Tag Archives: Progressive Christianity

Time?

Contemporary Religion, Existential Ethics, Realistic Pointers 2017, ,

In both contemporary physics and contemporary religious writings “time” remains a mysterious topic. Nothing is more obvious than time to an elder who has watched babies grow into adults. “How time flies!” is almost an automatic exclamation. Nevertheless, in both our scientific quest for truth and in our interior or contemplative quest for truth, “What is time?” arises as an unusually profound topic.

Contemplative Time

When we look within our own conscious being, we see ourselves living in an ongoing quality we call “now.” Time seems to flow through this now. The past is just a memory taking place now as content in our memory banks. And the future is only an anticipation, taking place now in our guesses about future nows that have yet to “happen.” In our experiences of contemplation or art participation or solitary brooding, “now” continues to be our core experience of time

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Uses of the Word “God”

Bible Interpretation, Contemporary Religion, Progressive Christianity, Realistic Pointers 2017, , ,

A Definition of Theology

“God“ is a relationship word—a word of devotion similar to sweetheart, lover, friend, rock, foundation, shepherd, mother, father, and other such words of devotion.  When  we call the Final Mystery “God,” we are making a religious confession.  If we are not making a religious confession, we do not need the word “God.”  We can get along without the word “God” or any word like it, unless we are a self-conscious Jew, Christian, Muslim, or a member of some other religious community that uses ”God” as a devotion word—as a relationship word for the Final Mystery.

Honestly living within today’s culture, we find no heavenly realm of rational meanings that humans can access to make sense of the absurdity of a Big Bang Beginning, or of an evolution from the single-celled organisms that mysteriously arose on this minor planet of a marginal star in one of the hundred billion or so galaxies.  The sheer Mystery of this vast expanse and of the infinitesimal minuteness of  this physical cosmos is not made less Mysterious by presuming a First Cause or an Ongoing Creator of all this wonderment.  As a solution to scientific meaning or contemplative awareness, the word “God” is not needed for any rational solution.
If we call this Final Mysteriousness “God,” we are making an act of will, an act of devotion, an act of commitment, a leap of trust.  Trust of this Final Mysteriousness does not alter the fact that we still know absolutely nothing about this Mystery— nothing with our scientific research and nothing with our contemplative inquiry.  We know things, but all that we know is approximate and changing.

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A Larger Language

Contemporary Religion, Progressive Christianity, Realistic Pointers 2016, , , 
“I had begun to form a philosophy of existence that demanded a larger language than the scientific one I had concentrated on for the last few years.”

This is a quote from a book, Crossing the Unknown Sea by David Whyte, (page 75) and it states exactly what was happening to me at age 20 as a senior in college in 1952.

In order to share with you the depth of this shift, I need to brag a bit about my accomplishments in mathematics and physics at that tender age. I had taken every course in mathematics that was offered in my high school and made an A in all of them.

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Do I Want to Be a Christian?

Contemporary Religion, Progressive Christianity, Realistic Pointers 2015, ,

When I first began my work in Christian religious renewal, the people with whom I was working were mostly nominal Christians who were interested in knowing answers to questions like: What do we mean by the word “God” What does it mean to say, “God loves us? What does it mean to call Jesus, the “Christ”? What are we pointing to with by being filled with Holy Spirit? How do we distinguish the true church from its many temporal manifestations and from its massive perversions? And what role does social justice play in a renewed Christian life? That was what I faced and learned to deal with in the nineteen sixties.

Today, in this second decade of the 21st century, many people have no interest, positively or negatively, in these old Christian symbols. If there is some relevant meaning in these old symbols, they don’t care. They even fear that finding some relevant meaning in this confused heritage will justify carrying on with the oppressive forms of Christianity that they have known and now wish to thoroughly avoid. Some of these folk have given up on religion of any sort. Why have a religious practice at all? What good is it? Who needs It? Some of these folk have given up on Christianity, but have moved on to a Buddhist practice or an Islamic practice or a Pagan practice or some other religious practice that they much prefer. Or perhaps some fresh, new therapeutic community or scientific discipline seems to help them well enough to not need a religion.

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Cross and Resurrection

Bible Interpretation, Progressive Christianity, Realistic Pointers 2015, , ,

This post is part of a commentary on the last three chapters of the Gospel of Mark

It is fair to say that the symbols of cross and resurrection are as central to an understanding of the Christian revelation as meditation and enlightenment are to Buddhism. Yet both cross and resurrection seem cryptic to many, even weird.

The last three chapters of Mark’s 16-chapter narrative are about the meaning of cross and resurrection as understood by that mid-first-century author and the surprisingly vigorous religious movement of which Mark was a part. I know of no better way to introduce to a contemporary explorer of Christianity the power of these two symbols than with a commentary on the last three chapters of Mark’s Gospel.

Members of a our current scientific culture may be excused somewhat for having a weak understanding of resurrection. Most of us know, if we are honest, that belief in a literal return to life of a three-day-old corpse is superstition. Yet this meaning of resurrection has been paraded as Christian by many. Mark did not see resurrection in this light. Or perhaps we might better say, “Mark did not see resurrection in this darkness,” for a literal return from the dead means nothing deeply religious to Mark or to you or me. If such an event were to happen today, it would be open to hundreds of speculative explanations, none of which would be profoundly or convincingly religious.

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Belief and Faith

Bible Interpretation, Progressive Christianity, Realistic Pointers 2015, ,

Belief, Faith, and the History of Christianity
a dialogue with Harvey Cox

In 2009 Harvey Cox published an accessible, well written book entitled The Future of Faith. I agree with his basic insight that the history of Christian religion can be meaningfully viewed in three overarching periods: (1) the early period before Constantine, (2) the period following Constantine until recently, and (3) a current period that is more like the first period than the second.

Cox characterized that first period as an age of faith, the second period as an age of belief, and our present and future period as another age of faith. Cox is clear that faith is an act of our deep existence and that belief is a matter of images, stories, and doctrines of the mind. I agree that it is important to understand this distinction between faith and belief, and also the relationship between them. Cox’s elaborations using this basic model are convincing and useful; nevertheless, I want to suggest that a still deeper perspective is needed. For example, Cox is clear that faith was not entirely dead in period two, and that the confusion of faith with belief existed in period one. Nevertheless, I will show how easy it is for Cox’s readers to idealize period one and demonize period two. Though Cox does not, some Protestants have virtually claimed that faith died shortly after the Bible was written and was not recovered until the time of Luther. This view of Christian history is deeply wrong.

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