Archive | November, 2011

The Promise of the Messianic Child

by on November 28, 2011

Hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving! Moltmann Monday is back with an excerpt from a Theology Today article on children, childhood and hope. Here’s a snippet:

The child, whose birth and whose future reign of peace devoid of violence and war Isaiah announced (chapters 9,11), is the “Son of David.” He is a descendant of David, endowed with the dignity of the chosen King David. Just as David conquered Jerusalem, making it the capital of Israel, the future “Son of David” will redeem Israel (from the Babylonian exile) and will rebuild Jerusalem. Most important, the coming “Son of David” will fulfill the prophet Nathan’s ancient promise to David: “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom forever.” (2 Sam 7:12-13)  The promised “Son of David” is the messianic king for which Israel is hoping.

The hopes placed upon him do, however, explode all (historical) limits: “he will raise up the poor of the land,” he will “bring justice to the peoples,” and he will sow peace between humans and animals: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fading together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isa 11:1-11). While this messianic hope exceeded all of life’s experiential limits, it was conceived during the time of the Babylonian exile, at Israel’s “ground zero.” From the very beginning, it was part of Israel’s traditions of hope.  [Abraham and Sarah's] promise brought into history an orientation towards the future, replacing the eternal return of the same in nature religions. Children were no longer merely included in the powers of origin through the veneration of the ancestors, but the generations were now aligned towards children as the carriers of hope and as signs of the steadfastness of the God of promise.

 

The hopes placed on the messianic child explode all limits. I love the imagery that conjures in my head, like an electric wire exploding from too much energy and making a fireworks show that lights up the night. I also appreciate that these hopes are beyond rational, really. They are not something most people walk around and assume. To have Advent hopes means to be willing to explode our limits of what is possible. Through this one promise, this one vulnerable human child, the whole world carries a new kind of hope for the future.

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Moltmann on Seminaries, Privatization, and Marketing

by on November 14, 2011

In honor of Patheos’ ongoing conversation of posts on the future of seminary education, today’s Moltmann Monday excerpt comes from God for a Secular Society in his chapter “Theology in the Modern University.” He’s been describing how theological faculties began as central and primary to the university when there was a religion of the state, but since the Reformation there has been an uneasy separation that has grown in isolation over the years until now we find ourselves in a multifaith society where only “religion departments” preside in universities and theology is relegated to privatized spheres of faith in seminaries. What that says for theology’s scope is rather grim. Here’s where he gets good and soapbox-y:

The privatization of religion has as its presupposition its de-politicization and as a consequence its marketing. What is called modern multifaith and multicultural society is nothing other than the total market society. Religions and cultures are on display in this market in just the same way as political options, commodities and services. Religions become the spiritual services on offer in the religious supermarket of the modern world. Individual religious liberty is certainly a powerful protection for every person’s own human dignity, but because of the typical Western concept of the consumer’s freedom to choose or dispose, that same freedom has turned religion into a commodity, where the customer is allegedly always right. Marketed religions take on the characterisitcs of goods on sale…

In the multifaith consumer society, peace reigns between the religious communities. That is a fact. But this religious peace is achieved through the political shut-down on religion, its privatization and marketing- not through recognition and esteem, but by reducing religion to insignificance. One does not have to be a fundamentalist to see this as practiced atheism.

 

This quote isn’t in reference to any particular post in that Patheos conversation, but I believe it’s an important discussion for those considering the future of the seminary. If the C/church is currently becoming locked down and even pigeonholed into a market-based enterprise in a multifaith world, what does that mean for how we prepare students and pastors? Where is the prophetic voice inside those competing forces and what is it saying? If a church doesn’t want to live as isolated as its seminaries, nor as marketed as the mall nearby, what kind of creative space must it find? How can we differentiate between the “peace” of insignificance and the peace of shared life?

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Moltmann on Meditation

by on November 7, 2011

Happy Moltmann Monday, y’all!  Today’s excerpt comes from The Spirit of Life in his chapter on the theology of mystical experience. I’m giving you the first few sentences for context, but pay attention to the last half particularly.

The Greek philosophers, the [parents] of the Church, and the monastic Fathers comprehended things ‘with their eyes’. They ‘theorized’ in the literal sense of the word (theoreiz in Greek=to look at). We really arrive at understanding when we go on looking at a flower or a sunset or a manifestation of God until this flower is the flower per se, and this sunset is the sunset, and this manifestation of God is wholly God and nothing but God Godself. Then the observer becomes part of the flower, or part of the sunset, or part of God. For through his perception he participates in his object or counterpart, and is transported into it. The act of perception transforms the perceiver, not what is perceived. Perception confers communion. We know in order to participate, not in order to dominate. Theat is why we can only know to the extent in which we are capable of loving what we see, and in love are able to let it be wholly itself. Knowledge, as the Hebrew word (yada) tells us, is an act of love, not an act of domination. When someone has understood, he says: ‘I see it. I love you. I behold God.’ The result is pure ‘theory’, and pure good-pleasure.”

 

You’ve likely heard me say before I’m not a contemplative. I won’t get into a passionate discussion of why here; suffice it to say I have a hard time sitting around trying to zone out. I have a hard time thinking that is in any way Christian. (Okay, I got into my discussion a leeeeetle bit.) However I’m trying to learn, and stretch myself into the uncomfortable territory that is the great mystical Christian tradition. And I am learning that it is not a zoning out, but a honing in. It is not a removal from the world, but an immersion into the world at the deepest level. This is why I love the phrase “perception confers communion.” That phrase makes me want to practice meditation daily, just for the hope that I can get a  taste of that happening in me. It is when we return to that feeling of being transported into something so much bigger and wider and more loving and present and real, which is to say, being transported into the presence of God. You have to set your intention to be present to it, but you can’t go there like you walk to the store. You have to be lifted, transported there. You have to set yourself in such a place that you can be carried into it.

And it doesn’t carry you away. It carries you in and with. It confers communion. And isn’t that our goal?

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Announcing the 2012 Emergent Village Theological Conversation

by on November 5, 2011

Hot off the presses, here’s the info!  I will be there- not only for the good conversation and time with friends but also for the warm California sunshine! I hope to see you there!

Nancey Murphy, Dallas Willard, Jurgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, Walter Brueggemann, John Caputo, Stanley Hauerwas. In the past decade the Emergent Village Theological Conversation has been held with the world’s foremost theologians, bringing robust conversation alongside the practice of ministry and the work of the church. This year, we are thrilled to partner with the Claremont School of Theology and Process and Faith to add to that list process theologians John Cobb, Philip Clayton, Bruce Epperly and others. We will engage and explore the dynamic conception of the living and life-giving God and it is our belief that a progressive, missional, holistic, and radically relational theology with legs will emerge. As always, we will partner these theologians with on-the-ground pastors and practitioners to ensure a fruitful and helpful dialogue for those of us in the trenches.

As always, SPACE IS LIMITED. You won’t want to miss this conversation, so register soon!

Click HERE to register.

When:
Jan 30 – Feb 2, 2012

Where:
Claremont School of Theology
1325 N. College Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711

Price:
$99 until 12/31/11
$119 after that

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