Exploring Ecumenism

Contextual Readings of Scripture

Last night I watched the BBC's Did Darwin Kill God?, a programme presented by Conor Cunningham a theologian and Darwinian at Nottingham University.  The programme explored both fundamentalist and ultra-Darwinist views.  Cunningham's point was that Darwinism at the time Darwin published his theory was not seen as a problem by the church.  The real opposition started in the American Bible belt, with the Scopes trial in the thirties (where creationism was supported by socialists alarmed by social Darwinism) and creationism as we know it today did not appear until the 1960s.

The point is that the churches have always been aware of the contradictions in scripture and have always interpreted scripture allegorically.  Literal readings are a very modern approach and have no claim to historical precedent. 

 Liberation and contextual theologies, starting in the 1970s, were perhaps nothing new.  The idea that the Bible contains a single absolute truth is itself arbitrary.  Whose truth is the single truth in scripture?  Whilst by definition I cannot hold to be true anything I believe not to be true, it does not follow that what I believe is true.  To see the possibility of a spectrum of readings is to see scripture as it is.  To see only one possible reading is to make absolute your personal partial reading.

Anyone reading scripture brings their experience and context with them.  Indeed problems start when they do not do this and read through the lens of someone else's context.  We call this irrational.  The power of unaccountable church leaders lies in their ability to persuade as many people as possible to read scripture in their way.

On page 40, Kim asks the question: 'Whose voice does Paul side with among the various conflicting voices in the world?'

What happens when we bring the context of the marginalised to reading scripture? 

Liberal and Radical Theologies Contrasted

I promised a few posts ago I would say more about St Marks Centre for Radical Christianity.  The photo is of St Mark's Church, Broomhill in Sheffield.  It is remarkable as a large growing church in the Church of England's liberal theological tradition. 

St Marks CRC has brought some major speakers to Sheffield who I would not have otherwise heard; they include Marcus Borg, Jonathan Dominic Crossan and Bishop Spong.

These speakers draw up to 400 people from all over the region and indeed the whole country.  This means the opportunities to hear them is in the form of 3 lectures in one day.  There has never been much oppportunity to interact directly with them.  Nevertheless I am grateful for the opportunity to be introduced to these writers and to hear them speak.

CRC contrasts markedly with the Urban Theology Unit, on the other side of the city.  UTU has always emphasised the importance of Christian lifestyle over simply reading and studying the writings of others.  Its approach is normally called radical theology.  This name is somewhat unfortunate these days as radical seems to have become equated with violent.  Indeed I gather the name radical was applied to literalist protestant Christians at the time of the Reformation!

Liberal theology is a species of literal reading of scripture where the task is to use critical methods to show that the texts were intended never to be take literally.  Classic liberal theology seems to be locked in endless debates with fundamentalists about whether or not Jesus walked on water or whether demons exist.  The complaint in the 60s, during the Honest to God debates, that the clergy believed what they were taught about biblical criticism in college but preached a traditional literalist interpretation of the faith is still very much alive today.  Modern liberalism is perhaps best found in the writings of Dion Cupitt and his Sea of Faith network.  It is marked by a rejection of what Cupitt calls supernaturalism.  This seems to be a dominant theological stream at the CRC.

UTU took its approach from liberation theology in Latin America during the 1970s.  It's priorities are solidarity with the oppressed and a recognition that theology is lived and so not the sole preserve of academic theologians.  It does not question whether or not Jesus walked on water but asks what the story means in the context we live in here and now.

So, these approaches are often confused and the words used interchangeably.  CRC seems to be something of a spectator sport compared with UTU.  I have found CRC immensely helpful and stimulating but also frustrating.  Once bitten by UTU's approach it is difficult to shake it off.

The Nature of Fundamentalist Theologies

There are three churches within walking distance of my home with over 2000 members.  The picture is one of them.  They spring up in my area because there are a lot of vacant industrial units.  According to Madison Shockley, they are the sign of things to come.  The spread of right wing fundamentalist Christianity to Britain from America. 

Whether this particular church represents precisely that theological viewpoint I don't know.  However, the new evangelical or charismatic churches are immensely successful and have doubtless been influenced by fundamentalism.  I will at some stage look at the evidence for changes in some of the churches in the fundamentalist diaspora but for now we need to note that the influence of this theology in the UK is definitely on the increase.

What I want to try to clarify is what exactly fundamentalism is.  Clearly this is a complex subject and I will return to it from time to time.  The aim in what follows is to identify some of the themes of fundamentalist history and theology. 

1. It seems likely one of the sources of fundamentalism was slavery.  To support slavery puts the Christian in tension with the Biblical text.  It will push them away from social action (sanctification) towards piety and reaction.  The focus will inevitably move towards a supernaturalist interpretation of scripture in an effort to avoid a focus on injustice.  The ethical agenda is focused on matters usually of sex or sexuality rather than the marginalised.
2. It is premised on marginalising or rejecting sections of society that don't fit with their worldview. 
3. A mark of fundamentalism is a rejection of fellow religionists.  Fundamentalist Christians therefore reject other Christians with different theologies.
4. All of this boils down to fear of the stranger.  This fear leads to exploitation by and dependency upon unscrupulous leaders.
5. The reading of scripture is profoundly dishonest.  So, for example, if the Bible disagrees with science about the age of the world, then each day in the genealogies can be interpreted as 1000 years.  The texts are distorted to fit science.
6. And science is distorted to fit a partial reading of scripture.  The obvious example is creationism and I will have a lot to say about this in later posts.
7. Fantastic interpretations of scripture, where a supernaturalist view is taken, such as rapture.  The idea of rapture of course reinforces the idea that the elect are to be saved and those at the margins are damned.

There are of course many fundamentalisms.  These are some examples of common characteristics.  It is important too to understand that not all the new churches are fundamentalist.  Fundamentalism influences many churches which are not themselves fundamentalist.  Some churches are finding fundamentalist theology unhelpful and are exploring new approaches. 

For ecumenists the inadequacy of fundamentalist theologies means that there are new opportunities  for collaboration with the new churches.  I've mentioned before the view that the historical churches can offer the new churches their wisdom.  These shifts may open up a renewal of ecumenical vision in the future.

Realising and Discipleship

And so we come to the third stage of the U model, from bottom to top right, the stage Presence calls 'realising'.  Through the last two posts I have laid the stages alongside theological and Wesleyan concepts.  So we have had sensing, incarnation and prevenient grace.  Presencing, metanoia and justification.  Today, I line up realising with discipleship and sanctification.

For Wesley, justification was the stage at which a person knows their sins are forgiven and makes the decision to join the church, people are discipled together.  This decision is made as a result of their change of orientation from self to living for others.  For Wesley, they know they are saved but at the start of life as a Christian.  They will fall back many times but they are now a part of a People of the Way.

For Presence, realising

suggests a different stance of "cocreation" between the individual or collective and the larger world.  The self and the world are inescapably interconnected.  The self doesn't react to a reality outside, nor does it create something new in isolation - rather, like the seed of a tree, it becomes the gateway for the coming into being of a new world.  (Page 92)

So, what is this state of realising?  I see in it a parallel to the model of sanctification I have already described.  The individual is able to set aside their personal interests and live for others.  It also normally implies a commitment to working with others.  This is the thinking behind various types of intentional community in Christian praxis.

Is it legitimate to make these comparisons?  I must again emphasise I'm placing two models side by side, not attempting to combine them into one model.  It is interesting though to see the ways in which the U model mirrors the Christian model, and indeed we find this model appearing time and again in Christian history.  It is present for example in the practice of baptism, especially baptism by immersion, where the Christian descends symbolically into the water, where they die and then emerge to a new life.

I will in future posts examine in more detail what this model means for Christians and how the U model might help us understand our own traditions.  But first I need to take stock by considering exactly what the relationship of Presence is to the Christian faith and its ecumenical implications.

Presence and Metanoia

Yesterday I started to compare the U model in Presence with the hymn from Philippians 2.  I suggested that the downward motion is analogous to incarnation, or Wesley's understanding of prevenient grace.  On reflection I think the sensing part of the U model is in a way a metaphor for what the ancient hymn is saying.  Sensing is to set aside old assumptions; we have to set aside our assumptions from the past to be able to see clearly what we're called to in the future.

In Christian traditions, this goes further and involves a literal giving up, a decision to drop possessions, to choose to be where God wants us to be rather than where we want to be.  This parallels Jesus' great act of kenosis - self-emptying.  From memory the Iona hymn says it: 'Who find with hands empty that hearts can hold much'.

At the bottom of the U model, Presence has its key process, presencing.  One of the authors writes of his feelings after he lost his home in a fire:

At that moment with everything gone, I suddenly felt released and free to encounter that other part of myself, the part that drew me into the future - my future - and into a world that I might bring into reality with my life.

They go on to say it is like seeing the present from the future.  This future orientation intrigues me and from an ecumenical perspective, the idea of seeking new possibilities in the future might be a more fruitful orientation than seeking to reconcile ideas from the past.

Presencing is about repentance.  The problem of course with the word 'repentance' is that it has many associations with sin and being good and well ... sanctimonious.  I think the Greek word translated as repentance is better - metanoia.  This word literally means to turn around, to turn ones back on the old ways of seeing and to embrace the new.  This experience transforms people and hence transforms the world.

If sensing is an act of prevenient grace, in Wesley's terminology, then presencing is equivalent to justification.  I'm not saying that people who experience the U model are justified in a Christian sense but that they are parallel movements.  To experience metanoia is to enter the community of those who live for others and for the welfare of the planet.  They become co-creators with God.

But what of Jesus in the hymn?  Can I be saying he experiences metanoia?  Just as the downward movement is a movement of kenosis for Jesus, rather than awareness of sin, so his metanoia is different.  The downward motion is his doing, the upward movement is God's.  Jesus shows us the way to place our destinies in the hands of God.

Sanctification and Transformation

I am exploring sanctification because I believe a modern interpretation might potentially have implications for ecumenism.  Today, I want to review the points I have made so far and add another. 

1. Sanctification is a continuous process that follows upon Wesley's doctrines of original sin (or prevenient grace) and justification. 

2. Perfection enables a person to stand aside and allow God's love to be present in the world through their body.  It is in consequence often something that goes unremarked.

3. It arises from a constant awareness of sin; both personal and structural.

4. "it is not what is frequently understood by that word, the going to heaven, eternal happiness.  ... It is not a blessing which lies on the other side of death."  (Wesley quoted by Runyon, page 89)

This last point is crucial, sanctification for Wesley was something here and now.  I think we would also be wrong to attribute it to a few individuals who attain what Wesley called 'entire sanctification'.  Whilst I have no doubt at all that some achieve entire sanctification, it would be counter-productive to focus entirely upon this relatively rare occurrence.

The Christian faith is not a faith for individuals; people are called into communities.  Their churches are perhaps most important but people are also called to work in communities outside of the church.  The love the collected people of God express in their communities is as much the work of sanctification as that displayed by certain individuals.  Indeed, the collective expression of God's love in the world is far more significant and for a variety of reasons should not be overlooked.

For one thing, it is the only evidence of the existence of God we have.  All love comes from God, and the love Christians express is the most direct evidence we have that there is anything at all behind the words and stories.  Furthermore, this love expressed by communities and in communities is God's way of transforming the world. 

Hatred is not the opposite of love; that is indifference.  It is through prayer that Christian communities identify those things that are forgotten.  The Latin American liberation theologians wrote of non-people, people not seen by the rich and powerful as people at all.  The slave trade is another example of people not seen as people.  The new city dwellers during the early industrial revolution were referred to as 'hands'; not thought of as people at all.

Moreover when we take things for granted, such as resources or the planet's ecosystems, we are indifferent.  Love is expressed as care for the whole of creation, not just for humanity.  Love is transformative because it brings everything into the light of God's love.

Two points, first this is frightening.  Bringing everything into the light of God's love reveals all our structural and personal sins.  Those responsible have to face up to what they have done.  Second, the implication of this is God works through humanity.  We are co-creators and share responsibility for the planet with God.

This will take some unpacking but I can predict one objection to this interpretation of Wesley's doctrine of sanctification.  Did Wesley believe this?  Or did he in fact see faith as something personal?  My answer is that Wesley did see things this way and there is in the history of the Methodist movement plenty of evidence of transformation in 18th and 19th century Britain.

This is by way of a cliff hanger.  From tomorrow and for at least a week there will be a new theme opening up - more details tomorrow.

Christian Perfection

Yesterday, I mentioned John Wesley's three grand scriptural doctrines.  So what have they to do with sanctification?  The last of the three is 'Holiness', which is another name for the same thing, although often referred to as scriptural holiness.  A third alternative name is Christian Perfection.

One of the fascinations of 18th century theology is the view at the time that any word with less than three syllables was hardly worth bothering about.  Today we're less patient with this type of language, we prefer 5 minute sermons and our theology offered to us as soundbites.  So, what is this phenomenon and why is it so controversial?  Let's start with this paragraph from 'The New Creation', where Runyon tries to show the relationship between the three doctrines:

According to Wesley's metaphor of a house, we are advancing from the porch of prevenient grace, through the door of justification and new birth, and into the welcoming rooms of sanctification wherein we are called to the fullness of faith.  (Page 82)

I don't intend to spend a lot of time on the first two but note here that sanctification is the third of three steps.  These grand doctrines are a progression.  The controversy is that in Wesley's view too much evangelism stops at justification.  'Get them through the door and they're in, saved, born again.  Nothing more to worry about.'  Indeed there is nothing more to worry about in the sense that the Christian justified is saved.  But Wesley argued there is so much more to God's promises.

The word 'perfection' is helpful here because it does not refer so much to an end-point where the Christian is somehow perfected, as a process called perfection where the Christian is in a state of somehow continually becoming perfect.  As the Christian grows in faith, they know God's love better and as a result God's love flows through the Christian into the world.  The perfected Christian is known for their love for others; for putting the welfare of others before their own.  Consequently, the world is perfected through the perfection of Christians; indeed it becomes a New Creation.

I remember Jenny who was a peace activist and in her 70s went to Bosnia during the war.  She was shot at but put the welfare of her companions before herself, risking her life to smuggle refugees over the border.  Even with Altzeimers in a nursing home she still put those around her first.  I remember Florrie in her late 80s and bent double.  She woke during the night to find a young man in her room.  He took her wedding ring from her finger (her husband was long dead).  She made the front page of the Sheffield Star.  When they caught the young man she said he reminded her of her grandson and wrote to him in prison.

Perfection is real and often unremarked.  The miracles God performs through his people are generally hardly noticed or valued.  Wesley sought transformation in the here and now unlike Luther.  Here's Runyon again, a page later:

... God has more in store for us.  God not only justifies, thereby providing the foundation for the new life, but opens up hitherto unimagined possibilities for growth in grace.  God's goal is to create us anew, to transform us, to restore us to health and to our role as the image of God.

Reactive Learning

I certainly don't want to give the impression that churches don't need leaders.  Leadership is essential.  The problem is that I believe the churches are facing a crisis of leadership.  When leadership is understood as a privilege rather than as a responsibility; it will inevitably result in poorly informed decision making. 

This crisis reflects a more general crisis in leadership in the wider world.  Education generally focuses on the detail of subject areas rather than on the practicality of making good decisions.  Well informed decisions require more than superficial knowledge of a subject area, although this can be helpful it also requires deep listening.

Reactive learning is, according to Presence,  about habitual thinking, seeing the world through habitual categories.  It is odd that this is so common in the churches.  Prayer, whilst in part an inner journey, is completed when attention is drawn outwards.  Good leaders make decisions.  They are not constrained by what others think but take time to consider prayerfully before making decisions. 

Good leadership means that those who are led have a stake in decision making but do not necessarily determine the outcome.  The Quakers are clear that they do not make decisions by consensus.  They listen for the spirit of the meeting.  Where there is a controversial issue, people will naturally turn up to a meeting with their view clear in their own minds.  The aim is allow these to be spoken but then to listen for the deeper truth behind all these presented truths.  This can be done by a single leader or collectively as the Quakers do.  However, the single leader must not make decisions alone and where sufficient are experienced, it is perhaps best that decisions are made collectively. 

Whether leadership is focused on one person or shared collectively, the implications for ecumenism are profound.  Decision making cannot be effective if it is cut off from local churches.  The likely implications of decision-making are so profound for the Christian practice of the adherents to the various traditions, that it is hard to see how conversations between senior people can ever be effective.  The problem is of course that collective decision making is also much more difficult.  Is there any way that everyone can have a realistic stake in ecumenical conversations?  Is it even desirable?

A New Cosmology?

Reflecting upon yesterday's post, about science and theology, I thought this might be a good opportunity to open up another strand of this blog: cosmology.  This is a massive subject and in this first post on the subject I will sketch in outline a theme I will develop in more detail over several (non-consecutive) blogs.

My basic point is simple; the Christian faith has known several cosmologies throughout its history and geography.  There is no a priori reason why a given cosmology might be incompatible with the faith, although there may be better or worse fits.  A cosmology is the people's understanding of how the universe works.  If a faith is incompatible with the prevailing worldview it will make heavy weather and its adherents will be marginalised to a greater or lesser extent.

Medieval European cosmology was quite different from first century Palestine's cosmology.  The latter was the basic 'upturned pudding basin on a plate' model whilst Medieval cosmology had the sun circling the earth and the 3 levels of heaven, earth and hell.  I've never read anything about how this change of worldview happened but I suspect the Medieval worldview grew out of theologians' reading of scripture, as memory of the older worldview faded.  At any event, there seems to have been little problem reconciling scripture with this worldview. 

The problems started with the worldview that grew out of Galileo's and Copernicus' observations, and in time became known as the Newtonian worldview.  This was much more than a new understanding of the shape and movements of planets and stars.  It is a mechanical view of the universe and today is probably still the most current 'gut' understanding of the universe.

This worldview differed from previous ones because it was based on empirical observations of reality rather than conjecture based upon ancient writings.  This should not invalidate it in the eyes of Christians but it has not been easy to reconcile it with scripture.  The best known responses have been to attempt to force science and scripture into a particular reading of scripture (fundamentalism) or to abandon scripture altogether (liberalism).  One of the problems is that in a mechanical universe, all categories are absolute, so God either exists or does not exist - no other possibility is conceivable.  The theological tools exist to deal with this but they are not widely known or understood.

Let me be clear about this - the Newtonian worldview is the current universal worldview.  Even fundamentalists believe in it.  For example, intelligent design is their latest attempt to force science to fit a scriptural mould (or scripture to fit a scientific mould).  Scientists have known about the deficiencies of Darwin's original theory for decades.  It simply isn't true that intelligent design (or the account in Genesis) is the only alternative.  Not only is this bad science it is also bad theology. 

The New Physics, the world of quantum mechanics and complexity theory in particular, is the new cosmology.  In my view this is a much more accommodating worldview for the Christian faith.  At this stage I simply flag this up and express the wish that theologians would take it seriously.  In the terms of classical logic, if the Medieval worldview is the thesis (many hanker after it but it is beyond their grasp; they know too much) and the Newtonian worldview is the antithesis, then the new worldview is the synthesis.  It does not take us back to an ancient mindset but leads us to a new way of seeing things which will make sense of many things that have not made sense for a long time.  The problem is that when we approach it with a Newtonian mindset, it does not appear to make any sense at all.

Ecumenism?  If we want to see full visible unity, my contention is the traditions need to change their worldview; a Newtonian approach can never succeed. 

Science and Theology

At one time theology was known as the Queen of Sciences because it explained all that there was to know.  The loss of this status was to do less with modern science and more with the inadequacy of theological responses to it.  If theologians had made the effort to understand and take part in the growth of science both theology and science might be in different places.

The incomprehension and antagonism of theologians to science is a disgrace.  Christians and especially their leaders have turned their back on scientific method.  At best they may be relatively favourably inclined but how many theologians make the effort to follow science, to keep up to date, let alone actively reflect upon it?

Instead we get a steady stream of of poorly informed statements from church leaders which consistently miss the point.  Science needs to be criticised from a faith perspective but it is rare for this to happen because most theologians don't know what's wrong with it.  By turning their backs on all but a few marginal Christian concerns, the traditions have marginalised themselves from the mainstream of debate.  At worst, some traditions have replaced a positive critique of science with a form of biblical fundamentalism that devalues scripture as well as science and effectively marginalises the Christian faith in terms of its influence for good in the modern world.  Overall, the faith is distorted and God's world is betrayed.

If we had confidence in our traditions, Christians would not fear the findings of science or other faiths or belief systems.  Why are we, the most successful faith on the planet so fearful of anything we do not comprehend or, I fear, can't be bothered to comprehend?

Let's be clear: something is false not because it contradicts a particular (self-interested) reading of scripture but because it devalues people and their place in the universe.

Presence makes the observation that the last few decades have seen the growth of something new in world history, global institutions.  Developments in science and technology have enabled this growth and also the immense damage they are doing to the planet.  They have brought about climate change, the extinction of thousands of species and are poisoning the seas, atmosphere and soil.  None of this will change until there is a change in the hearts of those who control these institutions.  I will return to this some time in the future.

The point I want to make is that the churches together are also a global institution.  This is most notably true of the Catholic Church, which at 1 billion members numbers half the Christians in the world.  But together the churches could be a powerful agent for change.  We could be but outmoded theology, refusal to understand the issues and a focus on internal doctrinal issues makes the churches remarkably ill-prepared for the task.

Recently the Pope formally acknowledged the work of Galileo.  Let us hope we can progress faster than that.  Galileo was never a threat to the faith and neither are Darwin, Newton, Einstein or any other scientist.  Scientists make mistakes but it is Christians who have perceived their work as a threat to the church.  The task is to put a new cosmology at the centre of Christian understanding of the cosmos.  It is possible, it has been done before.  The problem is we haven't got long to do it.

I had not realised how angry I am until I wrote these paragraphs.  I will substantiate what I have written here in future posts.