Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Rebuilding the Faith - Dr. Carin Bondar Spoofs Miley's "Wrecking Ball" Torch Song


Carin Bondar tests out Face Recognition Binoculars


Rebuilding the Faith

Miley Cyrus move over. Yes, Dr. Carin Bondar’s remake of the infamous Wrecking Ball is "spoof + science" at its parody best. Wishing to "smash" creationist's notions the good scientist parodies popular shrift worthy of destruction. As the lyrics state,

Organisms do evolve
That giant mystery’s been (re)solved
Creationism’s proven false
Get familiar with our phylogeny.

Difficult words to sing for the Christian who believes in God and who seeks a deeper explanation for creation's existence beyond the mere rhyme of words stating there is none. When the great scientist Laplace was asked at the court of Napoleon where the Creator-God was in all his formulations, he was heard to famously quipped, "Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis." So too has the great physicist Stephen Hawking recently asked in his treatise entitled The Grand Design, three simple questions to the reader (10):

1) Why is there something rather than nothing?

2) Why do we exist?

3) Why this particular set of laws and not some other?

And based upon scientific determinism (sic, the key to Hawking's dilemma) God did not have any latitude in choosing the laws of the universe.(33) Hence, there are no miracles, nor any exceptions to the laws of nature.(34) Which are serious conclusions to make and must be grappled with by the serious believer wishing to understand his Creator.

To these questions Relevancy22 has been exploring these grand questions from an evolutionary, scientific, philosophic, and theologic viewpoint. Arguing for an Evolutionary Creationism as distinguished from the heartfelt creationist's non-evolutionary system that many believers continue to cling too. Here, at this site, we wish to reframe many of Christianity's more classically-derived church doctrines around the contemporary, postmodern doctrinal discussions that do now admit evolution into the bible without losing the God of creation either in its dogmas nor in its doctrinal formulations as they are perceived by pew and bible scholar.

So then, how should we listen to Dr. Carin Bondar, Laplace, or Hawking when arguing for an evolution perhaps devoid of any God but its own systems alone? We do so both soberly and mindfully. Not in denial, but in a fuller, more theologically-based approach, which admits and does not deny, the seriousness of these profound scientific observations, nor dismiss the existence of a Creator-God who is effectively unfalsifiable. Who has chosen to create through the process of evolution which we, as believers, must come to understand and accept, not fearing that the God of evolution will be misplaced or found absent in it all.

Yes, physical nature does do quite well. It was created that way! But not on its own... as a godless-based evolution might like to remind... but because of a wise and powerful Creator God who has affectively, and effectively, used this process to bring Hismself into a creative fellowship in an amazing way. To the questions of sin, free will, the first humans, how to read the Word, and many more, the reader may peruse the "chapters" or "posts" of this website (or web blog) and hopefully find capable direction leading to better questions and explorations. At no time is scholarly discussion closed down or stopped. For it is to this scholarship that we as Christians must both listen and discern. Hopefully you will find both in these digital pages placed at your disposal.


At the last, do not be offended by the good scientist's parody below. It is because of these concerns that I and others like Dr. Bondar have come along similar paths asking the same questions that the older system of creationism could not answer - no matter how it tried to reframe the philosophical and theological debates around classical concerns. In truth, evolution does run quite well on its "own." But for the believer we know who the real "Owner" is, and what makes it "tick" as the God of all creation.

And so, enjoy the parody, and do take seriously the science of evolution, especially as from a Christian perspective. And don't let it remain the bug-a-boo that so many would make it out to be based upon illegitimate agnostic or atheist charges to the contrary. There are many a good, thinking Christian scientist out there who can firmly attest to the God of the Bible within the ranks of their university, research lab, and field studies. Certainly they are evolutionists. But they are also godly believers who see the Creator's handiwork everywhere about when measure by time and space, process and curriculum.

R.E. Slater
January 14, 2013

Organisms Do Evolve




Published on Jan 12, 2014


"I am always troubled by the lack of awareness surrounding the process of evolution by natural selection. Also, I am a crazy dorky scientist who enjoys many aspects of pop culture. I'm a Miley fan, and when I first saw 'Wrecking Ball' it was just irresistible for me to parody it! Here are the full lyrics." - Carin


They fought, they strained, their lives in vain,
They thought, always asking why,
Not blessed but shunned, the world was stunned,
But facts, no one could deny.

You might think you know, only just suppose,
What you're told isn't true,
Facts you can't deny, science doesn't lie,
There is actual proof.

That organisms do evolve,
That giant mystery's been solved,
Creationism's proven false,
Get familiar with our phylogeny.

Yes, our phylogeny.

There's A, there's C, there's T, there's G,
They're called nucleotides,
The helix turns with no concern,
For Gods, or religious lives.

Gene diversity, stochasticity,
Just the fittest survive,
Then they procreate, and some genes mutate,
Varied forms are derived.

Yes organisms do evolve,
The experts have worked hard to solve,
The complex processes involved,
In the earth's history.

Yes organisms do evolve,
There's no more mystery to solve,
Fundamental to life overall,
Get familiar with our biology.

Scholarship and science answer for,
Absolute complexities within,
Both extant and extinct creature forms,
Understanding that is not a sin.

Scholarship and science answer for,
Incidents where divergence begins,
Understanding that is not a sin,
You might think you know, only just suppose.

What you're told isn't true.
Cuz' organisms do evolve,
There's no more mystery to solve,
Creationism's proven false.

Get familiar with our phylogeny,
Yes organisms do evolve,
Such complex processes resolved,
Fundamental to life overall,
Aim to understand our biology.

It's our biology.





(click to enlarge)






Confessions of an Evolving Baptist



Confessions of an Evolving Baptist

by Nathan Hale
November 27, 2013

I will never forget the shock and confusion in my wife’s voice when I told her that I believed in evolution. I wasn’t ready to come out of the closet quite yet, but secret conversations about my belief in evolution were on the verge of being exposed and I knew I had to confess before she found out from someone else.

I could tell implications of such a statement passed like a whirlwind through her mind. She knew I had been struggling with the church and my faith for quite some time – but this?

I had not talked to her about it before. I was embarrassed and scared. How did I explain that it took embracing evolution before I found a faith that was real and meaningful?

* * *

I’m not interested in debating the specifics on why I’ve come to believe in evolution. I’m happy to talk about it, but it’s really not that important actually. The more important question is how I found my footing in the aftermath.

A year of honest inquiry left me with an overwhelming certainty about evolution and an overwhelming uncertainty about my faith. I was miserable. Everything I thought I knew was turned upside down.

I suddenly found myself dangling on the edge of the cliff holding on with one hand that was slipping. I could feel the crossroad quickly approaching – do I choose science or my faith?

Many Christians would point to my example as evidence of the damaging influence of secular science on the faith of believers. I don’t think so – at all.

In the midst of the chaos I stopped and asked myself a simple question – who said I had to choose and why?

That simple question sent me on a quest to understand the relationships between science and religion. I found myself wandering around in this magical place full of undiscovered treasures – the library. Four racks of books all devoted to various aspects of the larger dialogue between science and religion. Treasures left sitting on the racks untouched for 30-40 years.

I was surprised at some things I learned but it didn’t take long to uncover one truth – I do not have to choose.

I’ve been presented with (or perhaps internalized) a false dichotomy.

There has always been some level of tension. In the past however, this tension served to advance dialogue and promote thinking among both scientists and theologians.

What surprised me the most was learning the conflict between these seemingly opposing worldviews is a relatively recent one – the unholy progeny of the more recent culture war between Atheists and Christians.

Evolution has become a philosophical sword wielded by Atheists to strike at the heart of Christian truth claims. Christians on the other hand, have launched a counter offensive by emphasizing a literal reading of the scripture and developing their own scientific explanations for the biblical accounts of creation.

A long, complex, and mutually beneficial dialogue between science and religion reduced to an overly simplistic philosophical choice – a false dichotomy perpetuated.

I’m not buying it.

Being confronted with evolution may have been the catalyst for asking the difficult questions, but the real problem for me was not evolution – it was biblical literalism.

It was the attempts to read science back into the Bible and the ultimatum of believing the Bible is either entirely true or entirely false. That’s a damaging position I contend and has created as many Atheists/Agnostics as it has converts.

I have hurt some feelings with this statement in the past but I think my comments are largely misunderstood.

I’m not attempting to cast doubt on the authority of scripture – it’s simply a plea to better understand the complexity and richness of the text.

I believe the Bible is truth in what is teaches and is the primary authority for guiding the Christian life. In that sense I believe scripture is inerrant.

At the same time I also appreciate the complexity and origins of the text. The Bible is a complex library of history, law, poetry, wisdom, gospel, epistles, and apocalyptic literature – but it was written in a time, place, culture, and language that is not ours.

Those realities should be considered when reading the text.

Does that make it less relevant? No.

To appreciate the complexities of the text is not an insult to God or the Bible – quite the contrary. For me it fosters a deeper desire to understand and appreciate both.

* * *

I’ve come to realize there is another path on the crossroads of having to choose between science and faith. The path is less traveled and overgrown. It’s a path full of briars and thistles growing outward from the two more clear paths. It’s a difficult path to pass but an important one. A path that attempts to reconcile these seemingly opposing worldviews – the path I had to travel.

Reconciling evolution with my faith and gaining a better understanding of the Bible allowed me to grab the cliff’s edge with my second hand and pull myself to the top.

For reasons most will never understand that’s what it took for me to find a real, meaningful faith.

For the most part I’ve been content to keep my journey to myself. However, I recently had a moment of clarity during a very spirit filled communion service.

Even by conservative standards – the issue is not central to salvation.

It certainly poses some challenges and requires a thorough reading of the scriptures and some deep thought. But shouldn’t we be doing that anyway?

Why then, are we continually perpetuating the notion of having to choose between science and religion? Why is the utterance of the “E” word in Christian circles immediately met with condemnation and judgment? Why am I scared and embarrassed to talk openly about it?

I’ve come to realize that if I’m not open about my journey then I’m perpetuating a problem that almost caused me to let go of the cliff’s edge – and for no good reason.


Nathan is the husband to a beautiful wife, father to three wonderful children, researcher, teacher, and occasional writer/blogger. He can be found on Twitter at @evolvingbaptist.


Malcolm Gladwell - "David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants" in the Power of the Spirit



Relevant Magazine
January/February 2014

When I was writing my book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, I went to see a woman in Winnipeg by the name of Wilma Derksen.

Thirty years before, her teenage daughter, Candace, had disappeared on her way home from school. The city had launched the largest manhunt in its history, and after a week, Candace’s body was found in a hut a quarter of a mile from the Derksen’s house. Her hands and feet had been bound.

Wilma and her husband Cliff were called in to the local police station and told the news. Candace’s funeral was the next day, followed by a news conference. Virtually every news outlet in the province was there because Candace’s disappearance had gripped the city.

“How do you feel about whoever did this to Candace?” a reporter asked the Derksens.

“We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives,” Cliff said.

Wilma went next. “Our main concern was to find Candace. We’ve found her.” She went on: “I can’t say at this point I forgive this person,” but the stress was on the phrase at this point. “We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to.”

Vulnerability and Power

I wanted to know where the Derksens found the strength to say those things. A sexual predator had kidnapped and murdered their daughter, and Cliff Derksen could talk about sharing his love with the killer and Wilma could stand up and say, “We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to.” Where do two people find the power to forgive in a moment like that?

That seemed like a relevant question to ask in a book called David and Goliath. The moral of the Biblical account of the duel between David and Goliath, after all, is that our preconceptions about where power and strength reside are false.

Goliath seemed formidable. But there are all kinds of hints in the biblical text that he was, in fact, not everything he seemed. Why did he need to be escorted to the valley floor by an attendant? Why did it take him so long to clue into the fact that David was clearly not intending to fight him with swords? There is even speculation among medical experts that Goliath may have been suffering from a condition called acromegaly—a disease that causes abnormal growth but also often has the side effect of restricted sight.

What if Goliath had to be led to the valley floor and took so long to respond to David because he could only see a few feet in front of him? What if the very thing that made him appear so large and formidable, in other words, was also the cause of his greatest vulnerability?

For the first year of my research, I collected examples of these kinds of paradoxes—where our intuitions about what an advantage or a disadvantage are turn out to be upside down. Why are so many successful entrepreneurs dyslexic? Why did so many American presidents and British prime ministers lose a parent in childhood? Is it possible that some of the things we hold dear in education—like small classes and prestigious schools—can do as much harm as good? I read studies and talked to social scientists and buried myself in the library and thought I knew the kind of book I wanted to write.

Then I met Wilma Derksen.


Weapons of the Spirit

The Derksens live in a small bungalow in a modest neighborhood not far from downtown Winnipeg. Wilma Derksen and I sat in her backyard. I think some part of me expected her to be saintly or heroic. She was neither. She spoke simply and quietly. She was a Mennonite, she explained. Her family, like many Mennonites, had come from Russia, where those of their faith had suffered terrible persecution before fleeing to Canada. And the Mennonite response to persecution was to take Jesus’ instructions on forgiveness seriously.

“The whole Mennonite philosophy is that we forgive and we move on,” she said. It had not always been easy. It took more than 20 years for the police in Winnipeg to track down Candace’s killer. In the beginning, Wilma’s husband, Cliff, had been considered by some in the police force as a suspect. The weight of that suspicion fell heavily on the Derksens. Wilma told me she had wrestled with her anger and desire for retribution. They weren’t heroes or saints. But something in their tradition and faith made it possible for the Derksens to do something heroic and saintly.

I never plan out my books in advance. I start in the middle and try and muddle my way from there. When I met Wilma Derksen, I finally understood what I was really getting at, in all the social science I had been reading and in the stories I was telling of dyslexia and entrepreneurs and education. I was interested—to borrow that marvelous phrase from Pierre Sauvage—in the “weapons of the spirit”—the peculiar and inexplicable power that comes from within.

When I told a friend of mine about my visit to the Derksens, he sent me a quotation from 1 Samuel 16:7. It so perfectly captured what I realized David and Goliath was about that it is now on the first page of the book: “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Le Chambon

The final chapter of David and Goliath is about what happened in the small town of Le Chambon during the Second World War. Final chapters are crucial: they frame the experience of reading the book. I put the Le Chambon story at the end because it deals with the great puzzle of the weapons of the spirit—which is why we find it so hard to see them.

I WAS INTERESTED IN THE “WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT” - 

THE PECULIAR AND INEXPLICABLE POWER THAT COMES FROM WITHIN.

Le Chambon is in an area of France called the Vivarais Plateau—a remote and mountainous region near the Italian and Swiss borders. For many centuries, the area has been home to dissident Protestant groups, principally the Huguenots, and during the Nazi occupation of France, Le Chambon became a very open and central pocket of resistance.

The local Huguenot pastor was a man named André Trocmé. On the Sunday after France fell to the Germans, Trocmé preached a sermon in which he said that if the Germans made the townsfolk of Le Chambon do anything they considered contrary to the Gospel, the town wasn’t going to go along. So the schoolchildren of Le Chambon refused to give the fascist salute each morning, as the new government had decreed they must. The occupation rulers required teachers to sign an oath of loyalty to the state, but Trocmé ran the school in Le Chambon and instructed his staff not to do it.

Before long, Jewish refugees—on the run from the Nazis—heard of Le Chambon and began to show up looking for help. Trocmé and the townsfolk took them in, fed them, hid them and spirited them across borders—in open defiance of Nazi law. Once, when a high government official came to town, a group of students actually presented him with a letter that stated plainly and honestly the town’s opposition to the anti-Jewish policies of the occupation.

“We feel obliged to tell you that there are among us a certain number of Jews,” the letter stated. “But, we make no distinction between Jews and non-Jews. It is contrary to the Gospel teaching. If our comrades, whose only fault is to be born in another religion, received the order to let themselves be deported or even examined, they would disobey the order received, and we would try to hide them as best we could.”


“Nobody Thought of That”

Where did the people of Le Chambon find the strength to defy the Nazis? The same place the Derksens found the strength to forgive. They were armed with the weapons of the spirit. For over 100 years, in the 17th and 18th centuries, they had been ruthlessly persecuted by the state. Huguenot pastors had been hanged and tortured, their wives sent to prison and their children taken from them. They had learned how to hide in the forests and escape to Switzerland and conduct their services in secrecy. They had learned how to stick together.

They saw just about the worst kind of persecution that anyone can see. And what did they discover? That the strength granted to them by their faith in God gave them the power to stand up to the soldiers and guns and laws of the state. In one of the many books written about Le Chambon, there is an extraordinary line from André Trocmé’s wife, Magda. When the first refugee appeared at her door, in the bleakest part of the war during the long winter of 1941, Magda Trocmé said it never occurred to her to say no: “I did not know that it would be dangerous. Nobody thought of that.”

Nobody thought of that. It never occurred to her or anyone else in Le Chambon that they were at any disadvantage in a battle with the Nazi Army.

But here is the puzzle: The Huguenots of Le Chambon were not the only committed Christians in France in 1941. There were millions of committed believers in France in those years. They believed in God just as the people of Le Chambon did. So why did so few Christians follow the lead of the people in Le Chambon? The way that story is often told, the people of Le Chambon are made out to be heroic figures. But they were no more heroic than the Derksens. They were simply people whose experience had taught them where true power lies.

The other Christians of France were not so fortunate. They made the mistake that so many of us make. They estimated the dangers of action by looking on outward appearances—when they needed to look on the heart. If they had, how many other French Jews might have been saved from the Holocaust?

Seeing God’s Power

I was raised in a Christian home in Southwestern Ontario. My parents took time each morning to read the Bible and pray. Both my brothers are devout. My sister-in-law is a Mennonite pastor. I have had a different experience from the rest of my family. I was the only one to move away from Canada. And I have been the only one to move away from the Church.

I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN GOD.

I HAVE GRASPED THE LOGIC OF CHRISTIAN FAITH.

WHAT I HAVE HAD A HARD TIME SEEING IS GOD’S POWER.

I attended Washington Community Fellowship when I lived in Washington D.C. But once I moved to New York, I stopped attending any kind of religious fellowship. I have often wondered why it happened that way: Why had I wandered off the path taken by the rest of my family?

What I understand now is that I was one of those people who did not appreciate the weapons of the spirit. I have always been someone attracted to the quantifiable and the physical. I hate to admit it. But I don’t think I would have been able to do what the Huguenots did in Le Chambon. I would have counted up the number of soldiers and guns on each side and concluded it was too dangerous. I have always believed in God. I have grasped the logic of Christian faith. What I have had a hard time seeing is God’s power.

I put that sentence in the past tense because something happened to me when I sat in Wilma Derksen’s garden. It is one thing to read in a history book about people empowered by their faith. But it is quite another to meet an otherwise very ordinary person, in the backyard of a very ordinary house, who has managed to do something utterly extraordinary.

Their daughter was murdered. And the first thing the Derksens did was to stand up at the press conference and talk about the path to forgiveness. “We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives.”

Maybe we have difficulty seeing the weapons of the spirit because we don’t know where to look, or because we are distracted by the louder claims of material advantage. But I’ve seen them now, and I will never be the same.


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Wikipedia Bio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell

Malcolm T. Gladwell, CM (born September 3, 1963) is an English-Canadian journalist, bestselling author, and speaker.[1] He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He has written five books, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), Outliers: The Story of Success (2008), What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (2009), a collection of his journalism, and David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (2013). All five books were on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Gladwell's books and articles often deal with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences and make frequent and extended use of academic work, particularly in the areas of sociology,psychology, and social psychology. Gladwell was appointed to the Order of Canada on June 30, 2011.[2]


Monday, January 13, 2014

Christopher H. Evans - American Liberalism Isn't What You Think It Is

Christopher Evans' book, Liberalism without Illusions, discusses the affective movement of Christian liberalism upon the Orthodox Church, writing of its more positive religious impact in an historical context across a broader, dissimilar spectrum of lives and cultures incapable of remaining stagnant in time and space as many may think or wish. As such, a liberalism that can cause older, more popular traditions to rethink themselves is a good thing, and one that may create contemporary relevancy in the Gospel witness of Jesus to men and society in need of new ways of hearing the Gospel.

For myself, I regard the wider word "liberalism" as a more helpful word filled with illuminating tendencies evoking human compassion, generosity, greater self-reflection and awareness, and tolerance for other societies and cultures dis-similar from myself. My older tradition would castigate the term and banish all who deem it constructive as unlike themselves and worthy of condemnation. To the mature in Christ, this way of thinking and behaving cannot accede with the dictates and anti-intellectual posturings by this more conservative segment of Christianity. It would be wrong to do so and unhelpful in the study of God's Word. Placing authority in the hands of men and not in the hands of Almighty God through discernment, prayer, contemplation, historical reflection, scientific discovery, and affective scholarship. I give two-thumbs up for Evans' newest book discussing regenerative roots of American liberalism.

R.E. Slater
January 13, 2013

Amazon Book Description
Publication Date: January 12, 2010

By the 1930s most mainline Protestant traditions promulgated the key tenets of liberalism, especially an embrace of modern intellectual theory along with theological and religious pluralism. In Liberalism without Illusions, Christopher Evans critiques his own tradition, focusing in particular on why so many Americans today want to distance themselves from this rich and vibrant heritage. In a time when attitudes about “liberal” vs. “conservative” theology have become the focus of the culture wars, he provides a constructive discussion of how liberalism might move forward into the twenty-first century, which, he argues, is indispensable to the future of American Christianity itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly - Starred Review. Evans (The Kingdom Is Always but Coming), a professor of church history at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, makes no pretensions about the scope of his work. This book does not include a comprehensive view or extensive history of liberal theology-that can be found elsewhere, and in much larger tomes. Instead, he sets out to reclaim and rejuvenate this misunderstood, formerly vibrant, and ostensibly weakening movement in American Christianity. To rejuvenate any school of thought, that school must be understood, and here Evans is at his finest. He begins by immediately confronting the pejorative meaning the "culture wars" have attached to the word "liberal" and follows by proposing a new foundation on which to build a more historical, rather than hyped, understanding of liberal Christianity. Finally, Evans transcends the limits of stereotypical "ivory tower history" by offering more than just analysis. He offers solutions. The liberal Christian movement in America is not dead, he concludes, and history shows how to prevent it from dying. Anyone interested in 20th- and 21st-century American Christianity needs to read and consider the suggestions Evans has to offer.

Reviews

A strong argument for the appeal and relevance of a liberal theology. Evans brings the liberal and evangelical stories into a compelling conversation, making a case for a liberal theology that reclaims its evangelical roots and its place in the life and witness of the church. - Gary Dorrien, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, and Professor of Religion, Columbia University.

Evans transcends the limits of stereotypical "ivory tower history" by offering more than just analysis. He offers solutions.... Anyone interested in 20th- and 21st-century American Christianity needs to read and consider the suggestions Evans has to offer. - Publisher's Weekly, 1/26/2010 

Evans is an expert guide for the liberal Protestant tradition, showing us the lost treasure and nuggets of power and wisdom that can and should be harvested. This book is an antidote against those who separate piety and social action, levying a powerful argument that any adequate theology enables church leaders to inspire its members to love justice, seek mercy, and walk humbly in service to the world. It is a prophetic call and important reminder of the dangerous good news of an applied gospel waiting to be lived. - James K. Wellman Jr., author of Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest.

Product Details

Print Length: 234 pages 
Publisher: Baylor University Press (January 12, 2010) 




Liberal = Evangelical and Modern
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/01/10/liberal-evangelical-and-modern/
Theological liberalism is a historical movement born in the nineteenth century that supports critical intellectual engagement with both Christian traditions and contemporary intellectual resources. As opposed to more traditional forms of Christian theology, liberalism has been characterized by an affirmation of personal and collective experience, systemic social analysis, and open theological inquiry (6).
Notice what’s at work here: a creative synthesis of the Christian tradition (evangelical) and modernism. The result focuses on both personal and collective experience, a clear emphasis on systemics, and a general disposition of opennness. In chps 2 and 3 Evans sketches the dominating voices of liberalism, and it is a sketch to which I will at times turn again.

Human reason matters, and here he dips into both Kant and Hegel, and he rightly (I think) sees the impact of Hegel on liberalism because of his more immanent approach to divine activity in history. God can be known through reason and in historical processes, and this all leads him to speak of the undeniable significance of Schleiermacher for understanding liberalism.

Now briefly:

1. American liberalism emerged out of New England Calvinism.

2. A leading influence can be seen in Charles Sheldon’s famous “What would Jesus do?” question and life. Christology was refashioned in exemplary terms and also in anti-Trinitarian ways with Unitarians (William Ellery Channing’s voice). Then comes Horace Bushnell and “new theology.” He saw Christianity as a historical religion and was one who helped create a more positive sense of human goodness (Christian nurture flowed from this) and he pushed for a sacrifice of his life on the part of Jesus against typical penal substitutionary theories.

3. The pulpiteers included Henry Ward Beecher (anti-slavery) and David Swing (4th Pres Chicago), and it was Swing who perhaps best articulated emerging liberal theology: OT criticism was embraced, as was Darwinian thinking, and cultural conditioned-ness.

4. Kingdom theology, and this means socialistic Christianity, or the application of Jesus’ compassion and justice to national and global problems.  Here he looks at Shailer Mathews.

5. All leading to his specialty: Walter Rauschenbusch and the social gospel and social Christianity. Salvation becomes more robust and the focus is on social problems with the church taking the initiative in justice issues. The social gospel gave important ideas to liberation theologies. He looks, too, at Washington Gladden and Howard Thurman. The social gospel is the most enduring legacy of Protestant liberalism and is in my view here to stay. It can tie hands with Kuyperian thinking to focus the energies of Christians on the public sector, on politics, and on social activism — though the two orientations (social gospel and Kuyperian thinking are hardly the same).

The arena of God’s work was history and society, Jesus’ moral vision and his humanity were central, and they tended to diminish theological centralities of orthodoxy as well as the church. This led in part to therapeutic emphases in the gospel as well as to pastoral care and prophetic theology. Social justice was combined with pastoral care for the folks in their local church (e.g., Ernest Fremont Tittle, from Evanston). It garnered interest in the ecumenical movement… but listen to this observation Evans summarizes from Sidney Mead: “the social gospel was a movement that did not lead to the creation of any new churches, and was largely consigned to the corridors of power within preexistent Protestant denominations” (76).

And it’s focus, even obsession, with economic concerns made it blind often to other concerns, like race and gender equalities.



D. Oiver Herbel - "Turning to Tradition": Why American Evangelicals Turn to Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism



Evangelicals Turning to Eastern Orthodoxy
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/01/13/evangelicals-turning-to-eastern-orthodoxy/

by Scot McKnight

So, let me put this together again: these converts search for the original-est NT church by riding the American encouragement to be anti-traditional. Yet, their restoration spirit encounters the Great Tradition of the Orthodox church as the best form of restoring the NT church so they end up being anti-traditional by being un-Americanly traditional. Clever, and right?

I wish Herbel had compared why the restorationism of the evangelical converts is not on par with the traditionalism of the Orthodox when their theological orientation is more or less the same (and frankly the evangelical-rooted Orthodox converts are some of the best witnesses today for Orthodoxy). The tension appears to be over what one thinks is restoration while the others see it as a millennia long living tradition — rather than (just?) the original faith.

Herbel’s work lacked nuanced analysis of the crises at work in the conversion of his subjects. Rambo and I have both explored this in our books (mine in both Turning to Jesus and in Finding Faith, Losing Faith) while Herbel stuck with little more than general (if accurate) orientations. There are a variety of crises at work when one converts and these could have been explored.

Finally, this book, especially the endnotes, was riddled with typos. I found enough that I got irritated and stopped marking them. OUP ought to be embarrassed with its copyeditors.

- Scott

* * * * * * * * 

A short note here.

To Herbel and McKnight's observations I would like to add my own observation that for some Evangelicals, having become exasperated with the state of affairs of evangelicalism, may also turn to "safe" groups that are perceived as remaining in the older Protestant tradition but differ by degree by practice or worship. Hence, groups like the neo-Anabaptists, or even re-invigorated mainline denominational churches such as the UMC United Methodists, would serve as examples of evangelicals moving left of right (but not too far left) while remaining snug within Protestantism's older traditions. However, I would not include Christian groups such as the Charismatic, Emergent, or non-denominational Bible-fellowships, in this category as they are simply variants of a wider, older, Evangelical tradition, which some may transition into, or out of, for one reason or another over their lifetimes.

R.E. Slater
January 13, 2013












4 Epistemological Approaches to God



To make matters worse, starting with ethics (the outside-in direction) has a tough time getting all the way to ‘God’ by trying to equate ethics with evidence that there is a God. While you can see that the ethics and belief in God may have some overlap, it is not the most efficient of effective approach and thus it has fallen out of favor.

REVELATION

Revelation is a tried-and-true approach historically. Protestants of almost every stripe love this approach. From fundamentalist, to thoughtful Barthians, and even the Radical Orthodox crowd feast on a steady diet of the revelation approach.

That God reveals God’s-self in creation, in history, in scripture and in experience, is a staple of the Christian religion.

The problem is that there is often a gap. If you start with what is revealed you might not make it all the way to God… and likewise, if you start with God it can be tough to make it all the way out to what is revealed.

The problems come in things like Biblical (historic) criticism, modern science and the pesky pluralism of the post-colonial era.

REDUCTION

Reductive approaches are perhaps the Most problematic. We are haunted in late modernity by this shadow of foundationalism. As we are all aware, the scientific reductionism of the New Atheists is just the flip-side of the coin from fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell. If you start out there, you never make it in to God. If you start with God, you never make it all the way out there.

This approach has left us with a nasty enlightenment hangover and many (if not most) people are weary of the contentious and often combative result of this attempt of making your way in the world.

LINGUISTICS

Linguistic approaches (I include the hermeneutical crowd in this) seem to me the most promising in the 21st century. The problem, however, is that they can often be so different from classic or historic approaches that the uninitiated have a difficult time even recognizing them as the same Christianity one is trying to engage.

Take for instance the much debated sentences of Jack Caputo. What does it even mean that God does not exist but that God insists? Is God just a concept of our highest good? And how does one fend off the Feuerbach critique that religion is nothing more than a human projection by talking about ‘language games’?

Does God ontologically exist or not? Is the linguistic approach just a fancy way of skirting the question of metaphysics?

Most importantly, for the epistemology question that we were originally attempting to get setup, how do you even move forward if linguistics / hermeneutics are your preferred entry point?

So [these are] my “4 Approaches – 2 Directions” schematic. It [may] lead to a fruitful conversation even while it clearly needs some adjustments.

I would welcome your thoughts, questions, concerns, revisions, suggestions and innovations.

p.s. I’m going to start linking to the Kindle version of Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms at the bottom every post. It is only $5 and it is so [very] helpful to new readers of this blog.

- Bo

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SYNOPSIS
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Epistemology (Knowledge of Truth):

  • Ethics - Truth  is what I  do 
  • Revelation - Truth is what God claims as truth
  • Reductive - Truth is what I claim as truth (or, what people have historically attributed to God)
  • Linguistic - Truth is interpretive, and I have no private claim to God's truth.

*It should be noted that when speaking of bare intellectual apprehension of God is not enough (sic, God is not an insect to be studied but to be apprehended). That this apprehension must approach our whole being and way of life, and not simply the head alone.

Hence, there must also be room for contemplative practice (worship, prayer, fellowship, etc) or some kind of direct "experience" of the Divine (interpersonally or in community with others) in some way or fashion. Perhaps this falls more into the areas of revelation or reduction (sic, receiving the "word of God") - whether falsely, or truly, can only be evaluated in hindsight by error and omission, ofttimes far removed from the actual occasion of  the revelatory (or inspired) events when reviewing the resulting practice, attitude, or doctrines of the church and its people.

Essentially this affective process speaks to the idea of opening one's heart up to God and others (or within to ourselves, or to God's creation). This divine-human union may also be described as a transformational (or conformational) process, and is spoken of many times in the Bible (described popularly as "divinization" in Christian doctrine, or as "theosis" within the Eastern Orthodox tradition).

In summary, intellectual apprehension of God alone remains barren without the divine touch of God in one's life and in some way showing by attitude or action, word or deed, thought or attitude.

R.E. Slater
January 13, 2013