More of the Seminar…
So, my friend has a follow-up question about the Jesus Seminar. He wonders if I would expect them to get a fair hearing from the rank and file of the laity of the churches when the propositions they are presenting are antithetical to the faith claims that those laity hold dear. I think that is a very faith question in deed. I see the Jesus Seminar as addressing two audiences of laity. The first is your “good churchy folk”. This, of course, is a technical term. But the other is the folks who are on the periphery of belief and ascent. These are the folks who are attracted by Jesus, maybe even claimed by Him, but are not able to recite the creeds of old and the pray the prayers of old. I would expect that if most of the laity listened carefully rather than allow themselves to have knee-jerk reactions to bad press releases, they may mind much of value with the Jesus Seminar. Borg has recently affirmed a form of panentheism which, while it very unconventional is not necessarily unfaithful to Christian witness as any process theology minded Methodist can make clear. In fact, I have a few clergy friends who find Borg’s panentheism very convincing. [Pan-en-theism] for those un-familiar is different from theism and pantheism. Pantheism is the idea that everything and God are the same. Theism is the traditional conviction-stance of the Church. It is the idea that there is a God and there is a world and the two relate to one another from outside. God invades when needed, but the two are distinct and separate. Pan-en-theism is the notion – in the middle – that does integrity to the distinction of God and the cosmos while allowing for the interpenetration of the cosmos and the Holy One of Israel. Panentheism believes that the world and God are not the same, but that God is always in the world doing things and that the world is – in a sense – “in God”. They are separate, but they are so melded together that their separateness is more formal and official than real and actual.]
The folks who are in the churches need to hear the voices of people disaffected from the church, but still in love with Jesus. They need to hear that there is room for Christians who do not accept items like the Virgin Birth but still would live and die for the one they call Messiah. Sometimes, I am amazed at Christians who are quick to assume that if someone does not think exactly as they do, they must not be a Christians . . . or even a good person. For the folks who are not at home in the church, they may find a home within. They find within Crossan and Funk at least (but also people like Spong), an admission that doctrines such as the Virgin Birth, the historical affirmation of the resurrection, Anselmian blood atonement, and so forth are not what makes or breaks the Christian life. Rather, a Christian is defined by their relationship to Jesus of Nazareth who Christians affirm to be the Christ and the Father God who sent Him into the world and our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Christians are made Christians when they are claimed in their personal being by Jesus, not by whether or not they can affirm every line of the Westminster Catechism. This of course is nothing new. Mentally handicapped persons who do not splice theology, but love Jesus are likely to be better Christians that I will ever be. But sometimes, the Church and the Christians who inhabit it, act like those who do not accept the official doctrine of the church without any line item veto are not welcome and/or bad Christians. This is certainly not the case.
I welcome the fact that there are people in my church who read Spong, Crossan and Funk, and other such debunkers of the faith. They have been compelled by those books to reconnect with a faith that they were not able to connect with since childhood in many cases. I also meet many who can affirm faith in Jesus Christ, though they were not able to in the past and though they still do not feel comfortable or welcome in their local churches. They may be unchurched, but by the grace of God, they are still claimed in their hearts by God. These radicals do a service for our church, even if their voice is not always welcome by the laity who come each and every Sunday.
