COMPARING TWO PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN AUTHORS

With or Without God by Gretta Vosper, and Emerging Church by Bruce Sanguin have been discussed at length during the last year on Wondercafe. 

Vosper and Sanguin both identify as Progressive Christians, but outline different paths to follow in this new paradigm.  Their ideas about God, Jesus, the Bible, spiritual development, leadership and change, and the future of the Christian church are interesting to compare.

SANGUIN AND VOSPER:  IDEAS ABOUT GOD

In the first chapter of WWG, Gretta writes eloquently about the spiritual dimension of life.  “Within that dimension we know and celebrate relationships, explore meaning, develop our value systems and experience love … this spiritual dimension causes us to explore what is utterly beyond description; we try to pin it down with words such as Spirit, the Ground of all Being, Ultimate Concern, the Divine and God.”

Is there a reality, external to human beings, which we can call spirit or Spirit?

At this point, we are told that this question is beyond the scope of WWG.  However, in a later chapter, Gretta writes, “the ultimate post-modern critique is the disintegration of the concept of God altogether”.

She urges us to understand God as a human construction, and suggests that we cease using the word God completely. Alternatively, small “g” god can be utilized to describe a set of life enhancing values.  “Unlike the former God, this one has no agency.”

Referring to authors Lloyd Geering and Don Cupitt, she poses the questions  - - What does the church look like beyond Christianity, and more radically yet, what does Christianity look like beyond God?

In Emerging Church, Bruce Sanguin does not encourage us to abandon talk of God.  As Doug Todd said in the Vancouver Sun,  “Sanguin, instead, pursues intellectually defensible ways to redeem God and Jesus from the conservative Protestants and Catholics who tend to dominate the news.  He does so with creative panache.”

On Page 57, Bruce writes:  “A-theism literally means not to believe in a theistic God, one who lives outside the cosmos, but who intervenes every once in a while to sort us out.  I don’t believe in that kind of God either.” 

Bruce started his life in Christ as a “born-again”.  He describes Marcus Borg’s earlier and emerging paradigms, and states, “I have experienced both ways of being a Christian.” 

When he describes the paradigm shift that the emerging Church is undergoing, Bruce describes it as a shift from a redemption-centred paradigm to a creation-centred paradigm, wherein God works through us, and we become God’s co-creators.  The universe is thus seen as evolving toward ever increasing complexity, beauty, diversity, consciousness and compassion.

SANGUIN AND VOSPER:  IDEAS ABOUT JESUS

Bruce states, “To be Christian is to set oneself and one’s community in an ongoing dialogue with Jesus and his teachings.”  He frequently refers to abundant life in Christ, and suggests that our lives can be transformed by wrestling with what has been passed down to us in the New Testament.

In contrast, Gretta writes,  “It is impossible to lift an appropriate moral high ground out of Jesus’ life, works, and sayings.”  She calls for a focus on life enhancing values, and encourages us to rely on our own best thinking.

 “I think that in a generation or two we might stop using the term Christian”, she told Charles Lewis of the National Post.  “The central story of Christianity will fade away,” Gretta explained.  “The story about Jesus as the symbol of everything that Christianity is will fade away.”

Gretta is seeking to reduce the Christian faith and other traditions to their core values.  She is very much opposed to Christian imperialism, yet this could represent imperialism of another sort - - if taken to the extreme. 

In the study guide to WWG (available on the CCPC website for a small fee), Scott Kearns poses the questions, “How might progressive views deteriorate into a new “dogma”?  How can this result be avoided?” 

These are good questions, indeed, and we can applaud Scott for asking them.

SANGUIN AND VOSPER:  IDEAS ABOUT THE BIBLE 

In the process of spiritual renewal, Bruce’s congregation affirmed that the whole Bible, including the Old Testament, was central to their identity. 

Bruce recognizes that the Bible seems to sanction violence, with God actually carrying out some of this violence.  He reminds us that the Bible is a collection of books, which has itself been subject to an evolutionary process. 

Echoing the words of Marcus Borg, Bruce states that Bible study is extremely important if we are to take the bible seriously, but not literally.  In his opinion, mainline churches are too complacent about teaching biblical literacy (not to be confused with literalism).  “As Christians, we have a sacred story that is the context of our own life stories, and we need to learn it.”

His church offers an ongoing program that is primarily focused on the content of the Bible.  There is also a continuous study program that focuses on personal transformation.  Participants learn to read the stories metaphorically.  Bruce feels that most mainline church members have never learned to read scripture this way. 

In With or Without God, Gretta devotes many pages to disputing the concept of the Bible as TAWOGFAT  (The Authoritative Word of God For All Time).  She expresses concern about interpretations of the bible that have led to tribalism and religion’s destructive aspects.  She notes the assumption that God exists, which “permeates the whole book.” 

Gretta compares the bible to the works of Shakespeare, and she doesn’t consider it to be pivotal for Christian faith.  We are told that the bible is not reliable as a source of moral guidance, and Jesus is described as “a first century peasant with a few charismatic gifts and a great posthumous marketing team”.

Doug Todd wrote in the Vancouver Sun, "Instead of exploring Christian "belief" in the transcendent possibilities associated with "God" and a cosmic Christ, Vosper argues at length that her church should debunk divinity and focus on ethics: on community, justice and truth."

SANGUIN AND VOSPER:  IDEAS ABOUT SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

Bruce Sanguin uses the work of Dr. Clare W. Graves, who noticed that worldviews and value systems evolved in a developmental fashion.  Human societies and biological life forms “escape to a higher order” as they deal with new challenges and life conditions.  Graves called his model Spiral Dynamics.   Don Beck later introduced colour coding of the values systems, which Bruce explains in Emerging Church.

In Chapter 6 of WWG, Gretta refers to the work of developmental psychologist James Fowler, who described stages of faith.  She aligns Marcus Borg’s stages of pre-critical naiveté, critical thinking, and post-critical naiveté with Fowler’s stages 3, 4 and 5 respectively. 

SANGUIN AND VOSPER:  IDEAS ABOUT LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE

Gretta is calling for a major shift in the understanding and practice of Christian faith.  Her website is currently inviting applications for a pilot project, described as follows: 

 “A "next step" in the work of shifting the worship and practice of Canadian mainline Christianity from its primary focus on traditional Christian doctrine and story to one celebrating the non-exclusive principles of compassionate living and right relationship with self, others, and the planet.”

Writing in WWG about the magnitude of the change, she says, “Broad-vision change is not “new curtains” window-dressing change but real, deep down “this is going to hurt” change.  It can be liberating and refreshing, but it comes with costs …    Much will be lost, now and in the future, but it will have been sacrificed for our own good and for the good of the planet.”

In her own words, she extends WWG as a confrontation, which will challenge, disturb, hurt, and anger her readers.  She tells us:  “Sometimes being difficult is the only way forward.  I know this book is difficult.  I know it will cost much to those of you who are active in the church.”

Later in the book, we hear, “There is going to be trouble.  It is bound to get ugly”.

She calls for patience and perseverance in introducing progressive perspectives.  As a group of people walks in this direction, she advises, “Remember, for the most part, they are not willingly along for the walk.  Change is not a welcome program.”

Gretta stresses the importance of mitigating the negative effects of change.  “To eliminate them would be impossible, and it is ridiculous to suggest that we could.”  A slow and careful process of change is recommended.  Details of the change process can be found in the Toolbox (Appendix), which outlines elements of a non-theistic gathering.  A gradual shift to non-theistic concepts, language and liturgy is recommended. 

Bruce Sanguin details a participatory process in Emerging Church, which begins with the selection of a “think tank”.  At his own church, the think tank was handpicked, and some participants in the Wondercafe book study disagreed with this approach. 

We were privileged to have Anna Christie, the author of Evoking Change, with us for part of the book study.  Her preference is to offer leadership training and development to anyone in the congregation who is interested.

It is the task of the think tank to determine a set of “non-negotiables”.   For Bruce’s congregation, they were: ongoing dialogue with Jesus and his teaching, the centrality of both Old and New Testaments, an open communication table, discipleship and mission. 

“These non-negotiables are the very heart and mind of Christ and will be tested later in the process by taking them to the congregation.” 

A world café process is used next to gather input for the creation of a statement of mission and purpose.  A draft is done, reviewed by the think tank, and taken to the congregation for feedback.  It is rewritten as necessary, and finally the congregation is asked to approve it. 

The practices of the congregation are evaluated against the statement of mission and purpose.  In the latter chapters of the book, Bruce describes ongoing leadership development, ongoing spiritual formation, teaching of biblical literacy, and a new governance structure.

SANGUIN AND VOSPER:  IDEAS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF CHURCH

Sanguin is calling for a shift from a redemption-centred theological model to a creation-centred evolutionary Christian theology.  Congregations thus become centres of creative emergence, and evolve from a membership model to a discipleship model.  We can become the radiant presence of Christ for each other and for the world. 

Gretta’s focus is non-theism, centred on life-enhancing values.  She agrees with Lloyd Geering, who says that non-theism not only grows out of the Christian tradition, it is the only logical next step for the church to take. 

What will the future church look like? 

Bruce writes, “The radically inclusive ethic of Christ in the 21^st century, expressed in the open table, is creating new forms, new understandings of what it means to be “in Christ”.  Honestly, I don’t know what to make of it yet.”

Gretta does not talk about being “in Christ”, referring instead to becoming radically inclusive and radically ethical.  Her vision calls for the distillation of Christianity and other faith traditions down to their core values of love and compassion.  She would like us to “bring all that we have together, and leave the religious detritus of our traditions behind us”. 

Charles Lewis wrote in the National Post that Gretta envisions a time when there will be no religious divisions or labels, everyone will share common values, and our only differences will be cultural. 

She speculates that eventually, the word “church”, like the word “God”, might be beyond redemption.  The final paragraph of WWG hints at a time when church will no longer exist, and we will be able to face a future without it with confidence and grace.

January 2009

The tradition of Wondercafe book studies is now continuing with Diane Butler Bass’ Christianity For the Rest of Us.  Participants are taking turns posting chapter-by-chapter summaries, and inviting comments in the Religion and Faith forum.