The Tony Jones Blog at Patheos
Callid Keefe-Perry
Callid Keefe-Perry has recently been named as a new co-host of Homebrewed Christianity, and he’s starting a PhD in practical theology at BU. He’s a Quaker, an improv actor, and a teacher of acting.
He’s posted a first draft of his theology of ministry, which is probably something that more pastors should do, or at least reflect on. I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s interesting reading, especially if you’re somewhat unfamiliar with the Quaker tradition. It begins:
Actually, listen to me. If you haven’t gotten enough of me this week, I’ve taken over the Homebrewed Christianity Network.
I guest co-hosted The Homebrewed Podcast at Subverting the Norm 2.
PS: The headline of this post feels very Slacktivist, doesn’t it?
Bo Sanders
Big Daddy Bo takes Radical Orthodoxy — a theological movement of which I am not fond — down to size:
It does not take long, when listening to John Milbank, to discover the fatal flaw.
Milbank says “The only choice in our time is between religion and nihilism”.
Into a plural, multiple, diverse 21st century, RO comes marching in with a old-school binary! From sentence one, as a listener, you start thinking “yeah, that thing you said might be true … IF there is only an either-or option. But if there are layers, any nuance, multiple factors, complexity or any number of other variations … then your argument breaks down pretty quickly. Your proposal only stands up IF your initial simplistic framing of the issue is adopted. ” [like when Milbank calls all of post-modernism a footnote to Nietzsche]
When Milbank says that a purely secular society is untenable… it’s a no-brainer! Of course that would be true. Duh. Only … that’s not exactly the reality we are dealing with.
Of course, the sentence takes on wholly new meaning inside RO’s binary.
Read the rest: Radical Orthodoxy’s Fatal Flaw.
In response to my quote bomb, Tripp has bombed me back with a very good post debating the merits of the traditional doctrine of creatio ex nihilo — that is, the belief that God created the cosmos out of no pre-existent material. That God created everything that is out of nothing but Godself.
I agree that there are some problems with creatio ex nihilo, and I’ll be exploring them with my DMin cohort next month (as we canoe in the BWCAW – jealous?). For now, I encourage you to read Tripp’s post, and let me know if you agree with him that creatio ex nihilo is problematic.
Creation Out of Nothing isn’t Biblical, as in it isn’t in the Bible. If you read through the Bible you will not find the affirmation that God created the world out of nothing. It’s just not in there. In fact, even Biblical scholars who in the end want to affirm the doctrine for theological reasons will not point to the idea being present in the Bible. Just re-read Genesis 1 and ask yourself ‘where did the darkness and waters come from?’ They weren’t created but were there when God began to create.
Read the rest of Tripp’s objections: Creation Out of Nothing is Overrated (For Tony Jones).
Current kingmaker in the Christian blogosphere, Rachel Held Evans, posted a piece by Tripp and Bo of Homebrewed Christianity called, “Omnipotence: A Compliment Jesus Wants You to Take Back.” (Don’t think Rachel’s a kingmaker? Well, the post currently has 295 comments.) Now Tripp and Bo have a follow-up post on HBC.
Process Theology provides some answers to many of the same questions that I’m asking in my current book project, Why Pray? As the guys make clear in the comments, Process Theology is different than Open Theism (Greg Boyd, et al).
Open Theism is fundamentally evangelical — it’s a way to solve a problem that evangelicalism has as a result of its biblical hermeneutic. It’s a solution to a problem that I don’t really have. A God to whom the future is foreclosed is not the God of the Bible, nor is that a God that anyone should want to worship or pray to.
Jeremy Fackenthal details three ways in which process theology is compatible with feminism. Here’s one:
Process theology views God’s power as collaborative, not coercive.
Discarding the dominant view of power as power over some other subject, process thought adopts instead an understanding of power as power with another subject. God does not coerce the world, but rather attempts at persuading the world through God’s patient and loving call. Humans then have the freedom in each moment of their lives to respond to God’s call or not. The reason process thinking is able to present this altered understanding of divine power is because it see’s God’s power as necessarily limited (not self-limited, but inherently limited). While lots of people don’t like this and see it is a weakened form of God, process theology holds the idea of God’s collaborative power as far more worthy of worship than a God who acts unilaterally in the world through coercive force. I see this reconceptualization of God’s power as compatible with feminist thought because it breaks down deleterious power relations that promote the power of the one over the many, offering instead the opportunity to be collaborators in the on-going creation of the world. God’s collaborative power promotes justice, equality, and the value of human life.
Read the other two HERE.
I’ve got my kids much of next week, so I can’t make it, but on behalf of Social Phonics and JoPa:
We’re thrilled to be a partner and friend of Soularize, happening next week in San Diego. On behalf of Social Phonics, Doug will be in attendance, and he’s leading a Social Phonics Boot Camp on Friday, October 21, the day after Soularize ends. If there’s any way for you to make this learning party, we highly recommend it.
See their site for more info, and to register.
Just seeing Homebrewed Christianity in 3D will be worth the price of admission!
Austin Roberts has posted a thorough review of my book, The Church Is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement, at Homebrewed Christianity:
While this is not a book aimed primarily at a popular-level audience as his previous books have been, Jones has managed to write a scholarly book that reads remarkably well. He also works hard to remain aware of his own favorable bias towards the ECM in order to facilitate a more objective study of the movement – an effort that I believe paid off in the end. Indeed, I would argue that Jones’ The Church is Flat is the new go-to book for understanding the past, present, and future of the emerging church movement. This is an exceptionally smart book that demands equally serious attention from participants, sympathizers, and critics of the ECM. [READ THE REST]
Tripp and Bo at Homebrewed Christianity have taken up the conversation here about new labels.
1) A podcast about the five labels we voted on here.
2) A tweaking of Roger Olson about why emergents don’t just join the mainline.
Both, I think, are good contributions to the discussion.
Deacon Bo at Homebrewed Christianity asks if Anyone Is Evangelical Anymore? He asks because, it seems, C.S. Lewis may have been a secret Bellian — Lewis hinted in one book that maybe people get to leave hell for heaven. (I’ve long considered Lewis among the most overrated writers and thinkers in all of Christendom. So sue me.)
Bo writes,
Over the past decades there has been an increasingly contentious debate about the invisible boundary of evangelicalism. Apparently some have become so concerned that even historical figures who were previously safe (even adored) are in danger if their views are found to be too loose for the contemporary conservative backlash.
His is a perceptive post, which you should read. In it, he leans on David Bebbington‘s rubric of evangelicalism:
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