A short exploration and review of Christian humanism

Sources:

Adams, R.J., 1989. So you think you’re not religious.

Freeman, A., 2001. God in us.

Windross, T., 2004. The thoughtful guide to faith.

Ritchie, A. & Spencer, W., 2014. The case for Christian Humanism

Quotes and reflection:

1. The primary business of Christianity is making sense of the world, “not meaning that we can show that it makes sense, but with the more literal and radical meaning of making into sense what, till it is transformed, is largely non-sense” (William Temple, 1943 cited in Adams, p.8). I think it was Tertullian that said theology is faith seeking understanding. In other words, I use my faith framework to try and make meaning of the world as I experience it recognising that it may be my framework that needs changing.
2. Simon Weil suggested that the great blasphemy is not in doubting that God exists but in making believe that the hunger is not real (Adams, p.11). I strongly identify with this quote. I struggled to accept the views of Freeman of non-deity as I cannot quench the hunger I have deep within that there is something/one beyond that which I completely understand. In some ways it echoes the title of a book, ‘he placed eternity in their hearts’ by Don Richardson.
3. Latin word credo is translated ‘believe’ but literally means ‘to set the heart’ (p.17). Kardia (heart) is never about logic or analysis (p.20). Verb pisteuo usually translated ‘believe’ while noun pistis is translated as faithful, reliable, faith (p.23). The opposite of amen is not doubt but denial. To doubt is to ask questions, to weigh evidence (p.27). Can apply an age of reason upon what were oral traditions (p.45). They studied the Bible to find analogies (p.49). All of these explanations encourage a faith that grows and develops (changes) not holding to orthodoxy as rules or doctrine.  
4. I believe God is real…a reality that is neither the subject nor the object of a theological discourse…I experience this God; I do not explain this God. I offer no prayers that are designed to manipulate this God so that this God becomes my servant. I do not spend my hours in worship praising this God as if my liturgical flattery will serve me well by winning me some divine favour. I do not find this God even inside the Trinitarian formulae of the creeds that I recite. These traditional words do not capture God, they only point me towards this God. I take seriously the warning of the Second Commandment that human beings are to build no graven images of this God that they will then confuse with God. It is now obvious to me that graven images can be constructed with human words. Such things as the Bible, the creeds, the doctrines and dogma’s are not divine revelations, they are graven images made with words. They are human constructions which we have frequently confused with the God to whom they can only point…to enter the human experience of God, which drives language to breaking point (forward by Spong in Freeman, p.xiii). Although Spong (as I do) share the contents shared by Freeman, we do not share the same conclusion (there is no God and no eternity, p.45). As Cupitt put it, “I am a verb, not a noun” (2010, p.4).
5. Do you believe in God? Tell me what sort of God you have in mind and I will tell you whether I believe in him (p.11). Freeman uses the categories of liberal, conservative and radical. If you are a non-theist (theist where God is supernatural and non-theist where God is ‘the ground of our being’ or ‘sum of our values’ or the creative and healing power of love), then prayer will be more like an exploration into the mystery at the heart of human life (Windross, p.30). Windross is in favour of a post-theistic model rejecting the theistic idea of God – personal, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, creator and sustainer, a being with no cause, beginning and end (p.177). Instead being – symbol; transcendence – immanence; love experienced in community (p.179).
6. Resurrection is not a matter of speculation, but an explosion of meaning (Windross, p.69).  
7. Amsterdam declaration, Christian humanism is rational, affirms human dignity and is ethical (p11). Humanitas (Latin) means human nature, virtues of an educated and cultivated existence (p.15). Associated with Unitarianism and positivism (pp.17-18). Based on this document, I suspect I resonate more with radical Christianity/progressive Christianity than I do with Christian humanism which for me shares to many of the modernist characteristics.  

 

An explosion of meaning (6) is the hunger that drives me (2). I have a hunger to make sense, to be engaged in meaning making (1) and what consequences that has upon me and my actions as I share this planet with others. I can say ‘amen’ to Spong’s creed (4) affirming that my heart (3) resonates with what I read. I can no longer naively support a supernatural understanding of God with trappings of sin, atonement theories and exclusive truth claims. If these trapping define theism then I reject theism but rather than then simply embracing non-theism (with its trapping of no eternity or personal God) I will explore post-theism.  Christian humanism for me is a return to modernistic epistemology.   

The whose who in the zoo and just what kind of animal are you? Phyllis Tickle 'Emergence Christianity'

So what kind of church do you go to? Are you a Christian...a Bible believing Christian (as opposed to a ...)? We love wearing labels in a sense of self assurance and identity (I'm in...even if in means the rebellious out) and we love placing these labels on others as a sense of security (deciding whose in and whose not). Phyllis Tickle in her book Emergence Christianity published in 2012 now reveals that there is a fork in the emergence tree. Before those who sought to break away from stale institutional forms of church in their theology and ecclesiology motivated by a sense of mission and incarnational gospel would label themselves 'progressive' or 'emergence/emerging/emergent' or 'fresh expressions/pioneer'(the latter now being associated more with institutional churches like Methodist and Anglican). This general tree has now developed a spilt.
Lecturing in 2011 on hermeneutics and 'postmodern' responses to this in church forms, students studied the emerging church associated with Brian McLaren, Rob Bell and others. As I researched material for the students to use in their critique I came across a scathing clip by Mark Discoll on the matter: CLICK HERE I was surprised at the names associated with each and suprised that Mark would be so disapproving of Brian and Rob. I was also fascinated at how he defined 4 streams within this emergence philosophy. Another exposition of the movement was by an insidious summary by Piper concerning Brian and others posted in 2010: CLICK HERE.
What a zoo and what wild animals!!!
Both Discoll and Piper refer to MacKnight (author of the Jesus Creed...a good book) as a former supporter of Brian who now no longer supports Brian and both make some really outrageous claims about people and the movement as a whole. Tickle helpfully sheds light on these matters in her book. Indeed after MacLarens 'A New Kind of Christianity', MacKnight produced an article 'Here I stand' as a critique of Brian and which now serves as the point and manifesto of the split in the branch (p.156). This resulted in Emergent church/Christianity associated with names such as MacLaren, Bell etc. and Emergence Christianity/Church associated with names like MacKnight and Driscoll (p.142-143). Tickle insinuates that this split in Protestant Evangelicalism considering the neat divide already mentioned has also given rise to a New Calvanism in the likes of Piper and Discoll (p.190).
"Whenever one speaks of anything,one speaks from a particular point of view. When one speaks of religion, one speaks from more than a point of view; one speaks from a lifetime investment in a canon or particular explication of truth" Tickle, p.208

'UBUNTU' in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are"…

An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ''UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?''

'UBUNTU' in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are"

In a Western culture where religion and faith become just another commodity that we own, possess and consume, the term Ubuntu is a huge challenge as to what it means to have a faith and how that faith impedes, impacts and informs us as humans within humanity as a citizins. In many ways what it is we believe as individual holders of truth is irrelevant if that truth has no positive, loving impact on us as citizins and as a result a positive loving impact upon the communities we act in as a citizin. The true test of how these views hold us and us them in community is when we are confronted with those who oppose us and or who stand in opposition to what it is we hold. Such complex inter-plays of ethics, faith, morals and values are not always straightforward or simple but are vital in creating an existence that can live together in harmony for the future and generations to come. The acts in many parlaiments regarding same sex marriage, future concerns of the reduction of food and water and the destruction of natural resources are just some of the complex issues and discussions that will test the views we hold and how we act as citizins in community. How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?

Jesus in Disneyland by David Lyon

p43 Beliefs and practices that once were sealed within an institutional form now flow freely over foremerly policed boundaries. p47 Modernity made a lot of the mind, especially as a means of controlling and regulating the body, but in a postmodernizing world, the body itself becomes a site of consumption, of controversy, and of conflict. What Lyon suggests on p43 is what I would consider the conditions for the expansion of knowledge and epistemology. Although orthodoxy may provide a superficial sense of confidence and security, it does not allow experience and epistemology through reflection and enquiry to continue to shape and reconfigure habitus and praxis (by implication). What the postmodern condition allows or gives permission to, is to venture beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy (defined and set by people relative to a context and motivation therefore calling into question the very understanding of orthodoxy) and explore other ways of being, seeing and knowing. It is an epoch in time which could lead to a new reconfiguration of belief and faith. Related to this permission giving is the context in which this new exploration can take place in that it is not focussed around the mind solely but incorporates the body as well. The holistic exploration beyond boundaries is where we now found debates regarding the human genome and same sex marriage.

The ultimate religious sacrifice is to give up God

click here

Worth the listen

Open the mp3 clip. It is a rather long clip but profoundly challenging...take the time to lisen
- what needs to change?
- how?
click here

The main thing, is the main thing

The main bit is at 2:10 to 2:46 in the clip.....listen carefully
- what is the main emphasis in our faith expression?
- what is the priority?
- how can we move others towards such an ideal?
click here

think forward

What we believe emanates from who we are. And who we are is not about dogma, or even about moral behavior, but about dying to ourselves. This is part of the conversation between ThinkFwd host, Spencer Burke, and Pete Rollins, author of How Not to Speak of God and The Orthodox Heretic. They explore the ideas of truth and God, of resurrection and insurrection.Truth, says Rollins, is not one extreme or the other; its not the middle of the extremes. Truth is at both extremes. While traditional Christians say, God is present. God exists, and Christianity is true; atheists say God isnt there and Christianity isnt true. These two extremes push Rollins to explore a 3rd position and he likens it to the story of Jesus on the cross, when He felt forsaken by God-- God not present--and yet God was completely present. And so the 3rd position dwells in the very place in between. Rollins says Christians are called to dwell not on one side of the other, but in the very split that Christ opens up: between old and new; between Judaism and Christianity.
- do you live in the tension that is the split?
- how can we live more in balance?
- how can we bring movement towards balance in our faith expressions?

Jay Bakker

I am moved by the emotion in this clip click here

Brian Mclaren answers the million dollar question

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/brian_d_mclaren/2010/07/let_there_be_peace_in_our_individual_identities.html

Barque: Thomas Moore's Work: Give up thought patterns for heaven on earth

Barque: Thomas Moore's Work: Give up thought patterns for heaven on earth

Colin Morris

Perhaps Christianity became a problem solving religion when, instead of it converting Europe as is widely supposed, European culture converted Christianity from being a near-eastern apocalyptic faith into a western problem solving ideology to be harnessed to the needs of an optimistic and thrusting scientific civilization. p61 start your own religion

john shelby spong

Look at him! Look not at his divinity, but look, rather, at his freedom.
Look not at the exaggerated tales of his of his power, but look, rather at his infinite capacity to give himself away.
Look not at the first-century mythology that surrounds him, but look, rather, at his courage to be, his ability to live, the contagious quality of his love.

p16...in grief situations that i have entered as a pastor, it is inevitably the religious person who is insensitive, who feels compelled to speak surface assurances, who suppresses real feelings with homilies on faith, and who readily supplies pat answers for diffecult and complex questions.

p54...i am glad the realm of spiritual is no more. i am glad that the god identified with this realm is dead. we isolated the god of our religion in a system and located it in an otherworldly ghetto. Now the secular world has killed that god...but a god who could be isolated from the world could certainly not be either the god of the hebrews or the god of the bible. so perhaps the death of that god is only the death of an idol who masqueraded as god for almost 2000 years...for the first time since christianity escaped its jewish origins, we again perceive reality as a whole.

p164...orthodoxy will have no power unless honest heresy is a possibility.

Browning quoted by Drane

Most of us stand on the boundary: religious communities attract us; we may even participate in them; but we also wonder if they make sense.
The McDonaldization of the church

i-revtrev

Exert from new book:
I like to think that one day out side time and space (I know, that is a paradox!) there existed (another paradox because to exist assumes time) this ‘being’ called Love. This Love was not some ungraspable phenomenon like the wind but had a personality and other personable qualities and in its nature being love, seeking to love, Love decided to create a life that would be able to share in this life force of love but also be objects of love, experiencing and being loved by Love. However, understanding the complexities of this mystery love (and truly who today still understands love), Love gave Love a name…God and so we have: God is Love.

Desperate housewives does church

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xyVEEHidhGE&feature=related

Ronald Cole Turner

It is altogether likely that the church will marginalize itself in the role of chaplain, picking up the peices, caring for the bruised, mopping up the damaged, but never engaging the engines of transformation themselves, steering, persuading, and transforming the tranformers.

Richard Holloway

He understands the necessity of law and its origin in our fear of the chaos of our own undisciplined passions; but he also recognises that the law itself can only shakkle, never transform the passions; and it is the transformed heart that is his ambition because it alone can chnage the world ... doubts and love p194

Rumi

Come come whoever you are
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,
It does not matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Even if you have broken your vows
A thousand times it does not matter
Come, yet again, come

John Caputo

But what then is the kingdom of God? Where is it found? It is found every time an offense is forgiven, every time a stranger is made welcome, every time an enemy is embraced, every time the least among us is lifted up, every time the law is made to serve justice, everytime a prophetic voice is raised against injustice, every time the law and the prophets are summed up by love.
p138...what would jesus deconstruct