The Little Friar

What we need now is a theology of the quotidian -- after developing a theology of beginnings and endings. What might I mean by "a theology of the quotidian"?  We need a theology of the daily, of the everyday, even of the mundane.  I'm using the word quotidian because Captuo uses it in The Weakness of God and it's a key term in the creation theology described by David Kelsey in his book Eccentric Existence , the creation theology I'd like to borrow to help re-package the last two posts. I'm going to be taking a cue from Kelsey who bases his work in Eccentric Existence upon the creation theology in the OT Wisdom literature rather than upon Genesis 1-3.  And as Kelsey notes, the Wisdom literature "teaches no dogmatic formulation about creation".  Regarding origins and endings these are questions that the Wisdom literature seems uninterested in asking and answering.  The world just is.  Existence is just taken for granted. There are a...

Let me pick back up on developing my theology of revolt .  During the last installment, the take-away lesson is that the Bible doesn't have all that much to say about the origins of evil.  Evil seems to predate the biblical story.  It's the "void" of Genesis 1.2 or the snake in the Garden or the missing backstory about the satan.  To be sure, we can sketch in some of these details, and lots of Christians have.  But I wonder, and this was the general point I wanted to make in the last post, if we shouldn't follow the Bible's lead on this and not speculate overmuch about the origins of evil.  Perhaps the most biblical thing we can do is do what the Bible does:  Assume evil exists and confess that God is that Spirit that moves over creation bringing order, beauty, goodness and light.  We can confess at least that much.  Why evil exists, I can't say.  But I can confess that the Spirit of God is, right now, bringing light into t...

Continuing the series that deals with developing a contemporary theology of revolt, I want to turn today to my reading of the Genesis story.  Specifically, I want to lay out why I think Genesis is the creation of the good world by a vulnerable God. This strong vision of a weak God requires that we deal with some very real questions about Creation and New Creation.  Specifically, how do we understand " omnipotence ", particularly that part that seems to depict God as a powerful creator in the first chapter of Genesis? First, there's the "traditional" reading of Genesis.  On this view, Genesis 1.1 sets up 1.2.  In this reading the first act of creation (1.1) is God creating a chaotic and formless world -- the deep (found in 1.2).  From there God begins to impose order on the chaos (1.3 and following). Then, there's another reading, this one originating in Jewish theology.  For this reading, Genesis  1.1 is not read as an act of creation but re...

I've been setting out a theology of revolt that is grounded in the biblical witness ( Prelude , Parts 1 , 2 , & 3 ).  My ultimate goal is to express my spirituality of the "principalities and powers" that will have a broader appeal.  In the process, at the close of my last post, I claimed that what we need is a weak God.  Today, I want to lay out in some detail what that might mean. I could easily draw on the work of John Caputo's Weakness of God , but Caputo's work doesn't have the broad pastoral appeal that I think is necessary.  That's because Caputo's work is steeped in post-modern deconstruction and Continental philosophy to energize a congregation of Christians.  Basically, if you're talking about Derrida or Lacan you're screwed, pastorally speaking.  Again, people want a real fight.  They don't want a lot of post-modern philosophication. So I want to turn to a particular reading of the New Testament for laying out what ...

I was educated under Stanley Hauerwas.  So I'm accustomed to theologians who use language -- even what we might consider "blue" language -- to get the message of Jesus across to others.  But, I typically shy away from using that language on peace-making grounds.  I don't curse because I refuse to practice violence.  And, in our culture, that sort of "blue" language carries violent undertones (even explicitly).  That said, I was initially tempted to shy away from using the word "asshole".  Here, though, I'm using it in the sense that psychologist Bob Sutton of Sanford uses it, in his The No Asshole Rule:  Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't .  I want to do that in order to explore, yet again, why I'm a Christian anarchist. First, what is the "no asshole rule"? It probably seems a bit strange -- well, not so much, considering the general tone of American politics these days -- to connect Sutton...

Bernard Buffet, "Pieta", 1946 I've been constructing my theology of revolt -- a theological account of Christians at war.  And I've been doing that with an interaction with Greg Boyd's God at War .  But, as I recounted yesterday, there are some problems that demand addressing. First, I need a way to think about spiritual warfare that doesn't require a belief in literal angels and demons.  And please note that I used the word require .  If you're one of those with no problem with the vision of spiritual warfare presented by Boyd in God at War then no translational work is necessary.  But given that I -- and quite a few of my other Christian brothers and sisters (particularly those of a "liberal" bent (whatever that means) -- am, my hunch is that not everyone will accept Boyd's account as it stands.  Some of us need another way to envision spiritual warfare.  But as I've said, I think this "translation" is fairly strai...

Yesterday, I began arguing that a warfare worldview -- a theology of revolt against evil -- is a vision that can infuse Christianity with energy, excitement and popular appeal.  A great depiction of this warfare worldview is found in Greg Boyd's book God at War . And yet, I know lots of folks who have some problems with this claim.  The vision of a battle against all the manifestations of evil is exciting, but some issues need to be resolved if the warfare worldview of God at War is going to be palatable to some Christians (like myself). These questions swirl around how Boyd tries to explain the origins of evil.  Again, in the warfare worldview creation, at a deep structural level, is in revolt, warring against God. God isn't controlling everything.  The situation is more chaotic, unpredictable, fluid and free.  The vision here flirts with dualism, something that Boyd wrestles with and we'll have to wrestle with.  And yet, the benefits of s...

I argued yesterday that one of the things Christians need -- particularly Christians of my stripe -- is a way to express the real fight we're in. To do that, I want to use Greg Boyd's God at War:  The Bible and Spiritual Conflict .  It never ceases to amaze folks that I use this kind of language often.  I recall conversation after conversation with folks who are surprised to hear me express the Christian life in terms of "war".  That's because I'm a pacifist.  I eschew all forms of violence.  And I do so because I'm a Christian.  At its heart God at War is a theodicy, an attempt to explain evil in the world.  This is important for folks who want to read this book with understanding.  Throughout the book Boyd argues for the literal existence of spiritual agents like angels and demons.  And again, that might be hard for many progressives to swallow.  (I'm not so sure I want to be as literal as Boyd, but I do think there's an a...