So I created a myspace account and a facebook account awhile back, primarily to in some way stay in touch with those I left behind in Oregon when I graduated; however, I found that I began to post more and more on the myspace page, but myspace is not the kind of atmosphere that really aids discussion. Anyways, I've now moved over to blogspot, to post words, which are by and large theological words. Ta da.

I was reading a friend's blog and the comments left on an article of his. One of the comments cites theopedia and I came away annoyed for two reasons.

First, I've looked at theopedia before, but I've been put off because on first look it seems like a democratized wikipedia, but it really *only* allows for a reformed and a hyper-literalized methodolical outlook which in my book restricts the conversation about the subject or the richness of the articles themselves. Encyclopedia's do not have statments of faith.

"All of Theopedia's content is, in accordance with the writing guide, required to conform to the following:

... Calvinism - Inasmuch as this refers to the five points of Calvinism and absolute predesination, we affirm it.

... Creation - We affirm a literal understanding of six-day creation."

Not to mention that personally an editor must affirm:

"We believe the Bible is the written word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and without error in the original manuscripts. The Bible is the revelation of God's truth and is infallible and authoritative in all matters of faith and practice."

Barth could not be allowed to be involved in the shaping of the website. Um... thats a fairly large exclusion and seems entirely counter to the point of theology - discussion. So point #1, one ought to proceed through theopedia with caution.

Unfortunately on the other hand, Gunton summaries do not seem to have a large presence on the internet, or Trinitarian Theology as a whole for that matter. Neither the Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology or Religion Online devote specific space, which is clearly a hole that will hopefully be fixed. The hole is worrisome, but points to a greater problem, or at least something that I think is problematic - the conversation about, or lack thereof, of Trinitarian theology.

Here at Union, whenever I refer back to a social Trinitarian God within my papers, teachers write good marks about it, but it rarely comes up in class. Thus, there isn't necessarily a lack of acceptance in a very liberal seminary, but rather, little talk on it. And so I wonder, if Trinitarian theology is accepted by all manner of theologians, why is there seemingly little talk about it on the internet? It is not that people don't ever talk about Gunton's work or are impacted by it, so why is there seemingly, on the whole, a lack of talk on recent Trinitarian work (just links for books to buy)?

Here again is another thesis from my Moltmann/Metz class and taken from Theology of Hope:

Moltmann's term "eschatological" is defined by a forward-looking, Christological dialectic between the cross and resurrection within the kingdom of God.

To understand the cross and resurrection, particularly as the basis for eschatology and the breaking in of the kingdom, it is necessary to understand death and re-life as a theological category, as opposed to an andocentric idea; cross and resurrection is fundamentally not existential (Bultmann) or historical (Schweitzer), but rather an action that makes our history and locating us within a promise and identity, while pushing us toward the eschaton (165, 181).

The heart of Moltmann's use of the term "eschatological" is found in the Christological dialectic of the cross and resurrection (200), this is to say, that both the suffering death and glorious resurrection retain an equal amount of weight and continually informing the other, all the while, both push us forward into the promise and hope of the future horizon (211). Simply put, "one could say that Christian eschatology is the study of the tendency of the resurrection and future of Christ" (195).

While eschatology finds its specific understanding in the cross and resurrection, we cannot rightly understand the death and resurrection without the greater foundation of the kingdom of God (216). It is in the cross and resurrection that the kingdom and its promises are fulfilled and proclaimed; the kingdom breaks into the current reality in proclamation and action about and through the cross and resurrection (the conquering of death, 210-211), and at the same time speaking of a future through the "mission and love of Christ" through cross and resurrection (220).

Eschatological also has another aspect that is inherently participatory; we proclaim Christ as the Christ who proclaimed the kingdom (219), while at the same time we imbue the missional idea in Christ-like suffering and solidarity (211, 212, 224).


Thoughts?

So I just got back from a week in Paris. woo hoo. The tickets were dirt cheap and it was spring break. I returned back a changed person, primarily because I got engaged (sorry for those of you I haven't gotten to personally telling yet). Also I took a crap load of pictures (412 in all, of which about 200 worked out good and/or are duplicates) and I uploaded about 70? to my flickr account. So go see 'em.

This is an addition for another Dorrien class to the previous post. It should help explain the Social Gospel and Niebuhr a bit better for those of you have read neither.

...I have elected to focus on Walter Rauschenbusch's and Reinhold Niebhur's ideas of sin. I focus on sin because it was: a. one of the more positive steps I saw of Niebuhr (as I wrote earlier) and b. sin can be a starting point in theology – for we must recognize that there is something very wrong with the world in order to respond to the problem – and therefore the view of sin can govern our theology, much like the questions we ask determine the answers we discover.

Contrasting Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr's Ideas of Sin
Interestingly, both Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr reference the fall (Rauschenbusch, 39-40; Dorrien, 456), which should seem an obvious place to start; however, both also are intent with reinterpreting the fall, sin in general, and also specifically original sin (Rauschenbusch, 38-68; Dorrien, 456). However, there is little that they have in common beyond merely talking about sin and fallenness.

Rauschenbusch's definition of sin is "self-love", that is to say: "We set our desires against the rights of others, and disregard the claims of mercy, of gratitude, or of parental love" (Rauschenbusch, 46). And this sin of self-love is found in three forms: sensuousness, selfishness, and godlessness, which accordingly are sins against "our higher self, against the good of men, and against the universal good" (Rauschenbusch, 46-47). Importantly, Self-love is open and flexible to encompass all number of violations both personal and relational. Nevertheless, more important from an idea of sin as relational is the idea of identity. Sin is intrinsically linked to the kingdom of evil (Rauschenbusch, 77-94), the structure that opposes the kingdom of God in whom the Christian resides as a part of, specifically the body of Christ from which identity comes from. Thus the Christian opposes sin on two fronts, the personal and social.

Niebuhr saw sin as pride and pride, as defined by Niebuhr, is to: step beyond one's self; to assume too much about one's self; that "evil is always a good that imagines itself to be better than it is" (Dorrien, 456). Essentially pride is assuming a greater eminence of one's self than one ought – not in relation to others, but in terms of self-abilities, or lack thereof, and in relation to the infinite. In other words, pride (followed by deceit – which can be the relational aspect of sin) is decided by hierarchy, rather than through relationality. Simply put, pride is a comparison and misidentification of power and innate ability.

In my view, Niebuhr's view of sin is limiting, lacks nuance, and problematizes identity. While it is possible to extrapolate a social idea of pride, inherently the social pride would be the pride of a group of individuals and not the pride of an organism. Also, this group is given amnesty by Niebuhr when he charges that the teachings of Jesus are for "counsels of perfection, not prescriptions for social order or justice" (Dorrien, 458). Rightly understood, groups are not held to a theological understanding of right because Niebuhr claims there is none. Therefore, pride only extends to the individual and only to when the individual is not acting within a group, otherwise they would be exempt for their actions (i.e. war is not murder). Thus, Niebuhrian sin is limiting because: it only speaks to the individual; lacks depth for it only speaks of the vertical relationship between human and divine-infinite (Dorrien, 458); and resolves identity down to power and ability.

Ultimately I prefer the Rauschenbusch understanding of sin; it most clearly coincides with the identity of a Christian – within the organic body of Christ (the basileia) – and thus does not look at people as power, but rather as relational beings who embody and reflect the social Trinitarian God in both personal and social atmospheres.

The texts used are: Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity 1900-1950 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003) and Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1977).

So this is a paper I had to read for class discussion in American Theological Liberalism. Its a response to Dorriens Volume 2 on American Theological Liberalism, specifically on Reinhold Niebuhr as a Neo-Liberal (not a Neo-Orthodox).

One caveat, I approach this critique as a theologian, not an ethicist (actually I personally don't like the categories as separate, rather that my theology is my ethics, or at least so close to being ethics that it is uncomfortable to separate the categories). Niebuhr liked to just get straight to the issues and set up an ethical answer to a problem, and without a method. In other words, Niebuhr was not a theologian, and in fact never claimed to be (actually claimed he was not a theologian), rather he was a social ethicist and constructed systematic, ethical thought structures. Niebuhr did not construct a theological systematic structure (for example, he had virtually no ecclesiology); however, Niebuhr still did theological things and spoke on theological subjects. And so it is from a theological standpoint that I critique the man who vehemently turned against pacifism and the social gospel.

Thoughts anyone?

Niebuhr as Critic and Prophet
If there is one thing to write easily about Reinhold Niebuhr, it was his prophetic role within theology; Niebuhr was clearly a critic. However, he and his followers thought of themselves as more than critics, but rather they were carving a new way (459), and the first steps along this new path required the rejection of past theology.

Although Niebuhr did build up his own theses and ideas within theology, he neglected to flesh out a systematic theology in any sense of the term or outline a method (480) and thus seemed to remain a critic by virtue of what he did say. In other words, Reinhold Niebuhr was a man who yelled "no" very loudly, repeatedly, and many times harshly (449). For instance: "The United States had barely entered the war against Japan when Niebuhr began to complain that American Christianity's prowar pronouncements were nearly as insufferable as its earlier isolationism" (472).

As Niebuhr played the critic, without acknowledgement to the debt he owed liberal theology, he achieved a renowned status. Nevertheless, it was a status of negation, without a strong systemized thought of his own and taking liberal theology for granted, the result of Niebuhr's work satisfied not only himself and fellow neoliberals, but also encouraged something he did not intend – "illiberalism, dogmatism or conservatism in politics or religion" (479). It is difficult for others to appropriate to a large extent what one says when one is explicitly grounded in a systematic thought.

To Niebuhr's credit, near the end of his life, he did attempt to further clarify his position (478-479, 482), but only with varying degrees of success. Ultimately, Niebuhr as critic gained a great deal of support, but not necessarily only those with Niebuhr's goals in mind, rather anyone opposed to the conventional liberalism of the time. However, personally, I feel that Niebuhr by and large retained too much of a prophetic role and did not flesh out well enough a theology for others to build upon.
Niebuhr the Critic as Ideologue for the Government Status Quo.

It is arguable, and indeed seems likely, that Niebuhr as a critic wrote for the advancement into World War II when he backed the re-election of Roosevelt (465), but it is very clear that Niebuhr the critic became the basis "for the 'containment' strategy of Cold War liberalism" and his realism "a form of apologetics for the American status quo" (473, 475). Niebuhr as critic wrote for an action of containment of communism, that "perverted religion" bent on world conquest, with the idea to maintain pressure on the Soviet Union and limit its growth (475). To a theoretical end, Niebuhr's realism of the 1950s could be used to justify actions like the Korean and Vietnam wars – which actually did happen, despite Niebuhr's eventual denouncement of the Vietnam war (475). Thus in the end, Niebuhr spoke for the status quo.

Niebuhr also spoke the status quo concerning domestic issues:
"Welfare-state capitalism was attaining as much of the democratic socialist ideal of social justice as appeared to be attainable, he believed. By creating a system of countervailing labor, capitalist, and governmental power, American civilization had vindicated the dreams of the social gospelers and progressives without resorting to (much) economic nationalization." (475)

Unfortunately, Niebuhr's grasp of the social gospel seems limited, for when setting power against power, the poor are now crushed between the two mighty powers in their fights against each other, instead of powers off setting one another and therefore freeing the poor.

Ultimately for a time, Niebuhr the critic became apologist for the status quo in his refutation against the communist threat and, though he said, "the struggle for social justice is never finished," his realism became the American status quo and ceased acting prophetically, but instead argued for American conquest.

Niebuhr's Idea of the Sin and Social
One of the redeeming actions that Niebuhr took, for me that is, was his stance on sin. Though I disagree that sin equals pride, for it seems too simplistic and may have hindered him from speaking out on race problems, I do agree with the relational aspects that Niebuhr incorporated (456, 476). Also, I agree that liberalism of the past had lost touch with the nature of humanity, biblically speaking, and Niebuhr stood as a good corrective for the liberal tradition. If there is one great and lasting mark that Niebuhr has made within the liberal tradition, it is the fact that liberalism will always have some voice that speaks prophetically against the Enlightment ideals of humanity in favor of human fallenness (456).

However, I strongly disagree with Niebuhr's formulation of the individual and society, particularly in this case that Jesus preached moral ideals for the individual, not for the social (458). Niebuhr broke apart the individual and the social, claiming the social can "never overcome the power of self-interest and collective egotism that sustains their existence" (449). I can see how Niebuhr got to his compartmentalizing, but I disagree with it. Unfortunately, he seemed to ignore the church within the kingdom, because he looked upon it as "sentimental idealism" of the Social Gospel (450).

My path towards a Social Gospel is a minority for most social gospelers. I started with a problem that I saw in the evangelical church, that it lacked cohesion and relationality in the church, specifically the mega-church. Instead of brothers and sisters gathering for encouragement and support for themselves and those in the surrounding community, the church in my eyes seemed like a poorly done academic lecture with the inclusion of a popular sub-culture that had no intention of addressing the needs of people, much less addressing people holistically. I began focusing on what I saw to be the root of the problem, the presupposition of individualism over community; instead of relational nature of the church acting like the body of Christ, the church attempted to merely convey bits of knowledge for personal change, if the change was not too uncomfortable, and a few songs in a sing-a-long form. My struggle for visioning a right community led me towards kingdom theology – that is, the body of Christ enacting now the values of the suffering Christological and eschatological kingdom. From kingdom theology, it is a very small step to the Social Gospel.

I realize I come at this from a very different way than Niebuhr, perhaps he was not located or rooted well within the church or he focused too much on Americanizing himself and his German church, but it seems inadequate to merely call idealistic and brush away the idea of the kingdom breaking into the now, particularly after I have experienced it with others on a continual basis. While the Social Gospel would have done well with a critique, I fear that Niebuhr dismissed too quickly and too radically the Social Gospel in his prophetic role and, when he did finally find a foundation, it was as the status quo of imperialism which the Social Gospel is always seeking to change and not the final realization of the Social Gospel.

Conclusion
While I value some critiques that Niebuhr brought forward, like his re-emphasis on sin and human fallenness, I wonder that he acted too prophetically and broke too radically from liberal tradition without acknowledging his debt and therefore actually left a relatively small legacy beyond his own time in comparison to his height during his life.

Again I've decided to post a thesis from my Moltmann/Metz class. This time it covers about the first hundred and forty pages of Theology of Hope . Thoughts anyone?

Thesis: Moltmann's vision consists of hopeful promises revealed in dynamic history finding their culmination in the now, future and ultimate horizon.

The foundation of Moltmann's vision (hope) comes from the revelatory promises of God; hope, driving theology, is rooted in promise, and therefore, capable of standing in "contradiction to the reality" of present experience (18). These promises come in the midst of history, but at the same time orient a believer from the "dawn" of the day, looking forward with expectation although still mired in one's circumstances (31).

Since history is framed by promise, history is in flux, which is to say, that history is dynamic. The fulfillment of promise continues throughout history, and this "overspill" changes history from merely singularly event oriented to a continual fulfillment or revelation of the promise (107-108). Thus the active story that history tells, framed by promises, is re-imagined at every fulfillment; the promises become larger and larger as the fulfillments become bigger and bigger (105). Thus history, or the representation of the past, is changed continually in light of the revelation of promise/fulfillment and in turn "will lead us to open ourselves and our present to that same future" (108).

However, hope is not merely related to promises, but also fuels our human faith, in fact, hope and faith are inextricably linked. Faith, our belief in the divine, "hopes in order to know what it believes"; it is hope, from our faith, that drives our vitality so necessary to faith (33). Thus faith and the hope of the future explodes the future into the present and the future to come, resulting in church engagement with the world funneling the vision of the future – "righteousness, freedom and humanity" – into the current events of today (22).

So I'm reading for one of my classes - American Theological Liberalism taught by Dorrien - and part of the assigned reading is about the great liberal preacher and teacher Emerson Fosdick. I found this quote within the chapter to be a good way of describing a difference that we know exists between fundamentalists and conservatives, but have a hard time putting a finger on it.

"Fosdick acknowledged that theological conservatism and theological fundamentalism were not exactly the same thing; all fundamentalists are conservative, he explained, but not all conservatives are fundamentalist. The best conservatives have a liberal spirit, 'but the Fundamentalist program is essentially illiberal and intolerant.'"

- Chapter 6, "Practical Divinity" in The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity by Gary Dorrien.

Dorrien describes American Liberal Theology as a third way - a way between "right doctrine" (orthodoxy) and secular culture. Thus I think that this "liberal spirit" within conservatives is an attempt to engage and reach out to culture rather than hide from culture or to dogmatically demand change.

So I'm back at Union now and have completed an entire week of classes. This idea of a J term is brilliant.

Anyways, I figured I'd post something I just wrote for my Moltmann and Metz class. The parameters for the paper are rather specific: a short thesis at the beginning, interact with the readings, address one of the themes, and prove/display your thesis in 300 words or less. This works readings came from Johann Baptist Metz. I'm sure you could find more of him elsewhere on the net other than the short summary on wikipedia.

The question we were to answer was: which theme, out of the many themes (which secularization was one), do we find the most crucial for today. I went with secularization (which Metz spends a long time talking about), but I also saw the connection between another theme that Metz addresses over and over - Auschwitz.

Thesis: The memory of Auschwitz has been supplanted within the church by the secularized American hope to the detriment of the church.

Our culture, as Metz shows, has become increasingly hominized (The Future of Faith 57). While it seems we may be shifting back towards a more cosmological idea due to scientific discoveries, these breakthroughs have had little effect on some aspects of secularization, namely an ideological, secularized hope – a hope that clings to the idea that humanity will overcome, thrive, and conquer future frontiers. It is the secularized and nationalistic hope provided by Reagan (one of many proponents) that has become a controlling ideology that Metz warned against (The Future of Faith 68). This ideology of hope has taken hold of even the American church by mimicking the eschatological Christian hope and, instead of liberating, the ideology holds the globe within Americana's oppressive custody (Theology in Struggle 55). Thus the American church has ceased remembering the atrocities of Auschwitz for the hope of American promises.

It is no wonder that the church has largely ignored Darfur, for the American church has found its hope in the bright, anthropological destiny preached by Reagan. Consequently the church has held to theologies that remain unchanged and unresponsive in the face of Darfur, much less other civil wars, starvation, and drought. We have in turn lost the "messianic praxis" of "discipleship, conversion, love, and suffering", because we have accepted the secularized notion of a nationalistic hope (Christians and Jews 27). With unchanged theologies and the forgetting of Christian suffering, the church does not act in its prophetic role to the world. The secularization of the church through a form of secular hominization has caused us to lose not only the idea of suffering with and for others, but we have also lost ourselves.

Summary: when the church here rejects the Christological hope of the cross and the future for the nationalistic hope of america (we accept the secular hope), we lose our ability to reach out for those who are oppressed -- this acceptance of the American dream (and American "Manifest Destiny) by the church is killing our ability to be the church.

So I'm back in NYC and school starts in a few weeks. For those of you who know of Jürgen Moltmann, I'm happy to say he is stopping by Union here for lunch this thursday. wheeeeee.

Also, I've been given a few links by friends over break that everyone should see.

1. Mr. Deity ..2

2. Portland Drivers

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3. Oh and this one. Fainting Goats