For those of us who are either out of school too long to remain sharp on minutiae of philosophy, ideology and theology or who were never educated in these areas to begin with, who may also be new to the idea of emergence and are still coming to terms with understanding what emergence is, as well as what it is not, and how it will manifest in relative terms to other “movements”, is there a meaningful distinction we need to make between something like Bishop Spong’s New Reformation (I am trusting that to be reasonably accurate) and the kind of re-thinking of theology and “Christian living” that we see coming out of emergence (and specifically on sites such as this one)?
To put this another way, what is the important distinction between emergence and other movements which have attempted to assert a “new approach” to Christianity such as the Vineyard Movement or the Boston Movement? I get the distinct impression that a great deal of effort is put into not couching emergence as either reformation, restoration (of a previous, supposedly lost idiom) or new revelation, and yet there is a great deal about the conversation which sounds a great deal like one or all three of those.
I was recently listening to this podcast in which Diana Butler Bass discusses her model for explaining the place where the mainline intersects with emergence. In it, someone shouts out spontaneously the name of Bishop Spong as someone conversing well into the (to use Ms. Bass’ terms) intentional quadrants as well as the post-modern quadrants without regard to the liberal vs. conservative axis. Ms. Bass disagrees with the unnamed participant and claims instead that Bishop Spong is in fact merely a highly liberal individual engaged in nothing more than (as she put it) “an argument with Jerry Falwell”.
These kinds of very subtle distinctions are difficult for those of us less academic in nature who nonetheless want to be as intellectually rigorous about our faith as we can be.
I am reminded of the notion of creating a sculpture of an elephant by starting with a giant, gray rock, and then removing everything that doesn’t look like an elephant.
Rather than asking what emergence is, or what emergence stands for, I am asking instead, what emergence is not.
Re: Getting a sense of the emerging landscape
Great question. In my view…
An emerging faith is not about getting to the Objective, Rock Bottom of Things. It isn’t about Proving God’s existence or Jesus’ resurrection to be Certain, Unquestionable Facts of the Matter.—these are ultimately matters of faith.
Its not about having Right Beliefs and Opinions—its more about orthopraxy, or about fruitful ways of living in the way of the Lord.
Its not about refusing to talk to someone or refusing to hang out with someone because they aren’t Christian or aren’t a follower of Jesus—its about building relationships with people of all colors and stripes.
Its not about a brick and mortar church and missionary committees—its about a way of living fruitfully in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Its not about reducing God to a rationally explicable phenomenon—its about affirming God’s ultimate mystery and uncontainability.
Its not just about the atoning power of Jesus death and resurrection.—but also about Jesus life and teachings and putting them into effect in our own lives.
Its not about using the Holy Bible as an instruction manual or as a look-it-up encyclopedia or as a sledge hammer to beat other people and religions into submission.—its more about using Scripture as a means of equipping God’s people for good works.
Its not only about you and your community.—its also and more importantly about the other, about seeing God in he your neighbor and in your enemy.
And the list could go on….
Re: Getting a sense of the emerging landscape
Maybe I am still trying to apply old ways of thinking, I am not sure.
Is there a distinction, from the emergent/postmodern view, between saying “X is true” as an absolute (what I read people referring to as a “truth statement”) or saying “X cannot be true” or “X is not true”? Does the knowledge that our understanding is limited and rooted in our own point of view not only put us in a position to be reticent about truth statements but also to be reticent about outright rejection of someone else’s truth statements?
Is this what makes Spong’s theses (which are essentially rejections of various traditional theologies) merely liberal, and not emergent/postmodern? Maybe he is a bad example. I only return to it since he specifically came up within a discussion within an emergent context. I understand that there is nothing exclusive about emergence which would necessitate ignoring or rejecting Spong’s ideas even if they are not considered emergent per se.
Thanks for your patience with me across many threads now!
~jhimm — nothing lasts. nothing is finished. nothing is perfect.
Re: Getting a sense of the emerging landscape
jhimm,
No worries. I much enjoy the conversation.
When you asked: "Does the knowledge that our understanding is limited and rooted in our own point of view not only put us in a position to be reticent about truth statements but also to be reticent about outright rejection of someone else’s truth statements?"
I think that you are on to something, particularly with respect to religious truth-claims. Among so-called emerging faith, there is a double movement concerning truth-claims. One move is to avoid making strong Truth-claims. A second move is to avoid discounting as outright false another persons truth-claims. We need learn to ride the tension of admitting that ultimately we just don’t know—we have faith.
To quote John Caputo at length:
Re: Getting a sense of the emerging landscape
I do not view Spong’s conclusions to be valid, but I do think that his methodology is valid. After contemplating lots of things related to his list of assumptions I have arrived at many orthodox positions but I have gone through the process of questioning the same things that Spong questions.
We should not take Orthodox positions at face value and accept them on their authority. Instead we should do our due diligence to investigate Orthodoxy and arrive at our own conclusions. This is the emerging position, and not to intentionally re-interpret scriptures to match our world view, which is what I feel Spong is doing.
Re: Getting a sense of the emerging landscape
I’m not convinced Spong’s theses are “conclusions”. It seems to me that he is pointing out aspects of traditional theology which have come to be at odds with our understanding of the universe and how it functions. He does not make claims as to what a replacement theology ought to be, he is merely shining a light on something we tend to sweep under the rug in the name of orthodoxy. There is a part of me that wants deeply to take the first three chapters of Genesis quite literally. But unless I am convinced of a massive international conspiracy to mislead humanity on a grand scale, I must conclude that science has demonstrated that these stories are not historical, but allegorical. Spong is not asserting the “correct way” to interpret that allegory, only asserting that to continue to insist on a literal, historical interpretation is intellectually disingenuous.
I find it odd that within this new context of thinking about Christianity in which we become so reticent to either make truth claims or reject truth claims we yet remain so willing to question, critique and make assumptions about other people’s motivations and methodologies. To suggest that someone has turned their theology on its head simply because they are predisposed to a particular world view and are unable to reconcile the two otherwise is a pretty serious claim of intellectual dishonesty (or at the very least intellectual laziness) which would seem to be difficult to defend without an explicit (or deeply substantiated implicit) confession.
Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way.
~jhimm — nothing lasts. nothing is finished. nothing is perfect.
Re: Getting a sense of the emerging landscape
jhimm,
I see what you are saying. I am not familiar with much of his work, only going off of Wiki, so my comments were not to be taken as a severe critique.
On the other hand, I feel like he has compared orthodoxy to our current scientific worldview and without reading any supporting argumentations seems like he feels that Christianity needs to be modified to encompass the scientific views.
I don’t really care if we arrive at a position that we need to reevaluate certain Christian doctrines such as a literal Genesis. However, I think that this needs to be done objectively and allowing for the orthodox positions to still be correct. With Spong’s theses it feels to me that he has not taken this approach. (Although he may have in his work. and is not conveyed in the wiki article)
Re: Getting a sense of the emerging landscape
I feel like he has compared orthodoxy to our current scientific worldview and without reading any supporting argumentations seems like he feels that Christianity needs to be modified to encompass the scientific views.
I don’t really care if we arrive at a position that we need to reevaluate certain Christian doctrines such as a literal Genesis. However, I think that this needs to be done objectively and allowing for the orthodox positions to still be correct.
I guess we are simply reading his ideas differently and so finding different motivations behind them. (Imagine that!)
The growing divide between science and religion bothers me. The growing outright rejection of science by Christians bothers me even more. I see/hear/read more and more Christians concluding (in what appears to be an unconscious, and unintentional fashion) that science and scientists are some kind of global scale propaganda tool to promote atheism because the scientific understanding of how our universe is ordered and functions make notions like a 10,000 year old planet, the violation of the laws of matter (miracles) and the notion that heaven is “up there” above the sky childish at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.
I see a man standing up to the establishment and saying “science is not teaching us to reject G-d, science is teaching us to find a new way to think about what these passages are trying to teach us”.
I see a man trying to snap the church out of its intellectual stupor which it has permitted itself to wallow in for far too long by substituting orthodoxy born of rigorous discussion for orthodoxy born of tradition and an unwillingness to rethink things we have become comfortable believing.
What are the first parts of the faith we learn in Sunday school as children? The Creation story. Jesus’ ministry through miracles. The Christmas story complete with magickal virgin birth. We are taught that it is not only appropriate but expected good practice to pray to G-d and ask him for the things we do not have (whether that is courage for the first day of school, world peace, a new bike or whatever else). Much of Christian mythology is perpetuated through the “dumbing down” of good theology to make it accessible and palatable to children.
The problem is, those things become deeply ingrained and comforting for us, and thus they become some of the most difficult pieces of our theology to become critical about later in life when we decide to apply some intellectual rigor to our theology.
I see a man standing up and saying:
(emphasis mine of course)
It doesn’t seem to get much more postmodern than that.
*shrug* I could be wrong, right?
~jhimm — nothing lasts. nothing is finished. nothing is perfect.
Re: Getting a sense of the emerging landscape
thanks Jhimm, great stuff. I enjoy science and although I don’t know if I believe in a grand unified theory I do appreciate those such as Einstein who were seeking to understand God through science. I certainly don’t think that we can disregard science when it comes to religion and I do agree that it is naivety to ignore it completely. God does reveal Himself through the natural world and was created through Jesus Christ and so we can see God in creation.
I think you and I agree on a lot and I appreciate your feedback to my comments. I think for me is that I am not sure as to how science should relate to our interpretation of scripture. I mean first is understanding what intention of the scripture was for Jews in history who do not have a scientific background, and then applying those principals to our our lives today. So I guess, it goes to a question of interpretation at that point.
When it is all said and done, I think science makes aware of God’s work, and if we want to believe that God created man through evolution, I think that is fine. But if we go the route of lets say Marcus Borg or draw some of Spong’s conclusions, then I think we are losing the personality of God for God as more of an impersonal active force. A God more simmilar to Brahman then to a father. When I read scripture I read of a relational God seeking desperately to be in a relationship with us and so I can’t go the impersonal route. (You are free to believe what ever you want, and I don’t know where you stand at this point.)
Thanks Jhimm, very enlightening.
Re: Getting a sense of the emerging landscape
I am not sure as to how science should relate to our interpretation of scripture.
I am not sure, either. But I am sure it has to relate somehow. We can’t just ignore it or reject it because it contradicts our traditional interpretations of Scripture.
When I read scripture I read of a relational God seeking desperately to be in a relationship with us and so I can’t go the impersonal route.
I agree that there is a very complex tension between wanting on the one hand to abandon those aspects of deism that have taught us to treat G-d like Santa Claus but on the other hand avoiding reducing G-d to simply some mystic “force” to which we cannot be in relationship.
Like working science into our faith, I think we need to find a balance in terms of what kind of concept of G-d we construct.
~jhimm — nothing lasts. nothing is finished. nothing is perfect.