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, March 5, 2013

A Christian Review: History Channel's "The Bible" Miniseries


 
Watching Mark Burnett's version of "The Bible" on the History Channel last night made me think that it could have been more appropriately titled "The Mythologies of Modern Evangelical Christianity." Its grasp of ancient biblical history, cultures, and the biblical record was abysmal. In short, its a film about the ideology of Evangelicalism's own "approved" version of biblical doctrine. One to which Emergent Christian theology is thankfully replacing.
 
Positively, the film created a pathos of spiritual and emotional experience between the believer willing to trust God for his or her life while expecting God's direct intervention based upon this act of trust and belief. In the case of the bible, those believers who heard God's word aright did find God's help and intercession. For those believers who misheard God's calling and direction found only hardship and faith's bankruptcy. We see its parallels even now today between true biblical faith and religious delusional calling and interpretation.
 
Thankfully, Mel Gibson's version of Jesus can now be replaced by Burnett's version.... Gibson's picture was of an earthy, very tortured and abused, version of the Son of God as His kingship is rejected on this earth. Burnett's thankfully is one of the Son of Man's uplifted redemption for mankind; and, of His atonement for sin's destruction and ruin upon His holy creation. Only a holy God of love and justice can do this - who was born as the incarnate Son of God and raised as the Prince of Life and Everlasting God as our Priest and Mediator (sic, the book of Hebrews), kneading His heart to the heart of mankind.

At the last, the death knell of evangelicalism can be heard tolling in Burnett's remake of The Bible. We should be thankful for Christianity's past 200 years of struggle with Industrial society's Enlightenment and Secular Modernism, but be willing to gladly close its end chapters as we move forwards into Christianity's postmodern, emergent phase of recapture and reimagination of God, man, and all things biblical and spiritual. Emergent Christianity and its theology are the new frontiers of faith and contemporary relevancy. In it may be found that ancient, orthodox faith of the Bible - ever old, yet ever new.
 
R.E. Slater
March 5, 2013

*Addendum: I would caution readers to not be so quick to think of the Bible as simply a collection of "stories" as mentioned by Dr. Joel Hoffman in the Huff Post. Yes, I do understand what he means by this, and do think he has a legitimate observation. However, as an emergent Christian, we too hold the bible "near and dear" and are careful to interpret difficult sections of the bible appropriately. The age of biblical characters, the number of Israelites leaving Egypt, and scribal renditions of later culture backwards into earlier biblical proceedings should be recognized. But we do not jettison them all under the categorical label of "stories" lest we oversimplify the Word of God. Nor do we include everything in the Bible as "literal" for to do so is to likewise misapprehend God's Word.
 
Moreover, Dr. Hoffman also is catching on to another area reflected here on this blog site which is the tendency by Christians to read in their own cultural expectations and values into the Ancient Near-Eastern settings of the Bible. This form of reading is unhelpful, and serves to support Evangelical ideology rather than Biblical accountancy. Good theology derives from careful analysis of the Biblical narrative. If the narratives of the Bible are misunderstood than we will misunderstand the God of the Bible behind the narrative. Hence, Christians are to proceed with caution when handling the Word of God.
 
R.E. Slater
May 2, 2013
 
 
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The Bible - http://www.history.com/shows/the-bible

"The bible is HISTORY's new docudrama featuring unforgettable stories from the Books of Genesis to Revelation. Find out about all 10 hours of the series on www.History.com.

Wikipedia Info on Film Series - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_(TV_series)
 


 
The Bible Isn't The History You Think It Is
 
March 4, 2013
 
Some stories in the Bible were meant to be history, others fiction. But modernity has obscured the original distinction between the two kinds of biblical writing, depriving readers of the depth of the text.
 
Perhaps surprisingly, this confusion lies at the heart of the History Channel's miniseries "The Bible," which continues the pattern of blurring history and fiction, and thereby misrepresenting the nature of the Bible to its viewers.
 
One way to understand the difference between history and fiction in the Bible is through the Old Testament's natural division into three parts:
  1. The world and its nature (Adam to Terah).
  2. The Israelites and their purpose (Abraham to Moses).
  3. The Kingdom of Israel and life in Jerusalem (roughly from King David onward).
Even a cursory look reveals a clear and significant pattern.
 
In the first section, characters live many hundreds of years, and in the second, well into their second century. Only in the third section do biblical figures tend to live biologically reasonable lives.
 
For example, Adam, in the first section, lives to the symbolic age of 930, and Noah lives even twenty years longer than that. Abraham, from the second section, lives to be 175, his son Issac to 180, and Jacob "dies young" at the age of 147. But the lifespans from King David onward, in the third section, are in line with generally accepted human biology.
 
Furthermore, historians mostly agree that only the third section represents actual history.
 
The reasonable ages in the third section of the Bible, and, in particular, the wildly exaggerated ages in the first, suggest that the authors of the Old Testament intended only the third part as history. Underscoring this crucial difference, some of the lifespans in the first two sections are so absurd as to defy literal interpretation. These hugely advanced ages are central clues about the point of the stories.

The Old Testament contains a wide range of texts in addition to stories: laws, prayers, moral codes, and more. But even the stories come in more than one variety. Noah and the Great Flood are not in the same category as Moses and the Ten Commandments, and both are different than King David and the First Temple.
 
History and fiction mingle throughout the Old Testament, so these divisions are just rough guides. Jeremiah's historical description of the siege on Jerusalem is not the same as Ezekiel's non-historical vision of the dry bones, just as there are historical elements (like the invention of fire-hardened bricks) even in the non-historical account of the Tower of Babel.
 
The interesting point here is not that some of these stories happened and some didn't (though that's almost certainly true). The point is that the Bible itself portrays them differently, only presenting some of them as having happened. In other words, sometimes "believing the Bible" means believing that a story in it didn't happen.
 
The situation not unlike a modern newspaper, which combines news with opinion, puzzles, comics, etc. The news can be accurate even if the comics are not. The same is true for the different parts of the Bible.
 
The New Testament similarly offers more than just stories, and, as with the Old Testament, only some of the stories in the New Testament were meant as history. Others were intended to convey things like theology and morality. The account of Jesus' life in the Gospels is not the same as the beast in Revelation or Adam's life in Genesis. (The issue of different categories for Jesus and Adam is a matter of fierce modern debate because of its potential theological significance and its interaction with the theory of evolution.)
 
All of this is important for people who want to believe, for instance, that a man named Jesus was crucified in ancient Jerusalem (as described in the Gospels) even if they don't believe that a donkey spoke aloud (Numbers); or that Jews lived in Jerusalem during the first millennium BC (Kings, for example) even if they didn't leave Egypt 600,000 strong (Exodus).
 
More generally, this recognition that Bible stories are not all the same is part of understanding the essence of the Bible, and is crucial for people who believe that the Bible remains relevant even if parts of it aren't true.
 
Like combining a newspaper's news with its comics, painting the Bible with a single brush obscures its original nature. Unfortunately, by using the same style to dramatize all the biblical stories, the History Channel's "The Bible" — regardless of its other qualities — distorts the Bible's original spirit, and does a disservice both to history and to the Bible. 



 
'The Bible' Miniseries on History Channel Gets Poor Reviews
 
by Alexandra Ward
March 4, 2013
 
Sunday's premiere of "The Bible," a new miniseries on the History Channel that dramatizes scenes from what one producer calls "the most debated book of all time," may not have gotten the best reviews from television critics, but the show's creators still expect the holy drama to draw record numbers.
 
Divided into five two-hour episodes, the series covers Genesis to Revelation with one overarching narrative, according to Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, "The Bible" husband-and-wife producer team. Burnett is known for his work on "Survivor" and "Celebrity Apprentice."
 
"The Bible" highlights some old favorites — Noah's ark, Adam and Eve, and the Exodus — and includes both the Old and New Testaments. The series, despite its modest $22 million budget, has an action film feel, with a lot of computer-generated scenes meant to wow audiences.
 
"We wanted it to look, sound and feel like a $100-million production, not some old donkeys-and-sandals movie of the past," Downey said. "We have incredible special effects with Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus walking on water. We have this amazing international cast. We set out to create scale."
 
But Sunday night's premiere left most critics scratching their heads. Here's an overview of what everyone's saying about "The Bible."
 
The New York Times – Neil Genzlinger
 
Overall feeling: Mark Burnett missed out on a good opportunity to do something great.
 
"The result is a mini-series full of emoting that does not register emotionally, a tableau of great biblical moments that doesn’t convey why they're great. The Red Sea parts no more convincingly here than it did for Charlton Heston in 1956."
 
The Hollywood Reporter – Allison Keene
 
Overall feeling: The show struggles with identifying its central audience.
 
"Unfortunately, The Bible is fractious and overwrought. Others are sure to pick apart the deviations from the sacred text, but that's just the beginning of the miniseries' issues. In the end, this is the most well-known and popular book in the history of humanity for a reason—it's exciting and interesting and full of hope. The Bible is unfortunately none of these."
 
The Los Angeles Times – Robert Lloyd
 
Overall feeling: It's been done.
 
"The Bible according to Burnett and Downey is a handsome and generally expensive-looking production, but it is also flat and often tedious, even when it tends to the hysterical, and as hard as the Hans Zimmer soundtrack strains to keep you on the edge of your sofa, the dialogue is pedestrian and functional… It is 'psychological' only in obvious ways, with the poetry of the King James version all but ignored."
 
The Miami Herald – Glen Garvin
 
Overall feeling: Totally unbelievable.
 
"With the pace of a music video, the characterizations of a comic book and the political-correctness quotient of a Berkeley vegetarian commune — laughably, the destruction of Sodom is depicted without the faintest hint of the sexual peccadillo that takes its name from the city — this production makes Cecil B. DeMille look like a sober theologian. 'The Bible' marks the first attempt at drama by reality-show maven Mark Burnett, whose soul I would consider in serious jeopardy if it hadn’t already been forfeited during the second season of 'Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?'"
 
The Christian Post's Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, however, called the miniseries "a remarkable spiritual and emotional experience."
 
"The theme of God's love and hope for all humanity is the thread that holds the entire series together," Tunnicliffe wrote. "I received a fresh new perspective on many of the famous Bible stories: Looking through the eyes of Sarah as she thinks that her husband, Abraham, has sacrificed their son Isaac; listening to Noah telling the story of Creation to his children on the ark; agonizing with Mary (played by Roma Downey) as she sees her son, Jesus, beaten and crucified. These and so many other stories allow you to connect with the characters on a deep emotional level."
 
 

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

How Life Works and What God Makes of It




Ross Capicchioni and His Amazing Story - Part 1, 2


Worlds Most Inspirational Story Ever!!









[spoiler alert]

This story actually makes a pretty good case for Open Theism besides all the angles one could approach it from - from time and place, the harsh realities of life, coincidence, miracles, help from unexpected sources, what it means to have a good, responsible court system, hope, love, charity, benevolence.... the list is endless. But rather than preach or ruin the story let's just focus on what the story means to you. Which in hindsight then will make a pretty good case for Narrative Theology and how our lives cross-sect with God's restless activity, whether we know it or not.     - res








Monday, February 25, 2013

A Recommitment to Human Rights and to the Civil Intolerance of Torture

 
 
I often wonder if the movie "Zero Dark Thirty" relieves American audiences of the awful images and guilt of terroristic beheadings and torture committed against itself and other Western civilizations during this past decade of America's unabated war on terror. That it says to America's enemies that you may expect as worst in retaliation and retribution. And although this is small comfort to those who have suffered or lost their lives both here and abroad - whether friend or foe - a civilized country should always remember to temper its frustrations and griefs from employing similarly horrendous methodologies utilized by opposing countries and their gang of thieves and rogues.

Especially for Christians who are charged by Jesus to love and to justice in a past ancient biblical world rife with torture and injustice committed by countries large and small. And perhaps this a contemporary example of an actualizing American myth as it works itself off the silver screen and x-box games into the public venue of historical actualization and acceptance by fell deeds of inhumanity taking root within the incorporated behavior of its people's consciousness. Transversing to American policies committing her to do the same to her enemies should they continue in their support and participation of terrorism - rather than pursuing more civilized methods of civil dissonance and patient diplomacy. An actualizing myth in the sense of moving America's acceptance of such brutal interrogation onto the public docks of coercive policies both domestic and international.

And by recent judgement it seems that America's public posture may have drastically changed since 2001 during our present war on terrorism from selective practices of enactment to aggressive policies of enforcement and methodology. Not that it hadn't ever been done before, but that it is now being pursued so vigorously, however the means employed (waterboarding being one such practice). To this precedence the several articles below would caution restraint and general disuse realizing that barbarity can come to any culture idealizing freedom and liberty. Certainly, laudable aspirations for any nation, but especially venomous to a nation not actively practicing its constitutionally appointed rights and mandates to even those whom it would consider as its enemies. Turning a blind eye to its inherent charters of constitutional humanity and pursuing more brutal policies to its own destruction and demise.

Thus, we would advocate the lessening of saber rattling in Hollywood, and in caustic media portrayals of America, and a return to a more civil restraint of mind and conscience. But this cannot be done by national mandate and laws, but from within a society's heart and soul. That we demonstrate an America no longer epitomized by its 
international image as a self-serving protector of its own rights, to that of a country more cautionary and respectful in its policies and aggrievement proceedings, corporate resolutions, and stands on solidarity with other similarly aggrieved countries. Providing, as it were, a common ground of civil ideology from which to work in recreating an era of peace from the turmoils and manifold injustices currently existing between hostile nations in grievance with America.

To not be content with mythologizing our enemies as zombies, aliens, predators, vampires, and stereotypical images of thuggery and violence. Nor promoting ourselves in the form of anti-heroes, or by roving mob attitudes of kangaroo-court justice, or cowboy gallantry. But focused on the legitimate rights and needs of even our enemies chaffing at America's deployment of force and strength against its coffers of blood money and capitalistic lust. To stand down from actualizing our mythologized ideas of ourselves by returning to a more civil engagement of humanity found in personal and corporate practices of public service to disenfranchised minorities and dispossessed ghettos everywhere replete within the 21st Century's moiling masses of humanity. Crying out, as it were, for merciful justice, human rights advocacy, meaningful and permanent civil services, beneficial civil infrastructures, and generally, personal empowerment.

By realizing that by serving the needs of others we might re-establish our own balance of civility towards a more corporate posture of compassionate human rights and solidarity previously unimagined or expected. Relieving us of our guilt and fears ingrained by previous policies orientated towards war and suppression in the name of defense and security. And thereby reducing us to an isolated, posturing population of brawn and muscle rather than focusing on the legitimate needs and outcries of our enemies as fellow human beings reacting to the capitalistic oppression and unjust rape of their people and resources. Even if it were by America's willful propping up of oppressive heads of state within their own regional jurisdictions of control and oversight pursuant to America's goals rather than to that country's means and interests.

America is a great county. Made great by its idealized version of itself as a "City on a Hill" planted within its own heart by its originating forefathers who were refugees themselves fleeing political, religious, and civil persecution. Determined to rediscover their personal rights within a new society no longer hostile to their differences and heritage. Forefathers who wished to open America up to all dispossessed refugees of oppression seeking asylum, basic human rights, civil liberties, and humanitarian forms of justice. It was the right of every man under God to which the American constitution provided political structure and will. However, we harm ourselves by not more actively exploring how to help and assist other countries in obtaining what little freedoms and liberties we have carved out for ourselves by God's largess and blessing. Though lately it would seem that we have not committed our ways nor our will to God's benevolence and grace. For without this most basic human commitment America's corporate responsibility for its behaviors and policies will disintegrate under its own self-interests. Hence, we must work everyday as a blessed people to humanize the best forms of our citizen government in order to better enact peace, freedom, and responsible relations to a world racked by pain and injustice. This would include the Muslim countries no less than to China and Russia.

Moreover, we do well to realize that we do not stand alone in our fears, our angers, nor our sufferings, within this world that we live in. That many times over it has been the sad experience of other woeful citizenry caught between powers of oppression. From Eastern Europe, to the Muslim masses, to the impoverished African countries controlled by fierce, inhuman gun lords and tyrannical governments. To SE Asia's experiences of aggressive sino-socialism, even to countries in South America and Mexico powerless to stop the rape and pillage of their own citizenry before the cruel hands of powerful crime and drug lords. For this America bears responsibility to lead by strength, and by strength of will, in all matters of human resolution, protection, civility, and justice. Even to unempowered nations ravaged by sin and hatred within their own assemblies and land-bound contracts with one another.

Hence, we do not wish to turn a blind eye to our own governmental policies as citizens of Nazi Germany once did. A Catholic Christian country that became inhuman and hellish to the very state of humanity itself. Nor to become powerless citizens before the creation of an oppressive state system by the hands of our own making in its socialistic and militaristic endeavors. Charged with the simultaneous mandates of peace and humanity but found within its parts to be anything but that. But to become citizens actively declaring to our government and media industry a stronger will of intolerance to any deviations from Jesus' mandates to love and to service to one another. To behave ourselves wisely and not to become caught up in the lifeboat malpractices of ethical confusion to the general harm of those "unlike" ourselves. To consider every man, woman, and child, as an image bearer of God, and precious in His holy sight. To mandate the right of civility and humanity in actualizing terms that would remove any images and myths that would reduce us to civil impoverishment and divine judgment.

Movies like "Zero Dark Thirty" cannot be so much ignored or boycotted as accepted and published in public declaration to just how far we have strayed from America's former commitments to life and liberty for all mankind. Rather than denying Hollywood's horror flicks and indiscretionary violence for violence sake, it should reawaken us by putting our pulse upon the lifeblood of our great nation and forthrightly declare to us our fears, our shame, guilts and sin. Fighting Hollywood and the media is not the issue here. It is we ourselves that this industry is portraying. And it to ourselves that we must work to change by the help of Almighty God and in the power of His Holy Spirit. For within the heart of man is sin and darkness. And in man's rebirth through Jesus can be found light and life. It is to this Kingdom that we wish to share and envisage with all the nations of the earth.

Consequently, music and movies, novels and news, may more accurately tell us of ourselves than we may wish to accept or believe - though we would pay dear coinage for any revisionary image of ourselves that we can find - myths and game technology included. For in those images do we find our actualized versions of ourselves if we continue to allow our selfish absorptions to continue and progress. But these are imperfect, dithering images made by man in his own lamentable image, and not in the Son of God's own image of grace and goodness. Against which we find hope in any local municipality, corporation, school, college, church, or community group, promoting the welfare of others by active service, giving, personal involvement and participation. These are the laudable sublime practices of a liberating nation wishing to break its stereotypes by opening up hand and heart to the needs of those around it. For it is by giving of ourselves that we may find ourselves. By focusing upon the needs and rights of all men - even our perceived enemies - if we wish to dispel the boogie-man of our fears and nightmares, fantasies and delusions.

R.E. Slater
February 25, 2013
 
 
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Is This (Torture as Entertainment) What We Have Come To?

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Roger Olson: "Why I Am Not a Fundamentalist (or Conservative Evangelical)"

 
Why I Am Not a Fundamentalist (or Conservative Evangelical)
 
What I think is that many, perhaps most, conservative evangelicals have erected Old School Princeton theology, Hodge and Warfield especially, as authoritative such that any interpretation of Scripture fundamentally in conflict with what they believed must be viewed with suspicion if not rejected out of hand.
 
There’s a sign on the interstate some miles south of where I live. It promotes tourism to a little town a way off the interstate. The sign says “Gently resisting change since 1872.” Whenever I see it I think of conservative evangelicals I know and Hodge’s Systematic Theology which was published in that year. Sometimes I would like to take that sign (that is, make a copy of it) and erect it outside the entrance to meetings of conservative evangelical theologians. Recently, however, I think I would have to add “Not so” before “gently.”
 
 
 
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What Is “Fundamentalism” and Who Is a “Fundamentalist?”
Here “militant” does not mean “violent.” It means aggressive, pro-active (some would say “reactionary,” organized and vocal.
 
Early fundamentalists disagreed about many things: the sacraments/ordinances, church polity, eschatology, modern (as opposed to biblical) miracles, predestination and free will, etc. But they agreed that liberal (“Ritschlian”) theology and higher criticism of the Bible were very serious assaults on “real Christianity” that needed to be confronted and stopped. Their collective attitude was that “theological modernism” (as I described it in my earlier post about liberal theology) was false Christianity in the same way that, say, Mormonism and Christian Science and Jehovah’s Witness teaching was false Christianity. But unlike those, it was inside the churches and their colleges and seminaries. It needed to be rooted out and if it couldn’t be true Christians would have to leave those denominations, colleges, universities, seminaries, etc., and found ones committed to true Christianity.
 
They were, in other words, early twentieth century Puritans. Exactly like the Puritans of the seventeenth century, the early fundamentalists believed the churches needed to be purged of heresy and everything linked with it symbolically. And that’s where the trouble started—what that meant. What did it mean to purge the churches and Christian organizations of everything symbolically linked with heresy? And how to root out hidden heresies and heretics?
 
Scholars disagree about the birth of the term “fundamentalism.” Many, perhaps the majority, insist it was coined by Baptist editor Curtis Lee Laws in 1920. That may be true of the “-ism.” But the root “fundamentals” was being used before then as various groups listed the essentials of true Christianity as “fundamentals of the faith.” The booklets titled The Fundamentals were published in 1910 and 1911. These were articles written by leading fundamentalist scholars and ministers—defending what they saw as the essentials of Christianity with a strong anti-liberal flavor. (However, ironically, many of the authors would later not fit the emerging fundamentalist profile.) 1919 was the year William Bell Riley founded the World Christian Fundamentals Association and added premillennialism to the list of essential Christian beliefs—a move that excluded many people widely recognized as fundamentalists (especially those in the Reformed tradition such as J. Gresham Machen).
 
So that was early, original fundamentalism. Most contemporary conservative evangelicals would probably have been fundamentalists then. Except in Riley’s mind. He and his Texas friend J. Frank Norris joined hands across the Mason-Dixon Line (imaginary as it is in the Midwest) to forge a new, more militant, and exclusive form of fundamentalism. Many fundamentalists were swayed by Riley’s and Norris’ strict and exclusive approach. A divide began to open within the fundamentalist movement—between the narrow, exclusivist camp that absolutely eschewed evolution in any form, including “progressive creationism,” insisted on strict biblical inerrancy and literal interpretation (e.g., of Daniel and Revelation including premillennialism and eventually pretribulational dispensationalism) and the somewhat more moderate Reformed camp that followed Machen when he founded Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. There were those in that camp, however, who were more militant and exclusive than Machen and eventually broke off to found hyper-conservative groups and institutions. Carl McIntire was one of them.
 
Because of this evolution within fundamentalism (no pun intended!), scholars tend to talk about “pre-1925 fundamentalism” and “post-1925 fundamentalism.” The main movers and shakers of the fundamentalist movement after 1925 (the year of the infamous Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee widely regarded as a huge humiliation for fundamentalism) informally added “biblical separation” to the list of essentials of authentic Christian faith. That is, true Christians will refuse Christian fellowship with outright heretics and apostates and theological modernists and liberals (such as Harry Emerson Fosdick and his ilk) belong in those categories. Fundamentalists began founding their own separate Protestant institutions and denominations, publishing houses and missionary agencies. Many organized “Bible institutes” (where the Bible was supposed to be the basis of the entire curriculum) and urged, even required, Christian young people to attend only those after high school. Throughout the 1930s American fundamentalism especially flourished, but somewhat underground and almost invisible to the mainstream media and religious organizations (such as the Federal Council of Churches).
 
But something new began to happen within the fundamentalist movement that further fractured it and, in my estimation, anyway, killed it as a movement. That was the introduction by fundamentalist leaders of the doctrine and practice of “secondary separation.” This meant that pure Christians ought to shun Christian fellowship with other Christians who did not practice “biblical separation.” Thus, when Billy Graham, a fundamentalist when he began his ministry, began to allow Catholics and liberal-leaning, “mainstream” Protestant ministers to cooperate with and support his evangelistic crusades, leading fundamentalists criticized him and withdrew their support from him.
 
I believe the fundamentalist movement broke apart into several, often competing, movements practicing different degrees of separationism in the 1940s and 1950s. Many conservative and revivalistic Protestants left fundamentalism and joined the “neo-evangelical movement” launched by Harold John Ockenga and others in 1942 (the year the National Association of Evangelicals was founded). However, the fundamentalist movement left behind an ethos. And that is how I identify a fundamentalist—by his or her embodiment of the fundamentalist ethos. The criteria cited at this post’s opening describe that ethos.
 
A true fundamentalist minister, for example, will usually not join a local “evangelical ministerial alliance” (or whatever it may be called). Now, to be sure, some ministers within such an alliance may display fundamentalist traits, but a true fundamentalist, though he may be sympathetic with some of the alliance’s goals (e.g., to provide high school graduates with a Bible-based, united, city-wide, baccalaureate service) will avoid full participation in it. He will probably seek out other fundamentalist ministers for fellowship and cooperation. These fundamentalist alliances tend to be small and fracture easily because of disagreements about fine points of doctrine, practice and Bible interpretation.
 
The fundamentalist ethos is rarely “pure.” That is, it can be discerned in partial manifestations. Whenever any of the seven criteria mentioned at this post’s beginning are apparent I suspect a fundamentalist ethos is present (in a person or a movement or an organization).
 
I have met people who call themselves fundamentalists who do not exhibit most or any of those traits (criteria). Usually they are using the label in its original (“paleo-fundamentalist”) sense—pre-1925. I have no quarrel with them and if they want to be called fundamentalists when I would categorize them as simply conservative evangelicals, that’s fine. But in certain contexts I would not call them fundamentalists because that will automatically be misunderstood. Among the literati of American religious history and historical theology, anyway, “fundamentalism” is usually understood in terms of the 1930s and afterwards movement with defining prototypes such as the previously mentioned Riley, Norris, McIntire, Rice and (not previously mentioned) Bob Jones, Richard Clearwaters, and Jerry Falwell.
 
I have before mentioned a phenomenon I call “neo-fundamentalism.” That is my term (others may use it differently) for people who embody a fundamentalist ethos but have wedged their way into neo-evangelical circles calling themselves “conservative evangelicals” and finding acceptance as such. Here is an anecdote to illustrate that. About fifteen years ago I noticed that a seminary historically noted for being fundamentalist (in the historical-theological sense) had set up a table in the evangelical college where I then taught to recruit undergraduates. I approached the recruiter, a relatively young (early middle aged) employee of the seminary. I told him I would have difficulty recommending that any of my students attend his seminary. He asked why. I told him that the seminary had a reputation for being fundamentalist. He said “No, we’re changing. We’re evangelical now.” So I asked him this question: “If Billy Graham volunteered to preach in your seminary’s chapel free of charge, no honorarium expected, would your president allow it?” His slightly red-faced response was “We’re moving in that direction.” Enough said. Now, that is not to say no fundamentalist seminary would allow Billy Graham to preach there. Some might. But a seminary that calls itself “evangelical” and would refuse to allow him to preach there is almost certainly fundamentalist whether it uses that label or not.
 
I could cite numerous similar stories of encounters I have had with people who call themselves evangelicals but who operate out of a fundamentalist ethos. Also when I taught at that evangelical college I was accosted by a local pastor who is widely known as an evangelical leader who was furious, livid, that the college’s president had invited Robert Schuller to speak there. Now, I wasn’t particularly thrilled by the president’s decision, either, but I wouldn’t be furious or livid about it. When I pointed out to the pastor that the college’s (and denomination’s) roots are in Pietism and therefore irenic he said “’Irenic’ is just a term for doctrinal indifference.” His fundamentalist ethos appeared there and then.