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 from 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, January 28, 2012

Reacting to the Virgin Birth of Mary and the Virgin Conception of Jesus


Of Myth and Science

I have included two articles below that focus on the Virgin Birth of Mary's child Jesus. One from a respected theologian/bishop's viewpoint and the other from a respected scientist-turned-priest viewpoint. Both British. Both believers and servants of God. And each giving their separate arguments for-and-against the Virgin Birth while making no personal claim of disbelief over Mary's exceptional conception. Rather, they wish to affirm their belief despite the lack of supporting scientific evidence.

N.T. Wright starts things off with a "nay-and-yeah" look at this topic's debatable arguments and then proceeds to tick these arguments off one-by-one while creating a larger biblical context for Jesus' immaculate conception and birth. In contrast, John Polkinghorne immediately dives in discussing the scientific difficulties and improbabilities of such a birth. Which is a true statement. Science does not understand this event even though he himself believes it still to be a true, historical event, regardless of science's inabilities to discover the nature of the event. And so do we affirm the virgin birth of Jesus.

But Dr. Polkinghorne then initiates a secondary discussion about the nature of literary "myth" that I found less-than-helpful within his scientific analysis. In fact, it makes me think that a separate article on "Ancient Myth as a Literary Type" should be created to address the many crucial implications brought about by this subject's shaded overtones and misdirections. Or at least how I perceived them to be misdirecting without actually knowing the position of Polkinghorne himself. We all make grammatical mistakes and shaded inferences that on any other day we may wish to take back. I think that we should allow this of our good priest and simply look then at something that he let slip on that particular day or related passages in his book....

Dr. John Polkinghorne's asserts that scientific evidence cannot support the Virgin Birth and thus declares this immaculate birth to be scientifically impossible, but not improbable. To which we can all agree. Yes, science cannot explain this act of God. Then N.T. Wright describes this event by distinguishing whether it was a miracle suspending all natural scientific laws, or as a miraculous intervention of God to Mary herself. To which I might ask, "Is there a difference?" According to Wright there may be, but its beyond my powers of perception to distinguish at present the difference between miracle and God-event. However, it is substantively true that science at its current level of prowess has yet been able to explain this miracle/God-event like many of the other miracles/God-events found within the Bible.

Dr. Polkinghorne continues then upon an alternate explanation that I find to have little appeal... that is, that we should regard this Gospel story of the Virgin Birth as an enacted myth. Now lest I accuse my brother in Christ of factually declaring Jesus' birth as a myth (which he doesn't) as we understand myths today, perhaps I should allow him the point of view that though he considers it a myth, he actually means that its a literary myth that is not a fanciful myth but an historically true myth that has a true historical story behind it. My guess is that is what Dr. Polkinghorne really meant. However, to an outside listener who has heard this statement uncritically and mistakenly believes it to mean something more akin to the popular perception of myth, then we have a problem of communication. Is it fanciful and historically untrue? Or is it descriptive and historically true? Consequently, we as Christians should be more clear with the use of our words by not confusing an already difficult topic with extended hyperbole, whether intentional or not.

So then, regardless of Polkinghorne's theological stance, my argument rests upon the fact that its probable to stretch the ancient Near-Eastern myth paradigm expansively to cover many unexplained events to the ancient mindset. Sometimes uncritically and at other times critically, when science is unable to explain “the unexplainable.” My concern then is that we may be back-filling the definition of myth "as a poetic form of language that has cultural historical context" into a newer postmodern definition of a "superstitious category bearing dubious historicity or truth." Like the old argument that the bible stories are just that, stories, so one might say that many bible stories are mythic and do not mandate necessary belief structures to follow Jesus. The term "myth" then becomes a convenient article of convention that makes the bible stories more magical than true as we begin to delineated between fused enacted myths in the guise of co-opted human language.

And this concerns me. As example, I think the biblical creation story in Genesis 1-3 is more beautifully told in poetic mythic structure that is both true, and has an historical cultural context to it, than as a cold, sterile scientific account.... And I might pose the additional question, "How might the creation story be otherwise told or described?!" Even today as modern, scientifically-based men and women I think that we would have a very difficult time explaining God's creative handiwork if we were to observe it first hand. Both factually and scientifically without resorting to some kind of mythic poetic structure to make the transfer to the human mind and heart. Which causes me to find the mythic literary structural form more helpful than not when interspersed throughout the biblical narratives making its incredible stories more vivid and culturally relative. But not necessarily fanciful. Nor untrue. Instead it conveys intense, descriptive imagery which is intelligible without demanding that event, or cause, to be fully understood other than as a God-event or as a miracle. An event/miracle which then allows God to reveal something about Himself and His will to man that we need to know. A revelation that is as potent to modern man today as it was to ancient man in years past.

Consider ancient Greek, Roman and Chinese myths that attempt to explain creation's origins and man's interaction with nature. They are attempts to convey unexplainable events, fears, and anxities, that were passed down verbally with minimal loss of translation through the use of songs, ballads, poems and chants, among other forms of communication. Consider also the ancient Near-Eastern Sumerian, Babylonia, Assyrian and Jewish accounts of creation, a world-wide flood, and ancient man's interaction with natural cause and effect. Some are fanciful but others are real attempts to account for oral lores founded upon legitimate historical events. It is our duty then to discern their historic mythic import... whether true, false, or in another category altogether. Science can only help with this effort so far, but at a certain point it cannot. So then we look at such passages anthropologically, linguistically, narratively, sociologically, epistemologically, and etc, and etc. Trying to assay all the varied meanings of the biblical text, and in this case, to ascertain what the Creator God is trying to tell us using this literary forms and paradigms. Which, by way of example, NT Wright does a brilliant job on in his summary effort below explaining the import of Jesus' virgin birth.

And though I expect someday to find a science that can perhaps better explain biblical miracles and God-events, I do not necessitate it, nor require it, of science in its present forms today. Though advance as a human discipline, it has a long ways to go, and till then we must be content with God’s handiwork as it has been historically conveyed to us. While at the same time not audaciously perceiving every such literary type to fall under the umbrella of “fanciful myth.” It confuses the literary types with inspecific assertions. It also questions the ancient mindset in its oral – and later, written – histories through shaded overtones and nuanced linguistical meanings. We need better clarity herein when speaking to the Bible's literary types known as myths.

Consequently, I respect Dr. Polkinghorne, but renown scientists, no less than renown philosophers, do not necessary make for the best theological re-interpreters of biblical events, even though their trained minds are more perceptive to some areas of study than many of our own. And yet, this does not release us, as biblicists (or as theologians) from listening to Christianity’s grand proponents and delving into their mindsets to discover substantive thoughts and insights, including scientific viability. And thus, my argument does not rest upon personages or their rhetoric, but upon the usages of idiom and imaginative re-expressions of our cultural heritage of faith and worship. I think it to be wise to be more specific with our language and less indistinct with our insinuations.

R.E. Slater
January 27, 2012


Legends surround the birth and childhood of many figures who afterwards become important.
But by comparison with other legends about other figures, the gospels' accounts of Jesus look restrained.

Suspending Scepticism:
History and the Virgin Birth

N.T. Wright
December 28, 2011

Jesus' birth usually gets far more attention than its role in the New Testament warrants. Christmas looms large in our culture, outshining even Easter in the popular mind.

Yet without Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 we would know nothing about it. Paul's gospel includes Jesus' Davidic descent (Rom. 1:3), but apart from that could exist without mention of his birth. One can be justified by faith with no knowledge of it. Likewise, John's wonderful theological edifice has no need of it: God's glory is revealed not in the manger; but on the cross.

If you try to express any New Testament theology without Jesus' death and resurrection, you will find it cannot be done. "Man shall live for evermore," says the song, "because of Christmas Day." No, replies the New Testament; because of Calvary, Easter and Pentecost.

Nevertheless, the birth stories have become a test case in various controversies. If you believe in miracles, you believe in Jesus' miraculous birth; if you don't, you don't. Both sides turn the question into a shibboleth, not for its own sake but to find out who's in and who's out.

The problem is that "miracle," as used in these controversies, is not a biblical category. The God of the Bible is not a normally [nominally] absent God who sometimes "intervenes." This God is always present and active, often surprisingly so.

Likewise, if you believe the Bible is "true," you will believe the birth stories; if you don't, you won't. Again, the birth stories are insignificant in themselves; they function as a test for beliefs about the Bible.

The birth stories have also functioned as a test case for views of sexuality. Some believers in the virginal conception align this with a low view of sexuality and a high view of perpetual virginity. They believe the story not because of what it says about Jesus, but because of what it says about sex - namely, that it's something God wouldn't want to get mixed up in. This, too, has its mirror image: those who cannot imagine anything good about abstinence insist that Mary must have been sexually active.

More significantly, the birth stories have played a role within different views of the incarnation. Those who have emphasized Jesus' divinity have sometimes made the virginal conception central. Those who have emphasized Jesus' humanity have often felt that the virginal conception would mark him off from the rest of us.

None of these arguments bears much relation to what either Matthew or Luke actually says. But before we turn to them, two more preliminary remarks.

First, we are of course speaking of the virginal conception of Jesus, not, strictly, of the "virgin birth." Even if I come to believe in the former; the latter would remain a different sort of thing altogether. Neither, of course, should be confused with the "immaculate conception," a Roman Catholic dogma about the conception not of Jesus, but of Mary.

Second, some things must be put in a "suspense account" - in Marcus Borg's happy phrase - while others are sorted out. The birth narratives have no impact on my reconstruction of Jesus' public agendas and his mind-set as he went to the cross.

There might just be a case for saying that if his birth was as Matthew and Luke describe it, and if Mary had told him about it, my argument about Jesus' vocation to do and be what in scripture YHWH does-and-is might look slightly different. But as a historian I cannot use the birth stories within an argument about the rest of the gospel narratives.

I can, however, run the process the other way. Because I am convinced that the creator God raised Jesus bodily from the dead, and because I am convinced that Jesus was and is the embodiment of this God, Israel's God, my worldview is forced to reactivate various things in the suspense account, the birth narratives included.

There are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in post-Enlightenment metaphysics. The "closed continuum" of cause and effect is a modernist myth. The God who does not "intervene" from outside but is always present and active within the world, sometimes shockingly, may well have been thus active on this occasion.

It is all very well to get on one's high metaphysical horse and insist that God cannot behave like this, but we do not know that ahead of time. Nor will the high moral horse do any better insisting that God ought not to do things like this, because they send the wrong message about sexuality or because divine parentage gave Jesus an unfair start over the rest of us. Such positions produce a cartoon picture: the mouse draws itself up to its full height, puts its paws on its hips and gives the elephant a good dressing down.

The stories in question are complex and controversial. I simply highlight certain features.

Matthew's story, told from Joseph's point of view, reminds one of various biblical birth stories, such as that of Samson in Judges 13. Matthew's whole hook is about the scriptures being fulfilled in Jesus. The angel, the dream, the command not to be afraid, the righteous couple doing what they are told-all is familiar.

Like Samson, the promised and provided child has a dangerous public future: here, the true king of the Jews is born under the nose of the wicked king, Herod. This is a major theme in Matthew's Gospel. His picture of Jesus' messiahship has both feet on the ground of first-century realpolitik.

Matthew tells us that Jesus fulfils at least three biblical themes:
  1. He brings Israel into the promised land ("Jesus" is the Greek for "Joshua");
  2. As Immanuel, he embodies God's presence with his people (Isaiah 7:14, quoted in 1:23);
  3. As the new David, he is the Messiah born at Bethlehem (2:5, fulfilling Micah 5:1-3).
In the genealogy [of Matthew], Jesus is the point toward which Israel's long covenant history has been leading, particularly its puzzling and tragic latter phase. Matthew agrees with his Jewish contemporaries that the exile was the last significant event before Jesus; when the angel says that Jesus will "save his people from their sins" (1:21), liberation from exile is in view. Jesus, David's true descendant, will fulfil the Abrahamic covenant by undoing the exile and all that it means.

Well-known problems abound. Why does the genealogy finish with Joseph if Matthew is going to say that he wasn't Jesus' father after all? This cannot have been a problem for Matthew or he would hardly have followed the genealogy so closely with the story of the virginal conception. It was enough that Jesus was born into the Davidic family; adoption brought legitimacy.

Further, anyone can say that Matthew made it all up to fulfil Isaiah 7:14 ("the virgin shall conceive"). Since Luke doesn't quote the same passage, though, the argument looks thin. Is Bethlehem mentioned only, perhaps, because of Micah 5:2-4?

Again, Luke doesn't quote the same passage, but still gets Mary to Bethlehem for the birth. Some have questioned whether Herod would really have behaved in the way described in Matthew 2; the answer, from any reader of Josephus, would be a firm yes.

One can investigate, as many have, whether there really was a star. One can challenge the flight into Egypt as simply a back-projection from a fanciful reading of Hosea 11:1. These are the natural probing questions of the historian.

As with most ancient history, of course, we cannot verify independently that which is reported only in one source. If that gives grounds for ruling it out, however, most of ancient history goes with it.

Let us by all means be suspicious, but let us not be paranoid. Just because I've had a nightmare doesn't mean that there aren't burglars in the house. Just because Matthew says that something fulfilled scripture doesn't mean it didn't happen.

What then about his central claim, the virginal conception itself, dropped almost casually into the narrative, with no flourish of trumpets? Some have argued, of course, that there is instead a flourish of trumpets: Matthew has taken care to draw our attention to the peculiarities (to put it no stronger) of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Batlisheba, presumably in order to warn us that something even stranger is coming; or perhaps to enable us, when the news is announced, to connect it with God's strange way of operating in the past. He is hardly likely on this occasion, however, to have made up the story of Mary's being with child by the Holy Spirit in order to "fulfil'" this theme.

What about Luke, who tells the story from Mary's point of view? His setting is just as Jewish as Matthew's, with verbal and narrative allusions to, and echoes of, the Septuagint. Like Matthew, he insists that with this story Israel's history is reaching its God-ordained climax. But his emphasis, unlike Matthew's, is on the very Jewish point that this birth is a direct challenge to the pagan power: in other words, to Caesar.

This fits with Luke's whole emphasis: the (very Jewish) gospel is for the whole world, of which Jesus is now the Lord. Israel's god is the king of the world; now, Jesus is the king of the world.

Attention has focused on the census in Luke 2:2 - whether it took place and could have involved people travelling to their ancestral homes. But Luke's point has been missed. The census was the time of the great revolt - the rebellion of Judas the Galilean, which Luke not only knows about but allows Gamaliel to compare with Jesus and his movement (Acts 5:37).

Luke is deliberately aligning Jesus with the Jewish kingdom-movements, the revolutions which declared that there would be "no king but God."

The census is not, of course, the only query that people have raised about Luke's birth stories. Jesus' birth at Bethlehem seems to have been a puzzle to Luke, which he explains by the census, rather than something he invents for other reasons. The fact that Luke does not mention the wise men, nor Matthew the shepherds, is not a reason for doubting either; this sort of thing crops up in ancient historical sources all the time.

Of course, legends surround the birth and childhood of many figures who afterwards become important. As historians we have no reason to say that this did not happen in the case of Jesus, and some reasons to say that it did. But by comparison with other legends about other figures, Matthew and Luke look, after all, quite restrained.

Except, of course, in the matter where the real interest centres. Matthew and Luke declare unambiguously that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived. What are we to make of this?

It will not do to say that we know the laws of nature and that Joseph, Mary, the early church and the evangelists did not. Mary and Joseph hadn't seen diagrams of Fallopian tubes, but that doesn't mean they didn't know where babies came from. Hence Mary's question to Gabriel (in Luke), and Joseph's determination to break the engagement (in Matthew).

Nor can we say that if we believe this story we should believe all the other similar ones in the ancient world as well. Of course, the argument "miracles are possible therefore virginal conception is possible, therefore Jesus' virginal conception may well be true," also commits one to saying, "therefore Augustus's virginal conception may well be true." But that is not my argument.

My argument, rather, works in three stages.

First, the position I have reached about the resurrection and incarnation of Jesus opens the door to reconsidering what we would otherwise probably dismiss. "Miracle," in the sense of divine intervention "from outside," is not in question.

What matters is the powerful, mysterious presence of the God of Israel, the creator God, bringing Israel's story to its climax by doing a new thing, bringing the story of creation to its height by a new creation from the womb of the old. Whether or not it happened, this is what it would mean if it did.

Second, there is no pre-Christian Jewish tradition suggesting that the messiah would be born of a virgin. No one used Isaiah 7:14 this way before Matthew did. Even assuming that Matthew or Luke regularly invented material to fit Jesus into earlier templates, why would they have invented something like this?

The only conceivable parallels are pagan ones, and these fiercely Jewish stories have certainly not been modelled on them. Luke at least must have known that telling this story ran the risk of making Jesus out to be a pagan demigod. Why, for the sake of an exalted metaphor, would they take this risk - unless they at least believed the stories to be literally true?

Third, if the evangelists believed them to be true, when and by whom were they invented, if by the time of Matthew and Luke two such different, yet so compatible, stories were in circulation?

Did whoever started this hare running mean it in a nonliteral sense, using virginal conception as a metaphor for something else? What was that "something else"? An embroidered border, presumably, around the belief that Jesus was divine. But that belief was a Jewish belief expressed in classic Jewish God-language; while the only models for virginal conception are the nakedly pagan stories of Alexander, Augustus and others.

We would have to suppose that, within the first fifty years of Christianity a double move took place: from an early, very Jewish, high Christology, to a sudden paganization, and back to a very Jewish storytelling again. The evangelists would then have thoroughly deconstructed their own deep intentions, suggesting that the climax of YHWH's purpose for Israel took place through a pagan-style miraculous birth.

To put it another way: What would have to have happened, granted the sceptic's position, for the story to have taken the shape it did? To answer this, I must indulge in some speculative tradition-history. (Bear with me in a little foolishness.)

This is how it would look: Christians came to believe that Jesus was in some sense divine. Someone who shared this faith broke thoroughly with Jewish precedents and invented the story of a pagan-style virginal conception. Some Christians failed to realize that this was historicized metaphor, and retold it as though it were historical. Matthew and Luke, assuming historicity, drew independently upon this astonishing fabrication, set it (though in quite different ways) within a thoroughly Jewish context, and wove it in quite different ways into their respective narratives.

And all this happened within, more or less, fifty years. Possible? Yes, of course. Most things are possible in history. Likely? No.

Smoke without fire does, of course, happen quite often in the real world. But this smoke, in that world, without fire? This theory asks us to believe in intellectual parthenogenesis: the birth of an idea without visible parentage. Difficult - unless, of course, you believe in miracles, which most people who disbelieve the virginal conception don't.

Maybe, after all, it is the theory of the contemporary sceptic that is metaphor historicized. The modernist belief that history is a closed continuum of cause and effect is projected onto the screen of the early church, producing a myth (specifically, a tradition-historical reconstruction which sustains and legitimates the original belief so strongly that its proponents come to believe it actually happened).*

This foolishness is, of course, a way of saying that no "proof" is possible either way. No one can prove, historically, that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived. No one can prove, historically, that she wasn't. Science studies the repeatable; history bumps its nose against the unrepeatable.

If the first two chapters of Matthew and the first two of Luke had never existed, I do not suppose that my own Christian faith, or that of the church to which I belong, would have been very different.

But since they do, and since for quite other reasons I have come to believe that the God of Israel, the world's Creator, was personally and fully revealed in and as Jesus of Nazareth, I hold open my historical judgment and say: If that's what God deemed appropriate, who am I to object?


Formerly Anglican Bishop of Durham, in 2010 the Rt Revd Dr N.T. Wright was appointed to a Chair in New Testament and Early Christianity in the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He is one of the world's most distinguished and influential New Testament scholars. Among his many books are The New Testament and the People of God (1992), Jesus and the Victory of God (1996), The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003), Surprised by Hope (2007) and Virtue Reborn (2010).


* * * * * * * * * * * * * *



 Why Would a Scientist Believe the Virgin Birth?
January 27, 2012

Most Christians have a deep appreciation for the scriptures, both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many of our disagreements, especially the most heated discussions of science and faith arise because we respect and wrestle with scripture as inspired by God. As Paul tells Timothy, the scriptures are able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. They are not to be taken lightly.

For those who were not raised in the church however, or who have for any one of a number of reasons become distrustful of the reliability of the scriptures, the questions are quite different. Scripture relates some pretty incredible events and stories – from Exodus with the story of parting of the Red Sea to the Gospels with the virgin birth and the resurrection – to name just a few. Why should intelligent educated person in secular, modern or postmodern, enlightened, Western society take these seriously on any level? Dr. John Polkinghorne’s book Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible can provide some useful insights here – whether one agrees with him across the board or disagrees with some of his conclusions. In the book he isn’t dogmatic or defensive about about scripture, rather he is explaining why he, as a scientist, scholar, and Christian, takes scripture seriously. Both faith and reason play a role in his approach to scripture.

How would you address doubts from a nonbeliever about the incredible events in scripture?

How do you reconcile a belief in these events yourself?

Chapters five and six of Testing Scripture look at Israel’s Bible and at the Gospels. Israel’s Bible consists of many forms of literature. Dr. Polkinghorne mentions myth telling deep truth in the form of symbolic story, history, law, wisdom writings, apocalypse, and more. Most of the text was edited and shaped in post-exilic Israel. But this does not mean that it was fabricated with no roots or history. In fact Dr. Polkinghorne finds it difficult to believe that most of the material is not rooted in sources that date far earlier. He sees this in Genesis 14 with Melchizedek of Salem (not a text that would be constructed in a post-exilic history) and in the book of Judges to give just two examples. The origins of these passages must lie in very ancient texts. Within the historical conventions of the time Israel’s Bible records the history of God’s revelation of himself through his particular relationship with his chosen nation.

Even the Exodus, dismissed by many scholars as impossible, Dr. Polkinghorne sees as rooted in history. The text has been elaborated and shaped for theological and national impact for sure. In particular Dr. Polkinghorne feels that numbers have been exaggerated as is common in ancient texts   [acutally, the Hebrew term has been scribed with a typo in it making the number larger than it is - res]. But this reshaping does not undercut the historical roots of the incident or the importance of this event as God’s revelation of his divine nature through his relationship with his people.

The Gospels likewise record a reliable history. Within the historical conventions of their time they tell the gospel; the story of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the good news of God’s work in the world. Dr. Polkinghorne works through a number of different episodes and events as he describes his reasons for taking the Gospels seriously. One of the most interesting, though, is the one he leaves for last.
I have left till last what are among the best-known and best-loved narratives in the Gospels: the stories of the birth of Jesus. We find them only in Matthew 1.18-2.12 and Luke 2.1-20. John, after his timeless Prologue, and Mark, without any preliminaries, both start with the encounters between John the Baptist and Jesus at the beginning of the public ministry. We are so used to conflating the two gospel accounts that it is only when we read them carefully and separately that we become aware of how different they are. Luke seems to tell the story very much from the point of view of Mary, and the visitors to the newborn Jesus are the humble shepherds. Matthew seems to see things much more from Joseph’s perspective, and his visitors are the magi.… Luke gives us a very specific dating of the birth in relation to a Roman census, but there are severe scholarly difficulties in reconciling this with Matthew’s (plausible) statement that it took place during the reign of Herod the Great. A principle concern of both narratives is to explain why, if Mary’s home was at Nazareth, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as Messianic prophecy required. I do not doubt that there is historical truth preserved in the birth stories, but establishing its exact content is not an easy task. (p. 67-68)
As with some of the other stories in the gospels and in other parts of scripture there are discrepancies that can be difficult to reconcile and harmonize. There is no strong reason, however, to doubt a historical root, down to and including the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

The Virgin Birth. The conception of Jesus is a different issue. Matthew 1:18 relates the claim:
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph responds to Mary’s pregnancy by planning to divorce her and an angel in a dream reiterates the claim “what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.“ Luke 1:34-35 records Mary’s response when told she would conceive and give birth to a son, the Messiah.
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
The very idea of a miraculous conception, that a virgin conceived and bore a son, hits a nerve in our secular Western society – both modern and postmodern. How can an intelligent, educated, experienced person believe in a virgin birth? Dr. Polkinghorne gives his reasoning:
Luke, very explicitly in his story of the Annunciation (1.34-35), and Matthew, more obliquely (1.18), both assert the virginal conception of Jesus. Christian tradition has attached great significance to this, often rather inaccurately calling it the ‘virgin birth’. Yet in the New Testament it seems nowhere as widely significant as the Resurrection. Paul is content to simply lay stress on Jesus’ solidarity with humanity: ‘God sent his Son, born of woman, born under the law’ (Galatians 4.4). The theological importance of the virginal conception lies in its lending emphasis to the presence of a total divine initiative in the coming of Jesus, even if this truth is much more frequently expressed by the New Testament writers simply in the language of his having been sent. Jesus was not opportunistically co-opted for God’s purpose when he was found to be suitable, but he was part of that purpose from the start. The virginal conception is a powerful myth, and I believe that in the religion of the Incarnation the power of story fuses with the power of a true story, so that the great Christian myths are enacted myths. On this basis, I find myself able to believe in the virgin birth, even if the motivating evidence is less extensive than for the belief in the Resurrection. (p. 68-69)
One of the most important criterion for thinking through the incredible claims in scripture is God’s interaction with his creatures rather than his intervention in his creation. The miracles ring true when they enhance our understanding of the interaction of God with his people in divine self-revelation. The virginal conception is part of the Incarnation, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”. The magnificent early Christian hymns quoted by Paul in Col 1.15-20 and Phil 2.6-11 catch the essence of this enacted myth as well.

It makes no sense to try to defend the virginal conception, the resurrection, or any of the other signs or miracles related in the New Testament, separate from the story of the Gospel, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as God’s Messiah. In the context of God’s mission within his creation the miracles make sense. Separate from this they will never make sense.

What do you think? Do Dr. Polkinghorne’s reasons for believing in the virgin birth make sense?

Why do you believe in the virgin birth? Or if you don’t, why not?

What arguments are persuasive on this, or any other “difficult to believe” event?


If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net
If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.



Thursday, January 26, 2012

Rejecting Political and Religious Spectrums, Part 1 of 2

 
 
On tossing out the “right-middle-left”
spectrum: Part 1

by Roger Olson
January 25, 2012

Types of evangelical theology: replacing the “spectrum” Part 1

For a long time scholars studying Evangelicalism have used the analogy of a spectrum to describe its theological diversity. The spectrum is always from “right” to “middle” to “left” with middle” indicating adherence to the “received evangelical doctrinal tradition” with neither accommodation to modern culture nor over-reaction against it. Books like Millard Erickson’s The Evangelical Left and George Marsden’s Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism tend to assume this spectrum as natural.


Albrecht Ritschl, c. 1822-1889

The spectrum method of categorization and description goes back to the nineteenth century when Protestantism was being pulled apart over the issue of accommodation to modernity. Liberal theologians were those “modernists” who freely adjusted doctrine to fit with the “the best of modern thought.” Yale church historian Claude Welch defined liberal theology as “maximal accommodation to the claims of modernity.” These theologians tended to relativize doctrine and emphasize something else as the “essence” of Christianity (e.g., Schleiermacher’s God-consciousness or Ritschl’s ethical experience).


The reason liberal theologians did that was to avoid conflicts between science (in the broad sense, not just the so-called natural sciences) and Christianity such as the infamous Galileo affair. In those conflicts, when the churches and their theologians stood up to science and condemned its findings, science tended to win and the outcomes were extremely embarrassing to the churches and theologians.

It wasn’t only the Galileo affair, of course, that caused this modern crisis for Christianity. Well into the nineteenth century some church leaders and theologians were insisting on Bishop Ussher’s dating of the creation at 4004 B.C. or thereabouts. (Even those who laughed at his specificity—he even suggested the actual date of creation—held to what is now called “young earth creationism.”) Then geology proved that wrong.

An interesting case study is Charles Hodge about whom I wrote here recently. In his Systematic Theology Hodge stated very clearly that biblical interpretation has to bow to science when it’s a matter of fact and not theory. For example, he considered it scientific fact, not mere theory, that the earth is millions of years old so he embraced the “day age” theory of Genesis 1. However, his last published work was What Is Darwinism? in which he blasted natural selection as “atheism.” Not long after his death, however, Warfield, Hodge’s main follower and his successor at Princeton, accepted evolution as fact. But he did that by claiming that evolution is not necessarily atheistic and can be made compatible with divine teleology (what we now call “Intelligent Design”)....


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

As an aside:

The Christian position of Evolutionary Creationism separates itself from the atheistic/agnostic position of Darwinism, sometimes called Scientific Naturalism.





Evolutionary Creationism accepts natural selection but understands that a Creator-God has been intricately involved within this process. The positions of Classic & Relational Theism (see this blog's sidebars for further discussions) also agree with this, however, the older theological doctrine of Classic Theism was developed at a time when science was little understood and thus the church taught of a God who created immediately (or instantaneously) - without utilizing any process - the sun and moon, stars and earth. Rather than teaching of a mediated creation that used the elements of "time and process" commonly accepted by evolutionary science today. This latter view is only now being accommodated by the contemporary Church because of its variant traditional heritages and past, older dogmas.

Moreover, it should be further noted that Relational Theism is Classic Theism's updated, postmodern twin, without the panentheistic base of process theology accompanying it. And that there are elements of process theology that are true biblically but cannot simply be held captive by process theology's non-classic theistic base. This is the difference between substantive and pervasive elements better discussed here - Seeking a Postmodern Redefinition of Classic Theism.

Darwinism, on the other hand, claims no knowledge of God's involvement. In fact, it is either doubtful (agnostic), if not down right skeptical (atheistic) of God's existence and mediation. Holding then to a belief in the position of a non-Creator God while questioning the very fact that creation itself is proof of an eternal Creator-God's existence and mediation. Whereas the Christian position sees creation and affirms that it is from God, sustained by God, and directed by God, both in the ages past as will be true of the ages to come. Consequently, Naturalistic science is no less a belief system than its Christian-science twin (cf, Emergent Christianity and a Calvinistic Philosopher's Assertion for Theism and Evolution).

Thus, within the commonly accepted scientific theories of evolution are two variant belief-systems. One Christian and the other agnostic or atheistic. One is described as Evolutionary Creationism and the other described as Darwinism or ("scientific") Naturalism. Each sees the same evidence but arrives at differing conclusions and juxtaposed ideologies. Moreover, Evolutionary Creationism understands God to have used time-and-process to mediate creation whereas Classic Theism's Creationism model, made popular amongst conservative churches and organizations today, see creation as unmediated by time-and-process through subjectively-derived models. However, both systems are theistically-based as opposed to Darwinism's agnostic/atheistic Scientific Naturalism model.

Consequently, it is important to understand that not-all-evolutionists are unbelievers nor are all-believers anti-evolutionists. Within both theistic and anti-theistic systems stand scientific positions at odds with one another ideologically (or is it philosophically?). Each sees the same systems but each sees it differently from the other. Moreover, modernistic Christianity's more popular Evangelic position of Immediate Creation should then allow their brothers and sisters the position of evolution without deeming (or demeaning) those brethren as mere anti-theists. This would not be true.

Listed below are just a few articles that we've reviewed this past year to help in further delineating the much misunderstood position of Evolutionary Creationism (otherwise known by its older term as Theistic Evolution).


R.E. Slater, January 26, 2012


 * * * * * * * * * * * *

Continuing...

Liberal theologians regarded this entire process of continual retreat in the face of modern science a failed policy. Insofar as Christianity considers its theology a realm of facts about the universe and life in it, it will increasingly become irrelevant and eventually die. So Schleiermacher and his followers and Ritschl and his followers gave the category of “fact” over to science and defined religion, including Christianity, as feeling or ethics. This is the origin of the popular (even among evangelicals!) saying that science has facts and Christianity has faith as if these are in water tight separate compartments. (Even Ritschl, however, could not maintain the line between them.)

A close inspection of liberal Protestant theology and Catholic Modernism reveals that a basic impulse in their creation was to make conflicts between science and Christianity impossible. I believe it is evangelical theologian William Abraham who said that liberal theology was so afraid of being kicked in the ditch by modernity that it jumped there to avoid the pain of the kick! Liberal theology did not so much deny traditional beliefs as relegate all doctrines to the realm of expressions of religious feelings or ethics. The “moralizing of dogma” was the catch phrase for the Ritschlian tendency to ignore doctrines it could not put into the service of ethics.


The main reaction to liberal theology in the nineteenth century was Protestant Orthodoxy as represented by Hodge. Hodge insisted that Christianity is primarily a matter of factual revelation and that Christian theology is simply correctly organizing the facts of the Bible into a coherent system. He explicitly compared theology with science in that regard. For him the Bible is to the theologian exactly what nature is to the scientist—a “store-house of facts.” He adopted "Scottish Common Sense Realism," [which is] an Enlightenment philosophy, to help his project of rescuing Protestant Orthodoxy’s status as a rational science. (He even went so far as to say that the credibility of revelation is subject to reason.) The way Hodge avoided conflicts between theology and science was by accommodating to the “material facts” of science and rejecting anything science “discovers” that he could claim is mere “theory” insofar as it conflicted with his interpretation f Scripture.

Portrait of Charles Hodge, Princeton Theological Seminary
by the studio of Mathew Brady, Washington, D.C., 1865-1878.

Of course, true to Hegel’s analysis of thought, a “mediating theology” arose to combine liberal theology and Protestant Orthodoxy. Mediating theology is represented in Europe by I. A. Dorner, in Britain by P. T. Forsyth and in America by Horace Bushnell. (Here I am not using “Mediating Theology” in the very narrow, technical, historical-theological sense of Vermittlungstheologie but in the sense of explicit attempts to take up what is valuable in both Protestant Orthodoxy and liberal theology and combine them while leaving behind their flaws.) However, try as they might, the mediating theologians always tended to lean one way of the other. Forsyth, for example, leaned toward evangelicalism while trying to “preach to the modern mind” in a modern way (e.g., by downplaying the supernatural). Bushnell leaned toward liberalism while maintaining an evangelical spirit even to the point of affirming the supernatural. Dorner was strongly influenced by Schleiermacher and Hegel but also strongly disagreed with both of them insofar as they tended to leave classical doctrines like the incarnation behind (or reinterpret them so much that they became unrecognizable).

No matter how hard they tried, historical theologians analyzing nineteenth century theology (and “nineteenth century theology” only ends at 1914 or 1917) could not break the spell of trying to put every Christian theologian somewhere on a spectrum of right to left or left to right with modernity being the criterion of placement. So, by this common analysis, which still works its magic over us, Hodge and theologians like him belong toward the “right” end of the spectrum, Schleiermacher and Ritschl and their followers belong toward the “left” end of the spectrum and the mediating theologians are arrayed at various points along the middle. The often unspoken question the answer to which determines where a theologian belongs on the spectrum is to what extent he or she accommodated to modernity.



But this doesn’t work even for nineteenth century theology. There were many theologians then, as now, who don’t fit anywhere on that spectrum. And the theologians put on the spectrum often don’t really belong where they’ve been placed. For example, Hodge was clearly influenced by modernity as he treated theology as a science in the modern sense. (It won’t work to try to deny this by saying that theology was the “Queen of the Sciences” in the middle ages and that Hodge was simply trying to rescue the queen! He explicitly appealed to modern natural science as the model for theology and used Scottish Common Sense Realism to the fullest.) Why put Hodge way to the right on that spectrum?

Also, where does Kierkegaard belong on that spectrum? The usual way to deal with the Danish theologian is to treat him as a philosopher, but anyone who reads him knows he was a theologian. He had a degree in theology, at times wanted to teach theology (but you had to have the King’s endorsement to have a teaching position in the university and Kierkegaard’s enemies blocked it), and most of his writing deals with Christianity either directly or indirectly. Although he was reacting against Hegel and his followers, he was not accommodating to or reacting against modernity per se. He certainly wasn’t “liberal” in any usual sense of that word. So, to rescue the spectrum, people like Kierkegaard are usually excused by being relegating to the separate category of philosophy.


I suggest the reason for the obsession with the spectrum is the ease it offers to categorizing nineteenth century theologians. The emergence of the phenomenon of mediating theology reinforced its apparent appropriateness. But I also suggest it never really worked without serious distortions. People have held onto it simply because it’s easy. And it has become a useful polemical tool for labeling and dismissing theologians. Almost everyone wants to see himself or herself as somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, so the spectrum itself becomes relative to the individual using it.

A major problem with the spectrum is that it was originally tied to modernity and gradually, throughout the twentieth century, modernity became less and less the litmus test for categorizing theologians. One theologian even wrote a book some years ago entitled The Shattered Spectrum (Lonnie Kliever, 1981). Indeed. The spectrum needs to be shattered. But it’s still very much alive especially among evangelicals.

The problem with the old spectrum became clear throughout the twentieth century. Where does Barth belong on it? Cornelius Van Til wrote about The New Modernism—one of the first American books about Barth and neo-orthodoxy in general. But, of course, everyone knows Barth was no “modernist.” Where does Pannenberg belong on the spectrum? As a student of Pannenberg’s I can assure you he doesn’t fit on it anywhere. I argue that most twentieth century theologians cannot be fitted comfortably on that old spectrum. Sure, there are still some old fashioned liberals around like John Spong and Marcus Borg, but the “giants” of twentieth century theology don’t fit on the spectrum and attempts to put them there have inevitably distorted their theologies.

I’m not arguing the old spectrum is totally useless. As I just said, there are still old fashioned liberal theologians around. Of course, we call them “chastened liberals” because, by and large, they are not optimistic about inevitable progress as were most of the old liberals (pre-WW1 in Europe and pre-WW2 in America). Process theology, for example, appears to me to still fit on the spectrum. Fundamentalism still fits on it insofar as it is anti-modern (e.g., young earth creationism, etc.). But the giants of twentieth century and early twenty-first century theology don’t fit on it well at all. Where does Stanley Hauerwas belong on it? Nowhere. Attempts to put him in the middle are simply attempts to compliment him in ways I’m sure he would not like. Yoder? Moltmann? Zizioulas? Newbigin? I could go on and on and on naming theologians who don’t fit anywhere on that old spectrum. And yet, especially conservative evangelicals still insist on using it.

I say let it die. Except when talking about theologians who really do fit on it by their own admissions—as pro-modern or anti-modern or attempting some kind of synthesis. I supposed one way to rescue the spectrum and make it useful today is to tie it to postmodernity. Thus, on that reconstructed spectrum, being to the “right” would be anti-postmodern, being to the “left” would be pro-postmodern, and being in the middle would be….what? Ah, just right!


That’s one of the besetting sins of all the attempts to construct and use such a spectrum. I suggest its main purpose has always been to justify one’s own theology as “moderate.” Schleiermacher thought he was moderate. After all, he wasn’t a deist or skeptic or unitarian. Certainly Ritschl and his followers thought they were moderate. After all, they weren’t followers of Feuerbach! Hodge and his Princeton theologians could claim the middle ground. After all, they weren’t among the proto-fundamentalists. [Thus, the terms liberal, conservative, and moderate, are convenient terms that bear within themselves a historical relativity only useful for polemic rhetoric. - res]

The reconstructed spectrum, tied to postmodernity, would have the same problems as the old spectrum tied to modernity. It might work for some theologians, but it wouldn’t work for many others. It would be used politically (i.e., to enhance one’s own reputation while marginalizing others.) And there would always be the temptation to make everyone fit somewhere on it even if they don’t really fit on it at all. And it would suffer from the lack of clarity or consensus about what constitutes “postmodernity.”

So, let me sum up this first part of the series and preview the next.

The traditional “right to left, left to right” spectrum for categorizing theologians and theologies was problematic from the start. It began as a way of categorizing nineteenth century theologians and it was tied to modernity. Theologians were placed on it according to the placer’s judgment about the theologians’ accommodations to or rejections of modernity. That spectrum didn’t ever work well, but it became especially problematic in the twentieth century as many theologians no longer responded to modernity. It still works only for theologians and types of theology that clearly and unequivocally respond to modernity either though accommodation or reaction. A completely separate spectrum tied to postmodernity might be helpful for categorizing SOME theologians IF “postmodernity” ever becomes a clear category. But there will probably never be a time when one spectrum works for every theologian. It wasn’t true in the nineteenth century and it isn’t true now and it will almost certainly never be true.



Coming up next

Evangelicals are still under the spell of the old spectrum. Some are attempting to use it with postmodernity as the criterion of placement. But even among evangelicals the spectrum analogy doesn’t work. Where did Donald Bloesch belong on either spectrum (modernity or postmodernity)? Thomas Oden? Alister McGrath? Amos Yong? I could go on and on. And yet, many evangelicals are still using the “right to left” spectrum as if it had real validity. Often they use it for their own political purposes—to marginalize someone else while enhancing their own reputation as moderate (where most evangelical theologians want to be). Is there a better way to categorize evangelical theologians? I will suggest an alternative.
 


Rejecting Political and Religious Spectrums, Part 2 of 2
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/01/rejecting-political-and-religious.html
 
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

N.T. Wright - How God Became King

Welcome to Relevancy22, an Emergent Christian web journal focusing on... what else!? But Emergent Christian topics and issues for this postmodern age! Below follows NT Wright's audio lecture on How God Became King as he focused on the subject of re-discovering the Christian message through the Gospels based upon a Christological focus on Jesus' words, actions and the events surrounding his life, for today's postmodern church.

And as I listened to Dr. N.T. Wright's lecture at Calvin College's January 2012 Series today I was reminded of my beloved mentor and teacher Dr. Carl Hoch (NT Studies Biblical Studies, GRTS) as he taught us of Jesus from both the Hebrew OT and Greek NT (using the original languages of each no less! And requiring us to do the same). Thereupon he wove theme upon theme, narrative upon narrative, word upon word, nuance upon nuance, from Genesis to Revelation, recounting God's revelation through Israel's storied histories culminating in the personage and ministry of their Messiah King, called Jesus. Who had come to rebirth mankind to God's restored Kingdom through the burden of the Cross and through the intrigue of the early Church that would gather believing men and women unto itself from all the nations of the earth. For twelve or more years I had had the great privilege of Dr. Hoch's friendship/mentorship and loved to trouble him no end to the questions racing around my youthful head while absorbing as much as I could before his untimely departure years later after I had left both church and school.

So that upon hearing N.T. "Tom" Wright (as he prefers to be called) rehearse these same themes today I was reminded just how thorough the good doctor had been at revealing biblical thematic narratives and tying each together in grand, majestic strokes. Themes that didn't simply lay in your head but stirred your heart to action and caused your soul to soar at God's majesty. Themes that inspired ministries to leap forth within the larger context of God's love and grace. That didn't get lost in the popular rhetoric of today's evangelical topics. But would hold to hermeneutical context and the centrality of God's revelatory message assuaging all contemporary discussions into new streams of thought and profundity, towards innovative ministries and benevolent works.


Dr. Carl B. Hoch, Jr.
Prof. of NT, GRTS, 1974-1999

Consequently, How God Became King, is Tom Wright's review of the Gospels through the lens of OT which opens up the relevancy of the life of Jesus beyond our own theological minimization's as we would hurry on past the Gospels to the Apostle Paul's writings to discover God's deeper truths. Wright wrote his book on the Gospels to help correct such egregious error and to re-enliven our imaginations with Jesus' own unique witness to the living God of Israel.

And so I think you will enjoy this lecture as much as I did today.  I have included both his lecture given at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan (January 2012) and the same lecture in video format through Moody Bible of Chicago (October 2011). I have not listened to the Moody series but trust it to be measurably the same.

And then, in a month or so from now, Tom Wright's book by the same title should be released to help provide words and content to what we are listening to now. So then, sit back and, with pen and paper in hand, enjoy hearing the wonders of our God and King from this fine and widely-respected English theologian! Enjoy.

R.E. Slater
January 24, 2012
 
Go here to hear the audio file of
Dr. Wright at Calvin College presented on January 24, 2012
  

How God Became King
by Dr. N.T. Wright
Moody Bible Institute, October 2011



The Forgotten Story Of The Gospels. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright reveals how we have been misreading the Gospels for centuries, powerfully restoring the lost central story of the Scripture: that the coronation of God through the acts of Jesus was the climax of human history. Wright fills the gaps that centuries of misdirection have opened up in our collective spiritual story, tracing a narrative from Eden, to Jesus, to today.

Wright’s powerful re-reading of the Gospels helps us re-align the focus of our spiritual beliefs, which have for too long been focused on the afterlife. Instead, the forgotten story of the Gospels reveals why we should understand that our real charge is to sustain and cooperate with God's kingdom here and now. Echoing the triumphs of "Simply Christian" and "The Meaning of Jesus," Wright’s "How God Became King" is required reading for any Christian searching to understand their mission in the world today.




Review - N.T. Wright’s Forthcoming Book – How God Became King

by Michael F. Bird
Oct 20th, 2011

N.T. Wright’s forthcoming book from HarperOne is called How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels, which deals with the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the Cross. That is the subject that Wright spoke about at both Fuller and IBR last year. Due out March 2012. Here is the blurb:

Since ancient times, the church has sought to distance itself from its Jewish roots and has developed teachings on the Bible and about Jesus that actually serve as a barrier for reading the New Testament for what it is: the story of the coronation of God through Jesus at the fulfillment of Jewish history and as the climax of all human history. Award-winning New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop, N.T. Wright peels back the barriers to reveal the lost story they tell. He begins by asking why each gospel starts by connecting back to the Old Testament in a dramatic way, repeatedly making the point that Jesus was the Messiah, God’s chosen one, who is continuing a story that began in Eden. Not only does Wright reveal a new way of looking at what the writers of the New Testament were attempting to reveal, he also lays the groundwork for how this new perspective can transform how we see our role and duties in the world today. Whereas the old framework caused the church to be preoccupied with our future fate (i.e., who’s going to be in heaven and who will be left out), this new paradigm sees our current life as under the reign of an active and caring God who wants his kingdom made incarnate in this world by the church. The forgotten story shows us that we should read our charge as: “Are you cooperating with God’s kingdom here and now?” This book will revolutionize how we read the Gospels and how the church understands its role in the world.


Can't Get Enough NT Wright?
 
Here's another great source of information found
in this Relevancy22's sidebar under the title "blogger link list"



OR


continue to a related article -

N.T. Wright asks:
Have we gotten heaven all wrong?



OR


continue to Relevancy22's sidebar
for more articles on or about this theologian

Theologian N.T. Wright



 

R.E. Slater - The Power of Our Words (poem)




The Power of Our Words
by R.E. Slater

Spake Adam -

In the hurry of the day,
In the brevity of life,
At the dawn of creation,
Before the Tree of Life,

“Giveth to me the power of your words…”

To bind or create
Make dead or alive
Burden or uplift
Withhold or provoke
Bury or resurrect
Expire or inspire
Imprison or release
Prevent or excite
Dissuade or arouse
Divide or multiply

To add or subtract
Fortify or offend
Declare or hide
Begin or end
Wake or sleep
Enrich or impoverish
Transpire or cease
Help or hurt
Heal or harm
Transform or change

Spake the Voice of the Almighty -

Like the oceans of turbulent seas,
Like the storm in thunderous deeps,
On birdsong as gentle as the breeze,
As love ever bent in tender kiss,

“Bless now the power of My words…”


R.E. Slater
October 31, 2011

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved







Jefferson Bethke: Jesus, Religion, & Relationships, Part 1



"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."

From an introduction to Virgil's The Aeneid, by Fred Will



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



POINT



A poem I wrote to highlight the difference between Jesus and false religion. In the scriptures Jesus received the most opposition from the most religious people of his day. At it's core Jesus' gospel and the good news of the Cross is in pure opposition to self-righteousness/self-justification. Religion is man centered, Jesus is God-centered. This poem highlights my journey to discover this truth. Religion either ends in pride or despair. Pride because you make a list and can do it and act better than everyone, or despair because you can't do your own list of rules and feel "not good enough" for God. With Jesus though you have humble confident joy because He represents you, you don't represent yourself and His sacrifice is perfect putting us in perfect standing with God!

- Jefferson Bethke



COUNTERPOINT



For the sake of clarity, I did not misunderstand Bethke's point. I believe his point is that Jesus is full of grace, and as a fellow Christian, I wholeheartedly concur. My critique is of his careless use of language. He is an admirable wordsmith, but with such a gift comes a HUGE responsibility to use words RIGHTLY. I understand that he meant "bad religion," not good religion or all religion, but he did not make this clear enough, which is unfortunate for all his listeners who have found grace in and through their religion. I am not against the guy. He is talented. But he missed the mark.

So my point is . . . he can continue to preach the same thing in the same way, touch a lot of hearts, but also leave a trail of harm with his misrepresentation of religion, OR he can keep at it but improve by developing a more robust portrayal of the Gospel, which would do a lot more good for everyone. May Christ have mercy on us all.

I sincerely wish Bethke the best,

Kyndall

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

An Observation or Two...

Both Jeff and Kyndall have made amazing observations and have given very clear commentary as to their position on the topic of religion and true spirituality. Jeff's position is to discard religion and start over (most probably to repeat all of religion's past mistakes as well as its accomplishments). Kyndall's is to keep what we've got and to move forward trying to fix it where it needs fixing. One is idealistic. The other practical. One wants to throw the baby-out-with-the-bath-water and the other doesn't wish to recreate-the-wheel (forgive me for my cliches!). But both, from their separate positions and viewpoints, wish to see their Christian faith behave better. To recognize its strengths and its weaknesses. To create a spiritual space that connects the reality of Christianity-in-the-name-of-Jesus with the appropriate observance of that reality. And in that observance maintain a high spiritual plane of belief mixed with love, truth, justice, and hope.

The Church of the 21st Century has a multitude of voices pulling upon its heart to do a million different things... and what better than to have a million different voices doing just that... each believer tugging upon the heartstrings of God seeking Holy Spirit empowerment for faith, witness, life, breath and duty. I believe God is big enough to live up to our expectations even though in ourselves, and in the institutions we build, we may fail and may only some of God's light but never enough of who He is and what He is about.... Still, it is God's task of spiritual enlightenment. Spiritual empowerment. Spiritual victories. Witness. Transformation. And rebirth. Let us be patient with God as we must be patient with each other. There is no right or wrong if our heart is set upon God for His direction and guidance. The only wrong that can be done is if we do nothing at all. Let us therefore lift up one another in encouragement and challenge. To pray for one another. And learn to work with one another. And be confidant in the knowledge that God has many workers, seekers, followers, and faithful. They are numbered throughout the world wishing to uplift the name of Jesus. Be patient. And be faithful in prayer that gives rebirth to all the world. God will end what He has begun. He will make perfect what has been made imperfect. He is our confidance. Our power. Our Hope. Our Redeemer.

R.E. Slater
January 24, 2011



Continue...

Commentary:
Jesus, Religion, and Relationships
Part 2 -