BIOGRAPHY
Tony Jones is the National Coordinator of Emergent
Village (www.emergentvillage.org),
a network of innovative, missional Christians. He's also a doctoral
fellow and senior research fellow in practical theology at Princeton
Theological Seminary. Tony has written several books on philosophy,
theology, ministry, and prayer, including Postmodern Youth Ministry and
The Sacred Way. He's a sought-after speaker on the topics of theology
and the emerging church. Tony lives in Minnesota with his wife, Julie,
and their three young children.
Education:
A.B. from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire in 1990 (classics
major)
M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California in 1993
(systematic theology/postmodern philosophy)
Ph.D. (A.B.D.) from Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New
Jersey in practical theology; dissertation topic: the relational
ecclesiology of the emerging church movement
Ordination: Colonial Church of Edina, September 7,
1997 — National Association of Congregational Christian Churches.
Ministry Experience: 1990–1993: Junior High Director, Pasadena
Covenant Church (CA), 1993–1997: Executive Director, YouthWorks
Missions, 1997–2003: Minister to Youth & Young Adults, Colonial Church
of Edina (MN), 1999–present: Volunteer Police Chaplain, Edina Police
Department (MN), 2005–2008: National Coordinator, Emergent Village
2008–present: Theologian-in-Residence, Solomon's Porch (MN)
Ministry Experience
1990–1993: Junior High Director, Pasadena Covenant Church (CA)
1993–1997: Executive Director, YouthWorks Missions
1997–2003: Minister to Youth & Young Adults, Colonial Church of Edina
(MN)
1999–present: Volunteer Police Chaplain, Edina Police Department (MN)
2005–2008: National Coordinator, Emergent Village
2008–present: Theologian-in-Residence, Solomon's Porch (MN)
Ordination:
Colonial Church of Edina, September 7,
1997 — National Association of Congregational Christian Churches |
About Emergent Village
Emergent Village is a growing, generative friendship among missional
Christians seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Our dream
Our dream is to join in the activity of God in the world wherever we are
able, partnering with God as God’s dreams for our world come true. In
the process, the world can be healed and changed, and so can we.
Emergent
In English, the word “emergent” is normally an adjective meaning coming
into view, arising from, occurring unexpectedly, requiring immediate
action (hence its relation to “emergency”), characterized by
evolutionary emergence, or crossing a boundary (as between water and
air). All of these meanings resonate with the spirit and vision of
Emergent Village. In other languages, names for regional networks will
be chosen with similarly evocative meanings.
Other words that you’ll spot around the Village are:
“Growing”: which indicates our desire to develop as the dreams of
God for the healing, redemption, and reconciliation of the world
develop.
“Generative”: which means that we expect our friendship to
generate new ideas, connections, opportunities, and works of beauty.
“Friendship”: Because we firmly hold that living in reconciled
friendship trumps traditional orthodoxies – indeed, orthodoxy requires
reconciliation as a prerequisite.
“Missional”: Because we believe that the call of the gospel is an
outward, apostolic call into the world.
History:
Emergent Village began as a group of friends who gathered under the
auspices and generosity of Leadership Network in the late 1990s. We
began meeting because many of us were disillusioned and disenfranchised
by the conventional ecclesial institutions of the late 20th century. The
more we met, the more we discovered that we held many of the same dreams
for our lives, and for how our lives intersected with our growing
understandings of the Kingdom of God. Friendship Above all,
we became convinced that living into the Kingdom meant doing it
together, as friends. Thus, we committed ourselves to lives of
reconciliation and friendship, no matter our theological or historical
differences. As time passed, others joined the friendship, and the
friendship began generating things like books, events, websites, blogs,
and cohorts. Organization By 2001, we had formed an
organization around our friendship, known as Emergent, as a means of
inviting more people into the conversation. Along with us, the “emerging
church” movement has been growing, and we in Emergent Village endeavor
to fund the theological imaginations and spiritual lives of all who
consider themselves a part of this broader movement.
Leadership
While it is particularly difficult to quantify who exactly leads a
“conversational friendship,” those of us who have committed our time and
resources to Emergent Village do fall into two groups. The first
is Emergent Village cohorts, a growing number of grassroots conversation
organizers and participants. The second is the Emergent Village Board of
Directors, a smaller group of friends who has taken responsibility for
overseeing the finances and legalities of Emergent Village.
Coordinating Group In 1997, Emergent Village formed a
“Coordinating Group,” which was informally called the “Group of Twenty.”
Even then, it was a bit difficult to know exactly who the twenty were,
since various people floated in and out of the group depending on their
availability and interest. Over the next 12 years, the coordinating
group grew significantly, in parallel with both the interest and
activities in Emergent Village. The Coordinating Group was officially
disbanded in April 2009. Board of Directors Emergent
Village is a non-profit corporation, and, as such, has a Board of
Directors that oversees the operations and finances of the organization.
Board members serve a three-year term and meet four times a year. But,
more importantly, they care deeply about the future of Emergent Village,
and they work diligently at providing for the long-term sustainability
of EV.
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BOOKS
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Post Modern Youth Ministy -
Opens the
door for youth workers, pastors, and the church at large to contemplate
the church today and how post-modernism is affecting their youth
ministry.
The rules have changed. Everything you believe is suspect. The
world is up for grabs. Welcome to the emerging postmodern
culture. A "free zone" of rapid change that places high value on
community, authenticity, and even God—but has little interest in
modern, Western-tinged Christianity. Postmodern Youth Ministry
addresses these enormous philosophical shifts and shows how
they’re affecting teenagers. Postmodern Youth Ministry will help
guide your youth ministry through a culture where trusted
spiritual anchors like the Bible and absolute truth are
sometimes seen by teenagers as outdated. Here's a provocative,
well-rounded, and highly informative reference for college,
seminary and youth ministry professionals committed to
connecting with postmodern teenagers.
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- Soul Shaper -
Author
Tony Jones follows up his (primarily theoretical) book, Postmodern Youth
Ministry, with this practical, experientially based work focused on how
ancient spiritual exercises are being implemented by youth ministries
around the United States and Great Britain.
This book is a primer for more than a dozen
powerful, practical ancient spiritual disciplines such as sacred
reading, the Jesus prayer, the Ignatian Examen, spiritual
direction, pilgrimage, service, and more. All have their roots
deep in the history of the Church. These are not gimmicks to
foist upon your students as spiritual exercises in the middle of
a program but rather spiritual and contemplative practices that
will benefit your teenagers—and especially your own soul.
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- The Sacred Way -
This
book mines the rich history of the church for spiritual disciplines that
have been largely forgotten in the practice of Christianity. After
introductory material that considers the human longing for spirituality
and setting a working definition of the term (“To be enlivened by God’s
Spirit is the goal of Christian spirituality.”), there is a historical
and theological exploration of sixteen different ancient practices.
Emergent Church theologian
Tony Jones,
National Coordinator for Emergent Village, having
written extensively on the subject is to be considered a primary
source concerning these messed-up mystic practices. In his book
The Sacred Way (SW), Jones provides us
with a list of what he refers to as “Contemplative Approaches to
Spirituality.” These spiritual disciplines/practices would be:
“Silence and Solitude, Sacred Reading, The Jesus Prayer,
Centering Prayer, Meditation, The Ignatian Examen, Icons,
Spiritual Direction, and The Daily Office.” (5) |
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Read. Think. Pray. Live |
 Pray
(TH1NK) - The prayers of prophets, apostles, the early and
modern church, and even Jesus himself can help young people pray more
effectively. Author Tony Jones highlights the important features
of these powerful prayers so students can really enjoy talking to God.
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Divine Intervention: For 1500 years, Christians have used
contemplative Bible study or "Lectio Divina" as a way to tap into the
power and vitality of God's Word. For ancient Christians such as St.
Augustine, St. Francis, and others, it was a pillar of one's daily
relationship with God.
In Divine Intervention, youth pastor Tony Jones helps students engage
their faith through the four steps of Lectio Divina: lectio (reading),
meditatio (meditation), oratio (prayer), contemplatio (contemplation)
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 - An
Emergent Manifesto of Hope A collection of divergent
voices, writing about, and representing the latest thinking from those
within the emerging church. This unprecedented collection includes
articles from twenty-five contributors including important voices in the
emergent conversation such as Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, and Sally
Morgenthaler. The articles cover a broad range of topics, such as
spirituality, theology, multiculturalism, post-colonialism, sex,
evangelism, and the Bible. Any person interested in what the emerging
church believes will find An Emergent Manifesto of Hope a perfect place
to start. |
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You Converted Me: The Confessions of St. Augustine I think it
has the makings of a great movie, a classic coming- of-age story. A boy
grows into a man, getting into the kind of mischief that a lot of boys
do (messing around with girls, stealing, getting in trouble at school).
Meanwhile, his over-protective Christian mother prays fervently for the
salvation of his soul. . . ." This young man, born in 354 and
named Aurelius Augustinus, turned out to be one of the greatest heroes
for God in the history of the Christian Church. In these pages,
Augustine lets it all spill out---from the deep trust he had in his
mother, to feeling guilt-ridden after stealing from a neighbor, to his
ultimate and dramatic conversion at age thirty-three. Whether you are
fifteen or fifty, this edition of Augustine's Confessions will open up
the life and wisdom of the first, famous, Christian rebel---a man whose
heart was set on fire for God. |
 - Ask
Seek Knock: Prayers to Change Your Life What do Abraham,
Moses, Deborah, and David have in common? They all prayed and saw
amazing results. Walk through the earliest models of prayer and discover
how our Israelite forefathers prayed. Includes a prayer guide. |
The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier
Following on the questions raised by Brian McLaren in A New Kind of
Christian, Tony Jones has written an engaging exploration of what this
new kind of Christianity looks like. Writing "dispatches" about the
thinking and practices of adventurous Emergent Christians across the
country, he offers an in-depth view of this new "third way" of faith-its
origins, its theology, and its views of truth, scripture and
interpretation, and the Emergent movement's hopeful and life-giving
sense of community. Jones initiates readers into the Emergent
conversation and offers a new way forward for Christians in a
post-Christian world. With journalistic narrative as well as
authoritative reflection, he draws upon on-site research to provide
fascinating examples and firsthand stories of who is doing what, where,
and why it matters.
Jones provides the single best introduction to the Emergent
Church movement. The mainline denominations are dying, and the
hyperindividualism of evangelicalism is unsatisfying, so many
young evangelicals have decided to recreate church for
postmodern times. He passionately defends the emergent movement
from criticism. In particular, critics are wrong to claim that
emergents don't really believe in the Bible; emergents
passionately love the Bible, says Jones, but also know that
finite human beings cannot definitively articulate truth. The
strongest sections put flesh on these theoretical bones by
taking readers into actual emergent churches. Jones's writing is
brisk and conversational.
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12
Days With Jesus |
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The Big Picture; A Wraparound Book |
 The
Teaching of the Twelve
Believing & Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient
Didache Community
The Didache is the most important book you never read," begins
Tony Jones, in this engaging study. The Didache is an early
handbook of an anonymous Christian community, likely written
before some of the New Testament books were written. It spells
out a way of life for Jesus-followers that includes instruction
on how to treat one another, how to practice the Eucharist, and
how to take in wandering prophets. In The Teaching of the
Twelve, Jones unpacks the ancient document, and he traces the
life of a small house church in Missouri that is trying to live
according to it. |
- The Most Difficult Journey You'll Ever Make
The Pilgrim’s Progress is arguably the most-read book in the
English language after the Bible. This new, contemporary
translation of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress retains the
author’s enchanting prose. Helpful annotations throughout invite
a new generation of readers to join Christian and his
companions, Faithful and Hopeful, as they travel from the City
of Destruction to the Celestial City. This is no pie-in-the-sky
story. The Christian life is hard. There’s no easy passage from
our first experience of God’s love to that final reward of
entrance into heaven. There are obstacles and temptations at
every turn. But, there is also help along the way, and the
journey is gloriously worthwhile!
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QUOTES
“I now believe that GLBTQ
[people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, queer]
can live lives in accord with biblical Christianity (at least as much as
any of us can!) and that their monogamy can and should be sanctioned and
blessed by church and state.”
“Emergent doesn’t have a position on absolute truth, or on anything for
that matter. Do you show up at a dinner party with your neighbors and
ask, ‘What’s this dinner party’s position on absolute truth?’ No, you
don’t, because it’s a non-sensical question.”
"Whether we realized it in the past or not Sola Scriptura has never been
possible. It just can’t work. Because the moment I say that all I need
is Scripture alone, I’ve assumed that I occupy some sort of void space,
when in fact neither I nor Scripture exist vacuum. I can’t simply read
Scripture (or anything for that matter) for what it is without biases or
lenses. My position as an urban, white, American, male influences my
reading more than I will ever know. The same could be said of the
writers of Scripture. Even the notion of Sola Scriptura itself is
conditioned by a cultural lens and a certain interpretation albeit an
increasingly outmoded one. To read is to interpret; all our readings are
always already interpretations and all our interpretations are always
already situational. To me, that is inescapable"
Prima Scriptura. Scripture is without a doubt our primary authority and
primary source for theological reflection, but is not and cannot be our
sole source.
It seems to many emergents that the question is difficult, intricate:
What is the meaning of life? Why is there evil in the world? How is God
involved in our lives? Just what is the “Kingdom of God”? How can we be
involved in God’s work in the world? These are hard questions, and they
demand nuanced, complex answers. So we fight back against a world that
vaunts simple solutions to complex problems, and we do so, first, by
encouraging the questions. Making room for the questions is one of the
aspects of emergent Christianity that many seekers appreciate. As a
result, emergent Christians often get labeled as “slippery.” They’re
told they don’t answer questions directly but answer instead with
another (often deconstructive) question. But, these questions are
actually attempts to get to the assumptions underlying the initial
question.
So questioning is not an act of defiance on the emergents’ part. It is a
trait of integrity.
When someone asks, “What is the Gospel, in a nutshell?” I often quote my
friend, philosopher of religion Jack Caputo, who wrote of the
philosophical impulses of “deconstruction”: “Nutshells close and
encapsulate, shelter and protect, reduce and simplify, while everything
in deconstruction is turned toward opening, exposure, expansion, and
complexification, toward releasing unheard of, undreamt of possibilities
to come, toward cracking nutshells wherever they appear.”
This statement could just as easily be made about the gospel, the
Kingdom of God, or Jesus himself
Darren King: Okay, next question: Tony, you’ve called for this thing
called “radical contextualization”- in terms of how we understand
theology, ecclesiology, etc. Can you speak a little about what that
means to you? I think some people, even in hearing the word “radical”,
get scared. So what does radical contextualization mean to you?
Tony Jones: Well, this is probably the way that getting a PhD ruins you,
because, a term like “radical” has a fairly technical meaning in PHD
studies. What it does is it implies a little bit of Marxism. When I say
radical contextualization, another way, I guess, one could say it is:
hyper-localization.
I was with some Presbyterians two weeks ago, and they were talking about
doing missions trips with other Presbyterian groups from other parts of
the country. And part of the thing that they were struggling with was
the fact that the kids in their youth group just don’t have that much in
common with Presbyterian kids from four or five states away. I mean,
it’s not like they’re all Reformed. I mean, they’re sixteen! They’re not
really Presbyterian just because they go to a Presbyterian Church.
They’re parents might be. But even there the parents probably aren’t
Presbyterian in some theological sense. So, I say, "Why don’t you do a
missions trip with the Lutherans that are literally on the same block as
you?" This is what blows me away. Churches are divided up by their
flavors of theology. And the fact of the matter is, there are very few
people still holding to those theologies.
That’s why the “Reformed Resurgence” is such big news nowadays. It’s
because of how rare it is! Rare that a group of people would be so
completely committed to one theological paradigm, at the expense of all
others. It’s kind of like those guys are the exception that proves the
rule. Most people are pretty moderate about what they believe and hold
to a pretty generous orthodoxy, quite honestly. I don’t think most
people who go to a Presbyterian Church in America somewhere – if you
pinned them down - and you asked: “Do you believe in Total Depravity?"
or, "Do you believe in Double Pre-destination?" or something like that,
would say “yes”. They’d be like “No. I just love this church. My kids
love the youth group and I sing in the choir.” You know? So, when I
speak of contextualization, when it comes to the church, one of the
things that I really mean by that is that people should be a lot more
concerned about where they are, than about some national body, or, some
transcendent set of doctrines that they think they share with people
around the planet.
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Jones Old Blog
on Belief net
Emergents find little importance in the discrete differences
between the various flavors of Christianity. Instead, they practice a
generous orthodoxy that appreciate the contributions of all Christian
movements.
Emergents reject the politics and theologies of left versus
right. Seeing both sides as a remnant of modernity, they look forward to
a more complex reality.
The emergent movement is not exclusively North American; it is growing
around the globe.
Emergents see God’s activity in all aspects of culture and
reject the sacred-secular divide.
Emergents believe that an envelope of friendship and
reconciliation must surround all debates about doctrine and dogma.
Emergents believe that theology is
local, conversational, and temporary. To be faithful to the
theological giants of the past, emergents endeavor to continue their
theological dialogue.
Emergent believe that truth, like God,
cannot be definitively articulated by finite human beings.
Emergents believe that church should function more like an
open-source network and less like a hierarchy or a bureaucracy.
Emergents start new churches to save their own faith, not
necessarily as an outreach strategy.
Emergents firmly hold that God’s Spirit - not their own efforts -
is responsible for good in the world. The human task is to cooperate
with God in what God is already doing.
Emergents downplay - or outright reject - the differences between
clergy and laity.
Emergents find the biblical call to community more compelling than
the democratic call to individual rights. The challenge lies in being
faithful to both ideals.
Emphasis added Original Sin: A
Depraved Idea
Monday January 26, 2009
The Original Sin Series
Intro-Intuition-Definition-Genesis-Jesus-Paul-Augustine-Calvin-Conclusion
When I was growing up in a moderate, centrist church -- somewhere
between mainline Christianity and evangelicalism -- Original Sin was a
given. I first learned about it in youth group, and we regularly talked
about it. Actually, it's more accurate to say that we talked about a
life with Christ, and the notion of Original Sin was in the background.
It was assumed. And I cannot remember that it was ever debated. In
other words, I assumed that the doctrine of Original Sin was a biblical
notion, and that all Christians accepted it as gospel truth. Of course,
neither is true. In college, Original Sin was also assumed by the
Campus Crusaders and Navigators who ministered to me, as well as in the
little bible church that I attended. In fact, here's a telling section
from that church's current web page on doctrine:
Man (Anthropology)
Man was created in the image of God to enjoy friendship with Him (
Genesis 1:26). Man sinned and his fellowship with God was broken (
Genesis 3). Man is now deceitful and desperately wicked ( Jeremiah
17:9). He has the capacity for all sin and lives his life independent of
his Creator. In his natural rebellious state, his destiny is to spend
eternity totally separated from God in the lake of fire prepared for the
devil and his angels ( II Thessalonians 1:8; Revelation 20:11-15). But,
while in college, I also took at class on the theology of Augustine from
an eccentric professor, Charles Stinson, and therein I learned that the
great father of Western theology was the author of the doctrine of
Original Sin. Of course, Augustine was not making it up ex novo, but was
taking as his inspiration the account of creation in Genesis 3 and
certain Pauline texts. In seminary, I learned from John Thompson
that John Calvin and his theological heirs reified the notion of
Original Sin and that it hadn't played much of a role in medieval and
Scholastic theology. And sometime later, I discovered that whole
branches of the Christian family tree -- most notably, the Orthodox
Church -- has never embraced Original Sin.
I have come to reject the notion of Original
Sin. I consider it neither biblically,
philosophically, nor scientifically tenable.
Original Sin: My Intuition
Tuesday January 27, 2009
The Original Sin Series
Intro-Intuition-Definition-Genesis-Jesus-Paul-Augustine-Calvin-Conclusion
Well, much to the chagrin of my biblicist commenters, I'm not going to
start this series of reflections on Original Sin with the Bible, but
with my own intuition. (Don't read too much into this. I will get to all
of the questions that many of you have posted so far. And, to those
funny, funny commenters who accuse me of starting my own
religion-without-the-bible, just take a dep breath and see where we go
with all of this.)
I remember some late-night dorm conversations in college in which a
half-dozen of us would stay up debating the biggest ideas in the
universe: the existence of God; the meaning of life; which fraternity to
pledge. One that took a great deal of our time was the question of
whether human beings are inherently good or inherently bad. It may sound
like a philosophically silly question now, but it was all-consuming to
us as 18-year-olds. Reared as a Protestant Christian, my answer
was always the same: human beings are inherently bad, from birth. This
answer was based on my notion of Original Sin, taught, as I described in
my last post, as a matter of biblical fact in all of my various youth
group experiences (church, Bible camp, YoungLife, Teens Encounter
Christ). But, I must admit, I always felt a bit uncomfortable with
my own response. I really had nothing to base my "humans are bad"
concept except what I'd been taught. Although I was surely aware of my
own sin, I didn't really get the impression that I or anyone else was
inherently evil. In fact, my experience was the contrary: I generally
felt that people are good, kind, and generous. Since then, I've
become more uncomfortable with the notion that people are inherently
bad, prideful, etc. I don't deny the reality of sin. But I do doubt that
human beings are depraved from birth. So, without quoting the
Bible, what do you think? Are human beings predisposed to good or evil
Original Sin: A Definition
Wednesday January 28, 2009
The Original Sin Series
Intro-Intuition-Definition-Genesis-Jesus-Paul-Augustine-Calvin-Conclusion
Some commenters are concerned that I'm setting up a straw man -- that
is, I'm leaving the doctrine of Original Sin undefined so that I can
then dispute an unformed doctrine. So I will defer to the BBC, and their
excellent summary of the doctrine.
This will be our working definition of Original Sin:
What is original sin?
Original sin is a Christian doctrine that says that everyone is born
sinful. This means that they are born with a built-in urge to do bad
things and to disobey God. Original sin is not just this inherited
spiritual disease or defect in human nature; it's also the
'condemnation' that goes with that fault.
An explanation for the evils of the world Christians believe that
original sin explains why there is so much wrong in a world created by a
perfect God, and why people need to have their souls 'saved' by God.
A condition you're in, not something you do. Original sin is a
condition, not something that people do: It's the normal spiritual and
psychological condition of human beings, not their bad thoughts and
actions. Even a newborn baby who hasn't done anything at all is damaged
by original sin.
The sin of Adam
In traditional Christian teaching, original sin is the result of Adam
and Eve's disobedience to God when they ate a forbidden fruit in the
Garden of Eden.
Effects of original sin Original sin affects individuals by
separating them from God, and bringing dissatisfaction and guilt into
their lives. On a world scale, original sin explains such things
as genocide, war, cruelty, exploitation and abuse, and the "presence and
universality of sin in human history".
Original Sin: The Genesis of a Doctrine
Thursday January 29, 2009
The Original Sin Series
Intro-Intuition-Definition-Genesis-Jesus-Paul-Augustine-Calvin-Conclusion
Let me start with some throat-clearing. At least one friend and not a
few commenters were bothered by the fact that I wrote about my own
intuition before I started reflection on the biblical passages at play.
One friend told me that, as a self-proclaimed Protestant, I should begin
with the Bible, where Protestants always begin.
Firstly, don't read too much into my decision to write about my
intuition first. It has something to do with the fact that I was pressed
for time on Monday. Further, I was trying to be a bit autobiographical,
in both the introduction and intuition posts. This blog is not
particularly a place for forensic arguments, like, say, my dissertation
will be. Instead, it's a place for more personal, impassioned writing.
Secondly, and I've been very clear on this point here and elsewhere, I
do not think it possible to "begin with the Bible." We always begin with
our own hermeneutical assumptions. Always. No exceptions. A human being
cannot escape her/his own hermeneutical horizon. You are encased in it,
just as you are encased in your own skin. There's no escape. Does
this mean that I reject the Lutheran formula of sola scriptura? Well,
insofar as sola scriptura is naive to everyone's interpretive biases,
yes. I don't think I can actually rely on scripture alone. I am always
also reliant upon my own reason to interpret and apply scriptural truth
(this just in, Tony Jones believes in scriptural truth!). (Just a side
question here: Doesn't sola mean "alone"? As in,
all-by-itself-with-nothing-else? How, then, can there be five solas? Is
that not logically incoherent?) So, I might approach the Bible
differently than you do. So be it. Now, on to Genesis! Let's
begin by looking at what the text really says: Read Genesis 3:1-24
Now, it probably won't surprise many for me to confess that I don't
think the creation of the cosmos really happened in quite the way it is
described in either this creation narrative, or the one preceding it in
Genesis 1:1 - 2:3. But my belief that the cosmos is 12-16 billion years
old does not mean that I don't consider the Genesis account true. Quite
to the contrary, I do consider it true. (Truth and factuality are not
the same.) So, let's deal with it's truth. Adam and Eve are
forbidden to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life by God, and bidden to eat
it by the serpent. Eve listens to the latter and passes the fruit to her
partner. He partakes as well. God discovers their disobedience, and they
must pay the consequences. First, let us note that there are a
couple catching phrases in the narrative. One is that the serpent tells
Eve that fruit will allow her to know "good and evil," and Eve decides
to eat the fruit, in part, because it was "desirable for gaining
wisdom." "Then the eyes of both of them were opened," they
became ashames of their nakedness, sewed themselves fig-leaf garments,
and thus there choise was discovered by God. There are all sorts
of interesting interpretive points to be made, but since we're focusing
on the doctrine of Original Sin, let's focus on the consequences of
their actions. Because of their fruity indulgence, A&E become aware and
ashamed of their nakedness. And God, in turn, lays the smack down on
them: the woman will have pain in childbirth and be subservient to the
man; the man will toil to bring food from the earth; they are cast out
of the garden; and they will both die. In the biblical account,
this is surely the orginal sin. And I think it's clear that it is meant
to be paradigmatic of the human condition. Given the choice, the passage
seems to teach, each of us would choose the fruit that opens our eyes
rather than trusting God who tells us we don't need our eyes opened.
But is this Original Sin? That is, is there anything in the passage that
says that A&E might have not chosen to eat the fruit? Or, more to the
point of the Western theological notion of Original Sin, that the
consequences of their sin has been passed down to every subsequent human
via the act of intercourse (thus exempting only Jesus if Nazareth from
this inheritence)? Is there something in the passage that would lead us
to believe that, as we learned yesterday, this is an "inherited
spiritual disease or defect in human nature"? Based on 1) My own
hermeneutical position that this story is truthful in that it is
paradigmatic as opposed to factual, and 2) Nothing in the biblical
narrative indicates that A&E were changed at the genetic level that
would infect subsequent generations, I'll conclude this: The account of
the original sin in Genesis 3 teaches us a lot about the state of human
nature, our freedom to know right from wrong, and our proclivity to not
necessarily trust God. But it does not teach that the sin of Adam and
Eve is responsible for the sins of subsequent generations
Ending Christian Euphemisms:
Wednesday October 21, 2009
"Fundamentalist"
I've taken some heat in the comment section for using yesterday's post
on "unbiblical" and a "higher view of scripture" as a thin foil for my
own disregard of biblical standards. To the contrary, I was pointing to
the use of the word unbiblical as a stand-in for a particularly thin
hermeneutic. There are, of course, things that are unbiblical: child
pornography and shampoo, for instance. Both are technically unbiblical
since they are never mentioned; further, the first is morally at odds
with the biblical narrative, while the second is not. So, to
repeat, "unbiblical" is not a euphemism on its face; it is a euphemism
when used as a stand in for a hermeneutical argument. Today, I
thought we'd poke at the liberals a bit, since the conservatives around
here seem to be on the defensive. The euphemism of today is,
fundamentalist.
Again, I'm not implying that fundamentalists do not exist. They do. But
liberals and progressives often use "fundamentalist" as a cheap and easy
stand-in for someone who has a more conservative biblical hermeneutic.
Fundamentalism as a concept may have started centuries ago, but it was
only named as such at the end of the 19th century, at the seminary of my
PhD studies. By 1910, five "fundamentals" had been named:
•The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of
Scripture as a result of this •The virgin birth of Christ
•The belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin •The
bodily resurrection of Christ •The historical reality of Christ's
miracles.
These days, some claim that heritage in Christianity, and there are even
denominations with "fundamentalist" in their names. And then you've got
evangelicals like Dan Kimball announcing that they are fundamentalist,
according to the original definition. Indeed, the American
evangelicalism of the 1940s was an attempt to chart a third way between
fundamentalism and liberalism (see George Marsden for the low down on
that movement).
But we all know -- even Dan Kimball knows -- that's not what's meant by
"fundamentalist" these days. Today it's a cultural category, often
equated with the "God Hates Fags" crazies and Bob Jones University.
All the more reason that liberals and progressives (including some of
the commenters on this blog) sin when they refer to thoughtful,
right-of-center evangelicals as fundamentalists. To over simplify, let's
think of Christian theology like a Bell Curve. Evangelicals and
Progressives (including Progressive Evangelicals) make up the middle two
standard deviations -- you've got to go out to the 13.6% on the edges to
find the fundamentalists and the liberals.
In fact, these boundary categories are what Phyllis
Tickle talks about as the 10% of each quadrant that will reify in the
corners and not join the Great Emergence in the center
The Most Important Cartoon of the Year
Sunday October 25, 2009
Looking Back on Christianity21
Friday October 16, 2009
As other bloggers have noted, putting the Christianity21 experience into
words is nearly impossible. In short, it went even better than Doug and
I imagined it. All of the pieces came together beautifully. In
fact, when people repeatedly stopped me in the hallways on the first day
to say how well they thought it was going, I found myself giving the
same response over and over: "The energy in that room is amazing."
If you want to find out about the nuts and bolts of C21, see this link
for mui links, names, books, etc. And you can read about all of
the presenters here. I dare not single out any of the presentations,
since so many of them were so, so good. I'd rather write about my
overall impressions of the event. I often write about the
conservative and liberal versions of American Protestantism here, and,
although those are oversimplified and overgeneralized terms, they're
good enough for the purposes of this conversation. Before the
event, Doug and I met with Jen Howver and Mark and Kelly from Imago, all
of whom helped us plan and execute the event. We made a chart with two
axes on a large piece of paper, thus dividing the paper into four
quadrants. One axis was "practitioner - theorist" and the other was
"liberal - conservative." We then took our best guess on all 21 of the
presenters, and placed them along the axes. We were pleased to see that
we had representation in all four quadrants. And this got me
thinking about how rare it is that among the most liberal Christian
leaders (think GLBTQ supporters) and the conservative evangelicals
(think Willow Creek and North Point churches) share the stage. In fact,
it got me to wondering if there are 21 men out there who would even
accept an invitation like this. I don't want to over-stereotype
people based on their gender, but I've been a speaker at lots of events,
and when the majority of the speakers are men (as is invariably the
case), there is a certain competitive nature to those events that I did
not sense at C21. And, to say it another way, I just don't think that
we'd have gotten the cooperation from speakers at either end of the
theological spectrum if the roster had been male. All that to say
thanks to the presenters for their grace.
There had been rumors of street-preaching protesters outside of the
event. Unable to line up any compatriots (he had hoped for 21), one
emergent twenemy preached a bit outside on the street, but I only spoke
to one person who even saw him. Another emergent opponent was in the
room for every session but the last, and he was the model of grace and
respect, even as he squirmed at the theology he was hearing. Also
memorable was the posse of men who usually speak at these events. These
guys came at their own expense, slept on couches and spare beds, and
moved chairs, worked the registration table, and generally provided a
hospitable presence. Since I haven't named any of the women in this
post, I won't name the guys either, with one exception: Jay Bakker
stayed at my house for a week, and we became fast friends. He's an
exceptional human being. In the final session on Sunday afternoon,
one word emerged as emblematic of the weekend: Courage. One participant
said to me, "I've been so afraid of starting something new for Jesus,
but now I know I can do it. There's so much courage in this room!"
Indeed, there was. Here's hoping that God blesses us with similar
gatherings in the future
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