When we finish discussing chapter 7, we might wish to take a look the appendix, or toolbox.

What are your thoughts about this final chapter of WWG?

Since when did 'inclusive language' exclude all male references to God? Why is using the name Jesus considered exclusive? If we wanted to be truly inclusive by this standard, then should we have any mentions of feminine names for God as well? More Voices is the most progressive inclusive hymn book ever produced by a denomination for general use.

It may be that church cannot be salvaged, but offering "community" is one of its greatest strengths. "Church, or whatever it comes to be called, could be a place where we reflect and process our life experiences with others in ways that encourage us to become compassionate, just and loving human beings." (Page 311) It will have no need for dogma or doctrine.

This sounds much like Rotary!

Crazyheart wrote: "This sounds much like Rotary!"

Do you think that is good or bad?

The mission of Rotary International "is to provide service to others, to promote high ethical standards, and to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through its fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders".

One difference between Rotary and the Gretta's church is that the membership requirements of Rotary are much more strict and exclusive. Membership is by invitation only, and club members must hold or be retired from a professional, proprietary, executive, or managerial position. Also there are prescribed annual dues and rigid attendance rules.

Paradox - May I quote the part that IRKS the heck out of me? (And I really hope that IWonder can please help me see this in a more positive light, because it's bothering the heck out of me at the moment). It's on page 316, and it's how she concludes her progressive statement of beliefs:

" We believe that there are no supernatural beings, forces, or energies necessary for or even mindful of our survival. What we have dreamt in the past have been dreams. They have enriched us and challenged us to seek out what we needed to survive......We are our creators."

And this is not dogmatic???? And what about condescending? So all of us who seek God just need to get our heads out of the dark ages? Man oh man!!! Am I taking this the wrong way??? I hope so.

Of course, then she concludes:

"....I extend the confrontation that is this book. May it irritate us all into the growth we so disturbingly need."

Well, it irritates me all right.

*sigh* I'm actually super upset today because our idiotic government has just decreed that students with severe disabilities should be letter graded on their progress. It's cruel and I've been on the verge of tears for 3 days. I think I'm just taking it out on WWG. *sigh*

I gotta say, I'm GLAD I've got a God to pray to today!

Sorry for the rant. It's been a bad day. Sorry.

paradox 3 Wat inheritance is she talking about? Sounds as if she is saying that the church is in charge of its own destiny.

"Church needs to be made attractive to those who might be interested in exploring life's big questions "“ the seekers."

Well last I checked, I was pretty interested in exploring life's big questions, and I find church very attractive, Is Vosper trying to say that only the unchurched, or de-churched are "seekers"? Are the rest of us, who find spiritual nourishment in the theology and liturgy of the contemporary United Church of Canada, simply closed minded children, clutching our safety blankets of God and the Bible and sucking our thumbs? I'm getting a little sick of the condescending vibe I get from Vosper. Maybe once I get my hands on the book, it'll be less harsh, but I have my doubts.

"She insists that we need to become literalists about our language, using metaphor and symbol only when it would never be mistaken as truth.

Only a really crappy metaphor could never be mistaken as literal truth. Metaphor needs to have a grounding in reality to work. This grounding is obviously open to misinterpretation, and it is unavoidable. Does she try and give an example of a metaphor that could never, ever be mistaken for literal truth? Does she really think so little of people that they are unable to figure out a metaphor?

" Progressives are becoming more and more frustrated in the church, and the call to integrity is repeated from earlier chapters. Contemporary scholarship must find its way into the worship service."

Well this hearkens back to the earliest WoWG threads; Contemporary scholarship is very alive and well in worship. It's just not all her flavour apparently. I used to think of myself as progressive (I still do, though now I apparently need to qualify this). But I am most certainly not frustrated in church, nor do I find it lacking in integrity.

Crazyheart:

On page 311, Gretta says: "Church, or whatever it comes to be called, could be a place where we reflect and process our life experiences with others in ways that encourage us to become compassionate, just and loving human beings."

Church already offers this to many of us, I would say.

IWonder: You wrote: { One difference between Rotary and the Gretta's church is that the membership requirements of Rotary are much more strict and exclusive.}

These are organizational details, I think. What other differences do you see?

I have always thought that the principles of Gretta's theology could apply equally to humanism (secular or religious), or to any humanitarian organization.

I have spoken many times about the similarities between Vosper's theology and Unitarian Universalism. Many UU's (not all) identify as humanists.

Diana: IMHO, you are not taking it the wrong way at all. By Gretta's own admission, the book is meant to be confrontational and irritating.

Back in chapter 4 she talked about introducing progressive thought to groups of people. "Remember", she advised, "for the most part they are not willingly along for the walk. Change is not a welcome program." On page 5, she told us it would be "real, deep down, "this is going to hurt" change".

The belief statement at the end of WWG talks about losses and grief that will result from doing this progressive "work". These progressive beliefs probably have yet to harden into dogma, but I certainly think they represent doctrine.

Most of the complaints Vosper presents about the Christian church are directed at a stereotype of the fundamentalists, and not the UCC. Unfortunately, she paints with a very wide brush, so the net effect that all are condemned by her accusation.

The difference between Rotary and the Church?
Rotary requires involvement and financial participation for inclusion. You can't be an inactive Rotarian. Rotarians believe good works make a difference, and you must do good works to be a Rotarian.
Involvement and financial contributions are optional in the Church, and you can be inactive and still a member. Good works are not always required in the Church- if you say the right words long enough you don't have to actually do anything.

Hi Diana

I am sorry that you are having a bad day, but I am glad you felt open enough to let it all hang out here on Wonder Café. Hope you feel better soon.

You wrote: "I really hope that IWonder can please help me see this in a more positive light, because it's bothering the heck out of me at the moment... It's on page 316, and it's how she concludes her progressive statement of beliefs:

Quote from WWG:
" We believe that there are no supernatural beings, forces, or energies necessary for or even mindful of our survival. What we have dreamt in the past have been dreams. They have enriched us and challenged us to seek out what we needed to survive......We are our creators."
End Quote from WWG

"And this is not dogmatic???? And what about condescending? So all of us who seek God just need to get our heads out of the dark ages? Man oh man!!! Am I taking this the wrong way??? I hope so."

Thanks for asking me to help you with this, but I'm not sure I can. I often wish that we could just talk to Gretta one-on-one to clarify some the text where we are not sure what she means. Perhaps you could e-mail her on what it is that bothers you. However, for what it is worth I will give it a try.

In the first sentence you quoted, Gretta said: "We believe that there are no supernatural beings, forces, or energies necessary for or even mindful of our survival. "

This seems to be consistent with the rest of the book where she tries to wean us away from the idea of God as a supernatural being who exists somewhere out beyond the world and periodically intervenes to tinker with how it is run, especially if we pray hard enough. I think she is once again trying to remind us that we need to take responsibility for ourselves rather than relying on some kind of remote intervention, or some kind of external agency to bail us out when we mess up.

I am sure it is much more complicated than that, and I that she would agree that it is not that simplistic. There are many others on this forum who would also reject the idea of God as a supernatural being, and who would question an interventionist God, who are far more knowledgeable than I am, so I need to defer to them. Panentheism I am sure would be able to add his wisdom to this discussion (although sometimes his multi syllabic words pass way over my head!).

I have to admit that my thinking about "God" has always been conflicted, so I am probably not the one to try and ease your confusion about what Gretta is saying. I came to many of my spiritual views through my intense interest in science, and my deep thinking about the nature of ultimate reality.. So I have always been much more at home with someone like Paul Tillich, who was reluctant to use the term "God" (as is Gretta) and more inclined to use words like "Ultimate Reality" or "Ultimate Concern" or "Ground of Being" or "Depth of Existence".

I pray every day, and in my prayers I do imagine that I am praying TO someone. My concept of God, nebulous as it is, is one that depends heavily on the personal. I think of God as part of the depth of my being, and that God's work is in my hands (and the hands of other fellow human beings), not in the hands of some remote interventionist being. I have always felt that the work of love, compassion, and justice in the world (or if for want of other words, the work of God) is in OUR hands. We are the tools that are employed to get it done, and without us it will not get done. Appealing to a supernatural being, force or energy is, in a sense, a cop out.

That is how I choose to interpret Gretta's statement, but it may not strike you that way.

In the second part of what you quoted, she said: "What we have dreamt in the past have been dreams. They have enriched us and challenged us to seek out what we needed to survive......We are our creators."

She goes on to say: "What we need now cannot be found in those dreams. We need to dream again, recognizing that our visions, ideas, choices, and challenges all come from within us, not from somewhere else."

I do not see that she is being either dogmatic or condescending here. I choose to interpret her as saying that the dreams of the past enriched us and challenged us, and because of those dreams we did what we needed to do to achieve those dreams. We may have dreamt about democracy, the end of slavery, the equality of women, the end of racism, the establishment of universal health care and many many other visions for the benefit of humanity. Whether we succeeded or not in bringing those dreams to fruitioin can be argued. BUT, we need new dreams today which relate to the healing of humanity today, not to the past.

We know what the dreams of the past were, and honour them, but perhaps our dreams today need to be about things like solving climate change, poverty, feeding the hungry, providing humanitarian aid to earthquake and flood victims. The visions, ideas, choices, and challenges for us today come from within us. We can pray all we like about these world problems and disasters, but the solutions will not come form an external source or a benevolent supernatural deity. The dreams will come from within, the ideas and visions will come from within, and it will be our hands that will be brought to bear on these problems. Once again, without our personal involvement, the work will not get done.

Near the end of the chapter, when she talks about us as creators, she says: "...we have the challenge before us to create a future for this planet in which love, made incarnate through justice and compassion, is the supreme value ... What we create must come from a deep and rich desire to connect ourselves, one to another, to be responsible for one another in ways we have been called to ... "

To me this is not arrogance, this is hope. That is the way I take it, but perhaps you see it differently.

Nighthawk:

You wrote:

{ Well last I checked, I was pretty interested in exploring life's big questions, and I find church very attractive, Is Vosper trying to say that only the unchurched, or de-churched are "seekers"? }

Rev Vosper's writing certainly makes me wonder about this, too. She seems to be quite dismissive of those "who find spiritual nourishment in the theology and liturgy of the contemporary United Church of Canada".

You wrote:

{ Does she try and give an example of a metaphor that could never, ever be mistaken for literal truth? Does she really think so little of people that they are unable to figure out a metaphor? }

She has told us that using metaphor as Borg suggests might work for those of us within the church already, but that it will not be feasible for the previously unchurched.

So it must be that they are unable to figure out a metaphor :)

At one point in WWG, she suggested we do not have enough time to make the shift to metaphorical understandings of scripture, etc. The church, as we know it, has outlived its viability, in her opinion. Many would disagree, of course.

Very few metaphors are used in the toolbox, which provides resources and ideas for those interested in shifting to progressive worship. One exception to this is the phrase "We pray as those born into light yet ever seeking it."

I don't know if it could be mistaken for literal truth or not, but it could be mistaken easily enough for Light as referenced in the bible.

Nighthawk:

You wrote: { Well this hearkens back to the earliest WoWG threads; Contemporary scholarship is very alive and well in worship. It's just not all her flavour apparently.}

Contemporary scholarship is used selectively by Rev Vosper, I would say. Doug Todd wrote recently in the Vancouver Sun: "Given all the expansive, multidisciplinary thinking going on in progressive Christian circles these days, it's hard to understand why Vosper ignores so much of it."

In Chapter 6, Gretta used Fowler's work, but she appeared to misunderstand the meaning of his sixth stage of faith.

You wrote: { I used to think of myself as progressive (I still do, though now I apparently need to qualify this). }

It seems to me that there is very little consensus around what it means to be a progressive Christian. TCPC and CCPC offer two different definitions, and there are many others

You wrote: { But I am most certainly not frustrated in church, nor do I find it lacking in integrity. }

I agree with you completely, Nighthawk.

Hi nighthawk:

You wrote "Is Vosper trying to say that only the unchurched, or de-churched are "seekers"? Are the rest of us, who find spiritual nourishment in the theology and liturgy of the contemporary United Church of Canada, simply closed minded children, clutching our safety blankets of God and the Bible and sucking our thumbs?"

One of the problems of discussing a book without having read it yet, is that a line or two taken out of context, can have meaning attached to it that may not be intended.

The comment about "the seekers" occurs after a section of the book which is talking about caricatures and stereotypes of the church as presented in the media and as perceived by the general public. She cites research that has shown that, regardless of denomination, the church is often characterized as being "staid, intimidating and judgmental .. About sin and making you feel bad" The clergy have received their own bad press when, even when not being portrayed as abusive and predatory, they are portrayed as being kindly but insipid old men, or struggling with irrelevance as in The Simpsons

Non church people often find that when attending baptisms and weddings, some of the stereotypical caricatures are reinforced - "the sermons, hymns and service are all foreign ... incomprehensible ... ritualized language ...the stand-up, sit-down routine is embarrassingly unfamiliar".

She says that "breaking these caricatures is a challenge to the church, particularly those ... who don't see the need to change the stereotypes."

But she does go on to say that not all churches fit the stereotype, and that there are those in church leadership who are working to ensure that there continues to be a place for "the seekers" who are interested in exploring life's big questions."

Just to add my own comment, I am very glad to be a part of the United Church of Canada who has gone a lot farther in being open to "the seekers" with their doubts and question than have some of the more closed and conservative denominations. After all we have Wonder Café, which is full of "seekers", and we are open enough to embrace West Hill and Gretta Vosper who are poking and prodding us and making us think even deeper about our faith.

Hi nighthawk:

You also wrote "Metaphor needs to have a grounding in reality to work. This grounding is obviously open to misinterpretation, and it is unavoidable. Does she try and give an example of a metaphor that could never, ever be mistaken for literal truth?"

She does in fact give a few examples of metaphors that could never be mistaken for literal truth. In chapter 3 (which she wrote intentionally in metaphorical style) one example she gives is, "Love is a rose". She says that this is a good metaphor because you can connect the metaphor to your own experience - the rose metaphor can remind us of the beauty of love (the flower) or the pain of love (the thorns).

She also gives three other examples of biblical metaphor that could not possibly be considered as literal truth when the Bible describes Jesus as: "The true vine" or "The light of the world" or "the lamb of God". Obviously Jesus is not a vine, or a lamp, or a sheep, so these must be seen as metaphorical.

She is actually quite comfortable with metaphor as long as it is not used to distort meaning, or to cover up a "conflict between what we know and what we say". She becomes uncomfortable when we use metaphor to mislead or, as she says, "to accommodate information we can't process."

Iwonder: Going back to Chapter 6, I can see that Gretta is interested in metaphor. You are correct. On page 270, she writes:

"Literal is anathema to the liberal church. The thought that scriptures could be interpreted literally has been widely ridiculed by any who have read anything on biblical authorship or context. But before we hasten to take it all metaphorically, which is what I hope we can all eventually do, literal is the state of mind I think we need to sit in for a good long time. The issue is not whether we can use the Bible metaphorically, whether we are able to change the meaning of our symbols, or whether the words of any of our songs can be understood as spiritual art and not theological truth. The issue is whether we let people know what we're doing. The church has been shirking its responsibility in that area. Remember the elephant."

As you have pointed out, she goes on to describe how metaphor can be presented with integrity and explained. Yet, it is clear enough that she does not want the church to rush into doing any of this. "Sitting in a literal state of mind for a good long time" is recommended in the paragraph above.

In the final chapter, she repeats her suggestion that we need to become literalists about our language, using metaphor and symbol only when it would never be mistaken as truth.

When we discuss the toolbox, we will have the opportunity to look at the worship style she recommends for progressive gatherings.

Hi, IWonder, and thanks for your thoughtful response. (Wow, that really was a rant, wasn't it? Where was my head THAT day? yikes!)

For what it's worth, I guess I can say that Vosper's voice, in that it does touch some people's hearts, and raises awareness of people who are struggling with even the most progressive forms of Christianity found in our churches today, adds a valuable dimension to discussions about the Christian journey.

I have to give her a lot of credit for evoking some strong emotional reactions in me; she's pushed buttons that few others have, and I think it's well worth spending some more time thinking about why that is.

RevJamesMurray: You wrote: { Most of the complaints Vosper presents about the Christian church are directed at a stereotype of the fundamentalists, and not the UCC. Unfortunately, she paints with a very wide brush, so the net effect that all are condemned by her accusation. }

Very true. As we discussed in earlier chapters, many of her biblical interpretations tend to be simplistic, but are used to determine that these passages of scripture have little to offer.

Gretta makes complaints about the liberal church, too, of course. It has presented the bible selectively (lectionary readings), focused on certain favourable aspects of Jesus, and has used metaphor without explaining it adequately.

But key to her argument is that the liberal church is complicit with fundamentalism, and that it is at risk of disappearing altogether.

I would say that Gretta presents an "all or nothing" scenario. The only two options which she really considers are fundamentalism and reducing god to a set of ideals, or life-enhancing values.

IWonder: You wrote: { There are many others on this forum who would also reject the idea of God as a supernatural being, and who would question an interventionist God, who are far more knowledgeable than I am, so I need to defer to them. }

On one of the earlier threads, it was pointed out that theism can encompass classical supernaturalism, deism, pantheism, or panentheism. It seems to me that Gretta really only considers supernaturalism in WWG. She rejects the concept, of course, and I agree with her as far as this goes.

However, I am disappointed that she did not entertain any of the other options.

The lectionary does lay out a schedule of Bible readings for all the Sundays of the year. Over a three year cycle, major portions of the four gospels, most books of the Hebrew scriptures, all the psalms, and significant parts of the epistles are read. The advantage to following the lectionary is that it introduces far more texts than if you were left to pick passages on your own. In this way it has opened up preachers & congregations to more parts of the Bible than before. And since multiple denominations are following this schedule, it makes publishing resources & commentaries , and sharing of resources & ideas much more possible. Many clergy now gather weekly in person or on the internet for lectionary discussions, which was not possible before. (check out www.textweek.com for a great example of the kinds of resources now available)

The downside is that the lectionary doesn't cover every Bible story or passage. Then again, it would take a decade or more to cover all of it, which isn't realistic. The average pastorate in the UCC is only five years.

I've been in this parish for nine years. I 've gone through the lectionary three times with them now. As a result, I have wandered off-lectionary on many occasions, to avoid repetition and to pick up some of the overlooked passages. There are lots of alternative lectionaries and feminist lectionaries which have been developed to help broaden what scriptures do get covered.

We face a crisis of belief on a societal level. Why? Because imagining God is more difficult today. Belief is intimately connected with imagination. Imagining God is important for communicating belief in God. This is theology. Our crisis in belief is very much a struggle to imagine God.

Imagining God is intimately connected with imagining the world "“ imagining the cosmos. Theology and cosmology are ancient dance partners. The Creation story of Genesis 1 is an example. Scholastic theology is another example. Thomas Aquinas built his theology on Aristotle's cosmology, the best description of the world available to Aquinas. Aquinas used Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics to help believers imagine God in relationship to their world.

God is imaginable insofar as culture's prevailing cosmology allows us to imagine the world.

Of course, the cosmology of Genesis and Aristotle no longer describes our world sufficiently. So they no longer serve as a sufficient dance partner in helping theology imagine God. No problem: theology can find a new dance partner, modern cosmology, to help believers imagine God in relationship with the world.

Here is where the problem begins.

Modern cosmology is not imagination-friendly. More than ever before, cosmology is described using mathematics. Nonlinear mathematics. The average person, even the above-average person, cannot imagine what these modern mathematical expressions attempt to describe.

The human mind can imagine four or five dimensions: three dimensional space and time, and maybe a fourth spatial dimension. But any complexity beyond this isn't easily pictured in the human imagination. And modern cosmology is complex, requiring a highly abstract, nonlinear mathematics to describe the structure of a nonlinear universe.

The average person doesn't communicate using nonlinear mathematical expressions. And modern cosmology has yet to settle into a stable story form that can do justice to the mathematical complexity of the universe. Modern cosmology has yet to settle into settle into symbols and metaphors that capture both the continuity and discontinuity with our social imaginary. Until this happens, theology and the Christian imagination sit waiting for a cosmological dance partner.

The crisis runs deeper "“ to a crisis of philosophy. Natural science, where truth claims depend on experimentation and evidence, is not friendly to philosophy (which includes cosmology). Philosophy deals with theoretical knowledge, the big picture. But natural science has very little patience for the big picture. The scientific model (rightly so) is a rejection of philosophy's method of imagining what the world should be like. But science's naivete is failing to acknowledge when it extrapolates from the available evidence to imagine or describe the big picture (doing what it calls physical cosmology).

Science and philosophy should be natural dance partners. But science refuses to dance with anyone but itself. Theology is caught between a rock and a hard place. Cosmology hasn't figured out how to dance; science doesn't want to dance. Eventually, cosmologists will figure out how to dance with science. But until then, theology must help teach cosmology how to dance.

The selection of Fr. Michael Heller "“ a physicist, cosmologist and theologian "“ as the 2008 recipient of the Templeton Prize in religion (worth more than $1.6 million) is not accidental. Heller represents the need for theological reflection on the complex mathematics of cosmology and physics.

I see no need to panic about belief. Because the crisis is not fundamentally about theology and God. The crisis is about philosophy, specifically cosmology, being unimaginable. Will the average person conclude that there is no world because we cannot readily imagine that world in a nonlinear mathematical way? I doubt it. Even while the cosmos is unimaginable, we mundane folk trust it is there (even though philosophy has even questioned this reality). Humanity will get around to creating a new story of the universe. And when it does, we will imagine God as part of the story.

In the meantime, while we wait for cosmology to render itself imaginable, ministers like Vosper foolishly conclude that if we can't imagine God within the new cosmology "“ that is, if we can't harmonize God and science "“ then we shouldn't imagine God at all. The mistake is driven by a fear that we will promote an outdated cosmology (and look foolish) by using the God images and metaphors we've collected along the way.

Change and update to language is needed. But if one doesn't grasp the nature of the crisis, then change is misdirected out of misplaced anxiety.

These anxious ministers swing the pendulum from belief to behaviour. It is not important that we believe, it is important that we do good things. The idea is that focus on God will scare away people, but focus on being missional will attract people to the church. This is a mistake. There is not either/or here. Being missional is of utmost importance, but it cannot be divorced from belief "“ imagining the God who commissions us.

So the Creation story remains instructive for us. Not because it can teach us a cosmology. Rather, because it can remind us that we are part of a tradition that imagines God in the cosmos, however that cosmos is imagined. When I read the Creation story, I don't read it to understand how the heavens and earth are structured. And that's not why it was written in the first place. I read it to be reminded of God. In the beginning, God"¦

GUC -- beautifully put. We do need to dream again and many of us will use the word "god" to describe what they envision. Many others will not. If we can create communities in which both are engaged in those efforts which will bring about new understandings, new visions, life's nascent promise, it will have been worth the effort to create them. With or without god. It will not be easy, but those who seek to dream are firmly planted in both camps and the church sits, right now, at a place from which it can envision that community. The question is, will be protect our right to entomb our past dreams, cast them and that language we use to describe them in bronze forever preserved for future generations who can understand them, or will we be courageous enough to risk everything in order to engage a world we, even now, cannot accurately describe?

Hi Gretta,

I appreciate your participation in the discussion here. And I appreciate that you meet critique and debate with an engaging tone. Please accept my comments in the same spirit of dialogue.

Communities inclusive of believers and non-believers are worth creating. I think belonging precedes believing in Christian communities. So the pre-existing nature of the Christian faith community already accommodates your noble vision.

I also think that any invitation we as church extend to others is an invitation built upon a more original invitation. That chain of invitations in the church reaches back to a first invitation, which is framed theologically.

When I invite someone to a faith community, I am not inviting them to something I created. When I alter the nature of the invitation (removing the theological dimension and priority of the invitation), I alter the nature/identity of the community. That is, I am inviting others to a community of my own making.

I hear you envisioning a community that holds forth a promise to its participants and to the world. Promise is central to identity; that is, individuals and communities maintain identity insofar as they maintain their promises. Put differently, the trustworthiness of one's promise is contingent upon one's ability to steward one's identity's continuity.

An important mechanism in manifesting continuity/recognition of identity (and by extension promising) is language, especially attestation and naming. You ask, will we protect our right to entomb our past dreams, cast them and that language we use to describe them in bronze forever preserved for future generations"¦" Entombing and casting in idolatrous bronze, of course, does not serve the important continuities of communal identity. However, "to risk everything in order to engage a world" is equally problematic if a resultant discontinuity of identity paralyses the trustworthiness of our promising.

If we can't steward the inherited promises of the community to which we are invited, then on what basis should other trust we will, over the next long passage of time, faithfully steward the new promises of the new community we envision?

Brad

The Christian tradition is a living community, which each generation adds on to. The problem, which Vosper is rightly seeking to address, comes when we view our tradition as a fixed history which is inviolable. How do we break out of that fixed history, and re-engage the living tradition. GUC, using his Ricouerian hermeneutic is showing one way which such re-engagement is possible , while Vosper is suggesting a more radical adjustment is necessary.

Since Gretta Vosper has joined this discussion I would like to congratulate her on getting her book published. I don't agree with all of your thesis, but it certainly has everyone questioning how do we move forward. It has put the Progressive issue out there for the first time into public consciousness.

Hi James,

A "Ricoeurian" analysis of Gretta's treatment of metaphor would conclude that she understands metaphor as a trope (that is, a rhetorical device, figure of speech). Ricoeur argued that metaphor is not a trope; rather, it is an example of how "semantic innovation" and meaning-making enter into language.

The metaphor, "love is a rose" is a dual predication: 1) love is a rose, and 2) love is not a rose. Metaphors have a literal and non-literal meaning. The tension of this dual predication leads to semantic innovation. Ricoeur argued that metaphor is an example of how language functions beyond mere "this is that".

Insisting that we become literalists about our language, restricting use of metaphor and symbol, overlooks two issues:

1) As mentioned above, the "literalist language" describing physical reality is abstract nonlinear mathematics. Describing the cosmos in the vernacular will require metaphorical and symbolic expressions.

2) Dogmatic formulas are often the result of applying a literalist use of language to our metaphorical language about God. This is when beliefs become entombed and traditions stop "living".

My argument, simplified, is that placing the church on a low-metaphor diet will inhibit our ability to describe the world we seek to transform. Moreover, the same diet will make us susceptible to dogmatism.

Doing church by avoiding all nonliteral predications is an interesting challenge. But this strategy is merely a discipline of restricting the full meaning-making power of language. An alternative would be the strategy of making room in communities of faith for what Ricoeur called the conflict of interpretations.

A community best harvests the meaning-making potential and truth-claim potential of ordinary language when it mimics the dual predication tension of language. Every predication in ordinary language has a dual predication "“ an "is" and "is not" "“ that needs interpretation. Living faith communities engage in active interpretation of living language.

Brad

Getting back after a question was posed up thread. No, I want more from a chucrh than what is in the tenents of "Rotary".