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Apologia Report 12:37
October 6, 2007
Subject: Process Theology, "key to the survival" of liberalism?
In this issue:
APOLOGETICS, CULTURAL - when engaging popular culture goes bad
CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA - becoming the most powerful force in China
+ the slow growth of Roman Catholicism in Asia
HOMOSEXUALITY - Gov Schwarzenegger considers abolishing marriage
ISLAM - Pew Foundation finds support decreasing within Islamic nations for Muslim extremists and their tactics
PROCESS THEOLOGY - historian views PT as "the key to the survival and renewal of liberal theology"
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APOLOGETICS, CULTURAL
"Retaking Mars Hill" by Russell D. Moore, Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and a senior editor of Touchstone magazine -- the subhead gives a clear idea of where Moore is coming from: "Paul Didn't Build Bridges to Popular Culture."
Moore believes that the goal of those who are at the forefront of efforts to "engage" popular culture are represented by "at least two groups [who] have clear ways to do this. One group wants to imitate pop culture but Christianize it. Another group wants to find ways in which that culture itself presents the gospel. Both want to use pop culture to reach the wider culture, and both find their justification in Paul's talk on that first-century Athenian hilltop described in Acts 17. ...
"At its best, Christians who follow this model of pop-culture engagement identify the 'language' of the contemporary context and speak through it a distinctly Christian witness. At its worst, they watch what's happening in the culture (that is, what's making money), and then find people slightly less talented but more in love with Jesus (or at least able to play it on TV) to do something similar (that is, make some money for themselves).
"The second model is that of those I call 'South Park Evangelicals.' They're reminiscent of the culturally libertarian hipster right-wingers who bill themselves as 'South Park Conservatives' because they support a free market and a hawkish foreign policy while enjoying the crude humor of the R-rated cartoon South Park. ...
"The pitfalls with this approach also include a commercial Christian industry that by its very nature, perhaps unintentionally, militates against wisdom, discernment, and balance. As with the 'Off Brand' market, money is involved here, too. It's just subtler. ...
"Do we really believe that suspending disbelief long enough to see Morgan Freeman as God in the film Evan Almighty - heavily marketed to Evangelical Christians - will not affect the way we read the prophet's vision of the Holy One in Isaiah 6?"
Moore begins his conclusion with what amounts to a thesis statement: "Too many attempts at reconciling Christianity and pop culture, it seems to me, have to do with being seen as 'relevant' by the culture on its own terms. We will never be able to do that." Touchstone, Sep '07, pp20-25. <http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=20-07-020-f>
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CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA
"Christianity finds a fulcrum in Asia" by Spengler [sic] -- notes that "The World Christian Database offers by far the largest estimate of the number of Chinese Christians at 111 million, of whom 90% are Protestant, mostly Pentecostals. ... This quasi-underground movement may now exceed in adherents the 75 million members of the Chinese Communist Party; in a generation it will be the most powerful force in the country." Asia Times, Aug 7 '07. <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IH07Ad03.html>
"The uphill journey of Catholicism in China" by John L Allen, Jr. -- notes that "Curiously, [China's] booming 'soul market' seems largely to have bypassed the Catholic church. In 1949, there were 3.3 million Catholics. The most common estimate today is 12 million. Over that time, China's population increased by a factor of four, which means that Catholicism has done little more than keep pace. A half-century ago, Chinese Protestantism was three and a half times smaller than Catholicism; today, it is at least three and a half times larger. ...
"According to a 2005 analysis by Maryknoll Sr. Betty Ann Maheu, there are 6,000 Catholic churches in China but 3,000 priests, which would mean that roughly half the Catholic churches in the country lack a resident priest. Overall, the priest-to-Catholic ratio in China is about 4,000-to-one, better than Latin America (where it's 7,000-to-one) or the Caribbean (more than 8,300-to-one,) but considerably worse than in Europe (1,100-to-one) or the United States (1,300-to-one). ...
"Historically, Catholicism in China was almost entirely a rural phenomenon. [Former Maryknoll missionary Richard] Madsen says that despite run-away urbanization, 70-75 percent of Catholics are probably still concentrated in largely homogenous Catholic villages...." The bulk of Allen's presentation reviews the complexities that he believes lie behind the lack of growth. All Things Catholic, 6:48 - 2007, <http://www.ncrcafe.org/node/1252>.
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HOMOSEXUALITY
"California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Says Marriage Could be Eliminated in Future" (no byline) -- begins: "In legal briefs submitted to the California Supreme Court, which is considering whether to license 'same-sex marriages' next year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General [and former governor] Jerry Brown both stated that a future Legislature could abolish marriage and yank marriage rights from a married husband and wife. A group hoping to place a question on the 2008 ballot to defend traditional marriage suggests that the briefs are evidence of the urgent need for the ballot initiative." LifeSiteNews.com, Aug 27 '07, <http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/aug/07082702.html>
The above URL links to the briefs of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown.
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ISLAM
The Pew Global Attitudes Project finds that "in predominantly Muslim nations there is a continuing decline in the number of people saying that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians are justifiable in the defense of Islam. ...
"The decreasing acceptance of extremism among Muslims also is reflected in declining support for Osama bin Laden." Religion Watch, Aug '07, p3.
For the Pew report, see: <http:pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=257>
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PROCESS THEOLOGY
The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony, and Postmodernity, 1950-2005, by Gary Dorrien [1] -- one more entry about the last volume in Dorrien's Making of American Liberal Theology trilogy [ ] appears to warranted. Reviewer William C. Placher makes the important observation that "It is Dorrien's thesis that in the last decades of the twentieth century American liberal theology experienced a hidden renaissance. He notes, 'the key to the survival and renewal of liberal theology was the process school.'" Process Studies, 36:1 - 2007, pp133-136.
In his Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics and Philosophy of Religion, C. Stephen Evans explains that process theology "rejects the classical picture of God as immutable and transcendent in favor of a God who is partly evolving with and in relation to the created world." [4]
Watchman Fellowship provides this summary: "Process Theology ... holds that reality is becoming rather than being, in process rather than static. Scripture has authority in that it concurs with one's own self-evident experiences. It teaches panentheism (all-in-Godism); that even though God is somehow transcendent, He also includes the world within Himself. Therefore, God is in process as evolving along with creation into future possibilities." <http://www.watchman.org/reltop/glosterm.htm>
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Sources, Monographs:
1a - The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony, and Postmodernity, 1950-2005, by Gary J. Dorrien (Westminster John Knox, 2006, paperback, 688 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0664223567/apologiareport>
1b - The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion, by Gary J. Dorrien (Westminster John Knox, 2001, paperback, 504 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0664223540/apologiareport>
1c - The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity, 1900-1950 by Gary J. Dorrien (Westminster John Knox, 2003, paperback, 666 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0664223559/apologiareport>
4 - Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics and Philosophy of Religion, C. Stephen Evans (IVP, 2002, paperback: 125 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0830814655/apologiareport>
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