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

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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

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Why Do We Need a Historical Adam? The Bible Doesn't.


"...Does Paul need Adam to be a historical figure in order to make his argument in Romans 5?
No, not really.... It is a fundamentally anological link, not a fundamentally historical link."
 
"Genesis is not best understood as a textbook on natural history."
 
"But it is getting harder and harder to make a case for a historical Adam."
 
"But, really, who needs a historical Adam? I don’t think Paul does. Nor do I think
that the essential trustworthiness of the Bible depends on Adam’s historicity."
 
- dm Williams
 
On August 16, 2011, I reported on a NPR broadcast questioning the existence of Adam and Eve, which then led to another follow up article on January 6, 2012. Rather than be annoyed and bothered by NPR's program it more-or-less spoke to me of moving in the right directions in apprehending how to read the bible from its own perspective rather than from my own perspective. That our epistemologies often get in the way of hearing God's Word because of what we think it is saying rather than what it is saying.
 
Unknown to me at the time, another fellow listener likewise responded similarly as I did by making analogies to another more recent figure, the little-celebrated physicist Robert Oppenheimer, by relating his atomic research to that of the Greek legend Prometheus, the god of fire. From there he correlated the apostle Paul's primitive understanding of the ancient biblical world to that of the creation story of Adam and Eve. His conclusions echoed mine own written many months earlier causing me to repost this more recent article here below so that when we turn our attention to the Genesis story of Creation at some later time we may have a little background in which to think through these areas of interpretation and dogma. One that sees the obstacles of a literal hermeneutic within a traditional Christian epistemology prohibiting an expanded bible deepened in its usages of prose and poetry. One that is set against the cultural regards of earlier, non-scientific, epistemologies built upon religious folklores and presumptions rather than upon historic renderings resulting from within the ancient biblical cultures themselves. Apparently, the durability of folklore was as true then as it is now, but with the significant difference that we should know better in our 21st Century scholarship, and should likewise be informing our congregations of this literary insight rather than withholding certain knowledge from them.

Consequently, Paul had no excuses because modern science would not be around for another 2000 years. And God's illumined inspiration did not intend to revise ancient man's understanding of the natural world, but to inform Paul and his readers of Christ's redemptive work of spiritual life relative to sin's ingress through humanity bringing death. The purpose of revelation then was to speak to God's salvation through His Son Jesus. It was not to correct the culture of Paul's day towards a more informed scientific understanding. No. They did not have the mindset to understand it. They did not have the scientific tools to prove it. They did not have the academic disciplines to study it (biology, math, chemistry, quantum physics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc). They did not have the academic communities to discuss it. They did not have the support of either their religion nor their communities to go forward in their investigations with it. Nor did they have the funding, students and livelihood to provide it. No, God spoke to Paul about the spiritual value and physical accomplishment of Jesus' death and resurrection. Not to correct their primitive understanding of the Earth and its environment. Nor to scientifically inform their creation stories based upon eons of oral legends handed down to them through their generations. In Paul's day, Adam may have been considered a real historical fact - or so we think - but Adam may as well have been considered a historic legend. Regardless, evolutionary theory dispels all creation accounts as myth and legend, regardless of the culture or society (be they Chinese, Mayan, Sumerian, Greek, or some other), else it is our sciences that have over reached... which does not seem to be the case. Consequently, it is our own epistemologies that now over reach and require dispelling when strictly interpreting the Genesis account of creation as literally true, rather than as an allegorically true revelation by the God of creation (and specifically, the Hebrew story of creation and none other).

But lest we become prideful we should always have the mindset to be testing our present day's knowledge against Scripture because both our mindset, and our knowledge, can-and-will change over time-and-circumstance. And for the record, God's understanding isn't the one needing to be changed here. No. It is our own. Our own epistemologies of interpretive language that we think we know but never conclusively in the promised light of future languages of discovery and means. God's Word is profound and we are no less committed to its revelation than previous generations of believers. However, it is we ourselves that must learn to be critiqued so that God's Word becomes more fully revealed and made known. That is the hope of updating the Christian faith within that of today's postmodern discoveries throughout its upcoming generations. We do not lessen the Word of God but do by these progressive acts make it more relevant to our times and generations. Should we not, we do then create an unwarranted skepticism and undue prejudice against God's Word causing it to feel more like a dying religion and irrelevant dogma to today's postmodern academia and cultures than the marvelously living faith that it really is.

This then is the task we have set before us as Christian men and women. Not to rewrite science according to our prejudices and religious beliefs. But to rewrite our epistemologies to better embrace God's holy Word. It is we ourselves that must stand in judgment. Not the bible. But our creeds and doctrines refusing the revelatory light of postmodernity's discoveries both old and new. As a Christian, we should never fear change and progress. But embrace it as it makes sense however belatedly we come to its acceptance after due time of prayerful study and theological review. And so it is now that the time has come to do this task. That our past 500 years of Reformation faith must now update itself if only by the evidence that the church's present laity, like myself, are beginning to notice that we are unnecessarily clinging overlong to yesteryear's dogmas and traditions. And that our pulpits and universities must likewise change. And as they do I suspect that God will survive our thoughts and imaginations for my trust in God is infinite. But my trust in man's knowledge is cursory at best knowing how we like to change things towards our own way of thinking (I speak both of the church and of our scientific communities). To that end we do the best we can in academic discipline and honesty while holding in tension multiple levels of understanding God's Word knowing someday all will become clear and light. To that end, may God's peace and blessing be upon you this day. And may this present task set before us grant God's loving guidance and faithful care. Amen.

R.E. Slater
November 13, 2012
 
 
 
 
 


 
* * * * * * * * * * * *


Who Needs a Historical Adam?

 
The other week I picked up the biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant theoretical physicist who played a key role in the Manhattan Project, helping to develop the world’s first nuclear weapons. After World War II, however, he worked unsuccessfully to prevent a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, fearing the devastating power of his own invention. Naturally enough, his biographers liken his story to the myth of Prometheus, writing in the preface of the book:
 
Like that rebellious Greek god Prometheus–who stole fire from Zeus and bestowed it upon humankind, Oppenheimer gave us atomic fire. But then, when he tried to control it, when he sought to make us aware of its terrible dangers, the powers-that-be, like Zeus, rose up in anger to punish him. (xiii)
 
It would be hard to think of a more apposite comparison, a better metaphorical lens for understanding Oppenheimer’s place in our world. But of course, there are a few differences between Prometheus and Oppenheimer, chief among them being the fact that Oppenheimer is a historical figure of recent memory and Prometheus is a fictional character of a mythic past. But no one in their right mind would say that that fact diminishes the validity or the power of Bird and Sherwin’s comparison. No one would say that Bird and Sherwin’s likening of Oppenheimer to Prometheus commits them to the historicity of Prometheus’s story, or that believing that Prometheus’s story is mythological somehow undermines one’s grounds for believing in Robert Oppenheimer.
This morning I was reading the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans where he likens Jesus to Adam. Paul writes:
Therefore, just as (hosper) sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned–for sin indeed was in the world before the Law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type (typos) of the one who was to come. (5:12-14, ESV)
With Bird and Sherwin’s biography in the back of my mind it struck me today as never before that Paul’s comparison of Jesus to Adam is fundamentally just that, a comparison. More specifically, Adam’s role in the comparison is that Adam is the typos, the figure, the pattern, the model for Jesus, “the one who was to come (tou mellontos).” Jesus, like Adam, is one man whose singular decisive action has had ramifications for all of subsequent humanity.
 
The analogy isn’t perfect, as Paul acknowledges:
 
But the free gift is not like (ouk hws) the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like (ouk hws) the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:15-17, ESV)
The analogy isn’t perfect. Whereas Adam’s action (like Prometheus’s) was catastrophic, Jesus’s action was, to borrow Tolkien’s word, eucatastrophic. Whereas Adam’s was an act of disobedience, Jesus’s action was one of obedience. Whereas Adam’s action was a betrayal of God, Jesus’s action was a gift of God. Whereas Adam’s action brought about a regime of death, Jesus’s action brought about the victory of life. Jesus, in other words, is like Adam turned right-side-up.
The more I look at this passage, the less I see how it makes a lick of difference to the force of Paul’s argument whether Adam is a historical figure or not. To my mind, the fundamental analogy still holds even if we were to add one more disanalogous element to those we have already rehearsed: whereas Adam was a fictional character of a mythic past, Jesus was for Paul a historical figure of recent memory. No matter. The comparison still holds. Jesus is, in some important ways, like Adam, just as He is said elsewhere in the New Testament to be like Moses, like Jonah, like Jeremiah, like Elijah, like a lamb, like a vine, like a door, like a shepherd, and like dozens of other things.
 
Rembrandt’s “St. Paul at His Writing Desk,” 1630
 
 
So did Paul personally believe in a historical Adam? Probably. He was a first century Jew. I’d be surprised if he didn’t (and I’d also be surprised if he didn’t believe in a geocentric cosmos, for that matter).
 
But does Paul need Adam to be a historical figure in order to make his argument in Romans 5? No, not really. And I would say the same, mutatis mutandis, for his argument in 1 Corinthians 15. The link between Adam and Jesus that he is making is more like Bird and Sherwin’s link between Prometheus and Oppenheimer than it is like the link between, say, Jesus and Pontius Pilate. It is a fundamentally anological link, not a fundamentally historical link.
 
All of this, of course, matters for those of us who take the New Testament to be our primary source for thinking about life, the universe, and everything, and who are keeping abreast of conversations in both the natural sciences and biblical scholarship which suggest that Genesis is not best understood as a textbook on natural history (see, e.g., this story by NPR). The evidence isn’t all in. It never is. But it is getting harder and harder to make a case for a historical Adam and that is disconcerting in excelsis for many Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and others who see the Christian faith itself as being on the line in these discussions.
 
But, really, who needs a historical Adam? I don’t think Paul does. Nor do I think that the essential trustworthiness of the Bible depends on Adam’s historicity.
 
So who needsreally needs–a historical Adam? Adherents to a traducian account of the soul and a peculiar understanding of original sin? Devotees of the Westminster Confession of Faith? Biblical literalists?
 
But these are all varieties of Christian faith, not Christianity per se. There have always been within the Christian tradition (better?) alternatives to these particular theological stances, some of which do not logically depend upon the historicity of the Adam story. If the evidence should continue to mount against the historicity of Adam, the choice before us should not be whether we will be Christians or not, but whether we will be these sorts of Christians or those sorts of Christians. Christianity itself is simply not at stake.
 
So do you need a historical Adam? If so, help me understand why you do. If you don’t, you can tell me about that too.


* * * * * * * * * * * *
 
 

Paul
The Apostle Paul
Illustration by Denise Klitsie

 
Does Paul’s Christ Require a Historical Adam?
 

The Christian tradition has made much of Adam. We in the Western church speak regularly of the Fall of humanity that took place in Adam’s primal disobedience. Theologically, we speak of inherited sin and guilt—an original [(corporate)] sin that renders us all complicit. We are guilty of humanity’s first great act of disobedience and enslaved to sin’s power.

Such theological claims derive more from our reading of Paul’s reflections on Adam than from the Genesis story itself. For many, the most significant theological reasons for affirming a historical Adam have to do not with what Genesis 1–3 may or may not teach about human origins, but with the theology of Adam that Paul articulates in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. In short, if there is no historical Adam with whom we are enmeshed in the guilt and power of sin, how can we affirm that in Christ we participate in the justification and freedom of grace?

The levels of freedom (or lack thereof) that many of us experience with regard to the question of Adam as a historical person is inseparable from the theology that we see bound up with him. For some, to reject Adam as a historical person is to reject the authority of Scripture and trustworthiness of the very passages within which we learn of justification and resurrection.1 Others are concerned that to deny a historical Adam is to deny the narrative of a good world gone wrong that serves as the very basis for the good news of Jesus Christ. In short, if there is no Fall, there can be no salvation from it and restoration to what was and/or might have been.2 Even more expansively, Douglas Farrow concludes that “there is very little of importance in Christian theology, hence also in doxology and practice, that is not at stake in the question of whether or not we allow a historical dimension to the Fall.”3

High stakes, indeed. But I want to suggest that things might not be so dire. Specifically, I want to open up the conversation to the possibility that the gospel does not, in fact, depend on a historical Adam or historical Fall in large part because what Paul says about Adam stems from his prior conviction about the saving work of Christ. The theological points Paul wishes to make concern the saving work of the resurrected Christ and the means by which he makes them is the shared cultural and religious framework of his first-century Jewish context.

Christ and Adam

Paul has an important story to tell. It is the story of God’s new creation breaking into the world through the surprising mechanism of a crucified and resurrected Christ. This conviction about the new creation being brought about by Christ provides Paul with the ground to stand on as he draws Adam into the conversation in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15.

One crucial dynamic of Paul’s Adam Christology is representation. Christ does, is, and becomes what we need to participate in, be, and become in order to be God’s eternal family. For this reason, Paul takes hold of the “image of God” language with which we are so familiar from Genesis 1, and uses it to describe Jesus as he stands in relation to us: “he decided in advance that they would be conformed to the image of his Son.”4 Christ represents who we are, and who we are becoming, as members of God’s new-creation family.

This representation is focused on two particular aspects of Christ’s saving work: his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Romans 5 develops Paul’s Adam Christology around Christ’s death. Throughout the latter half of Romans 5, Paul outlines how Christ’s act entails benefits for many: it brings about God’s gracious gift in a manner that more than undoes the work of Adam, even reclaiming humanity’s privilege of ruling the world for God (5:15–17; cf. Genesis 1:26).

Similar dynamics unfurl in 1 Corinthians 15, where Adam is viewed as the progenitor of death in contrast to Christ who, as God’s new representative human being, anticipates humanity’s coming resurrection life (15:21–22). A new humanity has been inaugurated by the resurrected Christ.

This theological framework positions us to step into Paul’s statements about Adam. Paul is working with the stories of Israel, as told in the Old Testament, but from the perspective of someone who knows, now, that God’s great act of salvation has come in Christ.

Christ, the Law, and History

This brings us to our central question: To what extent do we need to affirm a historical Adam in order also to affirm the saving dynamics of Paul’s Adam Christology?

Romans 5 presents us with what are arguably the most pressing reasons to affirm a historical Adam. There we find these striking words from Paul:

 
 
ENDNOTES 
  1. E.g., A. B. Caneday, “The Language of God and Adam’s Genesis and Historicity in Paul’s Gospel,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011): 26–59.
  2. E.g., C. John Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why You Should Care (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 133–35; John W. Mahoney, “Why an Historical Adam Matters for the Doctrine of Original Sin,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011): 60–78; Stephen J. Wellum, “Editorial: Debating the Historicity of Adam: Does It Matter?” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011): 2–3.
  3. Douglas Farrow, “Fall,” in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (ed. A. Hastings, A. Mason, and H. S. Pyper; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 233–34.
  4. All scriptural citations are from the Common English Bible unless otherwise indicated.
  5. Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 44–90.
  6. Ridderbos, Paul, 137.
  7. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1977), 474–508.
  8. See, e.g., John R. Schneider, “Recent Genetic Science and Christian Theology on Human Origins: An ‘Aesthetic Superlapsarianism,’” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 62 (2010): 196–213.
  9. E.g., Daniel C. Harlow, “After Adam: Reading Adam in an Age of Evolutionary Science,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 62 (2010): 179–95.


 

My Faith Journey from Evangelicalism

 
"...In hindsight, my faith didn't require abandonment. No.
Simply a better resonance with what it wasn't hearing
in today's current generations of God's faithful."  - re slater

 
Years ago I began the process of investigating what evolution might mean to me as a Christian and found myself in the long process of re-thinking the fundamental progress that science has been making these past many years without my personal involvement and investment. However, about a year ago I began reporting on the Christian understanding of evolution and all the affects this understanding would have upon Christian doctrine if it were to be incorporated into a normalized view of Scripture (see the sidebars under "Science" on the right hand column) . I began by splitting articles up between anthropological and cosmological studies starting with what we know about hominids and the homo sapien genome structure and progressing forward towards Earth studies and studies related to the universe. Along the way I discovered a Christian organization by the name of Biologos to be deeply involved with the same concerns as I had and so, began utilizing their research and opinions to help more quickly form some basic ideas of what evolution means for the Bible and for the Christian dedicated to understanding the Bible's ideas about God as our Creator-Redeemer.

Having been risen in a culture of Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism requiring a form of biblical literalism and inerrancy, and holding to the more stricter view that evolution was fundamentally anti-biblical, I felt led of the Spirit of God to place these categories to the side and hold them in tension so that I could begin a re-investigation into what my faith might mean in light of all that we now know about ourselves and our world in evolutionary terms. From that day until this present I have undergone a radical change that has uplifted my reading of the bible and understanding about God. I have come away richer and more satisfied with the journey I've taken and now regard my past with some little bit of skepticism. The bible is no longer as literal as it use to be for me and in exchange I've come away with phenomenal spiritual insight to what God is presently doing in this world of ours. How I read the bible (cf. the sidebars Hermeneutics, Bible), how I understand Jesus in His many redemptive aspects (Gospel, Sin, Salvation, Love, etc), how I understand God (Theism, Narrative Theology), what I expect for the future (Kingdom, Eschatology), and for the church today (Faith, Church, Christianity) has become greatly enriched and fundamentally deepened. I did not expect this when I began. In fact, I expected quite the reverse (if not hell itself! according to disconcerted friends and family). But am amazed at how untangled I've become from the many binding cords of my more traditional faith heritage. An heritage which I can only have the deepest appreciation for, but one that I must transform away from towards  a type of one that I've been writing and describing as Emergent Christianity... which itself is in a similar state of transition. This is important to know as newer adherents like myself seek to gather into a broader space of faith acceptance, practice and worship. One more richly filled with an orthodox biblical tradition expanding outwards. But perhaps not spoken as well as it could be by some of our earliest emergent advocates.

In essence, I've evolved, or am emerging, into a Christian that is more open and freer of my more-restrictive, past traditional Christian beliefs and structures. And if you had started with me last April of 2011, when writing under the pseudonym of skinhead, you would've read of my dismay with Evangelicalism and my perplexity over a newer direction called Emergent Christianity that had gotten a lot of bad press and was being plied with a lot of misinformation. No less from the fact that I had to also sort out what my Emergent brethren were saying as they seemed to blindly stumble about the theological room examining differing parts of the same elephant and declaring "Aha, this is what faith means!" Or, "Oho, this is what it means now!" Each one using a differing non-rigorous structural, theosophic or philosophic, element to re-create a Christian faith that needed re-birthing, re-ordering, re-examination, and re-discovery. And it was this very thing that I felt I could do and had quickly become burdened to express. Driven by the Spirit of God as it were. Relentlessly. Tirelessly. Till I've arrived here in this present space tired and weary and glad for the burden to do what little I could in the area of Christian epistemology set within a postmodern framework. And since then have endeavored to take all the parts and pieces of my past training and understanding to reconfigure an expanded sense of evangelicalism that is more progressive. Less judgmental. More open to broader ideologies and methodologies. That is global. Transformative. Multi-generational. Pluralistic. And more attune to the postmodern cultures and societies of our times. Regardless of whether we call it Emergent or not. I needed a faith that saw Jesus in all His many forms and beauty. And this I believe is what God gave to me as my vision.

Thus, I have begged, borrowed and reconfigured every helpful idea that I could find among the brotherhood. And have dearly tried not to limit the power of God in this endeavor even as I've tried to recreate a more open conformity to Scriptures. Overall, I have first and foremost sought biblical direction and support for these newer (Emergent) ideas than simply stating mine own preferences and opinions. Or when I do, admit it while investigating these newer transformative ideas and insights. If ideas like evolution is true, or that God is closer to us today than He ever has been before, or that the essence of the Christian faith is Jesus, than I need to know how to arrive at these conclusions from a biblically supportive structure. At first this task was one of redefining Evangelicalism's ingrained "definition" of itself. I found those definitions self-limiting and fast becoming the very sacred altars of a church no longer living in this present world but in the past worlds of yesteryear's Christian endeavors, confessional commitments, and sanctified organizations. As such, it was no longer useful except for historic guidance and orthodox support. Otherwise, it seemed like all things Christian needed the probing scalpel of deep re-examination and re-orientation. This deconstructive effort was painful (both personally and corporately) but it promised a brighter re-constructive future. One that I've had the great, good joy of sharing however solitary its serpentine road of travel. There was no one road to follow but dozens of scattering bunny trails that went every which way requiring the sleuth of a detective to hunt out its main branches and estuaries.

And much like solving a Sudoku puzzle where one finds solutions to answers that are not there, so I began to examine my earlier Christian antecedents and theological structures for what they were not saying (not simply Evangelicalism this time, but denominationalism, and Christian traditionalism itself) to glean fundamental directions not earlier apparent to me. What I found was a space that was deafening in its silence and fearfully darkened to the willing traveller. But it was there behind the shut door (or doors in my case) and when pushed open, came upon a labyrinth of competing ideas and misdirections each requiring the lamp of discernment and patient examination. To venture into this mass of entanglement required a sturdy compass and the help of the Spirit, for without either I would be lost, and left either destroyed of faith or abandoned all together.

Consequently, my first 6-8 months of articles will speak to my dismay with the Christian rhetoric I was listening too. This then began the first part of my awakening. Part of that dismay was in Calvinism itself which I played off against with Arminianism to help re-balance my systematic heritage with a broader scope of heaven, hell, sin, and judgement. I needed to hear and see that God's mission of restorative fellowship to a broken creation is even now being remitted with His great, good love, and understanding of man in his human condition of pride and fallenness. From there I began to positively expand upon what a more progressive structure of Emergent Christianity may look like from topic-to-topic as I had time or insight. In the process I gained more confidence and began to use my own name for propriety's sake and in the great good tradition of journalistic ethics when doing the work of an essayist. At this point I knew I was moving in the right direction but that it needed further definition and structure as I could lend to it given time and information.

Where once I had been committed to writing poetry over the previous two years as a lifetime goal, and quite removed from the sacred worlds of ivory towers and flaming pulpits. Now my heart was burdened to lay my pen down for awhile and pursue, as I could, this newer task of re-igniting our Christian thinking imperiled by so many frailer (and untrue) epistemologies of what the Christian faith was traditionally considered. It had become a folk religion instead of a living faith. A divisive institution rather than a living fellowship. A political polemic rather than a compassionate faith ministering to the suffering masses around itself. A religion requiring too many rotten supports built upon the sinking sands of human idealism and disillusionment; and not upon the truer, time-tested bedrock of Christ Himself. As such, I began to write in prose using a combination of academic and devotional tracts. And before I could write I could only quote sympathetic Christian sources that were thinking aloud with me what I was thinking in my head. But speaking it much better than I could. And with much better background and information. From then until now I have been learning to blog my thoughts more openly, more intelligently, and hopefully, in a way that is helpful to other Jesus followers having the same questions, dismays and experiences as myself.

Eighteen months later I believe the burden of this webblog to have attained some semblance of transition and maturity that it did not hold when it first was begun. As marks of graduation, I can now read and listen to a wider branch of ideas and discoveries, and reconfigure them into a more helpful understanding of my faith, where earlier those same elements would've been ignored, discarded or heavily criticised. (But not all ideas or discoveries have been helpful, as in my experience of beholding the misdirectional, cultic expressions of New Ageism or Gnostic Mysticism of the Christian faith. Within them may lay some biblical truth that they have apprehended and made their own. But it is not the biblical truth that I recognize within my transformative Emergent faith based upon orthodox doctrine and biblical principle. To those groups my Christian faith will ever be at odds with, refusing to be waylaid along the highways of misguided inspiration.)

This journey is but a small beginning - but one that was necessary. And as encouragement, however imperfectly I may have written, I offer this blogsite as a source of direction into any-and-all areas requiring the postmodern care and acumen of Emergent Christianity. I have tried to create this blog as a wikipedia of sorts to theological questions. To my readers I give it away for comfort and guidance to be used as it can.

In hindsight, my faith didn't require abandonment. No. Simply a better resonance with what it wasn't hearing in today's current generations of God's faithful. These are my brethren, not my enemy. My brothers and sisters requiring better leadership and shepherding. And in its absence - constricted as it were by fearful judgmentalism and naive condemnation - I suspect that God is working diligently within the very rank-and-files of His body to help lead, guide, pray, and shepherd His fellowship until the church's pulpits and university staffs become more properly engaged with society's needs and advancements. At least this is my prayer.

Therefore, be at peace and know our God is great and will not be muffled by the ignoble speech and acts of men. Nor by his ignorance and pride whatever their positions in the church or in the ranks of men. God is great. And greatly will His works show forth both now-and-forevermore despite our best efforts to stop-up His voice. He speaks as a mighty river unbounded to the generations to come yearning for the sustenance of His gracious, compassionate, loving heart. No words of man may prevent His salvation to all men everywhere. This God is the God who will lead His Church unto salvation - by vision, by dream, by pen or by will. Sanctified in the blood of Jesus. Blessed by the power of the Word. Protected in the depths of the Spirit. May our almighty Redeemer be ever praised. May His glorious name be lifted up unto the high hills in shouts of acclamation. Amen and Amen.
 
R.E. Slater
November 13, 2012



 

Monday, November 12, 2012

The Merton Prayer





The Merton Prayer
 
In Thoughts in Solitude, Part Two, Chapter II consists of fifteen lines that have become known as "the Merton Prayer."
 
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"
© Abbey of Gethsemani 
 
 
 
Frank Peabody, artist
The Merton Institute Board
 
 
About Thomas Merton
 
Thomas Merton's remarkable and enduring popularity indicates that he touches the hearts of people searching for answers to life's important questions. For many, he is a constant spiritual companion; for others, his writings provide guidance through life’s difficult moments. He takes people into deep places within themselves and offers insight to the paradoxes of life. He shares how to be contemplative in a world of action while offering no quick fixes, no ten easy steps to a successful spiritual life.

At the core of Thomas Merton's spiritual writings is the search for the "true self" and our need for relationship with God, other people, and all of creation. He finds that when we are apart from God, we experience alienation and desolation. Merton believes that we must discover God as the center of our being. It is in this center that all things tend and where all of our activity must be directed.

Merton's writings were prophetic; they highlight the major issues that confronted society in his time and still confront society today. They illustrate the growing alienation of humanity. Whether it is war, social and racial injustice, violence, or religious intolerance, the source of the problem is that man "has become alienated from his inner self which is the image of God."

The degree of humanity's alienation is reflected in the unrelenting violence of our time. Wars and acts of nations around the globe caused the death of more than 500 million people in the 20th century. Closer to home, schoolchildren kill their fellow students in schools, and incidences of racial and domestic violence and child abuse occur with appalling frequency. The violence surrounds us. We must change direction or perish. This requires a social conversion, a turning away from destructive behavior and a turning toward a relational way of being. The first step in this turning is a transformation of consciousness. Thomas Merton is a preeminent guide in this first step and throughout the journey.

There is in the world today athirst for God. People are seeking a reversal of the trends toward consumerism and materialism, prejudice and violence. They are discovering that what one does must be a means of both self-fulfillment and service to others.

Throughout history, the role of spiritual master has been recognized and valued. Thomas Merton is a spiritual master whose influence crosses generations and religious affiliations. His message offers us bracing and brotherly advice on how we can be conscious and attentive to God in order to hear the answers to the difficult questions in our lives.

Thomas Merton's message and life helps us build a new paradigm for living, one that integrates the contemplative in each of us with our external activities. His message is a source of deep change in a culture of superficial solutions, a window through which we see the possibilities for a peaceful and just world.
 
 
 
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
A Brief Biographical Sketch


Thomas Merton is one of the most influential American spiritual writers of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, has sold over one million copies and has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Merton wrote over seventy other books and hundreds of poems and articles on topics ranging from monastic spirituality to civil rights, nonviolence, and the nuclear arms race.

After a rambunctious youth and adolescence, Merton had his first experience with Roman Catholicism at the age of sixteen in a church in Italy. On December 10, 1941, he entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, a community of monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), one of the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic orders.

The twenty-seven years he spent in Gethsemani prior to his untimely death in 1968 stimulated profound changes in his self-understanding. This ongoing transformation impelled him into the political arena, where he became, according to Daniel Berrigan, the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960's. Referring to racism and peace as the two most urgent issues of our time, Merton was a strong supporter of the nonviolent civil rights movement, which he called "certainly the great example of Christian faith in action in the social history of the United States." For his social activism Merton endured severe criticism, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who assailed his political writings as unbecoming of a monk.

During his last years, he became deeply interested in Asian religions, particularly Zen Buddhism, and in promoting East-West dialogue. After several meetings with Merton during the American monk's trip to the Far East in 1968, the Dalai Lama praised him as having a more profound understanding of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known.

It was during this trip to a conference on East-West monastic dialogue that Merton died, in Bangkok on December 10, 1968. He was the victim of an accidental electrocution. By a sad coincidence the date marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance into Gethsemani.
 
 
 

Friday, November 9, 2012

What Do We Mean by God as "Creator-Redeemer"?

 


We have spent a lot of time reviewing the theological concept of Evolutionary Creationism at Relevancy22 (cf. sidebars under Science and Faith) and one of the questions that should be asked is how does this biblical theory turn our view of God around? That is, what were the eternal purposes of God from the beginning of creation? Why did God create? What moved God to create? What did God create? Is there value and meaning in the Trinity's relationship to creation? How is this meaningful to us? What is God's place in indeterminate creation? What is sin's place in indeterminate creation? Did God create short-sightedly when sin entered in? What is sin's relation to creation? At what point does redemption enter into creation? Was it a planned event? And finally, who is God? Is He our Creator or our Redeemer?

As background, Evolutionary Creationism is the view that the universe was created by God in evolutionary terms as described by all of our present day sciences. And that Earth, and especially life on Earth, received as much attention by God as all other parts of the universe did - even though we would like to think that we received God's very special attention as the" height" of His creation. As Christians we surmise this because (i) we were created in God's image and (ii) because God's redemption of creation came as a result of His incarnation as a man through the Second Personage of the Trinity, namely, Jesus the Messiah. But, in evolutionary terms, humanity seems only to be the mere recipient of the cosmos' creative evolutionary ordering. And that throughout this process - even up to this present day - God has been intimately involved with the cosmos' formation and sustenance even as He has been with mankind's development. The fact is, evolution is still evolving and has not stopped. It is in the very nature of the cosmos' progression - even as it is with humanity's progression - that it continue to evolve because this is the very nature of (evolutionary) creation itself. Consequently, God is every bit as much involved today as He was 13.7 billion years ago in the formative event we describe as the Big Bang event (which we now understand to be but a mere cosmic bubble of an infinite number of multiversed bubbles). That God has never stepped away from the task of creating, that is, of evolving His creation unto His purposes and ends. And that we too often think of God in classical terms merely as sustaining and maintaining His creation. But the concept of evolution demands that God is continually shaping and evolving the worlds to come as expressed in relational theism's updated terminology (please refer to the sidebars under "Theism").
 
Furthermore, it can also be said that the universe, life on Earth, and humanity itself, each received God's specialized attention resulting in each becoming intimately interlocked and interdependent with the other. And though we could argue that it is humanity that is mostly dependent upon the cosmos I suspect that the cosmos is as much dependent upon humanity for its very existence when contemplated in juxtaposition to God's initiating purposes (more will be said on this in a moment). For each-and-all are highly specialized instances of God's creative power and will. We say highly specialized because at no time was God an absentee Creator during each and every formative period of evolution - contra both Scientific Naturalism's agnostic/atheistic view, nor Classic Theism's non-evolutionary understanding of this event. The first sees no necessity for God within the process as it is a self-sustaining process; and the second disavows any evolutionary understanding of God in the role of creation according to its literalistic interpretations of the bible. However, Evolutionary Creationism states that throughout creation's formation God was intimately involved in every aspect of creation - from its atomic structures and forces through to the development of biological life itself, even unto this day.... Which is a phenomenal statement in-and-of itself, made all the more phenomenal when we think to include the concept of multiverses into this statement! (Should this concept live beyond the mathematics of its expression.) Accordingly, we have a very difficult time grasping the former concept of a singular universe let alone the additional concept of a multiversed creation. It simply becomes unimaginable. Suffice it to say then that our Creator God is beyond our imagination.


We may now observe three things relative to the creation event. Firstly, as Christians we often loose sight of the fact that before God ever created the cosmos He had first pondered its relevance and constitution within the depths of His eternal being. Which of course would mean that He pondered its meaning within the fellowship of His Trinity. Which is a very important fact to notice because it was at God's deepest level of desire to fundamentally share Himself on a relational level that He would in fact take this step to do this very thing. But how could God wish to do this if He were but a singular entity without the fellowship of His Triune Being? Only a relational God would wish to create in relational paradigms. A God who could understand the meaning of sharing, sacrifice, forbearance and longsuffering from first-hand experience. These are relational terms not the cold, static, impersonal terms borne by a non-Trinitarian God with no knowledge of their meaning or presence. Nor terms simply held within an intelligent and all-powerful, but unfeeling, God who Himself was unacquainted with love and what it would mean to love (this discourse almost feels like a Star Trek episode doesn't it?!).
 
Moreover, as a Trinitarian God, He wished to be at peace, and in harmony, with all that He created. For humans, we describe this in terms of the love of God. That God wished to share the fellowship of His Trinity with humanity in the loving terminology of holiness, eternality, purpose, and sustenance. If we were to diagram this it would show both man and creation become as a "fourth" point of an expanded relational triangle morphing into that of a rhombian fellowship outside the Godhead (in ontologic terms, though perhaps not in metaphysical or existential terms). As such, man would fundamentally differ from the Godhead in that he would be a created, finite, aspect of God's personage who would be given life and light, and borne up unto the breast of God Himself. And so, the fellowship of the Trinity would thus be extended to all of creation. And in human terms to man himself. This is what God had in mind before He even began to create. He created with purpose. He created with an end in mind. And in the chaos that followed creation's wake God continually, and intimately, superintends with the goal that creation would ever be (as it now is in its imperfect form) a part of the divine fellowship of the Godhead. That God would be in relationship with all that is. And all that is would be in fellowship with its Creator God. Both now and forevermore (which sounds a little Eastern to me in my Westernized ears, doesn't it?).
 
Secondly, we also loose sight of the fact that before God created He understood and planned for the chaotic nature of the creative event (and please do not associate "chaos" with "sin" as we'll shortly see). That within the fabric of creation there would be required the principles of indeterminacy (as related to non-sentient life) and free will (as related to sentient life) governing its "finite or creaturely" structures. This was a planned event. Planned by God Himself. It was no surprise, mistake, or result of sin.... And here I should immediately stop to observe that these states of indeterminacy and free will are the holy building blocks (or, the fundamental creative elements) of creational being and becoming. No, sin did not determine creation's indeterminacy or free will. God did. We know this because when at last God reigns over all there will be a new creation and new humanity... that is, a creation and humanity freed of sin, but not freed of its indeterminacy or free will. However, please notice, that sin was the corrupting force that entered in AFTER God created creation. And, as I've explained here in earlier articles, sin did not come from God but resulted because of the indeterminacy and freedom that God had originally placed into creation's core structure. So that sin is the aftermath result of God giving to the cosmos its structure of being and becoming. Sin does not define the creative structure but gives to creation its resulting affect upon the creative structure. Hence, Paul describes sin as a corrupting influence even as John describes sin's removal as a time where we witness a new heaven and new earth that keep their original structure and purpose but are freed of sin. Where a new humanity lives in obedience and harmony with the fellowship of God as free willed beings who likewise keep their original structure and purpose. Sin did not create indeterminacy and free will. God did. Sin but corrupted them. Truly, these things we think we know but do not understand.
 
Thirdly, we also seem to loose sight of the fact that before God created the cosmos He had likewise thought through, and determined, the necessity of His further involvement as its Redeemer. To thus create indeterminate objects and events and free will life would necessitate His involvement as creation's Redeemer who would restore, or redeem, creation back to its originating purposes of fellowship. And so, before God created He first understood that His creative work would require not only His sustenance of creative power and will, but His redemptive sustenance of power and will as well. Consequently, God understood the results of His creative endeavor and planned for its restoration back from an imperfect fellowship to a perfected fellowship with the Godhead. These things He was acutely aware of according to the bible's account of creation.

In Summary then, we have: 
  • A Creator-Redeemer who continues to create in both evolutionary and spiritual terms.
  •  
  • That God is involved with the intimate sustenance and development of His creation at all times.
  •  
  • That at no time did God create and then leave His creation to itself (even though from our perspective it seems that He could from an evolutionary scientific viewpoint. Still, the bible tells us differently).
  •  
  • That it was at God's deepest level of desire to fundamentally share Himself on a relational level.
  •  
  • That He wished to share the fellowship of His Trinity with humanity in the loving terminology of holiness, eternality, purpose, and sustenance.
  •  
  • That God understood, planned, and created the chaotic nature of the cosmos when inputting the random process of indeterminacy and unhinderance of free will.
  •  
  • Inferentially, this means that God is creation's Sovereign but not its Divine Controller (sic, Classic Theism posits that God controls all things while confusing the term Sovereign with the term divine Controller). When we think of God as creation's Divine Controller we then errantly view God as either Strong or Weak in the wake of harmful circumstances. If then God is viewed as a Controller of all events the answer must be yes, He is shown to be both Strong and Weak based upon the indeterminacy or free will of His creation. (Progressive Theism points this out time-and-again; PT is the syncretic twin of Relational Theism (RT) and the opposite of Classic Theism). But as a God who rules Sovereignly (per RT), He then is understood as a God who is present in (or, enters into) the harm and destruction that we are experiencing to help as He can. That is, God is neither Strong or Weak but IS according to His counsels. What this means is that we can count on His presence and help, but we cannot count on any determinative outcome according to our prayers and wishes. Amongst other things prayer tells God of our pain and allows Him to enter into our devastations and joys. Prayer provides opportunity to our hearts to receive the ministrations of the Holy Spirit. It likewise provides opportunity for God to act in accordance with a free willed being's broken heart as He can. However, this is part-and-parcel of what it means to live in an indeterminant and free will creation held hostage under sin's corruptive domain. However, through it all God will destroy sin and bring creation back to its original purposes in the long view of things. We call this the process of redemption. This is yet another mystery we do not understand and have discussed before.
  •  
  • That creation's sustenance would require God's intimate involvement both before the presence of sin and after the presence of sin.
  •  
  • That sin's arrival was not unplanned nor unknown. And in the face of this knowledge of sin's affective reaction and presence into God's creative handiwork God did still create knowing this to be a true result.
  •  
  • That God is not sin's author or creator but that sin did result from the handiwork of God which gave to creation free will. Much like as mold will appear on the fresh bread we bake. Or UV light will break down a painting that we create. Or that Utopian societies are non-existent but ever seen as a community's optimistic goal. Sin is a result (or consequence) of indeterminate and free will creation. But is not a created metaphysical presence or power in-and-of itself directly from God.
  •  
  • That when God created He knew beforehand and planned becoming creation's Creator-Redeemer and not simply be its Creator. But creation's Redeemer. This elective role was not a divine afterthought when discovering sin's affective presence. No. God already knew the consequences of creating creation in the way that He did and before creating considered in what way He would necessarily become willfully involved.
  •  
  • That as creation's Redeemer, God was moved by love to share the fellowship of His being with that of His creation as originally intended for the pure joy of sharing-and-expressing Himself much as any artist would do with his art to the public before him.
 
This then is what is meant by Evolutionary Creationism's expression of God as "Creator-Redeemer" using Relational Theism's understanding of God.
 
R.E. Slater
November 9, 2012

 
For further discussion consider several sample articles listed below -