I'm thinking this morning of a comment that's made to me often (in a variety of ways, of course, but essentially the same content): Why is it that the version of Christianity I espouse seems to have so little broad, popular appeal?
I think I articulate an exciting and attractive vision of the Christian faith. I'm not one prone to think the way process theologians do. And while I have certain things in common with the Christian a/theism folks, they don't fully convince me, either.
I fail, of course, because the vision of Christian faith that I articulate is a thorough-going biblical vision. And that's a vision for which I think there's a good fight to be made. Books like Greg Boyd's God at War and John Caputo's Weakness of God have more in common than folks suspect.
I take a cue here from William James, who once said:
One of my favorite saints, St Therese of Lisieux, yearned to be like Joan of Arc. We love the images in the bible of a Deborah or a David leading the armies of God.
But folks like me rightly shy away from this sort of thing. The militant Christianity is what drove me (and many others like me) away from conservative Christianity, after all. Consequently, to lots of my sisters and brothers, I often tend to look too hipster, liberal, ironic or cynical to take any of this "warfare" stuff seriously.
I've read enough of the New Testament, though, to know that we're in a battle. It's a war with certain principalities and powers of the world. (If you've never read Walter Wink or John Howard Yoder or Karl Barth or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, you should. They've all had an astounding impact on how I view the world and read the Bible.)
I think that's the problem lots of folks have with the vision of Christianity that I articulate. It's hard to build excitement for your vision of Christianity when the vibe is ironic, cynical, intellectualized or coolly detached. It's hard to build excitement for your vision of Christianity when you are being paradoxical, post-modern, or deconstructive. It's hard to build excitement for your vision of Christianity when it often reduces to liberal humanism, existentialism, functional atheism or simply voting for Democrats. (None of those are true of me, by the way, even if those are the accusations I often hear.)
Basically, I think lots of folks who might join hands with me struggle because the vision of Christianity espoused by non-fundamentalists fails to give people a real, honest-to-God, Bible-thumping fight. More precisely, Christianity has a lot of fight in it, but it has often struggled to articulate that fight in robustly biblical ways. (Let alone the major problem of non-fundamentalist Christians being too reactionary, focusing much of their fight against conservative brothers and sisters.)
So, I think the time has come to try to set out my vision of Christianity that is at once biblical -- that takes on those principalities and powers -- while also being attentive to things like neuroscience. So, over the course of coming days and weeks, I want to offer a defense of the vision of Christianity I articulate -- and do so on thoroughly biblical grounds.
Again, sure, this is going to be a lost cause to many who might read. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I think I articulate an exciting and attractive vision of the Christian faith. I'm not one prone to think the way process theologians do. And while I have certain things in common with the Christian a/theism folks, they don't fully convince me, either.
I fail, of course, because the vision of Christian faith that I articulate is a thorough-going biblical vision. And that's a vision for which I think there's a good fight to be made. Books like Greg Boyd's God at War and John Caputo's Weakness of God have more in common than folks suspect.
I take a cue here from William James, who once said:
If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.That's the source of excitement in my vision. People want to be in a real fight. They want battle lines. They want to be on the side of the fight of good against evil. We want to hear great battlefield speeches like this:
One of my favorite saints, St Therese of Lisieux, yearned to be like Joan of Arc. We love the images in the bible of a Deborah or a David leading the armies of God.
But folks like me rightly shy away from this sort of thing. The militant Christianity is what drove me (and many others like me) away from conservative Christianity, after all. Consequently, to lots of my sisters and brothers, I often tend to look too hipster, liberal, ironic or cynical to take any of this "warfare" stuff seriously.
I've read enough of the New Testament, though, to know that we're in a battle. It's a war with certain principalities and powers of the world. (If you've never read Walter Wink or John Howard Yoder or Karl Barth or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, you should. They've all had an astounding impact on how I view the world and read the Bible.)
I think that's the problem lots of folks have with the vision of Christianity that I articulate. It's hard to build excitement for your vision of Christianity when the vibe is ironic, cynical, intellectualized or coolly detached. It's hard to build excitement for your vision of Christianity when you are being paradoxical, post-modern, or deconstructive. It's hard to build excitement for your vision of Christianity when it often reduces to liberal humanism, existentialism, functional atheism or simply voting for Democrats. (None of those are true of me, by the way, even if those are the accusations I often hear.)
Basically, I think lots of folks who might join hands with me struggle because the vision of Christianity espoused by non-fundamentalists fails to give people a real, honest-to-God, Bible-thumping fight. More precisely, Christianity has a lot of fight in it, but it has often struggled to articulate that fight in robustly biblical ways. (Let alone the major problem of non-fundamentalist Christians being too reactionary, focusing much of their fight against conservative brothers and sisters.)
So, I think the time has come to try to set out my vision of Christianity that is at once biblical -- that takes on those principalities and powers -- while also being attentive to things like neuroscience. So, over the course of coming days and weeks, I want to offer a defense of the vision of Christianity I articulate -- and do so on thoroughly biblical grounds.
Again, sure, this is going to be a lost cause to many who might read. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.