Critique of Tim Keller's "Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople"

Through this past year we have been considering the arguments for an evolutionary creation to determine its validity as a 21st Century scientific theory for the origins of the cosmos and mankind specifically. And in this determination to reflect upon more recent Christian insights in favor of an evolutionary creation over the more traditional theory of a literal, seven day creation. In the fall of 2009 Tim Keller, a pastor of one of New York City's successful evangelical churches, presented his understanding of a Christian-based evolutionary mindset to that of a non-Christian mindset, as well as to his own preference for the more traditional view of biblical creation. Here are my first impressions when reading through Dr. Keller's paper with what we have earlier discussed this past year....

R.E. Slater

April 11, 2012 

Critiquing Tim Keller's Evolutionary Position

by Biologos

Tim Keller is pastor and founder of Redeemer

Presbyterian Church in New York City

Introduction

The six-part series that begins today is taken from a paper Dr. Keller presented at the first BioLogos Theology of Celebration Workshop in October of 2009. It considers three main clusters of questions lay people raise with their pastors when introduced to the teaching that biological evolution and biblical orthodoxy can be compatible. As a pastor and evangelist himself, Keller takes these concerns seriously and offers suggestions for addressing them without requiring believers adopt a particular view or accept a definitive answer. In this first installment, Keller gives an overview of the tension between biblical and scientific accounts on origins, before addressing the specific issues and responses in subsequent posts.

Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople, Part 1

http://biologos.org/blog/creation-evolution-and-christian-laypeople-part-1

Dr. Keller begins by presenting an argument by non-Christian scientists that a thinking person cannot believe in the Bible while accepting scientific findings. This as been discussed in multiple articles here on this web blog and we would find consent with Dr. Keller's assessment that this, of course, cannot be true, while realizing that Dr. Keller prefers the traditional presentation of the Genesis story from a non-evolutionary standpoint as versus our evolutionary presentation from a Christian standpoint.

We can also find agreement with Dr. Keller's presentation of the Christian philosopher Peter van Inwagen's statement for God's inclusion of mankind's religious belief into the human genetic structure from early on (which I think is an incredible admission by a traditional creationist, and a point of commanality that we can build upon). Consequently, by this theorized act of God humanity has gradually become more-and-more distinguishable from the animal kingdom:

For example, there have been a number of efforts to argue that there may be evolutionary reasons for religious belief. That is, it may be that capacity for religious belief is ‘adaptive’ or is connected to other adaptive traits, passed down from our ancestors because they supported survival and reproduction. There is no consensus about this among evolutionary biologists. Nevertheless, its very proposal seems to be completely antithetical to any belief that God is objectively real. However, Christian philosopher Peter van Inwagen asks:

Suppose that God exists and wants supernaturalistic belief to be a human universal, and sees (he would see this if it were true) that certain features would be useful for human beings to have— useful from an evolutionary point of view: conducive to survival and reproduction—would naturally have the consequence that supernaturalistic belief would be in due course a human universal. Why shouldn’t he allow those features to be the cause of the thing he wants?—rather as the human designer of a vehicle might use the waste heat from its engine to keep its passengers warm.³

Van Inwagen’s argument is sound. Even if science could prove that religious belief has a genetic component that we inherit from our ancestors, that finding is not incompatible with belief in the reality of God or even the truth of the Christian faith. There is no logical reason to preclude that God could have used evolution to predispose people to believe in God in general so that people would be able to consider true belief when they hear the gospel preached. This is just one of many places where the supposed incompatibility of orthodox faith with evolution begins to fade away under more sustained reflection.

After these introductory statements Dr. Keller then sets out four arguments that need resolvement if he, as a traditionalist, is to entertain evolutionary creationism from a Christian standpoint. By way of comment it must be noted that each of these areas of concern have been specifically addressed in detail during this past year blogging on my part and may be found through this blog's sidebars for further referencing and discussion....

1.  Biblical authority (cf. "bible, hermeneutics, science" sidebars)

• Is the bible authoritative or not?
• Are we simply left to pick and choose selective texts?

2.  Confusion of biology and philosophy (cf. "bible, hermeneutics, science" sidebars)

• EBP, Evolutionary Biological Process (allows for mechanism superintended by God)
• GTE, the 'Grand Theory of Everything' (is strictly a mechanistic interpretation by science)

3.  Historicity of Adam and Eve (cf. "bible, hermeneutics, science" sidebars)

• Literal? Symbolic?
• The problem of sin and the Fall

4. The problem of violence and evil (cf, "theism, specifically relational and process theism; sovereignty and free will; suffering and evil; and, calvinism" sidebars)

• Why do we have suffering and evil in the world?

Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople, Part 2

http://biologos.org/blog/creation-evolution-and-christian-laypeople-part-2

Question #1: If God used evolution to create, then we can’t take Genesis 1 literally, and if we can’t do that, why take any other part of the Bible literally?

Answer: The way to respect the authority of the Biblical writers is to take them as they want to be taken. Sometimes they want to be taken literally, sometimes they don’t. We must listen to them, not impose our thinking and agenda on them.

These are valid questions and again have been answered in previous articles (cf. "bible, hermeneutics, science" sidebars). It is the preference of this web blog to take the Bible literally by focusing on biblical authority and authenticity among other subjects.

We have also focused quite diligently upon the relevancy of communication of the biblical text through postmodern scrutiny as well. A scrutiny that sees the Bible as always relevant (or open-ended in relational/process terms) and not as a static set of fiat statements, irrelevant liturgy, closed-end creeds and subjective religious belief sets left to us in the cold light of Calvinism and Classic Theism.

Under the sidebar "Bible, Hermeneutics, Science" will also be found further discussion related to the various texts found in the Bible: poetic, prose, narrative, historical, parable, apocalyptic, etc, which will relate to topics relative to the Genesis 1-2 text.

Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople, Part 3

http://biologos.org/blog/creation-evolution-and-christian-laypeople-part-3

Question#2: If biological evolution is true—does that mean that we are just animals driven by our genes, and everything about us can be explained by natural selection?

Answer: No. Belief in evolution as a biological process is not the same as belief in evolution as a world-view.

In several specific articles we have discriminated time-and-again the difference between a Christian view of Evolutionary Creation as versus the more mundane non-Christian view of "Darwinism" or "Scientific Naturalism." Dr. Keller uses the term "Grand Theory of Everything," or GTE, to describe this latter view of Darwinism from an agnostic, or atheistic, viewpoint. He allows that Christians may consider an "Evolutionary Biological Process," or EBE, as a countering scientific explanation without requiring the non-Christian philosophical view of GTE. In this we would be in agreement here with Dr. Keller:

Another very important area where we must ‘push back’ against GTE is in its efforts to explain away moral intuitions. An excellent recent volume where, again, Christian philosophers take the lead is Jeffrey Schloss, ed. The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion (Oxford, 2009.) See especially Christian Smith’s chapter “Does Naturalism Warrant a Moral Belief in Universal Benevolence and Human Rights?” (By the way, his conclusion is ‘no.’) So what does this mean? Many orthodox Christians who believe in EBP often find themselves attacked by those Christians who do not. But it might reduce the tensions between believers over evolution if they could make common cause against GTE. Most importantly, it is the only way to help Christian laypeople make the distinction in their minds between evolution as biological mechanism and as Theory of Life.

Dr. Keller then returns to his first consideration in Part 1 of whether "religion" has been planted mechanistically by God into the human genome structure to circumvent the GTE statement that man's religious nature is simply a byproduct of evolution rather than a hominid characteristic distinguishing it from other living species. In a convoluted argument both for-and-against his statement Dr. Keller then comes back to the side of the traditional creation theory to avoid what seems most naturally a true assessment of God sovereign acts in the development of mankind by a Christian evolutionist (even up to this present time and beyond!):

Many know about Alvin Plantinga’s ‘Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism’ in which, much like C.S. Lewis in his book Miracles, he argues that “Evolution is interested (so to speak) only in adaptive behavior, not in true belief. Natural selection doesn’t care what you believe; it is interested only in how you behave.”⁵ The argument goes like this. Does natural selection (alone) give us cognitive faculties (sense perception, rational intuition about those perceptions, and our memory of them) that produce true beliefs about the real world? In as far as true belief produces survival behavior—yes. But who can say how far that is? If a theory makes it impossible to trust our minds, then it also makes it impossible to be sure about anything our minds tell us--including macro-evolution itself-- and everything else.⁶ Any theory that makes it impossible to trust our minds is self-defeating.

When considering the Christian Evolutionary Creation (EC) as versus the GTE it makes for a great set of philosophical arguments that would seem to nullify one another:

EC: "God has put His Image upon our genetic structure."

GTE: "No, man's cognitive facilities have produced your sense of "God."

EC: "Man's sense of God is there because they were built in to give us our cognitive facilities."

GTE: "You have answered your own argument!"

EC: "Aye, verily, and so have you!" J


Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople, Part 4
http://biologos.org/blog/creation-evolution-and-christian-laypeople-part-4

Question #3: If biological evolution is true and there was no historical Adam and Eve how can we know where sin and suffering came from?

Answer: Belief in evolution can be compatible with a belief in an historical fall and a literal Adam and Eve. There are many unanswered questions around this issue and so Christians who believe God used evolution must be open to one another’s views.

Says Dr. Keller thus far:

"My answers to the first two sets of questions are basically negative. I resist the direction of inquirer’s thought. I don’t believe you have to take Genesis 1 as a literal account, and I don’t think that to believe human life came about through EBP you necessarily must support evolution as the GTE.

"However, I find the concerns of this question much more well-grounded. Indeed, I must disclose, I share them. Many orthodox Christians who believe God used EBP to bring about human life not only do not take Genesis 1 as history, but also deny that Genesis 2 is an account of real events. Adam and Eve, in their view, were not historical figures but an allegory or symbol of the human race. Genesis 2, then, is a symbolic story or myth which conveys the truth that human beings all have and do turn away from God and are sinners."

His concern is one of describing the reality of sin and evil if there is no literal figure of Adam or Eve. In a small way I have attempted an answer to both dilemmas in the following post:

How God Created by Evolution:

A Proposed Theory of Man's Evolutionary Development
by R.E. Slater

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/01/resolving-genesis-story-between.html

Moreover, I accept Kenneth Kitchen's past dictum that there is truism in the Genesis 1 account and will continue to work towards resolving this conundrum.... That is to say, to me, Genesis 1 reads like a mythological poem that is TRUE - and is, in this sense, not to be read as a fabled myth, as is commonly thought, but rather as a true essay written in mythological terms to the non-Christian. Consequently, I feel that there is more work to be done in explaining the Genesis creation account with parallel, modern day, evolutionary equivalents if Christianity is to proceed in a scientifically relevant way. Thus, Kitchen's comment certainly would explain my current understanding as well, and to that end I have been considering a future article that would work on the pros and cons of EC where the themes of Genesis 1 are further explored in a similar vein to the earlier proposal I wrote (above) on additionally selected theological/spiritual topics:

The ancient Near East did not historicize myth (i.e. read it as imaginary ‘history’.) In fact, exactly the reverse is true—there was, rather, a trend to ‘mythologize’ history, to celebrate actual historical events and people in mythological terms…³  - Kenneth Kitchen

However, where it concerns Dr. Keller's argument from the basis of Paul's understanding is where I will have to agree to disagree. Paul's ancient non-scientific mindset cannot be considered apropos in this discussion. What can be considered apropos is Paul's theological account by the Spirit of God of man's fallen condition and his consequential sin. These theologic facts are true otherwise there is no sense given for the Christian story of God's redemption, salvation, and atonement of mankind. In fact, there is no story of God at all at this point except as a useless religious concept that can only help mankind in sociological terms of ethics, morality and common human development in its storied evolutionary history. A history devoid of any meaning beyond the observance that we live, we die, and our species continues on until someday the cosmos goes cold and black.

Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople, Part 5

http://biologos.org/blog/creation-evolution-and-christian-laypeople-part-5

Dr. Keller now turns to "sin and salvation" saying,

Some may respond, “Even though we don’t think there was a literal Adam, we can accept the teaching of Genesis 2 and Romans 5, namely that all human beings have sinned and that through Christ we can be saved. So the basic Biblical teaching is intact, even if we do not accept the historicity of the story of Adam and Eve.” I think that assertion is too simplistic.

Here, he pretty much re-iterates what I previously had just mentioned in my last paragraph of Part 4, so that I find we are both in agreement with our concerns except for his preference for the more simplistic, literal explanation, for an Adam and an Eve.

Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople, Part 6

http://biologos.org/blog/creation-evolution-and-christian-laypeople-part-6

It seems that Dr. Keller finally relents and thinks through the proposition of Evolutionary Creationism by positing that from the population of hominids existing on the planet at the time, that God chose one species to endow with tool making ability. However, we know that tool making ability pushes primitive mankind back into a far more distant past than simply the homo sapien time period. Consequently, Dr. Keller has suggested a time that cannot be remembered through even the simplest of oral histories if we were to go millions of years into the past. If, however, he is suggesting that he is referring to the more recent development of the homo sapien society, a society that in its simplest forms was still hundreds of thousands of years removed from Abraham and Moses, then we still have a problem of oral transmission. If we continue to push Dr. Keller's hypothesis forward from the old stone age, to the new stone age, and into the pre-bronze age of ancient near eastern civilization than we are beginning to come to the possibility of transmitting a "realized creation story." One that may be possible to transmit orally many thousands of years later into the didactic annuals of Hebraic narrative history. But still, you cannot have a first hand account of creation itself. Nor of man himself. It can only be a creation account given by God because no man lived to witness creation's development. There is only the cosmic, geologic, biologic, and fossil record to tell us what may have taken place.

And thus you have yet another problem. The problem of the story of creation amidst the problem of the creation of God's story claimed by many believers as true, and by as many non-believers as not true. From this author's perspective it is true. But how to bring its perspective to scientific probability will ultimately be one of faith. Not scientific argument. Even from an evolutionary creationist viewpoint. The times are too distant and the skepticism of our hearts seemingly unabated. Consequently, as much as we try to describe a reasonable scientific view that accords with 21st century discoveries, still, in the end, it comes down to faith. Is God real? Is He out there? Can He be known? Has He made Himself known? If He has then how did He manage that? By what process? Is what we have in the Christian Bible true? How can we know that its true? How can we trust ourselves in an evolutionary sense to know this truth? In a philosophical sense?  How have we made the Bible its own god? How are we limiting its words with our own words? How can we hear God if we can't hear one another? The questions can go on, and on, and on. But thanks to Dr. Keller's willingness to air his concerns, the Biologos foundation to shape better Christian arguments, the innumerable theologians and scientists committed to discovery, and today's crop of relevant blog writers, we will have no end of discussion on these subjects. But for my part I believe God is real. Is knowable. That He has somehow, and in someway, mysteriously communicated with us in many ways, including the transmission of His Word that we call the Bible. That God has a plan. A purpose. A will. And it all starts and ends with His Son Jesus. Who is the God of the universe. And Savior of our souls. So then join with me on this never-ending journey of creation, redemption, renewal and the divine-human cooperative we call "walking with God" and let us explore these mighty realms of mystery impassioned by the relentless footprint of man.

R.E. Slater

April 11, 2012

Biologos - Fearful Symmetries

http://biologos.org/blog/fearful-symmetries
March 15, 2012

"The BioLogos Forum" is pleased to feature essays from various guest voices in the science-and-religion dialogue. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

Today's entry was written by Stephen Barr. Stephen M. Barr is professor of physics at the University of Delaware and Director of its Bartol Research Institute. Barr’s areas of specialty are theoretical particle physics and cosmology, and in 2011 he was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society “for original contributions to grand unified theories, CP violation, and baryogenesis." He is also author of Modern Physics and Ancient Faith and A Student’s Guide to Natural Science.

In his essay Fearful Symmetries, published in the October 2010 issue of the journal First Things, physicist Stephen Barr offered a critique of the modern tendency to make the investigative strategy of reductionism into a “metaphysical prejudice.” It is a mistake, he says, to take the extraordinary success of the scientific practice of looking at things in smaller and simpler parts as proof that “the further we push toward a more basic understanding of things, the more we are immersed in meaningless, brutish bits of matter.”

Perusing the writings of atheistic scientists and philosophers like Daniel Dennett, one could easily get the impression that arriving at a simpler explanation for something equates to a revelation that things are “lower, cruder, and more trivial.” But at the heart of Barr’s critique is the observation that in fundamental physics and advanced mathematics, “simpler” does not mean more chaotic and inchoate, but rather more elegant and beautiful. Those who hold to a philosophical reductionism “overlook the hidden forces and principles” that govern the processes of cosmic evolution.

Barr’s article lays out the way that the work of scientists and mathematicians exploring the fundamental principles of physics (from Kepler to Einstein to those currently running the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland) actually suggests “that order does not really emerge from chaos, as we might naively assume; it always emerges from greater and more impressive order already present at a deeper level.” This excerpt gives his first example, the starting point from which he guides us into strangely beautiful world of particle physics, and towards the discovery that “matter, although mindless itself, is [itself] the product of a Mind of infinite profundity and infinite simplicity.”

Fearful Symmetries

“Let’s start with a simple but instructive example of how order can appear to emerge spontaneously from mere chaos through the operation of natural forces. Imagine a large number of identical marbles rolling around randomly in a shoe box. If the box is tilted, all the marbles will roll down into a corner and arrange themselves into what is called the “hexagonal closest packing” pattern. (This is the same pattern one sees in oranges stacked on a fruit stand or in cells in a beehive.) This orderly structure emerges as the result of blind physical forces and mathematical laws. There is no hand arranging it. Physics requires the marbles to lower their gravitational potential energy as much as possible by squeezing down into the corner, which leads to the geometry of hexagonal packing.

At this point it seems as though order has indeed sprung from mere chaos. To see why this is wrong, however, consider a genuinely chaotic situation: a typical teenager’s bedroom. Imagine a huge jack tilting the bedroom so that everything in it slides into a corner. The result would not be an orderly pattern but instead a jumbled heap of lamps, furniture, books, clothing, and what have you.

Why the difference? Part of the answer is that, unlike the objects in the bedroom, the marbles in the box all have the same size and shape. But there’s more to it. Put a number of spoons of the same size and shape into a box and tilt it, and the result will be a jumbled heap. Marbles differ from spoons because their shape is spherical. When spoons tumble into a corner, they end up pointing every which way, but marbles don’t point every which way, because no matter which way a sphere is turned it looks exactly the same. 

These two crucial features of the marbles—having the same shape and having a spherical shape—should be understood as principles of order that are already present in the supposedly chaotic situation before the box was tilted. In fact, the more we reduce to deeper explanations, the higher we go. This is because, in a sense that can be made mathematically precise, the preexisting order inherent in the marbles is greater than the order that emerges after the marbles arrange themselves. This requires some explanation. 

Both the preexisting order and the order that emerges involve symmetry, a concept of central importance in modern physics, as we’ll see. Mathematicians and physicists have a peculiar way of thinking about symmetry: A symmetry is something that is done. For example, if one rotates a square by 90 degrees, it looks the same, so rotating by 90 degrees is said to be a symmetry of the square. So is rotating by 180 degrees, 270 degrees, or a full 360 degrees. A square thus has exactly four symmetries. 

Not surprisingly, the hexagonal (6) pattern the marbles form has six symmetries (rotating by any multiple of 60 degrees: 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, and 360 degrees). A sphere, on the other hand, has an infinite number of symmetries—doubly infinite, in fact, since rotating a sphere by any angle about any axis leaves it looking the same. And, what’s more, the symmetries of a sphere include all the symmetries of a hexagon.

If we think this way about symmetry, careful analysis shows that, when marbles arrange themselves into the hexagonal pattern, just six of the infinite number of symmetries in the shape of the marbles are ex-pressed or manifested in their final arrangement. The rest of the symmetries are said, in the jargon of physics, to be spontaneously broken. So, in the simple example of marbles in a tilted box, we can see that symmetry isn’t popping out of nowhere. It is being distilled out of a greater symmetry already present within the spherical shape of the marbles.”

In the full essay, Barr gives a richer description of how this most basic kind of symmetry is just one sort of order, and how even this form points to other much more complex kinds of symmetry whose properties may be described only through the tools of complex mathematics. As he says, “the symmetries that characterize the deepest laws of physics are mathematically richer and stranger than the ones we encounter in everyday life.” But even more important than the fact that such mathematical concepts exist and are beautiful, more important even than the way such esoteric mathematical symmetries have suggested imminently practical experimental projects, is the way they point to a universe that is anything but brutish and trivial, though its elegance may be hard to see:

“It is true that the cosmos was at one point a swirling mass of gas and dust out of which has come the extraordinary complexity of life as we experience it. Yet, at every moment in this process of development, a greater and more impressive order operates within—an order that did not develop but was there from the beginning. In the upper world, mind, thought, and ideas make their appearance as fruit on the topmost branches of an evolutionary tree. Below the surface, we see the taproots of reality, the fundamental laws of physics that shimmer with ideas of profound simplicity.”

This essay appears with the permission of First Things. To read Barr’s complete essay, please click here.

R.E. Slater - Resurrection: Becoming Overwhelmed by God, Part 1

I am always moved by the simply video below of a young woman's first reactions to hearing sound for the first time. First in hearing her voice. Then her cries. And then her laughter. Helplessly I want to cry with her, then laugh with her, as tears of joy wash over her as she realizes she can hear and begins to move through the barrier of deafness that once had been her daily companion. But no longer. As she recognizes the strange noise that we know as sound for the first time in her life.

And I cannot help but think how we have experienced the same strong reactions when discovering God's love for us for the first time. When understanding the meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection - what we call the atonement of God - for our sins. When learning that death had been our daily companion until Jesus came and removed its presence from us. Now death can no longer cling to us nor keep us in its continual broken estate separated from God our Maker who has become our glorious Redeemer.

For in our brokenness, and by our sins, has the mystery of God's love become powerfully present in us to reveal His eternal love and purposes for our lives. Purposes that would lead us to realize for the first time that God is there. That He has always loved us. Always been present. Always moved in our lives to bring us back to Himself. That we have always eternally mattered to Him. That He has moved heaven and earth to make us one with Himself. To redeem us. To make us sons and daughters of His new creation. No matter the sin. No matter the wrongs committed in this life. No matter the crimes. All may be redeemed from brokenness and sin.

And in those first, early experiences (or embraces) of God to our minds and hearts and soul, this very powerful revelation of God's presence at work in our lives overwhelms us with a sublimity no less different than we see here present with this young woman hearing sound for the first time. Our only response can be one of thanksgiving. Relief. Gratitude. And in this case, repentance, from our former selves, wrongs and harms, that we have committed against God's grace and mercy.

But these early experiences are never the first, nor the last experiences, we will have of God. God's presence is a continual reality for every human. A presence presaging the call to repentance and salvation for those who have stubbornly refused God in their lives to their harm and destruction. Who cling to sin and death and die every day to those forces of eternal lament and woe. But for those who obey God's call to salvation, the continuing presence of God portends the daily reality of what it means to become participants in God's renewal of the earth, of society, and of even ourselves. In a lifetime of revelatory awakenings (or awareness) we, as the children of God, are renewed by the Spirit of God in ways that will make our faith real. Living. Different. "How so?" you may ask.... Your faith will be different each day. Different each Easter season. Different each Christmas season. Each Sunday worship our faith in God will grow and change us into His image. Each fellowship gathering it will move us. Each work of service, or ministry, or mission for God, will see our faith redeem us. Recreate us. Renew us. Through every act of kindness. Every act of thoughtfulness. Forgiveness. Mercy.

This living faith in God will be present in every family event, in every friendship, re-creating solidarity, restoration, renewal in us, through us, and into everyone around us. In every way God will recreate our lives as receptors - and transmitters - of His love, and mercy, and grace. We who have found forgiveness now will bear forgiveness to all around us. We who are in the depths of depression and guilt, through God's Spirit, will have His presence to help us in our very personal states of despair and purgatory. We can find dreams restored. Hopes and passions renewed. Anger, meanness, unkindness - even hate! - no longer to have the place in our hearts that it once did. And if they do, we will find our lust for them will not be like it once had been. Those sins of our spirit will become distasteful to us. Harmful. Agonizing our souls. Which will wound us by our sin. And will need the mighty transformation of the Spirit to disengage us from our wounds. From our personal toxicities displayed to another's venom in our lives. Revenge leaves us. Enmity leaves us. In every way, in every place, with every person, we are challenged by the death and resurrection of Christ working its redemption in our lives. Into our very beings like a mustard seed growing into a mighty tree of faith through practice and hope. We will find ourselves in the process of becoming by the Spirit of God.

For God has come. And He has come to stay in our lives. And is making "all things new within, and without, our lives." On seldom occassions will we behold immediate and true reform that completely conquers the sins and lust of the flesh that use to hold us so tightly with an ease not thought possible, or could be true of us in Christ, once held in the grip of our former wickedness and death. At other times this spiritual reform, or redemption, will come so slowly as to pain us over its stubbornness to leave us in our earthly selves, in our flesh and addictions, from our formerly corrupt hearts fearing to change. Resisting change. Defeating us with our every breath and act through this life. For even in our state of reform we will seem to deceive ourselves and simply carry over our old habits into our new way of life, in the church, in ministry and with others. And yet God is not done with us for we are held by His grace and mercy until the end of our lives when all will be new and redeemed. We are ever in a relationship of becoming overwhelmed by our Savior God.

R.E. Slater

April 10, 2012

This is the reaction of a young woman hearing for the first time…

Uploaded by sloanchurman on Sep 26, 2011

I was born deaf and 8 weeks ago I received a hearing implant.

This is the video of them turning it on and me hearing myself

for the first time. :)

Edit: For those of you who have asked the implant I received

was the Esteem model offered by Envoy Medical.

Rob Bell - Resurrection: Becoming Overwhelmed by God, Part 2

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/rob-bell-resurrection-becoming.html

And God said, "You Are Mine"

John 17

English Standard Version (ESV)

The High Priestly Prayer

17 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, ² since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴ I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

⁶ “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. ⁸ For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹ I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. ¹¹ And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. ¹² While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³ But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. ¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.^{[a] 16} They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them^[b] in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And for their sake I consecrate myself,^[c] that they also may be sanctified^[d] in truth.

²⁰ “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Footnotes:

1. John 17:15 Or from evil
2. John 17:17 Greek Set them apart (for holy service to God)
3. John 17:19 Or I sanctify myself; or I set myself apart (for holy service to God)
4. John 17:19 Greek may be set apart (for holy service to God)

Resurrection: Rob Bell

Resurrection: Rob Bell from Rob Bell on Vimeo.

Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity. One that is Postmodern. Part 3/3

Reflections on Cognitive Dissonance:

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas and Newsweek

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/04/reflections-on-cognitive-dissonance-hauerwas-and-newsweek/

by Roger Olson

posted April 6, 2012

Recently I’ve been reading a lot of Stanley Hauerwas who Time magazine labeled America’s “best theologian.” (Hauerwas famously responded that “best” is not a theological term.) Hauerwas, of course, is renowned for emphasizing the constitutive nature of the church for Christianity. He has even been criticized for putting the church in the place of God. For him, there can be no such thing as churchless Christianity; the church is the gospel (when it is being the church).

Cover Photo Inside Newsweek

As I was walking through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport the other day (just a day before the “fierce fingers of God” raked through the metroplex) my eyes fell on the April 9 issue of Newsweek magazine. The cover story is “Forget the Church: Follow Jesus” by Andrew Sullivan. Now, the actual title of the article inside the magazine is “The Forgotten Jesus,” but the marketers who design covers translated that into “Forget the Church:…” The cover shows a young Jesus dressed in 21^st century hip clothes standing on a busy city street.

Andrew Sullivan’s article doesn’t quite live up to the cover title. Or the cover title doesn’t quite live up to the article. The subtitle reveals the author’s thesis: “Christianity has been destroyed by politics, priests, and get-rich evangelists. Ignore them…embrace him [Jesus].” Sullivan doesn’t actually recommend abandoning church altogether; what he recommends, to save Christianity, is for Christians to follow the examples of Thomas Jefferson and Francis of Assisi and abandon power (except the power of love, of course).

It’s a strange combination—Jefferson and Francis. I wonder what they would say to each other? (Ah! An idea for another imaginary conversation!) What Sullivan likes about Jefferson is not his denials of traditional Christian doctrines but his emphasis on Christian practices—especially the teachings of Jesus he approved of. (Sullivan seems to approve of the same ones.) What Sullivan likes about Francis is not his tree-hugging naturism but his self-sacrificing lifestyle of love including abjuring of worldly power.

The villains of Sullivan’s rather jaundiced view of Christianity today are politicians who use Jesus and Christianity to promote political agendas—both right and left. Also, religious figures who use power politics to promote their religious agendas—both liberal and conservative. True Christianity, he asserts, is “the religion of unachievement.” His prophecy? That “one day soon, when politics and doctrine and pride recede, it [true Christianity] will rise again.”

Okay, we’ve heard much of this before—many times. There’s much here to agree with and much with which one must disagree if one is any kind of traditional Christian. The main point is the implicit one—that authentic Christianity is individualistic. There is no mention here of the church; the church seems to be the problem. (Sullivan only mentions church leaders critically.)

Back to Hauerwas. What would Stanley say? I don’t know, but I’ll venture an educated guess.

I think Hauerwas would agree with Sullivan’s diagnosis of the crisis facing Christianity. Only Hauerwas calls it Constantinianism or Christendom—the idea that the thinking and active Christian’s task is to translate the gospel to make it intelligible to its cultured despisers and to interpret the gospel so that it can be useful for secular politics. I think Hauerwas would disagree with Sullivan’s solution which seems to be another way of making Christianity palatable—to those who despise the many corruptions of true Christianity which are all they seem to see.

I suspect the sanctifying of Jefferson would irk Hauerwas as would the secularizing of Francis. Oh, Sullivan pays lip service to Francis’ love for the sacraments and obedience to the church, but his overall portrait of Francis is of one who has basically abandoned the [official] church [of his day] to set up his own little roving band of homeless helpers.

My own response is that Sullivan is mostly right in what he decries and mostly wrong in what he suggests. Contemporary American Christianity is largely held captive to consumerism and power. (Sullivan overlooks the many alternative forms of Christianity that have not succumbed to cultural accommodation.) Christianity is not about supporting American values—whether they be right-wing or left-wing. But I think Sullivan is mostly wrong in what he promotes which seems to be rejection of doctrine and organized Christianity—the church.

The church in America needs reform, not abandonment. The church is just as much a part of the gospel as is individual “humility, service and sanctity.” In fact, you can get those (depending on what is meant by “sanctity”) without the gospel. The gospel includes the new community of God’s people living and worshiping and serving together in obedience to the Lord who lives in their midst through the Holy Spirit.

Sullivan’s article seems like another version of “spirituality without religion,” only the “without religion” part seems to mean “without the church.” The cover title isn’t totally wrong; it captures the thundering silence of the article about God’s people, the church, born on the Day of Pentecost and constantly in need of reform while continuing to be the presence of Christ in the world.

However, my cognitive dissonance becomes acute when I ask myself this question: What does a Christian do when he or she finds himself or herself in a society without any true church? That is, what to do in a society where virtually all “churches” are subverted by culture? It has happened. Luther found himself in that situation and started his own churches (by converting Catholic churches into Protestant ones). However, Luther [ironically] turned right around and accommodated his new churches movement to the feudal system, calling on the nobility of the German nation to violently suppress the revolt of the peasants.

Kierkegaard found himself in that situation in early 19^th century Denmark. Bonhoeffer found himself in that situation in mid-20^th century Nazi Germany. (The Confessing Church which he helped found was too timid for his taste.)

Hauerwas and Sullivan seem to agree on one thing: the American churches are almost totally subverted by American culture. Of course, both no doubt see points of light here and there, but, by-and-large, both take a very dim view of the situation of Christianity in America. I see Sullivan’s solution—abandon the church and create your own Christianity guided by Jesus and Francis and Jefferson. What is Hauerwas’ solution? That’s not as clear to me. When he extols the church as constitutive of the gospel, which “church” is he talking about? Is it some ideal church that doesn’t exist materially and empirically? I don’t think that’s his intention. But what, then?

Here is my cognitive dissonance problem: I largely agree with Sullivan’s and Hauerwas’ diagnosis of American Christianity (although I’m not quite as pessimistic as they seem to be). On the other hand, I disagree with their solutions while seeing SOME value in both. Hauerwas’ solution seems to be some kind of traditionalism (as Jeffrey Stout calls it in Democracy and Tradition). My question is: Whose tradition? If you really want tradition, I say, go join the Eastern Orthodox churches. Hauerwas attends an Episcopal church. To me, that’s the very epitome of Constantinianism. How can he attend a church whose Chief Governor is a monarch? Yet, some return to tradition is needed in the face of invented Christianities all over the place.

Sullivan’s solution of individualism is anathema to me. There is no such thing as churchless Christianity. On the other hand, to the extent that all the churches are culturally accommodated, “going it alone” and waiting for authentic Christianity to return would seem to be the only path. I know good Christian people who live in cities where, after visiting numerous churches for many years, they have concluded that non-culturally subverted churches are not present. But “going it alone” is not ideal.

Again, both Sullivan and Hauerwas challenge me and American Christianity. And prophetic criticism is needed. I just wish they had more viable solutions.

The Full Series:

Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.
Part 1/3

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity.html


Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.

Part 2/3

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity_05.html


Thinking About a New Kind of Christianity.

One that is Postmodern.
Part 3/3
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/04/thinking-about-new-kind-of-christianity_07.html



Related Articles:

What Wikipedia Has to Say About the Emerging/Emergent Church.

An Introduction.
Part 1/2

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


What Wikipedia Has to Say About the Emerging/Emergent Church.

My Personal Observations.
Part 2/2

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-wikipedia-has-to-say-about_26.html

 

 

"Why Read Books?" by Franz Kafka

As seen on onbeing.org
http://blog.onbeing.org/post/14113787778/altogether-i-think-we-ought-to-read-only-books

Photo by Celeste RC/Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

“Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn’t shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we’d be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like suicide. A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.” 

—Franz Kafka, from a letter to Oskar Pollak dated January 27, 1904.

Walter Brueggemann loosely cited this passage from Kafka in our interview being released this week and so, while fact-checking the script, we thought we’d verify for attribution. And, we wanted to read what he originally wrote. Following is the German version from which the English was translated:

“Ich glaube, man sollte überhaupt nur solche Bücher lesen, die einen beißen und stechen. Wenn das Buch, das wir lesen, uns nicht mit einem Faustschlag auf den Schädel weckt, wozu lesen wir dann das Buch? Damit es uns glücklich macht, wie Du schreibst? Mein Gott, glücklich wären wir eben auch, wenn wir keine Bücher hätten, und solche Bücher, die uns glücklich machen, könnten wir zur Not selber schreiben. Wir brauchen aber die Bücher, die auf uns wirken wie ein Unglück, das uns sehr schmerzt, wie der Tod eines, den wir lieber hatten als uns, wie wenn wir in Wälder verstoßen würden, von allen Menschen weg, wie ein Selbstmord, ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. Das glaube ich.”

Walter Brueggemann Recites Psalm 146
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor

Sometimes we have to make some difficult cuts for a one-hour show, but, with Walter Brueggemann, a kind of rock star in the theological world, it becomes even more challenging. The audio above includes one of these behind-the-scenes moments.

When Krista asked him to read a biblical verse that means something special to him, he responded by reading an excerpt of Psalm 146. Why he chose it and his explanation is even more intriguing.

Listen in and let us know how you react to his understanding of these verses.

http://blog.onbeing.org/post/14561400634/walter-brueggemann-recites-psalm-146-by-trent

Psalm 146

English Standard Version (ESV)

Put Not Your Trust in Princes

146 Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord, O my soul!
² I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

³ Put not your trust in princes,

in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
⁴ When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.

⁵ Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,

whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶ who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
⁷ who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸ the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

¹⁰ The Lord will reign forever,

your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!



Psalm 148

English Standard Version (ESV)

Praise the Name of the Lord

148 Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
² Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his hosts!

³ Praise him, sun and moon,

praise him, all you shining stars!
⁴ Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!

⁵ Let them praise the name of the Lord!

For he commanded and they were created.
⁶ And he established them forever and ever;
he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.<sup>[a]

7</sup> Praise the Lord from the earth,

you great sea creatures and all deeps,
⁸ fire and hail, snow and mist,
stormy wind fulfilling his word!

⁹ Mountains and all hills,

fruit trees and all cedars!
¹⁰ Beasts and all livestock,
creeping things and flying birds!

¹¹ Kings of the earth and all peoples,

princes and all rulers of the earth!
¹² Young men and maidens together,
old men and children!

¹³ Let them praise the name of the Lord,

for his name alone is exalted;
his majesty is above earth and heaven.
¹⁴ He has raised up a horn for his people,
praise for all his saints,
for the people of Israel who are near to him.
Praise the Lord!

Footnotes:

1. Psalm 148:6 Or it shall not be transgressed