[Oe List ...] Salmon: Bill Holmes' Book

Thu May 27 15:37:32 CDT 2010

Colleagues: "More of the dialogue on Bonhoeffer"
    This is somewhat off the top of my head, and I'm unaware of the Holmes book, but when I was a first teacher for RS-I it was the Bonhoeffer lecture that I reserved for myself to teach. So many of us struggled to teach it because of its complicated germanic nature to explore too many nooks and crannies. As I remember, the answer lies in one of the early paragraphs from which we drew the Responsible Person triangle held in tension between the two poles. I could take the time to climb up to my closet files and find the exact material, but I won't, not for this rumination--or cud--if you please.
    Over the intervening years I have used this image many, many times in various contexts. The lesson to be learned is not if we fall off on either the Obedience pole or on the Irresponsible Genius pole, because no matter what we do some observer will accuse us of being one or the other and all from the same decisive action we do; we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. This is Bonhoeffer's point!
    The solution Bonhoeffer offers is to make a decision based on, "observe and judge the given facts, weigh up the values, decide and act," or so our song summarized for us. 
    Then, the final event happens after we have acted. Bonhoeffer recommends we offer up our Necessary Deed to God. 
    For contemporary (global) society, the tit-in-the-wringer--have you ever heard of a "Man-O-Gram?"-- is determining what this God looks like: Father, Mother, Absolute Being, Authentic Existence. Just who in the hell do we offer up our Necessary Deeds? 
    The difficulty is that for contemporary society none of these designations rings any chimes today. God is none of these things and yet is more; what is the answer to this dilemma? 
    The OE/EI/ICA fiddled around with "The Mystery" for a good long time but this was just another metaphor based on a pseudo-scientific objectification that finally is empty of meaning. 
    As a post-modern theologian that to which I offer up my Necessary Deeds is the universal experience of The Good; iff'n it ain't Good it ain't God. The other metaphors I've explored over the last thirty years are Perfect At-One-Ment (Atonement theology) and The Guarantor (the ethical dimension that judges each decision as Good or its antithesis; does it fulfill the Great Commandment or not?) These metaphors are not objective, rational or cognitive, rather they are relational (revealed to us in relationships in which we experience At-One-Ment), experiential (revealed to us in events where Goodness is the end result), and existential (revealed to us in every decision that changes my self-perception and the perception of others about me). 
    Every decision is performed knowing full-well that the result has far-reaching consequences some of which I can anticipate, some that others may experience as the antithesis of At-One-Ment, and some consequences that I'll never know about. This is something for which Bonhoeffer has something to say too. 
    Confession Time: 
    There were times when the RS-I participants were asking questions that made it expedient to move directly to this heart of Bonhoeffer, by-passing a lot of the supportive faull-de-raul of getting to this center. 
    These were some of the more meaningful RS-I courses for the participants and for the teaching staff. This is especially true when these insights are followed up by Niebuhr's contextual statement on how we make ethical decisions. 
    Now, can I "Thank Goodness for RS-I?"  Yes, I can, thank you very much.     
    Inner Peace, 
    Bill Salmon

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John C. Montgomery 
  To: Order Ecumenical Community 
  Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 6:12 PM
  Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Bill Holmes' Book

  I've gotten through my initial read of Holmes' book and intend to spend some time with it again this weekend. My first impressions are mixed. While I found his exposition of both Tillich and Bonnhoeffer very helpful and far more articulate than I could ever muster, I missed the Christology - where was the discussion of how Christian faith is deeper than stoicism? I didn't see that - maybe I skipped it.

  The discussion of Bonnhoeffer was very helpful, but in the midst of our concentration on the tension between freedom and obedience, we miss the point if we do not begin to speak of the Christ event that allows us to act in the midst of that tension. I think we missed that point in a lot of RS-1 seminars, if we thought the paper was about problem solving and scientific method. The problem with dialectical models like the one Bonnhoeffer uses is that there is really never a third term - there is no responsibility that is separate from either the challenge to our irresponsible freedom or our lack of creativity in the misdt of our sense of duty. 

  If I could teach the seminar again, my bottom line question would be, "when have you ever found yourself so enamored with your own relative sense of action ready to just do your own thing and someone rubbed your face in innocent suffering and asked what your might do about it?" or "when in your life were you paralyzed by so many demands pulling you one way and the other, that someone points out that maybe you should do at least one thing." After some sharing, I would then ask, now what Bonnhoeffer might say was going on - and more importantly, why is God important in the equation?

  I must admit that I was taken aback to find in the opening chapters of a book about Mature Christianity a discussion about the reappropriation of the Father metaphor - Did we miss the feminist revolution?  But on closer reading, I have been somewhat intrigued. Many of us have been reading Spong's latest take on moving beyond childish models of a supernatural parent that guards us from our fear, etc. It seems to me, that Holmes may open the door to an analysis of a mature relationship that does not have to reject all theistic images like Spong suggests.

  The existential theology of the mid-20th century certianly was a theological revolution in many of our lives - of course, a lot has happened since then as well - It feels like Holmes is struggling to hold some tension. Theological conversation did not stop with the Niebuhr brothers - the question of "what do I? in the midst of the complexity of our pluralistic world pushes us into a radically different depth - I am grateful for my feminist, womanist and indigenous brothers and sisters who have given permission to ask lots of questions, some quite skeptical. Liberation theologians have certainly pushed back on the radical individualism of existentialist models of sin that can trivialize social sin and at least for me, emerging evolutionary models of God, like someone like John Cobb and Marjorie Suchocki, give me permission to move beyond Tillich and Spong to reappropriate an active relationship with God "zs a being," not a supernatural God, but one who is interactive in every moment. 

  Of course, the key is to keep the conversation open. Holmes does seem to do that.

  John C. Montgomery
  (c) 678-468-4913
  www.monkeyltd.wordpress.com

  Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; 
  justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. 
  Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; 
  faith-based justice offers a place at the table.

  - Bill Moyers, television journalist and social commentator. 

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: jlepps at pc.jaring.my
  To: oe at wedgeblade.net
  Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:42:32 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
  Subject: [Oe List ...] Bill Holmes' Book

  Colleagues:

  This is a word of promotion for Bill Holmes' new book, Mature Christianity: for come-of-age Christians in a come-of-age world. It's published by Resurgence Publishing in 2010, and can be ordered from George Walters. Or you can get it from the Resurgence Publishing Website at 

  www.ResurgencePublishing.com 

  The reason I'm suggesting this is that it's the closest thing I've seen to RS-1 in a book. It was my privilege to edit the book, and reading it thoroughly was a treat that I commend to you.

  Bill gave the keynote address at the Mathews Symposium in December, and has been a long-time colleague. He's also a high-profile Methodist minister, having served for 24 years in the Metropolitan Memorial Church in Washington,D.C., United Methodism's National Church. 

  Apparently this book is getting a good reception, and many local church study groups are getting it. Bill is preparing a study guide for use with groups (and using the ORID framework). If you're in such a group, you may want to consider it.

  I hope you find it as helpful as I did.

  John Epps

  _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE at wedgeblade.net http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net 

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