Roger Olson

There is a Difference Between Liberal and Progressive

February 11, 2013 by Bo Sanders 57 Comments

Roger Olson caused some ripples last week when he posted “Why I am not a Liberal Christian”. Then Scot McKnight went and took it even farther with “What is a Liberal Anyway” and said :

“Evangelicals have successfully made “liberal” a pejorative term. So today many liberals call themselves “progressives.”

I want to be clear about 2 things:

Liberal and Progressive are not the same thing. I hear this accusation from conservative evangelicals all the time that young/cool liberals just hide behind the term ‘progressive’. This view is very dismissive and not very informed.

I grew up evangelical. Scot McKnight and my father car-pooled to seminary together when I was a kid in Chicago. I went to the Billy Graham School of Evangelism. I get Evangelical.
I am now part of the Emergent stream and I serve at a Mainline church and go to a Mainline seminary.

So please believe me when I say that there is as big a difference between Liberal and Progressive and there is between Evangelical and Emergent.

The clearest articulation I have heard comes from John Cobb in episode 101 of the Homebrewed Christianity podcast.

Liberal simply mean that one’s experience is a valid location for doing theology.

Progressives are folks that would be Liberal but who have learned from Feminist, Liberation and Post-Colonial critiques. *

Here are Olsen’s 6 markers for determining if one is Liberal:

First, I look at their overall view of reality. Do they think the universe is open to God’s special activity in what might be called, however infelicitously, “miracles?” Do they believe in supernatural acts of God including especially the bodily resurrection of Jesus including the empty tomb? If not, I tend to think they are liberal theologically.

Second, I look at their approach to “doing theology.” How do they approach knowing God? Do they begin with and recognize the authority of special revelation? Or do they begin with and give norming authority to human experience, culture, science, philosophy, “the best of contemporary thought?” That is, do they “do” theology “from above” or “from below?” Insofar as they do theology “from below” I tend to think they are liberal theologically.

Third, I look at their Christology. Do they think Jesus was different from other “great souls” among us in kind or only in degree? Is their Christology truly incarnational, affirming the preexistence of the Word who become human as Jesus Christ, or is it functional only, affirming only that Jesus Christ represented God, was God’s “deputy and advocate” among men and women? Insofar as their Chistology is functional and not ontologically incarnational, trinitarian, I tend to think they are theologically liberal.

Fourth, I look at their view of Scripture. Do they believe the Bible is “inspired insofar as it is inspiring,” a wisdom-filled source of religious illumination and record of our “spiritual ancestors’” experiences of God? Or do they believe the Bible is supernaturally inspired such that in some sense God is its author—not necessarily meaning God dictated it or even verbally inspired it? Another way of putting that “test” is similar to the Christological one above: Is the Bible different only in degree from other great books of spiritual wisdom or in kind from them? Insofar as they view the Bible as different only in degree, I tend to think they are liberal theologically.

Fifth, I look at their view of salvation. Do they believe salvation is forgiveness and reconciliation with God as well as being made whole and holy by God’s grace alone or do they believe salvation is only a realization of human potential—individual or social—by spiritual enlightenment and moral endeavor? Insofar as they think the latter, I tend to think they are theologically liberal.

Sixth, I look at their view of the future. Do they believe in a real return of Jesus Christ, however conceived, to bring about a new world of righteousness? Or do they believe the “return of Christ” is a myth that expresses an existential experience and/or social transformation only? Insofar as they believe it is only a symbol, myth or metaphor, I tend to think they are liberal theologically.

Olson says that the problem with being Liberal is that “I find it thin, ephemeral, light, profoundly unsatisfying. It seems to me barely different from being secular humanist.”

I object! Look, I’m no liberal – but I hang out with lots of them and to say that it is barely different from secular humanism is just non-sense. These are people who:
A) participate in the Christian tradition
B) use Christian narrative and vocabulary and
C) belong to Christian community.

Those are 3 powerful and good things – whether or not they have ‘thin’ theology.

Next is where the real contention comes. Olson says:

If I ever wake up and find that I think like a true theological liberal, I hope I will be honest enough to stop calling myself “Christian.”

This is a terrible line of reasoning. Liberal Christianity is a kind of Christianity! Being a liberal Christian doesn’t mean you are not a christian – it just means that you are not that type of Christian.

This is the Santa Clause problem I keep talking about. It’s the equivalent of saying ‘If there is no Santa Clause and Jesus wasn’t literally born on December 25 – then Christmas isn’t worth celebrating.’ Yes it is. It has all sorts of inherent worth and intrinsic value … it’s just not where you thought it was.

So to both Olson and McKnight I want to say ‘I get what you are up to. I agree with 80% of it. But it is that final 20% that is really concerning and threatens to compromise the integrity of that other 80%’.

_______

* Progressive does not mean that all change (progress) is good or that history is always progressing toward justice and enlightenment.

Filed Under: emergent, latest, thinking Tagged With: Bible, blog, book, books, church, definition, Emergent, evangelical, God, jesus, Liberal, Mainline, progressive, Roger Olson, Scot McKnight

Proposing an Alternative to the Predicament

April 5, 2012 by Bo Sanders 2 Comments

Part 1 of Peter Bannister’s review is here.

Sketching an alternative proposal

What options then may be open to readers who share Clayton’s and Knapp’s concern for a dynamic Christology, but who want to retain a more traditional theological framework?

Here I can of course only offer the briefest of sketches, but you might call my tentative proposal ‘semi-adoptionist’, for want of a better term, drawing on Philip Clayton’s former Doktorvater Wolfhart Pannenberg. What if we retain the pre-incarnate Logos – it is absolutely the Second Person of the Trinity who takes flesh -, but radicalize the kenosis of Philippians 2 by taking seriously the free acceptance by the Logos of subjection to physical and mental developmental processes (from conception to Cross) including all they entails in the light of our limited but real scientific knowledge of human physicality. Jesus as divine Son is united to the Father ontologically throughout his earthly life, but is not necessarily consciously aware of it; the Logos rather ‘starts again from zero’ in accepting the limitations imposed by inherited human DNA, neurological structure, cognitive development, development and obedience to his earthly parents (Luke 2:51-52), having to learn a human religious tradition in its particularity, and the unavoidable reality of spending around one-third of his life snoring (yes, Jesus slept as well as wept!).

In this scenario Jesus is not ‘adopted’ at Baptism or Resurrection in the sense of crossing a threshold between a ‘non-divine’ and a divine nature, but certainly attains to a new intensification of his Sonship in a ‘functional’ sense. He is anointed with the Spirit at Baptism, raised through the Spirit at Easter and exalted as Kyrios at his Ascension by virtue of having defeated the Powers in his self-emptying death on the Cross. Appropriating The Predicament’s language of emergence theory, these are real events in Jesus’s life where a new ‘emergent level’ is reached. In this scheme there is therefore authentic becoming without the radical discontinuity suggested by all-out adoptionism. At the same time this ‘becoming’ is not restricted to the humanity of Jesus; as long as we regard Christ as one person and not two and remember that his indwelling by the Spirit, his earthly life is simultaneously the experience of a human being and the life of humanity experienced by God.

To use Irenaeus’s framework of seeing Jesus’s life as a recapitulation of what it is to be a human being, I would like to suggest that the mission of his earthly existence is in some way to become in time, through a life of self-giving love and perfect obedience to the Father, the Son that he is from all eternity.

As to how it is possible to keep the notion of the eternal Son while admitting real development in Jesus’s life, I would suggest that the idea of ‘Sonship’ has two aspects which, while obviously related, are conceptually separable. This was already explored by Pannenberg in Jesus, God and Man when trying make sense of Paul’s affirmation on the one hand of Christ’s pre-existence found in expressions such as ‘God sent his Son’ (Galatians 4:4) and formulations such as Romans 1:3, where Jesus is ‘designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead’, which has sometimes been interpreted in adoptionist fashion. Pannenberg’s position is that while adoptionist language is undoubtedly Biblical, ‘the idea of Jesus’ adoption by God says too little’ and that – quoting Paul Althaus – ‘Jesus was what he is before he knew about it’.

One aspect of the Divine Sonship is filiation, i.e. the Son as the ‘only-begotten’ of John 1:18, a status which obviously cannot be ‘renounced’ kenotically. If we are using the title ‘Son’ in this way, it seems wholly reasonable to assert that Jesus was God’s ‘Son’ even in Mary’s womb. However, once the word ‘Sonship’ is used in its second sense, invested with real content in terms of the outworking of Jesus’s character rather than merely denoting filiation, things look different; if what we talking about is Jesus’s path of self-emptying love, this inevitably requires the trajectory of a life lived. It simply can’t happen by magic.

Being a composer, let me conclude with a musical analogy. Imagine the Son’s eternal Divine nature ‘vertically’ in terms of harmony, as a chord you could strike on a piano or a guitar. Now take those same notes into the world of ‘melody’ where things happen in time, i.e. horizontally, and play them in succession from the bottom up. But don’t dampen the strings of the guitar, and leave the piano pedal down. What happens is that you arrive at the same chord. In our temporally-structured world of earthly existence, it is such a ‘melodic’ unfolding which is the only means of the ‘composing-out’ of Jesus’s Sonship (Auskomponierung in the German technical jargon of which music theorists are just as fond as systematic theologians). Something really happens. But the notes are the same as those of the chord, and the listener’s experience is enriched by the melody. Not only enriched, but hopefully inspired for her own melodic journey through life.

The project represented by The Predicament of Belief is surely an excellent and important one; Steven Knapp and Philip Clayton deserve our congratulations and gratitude for the considerable service that they have rendered both to the academy and the Church in undertaking it. But I think that I am not misinterpreting the intentions of the authors themselves in saying that their book is best taken as a starting-point and not as a final destination.

To be continued.

Doubly trained in music and systematic/philosophical theology, Peter Bannister is Associate Artistic Director and Composer-in-Association of SOLI DEO GLORIA Inc., a Chicago-based organization devoted to furthering sacred music in the Judeo-Christian tradition. He also co-directs the American Church in Paris’s participation in the John Templeton Foundation’s ‘Scientists in Congregations Ministry Initiative’, and is the author of the Music and Theology blog ‘Da stand das Meer’.

Filed Under: books, church history, emergent, engaging, latest, philosophy, thinking Tagged With: belief, Bible, book, books, church, creation, Elizabeth Johnson, Emergent Village, evolution, faith, God, Hans Kung, jesus, NT Wright, Philip Clayton, philosophy, resurrection, Roger Olson, science, Steve Knapp, theology, Ultimate Reality

Considering Clayton’s Conundrum

April 5, 2012 by Bo Sanders 11 Comments

Guest post by Peter Bannister

The Predicament of Belief by Philip Clayton and Steven Knapp is a first-rate book – both highly thought-provoking and courageous. Philip Clayton has consistently shown himself to be one of the Church’s most creative thinkers and is perhaps unequalled in offering imaginative tools for re-invigorating our approach to Christian faith ‘after Google’. For catalyzing and hosting constructive debate with a combination of intellectual vigour and graciousness there simply seems to be no-one better on the horizon of the contemporary theological landscape. So I’m a fan.

The first philosophical chapters of The Predicament of Belief, making a powerful case for the rationality of believing in a personal, benevolent Ultimate Reality, are ones with which I find myself agreeing without reservation. I start getting nervous when the authors’ ‘Christian minimalist’ position is taken as more than a pragmatic expression of what can be adduced without stepping beyond rational justifiability. When minimalism becomes a preferred option in the search not merely for human consensus but for truth about Ultimate Reality, my theological nerve-endings start jangling.

Adoptionism – the only solution ?

Here I would particularly like to focus on Christology. I’m torn between admiration for the authors’ brave attempt at a minimal ‘core Christian proposal’ that can function as a rallying-point for the contemporary Church and ambivalence towards their constructive suggestion. Is it a) the only viable truth-claim available in the present climate or b) a simple working hypothesis whose interest lies in its usefulness for stemming the decline in American mainline Protestantism, an attractive proposition to those alienated by traditional dogma? While I agree that sensitivity to those suspicious of doctrine in general is highly desirable, I find The Predicament overly pessimistic about rationally justifying anything approaching an orthodox theological viewpoint: their assumption that such a position cannot stand in the 21st century seems a little hasty. Especially as my experience is that the ‘spiritual but not religious’ constituency which minimalism hopes to attract is just as resistant to the ‘left-brain’ logical argumentation represented by The Predicament as to an insistence on literal adherence to ancient creeds.

In the book, adoptionism is presented as an option ‘that does not include the claim that the same person who became the man Jesus already existed in divine form before Jesus was born’. Instead, ‘after Jesus’s death, God somehow took this individual’s subjectivity into the divine subjectivity, commingling them in such a way that they came to dwell within each other and even to become identical to each other.’ This supposedly offers a way out of the ‘dichotomy that either Jesus continues as the identical person within the godhead or Jesus is a merely human model for others to emulate.’ This ‘may be attractive to those contemporary Christians who can’t quite believe (even if they have no way of definitively denying) the complicated assertions of classical Trinitarian thought, but who nevertheless find themselves believing in Jesus’ continuing personal presence’.

Towards the end of his concise Emergent Village presentation of the book (around the 30 minute mark on the HBC podcast), PC puts his theological hands up and admits that his preference goes to ‘adoptionist’ Christology because the alternative of an eternal preexistent Logos is not persuasive now that static Greek metaphysics have landed in the trash can of history. Not unless you believe in a ‘three bears with three chairs’ Trinity (don’t worry, you’ll understand if you listen to the audio…).

The pre-existent Logos: an obsolete accessory ? [Read more...]

Filed Under: conversations, engaging, latest, living, science, thinking Tagged With: belief, book, books, church, creation, Elizabeth Johnson, Emergent Village, evolution, faith, God, Hans Kung, jesus, NT Wright, Philip Clayton, philosophy, resurrection, Roger Olson, science, Steve Knapp, theology, Ultimate Reality

What is Theology?

February 27, 2012 by Bo Sanders 15 Comments

I got a call the other day from a college student who asked me “how would you define theology?”

I said that it can be thought of as Four things:

God Talk: the most basic thing it to look at the etymology (theo- logy).

Faith Seeking Understanding: Anselm’s famous dictum is still many’s favorite.

Unquestionable Answers: in contrast with Philosophy’s unanswerable questions. I got this funny line from one of the best little books I have ever read – John Caputo’s Philosophy and Theology

2nd order activity carried out by disciples within hermeneutical communities. The primary activity is the faith lived out in particular locations and within cultural contexts – theology is the secondary discipline reflecting upon the primary expression.

Now within theology it is important to acknowledge that there are distinct schools of Systematic, Historical, Philosophical and Biblical – these are recognized as the “Big 4” – and there is also my discipline of Practical Theology.

I am big fan of Grenz and Olson’s book Who Needs Theology? and the way that they conceptualize it.

I feel good about my 4 fold answer, but I thought it would be fun to throw it to the deacons and see it what you thought.
I also created a poll to see what was the common consensus would be. [poll id="5"]

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, church history, engaging, latest, random, thinking Tagged With: Anslem, Bible, Biblical, book, books, discipline, faith, Grenz, Historic, John Caputo, Philosophical, philosophy, poll, Roger Olson, Seek, Systematic, theology, Understanding

There is no Evangelical Orthodoxy

January 26, 2012 by Bo Sanders 7 Comments

Roger Olson posted an excellent article by Mike Clawson (hubby of Julie Clawson) on his blog last week. It was about the fundamentalist roots of evangelicalism and their contemporary implications. In the comments (and Roger always has tons of comments) Olson reminded everyone of an article he wrote 12 years ago for Christianity Today. I subscribed to CT back then and remembered the article. I went back and found it but what I did not remember was just how contentious things were.

In the article Olson is trying to fight off criticisms from the ultra-reformed, or rabbid-Calvinist wing of the Evangelical camp. Folks like MacArthur, Piper, Driscoll, and Mohler – besides being continuously contentious – are always throwing around words like heresy and orthodoxy at folks like Olson, Rob Bell, and Brian McLaren (all former pod guests).

Here is the thing: there is no Evangelical Orthodoxy

I love reading books like Revisioning Evangelical Theology by Stanley Grenz, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage by Donald Dayton, History of Evangelical Theology by Roger Olson. I was part of the the Lussane gathering of young leaders in Malaysia. I was very vocal last summer that Evangelical is not only a political term but has deep theological implications and is inherently and historically theological (I used Bebbington’s 4 indicators) .

But there are two things I think need to be clear:

I got a book called the Evangelical Catechism. It is a compilation of consensus beliefs from 200 leaders, pastors, and thinkers that were surveyed. I like the book – but that is not the same as a catechism! We have no Pope, no ability to call a council, no catechism … so we need to knock it off with the “Orthodox” insistence and throwing around the word “heresy”. LOOK: there actually is an ‘Orthodox’ church and they think that the likes of Driscoll, MacArthur, and Piper (as well as the rest of us) has lost their way! *

1) There is no evangelical catechism and there is no evangelical orthodoxy! I proposed earlier this week that a dynamic conversation is the best we can hope for (I am partial to the Wesleyan quadrilateral). Can we have consensus? Ok. Can we have conversation? Absolutely. Is there a governing body to enforce your brand of ‘orthodoxy’? NO – so knock it off. Get some new words in your vocab. Think of some other ways to say what you want to say and stop pretending like you believe only what the early church believed. It fantasy at best and delusion at worst.

2) You can’t kick me out of the family. We all have siblings that think we are off and even wrong. Some brothers don’t talk to each other for years … but they are still family. That is not what determines if you are a part of a family! It is not how it works. So snuggle up sister! We are in this together, like it or not, we have the same parent, we were birthed through the same water, and we have the same blood. We don’t have to agree on everything – but stop trying to kick me out of the ‘fam’ bro! We are in this for eternity.

Now I know someone will come along and say “I told you its a meaningless term” … but I want to say

Hey Mr. Jones – if you don’t want to be evangelical that is fine. But some of us call this family and it means a lot to us. If you are done with the term, fine. But to us it has deep meaning we still use it as a family name. If you don’t count yourself as a member anymore – that is your call. But stop telling us who are inside the conversation that Evangelical doesn’t mean anything. It does to us.

We may not have a catechism or an actual orthodoxy, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t a living branch on the family tree.

I also shared some thoughts about Christian unity and conformity on a TNT episode.

* I appreciate the real Orthodox and have learned much from them.

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, church history, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, living, post-something, thinking Tagged With: Al Mohler, Bebbington, Bible, book, books, Brian McLaren, calvinism, calvinist, catechism, Christianity Today, Emergent, evangelical, God, jesus, John Piper, Liberal, Marc Driscoll, orthodox, orthodoxy, Rob Bell, Roger Olson, Stanley Grenz, Tony Jones

What God doesn’t say and how not to read the Bible

January 24, 2012 by Bo Sanders 3 Comments

The unpleasant topic of what God doesn’t say has shown up in three different conversations this week (and its only Tuesday!) :

Tony Jones gave a little pushback to Daniel Kirk (a recent guest on Homebrewed) about homosexuality and the Apostle Paul. Both Paul and homosexuality are hot topics right now so the discussion was vibrant.

Kirk is clear about those infamous Old Testament ‘clobber’ passages but is a little more allusive when it comes to the New Testament. He pulls what appears to be equivalent to an ‘argument from silence’ saying that Jesus would have commented on it if he wasn’t OK with the dominant view of his day. Tony makes this argument:

Apply that logic to any number of other moral or ethical issues, and I’ll bet that Kirk and his fellow evangelical biblical scholars don’t agree. For instance, Jesus was silent about:

Slavery

Abortion

The death penalty

Corporal punishment

Racism

Rape

I could go on. Does that mean that we should argue that Jesus was implicitly endorsing each of these? Of course not.

The same line of reasoning has been showing up over and over again in blogs written by women about issues of church leadership, image-beauty, and marriage.

It is tough to argue about what the Bible doesn’t say.

I actually try to pull this off in the latest TNT (Eschatology and Resurrection) when it comes to reading the Old Testament. I use the story of Lot’s daughters (Genesis 19) and point out that there is a noticeable lack of commentary in so many places in the Bible. In that Genesis 19 narrative it never says “and what they did was wrong” or “and they should not have done that”. It just tells the story.

I compare this to the Canaanite conquest when the Israelites come out of slavery, violence, and oppression – into a new land – and then become violent and oppressive to the inhabitants. It reads to me like a cautionary tale about groups who escape violent oppression and come into a new area will always think that A) God is on their side (which is different than saying ‘God is with them‘ B) God has prepared the land especially for them C) that God wants them to kill the current residents

I got this idea of the cautionary tale from a book called Native and Christian - specifically two essays entitled The Old Testament of Native America by Steve Charleston and Canaanites, Cowboys and Indians by Robert Allen Warrior.

These three topics: homosexuality, women’s roles in church & home, and religious violence are not just arguments from history … they are on our doorstep knocking angrily everyday of the 21st century. They also share something else in common: the make arguments from silence about what is not in the Bible.

Here is where it gets even stickier. I was reading an old article by Roger Olson (also a former podcast guest) from Christianity Today 10 years ago. He was illustrating how American Christianity came to be and specifically the influence that the 1800’s had on our contemporary situation.

I also stumbled into Tad Delay’s blog about American Populism in early American religion, dealing with The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan O. Hatch. Tad explains :

The language of a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” a sinners prayer for salvation, and a strong emphasis on unschooled individuals reading the Bible without need for rigorous theology came out of this period. Those with any training or expertise were openly spoken of as the enemy. The most flamboyant and charismatic circuit preacher garnered fame- which was certainly a goal of many- but to be charismatic, you had to convince the hearers that the message was simple. So, the message became very simple.

And this is where I get really nervous. A plain & simple reading of the Bible is one thing – a surface understanding I am always encountering and navigating. That is one thing. But arguments about what God didn’t say and what is not in the Bible are complex and nuanced. Our popular simplistic impulse leaves us in a pickle – one that I am not sure we commonly have the tools to get out of and one that leaves us with an increasingly irrelevant message that our young people simply walk away from.

If everything needs to be understandable to anyone … we might be in trouble when it comes to reading the Bible in 21st century.

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, church history, emergent, engaging, latest, living, thinking Tagged With: America, Bible, book, books, church, homosexual, homosexuality, Lot, Lot's daughters, Native American, Roger Olson, Tad Delay, Tony Jones, Women

the appeal of Open Theology

October 11, 2011 by Bo Sanders 4 Comments

In this week’s TNT, we talked about Open Theology (amongst other things) and I put forward a theory that I wanted float here and see what others thought.

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.

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.
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!
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.)

Filed Under: bible stuff, church history, engaging, latest, philosophy, thinking Tagged With: Aminian, calvinism, open theology, Roger Olson

Goosing Emergents into the Mainline

August 14, 2011 by Bo Sanders 18 Comments

Back Ground : Brandon Morgan attended the Wild Goose Festival and came away with some concerns/critiques that were posted at Roger Olson’s website and responded to by Tony Jones with some great new suggestions .

Tripp and I had some fun recording a Theology Nerd Throw-down (TNT) last week where we discussed Tony’s suggestions for replacing Emergent-Liberal-Progressive as unhelpful and antiquated terms that are unclear and carry too much baggage.

But none of that responded to Brandon’s actual concerns and questions. I appreciate and respect Brandon’s position and involvement – SO since we are on the same team – I wanted to honor his questions with an honest attempt to dialogue about it.

Question 1: Why haven’t Emergent folks joined the mainline denominations?

Response: The simple answer is – because they are doing two different things. People emerge out of something-somewhere. Those backgrounds are varied and diverse, but primarily they emerge into a more open, less institutional, more casual, less hierarchical expression. It doesn’t have to be a full fledged movement (sorry Dr. Olson) for there to be both an appeal and an organizational framework. It is providing a communal and spiritual environment that nurtures and facilitates a less defined- more adaptable entity (expression) in the post-colonial, post-christendom ecosystem.

To me, the better question is “Why WOULD emergent folks join mainline denominations?” They are going two different directions. I mean, except for some behaviors and convictions (ordaining women, justice work, etc.) the mainline is a historical-institutional behemoth that one would only want to take on if there was a significant impetuous. Otherwise the decentralized- organic-contextual capacity of emergence spirituality and practice are much more attractive than the albs & stoles, acolytes and adjudicatories, the liturgy and lectionary of the Mainline.

Why would an emergent type volunteer to take on all of that plus the Bishoprics and Books of common practice?

I want to ask you: what are you picturing when you say something like this? [it is an honest question since I do not know you and do not know what you are picturing when you say 'mainline' and what exactly it is that you think would appeal to an emergent type?]

I think the reason that your post has gotten the response that it has and your questions have not been answered is that you must be picturing something when you ask the question that seem outlandish to those of us who are not in your head. Have you had a different experience of the mainline that we have? What aspect of mainline did you think WOULD appeal to emergent types?

Question 2: Why have the negatives of evangelicalism been so easy to describe and virulently rebuke, while the negatives of the mainline denominations have barely shown up in Emergent concerns?

Response: I think this comes down to two quick thoughts:

most emergents have either emerged from an evangelical background or against an evangelical background. It is the reality of our era. TV preachers, mega churches, Christian bookstore chains and the Religious Right have made it so.
The mainline has it’s endowed seminaries and publishing houses to document it’s slow decline. It is neither the primary drive nor the main attraction for most theologically charged conversations.

Question 3: Another way to ask this question would be: Why hasn’t the Emergent critique of evangelicalism’s involvement with the American nation-state and it’s tendency toward creating theologically exclusive boundaries not found root in a critique of mainline denominations, whose political interests also conflate the church with nation-state interests?

Response: I hate to oversimplify it, but it seems really clear. If mainliners are theologically over-aware (maybe even hyper-aware in some cases) then their involvement in the political system may tend toward liberation, justice, and equality. Whereas those movements who are newly energized toward “Theo” heavy themes may tend toward conserving romantic ideals of past formulations without consideration (or awareness) or their capacity and tendency toward institutional hegemony.

So those are my genuine, non-cheeky, responses to your honest questions. I would love to hear your and other people’s thoughts in order to dialogue about this.

Filed Under: church history, emergent, engaging, latest, media, thinking Tagged With: Brandon Morgan, Emergent, emerging church, evangelical, evangelicalism, liberalism, progressive, Roger Olson, Tony Jones, WIld Goose Festival

Update: Categories Clarification

August 11, 2011 by Bo Sanders 1 Comment

Last week I posted that Progressive is not Liberal and also on the term Evangelical. Both got good response. It was part of a bigger conversation that his happening at several nodes around the interwebs. Here is a rundown of some of them.

Carol Howard Merritt from Tribal Church.org did a god job clarifying her position here. She says:

I agree that progressive and liberal are theological terms as well as sociological ones.

I like “progressive” as a theological term, because the most vital aspect of my faith is a liberating one. As someone who moved from evangelicalism, a key to my spiritual evolution has been understanding the freedom of God and God’s continual liberating process. As we move from abolitionism, to the child-labor movement, to anti-poverty, to civil rights, to gender equality, to creation care, to affirming LGBTs, this has been an incredible, liberating time in our American theology. It’s exciting how our theology has often been at the forefront of making these changes. “Progressive” recognizes and celebrates God’s expanding freedom.

That said, I think that Tony’s right in wanting a new term. “Progressive” did seem to move directly from the political sphere to the theological one, so I’m a bit uncomfortable with that. Also, I believe in the *ideal* of progression and expanding freedom, but I’m afraid that the ideal does not always match with reality. For instance, our business practices no longer allow for child labor in the US, but we thoughtlessly employ children overseas. Is that true progress? When we use the term “progressive” are we feeding a modernist mindset and deluding ourselves into thinking that everything is getting better? Those are my concerns…

Daniel Kirk continues to be a blog worth reading and he has had a lot to contribute lately.

Greg Horton had a characteristically intelligent and … Horton-esqe take. Deep stuff at the Parish.

Austin Roberts, my close friend, focused on the Evangelical aspect , wanting to tighten it up a little bit. We disagree about that. But the conversation is vibrant.

Brian McLaren made some predictions and pointed people to both Tony Jones’ and Roger Olson’s contributions.

Speaking of Roger Olson, he was a guest on Doug Pagitt’s radio show in hour 2 this week and took it up a WHOLE other notch. (it’s also available on I-tunes)

This has given me a lot to think about and I continue to flesh out the frameworks and philosophical underpinnings that drive this conversation. Please feel free to point me to any resources or locations that may be appropriate.

Filed Under: latest, random Tagged With: Austin Roberts, Brian McLaren, Carol Howard-Merritt, Daniel Kirk, Doug Pagitt, evangelical, Greg Horton, Liberal, progressive, Roger Olson, Tony Jones

Progressive is not Liberal

August 4, 2011 by Bo Sanders 19 Comments

This has been an exciting couple of weeks for evangelicals. Well, at least the term evangelical. Kurt Willems started it all with a post about being an evangelical “reject” and a guest posted about C.S. Lewis being one.

I responded by putting forward a progressive re-interpretation of the classical definition with my Nine Nations formulation.

Then, this week Roger Olson (from Podcast episode 96) had a guest post-er Brandon who was a little confused about his experience at the Wild Goose Festival. He asked some questions about the Emerging Church that Tony Jones responded to … which led to Dr. Jones (Podcast episode 105 ) to suggest that we abandon the term ‘evangelical’ to the conservatives and go a different direction.

The hitch seems to be that both Brandon and Tony (as well as Roger) have real concern / apprehension about the distinction between Liberal and Progressive.

The problem seems to come when people fail to make a distinction between Progressive and Liberal – even equating them.

Dr. Jones says :

The problem with both “liberal” and “progressive” is that they are not inherently theological categories. They are sociological and political. “Evangelical,” on the other hand, is inherently theological.

As odd as this seems – I actually disagree with Jones on all three points. Liberal and Progressive are both thoroughly theological terms and everyone from Carol Howard-Merritt to Austin Roberts has been trying to tell me that Evangelical is a sociological distinction and not inherently theological. ( I still hold out hope)

In Podcast episode 101 John Cobb makes an important distinction by explaining it this way:

Liberal simply means that one recognizes human experience as valid location for the theological process.
Progressive means that one takes seriously the critique provided by feminist, liberation, and post-colonial criticisms.

I know that when many people think of Liberals they think of a caricature of Marcus Borg and have him saying something about the laws of nature and how no one can walk on water or be conceived in a Virgin so we know those are literary devices that need not be defended literally. It is someone stuck in the Enlightenment who puts more faith in physics than in the Bible.

Similarly, I often hear a flippant dismissal by those who don’t get the Progressive concern so resort to the cliche that “progressive is just a word non-conservative evangelicals who don’t like the word ‘liberal’ hide behind as camouflage.”

Both are woefully cartoonish.

Tony Jones, on the other hand is addressing a real concern. So if he wants to say “Those of us who are not conservative need a new label.” That is fine and I would probably even join team TJ – whatever it says on our uniform.

Just don’t say that Liberal and Progressive are not theological. They are inherently so and the distinction between the two is worth the effort. They, along with the term ‘Evangelical”, come with a historical framework, a theological tradition and a social application. They are not interchangeable nor are they disposable. They come from some where and the represent a group of some ones.

I think that they are worth clarifying, understanding, and maybe even fighting for – and over. They matter.

Filed Under: church history, latest, thinking Tagged With: evangelical, john cobb, Liberal, progressive, Roger Olson, Tony Jones, WIld Goose Festival

Claremont School of Theology