Session 3, Part 2 - 2007 Theological, Philosophical Conversation

Finally, in part 3 we get to some of the discussion I had hoped to hear. I wish this session had continued. Jack really had good points about pluralism and his analysis of the hypothetical conversation between Jesus and the Buddha was perfect.

I really want to answer Tony’s response since Jack didn’t have the time or maybe the full understanding of Buddhist philosophy to answer. Tony proposed an issue at the very end “If Jesus does ask Buddha to come follow me and Buddha asks the same of Jesus, then [wouldn’t] Jesus ask the Buddha to follow him to a crucifixion. What would that mean?”

Tony was so close to the answer but nobody mentioned it! This isn’t a problem for the Buddha. He would say “Yes, I’ll follow you to crucifixion. Actually, crucifixion is the way I’m chosen as well.”

You see, the entire Buddhist philosophy is about dying to self. It is about a transformation from self-centeredness to other-centeredness, from self-gratification to compassion, from hyper-individuality to oneness (community, relationship,etc.). If we look at how Paul analyzes the cross we see that he translates Jesus’ crucifixion into our own need to daily die to our “self”. That is the central claim of the Buddha and I would argue it is the very thing that Jack and Richard are talking around for the last half of the discussion.

The key to pluralism in post-modern theology is to understand that the prominent uniqueness we treasure in each faith tradition is only unique in each traditions mythology. Beneath the myths are the same central claims of unconditional love, death to our selfish nature, and transforming the world (ending suffering, nirvana, the kingdom of God).

I would love to hear Tony’s reaction, but I never see him or other “leaders” converse here.

What do you mean when you say: The key to pluralism in post-modern theology is to understand that the prominent uniqueness we treasure in each faith tradition is only unique in each traditions mythology. Beneath the myths are the same central claims of unconditional love, death to our selfish nature, and transforming the world (ending suffering, nirvana, the kingdom of God).

Are you saying that every faith, including Christianity, is essentially the same, that there are many paths to heaven? What do you say about what Christ accomplished on the cross, and who are the beneficiaries of His work on the cross? It’s sounding like universalism, but I may be misunderstanding you.

I’m talking about universal truths with individually unique myths. I’m not sure about the label “universalism” because that has a bunch of baggage, but if it means that God and God’s values are valuable for the whole universe (i.e. they are universal), then that label could work. It may already have other meanings to some people.

More specifically, I’m saying that the essential truths under the myths (stories/narratives/symbols) are the same. Love over hate, justice over oppression, peace over violence, community over individualism, life over death, positive over negative, etc.

On the deep layer of “truth” they are the same, but on the superficial layer of story/symbol/parable they are unique in their presentation.

As for the cross, that “story” is unique to Christianity, but it has a universal underlying layer of meaning. We die to our own self interests in favor of God’s interests. We are called to lay down our lives to follow him. These are all universal themes even if many traditions have different stories, myths, and symbols to represent that meaning.

I define universalism in the context of salvation, i.e., the view that every human being will escape eternal, conscious torment and will instead spend eternity with God in peace and joy. This view is contrary to the bible’s teaching of sin and salvation. If you’re trying to get at common universals in each culture’s creation myth, such as the universal realization that sacrifice is necessary for the remission of sin, in order to make a redemptive analogy so that those from the other culture would see Jesus as their “way, truth, life, and only way to the Father”, then I’m with you. But your last paragraph sounds to me like the old modern interpretation of Jesus as simply an example for life rather than our propitiation for sin. Please clarify. Thanks.

Gad Fly,

I’m suggesting that Jesus’ life and message was our propitiation for sin. His way of forgiveness, reconciliation, and justice are the cure (salvation) for revenge, division, and injustice (sin). When a person shares this “way” they are sharing Christ even if they use different symbols and stories. Even if it was a buddhist long before Jesus was born or a Christian preacher long after he was crucified. This type of upside down logic (logos) is eternal and as the Gospel of John says, it was “in the beginning” and it also “became flesh and dwelt among us” in the life and message of Jesus.

This gets way beyond our silly questions about “who’s in and who’s out”.

I’ve not yet listened to this most recent dialogue yet, but I hear what you guys are saying, I think.
For me, I guess, the question is less about whether or not God does or does not in fact work through religious traditions other than christianity – I find this reasonable – but really how could I possibly know for sure? Buddhists definitely have very different ideas about the nature of reality, evil vs good, etc. than we christians do. Of course they don’t accept Christ’s life/death/resurrection as their way to ‘salvation’ (Nirvana is a very different concept from ‘salvation’) but is it our ideas about reality that save us? I mean, what is it that qualifies us to recieve the grace of God and ‘salvation’ anyway? Is it the choices we make about what to believe? Who knows?
All these questions can be answered by each person or group of people but never finally proven (at least in this lifetime). Each of us has to figure out for ourselves what we believe and live by. But I trust the grace of God as both merciful and just.

I still haven’t listended to this yet, but I wanted to clarify my previous comment.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I neither accept universalism (as defined by Gad Fly) nor reject it. I can’t possibly know because I’m not God.
I cannot accept the idea that God cannot or does not have grace for people who are not ‘christians’, who never heard of Jesus, nor had even a chance to believe in ‘God’ (the all-powerful/just/loving/creator/father… that we believe in) or God’s grace as a way to ‘salvation’.
Yet at the same time, as a Christian, I do believe in the reality of sin and the central importance of confession and repentance as a way to choose to recieve the grace of God who gives eternal life through himself as Jesus.

I guess the heart of it comes in what we mean by ‘belief’ belief in the head/the ‘right’ theology isn’t it. Why then shouldn’t God be able to work through other religious traditions? Why should God be limited by our narrow beliefs about what reality is like and who God is?

We can’t possibly know for sure, so maybe we should suspend judgement on who gets in and who’s left out.
Instead, maybe we should focus on living our belief in grace, love, justice, and a God who cares about all people.

Joel,

Are you sure that Buddhists don’t accept Christ’s life/death/resurrection as their way to ‘salvation? Are you sure that Nirvana is a very different concept from ‘salvation’? Have you bothered to look beneath the metaphorical layer of their stories and symbols (which they are actually much more open to see as mythical)? For that matter, have you bothered to look beneath the metaphorical layer of your own tradition? Us Christians often take our myths so literally that we assume other religions must always do the same. That isn’t the case.

The Kingdom of God was something that Jesus said was “within us”. John said it was “at hand”. I think the Kingdom of God is Nirvana. It is God’s will done on earth in our minds (hearts), families, communities, and nations. Peaceful beings dying to their selfishness and living God-centered lives in a state of divine justice. When we get stuck on the language and symbols, we lose the meanings. People are dying over words if they would bother to understand the meanings they would realize we are often saying the same things. That is what I heard in Jack and Richard’s generous comments. We can deconstruct the systems that were built on an over-literalization of the myths.

Mike,

Interesting reply.
Yes, I am sure that Buddhists do not accept the Christian ‘particularities’ of the life-death-resurection of Jesus as their way to ‘salvation’ because if they did, they wouldn’t be Buddhists, they would be Christians. A point which I thought was pretty clear in what Jack and Richard had to say about the uniqueness of Christianity and the uniqueness of other religions (It seemed to me that they said that althoug we can learn from the particularities of other religions, that to make all religions out to be the same would be a misunderstanding of their position)

My point here is that we (humans in general) can and do have very different ideas of the nature of reality. A Hindu devotee of Shiva and a Southern Baptist for instance will have very different concepts of what is meant by the word ‘god’. (Our respective ‘mythologies’ paint very different pictures of the character and nature of ‘God/gods thereby giving us very different ideas of what a ‘god’ is like). The reason I pointed this out in my previous comments was to say that if having all the right ideas, the right theology, and knowing God fully is what saves us, then we’re all doomed. (therefore it must be that our ideas/theology is not what saves us)

I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you suggest that we all really mean the same things by the various terms and symbols that we use. So let me rephrase what I think you’re saying.

You seem to be saying that ultimately all religions are just different expressions of the same search for the divine, and that it’s not the specific beliefs or practices that matter but the search for the divine behind those beliefs and practices that really matters?

By the way, I agree with you that we do get ‘stuck on the language and symbols’ and that ‘People are dying over words’ as you put it.
There are so many things that religious people around the world have in common, and we need to be able to identify with each other and try to understand each other rather than focusing on the differences which so often leads to an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ mentality where ‘they’ become an incomprehensible enemy rather than a friend to learn from.

I wouldn’t say that the differences between religions do not exist, and that we all really mean exactly the same things by our different symbols. But neither do I wish to suggest that the differences are so great that they cannot be overcome.
I think that if we try to understand our differences with respect, humility, and empathy, then we can begin to understand that we have a lot in common and begin to learn from our differences and see from the perspective of ‘the other’ so as to see another aspect of the face of God.

In conclusion, I think that you (mike) and I are really saying very similar things but we’re just using different words to do it.

I just finished listening to this series yesterday. I found it very enlightening and full with nuggets of wisdom. Yet, I find myself emphatically disagreeing with Caputo’s and Kearney’s final statements according to which Christianity is just one way to find God, one narrative among many.

The Gospel is: Jesus (by which I mean a particular individual that actually inhabited space-time, a first century Galilean Jew, son, craftsman, prophet, teacher, convicted criminal) is King of the universe. All creation, all humanity (past, present and future) will literally rise from the dead in tangible bodies and kneel to this very particular man. That’s the Christian gospel: Jesus is King.

Mike, I hope nothing I write here will offend you, I know I can be blunt (maybe it’s my Israeli culture; maybe that’s just a lame excuse). But it seems to me that what you’re describing as the Christian Gospel has very little to do with Christianity at all. Indeed, to me it sounds like the old Gnostic Gospel in new fashionable attire. The Gospel, according to you (in my interpretation, of course), isn’t really about the person Jesus, it’s about striving after the Divine, discovering who you really are, tapping in to secret timeless truths. I’m sorry, but like I said, that seems like Gnosticism to me. If I’m wrong – please correct me. Also, your ideas seem to be a direct extension of Liberal Christian Theology ala Bultmann: we need to peel away the “mythology” to find the “timeless truths”. I would say that there are no timeless truths – truth is in time, in the narrative, and the narrative refers to actual referents in time.

Of course I believe God can work in the lives of non-Christians: through beauty, spirituality, ethics, relationships and so on. But in the end everyone will fall down on there faces and recognize Jesus as King. I don’t know if they will all be saved or not, but they will all recognize the King. There are many things I’m unsure about, but with out this my faith is nothing but vapor.

Joel,

Thanks for the dialogue here. I agree with the fact that the ‘particularities’ of each religion are unique. The myths, narratives, symbols are all unique and shouldn’t be mashed together into a watered down nothingness. I see each tradition as valuable. But what I’m saying and I think I heard as a theme in the discussion is that we shouldn’t assume our differences on the surface level are also differences in meaning. If I tell a story that conveys the meaning “love your neighbor and walk in mercy and justice” then you tell a completely different story that makes the same point, which one of us is the bearer of truth?

When I suggest that Buddhists also accept Jesus’ life/death/resurrection as their way to ‘salvation’, I’m talking about a level of deeper meaning. Of course, they don’t share the same story and language but they do share the same central meaning to their lives. This isn’t a competition for the best story.

You are also making a big assumption that there is only one Christian way to view reality (by reality I think you mean ontological claims). That just isn’t true. Christianity does not have to box God into one narrow ontological view. The point of Christianity is that we use this particular story and symbolism about Jesus to convey these central truths about God’s ideals of peace and Justice becoming a reality on Earth. Our goal shouldn’t be to prove any particular ancient philosophical view about the nature of our existence. We don’t have to buy into the body/soul dualism of Plato or the image of a triune God created by later Roman Catholics just to be followers of Christ.

Mike, can’t you see that you’re making exactly the same “big assumption”. It’s a very modernist assumption too. You assume that Christianity is about a specific thing, namely the “ideal of peace and Justice becoming a reality on Earth (no doubt this is PART of the Christian message). Then you assume you can just peal away the narrative to get to the point. Well, I believe the narrative IS the point… And I do think that the crux of what we call the Gospel (which itself is only part of the full narrative) can be summarized: Jesus is King. That’s the declaration Paul carried around the Mediterranean and that’s the declaration we carry with us today. Of course, precisely BECAUSE Jesus is King we should work for peace and justice here and now.

Phillip I agree with you, those symbols and metaphors are very true. But what do they mean? Why did these ancient poets and storytellers craft those stories? What is the good news? What would it mean for Jesus to be king? What would it mean for God’s will to be done on earth?

If we just spout the words without discussing the deeper meaning, it will die.

If Jesus were king, what kind of health care system would he put in place? What would be his response to terrorists? Would he be concerned about global warming?

We make Jesus king every day by making decisions “as if” he were actually the king. Or, we chose not to and just sit around idolizing the myths and fighting over which stories are facts and which ones are fiction. The reality is that they are all fiction AND they are all deeply truth-filled.

I appreciate Mike L’s effort to address pluralism so that our differencies do not destroy us. He does this by making us all hold the same ultimate truths, just expressed differently.
Joel wonders if our beliefs even matter for our salvation. But since we can’t know, he suggest we live out our beliefs with hope. He comments he and Mike L may be speaking of the same ultimate truths.
Phillip challenges the buried truth theory and holds Mike L’s and Joel’s truths are but narratives as his structure of reality only his is the right one. Interestingly Phillip’s narrative points to doing the same activities proposed by Mike and Joel.
It seems to me you all no longer need god since what is good is now known by each of you. A mediator however may be heplful to settle your differences.

Progression of Faith, Mike C, I really appreciate your input.

Progression of Faith, I agree with you whole heartedly that precisely because we believe Jesus is King we must be good stewards of the planet, we must care with sacrificial love for the last and least, we must work out love for our enemies even while wishing to protect our loved ones… We agree on all those things. I’m not proposing we should hide away in a closet and hope we get raptured up into some ethereal heavenly existence. We pray that Heaven will come to Earth in the Lord’s prayer, not that we will get swooped up into Heaven. We agree on all these things. But we don’t do these things (God help me, I usually don’t do them very well at all), “as if” Jesus is King. We do them BECAUSE HE IS. Of course we can be wrong, yet we still believe wholeheartedly and with assurance that Jesus is King. If we said this using a rationalist etymology it would sound like nonsense – but we say this through an etymology of Hope, Faith and Love. Faith is not the suspension of reason – it’s a leap into the impossible with the full assurance that through God it is possible.

Yes, Mike, I do, in a sense, BELIEVE my narrative is right. But, as Caputo phrased it, I let myself be haunted that it is not. My Faith truly does emanate from deep recesses of doubt. Still I believe truly, I don’t just pretend to believe, or wish to believe. Faith is a form of knowledge. It could be the best kind of knowledge.

My challenge is this – if you stop saying that the center of all Knowledge is Jesus (the actual historical person) and replace it with Justice, Mercy, Self-sacrifice, Deconstruction or anything else (all good things without a doubt), can you truly say your message is a Christian message? Or are you just using Christian imagery to describe something altogether different (like the ancient Gnostics)?

To all,

This is a very interesting discussion, but I’m asking myself ‘what’s the point?’
So here are some general reflections:

Our disagreements seem to stem from one issue: What about other religions – does God work through them?
But maybe our premis is flawed.

Why should religions matter? I have never met Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, or Islam. I have met people though – people who live and believe in certain ways and each one with their own individual take on those philosophies/beliefs.

I think the question isn’t ‘does God work through other religions?’ but ‘does God work in people?’
I mean, aren’t we all just people, just like everybody else – children of God – before we’re a part of a religion, or any other group of people with similar beliefs and philosophies?

Isn’t our common human experience that there’s something wrong the world, with us? Aren’t all of us – regardless of our philosophy – broken, self-centred, incomplete, sinners, living with pain and suffering?

Is there an answer to the problem? Don’t we all recognize the goodness of truth and love, and justice and grace? Don’t we all feel that things could be better and that they should be better?

Personally, I believe that the answer is Jesus who is God. I’ve had experiences of God’s love and grace in my life. I’m not perfect, but I’m becoming better, I think. Love and Grace from the perfect being who I know of as the God Jesus.
Not everyone believes this though. But that’s ok. If God exists and my experience of his work in my life is not an illusion then this will become clear in the end. If the justice and love and grace of God are real, then it will eventually be known to everyone.

I can’t prove that the way I see God is The correct way to see God, but I don’t need to either.
I see the goodness of taking up the cross and following Jesus, dying to myself, learning to be other-centred rather than self-centred, to become more good rather than more evil.
I just have to learn to live it.

I don’t know if this speaks to all of your comments, but this is my take on it for now.

I’ve been away from this discussion for a while so i have some comments that relate to a while back. Mike L, regarding your Oct 16 comment: this question of “who’s in and who’s out” was not ‘silly’ to Jesus. Actually, the question comes from Jesus’ teaching (it’s quite bold of you to call Jesus’ teaching ‘silly’). Jesus said, “…so it will be at the end of the age; the angels shall come forth, and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 13:47-50; see also parable of wheat and tares explained in vss. 36-43). The “person and message” of Jesus, Mike, cannot be the propitiation of our sin if we’ve redefined his person and message, which I fear you have done. Commenting on the discussion as a whole, the doubt expressed in this conversation concerns me. I realize that no one can know everything there is to know – only God can make that claim. Yet God has chosen to reveal Himself to us, not entirely, but sufficiently to salvation and personal relationship with Himself, through His Word, incarnated in the Scriptures and in the person of Jesus. The Apostle John states the purpose of his telling the gospel of Jesus Christ: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may KNOW that you have eternal life” (1 Jn 5:13; cf Jn 20:24). Though it may be fashionable in our modern/postmodern age to doubt, there are some things we can be sure of (eg, the world is round, Jesus is the one true God and there is no other name under heaven by which men may be saved, heaven & hell are real, everyone will someday die, etc). Perhaps the following epistemology will be helpful to guard us against wrong thinking. John Frame’s concept of “tri-perspectivalism” is a balanced epistemological model. It’s comprised of three perspectives – Normative, Situational and Existential – that inform and one another as a “checks & balances” system. The unbridled extreme of the normative is rationalism (the Enlightenment error I mentioned above). The extreme of the situational is empiricism (the modernist error). The extreme of the existential is subjectivism (the postmodernist error). Applying this model to the knowledge of God, the normative corresponds to Scripture, the situational corresponds to God’s work around us, and the existential corresponds to God’s communication within us. Applying this to God’s nature, the normative corresponds to His authority, the situational to His control, and the existential to His covenant presence with His people. In the end, I affirm that words DO matter. To claim that words have no objective meaning is self-refuting, for how could a person make this claim without assuming that his words “words have no objective meaning” actually have objective meaning? Let’s not complicate matters by empty philosophy in our efforts to accomodate all religions. Rather, let’s get the gospel of Jesus Christ clear and proclaim it lovingly in word and deed that all the nations can come to God on His terms (ie Jesus Christ as He’s revealed in the Bible) rather than on their terms.

Gad Fly,

Let’s discuss knowledge and Truth. From where do you take your knowledge of reality? i.e. How do you know that what you believe to be true really is true? i.e. couldn’t you possibly or conceivably be wrong? How can you be sure?

Knowledge as far as I’ve looked into it is quite problematic.

I believe that each person has to figure out for his or her self what they believe – ‘is there a God?’ ‘Do I accept the Bible message as authoritative?’
You would probably say the same thing – that we have to accept Jesus as our Lord by faith. Knowing God comes through faith. Abraham was justified by faith.

Acknowledging the limitations on human knowledge is realistic and in no way compromises the message of the Bible as far as I can tell.

I look forward to discussing this further and hearing what you have to say.

Mike C,

This isn’t the crusades so it isn’t about “settling differences” and declaring a winner. Conversation is about expressing differences and finding out how they each sustain our own faith. It is about recognizing God in the other.

Philip,

You are concerned that if people don’t say Jesus is the center of all Knowledge and replace it with justice, mercy, self-sacrifice, and deconstruction it won’t be Christian. What could be more Christian than to live like Christ? I completely agree that Jesus is the center! When you say “Jesus is the center of all knowledge” you ARE saying that the point of our faith is justice, mercy, self-sacrifice, and deconstruction. That was exactly the knowledge he gave us. Those things ARE Jesus. Why can’t someone express his knowledge without the symbolic language you’ve grown to love (jesus is king, jesus is the center, jesus is lord, etc)? “King”, “Center”, and “Lord” are all metaphors for making the passion of Jesus our passion and making his vision a reality right now. Do we follow Jesus or the metaphorical language written about him? Isn’t that the kind of deconstruction Jesus did by creating new parables to express God’s nature?

The modernist fight between left and right was largely a fight for words and symbols and it left people with 2 choices: A) use this exact language and symbolism in a literalistic way which holds us captive to an ancient world view or B) become an enlightened atheist.

Now we can move beyond that modern false dichotomy. We have an option C) fall in love with the MEANING of the story without being held hostage by the ancient world view of its authors. What might be the result of millions of Christians focued on bringing Jesus’ passion into reality as opposed to people fighting to be the winner of all religions? What if we could really hear what Jack and Richard were saying without being so alarmed that one or two sentences sounded like “universalism”?

well said

This is a great conversation. Coming from an Anabaptist background and being educated in a Reformed setting, I’ve thought a bit about ‘truth as belief’ vs. ‘truth as the embodiment of a belief’. Then there’s the idea that truth really isn’t truth until it’s lived out in concrete acts of justice, charity, etc. Do you think the parable about the two sons applies at all? The son who initially defies his father but later obeys is better than the son who agrees to obey but fails to actually do so. In this connection, maybe the Muslim who lives a life embodying love, peace, justice, etc.is more Christlike than the Christian who holds to these highest of virtues but fails to live them out.

Each persons beliefs, narratives, matter. These interpret their experience and prepare them to act in their world.
All beliefs are subjectively valid, may I say relative. This is why different persons can share the same or a similar event yet experience it differently. What we can hear and see is a matter of the beliefs we hold.
Joel, my question also is: Do my beliefs lead me to act in a manner where the reality I experience is growing and bears fruit.
May I share a narrative once given to me: There are many ways to lay hold of god as there are ways to take hold of a cat. You can seize the legs, the tail, or the nape of the neck; all are equally part of the cat. If you grab the tail or the legs, you have not missed the cat; you truly have it. But the consequences are often disastrous.

Joel- I have been pondering over your statement “knowing God comes through faith.”
It leads me to ask if my statement follows along a similar path: If faith is to act as if we know god, then our experience bears the fruit of the god we believe we know.
Mike L you proposed that “the point of our faith is justice, self sacrifice, and deconstruction. Those things ARE Jesus”
Is god thereby this knowledge as goals to be sought and faithfully to be served?
I wonder if maybe the god we seek shouldn’t create a life for us that far exceeds anything we can individually imagine. What we each believe we know seems too often to only divide us.
My query then; does knowing god come through faith or does faith come from knowing god.

Mike C

You said:

“I wonder if maybe the god we seek shouldn’t create a life for us that far exceeds anything we can individually imagine. What we each believe we know seems too often to only divide us.”

I think you’re right on.
I think that my answer to you is this: God and truth and love and justice are all far beyond my ability to grasp. I agree that our beliefs about reality do determine how we interpret our experiences, but what then is it to learn?
When we learn we are expanding our ‘box’ (all the stuff we know, have experienced, think, what we consider possible, etc). God never fits into our boxes. Our boxes are limited and so naturally we will have some warped view.
Yes, as I understand God, He is the source of my faith, but there have been moments (many of them) where I have had to make a choice for faith in my God rather than disbelief and doubt. I am ‘haunted’ by the fact that my perspective (even if it is growing) is and continually will be limited and that I could be wrong, nevertheless I have made the determination to choose faith and to continue being given the gift of faith.
I keep coming back to Love. Love (as God and others centred – as defined by Jesus in the parable of the good Samaritan). Love as the highest good. Love is very much the reason I keep coming back to God and asking for faith and wisdom and love. I am incomplete, I am growing, and I easily could be wrong about many things, but we all have to choose some path in life. The path I desire to follow is the one of the God I know – of Love, of Truth, of Justice.

Joel – I agree with you. God works through people, not through labels (such as “Christian”). Our perspective will always be limited, and we can always grow in our faith. Still, we know (through faith, not rationalist reason) that Jesus is sovereign. Therefore we should want everyone to live their lives out through the knowledge that Jesus is King. Evangelism is important. Just because it can be done poorly doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go out and make disciples, like Jesus commanded. If all beliefs were equally valid, why would we be commanded to make disciples?

Gad Fly – I agree with the essence of the faith you’re conveying, but I find myself cringing at your systematic breakdown of it. Systematic theology can be hindering rather than helpful. God is telling us a story, and instead of listening to the story and acting it out with our lives, we cut it up into a million pieces and compartmentalize them in little boxes…

Mike L. – Are you consciously following Bultmanism and Liberal Christian ideas? Personally, I don’t agree with that concept at all. It too, in its own way, destroys the story, by claiming that what really matters are the timeless truths beneath the story. As I said, I believe the story is where you find truth. If you peal away the story you are left with nothing. The person Jesus is not a metaphor for anything else. He is a human being, he is the Divine Logos, and he is alive today in an actual body. To deny any of those things is to deny the message of Jesus as passed down to us through the Apostles and the universal Ecclesia.

Terrill – I think you are right on the nail. But of course, what you said doesn’t mean there is no value in belonging to the Church and worshiping Jesus together in our words, as well as our individual actions. Just because there may be back routes towards knowing God better (though we don’t know how they would work), it doesn’t mean we should give up on the highway that has been laid out for us.

Mike C – I just wanted to say I loved the cat story, I’ll remember that one.

It seems that most of us lean more toward one of two poles: 1) truth as concrete, earthy, storied, irreducible, exoteric and 2) truth as ‘abstracted’ or ‘extracted’ from narrative, transhistorical, universal, esoteric or what have you. If we take the first option to a literal extreme, then we would have to try to do exactly what Jesus did, not just do ‘as’ he did. Then we’d be growing beards, wearing robes, learning carpentry, getting crucified, etc. But as soon as we allow doing just ‘as’ he did, haven’t we already extracted some kind of moral principle? For example, if we note that Jesus treated women equitably and compassionately in specific cases and then go do the same for the women in our particular place and time, aren’t we implicitly embodying abstract principles like love, justice, mercy, etc.? Isn’t that the move—-whether explicit or implicit—we make in every instance of ‘application’? Can you apply an ancient moralistic narrative directly to your own ongoing narrative without any level of intermediary thought? I think we all have a deep and saddening sense that as a church we too often fail to make the existential connection between Jesus’ life and our own. One reaction to that is to emphasize the ancient gospel narratives over the abstracted virtues because the narratives are concrete, tangible, knowable. The other reaction is to emphasize the abtracted virtues and how they are often more successfully embodied by people of other faiths. It’s a huge relief to know that some Buddhists or even pagans manage to live uprightly…and sometimes they do it without ‘talking the talk’!

For me personally, the whole question of Jesus as the preeminent moral example among lesser peers is not as big a problem as other Christian teachings, like justification by faith and not works. Phenomenologically, it just doesn’t make sense to me why saying: “I believe in Jesus as my savior” actually saves a person. Maybe it only saves us insofar as we emulate him in our own lives. It’s not that our good works earn our salvation, it’s that the process itself of closely imitating Jesus is what saves us…from ourselves and the world. In this light, I could understand how a Hindu, unwittingly living as Jesus would, would be being saved…essentially by Christ…only as Karl Rahner puts it, “anonymously”.

Joel- You seem to struggle with being human. But isn’t putting events into boxes of understanding what we do; doesn’t it define being human. I believe, however, I understand your anguish. Is it when we humans make these boxes of understanding into our god; only to find ourselves isolated from one another and our creator?

Phillip,
I’ve been thinking over what you said:
“If all beliefs were equally valid, why would we be commanded to make disciples?”
Although my first response was going to be on truth and how do we know truth, and so on, as I thought about it, I realized that I totally agree with you here.
I don’t accept that all beliefs are equally valid. I believe that there is an objective reality to whether there is a God or not, and all that. I also think that we can know truth – though not fully. Just as Paul said in 1Cor.13:
“Now we see only a blurred reflection in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known”
I guess my point is this: I believe that we can be closer to or further away from knowing the truth. We’ll never attain it fully in this lifetime, but having epistemological humility does not prevent us from knowing what we believe and why, or from living it and sharing it with others.
Further, If I believe that truth is important, that all that I’ve learned has helped me become a better person for it, if I believe that God has touched my life and I believe the good news of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and message and their impact on my life really is good news; and if I really care about other people, if I think that what I’ve learned might be something good to offer them (just as so many people have knowingly or not benefited my life by giving input and direction to me) then this should prompt me to return the favour to others. Given this, I should certainly take Jesus’ final command seriously and go out to make disciples of all nations.
At the same time, ‘proclamation’ without practice is worthless and hypocritical. I believe that sharing what I’ve found to be the truth is important, but without love, it is cold. And without humility (knowing and admitting our limitations) it dishonest.

Mike C,

Yea, it’s hard to search for the truth with all these very human, very natural limitations. I often feel like it’s impossible, but at the same time, so essential.

Reason, I think, is the tool that enables us to know “if we are yet on the right road and how far we have come” as you put it.

I think that without reason everything would only be a ‘shifting phantasmagoria’ as I’ve heard our existence described.

Joel, all I can say is “Amen and Amen” to every word you just wrote. Well put.

Mike C, I wasn’t arguing against reason – I think you’re absolutely correct. I was arguing against an attempt to know God through rationalist means – that I think is futile. Faith, I believe, is always “reasonable” but never “rationalist”. In other words, faith does not contradict reason but neither can it be contained within it. It’s simply too big to be contained by something so limited…

Terrill, I think your analysis is very interesting. Maybe we should recognize that indeed any application of the Gospel in our lives requires an intermediate act of interpretation and imagination, but it still refers to an actual, exoteric, irreducible, storied referent. In this act of imaginative interpretation we ourselves become part of the narrative. I think that’s a healthy synthesis of the two extremes.

As for your second point, I believe salvation must be more than just us trying to be good people by emulating Jesus as a moral teacher and example. The church rejected this extreme form of Pelagianism for a reason, I believe. I think it must be far more mysterious than that: Becoming one with Messiah and with his Body through transformative Faith and Sacraments. Maybe as an Anabaptist you have a very take on this (my opinions are quite heterodox in my own Messianic community). What do you think? What do the Anabaptists think of Sacraments and of the Faith/works question?

I really liked what Richard had to say about Levinas and Ricoeur’s ideas about the way into the kingdom is to give up the kingdom, about offering one’s self in service to others and desiring salvation for others.
I really think this idea is beautiful, but I want to know where it comes from.
I’m just now getting into learning about deconstruction and this series has been massively helpful to me in this way. But I still don’t get where many of these ideas are coming from – I don’t understand the framework behind them, if you know what I mean.

I would really like to discuss these ideas of salvation for others and ‘inter-confessional hospitatliy’ because they clearly touch on what we’ve been discussing here about other religions (assuming we’re all Christians) and how to deal with issues of salvation and universalism and all.

So if anyone has any input to add on these points I would love to hear what you have to say.

One other thing I wanted to do was to clarify my comment on ‘proclamation’. I have to say that this comment should be taken in the context of the tension which I have expressed previously, which I feel between the ideas of having found through reason and faith what I believe to be the truth and the constant and unending search for truth – knowing that i will never have all the answers and that whatever perspective I have is inevitably limited.

Of course this forces me to accept a theology of humility while seeing the importance of actually living out the things I say I believe.

Terrill,
I too really appreciated your analysis of truth as concrete embodyment within th story vs truth abstracted from the story, taken in principle.
I think that was a very good point which we should also devote a bit of discussion.

I think you made a very good point that to take the truths we see enacted in the stories, we must abstract them and interpret them to fit into our story. But I wanted to point out the fact that love can only exist in a context of multiple beings. ‘Love’ taken out of any context or story is meaningless. It necessarily must be applied to a story for it to have meaning.
Just as our words take their meaning from the concrete things we do.

Philip, I like your synthesis of the two extremes. I wonder if N.T. Wright is correct when he says that the dichotomy of history vs. theology (concrete vs. abstract) is a result of modern thinking and categories and may be surmountable. As to your question, generally speaking most Anabaptists historically have held a memorialist view of the Eucharist (‘Do this in remembrance of me…’) and a symbolic view of Baptism (believer’s baptism). What defines a Christian is not so much a mystical union with Christ through the Sacraments, but a day-to-day life of simple discipleship and unquestioning obedience, one that somehow unites us with the suffering Christ. It’s not coincidence that the Sermon on the Mount, 1 John, and James are among the Anabaptists’ favorite texts. Because of this existential concern, there have been practically no Anabaptist systematic theologies; in fact, up until the last few decades, Anabaptists have viewed higher education with suspicion. Their priority is on living out the faith, as evidence of faith.

Nevertheless, no matter how one defines union with Christ, be it through transformative faith and sacraments or a faithful walk of obedience, how is this union qualitatively different (exclusive of) other ‘unions’ with the divine in other religions? I thought of another way to phrase the two extremes I mentioned above.

Is God love, or is Love god?

You may have noticed Richard Kearney’s oh-so-subtle yet unmistakable statement about God being love and love being God. I’m assuming he’s paraphrasing that verse in 1 John: ho theos agape estin (‘the god love is’). If you’ve been to seminary or studied Greek, this may have raised a red flag. They hammered that home to us in seminary: that syntactical structure cannot mean ‘love is god’, but only ‘God is love’! Well, I think it’s fairly clear that neither Caputo nor Kearney are biblical exegetes (Kearney got John 14:6 all garbled up… ‘I am the truth, the way, and the life.’) It struck me that they both, to one degree or another, seem to be dropping dark hints that ‘god-is-love’ is a reversible predication. If they’re right, then wherever you find love, you find God. Christianity may then just be a particularly poignant or demonstrative revelation of Love. Our task would be to deconstruct the historical and cultural shell, the theological and philosophical categories embodied in the New Testament, and absorb what measure of Love we may find. To say from within the Christian tradition that ‘God is love’ is to say that we know enough about God through Jesus Christ to know that if any one ‘thing’ characterizes him, it is love. To say that ‘love is God’ is to open the door to a great many things.

Joel, I’m with you that a lot of these deconstructive ideas are beautiful, almost enchanting. I found this series helpful, but like you, I’d love to know where some of their thoughts are coming from. Better, I’d love to hear them walk through the NT chapter by chapter, instead of grabbing a verse here or there.

I wanted to comment on your statement: “love taken out of any context or story is meaningless.” People like Walter Ong have written about how when they interview illiterate people, asking them to define abstract terms, the people inevitably give one or more short stories to illustrate the term, rather than define it in equally abstract terms. David Abrams, an ecologist and philosopher, suggests that abstract thought was made possible only with the advent of fully phonetic writing (writing that relies on itself, not on the world of lived experience). So, by the time the Greek alphabet became fully phonetic, the philosophers were able to contemplate things like ‘justice’, ‘peace’, ‘love’, ‘god’ in and of themselves as word-objects, disconnected from their narrative embodiment. For better or worse, New Testament writers, by virtue of using the Greek alphabet, took part in this potentially de-narrativizing process. I agree with you Joel, that love is not an abstract idea (should God be, as in metaphysics? We know what Caputo and Kearney would say). Neither is love/god an object to be manipulated by our rational minds. This accords with the postmodern sentiment of: ‘If what you say is true, show me by the story of your life.’ I don’t care what you believe, what your theology is, if it is only a Judeo-Christian language game. Show me by your life that what you say is true. (Sorry this is a little long-winded…I’m leaving in 3 months to begin a Bible-translation project for a tribe in Uganda. I’m trying to remember why I’m doing this.)

Phillip and Terrill,

This discussion on salvation, faith and works, the sacraments, is very interesting. I’ve given the issues a bit of thought over the past few years, questioning some of my assumptions and ideas of what faith/religion/spirituality are and what they should look like as applied to my life, whether people from other religions can be ‘saved’ and so on. So I’m going to just throw my opinion on the matter out there as far as I’ve dealt with it and see what you guys think.

Personally I don’t see any sort of contradiction between understanding salvation as a mystical union with Christ and emulating Christ as the way of salvation. I don’t think that there should be any conflict between your positions. Rather that they are like two sides of the same coin.

I have trouble accepting either position to the exclusion of the other. To frame each other’s positions as simple ‘have faith and believe and you will be saved’, or “ try to be good people by emulating Jesus as a moral teacher and example” are too simple – I couldn’t accept either one.

On the one hand, our faith must have consequences in the real world. If we say we believe something and even believe that we believe it (as I’d say we all do) and yet do not live our beliefs, then we should be questioning whether or not we actually believe what we think we believe.
As Bernard Adeney said in his book ‘Strange Virtues’ “the meaning of what we proclaim is not only validated by how we live but actually defined by our lifestyle.” If the meanings of words like ‘love’ and ‘forgiveness’, are not played out in any story and experienced, then they have no meaning.

On the other hand, I think we’re too broken, self-centred, incomplete, and weak to change ourselves and in that sense be fully saved by Jesus’ teachings. That means that there the good news that there’s grace for us, is really good news to me. I screw up all the time. So the idea that it is not by our works that we can become perfect and ‘saved’ is good because I can’t.

Yet there’s truth to the works too. I am the only person who has the power to make choices for myself. If I don’t make them then they won’t be made. It can be so easy to justify my self-serving actions as ‘the right thing’ and deceive myself, while ignoring the radical teachings of Jesus because they go so much against my natural reactions and what seems like common sense. So much of the message of the bible requires obedience, requiring us to choose the right thing
Love of God (the highest commandment) is clearly spelled out as obedience to and imitation of God – A God who is loving and just. The second is almost synonymous: Love your neighbour as yourself. Be a peacemaker. These things do not happen unless we choose to make them happen with our lives.

So I feel there’s a paradox here: we have to choose to follow Christ, act in ways where we to die to ourselves, and choose to love real people in real life. And yet we can’t, we make mistakes. I’m like Paul, I do what I don’t want to do, and I don’t do what I want to do. I am self-centred, but I must choose not to be, but I can’t – I’m not perfect. And this is where God’s grace comes in.

I think faith and belief – not compartmentalized into a mind/I-think-X-to-be-true sort of belief and a what-I-do-in-my-real-life sort of belief (like a hypocrite), but combined, because belief is both what we think and how we live – are incredibly important in deciding our salvation here on this earth – in bringing God’s Kingdom here and now – and perhaps beyond death. I cannot see beyond death though so I have to trust in the grace and forgiveness of a loving and just God.

If faith is about becoming one with God in a mystical sort of way then it should inevitably have practical consequences on the way we live. Thus James’ challenge: show me your faith without works and I will show you mine with works.

My appologies for the length of this comment! I’ll try to keep it shorter next time.

I’ve just finished listening to the last session of the conference via podcast. First I want to thank the Emergent Village for making these available. I’ve learned a great deal and have been challenged in my thinking – and I believe challenge is a good thing! I was compelled to write after the glaring red flags at the end of the conference, but now I see that the issues of these flags have already been addressed in this series of posts.

I was intrigued by the idea of de-constructivism at the beginning of the conference. The idea of stripping away all (as much as possible) of our preconceived ideas in order to get to what is at the heart of the gospel is a worthwhile endeavor. However, I was first alarmed in one of the earlier sessions when Jack repeatedly said that Jesus can’t possibly be the only way because….... and here is where I believe he breaks with his own deconstruction principles. His reasoning for making this statement is … because there are so many people who have never heard about Jesus. This is a preconception being applied to the text and sadly drives all the rest of his hermeneutic process. I’m not even going to argue whether or not his assertion is true, but his process is so flawed that I was greatly disappointed.

And of course, finally at the very end of the conference when both the speakers affirm that the ultimate end of deconstruction is love, and that all religions lead to God because God is love and love is God, they display their ultimate preconceived filter through which all their “conclusions” are processed. In my opinion they have not deconstructed anything; rather, they have simply created a new religion which makes them more comfortable – this might be a little harsh, if so I’m sorry.

Last point – this is not simply a new type of Generous Orthodoxy (another very intriguing idea). The views presented at the end of this conference are a complete rejection of anything remotely resembling Biblical interpretation. To embrace these teachings is to reject EVERYTHING which has ever come before in the transmission of faith.

But universalism is such a new, fresh, and novel way of looking at the gosp….oh wait…

David – Point taken – perhaps you are right that this is nothing more than an age old theology of universalism. I guess it just bugged me that I was so taken in by what appeared to be intellectual deep thinking which in the end sounded like babble. We get enough of this babble in dogmatic religion. I’m all for stripping away baggage to take a fresh look at the Biblical text, but we must at least look at the text and consider what it says. If this form of universalism is going to be presented, they ought to at least have the intellectual honesty to say they’re making it up and not pretend it was derived from a study of the text.

SteveT and David, I agree that a lot of what Jack and Richard said in the last session was essentially a rehashing of universalism. Actually I think that when you really get down and dirty it was much more extreme than that. A universalist would usually say that everyone is saved by Jesus whether they know it or not. Jack and Richard wouldn’t even give more credence to the person of Jesus than any other religious figure who people follow (cf. Buddha).

Still, it seems quite extreme calling their philosophies “babble”. They were speaking as Philosophers from an essentially non-religious school of thought, not as theologians per se – much less Biblical Theologians. So they said what they had to say, and it was truly captivating and full of nuggets of wisdom, but in the end we find ourselves firmly disagreeing with their main “conclusions”. That’s OK, That’s how dialog works.

In response to Terrill’s comment on Oct 20:In this connection, maybe the Muslim who lives a life embodying love, peace, justice, etc.is more Christlike than the Christian who holds to these highest of virtues but fails to live them out.
(MY REPLY)Yes, you would be correct if salvation was by our personal merit. But God says that human righteousness is like filthy rags to Him (Isaiah). Much of this discussion is from a humanistic point of view; compared to one another, some ‘deserve’ heaven more than others. But compared to God, the true and only judge, we all fall short (Rom. 3:23). So the question is, where is your starting point? Everyone’s so worried about orthopraxy that we’ve forgotton orthodoxy, which is the basis of orthopraxy. I would argue that any substandard character you observe in one who calls himself a Christian is based ultimately on unbelief (or incorrect belief). Pure orthodoxy (what James called “pure and undefiled religion”) would result in the virtuous behavior that we laud.) I’m curious about something by the way. Why does it seem like I’m the only one appealing to the Bible to make truth claims? Most everything I’m reading in this conversation is humanistic philosophical reasoning. One of you guys asked me how I can be so sure that what I believe is true. Here’s my answer: I realize that I don’t know everything there is to know in the universe. But what I do know is that the Bible is our absolutely trustworthy revelation of the Creator to the creation (us), along with an absolutely authoritative guide to life. I labor to understand what the Bible says. You may counter with, “how do you know your interpretation of Scripture is correct?” to which I reply, “start using Scripture to counter my arguments so that my understanding of it will be sharpened.”

Amen!

Gad Fly, David & Steve T,

It sounds like you all are attacking this series as being “nothing more than an age old theology of universalism”. This is not what I understand Jack and Richard to be saying. We can discuss this further if you want, but let me first address your concerns with the conversation that you stepped into.

As for our discussion here on the comments page, the issues I saw us dealing with were the ideas of salvation by faith (as it is generally understood – that we don’t need to do anything for our salvation – that it’s a free gift that we simply have to receive) and the generally ignored role of practice. This was especially in relation to those who are not Christians because of never having heard the Gospel, and who do not accept our premise that (as Gad Fly put it) “the Bible is our absolutely trustworthy revelation of the Creator to the creation (us), along with an absolutely authoritative guide to life.”

We may not agree with all of Jack and Richard’s ideas, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be taken seriously. This is what we were doing.

Gad Fly, you asked: “Why does it seem like I’m the only one appealing to the Bible to make truth claims? Most everything I’m reading in this conversation is humanistic philosophical reasoning.”

I must point out that I did quote scripture at least once, and also referred to specific scriptures many other times, but you’re right, much of our discussion relied on reasoning rather than scripture.

In answer, the reason I relied more on reason than scripture was because I was articulating the basis for why I accept scripture as authoritative and normative.
I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to quote Scripture (relying on it’s authority) when trying to establish the basis for accepting scripture as the authority. In other words, how does it help to appeal to the authority of scripture as proof of the authority of scripture? The assumption that scripture is true and authoritative is what’s in question.

Of course, given the fact that we agree that Scripture is the word of God (though we may differ on our interpretations of it) I will be happy to quote scripture and to dialogue with you about how it should be interpreted.

You said: “Most everything I’m reading in this conversation is humanistic philosophical reasoning”

Yes, I am a human. Yes, we are in a philosophical conversation. So, we are clearly in a conversation of humanistic philosophical reasoning. I’m not sure why you feel that is a bad thing. Would you prefer it if we sat in a circle chanting and conjure up a spirit or have an out-of-body conversation? If that is what you are looking for then you are probably in the wrong conversation. It isn’t my cup of tea.

Theology is talking about God within human language and understanding. I’m not sure how you could have theology and philosophy that is outside the realm of humanistic reason.

I feel you are using scripture to do things it isn’t equipped to do. The bible is not a very good cook book even though it does have references to the way certain ancient people prepared food. It is also not very good at explaining the origins of the universe even though it does mention how certain ancient people understood the universe.

The bible is my favorite book and it is the beginning point for how I develop my goals and dreams based on Israel’s vision for community and Jesus message of the kingdom of God. It only gives us a brief glimpse at small pockets of ancient philosophy which is a great background but not a finished conversation. It really isn’t a book of philosophy and if you try to make it one then you’ve lessened its value as a source of poetic liturgy and narrative inspiration. It contains wonderful seeds for our understanding, but we need to keep watering those seeds of thought with more conversation in order to produce fruit in our lives today.

JOEL’S COMMENT:The assumption that scripture is true and authoritative is what’s in question.

MY RESPONSE: I realize that some do not assume the ultimate Lordship of God, nor the epistemological authority of the Bible which follows. I am comfortable, for example, with arguing from natural revelation that the universe had a beginning, without mentioning the Bible. But MY underlying operating assumption is that the Bible is my starting point. Read John Frame’s “Apologetics to the Glory of God” and you’ll understand what I’m saying.

But I may have assumed too much in this conversation. I was under the assumption that this was a discussion among those claiming to be Christians. Is this assumption incorrect? Are there some responding to the conversation who do not claim to be Christians? Are there any who do not accept the Bible as God’s Word, authoritative for life and practice?

MIKE L’S COMMENT: Yes, I am a human. Yes, we are in a philosophical conversation. So, we are clearly in a conversation of humanistic philosophical reasoning.
My RESPONSE: Though cute perhaps, your quip is reductionistic. There is a difference between being “human” and “humanism”. Humanism is the view summed up in Protagoras’ famous claim “man is the measure”. I believe God is the measure, which contradicts humanism. Not all humans are humanistic. And because humanism is incompatible with Christianity, I do object to you using humanistic reasoning unless you’re claiming not to be a Christian.
Bottom line, the question remains: what is your ultimate authority? Your own rationality? Or the Bible? The two sometimes contradict themselves, so you must choose one or the other. Will you interpret the Bible through the ultimate lens of your understanding, or will you interpret your understanding through the ultimate lens of the Bible? I realize this is a subtle distinction and that it may take a while to get your mind around it. But it makes a ton of difference for faith and practice. It explains, for example, why you and I are not seeing eye to eye on some things.

In response to Gad Fly’s questions: “Are there some responding to the conversation who do not claim to be Christians? Are there any who do not accept the Bible as God’s Word, authoritative for life and practice?”

Gad Fly, did you even listen to the ‘conversation’ with Caputo and Kearney that originally sparked this conversation? If you did, you would recognize that those philosophers are deconstructionists. And if you understand the methods and goals of deconstruction, then you’d realize the futility of using terms like ‘Christian’, ‘Bible’, and ‘authoritative’ with this crowd without highly nuanced definitions. Deconstruction is about destabilizing and even disintegrating traditional categories, not repeating them incessantly without qualification.

So, for example: yes, I claim to be a Christian. But in what sense? An American conservative evangelical Christian or a neo-catholic panentheist Christian? Do I accept the Bible as God’s Word? Well, maybe. It depends on what you mean. Do I accept my black, leather-bound, fetishized, seemingly homogenous ‘book’—the one that fell from heaven in the KJV—as exactly equivalent to the very word of God? No way. I believe Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God, and the Bible participates in the speaking of that Word only insofar as its authors and its audience are surrendered and open to the Living Word. Do I accept the Bible as authoritative? Depends on what you mean. Whatever authority it does have is derivative, coming only from the supreme authority of God. For life and practice? What do you mean by that? For church life and religious practice? Sure, I accept that. But how is the Bible authoritative for quantum mechanics, cognitive anthropology, neurobiology, or ecophenomenology? How do we reconcile the insights we feel deeply as truthful, put forth to us by 20th century philosophers and hermeneuticians? It’s one thing to keep rehashing these ‘biblical’ mantras, but it’s another thing to think through their implications and applications in the cumulative body of knowledge gathered since ‘Bible times’.

I sympathize with your zeal to keep things grounded and founded in God’s truth. My guess is that most emergent church people, Christian deconstructionists, and the folks in this conversation share that zeal in one way or another. What I ask you to consider is that your arguments and appeals to ‘go back to the Bible’ are, frankly, beside the point for most of us (I’m guessing). If it was that easy for us, we wouldn’t be having this conversation! I can only speak for myself…but I came to the place where I am now through a long series of hard intellectual knocks and broken trusts. All this may seem to you like a forgetting of foundations, an eschewing of essentials in the Christian faith, a disparaging of the Bible or orthodoxy. But what I honestly believe is that Christian deconstructionists, or whatever we all are, crave the truth and the love of the only Real God all the more! That is why we cannot live with the boxes he is so often put into. That’s the way I see it, for what it’s worth.

Terrill, that was inspirationally genuine … Thank you.

I have been absent from these conversations and in trying to get caught up on all that is being said, I am being to hear it sound like children arguing on the playground over whose dad is stronger.
I would hope we could play together creatively, where each idea is respected but from the midst of our playing a game emerges that none of us had imagined.

Mike C.

You’re right. I’d like to see this discussion be a constructive dialogue rather than a debate between two or more sides, and I’d like to apologise for any part I’ve played in making the tone more argumentative than constructive.
I hope we can find our common ground again and learn from one another, building each other up rather than tearing down.
Still, we must try to discuss our differences clearly and with respect.

Joel- I want to go back to what you shared on Oct. 20th (25).
You asked “but what then is it to learn?”
I believe it is much. If the source of that learning is from a god who can save us(give us life) as we can not save ourselves.
You go on to say “When we learn, we are expanding our ‘boxes’. God never fits into our boxes.”
I agree, god is not confined to our boxes. But god engages us there. From the midst of our relationships and dialogue god speaks to us. If our beliefs and lives are transformed from following the directions god gives us, is this not the way we seek? And would we not sing praises to god’s glory as it is increasingly revealed to us in our learning following this path.
You state you keep coming back to love as the highest good. Love seems more a condition of faith. The good would seem to be continually emerging in the actuality of our experience as created by god.

Terrill, if I am understanding deconstruction and it’s task is to peel away layers of context wrapped around a truth buried in foundational stories. What then have you discovered in your efforts in this task and what meaning does it have on how you live your life?
OK , I know that is asking a lot, but maybe just a short story would testify to your experience.

Mike C,

I totally agree with you that even though God is infinitely too big for our boxes, still he does engage us within our own limited perspective.
I brought up the idea of learning in response to something you said:

“Each persons beliefs, narratives, matter. These interpret their experience… This is why different persons can share the same or a similar event yet experience it differently. What we can hear and see is a matter of the beliefs we hold.”

Of course I agree with you that our beliefs do determine the way we perceive reality. But my point was that we can learn precisely because reality also impacts our beliefs when we encounter new and different experiences or ideas.
So yes, I agree with you, learning God does happen within our own story; from our scriptures and from the people we engage with. I’ve learned a lot about God through my wife, for instance, when she has lived out love and forgiveness and I could experience these in deeper ways.

Although I don’t understand very well what you meant when you said, “The good would seem to be continually emerging in the actuality of our experience as created by god.” I want to explain what I meant by speaking of love as the ‘highest good’.

The reason I brought up love in this context of knowing God, was because in my experience, Love is one of the most powerful ways where I see God and God’s presence here in the real world and in my life.
The perfect love which would sacrifice itself for another and fully embrace and forgive is just too beautiful. I feel and see the truth in this divine and most perfect love even though I’m sure I have only just gotten a glimpse of it. I believe that when we see love happening, we are seeing a little piece of heaven.

The main character in Dostoevsky’s short story ‘The dream of a Ridiculous Man’ said it well:

“I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing their ability to dwell on this earth. I cannot and will not believe that evil is man’s natural state…
...A dream they say…I shall go further: let it never, never come true, let paradise never be, ...I shall anyway go and spread the Word. And yet it could be done so simply: in a single day, in a single hour everything would be settled! One should love others as one loves oneself, that is the main thing, that is all, nothing else, absolutely nothing else is needed, and then one would instantly know how to go about it. It’s nothing but an old truth, repeated and read billions of times, and yet it has not taken root.
...If only everyone wanted it, it could be all done at once.”

Joel- the emerging good that I spoke of is just another way of stating that god judges our activity either to be good or bad; life or death. This good is not a static thing but a process we experience. God’s judgement is of the reality of our experience.
Experience created by god is found in the midst of that activity we do which choses god to create the reality we experience.
Or I could have said god’s way for us gives us life and that I believe is good.

Mike C,

That explanation cleared it up I think.
I like your emphasis on the individual experience – “good or bad; life or death” not as static things but as enfleshed in the reality we experience and act in.

I agree. I think that love, goodness, justice, peace, hope, etc, have no real meaning (for us and in our lives) until and unless they are experienced and acted out in the context of our real lives.

I want to repeat a question I asked a while back which never really was discussed here:

I really liked what Richard had to say about Levinas and Ricoeur’s ideas about the way into the kingdom is to give up the kingdom, about offering one’s self in service to others and desiring salvation for others.
I really think this idea is beautiful, but I want to know where it comes from.
I’m just now getting into learning about deconstruction and this series has been massively helpful to me in this way. But I still don’t get where many of these ideas are coming from – I don’t understand the framework behind them, if you know what I mean.

I would really like to discuss these ideas and find out what they’re all about, so if anyone has any thoughts on these ideas please post them.

Joel
I can’t tell you much about deconstruction as a system of understanding but I likewise responed positivly to the statement “the way into the kingdom is to give up the kingdom”. I would have stated it “the way into the kindom is to give up any beliefs you have of the kingdom”, but I believe a similar point is being made.
The ‘way’ however seems still in question and I find what you heard “about offering one’s self in service to others and desiring salvation for others’ to be unsatisfactory as the way to experience god’s salvation.
I don’t concern myself so much where a belief comes from but rather does it foster my becoming aware of god’s direction for me from which a life is revealed that was heretofore unknown to me but is of god’s saving providence.
That being said I do not believe my salvation hinges on my services to others but rather am I able to hear god speak to me and guide what I am to do, which may be to serve others. This emphasis seems different. The first appears as an activity to draw grace to me; the latter seems an act of grace I am but a part of.

I’d like to add a couple comments for reflection.
I have not followed the web cast or listened to the speakers but just comment from what I see in this post

Deconstruction: What is being deconstructed? Why? The first deconstructionist was Satan when he chose to deconstruct the seat of God.
Isa 14:13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
Isa 14:14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Again later in the garden he chose to deconstruct the words and commands of God.
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, HATH GOD SAID, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

I agree with deconstruction for the following:
We need to deconstruct man-made religious doctrine and sacraments.
We need to deconstruct man’s philosophy or wisdom from the Kingdom of God.
We need to deconstruct all heresies that ended in the text of the scriptures in-so-much as can be defined. (Plato Trinity etc)
We need to deconstruct the hierarchical framework of the medieval and now postmodern period churches. (clergy-laity)
We need to deconstruct church administration and return it to a New Testament Church model.

Tony Jones sometimes seems less postmodern than some of the others in the Emergent Church movement. Perhaps it would help Tony to do more reading in other theologies such as postcolonial, feminist, womanist, etc.

For example, there was an interesting interaction during the conference when a woman asked about the lack of representation by other women. Jack Caputo responded by suggesting a feminist seminar and a feminist theologian. Tony Jones, however, responded by talking about the Trinitarian theology of a white male author. Tony’s gaff exposed a lack of insight into European male hegemony in general and white privilege in particular. Thankfully Caputo pointed out this dynamic at the conference. An authentically postmodern conversation needs to include more than the perspectives brought by upper-class white men.

Some helpful dialogue partners in the postmodern conversation in Christianity could include people such as: Kwok Pui-Lan, Musa Dube, Robert E. Goss, Mona West, Frances Kendall, Delores Williams, Fumitaka Matsuoka, etc.

Let’s continue to expand the conversation!