Bible beyond fundamentalism and Islamic critique

My encounter with Islam has taught me to view the Bible differently (although still Christianly) than how I'd come to see it through Christian nurture previously. i would say it spurred me, perhaps, to see the Christian Scriptures more in the way that Brian McLaren and Steve Chalke have recently been saying.

So what did my encounter with Islam teach me? Well, there are a few incidents and some thinking.  One of the incidents was in the mid 1990's when  a young Muslim man, clearly wanting to try out his latest apologetic strategy on a Christian  told me that the Bible couldn't be the word of God because some of it is addressed to God and other parts are clearly not really God speaking in the first person. At least the Qu'ran has the vrctue of appearing to be God addressing humans. At the time we didn't have time to go into it further. What went through my head was that this was a fundamental misunderstanding of what Christians mean when we talk about the Bible as word of God in a way that includes greater co-operation between human processes and God's desire to communicate. And I nearly said to him something like 'Don't you think after thousands of years that we haven't thought of that and have a way of thinking about it that makes sense of that?' -really I was wanting to signal that what he seemed to think was a match-winner point was only the beginning of a conversation and that he should perhaps consider that obvious issues like that would have been considered in the Christian traditions of thinking about Christian Scripture.



However, of course, that incident does put a question mark against a quasi-islamic understanding of the Bible which sometimes it seem that Christian fundamentalists have and i think that, in some ways, is indeed vulnerable to the rhetorical point made by Muslim apologetics of the sort just mentioned.



For me it started to make me clear that Christians really don't think of the Bible as God addressing humans directly. Now there's a whole world of important difference in the theologies of revelation between the two faiths. Christianity is much more 'incarnational' -even fundamentalists when it comes down to it will root their defense of the Bible as God's words in the term 'inspiration' rather than dictation. 'Men, carried along by the Spirit...' 'God-breathed' are the kinds of phrases picked up from Scripture to think about what the relationship between God and Bible is: it is something which involves humans more than taking dictation but is a process where something of the personality of the writers or the signs of developmental processes can be discerned. This complements theological understandings of God working through and in human beings, inviting us to be part of what God is about.



But there are a couple of further developments. One of those was the realisation that many Muslims tend to regard the Qur'an (or at least a heavenly antetype the Umm al-Kitab, 'mother of the book') as something that has eternally existed with God. I think i owe this insight to Kenneth Cragg. In Islam the Word of God that is eternally with God is made recitation/book. In Christian faith the Word of God that is eternally with God is made flesh. In other words where Muslims have Book, we have Christ. This made it clear to me that it is really quite significant that in Christian faith the Word of God is first, foremost and importantly a Person. Enter Karl Barth into my thinking: therefore it really is so that Scripture bears witness to the Word of God, that is Christ. In Muslim terms, Christian Scriptures are more like reliable Hadith -stories about what the prophet said and did which help Muslims to understand what the Qur'an says and means. These Christian 'hadith' are souped up with the work of God's Spirit.



As a result of this, i started to feel that the liturgical practice of my church (Anglican) gained new resonance for me. When we hear Scripture read in Communion services, we sit to hear most readings but stand to hear the Gospels -some churches even have extra ceremonial to prepare for the reading and for the announcement of the Gospel including parading the book of the Gospels to the centre of the congergation where everyone turns to face it (the book is our qiblah). By these actions we are telling ourselves and honouring the fact that Christ in the centre of our faith; the means by which we are most directly addressed, personally (that is 'in person'), by God. The Gospels are the witnesses closest in to the Word of God.



Steve Chalke wrote:

"We do not believe that the Bible is 'inerrant' or 'infallible' in any popular understanding of these terms. In truth, there is nothing in the biblical texts that is beyond debate and questioning, and healthy churches are ones that create an environment which welcomes just that. The biblical texts are not a 'divine monologue', where the solitary voice of God dictates a flawless and unified declaration of his character and will to their writers." 

 So we would not want to think about the Bible as the Word of God -for that is Christ, but rather as word of God: witness and testimony to enable us to understand the Word of God. Witness and testimony that God has nurtured (by the action of the Holy Spirit) to be good enough to do the job of forming us in the way of Christ ('... useful for correcting, rebuking, teaching and training in righteousness ... equipped for every good work').



By the witness of these same scriptures, words like 'inerrant' or 'infallible' can only properly be understood in relation to whether they mean the ability of Scripture to lead us rightly to being trained in righteousness and being equipped to practice love in the way of Christ.



The biblical cat is out of the f - Brian McLaren:q

Church Engagement and its discontents

I have to confess that in the past, enthralled by leadership teaching and church growth and management insights and still not having fully and properly co-ordinated the secular management insights with theological reflection, I recall having similar niggles to those mentioned in this insightful article:

 weary of such teaching as we realised that it didn’t really resonate with the picture we see in Jesus who would not only ‘lay down his life’ for his sheep but would willingly leave the ninety-nine in order to find the individual who had become lost.

 This was a propos of teaching about leaving behind those in a church who weren't buying into the leaders' vision. This, of course, comes out of reifying the vision into, in effect, the very word of the Lord. Yet what had always troubled me was the way the there was so little in Scripture about vision casting. About the only text is the Proverbs verse 'Where there is no vision the people perish' -which only works in the AV 'translation' and seems to actually yield very little backing for vision casting. in fact, the Pauline and Johanine exhortations to unity  would seem to count against 'leaving behind' or, in effect, excluding those who don't 'catch' the vision. And, of course. the parable of the lost sheep is rightly brought to the bar above.



What this piece does rather well is to pick up and explain in churchly terms the basic three stages of church engagement -drawn from observation of organisational life (and which I'm adding to my reflections on being part of a university which is morphing into a self-aware business). The suggestion is also that expecting an ever upward engagement is cutting against the grain of a natural human engagement entropy:

suggest that there exists an organisational entropy when it comes to a
person’s engagement to a group, community, or vision.  Most of the
models that I have seen explaining how to secure human engagement tend
to paint a picture of an onward and upward journey toward increased
adherence. I am not sure that this is either possible, or even perhaps
desirable.


I would want to suggest a three-phase journey experienced within a community:


1) Enthusiastic

2) Realistic

3) Apathetic

- See more at:
http://www.redletterchristians.org/three-phases-church-engagement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedLetterChristians+%28Red+Letter+Christians%29&utm_content=Netvibes#sthash.mj0PAxL0.dpu

... there exists an organisational entropy when it comes to a person's engegement to a group, community or vision. ... a three-phase journey experienced within a community:

1) Enthusiastic

2)Realistic

3) Apathetic

In each of these phases there are not only normal and expected patterns and psychodynamics of engagement (all of which are perfectly recognisable and understandable from our own experiences) but also tend to be exploited or drawn on by leaders in certain ways. We can also see these phase at work when people buy new products -and we may be aware of how the company that supplies it is really keen to get us to give re-usable feedback in the first few days of ownership -when we're still enthusiastic about it and before 'reality' sets in in the form of us having found that it doesn't actually change our life as much for the better as we thought it might or its downsides start to become apparent and a certain disillusion sets in. And of course it may only be a matter of time before we become non-users -apathetic, looking for something better or at least simply instrumental about it. Similarly with churches -doubly so if they are 'marketed' with visions, missions and vibe. So people drop out or move on from one church to another.



Accordingly, we need to teach leadership skills not just to do the first phase stuff but to pastor through phases 2 and 3. Informally this already happens, of course, we all know churches that do phase 1 stuff really well but have open back doors as well as front doors. Many of us are also aware of churches which tend to 'receive' at least some of the refugees from phase 1 churches, and some of us know people who don't reconnect with church. I'm also aware of some people who don't connect with phase 1 churches at all because they at a subliminal level understand only too well the marketing dynamic of the vibe and vision thing and shy away from the 'machine' that threatens to eat them.



So the question is not only how do we train priests to be leaders for all three phases, but how do we disciple Christians to work through them maturely (and are 'sabbaticals' part of this)? And that latter question morphs into a question about how we build church life so as not to be using up the first-phasers?



The fact is, I suspect, that churches that do phase one stuff well are doing so parasitically on the rest of the body of Christ: using up people's enthusiasm and 'letting them go' when they realise that all is not as shiney as it first seemed: then other churches pick them up and sometimes help put them back together. Sometimes, of course, no church is trusted thereafter. We badly need phase-ecumenism in order to cope with this natural life staging under our current 'system' -but it would be hard for many leaders to do this as it would mean admitting a certain relativity or contingency to their self-perceptions of ministry, theology and mission. Meanwhile the mission of the whole church is compromised.



I hope I'm wrong, but I fear i'm not.

there
exists an organisational entropy when it comes to a person’s engagement
to a group, community, or vision.  Most of the models that I have seen
explaining how to secure human engagement tend to paint a picture of an
onward and upward journey toward increased adherence. I am not sure that
this is either possible, or even perhaps desirable. - See more at:
http://www.redletterchristians.org/three-phases-church-engagement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedLetterChristians+%28Red+Letter+Christians%29&utm_content=Netvibes#sthash.mj0PAxL0.dpuf

there
exists an organisational entropy when it comes to a person’s engagement
to a group, community, or vision.  Most of the models that I have seen
explaining how to secure human engagement tend to paint a picture of an
onward and upward journey toward increased adherence. I am not sure that
this is either possible, or even perhaps desirable. - See more at:
http://www.redletterchristians.org/three-phases-church-engagement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedLetterChristians+%28Red+Letter+Christians%29&utm_content=Netvibes#sthash.mj0PAxL0.dpuf

suggest
that there exists an organisational entropy when it comes to a person’s
engagement to a group, community, or vision.  Most of the models that I
have seen explaining how to secure human engagement tend to paint a
picture of an onward and upward journey toward increased adherence. I am
not sure that this is either possible, or even perhaps desirable.


I would want to suggest a three-phase journey experienced within a community:


1) Enthusiastic

2) Realistic

3) Apathetic




- See more at:
http://www.redletterchristians.org/three-phases-church-engagement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedLetterChristians+%28Red+Letter+Christians%29&utm_content=Netvibes#sthash.mj0PAxL0.dpuf

suggest that there exists an organisational entropy when it comes to a
person’s engagement to a group, community, or vision.  Most of the
models that I have seen explaining how to secure human engagement tend
to paint a picture of an onward and upward journey toward increased
adherence. I am not sure that this is either possible, or even perhaps
desirable.


I would want to suggest a three-phase journey experienced within a community:


1) Enthusiastic

2) Realistic

3) Apathetic

- See more at:
http://www.redletterchristians.org/three-phases-church-engagement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedLetterChristians+%28Red+Letter+Christians%29&utm_content=Netvibes#sthash.mj0PAxL0.dpuf

suggest that there exists an organisational entropy when it comes to a
person’s engagement to a group, community, or vision.  Most of the
models that I have seen explaining how to secure human engagement tend
to paint a picture of an onward and upward journey toward increased
adherence. I am not sure that this is either possible, or even perhaps
desirable.


I would want to suggest a three-phase journey experienced within a community:


1) Enthusiastic

2) Realistic

3) Apathetic

- See more at:
http://www.redletterchristians.org/three-phases-church-engagement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedLetterChristians+%28Red+Letter+Christians%29&utm_content=Netvibes#sthash.mj0PAxL0.dpuf

suggest that there exists an organisational entropy when it comes to a
person’s engagement to a group, community, or vision.  Most of the
models that I have seen explaining how to secure human engagement tend
to paint a picture of an onward and upward journey toward increased
adherence. I am not sure that this is either possible, or even perhaps
desirable.


I would want to suggest a three-phase journey experienced within a community:


1) Enthusiastic

2) Realistic

3) Apathetic

- See more at:
http://www.redletterchristians.org/three-phases-church-engagement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedLetterChristians+%28Red+Letter+Christians%29&utm_content=Netvibes#sthash.mj0PAxL0.dpuf

suggest that there exists an organisational entropy when it comes to a
person’s engagement to a group, community, or vision.  Most of the
models that I have seen explaining how to secure human engagement tend
to paint a picture of an onward and upward journey toward increased
adherence. I am not sure that this is either possible, or even perhaps
desirable.


I would want to suggest a three-phase journey experienced within a community:


1) Enthusiastic

2) Realistic

3) Apathetic

- See more at:
http://www.redletterchristians.org/three-phases-church-engagement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedLetterChristians+%28Red+Letter+Christians%29&utm_content=Netvibes#sthash.mj0PAxL0.dpuf

 The Three Phases of Church Engagement | Alan Molineaux | Red Letter Christians:

Prepare kids to be billionaires?

I get updates of questions from Quora -they are often interesting questions and sometimes the answers are knockout. I found that this question What are good ways to prepare my kids to be billionaires? And it stuck with me. i must confess that some of it was because I was really disturbed by it. I bespoke unaware entitlement (though I may be wrong) and a load of assumptions that really need unpicking.



So I found myself commenting:

Bigger questions: why would you think they would become billionaires?
And what is it about being a billionaire that you covet (for them)? Why
is that the measure of whether you have helped bring a wonderful human
being into the world?



I ask these further question because there are 7bn people on the planet.
Millions of them have the qualities necessary but only a very small
amount of the total potential billionaires have actually achieved that
potential. Why? -we should perhaps recognise that it is mostly good
fortune that makes a billionaire: the good fortune to have social,
financial and political capital that can be leveraged and to be in the
right place at the right time.



Our problem is confirmation bias -we see the already successful but
discount their failures on the way and see them as if their 'success'
was inevitable. We *don't* see the thousands just as 'worthy' who happen
not to have had the happy combination of factors come together for
them. To prepare kids to be billionaires they have to be prepared not to
be: to fail: character  such as humility , empathy, no sense of
entitlement, generosity etc are never going to go wrong.



Also, why would you think that your own efforts to hothouse your
children might not backfire? Better to put more effort into making the
world one where more of the billions can be heirs to a better chance to
make more than a dollar a day. In building a world like that we make a
safer world for all our children.

 What I didn't write because I thought it was even more likely to draw trolls was that, in fact, too often billionaires become rentiers and end up in rent-seeking behaviour; in effect by occupying certain critical/strategic positions in the political-economic complex they accrue money for doing, in actuality, nothing and they accrue money by denuding others of opportunity or  even the means of proper livelihood. To prepare a child to be a billionaire -even if this were a sure thing- must, morally, surely, involve helping them to recognise that they would have huge debts to society and good fortune which should be given back (I'm not saying they don't have some kind of right to enjoy the fruits of their genuine labours). That no-one actually needs (or really deserves) that amount of money and that holding onto it is actually clinging to power to continue to exploit without work or effort -'rent seeking behaviour'.



The obverse of this is to think more about the normal fact of life for 'successful' entrepreneurs: failure is rife before, for a small percentage of them, they get a big break. Commonly this may involve 'betting the farm' on something: it's about risk. So, if we want a society where people can have a go at 'making it big' we need to make sure we have a society which looks out for the losers (some of whom may become 'winners' one day): we need 'safety nets' and the means to put people back on their feet -because not everyone can be billionaires -or the inflation would make the 'admiration' connoted in the term obsolete.



(2) What are good ways to prepare my kids to be billionaires? - Quora:

Cosmos Reborn : Happy Theology on the New Creation -some reactions.

Well, it had me intrigued, the title and the blurb:

 Need a religious detox? Have a dose of happy theology! Good news to liberate your life. Though we opposed Him as "enemies in our minds," God never set Himself against us as our enemy. Adam was breathed from the very life of God, and it has always been the Creator's intent to restore humanity to the bliss and immortality of its divine origin. In the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God included you and absorbed the entire created order into Himself, bringing an end to decay and corruption. Mortality has been swallowed up by immortality 

 In part because it  seemed to promise some exploration of things I'd been considering lately and also because it seemed to be promising that it would be based in some 'respectable' theology. I like the way that the book quotes and uses the ideas of theologians like Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, Clement of Alexandria and modern ones like Torrance and Barth. This list might rightly give the impression that there is a strong Trinitarian focus to the theology. The author, John Crowder, confesses himself to be a fan of such theology though with the disclaimer that he may not always pass it on so well. And to be fair there were one or two points when I felt that he fell of the theological wagon but overall the thrust was fairly consistent and sustained.

One of the things I enjoyed also was someone quite obviously formed in the pente-charismatic end of US Evangelicalism 'selling' Orthodox theology like theopoiesis and doing so in a style that would probably connect with that constituency. Even to the point of using the language of prosperity teaching -which was frankly a bit disturbing though a hint here and there that it is nuanced in such a way as to avoid the excesses of that kind of teaching (though not enough that I felt entirely sure of that)

The main theses being promoted are an exposition of the theological implications of God being love and that we are loved from eternity. In the process he does a take-down of popular excesses in the relating of penal substititionary atonement, the misconceived understandings of God's wrath and the general grumpiness of the way that popular American Evangelicalism portrays God. And he's right to do all of those things.

Just sometimes I felt he got carried away with his own rhetoric and so seemed to fall into the 'rebound' effect of argumentation (you know, trying to state something against an error so strongly that you end up appearing to endorse something equally erroneous the other way) -though there are little bits that indicate these are flights of rhetoric. A notable place where this happens is in the treatment of anger where he manages to calm the rhetoric to note that love implies anger in some circumstances and he probably does so in a way that overall gets the balance right on that.

I found myself speed-reading some sections, and asked myself why. What i realised was that there was a lot of familiarity on my part with the broad line of argument being made and that I was getting impatient with the preacherly voice of delivery in the text which battered at me: 'I know, I get it; now can we get on with the next point?' captures my inner reaction.

The thing I'd probably want to explore with him, if I got a chance, would be how -given the hammering home of the finished work of Christ- we are actually to understand continuing bad behaviour and bad attitudes in Christians. Sometimes it almost seemed that he'd slipped into transcendentalism and was singing Mary Baker Eddy's tunes.

Amazon.com: Cosmos Reborn : Happy Theology on the New Creation eBook: John Crowder: Kindle Store:


Cosmos Reborn -- Amazon
Cosmos Reborn -- Book Trailer
John Crowder -- Main site (Sons of Thunder)
John Crowder -- Fan page on Facebok

#SpeakeasyCosmosReborn