irreverance

Nope. Sorry. I'm up near Chicago (Spring Valley, IL, more specifically). So if you're up this way...

Mmmmmm....Guiness....

A couple of years ago on another forum, we were talking about hell. I said that I believed that hell was not so much a literal place for the execution of God's tangible, expressed anger, but a metaphor for God's justice-oriented love. Then someone asked me the following question and I gave the following response. I hope it helps.

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Quote: XA would it be possible to draw out what you mean by "metaphoric" as opposed to tangible, expressed anger?

First of all, I want to talk about metaphorical language. Human beings must understand God through their own lens of the human condition. Therefore, certain language that is “supra” human (with regards to what is considered to be “virtuous”) becomes the norm for God.

Some examples: Humans experience love, so God is Absolute Love. Human beings are finite, so God is infinite. Human beings have a certain about of potential in their lives, so God is omnipotent.

Metaphorical language helps us to identify with God. Hence, some people are possessive over certain descriptors. Many say they cannot worship a God who is not a “He.” Others say they cannot worship a God who is not a “She.” From what I’ve encountered, the reason for such terms is not a desire to keep other people from connecting with God, but rather a desire to keep people from taking away from them how they identify with God. (So, in that sense, it is an interpretive grid through which we understand and relate to God.)

Metaphorical language also allows us to speak about our understanding of who (or what) God is, and how God relates to our world. By using language that refers to human emotion, we are saying that God is not “disconnected” from what happens in our world. We are saying that God does “care,” or that God has an “interest” in human/creaturely affairs. By saying that God is emotively involved in our world, is to say that God is relational (as opposed to aloof). To say that humanity is meant to be created in the image of God is to say that truth (the measuring stick for that which is just) is relational to the activity of God. To say that we encounter God in the person and work of Jesus Christ is to say that justice /the way of God is encountered through compassionate relationships (as opposed to dogmatics) that mirror those found in his life. Those relationships that do not measure up to what we se in Jesus of Nazareth are then identified as “unjust,” or “sin.” (So, in that sense, it is a projective vision of what our world can or should be like.)

This brings us to the “anger” of God. Let me first state that I do not ascribe to an understanding of the atonement that says that Jesus Christ’s life-blood was drained by God in order to sat the vengeful thirst of an angry God. I believe that such an assertion flies in the face of orthodoxy as established in the council of Nicaea (perhaps another topic). I want to look at the anger of God another way, using human relationships as our lens to articulate that which is ultimately impossible to articulate.

Some time back, I watched a news blurb about the escalating problem in the Palestine. As the newscaster talked, the accompanying footage was that of a five-year old little girl learning how to use a gas mask. I felt sick in my soul. It was a reminder for me that “justice” always has a name, and that name is the name of all those individuals who suffer the whims of the powerful in their own persons. How does a parent respond to those who would mercilessly slaughter his or her child? Does not that child’s name become the name of justice?

Also, I used to work at a rescue mission as a secretary. This made me one of the first contacts for those who came in off of the street. My office became almost an impromptu pastoral care office for those who knew no hope. If Jesus had his way, these people would not have been robbed of their lives, their “kingdoms” if you will, and been cast out into the cold to die by a “Christian” society that has more money than it knows what to do with (other than build bombs, but that too is perhaps another topic). [Yes, I know, Jesus said that the poor will be with us always, and that does relieve some of my frustrations.] Jesus worked with the poor. Jesus identified with the poor. Jesus did not cast them out to be devoured by the darkness. When I think back to my time there and those people, those individuals too remind me that “justice” has a name, and it is the names of all those who have been labeled as “expendable” in one way or another in any society.

And so, I believe that God gets “angry.” But maybe I am only projecting. Maybe this is the way that I make sense of my world and try to figure out “right” from “wrong”. Such things I cannot say for sure. How many people have claimed to know the will and mind of God and then brought new definition to the word “heinous”? I can’t say for sure how much of my language about God is actually about God or to what extent I use my language to conform God to my own image. In humility, I must always be willing to say “I might be wrong.” But I still feel that I must express what seems to be to me. And so I speak of a loving God who is sometimes angry.

But I don’t know that I want to go into a loving/angry dichotomy for God either. Too often that has led to manipulation through guilt. Although feelings of guilt can be healthy, I do not believe that attempts to bring about guilt-ridden “repentance/conformity” is healthy. (Quite the contrary, I would argue that it is “sin,” but that may be for another topic too.)

When I hear people say God becomes “sad,” I like that terminology. It reeks of “degree” in a positive way. To me it says that God had expectations or standards of behavior, but humanity dropped the ball. But at the same time, I also don’t want to abandon the extreme emotion of anger for God because I want to say that some things are downright atrocious and evil. In those cases, for example in the case of an entire region being ethnically cleansed, to say that God is “sad” simply doesn’t hack it for me.

So, according to my understanding, God is a God of Love, but that love can be the foundation of both divine sadness and anger, as well as divine joy and delight. But suffice it to say that for me, to say that the God who is Love sometimes becomes angry is to say that divine justice always has a proper name.

But maybe that’s just me.

Trek,

I went through my own fundamentalist phase so I know how hard it is to come out of it. When the meaning of it all becomes incomprehensible, I tend to suggest that people try to engae their faith more experientially. I think it helps to reawaken our sense of intimacy with the God who is "as close to us as breathing, yet distant as the farthest star." It helps to rekindle our sense of trust. As we become more trusting, we are more able to "let go" and just be aware of the reality of the grace-filled relationship that we enjoy with the divine.

My suggestion then is to find a way to non-cognitively connect spiritually. I like to metitate with music and candles, or to go to a labyrinth, or to just lay down and let it all go and just "be". You will have to find what works best for you. Sometimes its important to let the thinking go and just swim in experience.

If that doesn't work, then go straight to the icecream. Personal suggestion: Klondike bars. I like the chocolate ones. They are divine.

Of significant note, when Machen wrote his text on the fundamentals of Christianity (upon which fundamentalism is based), they were...

the authority of the Scripture,

the virgin birth,

divinity of Christ,

Jesus’ atonement for sin,

the bodily resurrection, (as nearly noted in the B-Net book)

When in seminary, a church historian of the 1920s debates defined fundamentalism as "militantly anti-modern American evanglicalism."

The question for me is, if fundamentalism was socio-religious reaction against the shift into modernity, is there an socio-religious equivalent for the shift to postmodernity? Or, to put it another way, is there a "militantly anti-postmodern American Christian" theological movement?

My point is to try and come up with some statemetns that we could, as Christians, believe. Just plain ole Christian.

That's quite a task. Looks like you've done a great job with all this.

However, I suspect that there may be another way to approach the question of Christian unity. Katheryn Tanner (Postmodern Cultures) has suggested that it is not common belief that unifies, but common symbols. Common symbols allow people with diverse beliefs to gather while filling the symbols with their own meaning/beliefs.

Therefore, it could be argued that a "core belief" of Christianity can't be found because it doesn't actually exist. Rather, what unites all Christians if the person of Jesus Christ, who is filled with many meanings. And his centrality is reinforced by our primary liturgical acts of baptism and the Lord's supper, and our most ecumenical document the Nicene creed.

We are Christians because we are somehow trying to re-orient our lives around the person and work of the one after whom we are named. What that "means" for us is worked out through community argumentation. Therefore, "Christian community" is necessarily a community bound by a common practice of argumentation revolving around a common symbol, the meaning of which is to be determined in every age and in every base and/or wider community.

Phanta: I too am sorry to hear about your cat died. Sometimes pets are more like "family" than "pets."

As an aside, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on death.

But, perhaps some of us are more "feeling" oriented than "thinking" oriented so we find it easier to do what seems to come naturally - for us. But, this is why we need one another.

I agree. Since I score as an INFP (and apparently an extreme one at that) in the Myers-Briggs, I think I'll just sit around and soak up the vibes from all this thinking.

Maybe there are TWO ULTIMATES? And neither of them is derived from the other? Now we're talkin' Process!! And, as you say, it is difficult to understand.

Which reminds me of David Tracy (who I believe is a process theologian) talks about "di-polar theism."

Btw, it's interesting because in many respects the form of Christianity that DiZerega presents is basically what I was taught in seminary. What I would like to do some time is to get together a group of Neo-Pagans and Christians to do a face-to-face book study together. That should be a great book to get people together to say, "Well, that's not where I'm coming from as a Christian/Pagan. So, here's my slant on life...." Part of the fun would be people trying to articulate their unique perspective. Maybe a future endeavor.

CunningLily: In that case you might be interested in Gus DiZerega's Pagans and Christians. Admittedly, the way that he depicts Christianity is not my general conception, but it is a popular one.

I too am very interested in Pagan-Christian dialogue. Thanks for the book titles.

I really enjoyed this book, but I don't know how much time I would have for discussing it more in-depth. If you don't mind me disappearing for extended periods of time, I wouldn't mind trying this.

XianAnarchist - "armchair mystic" is good.  So what books do you read on that? I like Teasdale, which I think Aletheia already mentioned somewhere on this board.

Actually, I like Armchair Mystic by Mark Thibodeaux. (Obviously, I didn't coin the term.) Any contemplative stuff is good in general for that. The "apophatic" tradition has already been noted. A great text for that is The Cloud of Unknowing. It's from the 14th century I believe. Also, check out Thomas Keeting.

Des said "over my head." Well, that's just it. Why do we need a PhD in theology in order to have a relationship with God? I thought being christian meant being christlike.

I agree. But I also think that "theology" is pretty much any thinking about God. It is the task of making sense of God and the world we live in.

What does it mean to understand God as Mystery? Are we saying that God is "Wholly Other"? Does this mean that there is nothing about God to which we can relate? Every word in our language points to our shared relation to reality, doesn't it? If so, and if we have no relation to God, the word "God" has no meaning, does it? Why would we use the term then? If there is nothing we can say about God which conveys meaning, isn't the term "God" irrelevant?

I think that there are two different ways to "know" God (which are not exclusive of one another). There is "comprehension," which is being able to offer up an articulation of experience. The focus is on formula and language. The emphasis is on coherence and shared understanding. Another way to "know" something is through "apprehension." This is more like "depth resonance." This is more about a state of being in experiential relationship with that is beyond words and conceptual descriptors.

So, when I talk about "God as mystery," I am talking more from the perspective of knowlege based on "apprehension" than "comprehension." But, if for a more "comprehension" approach, I would offer the following:

Perhaps language that is meaningful for one person won't be meaningful for another. Personally, I prefer a fluid understanding of God that preserves God's freedom from the confines of my own mind. Yes, the above "formula" is rife with contradiction and paradox. But, the very fact that it doesn't "have a single meaning" is one of the reasons that it is "meaningful" for me.

...or am I dreaming?

Some thoughts on prayer:

This is always an interesting topic. Personally, It seems that one's understanding of prayer is often related to one's understanding of the God-world relationship. I generally consider myself to be a bit of an armchair mystic. Part of that for me means that I like to talk about God as "mystery." Our God-concepts simply will never do God justice.

Since I don't know that I'm willing to articulate God in theistic or a-theistic categories and would rather allow God to remain as "Mystery," I'm not willing to leave intercessory prayer behind. Quite the contrary, I think we are becoming more and more aware of the interconnectedness throughout the universe. Chaos theory and quantum physics (and I admit limited understanding here) show us that we participate in and affect the universe in ways that we cannot see or understand because the universe by nature is participatory.

I think we can understand prayer differently if we start with a focus on God-world relationship and then shift to a human-world relationship (and the following assumes that to be fully human is to be fully divine). Humanity has been called by God to be "stewards" of the earth. In a nutshell, I like to talk about the call to become other-centered, justice-oriented, self-giving creatures. From a modernist perspective, humans are called to work toward such things in their tangible daily lives. Hence, the push for such things as social justice. However, what if we look at the call to be fully human as a call to be wholistic humans who help to form this world not only on a physical level but also on a spiritual level? What if we are called to participate in the co-creative activity as spiritual beings to the same extent as we are as physical beings?

Meditative prayer seems to assume that the task at hand is to be spiritually transformed in order to bring about the physical transformation of this world as we become change agents. But what if prayer is also about being physically transformed (for example, taking time out of our schedules to devote to the service of others who are not nearby) in order to bring about transformation through spiritual connectedness in this world (such as healings)? Then we move into intercessory prayer.

Does this mean that I expect prayer to change the world in an instant? Maybe, maybe not. But for me, to engage in intercessory prayer is about participation in the greater scheme of things in a way that I recognize that I cannot comprehend. I do believe that we can make a difference in the world in this way. Perhaps the universe is even geared in favor of it.

But, who's to say for sure.

Well, that's my 2 cents for now.

Don't know whether I've posted this here before. It's from a fictional account of a fictional desert mother, Amma Ananda...

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"Amma Ananda," asked a disciple, "of all the words of Jesus, which do you think the church today would find most frightening?"

Amma replied, "His words in Nazareth, 'I have come to set the prisoners free.'"

"Prisoners?" asked the disciple.

"Yes," she answered, "true disciples of Jesus must not be prisoners of fear, guilt or shame. Nor should they be held bound by church laws that are made greater than, or even equal in value to, the commands of Christ."

~~Edward Hayes, The Ladder, 34.

Darby: Happy Anniversary!!!

It seems to me, that he is able to integrate Process Philosophy with Perennial Philosophy.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is "perennial philosophy"?

And welcome back!

It's close, but not exact. This came from a friend of mine's sermon last Sunday:

Love is a lot less like heart-shaped candies for Valentine's Day, and a lot more like willfully sitting down to table to share your bread with Judas."

I was floored when he said that.

I think that the term "Traditional Christianity" is the code word for "moderates." On B-Net, that's the term they use. Maybe that's the name of the rabbit hole, at least today.

The order in which the texts were written, both OT and NT, depend on the scholar giving the listing. Moreover, there is a dominant literary theory that says that the texts have been identifiably edited, which means that portions of the texts are more recent than others.

While I can't offer a source for chronological authorship, I can offer a cool overview text. I wuld suggest the Cambridge Companion to the Bible. It's pricy, but good. (Maybe cheaper on overstock.com or ebay.com?)

That's a pretty good idea. Except, I would suggest not calling it a "moderat Xy" board. Rather, try "Reconciling Christianity," with an emphasis on people trying to reconcile not only con and lib approaches, but con and lib people as well. it could become a place for those who want to dialogue and learn from each other. Personally, I would suggest it be separate from TCPC. If not, it could easilly be seen as an extension of the progressive agenda. A separate identity may be necessary to pick up those disgruntled with both cons and libs.

For those who have never encountered the spoof site, Landover Baptist Church, I offer this link to you now. Way too funny.

Nevertheless I can think of numerous instances where Jesus specifically addresses wealth as a bad thing, and poverty as a good thing. The Beatitudes (although in Matthew they become "blessed is the poor in spirit".) In Luke, "blessed are you who are poor"; etc

Here's my take on wealth in Luke-Acts. Something to consider when looking at Luke-Acts. The author seems to want to use material possessions as a narrative symbol of status. A couple of instances here.

First, the establishment of the "deacons." They were created as a group to serve the hellenist widows, at least so the narrative goes. But instead we see them serve as a prophetic extension of the apostles. The responsibility of prophetic office is symbolized in trappings of table service.

I like to think of this as being like the Prince of Wales. It really has nothing to do with "Wales." Rather, it is a material symbol of status.

Second, look at the narrative of Ananias and Sapphira. In this narrative, these two were not slain by God because they refused to give their 10% tithe. Rather, they were slain because they did not give all. Again, the issue here is material used symbolically. The lack of material giving symbolized a lack of spiritual commitment. By being part of a community to which they themselves did not feel committed, they were, in effect, trying to "buy off" God. (Not that anyone would ever join a Christian community for the self-serving reward of salvation with minimal regard for mission of God itself. </sarcasm> )

So, when we look at how harshly treated wealth is in Luke-Acts, I think it is important to note that it is largely used symbolically. Therefore, I am in agreement with BrotherRog who said, "IMO, wealth in and of itself is not sinful but it is problematic; i.e. it does tend to sway people into thinking that they don't need God and that they somehow deserve to hold onto their wealth," and Darby who said, "A key distinction is that it is the "Love of money," not money, that becomes sinful. Do we own our money and possessions, or do they own us?"

Perhaps that was an awful long way of saying, "ditto."

This is not quite exact, but it comes from M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.

"Love is what moves people. They kneel before it in awe."

My general thoughts are that, when the rubber hits the road, "progressive" is a relative term. In a sense, one has to identify whether one is progressive based on one's particular context. Also, in the high-brow theological, high towers of the academy sort of way, the term would probably mean something than what it would "on the street." Therefore, I guess that you are the only one who can answer that. If you identify the 8 Points as symbolic of what it is to be a progressive Christian and you identify with those 8 Points, then I'd say you would have a claim to being a progressive Christian.

When I post on things like progressives and post-evangelicals, I generally talk about it from a more "academic" perspective. In trying to identify differences, I like to think that I'm helping people identity and wrestle with a variety of issues. Not always does that work I guess. Sometimes, the talk about differences can too often overwhelm the similarities that are shared. The common identity that it vital gets lost.

Bottom line: You seem to identify as a progressive. So, in my mind there's nothing wrong with saying you are one. If nothing else, you can be a unique one.

Besides, we like you here. So, whatever you decide, we'll still claim you as one of our own.

"The attention of the heart, this quietness within movement is actually another, intimate movement that spontaneously arises in the moment between life and death, when the ego is wounded and God is still distant; this attention is prayer in the sense of the Psalmist who asks, and asks and asks; it is that which watches and waits in the night."

~~Jacob Needleman, Lost Christianity: A Journey of Rediscovery to the Centre of Christian Experience, 165.