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, August 5, 2014

Peter Enns - "Five Views of Inerrancy," Part 2b - Peter Enns Responds




“inerrancy doesn’t describe what the Bible does” -
some comments from my ETS talk
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/07/inerrancy-doesnt-describe-what-the-bible-does-some-comments-from-my-ets-talk/

by Peter Enns
[with select emendation by R.E. Slater]
July 29, 2014

"I could have sworn I posted this months ago, but didn’t. So here it is."

... These are my comments I gave at the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) in Baltimore last November as part of the panel discussing the book I contributed to (along with Al Mohler, John Franke, Michael Bird, and Kevin Vanhoozer), Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy. Each of us had 15 minutes for some remarks before we began engaging each other.

In retrospect I don’t think much was accomplished–nor could it be–in that setting and at that venue. Neither do I think the volume can have the kind of impact some might have hoped for, since–at least I felt–most of our time was spent staking out territory rather than engaging substantive issues.

If we had had one more pass at each other, I would have asked some pointed questions re: the nature of biblical scholarship and “evangelical biblical scholarship,” especially of Vanhoozer and Bird, as I felt their essays and responses in the volume perpetuated certain idiosyncrasies and apologetic tropes (which I go into in my brief responses to each of them), and I expected a bit more from them (particularly of Bird, as his training is in biblical scholarship).

So, the 15 minute presentation I gave at ETS is my attempt to go a bit more into my view on inerrancy from a slightly different angle to address some general issues that remained for me after the volume had been completed.

It’s a bit longish as a post (2000 words), but I’ve done worse.

---

1. Inerrancy prescribes the Bible–and God–too narrowly

The title of my essay [in the book] is “Inerrancy, However Defined, Does Not Describe What the Bible Does.” What I mean is this:

"However inerrancy may be defined—whether strictly or in its more nuanced, progressive varieties (both types are represented in this book)—however it is defined, in my opinion inerrancy doesn’t sit well with what I see when I open my Bible and read it."

As I see it, inerrancy prescribes the boundaries of biblical interpretation in ways that creates conflict both inner-canonically and with respect to extra-biblical information. This is why “holding on to inerrancy” (as it is often put) seems to be such a high-maintenance activity, requiring vigilant and constant tending [by its supporters - res].

This dynamic suggests to me not only that the term may not be an apt descriptor of Scripture, but it virtually guarantees continued unrest within evangelicalism whenever alternate voices are raised.

In my opinion, a strict, literalistic, inerrantist position requires more intellectual isolation that I am not willing to grant—as I’m sure a good number here would agree. A more progressive variety is marked by such things as a true working respect for the Bible’s literary qualities, genres, and historical settings, which tends to temper a strict inerrantist model. But here, too, the ceiling for me remains too low.

If I may play on that spatial metaphor for a moment—strict inerrancy, hermeneutically speaking, is like crawling on my belly through a low and narrow tunnel; progressive inerrancy (and pardon the reductionism) is like wandering though a house—but with 5-foot ceilings.

It’s good to be able to get on my feet, but I can’t stand up straight without hitting my head and after a while my back is so stiff I couldn’t straighten up if I wanted to.

In other words, as I see it, a progressive form of inerrancy (a position voiced by two of our co-authors) still does not provide the room to address the data and give the sorts of answers that I feel are warranted and necessary.

In order to allow for the types of interpretive conclusions, genre designations, and hermeneutical strategies that I am convinced need to be applied to Scripture, I would have to redefine inerrancy in ways that would leave me feeling dishonest—my own Inigo Montoya moment from Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” This is why, beginning in 2007, I discontinued my membership to ETS. Nothing personal.

Perhaps the root theological misgiving for me is that inerrancy prescribes biblical interpretation too narrowly because it prescribes God too narrowly.

The premise all inerrantists hold to on some level—albeit in varying degrees—is that an inerrant Bible is the only kind of book that, logically, God would be able to produce, the only means by which a truth-telling God would communicate.

As I see it, the rhythmic, recurring, generational tensions over inerrancy within evangelicalism are fueled by the distance between this a priori theological expectation about God and how his book should behave, and the persistently non-cooperative details of biblical interpretation.

I think of inerrancy as a model of Scripture. Models are brought forward to explain a set of phenomena. If they do not adequately address the phenomena, then the model ceases having compelling explanatory value, and is usually set aside in favor of others models.

One can refine or nuance any model, to be sure, but how much nuancing can inerrancy handle? And when we keep in mind inerrancy’s function within evangelicalism, which has been essentially defensive, to keep out wrong thinking, then too much nuancing removes many of inerrancy’s teeth.

2. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy prescribes an unworkable model of Scripture

The prescriptive function of inerrancy is showcased in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, both in terms of its own rhetoric as well as in the authority subsequently bequeathed to it in evangelical culture. I feel this prescriptive function has obstructed the kind of critical dialogue clearly surfacing within evangelicalism.

I’d like to mention here just one issue to illustrate: how the Chicago Statement connects truth, God, and Scripture. We find this very early on, in the section entitled “A Short Statement,” which consists of five assertions intended to set parameters for what follows.

The first statement speaks of God “who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only.” This opening premise is critical to the rhetoric of the Chicago Statement: it links inerrancy with the very nature of God, which is, indeed a common defense of inerrancy.

But I am not willing to give this assertion a free ride.

First, it implies that those who critique inerrancy stand in opposition to God himself. This is a conversation-stopper and, if taken to heart, erects a wholly insulated, self-referential system of thought, which is in fact what has happened.

Second, what is missing here, at the outset of the Chicago Statement where it would be most appropriate to include it, is hermeneutical self-consciousness—a reflection on the nature of the truth that God speaks…in ancient texts.

That the Chicago Statement doesn’t give even a nod here to the hermeneutical and theological dimensions of discussing God, truth, and Scripture is more than just a gaping hole: it colors the document from beginning to end and renders it entirely inadequate for engaging the very issues that bring the inadequacies of inerrancy to light.

What should be brought explicitly to the forefront here—at the outset—is the manner in which God speaks in Scripture, namely through the idioms, attitudes, assumptions, and general worldviews of the ancient authors. I know the Chicago Statement makes a subtle overture to this later on, but too ambiguous, too little, and too late.

[*... this latter here is key for me. In essence, how do we today "read through the worldviews of the ancients." Too little leaves us a wooden and closed Bible. Too much leaves us with a human document. The first  method would give us dogma. The second method would give us rationality and reason alone. As I have said on my blog site: "Biblical criticism is perennially caught between the Scylla of interpretive freedom and the Charybdis of irrelevance. Too much hermeneutic freedom and the tradition disintegrates, losing its epistemological appeal. Too little interpretive freedom and the Bible becomes merely an irrelevant historical artifact, rather than the living word of God." Inherently, evangelical biblical interpretation is unquestionably caught between a need for relevance and the need for textual validity." - r.e. Slater]


Novelist James Michener writes of ancient Israel's belief in
many gods in his 1965 title, "The Source." - r.e. slater

3. Israel believed in many gods

Consider the phenomenon in the Old Testament: that Israel’s God is not the only deity but one of many.

For example, in Psalm 95 Yahweh’s greatness is proclaimed by means of a comparison with other gods:


“Yahweh is the great God, he great king above all gods.”

Job 1-2 and Psalm 82 begin with Yahweh presiding over a divine council. In Job the scene is quickly dominated by “the accuser,” but in Psalm 82 Yahweh is chiding the other gods for not meeting out justice on earth as they should.

And in Exodus 12:12, the last plague is described as Yahweh’s crowning judgment on “all the gods of Egypt.”

Since, as we are told in the Chicago Statement, in Scripture it is God who speaks, and God speaks only truth, and would neither deceive nor mislead us—what are we to conclude? That there are in fact other gods, some of whom are subordinate to Yahweh and others with whom he contends?

One could suggest ad hoc solutions: these aren’t gods but angels or demons or hyperbole. But the Old Testament doesn’t say any of this, and making things up to protect dogma is never a good idea.

God, who (according to inerrantist rhetoric) speaks only truth when telling us about himself, says “gods.” If “days are days” (Genesis 1), floods are floods, dead Canaanites are dead Canaanites, then surely gods are gods.

Right? Shouldn’t the inerrantist logic be followed through to the end?

Or consider Deuteronomy 32:8, where the high god Elyon—known to us also from Ugaritic religion—apportions the nations to the lesser gods, one of whom is Yahweh, whose “portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share”—and so Kemosh gets Moab, Baal gets the Canaanites, and so forth.

(You’ll need to consult a good commentary or study Bible to see this. Early Jewish scribes changed the text to conform to strict monotheistic standards. English Bibles reflect this later “corrected” reading, but without seeing it in translation notes you’d never know it.)

Are we–according to inerrantist logic–bound by Scripture and the truth-telling God who speaks therein to say, therefore, that Israel’s God, like the other gods, is ethnically and geographically bound and answers to a higher authority?

The language of the Chicago Statement is not helpful to me in these instances. What does it mean to speak of these sorts of things as “truth” from God and therefore“inerrant”?

I understand that inerrancy, as it is commonly defended, only pertains to what the Bible teaches or affirms (as some of my co-authors repeat)—but I see a lot of teaching or at least affirming going on here in these verses.

[* usually what is meant by "what the Bible affirms" is what a church fellowship or denomination believes the Bible to affirm. Thus effectively swapping out God's Word for man's word. Thus the problems theologians encounter when attempting to correlate preferred biblical readings in place of meaningful biblical text. - r.e. slater]

If these texts that tell us about God aren’t at least “affirming” something, I’m not sure what the word means.

I also realize these descriptions of God aren’t everywhere in the Old Testament, but does that really matter? Are we free to “pick and choose” what we want to believe?

These statement are so…clear…God is speaking clearly….if we don’t follow his plain word here, what reason would we have to follow his word anywhere? The next thing we’ll be doing in denying the resurrection.

Forgive the rhetoric. I’m just trying to make a point, and I hope it is not too subtle.

4. Inerrancy doesn’t describe what the Bible does

I don’t think the gods of the ancient Near East exist, nor did our God ever preside over a heavenly board meeting, nor was he ever under the authority Elyon.

I do believe, however, that the ancient Israelites believed that, but that does not mean that their belief at this moment in redemptive history represents absolute “spiritual reality” so to speak.

Now why do I say that? It’s not because I disrespect the Bible. I have two reasons.

One reason is the New Testament. A canonical view leads us further along the biblical plot line, so to speak, and so I believe that there is one God not many (a view that is already echoed in other portions of the Old Testament).

Scripture is varied and on the move, and so, for inner-biblical reasons alone, I don’t expect every part of Scripture—even those parts that talk about God—to provide absolute, unerring, truth.

[*this gets to the idea of fluidity in human language and understanding. That the parts of a text are not necessarily the entirety of its communication. That it takes time, movement, and historical occurrence of event to understand a biblical text correctly apart from assuming its "knowledge" at its first initial prophecy or later (perhaps errant) reading.

That Israel, like us today, was in the mode of "interpreting" God's Word for their own situation even as we are today in the church. However, for the New Testament Christian, with backwards hindsight towards Jesus - and 2000 years of church deliberation about doctrine and praxis (e.g. the "doing and outward act" of one's doctrinal belief) - has had time to figure things out.

Even so, as each century or decade comes-and-goes new movements and philosophies, nationalisms and sociological behavior, will require "re-appraising" the biblical text in light of what the church "thinks it knows" compared to what "it is concretely (not correctly, but concretely, practically, plainly) communicating and doing" by its actions. Actions that could be right or wrong, evil or compassionate.

Truly, actions speak louder than words. But action also activates a faith or belief about something (whether rightly or wrongly). As example, consider slavery. Many Christians of the past thought human trafficking was acceptable... but now it is not. Without praxis a faith remains mute, silent, inactive, without salt or resolve. Mostly, it seems that the church's actions have harmed rather than helped. Condemned and not blessed. Judged without compassion, grace, mercy, or forgiveness. Why? Because we have substituted our words and understanding and interpretations for God's harder Word of grace and forgiveness, mercy and hope.

Hence, the act of praxis creates faiths that are either spurious or meaningful in a Jesus / New Testament kind-of-way. For belief alone tells us nothing about ourselves until it "lights up" with "doing," "activity," "speech, word, and example.

And so, as Peter Enns has correctly observed, "Scripture is on the move."

- r.e. slater]

The second reason is what we know through historical and archaeological work about the ancient tribal environment in which the ancient Israelites participated. Understanding something about the world of the Bible can help us here.

The way God is described in Job or the Psalms, etc., makes perfect sense in that cultural context. But the opening assertion of the Chicago Statement, that God “who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only” –that seems off topic to me, words not designed to address what we are seeing here.

I apply this same sort of thinking to the three issues discussed in our book, especially two of them—the historicity of the fall of Jericho and God’s command to exterminate the Canaanites.

To understand both I appeal to (1) the gospel movement away from tribal thinking about God, and (2) to archaeological and literary data from Israel’s cultural context.

This is why I draw the rather common, almost mundane, conclusion (and you have to read my essay in the book to get the details) that the stories of Jericho and Canaanite extermination are (1) not “historical” in any sense that we normally use the word, nor do they (2) provide a binding, permanent, absolute picture of God.

I can certainly understand and respect why ancient Israelites would speak this way. But, like the issue of many gods in the Old Testament, this doesn’t mean that the Jericho and Canaanite extermination episodes are the final word historically or theologically.

I do not believe I am dismissing the Old Testament, nor is this (for heaven’s sake!) dualistic Marcionism, which says the Gods of the Old Testament are two different Gods. I am not saying there are two gods; one God is the God of Scripture. But God is portrayed differently by the biblical writers at different times and places.

Within the Old Testament God is already portrayed in diverse ways. In the Gospel, Christians believe, the fuller gaze on God is provided through the Gospel.

Acknowledging this diverse portrait of God, especially when getting to the New Testament, is simply an aspect of grappling with “Bible in context” and the canonical complexity of the problem of continuity and discontinuity between the testaments.

And doing so is simply to participate in the Christian theological project that has been part of the church’s consciousness since Paul and the Gospel writers–what do we do with the story of Israel in light of the Christ event? This isn’t anything new.

5. An “Incarnational Model” is more helpful

For me, inerrancy or the Chicago Statement don’t come close to addressing this fundamental hermeneutical challenge for Christian readers of the Bible.

I do continue to think, however, that an incarnational model of Scripture is helpful. It’s not new. I didn’t invent it. Some form of it goes back at the very least to Athanasius. And no one, least of all me, is claiming by this analogy I am claiming a hypostatic union in Scripture (!!).

It’s an analogy—explaining one thing by means of another. The main purpose of this analogy is to present a vision of Scripture where historical context ceases being such a huge doctrinal hurdle, a problem to be solved, and becomes yet another picture of how God willingly and lovingly participates in the human drama.

It provides theological language for why the Bible acts so…ancient, why we see the use of mythic language and concepts in the Old Testament—a heavenly boardroom scene—or why Israel’s God is portrayed as a tribal warrior for whom mass killings seem to be his preferred method of conflict resolution.

I don’t think inerrancy is the right category for wrapping my arms around Scripture’s complex dynamic.

But a God who is in the business of meeting us where we are (this is good news) and a Scripture that displays for us this energetic, relentless—and mysterious—interplay of the Spirit of God and ancient cultures…well, I’m not saying I get it. And I do understand this thought may be troubling, to some more than others.

But as C. S. Lewis puts it, the incarnation is after all “an incurably irreverent doctrine.” It’s not comfortable. It’s even a bit unsettling when we think of how God likes to show up.

An incarnational model is not the only or best way to think of the Bible at all times. But when the topic turns to historical matters—the core of our book and heart of the inerrancy debate—it at least gives me theological language by which to talk about what I see in Scripture with respect and awe.

To sum up, inerrancy for me is a model of Scripture that does not describe well what Scripture does. Perhaps in our current moment, God is not calling us to reinvigorate a defense, become entrenched, or formulate more complex and subtle defenses of what we feel the Bible needs to be, but to teach future generations—in the academy, the church, and the world—better ways of meeting God in the Scripture we have.


Creating Beliefs from Biblical Texts Not Meant To Teach Those Beliefs



Beliefs Known by Praxis
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/08/05/beliefs-known-by-praxis/

by Scot McKnight
August 5, 2014

What we believe and how we behave are not quite perfectly matched, at least not this side of the kingdom, but it is not unfair to say that what one believes is seen in how one lives. If you say you believe in God but never pray, or if you say you believe in forgiveness and hold grudges, or if you say you believe God loves all but your circle of friends is restricted to folks like yourself — well, your acts reveal what you really believe or you have acted outside the bounds of your beliefs.

Sometimes, however, it works another way: sometimes what we believe needs praxis to reveal what the beliefs entail. Sometimes the beliefs are such that the actual practices of those with those beliefs reveal that what we thought they believed is not how they understood their belief.

Take, for instance, women, authority, church, teaching, and leading.

We have a few statements in the Bible that we might call the beliefs, and then there are the practices of women. I contend the practices reveal that what some think the Bible “believes” is not in fact what the Bible actually believes.

Here are the principal texts that one might call the beliefs:

Genesis 3:16: To Eve God says, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

This is taken by some to mean the man’s “role” is to “rule” and the woman’s “role” is “to be led by her man.” Subordinationism for the woman, governance/headship by the husband. Or, another so-called “belief” text:

1 Corinthians 14:33-35: “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, 34 women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35 If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”

Proper church order then is for a man to speak and a woman to be silent. The same kind of “belief” text is found here:

1 Timothy 2:11-15: “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”

These two silence texts are taken by some to mean that women are not to be elders or teachers or pastors or preachers or stand behind the pulpit on Sundays in front of a mixed congregation of males and females [here all kinds of gymnastics have been created, like "adult" males or "Sunday services" etc].

One more. There are texts in Paul’s later Pastoral letters that give guidelines on the character and qualifications of elders and deacons.

Here’s such a list:

1 Timothy 3:1: Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. 7 He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.

8 Deacons, likewise, are to be men worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. 9 They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons. 11 In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything. 12 A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well. 13 Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.

Most importantly, it is argued from these instructions about elders and deacons that Paul believes they must be males since he speaks to males, which he very clearly does. He clearly assumes the elders and deacons are males. But does he teach that only malescan be elders and deacons? Many think Paul believes and teaches that elders and deacons must be males.

OK, to test what we think the Bible believes here, let’s examine the praxis. [I have some of this in my book The Blue Parakeet and some other stuff in Junia Is Not Alone.] The praxis texts of the Bible, I contend, prove that many are creating “beliefs” out of texts that were not meant to teach those beliefs.

The praxis reveals that the beliefs are otherwise. The praxis reveals that hierarchicalism in marriage is not intended, that female subordination to men in all social conditions is wrong, that total silence in the churches is wrong, and that women were deacons and that if there were female deacons then the assumed readings, creating those beliefs, are also wrong.

Here goes with the praxis texts:

1. Deborah judged all of Israel — which puts here at the top of the nation, over all things, including military, political, legal, and therefore also “religious” dimensions of life in Israel.Judges 4–5. This woman was subordinate to no man in Israel. She was above them all.

2. Huldah was a prophet, which means she spoke for God to the whole people of Israel. 2 Kings 22:14-20. She spoke for God. There was no male intermediary between her and God. That’s what prophets do — they hear a message from God and they speak for God to the people of God.

3. The Woman of Proverbs 31 did not work in the home (as it is said) but in the public sector. To be sure, she honors her husband. She buys and sells out of her own monies (surely this does not refer to her allowances). Her husbands “praises” her. She gets public honor for her work. I see precious little here that indicates hierarchicalism; instead, what I see is a man who loves his wife and a wife who loves her husband and who both work for the good of the family.

4. Junia is an apostle (Romans 16), and this term refers to missionary church planting, including evangelism and equipping the saints. I have big doubts that this term “apostle” is equivalent to what it means when we refer to Peter and Paul, but it surely refers at least to church planting missionary work. Not just supporting a husband church planter, but apostle-ing. (Missionaries have always done this; if on the field, so also at home!)

5. The daughters of Philip were prophets (Acts 21:9; to call someone a “prophetess” might diminish her gift so I prefer to use the same term), and a prophet spoke for God to the people of God. They did this.

6. Priscilla taught Apollos (Acts 18:26). It does not say she taught in subordination to her husband; it says “they” taught him.

7. Phoebe, and this is a text that deserves some consideration, was a deacon (not just “servant” as in 1984 NIV, but “deacon” as in NIV 2011). She “deac-ed” — which means she did the things in 1 Tim 3 pertaining to deacons.

What I’m getting at is this: though 1 Timothy 3 assumed both elders and deacons were males, this text definitively proves that women could be deacons too. Which means this: our assumptions that only males could be deacons are wrong. Paul’s rhetoric seems to offer a set of beliefs that indicate women could not be deacons, when the praxis shows they were deacons. Praxis shows what Paul meant when he said what he said in 1 Timothy 3. Our interpretation of 1 Tim 3 must fit Paul’s actual praxis of deacons.

Now a question: If this is the case with deacons, what prevents us from saying the same of elders/overseers? Nothing other than our assumed interpretations.

If with deacons, so also with elders.

The beliefs are seen more accurately when the outworkings of those beliefs are visible in practices.



Monday, August 4, 2014

Scot McKnight's Review of "Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy," Part 1 - Albert Mohler




There is little doubt that the inerrancy of the Bible is a current and often contentious topic among evangelicals. Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy represents a timely contribution by showcasing the spectrum of evangelical positions on inerrancy, facilitating understanding of these perspectives, particularly where and why they diverge.

Each essay in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy considers:

  • the present context and the viability and relevance for the contemporary evangelical Christian witness;
  • whether and to what extent Scripture teaches its own inerrancy;
  • the position’s assumed/implied understandings of the nature of Scripture, God, and truth; and
  • three difficult biblical texts, one that concerns intra-canonical contradictions, one that raises questions of theological plurality, and one that concerns historicity.



Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy serves not only as a single-volume resource for surveying the current debate, but also as a catalyst both for understanding and advancing the conversation further. Contributors include Al Mohler, Kevin Vanhoozer, Michael Bird, Peter Enns, and John Franke.


* * * * * * * * *


Scott McKnight begins a discussion of Inerrancy to which I will add
occasional emendation, notes, links, and resources. R.E. Slater, August 4, 2014


Inerrancy: A “Classic” Model

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/08/04/inerrancy-a-classic-model/

by Scot McKnight
August 4, 2014

The word “inerrancy,” like the word evangelical, beggars clear and compelling definitions and articulations. Many of inerrancy’s proponents don’t believe simpler words — like truth, truthful, trustworthy — adequately express what is to be believed about the Bible. So there is an Inerrancy Debate, and it is now in an official form: Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy. The editors are J. Merrick and S.M. Garrett, and the contributors, with responses to each of the other essayists, are R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Peter Enns, Michael F. Bird, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and John R. Franke. Believe me, this is one of the more volatile issues among evangelicals (the term “inerrancy” tends not to be used except by evangelicals, and then not by all). I am not a fan of these Counterpoint books since, in general, the responses go down hill fast. I do value sketching various views of a topic, including inerrancy. But this sketch is clearly an in-house-evangelical affair with not a look at Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans or others.

Mohler kicks the volume off, and after reading him carefully I have come to this conclusion: Mohler creates an argument the way Kris and I do crosswords — we work in this corner and then that corner, and then on this line and then on that line. We don’t finish up one section before we move on to another. The problem is that arguments are not crosswords. Mohler’s essay, in other words, is a tangled mess with barely any order — here one thing, there another, with an application/polemical point now and then later another one, with some Bible and then no Bible. One can discern what he believes well enough, but for a representative of the “classic” view (and he means Warfield through the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy) this is at best a hodgepodge of claims. There are much better studies, including those by B.B. Warfield, E.J. Young, J.I. Packer, and Paul Feinberg’s well-framed essay in a book called Inerrancy (ed. N. Geisler).

I was a college student when the inerrancy debate became big at the hand of Harold Lindsell’s famous The Battle for the Bible. I devoured the book, stood amazed at some of his claims, but knew there was much to study in this topic — so I read B.B. Warfield and E.J. Young cover to cover, carefully watching how they worked. They were articulate, careful, and mostly convincing. But not all have achieved their level of patient exposition of the Bible’s understanding of itself.

He contends inerrancy is supported by the Bible’s own claims, by the course of theological history, and for pastoral reasons.

These are representative statements by Mohler:

“An affirmation of the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible has stood at the center of the evangelical faith as long as there have been Christians known as evangelicals” (29). He’s more or less right: I don’t think it is all that helpful to call the Reformers “evangelicals” (as we know them today), but evangelicalism (properly boundaried) has believed in inspiration and authority.

One of his best lines is “When the Bible speaks, God speaks” (29). He accepts ETS’s older statement — “The Bible alone, the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs” (29). He approves of Carl Henry’s line that “inerrancy should be seen as a requirement of evangelical consistency rather than as a test of evangelical integrity” (29), though I’m not sure what this means. He knows many aren’t in agreement, including Roger Olson [(cf. The Doctrine of Inerrancy's Oblique Terminology and Virtual Meaninglessness and When Did Evangelicalism Start to Go Wrong (or, Right)?)].

He believes in a slippery slope mentality: give up inerrancy and things fall apart theologically, morally, epistemologically, and ecclesially. Giving it up leads to “hermeneutical nihilism” and “metaphysical antirealism” (31).

His history of this discussion focuses on the 20th Century — from Warfield to Lindsell to ETS and CSBI (1978). God is perfect; his words therefore are perfect; Scripture is inspired by God and therefore inerrant; the Spirit attended the authors and the text and speaks to us today in the inward witness; the Bible is plenarily inspired; authority follows from this and without this the authority is shaken.

He then makes his case: the Bible, history and pastoral ministry.

His case for the Bible starts off poorly for me. He quotes 2 Peter 1:21, which in the NIV 2011 reads: “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Mohler’s observations: “Peter’s point is that the Scripture is to be trusted at every point, and he defines its inspiration as being directly from God, through the agency of human authors, by means of the direct work of the Holy Spirit” (37). Well, not exactly: Does “prophecy” mean “Scripture… at every point”? I doubt it. He speaks of the “original text” but is that one of Peter’s categories? Anyway, the point is that Mohler colonizes 2 Peter 1:21 into his existing theory of inerrancy and explains Peter through his theory. Fortunately, his section on the Bible improves and his stuff here on Paul is done well. Yes, I agree: Paul and the NT authors, including Jesus, were Jewish and had a “high” view of Scripture and its truthfulness and God’s trustworthiness in the Word. This does not solve the hermeneutical problems but it does give us a good framing of the early Christian view.

On the faith of the church, Yes, the church has always believed the Bible is true, trustworthy, and authoritative. To import the word “inerrancy,” which means CSBI or ETS for Mohler, is simply a bad case of anachronism run amok. It is not good history to impose later categories on the church fathers and medieval theologians or even the Reformers. Plus, they always operated with a strong sense of “tradition” alongside the Bible.

The authors are to use test cases: Joshua 6; the tension of Acts 9:7 and 22:9, as well as Deut 20:16-17 and Matthew 5:43-48. On Joshua 6; Jericho, archaeology and the Bible: he believes in inerrancy, therefore there is no problem; on Acts 9 and 22, he believes in inerrancy therefore there is no problem; and the same on Deut 20 and Matt 5.

This is a great example of a priori logic, of assumptions, and of deductive logic but I’m glad there are other essays in this volume.

Three more critical observations

Mohler makes claims about the history of theology without documentation.

Why not trot out statements from Augustine to the modern day? Why not frame what they believed in their terms and let the chips fall where they may? Instead, he makes summary statements about history, and (as we will see) his summary statements are not accurate. Both Bird and Vanhoozer take Mohler to task for his claims about history.

Mohler uses a priori Logic as Argument

The second observation is that here is how Mohler’s logic works: I believe in inerrancy, therefore the Bible is not wrong. Over and over he says, Since I believe in inerrancy this theory about a passage can’t be right. This is a priori logic, if not fideism [(sic, exclusive reliance in religious matters upon faith, with consequent rejection of appeals to science or philosophy)], and it is being used for a doctrine that was formed, if my reading of the history is right, on the basis of inductive logic.

Mohler affirms inerrancy with little biblical examination

Third, for someone who affirms inerrancy of the Bible there is precious little emphasis in this study on the Bible itself. He has one short section (3 pages) and in the challenging portions he spends far too little time patiently examining what the Bible actually says. A “biblical” inerrancy is one founded on patient study of what the Bible says.

Summary

It is because of understandings of inerrancy like this of Mohler that many of us don’t want to use the term “inerrancy.” What does that mean? In the hands of Mohler, the word “inerrancy” is boundary-drawing politics and polemics.

The Bible’s way of talking about the Bible is “Word” and a word is spoken by a Person, who is engaged in a covenant relationship of love, and the proper response to the Word from God is to listen because, as covenant people, we want to know what God says and do what he wants. I have sketched this in the “Boring Chapter” in The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible.



* * * * * * * * *





Why Can’t I Just Be a Christian?” Parakeets make delightful pets. We cage them or clip their wings to keep them where we want them. Scot McKnight contends that many, conservatives and liberals alike, attempt the same thing with the Bible. We all try to tame it.

McKnight’s The Blue Parakeet has emerged at the perfect time to cool the flames of a world on fire with contention and controversy. It calls Christians to a way to read the Bible that leads beyond old debates and denominational battles. It calls Christians to stop taming the Bible and to let it speak anew for a new generation.

In his books The Jesus Creed and Embracing Grace, Scot McKnight established himself as one of America’s finest Christian thinkers, an author to be reckoned with. In The Blue Parakeet, McKnight again touches the hearts and minds of today’s Christians, this time challenging them to rethink how to read the Bible, not just to puzzle it together into some systematic theology but to see it as a Story that we’re summoned to enter and to carry forward in our day.

In his own inimitable style, McKnight sets traditional and liberal Christianity on its ear, leaving readers equipped, encouraged, and emboldened to be the people of faith they long to be.

The Importance of "Gentle Commerce" for the Pacification (Decline of Violence) in the World


Phys.org posted a recent article supporting the idea that commercial exchange and craft specialization provokes humanity to "work, live, and co-exist" with one another more peaceably than if no economic exchange existed and instead, major populations competed fiercely with one another for the same resources, provisions, and technology.

Interestingly enough, the movie "Divergent" depicts a stratified society divided up within a small, localized region (the ex-Chicago area) measured not economically but sociologically into five groups: the protectors, the servers, the farmers, the law keepers, and inventors. But in any Utopian vision of the world there can, and will be, differences and division that may not be enough to hold a society together.

However, through trade and commerce with the Soviet Union, China, SE Asia, the Mid-East, and Africa, both Europe and the Americas have created conditions for communication,  a forum for the exchange of ideas and ideology, and a good measure of population movement between specialities and regional resources. Even so is global technology also contributing to the necessity amongst humanity to live peaceably with one another against the larger urges to retain fundamental regional beliefs and ignorance.

No country is impervious to discrimination and cultural warfare. We see this with the clash between Western culture and Eastern religions; between tribal identities and familial affiliations; between adaptive democracies and resisting autocracies; between economic fascism and market economics. In fact, wherever a population with large identities meets with another population with similar patriotisms, devotions, or nationalisms, there can always exist a struggle between acceptance, tolerance, and workability vs. dissolution, intolerance, and the refusal to cooperate with one another.

Here in America we see this on a church level as regional denominational bodies and independent church fellowships struggle to recognize each other's right of a pervasive biblical view. Conservatives disallow liberalism while liberals debunk conservatism; hate speech and segregating violence is deemed right-and-just in some faith organizations while the civil liberties of all citizenry are more broadly recognized in others; church creeds and constitutions are constructed to delimit the rights of congregants while in other fellowships they are freely embraced by right of biblical principle.

What the 21st century has brought to mankind is the ability to speak to one another in a deeper, more expansive language of social construction than at any other time in human history. And yet, the struggle of the human spirit to accept change, adapt to population movement, and allow cultural reception is just as large now as it was centuries earlier with America's Southwest native tribal federations (as shown in the article below).

Into these differences of the human mind and heart has come Jesus Christ to invoke God's love and grace against the religious and civil intolerances of the human heart unwilling to adjust, to see, to hear, learn, or listen, to any other diatribes or debates other than its own regional mindsets and resistance.

But to the degree that Jesus was successful in enlarging the human heart of a willing disciple to willfully change and adapt, to that degree was the gospel enlarged and a spirit of peace and cooperation has been able to take root.

But when Jesus' gospel was rejected He was crucified, his disciples persecuted and scattered, and the gospel of God became yet another gospel spoken from the roots of a false tongue and deceiving witness by nay-sayers and opponents, false prophets and would-be followers.

It is into these turbulent times God's church, and the people of this world, must submit to loving one another or reap the whirlwind of their own destruction and demise. To seek to relax religious and ideological principles enough to be able to see the other who is different from ourselves seeking refuge and help rather than wishing to compete or combat. America's border wars must be refashioned so that the innocent may find safety, education, trade, and very existence itself. And America's debate with the Muslim man or woman must become no debate at all for those wishing peace and harmony while holding on to their own faith structures.

America is in a global position of leadership, and leadership by its very definition is that of serving the other, recognizing the other, and helping the other different from ourselves. In this service must be the willingness to be pervasively tolerant and not simply enforcing intolerance by guns and bullets, sharp tongues, and intolerant ideology. Let us learn to beat our weaponry into plowshares and begin the harder task of uniting all men and women. To write civil laws that are equal and just. And to speak a gospel of peace and harmony against a gospel that would divide and dehumanize one's fellow neighbor. This is what it means to "bring in the Kingdom of God" by both the human spirit and the Spirit of God until He comes. Amen

R.E. Slater
August 4, 2014




Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler has documented a 40-year period of violence
among the ancient pueblo people of southwest Colorado. Credit: Washington State University


Researchers see violent era in ancient Southwest

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-violent-era-ancient-southwest.html

It's a given that, in numbers terms, the 20th Century was the most violent in history, with civil war, purges and two World Wars killing as many as 200 million people.

But on a per-capita basis, Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler has documented a particularly bloody period more than eight centuries ago on what is now American soil. Between 1140 and 1180, in the central Mesa Verde of southwest Colorado, four relatively peaceful centuries of pueblo living devolved into several decades of violence.

Writing in the journal American Antiquity, Kohler and his colleagues at WSU and at the University of Colorado-Boulder document how nearly nine out of ten sets of human remains from that period had trauma from blows to either their heads or parts of their arms.

"If we're identifying that much trauma, many were dying a violent death," said Kohler, whose study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Yet at the same time, in the northern Rio Grande region of what is now New Mexico, people had far less violence while experiencing similar growth and, ostensibly, population pressures. Viewed together, said Kohler, the two areas offer a view into what motivates violence in some societies but not others. The study also offers more clues to the mysterious depopulation of the northern Southwest, from a population of about 40,000 people in the mid-1200s to none 30 years later.

From the days they first arrived in the Southwest in the 1800s, anthropologists and archaeologists have for the most part downplayed evidence of violent conflict among the early farmers in the region. A minority raised the specter of violence but lacked a good measure for it.

"Archaeologists with one or two exceptions have not tried to develop an objective metric of levels of violence through time," said Kohler. "They've looked at a mix of various things like burned structures, defensive site locations and so forth, but it's very difficult to distill an estimate of levels of violence from such things. We've concentrated on one thing, and that is trauma, especially to the head and portions of the arms. That's allowed us to look at levels of violence through time in a comparative way."

Meanwhile, Kohler and his colleagues are examining the role of factors like maize production, changes to the climate, and growing population in changing levels of violence. A paper of his published in June in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the Southwest had a baby boom between 500 and 1300 that likely exceeded any population spurt on earth today.

Both the central Mesa Verde and northern Rio Grande experienced population booms, said Kohler, but surprisingly, the central Mesa Verde got more violent while the northern Rio Grande grew less so.

Kohler offers a few explanations.

Social structures among people in the northern Rio Grande changed so that they identified less with their kin and more with the larger pueblo and specific organizations that span many pueblos, such as medicine societies. The Rio Grande also had more commercial exchanges where craft specialists provided people both in the pueblo, and outsiders, specific things they needed, such as obsidian arrow points.

But in the central Mesa Verde, there was less specialization.

"When you don't have specialization in societies, there's a sense in which everybody is a competitor because everybody is doing the same thing," said Kohler. But with specialization, people are more dependent on each other and more reluctant to do harm.

Kohler and his colleagues also cite Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker's thinking in his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

"Pinker thought that what he called 'gentle commerce' was very important in the pacification of the world over the last 5,000 years," said Kohler. "That seems to work pretty well in our record as well."

The episode of conflict in Southwest Colorado seems to have begun when people in the Chaco culture, halfway between central Mesa Verde and northern Rio Grande, attempted to spread into Southwest Colorado.

"They were resisted," Kohler said, "but resistance was futile."

From 1080 to 1130, the Chaco-influenced people in Southwest Colorado did well. In the mid-1100s, there was a severe drought and the core of Chaco culture fell apart. Much of the area around Chaco lost population, and in 1160, violence in the central Mesa Verde peaked. Slightly more than a century later, everyone left that area, too.

"In the Mesa Verde there could be a haves-versus-have-nots dynamic towards the very end," said Kohler. "The people who stayed the longest were probably the people who were located in the very best spots. But those pueblos too were likely losing population. And it might have been the older folks who stuck around, who weren't so anxious to move as the young folks who thought, 'We could make a better living elsewhere.'" Older, or with too few people to marshal a good defense, the remaining people in the Mesa Verde pueblos were particularly vulnerable to raids.

At least two of the last-surviving large pueblos in the central Mesa Verde were attacked as the region was being abandoned. Some of their inhabitants probably made it out alive, but, says Kohler, "Many did not."

Explore further: Scientists chart an ancient baby boom—in southwestern Native Americans from 500 to 1300 AD

Sunday, August 3, 2014

God as the Poet of Possibilities: Capturing the Spirit of Process Thought in the Improvisational Writing of Our Lives




Novel Theology: Confessions of a Whiteheadian Novelist
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/novel-theology-confessions-of-a-whiteheadian-novelist.html#.U94gucE9NMw.facebook

by Patricia Adams Farmer
from Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism


“[God] is the poet of world . . . " --A.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality

"At the heart of the nature of things, there are always the dream of youth and the harvest of tragedy.  The Adventure of the Universe starts with a dream and reaps tragic Beauty." --A. N. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas


THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE SAID about the writer's old adage:

Write the first draft with your heart, and the second with your head.

This is especially true for improvisational writers like me. By improvisational writing, I mean something akin to the jazz artist who, out of the possibilities within a given chord progression, creates a spontaneous melody as she goes along. As both an essayist and novelist, my writing falls into this category, that is, taking a cue from a single thread of an idea and playing it out “as the spirit moves.” If it gels into something coherent, the creative process wins. If not, it can be set aside or discarded. Essays work well this way, often needing only light editing. But the novel--an unwieldy cauldron of multiple personalities--is a whole other story.

Truth be told, the characters in my novels run the show, giving real meaning to the term “character-driven.” (How I envy those who can plot every jot and tittle and stick to it! But, alas, my personality won't allow it.) Of course, I do work from an outline, and yes, I lure my characters in that direction. But they do have a will of their own and a definite say-so in the plot. So I listen and write and let the narrative take its course, constantly readjusting my outline as events unfold. The end result is usually quite different from anything I imagined when I started.

And then comes the re-write . . . 

Once the euphoria of the finished story subsides, reality sets in. Like all first-flush creations born of the enthusiastic heart, first drafts cry out for that second stage of creation, the brass tacks, the hard, analytic thinking. My characters, with their free-wheeling personalities, now have to take a backseat to the pesky realities of logical coherence, continuity, detail, and foreshadowing—not to mention the painful, gritty, mind-numbing work of copy editing. But there’s no getting around it. Creativity must, in the end, give way to craft.

So, with a deep breath and copious amounts of tea, I take the novel as it is, and transform it into what it can be—much like the world of process philosophy. Process theologian Marjorie Suchocki says that God “works with the world as it is, in order to bring it to where it can be.”

Thus, the entire artistic process of writing and re-writing can serve loosely as a metaphor for what Whitehead calls “creative transformation.”

The process world of Alfred North Whitehead is a story unfolding in time with no pre-determined outcome. Many influences are at work in the writing, like strong-willed characters colliding against each other. And yet, every becoming moment of the story also includes a divine urge toward intense harmony. Whitehead calls this Beauty. In fact, the "poet of the world" lures us always and forever toward Beauty. The divine poet beckons and persuades and lures us forward with enticing possibilities, but can never strong-arm a character's action. So, in sense, God works as the improvisational writer works—not as an all-powerful tyrant over characters and plot, determining the outcome from the beginning, but rather as a the poet of possibilities, luring the narrative into realms of richly contrasted Beauty.

When it comes to our individual stories--our personal story within the cosmic story--we choose our own words. And not always with care. Bombarded by a plethora of influences all vying for a place on the page, we make our choices of nouns and verbs, characters and plot, metaphors and meaning, and hope for something close to a happy ending. But things happen. Is it any wonder that we find ourselves in constant need of revision? We ignore the divine lure toward Beauty on a daily basis, sometimes making a holy mess of things. Or, we simply write ourselves into a corner and don’t know how to get out. And even when we do our best to write our stories on the dreams of youth, evil characters lurk among the pages and unforeseen tragedy dismantles our carefully constructed plot.

But thankfully there is always more to the story. God, Whitehead believed, is not only the lure toward Beauty, but the reaper of "tragic Beauty" when the story goes awry. This divine companion—the poet of the world—is our constant co-writer, who is able to take our flawed and fractured lives and re-imagine them into fresh metaphors of meaning. Just as words are alive and open to a thousand interpretations, so the past is alive and breathing, just waiting for a fresh word, an embrace of love, a divine imagination that can re-create out of the wreckage we have wrought.

No, we cannot erase the actual facts of the story we have written—the past—but we can transform those facts into an ongoing story that can still be made beautiful. In fact, isn't that what we love most about stories--the redemption of flawed characters? In this way, no story is really set in stone. All can be redeemed; all can re-interpreted; all can be re-imagined and loved and forgiven and woven into the cosmic story that unfolds under a canopy of stars in a universe of glimmering possibilities.