Some Emergent Theology?

At the end of June I published a blog “You might be an emergent Christian if...” – written by two guys who are “not emergent”. Based on their data I considered, and consider, myself emergent. Some of what was written was fairly superficial (yes, I listen to U2 but I don’t use a Mac). Other points relate to belief and Christian practice. Who do we admire and look to as role models? What are our political and social concerns? What is the Bible? These are important issues and so I will comment a bit further on them.

Who do we admire and respect?

I find the distinction between orthodoxy and orthopraxy useful. Orthodoxy is right belief. Orthopraxy is right practice/action/lifestyle. This is central to Brian McLaren’s book, “A Generous Orthodoxy” where he writes, “This book sees orthopraxy as the point of orthodoxy.” (p35) Yes, I do admire Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. They are known most of all for their lifestyle articulations of their faith, in particular siding with the poor, downtrodden and oppressed. This, I believe, is pleasing to God. Their orthodoxy is seen through their orthopraxy.

What are our political and social concerns?

Let’s start at the beginning: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The earth was made by God and it belongs to him. If I love God I will care for what belongs to him. “If the earth is the Lord’s it is not ours,” writes Christopher Wright (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, p397). First and foremost, environmental concerns are part of what it means for me to love God.

Let’s move on to the Torah. God repeatedly tells his people to be holy because he, YHWH, is holy. To enable them to obey this command to be holy, God tells them what to do. Here is Christopher Wright’s summary statement, “The kind of holiness that reflects God’s own holiness is thoroughly practical, social and very down to earth.” (ibid p374) It includes such things as respect within the community, economic generosity, employment rights, social compassion to the disabled, judicial integrity, sexual integrity. Therefore these kinds of social and political concerns are part of what it means to love and follow God – and this would include poverty, AIDS, imperialism, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism and oppression.

“The myth of redemptive violence”

That’s a provocative turn of phrase and not one that I would ever use. A similar phrase that’s been thrown around is “cosmic child abuse” – that too tends to generate more heat than light. Did God really abuse his son by making him die? The question misses the point, and the culprit may be the word ‘Son’. When we say that Jesus is the Son of God we are not using the word ‘son’ in the same way as when I say that Christopher is my son, that is, my biological son. Don Carson in his book Jesus the Son of God clearly differentiates four different ways in which Son of God is applied to Jesus – and none of them are biological. He goes on to write, “No language, no culture, means by ‘Son’ what Jesus means in John 5 – yet ‘Son’ is the category Jesus uses… All of us are necessarily unprepared for such a vision of God as this.” (Kindle edition @91%) It may be more meaningful in this day and age to say, as the Bishop of London did at the wedding of Prince William and Katherine, “God so loved the world that he gave – himself.”

What is the Bible?

Let’s not claim for the Bible what it doesn’t claim for itself. I would not describe it as a beautiful inspiring collection of works, but neither would I call it inerrant. Paul’s description of the Scriptures (ie our OT) in 2 Timothy 3.16 is ‘God-breathed’ and ‘useful’ and I’m happy to stick with those words. The Bible does not claim it’s every part to be literally, historically or scientifically true, and it does not ask us to imitate all the behaviour of all its heroes. But it is God-breathed, inspired. It tells us of the mission of God to make himself known and to bless the earth.

Well, that’s enough for one blog. Maybe more on this theme another time…

Your fellow-pilgrim, Michael