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The Uncontrolling Love of God

12/1/2015

The problem of evil is a perpetual consideration for many people. Open theist and relational theologian, Thomas Oord, tackles this issue with ease and insight in his new book, The Uncontrolling Love of God: An open and relational account of providence. This insightful book by one of the leading theologians is due out next week. The Uncontrolling Love of God is a culmination of his previous works, Relational Holiness, The Nature of Love, and Relational Theology all which give a presentation of God as a benevolent Being who operates in real time with care and compassion and has an impeccable, holy, just, character.

His new book, The Uncontrolling Love of God, continues this look at God’s impeccable character with a deeper consideration. Being of the same Wesleyan-Holiness tradition as Oord, I found this book to be a very interesting and positive proposition. However, not being an open theist, I enjoy Oord’s work more for the relational aspects of his theology. Yet, his theology should not be dismissed easily but deserves a very real consideration.

Oord sets up his thesis well with these two questions: 1) If a loving and powerful God exists, why doesn’t this God prevent genuinely evil events? and 2) How can a loving and powerful God be providential if random and chance events occur?

Oord finds the answer unsatisfactory in the statements found in our society. For example after the Boston Marathon bombing, a journalist from the Orlando Sentinel writes, “I realize that many people will see this tragic event as evidence against God’s existence. But the reality is that in order for thousands of people to feel relief and joy, some had to feel unspeakable pain and heartache.”

Oord states that such trite Christian answers conclude “we must go through hell to appreciate heaven” and/or “God suffers with us.” Oord asks, “does this view make God a masochist?" And “do we think it more loving to suffer with others than to prevent evil, if we were able, in the first place?”

Oord also discards deterministic answers to the problem of evil. The idea of God “pulling the strings” to control seemingly chance events (Prov 16:33) is even more repugnant to Oord . He outright rejects Augustine’s “nothing in our lives happen haphazardly,” Calvin’s “God’s providence, as taught in scripture, is opposed to fortune and fortuitous happenings," and R.C. Sproul’s “if chance exists in its frailest form, God is finished.”

Oord also intensely questions Euthyphro’s dilemma as an adequate explanation for the problem of evil. The idea that “whatever is initiated and directed by God is moral” or “might makes right” makes one wonder if God actually creates everything. The atheist conception that the objective reality of morality is independent of God is soundly refuted as well.

What is the answer to the problem of evil? Oord postulates, “absolute randomness is a myth. But absolute determinism is too. Forces we cannot see regulate all things, animate and inanimate. Chance and lawlike regularity characterize our world. If change reigned absolutely, chaos would ensue. If law reigned absolutely, order would eliminate creativity. Both randomness and regularity persist in the universe.”

So what really is the answer to the problem of evil? Oord answers the question early and then fleshes out his answer in the remaining part of the book. His answer is simply, “The standards of morality and regularities of existence derive from God’s loving nature. God’s nature is eternal, without beginning or end. God did not create or choose the attributes of the divine nature. And God cannot change them because the divine nature is immutable. “

If you find his answer unsatisfactory, then I urge you to read the rest of his book. You might be pleasantly surprised at Oord’s reasoning behind his answer.

If you find his answer to your satisfaction, then I urge to read the rest of the book. You might be pleasantly surprised at Oord’s reasoning behind his answer.

My thanks are offered to Dr Oord for an advance copy of his book and his request for my review.

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Relational Theology

11/30/2015

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When Dr Oord asked me to review this book, I was in a bit of a quandary. Why would a theologian want my opinion about his newest book? Theology is just a hobby of mine, like my interest in cultural anthropology. I think maybe because I had written him about I much I enjoyed his earlier book, Relational Holiness and have engaged in online discussions with him, he must have thought I would have something interesting to say.

Being a counselor educator by profession, I am frequently evaluating the writings of my students, the research pertaining to my field and am trying to incorporate my hobbies into my professional life, looking for overlap. This book did bring together my profession and my hobbies.

I was glad to write this short review. I am new to the field of Relational Theology. Hopefully without being offensive, I would retitle the book, Relational Theology for Dummies. I don’t say that because I think that the book is not worthy of reading, I say it because it is a perfect book for someone like me: someone who is not a professional theologian, but someone who wants to understand the Relational branch of Christian theology in a simple format

This is a very easy read and covers many different areas of Relational Theology. It contains 31 chapters that are short and heavily edited. These chapters are grouped into four sections: 1) Doctrines of Theology in Relational Perspective, 2) Biblical Witness in Relational Perspective, 3) The Christian Life in Relational Perspective, and 4) Ethics and Justice in Relational Perspective. There were several contributors I recognized and even some with whom I have been personally acquainted: Callen, Oord, Lodahl, Flood, Winslow, Thompson, Peterson, Leclerc, Salguero, Mann and many others.

To give you a flavor of the book, I’ll share with you some of my favorites sections:

-       “God is understood to be truly personal, loving, and not manipulative (7).”

-       “God’s grace works powerfully, but not irresistibly, in matters of human life and salvation. God empowers our “response-ability” without overriding our genuine responsibility (8).”

-       “God created humanity to be in responsible relationship with Him, and to find its identity – the “image of God” – in relationship. Yet humanity sought to become independent of its Creator and claim self-sufficiency (15).”

-       “God is love, and if we truly live in relationship with God, we will live in love with others and all creation (16).”

-       “When we explore relationship through the notions of love and trust, we see that faith and relationship become inseparable (34).”

-       “A relational interpretation of the Christian faith proceeds on the assumption that God has created us human beings to be loved and to love … sin is a term that may be identified with any falling short of God’s ideal for us: a life of love (37).”

-       “Through intimate union with God in Christ in a living personal relationship, we are transformed into His likeness. We do not merely follow His example. Rather, we become Christlike through abiding in Christ, through living in God (41).”

-       “To read Scripture as the Church means that we read with God and with one another. We listen to what God calls of us as the people of God. We also listen to one another, as we discern what that call might even mean for us, at this time and in this place (60).”

-       “Prayer is waking up to the presence of God (67).”

-       “Too many of us function like atheists when it comes to prayer. We claim belief in God, but we do not act on it (68).”

-       “God not only created us for relationship, God also seeks to restore and strengthen that relationship when strained (81).”

-       “Love is at the heart of ethics (89).”

-       “God is love. Love attempts to care for all people. Love considers how power affects the lives of people (94).”

-       “Holiness only exists in it expression, which is love (102).”

-       “God has freely created all that is … creatures are free because they have been created by God to reflect and embody God’s loving freedom (108).”

-       “Obedience, which reflects love and gratitude, cannot be forced, because the nature of love requires freedom to obey (112).”

-       “When freedom to obey means freedom to disobey, the relational God pursues the exiles from Eden. God reminds them they could choose restoration and peace (112).”

-       “All creation is interrelated and creation is ongoing. God is both Creator at the beginning and continues to create today (114).”

This book is an exciting compilation of the best of today’s Relational Theologians that quickly became very meaningful to me as I ponder my relationship with God. I could easily have quoted many more sections of this book and would heartily recommend that you read it as well.

One of the things that I like about this book is also its biggest weakness. This book is edited so that the chapters are short, less than four pages. That made it easy for an armchair theologian like myself who needs time to digest concepts and not feel overwhelmed in jargon. However the short chapters, in an attempt to explain concepts, at times seemed a bit disjointed, jumping from one concept to another within the same chapter, reading a bit choppy.

One suggestion for the reprint as I’m sure that this book will become popular: I would suggest that each chapter reference the author's recommended bibliography. This would help the reader follow-up in more detail the chapters that interest him/her more.

My grateful thanks is extended to Dr Oord for providing me with a copy of this book. I would recommend you purchase this book if you desire a cursory overview of Relational Theology. It is the first serving of a theological meal that won’t completely satisfy your appetite but leave you hungry for a bigger helping.

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Love God with all your mind

5/13/2015

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J.P. Moreland is concerned for the evangelical community. He feels that it is currently being held captive by a thoroughly modern understanding of Christianity which has diminished our ability to positively affect change in our culture. In other words, we are no longer salty, and cannot (do not) function as the salt of the earth. What does Jesus say about salt that has lost its flavor? It is good for nothing and must be thrown out (actually, Jesus, in his ever mild manner, says to throw it out and trample it underfoot).

Just what is it that makes us the salt of the earth? Moreland makes a convincing argument that our intellectual capabilities are a large part of that saltiness. The modern understanding of Christianity that has made us flavorless? A strong and deeply held conviction that Christianity is supposed to be anti-intellectual (supra-rational). Thus, Moreland examines how pervasive anti-intellectualism was in Christianity during the twentieth century, and he argues that we need to recover true Christian intellect and rationality to once again become salt in this world.

Moreland asks several very important questions regarding the relationship of intellect (mind) and faith. Those questions include: Why should the mind matter in Christianity? How can one develop a mature Christian mind? What does a mature Christian mind look like? How can we guarantee a future for the Christian mind? The answers are, obviously, well-thought out and well-reasoned. They are also informative, and the overall effect is a practical, rational book which teaches us to re-elevate reason to its proper status in the Christian life. After all, Jesus did summarize the law by telling us to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind.

This revised edition includes expanded appendices and three new chapters that outline how to argue for the reality of God and the historicity of Jesus' life teachings, death, and resurrection.

This post is taken from Christian Books: http://www.christianbook.com/role-reason-life-soul-revised-updated/j-p-moreland/9781617479007/pd/479007?event=AFF&p=1153476&

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A Sacred Sorrow

2/18/2015

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Soon after September 11, 2001, Michael Card received a note from a friend who observed that the American church had no songs to sing in response to the horrific attacks. The friend challenged Card, saying, “You need to write laments, to equip ‘lament teams’ ” (p. 7). In A Sacred Sorrow Card has offered his response—a clear call for believers to embrace suffering and to offer lament as an act of worship. He invites believers to “recover the lost language of lament.”

Twenty-three short chapters discuss Job, David, Jeremiah, and Jesus as examples of lamenters. After four introductory chapters, Card spends four or five chapters on each of these four persons and then draws conclusions in chapter 23. Six appendixes follow, including a section on “Journaling/Writing Your Own Lament” and a short bibliography of related works the author has found meaningful.

In his companion book, A Sacred Sorrow Experience Guide, Card offers a ten-week plan with five days of reflection in each week. They mirror the arrangement of the book in that week one is introductory, then two weeks are spent on each of the four biblical characters, giving short background comments with suggested biblical readings, and then concluding with a week of reflections. The background comments are largely based on or excerpted from the main book. Each day has two or three reflective questions. Day five of each week invites readers to write their own laments. His method is to ask readers to “reflect on” certain thoughts or images “as you compose your own lament.” The focus is on the individual lament rather than corporate lament.

Card limits his focus to the four biblical characters to encourage recovering the lost language of lament. That is, he does not share his own story, he does not address the attacks of 9/11, nor does he specifically address other life pains. Likewise the Experience Guide is very general in application, trusting readers to make connections to the biblical stories and compose their own laments while reflecting on them. He does not explain the structure of lament psalms, and so he does not develop that structure as a template for modern use.

Card sees lament as a journey toward an outcome. He asserts Job’s “pain and deep sense of abandonment by God” was actually a “false perception” (p. 59). Job, Card says, prepares believers for the journey through the Book of Psalms. That journey progresses from Psalm 1, “a hymn to Torah obedience,” through laments for which “Torah obedience provides no answer” (p. 42). The journey ends in the final praise hymns of the Psalter, that is, in praise for God’s loyal love.

Card says the Writings, the third section of the Hebrew Bible, were put together during a time of existential change in Israel in which “God was preparing his people for a deeper understanding of himself and his hesed” (p. 41). In his conclusions Card states his belief that in the New Jerusalem lament will be “over forever,” for believers will “leave [their] laments and forget once and for all the vocabulary of their pain and the syntax of their sorrows. Lament will become the faithful companion with whom we part ways when the journey comes to an end” (p. 142). Card asserts that as a journey “lament is one of the most direct paths to the true praise we know we have lost” (p. 21).

The most important contribution of Card’s work is its function as a call to view prayers of lament as legitimate. On the one hand it is a common biblical model, and on the other hand without lament life’s wounds “continue to fester. The longer they are denied the more gangrenous they become” (p. 77). Card is not the first to make a call to the church to revive the use of lament, but it is a welcome call and challenge to avoid denying life’s pains and to speak honestly about them in one’s pursuit of God.

This book review was written by Brian L. Webster and David Beach

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Adam: God's Beloved

2/17/2015

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Like many of Nouwen’s other books, Adam is simultaneously simple and profound. This insight into reality – that the simple is profound and the profound simple – is woven throughout Nouwen’s work. Life itself is both simple and profound, as is the life of a disciple of Jesus, as is the life of prayer, as is the life of ministry, as is death, as is life after death.

In Adam, Nouwen confronts this interweaving of the simple and the profound in the most deeply personal way possible. At first glance, the book appears to be a biography of Adam Arnett, a seriously handicapped young man, narrated by Nouwen who became his caretaker in Daybreak, the L’Arche community home in Richmond Hill, just north of Toronto, Canada. Yet, as the reader turns the pages of the text, the biography becomes an autobiography at the same time. Indeed, Nouwen’s telling of Adam’s story morphs into the parallel story of Nouwen’s life during his time with Adam and afterward.

Nouwen writes soon after Adam’s death and, as we learn, during what was to be the last year of his own life. Nouwen was convinced that Adam’s person and life was an incarnation of the person of Jesus Christ. This faith-conviction motivates Nouwen to share his incarnational insight through his gift of writing. Nouwen’s prayerful reflections led him to see a paralleling of many of the aspects of the life-story of Adam with that of Jesus as described for us in the four Gospels. What Nouwen composes for his readers is, on one level, this parallel. For Nouwen, Adam’s life had a hidden period, public period, passion, death, burial, and form of resurrection. This comparing of Adam’s life-story to that of Jesus provides the structure for the text.

Woven into Adam’s story is Nouwen’s own story at that moment in his life. In some respects, Nouwen’s life-story reverses Adam’s and Jesus’. Nouwen lived a very public life as teacher, lecturer, and writer for most of his career. Now, in what were to become the last two years of his life, he experiences a much more hidden life as pastor of Daybreak.

During this hidden life, even the renowned spiritual master encounters himself and Jesus in new, surprising, and challenging ways. In his role as caregiver to Adam, Nouwen experiences the depth of human fragility, vulnerability and dignity. The normally fluent speaker and writer is so challenged that his usual insightful, confident speech about the spiritual life is reduced to a simple recounting of experiences and reflections on how they connect to the life of Jesus. Nouwen writes almost as a student or novice encountering new spiritual realities for the first time.

Adam does show us Nouwen at his best -- as a human being. Here we see a Nouwen who is faced with his own vulnerability as a human being and disciple of Jesus Christ. He writes, haltingly at times and repetitively at others, of his ongoing discovery of his own vulnerability and neediness. Here is Nouwen without the defenses of his brilliant intellect and polished literary skills. Here, indeed, is Nouwen a “wounded healer” himself. Ironically, it is Adam, also a wounded healer, who becomes Nouwen’s spiritual guide. It is Adam who, through his own unchosen vulnerability, becomes the inspiration for Nouwen to touch the depths of his own vulnerabilities.

Nouwen recounts how this process led him into his own personal crisis. He puts it this way: “I was going through the deep human struggle to believe in my belovedness even when I had nothing to be proud of.” (79) Coming through his crisis, Nouwen states that: “Somewhere though I recognized that Adam’s way, the way of radical vulnerability, was also the way of Jesus.” (79) This, I believe, is Nouwen’s great, perhaps greatest, discovery of his own personal spiritual life. It is this autobiographical truth that is Nouwen’s “pearl of great price.” It is this that he wishes to share with any and all who would read his book. And, I don’t believe Nouwen would care if readers and reviewers said that this wasn’t his best work. I suspect that Nouwen was quite at peace during his dying because he had come to know the truth about himself in a way that he had never known before: that like Jesus and like Adam Arnett, he too, Henri Nouwen, was God’s Beloved. Nothing else really matters.

- Dr.George Matejka, Chair, Philosophy Department, Ursuline College, Pepper Pike, OH wrote this book review -

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Marriage Hacks: Free e-book

8/11/2014

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Marriage is an increasingly unnatural and confusing thing for many couples today. In light of this, Tyler Ward—author of Marriage Rebranded—recently asked 25 leaders for their single best marriage advice. The level of insight and wisdom he received is guaranteed to help many navigate this uniquely beautiful relationship called marriage.

Marriage Hacks is a compilation of the best marriage advice from 25 leaders including:

• Gary Chapman, The 5 Love Languages
• William Paul Young, The Shack
• Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage
• Danny Silk, Keep Your Love On
• Jeremy Cowart, Celebrity Photographer
• Jonathan Jackson, Emmy-Award-Winning Actor
• And many more...

The book speaks to some of the most common questions in marriage including...

• how to keep things from never going stale
• how to handle personality difference
• show to cultivate emotional intimacy
• how to spice things up in the bedroom
• what to do when your spouse isn’t as intentional in your relationship as you are
• and more...

If marriage is hard for you at the moment, this read will simply comfort you to know you're not alone.

If marriage is amazing and fruitful, it will help you sustain.

If marriage is confusing, it will offer some insight on this unique union.

If marriage feels pointless, it will add purpose and depth.

To download this free e-book, go to: http://books.noisetrade.com/tylerward/marriage-hacks

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More God = Less crime

10/7/2013

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Byron R. Johnson, a professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, who compiled a survey of every study between 1944 and 2010 that measured the possible effect of religion on crime. He found 273 such studies. As he reports in "More God, Less Crime," even though their authors used different methods and assessed different groups of people, 90% of these studies found that more religiosity resulted in less crime. Only 2% found that religion produced more crime. (The remaining 8% found no relationship either way.)

Does this prove that religion reduces crime? Not precisely, for these are all quasi-experimental studies. If they were truly experimental and thus carried greater intellectual weight, the researchers would direct people, none of whom had any religion, either to acquire and practice one or to remain godless and thereby stay in the control group. We would then compare the groups' crime rates. Doing this would be immoral, illegal and impractical, and so we are left with studies that compare religious and nonreligious people and try to control statistically for other factors that might explain away the religion-and-crime link.

How much confidence, then, should we have in nonexperimental studies? Not a lot, as none of the studies that Mr. Johnson cites show the statistical controls necessary to evaluate them. But offsetting this weakness is the number of studies showing a religious effect. And we can look at a few of the best ones, such as that by Richard Freeman. A Harvard professor of economics, he arranged for 2,358 young black men living in downtown Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia to be interviewed. He found that, other things (such as family and economic background) being equal, going to church is associated with substantial differences in how young men behave. More churchgoing, less crime, less alcohol and fewer drugs. As Mr. Freeman puts it: "The effect of churchgoing is not the result of churchgoing youth having 'good attitudes.' " If you want to see his reasons, look at his book "The Black Youth Employment Crisis" (1986).

The interesting question is whether society can make religion more important in the lives of convicted offenders. The largest effort to do this is managed by the Prison Fellowship, an organization created by Charles Colson in the 1970s when he was in jail after having pleaded guilty to charges involving his role in the Nixon administration's effort to discredit Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers leaker.

Evaluating the Prison Fellowship program is not easy. Inmates, according to the organization, must complete all three phases of its program in order to benefit. Phase one involves Bible study while in prison; phase two requires community service during the day at a nearby city; and phase three means linking up with mentors and churches in the community. Each phase lasts about a year.

Mr. Johnson looked at the program's effectiveness in Texas and found that those who completed all three phases were much less likely to be arrested or incarcerated for a new crime than those who dropped out. The key question is whether the inmates who go through all three phases differ in other ways from those who never join the program or drop out early.

In an earlier study of inmates at four New York prisons, Mr. Johnson says, there was no difference between Fellowship and non-Fellowship groups over an eight-year period except for those members of the program who worked hard at Bible studies. Even then, the effect lasted for only two or three years after their release.

But these findings do not fully address a problem that social scientists call "selection bias." If people who join a long program and stay with it are different in motivation from those who drop out, we cannot be sure that Bible study makes a difference. The selection-bias problem, I suspect, afflicts many of the studies that Mr. Johnson summarizes. The strongest results come from studies (there are a few) that compare people in the Prison Fellowship with those who volunteered for it but weren't selected.

But wait, the story doesn't end there....The second story that Mr. Johnson has to tell in "More God, Less Crime" is about what happens to academics—in his case, a criminologist—who turn their attention to religion. When he was a young scholar at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) in the mid-1980s, Mr. Johnson was told by his department chairman that none of his articles involving religion would count toward getting tenure. Though Mr. Johnson began publishing articles in academic journals about subjects other than religion, two years later he was fired. In his appeal to the dean, Mr. Johnson mentioned his publications and high student evaluations. The dean replied: "I don't need to have a reason," adding: "I can let you go if I don't like the color of your eyes."With three small children at home, Mr. Johnson was desperate to save his job. He appealed to the provost, who told him: "You simply don't fit in here. I think you need to consider getting a job teaching at some small Christian college." The provost added, according to Mr. Johnson, that he would have "the same problem" at any other state university. Mr. Johnson then said to the provost: "If I were a Marxist we wouldn't even be having this conversation, would we?" The provost "nodded in agreement."

Mr. Johnson moved on to the University of Pennsylvania, where in the 1990s he continued to publish material on religion (even though the school is funded in large part by the state). In 2004, he took a job at Baylor University, a private Baptist institution, where he has been quite successful. His advice to young scholars: Get tenure before you start writing about religion.

This post came from the Wall Street Journal. It was written by James Q Wilson. The original article can be found here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703778104576287043835803026.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_opinion

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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My sins aren't as bad as yours

5/30/2013

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A temptation on the road to reverence is to stop and gawk at the wrecks in other people’s lives. Maybe it makes us feel better that while we may be struggling with one thing or another at least we’re not like that. Jesus tells a story of two men who go to the temple to pray. One was a gawker—that appears to be the audience Jesus intends this particular story to teach.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 18:9-14, NIV).

Other people’s sins are much easier to confess than our own. Other people’s brokenness is much easier to mock than our own. But God seems to be seeking something other than “holiness police.” God loves those who, rather than sizing up the difference between themselves and other “more sinful” people, instead bow low in recognition of their own unworthiness compared to Holy God. The road to reverence is paved with humility.

Prayer Position

Notice the position of the two men in prayer. The Pharisee stands on his own two feet proud of his goodness but the tax collector “would not even look up to heaven.” One was confident in his righteousness and the other knew God was good and he was not. The tax collector trusted God enough, or at least was desperate enough, to cry out for mercy. Which one does Jesus say went home forgiven?

God desires honesty. God wants truth. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-12, NIV).

The Same Boat

We’re all in the same boat. We’ve all sinned. We’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. None of us are all we were created to be, but yet somehow we have the audacity to condemn others while seeking pardon for ourselves. Or do we think we are without sin? We sing, “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,” but then try to claim it exclusively. Saved a wretch like me, not a wretch like you, you’re the wrong kind of wretch.

None of this is intended to say that sin is not serious. It is. It is deadly. It separates us from Holy God. But God is greater than our sin. God is also greater than our neighbor’s sin. Remember what Jesus told Nicodemus? “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17). While we need to take sin seriously we must take God even more seriously.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin?

Sometimes Christians are seen as hateful when we point out the sins of others. But we claim this is not true. We “love the sinner and hate the sin.” I’m sure I’ve said that myself. But just this week I saw a quote by singer and humorist Mark Lowry with some important words to consider. They are helpful as we wrestle with sin and grace and how to live reverently. Mark said, “Love the sinner, hate the sin? How about: Love the sinner, hate your own sin! I don’t have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you! Hating my sin is a full-time job. How about you hate your sin, I’ll hate my sin and let’s just love each other!”

But too many of us are like the Pharisee in the story. We thank God we are not like those… fill in your blank here. Those drunks, those adulterers, those gays, those right wingers, those liberals, those “whatever we are not” people whose sins we want to highlight rather than allow the light of Christ to work in us. It is irreverent to do what God does not, to rank the sins of others as worse than our own. Since we are all in the same boat maybe we shouldn’t be so eager to see it sink.

Mercy Triumphs

James challenges us: “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’, you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, also said, ‘You shall not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:8-13, NIV).

It’s stunning to consider we have broken the entire law. All of it! How in the world can we then turn around and point a condemning finger at others when their sin is ours as well? But if our guilt is stunning, this is more so. God has mercy on us. God casts our sin as far as the east is from the west. Through Jesus Christ we find not only pardon for our sin but power to become all we were created to be. Our response to God is worship. The appropriate response to others is mercy and love.

A Journey of Grace

Though we journey toward reverence we’re not there yet. We couldn’t have even started on our own. It’s all about grace. Grace, grace, grace: grace to draw us, grace to forgive us and grace to make us as we should be.

One thing I know is that gawking slows us down. Sometimes it even causes us to wreck. Let’s keep our eyes on the road.

This excerpt is from the book, Irreverent: Finding Our Way Home. Order the book here or the Kindle edition here.

This post is taken from Seedbed, provided by Rev John Leece. For the original post with comments, go to: http://seedbed.com/feed/noticing-other-peoples-sins/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Relational Theology: A Review

2/21/2013

4 Comments

Relational Theology: A Contemporary Introduction

When Dr Oord asked me to review this book, I was in a bit of a quandary. Why would a theologian want my opinion about his newest book? Theology is just a hobby of mine, like my interest in cultural anthropology. I think maybe because I had written him about I much I enjoyed his earlier book, Relational Holiness and have engaged in online discussions with him, he must have thought I would have something interesting to say.

Being a counselor educator by profession, I am frequently evaluating the writings of my students, the research pertaining to my field and am trying to incorporate my hobbies into my professional life, looking for overlap. This book did bring together my profession and my hobbies.

I was glad to write this short review. I am new to the field of Relational Theology. Hopefully without being offensive, I would retitle the book, Relational Theology for Dummies. I don’t say that because I think that the book is not worthy of reading, I say it because it is a perfect book for someone like me: someone who is not a professional theologian, but someone who wants to understand the Relational branch of Christian theology in a simple format

This is a very easy read and covers many different areas of Relational Theology. It contains 31 chapters that are short and heavily edited. These chapters are grouped into four sections: 1) Doctrines of Theology in Relational Perspective, 2) Biblical Witness in Relational Perspective, 3) The Christian Life in Relational Perspective, and 4) Ethics and Justice in Relational Perspective. There were several contributors I recognized and even some with whom I have been personally acquainted: Callen, Oord, Lodahl, Flood, Winslow, Thompson, Peterson, Leclerc, Salguero, Mann and many others.

To give you a flavor of the book, I’ll share with you some of my favorites sections:

-       “God is understood to be truly personal, loving, and not manipulative (7).”

-       “God’s grace works powerfully, but not irresistibly, in matters of human life and salvation. God empowers our “response-ability” without overriding our genuine responsibility (8).”

-       “God created humanity to be in responsible relationship with Him, and to find its identity – the “image of God” – in relationship. Yet humanity sought to become independent of its Creator and claim self-sufficiency (15).”

-       “God is love, and if we truly live in relationship with God, we will live in love with others and all creation (16).”

-       “When we explore relationship through the notions of love and trust, we see that faith and relationship become inseparable (34).”

-       “A relational interpretation of the Christian faith proceeds on the assumption that God has created us human beings to be loved and to love … sin is a term that may be identified with any falling short of God’s ideal for us: a life of love (37).”

-       “Through intimate union with God in Christ in a living personal relationship, we are transformed into His likeness. We do not merely follow His example. Rather, we become Christlike through abiding in Christ, through living in God (41).”

-       “To read Scripture as the Church means that we read with God and with one another. We listen to what God calls of us as the people of God. We also listen to one another, as we discern what that call might even mean for us, at this time and in this place (60).”

-       “Prayer is waking up to the presence of God (67).”

-       “Too many of us function like atheists when it comes to prayer. We claim belief in God, but we do not act on it (68).”

-       “God not only created us for relationship, God also seeks to restore and strengthen that relationship when strained (81).”

-       “Love is at the heart of ethics (89).”

-       “God is love. Love attempts to care for all people. Love considers how power affects the lives of people (94).”

-       “Holiness only exists in it expression, which is love (102).”

-       “God has freely created all that is … creatures are free because they have been created by God to reflect and embody God’s loving freedom (108).”

-       “Obedience, which reflects love and gratitude, cannot be forced, because the nature of love requires freedom to obey (112).”

-       “When freedom to obey means freedom to disobey, the relational God pursues the exiles from Eden. God reminds them they could choose restoration and peace (112).”

-       “All creation is interrelated and creation is ongoing. God is both Creator at the beginning and continues to create today (114).”

This book is an exciting compilation of the best of today’s Relational Theologians that quickly became very meaningful to me as I ponder my relationship with God. I could easily have quoted many more sections of this book and would heartily recommend that you read it as well.

One of the things that I like about this book is also its biggest weakness. This book is edited so that the chapters are short, less than four pages. That made it easy for an armchair theologian like myself who needs time to digest concepts and not feel overwhelmed in jargon. However the short chapters, in an attempt to explain concepts, at times seemed a bit disjointed, jumping from one concept to another within the same chapter, reading a bit choppy.

One suggestion for the reprint as I’m sure that this book will become popular: I would suggest that each chapter reference the author's recommended bibliography. This would help the reader follow-up in more detail the chapters that interest him/her more.

My grateful thanks is extended to Dr Oord for providing me with a copy of this book. I would recommend you purchase this book if you desire a cursory overview of Relational Theology. It is the first serving of a theological meal that won’t completely whet your appetite but leave you hungry for a bigger helping.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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