.

4. Several readers wanted to know about Islam and women. Katy-Anne asked: I am wondering how you as a man feel about the treatment of Muslim women and the root reasons why Muslim men tend to treat women the way they do? Zeckle asked: In Christianity, we have various views on women and their roles in society and faith--ranging from a very hierarchical, patriarchal view to egalitarian; does Islam have a wide range of views of women as Christianity does? What are those variations in Islam? Do those variations occur along cultural lines---Islamic theocracies versus American Islamic understanding?

I think it’s pretty obvious that many of the countries in the Arab world have cultures and policies that are extremely oppressive to women. My understanding of Islam has always been one that puts everyone on equal footing. I think you’ll find more of that here among American Muslims. It’s important to remember the role culture can play in behavior, and there is a tendency for culture to be confused with religion, which may explain the poor treatment of women in many of the Islamic regimes in the Arab world. In any case, my own belief and my understanding of Islam is that oppression of women should not be tolerated in any circumstances.

5. Zeckle asked: What are some areas where Islam and Christianity have similar values and may be able to work together in our world?

Overall I think a majority of the values are the same. There are many overarching moral themes, such as helping those in need, caring for those in your community, etc. I can’t speak to some of the more specific doctrines, but there is one commonality I find very interesting.

I think most people don’t know the place Jesus has in the Islamic tradition. He is one of the highest regarded messengers and Muslims do, in fact, believe that he will return to Earth to defeat the “false messiah” also known as the anti-Christ. I’m sure there are many more similarities between the faiths, but that is probably one of the least known.

How these similarities will enable us to work together is a different question. I don’t think our ability to work together hinges on similarities in specific teachings. I think it comes from similarities in interaction. As I point out in The Crescent Directive, for most people, their perceptions of a particular group are more of a function of their observations and interactions with individual members of that group, than they are a function of specific teachings of that faith. As a result, I think a Muslim and a Christian, simply by living and engaging in a pluralistic society like the United States, have the opportunity to get to know more about their respective faiths, just through experiencing life in a society that includes members of that faith.

So, in my opinion, the key to working together will really be American Muslims continuing to integrate and invest in American society, and our fellow Christians, Jews, Hindus, atheists, and others, embracing our efforts to take our place in the mosaic that is America.

6. I asked: What have you found to be the most common assumption people make about you when they find out you are Muslim?

I haven’t found any. I know it’s probably true that some people make assumptions when they find out I’m Muslim, but I’ve never been able to discern what, if anything at all, they had assumed. Sometimes people aren’t sure if I can eat meat—I can, just not pork!

7. From Karl: A common criticism that I have seen leveled at mainstream, moderate and progressive peace-pursuing muslims is that for a group that is said to form the vast majority within their religious community, they [allegedly] haven't done enough to restrain, inhibit and denounce extremists who advocate and commit violence in the name of Islam for religious and political ends. Do you feel like this is a fair criticism? Why or why not?

I hear that often, as well. While I think many members of the American Muslim community do denounce extremism, I think we could all be doing more. One of the things I mention in The Crescent Directive is that American Muslims have a number of organizations dedicated to Muslim advocacy, why not a few dedicated to eradicating extremism? And remember it has to be more than just condemnation because at the end of the day it can only go so far—at some point we have to actually have to take action, get into the trenches and stamp out extremism within our faith. That said, on the whole, I think American Muslims are leading the way on standing up to radicalism.

Note from Rachel – Khurram introduced us to a fantastic resource when he suggested consulting Imam Suhaib Webb’s “Virtual Mosque.” For those who had questions about Sharia Law, you should check out this video in which Osman Umarjee explains Sharia Law. (He starts talking about it at around 3:40.) Those with questions about the meaning of “jihad” might find this video from the Bridges Foundation helpful. I spent quite a bit of time this week searching the site and learning more about Islam (from actual Muslims for a change). Along with Khurram, I highly recommend the site.

Check out the rest of our interviews here.

Imaginatively Re-Inventing the Stories of Women in the Bible

Esther and Vashti: The Real Story

http://rachelheldevans.com/esther-and-vashti

by Rachel Held Evans

January 9, 2011

Comments

When I was a kid, I imagined Esther to be something of a beauty pageant contestant.

I figured that, in addition to her twelve months of beautification, she must have performed a talent and answered questions from a glass bowl before winning the heart of a love-struck King Xerxes.

I never learned in Sunday School that Esther, whose Jewish name was Hadassah, was forced, along with perhaps thousands of virgin girls from Susa, into King Xerxes harem. Or that the king had banished his first wife, Queen Vashti, for refusing to publicly flaunt her body before his drunken friends. Or that, in response, he had issued a ridiculous kingdom-wide decree that “all the women will respect their husbands, from the least to the greatest” and that “every man should be ruler over his own household.” Or that under the care of the royal Eunuchs, Esther and the women of the king’s harem each took a turn in the king’s bed to see who would please him best. Or that the women received just one night with the king, after which they were transferred to the eunuchs in charge of the concubines, with the instruction not to return to the king’s chamber unless summoned by name, under the penalty of death.

They left those details out of the flannel graphs.

Recently, some Christians have conjured a reinterpretation of the story of Esther that is equally as imaginative as my beauty queen version—one that casts Vashti as an ungodly wife for refusing to submit to her husband and Esther as a model of godly submission for respecting her husband.

In Real Marriage, (which I reviewed last week), Grace Driscoll writes that, “[Esther’s] example illustrates the repeated command across all Scripture that wives respectfully submit to their husbands and removes any excuse we have for disrespecting our husbands... Amazingly, when she had an extremely urgent request, she respectfully waited outside [her husband's] room to be heard. She didn't barge in and demand that he do what she wanted …She didn't disregard his need for respect."

And Dorothy Patterson, an editor of the new Evangelical Women’s Commentary, notes, “Most people don’t think about submission as being a topic in the book of Esther, but it is clearly in the text. I think our readers will find it interesting to see how you take the Old Testament roots for something that is very heavily discussed in the New Testament.”

Both of these authors fail to mention the fact that the reason Esther waited outside her husband’s room was because she would have been executed by Xerxes if she hadn’t!

Or that the very act of summoning her husband was an act of defiance, not submission, that could have gotten Esther killed. Or that the dynamic between Esther and Xerxes is decidedly not the picture of a healthy marital relationship, what with the harem and death threats and all.

Driscoll and Patterson’s bizarre interpretations of Vashti, Esther, and Xerxes represent yet another example of how the modern biblical womanhood movement isn’t as concerned with returning to biblical womanhood as it is with returning to 1950s, pre-feminist America.

Rhonda Kelley, co-editor of the New Evangelical Women’s Commentary, said this of young Christian women today: “Not only do they not have a framework, but in many situations our women students have been raised by mothers who were a product of the feminist movement. And so even their Christian mothers didn’t fully understand what it meant to be biblical women and they were rebelling with the world, with the culture, against a role that they thought women were being forced into.”

But it’s not those young women who misunderstand biblical womanhood; it’s Patterson and Kelley and Driscoll. In their attempts to try and bend the stories of an ancient near eastern culture to fit into the dynamics of a modern-day, Western, nuclear family, they have dismissed the actual story of Vashti and Esther and replaced it with one of their own making.

Whether we like to admit it or not, the Bible was written at a time in history when most women were owned by their husbands.

Technically speaking, it is biblical for a woman to be sold by her father to pay off debt (Exodus 21:7), biblical for her to be forced to marry her rapist (Exodus 22:16-17), biblical for her to remain silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-35), biblical for her to cover her head (1 Corinthians 11:6), and biblical for her to be one of many wives (Deuteronomy 21:15-17).

With this in mind, I don’t know anyone who is actually advocating a return to biblical womanhood. What most in the “biblical womanhood” movement are advocating instead is a return to the June Cleaver culture of pre-feminist America, a culture that looked nothing like that of Vashti and Esther, Leah and Rachel, Tamar and Bathsheba, Mary and Martha.

But here’s the good news: The fact that these women lived in a time and a culture much different than our own makes them no less heroic and no less significant to modern-day women hoping to learn from their stories.

Part of learning to love the Bible for what it is, not what we want it to be is resisting the temptation to either gloss over or glorify the culture in which these women lived and to instead allow their stories to speak for themselves. Only in the midst of the true contours and colors of the text do the characters of the Bible find their depth.

As I’ve spent the last two years reading the stories of women from the Bible, I’ve been moved by the courage and grace with many of the biblical women lived, despite their unjust circumstances.

Faced with an impossible situation that would have left her destitute and vulnerable, Tamar worked the patriarchal system to ensure that her father-in-law owned up to his responsibility to observe the law of levirate and provide her with a husband.

Despite being widowed, poor, and a foreigner, Ruth managed to exhibit just the right amount of virtue and moxie to become one of the most celebrated women in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Even Jephtah’s daughter, who was brutally sacrificed by her father in the name of God, inspired the women of Israel to honor her in a ceremony every year.

And it ultimately took the defiance of both Vashti and Esther to save the Jewish nation.

The real story, it seems, is much more interesting than the ones we invent.

Quotable Quotes - Emergent Statements and Reflections

"An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come,
but for Jesus to become in our midst."

- R.E. Slater, July 30, 2013

"According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, and renew it into God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit."

- R.E. Slater, March 30, 2016

"... Certainly God's love has made fools of us all."

- R.E. Slater, June 12, 2013

Voices of Dissent - Unfolding God's Love Within the Heart and Conscience of Humanity,

 http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-unfolding-of-gods-love-within-heart.html

Every system has its weakness even as every system has its prejudices.

A proper epistemology should candidly tell us about ourselves and not

hide us deeper from ourselves within our presumptions and fallacies.

- R.E. Slater, November 25, 2014

On Knowing in the Bible: How Can We Know That We Know? Part 1 & 2

"Acting on faith carries with it the aloneness of God's presence. Such an act risks losing one's fellowship finding abandonment at the moment of faith's awakening - not by God but by man."

- R.E. Slater, May 29, 2013

The biggest problem facing Christian theology is not translation but enactment... no clever theological moves can be substituted for the necessity of a church being a community of people who embody our language about God, where talk about God is used without apology because our life together does not mock our words.

- Stanley Hauerwas & Willimon

“Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty.”

                                                         - Rabbi Johnathan Sacks, The Great Partnership (p.97)

"Postmodernism's interaction with beliefs produces a paradigm shift of beliefs that become postmodern. Hence, postmodernism's interaction with faith results in a faith that may become postmodern (which necessarily changes our reflection upon ourselves, our view of others, our environment, and of God). So that regarded "permanent truths" of human nature and society will causally change throughout the course of history, generation-to-generation, correspondent with our denser interaction with all of the above. Thus, one may expect socially accepted reality to likewise evolve and change, thus creating a conflict within an individual's sense of faith and reality."

- R.E. Slater, December 2012

*from my interpretive reading of the French postmodernist philosopher Michel Foucault  when reflecting on how the Christian faith responds to Postmodernism's influences that produces a newer, personally resonant theology which I've been redefining as an "Emergent" Theology.

"God's grace is freely given - we don't earn it,

we just try to live in response to it...."

"...God is always coming to us in a series

of death-and-resurrection encounters...

we don't make our way to God,

He makes His way to us."

- Nadia Bolz-Weber, July 2012

"The emerging church is a  21st-century Christian movement that embraces an eclectic array of approaches to faith in the post-modern era yet generally voices disillusionment with the organized and institutional church."

- A Definition of the Emergent Church

"The compass of Emergent Christianity shares a broader, more lively connection to the postmodern world around us. It includes all the advances of the sciences as well as all the post-structuralist discussions that can be found within Christianity itself. It seeks to include as many conversants into the conversation of Jesus through the vitality of contribution and participation while authenticizing each participant via a supportive network of faith and fellowship centered around Jesus as Savior and Lord."

- R.E. Slater, March 21, 2012
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-wikipedia-has-to-say-about.html



"We must learn to re-learn. To translate all that we thought we knew into newer paradigms that are less restrictive and cognitively destructive. To lift up our conversations about God, and about ourselves, that would allow the bible to breathe again, while separating ourselves from our many traditional ideologies and behaviours that have restricted us from responding to God."

- R.E. Slater, March 21, 2012

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-wikipedia-has-to-say-about.html

What seems heretical to the enfranchised must be mandatory

for the disenfranchised in order to regain some semblance of

a living faith unsheltered from this present day world of

postmodern angst, agnosticism, disbelief, and atheism.

-R.E. Slater, November 15, 2012

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-changing-landscape-of-religion.html



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

Simply a better resonance with what it wasn't hearing

in today's current generations of God's faithful."

-R.E. Slater, November 13, 2012

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-faith-journey-from-evangelicalism.html

"Virgil's ability to plumb the complexity of human affairs is a key

to his greatness, a key to his relevance for us today. We live in an age

in which simplistic versions of reality - simplified social and political

perspectives, philosophical world pictures, moral principles -

are privileged, over-nuanced, understandings."

- Fred Will, an introduction to Virgil's The Aeneid



"When coming to the subject matter of Faith and Worship, and
having at the last plumbed its depths, we may only stand back

and say that we know nothing. Nothing. That we have but only
begun on our journey into the Divine mystery of all that is God,

despite all the words and practices of mortal man."

- R.E. Slater, January 22, 2012

"Investing the past with too much power will

divest the future its actionable power of relevancy."

- R.E. Slater, July 2, 2014

How American Evangelical Christianity Has Changed in My Lifetime

Evangelicalism’s foundation has become fragmented and is

no longer orthodox except in its own opinion of itself.

- R.E. Slater, May 18, 2012
The Death of Poetry by 20th Century Modernism, Part II

"...Mainstream American evangelicalism, as codified in the

Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, doesn’t really

know what to do with the Bible as a historical text."

- Peter Enns, remarks @ Nov 2013 ETS Meeting

“Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times, and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that prints out from the press and the microphones of his own age.”

- CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory

“Scripture is normative,

but it always needs to be read afresh and applied in new ways.”

- Clark Pinnock, January 5, 1979; Christianity Today, pp 23-29

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/11/two-tributes-to-clark-pinnock-olson.html

"I have said throughout my life that I am only a success because of the experts that have come alongside me. [Experts who have] graciously and potently stretched [their] friendly hands across the divide of the brain-spirit chasm, and clasped this clergyman's hand, thrilling him with the beauty of provacative thought. We are entering an epoch whereby [new emerging studies] and faith will only serve to prove that with God ALL THINGS are possible! My charge then is to keep being Possibility Thinkers for the glory of God!"

- Dr. Robert H. Schuller, Founder, of the Crystal Cathedral

"Before Einstein, John had his own theory of relativity. The value of anything is relative... if it is taken on its own, it’s not worth much, or is dangerously deceptive. If taken in proper relation to Jesus, i.e. as a witness to Jesus, it is of great value."

- J.R. Daniel Kirk, November 13, 2011

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/11/13/relativity-and-dependence/

"In general, a wide gulf continues to exist between

biblically generated theology and the theology of theologians -

and this gulf will continue to stymie the vision of bringing together

the fields of biblical studies with theology."

- J.R. Daniel Kirk, August 20, 2011

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/08/20/colloquium-on-theological-interpretation-reflections/

"Liberal simply means that one recognizes human experience as valid location for the theological process. Progressive means that one takes seriously the critique provided by feminist, liberation, and post-colonial criticisms."

- John Cobb, August 4, 2011

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2011/08/04/progressive-is-not-liberal/

"I like “progressive” as a theological term,

because the most vital aspect of my faith is a liberating one."

- Carol Howard Merrit

http://tribalchurch.org/?p=2109



"Most emergents have either emerged from an evangelical background

or against an evangelical background."

- Deacon Bo, August 14, 2011
http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2011/08/14/goosing-emergents-into-the-mainline/

"I would argue that one such commitment [of the Emergent Movement] MUST be self-criticism and willingness frequently to change combined with rejection of hierarchical models of leadership or absolutizing of tradition or being new and different for their own sakes. Another commitment MUST be rejection of modernity as the foundation or norm for belief and life and mission and service. Both conservatives and progressives have (often unwittingly and even against their own intentions) adopted modernity as the cultural norm even for Christianity and church life. What will that mean? It must mean an openness to new things the Spirit of God wants to do among his people that do not fit the modern box. It must mean a refusal of control, manipulation and orderliness. It must mean a refusal to reduce Christianity to either doctrine or ethics and a determination to discover it as transformative spirituality that is not privatized or individualized. It must mean attempts to discover the meaning of true community without confining structures, rules and protocols that put these before persons and relationships."

- Roger Olson,

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2011/08/more-thoughts-on-the-emerging-churches-movement/



On the fear of postmodernism -

"…this new mode of postmodern rationality is frightening to some Christians. They find it frightening because they have completely succumbed to a one-sided objectivism out of a deep-seated fear of the dangers of relativism. Without an objective and infallible source of meaning, so their reasoning goes, the truth claims of the gospel seem to be undermined. Hence, their response is to ground Christian belief in an infallible text, an infallible experience, or an infallible magisterium.”

- William Stacy Johnson, "Reading the Scriptures Faithfully in a Postmodern Age", in Davis, E.F. and Hays, R.B. (eds.), The Art of Reading Scripture, 112

Narrative Theology taps into the polyphonic uniqueness of diverse and multicultural societies to derive meaning from literary ambiguity and metaphorical expressions to create clearer communication and understanding between such diverse populations regionally, nationally and globally....

The Christian message has become lost in a wilderness of its own making that many postmodern, narrative theologians now seek to reclaim by narrating the major themes of the Bible for general public consumption...

Emergents, however, are learning to speak this message better (and I submit, more biblically!) by re-reading the Scripture's tone and import....

Narrative Theology does then indeed represent the "plurivocal, polyphonic, multilinear anthologies of so magnificent and irreducible a book" we call the Bible. A book that wishes to reveal God and His gracious revelation to mankind.

- R.E. Slater, July 24, 2012

An Unnecessary Division between Narrative and Literary Theology

“Cal-minians”– a position I think is inconsistent

but at least [it is] not full blown Calvinism.

- Roger Olson, October 20, 2011

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/



"Within denominations

that lack a clear confessional stance on God’s sovereignty in salvation,

there should be tolerance and mutual respect combined with complete transparency."

- Roger Olson, October 20, 2011

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/

"The Bible reflects the ancient cultures in which it was written,

and this very fact proclaims the glory of God."

- Peter Enns, January 6, 2011

"If you want to argue [evolution's merits or demerits] with [trained and technically specialised scientists], you will have to argue better science that stands the test of peer review, not better ideology."

- Pete Enns, November 25, 2011

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/search/label/Commentary%20-%20Peter%20Enns



"If you want to argue theology with [trained and technically specialised biblical theologians], you will have to argue better theology that stands the test of peer review, not better ideology."

- R.E. Slater, November 25, 2011

[Adapted from Pete Enn's quote above]

"Is evangelicalism a stable, unchanging movement, or is evangelicalism open to change. It all really depends on whether holding on to evangelical identity should be our primary concern, or, whether we should pursue truth wherever it leads - even if it disrupts familiar paradigms."

- Pete Enns, November 25, 2011

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/search/label/Commentary%20-%20Peter%20Enns

"Too often we quote bible verses to one another to end conversation, when in reality, these very same verses should be used to begin conversations."

- Rachel Held Evans, March 11, 2012, Mars Hill Church

"Just because one believes a thing to be so does not make it so. The ground of our reality may be personal. It may be subjective. But the greater ground of our reality is found within the stricter confines of a more objective community that will question our opinions. Our beliefs. Our thoughts until such a time as we can reasonably determine for ourselves what makes belief a more legitimate thing than pure supposition or imposition placed importunely upon others.

"We are neither the start, nor the end, to the faith of another. Faith is God's most precious gift. To that gift we may only hope to explore it within a joined participation with each other in an endless journey of divine mystery and sacred thought."

- R.E. Slater, March 14, 2012

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-wikipedia-has-to-say-about.html

"The God we imagined may not be the real God of our imagination but something even greater than we can imagine."

- R.E. Slater, September 26, 2012

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-do-we-mean-by-speciation-commonly.html

"Emergent Christianity embraces the mystery of the divine,

expressed without explanation to our resisting minds.

Witnessed in Jesus' paradoxical statements

having no answers but the answer of faith

that we must embrace and obey."

- R.E. Slater, March 21, 2012

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-wikipedia-has-to-say-about.html

"Biblicism is a theory about the Bible that emphasizes its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability.

"However, biblicism falls apart because of the exacting problem of 'pervasive interpretive pluralism.' For even among presumably well-intentioned readers - including many evangelical biblicists - the Bible, after their very best efforts to understand it, says and teaches very different things about most significant topics....

"It becomes moot then to assert a text to be solely authoritative or inerrant when, lo and behold, it gives rise to a whole host of divergent teachings on many important matters.”

- Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible

I think “infallible” does a better job than “inerrant” so long as I can explain what it means. “Infallible,” to me, means the Bible never fails in its main purpose which is to identify God for us, to communicate his love and his will to us, and to lead us into salvation and a right relationship with our Creator, Savior and Lord.

- Dr. Roger Olson, Why Inerrancy Doesn't Matter

“The problems many of us feel regarding the Bible may have less to do with the Bible itself and more to do with our own preconceptions.... I have found again and again that listening to how the Bible itself behaves and suspending preconceived notions (as much as that is possible) about how we think the Bible to behave is refreshing, creative, exciting and spiritually rewarding.”

 - Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, p. 15

"Our primary mission is to serve, to love, to heal,

to witness to the love of Christ."

                                                                                                  - Hugh Halter, Nat'l Dir. Missio, Denver, CO

                                                                                                       & "Lead Architect" of Adullam, Denver, CO

"I wonder if Christianity is rejected by many for its lack of serious

intellectual engagement with major, pressing issues?"

                                                                                                    - Kyle Roberts, Bethel Seminary, Minn., MN

"It’s really quite impossible to shake religion and simply follow

Jesus. To do the latter requires engaging the cultural and

sociological realities we call ‘religion.’

                                                                                                  - Kyle Roberts, Bethel Seminary, Minn., MN

When you judge another, you do not define them, but you define yourself.

- Anon



"Don't cry about the past 'cause it don't ever change; smile and look ahead, ya future ain't gotta look the same!"

- Pez D. Davila, April 2012

a Facebook friend with the amazing spiritual gift of evangelism

We should engage the arguments of scientific fundamentalists as a way to educate those in our religious communities. One of the strongest critics of religion says he doesn’t really blame the average Christian for holding naïve views of Bible or simple ideas of God. But he criticizes religious leaders - who presumably have been educated - for failing publicly and blatantly to disapprove of the naïve views of the masses. Christian leaders fail to act bravely [when not providing] interpretations of the Bible and views of science that oppose the unsophisticated views of those who sit in the pews.

- Thomas J. Oord, February 16, 2012

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/09/talking-about-christian-and-scientific.html

"Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics."

- Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design, pg 5

"...and by inference, neither has Theology."

- R.E. Slater)

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/06/stephen-hawking-strangeness-of-quantum.html

"...But I don't feel like you're going to get that many people to change their minds. I think we're at a cultural moment where people believe what they want and become immune to information. And they can always find some credentialed expert to tell them that they're right.

"Like so many mid-career academics I share the feeling that evangelicalism has abandoned us, in a sense. It went somewhere over the course of our adult life and adopted a public face which is anti-intellectual and anti-science. It became very political and obsessed with a few social issues at the expense of the broader gospel. So I'm quite happy to say that I want to speak to audiences that have evolved past evangelicalism or were never in that community to begin with."

- Karl Giberson (one of the founders of Biologos)

September 17, 2012, Updating Our Language of Genesis



...Pursuing what I call a "radical theology." I want to be "after" God in as many ways as possible, not only after/post- the dualism of The City of God but also after/ad- the name of God that gives words to a desire beyond desire, which Derrida has subtly if enigmatically set loose in texts like "Circumfession."

- John Caputo, June 10, 2012, Towards a Radical Theology, Not a Radical Atheism: A Review of Modern Atheism, Atheology and Divine Inexistence



Deconstruction is not "critique" but an oblique affirmation.

- John Caputo, June 10, 2012, Towards a Radical Theology, Not a Radical Atheism: A Review of Modern Atheism, Atheology and Divine Inexistence



What Evangelicals do when they read the Bible and talk about what it says or means: 

1. Evangelicals are inheritors of a belief based interpretive tradition, focusing not specifically on the meaning of the text, rather the transitivity between the text and beliefs.
2. Evangelicals are not inheritors of a hermeneutic; rather, their adherence to literalism is a part of their belief tradition.
3. Evangelical Bible reading is driven by a search for relevance, influenced by their belief tradition.
4. The interpretive tradition is perennially caught between the Scylla of interpretive freedom and the Charybdis of irrelevance: too much hermeneutic freedom and the tradition disintegrates, losing its epistemological appeal; too little interpretive freedom and the Bible becomes merely an irrelevant historical artifact, rather than the ever living word of God. 

- Brian Malley, April 30, 2004, How the Bible Works: An Anthropological Study of Evangelical Biblicism, pg. 73



Frank Schaeffer, in his book, "Crazy for God," observes that life is mainly shaped by one's parents and family, peer group pressure, and - not least - the white water of ambition. Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. I was reminded several times of one of Kurt Vonnegut's insights: "Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be."

- Jim Forest, March 15, 2008

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2013/04/frank-schaeffer-writes-of-his-dad.html

My prayer at the start of each day, and my confession: "There are no better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; and there is no true beauty without the signatures of these graces in the very countenance."

- Arthur Helps

I find life a lot fuller when not going through it judging people or defending God. Put another way, religion is the pride of unlearned men; faith is its wonder and shame.

- R.E. Slater, June 9, 2013

"I'm beginning to wonder if what makes the Gospel offensive is not who it keeps out, but who it lets in. Samaritans. Gentiles. Women. Tax collectors. Prostitutes. The poor. The merciful. Peacemakers. Drunks. Addicts. The sick. The uneducated. The persecuted. Slaves. Prisoners. The naked. The hungry. The marginalized. The troublemakers. The oppressed. The misfits. The powerless. Children. A self-important cynic like me. An ethnic and sexual minority who, though the Bible forbade him from even entering a temple on account of his sexuality, turned to Philip and said, 'Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?'... Love need not agree or understand or have it all figured out. But love always opens the door."

- Rachael Held Evans, June 13, 2013

http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/southern-baptist-boy-scouts-love-opens-door

Jesus is the best guide to God’s character.... That said, we must interpret Scripture through the lens of Jesus.... And in light of Jesus’ teachings about love, we cannot believe in a God of hate or celebrate violence. As such, we must revise certain traditional views of God’s wrath and hell in light of Jesus.

- Roger Olson, June 18, 2013

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/07/a-new-book-about-hell-that-will-make-you-think/#comments

"But all conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things

alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a

thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change."

- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (chpt 7)

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-impracticality-of-thinking-that.html



"I think a lack of courage among many leaders to address these

issues in the past is one of the factors in the consequences we are

reaping today in the militant conservatism seen in some organized groups...."

- Dennis Bratcher

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-impracticality-of-thinking-that.html

"What I have come to realise is that word liberal shouldn’t be used to define someone’s faith. Rather it should be used to describe their tradition and approach (in much the same way one might use progressive, Pentecostal, Reformed etc)."

- Mark Stevens

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/09/04/detecting-liberal-seminaries/



"God is holy. God is good. God is love. But the greatest of these is love. Love is how God makes one holy and good through Jesus. Not of human will but divine.

God's love cannot be preached enough. All Christian doctrine must proceed on God's love. All missions of the church must go at this sublime thought. No other church dogma must be higher than the grace of God. And all church doctrine must revolve around this one thought.

The holiness of God is meaningless without the grace of God. The goodness of God has no affect if it isn't bathed in God's atoning grace. Holiness without grace is austere. It proceeds in judgment first, last, and always. Goodness is without effect if not given in love. It is wholly utilitarian and bare of God's mindful relation to His creation if not met in love.

The love of God is the most sufficient descriptor of the Christian faith, of God Himself, and God's relationship to His creation. None else may proceed above this thought."

- R.E. Slater

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2014/06/rethinking-hell-evangelical.html

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, Pluralism and the Future of Christianity

x