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

Friday, July 12, 2013

Paul Tillich's "God Above God" and the "Restlessness of the Human Heart"


 
 Apparently Tillich is imminently quotable... and worth the read. This week's High Gravity group explored Paul Tillich's "God above God" in the face of radical doubt and a religionless Christianity: "The God who is absent is present as the source of restlessness." Here's another: "The separation of the holy from the secular is a symptom of man's estrangement from himself." Thinking through these quotes you quickly understand my intrigue. Here are some more quotes that I've more-or-less have culled from readings and restated in mine own fashion:
 
- Like any man, atheism tries to transcend the religious images of God by removing the crimes and misery religion has caused mankind. Seeking critical honesty in the face of religious traditions. But once indoctrinated, a religious man cannot break from his symbolic past, finding it hard to see the God he would love.
 
Ideally, Christian theology is able to show in its own symbolism the truth about the God above God. If not, we are left with beggarly images of the God we think we know.
 
The presence of spiritual restlessness, ache, doubt, all is due to God's presence in this life.
 
- God is the God of all - to both the secular man as to the religious man, each lost in their own turns.
 
Impossibly, we cannot resist to image God. Images which confuse His Being and Meaning whenever we do. The paradox of God is that this God is above all we would think and worship. For God is not an object. His being transcends the world of objects as well as every subject. And so must our images of God likewise be transcended lest we fail in our sight of our Creator-Redeemer.
 
You can see my intrigue by the statements above. And by saying less in today's post I hope to say more by allowing you, the reader, to think on these things. At-the-last, I leave with you an example of a fellow Christian caught-in-the-turns of a symbolic, relational Christianity that both fails and heals as best as it can in this brief life of ours.
 
Overall, my encourage is in knowing that our God is ever present in our lives. That He Himself is restless in joining our lives with His own. That goodness and light, life and love, should never be dimmed in the presence of evil we see everywhere abounding. Evil that rejects God, harms others, and states "Thus I have done, let it not be undone" in shouts against the divine will so patient, so open, so restless to bring judgment and justice to our world of woe.
 
R.E. Slater
July 12, 2013
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
by Michael Hildago
Issue 64: July/August 2013, Relevant Magazine
 
 
Several years ago, I left the Church.
 
My wife and I were deeply wounded by our closest friends and partners in ministry, rumors about us spread like wildfire and we felt abandoned. I said goodbye to God and the Church and, it was safe to say, I was never coming back. I thought the Church was a broken institution.
 
A year before that, I was a pastor. My congregation was filled with people who loved Jesus and had a passion to see His renewal come to this broken world. I never tired of hearing stories of brokenness followed by experiences of healing. Our belief was simple: the Church should be the last place you should find people who pretend to have it all together. I was having the church experience many people are blessed to have in their lives: one that was vibrant and exciting.
 
I didn’t know that not everyone agreed with my mind-set, and a few did all they could to ensure I would not be a pastor at that church for long. One morning, I was told I had to resign. As I looked around the room, I saw people who were more than friends—they were family. One of those in that meeting used to tell me I was “like a son” to him. But now, as one leader told me, I was simply “an issue that needed to be dealt with.”
 
There was no warning and no conversation; just a severance agreement I had to sign or else I’d get nothing. So I did. What followed was one of the most painful seasons of my life.
 
I walked out of that church, and no one from its leadership team ever reached out to my family again. Apparently their “issue” had been dealt with. But it wasn’t over for me. Our community, my career and our future with the church were all suddenly severed, and my wife and I were devastated. We’d had such a strong sense of spiritual purpose, and now we had no idea what to do with our lives. For years, I had met people who had been “hurt by the Church.” Now, I was one of them.
 
We are everywhere
 
The saddest part in all of this is my story is not unique. Many of us have had painful experiences with the Church, Christian ministries, organizations or universities.
 
My friend Rick worked at a Christian university for more than 15 years. He quickly became one of the most beloved and popular professors at the school. For many students, he served in a pastoral role, offering godly guidance. Rick challenged the comfortable Christianity of many students and invited them to truly make faith in Jesus their own.
 
Yet as his popularity with students grew, the concern of the trustees regarding Rick grew, as well. They believed his teaching went against the doctrinal statement of the college and even raised questions about his political viewpoints. After Rick had spent years giving everything to that university and caring for students, the trustees fired him without ever seeking to clarify what he believed or taught.
 
The people in the Church are broken, but we serve a Christ who is making all things whole.
 
Students protested, alumni wrote letters on his behalf, many called and emailed, asking the trustees to rethink their decision, but nothing worked. Rick was out, without so much as a “thank you” from the trustees of the university where he invested in the lives of so many. He told me he felt like “his heart was ripped out his chest.”

My friend Julie went through an experience where she felt totally rejected by Christian leaders. Her husband, Dan, was an alcoholic. As much as she begged him to get help, he never did. He believed he couldn’t talk about it because he worked for a Christian ministry. He knew if he told anyone of his addiction, he would be immediately fired.
 
After years of pleading with him to no avail, Julie found out Dan had been diagnosed with an inoperable tumor. Within months, his health deteriorated and he passed away. Julie finally opened up about Dan’s addiction to those in the organization where he worked. She was shocked at their response: They wanted nothing to do with her.
 
In her greatest time of need, those she had considered friends ignored her and gossiped about her and Dan. She had spent years suffering in her marriage, and now, after her husband died, she suffered more. The people she believed she could trust rejected her—all this from those who worked for a Christian organization.
 
These are not just stories. These are people like you and me. And we are everywhere—all of us wounded, not by the Church or a ministry, but by others who identify as Christians.
 
It’s Not the church that hurts you
 
Recently, a young man named Ryan told me how much he “hated the Church” because of how “the Church hurt his parents.” I met a woman named Melissa after one of our Sunday morning services. It was her first time in a church in more than six years. She said, “I was so hurt by the ministry I worked for.”
 
Speaking this way allows “the Church,” a ministry or a university to remain a faceless, impersonal organization. But a faceless, impersonal organization can’t hurt us the way friends and family can. The Church did not wound me, Rick was not fired by his university and Julie was not rejected by an organization.
 
The reality is, it’s not the Church that has hurt us. It is the people we loved and trusted, whom we associate with “the Church” to make it less personal, less painful. And yet that’s why it hurts so much—you can’t get hurt by someone you don’t love.
 
If I had been conspired against by someone I did not know, I could have dealt with it. It would not have been personal. But I believed these people to be my closest friends—people I had worked alongside, people with whom I had shared life.
 
Those we love the most give us our deepest wounds. And when those who wound us are connected with the Church or a ministry, it’s easy to depersonalize the injury by attributing it to the entire institution.
 
The longer we hold on to those feelings of hatred and the more we speak of being hurt only by an organization, the less chance we have of actually addressing our wounds. The best thing we can do is speak honestly about what happened—which can be the hardest part of healing.
 
It’s not easy to speak of our pain and the names of those who caused it. At times, it can feel like we are reliving the entire experience. However, if we are to find healing and return to wholeness, this is exactly what we must do. Healing and forgiveness will find it’s way into the cracks in our heart where truth is present and spoken.
 
This kind of honesty is truly terrifying. When we share our pain and open up our wounds with the truth, we take the chance of being hurt again. For, in those moments, we place our trust in another. Therein lies the risk. But in the risk lies the chance for healing; and not just healing for us, but healing for others, too.
 
Becoming the Hands and Feet
 
Years ago when Julie’s friends rejected her, she spoke of her wounds and those who caused them. Now, by the grace and goodness of God, she is able to speak of her wounds and the God who has healed them. It’s the same for Rick and for me, too.
 
It’s not because we are anything special. Rather, it’s because we met others who had been wounded, and they helped us find healing. They were the ones who came alongside us and helped every step of the way. One might say they were like Jesus for us in our time of need.
 
When God saw the suffering and pain in our world, He sent His Son headlong into it to suffer with us. God could have done anything He wanted in response to the mess humanity got itself into. He could have snapped His fingers and made everything better or, with a wave of His hand, banished all evil from the world, allowing only good to flourish.
 
But He didn’t do any of that.
 
God’s decision was to share in our wounds, take up our pain and bear our sorrow. It’s in the suffering of Jesus that we find our hope. The God who suffered on the cross for us is the same God who suffers with us today. Because of this, we have the opportunity to be like God for those who are wounded.
If you’ve been wounded, betrayed, stabbed in the back or victimized, in that very moment, you look more like Jesus than you did before.
 
This is what Paul was getting at when he called the Church the “body of Christ.” We are the embodiment of God in this world. There are some who describe being the body of Christ by saying “we are his hands and feet.” I can think of no better description—especially when we are hurt ourselves.
Jesus’ hands and feet bear the marks of crucifixion—which means if you’ve been wounded, betrayed, stabbed in the back or victimized, in that very moment, you look more like Jesus than you did before. Our scars allow us to be more like Jesus to others and lead them toward healing.
 
The Church is not a bunch of people who have it all together. It’s a bunch of broken and bruised people who know about getting hurt and causing hurt themselves. But it’s also people who know about healing. And while we should never diminish the seriousness of our pain, it’s in our pain that we encounter the suffering servant who died for us. It’s in our pain and our healing from that pain that others can find hope.
 
Perhaps this is why Rick Warren tweeted recently, “I only hire staff who’ve been hurt deeply. People who’ve never suffered tend to be shallow and smug about other’s pain.” Our pain is the very thing that allows us to share in the pain of others and their journeys to healing. Because when you have scars and someone shares their wounds with you, it makes you weep.
 
When others shared in my pain, they didn’t always have amazing wisdom or brilliant insight. They didn’t quote the perfect verse at the perfect moment. Many times, they struggled to find the right words for encouragement. But they bore scars that spoke of their pain and, most importantly, of God’s grace and goodness that healed them. And I learned that was often the only thing I needed.
 
Finding Healing in the Brokenness
 
Years after swearing I would never return to the Church, I have not just returned—I am a pastor. And, as a pastor, I can say that the people in the Church are certainly broken, but we serve a Christ who is making all things whole. And because He is making all things whole, the institution of the Church is alive and well. Surely only our God could orchestrate such a paradox—a broken people being sustained and built and re-created into something whole.
 
Because the building of the Church is Christ’s alone, we know His work is not broken. This is what we affirm and celebrate every time we participate in communion. We remember that the Church was birthed in the broken body and spilled blood of Jesus. He was broken for broken people. This is the mystery of the Eucharist: Our wholeness is found in Christ’s brokenness. God knew the Church would live in this tension, this paradox, and yet be a place where He is still King.
 
And so, Jesus took the bread and the wine and said, “This is my body broken for you and my blood shed for you.” And when we eat the bread and drink the wine, we not only remember His death, but we also participate in being broken open and poured out for our broken world.
 
 
 

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

What would a new Church for the 21st Century look like?

Kierkegaard Wants a New Church
Part 2 of 2
 
by Tony Jones
July 6, 2013
*res = re slater 
 
 
This is the second of two excerpts from a book that I happily endorsed: Emerging Prophet: Kierkegaard and the Postmodern People of God by Kyle Roberts. Kyle is a professor at Bethel Seminary and a fellow Patheos blogger.
 
 
BOOK EXCERPT
 
Kierkegaard was a prophet who critiqued "Christendom," the perversion of authentic, New Testament Christianity into the institutionalized, materialistic, triumphalist, and flabby religion of modernism. Emergent Christianity is attempting to carve out a more authentic way of being Christian and doing church within--and beyond--the ineffectual, institutionalized church of modernity.
 
In many ways, Kierkegaard's critiques, concerns, and goals overlap with emergent Christianity and the emerging church. For the first time, this book brings Kierkegaard into a dialogue with various postmodern forms of Christianity, on topics like revelation and the Bible, the atonement and moralism, and the church as an "apologetic of witness." In conversation with postmodern philosophers, contemporary theologians, and emergent leaders, Kierkegaard is offered as a prophetic voice for those who are carving out an alternative expression of the New Testament today and attempting to follow Christ through works of love.
 
- Kyle Roberts, Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota
 
 
* * * * * * * * * * * *
 
 
The emergent movement comprises communities of Christ-followers who desire to recover a sense of authenticity, passion, vulnerability, and intimacy in their lives together. They organize their communities in an intentionally organic way, such that these ideals become (at least conceptually) more attainable that they have appeared to be in institutional forms of church.
 
The caveat here, from a Kierkegaardian point of view, is that when the alteration of the organization becomes the means whereby these aims can be attained, too much freight is given to change in “circumstance” as the hope for renewal, authenticity, and the recovery of the essentially Christian. Nonetheless, it does seem that at some point action must be taken; this is very Kierkegaardian, too.
 
Emergent Christianity’s attempt to creatively rethink the nature of the church in this changing world will serve the larger (established) church well—to the extent they take notice. Even if the transiency of emergent communities and the lack of institutional structure make propagation a serious challenge, the burst of creativity and critical reflection within emergent Christianity offers—at the very least—an important renewal resource for more empathetic traditional churches.
 
In any case, the question recurs and the refrain continues: How can we attain an existentially authentic faith, both individually and communally? In the context of our ecclesiology discussion, the answer may well lie in a theological de-construction (and subsequent attempted re-construction) of institutional forms of church life which often seem to inhibit authenticity, intimacy, vulnerability, and genuine community. Emergent Christians are working hard to find a better way for this journey. For others, the least they can do is empathize with their quest.
 
Consistent with the trajectory set forth in Practice in Christianityalbeit intensified in his final years, Kierkegaard pointed the way to the dis-establishment of the church in favor of the emergence of Christ’s kingdom. The church exists in service of in-breaking of the kingdom of God into temporality [sic, God's rule becomes present now. - res]. The confrontation with the world occasioned by the action of the historical Christ in his abased life (suffering) and crucifixion opened the way for a new mode of being in the world—one characterized by deep subjectivity and authentic community.
 
This community exists in the eschatological space between the eternal and the temporal, the infinite and the finite, the bound and the free. Kierkegaard’s Christology of paradox suggests that the church, as an institution—or establishment—must be provisional and temporary, and must give way to the priority of the redemptive presence, or Kingdom of God, brought about disruptively in the world through the reign of Christ as the paradoxical one. This means that the church cannot serve itself and ought not understand its mission to be self-preservation.
 
So Jürgen Moltmann says: “It is not the Church that ‘has’ a mission, but the reverse; Christ’s mission creates itself a Church. The mission should not be understood from the perspective of the Church, but the other way round.” The church must regularly check its own accumulated habits, its acculturations, commitments, and partnerships with the “powers” and economies of society. It cannot offer itself as an end or become preoccupied with its own self-preservation. Christianity, as an established, institutional, cultural phenomenon, is non-essential. The church defers, bends, and even disappears; like John the Baptist, it must decrease while Christ must increase.
 
When the church becomes its own self-perpetuating institution, when its mission begins to displace the pure, prophetic, and disruptive presence of Christ, it must be disestablished - deconstructed, even - while Christ and his Kingdom re-appears and re-emerges.
 
OK, who’s ready to start disestablishing churches?
 
 
 
* * * * * * * * * * * *
 
 
Proper Doubt
Part 1 of 2
 
by Tony Jones
July 5, 2013
 
 
Doubt is the other side of faith…This ethos may be one of the defining features of emergent Christianity—the willingness to countenance doubt. These doubts can arise from questioning the sincerity of religious faith (i.e. Freud’s “great apologetic challenge” to Christianity), the truthfulness of the Bible, the exclusivity of Christianity, or engaging in philosophical challenges to core Christian doctrines (such as those posed by the “problem of evil and suffering”). The acceptance of a positive role for doubt in the Christian life is consistent with the emergent ethos.
 
Because emergent Christianity is not terribly anxious about epistemological certainty, such questions are encouraged—or at the very least accepted and engaged. Furthermore, there is no rush to answer the questions in a final, authoritarian way. This openness to the reality of doubt in the Christian journey need not imply a glorification of doubt nor a complete disregard for objectivity (properly placed) in Christian theology….
 
An epistemologically humble approach to theology and faith allows for deeper authenticity and for the de-construction of the idols of certainty, dogmatism and closure. Experimental psychologist, Richard Beck, asks, “What would religious faith look like, experientially and theologically, if it were not engaged in existential repression or consolation?” Presumably, that kind of faith might be open about the reality of doubt and would courageously struggle with existential questions regarding the attainment of “truth.”
 
That kind of faith would not try to rely on or use religion instrumentally to assuage existential anxiety, but would attempt to be existentially authentic in the face of the lack of epistemological “objective” certainty; it would be open and honest about the pain and distress involved in the human experience and would not try to suppress the anxieties that arise from the fragmentation, brokenness, and brevity of human life.
 
Collectively, in terms of the experience of Christian community:
 
- it might have the character and courage to deal with pain, sorrow, and longing head-on, even in (or especially in) the context of church liturgy,
 
- it would engage the Bible with seriousness and honesty; neither avoiding its prophetic strangeness nor minimizing its difficulties, from the perspective of the modern world,
 
- it would utilize both celebration and lament as representations of the full nature of the human experience,
 
- ultimately, it would find both discomfort and solace in the central figure of Christian faith: the paradoxical God-man, who makes comfortable faith impossible but who alone can make authentic faith possible.
 
 
 

Monday, July 8, 2013

Reconciling Contemporary Christian Ethics with Social Justice in the OT



The Old Testament and Contemporary Christian Ethics

by Roger Olson
July 7, 2013

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Book Recommendation: Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang

 
 
Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang:
By God As Told to John Shore [Hardcover]
 
by John Shore
 
 
One year after his sudden and utterly out-of-the-blue conversion to Christianity (which he describes in the riveting afterword of this book), John Shore reportedly found himself overwhelmed by the desire to write something that Christians could give to non-Christians by way of proving that just because one is Christian doesn't automatically mean that one is irrational. The result is the delightfully profound "'Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang: Why I Do the Things I Do,' by God (as told to John Shore)," in which God (who, it turns out, is excruciatingly funny: who knew?) directly answers the dozen objections to Christianity most typically raised by non-Christians. The book's opening dialogue between God and the archangel Michael on the eve before God introduces Adam onto planet earth is worth the price alone.
 
There is no finer, accessible, or creative Christian apologetic. This is the book for which Mr. Shore is most likely to be remembered.
 
 
Editorial Reviews
 
"Do yourself a favor and read this book. You will be both entertained and inspired." -- Roger McClellan, The Progressive Christian Alliance
 
"Brilliant, quirky, perverse, exciting, and quintessentially Californian: John Shore's unique style is a delight to read-a literary feast!"-- Michael Flachmann, 1995 Carnegie Foundation United States Professor of the Year; author of Beware the Cat: The First English Novel (Huntington Library Press).
 
I know that for both chronological and biological reasons it s not possible, but if St. Augustine and Soupy Sales had a son, I think he would write almost exactly like John Shore. Shore is a madman and a genius, and this book is so happily wrought I don t know what to say about it except that this is the book many, many folks have been waiting for. It s a genuine triumph, a killer combo of astronomical wit and wisdom. I, for one, would like twenty-five copies immediately. --Eric Metaxas, author of bestsellers Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, and Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed this very funny book: its style, its tone, its construction everything about it. Penguins is a winner. --Richard Lederer, author of more than thirty books on the English language, including the bestselling Anguished English series and The Miracle of Language.
 
Excellent! This is one funny book, in an era when religion isn t funny--but should be, if it s serious. --Richard Louv, author of international bestsellers Last Child in the Woods, and The Nature Principle.
 
 
About the Author
 
John Shore is an award-winning book author. His articles for The Huffington Post's Religion section are among its most popular. His blog, JohnShore.com, is one of the most read and commented upon in the blogosphere. He is the founder of  the growing movement known as Unfundamentalist Christians.
 
Dan Savage ("Savage Love"; It Gets Better) calls John Shore "America's preeminent non-douchey Christian." Rob Bell ("Love Wins") has declared Mr. Shore "awesome," and "a brilliant writer." "John Shore is a gadfly," wrote famed theologian John Shelby Spong, "calling the Christian Church everywhere to act the way it says it believes about love and justice, which of course makes him an uncomfortable presence in those churches that do not like to be forced to face reality. So were the prophets of old. So was Jesus of Nazareth."
 
 
 

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Seabury Books; First edition (September 15, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1596270195
  • ISBN-13: 978-1596270190
 
 
 

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Peter Enns - Historical Criticism and Evangelicalism: An Uneasy Relationship

 
by Peter Enns
July 1, 2013
 
 
An Introduction.
 
Modern biblical scholarship—also referred to as historical criticism, and less often today “higher criticism”—has an uneasy history with evangelicalism. In fact, evangelicalism’s intellectual component is largely a sustained response to the methods, philosophy, and conclusions of historical criticism. In some cases that response has come in the form of the rejection of historical criticism, in other cases a synthesis or adaptation of its methods and conclusions with evangelical theology.
 
The tensions are rooted, I feel, in the core commitment of the evangelical movement to the authority of Scripture. Since Scripture is divine revelation, i.e., God’s self-disclosure, its “authority” is tied explicitly to inerrancy and a number of corollaries such as historical accuracy and the essential theological harmony of Scripture.
 
Scripture’s function in evangelicalism is to lay down the basic map of Christian thought and practice, what we are to understand about God, Christ, Scripture itself, the human condition, and Christian practice. The task of historical criticism, on the other hand, is to peer “behind” Scripture and inquire as to its origins and meaning as understood within the cultural context in which the various texts were written. These two diverse approaches to Scripture are not easily compatible.
 
In principle, evangelicalism is not inimical to historical inquiry. In fact, one of evangelicalism’s hermeneutical pillars is the interpretation of Scripture in its historical context and in line with its original, intended, meaning—what is typically referred to as “grammatical-historical interpretation.” The tensions with historical criticism are not over the mere idea of investigating Scripture in the context, but in manner in which historical critics get there and the conclusions that they reach. In both respects, historical criticism has tended to undermine evangelical premises of biblical authority.
 
What complicates matters considerably for evangelicals, however, is that the general contours of historical criticism are widely persuasive, even universally so outside of evangelical (and fundamentalist) communities. I see four general, interrelated, aspects of historical criticism that are well established in biblical scholarship and also, in various ways, at odds with mainstream evangelicalism’s understanding of the nature of Scripture.
 
 
1. Biblical origins. The Old Testament we know today has a lengthy developmental history, both oral and written. The drawing together of these traditions that did not commence in earnest until the Babylonian exile (6th c. BC) and did not come to an end until sometime during the Persian period (roughly 5th and 4th centuries BC) at the earliest. This does not mean that the Hebrew Bible was written out of while cloth during this period. Some books or portions of books clearly were, but many others were added to or updated in some way.
 
[Similarly,] issues surrounding the formation of the New Testament are similar, but involve a much shorter period of time.
 
 
2. Perspectives of the biblical writers. When speaking of their past, the Old Testament writers were not working as modern historians or investigative journalists to uncover verifiable facts (as we might put it). They were more storytellers, conduits for generations—even centuries—of tradition, which they brought together to form their sacred text. In the Old Testament we have Israel’s national-religious story as seen through the eyes of those responsible for giving it its final shape.
 
This is not to say that they invented these traditions on the spot, but they “packaged” their past as they did to address their present crisis—exile, return, and an uncertain future. Israel’s inscripturated story both accounts for this crisis and also points the way forward to the hope that God has not abandoned his people but has a glorious future in store for them.
 
A similar issue holds for the New Testament, where the Gospels reflect the experiences and thinking of various Christian communities a generation and more after Jesus’ ministry on earth. They, too, are presentations of Jesus and the early missionary activities that reflect the perspectives and needs to the respective communities.
 
 
3. Theological diversity. Given historical criticism’s focus on matters of biblical origin, the diversity of the various biblical texts is highlighted with no pressing concern, as we see in evangelicalism, to draw these diverse texts into a harmonious whole. Hence, historical criticism speaks freely of the different theologies contained in Scripture.
 
One practical implication is that the evangelical hermeneutical methodology of allowing “Scripture to interpret Scripture” tends to fall on deaf ears among historical critics. Reading Genesis, for example, through the eyes of Isaiah or Paul in order to understand the meaning of Genesis would be like reading Shakespeare through the eyes of Arthur Miller and expecting to gain from it an insight into what Shakespeare meant.
 
 
4. The problem of historicity. This last aspect of historical criticism in effect summarizes the previous three: the Bible does not tell us what happened so much as what the biblical writers either believed happened or what they invented. This is not to say that historical critics think nothing of historical importance can be found in Scripture, but that any historical information is inextricably bound up with the perspectives and purposes of the biblical writers.
 
 
In Summary.
 
There are other ways of outlining the nature of historical criticism, of course, but this will do to highlight why tensions exist between historical criticism and evangelicalism. The former presents us with a Bible that the latter is loathe to accept in toto because of its significant theological ramifications.
 
Yet, most evangelical biblical scholars understand the persuasiveness and positive impact that at least some aspects of historical criticism have had on our understanding of Scripture. One need only glance at a decent evangelical Study Bible or commentary to see that impact.
 
The tensions between evangelicalism and historical criticism have not been settled, nor will they be in the near future, at least as I see it. There seems to be an implicit détente, where it is acceptable to mine historical criticism and appropriate its theologically less troubling conclusions but to draw the line where those conclusions threaten evangelical theology.
 
This sort of back-and-forth dance can ease tensions temporarily, but it virtually guarantees that each generation of thoughtful evangelicals, once they become sympathetically exposed to historical criticism, will question where lines should be drawn and why seemingly arbitrary lines have been drawn where they are.
 
The fact that these inner-evangelical tensions keep coming up anew each generation suggests that older solutions to these tensions are not persuasive but more a temporary stopgap measure to maintain evangelical theological stability. A possible way forward is to promote an explicit synthesis between evangelical theology and historical criticism in order to achieve, potentially, a more lasting peace. The difficulty here, however, is that such synthesis might threaten the very structure of evangelicalism to the breaking point.
 
I am an advocate for such a synthetic discussion, though I would also stress that historical criticism is not the end all of biblical interpretation for the spiritual nourishment of the church. But where historical matters are the focus, historical criticism is a non-negotiable conversation partner.
 
As I see it, the pressing issue before evangelicalism is not to formulate longer, more complex, more subtle, and more sophisticated defenses of what we feel God should have done, but to teach future generations, in the academy, the church, and the world, better ways of meeting God in the Scripture we have.
 
 

Translation and Theology - Jesus and the Early Church's Reading of the Greek OT Bible (the Septuagint)

 
 
 
Here’s Something about the Bible of the First Christians I Bet Many of You Didn’t Know (you’re welcome)
Accordingly, when anyone claims, “Moses meant what I say,”and another retorts, “No, rather what I find there,” I think that I will be answering in a more religious spirit if I say, “Why not both, if both are true?” And if there is a third possibility, and a fourth, and if someone else sees an entirely different meaning in these words, why should we not think that he was aware of all of them?
- Augustine, Confessions 12.31.42
 

  
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ADDENDUM
 
"One of my observations is to ask how language can be fluid and flexible enough
to accommodate limited theological and historical understanding. Indeed, this
is the strength of the (b)ible as it passes between the generations of man from
one socio-cultural era to another!" - r.e. slater
 
 
 
cf. sidebar: "Bible - Authority and Interpretation"
 
 
For additional reading  pursuing articles under the sidebars of "Bible".
Here are a couple you may find: 
 
A Jewish Perspective of the Bible
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-jewish-perspective-of-bible.html
 
Barnum Synagogue
 
 
 
Development of the Hebrew Bible Canon
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/11/development-of-hebrew-bible-canon.html
 
A Jewish Bible Passage Unscrolled
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Suggested Summer Reads by Roger Olson

Some Good Summer Reading (Recommended New or Forthcoming Theology Books)
 
by Roger Olson
June 22, 2013

Summer is a time when I try to catch up on reading. During the academic year books tend to pile up on a table in my home study. Eventually, usually during the summer, I get around to reading some. I’m often reading (or listening to) several books at the same time (don’t take that too literally!). I’m usually writing one book while finishing the “details” of a previous one (e.g., creating its index) and planning the next one. So I’ll start with what I’m working on (books-wise) and then mention some good books I’ve recently read or am reading right now.
 
My magnum opus will probably be the forthcoming The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction scheduled to be published by InterVarsity Press later this year. My teaching assistant Jared Patterson and I are working on the index now. The manuscript is 900 pages; the book itself will probably come in a little over 700 pages. It’s up at Amazon without the cover (as of the other day when I checked). I’m not sure why the cover doesn’t show yet. The cover will feature Friedrich Schleiermacher and Karl Barth—“bookends” of modern theology (in terms of approaches to modernity). Journey is a comprehensive revision and expansion of 20th Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age written with Stan Grenz and published by IVP in 1992. It’s really a completely new book that incorporates some material from that earlier one. The theme of Journey is theological responses to modernity (including postmodern theologies). It includes new chapters on: Kierkegaard, Thomas Reid, Coleridge, Bushnell, Hodge, Dorner, Catholic Modernism (Tyrrell, Loisy), Troeltsch, and many more including the final two chapters on Hauerwas (postliberalism) and John Caputo (deconstructionism).
 
Right now I’m writing a book with my friend Christian Collins Winn entitled Reclaiming Pietism. That will be published by Eerdmans sometime in 2014. My next project is a book on contemporary versions of ancient heresies for Abingdon. That’s slated for 2015.
 
I’m also working on a couple of articles and talks—for churches and professional society meetings.
 
So, here are some excellent books you should read. Some are already published; a couple are forthcoming—watch for them (I’ve read them in pre-publication forms):


Scot McKnight, A Long Faithfulness: The Case for Christian Perseverance (Patheos Press available in Kindle edition only). It’s an extremely concise but thorough biblical and theological examination of the doctrine of “eternal security of the believer” or “perseverance of the saints” aimed at defeating deterministic theologies of salvation. You can see my endorsement at the Amazon page for the book. I think this little book (only 64 pages!) presents one of the strongest challenges to the doctrine of “inamissable grace” (its technical name) ever. Scot’s thesis is that IF the Bible contradicts that doctrine and actually teaches amissable grace (the real possibility of apostasy), then deterministic salvation (monergism) is false. The book is irenic toward those with whom Scot disagrees; it is not overly polemical, but it is pointed.


David Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw, Prodigal Christianity: 10 Signposts into the Missional Frontier (Jossey-Bass). The authors are pastors and seminary professors; the book is aimed at the broader evangelical (and post-evangelical) community about being missional in a post-Christendom culture. The book resonates with the recent “Missio Alliance” gathering (at which I spoke) in Arlington, Virginia. Clearly these authors are not satisfied with the two main options in contemporary evangelical and post-evangelical church life: “Neo-Reformed” (e.g., The Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel) and “Emerging” (or “Emergent”) as that is represented by Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Padgitt, et al. They think both of those have much to offer that is valuable, but ultimately they see them as either too defensive and authoritarian or as too enamored with conversation that ultimately goes nowhere. They talk about developing “welcoming and mutually transforming” communities of faith and offer both general and specific paths toward them. People who consider themselves broadly evangelical but not satisfied with either Neo-Reformed or Emergent/Emerging types of contemporary church life may find this book helpful and rewarding. Underlying it and in its background is a generally Anabaptist approach to Christianity, but one that is sensitive and relevant to contemporary (postmodern) culture.*
 
[* I have listed a rejoinder here - Are You Missional or Are You Emergent? Is There a Difference? by R.E. Slater]


Peter C. Blum, For a Church to Come: Experiments in Postmodern Theory and Anabaptist Thought (Herald Press). This is a series of previously published essays in which the author experiments with comparing John Howard Yoder and key postmodern thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida and Levinas with an eye toward community Christianity. The author opposes “top-down,” authoritarian, foundationalist modes of Christian theology and church life and favors an Anabaptist model informed by such postmodern ideas as openness to “the Other.” I’ve only read the first half and found it familiar territory, but that’s because I’ve read quite a bit of literature like this in recent years and have already noticed the points of compatibility between certain themes of postmodern philosophy and Yoder’s approach to Anabaptist theology and ecclesiology.


Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press). Heavy sledding but definitely worth the work. Here Wolterstorff argues against that basic human rights are inherent in persons and not dependent on communities and their orders. I was not familiar with this debate before diving into this book and am still struggling with understanding why anyone, especially a Christian, would think that basic human rights are granted by communities and their orders rather than inherent. So far I’m finding that I have agreed with Wolterstorff’s position for a very long time without knowing it was controversial. He is definitely giving me a lot of philosophical, biblical and theological reasons to continue believing what I have believed.


Gregory Boyd, Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty (Baker, forthcoming). Without doubt (pun intended) this is one of the best books on this subject. (Others include the classics The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor and The Christian Agnostic by Leslie Weatherhead.) In this book Boyd reveals much about himself, his personal and spiritual biography, as well as his mature theology. The thesis is that absolute certainty is humanly impossible—even in spiritual matters—and that we Christians need to learn to live with doubt and even embrace it. One of Greg’s main themes throughout his ministry and writing is “Be real!” He believes too much of contemporary evangelical (and, again, I use the term very broadly) religion revels in a kind of unreality—expecting Christians to rise above mere humanity into perfection. One myth attached to that is that “real Christians” rise above doubt about God, the Bible, etc., and achieve absolute certainty. Greg thinks that sets Christians up for disillusionment when they realize that isn’t happening for them or anyone they know. Greg’s alternative is faith, what Lesslie Newbigin (in Proper Confidence) calls “proper confidence.”


Alan P. F. Sell, Confessing the Faith Yesterday and Today: Essays Reformed, Dissenting, and Catholic (Pickwick). I’ve been asked to review this for Evangelical Quarterly—a British theological journal—so I won’t say much about the book here. Let me just say that Sell is one of my favorite Reformed theologians even though most neo-Reformed (fundamentalist and hard core confessionalist) types in the U.S. would probably consider him not truly Reformed. But, then, he might return the favor. Sell used to be theological secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (now called the World Communion of Reformed Churches)—an ecumenical group of over one hundred Reformed denominations worldwide. (By the way, the Remonstrant Brotherhood of the Netherlands, the direct descendent denomination of the original Remonstrants, is a charter member of the WCRC!) Sell wrote two little books many years ago that had a great impact on me: The Great Debate: Calvinism, Arminianism, and Salvation (Baker) and Theology in Turmoil: The Roots, Course and Significance of the Conservative-Liberal Debate in Modern Theology (Baker). Both are excellent books. But my favorite Sell books (which I reviewed for Christianity Today) are his three under the over arching title Doctrine and Devotion (unfortunately they are now out of print and hard to find). Sell is a British Congregationalist, a “Dissenter,” and one of his main theological heroes is P. T. Forsyth, also one of mine. Forsyth was a progressive evangelical of a century ago—someone who managed to avoid the pitfalls of both fundamentalism and liberalism.


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More Recommendations by Roger re "The History of Philosophical Thought" within the cultural milieus of Christianity

Christianity and Western Thought, Volume 1: From the Ancient World to the Age of Enlightenment
by Colin Brown
IVP Academic, 2010

Christianity and Western Thought, Volume 2: Faith and Reason in the 19th Century
by Steve Wilkens & Alan G. Padgett
IVP Academic, 2010

Christianity and Western Thought, Volume 3: Journey to Postmodernity in the Twentieth Century
by Steve Wilkens & Alan G. Padgett
IVP Academic, 2009