I am going to be posting on what Christians can and should learn from Unitarian Universalists, especially UU Christians--hint, we live our lives amidst the mission field, the microcosmic world of the "unChristian." More to come, especially since I spend so much of my time talking with UUs about why they should be hanging out not only with Jesus but with Christians, and learning from them, hence this blog. Speaking of "unChristian" this is the title of the latest book from the Barna group, a kind of follow up to Barna's own Revolution, of which I blogged before and stil recommend most highly (usual caveats regarding conservative Christian theology; I wonder when, O God, when I can feel safe avoiding those caveats?). I will have more to say about their research findings on the "outsiders" etc. Also reading Kimball's latest, "They Like Jesus But Not The Church." I will be blogging about the reversal that seems true in the UU world. They like Church but not Jesus, or maybe they have come around to accept and make peace with the idea of church, by whatever name it might be called, and that struggle was enough. We found religious home finally, or for once, and we don't want to entertain anything that might jeopardize that feeling, that home, and serious diving down into the particulars of a particular faith community tradition practice can seem threatening to that found home, whether it be Christian or otherwise, but i think especially Jesus since in some ways he is all about busting up your homes, your churches, your set lives, in order to let God breathe/break in. Anyway I will be blogging on it later too. End for now.
Type rest of the post here
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Christ of Faith (especially for UUs, unchurched, dechurched)
Here is the text from which I preached my sermon recently in St. Louis. Which means you get more here than was actually delivered, except this time I did an introduction to the reading, and provided a reading on the reading, from Luke 16:1-8, which you don't have here in this post, at least not yet.
The Christ of Faith
First Unitarian Church, St. Louis, Sept. 23, 2007
Rev. Ron Robinson
We begin with the familiar words, words so familiar they risk losing their power, from the poet within your own church family:
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
These words of T. S. Eliot, who would be 119 years old this coming Wednesday (whose grandfather William Greenleaf Eliot was the founding minister of this church when it was the Church of the Messiah), these words mark the journey of the Spirit for many whom I encounter through my ministry with the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship, as they do for me.
We have people in our particular UU movement whose journey began in different world religions than Christianity, or in none, but most started as Christians in other churches, though most became Christian or primarily Jesus-followers as adults after having first been non-Christian UUs.
We were born in the varied waters of Christianity, in this or that church, maybe even in one of our UU Christian Churches, having had this or that experience, some nourished and cared for, some oppressed and exiled; and some, as is the truth of things, with both experiences; but then we crawled from the waters onto the land, so to speak, and began breathing the air, everything seemed new, getting our free legs beneath us, and exploring the world--at some point, for me it was very early on, we settled into Unitarian Universalism because here we could feel at home and continue to feed our wandering souls. After a while, maybe it was from the wanderer’s fate that the only place left to really explore is the place you left too soon to fully know, or maybe it was from a personal crisis that left us feeling too dry, and the land too shaky, but after a while we were drawn to, or pulled to, arguing with ourselves all the way, back to the Christian waters again, to those words and stories again, to those practices and that “cloud of witnesses” through the millennia. And because we were different now, those waters were different too—what had been a shrinking reservoir or toxic pond was now an ocean full of life and energy, and yes, we felt born again, or rather the place was born again for us.
And we found we were not alone. It is why biblical scholar Marcus Borg has titled some of his books as he has—Meeting Jesus Again For The First Time; Reading the Bible Again For the First Time.
The funny thing is, the really shocking and radical thing is to many people who have certain ingrained, default mode worldviews of what church is, both other Christians and other Unitarian Universalists, we found this new water right where we were. We didn’t have to leave so much as look at our place and see it, too, deeper and broader, as if for the first time. It is as if the dry land we had crawled onto, grown up in, been saved by, and explored, after all, had been an island—the original ocean nourishing it, giving it its shape. As we look at the roots of Unitarian Universalism, we find Christianity. As we look at the roots of Christianity, we find unitarian and universalist theology.
And the same kind of journey of re-discovery often continues each time we now come into contact with the words and acts that once upon a time were more like stones, ones that if we held them would have spiritually dragged us down, but now are like the beautiful mysterious flora and fauna and reefs that make up the life of the waters. God. Christ. Holy Spirit. Communion. Faith. Mission. Incarnation. Resurrection. Discipleship. Revival. We know these words better now, for our having been away from them.
The past two years I have been physically living out the idea, the truth, which T.S. Eliot sought to capture in those words from the Little Gidding section of his great work, The Four Quartets. My Little Gidding is Turley, Oklahoma just north of Tulsa, where my paternal grandparents began living soon after the First World War and where my mother and father still live, my father being able to walk into his backyard and see the place where he was born 75 years ago, and where several of my cousins and even their grown children still live. Plus, my wife and I now live in the house and on the land where her parents lived from the time she was six years old until soon after we were married 33 years ago. We volunteer at the elementary school where we met in kindergarten, and scare the parents of the kindergarteners when we tell them that story. The house and land, like the community, had deteriorated quite a bit in the intervening years. The couple we bought the place from, who had let it sit empty for a few years, said if we hadn’t bought it they were going to tear down the rock house and put in a double-wide, to improve its real estate value. They were right, real-estate wise. Our life in it these past two years will be the subject of many other sermons to come. Likewise, Turley is not seen as the kind of place you return to; the poorest zip code, and the lowest life expectancy zipcode in the Tulsa metropolitan area—not especially if you are a couple with 23 years of higher education between us, and a teenage daughter. Turley, we have been told by more than a few, back when we originally lived there and now we live there again, is supposed to be where you are from.
And so that has also been said, during my same 33 years as a Unitarian Universalist, about Christianity. Though not so much lately, or not so bluntly. There were some times and some places, or some people within those places, where bringing up just Jesus or things biblical would not only turn heads but stomachs in UU groups. It was the definite third rail of our religion in those places, not to touch without turning off its power. That’s certainly a reaction that is on the wane as all theologies among us are minority theologies now, and as unchurched join us without the old church baggage, though being who we are and being in the religious culture we are, it will stay with us for some time to come.
Two months ago I guest preached a sermon on the revolutionary changes in the way the Apostle Paul is now being understood, which is causing a shaking of the foundations in some Christian circles unlike what even the Jesus Seminar created, and there was a young man, a new UU, who couldn’t physically be in the sanctuary to hear the sermon, because he had just come out of a fundamentalist Christian church and if he encountered in a sacred way just the words of and about Jesus and Christian faith, it would trigger his wounds, not to mention confounding his definition of who he thought we were, his new-found blessed home. (I often tell UUCF members that being in relationship with those such as him, even as we might be hurting, is part of what it means for us to do UU Christianity. Who better than people who freely follow Jesus to help heal the hurts done in the name of Jesus?)
For others, though, it is not quite that extreme, what is called “cross-cringe” comes at a different point. We UU Christians have usually been there in our journey too. I know I have. That’s in part why, in describing our movement, terms are used like “the Jesus of history but not the Christ of faith” or “we believe in the religion of Jesus but not the religion about Jesus” (which seems to not only negate our own history but the history of Jesus himself whose “religion,” if you have to use that term for it, was very much that of first century Judaism and not like our Protestant Reformed Modern Enlightenment tradition). And though all we have of Jesus we have because of those varied, imperfect, dedicated souls who followed him. The temptation to focus only on the person Jesus as a shadowy historical person, or wise guru, is also fed by our age’s and our tradition’s emphasis on hyper individualism, the Great Man myth. By contrast, to grapple with the word Christ is to grapple with the community which attached it to Jesus, and formed themselves in relation to it. Still it is understandable, this pulling Jesus close but pushing Christianity away. Think of all the real harm done by some powerful Christians, then and now; the stereotypes of Christians held by many today have solid basis.
It’s interesting how many of the growing new emergent evangelical Christian churches, especially those which are anti-megachurch, understand this and are taking up the very same message we honed so well. And are reaching new generations of the unchurched and the dechurched who want to follow the radical way of Jesus, but don’t do it in opposition to or as a contradiction in terms to Christian faith, but as its fulfillment.
People are asking again, in the 21st century in ways not heard since the first century, as the biblical gospels did too, what, who, is this Christ, this Anointed One, this most unusual Messiah, of which people talk, and how is it all related to the one, the son of Miriam, this Jesus of Nazareth?. As one new book title puts it, why from one Jesus, so many Christs? Which is now as it ever has been. Each of the different groups that produced and preserved the accounts of Jesus in the Bible, plus Paul, had a different Christ in mind and heart and soul.
We find that in our midst too, as UU Christian. We talk about the broad categories of those who are a part of us. They fall along the spectrum of how people shape their response to the shape of Jesus in their lives. Many among us don’t call themselves Christian. You don’t have to be Christian to be in the UUCF, nor do you have to be UU to be in the UUCF. We don’t think Jesus, in his radical hospitable way, would have it any differently. These might have Jesus as a moral example, a wise teacher. They follow Jesus as a guide and don’t have much use personally for the word Christ. Many follow Jesus as a social revolutionary leader of the oppressed, and see Christ as the spirit of God opposing the Caesars and Rulers of the Status Quo, now as then. Many follow a Jesus and Christian path and draw strongly or primarily from other religions as their source. Many are a part of us simply because they like our conversation and to keep up with us. Many have left Unitarian Universalism to experience more identified Christian communion and company but don’t want to leave their religious family of origin behind and what it still feeds them. Many are in Christian communities not UU, some happily and some not, but are drawn to our radical ways of being in covenant with people of other faiths than Christian. It’s where Jesus might be. Many are in historic or new Unitarian Universalist Christian churches and hope to help us seed this faith that does not feel like an oxymoron but a redundancy to them, the way the term Methodist Christian might seem. And many follow not just the teachings or social acts of Jesus, but the traditions, disciplines, worship, study, prayer through which Jesus touches their lives. And many may be at different of these points at any given time. I have. One historical Jesus, many faithful responses. We need one another to better reflect the hospitality that is our way. We say we have a particular faithfulness, as UU Christians, but not strictly exclusive faithfulness. One of the gifts of UU Christianity to the ecumenical world is a reminder that our Jesus, our Christ, our God has liberty and freedom at the core. We wouldn’t, couldn’t have one without the other. And to answer the old question of why stay UU, we find UUism to be a great garden of freedom, and a place where we, who follow one who sought out right relations with those different from him, can best follow him, embody him howsoever we refer to him.
Much of the problem with the phrase the Christ of faith is how it has been linked to issues of the divinity of Jesus, and approaching faith as belief, as creeds defined it. We encounter these ancient words and issues by looking back at them through the centuries, in an orderly way. Christ and faith taken to be what they have become, after the Caesers et al corrupted them, instead of letting them speak to us in their own, original voices.
When I speak of Christ I don’t think of a Second Person of the Trinity, at least not as old theologians did, and some still do; instead I think, I feel, about a spirit of anointing, what the Greek word Christ refers to, about a spirit of blessing that is so powerful in its revolutionary vulnerable way, power-with not power-over, cooperation not competition and content and conquest, as we saw in our parable reading and commentary this morning from the lectionary, that this spirit could not be silenced and destroyed by evil and death, but lived on and grew in community more life affirming.
I think of Christ as a parable itself, and believe it is stronger, theologically for it.
And yes, as an aside since I mentioned that old bugaboo, the divinity of Jesus, my own shorthand response is that Jesus was filled with the spirit of God, but God is filled by more than Jesus, and the nature and character of such a God, the key issue, is one of freedom and relationship and imperfection.
Likewise, when I encounter or use the word faith now I don’t think of thought, or belief, of a series of mental affirmations and propositions. I translate it, as new versions of the ancient Greek are being translated, as faithfulness, more active than passive, more about trusting and choosing to follow a special way. As Parable Scholar Brandon Scott writes in our reading today, we have faith not in Jesus as an object, but faith with Jesus as a subject, a living companion.
This topsy-turvy Christology of our century owes itself I think to the rediscovery, coming to know them again for the first time, of the original counter-cultural power of the parables, one of our prime lens to the Jesus of history. It’s why I see the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith as two poles generating, like a Jacob’s ladder, the same energy flowing between them, charging the air.
The parables show us that before Jesus was considered the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, he first anointed, or Christ-ed the world. And the strangely radical way he did that created the climate, the epiphany, the new default mode and re-imagination of God, that prompted his followers to see him as a strangely radical, newly imagined Christ, a conduit of and to the divine. He showed his followers the image of God not only in the image of the poor and powerless, in the image of persistent women and foreigners and foreign women, but in the image of illegal and wild mustard seed, unholy leaven, undisciplined and shamed fathers and sons, employers who upset expectations of workers, respectable feasts thrown for unrespectable folk, and as in today’s parable in untrustworthy managers and selfish owners who still, in their vulnerability, are conduits for good results and the possibility of better relationships and a better world.
But what kind of sacredness is that, they asked? And still do. It makes no sense. It won’t work in the world.
Caeser’s world, then and now, doesn’t see God or ultimate values of honor and success and justice in those ways. In the parables, Jesus breaks apart the either/or worlds and structured roles and reimagines the world as if Caeser were not in charge. Today, think of the Caesers as affluence, appearance, achievement, influence, coolness, consumption, fear, and feelings of scarcity, as if they were not in charge.
It reminds me too that when the first followers of Jesus began to describe him as Christ, and then even later when they themselves were described as Christians, though they still saw themselves for quite some time as part of the covenant between Israel and God, that using the word Christ was their way of differentiating themselves from the values and worldview of the Caesers and those who followed Caeser as the Anointed One, the Son of God, Lord and Master. And I wonder if we stop understanding that difference, if we drop Christ altogether, will we also then drop our contest with the Caesers, the value-makers of our world? This problem of recognizing and responding to evil has been a perennial one for liberal or progressive theology. If this happens it is doubly ironic since our liberal problem with the word Christ is linked to the aftereffects of when centuries after the church was born Christ and the Church were coopted by the Empire and Christ became to many just like another Caeser. One way to defeat Caeser now is to free Christ from Caeser, and create new communities from this transformation, again undoing the Empire.
Given the radical world-upsetting nature of the parables, though, it’s no wonder that the followers who heard them and became leaders, and the followers who just heard the stories from them, and the followers after that have then seen the same image of God, and the same transforming possibilities of the healing spirit of life, most clearly in the one who was himself seen as equally roguish, shrewd, criminal, dishonorable, shamed, crucified, a failure, weak, nuisance, a dangerous homeless man, one still always looking to make connections, relations, build community from the ground up and not from the Empire down. And because of all that they called him God’s Beloved be-lover, Annointed Annointer, Christ
Let’s close, after all these words about words, with where we began, with words about the ineffectiveness of our words. With a humble reminder taken from the same poem by Mr. Eliot. Unfortunately, less familiar words, unlike the first these are not in our hymnal. He wrote this parable:
“You are not here to verify,Instruct yourself, or inform curiosityOr carry report. You are here to kneelWhere prayer has been valid. And prayer is moreThan an order of words, the conscious occupationOf the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.”
The Christ of Faith
First Unitarian Church, St. Louis, Sept. 23, 2007
Rev. Ron Robinson
We begin with the familiar words, words so familiar they risk losing their power, from the poet within your own church family:
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
These words of T. S. Eliot, who would be 119 years old this coming Wednesday (whose grandfather William Greenleaf Eliot was the founding minister of this church when it was the Church of the Messiah), these words mark the journey of the Spirit for many whom I encounter through my ministry with the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship, as they do for me.
We have people in our particular UU movement whose journey began in different world religions than Christianity, or in none, but most started as Christians in other churches, though most became Christian or primarily Jesus-followers as adults after having first been non-Christian UUs.
We were born in the varied waters of Christianity, in this or that church, maybe even in one of our UU Christian Churches, having had this or that experience, some nourished and cared for, some oppressed and exiled; and some, as is the truth of things, with both experiences; but then we crawled from the waters onto the land, so to speak, and began breathing the air, everything seemed new, getting our free legs beneath us, and exploring the world--at some point, for me it was very early on, we settled into Unitarian Universalism because here we could feel at home and continue to feed our wandering souls. After a while, maybe it was from the wanderer’s fate that the only place left to really explore is the place you left too soon to fully know, or maybe it was from a personal crisis that left us feeling too dry, and the land too shaky, but after a while we were drawn to, or pulled to, arguing with ourselves all the way, back to the Christian waters again, to those words and stories again, to those practices and that “cloud of witnesses” through the millennia. And because we were different now, those waters were different too—what had been a shrinking reservoir or toxic pond was now an ocean full of life and energy, and yes, we felt born again, or rather the place was born again for us.
And we found we were not alone. It is why biblical scholar Marcus Borg has titled some of his books as he has—Meeting Jesus Again For The First Time; Reading the Bible Again For the First Time.
The funny thing is, the really shocking and radical thing is to many people who have certain ingrained, default mode worldviews of what church is, both other Christians and other Unitarian Universalists, we found this new water right where we were. We didn’t have to leave so much as look at our place and see it, too, deeper and broader, as if for the first time. It is as if the dry land we had crawled onto, grown up in, been saved by, and explored, after all, had been an island—the original ocean nourishing it, giving it its shape. As we look at the roots of Unitarian Universalism, we find Christianity. As we look at the roots of Christianity, we find unitarian and universalist theology.
And the same kind of journey of re-discovery often continues each time we now come into contact with the words and acts that once upon a time were more like stones, ones that if we held them would have spiritually dragged us down, but now are like the beautiful mysterious flora and fauna and reefs that make up the life of the waters. God. Christ. Holy Spirit. Communion. Faith. Mission. Incarnation. Resurrection. Discipleship. Revival. We know these words better now, for our having been away from them.
The past two years I have been physically living out the idea, the truth, which T.S. Eliot sought to capture in those words from the Little Gidding section of his great work, The Four Quartets. My Little Gidding is Turley, Oklahoma just north of Tulsa, where my paternal grandparents began living soon after the First World War and where my mother and father still live, my father being able to walk into his backyard and see the place where he was born 75 years ago, and where several of my cousins and even their grown children still live. Plus, my wife and I now live in the house and on the land where her parents lived from the time she was six years old until soon after we were married 33 years ago. We volunteer at the elementary school where we met in kindergarten, and scare the parents of the kindergarteners when we tell them that story. The house and land, like the community, had deteriorated quite a bit in the intervening years. The couple we bought the place from, who had let it sit empty for a few years, said if we hadn’t bought it they were going to tear down the rock house and put in a double-wide, to improve its real estate value. They were right, real-estate wise. Our life in it these past two years will be the subject of many other sermons to come. Likewise, Turley is not seen as the kind of place you return to; the poorest zip code, and the lowest life expectancy zipcode in the Tulsa metropolitan area—not especially if you are a couple with 23 years of higher education between us, and a teenage daughter. Turley, we have been told by more than a few, back when we originally lived there and now we live there again, is supposed to be where you are from.
And so that has also been said, during my same 33 years as a Unitarian Universalist, about Christianity. Though not so much lately, or not so bluntly. There were some times and some places, or some people within those places, where bringing up just Jesus or things biblical would not only turn heads but stomachs in UU groups. It was the definite third rail of our religion in those places, not to touch without turning off its power. That’s certainly a reaction that is on the wane as all theologies among us are minority theologies now, and as unchurched join us without the old church baggage, though being who we are and being in the religious culture we are, it will stay with us for some time to come.
Two months ago I guest preached a sermon on the revolutionary changes in the way the Apostle Paul is now being understood, which is causing a shaking of the foundations in some Christian circles unlike what even the Jesus Seminar created, and there was a young man, a new UU, who couldn’t physically be in the sanctuary to hear the sermon, because he had just come out of a fundamentalist Christian church and if he encountered in a sacred way just the words of and about Jesus and Christian faith, it would trigger his wounds, not to mention confounding his definition of who he thought we were, his new-found blessed home. (I often tell UUCF members that being in relationship with those such as him, even as we might be hurting, is part of what it means for us to do UU Christianity. Who better than people who freely follow Jesus to help heal the hurts done in the name of Jesus?)
For others, though, it is not quite that extreme, what is called “cross-cringe” comes at a different point. We UU Christians have usually been there in our journey too. I know I have. That’s in part why, in describing our movement, terms are used like “the Jesus of history but not the Christ of faith” or “we believe in the religion of Jesus but not the religion about Jesus” (which seems to not only negate our own history but the history of Jesus himself whose “religion,” if you have to use that term for it, was very much that of first century Judaism and not like our Protestant Reformed Modern Enlightenment tradition). And though all we have of Jesus we have because of those varied, imperfect, dedicated souls who followed him. The temptation to focus only on the person Jesus as a shadowy historical person, or wise guru, is also fed by our age’s and our tradition’s emphasis on hyper individualism, the Great Man myth. By contrast, to grapple with the word Christ is to grapple with the community which attached it to Jesus, and formed themselves in relation to it. Still it is understandable, this pulling Jesus close but pushing Christianity away. Think of all the real harm done by some powerful Christians, then and now; the stereotypes of Christians held by many today have solid basis.
It’s interesting how many of the growing new emergent evangelical Christian churches, especially those which are anti-megachurch, understand this and are taking up the very same message we honed so well. And are reaching new generations of the unchurched and the dechurched who want to follow the radical way of Jesus, but don’t do it in opposition to or as a contradiction in terms to Christian faith, but as its fulfillment.
People are asking again, in the 21st century in ways not heard since the first century, as the biblical gospels did too, what, who, is this Christ, this Anointed One, this most unusual Messiah, of which people talk, and how is it all related to the one, the son of Miriam, this Jesus of Nazareth?. As one new book title puts it, why from one Jesus, so many Christs? Which is now as it ever has been. Each of the different groups that produced and preserved the accounts of Jesus in the Bible, plus Paul, had a different Christ in mind and heart and soul.
We find that in our midst too, as UU Christian. We talk about the broad categories of those who are a part of us. They fall along the spectrum of how people shape their response to the shape of Jesus in their lives. Many among us don’t call themselves Christian. You don’t have to be Christian to be in the UUCF, nor do you have to be UU to be in the UUCF. We don’t think Jesus, in his radical hospitable way, would have it any differently. These might have Jesus as a moral example, a wise teacher. They follow Jesus as a guide and don’t have much use personally for the word Christ. Many follow Jesus as a social revolutionary leader of the oppressed, and see Christ as the spirit of God opposing the Caesars and Rulers of the Status Quo, now as then. Many follow a Jesus and Christian path and draw strongly or primarily from other religions as their source. Many are a part of us simply because they like our conversation and to keep up with us. Many have left Unitarian Universalism to experience more identified Christian communion and company but don’t want to leave their religious family of origin behind and what it still feeds them. Many are in Christian communities not UU, some happily and some not, but are drawn to our radical ways of being in covenant with people of other faiths than Christian. It’s where Jesus might be. Many are in historic or new Unitarian Universalist Christian churches and hope to help us seed this faith that does not feel like an oxymoron but a redundancy to them, the way the term Methodist Christian might seem. And many follow not just the teachings or social acts of Jesus, but the traditions, disciplines, worship, study, prayer through which Jesus touches their lives. And many may be at different of these points at any given time. I have. One historical Jesus, many faithful responses. We need one another to better reflect the hospitality that is our way. We say we have a particular faithfulness, as UU Christians, but not strictly exclusive faithfulness. One of the gifts of UU Christianity to the ecumenical world is a reminder that our Jesus, our Christ, our God has liberty and freedom at the core. We wouldn’t, couldn’t have one without the other. And to answer the old question of why stay UU, we find UUism to be a great garden of freedom, and a place where we, who follow one who sought out right relations with those different from him, can best follow him, embody him howsoever we refer to him.
Much of the problem with the phrase the Christ of faith is how it has been linked to issues of the divinity of Jesus, and approaching faith as belief, as creeds defined it. We encounter these ancient words and issues by looking back at them through the centuries, in an orderly way. Christ and faith taken to be what they have become, after the Caesers et al corrupted them, instead of letting them speak to us in their own, original voices.
When I speak of Christ I don’t think of a Second Person of the Trinity, at least not as old theologians did, and some still do; instead I think, I feel, about a spirit of anointing, what the Greek word Christ refers to, about a spirit of blessing that is so powerful in its revolutionary vulnerable way, power-with not power-over, cooperation not competition and content and conquest, as we saw in our parable reading and commentary this morning from the lectionary, that this spirit could not be silenced and destroyed by evil and death, but lived on and grew in community more life affirming.
I think of Christ as a parable itself, and believe it is stronger, theologically for it.
And yes, as an aside since I mentioned that old bugaboo, the divinity of Jesus, my own shorthand response is that Jesus was filled with the spirit of God, but God is filled by more than Jesus, and the nature and character of such a God, the key issue, is one of freedom and relationship and imperfection.
Likewise, when I encounter or use the word faith now I don’t think of thought, or belief, of a series of mental affirmations and propositions. I translate it, as new versions of the ancient Greek are being translated, as faithfulness, more active than passive, more about trusting and choosing to follow a special way. As Parable Scholar Brandon Scott writes in our reading today, we have faith not in Jesus as an object, but faith with Jesus as a subject, a living companion.
This topsy-turvy Christology of our century owes itself I think to the rediscovery, coming to know them again for the first time, of the original counter-cultural power of the parables, one of our prime lens to the Jesus of history. It’s why I see the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith as two poles generating, like a Jacob’s ladder, the same energy flowing between them, charging the air.
The parables show us that before Jesus was considered the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, he first anointed, or Christ-ed the world. And the strangely radical way he did that created the climate, the epiphany, the new default mode and re-imagination of God, that prompted his followers to see him as a strangely radical, newly imagined Christ, a conduit of and to the divine. He showed his followers the image of God not only in the image of the poor and powerless, in the image of persistent women and foreigners and foreign women, but in the image of illegal and wild mustard seed, unholy leaven, undisciplined and shamed fathers and sons, employers who upset expectations of workers, respectable feasts thrown for unrespectable folk, and as in today’s parable in untrustworthy managers and selfish owners who still, in their vulnerability, are conduits for good results and the possibility of better relationships and a better world.
But what kind of sacredness is that, they asked? And still do. It makes no sense. It won’t work in the world.
Caeser’s world, then and now, doesn’t see God or ultimate values of honor and success and justice in those ways. In the parables, Jesus breaks apart the either/or worlds and structured roles and reimagines the world as if Caeser were not in charge. Today, think of the Caesers as affluence, appearance, achievement, influence, coolness, consumption, fear, and feelings of scarcity, as if they were not in charge.
It reminds me too that when the first followers of Jesus began to describe him as Christ, and then even later when they themselves were described as Christians, though they still saw themselves for quite some time as part of the covenant between Israel and God, that using the word Christ was their way of differentiating themselves from the values and worldview of the Caesers and those who followed Caeser as the Anointed One, the Son of God, Lord and Master. And I wonder if we stop understanding that difference, if we drop Christ altogether, will we also then drop our contest with the Caesers, the value-makers of our world? This problem of recognizing and responding to evil has been a perennial one for liberal or progressive theology. If this happens it is doubly ironic since our liberal problem with the word Christ is linked to the aftereffects of when centuries after the church was born Christ and the Church were coopted by the Empire and Christ became to many just like another Caeser. One way to defeat Caeser now is to free Christ from Caeser, and create new communities from this transformation, again undoing the Empire.
Given the radical world-upsetting nature of the parables, though, it’s no wonder that the followers who heard them and became leaders, and the followers who just heard the stories from them, and the followers after that have then seen the same image of God, and the same transforming possibilities of the healing spirit of life, most clearly in the one who was himself seen as equally roguish, shrewd, criminal, dishonorable, shamed, crucified, a failure, weak, nuisance, a dangerous homeless man, one still always looking to make connections, relations, build community from the ground up and not from the Empire down. And because of all that they called him God’s Beloved be-lover, Annointed Annointer, Christ
Let’s close, after all these words about words, with where we began, with words about the ineffectiveness of our words. With a humble reminder taken from the same poem by Mr. Eliot. Unfortunately, less familiar words, unlike the first these are not in our hymnal. He wrote this parable:
“You are not here to verify,Instruct yourself, or inform curiosityOr carry report. You are here to kneelWhere prayer has been valid. And prayer is moreThan an order of words, the conscious occupationOf the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.”
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Progressive Christians Waking Up
http://www.tcpc.org/library/article.cfm?library_id=419 Well some are as you can see from that link to a talk at an event sponsored by The Center For Progressive Christianity, www.tcpc.org. The talk doesn't get too missional incarnational organic but is on the right track.
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Friday, August 31, 2007
Organic Camp Turley: A Jesus Thing
So, the Methodist Church here in Turley, OK near Tulsa used to always go off to Camp a few counties away during Labor Day weekend. It was one of those great fun experiences of my life growing up with family in that church. Over the years it would be a way to go and reconnect with the church family even though I had left Methodism. But as the congregation split and aged and the community around it changed more than it did, the attendance at camp dwindled and became a family thing rather than a church thing. Then last year we decided not to try to go off to camp as we always had, good as it had been, but a kind of ghost of what it had been, and decided instead to try to have it here in Turley. I named it Camp Turley. All of a sudden it began to be transformed from a church or single family thing and into a community thing, ecumenical, a Jesus thing.
That is the inversion, the story of what the missional organic church does. Instead of the experience and group being an institutional thing and where people went off to an isolated place to "have a spiritual time" we would bring Camp to the Community. It is still a work in progress. We will look for ways to provide here some of the things missed by not getting off on retreat in a pretty wilderness area, with climbing the camp hill, fishing, etc. But we can develop that nature creation part of God's blessing as we develop up the experience year to year--we have our great Turley Hill, and we are going to be able to do things like service projects that we didn't do off at camp run by other people.
This Saturday is "Camp Turley" at our "a third place" center. Begins with potluck lunch at noon, 1-3 p.m. tye-dye tshirts lessons provided and group games, 3-4 p.m. community service projects, 4-5 p.m. workshop on meditating the Lords Prayer, 5-6 p.m. ecumenical communion service, 6:30 to ? backyard hot dog roast (or what you want to bring) at 6302 N. Quincy Ave. just a few blocks away from the Center.
Lots of possibilities for creating community, reconnecting community, healing, working with other faith communities. A good start. It begins with the mission and grows organically. Stay tuned (or come on by if you are in our area). End.
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That is the inversion, the story of what the missional organic church does. Instead of the experience and group being an institutional thing and where people went off to an isolated place to "have a spiritual time" we would bring Camp to the Community. It is still a work in progress. We will look for ways to provide here some of the things missed by not getting off on retreat in a pretty wilderness area, with climbing the camp hill, fishing, etc. But we can develop that nature creation part of God's blessing as we develop up the experience year to year--we have our great Turley Hill, and we are going to be able to do things like service projects that we didn't do off at camp run by other people.
This Saturday is "Camp Turley" at our "a third place" center. Begins with potluck lunch at noon, 1-3 p.m. tye-dye tshirts lessons provided and group games, 3-4 p.m. community service projects, 4-5 p.m. workshop on meditating the Lords Prayer, 5-6 p.m. ecumenical communion service, 6:30 to ? backyard hot dog roast (or what you want to bring) at 6302 N. Quincy Ave. just a few blocks away from the Center.
Lots of possibilities for creating community, reconnecting community, healing, working with other faith communities. A good start. It begins with the mission and grows organically. Stay tuned (or come on by if you are in our area). End.
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Thursday, August 30, 2007
Organic Community
Next good book recommendation is Organic Community: creating a place where people naturally connect, by Joseph R. Myers. A good one about moving away from "master plans" toward "shaping environments where community emerges naturally." This is a good reminder for all of us who tend to try to "manage growth" and control our environments, thinking that if we just get the right programs, i.e. the right kind of small group ministry, and do the right kind of advertising, etc. we will grow.
One of the best chapters, applicable not only to local churches and organizations but also to denominations, is the one on growth and the difference between "large-lump vs. piecemeal growth." Our cultural seduction for large-lump, Myers says, often leaves groups bankrupt. "Our culture has taught us that growth is an expectation...Choosing a large-lump path toward growth over a piece-meal way forward provides outward evidence of growth sooner. The enormous house, the number of active small groups, the increased attendance in our church services--all demonstrate that growth has occurred. In truth, however, large-lump models rob us of what we are hoping to achieve. One reason this is true is because most--sometimes all--resources are marshalled to build the large-lump plan. Once the large-lump plan is in place, the resources are so depleted that the only possible way to maintain any growth at all is through incremental patterns. The patterns have little momentum, and often bankruptcy results.
In a piecemeal growth pattern, growth may not be evident until later in the process, but the growth is sustanable and leads to a healthy, generative whole. The piecemeal patterns are implemented fromt he outset, momentum builds, and sustainable growth results.
"Consider these questions before you launch your next initiative: How much of our future will this one thing control? Will this one thing that I'm planning deplete all or most of our resources? Will this one thing that I'm planning consume all or most of the community's life? if what I'm planning fails, will it devastate the whole? If what I'm planning succeeds, will it devastate the whole?
The overall idea is to move community activists, i.e. church leaders, toward becoming environmentalists instead of planners. One of the deadly questions that we often fall prey to is the "how" question: how can we do X? Myers shows how that question itself grows out of a scarcity model and propels us down the path of master plans. And how and what we "measure" as the bottom line often ends up controlling our mission. He writes: we measure that which we perceive to be important, that which we measure will become important and will guide our process, that which we do not measure will become less important. "We must understand what we are measuring. We are talking about measuring life--community, relationships, health. We are talking about measuring inanimate entities. Reducing living organisms to a census count demeans the way we were created...Story is the universal measurement of life. Story is the measure of community. Story emerges from life."
When was the last time we counted how many, and what kind of, stories were the most important to our communities? And helped people tell those stories (the real meaning of sermons)? And incorporated them into the Board meetings? Story and prayer are the bottom line.
He tells a good story about stories. How Cincinnati's Vineyard Community Church does its servant evangelism on Saturday mornings (what we call random acts of kindness days) and then comes back to share stories about what happened with one another. That is church. People are drawn toward and want to be a part of Story, and through it to the Great Story.
One of the best chapters, applicable not only to local churches and organizations but also to denominations, is the one on growth and the difference between "large-lump vs. piecemeal growth." Our cultural seduction for large-lump, Myers says, often leaves groups bankrupt. "Our culture has taught us that growth is an expectation...Choosing a large-lump path toward growth over a piece-meal way forward provides outward evidence of growth sooner. The enormous house, the number of active small groups, the increased attendance in our church services--all demonstrate that growth has occurred. In truth, however, large-lump models rob us of what we are hoping to achieve. One reason this is true is because most--sometimes all--resources are marshalled to build the large-lump plan. Once the large-lump plan is in place, the resources are so depleted that the only possible way to maintain any growth at all is through incremental patterns. The patterns have little momentum, and often bankruptcy results.
In a piecemeal growth pattern, growth may not be evident until later in the process, but the growth is sustanable and leads to a healthy, generative whole. The piecemeal patterns are implemented fromt he outset, momentum builds, and sustainable growth results.
"Consider these questions before you launch your next initiative: How much of our future will this one thing control? Will this one thing that I'm planning deplete all or most of our resources? Will this one thing that I'm planning consume all or most of the community's life? if what I'm planning fails, will it devastate the whole? If what I'm planning succeeds, will it devastate the whole?
The overall idea is to move community activists, i.e. church leaders, toward becoming environmentalists instead of planners. One of the deadly questions that we often fall prey to is the "how" question: how can we do X? Myers shows how that question itself grows out of a scarcity model and propels us down the path of master plans. And how and what we "measure" as the bottom line often ends up controlling our mission. He writes: we measure that which we perceive to be important, that which we measure will become important and will guide our process, that which we do not measure will become less important. "We must understand what we are measuring. We are talking about measuring life--community, relationships, health. We are talking about measuring inanimate entities. Reducing living organisms to a census count demeans the way we were created...Story is the universal measurement of life. Story is the measure of community. Story emerges from life."
When was the last time we counted how many, and what kind of, stories were the most important to our communities? And helped people tell those stories (the real meaning of sermons)? And incorporated them into the Board meetings? Story and prayer are the bottom line.
He tells a good story about stories. How Cincinnati's Vineyard Community Church does its servant evangelism on Saturday mornings (what we call random acts of kindness days) and then comes back to share stories about what happened with one another. That is church. People are drawn toward and want to be a part of Story, and through it to the Great Story.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Those Unexpected Blessed Encounters
So I was in Denton Texas recently for my nephew's wedding and at the rehearsal party met one of the bridesmaids. Actually I was talking with her mother and used the phrase "missional/incarnational" to describe the church plant here, and I could tell it was only somewhat resonant with her but she said her daughter would know about it. Sure enough her daughter, the bridesmaid, had been involved in urban ministry and mission work in Roxbury, Mass., had attended Andover-Newton, was now at Gordon-Conwell, or actually in Houston but finishing there, and had been involved with a Vineyard church. She mentioned ReImagine in San Francisco and the conversation, brief as it was, clicked. I realized later how rare it is, for me anyway, to be able to get right down to sharing without having to go through the explanations and introductions to this beingness of church. I know there are dangers in those "oh, you are one of those too!" encounters, for we forget our mission is with the others, but the encounters are so sweet and inspirational. end
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The Book Sale--Benefiting Turley Center
Update--Thank you all. I have already arranged to sell some 300 or so of these 371 books. In the list below the books that are still available will have asterisks beside them. Email me if you have questions. This will mean so much to our "a third place" center and to The Living Room Church. Checks made out to The Living Room Church can be sent to 6514 N. Peoria Ave. Turley, OK 74126. blessings and read on...
Welcome.
Please Check out the books for sale listed as this post continues--click below to read the full list--all just for $5; almost all purchased new and since I was graduated from seminary in 2000). Most have authors listed at least by last name so it should be easy to check them out online to learn more about them, or ask me about the ones you are interested in.
Plus you can order by email. Books For Sale taken from my Theological Library---All Sales Benefit “a third place” community center in Turley, OK.
The sale itself will take place at Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, on N. Mingo Ave. between I-244 and Pine, on Tuesday through Thursday Sept. 4-6, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the commons by the student mailboxes. also see www.ptstulsa.edu. See more on the center at www.turleyok.blogspot.com or in posts below here on my blog. Get great bargains on books and be a part of a great mission here. Contact me at RevRonRobinson@aol.com or 918-691-3223. If you need the list sent by email as an attachment just let me know.
If you would like to order through the mail, contact me re: postage
If you would like to get first chance and come by the community center to buy pre-sale, contact me to arrange time. We are located at 6514 N. Peoria Ave.
Books are in the following categories (but check them all out because the categories are fuzzy and some were tough to slot, figure that :) )--- 1. Emergent/Organic Church; 2. Liberal/Progressive Christianity; 3. Biblical; 4. History; 5. Transformational Church; 6. Theology; 7. of perhaps special value to Unitarian Universalists or those interested in UUism in American Religion; 8. General Church, Religious, and Spiritual.
Emergent/Organic Church
Emerging Worship—Kimball
The Emerging Church—Kimball
The Gospel According to Starbucks—Sweet
Post-Modern Pilgrims—Sweet
The Nomadic Church—Easum
**Planting Missional Churches—Seltzer
**Liquid Church
**The Present Future—Six Tough Questions for the Church, McNeal
Inside the Organic Church—Whitesel
Beyond The Box: innovative churches that work—Easum
Under The Radar: learning from risk-taking churches—Easum
**Revolution—Barna
The Secret Message of Jesus, McLaren
**Morph—Martoia
**Church Next
**A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren
**More Ready Than You Realize, McLaren
The Out of Bounds Church, Naylor
**Future Church: ministry in a post-seeker age
**Adventures in Missing the point, McLaren & Compola
**A New Kind of Christian, McLaren
The Church on the Other Side, Mclaren
**A is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church---Sweet
**The Last Word and The Word After That, McLaren
Planting New Churches in a Post-modern age
Planting A Garden: growing the church beyond the traditional methods
Liberal/Progessive Christianity
**Middle Church—Edgar
**Getting On Message—challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel
God’s Politics—Jim Wallis
**The Emerging Christian Way, essays, Borg ed.
Why The Christian Right Is Wrong—Meyers
**Big Christianity--Linn
**Thy Kingdom Come--Balmer
**Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church
**Christianity in the 21st Century—Wuthnow
**Christianity in the 21st Century—D. Brown
The Left Hand of God—Lerner
**Christianity for the Rest of Us—Bass
The Phoenix Affirmations
**Honest To God—John A.T. Robinson
Perfect Freedom: Why Liberal Christianity Might be the Faith you’re looking for?—Mountford
Why Christianity Must Change or Die—Spong
A New Christianity for a new world—Spong
Stealing Jesus—Bawer
Saving Jesus from those who are Right--Heyward
Biblical
New Testament Fundamentals—Davies
Sowing The Gospel: Mark’s World—Mary Ann Tolbert
A History of Prophecy in Israel
A Commentary on Jeremiah—Brueggeman
**Sacred Discontent: Bible and Western Tradition
Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, Borg
**Moses and Monotheism, Freud
The Prophets: A Liberation-Critical Reading, Carol Dempsey
**The Hidden Book in the Bible
Jesus at 2000, Borg
The Man from Nazareth—Harry Emerson Fosdick
**John: The Maverick Gospel
The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and The Myth of Israel
Jesus and Buddha, Borg
**Three Gospels—Reynolds Price
Living Buddha/Living Christ—tich nhat hanh
Christology in American Unitarianism—Wintersteen
Humanist Sermons
**Interpretation Journals
**The New Testament Introduction--Perrin
**Incarnation: Contemporary Writers on the New Testament
**God: A biography---Miles
**Jesus: Symbol-Maker for the Kingdom---Brandon Scott
**Moses
**Biblical Exegesis
**Literary Criticism and the Gospels
**Abraham—Feiler
**The history of ancient Israel—Grant
**The Book of J—Bloom
Women Like This: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World—Levine
**Communion: Contemporary Writers reveal the Bible in their lives
**Jeremiah: an archaeological companion
**Jeremiah: Interpretation commentary
**Walking on Water: sermons on the miracles of Jesus
The Triumph of Eve and other subversive bible tales
Honest to Jesus---Funk
**Hearing The New Testament
Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus—Borg
Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: the transformation of child sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity---levinson
**Putting Jesus in His Place: a radical vision of household and kingdom
**Jesus—michael grant
**Introducing the Uncommon Lectionary—Bandy
Religion in the Bible---A. Powell Davies
**Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul---Hays
**Paul---A.N. Wilson
**The Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians
**Final Account: Paul’s letter to the Romans—Stendahl
The Letters of Paul---Spong
**Reframing Paul—Strom
**The Paul Quest—Witherington
**Rabbi Paul—Chilton
**Narrative Dynamics in Paul—Longnecker
**Paul and His Letters—Keck
**The Gospel According to Paul—Griffith-Jones
Transformational Church
What Have We Learned—Schaller
Dancing with Dinosaurs—Easum
Growing Spiritual Redwoods—Easum
Summons To Lead—Sweet
Out of the Question, Into the Mystery—Sweet
**11 Genetic Gateways To Spiritual Awakening—Sweet
**Discontinuity and Hope—Schaller
**Jesus Drives Me Crazy—Sweet
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First—Easum
The Very Large Church—Schaller
**Next Church Now
The New Context For Ministry—Schaller
A Mainline Turnaround—Schaller
Small Congregation, Big Potential—Schaller
From Cooperation to Competition---Schaller
**Aqua Church—Sweet
The Unlearning Church—Slaughter
Mission Mover—Bandy
UnFreezing Moves—Easum
**Soul Salsa—Sweet
**Carpe Manana—Sweet
Coaching Change—Bandy
Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers—Easum
Soul Tsunami—Sweet
From Geography to Affinity—Schaller
**Real Followers—Slaughter
Leadership on the Other Side—Easum
Christian Chaos: Revolutionizing the congregation—Bandy
Fragile Hope—Bandy
Kicking Habits—Bandy
Moving Off The Map---Bandy
Antagonists in the Church/Plus Study Guide
Healthy Congregations, Steinke
**Death of the Church
Letting Go: transforming congregations for ministry—Phillips
**The purpose-driven church—warren
Leading Change in the Congregation--Rendle
**Worship Evangelism—Morganthaler
**Rocking the church membership boat
All Are Chosen: stories of lay ministry and leadership
Making the small church effective
**The Vital Congregation—Miller
The In-Between Church—Mann
Leading Small Groups
12 Keys to an Effective Church—Callahan
**Growing in Authority, Relinquishing control
Conflict Management in Congregations
**Transforming Liberal Congregations
**The Once and Future Church
More Than Numbers: The Ways Churches Grow
**The Empowering Church
Effective Church Leadership built on the 12 keys—Callahan
12 keys Study Guide—Callahan
**Leadership is the Key—Miller
Transforming Church Boards
Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century—Malphurs
Discerning Your Congregation’s Future
**Transforming Congregations for the Future
**Five Challenges—mead
**Church Leadership—Weems
Hidden Lives of Congregations
How Your Church Family Works—Steinke
When Not to Build
The Multi-Site Church Revolution
Connecting to God—nurturing spirituality through small groups
History
Theology of the Reformers
**The Age of Reform: 1250-1550
The Story of Christianity
The Transcendentalist Ministers
The Church Before Christianity
**The New England Way and Vatican II
**Martin Luther—Marius
**The De-Secularization of the World—Berger
**Martin Luther: writings
**America’s God--Noll
**The Reformed Pastor
**The Next Christendom: the coming of global christianity—Jenkins
History and Literature of Early Christianity
The Puritan Dilemma
A History of God—Armstrong
Jefferson and Religion
The Wayward Puritans
The Congregational Way of Life
Literature and Theology in Colonial New England
**The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638
Theodore parker: yankee crusader
The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins
**A History of the English Baptists
**The Puritan Origins of the American Self
**Fire From Heaven—Harvey Cox
**American Congregations—Wind and Lewis
Our Covenant—Alice Blair Wesley
When Jesus Became God—Richardson
Theology
Faith Without Certainty—Rasor
**God-Christ-Church---Suchocki
**A New Handbook of Christian Theology
Anselm’s Discovery—Charles Hartshorne, process thought
Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer
Teaching To Transgress—bell hooks
Science and the Search for God, Kowalski
Theology Today Journal Issues
Journals of American Theology and Philosophy
Beyond Humanism—Hartshorne
Creativity and God: A Challenge To Process Theology
The Future of Religions—Tillich
Systematic Theology—Tillich
Theology and Culture—Tillich
Dynamics of Faith—Tillich
The Essential Tillich
If Grace Is True—Gulley and Mulholland
**If God is Love—Gulley and Mulholland
World as Lover, World as Self—Joanna Macy
**Beyond Tragedy—Reinhold Niebuhr
Narratives of a Vulnerable God—Placher
**Unapologetic Theology: Chritian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation
The Zero Fallacy—Hartshorne
**The Religious Imagination: A Study in Psychoanalysis and Jewish Theology
Religious Humanism Journal
**The Responsible Self—Richard Niebuhr
**The Sense of a People—Mudge
**Restoring the Center—Fackre
Facing The Abusive God—Blumenthal
Gaia and God—Reuther
An Essay in Theological Method—Kaufman
A theology of liberation--Guiterrez
**At Home in Creativity: Weiman, process---Southworth
The Spirit of Life--Moltmann
I and Thou—Buber
Christ the Center—Bonhoeffer
With the Grain of the Universe—Hauerwas
Voices of Liberalism 2
Hopeful Realism
**Reinhold Niebuhr: Prophet to Politicians
The Theology of Schleiermacher—Barth
Theology, History, Culture—Richard Niebuhr
Church Dogmatics: A Selection---Barth
**On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers---Schleiermacher
A natural theology for our time—Hartshorne
Parables of Kierkegaard
Channing: selected writings
**Christianity and The Social Crisis—Rauschenbusch
On naming the present: god, hermenutics, and church—Tracy
One Jesus, Many Christs
**The Interpretation of Cultures—Geertz
**Christian Ethics
Life in Abundance: A contemporary spirituality
**The Cosmology of Freedom
Dialogue with the other—Tracy
**Good News for Animals: Christian approaches to animal well-being
Models of God—McFague
From Women’s Experience to Feminist Theology
In This Very Moment: a simple guide to Zen Buddhism
Why Jesus Died—Sloyan
Super, Natural Christians—McFague
**Putting Away Childish Things—ranke-heinemann
**Moral Man and Immoral Society—Reinhold Niebuhr
**Boundaries of our Habitation—Delwin Brown
**The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism—Weber
**In Quest of the Ordinary—Cavell
**God and the Nations—Hall and Reuther
**Message and Existence--Gilkey
Experience and nature—Dewey
**Christ and Culture—Richard Niebuhr
**Professing the Faith—Hall
**A Christian Theology of Religions—Hicks
Religion in the American Experience: The Pluralistic Style
**Culture and Imperialism—Said
**The Metaphor of God Incarnate—Hicks
**The Meaning of Revelation—Richard Niebuhr
The Domestication of Transcendence—Placher
**A layman’s introduction to religious existentialism
The Point of Christology—Ogden
**Wilderness Wanderings—Hauerwas
Process Theology: An Intro---Cobb and Griffin
**Maker of Heaven and Earth—Gilkey
Essays on Faith and Morals--James
**Thinking The Faith—Hall
**Christianity and Culture—T.S. Eliot
The Nature of Doctrine—Lindbeck
**Trinity and Society—Boff
**Consider Jesus—Johnson
After Patriarchy
Of Particular Unitarian Universalist Value
The Almost Church—Durral
UU Christian Journals
Unitarianism in Dallas, 1899-1968
**25 Beacon Street—Greeley
Channing: The Reluctant Radical—Mendolsohn
Thomas Starr King
UUMA Selected Essays
**UUism: A Narrative History
Those Live Tomorrow: UU bios
**UUism and the Quest for Racial Justice
Forward Through the Ages: Greeley
Standing Before Us: UU Women and Social Reform, 1776-1936
The Unitarian Conscience—Howe
American Unitarians, 1805-1865—Wright
**Jones Very, bio
UU History Journals
Interdependence: renewing congregational polity
The Unitarian Controversy—Wright
The use of memory—buehrens
Unitarianism in the antebellum south
Leaping from our spheres: impact of women on UU ministry
Unitarian and Universalist Women Ministers
Black Pioneers in a White Denomination
God and the Commonplace—sermons of john cyrus
Finding Foxes—sermons by Terry Sweetser
The Sense of Life--Patton
**Redeeming Time: (covenant essays)—Hertz
Odysseys: lives of 16 UU ministers—Wesley
Capek—bio by Henry
A Stream of Light: a short history of American Unitarianism—Wright
The beginnings of Unitarianism in America—Wright
Wellsprings: sources in UU feminism
**Moment of Truth—Bartlett
The Devotional Heart: pietism and the renewal of American UUism
General Church and Spirituality
**Communion Services and Sermons
**Scripture on the Silver Screen
**The Three Hardest Words---Sweet
Embodying Forgiveness
Refuge & Buddhist Meditations
The Hungering Dark—Buechner
The Holy Spirit and Preaching---Jim Forbes
**Letters To Young Churches, foreword by C.S. Lewis
Liturgical Language: Keeping it metaphorical, making it inclusive
**Miracles—C.S. Lewis
**The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life—Thomas Moore
**Religions in America—Rosten
**The Western Canon--Bloom
A Brief History of Everything—Wilbur
Love Meets The Dragons: a field guide for ministry—Owen-Towle
**How Shall We Sing The Lord’s Song? An assessment of the New Century hymnal
**Cure for the Common Life—Lucado
*Social Ministry---Hessel
Remembering Well: rituals for celebrating life and mourning death
Ministry and Money—Hotchkiss
People of the Lie—Peck
**A Stay Against confusion: essays on fiction and faith—Ron Hansen
*Celebration of Discipline—Foster
Creating Congregations of Generous People—Durall
To Know as We Are Known—Palmer
**The Celebration of Life—Norman Cousins
**The Great Thanksgiving—Watkins
**A Course in Miracles
Sex in the Parish
**The Prayer of Jabez
Epiphanies: stories for the Christian year
Congregations in Conflict
**Beyond the collection plate: overcoming obstacles to faithful giving
**Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry
An Epidemic of Joy: stories in the spirit of Jesus—Greeley
**Proclaim Jubilee!—Harris
**White Soul—Tex Sample
**Sharing the Word
**Christian Social Ethics in a Global Era
**The Moral Sense—Wilson
Stages of Faith—Fowler
Fashion Me a People—Harris
The Relational Pulpit
Clergy Self-Care
**Models of the Church--Dulles
**The Future of Christianity
Green Mountain Spring and other leaps of faith: meditations
Blessing The Bread: meditations
**Women in Travail and Transitions
**Omens of Millenium—bloom
The Clown in the Belfrey—Buechner
Never Call Them Jerks
Gospel According to the Simpsons
Character Counts: Accountability Groups
Gentle Shepherding: Pastoral Ethics and Leadership--Bush
Welcome.
Please Check out the books for sale listed as this post continues--click below to read the full list--all just for $5; almost all purchased new and since I was graduated from seminary in 2000). Most have authors listed at least by last name so it should be easy to check them out online to learn more about them, or ask me about the ones you are interested in.
Plus you can order by email. Books For Sale taken from my Theological Library---All Sales Benefit “a third place” community center in Turley, OK.
The sale itself will take place at Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, on N. Mingo Ave. between I-244 and Pine, on Tuesday through Thursday Sept. 4-6, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the commons by the student mailboxes. also see www.ptstulsa.edu. See more on the center at www.turleyok.blogspot.com or in posts below here on my blog. Get great bargains on books and be a part of a great mission here. Contact me at RevRonRobinson@aol.com or 918-691-3223. If you need the list sent by email as an attachment just let me know.
If you would like to order through the mail, contact me re: postage
If you would like to get first chance and come by the community center to buy pre-sale, contact me to arrange time. We are located at 6514 N. Peoria Ave.
Books are in the following categories (but check them all out because the categories are fuzzy and some were tough to slot, figure that :) )--- 1. Emergent/Organic Church; 2. Liberal/Progressive Christianity; 3. Biblical; 4. History; 5. Transformational Church; 6. Theology; 7. of perhaps special value to Unitarian Universalists or those interested in UUism in American Religion; 8. General Church, Religious, and Spiritual.
Emergent/Organic Church
Emerging Worship—Kimball
The Emerging Church—Kimball
The Gospel According to Starbucks—Sweet
Post-Modern Pilgrims—Sweet
The Nomadic Church—Easum
**Planting Missional Churches—Seltzer
**Liquid Church
**The Present Future—Six Tough Questions for the Church, McNeal
Inside the Organic Church—Whitesel
Beyond The Box: innovative churches that work—Easum
Under The Radar: learning from risk-taking churches—Easum
**Revolution—Barna
The Secret Message of Jesus, McLaren
**Morph—Martoia
**Church Next
**A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren
**More Ready Than You Realize, McLaren
The Out of Bounds Church, Naylor
**Future Church: ministry in a post-seeker age
**Adventures in Missing the point, McLaren & Compola
**A New Kind of Christian, McLaren
The Church on the Other Side, Mclaren
**A is for Abductive: The Language of the Emerging Church---Sweet
**The Last Word and The Word After That, McLaren
Planting New Churches in a Post-modern age
Planting A Garden: growing the church beyond the traditional methods
Liberal/Progessive Christianity
**Middle Church—Edgar
**Getting On Message—challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel
God’s Politics—Jim Wallis
**The Emerging Christian Way, essays, Borg ed.
Why The Christian Right Is Wrong—Meyers
**Big Christianity--Linn
**Thy Kingdom Come--Balmer
**Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church
**Christianity in the 21st Century—Wuthnow
**Christianity in the 21st Century—D. Brown
The Left Hand of God—Lerner
**Christianity for the Rest of Us—Bass
The Phoenix Affirmations
**Honest To God—John A.T. Robinson
Perfect Freedom: Why Liberal Christianity Might be the Faith you’re looking for?—Mountford
Why Christianity Must Change or Die—Spong
A New Christianity for a new world—Spong
Stealing Jesus—Bawer
Saving Jesus from those who are Right--Heyward
Biblical
New Testament Fundamentals—Davies
Sowing The Gospel: Mark’s World—Mary Ann Tolbert
A History of Prophecy in Israel
A Commentary on Jeremiah—Brueggeman
**Sacred Discontent: Bible and Western Tradition
Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, Borg
**Moses and Monotheism, Freud
The Prophets: A Liberation-Critical Reading, Carol Dempsey
**The Hidden Book in the Bible
Jesus at 2000, Borg
The Man from Nazareth—Harry Emerson Fosdick
**John: The Maverick Gospel
The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and The Myth of Israel
Jesus and Buddha, Borg
**Three Gospels—Reynolds Price
Living Buddha/Living Christ—tich nhat hanh
Christology in American Unitarianism—Wintersteen
Humanist Sermons
**Interpretation Journals
**The New Testament Introduction--Perrin
**Incarnation: Contemporary Writers on the New Testament
**God: A biography---Miles
**Jesus: Symbol-Maker for the Kingdom---Brandon Scott
**Moses
**Biblical Exegesis
**Literary Criticism and the Gospels
**Abraham—Feiler
**The history of ancient Israel—Grant
**The Book of J—Bloom
Women Like This: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World—Levine
**Communion: Contemporary Writers reveal the Bible in their lives
**Jeremiah: an archaeological companion
**Jeremiah: Interpretation commentary
**Walking on Water: sermons on the miracles of Jesus
The Triumph of Eve and other subversive bible tales
Honest to Jesus---Funk
**Hearing The New Testament
Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus—Borg
Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: the transformation of child sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity---levinson
**Putting Jesus in His Place: a radical vision of household and kingdom
**Jesus—michael grant
**Introducing the Uncommon Lectionary—Bandy
Religion in the Bible---A. Powell Davies
**Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul---Hays
**Paul---A.N. Wilson
**The Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians
**Final Account: Paul’s letter to the Romans—Stendahl
The Letters of Paul---Spong
**Reframing Paul—Strom
**The Paul Quest—Witherington
**Rabbi Paul—Chilton
**Narrative Dynamics in Paul—Longnecker
**Paul and His Letters—Keck
**The Gospel According to Paul—Griffith-Jones
Transformational Church
What Have We Learned—Schaller
Dancing with Dinosaurs—Easum
Growing Spiritual Redwoods—Easum
Summons To Lead—Sweet
Out of the Question, Into the Mystery—Sweet
**11 Genetic Gateways To Spiritual Awakening—Sweet
**Discontinuity and Hope—Schaller
**Jesus Drives Me Crazy—Sweet
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First—Easum
The Very Large Church—Schaller
**Next Church Now
The New Context For Ministry—Schaller
A Mainline Turnaround—Schaller
Small Congregation, Big Potential—Schaller
From Cooperation to Competition---Schaller
**Aqua Church—Sweet
The Unlearning Church—Slaughter
Mission Mover—Bandy
UnFreezing Moves—Easum
**Soul Salsa—Sweet
**Carpe Manana—Sweet
Coaching Change—Bandy
Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers—Easum
Soul Tsunami—Sweet
From Geography to Affinity—Schaller
**Real Followers—Slaughter
Leadership on the Other Side—Easum
Christian Chaos: Revolutionizing the congregation—Bandy
Fragile Hope—Bandy
Kicking Habits—Bandy
Moving Off The Map---Bandy
Antagonists in the Church/Plus Study Guide
Healthy Congregations, Steinke
**Death of the Church
Letting Go: transforming congregations for ministry—Phillips
**The purpose-driven church—warren
Leading Change in the Congregation--Rendle
**Worship Evangelism—Morganthaler
**Rocking the church membership boat
All Are Chosen: stories of lay ministry and leadership
Making the small church effective
**The Vital Congregation—Miller
The In-Between Church—Mann
Leading Small Groups
12 Keys to an Effective Church—Callahan
**Growing in Authority, Relinquishing control
Conflict Management in Congregations
**Transforming Liberal Congregations
**The Once and Future Church
More Than Numbers: The Ways Churches Grow
**The Empowering Church
Effective Church Leadership built on the 12 keys—Callahan
12 keys Study Guide—Callahan
**Leadership is the Key—Miller
Transforming Church Boards
Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century—Malphurs
Discerning Your Congregation’s Future
**Transforming Congregations for the Future
**Five Challenges—mead
**Church Leadership—Weems
Hidden Lives of Congregations
How Your Church Family Works—Steinke
When Not to Build
The Multi-Site Church Revolution
Connecting to God—nurturing spirituality through small groups
History
Theology of the Reformers
**The Age of Reform: 1250-1550
The Story of Christianity
The Transcendentalist Ministers
The Church Before Christianity
**The New England Way and Vatican II
**Martin Luther—Marius
**The De-Secularization of the World—Berger
**Martin Luther: writings
**America’s God--Noll
**The Reformed Pastor
**The Next Christendom: the coming of global christianity—Jenkins
History and Literature of Early Christianity
The Puritan Dilemma
A History of God—Armstrong
Jefferson and Religion
The Wayward Puritans
The Congregational Way of Life
Literature and Theology in Colonial New England
**The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638
Theodore parker: yankee crusader
The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins
**A History of the English Baptists
**The Puritan Origins of the American Self
**Fire From Heaven—Harvey Cox
**American Congregations—Wind and Lewis
Our Covenant—Alice Blair Wesley
When Jesus Became God—Richardson
Theology
Faith Without Certainty—Rasor
**God-Christ-Church---Suchocki
**A New Handbook of Christian Theology
Anselm’s Discovery—Charles Hartshorne, process thought
Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer
Teaching To Transgress—bell hooks
Science and the Search for God, Kowalski
Theology Today Journal Issues
Journals of American Theology and Philosophy
Beyond Humanism—Hartshorne
Creativity and God: A Challenge To Process Theology
The Future of Religions—Tillich
Systematic Theology—Tillich
Theology and Culture—Tillich
Dynamics of Faith—Tillich
The Essential Tillich
If Grace Is True—Gulley and Mulholland
**If God is Love—Gulley and Mulholland
World as Lover, World as Self—Joanna Macy
**Beyond Tragedy—Reinhold Niebuhr
Narratives of a Vulnerable God—Placher
**Unapologetic Theology: Chritian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation
The Zero Fallacy—Hartshorne
**The Religious Imagination: A Study in Psychoanalysis and Jewish Theology
Religious Humanism Journal
**The Responsible Self—Richard Niebuhr
**The Sense of a People—Mudge
**Restoring the Center—Fackre
Facing The Abusive God—Blumenthal
Gaia and God—Reuther
An Essay in Theological Method—Kaufman
A theology of liberation--Guiterrez
**At Home in Creativity: Weiman, process---Southworth
The Spirit of Life--Moltmann
I and Thou—Buber
Christ the Center—Bonhoeffer
With the Grain of the Universe—Hauerwas
Voices of Liberalism 2
Hopeful Realism
**Reinhold Niebuhr: Prophet to Politicians
The Theology of Schleiermacher—Barth
Theology, History, Culture—Richard Niebuhr
Church Dogmatics: A Selection---Barth
**On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers---Schleiermacher
A natural theology for our time—Hartshorne
Parables of Kierkegaard
Channing: selected writings
**Christianity and The Social Crisis—Rauschenbusch
On naming the present: god, hermenutics, and church—Tracy
One Jesus, Many Christs
**The Interpretation of Cultures—Geertz
**Christian Ethics
Life in Abundance: A contemporary spirituality
**The Cosmology of Freedom
Dialogue with the other—Tracy
**Good News for Animals: Christian approaches to animal well-being
Models of God—McFague
From Women’s Experience to Feminist Theology
In This Very Moment: a simple guide to Zen Buddhism
Why Jesus Died—Sloyan
Super, Natural Christians—McFague
**Putting Away Childish Things—ranke-heinemann
**Moral Man and Immoral Society—Reinhold Niebuhr
**Boundaries of our Habitation—Delwin Brown
**The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism—Weber
**In Quest of the Ordinary—Cavell
**God and the Nations—Hall and Reuther
**Message and Existence--Gilkey
Experience and nature—Dewey
**Christ and Culture—Richard Niebuhr
**Professing the Faith—Hall
**A Christian Theology of Religions—Hicks
Religion in the American Experience: The Pluralistic Style
**Culture and Imperialism—Said
**The Metaphor of God Incarnate—Hicks
**The Meaning of Revelation—Richard Niebuhr
The Domestication of Transcendence—Placher
**A layman’s introduction to religious existentialism
The Point of Christology—Ogden
**Wilderness Wanderings—Hauerwas
Process Theology: An Intro---Cobb and Griffin
**Maker of Heaven and Earth—Gilkey
Essays on Faith and Morals--James
**Thinking The Faith—Hall
**Christianity and Culture—T.S. Eliot
The Nature of Doctrine—Lindbeck
**Trinity and Society—Boff
**Consider Jesus—Johnson
After Patriarchy
Of Particular Unitarian Universalist Value
The Almost Church—Durral
UU Christian Journals
Unitarianism in Dallas, 1899-1968
**25 Beacon Street—Greeley
Channing: The Reluctant Radical—Mendolsohn
Thomas Starr King
UUMA Selected Essays
**UUism: A Narrative History
Those Live Tomorrow: UU bios
**UUism and the Quest for Racial Justice
Forward Through the Ages: Greeley
Standing Before Us: UU Women and Social Reform, 1776-1936
The Unitarian Conscience—Howe
American Unitarians, 1805-1865—Wright
**Jones Very, bio
UU History Journals
Interdependence: renewing congregational polity
The Unitarian Controversy—Wright
The use of memory—buehrens
Unitarianism in the antebellum south
Leaping from our spheres: impact of women on UU ministry
Unitarian and Universalist Women Ministers
Black Pioneers in a White Denomination
God and the Commonplace—sermons of john cyrus
Finding Foxes—sermons by Terry Sweetser
The Sense of Life--Patton
**Redeeming Time: (covenant essays)—Hertz
Odysseys: lives of 16 UU ministers—Wesley
Capek—bio by Henry
A Stream of Light: a short history of American Unitarianism—Wright
The beginnings of Unitarianism in America—Wright
Wellsprings: sources in UU feminism
**Moment of Truth—Bartlett
The Devotional Heart: pietism and the renewal of American UUism
General Church and Spirituality
**Communion Services and Sermons
**Scripture on the Silver Screen
**The Three Hardest Words---Sweet
Embodying Forgiveness
Refuge & Buddhist Meditations
The Hungering Dark—Buechner
The Holy Spirit and Preaching---Jim Forbes
**Letters To Young Churches, foreword by C.S. Lewis
Liturgical Language: Keeping it metaphorical, making it inclusive
**Miracles—C.S. Lewis
**The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life—Thomas Moore
**Religions in America—Rosten
**The Western Canon--Bloom
A Brief History of Everything—Wilbur
Love Meets The Dragons: a field guide for ministry—Owen-Towle
**How Shall We Sing The Lord’s Song? An assessment of the New Century hymnal
**Cure for the Common Life—Lucado
*Social Ministry---Hessel
Remembering Well: rituals for celebrating life and mourning death
Ministry and Money—Hotchkiss
People of the Lie—Peck
**A Stay Against confusion: essays on fiction and faith—Ron Hansen
*Celebration of Discipline—Foster
Creating Congregations of Generous People—Durall
To Know as We Are Known—Palmer
**The Celebration of Life—Norman Cousins
**The Great Thanksgiving—Watkins
**A Course in Miracles
Sex in the Parish
**The Prayer of Jabez
Epiphanies: stories for the Christian year
Congregations in Conflict
**Beyond the collection plate: overcoming obstacles to faithful giving
**Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry
An Epidemic of Joy: stories in the spirit of Jesus—Greeley
**Proclaim Jubilee!—Harris
**White Soul—Tex Sample
**Sharing the Word
**Christian Social Ethics in a Global Era
**The Moral Sense—Wilson
Stages of Faith—Fowler
Fashion Me a People—Harris
The Relational Pulpit
Clergy Self-Care
**Models of the Church--Dulles
**The Future of Christianity
Green Mountain Spring and other leaps of faith: meditations
Blessing The Bread: meditations
**Women in Travail and Transitions
**Omens of Millenium—bloom
The Clown in the Belfrey—Buechner
Never Call Them Jerks
Gospel According to the Simpsons
Character Counts: Accountability Groups
Gentle Shepherding: Pastoral Ethics and Leadership--Bush
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Trinity Talk
There has been some talk on UUism and The Trinity over at http://www.philocrites.com/archives/003651.html. The recent Summer 2007 issue of The Herald, published by the British Unitarian Christian Association, http://www.unitarianchristian.org.uk/ has much on the Trinity in it, in part I think stemming from the recent news it also covers about the link-up between the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland (http://www.nspresbyterian.org/) and the UCA in the UK.
The Herald Editor The Rev. Andrew Brown has a good article called "On Understanding The Trinity" in which he quotes British Unitarian minister and scholar Sidney Spenser, whose comments from his 1955 essay "Unitarians and the Trinity" come pretty close to my own. I expect that hearing the Trinity is a hot topic in UU circles might be surprising for my blog visitors from both the UU and other religious circles.
Brown writes: "The Unitarian minister and scholar of first century Judaism Robert Travers Herford was right when he noted that: The duty of Christians...is not to try and convert each other, but to try and understand each other, so as to be able to see how it is and why it is that they express their belief in different ways.' In this piece I try to do jus this concerning the question of Unitarian and/or Trinitarian conceptions of God. Following Herford's advice, another influential Unitarian minister and scholar, Sidney Spenser came to realize that the disputes over the Unity or Trinity of God were not pointless merely intellectual spats but born out of something very real and meaningful. Spenser observed that the doctrine of the Trinity was "formulated on the basis, not merely of speculation, but of experience.' Turning to those of us who consider ourselves to be Unitarian Christians he went on to say that 'the vital thing for us is not to hold the creed, but to enter into the experience out of which it developed.' Here is what Spenser wrote at the end of his 1955 essay...
"Like the early Christians, we are led to experience God in three different ways. To us, as to them, God is, first, the Source of being, everlasting, transcendent, yet close to our hearts, the universal Father in whom we live and move and have our being. To us, as to Jesus, God is Father in the sense that we share His Life and seek to do His Will. Jesus leads us to see God as the eternal Love who has made us for Himself. But secondly, we see that Love, not only as a besetting Presence above and beyond us; we see it coming to dwell among us, entering into human life, revealing itself in human souls. The Church has emphasized the revelation of God in the life and death of Jesus. And it is true that, because of the fullness of his love, Jesus is the great revealer--the Son in whom we see the Father's glory. Yet that sonship is not a thing apart. Wherever life is enriched and redeemed by the spirit of self-giving love, there we see God dwelling among us, revealing Himself to our eyes. We experience God as Father in His eternal Presence: we experience Him as Son in His revelation in human souls; and, finally, we experience Him as Spirit in His indwelling Life in our hearts---as the sustaining, quickening Energy underlying and inspiring all our efforts after goodness and truth and beauty.
The Trinity has its real value, not as a literal truth, not as a definition of the eternal nature of God, but as a symbol, suggesting the quality--manifold, yet unified--of our experience. The traditional doctrine serves today to darken counsel rather than to bring us light. It implies a clear-cut distinction, which cannot be sustained, between the different aspects of the divine. It is well that we should think of God as transcendant, as incarnate, as indwelling. But it is essential, if we are to lay hold of the vital meaning of these truths, to bring them closely together. It is God, the Father of our spirits, the Height and Depth of being, who is within us, whose glory shines through the life of Christ-like souls. It is the infinite Power and Love of God which is nearer to us than we are to ourselves, ever waiting to penetrate and posess us and to lift us into union with Himself. (Spenser, The Deep Things of God, London, 1955)
The Herald Editor The Rev. Andrew Brown has a good article called "On Understanding The Trinity" in which he quotes British Unitarian minister and scholar Sidney Spenser, whose comments from his 1955 essay "Unitarians and the Trinity" come pretty close to my own. I expect that hearing the Trinity is a hot topic in UU circles might be surprising for my blog visitors from both the UU and other religious circles.
Brown writes: "The Unitarian minister and scholar of first century Judaism Robert Travers Herford was right when he noted that: The duty of Christians...is not to try and convert each other, but to try and understand each other, so as to be able to see how it is and why it is that they express their belief in different ways.' In this piece I try to do jus this concerning the question of Unitarian and/or Trinitarian conceptions of God. Following Herford's advice, another influential Unitarian minister and scholar, Sidney Spenser came to realize that the disputes over the Unity or Trinity of God were not pointless merely intellectual spats but born out of something very real and meaningful. Spenser observed that the doctrine of the Trinity was "formulated on the basis, not merely of speculation, but of experience.' Turning to those of us who consider ourselves to be Unitarian Christians he went on to say that 'the vital thing for us is not to hold the creed, but to enter into the experience out of which it developed.' Here is what Spenser wrote at the end of his 1955 essay...
"Like the early Christians, we are led to experience God in three different ways. To us, as to them, God is, first, the Source of being, everlasting, transcendent, yet close to our hearts, the universal Father in whom we live and move and have our being. To us, as to Jesus, God is Father in the sense that we share His Life and seek to do His Will. Jesus leads us to see God as the eternal Love who has made us for Himself. But secondly, we see that Love, not only as a besetting Presence above and beyond us; we see it coming to dwell among us, entering into human life, revealing itself in human souls. The Church has emphasized the revelation of God in the life and death of Jesus. And it is true that, because of the fullness of his love, Jesus is the great revealer--the Son in whom we see the Father's glory. Yet that sonship is not a thing apart. Wherever life is enriched and redeemed by the spirit of self-giving love, there we see God dwelling among us, revealing Himself to our eyes. We experience God as Father in His eternal Presence: we experience Him as Son in His revelation in human souls; and, finally, we experience Him as Spirit in His indwelling Life in our hearts---as the sustaining, quickening Energy underlying and inspiring all our efforts after goodness and truth and beauty.
The Trinity has its real value, not as a literal truth, not as a definition of the eternal nature of God, but as a symbol, suggesting the quality--manifold, yet unified--of our experience. The traditional doctrine serves today to darken counsel rather than to bring us light. It implies a clear-cut distinction, which cannot be sustained, between the different aspects of the divine. It is well that we should think of God as transcendant, as incarnate, as indwelling. But it is essential, if we are to lay hold of the vital meaning of these truths, to bring them closely together. It is God, the Father of our spirits, the Height and Depth of being, who is within us, whose glory shines through the life of Christ-like souls. It is the infinite Power and Love of God which is nearer to us than we are to ourselves, ever waiting to penetrate and posess us and to lift us into union with Himself. (Spenser, The Deep Things of God, London, 1955)
Brown goes on to talk about his contemporary interactions over the Trinity. He brings in Gershwin's "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off" song to talk about how Unitarian and Trinitarian Christians are like pajamas and pajahmas, how in the song's words "for we know we need each other" and can learn much by wearing each other's pajamas/pajahamas for a night or two."
For me The Trinity is a powerful way also of experiencing community in the light of God, where "two or three are gathered" there is a power that overturns Empires, and so it is part of the imperative to form communities, to plant them.
Theology on Tap: Eucharist and Emerging
I attended a fascinating monthly event in Tulsa on Tuesday called Theology on Tap. Thanks to the Emergent Tulsa Cohort website (see my links) for the heads-up. Bigger crowd than I expected (filled the top floor of McNellie's). Wonderful Roman Catholic young adult gathering held at one of our premier Irish pubs. Priest giving apologetics and history of the Eucharist from a RC perspective. Good to see evangelicals in the Protestant movement finding ways to promote the Catholic-Evangelical and Emergent Dialogue going on nationally. http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/13492.htm and vice-versa. In the world of our youth and young adults engagement, dialogue, plurality is the given air they breathe--they may want tradition, practice and praxis, but not at the expense of respect especially ecumenically. The same emergent evangelical group invited new universalist Christian the Rev. Carlton Pearson the month before--I missed that one out of town. Universalists and Catholics would have been the theological lepers not too long ago (and of course still are in many many quarters) so kudos to the group in Tulsa going where Jesus would have gone. (Lepers not in the sense that they need to be healed, mind you :), but as shorthand to "hands-off.")
It was just great to be with young adults (I was one of the oldest there at 53) drinking Sam Adams' Summer Ale and listening to Eucharist talk. Great questions that came up later to the priest from the emergent Protestants about REAL PRESENCE that showed the old divides are more mischaracterizations--conversation covered how the real presence of Christ is more than the Second Person of the Trinity embodied anew, not talking cannibalism, since a spiritual power is seen as part of that embodied Self, not just Jesus resuscitated in some wafer-way. The priest traced Eucharist back to Jewish Memorial Services for the dead, a way the past is made present. Always good to place the "Lord's supper" in a Jewish context though I prefer the historical work of Tulsan and Phillips Theological Seminary professor Dennis Smith in his book "From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World."
Anyway, it also showed for me why eucharist/communion is so important for my understanding of Christian community in a different way and why though the church missional plant here in Turley has had weekly communion off and on, it is becoming more on than off again, though still what would be called very low-church (including grape juice). For me it has more to do with Jesus' welcome table while he was alive than it does the "blood sacrifice" of his death to be memorialized; but then the power of the cross is in what led to it in the years of his life as well as in those hours on it, and it is in, as the priest and the convesation did allude to, the Risen Christ and the Spirit beyond the cross and tomb, in the way it gives us a glimpse of the Messianic Banquet or of God's kin-dom. This is why my eucharistic theology is that it doesn't have to be officiated over by a member of the clergy; why the words that are said as part of it are not as important as the spirit of inclusion that it re-enacts, so that no one, no one, is barred from the table, especially not for their political or religious ideas or even sinful behavior. That Christ's Real (but not only) Presence is in fact in such community-forming practice as the eucharist; but if Eucharist leads to exclusive and community-breaking power in the world than it is not Real but False Presence and re-presentation of Christ. I suppose my theology of the eucharist is based on a difference in how I see Christ was present, was incarnated, in and through Jesus.
One of the debts I owe the Roman Catholic Church, among many, is its focus through the centuries on the eucharist itself as part of what marks the Christian community. The eucharist in today's emergent organic church is one place where we can see "ancient/future" revealed. I will try to remember to post in the comments section later the "usual" liturgy for communion used here, though it varies with the occasion. End.
It was just great to be with young adults (I was one of the oldest there at 53) drinking Sam Adams' Summer Ale and listening to Eucharist talk. Great questions that came up later to the priest from the emergent Protestants about REAL PRESENCE that showed the old divides are more mischaracterizations--conversation covered how the real presence of Christ is more than the Second Person of the Trinity embodied anew, not talking cannibalism, since a spiritual power is seen as part of that embodied Self, not just Jesus resuscitated in some wafer-way. The priest traced Eucharist back to Jewish Memorial Services for the dead, a way the past is made present. Always good to place the "Lord's supper" in a Jewish context though I prefer the historical work of Tulsan and Phillips Theological Seminary professor Dennis Smith in his book "From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World."
Anyway, it also showed for me why eucharist/communion is so important for my understanding of Christian community in a different way and why though the church missional plant here in Turley has had weekly communion off and on, it is becoming more on than off again, though still what would be called very low-church (including grape juice). For me it has more to do with Jesus' welcome table while he was alive than it does the "blood sacrifice" of his death to be memorialized; but then the power of the cross is in what led to it in the years of his life as well as in those hours on it, and it is in, as the priest and the convesation did allude to, the Risen Christ and the Spirit beyond the cross and tomb, in the way it gives us a glimpse of the Messianic Banquet or of God's kin-dom. This is why my eucharistic theology is that it doesn't have to be officiated over by a member of the clergy; why the words that are said as part of it are not as important as the spirit of inclusion that it re-enacts, so that no one, no one, is barred from the table, especially not for their political or religious ideas or even sinful behavior. That Christ's Real (but not only) Presence is in fact in such community-forming practice as the eucharist; but if Eucharist leads to exclusive and community-breaking power in the world than it is not Real but False Presence and re-presentation of Christ. I suppose my theology of the eucharist is based on a difference in how I see Christ was present, was incarnated, in and through Jesus.
One of the debts I owe the Roman Catholic Church, among many, is its focus through the centuries on the eucharist itself as part of what marks the Christian community. The eucharist in today's emergent organic church is one place where we can see "ancient/future" revealed. I will try to remember to post in the comments section later the "usual" liturgy for communion used here, though it varies with the occasion. End.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
"Christianity Today" and Paul
CT recently published an article http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/august/13.22.html "about" the new Paul persective (see earlier posts). I put the word about in quotes instead of putting the NPP in persective to indicate what I thought of the article. If that is all anyone experiences as an introduction to the NPP, they will wonder what the fuss is about, and I doubt they will make it through the article anyway. Now I know my NPP is way to the left along the wide spectrum of NPP interpretations, but the whole issue of the Romans "mis/translation" of the word "belief in Jesus" merits the serious attention it gets in academic biblical scholarly circles and not to even mention it, or to dismiss it by overtly indicating it can't be an issue, doesn't speak well for the evangelical mission of being taken seriously. I read the article and wondered why would anyone think the NPP is controversial or foundational. And the list of recommended resources is pretty slim and doesn't do the NPP justice. I was left thinking that it was all an excuse for some evangelicals to say they could now dismiss the NPP by having shown a small slanted piece of it.
But this post will allow me to reveal myself as a regular reader of CT and that it helps in my own journey in surprising ways. And I would like to particularly point people in this latest issue to the related artifcles on the "Attack Dogs of Christendom" who over-react (could they do anything else, one wonders?) to the recent spat of atheist arguments, and to John Wilson's top 5 books on Atheism which evangelicals would do better to read than the recently published ones: Lucretius' on the nature of the universe, Sartre's Nausea, James C. Turner's Without God, Without Creed, Timothy Larsen's Crisis of Doubt, and Philosophers Without Gods, ed. by Louise M. Antony. Wouldn't it be great to see the UU World, for example, run various people's lists of their picks of the 5 top books coming from the perspectives of, for lack of better terms, evangelical orthodox Christianity, progressive Christianity, emerging Christianity, theology today, personal memoirs of faith today, Buddhism, neo-paganism, etc. today?
But this post will allow me to reveal myself as a regular reader of CT and that it helps in my own journey in surprising ways. And I would like to particularly point people in this latest issue to the related artifcles on the "Attack Dogs of Christendom" who over-react (could they do anything else, one wonders?) to the recent spat of atheist arguments, and to John Wilson's top 5 books on Atheism which evangelicals would do better to read than the recently published ones: Lucretius' on the nature of the universe, Sartre's Nausea, James C. Turner's Without God, Without Creed, Timothy Larsen's Crisis of Doubt, and Philosophers Without Gods, ed. by Louise M. Antony. Wouldn't it be great to see the UU World, for example, run various people's lists of their picks of the 5 top books coming from the perspectives of, for lack of better terms, evangelical orthodox Christianity, progressive Christianity, emerging Christianity, theology today, personal memoirs of faith today, Buddhism, neo-paganism, etc. today?
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