Adventurous Theology #9: Christ in a Pluralistic Age (Bruce Epperly)

When Paul was on his missionary journeys through Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece, one of the stops along the way was Athens.  Athens was at that time one of the great centers of learning.  It was a cosmopolitan place.  It no longer had the political and military power that it had many centuries earlier, but it still was an educational and religious center.  Athens might be an equivalent to San Francisco.  The people there were open minded and eager to learn, but also quite willing to challenge people.  For Paul this was a place of overwhelming pluralism, but he found a point of contact wherein he was able to share his faith.  As Bruce Epperly nears the end of his journey with us through Acts, he takes us to Athens.  I invite you to consider his reflections.

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Adventurous Theology #9:

Christ in a Pluralistic Age

Acts 17:16-20:16

Bruce Epperly

Acts of the Apostles is an adventure that encompasses geography and spirituality. You can take a spiritual journey without leaving home, or you can be utterly bored on a holiday. In the case of Peter and Paul, adventure waited around every turn as God’s spirit propelled them forward to adventures of ideas, healing, and spiritual growth. Paul’s missionary adventure takes him to Athens, the hub of intellectual and cultural life in the Mediterranean world. As he strolls through the Areopagus, the marketplace of ideas, Paul experiences the pluralism of his time in all its glory. Statues abound and conversation is heard on every possible theme. Novelty is the name of the name of the game as new ideas emerge on a day to day basis. Everyone, the author notes, seeks to hear or tell something new.

In many ways, the scene at the Areopagus mirrors our time in which spiritual journeys and eclectic world views and practices abound. While many decry this as “cafeteria Catholicism,” “the spiritual smorgasbord,” or “designer religion,” the truth is that our cultural pluralism is challenging all of us to “make it [our spirituality] up as we go along.” Healthy spirituality involves dialogue and the embrace of pluralism, and not its denial, or a regression to the old time religion. Still, Paul’s distress is appropriate: as people run to and fro in search of the latest spiritual teaching or teacher, or guru who will promise enlightenment and prosperity in a handful of easy lessons, Paul – and many of us today – recognize that healthy spirituality involves depth as well as breadth. It awakens us to infinite possibility while rooting us in the concreteness of daily life. Christ opens us to pluralism, but also enables us to integrate new ideas and practices around a creative and growing spiritual center.

In his speech to the Athenians, Paul’s gives us a glimpse of his universalist theology – for Paul, Christ is not merely a parochial Galilean figure, located in space and time; he is the incarnation of God’s creative love, from which the world emerges and through which all things are reconciled. Paul would feel comfortable with the Prologue of John’s gospel and its ecstatic proclamation of God’s Creative Wisdom/Word that brings forth and enlightens all things. Paul’s vision of the universality of Christ is reflected in his much quoted affirmation of the Hellenistic philosophy of his time: God in the one “in whom we live and move and have our being.” No Deist, who consigns God to the fringes of life, Paul sees God moving through every breath and every encounter. In the Spirit of Romans 8, God moves through the non-human and human creation, interceding within us in sighs too deep for words.

Paul rightly critiques the many representations of God he observes: though he affirms God’s incarnation in the world – “the word made flesh” – he is equally cognizant of God’s grandeur. God is always more than we can imagine. God cannot be contained in any shrine or statue made by human hand. Here the kataphatic, God is present in all things, is joined with the apophatic, God is more than anything we can imagine. This is the yin and yang of theology and spirituality – we have a treasure (indeed, it has transformed our lives and awakened us to holy places) but this treasure is revealed in earthen vessels. The glory goes to God not to our concepts or representations of God.

Still, God is here – as near as our breath – inspiring people of every culture to seek God’s creative wisdom. While Paul proclaims the fullness of revelation in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, he is – in contrast to Karl Barth – affirming that there is a “point of contact” everywhere between God and the world. Even our idols, that is, our localizing of God in space and time through nationalistic loyalties and religious rituals, is inspired by God’s presence in our lives.

These idols both reflect and conceal God’s presence, and need to be cleansed of their particularity so loyalty to one path opens us to a diversity of divine paths.

Pluralism inspires mission, though the not the mission of “us versus them” or “I have it and you don’t.” It is the mission of sharing good news that we already know deep down, but haven’t yet experienced consciously. It is the mission of inviting us to be part of God’s holy adventure in the unfolding history of people in all times and places. Christ within us lures us forward toward what we can become through divine inspiration and grace.

Christ’s good news partners must take culture seriously; they must affirm other faiths in light of what they have experienced in Christ. They must share good news that meets the longings of persons in our pluralistic, post-modern age, rather than denying or demeaning the spiritual quests of our time.

The Spirit that moves through all things inspires Paul’s journey throughout the Mediterranean world. Mysticism continues to lead to mission in Corinth, Ephesus, Macadonia, and Galatia. Paul speaks but also acts, mediating healing power to persons in need.

The Areopagus is our world today. We are people at the margins, but the margins can become the frontiers; the mission field is here; many gods abound and vie for our attention. Our task is to affirm wisdom where we find it – to honor the diversity – yet share the grace we have experienced, the Creative Wisdom of Christ, embodied in all things and inspiring all things.

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is the author of 17 books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry.

Reading the Bible in South Africa -- Sightings

There was a recent dust up over whether the gospel included social justice.  A certain TV host/entertainer who has taken it upon himself to define what is the Gospel and what is not the Gospel told Christians to leave churches that talk about social justice.  Now, I must say that I'm guilty of this offense -- for I believe that deeply rooted in the Gospel is a message of liberation and freedom, not just in the next life, but in this life. 

In this Thursday's edition of Sightings, James Hoke, a M.Div. student at that University of Chicago Divinity School writes about how the Bible is interpreted in a South African context -- noting that before Apartheid ended the Bible was both a tool of oppression and a message of liberation.  The question then is, how is the Bible read today, in the New South Africa that was so much in the news because of the recent World Cup.  I invite you to read, reflect, and respond.

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Sightings 9/30/2010

Reading the Bible in South Africa

-- James Hoke

The 2010 FIFA World Cup demonstrated the unity and capability of the new South Africa. Despite doubts and negative press from around the world, South Africa rose to the occasion by producing stunning new soccer stadiums, making its streets safe and accessible, hosting big-screen match viewings and fan parties, and creating an environment that welcomed thousands of enthusiastic guests for an entire month. Even before the final match, the success of the World Cup could be seen in hundreds of vuvuzelas blasting in the streets. South Africans of every race united in support of their team, their country, and their continent.

Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the World Cup the problems of economic disparity which had been forgotten during the month-long soccer party began to resurface. For years politicians claimed that the World Cup would boost South Africa’s economy and create many new job opportunities. However unemployed women and men in kwaMpumuza, a township on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg, complain that the World Cup had not improved their employment status. The majority of poor South Africans have not felt an economic boost caused by the World Cup.

In the face of large-scale unemployment in many townships, tensions have arisen between unemployed South Africans and refugees and immigrants from other African nations. In the days following the World Cup immigrants reported being threatened with violence if they did not leave immediately; they were told that since the World Cup was over, it was time for all foreigners to go home. Several violent attacks attributed to xenophobia were reported in newspapers. The government believed this to be merely rumors designed to discredit the country’s positive post-World Cup image.

People of faith in South Africa expressed outrage against the violence and the government’s response to it. On Nelson Mandela’s birthday one week after the World Cup ended, a large group marched outside St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town saying “NO” to xenophobia. But the issues that undergird this outbreak require more sustained reflection and response from South African Christians. A critical question facing the post-apartheid Church is how the Bible will be read and interpreted in the public sphere. Despite the vast political and economic changes that South Africa experienced after the end of apartheid and the first free elections held in 1994, the majority of black South Africans who lived in desperate poverty before liberation have seen few changes in their daily lives.

During the years of struggle the Bible was both a tool of oppression and liberation. In the struggle for liberation groups found that reading the Bible and articulating their theologies from the context of life under apartheid fueled their political motivations. Post-liberation, many churches and groups have found difficulty articulating a similar message in a new context. The new government has publicly celebrated that churches can return to focusing on spiritual and moral concerns, leaving political and economic issues to the state. Lacking direction and resources, many churches have done just this, while other groups have ceased to exist.

How the Bible is interpreted in South Africa’s new context will significantly influence the long-term outcomes of the economic issues previously described. If the Bible is only read for moral guidance on spiritual issues, then these questions will dominate public discourse while economic disparity will continue to be ignored.

One method of reading that seeks to confront these issues is the method of Contextual Bible Studies, developed by Gerald West, a biblical scholar at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg. Taking a common interest and respect for biblical texts as a starting point, socially engaged biblical scholars like West read with poor and marginalized communities, empowering them to read and interpret the Bible from their own experiences. Reading from their own context allows readers to articulate their own theologies that represent the liberating message of the Bible (often in economic, in addition to spiritual, terms) instead of only espousing inherited interpretations that do not apply to the current context. This process begins to make readers aware of their own interpretation skills and empowers them with the confidence to act for change. The Bible’s message can be a catalyst for new and creative actions which could allow South African Christians to confront problems of poverty, unemployment, and xenophobia in the public sphere.

References


Celia W. Dugger, “Wage Laws Squeeze South Africa’s Poor.” The New York Times, September 26, 2010.

Gerald West.The Academy of the Poor: Towards a Dialogical Reading of the Bible. Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications, 2003.

Gerald West. “Kairos 2000: Moving Beyond Church Theology.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 108 (Nov 2000): 55-78.

Gerald West, ed. Reading Other-Wise: Socially Engaged Biblical Scholars Reading with Their Local Communities. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007.


James Hoke is a third year Masters of Divinity student focusing on New Testament and feminist/queer biblical interpretation. He received an International Ministry Grant from the Divinity School to investigate Contextual Biblical Interpretation in South Africa this summer.

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.