Series Posts
1—Introduction
2—“God Speaks”
3—“God’s Revelation is Jesus Christ”
3—Conclusion

In 2007, Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones co-edited a book called An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. At the time, Tony Jones was the National Coordinator of Emergent Village, a national coordinating organization for the progressive Evangelical “conversation” known as the emerging church. Likewise, Doug Pagitt was one of the founding members of Emergent and editor of the newly-minted Emersion line of books from Baker Publishing Group out of which this title was published. The book was a collection of “voices” within the broader conversation “attempting to sing a song together” (whether or not the harmonies matched) in order to provide context for and explain what exactly was being sung within the emerging church.
One such voice was Chris Erdman who wrote a piece on the venerable theologian Karl Barth.

In this conversation Barth is known as a so-called “Friend of Emergent” who supports the key questions and answers percolating within the Emerging conversation. In his article, “Digging Up the Past: Karl Barth (the Reformed Giant) as Friend to the Emerging Church,” Erdman attempts to establish that Barth is Emergent’s friend and theological ally. Erdman likes Barth because he insisted that “the theological enterprise must never be the sole realm of academic theologians” and because he believed “the theological imperative was never finished.” (238) Similarly, leaders in the emerging church call on the Church as it currently exists to wrench theological work from the hands of the elite and put it firmly into the hands of the people, in order to ensure theological inquiry and development is “never static, never dull, never fixed, always open.” (239) As Erdman insists, “We now, like Barth then, are dissatisfied with the established and entrenched theology that has produced our present crisis. We seek another way; we want to ‘begin all over again,’ to work in a state of ‘constant emergency.’” (240)

The only problem is that the theological work and “other way” born out of that dissatisfaction would be questioned and disputed by Barth himself, rather than supported.

Though the emerging church may find companionship in Barth’s own theological journey, he is much more a foe in the produce of that journey than friend. Upon surveying the theological fruit birthed from two influential emerging church thinkers—Peter Rollins (How (Not) To Speak of God) and Samir Selmanovic (It’s Really All About God)—and digging into the particulars of Barth’s own theology, these posts will reveal how he is an adversary to the emerging church in the key theological discourse on the doctrine of revelation. Rollins understands the revelation of God in two key ways: 1) the hiddenness and hyper-transcendence of God, resulting in a thickly veiled God who isn’t truly knowable; and 2) our inability to say anything directly of God Himself, resulting in speech that never speaks of God but merely our understanding of God. While Selmanovic does believes God is revealed and known to humanity, that revelation and knowledge is not is contained within the “Christian religion.” Consequently, God is trans-religious and is revealed entirely outside the person of Jesus Christ. Barth will counter both theologians by insisting the revelation of God is “clear and certain” and is exclusively in the person of Jesus Christ.

While Barth insists that theology is “nothing but human ‘language about God,’” there is still something to say. And because the theological discipline of dogmatics is the servant of Church proclamation, that “something” should be proclaimed well and in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, for the glory of God and good of the world. In the end, Barth will reveal how what Rollins and Selmanovic are saying is neither in one accord with the Scriptures nor part of the historic Christian faith.

It is also clear that the aim of Selmanovic is to argue for a leveling of the three Abrahamic faiths, which by default removes and exclusivity that Christ himself and the Story of Christ claims.

Selmanovic carries his initial thoughts on God’s Christian containment by arguing, “to say God has decided to visit all humanity through only one particular religion is a deeply unsatisfying assertion about God.” (9) In order to protect his argument in favor of religious pluralism, he claims that none of us are in charge of God, God refuses to be owned and to comply with our religious constructs. (16, 18) In fact, though “we Christians have insisted that our revelation is the only container and only dispenser of grace. The rest of the world has been steadily proving us wrong. Grace is independent.” (52) According to Selmanovic, the revelation that has come through the Holy Scriptures and Jesus Christ himself are not the only containers of God’s grace; grace is found outside the Christian Story. Ultimately, Selmanovic insists that the Christianity that claims exclusive possession of God’s revelation in the person of Jesus has hijacked that same God from the world.” (68) Instead, “God is everywhere…[He] is present and living in every person, every human community, and all creation.” (61, 63).

While I am all for missionally engaging with the other, even to the point of walking a day in their “moccasins,” I am deeply disturbed that a self-described Christian and director of a Christian community (see info in bio) would insist God is revealed outside of Jesus Christ and not exclusively in Him. Furthermore, to suggest that God’s grace is somehow found outside of the Story of Christ is offensive as a fellow Christian and pastor. I would expect a Muslim or Buddhist to say such a thing, and add that it is found only in their Spiritual Story, because all (most, Hinduism is an exception which immediately comes to mind) religions are exclusive by nature. Not a Christian or Christian community director.

While he uses the Christian religion as a rhetorical device to argue against “theo-containment,” the One God as described in the Holy Scriptures is exclusively revealed in the very human, very divine Jesus Christ. This is why I insist it really is NOT about God—as a general, abstract World Spirit (thanks’ Fredrick Schleiermacher). It’s really all about Jesus Christ.

The Series
1. Introduction
2. Taking Life
3. Making Life
4. Faking Life
5. Discussion

Folks, you all are in for a real treat!

I was browsing through my iTunes library and stumbled upon a series of mp3 recordings I did for the ministry for which I worked a few years ago. During that time I was the coordinator of our Statesmanship Institute, a program that sought to equip congressional staffers with an understanding of a biblical world view on such topics as economics, foreign policy, and law. While most of the sessions were from a decidedly conservative version of the biblical world view, probably the gem of the entire series was a talk given by Nigel Cameron on a emerging biotechnologies and issues of human ethics. And since the ministry doesn’t exist anymore (thus the recordings belong to no one), I’m going to offer them here!

Nigel Cameron, who hales from England and studied at the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, is Director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society, Research Professor of Bioethics and Associate Dean at Chicago-Kent College of Law in the Illinois Institute of Technology. He is also President of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies, founded the journal Ethics and Medicine in 1983 and is widely recognized as a commentator technology policy and ethics issues. His leadership in this field has brought him into partnership with “the Other” who also cares about human nature and emerging biotechnology.

This lecture was no Sunday School talk nor was it right-wing conservative anti-abortion propagandizing. It is a wide ranging discussion delving into the real implications of taking, making, and faking human life. He comes at the issue not so much from the stand point of the Biblical text, but rather from the philosophical, scientific, theological and cultural implications of modern biotechnological practices.

I guarantee you will want to download and listen to all five 13-minute installments over the next five Tuesdays. Enjoy and come back to share your thoughts!

You can read more about Nigel Cameron, here.

christian spirituality, theology, biotechnology, bioethics, bioscience

tonight i realized i grasp god,
creature has roped the creator

i’ve cut god up into bite sized bits
i’ve filed him away in little drawers
i’ve cataloged him
i’ve labeled him
i’ve mastered him

like a naked David statue,
out of granite my god i have chiseled

i am michelangelo

but that’s the irony
it is not god i grasp,
the god of abraham
isacc and
jacob

i grasp
the god
i’ve chiseled

i’ve not unearthed
yahweh

i’ve crafted
yahweh

out of systematics
biblical theology
greek and hebrew lexicons

out of positions
and titles
responsibilities
and roles

i have fooled myself into believing
that the god i’ve crafted
is the god of the bible

and it’s left me arrogant
rather than humble
it’s filled me with words
instead of wonder
i talk and speak and think about him
rather than being and living and walking

it’s left me wanting
it’s left me dry
down to the
bones

lord
the real god
the god-with-us god
who invaded this world
in a wooden box
and left it
on beams
of execution

replace my chisel and hammer
with brushes and air
to unearth you
and discover you
rather than
create you

lord
may i be a child again
may i come to you with
cupped hands
may i speak to you in
hushed tones
may my understanding of you
ever shift
may i sit before you in
wide-eyed wonder
and may I discover you
a new

lord
make me a child again