NERD OUT! Preaching, Power, Pannenberg, & Pastor Pops

Ok. I'm still a little hung up on the prayer thing. Tripp, you said as a Process person, you've got no problem with laying hands and praying, right? And that you're praying basically that God's presence be realized all in its fullness in each of the people involved. But its that all? If God does not break the rules of nature, if God is already doing the best God can (because what loving God wouldn't?) then why does God's presence in the situation matter? I'm with you that God limiting his own power, in whatever manner you choose to believe that happens, doesn't add up, really. Can God heal? Literally and physically? In the case of the girl in your church, what options have you helped create for God? And why were they not already available to God?

Speaking of Amazon, you should really look into adding an amazon.ca link so that us Canadian deacons can contribute to the Brew with our university book purchases (sociology texts can be pretty pricey).

Hi Bo&tripp - did you know that if you anagram your names you get 'Brit pop'?! Another brilliant podcast - thanks! I'm still struggling with the whole supernatural thing. Tripp your answer to my last post was helpful (The problem with prayers of petition isn't that one petitions a living and acting God but that one presumes in the prayer God could arbitrarily will or not will the most loving thing.  If one, as Process people do, rejects the idea of omnipotence then God can't do whatever God wants when God wants but God can and will do the best God can do AND we can participate\join God in bringing that into reality.) I'm with the whole process thing - I have just got a second hand copy of Sherburne's 'Key to Process and Reality' - I got a pdf of PR but it was too difficult.

I will have to listen again as it was very late but I just wanted to take the first part where you chose - 'walking on the water' and 'the loaves and the fishes' as two examples of potential subjects for preaching. I don’t think I or anyone I know would have used these passages as appeals to literal duplication - even in my Pentecostal days (although I do recall a story of some Pharaoh Island Pentecostal who tried to walk on water and drowned!) If you had brought up some more 'tangible' miracles of Jesus it might be harder for Bo to state his case.

Many years ago a guy called John Wimber wrote a book called 'Power Evangelism'. He suggested that as Jesus performed His miracles the disciples were learning his methods. Wimber gave at least one example. Consider the similarity in the following texts.

Acts 9: 40-41 Peter raises Dorcas from the dead

Mark 5:37-42 Jesus raises Jairus daughter

It would not be fanciful to think that Peter was actually copying Jesus. So John Wimber would use the gospels as models for him to use in his ministry to the sick. I believe he was quite successful - but actually that is not my point. It is just that not all miracles are the same in the gospels and some are more conducive to preaching in a more literal fashion. The ones you chose are more unlikely examples.

Back to Tripp's comment above. "Given that God could not arbitrary will or not will but rather God will do the best that God can do" and ourselves co-laborators. Could it be possible that what appears to us to be an arbitrary answer to prayer in fact is not. Rather it is a collaborative relational effort with God but we just don't know it yet. Acts of faith are participatory processes effecting God and other entities (to use the jargon ;o). Perhaps miracles could even one day be proved scientifically - I listened to  a few of Rupert Sheldrake’s talks on the 'Center for Process Studies' site. He is trying to give scientific value to what he calls 'morphic resonance' indicating that there are weird things happening that have quantifiable scientific reasons.

Perhaps the way people pray - trying to twist the arm of a distant deity to act in some random way is wrong ... but this does not stop people praying in various ways for others - faith being one of the factors which we have to learn in much the same way we would have to learn other elements of Christian discipleship which fall within process thought (probably in the context of love).

One may ask why 'some get healed and others don't' and abandon the whole enterprise and turn liberal (or even process) but at the moment I do not think it necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater in order to be consistent with process thought. Just some brewing thoughts ....

Wow, lots to sort through here! But in a good way, of course. I took notes while listening, and I wanted to share a few comments:

First, I just want to say that HBC has been helpful in my homebrewed faith. I might not always understand what's being said, but when I do get, I get it! Right now my homebrewed faith contains a mixture of process theology with a little Moltmann and Yoder thrown in the mix. Of course I'm always changing the recipe, so get back in touch with me a few months from now and it will probably be totally different!

Alright, second, I like what Bo said about interpreting scripture. That's how I try to look at the Bible right now. Instead of asking, "Did Jesus really walk on water?" I try to ask, "What is God saying to me through this story?" And believe it or not, I actually came to this way of viewing scripture after reading Borg's "Reading the Bible Again for the First Time!" Which is interesting because I'm not a Sporg.

Anyway, the third comment is about whether or not this is the best God can do right now. To be honest, I don't know. However, since I've been meditating and studying a lot about theodicy lately (kinda happens when you struggle with clinical depression), I believe that God knows our suffering personally, like how a parent can feel his/her child suffering. And God is healing this broken world through us. As us ELCA Lutherans say, "God's work, our hands."

Tripp makes the comment that people basically have misunderstood God's relationship to human with respect to power, humanity, etc. That makes sense to me.  The only question I have then is how do we know we're right and basically those who think otherwise are wrong?  What makes us so certain we're right and not constructing an idol to our own liking? For myself, I don't think God really cares, so long as we still have some kind of relationship with "him".