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

Thursday, September 1, 2022

Tolkien Heads: the Man, the Mythology, and Middle-Earth: Series Introduction

 


TOLKIEN HEADS: the Man, the Mythology,
and Middle-Earth: Series Introduction


4 Feature Sessions:
  • Tripp & Jason will facilitate our feature sessions that include a visit from a Tolkien scholar, conversation, and QnA as we hang out in Middle-earth
4 Expert Lectures:
  • Each week we will have a special lecture from a leading Tolkien scholar introducing the week's theme.
Online Community:
  • Everyone will be invited to join the private online group to connect with other nerds and have access to everything in Audio/Video on the class resource page




Meet The Hosts

Rev. Jason Micheli
Jason Micheli peppers the Christian faith with enough cynicism, sarcastic wit, and fart jokes to amuse even the most skeptical Gen-Xer while wearing enough pressed polo shirts to reassure their parents. The author of Cancer is Funny and Living in Sin, Jason has been a United Methodist pastor since 2001 and a member of the Hauerwas Mafia for even longer. His podcast, Crackers and Grape Juice, is like Christian NPR but with even more white people. As would be expected of any graduate of UVA and Princeton, the only person Jason admires more than the Messiah is Jason. In spite of the fact he taught himself Elvish as a middle school student, Jason is happily married to his school sweetheart, Ali.

Dr. Tripp Fuller
Tripp just moved back to North Carolina after three years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Theology & Science at the University of Edinburgh. He recently released Divine Self-Investment: a Constructive Open and Relational Christology, the first book in the Studies in Open and Relational Theology series. For over 14 years Tripp has been doing the Homebrewed Christianity podcast (think on-demand internet radio) where he interviews different scholars about their work so you can get nerdy in traffic, on the treadmill, or doing the dishes. Last year it had over 4 million downloads. It also inspired a book series with Fortress Press called the Homebrewed Christianity Guides to... topics like God, Jesus, Spirit, Church History, etc. Tripp is a very committed and (some of his friends think overly ) engaged Lakers fan and takes Star Wars and Lord of the Rings very seriously.

Tolkien Scholars

Each week we will have a lecture from a noted Tolkien scholar. Not only will you get access to the lecture to work through at your own pace, but each scholar will be joining us for a live stream session and QnA. It is hard to exaggerate how excited I am to learn from these Tolkien Heads!

Dr. Stephen Yandell
Dr. Stephen Yandell is an English faculty member at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio and teaches courses regularly on J.R.R. Tolkien and medieval literature. His earliest Tolkien research, “‘A Pattern Which Our Nature Cries Out For’: the Medieval Tradition of the Ordered Four in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien,” appears in the 1992 Proceedings of the J. R. R. Tolkien Centenary Conference, Keble College, Oxford, and more recent work is included in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia and Tolkien and Alterity.
His research interests include medieval prophecy (he is co-editor of Prophet Margins: The Medieval Vatic Impulse and Social Stability), Middle Welsh literature (his translation of Math, Son of Mathonwy appears in Medieval Literature for Children), and medievalism (with chapters appearing in The Disney Middle Ages and Mass Market Medieval). 
His work also extends to other Inklings, most notably C. S. Lewis, with research included in C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy and C. S. Lewis, Views from Wake Forest. He currently serves as Director of the University Scholars Program.

John Garth
Writer, editor and researcher John Garth is well known for his ongoing work on J.R.R. Tolkien’s life and creativity, and was awarded the Tolkien Society’s Outstanding Contribution Award in 2017.

His first book, Tolkien and the Great War (2003), won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award, for which his second, Tolkien at Exeter College, was a nominee. His latest publication is The Worlds of JRR Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth (Princeton University Press; Frances Lincoln). A further book, examining Tolkien’s creative life as a response to the crises of his times, was begun while a Fellow of the Black Mountain Institute, Nevada, and is still in progress.

Other publications include chapters in the Blackwell Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien; in Catherine McIlwaine’s Bodleian Library exhibition book Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth; and in a forthcoming volume in memory of Christopher Tolkien.

Garth has spoken on Tolkien to specialist and general audiences in the US and across Europe, as well as on television and other news media. He has taught courses on Tolkien, and sometimes C.S. Lewis too, for Oxford University, the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, and Signum University.

After reading English at St Anne’s College, Oxford, Garth worked for the London Evening Standard for many years. Besides his work on Tolkien, he writes and edits more generally, both in print and online.

Tom Emanuel
Rev. Tom Emanuel (he/him/his) was born and raised on sacred Lakota land in the Paha Sapa (Black Hills) of South Dakota, which is where his father first read The Hobbit aloud to him when he was too young to remember it. Tom was trained as a social scientist at the University of South Dakota and as a theologian at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and, beginning in Fall 2022, a doctoral student at the University of Glasgow where his research will focus on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, fandom, and post-Christian spiritual community. When he's not reading Tolkien aloud to his two small children, Tom can usually be found hiking, singing, or working away at a fantasy novel of his own.

Dr. Chris Vaccaro
Christopher Vaccaro is Senior Lecturer at the Universty of Vermont where he has been teaching English since 1999. Earning his Ph.D. from the City University of New York in 2003, he has been teaching a variety of courses for the English Department and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program. Some of his courses include British Literature Survey, Introduction to Old English, Beowulf, Queers of Color, Women of the Middle Ages, Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Queering the Middle Ages, History of the English Language, and Written Expression.

Professor Vaccaro has been organizing events at UVM for almost as long as he has been here. He began the Tolkien at UVM conference in 2004 and has been running the conference and bringing important scholars in the field to UVM every year since then.

Publications include two edited collections on Tolkien, The Body in Tolkien’s Legendarium (McFarland Press, 2013) and Tolkien and Alterity (Palgrave, 2017) with essays included in those volumes, and essays published on Tolkien. He is currently working on a monograph exploring the intersection of pleasure, same-sex love, and death in Beowulf and lesser known Old English texts. In addition, he has been asked to co-edit a collection on Queer Tolkien and has tentatively agreed to edit a collection for Brill’s Exploration of the Middle Ages series titled Painful Pleasures: Sadomasochism in Medieval Culture.

Fleming Rutledge
Guest Theologian
Fleming Rutledge, having spent twenty-two years in parish ministry, now has an international preaching vocation. She is a long time Tolkien lover and author of The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien’s Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings Her three sermon collections, The Bible and The New York Times, Help My Unbelief, and The Undoing of Death have met with wide acclaim across denominational lines. Her most recent books are The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ and Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ. Mrs. Rutledge served as interim rector of St. John’s, Salisbury, Connecticut (1996–97), and has twice been a resident Fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton.

Mrs. Rutledge is widely recognized in the United States, in Canada,
and in the UK not only as a preacher and lecturer, but also as one who teaches other preachers. Her particular expertise is the intersection of Biblical theology with contemporary culture, current events and politics, literature, music and art. She is invited to preach regularly in prominent pulpits such as the Duke University Chapel, Trinity Church in Boston, the National Cathedral, and the Harvard Memorial Chapel.

Nick Polk
Tolkien Nerd Curator
Nick received his B.A. in Religion at Trevecca Nazarene University, is currently a graduate student in Trevecca’s M.A. in Teaching program, and serves as Circulation Supervisor at Waggoner Library at Trevecca. He is also serving as the production editor for Mallorn, the academic journal of The Tolkien Society. His most recent research includes his essay entitled “Middle-earth in South Park: The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers as Parody.” Other than Tolkien, his other loves include his wife Kelly, coffee, and punk. Nothing sounds better than starting the day reading a Tolkien book with a cup of coffee and ending it in a moshpit with loved ones.

more hobbit hillside images


Favorite Middle-Earth Memes
Offered by Class
(some memes will be hard to read)




        



      

      


























    Tuesday, August 30, 2022

    What Franklin Graham says about his Christian brothers and sisters...



    rotflmao


    What Franklin Graham says about his Christian
    brothers and sisters...

    I usually have made it a policy not to bring up personal names and institutions at this website which I disagree with; rather, I prefer to speak more generally to the problem, or issue, at hand using generalized categories, if I can. But from time to time I will... as is the case today.
    "Cynically, I can't imagine what Franklin Graham would say about Post-Evangelical Process Christians if he thinks my Evangelically Progressive Christian brothers and sisters in Christ are going to hell... oh, wait a minute... I really don't care." - re slater
    Many of us who are interested in living out our Christian faith in all facets of our lives also realize that to do this will be the great temptation to always judge other people and their passions. As a Process Christian (or as a Progressive Christian for those who are still in the evangelical camp) we prefer to lead with love and forgiveness even though its one of the hardest things to do around those who do not carry this attitude.

    One of the major reasons I moved away from my former conservative evangelical faith was because its center was fixated in condemnation and judgment upon everyone around itself. In order to know who we were we learned that our "Christian" identity was bound up around isolation and exclusion rather than around Jesus whom we gave lip service to but unlike Jesus we struggled with reaching out in love without personal bias or condemnation upon others. Or the world around us. Or even those in our church fellowship.

    One of the other major distinctives of my former dominionist church (one which wishes to govern government by removing the imaginary barrier between church and state with its own exclusionary church laws of morality led by racism and white supremacy) is that it is centered in division, hate, and perhaps even self-loathing.

    Which is why we know conservative evangelicalism today as a Trumpian form of Christianity having chosen to be led by the infamous ex-President, Donald Trump, and his gangster gang of thieves and rogues. An unhealthy popular personage which many progressive/process Christians will recognize as an antichrist than as Christ's representative on earth. A fellow sinful human being who is a very poor, and tragic idol, for any Christian of faith to follow... and yet, they do, vociferously.

    At the last, the Church of Jesus must resist, challenge, re-center itself, and recommit itself to Jesus fully... and in repentance. Loving is hard. Loving others different from our church dogmas and self-beliefs can be even harder. And having been taught not to love has to be the hardest learned trait to break.

    But, with Spirit-led confession and repentance it's what must be done. To live in love. Lead in love. Reach out in love. And to determine to center all theological beliefs and teachings around the God of Love. A God who does not condemn and consign to hell but who loves through-and-through-and-through despite what idolatrous church leaders teach and preach.

    R.E. Slater
    August 30, 2022


    ...how non-Christians see the Christian faith...



    * * * * * *


    Do Franklin Graham’s accusations
    against progressive Christianity
    hold up against truth?

      |  AUGUST 25, 2022


    i
    Franklin Graham was one of six ministers selected to pray at Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. (Photo/Matt Johnson/Creative Commons)

    Back on May 1, 2022, Franklin Graham, CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, posted an article in Decision Magazine titled, “The Eternal Peril of Progressive Christianity.” In this article, Graham expressed many poignant statements about the progressive Christian movement and numerous unsubstantiated allegations, including that it is “no gospel at all.”

    This soon was followed by a social media blitz that blasted: “Progressive Christianity is dangerous for your soul.” Subscribers to the post received an email with a free (donation requested) PDF document titled, “Progressive Christianity Can Lead You to Hell.”

    The PDF includes Graham’s aforementioned article along with Alisa Childers’ recommendations to counter progressive Christianity, Al Mohler’s remarks about theological liberalism, Michael Brown’s call to spiritual warfare, and Erwin Lutzer’s caution about “making the door wider” to be inclusive.

    It is apparent that these authors are creating a straw man to demonize. If you build it, you can certainly tear it down.

    This is a common tactic among fundamentalists, who seem to be discontent with merely preaching the gospel and need to have someone to theologically villainize and verbally assault. Graham, and others like him, expend their resources to malign other Christians whom they believe follow “a godless liberal media” and are “bent on casting doubt and undermining the foundational principles of God’s word.”

    “This is a common tactic among fundamentalists, who seem to be discontent with merely preaching the gospel and need to have someone to theologically villainize and verbally assault.”

    So, let us examine the actual views espoused by progressive Christians and see if they align with the allegations expressed by Graham and his cohorts. While there is a large spectrum of views held among adherents of progressive Christianity (as in most religious communities), the following are the eight points of progressive Christianity and the comparable statements from Graham’s article. Since progressive Christianity is not a denominational entity, the following statements are not creedal. Thus, proponents of the movement may agree with or vary from the perspectives provided here from progressivechristianity.org:

    “By calling ourselves progressive Christians, we mean that we are Christians who:

    “Believe that following the path and teaching of Jesus can lead to an awareness and experience of the Sacred and the Oneness and Unity of all life.” 

    Graham cites Paul’s description of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, which identifies the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus as central to the gospel of Christ. Moreover, he applies “the exact same warning” of Galatians 1:6-9 to the advocates of progressive Christianity. He infers that just as Paul called down a curse on those who preach a “different gospel,” so must modern-day preachers (like himself) condemn the false teaching of progressive Christianity.

    Even though Paul’s strong rebuke to Christians in Galatia is over an unknown issue, Graham’s hermeneutic emboldens him to weaponize the passage against people who (as stated above) seek to follow the path and teaching of Jesus.

    “Graham’s hermeneutic emboldens him to weaponize the passage against people who seek to follow the path and teaching of Jesus.”

    Jesus called his followers to a sacrificial life of self-denial and cross-bearing. This true way of living is found in the Jesus whom progressive Christians affirm and seek to follow. The centrality of the atoning death and resurrection life of Jesus is exemplified, not ignored, by progressive Christians, who seek to live in the others-first way modeled and commanded by the Lord.

    “Affirm that the teaching of Jesus provide but one of many ways to experience the Sacredness and Oneness of life, and that we can draw from diverse sources of wisdom in our spiritual journey.” 

    Graham cites Paul, who certainly gave additional, interpretive explanation on the teachings of Jesus. Paul even suggests that God’s “invisible qualities, eternal power and divine nature” leave us without excuse to relate to and experience God (Romans 1:20). It is not, as Graham claims, “undermining the foundational principles of God’s word” to affirm that the Spirit of the creative God continues to move, direct and use everyday experiences to guide us to the wisdom of God on our spiritual journey.

    “Seek community that is inclusive of ALL people, including but not limited to: conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, believers and agnostics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, (and) those of all classes and abilities.”  

    Graham, and others like him, accuse “proponents of progressive Christianity (of) twist(ing) and distort(ing) the truth of God’s word on sexuality, focusing on such nonsensical trends as gender identity.” He continues, “They deny God’s distinction of the sexes, and instead invent their own misguided standards, unguided by the word of God.”

    While many in the progressive Christian movement may differ in their interpretation of God’s word on passages of the Bible, including but not limited to passages that may refer to sexuality, it is commonly done so with an intentional exegesis of the biblical text and not to distort the Bible with nonsense. Progressive Christianity attempts to understand the historical background and culture, the genre and literature, and the deeper complexities of the Bible, which leads to a greater appreciation, a more contemplative understanding, and a stronger application to the Christian life.

    “Know that the way we behave toward one another is the fullest expression of what we believe.” 

    Graham says progressive Christianity is not “forward thinking” but regresses into “unbiblical thinking and living.” Yet there is nothing more rooted in the teachings of Jesus than to live out a devotion for God through loving others.

    Progressive Christianity is not an attempt to develop a new way of living the Christian life; rather, it is an effort to live out the Christological worldview, steeped in the Jewish teachings in Scripture to care for others, especially those in need (such as the widow, fatherless, poor and foreigner).

    “Progressive Christianity emphasizes the importance of putting into practice what we preach and living by the biblical code of ethics Jesus modeled for us.”

    The “new” commandment given by Jesus is to love one another as demonstrated by Christ’s love for us. Progressive Christianity emphasizes the importance of putting into practice what we preach and living by the biblical code of ethics Jesus modeled for us.

    “Find grace in the search for understanding and believe there is more value in questing than in absolutes.” 

    Nine times in his writing, Paul speaks of the truth of God as a “mystery.” To oversimplify the Bible to black-and-white, clear-and-clean truth is to minimize the majesty of God to the finite nature of our limited comprehension.

    Graham makes outlandish and unsubstantiated claims that progressive Christianity denies the deity of Christ or the fullness of the Trinity, which “can send a person to hell.”  Progressive Christianity, as a whole, does not deny any such theological doctrine; rather, it embraces the mystery, leaving room for people to doubt, question and search for truth and application.

    Loving God with all our mind and seeking to have the same attitude of Christ Jesus necessitate a humble embracing of our limited state and a yearning to grow through being teachable, striving to learn and accepting the divine as greater than what we can fully fathom.

    “Strive for peace and justice among all people.” 

    Graham takes issue with progressive Christianity’s stance toward social and racial justice (which he admits the Bible addresses) because it “neglects the far more fundamental issue of God’s justice.” His fallacy here is an argument from silence; simply because progressive Christianity emphasizes the importance of social and racial equality does not preclude its adherents from affirming and advocating for divine justice.

    For many progressive theologians, it is actually out of a deep recognition that how the marginalized are treated by Christians is a reflection of our devotion to God, the ultimate and only rightful judge of us all.

    “Strive to protect and restore the integrity of the earth.” 

    Graham does not specifically address environmentalism in this article, but he does incorrectly state that progressive Christianity seeks to earn salvation through good works. Progressive Christianity does not deny the atoning work of Jesus on the Cross as the means of salvation. Instead, progressive Christians seek to live out a fruitful life of faith.

    James reminds us that faith without works is dead, which does not mean our good deeds save us but that they should accompany the life of the saved. Hence, progressive Christians affirm the commission in the Garden of Eden in the opening chapters of the Bible to care for creation and all created things.

    Graham also states that progressive Christianity “most frequently fails to see the ruinous consequences of mankind’s depraved, sinful state.” This is simply not true. Progressive Christianity identifies human greed as the cause behind climate change, bigotry to lie behind racism, and poverty to be perpetuated by indifference.

    “The depravity of humanity is of utmost concern to progressive Christians, who value the care of our world and of people enough to dismantle systems that perpetuate sin.”

    The depravity of humanity is of utmost concern to progressive Christians, who value the care of our world and of people enough to dismantle systems that perpetuate sin.

    “Commit to a path of life-long learning, compassion, and selfless love.” 

    Graham charges, “Progressive Christianity denies the divinely inspired, authoritative truth of the Bible as it intersects every facet of living.” Yet, he gives no explanation to back this claim.

    The most prominent progressive theologians and pastors affirm that the Bible is divinely inspired and authoritative. While fundamentalist and progressive theologians have widely debated the form of inspiration or the definition of infallibility of the Scriptures, it is a complete misrepresentation to state that only one side holds to a high view of the Bible. Furthermore, Graham’s claim that a more literal interpretation of the Bible is more “orthodox” denies the 19th century development of biblical literalism as a response to the previous centuries of the Enlightenment.

    In sum, Graham’s concluding statement in his article is just as true for progressive Christians as it is for Graham and other conservatives: “Evangelicals need to guard the truth of genuine scriptural preaching and living, remaining true and bold about exactly what the Bible clearly teaches.” Such a statement begs the question raised by Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?”

    Graham seems to have a decisively clear understanding of what he believes and thinks everyone else should hold as truth, but such presumption and self-righteousness is the very concern that leads many to a progressive approach.

    Franklin Graham’s scare tactic that “progressive Christianity can lead you to hell” further illustrates the aversion many have to his approach to Christianity. Many people are leaving conservative Christianity not because they are dissatisfied with Jesus but rather because of the repulsive approach of people like Graham who are so unkind and degrading to others and who seek to align with the political establishment to gain power to propagate their version of faith.

    This approach is too pharisaical and self-righteous for many, who are finding community in progressive Christianity. The outcome of such an approach will only continue to widen the chasm among followers of Jesus. Such divisions were the very concern that Jesus had in his priestly prayer, where he centered on praying for unity among his followers (John 17:20-21).

    Jesus chose quite an eclectic group of disciples who had different approaches to life and faith. He brought them together amidst their differences to work for the expansion of a kingdom that is not of this world. Jesus continues to do the same today.

    I hope and pray that as we leave behind the kind of divisive dichotomy espoused by Graham, we will beat our swords into plowshares, and we will unite together — for the love of God.

    Patrick Wilson

    Patrick Wilson has served as a pastor for 25 years in Dallas and Austin, Texas, and most recently in in Rolla, Mo., where he currently is starting a new community of faith, CrossRoads. He is a graduate of Baylor University, earned two master’s degrees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a doctor of ministry degree from Logsdon Seminary.

     

    Related articles:

    Franklin Graham says he’s not a preacher of hate, so let’s roll the tape and see | Opinion by Rodney Kennedy

    Why is anybody still giving money to Franklin Graham? | Opinion by Mark Wingfield


    Sunday, August 28, 2022

    Walking in the Footsteps of John the Baptist, Part 6

     


    Walking in the Footsteps of John the Baptist, Part 6

    James McGrath has recently traveled to Israel to walk in the footsteps of John the Baptist. I thought it might be of interest that we journey with James as well to discover the early days of Jesus' ministry through his cousin John. Enjoy.

    R.E. Slater
    August 25, 2022




    In the Footsteps of John the Baptist 6:
    Ein Kerem and Birthplace and Wilderness of John

    by James F. McGrath
    August 15, 2022

    More highlights from my trip to the Holy Land. I drove to Ein Kerem, which was a village in Jesus’ time but today is a neighborhood in the modern city of Jerusalem. There is a tradition that identifies it as the birthplace of John the Baptist. Based on a second century source (which I will say more about in a guest post on Bart Ehrman’s blog soon) I think there is another possibility that deserves to be considered, one that the early church otherwise conveniently omitted (the first instance of this being Luke’s vague reference to a town in the hill country of Judah). I will have even more to say about this in what I write during the coming year. The trip was not just exploring places with genuine verifiable connections with John the Baptist. Had it been, it would have been a short trip indeed! The wider influence of John and traditions about him are also within the purview of the project and of interest to me.

    In Ein Kerem I visited the church that is supposed to be John’s birthplace. Here are some photos of the exterior, interior, grotto, and artwork.







    From there I drove to Even Sapir which appeared to be the way to reach the Monastery of St. John in the Desert. It isn’t in the desert, but it is in the wilderness in the sense of the relevant ancient terms (and of course at one point desert in English had more to do with the place being deserted). I will say more about this below in response to a recent blog post by another New Testament scholar. You’ll see from photos that the area is not arid but lush. I am glad that I did not know a more direct route than trying to get there through Even Sapir, since it gave me the unexpected opportunity to ask for directions at the Essene Farm. This is a healthy living commune that is more New Age than anything to do with the ancient Essenes. However, the suggestion has been made that John might have been an Essene at some point, perhaps even spending time at Qumran (which I also visited and will blog about in a future post). That suggestion is about the ancient Essenes, the group whose texts are known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. So I am really happy to be able to say, and to at least try to work into my book on John the Baptist for a general audience, that when I was trying to find St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness, I stopped to ask directions at the Essene Farm. Here are some photos of the monastery grounds, cave, chapel, and artwork from the interior.







    I was particularly struck by the iconography in the hallway inside the part of the monastery that is open to pilgrims and tourists. There are icons of Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets. Seen visually it led me to connect something Jesus said about John with something that the Synoptic Gospels say about Jesus. Jesus said that the Law and Prophets were until John, when the Kingdom of God is proclaimed. The Gospels on the other hand depict Moses and Elijah coming to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Does this story seek to counter what Jesus himself said and have the Law and Prophets be about and until Jesus instead? Here are the photos of the icons I’m referring to. They are modern but nonetheless striking in the way I’ve indicated.



    I was also struck by the dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit hanging above the altar in the monastery’s chapel, and thus from the worshipper’s perspective hanging in the air directly over Jesus who is depicted in an icon on the center back wall. There is also a depiction of John in the usual manner holding a staff with a cross at the top and a scroll with some of his words on them, the only one I have seen in which those words are in Hebrew rather than Greek or Latin.



    That’s all from Ein Kerem’s Church of St. John and from the Monastery of St. John in the Wilderness. I also visited the Western Wall tunnels for the first time on this trip, where recently a first century mikveh (immersion pool) was discovered. No photos worth sharing of that, but worth mentioning! More photos and commentary will follow. In the meantime, here are some further thoughts about John the Baptist that I have had since returning, and since my last post on the subject.

    I have been thinking about the statement in the Samaritan Chronicle of Abu-l Fath that Dositheans prayed while standing in water. Those familiar with the text known as the Life of Adam and Eve will notice the similarity to what Adam and Eve are said to do to express repentance and seek forgiveness after their sin. That same work mentions that a temple will be built, destroyed, and rebuilt, but adds, “At that time, men will be purified by water of their sins. Those unwilling to be purified by water will be condemned.” I wonder whether Life of Adam and Eve might be a Dosithean or a Baptist text, or conversely, might have been an influence on John and/or on his disciple Dositheus.

    As you know if you have followed this series (I think), I am wondering about the resonances between Jesus asking about his identity at Caesarea Philippi, which was one of the major sources of the Jordan River if not its primary course, and the response considering John the Baptist as a possible answer. On that see also this recent post by Michael Barber.

    I visited Beth Shean on this trip and mentioned John’s activity in its general vicinity, so here is Craig Keener’s recent post about that city.

    James Tabor drew attention to the wonderful YouTube video about the Mandaeans’ baptismal practice by Jesse Buckley, with lots of input from his mother Jorunn Buckley who has long been the leading scholar of Mandaeism in our time.

    Yung Suk Kim criticized translations which say that the shepherd who went seeking his lost sheep left the other 99 sheep in pastureland rather than the desert. I think it is important to recover the sense that the word we translate most often as wilderness did not mean desert in the specific sense of that English word but rather something more like a deserted place. The English words hermit and hermitage derive from the Greek word in question and hermitages are away from centers of population but are often in areas that are anything but arid.



    John the Baptist Series by James F. McGrath

    Walking in the Footsteps of John the Baptist, Part 5

        


    Walking in the Footsteps of John the Baptist, Part 5

    James McGrath has recently traveled to Israel to walk in the footsteps of John the Baptist. I thought it might be of interest that we journey with James as well to discover the early days of Jesus' ministry through his cousin John. Enjoy.

    R.E. Slater
    August 25, 2022




    In the Footsteps of John the Baptist Part 5:
    The Pools of Bethesda and Siloam

    by James F. McGrath
    August 1, 2022


    Visiting two of the pools mentioned in the Gospel of John connected directly not just with my "John the Baptist project" but others. My doctoral work and first book, John’s Apologetic Christology, included significant attention to the stories in John 5 and 9. My recent What Jesus Learned from Women features a chapter on Jesus’ grandmother, Mary’s mother Hannah or Anne. As it happens, the Church of St. Anne is built on the location where excavation has revealed the pools of Bethesda. 

    Lately I have been thinking about the story in John 5:1-18 and what it might have meant without the addition about an angel coming to trouble the waters so that they took on healing properties. Some scribe was puzzled and added those details to explain the connection between healing and the man’s inability to get into the pool. That scribe was probably not the only one who wondered about this. The author presumably thought what they wrote made sense. Might they have expected readers to connect immersion in a pool with flowing water and healing by way of an implied reference to baptism?

    The church has a long history of connecting baptism and healing. Might this story make a point that many readers have also missed in the parallel account in the Synoptic Gospels in which Jesus heals a paralyzed man (Matthew 9:1-8 and parallels)? The meaning in John [may] be that the man wishes to seek forgiveness for sin through immersion but is unable to when the water is flowing, which is when it is acceptable for ritual purposes, whether of purification as in general practice or in the seeking of forgiveness through the immersion John promoted.

    The connection of sin and disability is made in the healing stories in both John 5 and John 9, as also in the Synoptic account. In the latter, there is by definition no flowing water in the home, and thus Jesus’ pronouncement of forgiveness of sin may have marked a departure from the practice of John the Baptist. I suspect that one motive John had in developing his baptism was the inequity of access to forgiveness in the Jerusalem temple for both geographic and economic reasons. Some [worshippers] were located very far away. Some would have struggled to offer an animal as a sacrifice that another could easily afford to. Jesus took the same principle further, it seems, and allowed that even flowing water could be omitted if it was too far away and the person faced mobility issues.

    Whether John accepted this exception is unclear. It could be something John himself taught all along, something that Jesus innovated which John embraced, or something Jesus did that led to a parting of the ways between Jesus and his mentor. What do you think?



    I also visited the Pools of Siloam which feature in the story I have already mentioned in John 9 where Jesus heals a man who had been born blind. Walking to Siloam from the City of David is down a steep incline. [Even] today, with the [present] traffic on the road, it is challenging for me as a sighted person. That makes me wonder what is implied by Jesus sending a blind man who appears to have been near the temple to that pool; the author of the Gospel who tells the story emphasizes that the name of the pool means “sent.” Here is a photo coming back up from the pools through the Herodian drain shaft.


    Let me mention a couple of other places I visited in Jerusalem. One is the Church of St. John the Baptist, which only opens on feast days and so I saw only the courtyard. Here I am coming through the tiny door that you have likely passed if you’ve visited the Old City but may never have noticed.


    Here is an icon from the courtyard of the church.


    Although I did not get to go inside there is a nice video by Eran Frankel about the church including a visit beneath it to what remains of an earlier church structure built on the site:


    CHURCH OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST
    Renovated Church of John the Baptist Jerusalem
    See fragments of John the Baptist Skull
    Feb 3, 2020


    Fragments of John the Baptist's SKULL and of Saint Pagagiotes' skeleton at the renovated Greek Orthodox church of John the Baptist in Jerusalem.

    Saint Panagiotes was the new martyr who was forced to convert to Islam but did not accept it thus was killed on April 5, 1820


    I [also] visited a number of other places connected with John, including the so-called Tomb of Zechariah (which is every bit as unlikely to have any connection with the father of John the Baptist as the Church of St. Anne is with the home of Mary’s parents). It was nice to pass a couple of Muslims who were seeking the tomb. Zechariah is an important figure in Islam as well as in Christianity. John the Baptist likewise features [as a similarly important personage to Muslims]. There was also an inscription in the Kidron Valley that I passed while in the vicinity reminding passersby of the connection of that place with the story of Melchizedek.


    More photos will follow in the near future. Meanwhile, also somewhat related to this series and to the place where this post began, here is a really great review of my book in every sense – great as in it is positive, but also great from my perspective as an author who greatly appreciates when someone reads the book with attention to detail and finds value in what I offer in it. I hope you read the review and that it encourages you to read my book!


    Phil Long mentioned this series and a number of other things in the latest Biblical Studies Carnival, including my appearance on the MythVision YouTube channel talking about John the Baptist:


    Who Was John The Baptist? | James F. McGrath
    Streamed live on Jul 25, 2022

    Will understanding John the Baptist help us understand who the historical Jesus would have been? In this livestream Dr. James F. McGrath will be discussion his discoveries.
    Check out Dr. McGrath's Blog -
    https://www.patheos.com/blogs/religio...
    Follow him on Twitter - https://twitter.com/ReligionProf

    Also, finally, if you’ll be in Indianapolis on Saturday August 6th then stop by the Indianapolis Public Library Author Fair where I’ll have a table and [will] be signing books. No need to buy one (and you can bring one you already own for me to sign if you like). Just say hello!