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The Presence of God in the Face of Love
John 1:1-5, 14, 18; I John 4: 7-8, 12, 16
Richard A. Rhem
Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Muskegon, Michigan
April 29, 2012
God is Love.
Such a familiar affirmation; who would argue with that? Doesn’t everyone believe
God is Love? But so what? What difference does it make? What has that to do
with the everyday reality we live?
God is love – has it become perhaps a cliché? It is one of those religious claims in
the great traditions in one form or another which is seldom questioned but which
too often remains a belief that has little real impact on the manner of our living.
Hopefully we live in loving relationships in our families and our communities,
but the human family remains divided – where would one begin the catalogue of
current conflicts around the globe and the toxic atmosphere we live and breathe
in our own nation destroys relationships and human community. One would
never suspect that for the majority of us it is assumed that God is love.
And that may be why it fails to create loving community – it is a belief but too
rarely a practice and good religion is not a matter of belief but practice. Perhaps
that is obvious in a community like this but it is far from obvious in much of the
Christian Church and I understand that from my own experience.
Perhaps the simplest way I can explain my own pilgrimage as a Christian and,
indeed, a minister of the Gospel is to say I have moved from being a vertical
Christian to being a horizontal Christian. Let me explain what I mean.
As a vertical Christian I understood myself as a child of God through Jesus Christ
and “through Jesus Christ” meant through his death on the cross as an
atonement for my sins, gaining thereby for me forgiveness and peace with God.
Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world through his death
offered as a sacrifice to God puts me in relationship with God. As it has been
popularly expressed, Jesus took the rap for me. This is a vertical transaction – I,
now with sins forgiven, am in relationship with God.
To be fair, the Heidelberg Catechism on which I was nurtured has three sections:
1. How great my sins and miseries are;
2. How I may be delivered from my sin;
© Grand Valley State University
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and, thirdly, now moving from the vertical issue with God through Jesus’ atoning
death,
3. How I ought to live in gratitude for such salvation.
The third section deals with the Ten Commandments and The Lord’s Prayer – the
redeemed person lives a life of obedience and prayer and thus a Christian
expresses in her life gratitude for salvation. Thus there is a horizontal dimension
to the old scheme of salvation I’ve described as vertical, but such an
understanding is first and foremost a vertical transaction between God and me.
I go into this in such detail because we are talking about two radically different
understandings of Christian faith. The traditional, orthodox understanding in
which I was nurtured, and which in the early part of my ministry I preached, was
marked by God, wholly other and beyond us, who was the focus of salvation out
of which was to flow a Christian life of obedience and prayer.
So what is the conception of Christian faith I’ve called the horizontal Christian
understanding? It is an understanding of Christian faith as experiencing the God
who is Love in the love of my brothers and sisters. Such an understanding begins
with the affirmation – God is Love – and holds that God is experienced in the
concrete love of another. Thus, not in a vertical event through Jesus’ death as
atonement opening Heaven’s gates, but in the horizontal human relationships as
the medium through which God is experienced.
Let me be clear; in moving to Scripture I am selective. The biblical case for the
vertical conception of salvation and knowing God is strong. But there is another
track and it is that track to which I would point you, a track I believe that has the
potential to lift the claim “God is Love” to our attention such that we look for the
experience of God in the face of our neighbor and trigger a chain reaction of love
that has the potential to transform the human adventure.
My lessons are John 1: 1-5, 14, 18 and I John 4: 7-8, 12, 16. John 1:1 reminds us of
Genesis 1:1 – the creation of the Word (Logos) of God. Now the Gospel writer will
tell the story of Jesus but roots that story in Creation, in Israel’s history. So in
John 1:1 he says “In the beginning was the Word (logos).” Someone translated
that as “in the beginning was The Divine Intention” – the Divine Intention to
effect Creation. And then, to tell the story of Jesus, the writer in verse 14 says,
“...the Word (logos) became flesh and lived among us.” The Christian Church
speaks of this as the Incarnation; it is the Christmas story in a sentence.
The Gospel writer roots the Incarnation in the original creation and then declares
that the Eternal Word became enfleshed, became human. Now the clue to the
Sacred Mystery is in a human being. In the face of Jesus we get a clue to the
Being of God. The writer acknowledges,
No one has ever seen God.
© Grand Valley State University
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but he declares,
It is God the only Son...who has made God known.
That is the Good News of the Christmas Gospel – now we have in human form a
clue to the Being of God. But it gets better: I read from John’s First Letter
because he picks up the theme and marvelously broadens it. He calls us to love
one another because “God is love.” He then picks up the Gospel writer’s
acknowledgement, repeating it:
No one has ever seen God.
It is at that point that the Gospel writer points to Jesus, the Word become flesh,
in whose face we see God. But now in the First Letter of John, after repeating,
“No one has ever seen God,” this writer greatly expands the Gospel’s claim. Now,
not just the face of Jesus as the locus of revelation; now he writes, following the
acknowledgement, “No one has ever seen God,” that
If we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is perfected in
us...God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides
in them.
(Note: not those who abide in God abide in love. No, rather amazingly, radically
even, he says those who live in love live in God.)
Thus the title of my message: “The Presence of God in the Face of Love.” In the
Face of Love – the horizontal love of human to human – the Presence of God is
known and experienced.
God is love.
God is known, experienced in loving.
Perhaps by now you are wondering if I’m going to tell you anything you didn’t
know and believe before you came. And maybe that is my point:
God is Love.
God is experienced as we love across the whole human community.
Ho hum....
And the whole human community continues with war, violence, and conflict.
Yesterday’s New York Times had a long article about Israel’s Defense Minister
Ehud Barak’s nuancing comments by his Defense Chief, General Gantz, who had
seemed to suggest Iran’s leadership was rational, thus seeming to strike a less
© Grand Valley State University
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militant tone than has been that of Barak. As I read the piece my mind was full of
the call to love and I realized anew the urgency of moving love out of the arena of
personal relationships and into the arena of international affairs. If we don’t, we
risk ending the human experiment.
I’m reminded of James Carroll’s House of War, in which he documents the rise of
American Empire and the domination of Pentagon politics. It was in the wake of
our use of atomic bombs over Japan in 1945 that Secretary of War Henry Stimson
wrote a memorandum to President Truman. Carroll writes,
...less than a month after Japan’s surrender, and just over a month after
the detonation of the Nagasaki bomb, Stimson composed an urgent
“Memorandum for the President,” which began, “Subject: Proposed Action
for Control of Atomic Bombs.”
First Stimson told the president what the dawning of the nuclear age meant:
If the atomic bomb were merely another though more devastating military
weapon to be assimilated into our pattern of international relations, it
would be one thing. We could then follow the old custom of secrecy and
nationalistic military superiority relying on international caution to
prescribe [sic] future use of the weapon as we did with gas. But I think the
bomb instead constitutes merely a first step in a new control by man over
the forces of nature too revolutionary and dangerous to fit into the old
concepts. I think it really caps the climax of the race between man’s
growing technical power for destructiveness and his psychological power
of self-control and group-control – his moral power. If so, our method of
approach to the Russians is a question of the most vital importance in the
evolution of human progress...The crux of the problem is Russia.
Carroll comments further:
“To put the matter concisely,” Stimson wrote, he proposed that the United
States take immediate steps to “enter into an arrangement with the
Russians, the general purpose of which would be to control and limit the
use of the atomic bomb.” He suggested that by bringing the Soviets into
our confidence, they would have reason to believe it when Americans said
that “we would stop work on any further improvement in, or manufacture
of, the bomb as a military weapon, provided the Russians and the British
would agree with us that in no event will they or we use a bomb as an
instrument of war unless all three governments agree to that use.” Give up
the secret. Give up the monopoly. Give up sovereignty over use. Give up
control of existing bombs. Stimson, in the cover letter that accompanied
this memo, summed up his proposal by using the word “share” twice. (p.
113f)
© Grand Valley State University
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Tragically Stimson’s counsel was not heeded. Strongly against it was Secretary of
State James Byrnes who stood adamantly against any attempt to cooperate with
Stalin. Byrnes prevailed and the consequence was the long, costly and dangerous
Cold War that caused us to live on the brink of disaster, living in terror of mutual
assured destruction.
And not only the Cold War but still in the present, North Korea’s saber rattling to
say nothing of the threat of a strike on Iran and the potential for a nuclear arms
race in the Middle East.
One might respond regarding the Stimson Byrnes conflict that I’m operating with
20/20 hindsight. Not so! Rather that critical moment of history with its
disastrous results was determined by two different mind-sets, two different
spirits – a spirit of trust vs. a spirit of fear. Carroll points out that Stimson was
fully aware of Byrnes’ opposition to his position regarding nuclear weapons.
Carroll writes,
Very much against Byrnes, in one of the most remarkable statements ever
made by an American statesman, Stimson presumed to assert in his
September 11 letter to Truman, “The chief lesson I have learned in a long
life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him;
and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show
him your distrust. (p. 114)
He speaks of trust. I am speaking of love but they are related. One who loves,
trusts. In the reading from First John 4 we read in the 18th verse, “There is no
fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear...” A heart that loves enables trust and
removes fear. We know that is true in our interpersonal relationships but, as the
Stimson memo demonstrates, it is just as true in international affairs. It is
universally true because God is Love and Love is God.
I lunch weekly with a friend, present here, and we speak of our lunches as our
Wednesday Liturgy. Peter Hart has put me on the trail of some major works on
this morning’s reflection: Pitirim Sorokin’s The Ways and Power of Love which,
incidentally, relates his life work on the study of Love stimulated by the
emergence of the Atomic Age; and Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization,
which claims it belongs to the core of the human to feel empathy for another
human being rather than living over against, by nature aggressive, materialistic,
utilitarian and self-interested, basing his claim on recent brain science and child
development.
In the past few months we have engaged in an internet conversation with his
philosopher- theologian brother Hendrik, on various subjects but, somehow or
other, the nature of God is never far from the discussion, God as Love and the
implications for our lives and human wellbeing. In a recent post “Henk” wrote
“Reflections on Love and love” which emerged from our “conversations” via the
© Grand Valley State University
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Internet. He introduced his reflection with reference to his loss of both a
daughter and his wife as well as his own health:
My daughter Esther died of cancer the Tuesday of Easter week 2007. The
moon was full. This year the Easter dates will be the same and the moon
will again be full. My wife Anita died December 14, 2009, my birthday. In
February my own cancer, almost forgotten, re-entered my life with a
potential of death.
All of this came together in reflections that appeared in letters and then in a brief
summary:
Reflections on Love and love
Hendrik Hart
Lent 2012
I have of late given much thought to ... the meaning of love and Love. I
think that, at its core, a human life gains immeasurably in depth and
scope when it is exposed to giving or receiving love as the primeval
energy of all that is. Once we begin to be in the embrace of Love and
begin to experience ourselves as vessels of love, we become aware of an
irresistible energy that compels us to become centered, in all we do, in
that energy; to seek for ourselves and others peace, justice, joy, life,
fulfillment, patience, hope, life and much more. Love then begins to guide
us in setting our priorities, distributing our energies, choosing our
relationships, valuing our involvements and in so doing fills us with a
blessed awareness that whenever and wherever we follow this guidance
we find that, step by step but irresistibly, darkness recedes and light
spreads. We become driven by a Spirit (Ruah, Wind, Breath) that blows
where it wills and that without exception harvests light and life wherever
it blows. The more we trust the Presence of Love in our life the more we
ourselves become a presence of love in that Presence.
That expresses what I would affirm in this meditation: Love is at the core of
reality, the creative center of the cosmos. The grain of the universe is Love. It is to
love we are called every day in every way to one and all. It is the Way of Jesus for
me, a very concrete way to which I am called, which I betray and fail miserably to
fulfill. Yet a way I will not deny or rationalize away, a way I will self-consciously
cultivate because it compels me. I choose that way and will not give up in spite of
falling so far short. Love is the answer to the world’s violence, to humanity’s
brokenness and finally Love will prevail because there can be no doubt, Love wins
and in the face of Love I experience the Presence of God.
No one has ever seen God.
To dwell in Love is to dwell in God, for God is Love.
© Grand Valley State University
�Presence of God in the Face of Love Richard A. Rhem
References:
James Carroll. House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of
American Power. Houghton Miflin Harcourt, 2006.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Interfaith worship
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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Harbour Unitarian Universalist Church
Scripture Text
John 1:1-5, 14, 18, I John 4:7-8, 12 & 16
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Harbor Unitarian Universalist, Muskegon
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James Carroll. House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power. Houghton Miflin Harcourt, 2006.
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2012-04-29
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The Presence of God in the Face of Love
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 29, 2012 entitled "The Presence of God in the Face of Love", on the occasion of Harbour Unitarian Universalist Church, at Harbor Unitarian Universalist, Muskegon. Scripture references: John 1:1-5, 14, 18, I John 4:7-8, 12 & 16.
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God as Love
Nonviolence
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The Magnificent Vision of Shalom
Summer Social Gathering
Richard A. Rhem
The Spring Lake Country Club
Spring Lake, Michigan
August 27, 2006
On this, another social gathering, I want to say what a pleasure it has been to be
with you on these summer evenings, and to thank you for giving me an
opportunity to reflect on my life and ministry from the perspective of my
retirement. For the first time in that two-year period, I have been stimulated to
think about my journey from the deep Christian formation of my childhood and
youth to the unabashed posture of a critical thinking intellectual of open and
liberal mind and spirit.
That is the identity I would claim for myself.
Critical Thinking - We live in a cultural period named Post-Modern which
is a designation that means simply "after the Modern," and conveys the
fact that we don't really know what to call the present. Post-Modern
thinkers criticize the Modern Period - the Enlightenment over-confidence
in human rationality to master the Mystery of reality. However, one of my
best teachers, Hans Küng, wrote in one of his earlier works that the one
mark of modernity that we must never lose is critical rationality, the
exercise of human intelligence, of human reason, in the pursuit of
the human project.
Intellectual -I remember so vividly the Sunday the great New Testament
scholar, Bishop Krister Stendahl, preached at Christ Community and
spoke at the Perspectives hour. He said, "I am an unabashed intellectual."
I loved it and began at that point to own the designation for myself. There
are intellectuals and there are intellectuals, and I have no illusions about
being in the "Intellectual Big Leagues." Nonetheless, I do value the life of
the mind, the world of ideas and the intellectual probing of new frontiers
of the human experience. Being a pastor first of all, I did not have the
luxury of the scholarly life of reading, reflection and writing. Yet, in the
tasks of preaching and teaching, I was always fascinated by the intellectual
task of understanding - understanding the biblical story, the theological
tradition and their application to ongoing human experience.
Of Open and Liberal Mind and Spirit. My last presentation traced my
movement to a liberal posture - liberal of mind and spirit.
Let me pick up the story there, reminding you that being liberal is not a position,
but a posture. It is not a creedal position or even a religious commitment, nor is it
a political platform. It has to do with the open mind operating with critical
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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rationality that engages religious/cultural/moral and political issues, seeking
understanding in order to forge commitments and action intended for the
enhancement of the human situation - ultimately for creating a global community
rooted in love, marked by grace - in a word, the realization of the Hebrew
prophets' magnificent vision of Shalom - peace as total harmony.
The Vision
The vision of Shalom - of a new creation - comes to expression in various
prophetic writings in the Hebrew tradition. I refer you to two, one from Isaiah,
the great 8th century, B.C.E., prophet, in Chapter 11, which begins with the idea of
"a shoot" from "the stump of Jesse," and Chapter 65 of Isaiah, a writing from a
later prophet during the Exile looking to the Return. We need not debate the
conception of God as the sovereign of history, nor the fact that the vision was not
realized in the Exile's return and which, in the present violent chaos of the Middle
East, seems farther from realization than ever. The vision ends:
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will
be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
There was in the human mind and heart over two and a half millennia ago such a
vision. I find that most remarkable. It remains a dream in the human breast while
our whole understanding of cosmic reality and the action of God in history has
been radically transformed. That transformation has come about by the
emergence of the scientific breakthroughs through the empirical method, applied
by critical reason to the study of the natural world. And that transformation has
been fought at every new breakthrough by religious authority and, unfortunately,
such fighting still marks much of the religious world.
Such opposition is futile and fruitless and has caused much of the intellectual
community to write off the religious community as hopelessly benighted. In the
epic struggle of science and religion, there have been scholars on the scientific
side who have claimed more than their empirical investigations can justify,
denying the whole realm of religious mystery and experience. One such is Francis
Crick, who, in his The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul,
writes,
The astonishing hypothesis is that "you," your joys and your sorrows, your
memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free
will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells
and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have
phrased it: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons ..." The scientific belief is
that our minds - the behavior of our brains - can be explained by
the interactions of nerve cells (and other cells) and the molecules
associated with them, (p. 3, 7)
Crick claims this position stands in contrast with "The religious concept of a soul,
and puts science in a head-on contradiction to the religious belief of billions of
human beings alive today."
© Grand Valley State University
�The Magnificent Vision of Shalom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
"A head-on contradiction ..." indeed, and it rages still. But, is that impasse the
only possibility? I contend it is not and will attempt to offer an alternative
possibility. In doing so, I do not claim to be proposing something new and
original, but rather, what many scholars both in science and religion have
proposed.
The Wonder of the Cosmos
The scientific endeavor is never finished, but what we have learned about the
natural world takes our breath away. We stand in wonder and awe before the
unfolding of the cosmic dance - an unfolding we are told that has been in process
for over 13 billion years. And space! Can we begin to comprehend the thought of
an expanding universe of billions of light years, of billions of stars and galaxies
and, some would claim, parallel universes? Mind-boggling beyond my capacity to
take in.
At its best, the scientific enterprise continues to probe, recognizing, as the great
Einstein claimed, it is probing Mystery, with each new breakthrough bringing
forth fresh questions, creating models, carrying on experiments which bring forth
more data that, in turn, call for new paradigms. It is a wonder-full drama with no
necessity to threaten religious reality, although certainly necessitating
adjustment of ancient forms of religious belief.
To resist the ongoing march of scientific discovery, as indicated above, is futile
and foolish and it robs one of the freedom to revel in amazement at the natural
order into which our lives are woven. Rather, in my experience, it is inspiring to
take in the natural world to the extent possible and then re-think the possibilities
of religious response in light of what is.
So, where are we? We have a marvelous vision of Shalom from the ancient
prophet, expressed in a worldview and conception of God which the natural
sciences and historical consciousness make necessary to revise.
Let me attempt to portray the ongoing development of human understanding
by reminding you of my own journey which I think many of you have traversed,
as well. That journey consists of three stages:
The Pre-Critical
The Critical
The Post-Critical
In my first presentation, I told you of my whole academic experience through
high school, college and seminary which left me in a pre-critical stage, unable
and unwilling to think critically as I held to and taught the biblical story in terms
of the ancient biblical worldview. I was defensive of that worldview, took it
literally, and was threatened by all knowledge to the contrary. But, alas, finally I
could no longer deny that my deeply formed and very rigid understanding of the
biblical paradigm could no longer be held with integrity. In the words of Alfred
Lord Tennyson,
© Grand Valley State University
�The Magnificent Vision of Shalom
Richard A. Rhem
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Our little systems have their day,
they have their day and cease to be.
They are but broken lights of Thee,
and Thou, O Lord, art more than they.
It must be obvious that being deeply formed in a pre-critical mindset in a
world exploding with data that could not be incorporated into that pre-modern
understanding of God, nature and history put one in a very uncomfortable
position - constantly threatened, always on the defensive and wondering what the
next breakthrough in the sciences might reveal. Finally, my "little system" broke
and I was ready to open myself to the best of human knowledge
and understanding. Intellectual honesty, I realized, was also a spiritual matter. I
wanted to know the truth and tell the truth to the extent that was possible for me.
Thus, I entered the next phase of my life and ministry - the critical phase - a
phase that lasted for me about thirty years, during which I was preaching and
teaching, thinking, reading and writing. My move into the critical stage was never
marked by a "loss of faith" or a negative spirit over against my Christian faith.
During those three decades, I was being a pastor and living out of a deep faith
that was undergoing considerable revision, but never overthrown. I lived out
the experience that Gary Dorrien, in his Making of the American Liberal
Theology, documents. I find his definition of the Liberal movement and his high
valuation of it precisely my experience. He defines the Liberal movement thus:
In accord with my concept of it as a movement that began in the
late eighteenth century, I define liberal theology primarily by its original
character as a mediating Christian movement. Liberal Christian theology
is a tradition that derives from the late-eighteenth and early nineteenthcentury Protestant attempt to reconceptualize the meaning of traditional
Christian teaching in the light of modern knowledge and modern ethical
values. It is not revolutionary but reformist in spirit and substance.
Fundamentally it is the idea of a genuine Christianity not based on
external authority. Liberal theology seeks to reinterpret the symbols of
traditional Christianity in a way that creates a progressive religious
alternative to atheistic rationalism and to theologies based on
external authority. (Vol. I, p. XXIII)
It took me a long time to work out the question of biblical authority and I can
trace the gradual movement in my understanding. But, the mediating function of
the liberal approach was obvious to me, once my infallible, inerrant scripture
eroded and my conservative biblical paradigm collapsed.
I spent the Fall Term in 1983 at the University of Michigan with Professor Hans
Küng, who was deeply engaged at the time in his work on paradigm change in
theology. A book of great impact, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962),
by Thomas S. Kuhn, had, in the words of one commentator, made clear that
© Grand Valley State University
�The Magnificent Vision of Shalom
Richard A. Rhem
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science is not the steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge that is portrayed
in the textbooks. Rather, it is a series of peaceful interludes punctuated
by intellectually violent revolutions ... in each of which, one conceptual world
view is replaced by another ... The book was enlarged in a second edition in 1970.
Küng charted the course of paradigm shifts in theological development from the
earliest centuries much as Kuhn did for the unfolding scientific worldviews in
which he showed how, in the scientific revolutions, one worldview is replaced by
another. Kuhn documented how the scientist takes the data available and builds
a model or a paradigm. Further data comes to light that doesn't fit into the
prevailing paradigm and it is resisted, but finally more data is accumulated and
the prevailing paradigm is rejected, its data and the new data of discovery are
combined into a new paradigm that can accommodate all the data available at
that time.
Küng documented a similar movement in theological conception except, in the
religious community, there were always groups that perpetuated a given
paradigm despite the ever-evolving knowledge of the cosmic story and scientific
understanding. Out-of-date worldviews are manifold in religious worldviews.
But, this is where the Liberal movement comes in - no longer willing or able to
deny the explosion of knowledge provided by the natural and social sciences, the
liberal Christian thinkers were open to scientific breakthroughs and, with
continuing commitment to their Christian faith and experience, sought to
distinguish the faith from the worldviews in which it came to expression. Thus,
there was revision of much biblical conceptuality and the faith that came
to expression in the ancient worldview was set free from the ancient forms in
which it was expressed. This was the mediating function of the liberal movement
- the use of critical reason to understand the data of scientific discovery and the
discernment of Christian faith that was wrapped in now outdated worldviews that
had to be abandoned in light of new discovery.
This process which marked the Liberal movement and continues to be its finest
gift to Christian faith is a process I have gone through, as indicated above, and let
me acknowledge it is scary and sometimes painful. One wonders if one's faith will
dissolve, leaving one without the source of one's meaning, hope and comfort.
And, it can be costly! Hans Küng, in 1983, had just learned that the German
Bishop, Joseph Ratzinger, presently Pope, had passed on Rome's decree that the
theology courses Küng taught at Tubingen would no longer be credited for
those studying for the priesthood. To read Küng's Memoirs is to realize the risk
one takes as one seeks to bring one's Christian understanding into accord with
one's understanding of the knowledge available in all the disciplines of human
learning.
Yet, once one sees one's faith as distinct from the conceptual framework in which
it first came to expression, and once one opens one's mind to the knowledge of
the natural and social sciences, there is no "going home." And so one must move
through the Critical stage, testing everything, ruling out no question, claiming no
privilege of "the eyes of faith" in one's inquiry.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Magnificent Vision of Shalom
Richard A. Rhem
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The Critical phase is both necessary and dissatisfying for one deeply formed in
the conservative biblical paradigm as I was. It is an anxiety-ridden experience;
one wonders where one will end up. But I was fortunate in that I had time to read
and think and write sermons. And, I took a cadre of folk with me in Wednesday
evening classes where we probed the questions and read significant scholarly
works. And along the way, there were cumulative experiences. I've already
mentioned the semester with Küng. And, in the early 90s, the exposure to the
Jewish community, involvement with the Jewish-Christian committee, and the
inter-faith experience was very significant for me.
Perhaps the most significant endeavor for me was serving on the Board of Editors
of Perspectives, a journal of Reformed theology intended to stimulate theological
dialogue in the Reformed Church. In the writing of several essays, I began to
focus the new understanding I had been gaining in my reading and reflection. In
these years 1985-95, I brought into sharp focus the results of my critical inquiry
of the previous years post-Europe. I won't trace the development of my thinking
here, but simply point out that by the mid-90s, the Muskegon Classis challenged
my theological position, determining I was outside the pale of Reformed theology
and, with the congregation, I moved out of the RCA to independency.
I experienced freedom - a freedom I did not know I did not have while engaging
in my critical testing of my theological understanding while still in the ordained
ministry of the RCA. Now I was finally free to follow the consequences of years of
critical investigation. Declaring our independence in 1996, by 1999 I had moved
into a Post-Critical stage. But, before I go there, I must mention that my
understanding of the nature and function of religion was changing.
This change came about as I got involved in inter-religious dialogue, as well
as experiencing firsthand the deeply religious life of one who called himself a
Religious Naturalist - Dr. Duncan Littlefair. I saw in him the celebration of the
wonder, miracle, joy and glory of life, lived out in a life of worship and the
wonder of all creation and the human being. These concrete life experiences were
life-changing for me. I wonder if we ever really change, if we are ever transformed
in any other way than through encounter and concrete experience. I had to rethink the phenomenon of religion itself, all knowledge to the contrary.
One of the significant scholars whose work we studied was Gordon Kaufman,
who had recently retired from Harvard. His In Face of Mystery was a great
"revelation" for me, especially his claim that religion is a human creative
construct. Tracing the development of the human from earliest beginnings, he
showed how the religious dimension developed and I found his explanation
compelling. I came to understand how religion played a significant role in
human development, beginning within clans and tribes as the means to explain
the natural phenomena experienced, to seek security and harmony with the
Ultimate Mystery, eventuating in 800-600 BCE in the great religious traditions
that arose simultaneously in what is called the First Axial Period.
Informed by such an understanding, I came to see religious truth, not as a series
of creedal propositions containing absolute truth, but as sacred story lived out in
© Grand Valley State University
�The Magnificent Vision of Shalom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
life-forming fashion through prayer, ritual and moral living. The story was
celebrated in music and sacred dance and worship. And, as Karen Armstrong has
claimed, at the heart of all the great religions is the call to compassion.
Understanding the nature and function of religion thus, I realized exclusivism
was a hangover of tribalism and, for me, the theology of religion pointed to
pluralism as the only reasonable conclusion.
This, too, was freeing; with absolutism and exclusivism removed, I was able to go
back to my own story, the biblical story and my Christian faith - no longer
needing to defend or convince or argue, but simply search out again its depth and
meaning, its wisdom and its teaching as to the meaning of human existence
before the Face of the Sacred Mystery we call God.
I had entered fully the post-critical stage where I could see the whole grand story
and tradition as for the first time - and loving it now, not as the only way, truth
and life, but as my way, my truth, my life. No need now to prove anything; rather,
I could live fully in the human world, open to the wonder and miracle of the
universe, trusting that all Being was grounded in an Ultimate Mystery that was
the creative, enlivening source of all that is. An Ultimate Mystery who is lifegiving, as seen in the cosmic drama that has been emerging with life to the point
at which the human can trace the process of billions of years and stand in awe of
it all, giving voice in praise and adoration.
Emergence has become a key concept for me as I survey the whole cosmic drama
- the gradual unfolding of the universe issuing, at this point in the process, in
creatures such as we are. Emergence I understand as a model I create in place of
the ancient Genesis story with its profound mythical story, and I propose
emergence because I can hear all the data available from cosmology in its present
state and see it as the emerging reality that has come to this point without feeling
any threat to my religious being. In other words, I can receive the latest and
best knowledge and then think about it religiously in terms of my biblical story.
And here I find a fascinating point of connection.
In John's Gospel the prologue begins In the beginning was the Word ...
In Greek, "word" is logos, a philosophical term that points to the divine intention
in Creation. The prologue reminds us of Genesis 1:1, In the beginning God...
And then in verse 14, The word became flesh ..., a reference to Jesus as the
human incarnation of the Divine Intention.
Then in verse 18, an interesting statement, No one has ever seen God, followed by
the claim that Jesus, the Word made flesh, has made God known.
This, of course, is the Christian understanding of Jesus as the embodiment of
God in human being - The Christian understanding of Incarnation. God become
Human.
Translating that into Emergence conceptuality, I would say that the cosmic
process emanating from the Creative Source, the Ultimate Mystery, has evolved
to a point where that Infinite Mystery emerged in human form.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Magnificent Vision of Shalom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
Stating it differently, the Infinite is now revealed in finite form - the human - and
the human, in the image of the Infinite, is the emergent form of that Infinite
Ground - thus, the deep yearning for God in the human being.
This whole idea is given a further and profound development in the First Epistle
of John, chapter 4. In verse 7, we are called to love one another because love is
from God, and "God is love." Then the phrase from the Gospel, 1:18, is repeated,
No one has ever seen God.
But, then a significant development of the idea of incarnation is added:
If we love one another, God lives in us, and God's love is perfected in us.
A few lines later, the same claim is made.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in
them.
If we put all this together, we have a theological model which is in harmony with
an emerging cosmic drama whose Creative Source, God, is understood as Love
and whose presence in the cosmos is experienced in human love, the human
being the embodiment of the infinite creative Ground of Being. The cosmos
becomes conscious in the human and love is the highest expression of cosmic
reality - love that gathers all into harmony, the only possibility for Shalom, the
ancient prophets' vision.
And where do we see such love lived out? In our biblical story, we see it
concretely come to expression in Jesus, in whom the cycle of violence was
broken, who counseled, "Love your enemies," and whose non-violent resistance
to imperial power and political expediency brought him to the violent death by
crucifixion. Jesus, who was true to his own teaching as he died, prayed
Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.
Other religious traditions teach and encourage positive human values and
contain profound insights, having guided generations in their respective "ways." I
need not denigrate another tradition. I need not claim I have fully grasped the
deepest insights of the biblical story, nor claim I have embodied the way, the
truth and the life as it came to expression in Jesus. But, it is enough for me that
that story, that life in which I have been nurtured, which I have preached,
challenges, inspires and enables me to realize my full humanity. And I believe
that in that “Way, Truth and Life” lies the hope for a human future - the
realization of the vision of Shalom.
References:
Francis Crick. The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul,
1994. Scribner reprint edition, 1995.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Summer Social Gathering
Location
The location of the interview
Spring Lake Country Club
References
Francis Crick. The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, 1994. Gary Dorrien. The Making of the American Liberal Theology, Vol. 2, 2003.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-20060827
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006-08-27
Title
A name given to the resource
The Magnificent Vision of Shalom
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 27, 2006 entitled "The Magnificent Vision of Shalom", on the occasion of Summer Social Gathering, at Spring Lake Country Club .
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
God as Love
Paradigm Shift
PostModern
Shalom