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
JOHANNESBURG (AP) - A small plane carrying only its American pilot disappeared 10 days ago just miles from a refueling stop at a West African island in the middle of a tropical storm of thunder and lightning.
Since then, searches with a plane and boats have found no trace of the pilot, 54-year-old missionary Jerry Krause, or the twin-engine Beechcraft 1900C that he was flying from South Africa to Mali.
Krause's family in Mali, where he has lived for 16 years, and in Waseca, Minnesota, believes he is alive and could have landed in hostile territory.
"After much research and digging, there is a 50% chance that Jerry's plane crashed," says a message posted Wednesday to their website www.findjerry.com
"That other 50% is the probability that he was captured and forced to fly for some drug lords or guerrilla members. There is evidence now to support both scenarios."
Family members reached by email would not elaborate on any possible evidence, and the suggestion could not be immediately backed.
The posting said that a missing person's report has been filed in the United States so that the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board can start an investigation into Krause's disappearance.
The Krauses have launched a multifaceted campaign to "find Jerry." Family members are lobbying officials, posting messages on social media and using the Internet to encourage a relay of prayers for his safe return.
Krause's last contact was apparently with the control tower at Sao Tome island, a couple of kilometers north of the equator and 150 miles (240 kilometers) from the coast of Gabon.
"We have no idea what happened to him," Januario Barreto, the control tower chief, told The Associated Press by telephone Wednesday.
He said Krause called in to say he was 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the island when lightning struck the tower and knocked out the power. That was just before 4 p.m. local time (1600 GMT), still in daylight, on Sunday, April 7. When generators kicked in, soon afterward, Krause could no longer be reached, Barreto said.
He said air traffic controllers immediately contacted the nearest control towers on the African mainland at Libreville, Gabon and Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, to see whether they had heard from Krause. They had not.
Navy and Coast Guard vessels are still looking for any trace of Krause's plane, Barreto said.
The family's website said they have sent a Portuguese-speaking envoy to Sao Tome, at the family's expense, to "get the official documentation as to what actually took place there from Jerry radioing in to land to their responses and follow-up.
"Their stories haven't been confirmed and haven't been consistent," the message complained.
Krause's employer, Eric van der Gragt, said the control tower did not inform others that there was a missing pilot and plane until almost 24 hours after the disappearance.
"The tower just didn't inform people that he had disappeared," van der Gragt, owner of Bamako, Mali-based Sahel Aviation Service, said in a telephone interview.
He said he sent a plane to search for Krause for two days that week, after the Sao Tome Coast Guard had found nothing on the Monday and Tuesday following his disappearance. The Sahel plane searched around the twin-island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, he said.
Van der Gragt said the turboprop Beechcraft that Krause was flying did not belong to his company but, he believed, to a company based in Senegal.
Krause's family is heartened that searchers have found nothing in the Gulf of Guinea, saying that an absence of wreckage or emergency locator transmitter signals are hopeful signs.
The oil-rich Gulf of Guinea, where Krause disappeared, has been increasingly targeted by armed pirates who hijack ships' cargoes, including a British ship in February.
At their Web site and on Facebook, the Krause family details how they lobbied officials of the French cellular service Orange, to which the pilot was subscribed, in an effort to get them to try to track his iPhone and discover his last position. At first the company resisted, then said it was unable to help because his subscription was based in Mali, according to the Web site. Orange was able to turn off the iPhone from afar, to conserve its battery.
Krause's family last heard from him when he called his wife Gina from South Africa to let her know he was on his way home to Bamako. The two have lived as missionaries in Africa for 25 years, the last 16 of them in Mali, a mainly Muslim country. Krause had served as a missionary pilot for the Nampa, Idaho-based Mission Aviation Fellowship until 2009 when the air service pulled out of Mali.
Jerry and Gina Krause stayed on. Many foreign companies and charities have left Mali since jihadist fighters swarmed over the north last year. France and several African nations sent troops this year when the Islamic fighters, allied with al-Qaeda, started to advance on Bamako, the capital.
"God knows where Jerry is," Gina Krause says, expressing certainty and her faith in a posting at the findjerry Web site. "I know I serve a God who can do the IMPOSSIBLE."
AP writer Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal contributed to this report.
The Krause family is raising awareness for Jerry Krause, a 54-year-old missionary pilot who went missing on April 7 when his plane hit a tropical storm while en route from South Africa to Mali.
A family is searching for answers after a pilot, who has served as a missionary in Africa for the past 25 years, went missing 10 days ago when his plane was hit by a tropical storm on his way to Mali.
The family worries that the pilot may have been captured by guerilla forces or drug lords.
Jerry Krause, 54, went missing on April 7 while flying a twin-engine Beechcraft 1900C near the island of São Tomé, where he was due for a refill of fuel, en route to Mali from South Africa.
About nine miles away from the island, an intense tropical storm reportedly hit and the missionary pilot lost contact with the local control tower at São Tomé; he has not been heard from since.
"We have no idea what happened to him," Januario Barreto, the control tower chief, told The Associated Press by telephone Wednesday.
Barreto claims that the tropical storm caused lightning to hit the São Tomé control tower, causing it to temporarily lose power shortly after it had its last verbal communication with Krause.
When the generator at the control tower restored power, Jerry could not be contacted.
Jerry's family, which includes his wife, Gina, his brother, Jeremy, and three children, Alyssa, Nathan, and Jessica, has set up a website, www.findjerry.com, to provide updates about their search for their loved one, implore government officials to help with the search, and encourage followers to pray for Jerry's safe return.
The family has also set up a social media campaign, starting the Twitter trend "FindJerry" and setting up a Facebook page to spread awareness about their missing loved one.
The Krause family wrote on the FindJerry.com webpage that they believe the São Tomé control tower did not follow protocol when Jerry's plane went missing, and could possibly now be trying to cover their tracks to avoid reprimand.
"Sao Tome air traffic control DID NOT contact mainland airports to check on Jerry's status as they should have," the family says on the website.
Additionally, the family refuted the claims of the control tower that lightning from the tropical storm knocked out the power of the control tower for a temporary time when Jerry went missing.
"[The control tower officials] are either stating this now to cover their tracks since they didn't follow protocol when a plane went missing or they are involved somehow with the disappearance," the family argued.
"It would have made sense had they come out and said that from the beginning, but such thing was said last week about electricity going out," the family noted.
The family also believes that because no plane wreckage has been found, it's possible that Jerry is alive and surviving.
Unfortunately, there is a 50 percent chance Jerry could have landed his plane in enemy territory and could now possibly be used as a pilot for drug traffickers against his will.
"After much research and digging, there is a 50% chance that Jerry's plane crashed. That other 50% is the probability that he was captured and forced to fly for some drug lords or guerillas members. There is evidence now to support both scenarios," the family stated.
In an earlier blog post, the family wrote that Jerry's plane would have crashed into "a million pieces," which surely would have been washed ashore by the changing tide or scooped up by fishing nets, and therefore, because no plane fragments have been found, "there is more potential that he was potentially ambushed or kidnapped."
"Again, there is no proof of kidnapping, but it's becoming more of a reality. Please pray for the US Embassy officials to get answers and for other countries to cooperate as we continue to search," the family wrote.
The family has also been making progress in spreading awareness of Jerry's absence to the authorities in both the U.S. and South Africa, successfully filing a missing person's report in the U.S. to enable the National Transportation Safety Board and the South African Civil Aviation Authority to begin their investigation into the pilot's whereabouts.
Additionally, the Krause family offered a $5,000 reward for information on Jerry's whereabouts, including providing fragments of his plane, but no one has come forward with any evidence.
The family continues to remain hopeful and faithful during this time of uncertainty, writing on their Find Jerry website that they are grateful for the prayers given to their family and to Jerry.
"We serve a God who can move mountains and whose mighty hand is over this entire situation," the Krause family wrote.
Jerry Krause has worked as a missionary in Africa for the past 25 years, spending the past 16 years in Mali with his wife, Gina. He most recently worked for the Sahel Aviation Service, a commercial company which provides air transportation in the areas around Mali.
Prior to that, Jerry also worked as a pilot for the Mission Aviation Fellowship for 22 years, which works to help over 1,000 Christian and humanitarian organizations with air transportation and delivery.
Jerry worked for the MAF until 2009, when the air service ended its work in Mali.
Just so you can plan ahead in great anticipation for the next update :), I plan on updating once a week, updating on Monday or Tuesday (even though today is Wed) unless something urgent comes up.
My intention for this update is to explain why we believe my dad to still be alive. We are almost at two months since he disappeared. And looking at the evidence, as I've mentioned previously, the most logical perspective would determine my dad to be dead. As time progresses, the easiest solution would be to count my dad dead. That final verdict would end the waiting, the effort of searching, and the perseverance of continuing to pray. I would be relieved to have the test God placed in the lives of my family to have ended many weeks ago, to be in a place where we could just move on. But, God's timing is beyond my understanding and the test has not ended.
As I've thought through the reasons as to why we believe my dad is still alive, I've reread report after report of the investigations done searching for my dad in order to come up with the most logical reasons. But even after making a list of those reasons, I don't think they are the main reasons we still believe my dad is alive. Briefly, the logical reasons to believe my dad to still be alive include (in no specific order): 1. Not finding any piece of the plane, 2. The lack of effort on searching for a crashed plane by Sao Tome, 3. The negligence of the refuelers in Sao Tome in providing documentation of planes refueled on April 7th and 8th, 4. The discrepancy of the facts regarding the last conversation my dad had with the tower, 5. The corruption in the area and the benefit of having my dad (pilot, mechanic, and free plane).
And the list could go on. If you want more specific logical reasons, feel free to email me (Jessica)...
But, the real reason we believe my dad to be alive:
Because God is not allowing us to believe anything else. When we reach a point of starting to believe my dad to be dead, God keeps placing people in our lives and providing us with Scripture that does not give evidence to him being dead (including around 15 dreams). God keeps telling us: Pray, Persevere, and Trust Me. And so we have to keep doing that.
Please continue to partake in this journey through prayer. I know that is an area that God is testing me. And at the end of this, I don't want to be someone who stopped having faith or someone who believed in the logical and not the miraculous. This situation is one where God wants and is going to get all of the glory. And I have to keep asking, seeking, and knocking till God says I can stop.
May God be glorified in me and in you. May we each be able to stand before God and have Him say, well done my good and faithful servant, no matter what situation we each face. For God is good. His Love endures. And He will be victorious.
We have followed Peter since his introduction at Mars Hill Church many years ago. I have found in him the seeds of a restorative faith through honest recognition of our failings, hurts and harms. He approaches Scripture from primarily a philosophical perspective in order to integrate redemptive theology towards healing and wholeness in Jesus. As such, it is meant as relevant philosophical theology for the postmodern 21st century as versus other restorative disciplines such as psychology, social theory, or normative church instruction. I have used Peter to help determine what is meant by the idea of "deconstructing the Christian life" primarily through his observations as to how Christian symbols and imposed church structure are used in our worship of God and faith. Knowing Peter to have a heart centered on Jesus-and-His-resurrection, I can also say that Pete is fundamentally orientated towards spiritual "reconstruction" within the Christian life albeit through "torching" those ideas about God that pre-postmodernistic religion has imposed upon the human spirit. He calls this "pyrotheology," a subset of which is his idea of "idolizing" God in our own image rather than in God's own divine image that he finds to be, in a deeply religious sense, mystical and mysterious, moving and paradoxical. Generally, I find Pete's ideas helpful, if not sometimes outlandish or weird. But within that weirdness there are always glimmers for me into my life with Christ and the heart of faith we are called to commit and be founded upon. As I am not a philosopher but primarily a theologian, I find it helpful to listen to those whom God has led before me into areas that may be fruitful for discussion and discernment - even as He has with past Christian philosophers such as Soren Kierkegaard of the 19th century. There is always room in the family of God for differing perspectives. Peter Rollins is one such voice to whom we might listen. R.E. Slater May 10, 2013
Idolatry of God Trailer
Biography
Peter Rollins is a widely sought after writer, lecturer, storyteller, and
public speaker. He is the founder of Ikon, a Belfast, Northern Ireland, faith
group that has gained an international reputation for blending live music,
visual imagery, soundscapes, theater, ritual, and reflection to create what they call 'transformance art'. He currently
resides in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Peter gained his higher education from Queens
University, Belfast and has earned degrees (with distinction) in Scholastic
Philosophy (BA Hons), Political Theory (MA) and Post-Structural thought (PhD).
He is currently a research associate with the Irish School of Ecumenics in
Trinity College, Dublin and is the author of the much talked about How (Not) to
Speak of God. His most recent work is entitled The Orthodox Heretic and Other
Impossible Tales. He was born in Belfast but currently resides in Greenwich, CT.
You can’t be satisfied. Life is difficult. You don’t know the secret.
Whether readers are devout believers or distant seekers, The Idolatry of
God shows that we must lay down our certainties and honestly admit our
doubts to identify with Jesus. Rollins purposely upsets fundamentalist certainty
in order to open readers up to a more loving, active manifestation of Christ’s
love.
In contrast to the usual understanding of the “Good News” as a message
offering satisfaction and certainty, Rollins argues for a radical and shattering
alternative. He explores how the Good News actually involves embracing the idea
that we can’t be whole, that life is difficult, and that we are in the dark.
Showing how God has traditionally been approached as a product that will render
us complete, remove our suffering, and reveal the answers, he introduces an
incendiary approach to faith that invites us to joyfully embrace our brokenness,
resolutely face our unknowing, and courageously accept the difficulties of
existence. Only then, he argues, can we truly rob death of its sting and enter
into the fullness of life.
In this book, Pete continues his program of incendiary
theology - burning all the things that get in the way of having a bare bones,
gut-level relationship with God. He talks about our quest for answers and
victory over our circumstances as being idolatrous, as being the real object of
our worship rather than God Himself.
He is not writing anything new, because
people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Soren Kierkegaard have written in a similar
vein many years before , but Pete brings his unique version of this message in a
different style, using more contemporary images and stories.
As an
example, have a look at this passage from Bonhoeffer (Ethics):
"Only by God's
executing judgment upon Himself can there be peace between Him and the world
and between man and man. But the secret of this judgment, of this passion and
death, is the love of God for the world and for man.
What befell Christ
befalls every man in Him. It is only as one who is sentenced by God that man can
live before God. Only the crucified man is at peace with God. It is in the
figure of the Crucified that man recognizes and discovers himself. To be taken
up by God, to be executed on the cross and reconciled, that is the reality of
manhood." [in chapter titled Ecco Homo - The Successful Man]
Peter
Rollins puts it like this:
"This means that the crucifixion bears witness to
a form of life that is free from our obsessive drive for the idol, a form of
life in which our zombie nature is cured. For to lose the idol means to lose
that drive which prevents us from fully embracing our life and taking pleasure
in it. It means giving up our desire for ultimate satisfaction and then, in that
act, discovering a deeper, more beautiful satisfaction, one that is not
constantly deferred but that can be grasped here and now. Not one that promises
to make us whole and remove our suffering, but one that promises joy in the
midst of our brokenness and depth in the very embrace of our pain." [End of
Chapter 4]
Obviously they are writing in very different styles and using
very different perspectives, but essentially they are bringing the same
message.
This is one of those books that should be read slowly, and every
image savoured. Like Bonhoeffer's Ethics and his Christology, it should be
re-read every year because new meaning and application can be found again and
again.
Anyone looking for answers or new methods of creating "meaningful
worship experiences" will be disappointed by this book. It doesn't give answers,
but raises questions that we need to explore in our own lives and communities.
And ultimately it's questions that keep us close to God, whilst answers drive us
away from Him.
The Senseless, Beautiful,
Topsy-Turvy World of Glee
Glee has hit the world running exposing all the best and
worst of the human spirit. It focuses on the disabilities and insecurities of our
impersonal societies and heartless spirits. From its nastiness to its beauty –
from humanity's warts, pimples, byoptic near-sightedness, weirdness, and ugliness, to its wonder,
amazement, incredibility, incredulity, and soaring hopes and dreams. Glee is
the Disney version of the Bible’s exposure of our hearts, minds, souls and
spirits. It shows to mankind the worst and the best within us. From our
disabilities and disbelief, to our insecurities and inner turmoils. From our gross
frailties and failures, to our impossibly unchained ambitions and soulful
concessions.
God’s Word exposes us. And so did Glee as we sat glued to
the TV waiting breathlessly for the next big blowup, the next devastating heart break, the next miraculous
human touch that would make sense of the senseless world thriving around us. It’s
topical pop music lifts our spirits giving hope, healing, and a steely-eyed reality
of strength to the deep complexity and oft-times senseless destruction that
overwhelms us. A destruction that never quite ends in our teen years but
seems to hang-on through our later mature years of denial. Our bigotry. Our
unresolved hurts and harm. Our need for compassion, mercy, understanding. For
real friendships that stay with us through all that we are and hope to be.
Postmodernity and
Glee
At Glee’s essence is the struggle of the human spirit to
know and express love beyond its bounded freedoms and chained disappointments.
To find a group of friends - and especially that one close soulmate - who sees and
accepts us at our most unvarnished exposure. Who brings out the best in us when we fail
to be at our best. Who might endure our meltdowns and unkindness to help us
become less toxic to those family and friends around us bewildered by our too-hasty actions,
misspoken words, and intolerable cruelty. To reach a place that we might see
sin’s ugliness in our lives and accept God’s world of love, hope, healing in
bonds of unbroken fellowship. To find-and-recreate communities of redemption,
hope, mercy and forgiveness. Here is the teenage world of postmodernity at its
deconstructive best and reconstructive heights binding human souls into depths
of fidelity unthought and undreamed.
To modernity’s excesses and brutalities, its impersonal
arguments for-or-against God-and-country, comes postmodernity’s reach of the human touch
admitting froth and failure, helplessness and lost, disappointments and reality. The youth-of-today give to
the-world-of-tomorrow a pageantry of hope wrapped within the tenuous tissues of
God’s redeeming love that would rescue the worst of us from the ugliness waiting within
the cesspool of our loneliness. Tissues that tear too easily and yet cling tenaciously
until our human souls might find the exit doors to its dilemmas and confusions,
anger and hate, denials and destructions. God’s love is that fibrous tissue – so seemingly frail
and yet spidery strong. It is everywhere around us to the one brave enough refusing to give-up or give-in. His Spirit mighty enough to grant a strength we fail to
have against such impossible odds of self and world. His Cross wide enough to take a world of
suffering and give to it a resurrected hope little understood until personally
found, claimed, and received. This is the world of Glee. The world of the Bible. Our
world of God’s love and reach and depth. Cling to it and “Don’t Stop Believing”
in the renewing worlds of tomorrow.
Below is a video produced by resident philosopher/theology Peter Rollins of Belfast, Ireland. His observations fall in-line with the biblical idea of redemptive introspection that was written of above. And is a consistent message of God's directive love and care through our own moments of implosion and failure, griefs and torments, where the bond of forgiveness and understanding through Jesus can bring restoration and healing by the hands and hearts of those God brings into our circumcised lives. - R.E.Slater
My friend Tom Oord has been a great-and-good influence in demonstrating to those within his denominational reach of how to adapt one's theology to the present understanding of scientific knowledge. Consequently, he and other theologians within (and outside) of his denomination (sic, Biologos for one) have been willing to accept the fact that their theology is out-of-step with today's academia and are showing their flexibility in remitting incorrect church doctrines in the face of fact-and-not-fancy.
That Evolutionary Creationism is beginning to become a broad-based understanding to the early creation stories of the Bible has been reflected herein within the journals of Relevancy22 as evidence to this movement's intent. That this is beginning to become a legitimately accepted viewpoint within today's postmodern church has also been demonstrated in the writings of those willing to speak out against the more popular rhetoric of refuting Christian colleges, churches, mainstream publications, and media outlets.
Little-by-little the evolutionary doctrine of creation is becoming understood as the only valid scientific process by which our Creator God has chosen to create His creation against the centuries-old proclaimed teachings of the non-postmodernday church (sic., in pre-postmodernistic language these movements go under the several names of Young Earth Creationism, Progressive Creationism, or Intelligent Design). Because this theological view confronts those countering church dogmas on so many doctrinal planes it has behooved theists both left-and-right of the issue to reflect on the many differing doctrinal subjects which have been abrogated and must be updated.
To those far-sighted theologians willing to brave the task at hand, and accepting the challenge that scientific discovery has brought to the church's understanding of the Bible, we are discovering a far deeper (and far richer!) grasp of our Creator-Redeemer God than initially comprehended (or originally feared lost) through such study. Hence, the Bible itself - along with its many integrating doctrines - are being challenged as to their truer course of revelation to which the church had formerly understood (and applied) those doctrines (and dogmas) under previous administrations and enlightenment eras.
Slowly, newer, more hermeneutically palatable explanations and study of the Scriptures are arising to replace poorly understood - and misapplied fears - to the truths of "scriptural evolution" as they affect our understanding of God, His Being, His elected processes of creation, His considerable judgments and wisdom, His oft-times incomprehensible revelation and communication to man, His reach, intent, majesty, and glory. Nay, into the very spirit of redemption itself as God renews, reclaims, recreates, revives, creation towards His sovereign goals and plans.
Consequently, the church has everything to gain and nothing to lose as has been demonstrated within the articles contained here in Relevancy22 in its many arguments for Evolutionary Creationism, and its varied exploration into the depths of the divine mind and will. As such, to the inquiring heart-and-mind willing to suspend past ideological arguments for a deeper, richer, insight into God Himself, there will be paradoxically discovered profound satisfaction that will include an expansive array of the world's resources and native storybook everywhere written about us into the cosmologic and biotic landscapes surrounding our hearts and minds, souls and spirits. "Hail," brave adventurer, "to the beauties of our Creator God, His wondrous world, and ancient mysteries of the divine!"
Recent polling shows that the majority of scientists believe in evolution. More than 9 of 10 professional scientists believe the evidence for evolution is compelling.1 While the theory of evolution comes in a variety of forms, virtually all forms say that gradual changes occurred to produce new species over long periods of time.
Not only do the majority of scientists affirm evolution, the general features of evolutionary theory – including an old earth and natural selection – are widely accepted in culture today. Most public television and scientifically-oriented programs simply assume the general truth of evolutionary theory.
Recent polling also shows, however, that more than half of American Evangelicals believe humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.2 Those who hold this view typically believe the world is relatively young. And they interpret Genesis (and other books of the Bible) in a particular way to support their young earth view.
This difference between 1) the majority of Evangelicals and 2) the majority of scientists seems true of the Church of the Nazarene. Many denominational scholars in various disciplines – scientific, biblical, and theological – believe the general theory of evolution is compatible with Wesleyan-holiness theology. Yet, many non-specialists in the Church of the Nazarene reject evolution. In fact, a 2007 Pew poll said only 21% of Nazarenes mostly agree or completely agree that evolution is the best explanation for the origins of life on earth.3 Dan Boone, president of Trevecca Nazarene University, sums it up: "the bulk of our Christian scholars/scientists are in a camp different from the bulk of our laity [on issues of evolution]."4
The Nazarenes Exploring Evolution project works to foster greater understanding among members of the Church of the Nazarene about the potential fruitful relation between Wesleyan-holiness theology and evolution. It does so by exploring scripture, science, theology, and other realms of knowledge. It seeks not to ridicule those who hold non-evolutionary views of creation, such as Young Earth Creationism, Progressive Creationism, or Intelligent Design. Instead, it offers Theistic Evolution (or similar views) to members of the denomination as a viable alternative among accounts of how God creates the universe.
Nazarene Scientists on God Creating through Evolution
In a 2009 Pew research study, 97% of scientists said humans and other living things have evolved over time by natural processes, guided by God, or evolved in some other way.5 To date, no one has taken a poll of scientists in Church of the Nazarene colleges and universities to determine how they think about evolution. But some scientists in the denomination have published their views on the subject.
Fred Cawthorne, of Trevecca Nazarene University, says that "evolution by no means contradicts the fact that God is the Maker of heaven and earth and that he has been actively guiding and sustaining the universe for all time. If we say God cannot create through a gradual, progressive process such as evolution, then we limit God's transcendence and immanence."6
Karl Giberson, long-time professor at Eastern Nazarene College, affirms evolution: "I think evolution is true. The process, as I reflect on it, is an expression of God's creativity, although in a way that is not captured by the scientific view of the world... God's creative activity must not be confined to a six-day period - 'in the beginning' - or the occasional intervention along the evolutionary path. God's role in creation must be more universal – so universal it cannot be circumscribed by the contours of individual phenomena or events."7
Darrel Falk, of Point Loma Nazarene University, says that "for the past century and a half, thousands of scientists from disciplines as diverse as physics, geology, astronomy, and biology have amassed a tremendous mass of data, and the answer is absolutely clear and equally certain. The earth is not young, and the life forms did not appear in six twenty-four-hour days. God created gradually."8
Rick Colling, a long time scientist at Olivet Nazarene University, says that "some people, on religious grounds, choose to aggressively ignore or deny many scientific concepts and principles, especially in the domain of evolution... The problem, as I see it, is that we tend to squeeze God into small rigid boxes... Unfortunately, this approach to religious faith is fraught with liability because it prevents God from truly being God – a creator capable of using any means He chooses for His creation."9
Without polling, it is difficult to know if these views represent the majority of Nazarene scientists. But it is true that the voices quoted above are not alone among Nazarene scientists who believe the evidence for evolution is strong and evolution does not necessarily conflict with the belief God is Creator.
Nazarene Biblical and Theological Scholars on God Creating through Evolution
There is little doubt some people reject evolution based on their interpretation of the Bible. The Bible says little to nothing about evolution. And the first chapters of Genesis, when read literally, do not easily fit the theory of evolution.
Many biblical scholars, theologians, and philosophers in the Church of the Nazarene, however, believe the Bible should not be interpreted as a straightforward science or history book. For instance, many believe Genesis 1 reads like a hymn of praise. Others believe it draws from Jewish Temple literature, which is religious and not scientific. Most Nazarene Bible, theology, and philosophy scholars believe the main point of Genesis and other creation texts is theological: God is Creator. Genesis and other books of the Bible need not mention the specific ways God creates for this main point to be true.
Robert Branson, a long-time professor at Olivet Nazarene University, says that "it is one thing to say we believe that God is the Creator. It is quite another to say that in Scripture God described with scientific accuracy "when" and "how" he created."10
Dennis Bratcher, a long time Bible scholar in the Church of the Nazarene, says that "sometimes it is hard for us to realize that the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, is an Oriental book... The thought world of Oriental culture is radically different from the thought world of Western culture, particularly when we recall that there is a period of three thousand years between us and that culture... That's why they are not writing about evolution in Genesis 1; that's 3,000 years in their future."11
Alex Varughese, of Mount Vernon Nazarene University, and his Nazarene co-writers of Discovering the Bible say that a "careful reading of Genesis 1:1-2:4a shows that the focus of the text is on the Creator and what He made. Our usual questions of why, how, and when are not answered in this account."12
Michael Lodahl, of Point Loma Nazarene University, says that "a Wesleyan reading of Genesis – and of the world – need not and should not shy away from the dominant ideas of the contemporary natural sciences. It is obvious that if the evolutionary story of the universe (including our own planet and all of its living inhabitants) is generally accurate, then the opening chapters of Genesis cannot be assumed to be giving a straightforwardly literal account of the creation of the world."13
Thomas Jay Oord, of Northwest Nazarene University, sums it up: "The Bible tells us how to live abundant life. It does not tell us scientific details about how life became abundant. The Bible also tells us how to go to heaven. It does not provide the science to tell us how the heavens go."14
Without polling biblical scholars, theologians, and philosophers in the denomination, it is difficult to know if the quotations above represent the majority. But the available literature suggests that these views do represent most scholars in these disciplines. Most scholars in Bible, theology, and philosophy seem at least open to the possibility that Wesleyan-holiness theology is compatible with evolution. And many are convinced the two are compatible.
Does It Matter?
Even those mildly interested in questions of theology and evolution know the science-and-religion discussion has a history of conflict. Any progress toward insight or reconciliation comes slowly, if at all. Veterans of the discussion are prone to weariness, and denominational leaders might wonder if the "fight" is worth the trouble. Does addressing the issues of evolution really matter?
Christians have long believed that truth matters. Although Christians may not ever know all truth because we "see through a dark glass" (1 Cor. 13), we are called to search for truth in our attempts to love God with our minds. Because the natural and social sciences are primary avenues for discovering truth about existence, these sciences can play a central role in helping Christians discern how to love God and others as oneself.
Al Truesdale, long-time professor at Nazarene Theological Seminary, summarizes the importance of seeking truth in the Church of the Nazarene: "Denominations that stand in the Wesleyan tradition [such as the Church of the Nazarene] are at their best when they advocate a vital faith that seeks understanding through a bold examination of the results of all human exploration, whether in technology, in the sciences, or through historical research."15
One reason this discussion matters, therefore, is that the search for more adequate understandings of God and the world God creates relies upon a variety of sources, not the least of which are the sciences. If evolution is widely accepted among those who have studied the natural world most intently – scientists – it matters how Christians engage the science of evolution in light of Christian Faith.
This brings us to a second reason why the discussion of evolution and theology matters. It matters because many (but not all) scientists in the Church of the Nazarene affirm the general theory of evolution. These scientists often feel ostracized, get labeled as ungodly, are marginalized, or considered deceived.
The testimony of Nazarene biologist, Darrel Falk, is similar to the testimonies of many Nazarene scientists: "One of the biggest deterrents (to entering a Nazarene community) was my impression that I could never become part of an evangelical fellowship because of my belief in gradual creation.... Unless the church begins to downplay the significance of believing in some variety of sudden creation, there will continue to be thousands of individuals ... who will be denied true fellowship in God's kingdom."16
Christian Witness Today
A third important reason why the evolution and Christian theology discussion matters is the nature of Christian witness. And the Christian witness pertaining to evolution is especially true for how young people think of God and Christian faith.
In a recent Pew study, more 18- to 29-year olds reported having a positive view of science than those in any other age category. More specifically, sixty-one percent of young people believe life evolved over time due to either natural process or divine guidance. Seventy percent of all college graduates – no matter their age – affirm some form of evolution. In sum, young people and those with degrees in higher education are more likely to trust scientists who argue for the validity of evolution.
Statistics also show, unfortunately, that young people leave the church and/or become atheists because they perceive the church to be opposed to science in general and evolution in specific. In his book, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith, David Kinnaman uses the data from Barna Group research to show why 18- to 29-year olds are leaving the Church. Nearly 3 in 10 say the church is out of step with science, and one quarter say Christianity is anti-science. About one quarter of young people are turned off by the creation vs. evolution debate, and about one-fifth say Christianity is anti-intellectual.17
Kinnaman quotes one young person and why he left faith over the church's failure to accept science: "To be honest, I think that learning about science was the straw that broke the camel's back," says the young person. "I knew from church that I couldn't believe in both science and God, so that was it. I didn't believe in God anymore."18
Stories from Nazarene parents, youth pastors, and university professors indicate that some young people are leaving the Church of the Nazarene for the reasons Kinnaman reports. These young people think they cannot affirm the idea that God creates through evolution and still feel welcome in the denomination.
Dan Boone, president of Trevecca Nazarene University, asks an important question of himself that also applies to the Church of the Nazarene, "Will I engage a young generation in an open-minded biblical conversation that welcomes scientific discovery, reasoned philosophy, and careful logic? Or will I ignore all of these in favor of an interpretation of creation that is barely one hundred years old and rooted in the fear of science?"19
In a loving, constructive, and humble endeavor, the Nazarenes Exploring Evolution project seeks to help the Church of the Nazarene consider how evolution can complement rather than contradict Wesleyan-holiness theology.
6 Fred Cawthorne, "The Harmony of Science and the Christian Faith," in Square Peg: Why Wesleyans Aren't Fundamentalists, Al Truesdale, ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 105.
7 Karl W. Giberson, Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 216.
8 Darrel R. Falk, Coming to Peace with Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity, 2004), 214.
9 Richard G. Colling, Random Designer: Created from Chaos to Connect with the Creator (Bourbonnais, Ill.: Browning, 2004), 107.
10 Robert Branson, "The Bible, Creation, and Science," in Square Peg: Why Wesleyans Aren't Fundamentalists, Al Truesdale, ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 105.
12 Alex Varughese, ed. Discovering the Bible: Story and Faith of the Biblical Communities (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill, 2006), 65.
13 Michael Lodahl, God of Nature and of Grace: Reading the World in a Wesleyan Way (Nashville, Tenn.: Kingswood, 2003), 63.
14 Thomas Jay Oord and Robert Luhn, The Best News You Will Ever Hear (Boise, Id.: Russell Media, 2011), 25. See also Oord, Divine Grace and Emerging Creation: Wesleyan Forays in Science and Theology of Creation (Eugene, Or.: Pickwick, 2009) and Oord, Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2010), ch. 4.
15 Al Truesdale, "Introduction," in Square Peg: Why Wesleyans Aren't Fundamentalists, Al Truesdale, ed. (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 10.
16 Darrel R. Falk, Coming to Peace with Science, 230. For similar testimonies, see Richard G. Colling, Random Designer, and Karl W. Giberson, Saving Darwin.
17 David Kinnaman, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2011), 136.
As I read this piece in Relevant Magazine (unaffiliated to Relevancy22 here) I was reminded of the spiritual helpfulness that can come in times of personal distress affecting our emotional, social, and personal self-awareness. We've all been there at one time or another. A time of great personal darkness and destruction. To many, these times are personally devastating and lead to greater helplessness, and/or stronger desires for avoidance and incoherent answers, addictions, or toxic lives (something known as an active "defensive position" of refusing to deal with the problem at hand because of its resultant magnitude of effect upon our lives). However, if attended to within the power of God, and faced honestly, we may find greater personal strength and more satisfying decisions than at first believed possible. David Guetta's "Titanium" is a good example of this dilemma where one's personal world must "blow up" if one is to grow beyond the confines of themselves and their limiting, or destructive, personal patterns of thought and living. Without letting go of the past we cannot move forward to our future.
All our questions, all of our struggles, all of our "black abysses," have become willfully entangled about our lives to the point of spiritually denying to us the power and freedom that God can bring to a life through Jesus. This is what Peter Rollins refers to as a personalized form of "pyro-theology' in its most basic reconstructive stages that comes into a person's life and must require one to be willing to deconstruct themselves in honest analysis (Christianity calls such actions by the cyclical pattern names of repentance and confession - which are a series of "death to life" sequences a believer must go through). Without such an effort of willful doubt, disbelief, and spiritual restructuring, a person can be left paralyzed to the Spirit of God's power of love and faith, becoming receptive to their darkest fears and hatreds without personal, positive effectual growth.
These darker times within our lives are not unusual. In reality they are quite normal when listening to the Christian testimonies one-after-another testifying to "leaving oneself behind" to find God's power of life and hope. Many, many Christians go through these darker times of "spiritual rebirth" by first going through their darkest afflictions and turmoils. That is, each has learned the lesson of coming to the end of oneself in order to be able to find oneself through Jesus' rebirth and spiritual liberation of spirit, soul, mind and body. More often than not this is the usual Christian story. Afterwhich this same form of docu-drama is necessarily replayed again-and-again within the growing Christian life as God's Spirit moves from room-to-room within our souls liberating us from the forces that would place us on Hell's doorstep and leave us for dead. At each entrance Jesus calls us forth to life just as He re-enacted in raising Lazarus from the dead... refusing death's hold upon our spirits which He has created for life and breath, renewal and reclamation, rebirth and resurrection.
I like to think of these cycles within the Christian life as cycles of applied atonement. That is, just as our Savior had to face His own wilderness of fear and temptation, His trial and crucifixion, death, and resurrection/ascension, so too must the Christian go through the same figuratively. We must not expect that any one of these stages must be left off in our own lives as deeply conflicted by sin and death as they are. However, in the struggle what we may expect is God's presence and deliverance - even when we feel most abandoned upon our own crosses of suffering and pain.... Spiritual deliverance is not a pleasant process. The cost is as high as Jesus said it would be - but it's attainments of contentment and peace will be well rewarded for all who submit to the Spirit's power of enlivenment. Doctrinally, these processes are known as "death and resurrection." Or, "justification and sanctification" (think "justified in Christ" and "sanctuary for Christ"). These are but aspects of Jesus' atonement being applied by the Holy Spirit into our daily living lives.
I speak of these times of life as one who himself has gone through personal sorrows and woe to the great grief of my soul. Mostly as a Christian. For my spiritual rebirth was one of a child coming into his pre-teen years realizing my need for Jesus' salvation in my life. And yet, this did not disallow me of sin's ruin and wreck upon my life. Whenever I gave in to sin it was there. And whenever I learned by God's Spirit to let it go it remained ever near and present, but absent its destructive power upon my life. Most of all I have trusted and believed in God's love to reclaim my life. It is by this divine power of love that hope and trust have grown. In times of personal anxiety or distress I am learning to claim God's stabilizing strength of love, hope, spiritual empowerment. Each time can be hard, but the practice of it has become more normal than my practice of disbelief, distrust, or hopelessness. Those Christians whom I know have gone through no less... it is a badge of honor that we each wear as reclaimed by Jesus' love and redemption however tattered and worn those badges are. In Jesus we may find hope. Love. Life. To Jesus I commend each reader His power of grace, mercy, love and forgiveness. It is freely given to all. Take this power and claim it for your own. It is meant by God to be yours forever and everlasting.
Michael D. Stark is an adjunct philosophy professor at Trinity Christian College. He previously taught philosophy at Colorado Christian University. He has been awarded a research fellowship at St. Olaf College’s Hong Kierkegaard Library for this upcoming summer. You can follow him on Twitter @michaeldstark.
On the famed philosopher’s message for anxious Christians.
I have always lived in anxiety.
In grade school, I was the kid who got picked on. I was timid and anxious, and the torment inflicted upon me by my peers only perpetuated my anxious behavior. Throughout my adolescence, my anxiety quietly festered. In college, I felt trapped, alone and terrified. It took every ounce of strength to go to my classes. If someone tried speaking to me, I would often shut down. What was very much internal angst began to show external physical signs. Panic attacks, sweats, shortness of breath and other anxiety-ridden symptoms took over. I was prescribed medication for this, which helped physically, but mentally I removed myself from the internal issues I needed to confront.
Kierkegaard taught me what I had been waiting to hear my whole life: Anxiety is necessary and even good.
Then I enrolled in a philosophy course. We studied the typical figures—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, etc. It was the first time I encountered Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. I didn’t know it at the time, but my life was about to radically change.
Here was a philosopher—and a man of faith—who actually experienced anxiety like me.
Kierkegaard is unique among philosophers, in that he listened to and even trusted human emotions. Whereas some philosophers dispose of and do not trust the emotive state of individuals, Kierkegaard not only embraced them, he wrote entire books on them. I began to pursue my masters in philosophy, and Kierkegaard took a prominent role in my life.
Throughout my education, I’ve studied many arguments for the existence of God. While I believe some are successful, many lack the existential pull that is so prevalent in Kierkegaard. My second year living in Denver for graduate school was perhaps the most treacherous year of my life, but it was indeed the most formative. Despair is the single word that sums up that year of my life, a word Kierkegaard knew much about. As it is described in the The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, “hopelessness is just a sign that one has reached a point where the goal of oneself must ... be re-conceived in a way that offers new hope.”
I remember vividly reading this line—sitting back in my rocking chair, putting down my pipe, and weeping. There it was. It seemed simple, really. But the moment was as profound as the quote itself. I’d been doing things all wrong. Everyone, included myself, told me I had to get rid of or at least suppress this fear. But the everyday task of taming and attempting to repress the anxiety and fear was futile. The anxiety, the hopelessness, was always there. It was a part of me.
So I read Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety. It’s a difficult read, perplexing at times, yet the lessons radiated in my being. Kierkegaard argues that anxiety is not, in fact, the enemy, but a part of humanity. The attempts to remove anxiety are futile, he says: “Anxiety is an alien power which lays hold of the individual, and yet cannot tear oneself away, nor has a will to do so; for one fears, but what one fears one desires.”
Hopelessness, Kierkegaard teaches, is a catalyst—it is a moment in which one must refocus, shift the paradigm and find new hope.
Kierkegaard taught me what I had been waiting to hear my whole life: Anxiety is necessary and even good. It manifests itself at the juncture where an individual realizes the power he or she has in making decisions. Anxiety is the realization of freedom and the possibility of choice. Some decisions are easy, and sometimes we become paralyzed in our decision-making. Anxiety provoked me to face those decisions, the seemingly infinite possibilities set before me, and walk forward. It provoked me to move.
This book so radically reoriented my concept of anxiety that I was able to develop who I am instead of run from it, condemn it or suppress it.
Society is so quick to run from what scares us—even if we are the object of our own fear. But such hasty movement away from ourselves leaves us feeling hopeless. Yet hopelessness, Kierkegaard teaches, is a catalyst—it is a moment in which one must refocus, shift the paradigm and find new hope.
What’s surprising is that many Christians don’t see it this way. Many will cite passages such as Philippians 4:6-8:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which
transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
They read this and think anxiety should have nothing to do with the life of a believer. From this passage, there seems to be a common—though unrealistic—perception that to worry or to have anxiety is to sin. This is not only false, but incredibly unrealistic. To remove anxiety would be to separate oneself with an attribute of humanity.
Without room for extensive hermeneutics, the Philippians passage speaks as to how one should engage with anxiety: Enter into it with prayer and supplication. It would be foolish to wrestle with anxiety without seeking God’s help through prayer. Whereas anxiety is a part of what it means to be human, it can indeed turn dangerous thing if not engaged properly. And it can lead a person into sin.
Being anxious does not necessarily imply that our faith is weak. Rather, anxiety tests our faith in relation to decision-making. Anxiety reminds us that they are free to make own decisions—whether that decision will better ourselves and our relationship with Christ, or glorify our own self-interests.
Kierkegaard voiced what many of us know already firsthand: “Anxiety is potentially present at every instant.” This seems true enough for my life. In his journals, Kierkegaard writes, “All existence make me anxious, from the smallest fly to the mysteries of the Incarnation; the whole thing is inexplicable to me, I myself most of all; to me all existence is infected, I myself most of all.”
Kierkegaard did not cure me of my anxiety. But he showed me what to do with it. Today, every time I enter the classroom to teach, I enter with some degree of fear and trembling. But the angst is not formed from a lack or preparation. Rather, it is the realization that I can influence my students. The angst reminds me of my own responsibility as an educator, and the seriousness with which I take such a role.
Today, I thank God for my anxiety. And I thank Søren Kierkegaard for changing my life—by teaching me that there is room for fear and trembling in faith.
