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The work of God’s Spirit

This was a post on a blog from earlier this week: Hey Bo!

First, in what ways have you changed the WAY you talk about the Spirit’s work in light of “the 21st century update”? Examples?

Secondly, in what ways do you talk about the Spirit’s work SPECIFICALLY in order for it to be a “subversive danger to the systems of this world” or are these two questions one and the same?

I’d be curious to hear more!

This blog looks great. I, for one, and much more likely to hit it up now that it’s all in one place. It’s a very human thing, but it’s true that we are quite lazy, even in web-browsing! Can’t wait for the return of the POD!

I started to respond but realized that it was far too big a topic for a little reply so it morphed into a whole new post:

There are three big changes:

  1. I got rid of Dualism (like my understanding of  Transcendent and Immanent) that were both unhelpful and antiquated. I had been sold a bad (simplistic) understanding called the 3 tiered universe.  This change is essential to understanding WHAT is happening.
  2. I brought in an understanding of the Trinity called Perichoresis (or Circuminsession) that speaks of HOW it works.
  3. I have adopted a “relational” model (process) that explains WHY the Spirit’s work looks the way it does.

These three changes have revolutionized both my understanding and my practice.

I will give you an example: at church we often open a service by praying and asking God to “come” and we sing songs about the spirit/grace/power/rain coming “down”. We talk about God breaking “in” or breaking “through”.

Now I understand that this is all just language (theo-poetics) that comes from our PERCEPTIONS. That is fine. But God has already come “down” and is already “in”, God has “come” and IS at work among us.  So I don’t get caught up on the imagery – I understand that it is just how we imagine it.

This has then freed me up to stop looking at things in ‘kind’ and see them in ‘degree’. Continue reading “The work of God’s Spirit” →

2

>Prayer, Healing and Cancer

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This Friday I want to talk about walking on water and other miracles in the Bible. Today I want to talk about praying for cancer and why some people are healed.
There are two quick things that I want say before we get into it. First, when we talk about healing, most of the time we start in the Bible and then transfer what we think about it forward to today.  I want to do the opposite. I want to start with how people are healed today and then go back and see if that may have been what was going on in the Bible. 
Second, since I came out last week that I do not believe in the supernatural I wanted to thank everyone who commented on this blog, facebook, and email. I really appreciate all the thoughtful responses. 
I don’t believe in the supernatural – but I do believe in prayer for healing.

People who were taught the supernatural view may hear that and think “that doesn’t make sense” or “that is contradictory”. This only exposes how little we have thought about all of this and how lazy our thinking can get when we think we have it all figured out. It has never dawned on some of us that there may be another way to think about spiritual and physical healing than the ‘super’ natural explanation. 

I would like to put forward an alternative explanation for your consideration:
Cancer is when cells of the body become disconnected from the function and purposes of rest of the body. They are separated from the story or narrative design of the body. Once disconnected, or out of line with the body, they actually begin to turn against the body and attack the body – multiplying at an unhealthy rate and ultimately eating the cells and organs of it’s host body. Cancer cells are separated from the purpose and story of the body that gives them life and begin to work against the body that gives them life. 
When we pray for someone who has cancer and they are ‘healed’, what do we think happened? I think that what happened is that we as a community surrounded them with our bodies (cells) and spirits (partnership with God) in order to make a place of openness for a “God who is at work among us” to reconnect those cells to the story (and purpose) of the body and bring them back in line to work with the body in a healthy way. 
What I don’t think happened is that a transcendent God reached through the veil of existence and magically touch only this person to take out the bad cells. 
I really do believe that God is here at work among us all the time and when we open up and participate with God’s will and purpose that it is possible that misaligned cells that are disconnected from body’s story can come back into alignment and participate with the body instead of against it. 
Doctors call it remission. We call it a miracle. It is natural and beautiful. What it is not is “super” natural. 
It is not dependent on praying hard enough, praying good enough, being good enough people to pray for this, etc.  It isn’t about looking for unbelief, or unconfessed sin, or some other flaw in the sick person or the pray-ers. It isn’t about a God who is “in control” or that “everything happens for a reason” or that everything will make sense in Heaven (after we die), or that God is sovereign and chooses who lives and who dies. 
I still believe in healing. But I now think that it happens for a different reason than I used to. I don’t believe in the supernatural.  I do believe that prayer is powerful and that sometimes people are healed from cancer. God has given us medicine which can be powerful. God has given us a community that prays and that can be powerful.  God has given us the presence of God’s Spirit who is at work among us. Being open to this can be very powerful. 


Let me know what you think… I am very interested in having a conversation about all of this. 

3

>Clearing the Air – 4 changes

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I have been doing Everyday Theology for the almost 3 years. I love it. Of all my projects, it is my favorite. 
As I continue my transition from being a local church minister (only) to an academic and a public theologian – things will necessarily need to change.
There are four changes that I just wanted to  “get out on the table” to talk about what is going on behind the scenes or what is driving this conversation from my side. 
Here are the four things:
  1. I believe that almost everything about the Christian faith needs to be updated for the world that we live in.  The first implication is that   
  2. we have to get rid of words like “supernatural” 
  3. I need to start quoting people by name for accountability and credibility  
  4. there are some big and/or fancy words that I need to get comfortable using. I will always try to define and explain things as we go – but some of these words are too good and too helpful to continue not using them.  
Number one is obvious. There is no aspect of our lives that has gone unchanged in the last 2000 years. From basic things like food and sex to more complicated things like politics and economics , everything has changed. 
It’s not that these things have changed entirely – it’s that nothing has gone entirely unchanged. 
Religion is in this category. Christianity, both in it’s revealed nature (revelation) and it’s organization (religion) has evolved, adapted, and transformed immensely. I think that is a good thing. The only thing about it that is not good is that some believe that is has not changed or that it isn’t suppose to change. That is where the problem comes.
In the coming month I will be floating some thoughts about prayer, biology and reading the Bible in light of these necessary and good changes. 
The second thing is an immediate casualty. There are many things that are gained by updating, but there will also be some things that get sacrificed in the transition. This involves moving away from the supernatural.
I do not believe in the supernatural. I still believe in miracles – just not in the supernatural. Neither the word or the idea is in the Bible and it is really hurting us in the post-modern (and modern) world.
sidenote: the fact that most people do not know how that is possible shows how limited our conversation has been around this issue. 
What we call the super-natural is really just left over language from the pre-natural mindset of ancient times.  I believe that God’s work in the world in the most natural thing in the world. It is not SUPER-natural, which really means UN-natural. It is just natural.  Everything is natural.  Praying for someone to be healed is natural.  Someone who you are in relationship giving you their car when they hear about your need is natural.  
It might be miraculous (surprising to us) but it is not super-natural or un-natural. It is just natural. It is how God works. [if you want to read something similar that I wrote about discerning God’s will click here]
The third change is quoting people. I have avoided this for three years because sometimes people are scared off by name dropping as it can seem too academic or highbrow.  I think that avoiding author’s and expert’s names has been the right decision up to this point, but that continuing to do so will be limiting. For both accountability and credibility I need to make this change. I know that some people will be turned off by it – but hopefully we can meet in the middle!
The fourth change is using some multi-syllable words. I have avoided this for the same reason as I have avoided quoting authors. But the simple fact is that this conversation is framed by some ideas that are encapsulated in good words. I need to become proficient is using these words well and being comfortable explaining them and integrating them. I will try to do this with clarity and caution – not for the sake of using the $10 word, but for  reasons that it propels the conversation forward in a good and helpful direction. 
I just wanted to clear the air. Two main points A) as I continue to learn and translate and participate in public theology, I wanted to show my cards so that everyone knew where I was coming from.   B) Sometimes people push back on me (which I enjoy) but are surprised that I don’t just repeat the same ‘apologetics’ answers that I learned in Bible College (Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Ravi Zacharias, etc.) 
I want to be really clear about what I am doing. I am participating in a great global conversation about updating the faith for the 21st century that is both: 
  • in continuity with the historical christian tradition 
  • relevant and has accounted for the realities of the world in which we live
If you want to know why I am doing this read this article by N.T. Wright – or on his website
If you want to check out the kind of thing I am after check out this article by F. Leron Shultz [link]
10

>Friday Follow up – Relational Religion

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Two things that I wanted to follow up on – one brought up by Wanda on Facebook and one brought up by Joe on the blog. Luke gets my comment of the week.
Wanda asked if there was a difference between being born sinful and being born full of sin. That is an interesting question. It caused be to think.  I responded by saying being born sinners is Status. Being born full of sin is Substance. 
What I am suggesting is the we are born into families that have broken relationships, and that we are born with the ability (and propensity) to foul things up all on our own!

I once heard Brian McLaren say  (this my memory and not a direct quote) if you mean by original sin that humans don’t need any help figuring out how to mess things up and to be selfish… then yes I believe in it. But if you mean something at the cellular level or that means babies who die are going to hell… then no. 
That might be a good way to say that. 
____
Joe brought up a scenario about prayer – “A recent acquaintance requested a group of people to pray for his friend who had sent suicidal text messages to his wife and kid. So we did. There’s a relational connection there, but it’s a couple of degrees separate. There wasn’t anything we could do OTHER than pray…  By the way, the news was good, they got to him in time.”
 Let me put forward a definite theory and tell me what you think:
If we were having a small group meeting or a night of prayer and Joe said “God told me that we need to pray for Mike he is planning to commit suicide.”  We would pray for Mike.  But how would we know if it worked?  Would we just end the meeting and think ‘we did what we could – we did what God wanted us to do’?  But what if Joe said “God told me that it worked and Mike is going to be fine.”  Then we go home having detected and resolved a conflict without having any contact with ‘Mike’?
Now you may choose to concentrate on Joe’s quality of discernment or his track record. But what I am saying is that though those scenarios may be fantastic and exceptional – I actually think that it is not how prayer is designed and it is not how God wants work. Some people may be called to that kind of intercession. I just think that it is not and should not be the normative mode of prayer for the majority of believers. I think that we should pray for people that we know. 
 I am actually saying that God wants to work through relationship and wants us to pray for people that we know (even our enemies as Luke pointed out).  Maybe it is just me – but I do not want to go prayer meetings where people are pulling things out of thin air  where there can then be no verification or validation. I want to go to a prayer meeting where we pray for people that we know by name and then go love them in tangible ways. 
___
Luke had the comment of the week!  “I feel like the traditional idea of Original Sin views sin as kind of a cosmic STD. I think the idea of sin as primarily broken relationship  is much better, and much more in line with the biblical narrative.”
That got me thinking: we do talk about Sin as an STD – a Spiritually Transmitted Disease!   That is why you have to be so careful about who you interact with – and once you get an STD… it can be tough to get rid of and cause a lot of damage to your health and be passed onto others… Wow.  Scary.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend not matter what the weather is like where you live. I am researching a major project on the topic of the history of Practical Theology.  
Let’s keep the conversation going!  I will put up the new Podcast on Tuesday entitled  “Jesus is not Violent” .

5

>Relational Religion

> There are three significant implications for reading the Bible relationally. 

The first has to do with prayer. 
The second has to do with the original sin. 
The third has to do with Pentecost.                  by Bo Sanders
Prayer
Prayer is a relational thing. We pray for people that we know. This is a good thing. That is how it is suppose to work. We need to be praying for the people that we know.
It is tough to pray for someone you don’t know. Let’s take two examples: letters in the mail and hiring a pastor.  


When a church wants to hire a pastor, they do not hold a prayer meeting and ‘discern’ a name and phone number out of thin air and then call that person and say “God told us that you are suppose to be our next pastor”.  That is not how it works. They look over resumes, they do phone interviews, they call the person in for the weekend to candidate and then ‘discern’ based on relational cues. 

When god lays on somebody’s heart to write an encouraging note, send a gift, or to make a phone call, it is always to somebody that we know. God works in and through relationship. If you want to send a check for $100 to help someone out, you don’t write a random name on an envelope and make up (or pray and discern) an address and then put it in the mail. You send it to someone you know – someone that you are in a relationship with. That is what God leads us to do. 
Can you imagine writing a check to Jackson Bolaliber, making out the envelope to 765 Kings Highway in Jacksonville Kansas and then making up a zip code (98126) and putting it in the mail?  I don’t even know if this person exists. I don’t know if Kansas has a town called Jacksonville. I don’t know if that zip code is even for Kansas or if it exists anywhere.
That is not how it works. That is not how God works. God works in relationship. God lays on our hearts to send encouragement notes to people that we know. To dial phone numbers that belong to people that we are in relationship with. 
Have you ever said “God give me 10 single-digits that make up a phone number of somebody that you want me to call and encourage.”  No.  You call somebody that you know and encourage them. You may even be led to call them because you know of something going on in their life and that they need encouragement.
I’ve said this before, when we pray for the people of Haiti, we are not asking God to fix the situation “from Heaven” – we are a) asking God to send the people that will fix the situation and b) making ourselves available to God for whatever situation God might want to use us in. 
Prayer prepares our hearts to participate with God in God’s world and work. God is relational. Therefore God’s work is relational. And thus, prayer is relational. 
The original sin
I believe in the original sin.  I do not believe in Original Sin. I believe in the original sin, but I do not believe in what has been the dogmatic teaching that children are born full of sin – that the cells of the body are corrupted or depraved and that unless they pray a prayer to Jesus or are baptized by a priest or belong to the right church (which is sanctioned by the State) they are “fallen” and will not go to heaven. I do not believe in that kind of original sin. 
The concern over Substance (corrupted) and Status (fallen) are not the concerns of the Bible and come to us via Greek philosophy (both Platonism and Aristotelean thought).
The concern of the Bible is relationship. That is the power of the original sin – that it broke relationship.  There were three types of broken relationship in the Garden of Eden narrative.  
But before we get to that … and while were are on the subject –  there is no such thing as the fall.   Look it up. The Bible never talks about a fall.  Adam and Eve did not fall.  Humans are not fallen.  If you look up ‘Fall’ in most biblical concordances you will see six verses listed. Not one of them uses the word fall.  It was a concept – a construct- that was added later – because of philosophy.
What happened in Eden is not a fall. It is a breaking of relationship, and it impacted three things. 
The first relationship that was broken was between God and humanity. They were afraid of God and they hid. The relationship was broken. 
The second relationship that was broken was between between humans – some focus on the split between the genders, some on the relationship between husband and wife, I prefer to look at the simple  human to human brokenness. 
The story of Cain and Able illustrated the brokeness of both of these first two levels – with God and between each other. 
The third relationship that was broken was between humans and the earth. It changed from a care – partnership – providing connection to a hostility (the earth to us) and domination (us to the earth). 
Good News: This is what Jesus comes to restore! Jesus heals our broken relationship with God. Jesus enables us to have restored relationships with other humans around us. And Jesus brings us into a new awareness of the earth beneath us.
I draw it this way: the Circle was broken in Eden. Three circles were broken in Eden. Living in Jesus restores those broken circles – repairs the brokeness and reconnects the unity of the circle. 
Living in Jesus connects the circle above us in a restored unity with God. It also connects us to those around us in the circle of community. Lastly, it connects us to the earth below so that we have restored appreciation and partnership with the dust from which we came and to which we will return. 
This is the idea of Shalom. It is peace-restoration-connection-wholeness. Living in Shalom is a circle running North-South above and below and another circle running east-west connecting us to those around.  This is healthy connection, mutual care and edification.
There was an original sin but there is no Original Sin. There was no Fall but there is restored relationship and connection.*
Pentecost
     As long as I am laying it all out I might as well say this: reading the Bible relationally changes everything.  Look at it this way – the Incarnation was Jesus taking on flesh and opening a new way for humanity to to relate to God. Jesus gives us a new relationship with God.
Many people that I know who self-identify as Christian live as if Jesus never came – reverting to a set of rules, regulations, and religious rituals. 
When Jesus dies, the veil in the temple is torn in two. God’s presence comes out into the world. God is no longer kept behind closed doors and God no longer lives in buildings built by human hands.  The Religious presence of God had come out into the world where the Natural presence of God had always been – but this was now in a new way. 
This move came to its culmination at Pentecost and God’s spirit – the Spirit of Christ – who is Holy Spirit now indwells us as the people of God. In the Hebrew Testament God’s Spirit would fill one person at a time (like a Judge or a Prophet) for one task or a specific time. Now, after Pentecost God’s spirit resides in every believer for all time.
God is with us. God is here among us. Christ’s Spirit is at work in the world and is with you – to guide you and use you and change you. 
God wants to guide you. 
God wants to use you. 
God wants to change you. 
This is why God gave Holy Spirit to the world as a gift. We are the people of God. We are the House of God. God dwells in us each of us and among us as a community. 
Conclusion
When you pray, you are not projecting your voice past the heavens and trying to get the attention of a God who lives on the other side of curtain – begging and pleading for God to ‘come down’.  God already came down – and died on a cross – that is when the veil was torn in two and God’s presence came out into the world. God is here with us now. God is at work among us. 
God didn’t write a best-selling book and then retire to the far corner of the universe leaving it all up to us to do what was said in the book. That book is not an instruction manual or a constitution or a rule book. It is a story. In that story God gives his own Son who dies for the world – to repair a broken set of relationship and restore us to right relationship – three new relationships. Then God gives his Spirit to the world as a gift so that we may have a new connection (Shalom) with God, a new connection (Community) with those around us, and new connection (edification) with the world that we inhabit.  
* My mentor Randy Woodley has given me a wonderful understanding of Shalom and he did his Doctoral Dissertation on the Harmony Way understanding of this concept by native American communities. 
22

>Praying to a God who isn’t There

>I wanted to follow up on last week’s podcast “the three gods we pray to” because some of the feedback that I got said that I just wasn’t specific enough.

Listen to the POD here : EveryDay Link

Not wanting to use labels: One of the things that makes being specific difficult is that I am trying to stay away from using labels. In my effort to steer clear of the Argument Culture, I have tried to speak generically where possible and avoid over-categorization and divisions. Sometimes I just try and broadcast a progressive concept or put forward an innovative idea and sort of let people chew on it and let it soak and savour without being too specific or directive. And I like to do that…but this time I’ve been asked to be very specific because of the nature of what I’m putting forward. And I think that’s a good idea.

so I’m just going to spell it out in as clear an English as possible, then share with you why I think it is and finish up with some application.

Here it is: when we talk about God, we usually talk about the God of the Big 5 ( omnipotent, omniscient, omni-present, immuntable, impassable) we say that this God “knows the future” and “never changes”. It’s a pretty conservative view of God. And that would be fine… if that’s who we prayed to & how we behaved. But I don’t think that’s who we prayed to & doesn’t seem to me that we act like that God runs things.

Let me share with you where I think the problem is coming from and then I will get to the other gods.

The lens of history: I believe that the disconnect is coming because we have a false view of history as if it were linear. When we as every day Protestant & Catholic Christians ( whether we are Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, mainline, charismatic, evangelical, Pentecostal or conservative) we try to look back to the cross – but we are not looking straight there. We look through several lenses.

Most of us are individuals. We are the results of enlightenment thinking and don’t see ourselves in the way that somebody born in 1600s — whether in North America or Western Europe or Africa or Asia — would’ve thought of themselves 400 years ago, even if they were our same race or lived on our same acre.

So if I just offer myself up here is an example, I am a male of European descent in North America trying to look back past the Industrial Revolution, Protestant Reformation and Renaissance. Trying to skip over the Middle Ages and the Crusades back to this event that I know as Christmas and read about in my Bible. I do this by skipping ( or assuming) the Greek philosophies that have impacted Christianity and its creeds and the writing of its scriptures. Then I try to wade through that Hebrew nature of this story without getting bogged down in it’s Jewishness by trying to read about this cosmic event in a universal way. Now by Universal I mean generic and that is where I fail.

Jesus didn’t do what he did in a generic way. He did not come to a generic place in a generic time and generically redeem us all. He came to a specific place in a specific time and that has been portrayed to me in a specific way and that has been handed down to me in a specific way. When I ignore all of that context, I may not be aware of what else is being reflected in my lenses if I don’t acknowledge that I look through lenses.

Last week one I was part of an online chat. It was a really good question about church leadership and it was just opened up for discussion. It was a good discussion. Then this guy comes on and says something like ‘here’s a novel idea: why don’t we look at what God said in the word’ and proceeded to be condescending and pushy and tell us all what we already knew about the Apostle Paul. It effectively brought the conversation to an end because how do you respond to that? It took so much energy for me not to reply and get into it. I wanted to say to this guy: dude I have so many problems with your opening sentence. First, I know that you mean well but when you say “word” you don’t mean it the same way that those who wrote it mean it. When Paul said “word” he wouldn’t have been talking about the same thing you’re talking about and now using as a heavy-handed precedent. Secondly when you say that “God said” you are ignoring authorial situation of the Scripture -please acknowledge that Paul or Luke or whoever you are quoting wrote in their own voice the things that they were inspired by God to write. They were not dummies being used by a ventriloquist god. Thirdly don’t act like there is one chapter in the New Testament that says ‘ here’s how to run a church’ & that is the final word on the issue. We piece this together from all whole bunch of snapshots about many different ways that churches were organized. There was not one church in the Bible. Lastly, even if that was the case (which it wasn’t) we don’t live in that world. We live in a world that has been deeply affected by what we read about in Scripture.

The very fact that we are having this conversation on the Internet in English should bring some humility to our perspective. Unfortunately it seems to do the exact opposite. It seems to make us more programed, more certain and more prescriptive unless we intentionally acknowledge it and account for it… our lenses can actually limit our view.

the Three Gods

So here is where I’m coming at this — I don’t believe in the Big 5 God. Not as it is configured in those 5. I don’t see that God in the Hebrew Scripture or the Gospels. I don’t imagine that God when I pray and I don’t see that God at work in the world.

In fact, I would say that if you pray and expect anything to change your probably not praying to the Big 5 God but more of a free will god. Even people I know who will passionately defend this classic view of God as sovereign and transcendent and unchangeable, pray in ways that, at least to me, seem inconsistent with the classic conservative view of God. Praying to the Big 5 God is in order to get your self in line with what is already written in the stars.

Praying to the God of free will is, I think, what most people are comfortable with or at least practice. No matter what they say in their doctrinal statement or theology debates, it all kind of sounds the same when we pray. I get to pray with people from different denominations and in different settings. It seems to me that in the free flow prayer that Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Calvinists, Arminians and just about everyone else — no matter how they say that they differ — only once in a while does someone pray something that I can’t say ‘ amen’ to. I have found this when praying with Europeans, people from former Soviet countries, Africans, those from various countries in Asia and Canadians. I think that we all (mostly) pray to God #2: The God of Free Will.

Since I don’t believe in the Big 5 God, who do I pray to? I pray to the one that is intimately involved in the process. The one who is present in spirit. The one who works through us and with us and on us and for us.

Let me give you an example. If I hear about the atrocious living conditions in Haiti or the water and the mosquito problems that foster malaria in Africa and my heart is burdened for this. I pray about it. Maybe God calls me to go and be a part of the solution. Maybe God calls me to send money to someone who is on the ground working there. And that’s how God works. But the top soil doesn’t come back to Haiti because I pray in my multi-million dollar church building. The wells in Africa aren’t made clean because I pray at the mens’ breakfast at Starbucks. Children don’t suddenly develop resistance to malaria or AIDS because I pray from the comfort of my living room. That is not how God works. God is in the process of someone going. When that person goes -God is at work.

We don’t ask for topsoil to fall out of heaven onto Haiti. We don’t pray that tomorrow morning they are going to wake up and all of the trees will have magically regrown overnight. We know that’s not how it works.
And when we want to send someone money, whether for ministry or out of simple generosity, we send it to someone we know. Because God works in relationship. It’s not like a name pops in your head, and as you’re writing the check to this person you’ve never met their address comes to you. Then you fill out the envelope put a stamp on it and drop money in the mail to someone that you do not know if they exist or if the addresses right (and just say ‘I have faith’).

God lays it on our heart to give to people we know… brings their situation to mind… brings their face to our memory. We hear a story and are moved.

If someone in our congregation has an extended sickness and we pray for them, but no one calls them or visit them or writes them a note… once they recover and they come back church and we ‘oh we were praying for you- that you would be cared for and ministered to’. You see where I am going here… they are ministered to when we go over and cared for when we care for them. In that sense, we are the answer to our own prayer. That is how God works! It how it is designed and how it works best.

Look, I am not saying that we are answer to every prayer or that the answer is found ‘within’ or something like that. All I am asking for is that we be honest… that is how god really works: through us. I believe in the transcendent. I believe in the mystical. I believe that God’s Spirit is present among us and at work through us. That God is intimately involved in the process of unfolding history. I do not believe in the puppet master that manipulates by pulling the strings behind the scenes. I do not believe in the God who wrote the script ahead of time and is now just sitting back watching the play unfold on the stage of history. Who shows up on a stage once in while to move the set around but for the most part just wound up the clock and let history play out.

I do not believe that the future exists. I think that what ever we have that looks that way is really divine prophetic promise of participation. Put that together with God’s intimate knowledge of the creatures and the creation and you have a divine perspective we don’t have access to except through revelation. But this Big 5 God is a hybrid between some elements out of Scripture, some out of early Greek philosophy (mostly Platonic) and the evolution of church history (mostly Aristotelian).

That’s why I think it would be far better for us to pray to God who is present with us by spirit. Who is in fact with us here in the moment. And who is making available all of the resources that we need to bring about this will that God has an invested interested in.

If you want to stick with praying to God #2 and saying that the future is an elaborate series of possibilities and that God is the God of all of those possibilities that’s fine. I can go with that. As long as we acknowledge how things really work. Regardless of how the Hebrews pictured it, regardless of how it was portrayed in the early apostolic age, we need to talk about how the world really works for us here now.

I believe that the God of Calvin and Luther died in the second world war. Between Auschwitz and Hiroshima that concept of God died. That God is dead and even if he* did exist like that before World War II, he sure hasn’t been at work in the world since then. Even if he did exist, and I don’t think he did, he isn’t around now.

That isn’t to say that God isn’t around. God is alive and well. God is here with us now. It’s just that conception of God passed away in the gas chambers and in the nuclear fallout. The world will never be the same. And if we keep using these old pictures of God when we debate and when we pray I fear that those of us who call ourselves people of faith – the ones who still actually take time to pray- we may not be participating in the world the way it actually works. Which may be why we cling to antiquated fantasies about what a different world would look like and then hope that God ejects our soul out of here and evacuates the planet because we don’t want to go through the hard process of bringing about that preferable future and seen the kingdom, and earth as it is in heaven.

It’s a conversation I want to have. I want to talk about how the world really works. Who we actually think God to be. Make sure that our prayer both lines up with that conception of God and prepares us for the process of participating in the world as it actually is. That to me is what the brand-new day is all about. We live in a world that has “come of age”. I think it’s time to grow up and mature our faith for a world that is radically changing in our day.

and since I don’t believe in the second coming or the end times in the classic sense **
– I think that we will have plenty of time to do this.
But more than that, I think that it IS time to do this.

* I use ‘He’ for God when talking about the Big 5 God.
** I believe that the book of Revelation was directed to the events of the first 3 centuries and specifically Rome. It was probably fulfilled in the sense that it was intended by about 312 or 353 CE]

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>3 Gods we Pray to

>Since I am just getting started over here on Blogger – I thought that I would transfer over one blog a day from my site. If I do one a day, I can get them lined up.

I have had the privilege that I get to hear a lot of people talk about prayer. Whether it is at seminars, in small groups or one on one I have over the last 15 years been able to survey countless people in the area of prayer.

It is my observation, as I listen to these different perspectives and experiences, that it almost seems as if there are three different gods that you can pray to.

So I’ve looked into it. It turns out there are actually three different gods that people pray to. Well, more like three different conceptions of God that people pray to.

This doesn’t bother me at all. I get it. We each conceptualize and participate in our religious community, our unique expression and with our individual experience. This is bound to produce multiple manifestations and allusions to this transcendent being or greater reality or central axis of life.

What is somewhat concerning to me is how jumbled, muddled and incoherent the mixing and amalgamating seems to be. I’m concerned that we may be approaching this with a thoughtless or careless approach. So what I would like to do is take a look at each of the three gods — or conceptions of God — individually. Then talk about how one would pray to each one of these unique constructs and address why it is potentially not helpful to mix and match gods with approaches.

The first God is the classic god. This God is transcendent, omniscient, omnipotent and all the other things we want A divine being to be. When we talk about this God we say ‘ He know the future’, and ‘God is in control’ or (if you prefer) Everything Happens for a reason ’.

The second God let’s us have free will. This is a God who somehow let’s us be flawed human beings and somehow still maintains the ability to be God. We don’t know how – it’s a mystery.This is the god of possibilities. Somehow… this God has scripted the future. He has outlined a ‘perfect will’ and somehow planned for every subsequent contingency with a ‘less than perfect will’ or acceptable will. This is a God that has accounted for everything.

Whereas the first god has ‘seen’ the future or ‘knows’ the future, this second god has scripted a preferred future – it is not necessarily going to come about exactly in the way it was designed… but this god is still able to salvage what was desired in the midst of our human frailty, fallenness and failure. (3 F words you hear all the time in with this God).

The third God can be called Emanuel – God with us. This is a picture of God who is here… in the midst of us. This is the God of the process. Who is amongst us in the midst of the moment. This is the God of presence and incarnation.

These are three different concepts of God. They are three different constructs or conceptions. We may have gotten used to mixing them or jumping between them as needed, but they are definitely three different pictures of God that come from three different stories in three different eras.

And when it comes to prayer, the differences really come to the surface!

For instance: if you believe in God #1, since he has seen the future, you pray that he might clue you in as to what the future might be so that you can get ready. Praying to this God is trusting in what is Predestined or fated. You can’t change the stars but it is comforting to know that this God knows and is in control.

If, you believe in God #2, you are praying to the God who has scripted the future so you are hoping that that He tells you what he wants from you so that you don’t miss his perfect will. You ask this God to change things. Since this God is powerful and in charge of the future, but has somehow allowed us free will.. we ask for direction, do the best we can, we have faith and we turn over the rest.

Praying to God #3 is a little different. In the world of this God, there is no future. I don’t want to get into all the technicalities of Einstein, meta-physics and cosmology but – just trust me there is no such thing as the future with this God. It does not exist. and what we think of as Prophecy is actually the Providential promise of God’s participation and an intimate knowledge of our creaturely propensities. Praying to God #3 is not to be clued in or not to miss the way, but is to be available in the moment to what God is doing among us.

This is Emanuel – God with us. This is God who is among us and when we pray to this God we are creating the future. The future is created by us participating with God’s will – which is neither like a movie that God has seen or a script that God has written. It is a plot that is currently unfolding. It is determined by our actions and participation.

You may be listening and think ‘you are making too many delineations and categories’. And I might agree with you… if it were not for the fact that when I hear people talk about God, it sounds one way – and then when they pray & it sounds an entirely different way – when we act, we behave as if god is a third way.

People talk as if God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all..everything. Then they pray that they ask this God to heal this person, change this circumstance and bless what they are doing. Which is fine if you believe in free will – but then , let’s stop talking about God as in the way the the early Greek philosophers did and get rid of all the omni-scient omni-potent and omni-present, unmovable and unchangeable talk. (5 Biggies)

I don’t believe this Greek God Theos. I believe in the God of the Hebrew narrative. This is a god who regrets, changes minds and enters in. This is the god who is here with us now! Emanuel – god with us. Not a god who was incarnate one time on the first Christmas but a God is who incarnate in his people every Christmas – every day between Christmases.

We talk as if with God things are set. Fate is written, God is in control and everything happens for a reason.

Then we pray to a God who compensates for our our free will and fallen nature by asking for things to change and bend to the ways things are and the way that we are.

We talk about about God in one way and then pray to God in a second way.

And if those were the only two options… that would be one thing.

But I actually conceive of God in a different way (a third way). This is isn’t about whether the future has been seen or scripted but about being here in the moment. This is about being the person who is available now.

Praying to god #1, for whom the future is set, is to be clued in so that we are prepared for what is coming.

Praying to god #2, who accounts for our free will, is so that we don’t miss the script and he can adjust things that don’t bring about his greatest good.

Praying to God #3 (for whom the future is not a vision or script but a possibility) is an exercise in availability – to create them and participate in things as they are becoming.

For some people, the formulations of the Dutch in 1700s really work. The all-knowing God is in control and you can trust him. Pray that you may know his will.

For others, who believe in Free Will, prayer is a powerful influence to ask the Father for his will to come on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Others of us who struggle with the thoughts of the early Greeks and superstitions of the centuries past wonder if if isn’t time readjust the way that we talk and think about God. But most of all – we want to make sure that we pray in ways that are consistent with our formulations of God.

There is no sense in talking about God one way, praying to god another and then hoping for the outcome of another.

If this was a mystery or a paradox – that would be one thing. But there is no sense in trying to cover over ancient concepts of god with modern practices and then hoping for fantastic future results.

There are mysteries in the universe. There are paradoxes to explore. But what we are dealing with is a simple incongruence between conceptions of god from different eras and inceptions.

If we talk about God in one way – Pray to God another and then behave in yet another… the incongruence will eventually catch up with us. In fact, I think that it has for many people and this is why some have given up and gone a different way. Others have become disgruntled and bitter. Others have stuck with but are a little bit bored and disinterested.

This is obviously a huge concept and a massive conversation – I just wanted to introduce the idea that they way talk about God and the way the pray and the way that we live may be 3 totally different ways.

and I am not sure that is working so great for us.

We will obviously return to this in the New Year –

May the God of peace guard your heart and mind as we travel the road together.

If you want to listen to the Podcast instead of read this : PODCAST LINK

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