What are Theological Liberalism and Theological Postmodernism?

mkgal1

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From the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
....and that's about it....isn't it (recorded words of Jesus that can relate to individual salvation)?

Does it seem reasonable to you that His entire mission on earth was "individual salvation" and this is all we have as far as words on the topic?
 
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Mark Corbett

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What I meant was recorded words of Jesus (like we have in the Sermon on the Mount) of His emphasis on "individual salvation". ISTM that if that's the "end game" that He came for (specifically *individual salvation*) He would have spoken about it and we'd have it recorded as a theme running through the Gospels.

I like your "Love God, Love People" image at the bottom of your comments.

Here's another passage where Jesus talks about "individual salvation":

Luke 15: 4 "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders
6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.'
7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
 
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mkgal1

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In my belief (and what seems to me to be the belief of the gospels and the disciples) the Gospel had more to do with the idea that there was (and is) a King of all Kings over all the presidents and ceasars of the world (the Kingdom of God). Instead of theology that is about "a world to come"....and a "Savior that's coming back"....I believe in a theology that is about God that says, “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
 
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Mark Corbett

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....and that's about it....isn't it (recorded words of Jesus that can relate to individual salvation)?

Does it seem reasonable to you that His entire mission on earth was "individual salvation" and this is all we have as far as words on the topic?

Actually there's more!

John 4:13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
 
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Mark Corbett

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In my belief (and what seems to me to be the belief of the gospels and the disciples) the Gospel had more to do with the idea that there was (and is) a King of all Kings over all the presidents and ceasars of the world (the Kingdom of God). Instead of theology that is about "a world to come"....and a "Savior that's coming back"....I believe in a theology that is about God that says, “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Sister, isn't your comment a false dichotomy? I believe that Jesus is King of Kings, AND that there is "a world to come" (or an "age to come", Mark 10:30). I believe that Jesus is with us to the end of this age AND that He's coming back. Don't you?
 
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mkgal1

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Sister, isn't your comment a false dichotomy? I believe that Jesus is King of Kings, AND that there is "a world to come" (or an "age to come", Mark 10:30). I believe that Jesus is with us to the end of this age AND that He's coming back. Don't you?
Sort of. What I *don't* believe in is this idea that we need to wait for Him to return in order for the Kingdom of God to be "upon us".....as Jesus' words are recorded in the Bible, "the Kingdom of God is in our midst".
 
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Mark Corbett

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Sort of. What I *don't* believe in is this idea that we need to wait for Him to return in order for the Kingdom of God to be "upon us".....as Jesus' words are recorded in the Bible, "the Kingdom of God is in our midst".

I agree! In a way.

I think you may be referring to this passage:

Luke 17:20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation;
21 "nor will they say,`See here!' or`See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."

Wherever Jesus is reigning, there is a sense, a very REAL sense, in which the Kingdom of God is there. But there is another sense in which the Kingdom of God is still coming:

NKJ Luke 19:11 Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately.

This tension runs all through the New Testament. Already. In some ways. Not yet. In other ways. The King is reigning now, yet in another way we look forward to His glorious reign.

I imagine (although I do not know for sure) that we agree about this. You don't think that this life we have on earth is the end of the story or as good as it gets, do you? And yet you want God to reign in your heart, your life, your family, your community, your world NOW. Both are true at the same time.

Grace and Peace to you!
 
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mkgal1

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I imagine (although I do not know for sure) that we agree about this. You don't think that this life we have on earth is the end of the story or as good as it gets, do you? And yet you want God to reign in your heart, your life, your family, your community, your world NOW. Both are true at the same time.
Yes....absolutely on that I agree (wanting God to reign in my heart, life, family, community and world NOW).

What I'm trying to point out is that I believe the actual message Christ came to bring has gotten lost in modern Protestant teaching (a lot of the time). I think His words get misinterpreted into something else--and in looking for one thing, another is completely missed.

You were mentioning "individual salvation".....and, while we each have to come to our own beliefs and personal restoration, I believe His main message is about saving ALL His lost sheep (not a select favorites). And when He was weeping over Jerusalem (recorded in Luke 19).....I feel that a lot of meaning is often missed there (I know *I* missed a lot based on the teaching I'd listened to over the years in Protestant churches).

For instance (from Brian Zahnd):

Brian Zahnd said:
Jesus is the nation of Israel summed up in a single person. Jesus is the true Israelite who fulfills the mission of Israel to establish God’s kingdom, bless the nations, and save the world! This is why the New Testament opens by letting us know that Jesus is the son of David, the son of Abraham. Jesus is the one who is going to repair the world!

The Apostle Peter speaks of the new temple being built out of living stones. (1 Peter 2:4–10)

No longer will the Israel of God be ethnically defined.
No longer will the temple of God be geographically confined.

Since the death and resurrection of Christ, the true temple is not limited to Jerusalem, but becomes the New Jerusalem filling the world and making the whole earth the new holy land! That’s the gospel in the context of the Big Story of the Bible.
 
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mkgal1

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Actually there's more!

John 4:13 Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
I interpret this to be more about Jesus than it is about us as individuals. He is life. His ways are life-giving.....freeing....etc.
 
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Greg Logan

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Here's the text in question:
Mark

The reality of course is that you are simply uncomfortable with the conclusion that any competent reader of the Bible will derive. Instead you are proposing an agenda - an agenda with no basis.

Further - you are labeling human beings in a very derogatory and demeaning fashion. Frankly - these labels are simply the tools of Satan to tear people down. That is the best way to understand them.

Best

Greg Logan
 
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FireDragon76

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The Biblical text that was used to demonstrate that He *did* overcome the bias and bigotry because of the persistence of another was Matthew 15. From the notes:


It seems that even Jesus had to unlearn the bias that was handed down to Him.

That's a difficult passage for some people, one that shows the problems of understanding the biblical text through the eyes of western culture. Jesus is engaged in a "challenge-riposte" with an outsider to his group. The challenge-riposte is a kind of metacommunication used in middle eastern cultures in situations where honor may be at stake. Like all metacommunication, the actual meaning of the communication is not always explicit in the literal words.

The Syrophoenician woman is by nature of being both a woman and a foreigner, of low honor among the disciples, who are male and Jewish. Jesus honors her by letting her defeat his challenge, allowing her to walk away with the dignity she did not have at the beginning of her encounter. This is far from Jesus endorsing bigotry. Jesus healed a centurion's slave and talked to a samaritan woman, so this is the more parsimonious interpretation, rather than assuming Jesus was a bigot.
 
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mkgal1

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The Syrophoenician woman is by nature of being both a woman and a foreigner, of low honor among the disciples, who are male and Jewish. Jesus honors her by letting her defeat his challenge, allowing her to walk away with the dignity she did not have at the beginning of her encounter. This is far from Jesus endorsing bigotry. Jesus healed a centurion's slave and talked to a samaritan woman, so this is the more parsimonious interpretation, rather than assuming Jesus was a bigot.
"Endorsing bigotry"? My post must not have been very clear at all.....because that's definitely not what I wanted to communicate :(

I was merely trying to say (hoping this clarifies a bit) that it's merely human to absorb some bias/prejudice from the cultural worldview around us that needs to be worked out (and, I believe, it could have even been true of Jesus in His humanity).

To hold some measure of prejudice (we ALL do....I believe) is different than a person that can be characterized as a "bigot".

I came across this paper on the text:

Boston College of Theology and Ministry said:
...both the Syrophoenician woman and Jesus serve as examples of humility and how their living out of that virtue leads to wisdom.

Both individuals walk away changed, healed, and strengthened. Through this encounter, both practice humility, and thus, both discover wisdom; Jesus' provisional myopia is abrogated while the woman acquires a healing for her beloved daughter. Indeed, both of these characters walk away different – with expanded visions. By extension, their exchange also has implications for those not directly involved in the story: for the woman, her daughter gains freedom from the binding demonic forces; for Jesus, his thoughts concerning the ministry to the Gentiles will be expanded. Furthermore, like all "good news," the story remains effective, reaching even contemporary readers.
~file:///C:/Users/Larry/Downloads/1901-3187-1-PB.pdf
 
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FireDragon76

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I know that's a popular interpretation among Protestants, but I for one don't understand why any Christian would accept it, because it effectively denies Jesus divinity.
 
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mkgal1

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...because it effectively denies Jesus divinity.
I don't think so. I believe we can honor His humanity without taking away from His divinity. He had to grow and mature in other ways (Luke 2:52).....why not having to "grow out" of subtle cultural prejudices?

I'd honestly first heard that perspective the other day.
 
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FireDragon76

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I don't think so. I believe we can honor His humanity without taking away from His divinity. He had to grow and mature in other ways (Luke 2:52).....why not having to "grow out" of subtle cultural prejudices?

I'd honestly first heard that perspective the other day.

The challenge-riposte explanation is widespread among those actually educated in middle eastern cultures. Not everybody with a divinity degree has the background to evaluate Jesus inner motives. If we are truly going to honor his humanity, then we need to take into account he lived in a very different culture and not judge his behavior by our own narrow standards.

Wordgazer's Words: Even the Dogs Eat the Crumbs: Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician Woman
 
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mkgal1

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From the article:

Kristen Rosser said:
Yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to a widow in the city of Zarephath in the region of Sidon." Jesus intended that His ministry be compared with that of Elijah, and that is just what the disciples would have done.

The initial response of Jesus to this foreign woman-- not answering her a word-- was entirely in accordance with the norms of the day, and the disciples knew it...

By interacting with this woman first within the social norms, and then by stepping outside them, Jesus was teaching His followers a new way to respond to foreigners-- and to women.

.....okay, that makes a lot of sense to me. I can agree with that.

This is interesting:

Jesus instead gives a response clearly intended for the woman to hear: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." This is not an answer to the disciples' request. Instead it is a rhetorical statement of something the disciples and the woman both know,* but it functions as a challenge to the woman: "Tell me why I should help you." Instead of sending her away, Jesus engages Himself in the interaction. She then is encouraged enough to come right up to him and kneel, switching from the beggar's standard plea to the simple words, "Lord, help me."

And here is what is truly astonishing. DeSilva tells us that a challenge of the sort Jesus offers was a common social interaction in ANE honor-shame cultures-- but only for men. He explains:

"[H]onor can be won and lost in what has been called the social game of challenge and riposte. It is this “game,” still observable in the modern Mediterranean, that has caused cultural anthropologists to label the culture as “agonistic,” from the Greek word for “contest”. The challenge-riposte is essentially an attempt to gain honor at someone else’s expense by publicly posing a challenge that cannot be answered. When a challenge has been posed, the challenged must make some sort of response (and no response is also considered a response). It falls to the bystanders to decide whether or not the challenged person successfully defended his (and, indeed, usually “his”) own honor. The Gospels are full of these exchanges, mainly posed by Pharisees, Sadducees or other religious officials at Jesus, whom they regarded as an upstart threatening to steal their place in the esteem of the people." p. 29, emphasis added.
The rest of the exchange between Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman is just this sort of challenge-riposte.

Thanks for sharing that. :)
 
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FireDragon76

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You're welcome.

Focusing on inclusion and in-groups/out-groups is better than what some Protestant commentators have traditionally done, which is to overly spiritualize the story and make it about persistence in prayer/faith, as if we could manipulate God (indeed, even Luther seems to understand this story that way). However, the original Gospel authors likely included this story to show Jesus being about his mission of inaugurating the Kingdom of God, even in marginal circumstances. How we understand the story spiritually must be understood in light of that.
 
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mkgal1

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However, the original Gospel authors likely included this story to show Jesus being about his mission of inaugurating the Kingdom of God, even in marginal circumstances. How we understand the story spiritually must be understood in light of that.
I agree. In fact, I think it's really important to keep that understood as the main "plot" of the story of Jesus (His mission of inaugurating the Kingdom of God....and His inclusion of everyone in that). That's what made Him so radical--it's something completely different than the "exclusive" club mentality or nationalism that even continues today.
 
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