Creation Contemplation is a message delivered this weekend. In the message I mention watching the orange tree outside my deck being pollinated by bees for the last month as we come into spring here in the Western Cape of South Africa. Which got me thinking and forming this message. More on video views in the next post.
For more resources on creation contemplation, aural immersion, visual field gaze and a whole set of contemplative practices, think about joining the Transformational Trek Tribe. The price goes up in 7 days.
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This week at InVia Cape Town we concluded the series Living Winter, a set of messages dealing with the seasonal changes in our spirituality. This weekend we focused on how winter can raise doubts, self doubts as well as intellectual, doctrinal and existential doubts.
We looked at Gen 32 and John 20. The Genesis 32 passage is particularly interesting when it comes to self doubts because Jacob, having some very serious family of origin fractures, wrestles with God and ends of being renamed God-Wrestler in the process. The idea that the people of God are NOT named “Certainties” or “We-have-it-all-figured-out” or or or, but instead are named God-Wrestlers should tip us off to the basic invitation God makes to us. Self doubts like all doubts, including “Doubting Thomas’” resurrection doubts of John 20, are always invitations to possible faith transition.
Doubt instead of being the opposite of faith (which is often how it is presented) is actually a mid way point between belief and unbelief. Doubt registers for us the need to do some hard interior work where the self doubts are, or some deeper heart and head work for the more existential or intellectual doubts.
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We said that Love Win’s Rob Bell’s new book raises several issues we wanted to address here.
1. The who is “in” who is “out” question. In the last several posts we have looked at the broad
brush strokes of the three positions that have been discussed within Christianity for centuries.
2. We then said we would look at eschatology, which we just introduced last post.
3. We will then move to HOW we use the bible to build these doctrines. What we will discuss here
will be controversial and paradigm breaking for some.
So what is eschatology? I believe it was the late Fuller Professor George Eldon Ladd that said, “the church lives in the parenthesis between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet.’” Eschatology is the study of “last things.” Ladd was essentially saying there are certain parts of the “end” of “last things” that are “already” happening, but they are initial, they are foretastes, they are glimpses of kingdom but they are “not yet” fully the kingdom, which awaits full expression and experience in the future. Where does this come from.
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Universalism, Christian Exclusivism (CE) and Christian Inclusivism (CI) are the labels usually used surrounding the issue of who is “in” and who is “out.” The last post is background to this one dealing with the issues raised by Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins (as of this post #2 in Amazon)
In starting into a slightly deeper look at a couple of these positions mentioned in the last post, I want to be clear that like all positions, theologically, politically, or something else, positions are nuanced. Within the CE and CI positions there are nuances, variations, differences, brands, stripes, or voices. These clarifications of the broad contours are to help people who have not been a part of the theological conversation and are coming into debate with little background related to the terms, categories and what is potentially at stake.
Since the position of the CE (Christian Exclusivists) is relatively clear and straight forward — consciously make and name Jesus your personal Lord and Savior and that qualifies you for heaven — let’s look a little closer at the Christian Inclusivist position.
Christian Inclusivism argues from the biblical text to analogies parallel to the text. Here is the CI’s rationale.
Let’s look at Abraham for instance, the Old Testament guy used as a premier example of faith in books like Romans and Galatians in the New Testament.
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There are a couple things I think would be helpful in the next couple of posts to clarify when it comes to the issues that are raised by Rob’s new book Love Wins.
While the book and the conversation circles around hell, it’s nature and it’s inhabitants, obviously the flip side of that is, who is going to heaven, what is heaven and how is it decided who gets in?
Second, Rob has a fairly strong heaven/hell “now” orientation. In theological circles this is called realized eschatology. Obviously these two topics, who is in and who is out, coupled with a conversation on eschatology (the study of “last things”) is a volatile cocktail with polarizations coming quite naturally. We can and will discuss this.
Third, and the thing I think it actually most fruitful, has to do with the burden we place on the biblical text that was written during a totally different stage of cultural development from ours. This is an enormous and largely unexplored issue that really deserves some thought and conversation because it provides a possible way forward on all sorts of issues the church seems stuck on.
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If you haven’t gotten an opportunity to see the one hour presentation this week that happened in NYC the video is below. Having watched the video and read the full book Love Wins, not just the pre-release chapters, I think it might be helpful to highlight a couple things I think are being overlooked in the exchanges so far and the ones that are sure to go on for some time.
First, per Rob’s book preface and the video, this book really suggests nothing new, novel, innovative or dramatic. This has actually been a conversation going on since Jesus came on the scene.
Second, this conversation/debate has gone on within the broad framework of Christian orthodoxy for centuries; both groups claiming their position is the biblical, more faithful, Jesus position. In other words this is an in-house conversation
Third, the issue of orthodoxy is in itself a hot topic of conversation these days. You can’t help but read the works of people like Bart Ehrman (think Lost Christianities or Lost Scriptures) and his debates with the likes of Scot McKnight or William Lane Craig and not realize the very issue of Christianity being a monolith of beliefs is simply modernist wishful thinking.
Before we go calling people heretics, unorthodox or even worse, wouldn’t it be a good idea to know exactly what standard we are using when we are doing the comparisons and making the charges? When we say the orthodox position, what orthodox position do we refer to? And is there such a thing as THE orthodox position? And if we think there is just who said so? It will not be good enough to say, “the sweep of Christian history purports this or that.” Christian history is broad, diffuse, incorrigible, conversational and patient of a large circumference.
I think there is a much more productive way forward however and it has to do with how we handle the very text we claim holds the answers. More of that to come.
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As a “listening” we create a false self that is different from the made in the image of God self deep in the core of our being, the self that is “hidden with Christ in God (Col 3.1-3).” One of the things I am realizing about my teaching and writing is that if I am not careful I will help strengthen the false self by subtly teaching people that behaving a certain way is what Christianity is all about.
Behavior of course is part of the outflow of our relationship with God. But if we aren’t careful we will let the wristband religion of WWJD (what would Jesus do?) become the point. I am afraid that isn’t to go far enough or shall we say deep enough. Jesus was big on living a certain way, of helping people and of a life change that is demonstrated with certain attending “fruit.” But that is not the beginning point, the origin of this journey is inward.
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The move from the socialized mind to the self authoring mind might well be characterized by the move from being told what to see, believe and how to fit in, to how to see, come to your own conclusions and what what it means to be an interdependent individual. (have you gotten his book yet?)
The question I think facing the church as we head into the second decade of this millennium is whether or not we are comfortable with facilitating peoples journeys within the context of community or whether we are more concerned to create cookie cutter clones who believe the same thing, quote the same verses, have the same views on the Left Behind series, homosexuality, politics, woman’s role in marriage and church and genetic engineering.
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Jane Loevinger is one of the pioneers in the area of ego development or how we see the world and how we make sense of our lives (including God, others and the universe around us) are what experts refer to as meaning making systems. Meaning making, or the development of the “self” or “ego,” is what goes on as we learn to make increasingly sophisticated meaning of the world around us.
A five year old thinks there are monsters under the bed at night. When we come in and turn on the light and show them there is nothing to be scared of we are often greeted with the explanation that “of course the monsters hide for the light they are only there in the dark.” This is the way a 5 year old makes sense of their world. If that was still going on at 13 years of age we would be concerned. Most of us are familiar with child development and the name of someone like Jean Piaget. We are less familiar with adult development.
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In my post from the 8th I mentioned three things I more convinced of than ever before, and for where the church sits in culture and our needed response. I said… Spirituality will be more creational, relational and communitarian into the 21st century
There are always two things in play when it comes the church’s role/response to culture. There is reflective and informed biblical reading and there is insightful and aware cultural sign post reading. We need both for the church to be effective.
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