Beware!

 Beware sentinels, sentries, guardians, gatekeepers protecting the 'truth' and those peddling opinions claiming authority for their statements: politicians, journalists, theologians.  This is not to say one should ignore opinions or claims of truth but be wary, do not accept them without careful consideration.  Be watchful of misinformation published on social media. If my university education was of any value it was that it  taught me to firstly evaluate evidence and then consider opinions drawn from the evidence.  In other words be questioning, critical but open-minded.  

Those who have gone through, or started on the road, to deconstuction have questioned the protectors of the truth, have evaluated evidence and have drawn their own conclusions, or are in the process of so doing.  For me the journey to deconstruction started with my blog.  As I wrote down my thoughts I published them.  My conclusions have changed as I progressed through over 400 blog posts.  Having set off as a doubting liberal evangelical I am now a humanistic atheist in my opinions.  The message attributed to Jesus and my long-standing support for liberation theology has confirmed by political standpoint of being a socialist.  

Now I am firmly of the opinion that what matters is not a set of beliefs.   What matters is behaviour, action, loving neighbour, not just as theory but by practical action, helping individuals at point of need and campaigning for systemic change to achieve social justice.

So, dear friends, this is where I am.  A good juncture to sign off my blog. Should you be so minded my blog posts are available on Facebook at John Hopkinson Personal Theology Blog.

More reading

In addition to the two books referred to in my previous post I am reading again the seminal work of Gustavo Gutierrez: A Theology of Liberation. I acquired the book having read a reference to liberation theology in the Church of England's report Faith in the City that was published forty years ago. 

The report and the book had a profound effect on my thinking and action. Since those far off days other theologians have been influential in my evolving ideas of God, Jesus and Christian living.  To name a few: Bonhoeffer, Moltmann, Boff, Borg, Bruegemann, King, Romeo, Meyers, Rohr, Holloway and Cupitt.  More recently I have been exploring anew postmodernism and secular theology.  Caputo's book: What to believe? Twelve brief lessons in radical theology  has set me thinking in new directions.

Above all I am interested  in what it means to follow the way of Jesus, both in theory and in praxis. My reading has included a book by Aaron Stauffer: Listening to the Spirit: The Radical Social Gospel, Sacred Value, and Broad-based Community Organisations. Set in a USA context it nevertheless has much of value applicable in other contexts.

I digress. Returning to Gutierrez.  He places an emphasis on the preferrential option for the poor, the gospel's demand for social justice and the need for liberation to come from within and articulated by poor communities.  It is this latter point that he uses to distinguish liberation theology from progressive theology. Liberation theology is not "the radical, political wing of European progressive theology."

Gutierrez writes of an 'irruption of the poor' by which he means 'the poor turning into active agents of their own destiny and beginning a resolute process that is changing the condition of the poor and oppressed in this world'.  Liberation theology is concerned not only with economic poverty: it is concerned with social poverty, racial and feminist discrimination and sexual discrimination.  

He emphasises the holistic approach. It is not enough to describe poverty and oppression: its causes must be determined.  "Structural analysis has played an important part in building up the picture of the world to which liberation theology addresses itself."  It is important, Gutierrez tells us, that being poor (or oppressed) is a way of thinking, loving, praying, believing, hoping, spending leisure time and struggling for a livelihood". It is about health, environmeent, housing, education, social norms, bigotry and ignorance.

Once the causes of poverty and oppression have been identified there should arise calls from the poor and oppressed for social justice. Our praxis should be solidarity with the poor an oppressed, encouraging them to find a voice.   However such calls, or demands, will be resisted by those who benefit or have an interest in retaining existing structures, a point well argued by JK Galbraith.

The preferrential option for the poor denies exclusiveness.  It is vital to  express God's univeral love for all, as expressed in Jesus, and also his predilection for those on the lower rungs of society. The phrase indicates the first with whom Christians should be in solidarity but that, importantly, we must not lose sight of God's love for all.

I will conclude this very short and inadequte reflection on A Theology of Liberation with a few words from Gutierrez on praxis.

"The praxis on which liberation theology reflects is a praxis of solidarity in the interests of liberation and is inspired by the gospel."

Latest reading

 Two books have been gathering dust on my shelves for a number of years.  I have dusted them down and started re-reading them.

The first is 'Secular Theology - American radical theological thought' edited by Clayton Crockett.  It is a reader containing fourteen articles by a number of authors.  

The second book is 'The Postmodern God - A theological reader' edited by Graham Ward. Seventeen contributors. 

As I slowly plough my way through the books, seeking to understand what I am reading, it will mean inevitably that my Facebook posts will be reduced considerably.  

Saving Jesus from the Church.

 It has been a pleasure to read two books by Robin R Meyers: 

Saving Jesus from the Church, and

The Underground Church

The former is subtitled: How to stop worshiping Christ and start following Jesus.  The latter book is subtitled: Reclaiming the subversive way of Jesus.

For those with a liberal and/or progressive understanding of the bible and theology these two volumes give shape and clarity to non-fundamentalist understanding of doctine and non-literalist ways of reading the bible.  Along with Adrian Alker's: Is a radical church possible?, Marcus J Borg's: The Heart of Christianity and Richard Holloway's Doubts and Loves  they form an excellent exposition of what is entailed in following Jesus and how it relates to the organisations called 'church'. 

In Saving Jesus from the Church Meyers sets the tone by observing that in the Sermon on the Mount  there is not a single word about what to to believe, only words about what to do. "It is a  behavioural manifesto, not a a propositional one."   By the time of the Nicene Creed there is not a single word about what to do, only words about what to believe.  For Meyers Christianity has become a search for individual salvation, for a  passport to heaven, for individual victory over debt, obesity or low-esteem instead of being a radical movement for a collective victory over injustice, poverty, war or environmental degradation. In other words, the Kingdom on earth.

Following the Way of Jesus is not about individualistic, selfish, self-interest.  It is about community, tackling social issues of poverty, exclusion, marginalisation, all issues on which Jesus showed radical concern and action.

However I do have reservations.  Meyers explains the importance of seeking to discern in the bible the historical Jesus, the Jesus of the Way and differentiate him from the post-Easter Christ taken up in Pauline writings, a move away from doing to believing. A sensible differentation, but is it possble to identify the historical Jesus with any degree of clarity or centainty? I have my doubts.

As my blog readers well know I do not consider the bible to be a manual of behaviour to be followed slavishly. It is a guide to a body of thinking attributed inter alia to a person known as Jesus. That, I contend, is all we need to know.  What persuades individuals to seek to emulate the teaching of Jesus may, or may not, be by what some consider to be divine inspiration?  Is there an element of panentheism, is it purely a matter of biology, or the interplay of human experience and our minds?