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the quest for social justice:envisioning a new kind of Christian faith

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a new kind ofchristianity:ten questions that are transforming the faith

500 years ago: Luther’s 95 theses.

Theses are statements intended for debate, to bring us to a new state.

Needed today: not statements, debate, or a new state (static location)

Rather ...

Needed today:

New questions to create conversations to lead us on a new quest.

Statements

! ?Questions

Statements (or theses) create debates that bring us to new a state (or status).

! ?Questions create conversations

that launch us on new quests.

What are the questions?

1. The narrative question: What is the shape of the biblical narrative? Storyline, plotline?

2. The authority question: What is the Bible, and what is it for? How does it have authority?

3. The God question: Is God violent? Why does God seem so violent and genocidal in so many bible passages?

4. The Jesus Question: Who is Jesus, and why does he matter?

5. The Gospel Question: What is the gospel - a message of evacuation or transformation? Exclusion or inclusion?

6. The church question: What do we do about the church?

7. The sex question: Can we deal with issues of sexuality without fighting and dividing?

8. The future question: Can we find a more hopeful vision of the future?

9. The pluralism question: How should we relate to people of other faiths?

10. The next step question: How can we pursue this quest in humility, love, and peace?

How things should/could/might be

Tension

How things are

Tension

How things used to be

a new kind of christianity

Question 1:What is the shape of the biblical narrative?

(A pre-critical question)

Hell

Salvation

History/

The world

Fall

HeavenEden

Hades

Atonement, purification

Aristotelian

Real

Fall

Into Aristotelian

Real

Platonic IdealPlatonic Ideal

Destruction, defeat

Civilization, development,

colonialism

assimilationBarbarian/ pagan world

Rebellion

into barbarism

Pax RomanaPax Romana

Is there an alternative understanding?

sdrawkcab gnidaerRick Warren, Billy Graham, Charles Finney, John Wesley (or Calvin), Luther, Aquinas, Augustine, Paul, Jesus

reading forwardsAdam, Eve, Sarah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Mary, Jesus

Exodus: Liberation & Formation


Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation


Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation

Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and Mercy


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G

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HUMAN DESTRUCTION

HUMAN VIOLENCE

HUMAN EXPLOITATION

Question 2The authority question:How does the Bible have authority?

Constitution?

Library?

LEGAL CONSTITUTION COMMUNITY LIBRARY

Uniformity Diversity

Preserve order Preserve diversity

agreement argument

enforcement encouragement

LEGAL CONSTITUTION COMMUNITY LIBRARY

Rules to live by Stories to live by

Conformity Creativity

Analyze, interpret, argue Enter, inhabit, practice

amendments? new acquisitions

Question 3God and violence

Derek Flood graphically displays Paul’s edited quotation of Psalm 18:41-49 and Deuteronomy 32:43 in Romans 15:8-10. Notice what Paul picks to retain and what he chooses to reject:

For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written: “I destroyed my foes. They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—to the LORD, but he did not answer…. He is the God who avenges me, who puts the Gentiles under me…. Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to your name.” (Ps. 18:41–49).

Again, it says, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make a t o n e m e n t f o r h i s l a n d a n d people.” (Deut. 32:43)

Flood concludes: “Paul is making a very different point from the original intent of these Psalms. In fact, he is making the opposite point—we should not cry out for God’s wrath and judgment [on the other], because we are all sinners in need of mercy.” He concludes, “This is not a case of careless out-of-context proof-texting; it is an artful and deliberate reshaping of these verses … from their original cry for divine violence into a confession of universal culpability that highlights our need for mercy.”

Question 3God and violence

FLATDESCENDINGASCENDING

TENT

QUESTION 4: JESUS

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD (LOGOS), AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD

AND THE WORD WAS GOD ... THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US.

(JOHN 1)

insights and contributions- nonviolent theme in the Bible- a narrative of evolution, emergence- deconstruction of atonement theory- uniqueness and universality of Christ- proper apocalypticism- a sense of what has gone wrong and why- a sense of what is real and good, and why

rene girard

If love and violence are incompatible, the definition of the Logos must take this into account. The difference between the Greek Logos and the Johannine Logos must be an obvious one, which gets concealed only in the tortuous complications of a type of thought that never succeeds in ridding itself of its own violence. (270)

Heidegger is absolutely right to state that there has never been any thought in the West but Greek thought, even when the labels were Christian. Christianity has no special existence in the domain of thought. Continuity with the Greek Logos has never been interrupted... everything is Greek and nothing is Christian. (273)

By cultural Platonism we mean the unexamined conviction that human institutions have been and are what they are for all eternity, that they have little need to evolve and none whatsoever to be engendered.

... It is quite evident how a universal Platonism manages to obscure any phenomena that contradict it. (TH 59)

Behaving in a truly divine manner, on an earth still in the clutches of violence, means not dominating humans, not overwhelming them with supernatural power; it means not terrifying and astonishing them in turn, through the sufferings and blessings on can confer; it means not creating difference between doubles and not taking part in their disputes. ‘God is no respecter of persons.’ He makes no distinction between ‘Greeks and Jews, men and women, etc.’ This can look like complete indifference and can lead to the conclusion that the all-powerful does not exist, so long as his transcendence keeps him infinitely far from us and our violent undertakings. But the same characteristics are revealed as a heroic and perfect love once this transcendence becomes incarnate in a human being and walks among men, to teach them about the true God and to draw them closer to Him. (234)

There is no privileged stance from which absolute truth can be discovered... That is why the Word that states itself to be absolutely true never speaks except from the position of a victim in the process of being expelled.... [F]or two thousand years this Word has been misunderstood, despite the enormous amount of publicity it has received. (435)

Jesus as the non-violent word of God.

God with and for the poor.

God who cares for creation.

What are the questions?

1. The narrative question: What is the shape of the biblical narrative? Storyline, plotline?

2. The authority question: What is the Bible, and what is it for? How does it have authority?

3. The God question: Is God violent? Why does God seem so violent and genocidal in so many bible passages?

4. The Jesus Question: Who is Jesus, and why does he matter?

5. The Gospel Question: What is the gospel - a message of evacuation or transformation? Exclusion or inclusion?

- Reign, kingdom, economy, ecosystem, dance, friendship, network of God.

6. The church question: What do we do about the church?

- The church as school of love, training and deploying of love-peace-

justice activists.

7. The sex question: Can we deal with issues of sexuality without fighting and dividing?

- Deeper issue: sexuality to embodiment to humanity to creation

8. The future question: Can we find a more hopeful vision of the future?

- Evacuation plan to incarnation plan, a Participatory Eschatology

9. The pluralism question: How should we relate to people of other faiths?

- Seeking a strong and benevolent Christian identity

10. The next step question: How can we pursue this quest in humility, love, and peace?

- Winning a hearing, not winning an argument.

we need a theology of

institutions & movements

Institutions:

Organizations which conserve the gains made

by past social movements to support convivial

communities.

Social Movements

Organizations which call current institutions to make progress towards new gains to support convivial communities.

Ivan Illich (Austrian former priest,

philosopher, social critic, 1926-2002)

Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story …

… one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step…. If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.

- attributed to Ivan Illich (Austrian former priest, philosopher, social critic, 1926-2002)

Something is on the way out and something else is painfully being born.

It is as if something were crumbling, decaying, and exhausting itself,

while something else, still indistinct, were arising from the rubble....

We are in a phase when one age is succeeding another, when everything is

possible.

Vaclav Havel, “The New Measure of Man”

Fr. Vincent Donovan:

Do not leave others where they are.

Do not bring them to where you are, as beautiful as that

place might be.

Instead, go with them to a new place neither you nor they

have ever been before.

Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel (the good, joyful, healing story) to all creation.

- Jesus

The Lord’s Prayer

1. Our Father above us and all around us …

2. May Your unspeakable Name be revered.

3. Now, here on earth may Your commonwealth come.

4. On earth as in heaven may Your will be done.

5. Give us today our bread for today.

4. Forgive us our wrongs as we forgive.

3. Lead us away from the perilous trial.

2. Liberate us from the evil.

1.For the kingdom is yours and yours alone.

2. The power is yours and yours alone.

3.The glory is yours and yours alone.

4.Now and forever, amen.

5. Now, here on earth may your commonwealth come.

4. Here on earth may your dreams come true.

3. Hallelujah2. Hallelujah1. Amen.

something is trying to be born:envisioning a new kind of Christian faith

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