compiled by Sandy
Simpson. 12/08
There be Treasures #10. (1) Unitary thinking, the
highest level of understanding reality, opens us up to a wider sensory realm
and mystical dimension of the divine; it also heals the divisions that separate
us from one another and life’s highest values. 2. Wholeness unites, not eliminates, opposites,
bringing them into dynamic balance—the coming together of earth and water, air
and fire, through the merger of the Antaean sensibility (Antaeus the hugger of
the ground, from which came his strength) with the Herculean sensibility
(Hercules the master of air and fire, who defeated Antaeus by lifting him off
the ground.) 70 3. The discovery of the euphoric state of wholeness
will prove to be the highest form of ecstasis. (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 250)
Spirituality refers first of all to the universal gift of
aliveness that exists within all religions and outside of religions. It breathes out the air that “inspires.” Those who have
been in-spired with aliveness by the kiss of God will “con-spire” to kiss
others into coming alive to the spiritual dimensions of existence. “In-spire”
means to breathe in. “Con-spire” means to breathe together. “Conspiracy” enters
by the same door as “spirituality.” A world gagging on smog and smut needs a
breath of fresh air. The New Light movement begins as a fresh air conspiracy of
“aliveness.” But it is more than that. Spiritual consciousness can be something
greater than aesthetics or aliveness. The Bible tells us that the human species
has been twice kissed by the divine. (Leonard
Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 253)
As a cosmion incarnating the cells of a new
body, New Lights will function as transitional vessels through which
transforming energy can renew the divine image in the world, moving postmoderns
from one state of embodiment to another.86 (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 38)
Postmodern culture is hungry for the intimacy of
psychospiritual transformations. It wants a “reenchantment of nature.” It’s
aware of its ecstasy deprivation. It wants to know God “by heart.” It wants
to light an inner fire, the circulating force of divine energies flowing in and
flowing out. The primal scream of postmodern spirituality is for primal experiences
of God. (Leonard Sweet,
Quantum Spirituality, pg. 56)
Through the synergy of the divine-human
exchange of energies, an unbelievable field of healing and transforming energy
is rounded up and released in the universe. Humans are constructed out of mutually
attracting energy particles with positive and negative charges. Negative or
neutral charges too often dominate human contacts. Positive charges in the
church are about as rare as “strange matter”--positively charged lumps of
quarks know as “quarknuggets”--is in the quantum world. “Consciousness is
catching,” psychologist/medical scholar/professor Frances E. Vaughan reminds
us. Destructive, negative, constricting states of consciousness are caught as
readily as creative, positive, expanding states of consciousness. All energy
states are contagious. (Leonard
Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 62)
A surprisingly central feature of all the
world’s religions is the language
of light in communicating the divine and symbolizing the union of the human
with the divine: Muhammed’s light-filled cave, Moses’ burning bush, Paul’s
blinding light, Fox’s “inner light,” Krishna’s Lord of Light, Böhme’s
light-filled cobbler shop, Plotinus’ fire experiences, Bodhisattvas with the
flow of Kundalini’s fire erupting from their fontanelles, and so on.53 Light is the common thread that ties together
near-death experiences as they occur in various cultures. (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 146)
LEONARD SWEET (Author of Quantum Spirituality and
Emerging Church leader) Sweet calls this the Theory of Everything. This theory not only says that all
creation is connected but that it is all inhabited with Divinity (God).
(Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, comment by Tim Wirth, http://simplyagape.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html) Sweet got some of ideas and title of his book from Richard
Hartnett, H.W., M. who is a nationally known Teacher and
Psychic. His extensive training includes Sufism, Buddhism, Native
American Spirituality, Jungian Symbology and Gurdjieff's Fourth Way. You can read about his teaching on Quantum
Spirituality at http://www.mrsdenver.org/Quantum_Spirituality.html
"So
far the church has refused to dip its toe into postmodern culture. A quantum
spirituality challenges the church to bear its past and to dare its future
by sticking its big TOE into the time and place of the present.... Then,
and only then, will the church not appear to be in a timecapsule, sealed
against new developments. Then, and only then, will a New Light movement of
'world-making' faith have helped to create the world that is to, and may yet,
be. Then, and only then, will earthlings have uncovered the meaning of these
words, some of the last words poet/activist/contemplative/bridge between East
and West Thomas Merton uttered: "We are
already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our
original unity." (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg.
10)
Quoted by Sweet in Quantum Spirituality: Rabbi/theologian/storyteller Lawrence Kushner
makes an intriguing contrast between the Jewish and Christian traditions
precisely at this point in The River of Light Spirituality;Judaism, and the
Evolution of Consciousness (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981).For
Christianity, the central problem is how God could have become person. How
spirit could transform itself into matter. Word become flesh. Consciousness
become protoplasm. The direction is from the top down. For Judaism, on the
other hand, the problem is how humanity could possibly attain to God’s word and
intention. How matter could raise itself to spirit. How simple desert souls
could hear the word. Human substance attain consciousness. The intention is “to
permeate matter and raise it to spirit.” The direction is from the bottom up.
Perhaps the two traditions, one moving down, the other moving up, are destined
to meet in the divinity of humanity. (82) (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 191)
God has already given to the church, in all its diversity, a complete Theory of Everything, a unifying principle that binds things together. The church’s big TOE was formulated in the Bible’s smallest encapsulation of What It All Means: John 1:14. The Fourth Gospel elaborates the exchange as it extends an invitation to the quest and quandary of the quantum explored in this book.
The Word [the depth dimension of Logos which physicists call energy,
ancients called fire and theologians call metanoi]
...
became Flesh [the height dimension of Pathos which
physicists call matter,
ancients called land and theologians call koinonia]...
and dwelt among us [the breadth dimension of Ethos which
physicists call
space, ancients called wind and theologians
call diakonia] ...
and we beheld his [God’s] glory [the fourth dimension of Theos which
physicists call space-time, ancients called
sea and theologians call basileia].
This tetrad is the church’s big TOE, the
closest the Bible ever comes to formulating a simple, compact description of
how the universe works (i.e., a Grand Unified Theory). John 1:14 presentsfour
eddies of experiencing God, comprising a single stream. All four dimensions--the
experience of God in Christ and self, the experience of God in community and
creation, the experience of God in social justice and compassion, the
experience of God in the transpersonal and transcendent--while distinct, are
interacting states rather than chronological or sequential stages. They
demonstrate a remarkable unity, interpenetrating and mutually reinforcing one
another 10. . . as in life, so in the rather artificial
partitions of this book.38
(Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 9)
God claims everything one is. God claims
every rationality. God claims every sensibility. Quantum spirituality is
more than a structure of the intellect; it is more than a structure of emotion;
it is more than a structure of human being. It is most importantly a structure
of human becoming, a channeling of Christ energies through mindbody experience.28 (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg.
53)
"CHANGE OR BE CHANGED — In the old ecology of nature,
change was seen as abnormal. In the new ecology of nature, change is life’s
natural, normative state.... What works today won’t work tomorrow.... The
wonder is that churches are not in more disarray. ... They are standing pat,
opting to uphold the status quo rather than undergo the upheaval." …
"Postmodern culture is a change-or-be-changed world. The word is out:
Reinvent yourself for the 21st century or die." (Leonard Sweet, Soul Tsunami: Sink or Swim
in the New Millennium Culture
(Zondervan,
1999), p. 74-75)
"So far
the church has refused to dip its toe into postmodern culture. A quantum
spirituality challenges the church to bear its past and to dare its future
by sticking its big TOE into the time and place of the present.... Then,
and only then, will the church not appear to be in a timecapsule, sealed against
new developments. Then, and only then, will a New Light movement of
'world-making' faith have helped to create the world that is to, and may
yet, be. Then, and only then, will earthlings have uncovered the meaning of
these words, some of the last words poet/activist/contemplative/bridge
between East and West Thomas Merton uttered: "We
are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to
recover is our original unity." (Leonard Sweet, Quantum
Spirituality, p. 10)
"According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to inform
means 'to give form to, put into form and shape.' The purpose of the church
is to give form to, to put into form and shape, the energymatter known as Jesus
Christ. New Light leaders, therefore, are in-formational connectors helping
the body of Christ to become an in-formed church, an in-formational
community." …
"New
Light leadership helps patches of information become cloaks of knowledge.
Information brokering is central to creating community in postmodern
culture, not to mention achieving synergic states of group consciousness.
Association of Theological Schools president/divinity school dean Jim L.
Waits, in his address at the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of
Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, calls for clergy to move from
their 'learned ministry' model to a '“knowledgeable ministry' model. 'Knowledge
ministry' helps information become 'alive in the consciousness,' as Einstein put
it...." (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 120-121)
"Christbody communities must come to be seen as
thermodynamic units in which the rules of the conservation and degradation
of energy apply. Some preachers almost unwittingly do an energy analysis of
a congregation, assessing the energy charge of a room, pinpointing the
energy flow, and drawing strength from those hot spots from which
energy emanates most powerfully...."Reluctance to see communities of
faith as information-processing systems and the refusal to assist people in
exploring and critiquing the unexamined metaphors by which they live helps
explain why oldline communities are in such a state of entropic decline and
disarray. Yet entropies of information produce variety within a species as well
as new species themselves. The second law of thermodynamics states that energymatter
decomposes and, what is more, that the more entropy grows, the less the
amount of usable energy. Since the total amount of energy and mass in the
universe cannot change, the entropic consequence of the second law is known
as evolution. … "A major New Light undertaking is the designing
of newstream communities that can be 'in connection' and 'in-formation' with
the spirit of Christ. Christ will be embodied for the postmodern church in
information." (Leonard
Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 121)
The following are five gross premises of embodiment... that
build anew the body of Christ for the postmodern era -- being “in connection”
and “in-formation” with: (1) other Christians, (2) all creation, (3) one’s
ancestors and ancestral memories, (4) other faiths, (5)
technology....([1] "With Other Christians:) The first of these five untheorized
observations is that New Light embodiment means to be “in connection”
and “in-formation” with other Christians.... The church is fundamentally
one being, one person, a communion whose cells are connected to one
another within the information network called the Christ
consciousness. No congregation or denomination can go it alone in being the
body of Christ.... To be “in connection” and “in-formation” is to be related to
other Christians and the shared culture of all Christians and to grow a set of organic
relationships and coalitions around a common love for God "Communities have souls, not just
individuals. The modern era downplayed a biblical doctrine of salvation
that had this communal dimension. In contrast, the New Light
movement is concerned about the salvation of ensouled communities as
well as individual souls, and the salvation of community souls relating
synergistically to one another. ... The power of community is the energy of
between: The synergizing of synergies in which “one [shall] chase a thousand,
and two [shall] put ten thousand to flight” (Deut. 32:30).... (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 122)
"Pantheism is 'the belief or theory
that God and the universe are identical' panentheism is 'the belief that
the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part
of it exists in Him, but... that His Being is more than, and is not exhausted
by, the Universe.”
"New Light spirituality does more than settle for the
created order, as many forms of New Age pantheism do. But a spirituality
that is not in some way entheistic (whether pan- or trans-), that does not
extend to the spirit-matter of the cosmos, is not Christian." (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 123-124)
"Fourth, New
Light embodiment means to be 'in connection' and 'information' with other
faiths. To be in-formation means to know each other’s songs almost as well
as one knows them oneself, and to enlarge the community to include those whose
conceptions of God differ from ours in form. To be in connection means to be
able to sing, not only selected stanzas, but all the verses" … "One
can be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ without denying the flickers of the
sacred in followers of Yahweh, or Kali, or Krishna. A globalization of
evangelism 'in connection' with others, and a globally 'in-formed' gospel,
is capable of talking across the fence with Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim--people
from other so called 'new' religious traditions ('new' only to us)--without
assumption of superiority and power."(Leonard
Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 129-130)
"Energy-fire
experiences take us into ourselves only that we might reach outside of
ourselves. Metanoia is a de-centering experience of connected-ness and
community. It is not an exercise in reciting what Jesus has done for me lately.
Energy-fire ecstasy, more a buzz than a binge, takes us out of ourselves,
literally. That is the meaning of the word 'ecstatic.'" (Leonard Sweet, Quantum
Spirituality, P. 93)
The
power of small groups is in their ability to develop the discipline to get people
"in-phase" with the Christ consciousness and connected with
one another. (Leonard Sweet,
Quantum
Spirituality, P. 147)
New
Lights offer up themselves as the cosmions of a mind-of-Christ consciousness.
As a cosmion incarnating the cells of a new body, New Lights will function as
transitional vessels through which transforming energy can renew the divine
image in the world, moving postmoderns from one state of embodiment to another.
(Leonard Sweet, Quantum
Spirituality, P. 48)
A
surprisingly central feature of all the world's religions is the language of
light in communicating the divine and symbolizing the union of the human with
the divine: Muhammed's light-filled cave, Moses' burning bush, Paul's
blinding light, Fox's "inner light," Krishna's Lord of Light, Bohme's
light-filled cobbler shop, Plotinus' fire experiences, Bodhisattvas with the
flow of Kundalini's fire erupting from their fontanelles, and so on."
(Leonard Sweet, Quantum
Spirituality, P. 235)
“1. Get in touch with your lungs by closing your eyes. Visualize in your mind a tennis court” 8.“Hold your Bible and breathe meditatively. The breathtaking, nay, breathgiving truth of aliveness is more than Methuselean in its span: Part of your body right now was once actually, literally part of the body of Abraham, Sarah, Noah, Esther, David, Abigail, Moses, Ruth, Matthew, Mary, Like, Martha, John, Priscilla, Paul... and Jesus. 9. Keep breathing quietly while holding your Bible. You have within you not just the powers of goodness resident in the great spiritual leaders like Moses, Jesus, Muhammed, Lao Tzu You also have within you the forces of evil and destruction.” Resident in each breath you take is the body of angels like Joan of Arc and devils like Gilles de Rais, Genghis Khan, Judas Iscariot, Herod, Hitler, Stalin and all the other destructive spirits throughout history” (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p.300-301)
“In the words of one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, Jesuit philosopher of religion/dogmatist Karl Rahner, “The Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, one who has experienced something, or he will be nothing”(Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p.76)
“Austrian/American physicist
Wolfgang Pauli perceived, are the traceable connections that exist
between ourselves and others or objects, and the underlying holism of the
uni-verse. Transcendent state of consciousness” (Leonard Sweet,
Quantum Spirituality, p.234)
“If the church is to become a synergic space, it must first be Christianized. It must meet the ABCDE involutions of the “X Factor.” The ABCDE rule for synergic Christbody inter-connections and in-formation is as follows: Alterity, Bonding, Critical Mass, Dirt, Euphonics. The ABCDE involutions, when placed in a biblical framework, represent evolutionary steps to higher spirituality and the ecclesiastics of synergy”. The church must provide postmoderns with an alterity of rituals by which they can turn and tune to one another and feel connected to the cosmos. (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 137).
“Mysticism begins in experience; it ends in theology”(Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p.76). (Experience before doctrine leads to false experience, never to sound doctrine. – Sandy Simpson)
David Spangler who Sweet
favorably quotes also speaks of Lucifer as: “The true light of this great
being can only be recognized when one's own eyes can see with the light of the
Christ, the light of the inner sun. Lucifer works within each of us to bring
us to wholeness, and as we move into the New Age, which is the age
of man's wholeness, each of us is brought to that point which I term the
Luciferic Initiation, the particular doorway through which the individual must
pass if he is to come fully into the presence of his light and his wholeness.
Lucifer comes to give us the final gift of wholeness. If we accept it, then
he is free and we are free, that is the Luciferic Initiation. It is one that
many people now, and in the days ahead, will be facing, for it is an
initiation into the New Age. (David Spangler, Reflections on the Christ,
Findhorn Lecture Series, 3rd ed., 1981; p. 45)
ALAN JONES (Author of Reimagining
Christianity) "The Church's fixation on the death of Jesus as the
universal saving act must end, and the place of the cross must be reimagined in
Christian faith. Why? Because of the cult of suffering and the vindictive God
behind it" (Alan Jones, Reimaging Christianity, p. 132).
"I am no longer
interested, in the first instance, in what a person believes. Most of
the time it’s so much clutter in the brain.... I wouldn't trust an inch
many people who profess a belief in God. Others who do not or who doubt have
won my trust. I want to know if joy, curiosity struggle, and compassion bubble
up in a person’s life. I’m interested in being fully alive. There is no
objective authority...." Alan Jones, Reimagining Christianity
(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005), pages 79, 83.)
DAN
KIMBALL
Dan Kimball adds, “Our faith
also includes kingdom living, part of which is the responsibility to fight
locally and globally for social justice on behalf of the poor and needy.
Our example is Jesus, who spent His time among the lepers, the poor and the
needy.” (Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church ( Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
2003), p. 224.)
My
wife and I spent an hour in the labyrinth and found ourselves calmed and
refreshed, our perspective uniquely restored . We made our own prayer path
after the convention—we knew we couldn’t keep this experience to ourselves. A
few months later we featured a labyrinth as part of Graceland’s annual art
event at Santa Cruz Bible Church. Graceland artists recreated the labyrinth
with a kit we purchased (The Prayer Path, Group Publishing), transforming one
of the church’s multipurpose rooms into a medieval prayer sanctuary. The team
hung art on the walls, draped fabric, and lit candles all around the room to
create a visual sense of sacred space. (Commentary of Dan Kimball’s Article “A-maze-ing
Prayer: The Labyrinth Offers Ancient
Meditation For Today’s Hurried Souls by Jane Whiting
BRIAN
MCLAREN
BRIAN MCLAREN (Emerging
Church leader):
"Jesus seems to say, 'The kingdom of God doesn’t need to wait until
something else happens. No, it is available and among you now.... Invite people
of all nations, races, classes, and religions to participate in
this network of dynamic, interactive relationships with God and all
God’s creation!" ... the kingdom of God will be radically,
scandalously inclusive. As we’ve seen, Jesus enjoys table fellowship
with prostitutes and drunks.... He affirms and responds to the
faith of Gentiles—Romans and Syrophonecians and Samaritans." (Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the
Truth that could change everything (Nashville: Thomas Nelson's W Publishing
Group, 1006), page 74 & 94).)
“Universalism is not as
bankrupt of biblical support as some suggest,” (Brian McLaren, The Last Word and the
Word After That, ( San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), pp. 103 (cf. pp. 182-183)
But without question
McLaren does hold to the doctrine of inclusivism which teaches that while
salvation has been made possible by Jesus Christ, it is not necessary to know
who Jesus is or the precise nature of what He has done. (Brian McLaren, The
Last Word and the Word After That, ( San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), pp. 103
(cf. pp. 182-183)
"It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people
become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish
contexts,"… "Is our religion the only one that understands the true
meaning of life? Or does God place his truth in others too? ... The gospel is
not our gospel, but the gospel of the kingdom of God, and what belongs to the
kingdom of God cannot be hijacked by Christianity" (p. 194).
(Brian McLaren, An Emergent Manifesto, Baker Books, referenced http://simplyagape.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html)
In the second foreword to Dan
Kimball's book about the Emergent church Brian McLaren writes “Our
understandings of the gospel constantly change as we engage
in mission in our complex dynamic world, as we discover that the gospel has a
rich kalaidoscope of meaning to offer, yielding unexplored layers of depth,
revealing uncounted facets of insight and relevance. No doubt as we look back
and see ways in which our modern understandings of the gospel were limited or
flawed”
"What
if there are thousands of John Calvins out there.... what if God decided to
make a lot of them gay?"
––Brian McLaren, Lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary, Nov. 2005
"I
don't think we've got the gospel right yet. What does it mean to be
'saved'?.... I don't think the liberals have it right. But I don't think we
have it right either. None of us has arrived at orthodoxy."
––Brian McLaren, The Emergent Mystique, Christianity Today, 2004
“Scripture
is something God had ‘let be,’ and so it is at once God’s creation and the
creation of the dozens of people and communities and cultures who produced
it.”
––Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 162
“The
Christian faith, I am proposing, should become (in the name of Jesus Christ) a
welcome friend to other religions of the world, not a threat”
--Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy McLaren, p.254
"I
must add, though, that I don't believe making disciples must equal making
adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many circumstances
to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist,
Hindu, or Jewish contexts."
---Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 260
"[T]his
is one of the huge problems with the traditional understanding of hell, because
if the Cross is in line with Jesus' teaching, then I won't say the only and I
certainly won't say ... or even the primary or a primary meaning of the Cross
... is that the Kingdom of God doesn't come like the kingdoms of this world by
inflicting violence and coercing people. But that the kingdom of God comes thru
suffering and willing voluntary sacrifice right? But in an ironic way the
doctrine of hell basically says no, that's not really true. At the end God
get's his way thru coercion and violence and intimidation and uh domination
just like every other kingdom does. The Cross isn't the center then, the
Cross is almost a distraction and false advertising for God." Brian
McLaren speaking, From the Interview
In the
midst of the Purpose Driven craze and an apparently sleeping church, Brian
McLaren has endorsed a book that calls the doctrine of the Cross a vile
doctrine.
(p. 168, Reimagining Christianity - Alan Jones)
That
book? None other than Alan Jones' new book, Reimagining Christianity. Alan
Jones is an interspiritualist and mystic. Take a look at the Living
Spiritual Teachers Project, of which Jones is involved. This group of about
twenty-five includes Zen and Buddhist monks, New Agers and even Marianne
Williamson and her Course in Miracles. (http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/brianmclaren.htm)
Brian McLaren of the "emerging church" calls contemplative Richard Foster the key mentor for the movement. (Christianity Today, November 2004)
"[H]e (Brian McLaren)concludes that the emerging church must be
"monastic"—centered on training disciples who practice, rather than
just believe, the faith.... He cites Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, with their emphasis on
spiritual disciplines, as key mentors for the emerging church" (http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/brianmclaren.htm)
Christianity,
Islam, and Judaism have more in common than many people realize because they
all share a primal narrative, and they all flow from a common sacred
fountainhead: a single figure, at once famous and mysterious, a Middle Eastern
man named Abraham of Ur. … We can date Abraham’s birth to about 2000 BC, in
modern-day Iraq, near present-day Nasarif. Like Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad—and
like us—Abraham was was raised in a pluralistic, polytheistic world. During his
lifetime, he lived side by side with others who honored many different gods and
praticed many different religions. … And during his lifetime, Abraham—like
Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad—had an
encounter with God that distinguished him from
his contemporaries and propelled him into a mission, introducing
a new way of life that changed the world… How appropriate that the
three Abrahamic religions begin with a journey into the unknown. (McLaren, Finding Our Way Again, pgs. 22, 23, emphasis mine)
• Its postmillennial view of the
kingdom (e.g. pp.80-81).
• Its lack of concern for
spiritual conversion—the true gospel (pp. 35-37, 49, 100).
• Egalitarianism (pp.
42,175-188).
• Rejection of original sin/sin
nature (p. 43).
• Inclusivism (pp. 44, 49-50;
190-198).
• Rejection of sola fide (pp.
82, 159; 194-195).
• Rejection of sola scriptura
(pp. 154-156).
• The inability to understand
God due to our subjectivity (p. 156).
• Orthoparadoxy—chapter 17.
(An Emergent Manifesto of Hope by Doug
Pagitt and Tony Jones)
In the clip from October 22,
2007, Pagitt denied that there is a place of eternal conscious torment for
persons who die apart from faith in Jesus Christ. (Doug Pagitt, on "The Paul Edwards
Program," WLQV Detroit, 10/22/07)
The phrase ‘the Second Coming of Christ’ never actually appears in the
Bible. Whether or not the doctrine to which the phrase refers deserves
rethinking, a popular abuse of it certainly needs to be named and rejected. (McLaren, Everything
Must Change, Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 2007), pg. 144.)
And
yet, all the time I could feel myself drifting toward acceptance that
gay persons are fully human persons and should be afforded all of the cultural
and ecclesial benefits that I am. (”Aha!” my critics will laugh
derisively, “I knew he and his ilk were on a continuous leftward slide!”) … In
any case, I now believe that GLBTQ can live lives in accord with
biblical Christianity (at least as much as any of us can!) and that their
monogamy can and should be sanctioned and blessed by church and state.
(Tony Jones, Same Sex Marriage Blogalogue: How I Went from There to Here, Online
source, bold theirs)
RM: You mentioned earlier that you
have lesbian pastors and conservative absolutists. It seems
that it would create a tension point when it comes to endorsing that person’s
view or platform.
TJ: If you believe that Christianity is–at
its very heart–a tension-filled, dialectical endeavor, you have less problems
with these tension-filled relationships with believers. Christianity is
paradoxical. Life comes out of death. Jesus was fully human and fully divine. We
haven’t yet found that there’s anything that justifies us
breaking fellowship with somebody else who loves and is trying to follow Jesus.
(On file at AM, emphasis mine) (Relevant Magazine, on file at Apprising
Ministries)
ALAN
ROXBURGH
“In these biblical narratives God is
constantly present in places where no one would logically expect God’s future
to emerge and yet it does over and over. There is nothing in these stories
about getting the wrong people off the bus and the right people on to
accomplish great ends and become the best organization in the world. This God
who calls us is always calling the wrong people onto a bus that isn’t expected
to arrive.” (Missional Leader, A. Roxburgh, Pg 18, http://www.backyardmissionary.com/)
Alan Roxburgh was up next. He addressed the question of the conference, “What
is a missional leader?” And then he gave us his standard responses: “I don’t
know,” “Does it matter?” “Who cares?” Why do we want a definition so
desperately? Because we are moderns. Definitions are modern constructs. The
need to define the missional church and missional leadership is a modern need
to define, name, control and plan. So, if I do what I’m not supposed to do
(create a definition), the best I could say is, “a missional leader is one who
can change as the world changes around him/her.” (http://timneufeld.blogs.com/occasio/2007/06/index.html)
Roxburgh quotes from Surfing the Edge of Chaos,
that in times of discontinuous change "equilibrium is death." (Alan
Roxburgh, The Sky Is Falling !?!, http://www.nextreformation.com/wp-admin/reviews/falling.htm)
THE CHURCH.S EXPERIENCE is
shifting from a stable and secure world toward
a huge, open-ended question. If one word characterizes people’s
experiences of this, it is uncertainty. (Alan Roxburgh, Crossing The Bridge,
pg. 24)
Peter Drucker, one of the most distinguished
thinkers of the 20th Century,
declares that we have already entered the next century in terms of the depth
and breadth of change happening in the world. (Alan Roxburgh, Crossing The
Bridge, pg. 11)
Another metaphor is a tapestry woven from a
wide number of diverse strands forming our Christendom world. For quite some
time that amazing tapestry has been unraveling, until it now lies threadbare,
like tattered threads on the cultural floor. (Alan Roxburgh, Crossing The
Bridge, pg. 21)
Yes, we (the Church) are going through a
dying experience, but we do
not go alone. … What do we share in particular with them? We have lost our
place. We share the loss of our traditions and institutions. We share the
pressure to lose faith in God to those gods of the surrounding culture. … There is clarity in overwhelming ambiguity. (Alan Roxburgh, Crossing The Bridge, pg. 160)
(NOTE: I agree with Roxburgh’s emphasis on
local churches as opposed to mega-church.
The problem is that his ideas of restructuring of churches that involve
mystical and New Age ideas are mostly being accepted and taught to
mega-churches. Local churches are more
likely to continue as they have been in the continuing, not emerging, biblical
agenda of the Church. Case in point:
Roxburgh’s “Forgotten Ways” is endorsed by Leonard Sweet and Brian McLaren,
both proponents of New Are mysticism, Universalism, pantheism and other occult
ideas in the churches.)