In my last post on Doug Pagitt’s new book A Christianity Worth Believing I posed a number of questions in response to a paragraph from the first page of the book. In that paragraph, Doug basically said he no longer believes in the “versions of Christianity that have prevailed for the last fifteen hundred years, the ones that were suitable in their time and place but have little connection with this time and place.” This post will begin to unpackage what Doug means by this statement, beginning with what I believe to be his thesis:
[This book] is an expression of my desire for a Christianity that makes sense in the world in which we live, a Christianity that is not afraid of questions and will not resist answers, regardless of where they lead. It is my attempt to embrace a faith that is expansive, growing, and beautiful, one in which God is active and alive, involved in all of life. Because I believe in a Christianity where nothing is left out and no is left behind, where humanity participates with God in the redemption of the world; where sin is more than a legal problem to be judged but a relational problem that can be healed; where we pursue harmony, centered on Jesus the Messiah, the Jew, whose life, death, and resurrection allow us to live well with God; where the Bible draws us into a story of life and healing; where we find hope for this life and life ever after; where love is alive, where love drives out fear, where love propels us toward lives lived for the betterment of all the world. (pg 9-10)
At beginning, I just want to point out that Doug BELIEVES IN THE RESURRECTION! That isn’t a statement of utter surprise on my part, but a statement that, I hope, puts to rest all of the silly, stupid gossip and slander that is floating around the internet. No, Doug is not a heretic that denies the deity of Christ, resurrection, or sin. I would probably categorize him and this book as somewhat heterodox. Doug isn’t a heretic, but is simply a dissident who thinks differently about what exactly is orthodox.
With that said, here are a few things I noticed in this thesis and beginning of the book, chapters 1, 2, and 3.
Part of Doug’s ‘shtick’ (if you can call it that) and that of the broader emerging church movement is the recognition that all theology is contextual; everything we have formulated about the substance of our faith, by in large, has been formulated in particular periods of time and cultures and situations. As my professor Dr. Wittmer always says, orthodoxy and theology has always formed in response to herecy. While I HATE the ‘H’ word, I think he’s right and it adds to the larger argument and conversation over historical theology.
We say that Christianity is a “living faith” that has shifted and grown and been presented in different ways over the last 1900 years, and many of us are figuring out two things: what from History do we keep and what from History do we toss. Firmly believing that the Spirit of God moves through History to carry His Story along by the Tribe of His people into Creation, I am wrestling with what wheat has the Spirit preserved and what have we carried with us that is chaff. I think Doug is wondering that same thing and down right offering an alternative to, as we’ll see in the rest of the chapters, a Graeco-Roman version of Christianity.
But at the beginning I want to note a few things from this thesis: Doug seems to be an Open Theist who rejects the God of Classic Determinism; Atonement is sufficient for all and efficient for all, which means he at least takes an Arminian perspective and maybe/probably a Christian Universalist perspective, too; sin is relational and fits with His Arminian/Open Theistic perspective of God; Doug wants to re-Jewify (which is a neologism, btw!) Jesus, which is right in line with the Third Quest for the Historical Jesus of NT Wright and others; Doug believes the hope for the world is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; do I need to remind everyone that he has written, in print for all the world to see, that he believes in the resurrection?! And he embraces a perspective where, in the words of my professor friend Dr. Wittmer, “Heaven Is A Place On Earth“…quite possibly for all humans.
So here are is where I see Doug landing. Nothing necessarily and automatically heretical about an Open Theistic, Arminian, Christian Universalist position. Now I could very well be wrong about these assumptions, but that’s my gut reading the rest of the book. All three positions are held be plenty of other Christians and groups, so what he is proposing is not wildly off the map from what others throughout the history of the Church have also proposed and considered and with which plenty of other real live Christians have wrestled, including me (which I guess must make me a Pagittian of sorts!). He’s just packaged all of that heterodoxy in one book as an alternative to the status quo Reformed, determinism version of Christianity!
Anyway, the next two chapters tell the story about how he came to place his faith in Jesus Christ and how other, well meaning Christians, tarnished that innocence a little. One of the things I love about Doug’s new book is that it is part memoir, part theological treatise. So it’s like memoir theology or a theological memoir. A new genre of Christian literature, perhaps? After laying the ground in chapter 1 with a need to always reform our theology, he begins the memoir part of his theological memoir.
I’m not going to recall the story, because you really need to read it in all its self-revealed majesty. The thing I want to comment on is this: Doug came to Jesus because he encountered Him and His story; he went to a Passion Play and was completely laid to waste by the spiritual weight of encountering the Living God in the Story of the death and resurrection of Jesus on display at a theater in downtown Minneapolis. After his soul was stirred to the point of “making the Story [he] had just seen the navigational system of [his] life [and] live the Jesus way,” he was brought to the back and read a little booklet that parsed the Jesus Story into bullet points, steps and stages in an effort to ‘make sure’ he was really saved.
As Doug recalls, “Even though I prayed the words [of the booklet], that prayer didn’t mean nearly as much to me as the one I had improvised in the theater. I know this tract was meant to help new converts get the gist of the story of Jesus, but the booklet version made the story seem far more complicated than the joyous telling that had led me backstage. In fact, it made it seem like a different story altogether, one with steps and stages rather than people and passions.”
And here is what I wrote in the margins: “Why can’t we just let God’s Story of Creation–Rebellion–Redemption–Consummation stand?” Why can’t we just let Jesus and His Story do all the talking, why must we fiddle? And what’s more: what is even necessary for salvation? What is the content of the faith of those who seek Jesus and His Way? As Doug points out in another encounter 10 days after his ‘conversion’, the way in which people come to and grow in Jesus is much more progressive rather than once-for-all as the result of signing on the dotted lines after agreeing with the bullet points of absolute truth.
Like Doug, it is difficult for me to boil down the majesty, powers and process of the good news of Jesus to general requirements for all believers. And like Doug, I believe there is a way of living and telling the Christian Story that connects with the life experience of the person living it. How we show and tell the Story is crucial, and he and I think that Story hasn’t been told very well as of late. But that is for another post…
Did I mention that Doug said he believes in the resurrection?
Hi Jeremy:
Thanks for the plug on my book–though your comment may mislead some readers into thinking I am a universalist. You don’t say that, but being in such close promiximity to your Pagitt quote, some might misread it.
For the record, it is possible to be a universalist and still be a genuine Christian, but I wonder what Pagitt’s universalism implies about his understanding of sin. Karl Barth believed in human depravity and (for all intents and purposes) universalism because he believed that God’s sovereign election ultimately trumps our rejection of him. But given that Pagitt opposes Reformed thinking, his universalism would have to come by another route–presumably from the idea that people are not that bad off to begin with. And such a low view of sin would be heresy–at least according to the norms of the western church (see Augustine vs. Pelagius). Since I don’t have Pagitt’s book, I leave it to you to discern whether there is any merit to this question.
Also–I do not mean to imply anything about Pagitt’s view of the resurrection, for I have not heard any rumor pro or con, so don’t take this as related in any way to him and his theology. But in general, be careful that you don’t read your interpretation of a term into someone else’s use of it. For example, both liberals and conservatives say that Jesus is God and that he arose from the dead, though they mean something different by it (i.e., liberals mean that Jesus is God only in a moral sense and that he arose only in a spiritual sense). So, if there are rumors swirling around a given theologian’s view of the resurrection–and mind you I do not know that there are, but I’m taking your word for it–then you need to pay close attention to what said theologian says. Specifically, I would look for the words “bodily” or “physical” resurrection before I announced he was orthodox. Again, I’m not suggesting that any of this is true of Pagitt. But if what you say is true, then you may have jumped the gun in exonerating him (which I hope that you ultimately will be able to do).
Thanks Dr. W! I’ve read through it already and am mulling some pieces over…and these pointed questions will be good to think (and blog) through. But if you want answers you’ll either have to a) buy the book or b) come back each day in eager anticipation of my lucid cogent analysis 🙂
See ya around here in a few days!
-jeremy
Hello! I found your website. My name is Anders Branderud and I am from Sweden.
Who then was the historical “Jesus”?
Did you know that the original “Matthew” was written in Hebrew and it’s called Hebrew Matityahu. It speaks about an Orthodox Jewish leader..
I am a follower of Ribi Yehoshua – Mashiakh – who practiced Torah including Halakhah with all his heart.
He was born in Betlehem 7 B.C.E . His faher name was Yoseiph and mother’s name was Mir′ yâm. He had twelve followers. He tought in the Jewish batei-haknesset (synagogues). Thousands of Jews were interested in His Torah-teachings. The “Temple” Sadducees (non-priests who bought their priest-ship in the “Temple” from the Romans, because they were assimilated Hellenist and genealogically non-priests acting as priests in the “Temple”; they were known by most 1st-century Jews as “Wicked Priests.” decided to crucify him. So they did – together with the Romans. His followers were called Netzarim (meaning offshoots [of a olive tree]) and they continued to pray with the other Jews in the synagogues.
Christianity does not teach the teachings of Ribi Yehoshua. Ribi Yehoshuas teachings were pro-Torah.
If you want to learn more click at our website http://www.netzarim.co.il — than click at the lick “Christians”; click at my photo to read about what made my switch religion from Christianity to Orthodox Judaism.
Anders Branderud
Follower of Ribi Yehoshua in Orthodox Judaism