a quick follow up to the post earlier this week

 I wanted to thank everyone who gave feedback on the Four Locations of Theology in the 21st century post from earlier this week. I appreciate the comments here, on facebook, and the emails.  It has given me a lot to think about and I wanted to clarify three themes that have emerged.

Three clarifications:

• Reason seems to be the suspicious quadrant. Every time I bring up quadrilateral, more than half of the conversation will be centered on reason. This week was no exception. Reason draws the most concern – which is funny to me because tradition is the one that I find most suspect.

Here is the thing I would want to clarify: the other 3 themes of Scripture, Tradition and Experience all have reason woven into them. Those who wrote the scriptures, those who established the tradition and even our won experience are all saturated with reason. It is inescapable. The scriptures did not fall from the sky! They passed through the author’s minds and were processed with reason. Same with tradition. The creeds were not divined in some sort of supernatural ceremony. The were constructed and reasoned. Our experiences are interpreted utilizing our filters, frameworks and lenses.

 It seems important then to clarify that those three are not independent of reason but are dynamically intertwined with it. It would be useless to take out reason (as some have suggested) because it interlinked and inescapable. 

•  It may be that the quad needs something else. Some suggested replacing one of the 4 elements with an alternative. My favorite idea came from my friend Raphael who said

 “I suggest we add a fifth source for the practice of theology in the 21st century: Imagination!”

Admittedly, it would no longer be a quad! but I think that the tradeoff is that you would get adventure and zest incorporated and not just a static, conserving, or historical product.

•  There are no guarantees. Even if we could all agree to utilize the quad for the theological endeavor, there is no guarantee that we would all come up with some thing or come out with the same conclusions. This seems to be a major concern – that we can not ensure the outcome of such an endeavor.

I am surprised at the conserving nature of such mentalities! People are ok to ‘go on the journey’ as long as we predictably end up basically where we started.

Think all you want. Explore new thoughts and incorporate science … just don’t stray too far from the foundations of antiquity!  Integrate new realities and account for ongoing historical developments … just make sure that you end up with the same thing we started with.

I have not overstated this hesitancy and resistance. But the reality is that there are no guarantees. You may start out an Evangelical and end up being an Emergent type working in a Mainline church with Process theology as your main conversation partner!  (for instance)

 In summary: 

1. You can’t get rid of reason, it is already present in the other three. Scripture, Tradition and Experience are inextricably laced with it.
2. The quad may need a little something extra. The 21st century may require some zest, adventure and imagination
3. There are no guarantees. While we want to honor the historical expression and provide continuity with the trajectory … it might look a little different and think a little different than it did in the 3rd or 17th century.

Thanks for all your feedback, thoughts, and concerns. I appreciate the conversation.

Yesterday I had the honor of giving a lecture for the Center for Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology.  My goal was to show how one theologically sensitive youth minister under the influence of Process theology would think through the task of youth ministry.  Most of what I proposed does not necessitate one being committed to Process theology but you will hopefully see how the ideas come out of my own theological framework.  If you are interested in more conversations like this then come next week to the Emergent Village Theological Conversation here in sunny SoCal for some more Process inspired conversations.

If you have responses, questions, and such post them.  Bo and I are going to do a Theology Nerd Throwdown in the near future on youth ministry and we would love your input.

I love the quad! I am a proud descendant of Wesley and I still find it quite helpful to utilize the same quad.  Here is why I find each element so valuable.

Graphic Option TWO

I have been researching some famous takes on ‘the end’ (or ‘final things’) in preparation for an upcoming Theology Nerd Throwdown (TNT) about the resurrection and eschatology.

One of the reasons that I wanted to go back a re-visit this topic wasn’t just because we got several calls into the phone-in hotline (678-590-2739) – and not just because it is 2012 – but because my own eschatology has changed so radically in the past 10 years. So, I should probably put all my cards on the table before I interact with these legends. Two confessions:

• I do not believe that the book of Revelation is about the end of the world. I see it primarily as a political commentary on the first centuries (CE) utilizing an apocalyptic genre and therefore of little profit for purposes of this doctrine or for future-casting. Our hope come not from the book of Revelation but from the truth of Christ’s resurrection. 
• I was raised pre-millennial partial-dispensationalist, with amillenial charismatic leanings and an eye toward post-millennial expectations. My dad was a church historian and preacher so I know those camps’ strengths and weaknesses pretty well. I would obviously no longer frame the conversation the way that whole argument is constructed.

I find that in each of the following authors there something deeply attractive and then something a little troubling – some more troubling than others. Here then is my sampling of perspectives. I would welcome any feedback or new suggestions.

Irenaeus: this 2nd century writer was perhaps the first great postbiblical theologian  and he believed in a physical resurrection (Against Heresies, book 5, chapters 32-33, 36). You can see in his writings where we get most of our historical literal reading. He even believed that the new flesh would be identical to the old in which the saints would inherent the ‘new heavens and the new earth’.
The hesitation comes when he gets to this part where he is working with Matthew 26:27-29 where Christ promises not to drink of the fruit of the vine until the new kingdom. He is putting a lot of stock in the literalness of both the presence of grape vines as proof of  the physical nature of new creation and the assuredness of the resurrection because of the disciple’s presence for the drink.  There is a hermeneutic in place that I am just not sure anyone wants to assimilate in the 21st century.

Origen: this 3rd century writer has a spiritual take that stands in sharp contrast to the literalness of the Irenaeus. His doctrine is known as apokatastasis ton panton – the restitution of all things (On First Principles, book 3, chapter 6). I was prepared to like Origen – as I am a big fan of his on several other subjects.
I was not prepared however for his big leap! He puts so much stock in the idea of God being ‘all in all’ that he even goes as far as to say that there will be no more contrast between good and evil and this will be true for each individual person as well. He was definitely working with a model of ‘Mind-Body-Spirit’ that is ancient and I was not sure I wanted to go back to.

Augustine: this 5th century writer is perhaps the most famous writer on this subject (City of God, book 22, chapter 30). He helps us dream of perfect peace and promises rewards where “virtue will be the best and greatest of al possible prizes”. His is truly the stuff of bliss and delight.
I have several hesitation with Augustine, not least of which is the whole best of all imaginable worlds suspicion of human creation and limitation … but it is how he get there that is notable.

“There is a clear indication of this final sabbath if we take the seven ages of world history as being “days” and calculate in accordance with the data furnished by the Scriptures. The first age or day is that from Adam to the flood…”

We obviously live in the seventh day (of indeterminate length) before the 8th day of Sabbath rest. I’m assuming that I don’t need to elaborate why this antiquated mental construct and hermeneutic employed is problematic for the contemporary thinker.

Schleiermacher: This 19th century writer actually has a really healthy and vibrant reading (The Christian Faith) … but it is framed in a unique bracket. He begins by saying  (essentially) that the doctrine related to the consummation of the church is going to be different than other doctrines (like Christology) because so much of it is speculation and can not come from human experience. He makes a strong case for seeing prophetic pictures through the rules of art and an insistence on tracing everything back to the utterances of Christ. He points our the inherent limitations of conceiving of a future life by analogy with the present one. He is right about that! Too often talk of heaven is nothing more than a projection of the best of here. The glitch with this guy is that the minute you bring up his name in conjunction with experience you have a whole can of worms you have to deal with. 

 Bultmann: This 20th century writer stressed that our is essentially an eschatological religion that is not simply ethics or morality. He says “According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the eschatological event, the action of God by which God has set an end to the old world.” (History and Eschatology)
I like what Bultmann had to say. I mean REALLY liked it! But let’s be honest: unless you are going to get down with his whole existential-demythologized program … you are not going to be quoting a lot of Bultmann. He just comes with too much baggage. It seems to me that he is an all-or-nothing kind of resource.

Tillich: This 20th century giant runs his interpretation of the kingdom of God through his philosophy of history (The Protestant Era) making an important distinction between Kairos (fullness of time) from Chronos (measured time). I won’t review it here except to say that it is blazing awesome stuff and if you are prone to liking Tillich, then definitely check this out. He even explains how democracy, socialism, and anarchy are leftovers of religious utopia concepts. Tillich, however, is not for everyone – his heady and philosophically elaborate ideas are not entry level stuff. 

Pannenberg: I have never read anyone like Pannenberg. This 20th century writer accounts for the existentialist concepts of his peers while transcending their concerns and focusing on a real history and real future of the kingdom of God, not just internal personal experiences. I read a selection from The Idea of God and Human Freedom because I had just recently reread Theology and the Kingdom of God. Tripp is a big fan of Wolfhart P. so I will not take too much time here as I am sure that we talk about this plenty in the TNT.  I will just pass along this quote:

“In my opinion this is to misunderstand the meaning of the eschatological prophecies of the future. They are of course concerned with the real future, but in a different sense from predictions on the basis of natural laws, forecasts of political developments or the intuitive foreknowledge of contingent future events. The eschatological prophecies of the future formulate the conditions of the final realization of man’s humanity as a consequence of the establishment of the righteousness of God, which is essential to man’s being as such.”

You can see that it is thick reading with nuanced distinctions… but I love his insistence on a real historical expression while accounting for the abstract-conceptual concerns of the existentialists.

I am excited to talk with Tripp about Marjorie Suchocki’s process idea of being taken back into God and our experience being remembered in God and being free to experience the fullest of God’s presence for eternity – as well as N.T. Wright’s concept of  “the world being put to rights” that is so popular right now, as well a little Jurgen Multmann to make our good friend Tony Jones happy.

If you haven’t signed up for the conference yet, it is not too late! You have a month get your tickets and get to Southern California where it will be 86 degrees and sunny today.  Go to http://www.processtheology.org/

For those who don’t read atheist political philosophy…Paul is back, popular, and getting all sorts of attention.  In our conversation we play out a number of these Pauline insights and then tackle a bunch of questions being asked in the church today.  If you are interested in the philosophical discussion there is no better place to begin than St. Paul Among the Philosophers which is introduced and edited by Jack Caputo.  It includes chapters by Zizek and Badiou (philosophers) and then responses form Christian scholars from across the disciplines.

Stuff We Discuss…Paul, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Pete’s new book, Hakim Bey’s temporary autonomous zones, Kester Brewin, Occupy Wall Street condoms and T-Shirts, the Crisis of Capitalism, Red Letter Christianity, the End of History, Identity Politics, Missional Progressive Christianity, why we aren’t ‘making disciples’ in church, and if the church should still gather after the Death of the Big Other God.

Since this was recorded live in a room with a Keg of Dale Brothers Beer there are the occasional bumps from me pumping the keg. I put some soft jams underneath to help cut down the noise from the note taking audience.

Here are the top 11 blogs of Homebrewed Christianity in 2011  :

1. Theology Nerd Book Survey 

2. That’s “Too Gay” – Brian Ammons’ Banned Chapter from Baptimergent

3. Your First Steps into Biblical Universalism…

4. 31 Reasons I Left Evangelicalism and Became a Progressive But Not a Liberal by Michael Camp

5. God Takes Sides….or When Karl Barth Was Right

6. Defining the Secular: Charles Taylor (pt. 3) by Deacon Hall

7. Rob Bell Wins 

8. The classic ‘Footprints in the Sand’ poem revisited

9. Are you a Bellian or Piperian?

10. a big difference between Christianity and Islam 

11. Goosing Emergents into the Mainline

Thank you all for your amazing participation and feedback – that was a wonderful year of conversation and theological brewing!

Let us know if you had a favorite that didn’t make the list.

From Chad, Tripp, and Bo – thanks for a great year, Brew On!  and don’t forget to share the brew.

Register for the conference at ProcessTheology.org - find the reading list [here] – order Process for the Perplexed by Bruce Epperly and get ready to engage philosophers, theologians, practitioners and church leaders in an amazing set of conversations!

If you want to listen to more podcast about Process, here are 3:

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Process with Bruce Epperly

Intro to Process Thought with Robert Mesle

An Emerging, Progressive, and Relational Vision of Faith with Bruce Epperly

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0827205295/?tag=homebrechrist-20

leanings.  This comes out of a really sweet commentary on Romans he wrote with David Lull which is well worth checking out.  Now enjoy discovering how Whiteheadian Paul was.

Thank you for this opportunity to talk about how my philosophical theology has influenced my interpretation of Romans. In my opinion, everyone is influenced in all their thinking by what they understand to be real. But since relatively few, these days, even relatively few philosophers, discuss metaphysics, or recognize this level of reflection, the influence is largely unconscious and therefore uncriticized. I owe to Whitehead and Hartshorne the fact that I think a good deal about this question. I need very briefly to explain the difference between the way I understand reality and the way that most people today, especially as heirs of the Enlightenment, assume it to be.

Most people think that their access to a world other than their own experience is through their sense organs. They focus especially on what they see and what they feel through touch. For practical purposes this gives them a world of solid objects that are colored. If they have studied some epistemology, they may agree that in fact what is given is only a phenomenal world. In either case, whether sensa or material objects, the entities making up the world are mutually external. It is widely assumed that no two things can occupy the same space at the same time.

These assumptions underlie the political and economic thought of the Enlightenment as well as its natural science. They have made any real concept of “community” difficult. They have made a coherent interpretation of quantum physics impossible.

I have been persuaded that another understanding of reality is better. This begins with an analysis of a moment of human experience itself. This is an event, rather than a sense datum or an empirical object. Instead of trying to understand this event as a product of objects in motion, this approach proposes the hypothesis that the world as a whole is composed of events and that in their most basic structure they resemble human experiences.

The analysis of the basic structure of a moment of human experience is in terms of its relationships to other events. Most of the content of one moment of experience comes from the influence, the flowing in, of past experiences. Much of the remainder comes from new stimuli derived from the body, especially through the brain. These mediate the influence of events outside the body, especially through the sense organs. There may also be some influences from outside the body, especially other human experiences, whose effects in experience are more direct and immediate. And in the theistic vision of Whitehead, there are also novel possibilities for the self-constitution of the new experience that express the inflowing of God into the occasion of experience.

The references to the body and its sense organs can be generalized only to other vertebrate animals. But the general point, that the presently occurring event is constituted by the inflowing of other events can be generalized much further. Hence, in this view, the real things that make up the world are not mutually external individual objects; instead, they are events constituted by the new unification of other events. In Whitehead’s terms, events are not “simply located.” Each event includes other events. A human experience is largely constituted by its relations to others. It is social through and through. The same is true of a quantum of energy.

What does this have to do with the interpretation of Paul? Quite a lot, I think. Of course, I am not claiming that Paul held to just the same view of reality to which David and I hold. But I do believe that when Paul has been read through the eyes of the dominant understanding, much of the richness of his thought has been obscured. I believe that when one is open to believing that entities interpenetrate one another, much that he says can be affirmed more seriously, and, indeed, more straightforwardly.

Speaking of those in the communities of believers, Paul said that we are members one of another, that together we constitute one body, and that this is the body of Christ. As long as we think of ourselves as bounded individuals, fundamentally external to one another, connected through contracts or common interests, this language can not be taken very seriously. On the other hand, if we understand that we are fundamentally constituted by our relations with one another and with a past that includes the Christ event, the language makes much more sense.

I have been embarrassed throughout my career by my extreme limitation with respect to languages, and especially the biblical languages. Prior to this opportunity to work closely with a New Testament scholar in the interpretation of a text, I have been quite hesitant to make pronouncements about the meaning of scripture. However, given my biases, in my Christology, I did dare to pick up on Schweitzer’s idea that Paul thought of a spiritual field of force emanating from the Christ event. I dropped the word “spiritual,” since in my understanding such a field of force emanates from every event and is at once both physical and spiritual. It consists in all those events that in some measure internalize the one in question. Every historical event affects all the events in its future. Given this metaphysical view, it is easy to assert that some events, such as the Christ event, have had a far greater field of force than most others, that the church serves continuously to renew, re-form, and channel this field of force, that the decision to orient oneself in terms of that field of force rather than others increases its efficacy in one’s life, and that much of Paul’s language about our relation to Christ makes sense when we think in these terms.

The Whiteheadian metaphysics also makes sense of Paul’s language about our relation to God. The idea of God’s Spirit indwelling us and of God’s love being poured into our hearts has been puzzling to those who accept the dominant worldview. For a Whiteheadian, it is quite straightforward. God is literally in us in the strong sense of participating in constituting what we are moment by moment. The effectiveness of that presence depends greatly on our decisions and many other factors.

Most important for our interpretation of Romans is the relation between ourselves and the Christ event. If that event is fundamentally external to us, then its saving effect must be that, in some way, it changed God’s attitude toward us. Theologians have held various views about how Jesus’ death satisfied God’s requirement of righteousness from human beings so that God declared believers to be just. For nearly a thousand years many Christians have supposed that some such doctrine is the heart of the gospel and that it expresses Paul’s message.

If we approach Romans with the view that all things participate in other things, we can find there a quite different understanding of how Jesus brought into being a new relationship between humanity and God. The crucial relationship of others to Jesus is one of participation. This is strongly suggested in Romans 6. The NRSV tells us that we have been baptized into Christ Jesus and that this is a baptism into his death. We have been buried with him by baptism so that just as Christ was raised from the dead, so we too might walk in newness of life. If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection life his. In 8:17 Paul tells us that we are joint heirs with Christ—if we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Despite all this language, at least in Protestant circles, the focus has been on pistis. This was certainly important to Paul, but we believe that it should be understood in a way that ties it much more closely to the rhetoric I have summarized of union with Christ Jesus. We propose that Paul taught that just as we participate in Jesus’ suffering, death, burial and resurrection, so also we participate in his pistis. But the dominant translations are based on different assumptions and do not allow this idea to come to expression.

The role of a philosophical theology is not to dictate translations. It does, of course, bias one toward one translation or another. Theological bias influenced by philosophy has prevented translators from writing about the pistis of Jesus. Only very recently have they acknowledged that a number of texts can be read better as speaking of this. We think that the pistis of Jesus was as important to Paul as the suffering, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Indeed, these expressed or resulted from his pistis.

Further, pistis has almost always been translated as “faith” even though in some instances, such as references to the pistis of God, translators have recognized that they must translate it as “faithfulness.” We recognize that both translations are valid, but we believe that “faithfulness” is the more inclusive term and that Paul often had this more inclusive meaning in mind. We chose to reverse the balance, using “faithfulness” wherever it fits and “faith” only where it is clear that Paul focused on the narrower meaning. In particular, we believe that Paul was impressed by the faithfulness of Jesus, for example, in going to the cross for the sake of sinners, and that speaking of the faith of Jesus does not capture the fullness of Paul’s meaning.

Clearly, Paul was also interested in the pistis of those to whom he wrote. We understand this also to be more richly understood when it is translated as faithfulness in most places. How is this faithfulness related to that of Jesus? We think this relation is much like the relation of baptism to the death and burial of Jesus. For Paul the relation is one of uniting with Jesus. Our faithfulness participates in Jesus’ faithfulness or opens us to being formed by Jesus’ faithfulness. God then sees us in light of the faithfulness in which we participate rather than in terms of our continuing limitations and failures. We cannot participate in Jesus’ faithfulness without participating in Jesus’ suffering and death. Paul believes that through thus uniting with Jesus we are united with him also as children or heirs of God and are assured that we will share in his resurrection or

glorification.

To show that this is a plausible interpretation of Paul’s theology led us to a concentrated focus on Romans 3:21-30. For the detailed exegesis of this passage I have been wholly dependent on David Lull. But I am persuaded that his retranslation of this passage is more accurate to the Greek and makes far more sense than what we find in the NRSV. It also fits much better with the theology we find elsewhere in Romans.

We have, of course, relied heavily on other New Testament scholars, scholars who are unlikely to be influenced by the metaphysics that is important to David and me. This is important. Philosophical theologians must be especially careful to avoid any crude eisegesis, and the concurrence of scholars without their prejudices as to the meaning of texts is especially important.

One final word. I believe that the point of view of interpreters deeply affects what they see and describe. I have accented the role of our point of view in my comments. I also believe that it is crucial that what we see and describe from that point of view can be seen also by those who are not particularly interested in the point of view. I hope that even those who are committed to more conventional metaphysical ideas will agree that Paul may have thought in a way more like what we describe. Of course, I would be even happier if some decided that this point of view is fruitful and adopted it, at least provisionally.

To be a Christian is to hold Jesus in highest esteem. Even more important, it is to live as Jesus’ follower and as one who believes that in following Jesus one is also serving God. According to the synoptic gospels, people in his day, marveling at his words and deeds, called him “Lord.” The great question then was whether he was the expected one, the Messiah, or, in Greek, the Christ.

For his disciples, the resurrection appearances of Jesus settled these questions. Jesus was definitely Lord, and definitely Messiah or Christ. Although much that was expected of the Messiah had not happened, the title Christ almost became part of Jesus’ name or a virtual synonym. Jesus’ was God’s beloved son, chosen by God for the salvation of all who followed him.

Paul developed these ideas. As was expected of the Messiah, Jesus was a descendant of David, and through his resurrection he came to be, or to be recognized as, the Son of God. Jesus fulfilled God’s mission by opening the doors of salvation to all, including the Gentiles. Jews had been seeking salvation by obedience to the law, but this did not work. By his faithfulness to God even to death Jesus provided another way. Jews and Gentiles alike could participate in that faithfulness. This meant that they would suffer and die with Jesus. God accepts that participation as righteousness. Those who thus participated are reconciled with God and will also participate in Jesus’ resurrection.

This is truly an exalted picture of who Jesus was and is and of Jesus’ work for God and on our behalf. There is a heavenly dimension in that the resurrected Jesus is no longer an earthly figure but a heavenly one. But Jesus remains unquestionably a human being. “Messiah,’ “Son of God,” “Lord,” and “Savior” are all human titles. The resurrected Jesus is the first fruit of the transformation in which we are all to participate.

There is no suggestion that Jesus belongs in another realm as a divine being alongside God the Father. The thinking of Paul remains in the fully monotheistic tradition of Judaism.

Now in Colossians we are confronted with a very different picture. A generation has passed, and the Rubicon has been crossed. The faithful are now predominantly Gentile. Paul is the great leader, virtually the founder, of the Gentile church, and believers are eager to claim his authority for what they say. But their ways of thinking are no longer Jewish. The sharp distinction between the one Creator and the many creatures has faded. Jesus is the primary focus of their thought. He, not the emperor who claims their worship, functions as their God.

They still affirm the God whom Jesus addressed as Father. But the emphasis is now on the intimate, indeed insoluble, relation between Jesus and God. All things on heaven and earth have been created through Jesus and for Jesus. “In him all things hold together.”

To Jews of that time and to us today, it is impossible to think that a person inhabiting a human body could function in these cosmic ways. Probably that was never quite the intention. “Jesus” had come to name not only the human figure about whom we read in the synoptic gospels but also a divine being who temporarily inhabited a human body and in that role died on a cross for our sake. But there is less clarity in this Colossians passage about this distinction than in the prologue of John where it is clear that the everlasting Word of God became a human being in Jesus. There is no preexisting divine Jesus.

Even John is not as clear as it might be about the distinction between the human being Jesus and the Word that became flesh in him. The creeds likewise blur this distinction to the great detriment of Christian faith. Jews could see God’s Power, God’s Spirit, or God’s Wisdom manifest in a human being. Paul affirmed this of Jesus. If we believe, as I strongly do, that something of God is present in all God’s creatures, there is certainly no problem in emphasizing the rich and full way, certainly distinctive and possibly unique, in which God was present in Jesus. But we need to retain the distinction between the divine that was incarnate in Jesus and the human being who was partly constituted by that incarnation. In Paul the distinction is generally clear. In Colossians it is badly blurred.

The great danger of this blurring is that Jesus’ humanity be lost. Jesus became for many Christians a God walking around in human form. Fortunately, there were many Christians who resisted this loss. Antioch was a great center of the ancient church and of its teaching. There they clung to such formulations as that of the divine indwelling a human being. This is far more intelligible, far more faithful to Paul, and far healthier for the church. And throughout the whole controversy in the ancient church about the nature of Jesus it prevented the obliteration of Jesus’ humanity.

But those who in fact worshipped Jesus insisted that Jesus was not only the human being indwelt by God but also God. And over the centuries this confused and confusing idea has played havoc with Christian teaching. Jesus’ humanity has too often been swallowed up in Jesus’ deity.

If this had not happened, Jews would not have been so profoundly alienated from Christianity. There would have remained the dispute as to whether salvation comes through obedience to law or participation in the faithfulness of Jesus, but this could have continued as a debate that might prove fruitful for both parties. Christians had no business asking Jews to compromise their monotheism. Mohammed, who had the highest appreciation for Jesus as the greatest of God’s prophets before the revelation of the Qu’ran, might well have become a Christian. At least the mutual enmity of Christians and Muslims would have been greatly eased. Perhaps both Jews and Muslims might have learned from Christians to understand more fully God’s sacramental or incarnational presence in the world.

But all of this is what might have been. What has in fact been is that neither Jews nor Muslims could appreciate a Christianity that compromised God’s unity, even if it claimed that its teaching of three divine persons did not do so. What has in fact been is that many have been alienated by a teaching that places believing very doubtful ideas about Jesus over following him in humble service even when that entails sharing in his suffering.

For several centuries now Christians, especially Protestants, have been engaged in rescuing the human Jesus from his de-humanization by the church. Unfortunately, like many needed reactions, it has often gone too far. Humanizing Jesus has often meant reinventing him in the image of contemporary ideals, on the one hand, or in a negative light, on the other. Almost always it has separated him from “the Father” whose presence his followers saw in him.

Jesus is not alone in being subjected to this treatment. It seems to be important for us to bring the most admirable people down to our size. I believe that there are human beings who are truly remarkable in diverse ways and that humanizing them should expand our image of humanity rather than reduce them to fit a small one. I believe that we can and should say things about the fully human Jesus that we say of no one else. Being unique does not make one less human.

For that reason, despite my heavy critique of the confusion of deity and humanity that I find in this passage in Colossians, I also find much to appreciate. I have taken as my text verse 19: “in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” In my view the more fully God dwells within us the more fully we are human. Precisely because God dwelt so fully in Jesus, Jesus shows us what humanity in its fullness can be.

Our recognition of God’s presence in Jesus is also our assurance that God is like Jesus. Far from condemning us for our sins and failures, God loves and forgives. In the language especially emphasized in this passage we are reconciled to God. If we participate in Jesus’ faithfulness, there is nothing left for us to do.

We can come to God with the assurance that we are already fully known and accepted as we are and therefore can open ourselves in responsiveness to God’s inward call. In Jesus we learn that while we are secure in our relation to God, following our calling is not a path of safety in human terms. There is no assurance that our ventures in service of the weak and the poor will succeed, but there is assurance that God affirms them and uses them beyond our knowledge. God used even Jesus’ death for our salvation.

The author of Colossians expressed his devotion to Jesus in language some of which proved harmful in later centuries and in different contexts. We can learn from that to be careful that our formulations of our devotion not put others down. But we need equally to know that it is not the strength of our devotion that is dangerous to others, but only its mis-description and misunderstanding. We need to find in our time and for ourselves the way to express no less devotion, ourselves now, than the author of Colossians expressed in his time and place.

* This and more John Cobb HERE

Clayton Crockett is Associate Professor and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Central Arkansas. His work focuses on postmodern theology, Continental philosophy of religion, psychoanalytic theory and theoretical issues concerning religion and politics.

In the 1960s, the strict opposition between the religious and the secular began to break down, blurring the distinction between political philosophy and political theology. This collapse contributed to the decline of modern liberalism, which supported a neutral, value-free space for capitalism. It also deeply unsettled political, religious, and philosophical realms, forced to confront the conceptual stakes of a return to religion. (from the book description)

In this conversation with Tripp Fuller, politics, history and religion are evaluated from thoroughly theological lens. His book  Radical Political Theology : Religion and Politics after Liberalism is available from Amazon in hardcover and Kindle editions.

Don’t forget to sign up for the 2012 Emergent Village Theological Conversation in Claremont, CA January 31-February 2.

Let me first of all start off by admitting that I cannot defend the whole enterprise called systematic theology. That is, I cannot defend it as some absolute set of propositions each of which relate to another in an eternal unified whole. I think that this point stands in two important sense. First, for those who would defend such a view of systematics, I don’t believe that they’re defending systematics as a whole but, generally, their own systematic positions, which is a power move to the utmost degree (conscientiously advocated or not). Systematics is and must remain open both in terms of the fallibility of human knowing and in terms of the flow of being in its becoming. Our propositions and understandings of God do, will, and must change. Neither can I defend the general hubris by means of which systematic theologians have upheld this discipline in the past.  Systematic theology is not an end in itself, which it has too often been taken to be, but a means toward the proclamation of the Word in thought, word, and deed.

For now, I want to focus on the critique that I believe is taking place tonight that academic theology is “impractical,” unable to do anything about the contemporary situation. To that I say, precisely.

Let me be clear, here: we must act within our world and open paths in this world toward peace, justice, and love. I will never decry the importance of something like “action,” often expressed as “activism.” However, activism acts on a worldview that it believes to be true, if not absolutely, then certainly with a great degree of probability. This is where disciplines like systematic theology come in.

Systematics and other academic-theological disciplines are, for one, activities in their own right. They are analyses of the world or past worlds as the are and have been such that in these worlds. The difference is, however, between the activity of thinking in systematic or academic theological terms and other activities (or activisms)is that thought is a manner of activity that opens up new interpretive possibilities–new ways of understanding the complex web of beings-in-relation that forms our world.

In this regard, the focus of systematic theology is not found in ensconcing a particular actuality (a possibility come to fruition through, say, bodily activity); it is found in opening up ever greater interpretive possibilities–interpretive possibilities that expose the complexities of the world in which we live at least enough to yield some humility in the theologian and activist alike. Systematics, then, brings nuance to a world that we too often want to interpret in the blacks and whites of “absolutely right” and “absolutely wrong,” which usually yields the violent logic of “me against them.” Systematics, then, holds a critical function (in the strict sense of critical), positing space between a overriding desire to act directly and the need to think that action through.

In saying this, however, I would contend that the proof of my argument is in the pudding. Thus, I want, secondly, to challenge skeptics of this idea to a task. For 30 days, read someone–an op-ed columnist, perhaps–with whom you greatly disagree. (I make my critical thinking students do something like this, by the way.) Come to know their thought and be able to think their thought after them to such a degree that you’re able to predict how they would be able to approach specific questions. Get into the intelligibility of what they say. I believe that you will have a simultaneous experience. You will be freed not from your disagreement of the person but of your desire to belittle them. This is no small step as too often it is our desire to belittle that deprives from basic understandings of opposing positions. You will also become freed, however, to see through holes in your previous worldview such that, even if you’re still not open to this particular person’s thought in and of itself, you are open to new positions and new possibilities from other persons with competing worldviews.

Take all that and apply it to the attempt to illuminate a basic theological worldview, and you’ll hopefully see the importance of systematic theology and its practice. Systematic theology illuminates new possibilities for the expression of faith for the activist and theologian alike such that neithers’ expression could remain absolute in its contextuality.

Does this, by the way,  mean that the activist must stop her work? Absolutely not! It simply reminds the activist that it takes more than their work to open the possibility of their work in the first place. Her work will open up new grounds by means of which to think through world, for sure; but it also rests on the illumination of worldviews that both she and others have opened up through theological and philosophical exploration in the first place.

Maybe I should explain. There seem to be two Peter Rollins

•  the mesmerizing author and speaker credited with such wondrous works as How (Not) to Speak of God, The Orthodox Heretic, and now  Insurrection, who helps people’s faith by relieving them of their  superfluous religious facades.
• the suspicious and sinister author and speaker who mystifies critics with his ability to deconstruct (ie. deceive) and entertain (ie. trick) people into asking Slovoj Zizek into their heart – and thus agreeing to go to hell.

As you can see there are two distinct Peter Rollins. And here is the thing, I like them both.

 I like what Peter Rollins is up to and I like what people think that he is up to. 

I buy books for my nephews and nieces. The favorites are Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne and Peter Rollins. These books challenge their hearts, expand their minds, and help their faith. They would have one view of Peter Rollins.

His new book is Insurrection and he is in full form during this hour.

If you like what you hear or what to express some concern, come over here [link] and sound off.

Caputo Writes lots of books.  He mentions Some Philosophers…Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction and Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude.

* We are excited about Doug Pagitt coming to Soularize!

* ‘Like’ John Caputo on facebook

Open Theology (we stated) was primarily:

• A) grounded in a reading of Scripture – versus other schools of theology that are a result of philosophical or systematic concerns.
• B) focused on a specific aspect of concentration: the opened ended nature of the future.

This explains why Open does not even attempt to account for everything ( atonement theories for instance) or provide a totalizing system as other schools of thought sometimes do.

 So my theory is this: I have found that Open Theology tends to appeal primarily to folks – often of some fashion of evangelical persuasion,  past or present – who get trapped between three other boundaries.

1. That theologies based on philosophy require a priori commitments before one can even begin to interact with the ideas. Philosophical theologies like Process are too abstract and require too many mental gymnastics. When someone looks into Process (or many other schools) and wades into the explanation against substance/matter and its replacement with packets of time/moments/actualities – it is just too much jabber-talkie and vocabulary.
2. That Biblical Scholarship is too much work behind the text before one ever gets to the text. In fact, that work behind the text may keep one from engaging the text much at all. Biblical Scholarship has become so elaborate, contentious, and contradictory that it is intimidating to even begin. Sometimes you just want to read the Bible and talk about what it means! 
3. That the round-and-round cul-de-sac conversations of bumper-sticker Calvinism vs. ‘Arminianism’ are exhausting and pointless. Open thought gets you out of that endless loop of antiquated argumentation.*

This is the appeal of Open Theology. It avoids the a priori assumptions of so much philosophical theology, it gets you into the text instead of spending all your time behind the text and it gets you out of the repetitive circular logic of centuries past.
Those three thing appeal to a distinct group of people.

*  (I’m not talking about real Calvin-Calvinist like the honorable Paul Capetz.)

In the intro we  have fun dreaming of Johnny Depp playing Pete Rollins in The Insurrection movie  with Christopher Walken as John Caputo. (Bo has unofficially trademarked this idea -so don’t get any fancy plans)

Come to SOULARIZE Oct 18-20 & Chill w/ us, Deacons, and a herd of awesome peoples!

Also worth noting for those of you who are into Holy Smokes, Tripp was smoking a Rocky Patel 1992 during the interview.

In the podcast Tripp recommends Paul Fiddes’ The Creative Suffering of God & Participating in God.

I love when he says things like:

The kingdom of God is the rule of weak forces like patience and forgiveness, which, instead of forcibly exacting payment for offense, release and let go. The kingdom is found whenever war and aggression are met with an offer of peace. The kingdom is a way of living, not in eternity, but in time, a way of living with out why, living for the day, like the lilies the field–figures of weak forces–as opposed to mastering and programming time, calculating the future, containing and managing risk. The kingdom reigns whenever the least and most undesirable our favor all the best and most powerful or put on the defensive. The powerless power of the kingdom prevails when ever the one is preferred to the ninety-nine, whenever one loves one’s enemies and hates one’s father and mother while the world, which believes in power, counsels us to fend off our enemies and keep the circle of kin and kind, of family and friends, fortified and tightly drawn.”  - The Weakness of God p. 15

All of this has been on my mind lately because of two upcoming events:

•  At Soularize (October 18-20 in San Diago) I will get to meet and share the stage with John Caputo at our Homebrewed Christianity live 3-D event.
• I have been editing both the Merold Westphal interview where Tripp asks about Wesphal’s good friend & sparring partner John Caputo as well as the Kevin Corcoran (Church in the Present Tense) interview for the following week. Both are not the biggest fans of what Caputo brings to the table.

In part two of the Westphal interview, Westphal asserts that he finds Caputo’s brand of ‘theology’ a bit like “thin soup”.  His thinking  (starts in minute 21 and goes to minute 28) is that if the promise of the future is just the logical possibility that the future will be better than the present, that is just wishing. What we need, he says, is a more active speech-act performing God.

He then goes on to say that he doesn’t understand why Caputo continues to call himself a Catholic and then takes it even further to ask why he even calls himself religious! What?

Is this where we are at in Christian theology these days? I hear this line of thinking all the time (albeit not often from someone as renowned as Westphal).

 I think that the future is a tough thing to be too dogmatic about. I get Panneberg’s proleptic possibility in his eschatology of hope. But that is hope … which, in my mind, is like one degree removed from wishing. So the acceptable options are a) certianty or b) hope, but anything less confident than that is unacceptable?

I know that Westphal’s thinking is based on much bigger issues than just the future, but it is an odd one to focus on in my opinion.

Let me be clear so that we don’t get off topic. I love reading John Caputo. I don’t just mean on philosophy or about other thinkers. I mean when he talks about Christianity – as a Christian.

I find him both intellectually inspiring and spiritual nourishing. So when somebody calls what he brings to the table ‘thin soup’, I am a bit perplexed.

Normally, I am not one to get defensive – so is it enough to simply say that I disagree with the honorable guest of Episode 114 on this one?

Thanks to Tad & Stephen for setting up the interview. Ohh that sweet pic was taken while I was interviewing Merold.

In the episode we discuss…

- Heidegger & The Onto-theological Critique

- Evangelicalism

- Growing up a dispensationalist and ending up a Christian philosopher

- Hegel, the social constitution of the self, & the located nature of ‘reason’

-Necessary Conditions for Christian Theism…God is personal & speaks

- Pseudo Dionysius, Augustine, Aquinas, Feuerbach & negative theology

- Revelation, the Word of God, and Human Receptivity

* This podcast if free…Consider Helping Build a Well w/ a Deacon Shane Galloway! Pretty Please! Click & Give

* Join us @soularize Oct 18-20

Here’s Dalferth’s books.  I give a big’ole recommendation to Philosophy and Theology. I imagine you can guess the content but it is an amazing survey of all the different relationships philosophy and theology have taken.  I can promise that it is both an introduction and an eye opener.

* Next Week….Theology and Economics with Joerg Rieger

* Come to Soularize October 18-20! John Caputo, Philip Clayton, Monica Coleman, Peter Rollins, Jay Bakker, Bill Mallonee, and the Blue Like Jazz movie!

*Don’t forget to HOLLA at the HBC podcast @ 678-590-BREW!

Tripp puts them in contrast to Progressive, Emergent and Evangelical. We recorded this before the posts Goosing Emergents into the Mainline. 

This is part 2 of 3 for the current TNT series (Theology Nerd Throwdown).

Facebook Peeps Click HERE to Listen

As the old saying goes, “when it rains, it pours.” And somehow, the world has been pouring spirituality down on me as of late! I have to admit, I’ve rather enjoyed it.

Despite this pouring out of spirituality in my life, I’ve noticed a theme emerge in these spiritual formation courses and opportunities that need not be there. Often times, spiritual organizations “market” (for honest lack of a better term) themselves in such a way that they will help you to get “deeper” into the divine than any silly dogmatic, doctrinal, or intellectual statement could ever bring you; they’ll help you to enter into God more personally. While the latter clause certainly presents a good goal, I simply wonder whether the former method—getting beyond doctrinal statements and properly reflective thinking—is necessary to it.

The unfortunate view that we moderns and “post-moderns” have adopted with regard to intellectuality is that we tend to think of it as somehow “neutral,” “unaffected by the world around it,” “objective,” and after truths for which we have no feeling. (“Postmoderns,” if this word means anything in particular, would generally deny that we are neutral but tend to uphold neutrality as something like an ideal for perfected reason). So we conceive of the height of intellect in terms of calculative procedures: hypothesizing, experimenting, verifying, and tabulating. We’ve defined thinking, in other words, by the empirical method that emerges from the Enlightenment and its focus on the natural sciences. I actually don’t think this is such a bad view of intellect in certain situations, but I do think it constitutes a reduction of the intellect and its ideality such that, with this notion in mind, it is no wonder that talk of getting beyond intellect for getting deeper into the divine emerges in this context.

Yet, intellectualism has not always been thought of in this way. Take Plato. For Plato, the intellect is something like another desire. That is, in the same way that a hungry stomach desires food, the intellect desires truth. Indeed, for Plato, the intellect is given over to an erotic drive to reach the Truth, the entirety of which I need not get into. The point being thus: the intellect is far from a neutral observer of things that merely convey s ideas through words to a detached mind. The intellect is passionate, directed, and “in love.” The intellect is our movement through the real to God in God’s self, at least for Plato.

We can see this Platonic principle at work, too, in a myriad of Christian mystics and thinkers, namely, the idea that the intellect does not merely hinder our relationship with the divine, but is a properly spiritual avenue for expressing that relationship. Such an understanding has been generally called “faith seeking understanding.” One need not go any further than Anselm, the founder of this saying, to understand the true context of this saying. His Monologion especially is an intellectual appropriation of a prior faith given to him by the spirit and expressed in words. It is a prayer, or an intellectual reflection on his prayers, that grasps at doctrines such as the nature of God’s Trinitarian being and Goodness, among other things.

This isn’t to say that Anselm believes himself to understood or thought through his faith fully, which is why there is a sense in which “going beyond intellect” holds some sway in spirituality. Rather than “getting beyond” intellect, I think the better way to think through the issue is in the following ways. On the one hand, one cannot properly think through the being of God without being centered in God’s being pre-cognitively; on the other hand, if one is brought into the being of God pre-cognitively, then thinking is a perfect expression of one’s spirituality and one of the major means through which we come to, worship, and exist in relationship to God.

In other words, thinking through doctrine such as the nature of the being of the God-man, the Trinity, the idea of salvation, etc., is anything but a hindrance to entering into a deeper spiritual relationship with God. I would at least claim that, as a Christian, thoughtful reflection on precisely these doctrines allow us to draw ever nearer to the divine and the divine’s love for us, found for us on all sides of the cross. The key, then, is to simply not accept the statements dogmatically—as calculative beliefs that, should we ascent to them, allow us entrance into heaven or, should we reject them, send us straight to hell. Nor should we accept such doctrines as somehow objectively and empirically verifiable, able to be found without God bringing us specifically into God’s own being such that these become meaningful doctrines in the first place. Rather, these latter two types of thinking are the ones that today’s spirituality promises to get us beyond—and rightly so!

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Doctrinal statement is already a part of spirituality, for one can only write it and utter it with any form of seriousness by already being within the spirit.

All this said, I’m working through these spiritual disciplines and books, and I will definitely continue to do so. I’ve benefitted greatly from them. However, I would also like the chance to more deeply engage in a spirituality of the Cross, a spirituality of the Resurrection, a spirituality of Trinitarian relations or of the Spirit intimately involved with all these movements and events, even known only as such in and through them. Obviously, such spiritualities are out there, and it would probably, at most, take some light googling to find spiritual exercises focused in such doctrines. But it is worth noting that, however such spiritualities and spiritual formation courses would be put together with such an emphasis, they would need to retain a deep intellectual content to them—a content that neither takes one away from doctrinal formulation nor from spiritual depth but pushes one deeper into both.

Such spiritualities would require that we change our manner of thinking about what thinking is and is supposed to do. Rather, we would need to take seriously the statement found in the picture at the beginning of this post—a saying of Heidegger’s posted at the beginning of a trail in the Black Forest dedicated to him. The sign says something like, “in thinking is each thing long and slow.” That’s probably good spiritual advice.

I am a John Cobb FANIAC!  Here’s a super sweet post from Cobb that all HBC Deacons should read. It is from the first Open & Relational theology gathering at the American Academy of Religion.  It collects all sorts of people….Process theologians, Open Theists, and Social Trinitarians.

First, we believe that we are speaking of a real God. For two centuries, now, this has become increasingly difficult, and increasingly rare, in academic and intellectual contexts. Down through the eighteenth century, the question of God’s reality was assumed to be a metaphysical one. Either the word “God” referred to a reality independent of human thought, language, and belief, or else there was in fact no reference. If one adopted the latter position, one was an atheist. But atheism was rare in European society in those centuries. Although much about God could be known, many thought, only by revelation, the existence of God was evident to reason.

Hume showed that once one accepts the empiricist idea that knowledge of what is not our own experience comes to us only through the senses, there is no cognitive basis for affirming God’s reality. Kant agreed that there is no way to the reality of God through theoretical reason. Still, through his analysis of practical reason, he justified positing the reality of God. Since then the emphasis has been on the positing, that is, on the human act that grounds affirmation of God, rather than on the reality of what is posited. Theology has become, largely, anthropology.

The linguistic turn in philosophy and other disciplines accentuated this move away from the metaphysical reality of God. “God” is recognized to be a bit of language. Such bits of language have their meaning in their relation to other bits of language, not by referring to any nonlinguistic entity. In this context, the question of the metaphysical reality of God, that is, of God’s existence prior to, and apart from, human language cannot even arise.

The Kantian turn to the creativity of the human mind in shaping experience and the linguistic turn to the great importance of language in shaping how we understand ourselves and our world have both made great contributions to our understanding. But from my point of view as a realist, both grossly exaggerate. The world we live in is not in fact created by our minds. We are created by the world. Language does refer to that which is not language.

For our present discussion, the crucial issue is God. In my opinion one of the reasons, a very important reason, for the decline of the old-line churches, is vagueness about the reality of God. It is hard to worship and serve either something that we posit or a bit of language. We may provide all kinds of reasons to continue supporting the church that do not involve the reality of God, but these do not evoke the depths at which Christian faith in its fullness lives.

The most powerful response in the twentieth century was the appeal to revelation and faith. The Neo-reformation movement argued that the God of reason was never the God of Christian faith. That God is known only through God’s self-revelation. This was largely identified with Jesus Christ, although, in a secondary sense, at least, the Jewish scriptures were also regarded as revelatory. There was no question but that, for those in this movement, what is revealed is real, although its reality remained obscure to reason.

Hume had made the point much earlier that belief in God must be a matter of faith disconnected from reason. In his writings, this seems cynical. Believing that for which there is, and can be, no rational justification whatsoever does not seem a wise or socially desirable thing in Hume’s world. That it was taken up with great success as the rallying cry for the Christian faith in the twentieth century seems remarkable. It certainly helped the old-line churches to regain some of their lost vitality.

Nevertheless, there are inherent dangers in disconnecting religious beliefs from the rest of human understanding and knowledge. The conviction that these disconnected beliefs are true is difficult to maintain. One must appeal more and more to the supernatural. The whole secular educational system makes this more and more difficult. In fact, neo-orthodoxy faded as a real option for most people after the initial excitement subsided, including most members of old-line churches. Sadly, nothing has replaced it as a unifying ground for belief in God’s reality.

Radical empiricism provides an alternative to Hume and Kant and all those who follow them. It argues that our relation to that which is not our immediate experience is not exhausted by sense data, or rather that our immediate experience includes relations that are nonsensory. Whitehead provides the most systematic account of these relations. In his account, a prehension is the way in which one actuality participates in the constitution of another actuality. Thus relations to a real world are inherent in every experience. That there is a real world is not something we have to derive from sense data. On the contrary, we can show that sense data arise out of more fundamental relations.

This analysis supports the independent reality of that which is other. Of course, it also shows that that reality is quite different from the appearances given us in our sense experience. It is a world of subjects, not a world of colors and sounds that is the primary reality. Whiteheadian realism is a very critical realism.

By itself radical empiricism, including its Whiteheadian formulation, does not assert the reality of God. It simply reopens the door to that discussion. Once the door is reopened, Whitehead and Hartshorne both find convincing reasons for affirming the reality of God. This is not the place to rehearse the arguments.

The understanding of God whose reality they affirm is quite different from that of much of the Christian tradition. Both Whitehead and Hartshorne thought that their understanding of God is closer to what is embodied in and affirmed by Jesus than is the dominant tradition. Those of us who call ourselves process theologians agree with them. We find that their view also fits with the actual experience of many believers. It cuts through intellectual puzzles that trouble them. It gives sensible guidance for life.

In short it is realistic in a second sense. Although it challenges the dominant models of thought of the modern era, it does so in ways that fit the actual evidence of the sciences. Although it challenges the dominant inherited theology, it does so in ways that release the most convincing features of the Christian faith from immersion in incredible and damaging ideas.

There are many Christian communities that have not gone through this tortuous history. We may say that, in many ways, they are fortunate. But they have also had problems. The reality of God, taken for granted in these communities, is asserted in ways that create intellectual puzzles and conflict with life experience. The doctrines affirmed are sometimes discordant with what the serious reader finds in the Bible. Hence, apart from concern about the dominant philosophical context, the issue of realism, in the second sense, arises here also. Are the doctrines of traditional theism realistic?

What is striking is that reflection coming out of life experience and Biblical study in communities that have taken for granted the reality of God converge so far with the ideas of God that come from those who have wrestled with, and proposed alternatives to, the dominant philosophical views. We know that some in the conservative evangelical community have used this convergence to discredit those who have been engaged in fresh thinking. Understandably, therefore, some emphasize the remaining differences. That emphasis may be needed.

In any case, tensions continue. Conservative evangelicals may remain suspicious of some of the styles of biblical criticism that inform the approach to scripture of old-line Christians. Old-line Christians may feel that conservative evangelicals are slow to rethink some of their social and ethical views in light of the primacy of God’s love. Conservative evangelicals may think that old-line Christians are too concerned about philosophical grounding and about shaping Christian beliefs in light of that grounding. Old-line Christians may think that conservative evangelicals do not fully appreciate the importance of the philosophical tradition in undercutting belief in God’s reality among thoughtful people in the modern world.

Neverthelesss, our meeting together here suggests to me that these tensions and mutual suspicions are not determinative. They are topics for discussion. I hope and believe that what we share as Christian believers will prove stronger than the divergences that reflect the different paths through which our communities have come to this point. In my opinion, the inherited lines of division may give way to new ones that more usefully point to the issues of the twenty-first century rather than to those of the nineteenth.

Conservative evangelicals who interpret revelation in terms of the love embodied in and taught by Jesus Christ will not be too different from Christians in old-line churches who also understand God in terms of this same love. Both will strive to express that love in relation to other people and, indeed, to all other creatures.

While old-line believers have convinced themselves that the theology they have developed under the influence of radical empiricism and specifically Whitehead and Hartshorne is responsibly biblical, we have known that are interpretation is deeply affected by our philosophy. Hence, in many circles it is suspect, and we are often ourselves unsure as to the extent to which we may be involved in eisegesis. It is a source of profound reassurance when we find that others, not specially influenced by this philosophy, find in the Bible much of what we have found. Their work greatly enriches and strengthens ours.

On the other side, we believe that it is also important to relate our Christian faith to the natural and social sciences, to other religious communities, to the critical political and global issues of our time. We do not see that conservative evangelical friends have dealt as much with these issues as have we. We think that some of the work we have done along these lines may enrich those with whom we increasingly share the kernel of our faith.

There are other ways in which I hope for mutual enrichment. Old-line believers have too often, in recent decades, treated their faith as but one commitment among others. I hope that relating in this larger community will lead us to recover the wholeheartedness that has been better embodied by conservative evangelicals. On the other side, conservative evangelicals may join with old-line believers in a fuller repentance for the crimes committed in the past, and even today, in the name of Christ.

I do not mean in all this to minimize the importance of differences or to discourage debate. A healthy community includes diversity, and differences among those who are part of the same community often generate the most intense debates. I mean only to express my appreciation that we have defined ourselves, under the leadership of Tom Oord, as a single community, at least as a single community of discourse, inclusive of differences. Since our shared commitment to a real God of love is in fact a challenge to much of the tradition as well as to the intellectual and cultural leadership of our world, let us work in complementary ways to make that challenge effective.

1. Socially-conscious but not reductionist: I generally affirm Christian progressivism’s forays into fights for gay-rights, its support of ecological responsibility, and its dedication to helping the underprivileged. After all, I find all of these issues of utmost contemporary social importance and believe that, to no small degree, the Gospel helps us to address social problems prophetically. There is a huge difficulty, however, when progressives confuse these principles of their social morality with the Gospel itself; they too often implicitly believe not that God came to save the world as a whole but to ensure that we drive hybrids and vote Democrat. The Gospel, however, is and must be grounded in something beyond social issues and progressive answers to them or else the Gospel would provide no means for actually assessing such issues; rather, the Gospel would become a piece of propaganda defined by these social issues and our answers to them. I personally would have no interest in such a Gospel.

2. Christianity is not a gateway religion: I’m afraid that I’m not onboard with my progressive, mystical buddies who think that, by affirming some ultimate reality beyond the Christian faith, they are engaging in some deeper and more coherent form of faith. I’m Christian, rather, in the sense that, as a Christian, I’ve found myself able to love because God has first loved me. God is, after all, love; and when I say this, I don’t mean that we can throw away the term God in its Christian form and retain the term love. I mean that love only makes sense in the prior and cross-bound form of God as Trinity. My desire to communicate with persons, for instance, of “other faiths” (for a total lack of a better term) does not reflect my desire to overcome old Christian dogmatic statements (pursuit of the truth allows me that luxury) but stems from the self-expropriations pushed for, and demanded by, the dynamic persons of the Godhead. God, as Trinity, is always moving toward “the other,” including us.

3. Yes, sin is social…and still original. The talk of original sin in the neo-Calvinistic forms gets old; but so, too, does the talk of something like the intrinsic goodness of humanity in progressive circles. The benefits of the latter group, however, is that it has rightly recognized something like a proper “ontology of sin”: the fact that sin is not simply a matter of whether I myself am good or bad but that my self—intrinsically relational as it is—is bound to sin because the cosmos (yes, even so-called nature) as a whole is bound to the violence of sin. However, there is a certain lack of recognition, sometimes, that Progressive solutions to the problem of sin are as bound to sin as the rest of the cosmos. Progressives too often think that they’ve found the right set of issues and answers .If the world as a whole, however, is bound to sin, so, too, are the progressives who try to contain it, and the benefit of admitting to this fact is twofold. First, we can recognize that there is only so much that we human person can do to set things right and that we ultimately need God, who comes to us on a cross, to set thing right. Second, we can recognize that even our attempts to set things right are bound to a certain amount of failure: they will advocate in some manner not God’s will and intentions for the world but our own as we try to re-orient that which we call “Good” to our own positions. Knowing this allows us to rightly settle for “better” rather than “best” with the full recognition that our own understanding of what is both “better” and “best” are, for now, intrinsically skewed.

- From Deacon Fackenthal

David E. Fitch’s new book, The End of Evangelicalism?, brings together about the two most unlikely conversation partners I could imagine–Slavoj Žižek and American Evangelicalism.  And it does so with surprisingly good results.  I have to admit, since I don’t really consider myself an evangelical and don’t generally accept the major tenets of evangelical theology (Biblical inerrancy or substitutionary atonement), I approached Fitch’s book with high intrigue and moderate expectations.  But I can honestly say that every expectation was greatly exceeded.

The End of Evangelicalism? begins with the premise that evangelicalism in North America has experienced a crisis.  Fitch agrees that we may well be living in what can more appropriately be called a post-evangelical age.  In order to diagnose this crisis (and death?) of evangelicalism, Fitch employs the critical theory of Slavoj Žižek, the left-wing Hegelian, Lacanian, atheist who has in recent years become the rock star of postmodern philosophy.  Fitch examines three dearly held convictions among evangelicals–belief in the inerrant Bible, the decision for Christ, and belief in the Christian nation–using Žižekian analysis to demonstrate through each how evangelicalism has devolved into a set of beliefs that are empty at the core.  In his analysis Fitch is clear to say that, unlike Žižek, he does not believe that Christianity itself is empty at the core.  He does not think that Christian beliefs “are somehow necessarily false or illusory,” but he argues that the way in which evangelicals voice and practiced them leads toward a reified set of beliefs which then become ideology.  For both Žižek and Fitch, it is this ideology that is truly empty at its core.

If you have read only a bit of Žižek or are completely intimidated by Žižek, fear not.  Fitch takes some difficult concepts and makes them easily accessible to those uninitiated in contemporary critical theory.  The first chapter of the book provides some background into Žižek’s social critique and draws out the concepts that Fitch employs in the next three chapters, which deal with the three beliefs he sees as signaling the devolution of evangelicalism into ideology.  The most important Žižekian concept for Fitch is that of the master signifier–”a conceptual object around which people give their allegiance thereby enabling a political group to form.”  Yet master signifiers don’t actually stand for anything concrete, and hence they are “empty signifiers.”

Fitch argues that Biblical inerrancy, the decision for Christ, and the Christian nation are all master signifiers, since they shape an ideology around which evangelicals organize themselves and their witness in the world.  Biblical inerrancy becomes nothing more than an identifier or a “badge” to prove one’s evangelical standing, since it doesn’t actually say anything about what a given church or organization believes regarding Biblical interpretation.  In fact, what the master signifier of Biblical inerrancy does (and what each of these master signifiers do) is allow us “to believe without believing.”  Each of these master signifiers organizes people’s allegiance and belief around an idea that remains empty at the core.

What Fitch suggests instead is that these empty signifiers be replaced with beliefs and practices informed by the fullness of Christ.  Out of this will come a politic of mission that adopts “a posture that embodies socially the incarnate presence of God in Christ that participates in his mission in the world.”  The important word here is “participation.”  It is only when evangelicals (or Christians of any stripe) embody the gospel, embody what it means to be a follower of Christ, and live out a Christ-centered politic in the world that empty-at-the-core ideology will be replaced with the fullness of an incarnational theology.  The last chapter of the book articulates exactly how this might happen, taking again each of the three beliefs in turn.

In the epilogue, Fitch looks briefly at four evangelicals who are practicing the sort of politic of mission described here:  Peter Rollins, Brian McClaren , and Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost.  While Fitch has points of contention with each of these authors, he sees in them promise for the future of the post-evangelical world.

Whether you are an evangelical, a progressive, or a progressive evangelical, I highly recommend reading Fitch’s book and grappling with his critiques.  The fun thing about master signifiers is that we all eventually fall into their trap.