So what if we need a Christianity less certain, more mysterious, less concrete and more enfleshed? What if that amounts to a paradigm whose core is paradox?
We live at the intersection of another solid stable certain paradigm that is going all squishy. The quantum world is displacing our modern measureable-certain-cause and effect experience, and saying what you see is definitely not what you get….or more appropriately what you have “got.” Because what we have “got” is not something we can actually see of course, but more than that, what we see is not an accurate indicator of what is actually there.
The atomic world a’la Newton, only accessible to the microscope holder, was a world of tiny billard balls spinning and orbiting in predictable, elliptical and symmetrical paths. The pictures and plastic models in high school chemistry were “the way we were” to quote one of Barbara’s big hits. That WAS the paradigm AND reality.
Atoms were separate from other atoms. Electrons separate from protons and neutrons. Molecules here, totally separate and independent from molecules over there. The implications of all that orderly separate predictability was we lived in a world where what appeared to be space between atoms and molecules could easily be compared to the obvious space between you and me. Space, distance and time were not just realities they were concepts that helped us understand the world.
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In 2012 I have two words I feel need my personal exploration and deeper engagement; the words quantum and integral. The whole world of experience behind these two words sit at the forefront of a new frontier many of us are just starting to engage as readily as we have the world of cause and effect we have grown up with since we were kids.
I grew up in the Newtonian world and was trained to see the world it that way. Now saying something like that might make you think I was some ridiculous and outlandish thing like a physics nut (sorry physics teachers). Well you would be wrong. I was not, though my Dad made sure we all took advanced science and math because “though you may never use it, it helps you learn to think in new ways!” What I mean is the way the world was presented to me, and therefore the way I experienced it, was very predictable because the world was built on cause and effect. It is the old billiard ball illustration. The cue ball hits the 4 ball and at that angle of contact it will hit the 6 ball go into that bumper on the table and will go in the right corner pocket. There is no mystery to that, if you calculate the angle rightly the outcome is totally waxed. It is predictable, assumed, and certain.
I am not sure about you but that illustration typifies the world I grew up in and the view of the world I had. It wasn’t just the world though it was deeper than that. Newton’s cause and effect and “laws of gravity” even extended to the spirituality and Christianity that I experienced and the way the Bible was “used.” There were laws and principles in the Bible and when rightly applied the outcomes were certain. And since I was in a charismatic context the outcomes were VERY VERY certain. You still find much of this thinking in large segments of Christianity. Faith leads to… real faith will certify these outcomes, and even if you don’t see those outcomes right now, they will come.
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We need some new metaphors. I think it is quite clear the two bucket theory is untenable, and the owners manual for life metaphor reduces the bible to a behavior manual. Both the theory and metaphor generate so many problems that it is time we start searching for an alternative approach to the text.
This is always how paradigm shifts occur. When a paradigm is initially adopted it answers a variety of questions very well. Those adopting the paradigm realize it doesn’t answer all questions and those unanswerables go on a shelf for further reflection and research. No paradigm is perfect, no model can answer all the questions.
Eventually the current paradigm, always historically and contextually rooted, answers fewer and fewer questions well and the shelf with the unanswerables becomes overloaded and near collapse. This is when a new paradigm begins to emerge. We are undoubtedly living in such a new paradigm time.
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So what if we need a Christianity less certain, more mysterious, less concrete and more enfleshed? What if that amounts to a paradigm whose core is paradox? 
The atomic world a’la Newton, only accessible to the microscope holder, was a world of tiny billard balls spinning and orbiting in predictable, elliptical and symmetrical paths. The pictures and plastic models in high school chemistry were “the way we were” to quote one of Barbara’s big hits. That WAS the paradigm AND reality. 
