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 off 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

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Interviews on Religion: Is Atheism Irrational? Part 1 - Alvin Plantinga




The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers
and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.


Is Atheism Irrational?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/is-atheism-irrational/#more-151773

by Gary Gutting
February 9, 2014

This is the first in a series of interviews about religion that I will conduct for The Stone. The interviewee for this installment is Alvin Plantinga, an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, a former president of both the Society of Christian Philosophers and the American Philosophical Association, and the author, most recently, of “Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism.”

---

Gary Gutting: A recent survey by PhilPapers, the online philosophy index, says that 62 percent of philosophers are atheists (with another 11 percent “inclined” to the view). Do you think the philosophical literature provides critiques of theism strong enough to warrant their views? Or do you think philosophers’ atheism is due to factors other than rational analysis?

Alvin Plantinga: If 62 percent of philosophers are atheists, then the proportion of atheists among philosophers is much greater than (indeed, is nearly twice as great as) the proportion of atheists among academics generally. (I take atheism to be the belief that there is no such person as the God of the theistic religions.) Do philosophers know something here that these other academics don’t know? What could it be? Philosophers, as opposed to other academics, are often professionally concerned with the theistic arguments — arguments for the existence of God. My guess is that a considerable majority of philosophers, both believers and unbelievers, reject these arguments as unsound.

Still, that’s not nearly sufficient for atheism. In the British newspaper The Independent, the scientist Richard Dawkins was recently asked the following question: “If you died and arrived at the gates of heaven, what would you say to God to justify your lifelong atheism?” His response: “I’d quote Bertrand Russell: ‘Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!’” But lack of evidence, if indeed evidence is lacking, is no grounds for atheism. No one thinks there is good evidence for the proposition that there are an even number of stars; but also, no one thinks the right conclusion to draw is that there are an uneven number of stars. The right conclusion would instead be agnosticism.

In the same way, the failure of the theistic arguments, if indeed they do fail, might conceivably be good grounds for agnosticism, but not for atheism. Atheism, like even-star-ism, would presumably be the sort of belief you can hold rationally only if you have strong arguments or evidence.

The failure of arguments for God would be good
grounds for agnosticism, but not for atheism.

G.G.: You say atheism requires evidence to support it. Many atheists deny this, saying that all they need to do is point out the lack of any good evidence for theism. You compare atheism to the denial that there are an even number of stars, which obviously would need evidence. But atheists say (using an example from Bertrand Russell) that you should rather compare atheism to the denial that there’s a teapot in orbit around the sun. Why prefer your comparison to Russell’s?

A.P.: Russell’s idea, I take it, is we don’t really have any evidence against teapotism, but we don’t need any; the absence of evidence is evidence of absence, and is enough to support a-teapotism. We don’t need any positive evidence against it to be justified in a-teapotism; and perhaps the same is true of theism.

I disagree: Clearly we have a great deal of evidence against teapotism. For example, as far as we know, the only way a teapot could have gotten into orbit around the sun would be if some country with sufficiently developed space-shot capabilities had shot this pot into orbit. No country with such capabilities is sufficiently frivolous to waste its resources by trying to send a teapot into orbit. Furthermore, if some country had done so, it would have been all over the news; we would certainly have heard about it. But we haven’t. And so on. There is plenty of evidence against teapotism. So if, à la Russell, theism is like teapotism, the atheist, to be justified, would (like the a-teapotist) have to have powerful evidence against theism.

G.G.: But isn’t there also plenty of evidence against theism — above all, the amount of evil in a world allegedly made by an all-good, all-powerful God?

A.P.: The so-called “problem of evil” would presumably be the strongest (and maybe the only) evidence against theism. It does indeed have some strength; it makes sense to think that the probability of theism, given the existence of all the suffering and evil our world contains, is fairly low. But of course there are also arguments for theism. Indeed, there are at least a couple of dozen good theistic arguments. So the atheist would have to try to synthesize and balance the probabilities. This isn’t at all easy to do, but it’s pretty obvious that the result wouldn’t anywhere nearly support straight-out atheism as opposed to agnosticism.

G.G.: But when you say “good theistic arguments,” you don’t mean arguments that are decisive — for example, good enough to convince any rational person who understands them.

A.P.: I should make clear first that I don’t think arguments are needed for rational belief in God. In this regard belief in God is like belief in other minds, or belief in the past. Belief in God is grounded in experience, or in the sensus divinitatis, John Calvin’s term for an inborn inclination to form beliefs about God in a wide variety of circumstances.

Nevertheless, I think there are a large number — maybe a couple of dozen — of pretty good theistic arguments. None is conclusive, but each, or at any rate [when we take] the whole bunch taken together, is about as strong as philosophical arguments ordinarily get.

G.G.: Could you give an example of such an argument?

You don’t even need arguments to have a rational belief 
in God. Belief in God is grounded in experience.

AP: One presently rather popular argument: fine-tuning. Scientists tell us that there are many properties our universe displays such that if they were even slightly different from what they are in fact, life, or at least our kind of life, would not be possible. The universe seems to be fine-tuned for life. For example, if the force of the Big Bang had been different by one part in 10 to the 60th, life of our sort would not have been possible. The same goes for the ratio of the gravitational force to the force driving the expansion of the universe: If it had been even slightly different, our kind of life would not have been possible. In fact the universe seems to be fine-tuned, not just for life, but for intelligent life. This fine-tuning is vastly more likely given theism than given atheism [that is, should we argue for God's rational existence].

G.G.: But even if this fine-tuning argument (or some similar argument) convinces someone that God exists, doesn’t it fall far short of what at least Christian theism asserts, namely the existence of an all-perfect God? Since the world isn’t perfect, why would we need a perfect being to explain the world or any feature of it?

A.P.: I suppose your thinking is that it is suffering and sin that make this world less than perfect. But then your question makes sense only if the best possible worlds contain no sin or suffering. And is that true? Maybe the best worlds contain free creatures some of whom sometimes do what is wrong. Indeed, maybe the best worlds contain a scenario very like the Christian story.

Think about it: The first being of the universe, perfect in goodness, power and knowledge, creates free creatures. These free creatures turn their backs on him, rebel against him and get involved in sin and evil. Rather than treat them as some ancient potentate might — e.g., having them boiled in oil — God responds by sending his son into the world to suffer and die so that human beings might once more be in a right relationship to God. God himself undergoes the enormous suffering involved in seeing his son mocked, ridiculed, beaten and crucified. And all this for the sake of these sinful creatures.

I’d say a world in which this story is true would be a truly magnificent possible world. It would be so good that no world could be appreciably better. But then the best worlds contain sin and suffering.

G.G.: O.K., but in any case, isn’t the theist on thin ice in suggesting the need for God as an explanation of the universe? There’s always the possibility that we’ll find a scientific account that explains what we claimed only God could explain. After all, that’s what happened when Darwin developed his theory of evolution. In fact, isn’t a major support for atheism the very fact that we no longer need God to explain the world?

A.P.: Some atheists seem to think that a sufficient reason for atheism is the fact (as they say) that we no longer need God to explain natural phenomena — lightning and thunder for example. We now have science.

As a justification of atheism, this is pretty lame. We no longer need the moon to explain or account for lunacy; it hardly follows that belief in the nonexistence of the moon (a-moonism?) is justified. A-moonism on this ground would be sensible only if the sole ground for belief in the existence of the moon was its explanatory power with respect to lunacy. (And even so, the justified attitude would be agnosticism with respect to the moon, not a-moonism.) The same thing goes with belief in God: Atheism on this sort of basis would be justified only if the explanatory power of theism were the only reason for belief in God. And even then, agnosticism would be the justified attitude, not atheism.

G.G.: So, what are the further grounds for believing in God, the reasons that make atheism unjustified?

A.P.: The most important ground of belief is probably not philosophical argument but religious experience. Many people of very many different cultures have thought themselves in experiential touch with a being worthy of worship. They believe that there is such a person, but not because of the explanatory prowess of such belief. Or maybe there is something like Calvin’s sensus divinitatis. Indeed, if theism is true, then very likely there is something like the sensus divinitatis. So claiming that the only sensible ground for belief in God is the explanatory quality of such belief is substantially equivalent to assuming atheism.

G.G.: If, then, there isn’t evidence to support atheism, why do you think so many philosophers — presumably highly rational people — are atheists?

Some people simply don’t want there to be a God. It
would pose  a serious limitation for human autonomy.

AP: I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t have any special knowledge here. Still, there are some possible explanations. Thomas Nagel, a terrific philosopher and an unusually perceptive atheist, says he simply doesn’t want there to be any such person as God. And it isn’t hard to see why. For one thing, there would be what some would think was an intolerable invasion of privacy: God would know my every thought long before I thought it. For another, my actions and even my thoughts, would be a constant subject of judgment and evaluation.

Basically, these come down to the serious limitation of human autonomy posed by theism. This desire for autonomy can reach very substantial proportions, as with the German philosopher Heidegger, who, according to Richard Rorty, felt guilty for living in a universe he had not himself created. Now there’s a tender conscience! But even a less monumental desire for autonomy can perhaps also motivate atheism.

GG: Especially among today’s atheists, materialism seems to be a primary motive. They think there’s nothing beyond the material entities open to scientific inquiry, so there there’s no place for immaterial beings such as God.

AP: Well, if there are only material entities, then atheism certainly follows. But there is a really serious problem for materialism: It can’t be sensibly believed, at least if, like most materialists, you also believe that humans are the product of evolution.

GG: Why is that?

AP: I can’t give a complete statement of the argument here — for that see Chapter 10 of “Where the Conflict Really Lies.” But, roughly, here’s why. First, if materialism is true, human beings, naturally enough, are material objects. Now what, from this point of view, would a belief be? My belief that Marcel Proust is more subtle that Louis L’Amour, for example? Presumably this belief would have to be a material structure in my brain, say a collection of neurons that sends electrical impulses to other such structures as well as to nerves and muscles, and receives electrical impulses from other structures.

But in addition to such neurophysiological properties, this structure, if it is a belief, would also have to have a content: It would have, say, to be the belief that Proust is more subtle than L’Amour.

GG: So is your suggestion that a neurophysiological structure can’t be a belief? That a belief has to be somehow immaterial?

AP: That may be, but it’s not my point here. I’m interested in the fact that beliefs cause (or at least partly cause) actions. For example, my belief that there is a beer in the fridge (together with my desire to have a beer) can cause me to heave myself out of my comfortable armchair and lumber over to the fridge.

But here’s the important point: It’s by virtue of its material, neurophysiological properties that a belief causes the action. It’s in virtue of those electrical signals sent via efferent nerves to the relevant muscles, that the belief about the beer in the fridge causes me to go to the fridge. It is not by virtue of the content (there is a beer in the fridge) the belief has.

GG: Why do you say that?

AP: Because if this belief — this structure — had a totally different content (even, say, if it was a belief that there is no beer in the fridge) but had the same neurophysiological properties, it would still have caused that same action of going to the fridge. This means that the content of the belief isn’t a cause of the behavior. As far as causing the behavior goes, the content of the belief doesn’t matter.

GG: That does seem to be a hard conclusion to accept. But won’t evolution get the materialist out of this difficulty? For our species to have survived, presumably many, if not most, of our beliefs must be true — otherwise, we wouldn’t be functional in a dangerous world.

Materialism can’t be sensibly believed, at least if,
like most materialists, you also believe in evolution.

AP: Evolution will have resulted in our having beliefs that are adaptive; that is, beliefs that cause adaptive actions. But as we’ve seen, if materialism is true, the belief does not cause the adaptive action by way of its content: It causes that action by way of its neurophysiological properties. Hence it doesn’t matter what the content of the belief is, and it doesn’t matter whether that content is true or false. All that’s required is that the belief have the right neurophysiological properties. If it’s also true, that’s fine; but if false, that’s equally fine.

Evolution will select for belief-producing processes that produce beliefs with adaptive neurophysiological properties, but not for belief-producing processes that produce true beliefs. Given materialism and evolution, any particular belief is as likely to be false as true.

GG: So your claim is that if materialism is true, evolution doesn’t lead to most of our beliefs being true.

AP: Right. In fact, given materialism and evolution, it follows that our belief-producing faculties are not reliable.

Here’s why. If a belief is as likely to be false as to be true, we’d have to say the probability that any particular belief is true is about 50 percent. Now suppose we had a total of 100 independent beliefs (of course, we have many more). Remember that the probability that all of a group of beliefs are true is the multiplication of all their individual probabilities. Even if we set a fairly low bar for reliability — say, that at least two-thirds (67 percent) of our beliefs are true — our overall reliability, given materialism and evolution, is exceedingly low: something like .0004. So if you accept both materialism and evolution, you have good reason to believe that your belief-producing faculties are not reliable.

But to believe that is to fall into a total skepticism, which leaves you with no reason to accept any of your beliefs (including your beliefs in materialism and evolution!). The only sensible course is to give up the claim leading to this conclusion: that both materialism and evolution are true. Maybe you can hold one or the other, but not both.

So if you’re an atheist simply because you accept materialism, maintaining your atheism means you have to give up your belief that evolution is true. Another way to put it: The belief that both materialism and evolution are true is self-refuting. It shoots itself in the foot. Therefore it can’t rationally be held.

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This interview was conducted by email and edited.

Gary Gutting is a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and an editor of Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. He is the author of, most recently, “Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy Since 1960″ and writes regularly for The Stone.


God and Time: The (Quantum) Physics of Time


Having recently "enrolled" in Brian Greens' World Science U I thought it might be appropo to review the section on time itself from a quantum mechanical perspective. Previous recent articles here at Relevancy22 have looked at this topic from an introductory theological and philosophical construct. So perhaps we should also look at it from a scientific aspect gathering up as much as we know about it according to today's scientific thoughts and insights. Below you will find two links - a link to Studies in Time and another on the general math and physics courses provided by World Science U. Enjoy.

R.E. Slater
March 13, 2014


World Science U - Studies in Time


World Science U - Home Page



continue to -







God and Time: God is Not Eternal



God is Not Eternal
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2014/02/12/god-is-not-eternal/#more-9825

by Tony Jones
[additional remarks by r.e. slater]
February 12, 2014

Writing a book on the atonement is like peeling the layers of an onion. Every theological dilemma you [think you] solve only brings up two more dilemmas. So it was that I needed to write a section in the book on God’s relationship to time, because it seemed to make no sense to talk about God’s relationship to Jesus’ crucifixion unless I could explain God’s relationship to time.

So a couple weeks back, I wrote a post arguing that God is not outside of time [that is, in the classic description of time. But that God is alongside of, or within time, in the process sense of time. - r.e. slater]. When reading that, Keith DeRose sent me Nicholas Wolterstorff‘s classic essay, “God Everlasting” (in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, New York: Oxford, 1982).

In that essay, Wolterstorff argues that God is not eternal, God is everlasting.

His argument proceeds thusly:

1) The biblical narrative clearly tells of a God who changes, and any hermeneutic that denies this is tortured.

2) Any being who changes is necessarily, in part, temporal.

3) “Eternal” is a totalising characteristic. It is not possible for a thing to be partly temporal and partly eternal.

4) Therefore, God is not eternal.

Money quote:

What I shall argue is that if we are to accept this picture of God as acting for the renewal of human life, we must conceive of him as everlasting rather than eternal. God the Redeemer cannot be a God eternal. This is so because God the Redeemer is a God who changes. And any being which changes is a being among whose states there is temporal succession. Of course, there is an important sense in which God as presented in the Scriptures is changeless: he is steadfast in his redeeming intent and ever faithful to his children. Yet, ontologically, God cannot be a redeeming God without there being changeful variation among his states.
Some will argue that God could be eternal and still involved with time. Wolterstorff debunks that claim in a section that begins,

As with any argument, one can here choose to deny the premisses rather than to accept the conclusion. Instead of agreeing that God is fundamentally noneternal because he changes with respect to his knowledge, his memory, and his planning, one could try to save one’s conviction that God is eternal by denying that he knows what is or was or will be occurring; that he remembers what has occurred; and that he brings about what he has planned. It seems to me, however, that this is clearly to give up the notion of God as a redeeming God. And in turn, it seems to me that to give this up is to give up what is central to the biblical vision of God. To sustain this latter claim would of course require an extensive hermeneutical inquiry. But lest someone be tempted to go this route of trying to save God’s eternity by treating all the biblical language about God the redeemer as either false or misleadingly metaphorical, let me observe that if God were eternal he could not be the object of any human action whatsoever.
For me, in solving the enigma that is the crucifixion of Jesus, God’s relationship to time is essential, and Wolterstorff opened a new vista of understanding in this essay. It’s that last sentence that really seals it for me. I don’t see any logical way that an eternal being could be engaged in temporal human affairs, and surely not in the way that’s described in the Bible.

What do you think is God’s relationship to time?

- Tony


* * * * * * * * * *


God and Time:
The Mystery of the Incarnate God Eternal

"Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" means "I will be that who I have yet to become."
- God (Ex 3.14)
An Eclectic Doctrine

Sometimes there are areas in Christian doctrine that you may properly be an eclecticist. I think the doctrine of God and time may be just one of those doctrines. I'm reminded of that every time we sing Troy Hatfield's song Matchless at Mars Hill where Troy unconsciously jumbles up the classical idea of God's unchangeableness with God's imputed changeableness.... "A God who was, and is, and will be, constantly unchanging, immutable, unspeakable, full of grace, the God-man who came." Who entered into our time and space and was. And there's the crux of it. "God was, and is, and will be."

A God who came into time and out of eternity. Into creation's experiences of time, and out of time's timelessness as the Greek Classicists and early Church Fathers had conceived of it. A God who became incarnate; Who lived with us and died for us. Who would renew all creation and mankind by His lived life and experiential death. Who was Himself, the timeless One, became the corruptible One - in the sense of bearing a dying body, and not bearing a sinful soul. Who became the changeable One at the time of His incarnation forward through to His death. Who now lives with all of creation's temporality as the eternally incarnated Redeemer of creation.

The Metaphysics of Becoming and Being

This ontological truth (ontology = speaking of God's being, attributes, and character) cannot be explained, understood, or imagined. It just must be accepted. A God who Himself had become and now is - mutable, changeable, temporal. Forever affected by the very creation He created within time and space. We cannot understand it. We cannot explain it. We can only state it and present it. The idea that a holy, eternal God can forever now be the Incarnated, holy, eternal God. No less divine but wholly glorified by His incarnation (which is what you would expect when finding anything touched by God's own presence). Who is both creature and Creator. Who is timeless Saviour become willful Redeemer. It is a paradox which is beyond our experience and metaphysical categories (metaphysics = simplistically, anything "spiritual." Something that is not physical but can be decribed meta-physically). We just know God is. Who once was and has become. Who, like us, was, is becoming, and will be, in the past, present, and future tense of our understanding.

It is this God that is the God who has entered into creation's time and become a God who is in process like we are today (a simplistic description of "process theology"). Who is in Himself experiencing the eternal process of "becoming and being" as the incarnate, resurrected Saviour of man. Who is no less flesh and blood than we are today. Whose future is our future when we die. And like us (anthropomorphism = bearing man's image) has become us, even as we are like Him (theo-morphism = bearing God's image) and are, and will be, in both the past-present-and-future sense of the word. We each share the other's image because of God's incarnation through Christ Jesus our Saviour. It is a mystery but one we must be mindful not to forget less we make of God an idol untouchable. One too holy, too distant, too unfeeling, from our own experiences. But whom we do understand can be all this and more if it were not for His holy incarnation that bridges the gap between our humanity and His divinity.

What Do We Mean by "God Being in Process?"

Now the question. Actually two.... If we have a lover, spouse, or friend, who forever was fixed in time from the first day we had met him or her, would that be satisfying to us today? To know someone who never changes. Never grows old with us. Whose experience of time is forever fixed in what was once was? Would this be satisfying to us? Would that friend, lover, or spouse, be able to meet our needs? Or match our experiences? Or breach our understanding of time and death? In a limited sense, yes. And in another sense of providing to us the comfort of our past, yes. But it would be akin to something similar to our fond memories of past loved ones who had died but are no longer with us today. Who were but who are no longer present with us in the continuing experience of our flesh. It's trials and travails.

However, loved ones who are in the process of dying (there's that word again. It speaks of both life and death and life beyond).... Who are remembered - perhaps like my father's long illness or, as a beloved child we once remember from many years ago as a parent - they are forever fixed in time and space and no longer able to reach out to us in meaningful ways that our current timeful experiences of life will demand. We would share ourselves with them but find a gap, an emptiness, there. An experiential gap that is unbridgeable - unless they were able to move forward with us in time and space to appreciate our experiences in the now. The here. The present. This is what we call relationship. Relationships must be living, not dead. We cannot share with a dying parent or loved one as they let go of this mortal veil of flesh to push onwards. We cannot commune with a pleasant memory of a past childhood or family life that no longer lives with us except in the past. This things are mortal. They are past. They continue forward only in our minds and hearts and not as living present relationships.

Thus, if we only had the memory of a dead God and Saviour than it is only that. A dead memory and not a living relationship. For God to be a living God is to be a God who must continue in His relationship with us into our future tense. And not only with us but with all of His creation in its future tenses. If He had only died and remained in the grave than there would be no present tense "I-Thou" relationship which could continue. To do this God must be resurrected from the grave, and raised into glorification, as the divine, but incarnate (not re-incarnated), God of the universe. (Pauline sidetrack: in a sense God is re-incarnated in us even as our past is re-incarnated in us. But not ontologically. But existentially = as something that is "live out through our past experiences." That is, we are not God. Nor are we other people. However, our relationship with God, or with others, will reproduce their mind, their heart, their passion, in-and-through us. Just not themselves, excepting God's Spirit of course, who lives in us, and through us, and permeates all creation, infilling it with His presence). A God of the universe who would continue with us alongside our time-and-experience, even as He would continue alongside of our own past when having died to it and parted from it. Otherwise there is no now, no here, no future promise, no there, is, and will be. All would be nothingness and nothing. Without future, hope, or promise.

This God must be a living God. Not a dead God only beheld from the grave. And not a timeless God who had never known incarnated. Or walked this earth as a flesh-and-blood but very mortal human. This God must be a God who continues forward both within time and space, and without (or outside) of time and space. Even so, it is this latter part that we seem to mangle and confused. For it is the "within" part that we do seem to understand more readily than the "without" part... that we do now have a living Saviour who is with us, but who is apart from us as divine Spirit.

Hence the concept of process.... Process theology is a dynamic (and not static) concept of God that says that God continues to live though dead - and not impassionately apart from His creation (sic, deism, pelagianism, in all their gnostic forms). But passionately. Who continues to become and be through creation's experiences. Or our own. Or the church's experiences in this world. Which is part two of our question. How can a dead God remain with us? At Calvary's cross He did die. A place where He was forever affected by His humanity by His divine death. A death that became as a result of His incarnation. A death that He would meet - as we each will - simply because He lived even as we do now today live, and breath, hunger and thirst, know tiredness, suffering, aches, and pain of heart. In this mortal flesh we do know that every living thing dies. We see it everywhere about. We know of only one man that never died - Elijah. A prophet of God who was raised up as a living, non-dead, being. But it is through Elijah's story, and that of Lazarus'  miraculous "raising from the dead," that we would understand Jesus' resurrection. An "alive-but dead-but made alive again" resurrection into the heavens by the hand of God.

Enter Radical Theology's "God is Dead"

It is this kind of Process Theology that can better inform us of God's continued presence with us which a Radical Theology will then acknowledge as an event described as the "Death of God" when reflecting on this momentous event. Which is quite unlike the movie depiction of the "God is Dead" movement that serializes a Hollywood charicature of the "Death of God" movement. In reality, a true theology will take this event's implications very seriously. That God did die and that we must now know what it means for our present tense society, humanity, creation, church, Christianity, and future expectations. But we've strayed off topic again and must return to the topic at hand....

A Process Theology can better handle God's death when coupled with His resurrection, and not apart from it. Even as we can best understand God's death when beheld in the light of His resurrection. But it is the "without" part of God dwelling "outside of" time and space that we may have the greatest struggle with. And in fact, we must now admit into our definitions and classical ideas of "eternality" that God is no longer the unaffected eternal God. But the affected eternal God who must now dwell within all time and space. Who no longer is separate from it - if He ever really was. That perhaps classicism itself is to blame for making this God we worship so timelessly eternal that we see Him too far away from ourselves. If we say that God is love than how do we know that this God can love?

The very idea of God's "love and grace" seems meaningless without its actual experience of love and grace (whether before God's Incarnation or after it). Have you noticed that platonic love is seldom written about or moanfully sung?. But romantic love - deeply entangled love - is. It fills all the music industry with its messiness and frailty. Its crucible of a heaven-and-hell painfully experienced deeply within the souls of our being. Our anger and frustrations. It affects everything we say and do - our passions, drives, and nature. However, divine love cannot be meaningful if it dies in the grave, or never lived at all. It must somehow live in the present and future tenses of its expectations of being and becoming.

And yes, spirits, even divine Spirits, must admit some form of eternality because spirits by our very definition and ideas are seemingly "unaffected" by timeful events.... Or so we think. However, it is that very idealised human idea of "spirit" that must change from its classical sense to its process sense. We can no longer think of God as Spirit without thinking of God as an affected and affecting Spirit. It would be both biblical and right to aver that God ever loved in eternity even as He will ever love throughout eternity everlasting. But even more so, as our Incarnate, glorified God, He now is one with His creation. This divine love has been made plain to us through Jesus God's Son and very Self come among men.

Otherwise how can a dead God continue to love if we are to take the "Death of God" seriously? How can a dead God be alive and present with us now? How can His grace and mercy, peace and justice, hope and force of life, be our present guide and salvation? Nay, this God who is dead must somehow live. And live both within and without eternity as both divine Spirit and incarnated God. He must be resurrected from the grave. From hell. From the separation of Himself from Himself even as the Son was forsaken by the Father. He must be a God who is glorified on the basis of His incarnation and defeat of death, grave, and hell, by penalty and resurrection. Even as the believing son or daughter of God must even so live beyond death. He must be a God who lives with us in this life even as He will live with us in the next life to come. In eternity everlasting.

Which doesn't mean that our dead loved ones might commune with us now in this life as they once had.... But for the Christian, there is the strong knowledge that those dead loved ones will be communed with again on the other side of the grave. And until then they rest in God. They remain in Him even as we shall someday rest in God. And know that by the saving work of Christ our Saviour - based upon His own death and resurrection - that we will likewise rise with Jesus into the fellowship of God everlasting. Who in Himself was, and is, and ever will be, the Prince of Life. Our Prince of Life. Our Promise and Keep. Our strong fortress that prevails over death, the grave, and even hell itself.

The Incarnate God Who Died and Lives Again

Which brings us back to thought number two... how does a God who died now live? We have answered it on a Spirit level (or metaphysical), but we must also answer it on an existential level (an experiential, knowledge level, on the plane of our being). The short answer is that God is dead and we must acknowledge His death (back to Radical Theology again). This too is a paradox which forces us to admit that the Eternal, Unchanging One is no longer eternal and unchanging. That He has died and no longer lives as He once was apart from Calvary's Cross. And this is the part we will struggle with so firm our convictions that He walks with us "in the garden alone" as the old hymn says. That His Spirit does ever live and is with us by His eternal presence. And yes, this is true. But it is also true that His discourse with man is not like it once was in the Old Testament. And here is the tricky part then. Just what is it now since the days of the New Testament? Since the days of His death and resurrection?

I might offer one suggestion. That God continues today with His church (and with all of mankind) through His infilling Spirit of Pentecost. That is, it is through God's very Spirit that He communes with man today (though I suspect that even in the Old Testament He did so when speaking to the saints and priests of old, and beholding their commune with God). For this old world to see God means that it must see God through us, His church, His body and bride. How? By His own wounded hands and feet which act through us by His living miracles of healing, prophesying, evangelizing, of doing good works through us. We are His tongue and words (logos). His presence (spiritos). His feeling and composure (pathos). His nurture and grace (agapos). Truths which will place a lot of responsiblity upon our shoulders when we think of it in this way. Which doesn't mean that God by His Spirit can do nothing alone apart from us. But that, like with the Patriarch's and Israel's spiritual responsibility in their day, even so the church must now bear the love and grace of God, and the burden of the Lord Jesus Christ, through us, His living church.

Henceforth, and forever now, do we know that the God who lived, and who has died, must now live again in the resurrected sense of His living church. Who is a God who still reaches out through His Spirit to infill, transform, and conform, our very lives so that they may reach out to friend and family, foe and enemy, in the love and grace and divine power of His Almighty, Holy Spirit. We are not alone. We have a living God who is not dead. But a God who did die and lives again. Who is our pattern for both life and eternity. Who is in Himself the unexplainable One. Our mystery and paradox. Our enigma and riddle. But One whom we trust, and know, and desire to live and serve though all our mortal-immortal life. Even so dear Lord come. Come into our lives and help us die to sin's deaths and live to graces sustaining affects. In all our weakness. In all our frailty. By your strength and help and Spirit. Amen.

R.E. Slater
March 19, 2014


video may be found here -

Aaron Niequist live at Willow Creek Church singing Matchless -

Matchless
by Troy Hatfield
Mars Hill Church, Grand Rapids, MI

Long before

Our time began
Long before I was

Heaven rang--creation rang

The matchlessness of God

Majesty unspeakable

We boldly bless Your name

In awe of love--in awe of grace

The God, the man who came

Praise to the constantly unchanging


You were

You are
And You will be

You were

You are
And You will be

God even though immutable

Revealing still today

The story moves--our parts still prove

Significant in ways

We praise the constantly unchanging


You were

You are
And You will be

You were

You are
And You will be

Beauty, glory

Just and holy
Righteousness and truth
Faithful leader, gentle healer
Matchless God are You

Beauty, glory

Just and holy
Righteousness and truth
Faithful leader, gentle healer
Matchless God are You

You were

You are
And You will be

You were

You are
And You will be

Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

©2003 zonkeydonkeytunes





continue subtopic and discussion

under "God and Time" here -







A Growing Millennial Gap - An Interview with Ken Wilson on "A Letter to my Congregation" (LGBT)


Amazon Link

Interview with Ken Wilson on ‘Letter to My Congregation’
http://www.readthespirit.com/explore/interview-ken-wilson-letter-congregation/

David Crumm, Editor
March 2014

AMERICAN attitudes toward our gay and lesbian relatives, friends and co-workers are changing so dramatically that the Pew Research Center ranked this shift as the first historic milestone among 13 changes that researchers identified over the past year.

TODAY, two major evangelical voices—and two highly respected observers of American religious life—are joining in the launch of a new book: A Letter to My Congregation. The four are …

* KEN WILSON, author of this book-length letter, which he wrote to his large congregation in the Midwest to explain why even devoutly evangelical Christians should welcome gay, lesbian and transgendered men and women.

* DAVID P. GUSHEE, based at Mercer University, where he is a theologian and author widely read in evangelical congregations. Most significantly, Gushee decided to publicly change his stance on this issue in the opening pages of Ken Wilson’s new book. (His Wikipedia entry.)

* PHYLLIS TICKLE, a scholar and journalist who is highly respected for her books, magazine articles and lectures about trends in American religious life. (Her Wikipedia entry.)

* And, TANYA LUHRMANN, based at Stanford University, where she is a leading anthropologist studying religious movements—including the Vineyard denomination in which Ken Wilson is a pastor. (Her Wikipedia entry.)

Tickle, Gushee and Luhrmann explain why they are supporting Ken’s efforts in a series of introductions to his new book—and you can read all three introductions on our new resource page for A Letter to My Congregation.

---

In this daring and compassionate journey of faith, the Rev. Ken Wilson apparently becomes the first pastor of a large evangelical congregation in America to so publicly reverse centuries of condemnation of gays and lesbians—and bring his congregation with him in welcoming gay and lesbian members at all levels of the church.

With the launch of this book, many people nationwide are asking: How did Ken Wilson do this?

In today’s interview you will learn: He did it by slowly and carefully studying the Bible, praying about these matters and talking with families in his congregation. The result, according to early online reviews of his book, “adds incredible freshness and insight” to a debate that threatens to tear churches and families apart. Reviewer David C. Sinclair writes that Ken “shows us a way forward that embraces our differences.… And, most importantly, he cogently argues for unconditional inclusion as we seek God together.”


* * * * * * * * *


HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH KEN WILSON
ABOUT ‘A LETTER TO MY CONGREGATION’

DAVID: The Pew Research Center reports that we’re at a historic turning point on this issue, based on their tracking of data nationwide. But, beyond all that data, what have you seen from a pastor’s point of view? Can you see and feel the change among the people you encounter everyday?

KEN: Yes, 10 years ago, as an evangelical pastor I didn’t know gay people and a lot of the people in my congregation would have said they didn’t know gay people—but that has shifted dramatically. Now, most people say they have at least one gay friend. And, even more importantly, for young people this is a non-issue. Of Millennials who leave the church, a large number leave over the church’s exclusionary stance on LGBT people. Young people just can’t understand that exclusion. They know plenty of LGBT people personally and they don’t want to be part of a church that excludes their friends.

Now, this has become a big issue for parents who have children who are affected by this in various ways. They’re losing their kids over this question, whether those kids are LGBT themselves or they know and care about someone who is. The question for men and women in the church becomes: Do I care so much about the ideology of this issue that I’m willing to lose my children over this? This is an issue where parents and their children are absolutely affected everyday in local congregations.

I had a small group of people from our church who reviewed an early version of this letter with me. We went around the room and asked each person to tell us: What’s my personal stake in this conversation?

Every single person had a gay friend or loved one or family member and each one told the group—often with tears in their eyes—how much this mattered to them. This included people who accepted gay relationships and people who still had moral questions about gay relationships. We all were affected. This really is a historic change.

DAVID: I’ve been a journalist covering religion in American life for nearly three decades and I believe it’s accurate to say that you’re the first pastor of a large, evangelical church to go public about such a dramatic change on this issue with your congregation coming along on the journey. Millions of readers know that Rob Bell and Brian McLaren have changed in their public stance on this issue, but that was after they had left their congregations.

For readers wondering about this claim, I want to clarify: We’re talking about large, traditionally evangelical congregations and pastors who have gone so public in reversing their LGBT policies with their congregations. I’m not seeing them, at this point. If you’re out there reading this, please email us at www.ReadTheSpirit@gmail.com

But, having said all of that, let me ask: Are you aware of anyone else we should mention here?

KEN: I’ve been looking, too, and I am aware of some other evangelical congregations across the country that are moving in this direction. I don’t want to name them because they’re still on this journey and they’re not wanting to go public right now. And, just like you, David, I’d love to find and talk with others who are on this journey. I’d love to learn from them about how to do this—and how we can help others to do this.

‘The eyes of the world …?’

DAVID: Since David P. Gushee is also putting his name on the line with this book, the two of you were invited to speak at the California LGBT film festival, called Level Ground, last week. The festival was covered in the Los Angeles Times and other news media. Do you feel the eyes of the world are upon you?

KEN: No, I don’t feel that way and I don’t want to focus on the psychological pressure. My first responsibility is to lead my church through this transition successfully. Yes, I know there is a lot at stake here. There are many evangelical pastors out there whose hearts are inclined to go in this direction, but they can’t even begin to talk about this. I think once we can demonstrate that, yes, it can be done—then I think there are going to be many evangelical congregations that will follow. Before long, there is going to be a strong and growing expression of evangelicalism in America that is making space for gay people.

DAVID: How do they start? I can imagine a lot of readers of this interview—and readers of your book—wanting to know: How did Ken do it? How can I start this process?

KEN: The first thing is to convince pastors that they should give themselves permission to start asking the questions. There are so many pastors and other church leaders who want to do that, but they are inhibited from even starting the process. They see this as a “loser” issue for them. They don’t see any way to build a coalition around this—no way to build a consensus in their congregation. So, they don’t even start lifting up the questions that their hearts want to ask.

DAVID: You found the courage. Now, you have opened up the conversation in your church to a point at which you realize how deeply many families care about this issue. But we’re talking here about the very first, private steps—the first moral questioning. Give us a little sense of how that began for you.

KEN: Well, for me, I asked myself: Why am I willing to make so much space in the church for people who are remarried after divorce—despite the Bible’s very strict teaching against that—and I’m not willing to make space for gay and lesbian people? And I kept asking myself: Why does this particular moral stance of the church about LGBT people cause so much harm?

‘Is this really the teaching of Jesus …?’

DAVID: Let’s talk about the harm. In your book, you make an eloquent appeal: We can’t keep waiting on this issue. We can’t keep kicking these questions down the road. Every day, real people are being harmed by the church’s rigid condemnation.

KEN: When I started pondering these questions, I realized that this particular stance of the church really is harmful. When a married man in a congregation has an adulterous affair with another woman—and he’s confronted about it—we don’t have suicides as a result. But, we do have teenagers committing suicides at higher rates when they are part of congregations that have these exclusionary teachings about homosexuality. Is this really the teaching of Jesus when our exclusion of people is contributing to a rise in suicide?

DAVID: These are tough questions for evangelical leaders to ask. There’s a lot of fear around even raising the questions, isn’t there?

KEN: The church is an anxious system. It’s organized around the most anxious members, including those who threaten to leave if exclusionary policies aren’t upheld. In fact, pastors become so anxious about these members that we tend to overestimate how many in the congregation share these views.

‘My worst fears …’

DAVID: You were afraid, right?

KEN: I had a lot of fear about this! I dreaded it! And, you know what? My worst fears have not been realized. Not even close to my worst fears. Yes, I have lost some key people and, yes, we have lost some income over this and it has affected attendance—but not nearly as badly as I had expected.

If you’re a pastor, it’s easy to exaggerate the fear. As pastors, we have to find ways to duck out from under this big cloud of fear that surrounds this issue.

‘A healer’s heart …’

DAVID: This took time. This book describes a journey with your congregation that began years ago. How long ago?

KEN: Phyllis Tickle is a big part of this story from the very beginning. Our Vineyard church in Ann Arbor began working with Phyllis Tickle on prayer about 10 years ago. Our church helped Phyllis to promote praying The Divine Hours and we became an online host for the Divine Hours. She visited our congregation in 2005 and, as I got to know her, she became a personal confidant. I would send her prayer updates as I began experiencing a significant shift in my own prayer life. Eventually, my wife Nancy and I were invited to their home outside Memphis. And that’s how I met Dr. Sam Tickle, Phyllis’ husband, a leading doctor in the Memphis area and, some years ago, one of the first to begin treating people in the AIDS crisis.

A a result of all this, Sam and Phyllis had a lot of gay and lesbian friends and they took us to a church that was filled with gay and lesbian and transgendered people. It was as if someone had gathered a congregation of sexually excluded Christians and I was just taken aback by the clear presence of Jesus in that assembly of people. The cognitive dissonance I was experiencing—as a traditional evangelical pastor—was just through the roof! I credit Dr. Sam Tickle with really helping me in this journey. He was so obviously a compassionate and caring physician and Christian and he related to people with a healer’s heart that was just infectious.

DAVID: Everyone on the cover of your book played a role in this journey, including Dr. Tanya Luhrmann, the famous scholar and researcher. Tell us how your paths crossed.

KEN: Tanya is a world-class anthropologist who had done research on how evangelical spirituality mediates an experience of God. She studied this in Vineyard churches and I became aware of her work. I read her book When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God and I thought it was brilliant. Her book helped me to be a better pastor and I got to know Tanya herself through a gathering of Vineyard scholars, where we both talked about her book.

‘Describing a journey and inviting others …’

DAVID: You found many of Tanya’s ideas to be very helpful, especially the questions she raises about how a person can communicate a personal spiritual journey to others. You also worked with a prayer exercise Tanya provided and, in the midst of that exercise you found your method: writing a letter.

KEN: How would I communicate all of this? I thought a lot about that. And, I decided to write out the whole process of what I was going through as a pastor struggling with these questions. Through this letter, my struggle could become a representative struggle for others. I wasn’t writing an argument. I was describing a journey and inviting others to accompany me.

DAVID: Then, I also want to ask you about David P. Gushee, who dramatically decided to go public with his own change on this issue in the opening pages of your book. How did that come about?

KEN: I met David Gushee in 2006 through another issue we were working on. We were in a gathering of evangelical leaders with top-level environmental scientists—people like E.O. Wilson—to talk about climate change and environmental concerns.

So, I had known David and I had worked with him on that environmental issue. He is the co-author of Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, which is a top book in evangelical seminaries. I liked that book, too, but the one section I thought was weak in Kingdom Ethics was the section on homosexuality. I called David and I said, “I love your book, but I have questions about this one section. It feels to me like you’re just rehearsing the traditionalist views.” And I asked him, “Where are you on this—now?”

He told me that someone close to him had come out as gay and his views were changing. I sent him the manuscript of my letter, then, hoping that he might say something like: Well, I don’t agree with Ken’s conclusion, but this is a legitimate part of the conversation. That was as much as I could hope.

DAVID: Instead, you got a shock.

KEN: It was a shock! His reply was: “What can I do to help you?” And, then, he wrote such a powerful Foreword to the book. I mean, I was feeling way out on a limb here and it was such a blessing that he came forward and was so supportive of this. I’m a pastor. I’m not the kind of scholar that Dr. David P. Gushee is. And yet he stepped forward and has been so supportive of the whole thing.

‘Who wants to go up against 2,000 years …?’

DAVID: The Pew Research Center captures the historic opportunity we all have, right now, to help people make a transition on this issue. In just 10 years, Pew reports, Americans have gone from less than half of us saying “homosexuality should be accepted by society” to 60 percent today! Then, there’s another dramatic jump when the question is asked another way: “Is same-sex marriage inevitable?” Then, more than 7 in 10 Americans say: Yes.

Those two answers show us millions of Americans who are in turmoil on this issue. Millions know this change is coming—but still can’t find a way to accept LGBT people as a part of society. One of the brilliant strategies in your book is to say: Church members don’t have to be united in our personal moral conclusions—but we must unite in welcoming people into the church. Am I saying that correctly? You’re not demanding that everyone immediately agree on moral acceptance, but you are saying that it’s time for the church to fully welcome LGBT people.

KEN: Right. The problem is that so many people in the evangelical community—and in the faith community in general—want to find a way to accept and include gay and lesbian people, but they have serious questions based on their faith tradition. Who wants to go up against 2,000 years of Christian consensus on an issue? But, already, many people do know that our hearts are telling us something else. People are realizing that, even if they don’t fully understand how to think through this issue, there’s a more serious question we’re facing: the do-no-harm test.

‘What is the Good News of Jesus?’

DAVID: Yes, Pew explains this shift in American experience. This has become personal for Americans nationwide. Pew reports that a huge number of people—7 in 10 Americans—say they know “some” or “a lot” of gay or lesbian people. In other words, we know who we’re hurting if we condemn gay and lesbian people. They’re our friends, our family.

KEN: Right, we’re talking about a lot of people! And, this issue is the tip of a much, much bigger iceberg, which is the branding of Christianity—ever since the rise of the Religious Right—as this movement of people who primarily are “against things” and, even worse, as a movement that is “against people.”

Christianity is losing followers in America because of this. What’s at stake is more than just individuals with gay friends. What’s at stake here is how Americans make friends with Jesus. The bigger question is: How can the church promote human flourishing? Have we reduced the message of Jesus to a rigid list of things that people are forbidden to do—or, worse yet, to a list of people we’re mad at? Are we just a movement that stigmatizes and excludes people?

We’re really asking is: What is the Good News of Jesus? What does Jesus stand for?

DAVID: These are the emotionally wrenching questions you’re hearing from families, as a pastor, right?

KEN: Exactly. I began to realize this when parents started coming to me privately as their pastor, telling me that a teenage son or daughter thought they were gay. I saw how much fear, how much distress—and how much harm—was happening in these families. I began to realize: Something is wrong with this picture.

Parents were having to choose between their faith and their own children. This was a profound problem! Of course, some parents tried to adopt the approach ofloving the person but hating the sin,” and that might sound like a nice bromide if you’re not actually living in these relationships. In real lives, in real human relationships, that is such an alienating thing to say.

The truth is: There are gay young people in all congregations, whatever the congregation teaches about homosexuality. So, we’ve got a dangerous situation here when we condemn and exclude people. Just look at the data on suicide rates. As a pastor, I began to realize: This can’t be the fruit of the Spirit. There’s something wrong here.

‘The Gospel is an invitation.’

DAVID: You’re sure to draw a lot of criticism, along with all the appreciation that’s sure to come your way, as well. What final thought do you want to leave with readers—critics and supporters of your work?

KEN: I hope that people who care about the church will ask themselves: Don’t we care about the harm being done to vulnerable people? Do we really want to sacrifice our children? Is that the message of Jesus? Or, is the Gospel an acceptance of us that is so powerful that it is life changing? And, as a result, we want to invite others into the company of Jesus. I think the Gospel is an invitation.

---

VISIT our resource page for the new book, which includes all three introductions by Gushee, Tickle and Luhrmann … plus much more! Order a copy of the book, right now, from Amazon (via links with this interview)—or use the links in the resource page to order from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or other online retailers. Bookmark our resource page for the book, because—in coming weeks—we will be adding free Discussion Guides.

PLEASE share this interview with friends. You are free to republish this interview as long as you include the credit line (see the italic line at the end of this post). Or, you can share this by using the blue-”f” Facebook icons or the tiny envelope-shaped email icons.

ALL THIS WEEK, read more about the latest research into changing American attitudes on these issues in the OurValues.org project, hosted by University of Michigan sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker.


- See more at: http://www.readthespirit.com/explore/interview-ken-wilson-letter-congregation/#sthash.dR3lb5t9.dpuf


Wednesday, March 12, 2014

How Are We to Read the Bible? As a Divine Product or Human? Part 2 of 2

What Does the Bible “Mean?” Is the Holy Spirit Necessary for Biblical Interpretation?

Dt 25.4 "You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain."

1 Co 9.8 Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses,“You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? 10 Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. 11 If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? 12 If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?

1 Tm 5.17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”