Why Progressive Christian Theology Matters: The Primacy of Love (Bruce Epperly)

As we wander through these summer months, Bruce Epperly is drawing out attention to the question of whether and why progressive theology actually matters.  In today's piece he reminds us that the basic theological confession about God is that God is Love.  It is something, he says, we too easily forget in our quick embrace of God's power.  I invite you to ponder this question -- what is the primacy of love?  How does focusing on love change the way we envision God? 

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Why Progressive Christian Theology Matters:

The Primacy of Love

Bruce Epperly

In his latest book, The Nature of Love (Chalice Press), open and relational theologian Thomas Jay Oord asserts that “if love is at the center of the biblical witness and the core of Christian theology, it should be the primary criterion for theology.” Yet, as Oord notes, “those who write Christian theologies have often not placed love and its implications at the center of their work.”

Theologians have often forgotten that the proposition “God is love” is the primary description of God’s nature. In contrast, many theologians are willing to jettison love rather than power when it comes to describing what is most central to God’s nature. To compromise on divine power is unacceptable even if this means God is responsible for tsunami and earthquake; while compromising on God’s love for broken and wayward people seems in line with orthodoxy. When power becomes definitive of God’s nature, justice is, then, viewed primarily in terms of punishment rather than healing and transformation and divine knowledge is described as controlling rather than freeing and supportive.

Progressive theology affirms “a metaphysic of love” (Charles Hartshorne) in which God’s power is defined as relational and healing rather than unilateral and coercive. One of my teachers Bernard Loomer spoke of two kinds of power: relational and unilateral. Unilateral power is, by definition, coercive; it controls and shapes, but does not receive. The goal of unilateral power is to exert as much influence as possible without being influenced by others. It speaks but does not listen; it creates but does not respond; it demands but does not negotiate. Uninterested in the unique experiences of others (its subjects), it desires conformity and obedience, rather than creativity and adventure. One of the worse things that can happen, from the perspective of coercive power, is for God to be surprised or influenced by creatures like us.

In contrast, relational power is responsive as well as creative; it welcomes the influence of others. It embraces the gifts of creation and encourages freedom and creativity. It embraces surprise as the opportunity to exert its own freedom in novel and innovative ways. My teachers John Cobb and David Griffin describe God’s power as “creative-responsive love.”

When power is defined in terms of love, its primary goal is healing and transformation. God’s power is, as Peter Schmiechen describes it, entirely “saving power.” God is on our side, forgiving even the faithless and violent as a means of their healing. Loving power, however, is not weakness: it is persistent and challenging of alienating behaviors. As I Corinthians 13 proclaims, loving power never ends.

Loving power is reflected in Jesus’ approach to healing and wholeness. The healing narratives reflect Jesus’ affirmation that his mission was to promote abundant life. Jesus did not blame the victim, nor did he identify disease with divine punishment. While Jesus recognized that behaviors and attitudes could play a role in disease, even those who struggled with their faith or previous misdeeds received his blessing.

Loving power is reflected in Philippians 2:5-11. Here God’s power is revealed in presence and relationship. Every knee shall bow – yes, every knee! – not out of fear but out of gratitude for a love that knows no end and that rules by letting go rather than demanding obedience. Often love is seen as something weak by those who see power as definitive of God; they want a God who can rain down hell-fire and brimstone and punish the opponent. Often they exhibit this same behavior in relationship to their opponents, drawing lines that divide rather than circles that include. Love is powerful; it is willing to go to the cross to bring wholeness to humanity; it is willing to forgive the enemy; and it is willing to become “unclean” so that others find healing.

Today, in this time of cultural and religious polarization, we need to emphasize the love of God and the embrace of otherness, rather than denunciation and division. Only the vision of a truly loving God, for whom love is the primary motivation in the use of power, can help us find a spiritual and cultural common ground. As progressives, we need to let the light of love shine, as we tell the good news of an infinitely creative, adventurous, persistent, and loving God.

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary and co-pastor of Disciples Community Church in Lancaster, PA. He is the author of seventeen books, including  Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. Those interested in his work on healing may consult God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus   and Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice. His most recent book, From a Mustard Seed: Enlivening Music and Worship in the Small Church written with Daryl Hollinger, will be released by Alban Institute Books in August.

Divine Power -- Unilateral or Relational? (Bruce Epperly)

Bruce Epperly follows up on his discussion of the Resurrection with a discussion of divine power.  Is it unilateral (direct and irresistible) or relational (engaged but resistable)?  Bruce prefers a relational understanding of power, one that fits with his progressive theology.  I invite you to read and respond.

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Divine Power – Unilateral or Relational?

Bruce Epperly

Over thirty years ago, my graduate school theology professor Bernard Loomer asserted that there were two primary kinds of power – unilateral power and relational power. Unilateral power is by nature coercive. It gives, but does not receive; acts but does not listen; demands but does not compromise. It sees the other in terms of its wishes, rather than the other’s deepest desires. Creativity and freedom are frowned upon, if not outright abolished. Anything that deviates from the ruler’s edit is, by definition, wrong and subject to severe punishment. In business or parenting, unilateral power proclaims, “my way or the highway” as it paternalistically seeks to act “for our own good.”

In contrast, relational power takes into consideration the value and perspective of others. It gives, but also receives; acts but also responds; has a vision but is open to change and transformation. Relational power is at the heart of good parenting as well as democratic decision-making. Relational power encourages freedom, creativity, and coloring outside the lines, within the context of overall environmental safety and order. Relational power recognizes that well-being in personal and institutional life is best achieved by welcoming diverse perspectives and balancing order and novelty for the common good.

Christian theology has struggled with these two approaches to power in its understanding of the relationship of God and the world. While Jesus is proclaimed as the primary revelation of the divine nature, Christian theologians have often, in the words of the philosopher Whitehead, preferred Caesar to Christ in their understanding of divine power. Sovereignty, defined as unilateral and all-determining (omnipotent) power, has been judged superior to love in describing God’s character and relationship to creation. Defined in terms of unilateral power, God can do whatever God wants – destroy cities, send plagues, kill innocent people, pulverize the planet –simply because God wills to. There is no court of appeal, because unilateral power is supreme and unquestioned regardless of its cost to creation. The elect can feel comfortable knowing that God will protect them while unilaterally condemning the unfaithful, or persons who ask questions or have different perspectives, to an eternity of suffering.

As I noted, Christianity has struggled with the nature of divine power even though Jesus’ embodiment of power was far different from that of Caesar. Borg, Crossan, and Wright have correctly noted that the gospels proclaim an alternative social order and an alternative understanding of the divine to that of unilateral, power-oriented, and domineering rulers and gods. Jesus’ ministry, described in the gospels and in Paul’s Christological hymn, from Philippians 2:1-11, was defined by relationship, empowerment, acceptance, mutuality, and love. If Jesus is the window into God’s nature, then divine power, while variable in expression and intensity, is, by definition, loving and relational.

Divine relational power – and remember, Jesus opened the door to seeing God in relational terms by calling God “abba” (or father) - shapes the world though loving and respectful relationship. On the one hand, this means that God has a vision, appropriate to each moment of experience and, in the broadest sense, for the vast expanses of planetary and cosmic history. God presents the world with possibilities and the energy to achieve them. God does coerce the world but inspires the world with dreams, visions, and possibilities. On the other hand, this means that God really experiences our lives. God touches us with vision and beauty, but we also touch God by our dreams and actions. The “One to whom all hearts are open and all desires known” truly experiences our joy and suffering, and allows these experiences to shape God’s response to the world. The world lives by the dynamic divine-creaturely “call and response” in which God presents visions and the world responds, thus enabling present new visions appropriate to our personal or global situation.

As in the case of all healthy and dialogical relationships, God “listens” often before God “speaks.” God seeks what is best for the real world and not some ideal person or universe. In some ways, this could be said to place limits on God, that is, God works within the world as it is, presenting possibilities that enable us to move forward. We can refuse these possibilities and often do; but our refusals cannot defeat God, who responds with new possibilities in light of what we’ve just chosen. For example, in a violent situation, God cannot personally restrain the threatening fist; but, God can move within the perpetrator, opening him or her to new possibilities, which at that moment might be restraining the fist, while still boiling with rage.

Many persons affirm the theological necessity of divine unilateral power. After all, such power insures God’s victory and asserts that God can always get what God wants. While I concede this point, I believe divine unilateral power raises some serious theological issues. First, it makes God equally responsible for salvation and damnation, cancer and recovery, catastrophe and escape, and evil and good. Second, the image of divine unilateral power goes against the dialogical vision of the Hebraic scriptures in which God often has to adjust God’s vision and action in relationship to the behavior of God’s people. Third, Jesus’ healing miracles, while revealing extraordinary manifestations of divine power, reflect the interplay of personal faith and divine action, or divine call and human response. Forth, divine unilateral power makes God beyond good and evil, thus, exalting amoral power over love as essential to God’s character.

A relational God, in contrast, seeks abundant life for all things, but must work through the freedom and creativity of the world, slowly, patiently, and constantly luring the world toward greater and greater love and beauty. A relational God is not without power, but it is the power of love and relatedness, not coercion or violence. It is the power of shared vision rather than unilateral demand.

God’s power is present shaping each moment of experience, and some moments reflect God’s power in unique and transformative ways. God’s vision, like our own, can be embodied in more vital, lively, and transformative ways, as a result of the divine decision to be more present in some places than others and in some persons rather than others and in the corresponding creaturely or community response to God’s initiative and vision. Such revelatory moments truly embody the divine aim toward beauty and wholeness, whether in a Celtic “thin place,” a liturgical healing service, a Damascus road experience, or in the radical openness of Mary and the moment by moment transparency and revelation of Jesus of Nazareth, whom we call the Christ.

The power of love, divine power incarnate, trusts us enough to inspire and encourage our own use of power and creativity. In inviting to “greater things” (John 14:12), God expands God’s own creativity and power in the dynamic, transformative, and evolving divine call and human response. Like a good parent, God says “surprise me,” to creation, knowing that in the dance of call and response God has the visionary resources to respond creatively and lovingly to every creaturely act.

Bruce Epperly is a seminary professor and administrator at Lancaster Theological Seminary; pastor at Disciples United Community Church, Lancaster, PA; theologian and spiritual companion. He is the author of seventeen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living, a response to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. His Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry, written with Katherine Gould Epperly, was selected Book of the Year by the Academy of Parish Clergy. (http://www.bruceepperly.com/)