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Re-Imagining the Faith: A Theological Pilgrimage
Richard A. Rhem
Page 1
Re-imagining the Faith:
A Theological Pilgrimage
Richard A. Rhem
Introductory Reflections for the Articles Page
December 12, 2012
At my retirement in 2004, Christ Community Church was exceedingly gracious in so
many ways, one of which was to collect a number of my sermons and publish them
under the title Re-Imagining the Faith. I could not have named it as well; it succinctly
expressed the story of my thirty-seven years as pastor of that congregation. It was at the
First Reformed Church of Spring Lake, Michigan, that I was ordained to the Christian
ministry on June 30, 1960. From 1960, just out of seminary, to 1964 I served that Spring
Lake congregation. During those four years I was in no way seeking to re-imagine the
Christian faith; in fact, I would have been threatened by the thought. My understanding
of Christian faith was orthodox, evangelical in the Reformed tradition as conveyed by
the Dutch Reformed Church rooted in the Netherlands and brought to this country in
the nineteenth century emigration from the Netherlands.
It was, however, in those four years through pastoral experience that my orthodoxy was
being tested. That whole story is critical to my theological pilgrimage, but I won’t go into
it here, except to say that a move to a very conservative, evangelical Reformed
congregation in New Jersey [in 1964] only accentuated my struggle, which was really
about the view and authority of Scripture. I left New Jersey for the Netherlands to
pursue post-graduate studies. I was indeed fortunate to be received and accepted by
Professor Dr. Hendrikus Berkhof, Professor of Dogmatics at Leiden University. As I was
leaving his study after my first appointment with him in the early Spring of 1967, I saw a
piece of paper pinned on a drape, on which was written:
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.
In those lines by Alfred Lord Tennyson I knew I had found my teacher and my task. My
little system had had its day; I longed to find the Sacred Mystery toward whom my little
system, now broken, had pointed.
Though I had earned a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology following my BA
from Hope College, I was about to embark for the first time in my life on an intellectual
and spiritual quest with an open mind and heart – seeking truth wherever it might lead
me. For the first time in my life I began with questions rather than answers to be proven
and confirmed. It was a liberating moment; finally I was ready to learn.
© Grand Valley State University
�Re-Imagining the Faith: A Theological Pilgrimage
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
Lest I be misunderstood, my failure to gain an education, to learn, was not the fault of
the institutions from which I attained degrees, nor the teachers who taught me. To be
sure, a denominational seminary has not the task to lead students to new visions of the
faith but rather to teach the faith system, the confessional foundation of the church that
supports it and governs it. That being said, I must confess the problem was mine. All my
energy and intellectual gifts were committed to learning and then teaching evangelical
Reformed faith. The last word had been spoken; now it was my calling to proclaim and
teach it. And I was deadly serious about it.
But no longer. After my little system began to break in those seven years of pastoral
ministry, I knew I had to begin again to see if indeed I could come to new insight and
understanding that would enable me still to be a Christian minister with a message in
which I could passionately believe and proclaim.
The fact that at my retirement a book of my sermons was published with the title ReImagining the Faith is the finest tribute I could receive, witnessing to the journey that
began in the late 60’s under the guidance of Professor Berkhof and that continued all the
years after my return to the Spring Lake congregation in 1971. Through all those years I
was about re-imagining the faith and, even in retirement, the journey continues.
As I look back over my ministry that continued in Spring Lake following my four-year
European sojourn, I realize that what I essentially gained was an ability to think
theologically, to think critically. No longer was there a set confessional system of
theological propositions to be explained and defended. I was full of wondering, of
questioning, of questing for a deeper understanding of biblical faith in the context of
contemporary culture.
My new posture found expression in preaching and teaching but it was with the birth of
the journal Perspectives, a Journal of Reformed Thought in 1986 that I began to
articulate that new posture on central theological/biblical themes.
My first article was on the theology of Robert Schuller as I will describe below. But from
then on I addressed some critical themes that reflected my own groping for a new
understanding of biblical faith.
As I was working on the thread of those pieces I received a note from Professor Dr.
Hendrik Hart who had begun reading the articles I had given him. In response to
questions he raised, I gave some background about my experience in the RCA. Our
correspondence I include here:
Email from Hendrik Hart, November 20, 2012:
... I’m reading Dick’s articles in Perspectives. I was entirely unprepared for them because
Dick keeps saying that he was a latecomer in moving beyond conservatism. But the first
piece, from 1987, digs into the God-Jesus-male cluster with a vengeance. And so it is
with most of the pieces. They are radical in choice of topic, position and approach. They
© Grand Valley State University
�Re-Imagining the Faith: A Theological Pilgrimage
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
are not mealy-mouthed either. The language is clear, direct, and hard-hitting. I would
have thought that, early in the game, the pastoral side might emerge, knowing how upset
conservatives might be. Not so. So where’s the conservatism? The only evidence for
Dick’s pleading a late start in getting beyond conservatism is that the style of argument
has not been touched by the then rising postmodern spirit. But that took time for all of
us.
OK, if I’m near the mark with this, how would you characterize where you were in 1987,
Dick? What readings or experiences would have spawned those articles and how did you
expect they would be perceived? By your congregation, by your classis, by Perspectives
readers?
I am curious because, if I go by my own memories, I think there was a mixture of urgency
and naiveté. In 1983 I wrote “Must I Believe in God as Father?” in The Banner. It was a
soapbox piece and the editor and I had previously discussed at length how this should be
done. I think I wrote very carefully, so I was fully unprepared for the storm of invective
that broke over me, as well as for the complete silence of supporters. Only now (right
now!) does it occur to me that the problem may well not have been the piece as such (it
was about praying to God as Mother), but the heading. Why did I not see that 30 years
ago? So, if you can, tell us something about why you may have written things possibly
unaware of how they would be perceived or of how you would endanger yourself. Did you
know you were taking risks?
Reply from Richard Rhem:
Henk, great to hear from you and I am pleased you are reading the articles. It so happens
that I have spent over a week gathering my writings over the years of my ministry post
Netherlands. (I have a few more for you, especially two pieces that appeared in The
Reformed Review, Western Seminary’s journal. In 1972 I gave a lecture at Western
which was published in The Reformed Review – “A Theological Conception of Reality as
History – Some Aspects of the Thinking of Wolfhart Pannenberg.” Then in 1986 I wrote
in a [tribute] for Gene Osterhaven – “Theological Method: The Search for a New
Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age” – which dealt with Küng’s paradigm change in connection
with Tracy and referring to Gadamer, etc. Those three pieces were received quite well.
Then the RCA founded Perspectives. I just found the first editorial by Rev. Dr. James
Van Hoeven – first editor and major figure behind the project. (That he was brother-inlaw to Ed Mulder, General Secretary, got the Journal underway.) Jim wanted me on the
board of editors and immediately asked that I write about Schuller’s new reformation. I
had been inspired by Bob Schuller upon my return from the Netherlands - my leadership
people felt, having been out of the country for four years, I needed such exposure. It
worked. Within four months of beginning again in Spring Lake, the First Reformed
Church became Christ Community and a second service in the morning was added (and
eventually a third). About 28 of our people attended Schuller’s Institute for Successful
Church Leadership. But Bob Schuller was under fire for his book New Reformation and
being too easy on sin!! Therefore Jim Van Hoeven thought I should do an article on
Schuller. It was quite well received. You ask about whether I wrote with awareness of
reaction from the church. I’m sure I was naive but, according to Jim’s first editorial, this
new journal’s purpose was to “engage issues that reformed Christians meet in personal,
ecclesiastical, and societal life.” It also aimed to be in conversations that “help shape the
identity and mission of the Reformed Church in America.”
© Grand Valley State University
�Re-Imagining the Faith: A Theological Pilgrimage
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Jim continues, “If in the process, Perspectives can enable a community of scholars to be
formed – women and men from within the church who bridge race, region, and
discipline, who enjoy the give and take of thoughtful discourse, and who do not mind if
their Sundays sometimes get pretty rough [an allusion to a Mark Twain quote with which
he opened] – this enterprise will have fulfilled its expectations.”
The editorial moves to a quote from Robert Bly: “Certainty lives on either side of the
border, but truth lives on the border.” Jim continues, “The editors of Perspectives will
push themselves and the church toward that border, theologically. This means, on the
one hand, Perspectives will affirm and deepen the richness of the Reformed tradition.
Tradition tells us who we are, gives us a definition, a point from which to set our course,
and reminds us ‘we belong...to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ.’ And yet truth lives on the
border. The danger of too much tradition is that it turns a good thing into idolatry. The
church’s faith and life must always be creative. …holding to the tradition, being creative,
living on the border is part of what it means to be Reformed, according to the Word of
God.”
That was January, 1986, the first issue. Perspectives was initially sent free of charge to
ministers, members of boards and agencies, elders on request. It was to engage the
leadership of the RCA in creative conversation. I really believed that, naive as I was...
It is coincidental that you raise the questions my writings raised as your brother Peter
has asked me to write an overview of the thread that runs through my articles to
introduce them on a Web site of an archive of my work. I have begun writing after
sorting through piles of files. That piece will answer some of your questions, but let me
respond to your questions regarding my being a late bloomer. Throughout my education
I was trying to reinforce the faith structure of my childhood. I never challenged or raised
a question. Yet, beneath my sturdy dogmatism, there was an insecurity: I wondered if the
faith/church would survive – not because it wasn’t God’s truth but because the darkness
arrayed against the light was formidable. A pastoral experience in Spring Lake showed
me that an inerrant, infallible Bible wasn’t enough. During my last year there, the
Covenant Life curriculum from the RCA/Presbyterians came out. I taught the foundation
papers in Spring Lake and then introduced the curriculum to the New Jersey
congregation. It created an uproar from a few who felt it was weak on Scripture [long
story]. For me – finally owning my own questions – it was very helpful. I knew I would
have to spend years bringing that congregation around or make good on my desire to go
to the Netherlands for postgrad work. Berkhof accepted me and proved a great mentor
and friend. Thus began my first real education because finally I was open to the quest.
But, Henk, I was 32! Four years in Leiden and my return to Spring Lake where I began to
preach out of the reservoir of the Leiden years.
This I knew: the orthodox view of Scripture was the bottleneck. I felt a real freedom to
explore in that marvelous community. I taught Berkhof’s Christian Faith, Küng’s On
Being a Christian and Does God Exist? Coming from a serious study of Pannenberg, I
was ready for Küng whom I came to appreciate deeply. I mentioned my writings/lectures
in The Reformed Review in 1972 and 1986. These were about the theological method.
But, as I wrote earlier, it was Perspectives that gave me the occasion to address issues
before the church. Yes, I was naive, but I was also totally free in bringing to expression
© Grand Valley State University
�Re-Imagining the Faith: A Theological Pilgrimage
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
what I had been thinking about. Now I was 51, Henk: no youngster, but just finding my
voice. I was blessed with a congregation that allowed me to “think out loud”. That was
my preaching style and it was a safe and honest place. Thus when Perspectives came
along I expressed myself quite honestly. The “Habit of God’s Heart” piece I knew was
treading on dangerous terrain, but I tried to be careful, wondering but also being honest
about my hope that God’s grace was universal.
As time moved on I got the assignments that were controversial because I was a pastor in
a safe place. I think there was only one other pastor on the board of Perspectives. The
rest were professors at colleges or the seminaries and were reluctant to take on the
themes I tackled.
So, my conservatism in the traditional form ended when I left for Leiden in 1967. From
there I had to begin again. I consumed book after book. Berkhof would say, “You must
begin to write,” but I said, “I just found six more footnotes leading to a dozen more
books!”
Trying to answer your questions: by 1987 I had been engaged in serious theological
reading/thinking for 20 years. Perspectives gave me the opportunity to bring to
expression all I had been thinking/teaching/preaching about. I felt safe and confident
and thus put myself on the line. Perspectives was not the Church Herald, read by RCA
lay folk. The Banner was something else. You wrote in a very much more conservative
context to a well-informed readership in the bastion of Calvinist orthodoxy.
As for “the silence of supporters,” I know that well. When my Grace article appeared, I
was teaching homiletics at Western. A colleague also on the board of editors, present and
participating in the discussion about the theme, in favor of my writing...but when the
storm rose, in a faculty meeting asked, “Why did you feel you had to write that piece?”
He also, I’m told, said if I had changed six words there would have been no problem.
I must say, Henk, it never occurred to me that I would get into trouble. My congregation
was solidly supportive and I had fine collegial relationships with the RCA leadership and
I honestly felt I was being a positive influence for good in the RCA. In the end it was not
RCA leadership but young, threatened pastors in the Muskegon Classis that spelled my
demise in the RCA. It is all quite a story.
And now to return to the thread of my articles. My second Perspectives piece was
entitled “Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal.” I set forth Barth’s own
experience of preaching and the high regard he had for the preaching moment – very
inspiring.
But then, in a series of articles, I addressed contemporary issues in the Church and my
own deepening grasp of those issues.
February 1987, pp. 4-6: “An Accident of the Incarnation.” The issue was the male
domination of the church. I argued that the maleness of the Incarnation was an
“accident,” not of the essence of God’s revelation in human flesh.
In the January 1988 issue, I wrote a piece, “Purgatory Revisited.” Hans Küng at the
University of Michigan in the Fall of 1983 lectured on questions surrounding death,
© Grand Valley State University
�Re-Imagining the Faith: A Theological Pilgrimage
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
heaven, hell and the future, subsequently published under the title Eternal Life. Küng
got me to thinking. I suspect it was a beginning step toward the hope of universal grace.
In the September 1988, issue I brought to full expression my hope and growing
conviction that God’s grace would finally bring all God’s children home. The piece,
entitled “The Habits of God’s Heart”, elicited major responses from RCA ministers and
the public readership – positive and negative, the latter predominant.
In the April 1991, issue I became even bolder. I wrote of my growing conviction that my
faith community, the community of Reformed faith issuing from Calvin’s Geneva by way
of the Netherlands had never come to terms with the Enlightenment - the place of
critical rationality and historical consciousness in the understanding of the Christian
credal tradition as espoused by the Reformed community in this country. It was
Hendrikus Berkhof’s Two Hundred Years of Theology that made me aware that the
community of which I was a part “was not even engaged in the struggle.” The article was
entitled “Sleeping Through a Revolution.”
As one can well imagine, I got some serious response, including from my beloved
theology professor, Dr. Eugene Osterhaven – who treated me gently however.
Someone challenged me on biblical grounds, on my use of Scripture. That drove me on
to my next piece, “The Book That Binds Us” in the December 1992, issue. My bold
contention was that the Bible is being misused. It is being asked to function in a way it
can no longer be expected to function, a way it was never intended to function.
In the March 1993, issue I returned to the theme of “An Accident of the Incarnation”
with a focus on God language. I wrote in collaboration with my colleague, Colette
Volkema De Nooyer, who did the major work.
In the May 1995 issue, I “completed” as it were the thread I was weaving with an article
“Interreligious Dialogue – What is Required of Us?” I had recognized long since that the
orthodox understanding of Jesus’ death as atonement blocked openness to the other in
interfaith discussion. In this piece I gave that full expression. The article concluded:
My intention is not to advocate Hick or Ogden or any other thinker who is addressing the
matter of interreligious dialogue. Rather, I wish to point to the necessity of honestly
drawing out the consequences of the recognition that human grasp of the truth develops,
evolves, and needs ongoing assessment and adjustment – and sometimes conceptions
need to be rejected. By use of historical imagination, the originating experience that gave
rise to a theological formulation needs to be recovered in order to express the same
reality differently, in order to make the experience available in a totally different cultural
context.
Rather than seeing this as a burden, a cause for fear and defensiveness, it should be seen
as an exciting challenge. Is not such a pursuit of the truth to love God with mind as well
as heart? And is not the recognition that every biblical and theological expression is
marked by the human and historical limitations that adhere to all human thought the
© Grand Valley State University
�Re-Imagining the Faith: A Theological Pilgrimage
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
reason there is need for continual reformation? To be Reformed is not to be in
possession of a set of timeless and eternal truths but, rather, to refuse to absolutize any
human arrangement or formulation. It is not to be saddled with a set of truths that were
once new, innovative, and destabilizing of the established order of the sixteenth century,
or the first century. It is an approach, a spirit, a posture that is open to new knowledge,
fresh insight, and cumulative human experience within historical development.
The church has managed to spend the century in a state of schizophrenia, pursuing
research in the academy and sharing the results in the lecture hall, while the liturgy,
prayers, hymns, and sermons have given little evidence of the honest engagement with
insights of the modern period.
My mentor, Hendrikus Berkhof, claimed the only heresy was to make the gospel boring. I
would add another – the heresy of orthodoxy, the evidence of a failure of nerve and lack
of trust in the living God. It is the heresy of an inordinate lust for certitude that seeks
premature closure, the shutting down of the quest for truth and growth of knowledge in
the magnificent and mysterious cosmos by the creatures whom the Creator calls to
consciousness and embraces in a Grace that pervades the unfolding cosmic process.
© 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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1981-2014
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Introduction to Articles Page in Web Archive
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Re-imagining the Faith: A Theological Pilgrimage
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Richard A. Rhem
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Introduction to the Articles created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) entitled "Re-imagining the Faith: A Theological Pilgrimage", as part of the series "Introduction to Articles Page in Web Archive". Tags: Spiritual Quest, Reformed Theology, Authority of Scripture, Critical Thinking, Universal Grace, Orthodoxy, Nature of Religion, Sacred Mystery.
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2012-12-12
Authority of Scripture
Critical Thinking
Nature of Religion
Orthodoxy
Reformed Theology
Sacred Mystery
Spiritual Quest
Universal Grace
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The Old Story Ever New: Formation and Freedom
Richard A. Rhem
Park Church
Grand Rapids, Michigan
November 23, 2014
Transcription of the written talk
I created this title, “The Old Story Ever New: Formation and Freedom,” from
what Max wrote in the “advertisement” about my “talk:”
Rev. Richard A. Rhem will facilitate a discussion on faith, life, heaven, and
the human experience. We will talk about classical interpretations of
scripture, the progressive perspective, and whatever else comes to mind.
Please join us!
I was greatly relieved to read that he promised that I would “facilitate a
discussion” rather than promise that I would lay bare all the mysteries of our
faith and human experience. I was further relieved when our facilitator this
morning, Camille, who has long known me from our Spring Lake days, wrote me,
“I don’t expect you to formally speechify.” You see, she knows me well; I’ve been
known to “speechify” although I had not heard that term before. So I promise I
won’t speechify!
Camille gave me a brief account of the first two discussions in this series and I’m
sure you have had a meaningful time together. From my assignment I sense,
when the series was conceived, your leaders were thinking that after two
discussions on near death experiences, you might be ready to step back and
reflect on human experience in the larger picture –
Is this all there is?
Is there more beyond death’s pale?
What do our classic creeds affirm?
How do we interpret the biblical message?
How do we reconcile ancient creeds and ever-emerging human
knowledge?
If I have sensed correctly that these are questions your leaders anticipated in the
wake of the first two sessions, then it will not be so much answers we seek today
but clarifying the questions with which we live, even as we rest in a fundamental
trust.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Old Story Ever New: Formation & Freedom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
As I invite you to reflect with me on these questions and the meaning of our
human journey, let me say a word about how I approach these ultimate concerns.
I see such questions as calling one to serious engagement with the meaning of life
– not questions that have answers.
That was not always the case for me for I was nurtured and formed within a
strong orthodox Reformed dogmatic system.
Dogma is such a familiar term in religious parlance that I can probably take for
granted that everyone knows the meaning of the term. Yet precisely such
familiarity sometimes misses a term’s nuance and depth. I went to the dictionary.
Dogma comes from the Greek – “that which one thinks true, an opinion, decree,
from dokein, to think, seem.” Meanings listed:
1. a doctrine; tenet; belief (also collectively);
2. a positive, arrogant assertion of opinion; dogmatic utterance;
3. in theology, a doctrine or body of doctrines formally and
authoritatively affirmed.
Under “dogmatic” – “asserted a priori or without proof; asserting opinion in a
positive or arrogant manner.”
Checking the synonyms sheds light on the danger of dogma: “imperious,
dictatorial, authoritative, arrogant, magisterial, self-opinionated, positive.”
While I hope I was not authoritative, magisterial, arrogant, etc., I did believe
there were clear answers to ultimate questions and they were to be found in the
inerrant, infallible Word of God.
Although that may sound like I was confident, assured and certain of the
Christian faith I professed and preached, as a matter of fact I was afraid, unsure
and defensive. Every new emerging insight, from growing knowledge of historical
development, from exploding data about biblical formation, from breakthroughs
in the sciences, threatened my neatly formed faith structure.
It has been a long and painful journey for me – so deeply formed, so seriously
threatened. When the carefully crafted structure of orthodox Reformed faith
collapsed in the pursuit of a faith I could rest in, I found there was something
deeper than I had ever known – a fundamental trust that God is Love and Love
is the grain of the universe. I found it to be true for me what the early 20th
century German scholar Rudolph Otto wrote in his book The Holy, where he
attempts to analyze “the feeling that remains when the concept fails.”
I sense that is what you are about in this discussion group – plumbing the deep
questions of meaning in our human pilgrimage. There was a time I would have
felt compelled to have answers. Thank God I now know I can only help clarify the
questions as together we wonder about this amazing human journey.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Old Story Ever New: Formation & Freedom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
On further reflection, that early deep formation I experienced was not in vain.
The rational system, the dogma – that, I have learned, was a futile effort to define
the Mystery of Reality – the Sacred, the Holy. But the community, the symbols,
the rituals, the liturgy – the whole religious drama – in my case, the Christian
story – moves me still and points me to the Sacred Mystery of the ongoing cosmic
journey. In her beautiful book Physics and Faith: The Luminous Web, Barbara
Brown Taylor writes,
When I am dreaming quantum dreams, the picture I see is more like that
web of relationships – an infinite web, flung across the vastness of space
like a luminous net. It is made of energy, not thread. As I look, I can see
light moving through it like a pulse moving through veins. I know the light
is an illusion, since what I am seeing moves faster than light, but what I
see out there is no different from what I feel inside. There is a living hum
that might be coming from my neurons but might just as well be coming
from the furnace of the stars. When I look up at them there is a small
commotion in my bones, as the ashes of dead stars that house my marrow
rise up like metal filings toward the magnet of their living kin.
Where is God in this picture? All over the place. Up there. Inside my skin
and out. God is the web, the energy, the space, the light – not captured in
them, as if any of those concepts were more real than what unites them,
but revealed in that singular, vast net of relationship that animates
everything that is.
Marvelous imagery! The whole of reality saturated with the Spirit, the Breath,
that is the energy of the Sacred Mystery we call God, a Sacred Mystery we
describe as Love because, at one moment in the luminous web that enlivens all
that is, a face appeared – the Logos (Word) became flesh, and God, the X factor,
that abstract Ground, Source and Goal of all there is, became concrete. Now there
was a clue as to the nature of the originating, everything-permeating, infinite
Mystery that takes our breath away and gives us breathing room.
Resting there, I readily recognize I have not “proven” anything rationally. But, of
course, that is what I have come to understand – the ultimate mystery of the
cosmic web into which our lives are woven is not available to rational analysis but
rather only to supra-rational or trans-rational, deeply intuitive fundamental trust
before the presence of Mystery.
Brilliant scholars in various fields deny this and conclude quite differently. For
example, the Nobel Prize winning biologist Jacque Monod writes in his work
Chance and Necessity:
If he accepts this (negative) message in its full significance, man must at
last wake out of his millenary dreams and discover his total solitude, his
fundamental isolation. He must realize that like a gypsy, he lives on the
© Grand Valley State University
�The Old Story Ever New: Formation & Freedom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
boundary of an alien world; a world that is deaf to his music, and as
indifferent to his hopes as it is to his suffering and his crimes.
Similarly, Erich Fromm, one of the world’s leading psychoanalysts, wrote in Man
for Himself,
There is only one solution to his problem: to face the truth, to acknowledge
his fundamental aloneness in a universe indifferent to his fate, to
recognize that there is no power transcending him which can solve his
problems for him.
If we humans are defined by our reason alone and have to do only with rational
argument – Monod and Fromm define our human situation with clarity – we are
alone and this is all there is.
But there are other thoughtful persons who deny our humanity can be delineated
by reason alone. In his major early work, the Catholic scholar Hans Küng
describes the advent and development of modern atheism in the thinking of
Feuerbach, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche, ending with Nietzsche’s nihilism. A
section on nihilism concludes: “Nihilism – possible, irrefutable, but unproved.”
From that point, Küng’s next major heading is “Yes to Reality – Alternative to
Nihilism.” Within this heading is a subsection he entitles “Fundamental Mistrust
or Fundamental Trust?
Küng obviously will build a case for religious faith building on fundamental trust.
In another work he affirms,
To believe in an eternal life means, in reasonable trust, in enlightened
faith, in tried and tested hope – to rely on the fact that I shall one day be
fully understood, freed from guilt and definitively accepted and can be
myself without fear; that my impenetrable and ambivalent existence, like
the profoundly discordant history of humanity as a whole, will one day
become finally transparent and the question of the meaning of history one
day be finally answered. (Eternal Life, p. 231)
The late Dag Hammarskjold, a General Secretary of the United Nations, wrote in
his spiritual diary, Markings,
I don’t know who or what put the question. I don’t know when it was put. I
don’t even remember answering, but at that moment I did answer “Yes” to
someone or something and from that hour I was certain that existence is
meaningful, and that, therefore, my life in self-surrender has had a goal.
I love that expression – far beyond the limits of rational control – a deeply felt
intuition of the Presence of the Sacred Mystery we call God.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Old Story Ever New: Formation & Freedom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
In his Opinion column in The New York Times, David Brooks cites the poet
Christian Wiman who, in his My Bright Abyss, points to the contemporary sense
of cosmic connectedness in reference to the movie “Interstellar”:
But in the era of quantum entanglement and relativity, everything looks
emergent and interconnected. Life looks less like a machine and more like
endlessly complex patterns of waves and particles. Vast social engineering
projects look less promising, because of the complexity, but webs of loving
and meaningful relationships can do amazing good.
As the poet Christian Wiman wrote in his masterpiece, My Bright Abyss,
“If quantum entanglement is true, if related particles react in similar or
opposite ways even when separated by tremendous distances, then it is
obvious that the whole world is alive and communicating in ways we do
not fully understand. And we are part of that life, part of that
communication….”
I suspect “Interstellar” will leave many people with a radical openness to
strange truth just below and above the realm of the everyday. That makes
it something of a cultural event. (David Brooks, NYT, 11/21/14)
As one who began in a serious orthodox understanding of Christian faith which
was defensively reacting to the overpowering movement of Enlightenment
Rationality – thus entering an arena in which it could never prevail, I’ve come to
rest deeply in the fundamental trust in which I was nurtured. With the
contemporary sense of an interconnected cosmic dance of Being, I find great
peace and rest in a conviction that
Heaven is here,
heaven is now
and the best is yet to be!
References:
David Brooks, “Love and Gravity,” New York Times, Nov. 20, 2014
Hans Küng. Eternal Life: Life After Death as a Medical, Philosophical, and
Theological Problem, p. 231. Wipf & Stock Pub., 2003
Barbara Brown Taylor. Physics and Faith: The Luminous Web. Cowley
Publications, 2000.
© 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
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
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Event
Park Street Discussion Group
Location
The location of the interview
Park Church, Grand Rapids, MI
References
David Brooks, "Love and Gravity," NYT, Nov. 20, 2014,
Hans K
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
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KII-01_RA-0-20141123
Date
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2014-11-23
Title
A name given to the resource
The Old Story Ever New: Formation and Freedom
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
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<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
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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 November 23, 2014 entitled "The Old Story Ever New: Formation and Freedom", on the occasion of Park Street Discussion Group, at Park Church, Grand Rapids, MI.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Dogma
Enlightenment
Faith Journey
Love at Core of the Universe
Sacred Mystery
Trust
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a6bf36b4538b54149b42fd49f4298ad3.pdf
4d732d4dd1660be98b9df3fdcc22b20b
PDF Text
Text
LOVE That Loves Us
Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga Memorial
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8, 11, 13; I John 4: 7-8, 12, 16, 19; John 1:1-5, 14, 18
Richard A. Rhem
Freedom Village, Holland, Michigan
May 25, 2013
It is an honor and my privilege to conduct this service of worship and celebration
of the life of Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga. I do so as family as much as pastor.
When Margaret married Richard she married into a family of Mulders and
Kruizengas who were, with a couple of other families, the core of the First
Reformed Church of Spring Lake, Michigan. Dick’s parents were baptized on the
same day in the First Reformed Church of Spring Lake and, I’m told, Dick’s father
winked at his mother across the baptismal font and said, “She’s for me!” The
tradition was also Margaret’s, coming, as she did, from Long Island and a
Reformed congregation there which steered her to Hope College where she met
her husband to be, a marriage of over 60 years.
I mention my presence as family because, graduating from Western Seminary in
1960, I was extended a call to the Spring Lake congregation. In the first
congregational meeting I ever conducted in the fall of 1960, Dick’s father,
Richard J. Kruizenga, was elected once again an elder and proved an early
formative influence on me. After a hiatus of seven years, having left for New
Jersey and then Europe for post-graduate work, I returned for a visit with a very
painful divorce ahead. Dick’s father, with consummate skill, succeeded in leading
the congregation to extend a call to me even in the tenuous circumstances of my
life at that time. In 1971 I began again in Spring Lake and from that time Dick’s
father became a surrogate father to me.
And in that almost impossible situation of assuming the pastorate of that fine
congregation, divorcing with children 7, 9 and 11 for whom to care, it was
primarily Dick’s sister Dorothy and her husband Gordon who “adopted” us and
made it all possible. (Gordon is present with us; Dorothy died on the past New
Year’s Day.)
I relate this history because I want you to sense the personal meaning of this
celebration to me. Over many years, Dick and Margaret would return to Spring
Lake. I met them but didn’t really know them well until, in retirement, they were
summer residents of Spring Lake and Grand Haven. Over these last years we
have shared many happy occasions with them and were privileged to come to
know their family.
© Grand Valley State University
�LOVE That Loves Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
From that history it is obvious that I did not know the Margaret Dick fell in love
with, married and eventually traveled the world with. Even in retirement
Margaret’s strength (She was no shrinking flower!), intelligence and acute
engagement with current events were clear. She held strong opinions and was not
reticent about expressing them. A time or two she straightened me out!
But one comment in the Funeral Home Obituary Internet Site caught my eye and
I determined I would share it with you because in brief, concise fashion I suspect
Margaret could not receive a finer portrait. Her friend Nancy wrote:
Margaret was a dear friend for many, many years – and remained so from
all corners of the world. I met her when I was just out of college and she
was a sophisticated New York wife, mother and world traveler. I always
admired and looked up to her for her great taste, wit, intelligence and
generosity. My love and thoughts are with her wonderful husband Dick
and with Meg, Derek and families. Margaret will always have a special
place in my heart.
That is the one whose life we celebrate today – and yesterday – at the Ground
Breaking for the Kruizenga Art Museum on Hope’s campus.
My first serious encounter with Dick and Margaret was many years ago at the
Spring Lake cemetery – a graveside service for their child Dwight, a special needs
child. In her determined fashion, Margaret sought every possible means to give
Dwight a normal childhood but ran into a wall; nothing in science, medicine or
technology could bring her child to wholeness. I think it was at that critical
juncture that she found in Christian Science spiritual resources that enabled her
to cope with human impotence in face of deep human need.
Her spiritual quest became her lifelong pursuit. She was serious, engaged and
generous in her support of the Church of Christ, Scientist where she found a
spiritual community. Through her leadership and support, the church in Irving,
Texas, was transformed into a beautiful sacred space and she was very supportive
of the church in Grand Haven as well.
Margaret was seriously engaged in the spiritual quest for meaning, indeed, for
the Sacred Mystery we call God. In the teaching of Christian Science she was
pointed to God as Spirit, Mind, Love and the critical importance of prayer and
meditation.
The Scripture Lessons were chosen in light of Margaret’s spiritual quest. The
familiar poetry of Ecclesiastes 3 moves to
God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a
sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what
God has done from the beginning to the end.
© Grand Valley State University
�LOVE That Loves Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
One whose knowledge of Hebrew far surpasses mine has rendered those lines
thus:
God has made everything beautiful in its own time and has put an eternal
yearning in our hearts even as we live before the face of Mystery.
An eternal yearning before the face of Mystery – my sense is that that might fit
Margaret well. It is my sense that in her spiritual pursuit she came to rest in the
God of Love – a central biblical teaching underscored in Christian Science –
Divine Love come to expression in the life of Jesus.
“No one has ever seen God,” declares the writer of the Fourth Gospel in his
prologue to his story of Jesus decades after the event itself. But the eternal Word,
Creation’s Agent, assumed flesh – humanity – and in that human face, the writer
claims, God is revealed. Out of that Johannine Circle, also near the end of the
first century as the early Christian community was trying to give expression to the
Gospel, the writer of the First Letter of John picked up that statement from the
Gospel – “No one has seen God.” For him as for the Gospel writer, the Mystery of
God was revealed in Jesus. He opens his letter:
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we
have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands,
concerning the word of life.
But then later in the letter he calls the community to love one another for “God is
love.” He then repeats the acknowledgement of the Gospel – No one has ever
seen God.” But he goes on to make a startling claim –
If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
He moves beyond the Gospel’s claim that God is revealed in Jesus – the Word
made flesh – to the amazing claim that God is revealed in our love one for
another.
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.
God is Love, Love known and experienced in our human love. The Hebrew poet
sensed an eternal yearning as he lived before the face of Mystery. The writer of
the First Letter of John read off the story of Jesus that God is Love. But not only
that; God/LOVE is known/experienced in the concreteness of human love – as
we love one another.
© Grand Valley State University
�LOVE That Loves Us
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
The human quest for meaning, for some understanding of the mystery of being
human, our whence, our whither, and what it means in the meantime is both
ancient and contemporary.
One of the greatest film directors of our time is Terrence Malick. He produced
The Thin Red Line and more recently a film entitled The Tree of Life – a deeply
spiritual film starring Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. But last month To the
Wonder came out, a film in which Malick reveals the deep human hunger and
quest for what ultimately grounds us, forms us, calls us to communion. A
reviewer writes,
Ultimately, for Malick, the experience of falling in love grants us a glimpse of the
divine – of a ‘LOVE that loves us.’
Humanity was made for God. And He is present all around us – in the
transfiguring, wondrous joy of romantic love, in self-giving sacrifice, in our
suffering and the suffering of others, in the charity we offer to those in pain, in
the resplendent beauty of the natural world – if only we open our eyes to see
Him. That, it seems, is Terrence Malick’s scandalous message….an ecstatic
tribute to God. (Damon Linker)
The film’s title says it all – “To the Wonder.” I find it fascinating that one of our
contemporary film directors should with such artistry cause us to wonder –
wonder about the Wonder that is God.
In a three-way e-mail conversation in which I engage and, in this instance, about
Malick’s “To the Wonder,” one wrote:
In this context it makes a lot of sense to me that in wanting to speak redemptively
about what grounds us in all that we are Malick wrestles with love as Love. In
being Loved I know God and in loving I walk with God (Hendrick Hart)
I entitled my meditation the LOVE that Loves Us – loves us into being,
undergirds, overshadows ‘til finally we move through death to Eternal Light
dwelling in the LOVE that loved us into being!
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
Margaret believed that. In her final barely conscious moments she was bathed in
it. I stood vigil with Dick. I witnessed his deep love in a final embrace and “I love
you,” as well as the heavy grief he felt. Dick violated the Kruizenga canon against
showing emotion! It was quite beautiful, moving. God is Love. LOVE loved her
into being.
Margaret believed that.
Now she knows.
© 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
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
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
Meditation for Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga
Scripture Text
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11, 13, I John 4:7-8, 12, 16, 19, John 1:1-5, 14 & 18
Location
The location of the interview
Freedom Village, Holland, Michigan
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-0-20130525
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-05-25
Title
A name given to the resource
The LOVE That Loves Us
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 May 25, 2013 entitled "The LOVE That Loves Us", on the occasion of Meditation for Margaret Feldmann Kruizenga, at Freedom Village, Holland, Michigan. Scripture references: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11, 13, I John 4:7-8, 12, 16, 19, John 1:1-5, 14 & 18.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Family
Funeral
Love
Sacred Mystery
Spiritual Quest