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Re: Against Fundamentalism?

Geoff Holsclaw — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 15:13:57 -0000

Oh, I would welcome a book called "Against Fundamentalism". I really think that much of the deconstructive crazy is fueled by a rejection of fundamentalism (as a collection of believes, but also as posture and practice). I really think we need to reintroduce the language of "fundamentalism" as an analytic tool for understanding American religion in the present day.

What people reject as "evangelical" is more closely aligned with "fundamentalism". I've started using "conservative-fundamentalist" in opposition to "progressive-liberal" as a way to distinguish that I'm neither of those options.

Re: America’s Satanic Landlord

Geoff Holsclaw — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 09:19:20 -0000

Dr Jenkins, I'm reading through The Dawn of Everything also, and find it fascinating. It certainly calls out for engagement between religious historians, biblical scholars, and theologians, even though it seems like the authors seems to go out of their way not to bring up religion as such as possible.

The idea of a conference around this book would be amazing. Count me interested.

Re: Reviewing David Bentley Hart

Geoff Holsclaw — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 13:24:25 -0000

Yes, Chrissy, those are great counter-examples. And yes, I could enter in and "save" them from addition by taking them to a clinic, I could snatch them out of a cult, but there is also a chance that my son would hate me for it--believing that what I had done was evil in removed what they perceived as their only true good thing.

So what of this strange situation where they are "saved" by resent it? This is the possibility that Hart, and universalists as I hear them, seem to omit. The demand that all WILL/MUST be saved (as a convinced universalist like Hart claims--not like a hopeful universalist who hopes/expects all will be saved but doesn't know it) seems to force that face that even God will change their minds.

So a loving God forces us to be saved, and he forces us to like it? Now who is twisting what "love" means into a monstrosity?

I'm much more comfortable claiming that "God invites us into salvation and invites us into the joy of relationship." This invitation might very well be received by all (a hopeful universalism), but Hart's demand that it be so or God is a monster actually makes God into a different kind of monster.

Re: Reviewing David Bentley Hart

Geoff Holsclaw — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 21:22:19 -0000

Tom, I would love to know which other books you read. While obviously I don't support Hart's form of universalism, I'm interested in other views.

Re: Reviewing David Bentley Hart

Geoff Holsclaw — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 21:20:22 -0000

Chrissy,
Thanks for your response. And indeed you are right to direct attention to the underlying premises: What does it mean that God is good? Hart's set up his metaphysical machine a certain way and on it going toward universalism. I set mine up differently. I don't in the end want to end the discuss with we all just get to think what we want. I think in a sense we are more responsible to the biblical revelation, and my sense is that Hart's version of Eastern Orthodoxy is less interested in that. That's why I'm Protestant, and he isn't.

But to your point about father's and children, then example does make my point. Did God set up a world in which he intended to treat us as infant forever, needed to intervene and save us from danger? I don't think that was the metaphysical end (or the "final good" God had in mind). When my boys were infants I cared for them as if they were helpless (and irresponsible). When they were teenagers I gave them more responsibility and allowed them to experience the consequences of their actions. When they become adults then I will treat them with dignity and respect their decision and way of life, even if I disagree with it.

I think the "moral imagination" that universalists use in the parent-child metaphors is to perpetually infantalize humanity.

So I disagree with your assertion that Hart could just add an addendum to his argument, because that addendum would fundamentally change his premises, it would change his argument.

Re: Reviewing David Bentley Hart

Geoff Holsclaw — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 10:48:48 -0000

Rodney, Thanks for pointing me to that resource. I'll check it out. I'm definitely willing to rethink the presence/absence argument. I don't think I've argued against all forms of universalism, but I have reservations about Hart's version.

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 13:28:57 -0000

Thanks. I'll check it out.

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 08:55:42 -0000

Bob, thanks for pointing me to those passages. I'll check them out again and see if how they might influence what I said. Thanks.

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 15:03:33 -0000

Bob, but why the either/or? We don't have to choose between God speaks and the Bible is entirely inerrant in all it says, or the Bible has confusions/contradictions because it is a human production. I think we can say that 1) God speaks and has spoken, acts and has acted in a recordable way, 2) that our recordings (the witnesses of and witnesses to) that speaking/acting are varied, diverse, ancient and ambiguous.

I'm not sure Enns is as clearly in the both/and category now as he might have been when he wrote "Inspiration & Incarnation".

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 13:23:45 -0000

Yes, I love John Walton. He is my go to guy on much of this.

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 11:11:11 -0000

Phil, thanks for pressing the use of "imagine". I appreciate that. And I'm very open to the sense of "imagination" as opening up new possibilities of thought and action, that in a sense, we imagine our realities as open is part of what makes us creative and even in the "image" of God. So i'm all for the critique of modern rationalism and all that (Imagination and story are close cousins in this sense).

But I'm not sure that his how Enns is using the word "reimagine". He used that word pretty interchangably with "adapt", "update", and "evolve". That semantic grouping, along with little to no sense that God is actually speaking/working, makes it hard for me to understand the difference between Enns' view and Feuerbach's view that "God" is just a projection of humanity's values and commitments, updated-adapted-evolving-reimagined for contemporary, post-enlightenment, scientifically savvy Christians.

I think there are other options for "saving" the Bible and I worry that those moving from fundamentalism via Enns will in fact in 5-10 years just wake up and say, "Screw it" to faith.

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 11:01:24 -0000

Thanks so much for reading my ebook. I appreciate it. You are right that I don't engage the issues that Enns is looking at. The difference between Enns and I isn't so much on "HOW the Bible works" but on "WHAT the Bible is." While Enns focuses on the first part, and say he has little interest in the second question, he still answers it in his book. His answers is that the Bible just IS a collection of wise adaptions of "God" by various human/communities. I answer (and I think we need to if we are just going to ultimately make ourselves the authority of our own realities) that the Bible is *in some way* connected to God's own Word, that the Bible is connected *in some way* to God speaking and act for the benefit of humanity.

You bring us Boyd and I think he is a much better, but more nuanced and difficult option than Enns. Boyd is trying grapple with God at work in history and reality, and yet these words in the Bible seem so out of place (and terrible--texts of terror).

Also, Enns maximizes the interpretive difficulties in many spots to make his points that I think are a disservice to unsuspecting readers. Yes, Samuel-Kings is different than Chronicles, but there are good reason for this, etc.

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 10:51:34 -0000

Bob, thanks for jumping in. In this post I was reviewing Enns most recent book, not his podcast or his blog. In this book I find no evidence that Enns "easily affirms that God 'speaks to us" (as you say). Throughout his book his sentence construction always refer to what humans in the Bible say about God. He never talks about what God actually said or did. The only connection to history we get is the human production of texts. Enns never entertains the possibility that is some fashion God was actually doing and saying things in history. Yes, getting at history (what God has done or said) is messy and difficult, but it is still worth trying to do. Otherwise the Bible is just as important (or not) some other body of literature.

I'm not looking for some easy going foundationalism to solve all our problem. But I am looking for more than the postmodern play of texts, interpretations, and wise adaptations. I haven't seem more than the play of texts from Enns for quite a while.

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 10:45:41 -0000

AHH, thanks for posting. Yes do need to attend to the text that we have in the Bible and not pretend that it something that it is. Enns is right about that. As far as how to build up a new paradigm or theology of Scripture, for it me it would mean not starting with Scripture. I start my theology classes at Northern by talking about the Resurrection of Jesus (a historical event that spills for all sorts of things...). I start with Michael Pahl's "From Resurrection to New Creation" where he starts the process of theology with the statement: "In the beginning God raised Jesus from the dead." This, and the incarnation, and the crucifixion, and then the discovery that God is truine, all these constituted the church before the Bible existed, and they should inform how we understand the Bible with the broader reality of "God's Word" and God speaking. So that is the beginning of my constructive project I guess.

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 12:42:02 -0000

Tim, thank you so much for commenting. Yes, I think you are right. My review as getting long as it was, but I think you are pressing into all the right areas.

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Saving the Bible, but Losing God

Geoff Holsclaw — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 10:58:44 -0000

Phil, thanks for the response. I appreciate it. I agree there shouldn't be a dichotomy between God speaking and people reimagining. I believe that God is always partnering with humanity (that's basically how I understand humanity being made in God's image--that we are co-creators with God in bringing the Kingdom to bear on earth).

I was hoping that my post was bringing balance to a side of the God/human equation that Enns was lacking. His talk about wisdom and reimaging are solely from the side of humanity. His project (even if he protests such a categorization) is to treat the Bible solely as a human artifact without exploring the possibility that the Bible (the events witnessed within it) is some way revelatory of God as God, not just "God" as humans imagine "God" to be.

I was attempting to integrate a dichotomy that Enns has created (on the side of humanity and the neglect of God) and that fundamentalists have created (on the side of God to the neglect of humanity).

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Is the Bible Just Humans Updating God as it Goes?

Geoff Holsclaw — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 06:11:15 -0000

Part two just went live: https://www.patheos.com/blo...

Re: Reviewing Pete Enns: Is the Bible Just Humans Updating God as it Goes?

Geoff Holsclaw — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 09:53:39 -0000

I'm working on it today, hopefully by the end of the week at the latest.

Re: What’s Behind the Frequent Mass Shootings in the United States?

Geoff Holsclaw — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 15:29:18 -0000

I would check out "The Boy Crisis" by Farrell. Excellent recent diagnosis on what is afflicting young men.

Re: Where Should Theology Begin?

Geoff Holsclaw — Sun, 02 Dec 2018 15:23:38 -0000

I can agree with starting with God rather than revelation/scripture. But what about starting with Jesus' resurrection and/or new creation.

Re: Who Is the Ruler of this World? An Answer for Bible-believing Christians

Geoff Holsclaw — Wed, 23 May 2018 09:51:16 -0000

Roger, which is the best book by Boyd that covers these things. Thanks.

Re: Who Is the Ruler of this World? An Answer for Bible-believing Christians

Geoff Holsclaw — Tue, 22 May 2018 14:25:54 -0000

Roger, I totally agree. Just last week on my class on the church and culture, after going through the Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed options was to say, "All these basically ignore the fact that the only other kingdom ever mentioned in the Bible is the kingdom of darkness—not the common, secular kingdom, or spheres of God's soveriegnty."

Re: The Evangelical Preaching Of The Cross: Blood

Geoff Holsclaw — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 09:49:26 -0000

Yes, I agree about the "forgiveness" translation. The post was getting long so I cut that. I had an entire section on "remission" of sin being a better translation. But maybe it is just out theological use of forgiveness that is the problem. Everyday usage of forgiveness means "bearing away" or "not allowing to influence the future relationship". But too often out theological traditions (i.e. penal substitution) make forgiveness to mean "punishment carried out on another".

Re: The Evangelical Preaching Of The Cross: Redemption

Geoff Holsclaw — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 08:12:32 -0000

Yes, thanks for jumping in. I definitely agree. The penal substitution view focuses on redemption as an economic exchange of equivalent kind for kind. But they ignore the military situation of prisoners of war or enslavement retailing rescue. I think it is yet against a constriction of the imagination to the economic and exchangeable.

Re: A Forgotten Reason To Listen To Jesus

Geoff Holsclaw — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:16:42 -0000

Rob, thanks for your comments. And thank you for continually driving us back to the texts. It is important to acknowledge the difference between knowing something on the surface and really understanding it. Someone who is colorblind can know that there is a difference between blue and red hues (and they can know people who can distinguish them). But the colorblind person cannot act effectively on the knowledge of red and blue because the don't effectively experience the difference.

I think that Adam and Eve coming to know good and evil after eating the fruit is similar to this case. They now have a sense for good and evil—that there is a difference—where before they only knew and pursued the what is good (and knew the ONE who is good). But their knowledge of good and evil is defective and corrupt, a problem immediately passed on to at least one of their sons, Cain, with the rest of Gen. 4-11 showing just how evil humanity had become.