John Polkinghorne can... and does. Miracles are not God's interventions but rather his interactions with creation, says the particle physicist turned Anglican priest. Check it out here.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
On Letting the Right-Middle-Left Spectrum Die
Roger Olsen is spot on on this one-- and let me add that what it now means to be a theological conservative today is far from clear. I am not sure that many of them are conserving much of anything significant. And substituting the word progressive for liberal doesn't fix the problem either. One has to think extremely highly of one's intelligence and vision to label their views as progressive. It's like all those 18th century elistists referring to their time as one of Enlightenment. By the way, I'd like to see Olsen's thinking applied to the modern political spectrum as well.
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No matter how hard they tried, historical theologians analyzing nineteenth century theology (and "nineteenth century theology" only ends at 1914 or 1917) could not break the spell of trying to put every Christian theologian somewhere on a spectrum of right to left or left to right with modernity being the criterion of placement. So, by this common analysis, which still works its magic over us, Hodge and theologians like him belong toward the "right" end of the spectrum, Schleiermacher and Ritschl and their followers belong toward the "left" end of the spectrum and the mediating theologians are arrayed at various points along the middle. The often unspoken question the answer to which determines where a theologian belongs on the spectrum is to what extent he or she accommodated to modernity.
Also, where does Kierkegaard belong on that spectrum? The usual way to deal with the Danish theologian is to treat him a philosopher, but anyone who reads him knows he was a theologian. He had a degree in theology, at times wanted to teach theology (but you had to have the King’s endorsement to have a teaching position in the university and Kierkegaard's enemies blocked it), and most of his writing deals with Christianity either directly or indirectly. Although he was reacting against Hegel and his followers, he was not accommodating to or reacting against modernity per se. He certainly wasn't "liberal" in any usual sense of that word. So, to rescue the spectrum, people like Kierkegaard are usually excused by being relegating to the separate category of philosophy.
I suggest the reason for the obsession with the spectrum is the ease it offers to categorizing nineteenth century theologians. The emergence of the phenomenon of mediating theology reinforced its apparent appropriateness. But I also suggest it never really worked without serious distortions. People have held onto it simply because it's easy. And it has become a useful polemical tool for labeling and dismissing theologians. Almost everyone wants to see himself or herself as somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, so the spectrum itself becomes relative to the individual using it.
I say let it die. Except when talking about theologians who really do fit on it by their own admissions—as pro-modern or anti-modern or attempting some kind of synthesis.
The traditional "right to left, left to right" spectrum for categorizing theologians and theologies was problematic from the start. It began as a way of categorizing nineteenth century theologians and it was tied to modernity. Theologians were placed on it according to the placer's judgment about the theologians’ accommodations to or rejections of modernity. That spectrum didn't ever work well, but it became especially problematic in the twentieth century as many theologians no longer responded to modernity.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Guaranteed Appointments for Ordained Clergy-- Is This Really the Problem?
Here is an excerpt from an article written by Joseph R. Stains, posted in today's UM portal. What do you think?
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The Call to Action Report asks the UMC to terminate guaranteed appointment to
ordained pastors, effectively leaving appointive status in the hands of the
appointers, the bishops. In this way, the rationale goes, ineffective pastors
may be more quickly weeded out, and effective service affirmed. Underlying
assumptions seem to include:
1) Ineffective clergy in the parish are a/the major reason for malaise in our denomination.
2) There is not currently a sound way of addressing clergy ineffectiveness.
3) Our bishops are better-suited than any other available entity to assume the right/responsibility of deciding who among our clergy merit continued active service.
This approach deserves very serious scrutiny. It seems, as do many reports from our church’s general bodies, to derive its inspiration from the collective wisdom of the corporate world, with an emphasis on the point of view of secular, upper-level management, whose track record in the last half decade of American business is not consistently reassuring, nor famous for its Christian view of justice or concern for the dignity of the less endowed. It is, after all, the upper management of our church, the Council of Bishops, which has led bringing this striking report to the table. The present essay questions the validity of all three of the above assumptions.
1) Ineffective clergy in the parish are a/the major reason for malaise in our denomination.
2) There is not currently a sound way of addressing clergy ineffectiveness.
3) Our bishops are better-suited than any other available entity to assume the right/responsibility of deciding who among our clergy merit continued active service.
This approach deserves very serious scrutiny. It seems, as do many reports from our church’s general bodies, to derive its inspiration from the collective wisdom of the corporate world, with an emphasis on the point of view of secular, upper-level management, whose track record in the last half decade of American business is not consistently reassuring, nor famous for its Christian view of justice or concern for the dignity of the less endowed. It is, after all, the upper management of our church, the Council of Bishops, which has led bringing this striking report to the table. The present essay questions the validity of all three of the above assumptions.
The Lack of Conscience in the HHS Conscience Clause
Michael Sean Winters is a Catholic and a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, who has been a supporter of President Obama. He is angry and feeling betrayed by the president on his recent decision to mandate that religiously affiliated institutions provide contraceptive coverage in their health care plans. Winters writes the following:
President Barack Obama lost my vote yesterday when he declined to expand the exceedingly narrow conscience exemptions proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again.
I do not come at this issue as a Catholic special pleader, who wants only to protect my own, although it was a little bracing to realize that the president’s decision yesterday essentially told us, as Catholics, that there is no room in this great country of ours for the institutions our Church has built over the years to be Catholic in ways that are important to us. Nor, frankly, do I come at the issue as an anti-contraception zealot: I understand that many people, and good Catholics too, reach different conclusions on the matter although I must say that Humanae Vitae in its entirety reads better, and more presciently, every year.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Could the Founders Get Elected President in 2012?
Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst at Americans United for Separation of Church and State Doesn't Think So. He writes,
To hear the religious right tell it, men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 18th-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Unlike many of today's candidates, the founders didn't find it necessary to constantly wear religion on their sleeves. They considered faith a private affair.
Contrast them to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (who says he wouldn't vote for an atheist for president because nonbelievers lack the proper moral grounding to guide the American ship of state), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (who hosted a prayer rally and issued an infamous ad accusing President Barack Obama of waging a "war on religion") and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (whose uber-Catholicism leads him to oppose not just abortion but birth control).
There was a time when Americans voted for candidates who were skeptical of core concepts of Christianity like the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus and the virgin birth. The question is, could any of them get elected today? The sad answer is probably not.
Boston employs five Founders to make his argument: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Payne. As a novice student of the Founder's religious views, I find myself sympathetic with portions of Boston's argument, but I think it does lack some nuance and that two of his examples are not helpful.
A 365 Days a Year God
January is racing quickly to a finish. We are now in the long shadow of another Advent and Christmas season that has been left behind with all the hustle and bustle and now we are well back into the routine of the "non-holidays." We do many activities during the Christmas season that we do not schedule and participate in during February or June or October. They are special activities reserved for a special time of year. For some, those special holiday activities include attendance at worship.
I am always pleased whenever I see a full house at church whenever that is, but the one thing I wonder about is why we do not see a full house more often? I understand that on any given Sunday someone will be out of town or out sick or have some special occasion or travel plans that make it impossible for them to attend worship. But why do we not see larger worship attendance on a more regular basis? Should worship be a special event for a special occasion only?
One of the things that the Bible affirms is that our God is not a special occasion only kind of God. Our God is present with us, not just in December, but all year round. Our God lavishes his grace on us, not in periodic spurts, but in every moment of every day. We enjoy the benefits of this wonderful world God has made always in every time of the year.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Scriptures and Prayer for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Old Testament: Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Gospel: Mark 1:14-20
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Perfect Light of revelation, as you shone in the life of Jesus, whose epiphany we celebrate, so shine in us and through us, that we may become beacons of truth and compassion, enlightening all creation with deeds of justice and mercy. Amen.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
John Polkinghorne on Miracles
...but what about miracles? Christianity can't dodge this issue, because at its heart is the claim of the stupendous miracle of Christ's resurrection....we surely can't suppose that it was through a clever exploitation of chaos theory that Jesus was raised from the dead, never to die again. If this happened (as I believe it did), it was a miraculous, divine act of great power.
The question of miracle is not primarily scientific, but theological. Science simply tells us that these events are against normal expectation. We knew this at the start. Science cannot exclude the possibility that, on particular occasions, God does particular unprecidented things. After all, God is the ordainer of the laws of nature, not someone who is subject to them. However, precisely because they are divine laws, simply to overturn them would be for God to act against God, which is absurd. The theological question is, does it make sense to suppose that God has acted in a new way?... God can do unexpected things. Yet there will always have to to be a deep underlying consistency that makes it intelligible, for example, that God raised Jesus from the dead on Easter Day, while, in the course of the present history, our experience is that dead men stay dead.... Does it make sense to believe that God acted in this unprecedented and extraordinary way? Can we see a deep consistency beneath the surface surprise of the event?
The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note
This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:
Dalton Rushing: Thinking differently about Call to Action
Roger Vest: Being the church in 2012
Mike Slaughter: Hijacked - Responding to the Partisan Church Divide
John Ed Mathison: Please Pass the Broccoli
Andy Stoddard: Little Things
Tim McClendon: If God Had a Refrigerator
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