Equipping grassroots theologians for creative thinking, engaging, and living.
In ‘Religion in the Making
Why?
One could assume that Religion is, or at least has become, part of the world’s problem yet Whitehead is insistent that true religion in its various expressions shares a commitment to the world we live in. As a Christian who believes that God is with us, in Christ and in life, I want to echo his claim that religion is world-loyalty. Not only does a healthy expression of the Christian religion have a strong world-loyalty, but we believe God does.
Elgin did not want to leave my lap last night so we read through a favorite Paul Tillich book of mine from undergrad. It is a short book, 85 pages, based on a lecture series he gave where he connected the philosophical quest with the heart of Biblical religion. He concludes the last lecture by saying, ‘The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the God of the philosophers is the same God. He is a person and the negation of himself as a person.‘ The discussion that arrived there is a good one and a fun read for the interested, but everyone will probably enjoy this one:
The basic error of fundamentalism is that it overlooks the contribution of the receptive side in the revelatory situation and consequently identifies one individual and conditioned form of receiving the divine with the divine itself.
No one can celebrate
a genuine Christmas
without being truely poor.
The self-sufficient, the proud,
those who, because they have
everything, look down on others,
those who have no need
even of God, for them there
will be no Christmas.
Only the poor, the hungry,
those who need someone
to come on their behalf,
will have that someone.
That someone is God.
Emmanuel. God-with-us.
Without poverty of spirit
there can be no abundance of God.
I really like this poem and used it in my Advent reflection for this week of ‘Hope.’ Hope you enjoy it. [Read more...]
The traditional doctrines of theology do not solve the painful problem of evil. The ordinary conception of the creation of the world and the Fall turns it all into a divine comedy, a play that God plays with himself….The freedom through which the creature succumbs to evil has been given to it by God, in the last resort have been determined by God….When in difficulities, positive theology falls back upon mystery and finds refuge in negative theology. But the mystery has already been over-rationalized….Freedom is not determined by God.
I recently got a copy of Niebuhr’s journal as a young man and young minister, ‘Leaves From the Notebooks of a Tamed Cynic’ at a used book sale and what a steal it was for a whole 25 cents. Here’s two zinger quotes. If you are a cynical Christian or recent div school grad this book is very theraputic.
As a preacher you must conserve other interests besides the truth. It is your business to deal circumspectly with the whole religious inheritance lest the virtues which are involved in the older traditions perish through your iconoclasm. That is a formidable task and a harassing one; for one can never be quite sure where pedagogical caution and dishonesty begins…I can’t blame them (the congregation) for not having the bright new knowledge of a recent seminarian, but the ministry is the only profession in which you can make a virtue of ignorance. If you have only read commentaries for twenty years, that is supposed to invest you with an aura of sanctity and piety. Every profession has its traditions and its traditionalists. But the traditionalists in the pulpit are much more certain than the others that the Lord is on their side.
If he had only had TBN when he was in seminary……
We make ‘acceptance of Jesus as your savior’ the real door into the fellowship of the church. But the trouble is that this may mean everything or nothing. I see no way of making the Christian fellowship unique by any series of tests which precede admission. The only possibility lies in a winnowing process through the instrumentality of the preaching and teaching function of the church. Let them come in without great difficulty, but make it difficult to stay in. The trouble with this plan is that it is always easy to load up your membership with very immature Christians who will finally set the standard and make it impossible to preach and to teach the gospel in its full implications.
I know I have thought this one before.
This quote is from the end of ‘Adventure of Ideas’ and edited by Cobb:
Peace is primarily a trust in the efficacy of Beauty. This trust in self-justification of Beauty introduces faith, where reason fails to reveal the details. And this trust finally comes as a gift. The gift of trust comes largely beyond the control of purpose. The comes through the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something who possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest.
This is again a quote from Moltmann‘s ‘The Spirit of Life.’ The distinction between freedom ‘from’ and freedom ‘for’ something is important for Christians to recognize or else the freedom we have in God may amount to a transaction or a spiritual enlightenment and not being freed to join the God Movement in our God’s world.
“To what is freedom’s hope directed? ‘How much more,’ Paul often says, when he thinking about ‘freedom from….but is talking about ‘freedom for….’ How much greater is the future than the past! How much greater is God’s grace than the sins of men and women! How much more is freedom in its own world than mere liberation from slavery! It is true that in history we experience, it is easier to name the negative thing from which we want to be freed than the positive thing for which we hope to be free. But it is hope for the greater future which leads us to ever new experiences in history. That is the surplus of hope in life, and the added value of the future in history.” (120)
Ohh and yes this is for you cathyrn.
This quote is from Moltmann’s The Spirit of Life:
Because of God’s cross, creation already lives from God, and will be transformed in God. Without the cross of Christ this vision of ‘the world in God’ would be pure illusion. The suffereing of one, single child would prove it to be so. Without perception of the suffering of God’s inexhaustible love, no pantheism, no panentheism can endure in this world of death. They would very soon end up in pan-nihilism (213).
This quote is from ‘Religion in the Making,’ which I have been rereading only to find more sweet quotes for the sharing. Enjoy this one, it is a goodie and a point that sounds similar to Doug Pagitt in his newest book. [Read more...]
