The skinny on the 2006 Emergent Conversation at Yale

Ok, so the first day of the 2006 Emergent Conversation at Yale University is over and it was a very cool and exciting thing to be part of. The Divinity School at Yale is a very unique setup, with a beautiful chapel at its center. It is located outside the campus, not “downtown” as they call the main campus, and Dan (a graduate student we spoke with) told us that he feels like that’s a great metaphor for how Christianity is generally treated at Yale.

The first part of the day consisted of a conversation with Miroslav Volf speaking on “Exclusion and Embrace.” Miroslav has an amazing ability to articulate what perhaps many of us are already thinking regarding forgiveness and understanding. A couple of weeks ago, Jared Coleman had an interview with him, so if you want to learn more about Dr. Volf you can read the interview here first.

Dr. Volf spoke on exclusion and embrace and covered a number of very important contemporary issues facing the church today. I was pleasantly surprised to see that within the entire conversation, Volf offered a moderate, if not conservative voice on redemption, atonement and inclusiveness. The conversation on the inclusive vs. exclusive theories of substitutional atonement was fascinating, and Volf offered a solid Pauline understanding of the inclusive substantiation in Christ: in Christ we die, are resurrected through baptism, and become new creatures. For a few minutes I forgot I was at Yale! :)

Also the issue of Truth came up. Volf again prompted us to think by asking questions: is Truth transcedental? If something is true now, is it true always? We know that God has and is Truth, but does that mean we can transcend our humanity and limited understanding and grasp Truth at all?

A few more general issues, suggestions and questions were raised by Dr. Volf (and Brian McLaren) based on his background in Croatia. I guess these could be strange or right-on depending on your background:

• A Christian/Muslim dialogue employing reading of common scriptures.
• An open conversation regarding the “homosexual issue” rather than an uncomfortable silence.
• The possibility of answering hard questions (such as the one above) provisionally.
• Often the embrace of an enemy can be perceived as an exclusion of friends.
• If a “coming Jesus” is what is motivating us to love and do “what’s right” then we don’t get Christianity.
• Since God already took on the punishment on the cross, there is no further retribution of any kind to be paid.
• Brian McLaren asked: who was punishing Jesus on the cross?
• Brian McLaren asked: is the true nature of God an explosion of fury and rage?
• Brian McLaren asked: in the aftermath of the victory of the religious right, is Jesus being perceived by Muslims as the one making other people suffer? — While a good question, I think this question was more of a jab at conservatives and Volf completely side-stepped the issue and did not deal with it.

We got to meet the elusive Laci Scott and also got to chat with Tony Jones for a few minutes about Preterism. We even met the emergentmeister himself, Brian McLaren. Brian was very kind to chat with us for a minute and mentioned that he is heading to Australia in a few days for an emergent conversation.

This was a fascinating and encouraging event and an awesome learning experience. I’ve learned that Christianity is much bigger and diverse than I even thought and I was encouraged by the Christ-centered attitude of Emergent. I’ve heard things I disagree with. I’ve heard many things I agree with. But what was amazing was that all these people from various background were able to sit down in the same room and openly speak on these important issues that are rarely addressed; the high participation of women was also a very positive thing. Ultimately, I believe that Emergent is highly ordinary in nature; by that I mean that it simply offers the dialogue that everyone longs after; a dialogue carried out with respect for others, centered in Christ and love. It also creates an outlet for folks to articulate their doubts, concerns and questions. Amazingly, this simple and ordinary approach to the problem of dialogue has seemingly extraordinary results. What more could we ask for as Christians? And why is it so hard to do this?

The evening wrapped up with vespers, which was in itself another great experience. Vespers usually describe the evening prayer services in Catholic and Orthodox congregations. It consisted of 30 minutes of impromptu singing and playing guitar and flute, a song written just a couple of hours beforehand. It was awesome and inspiring.

Last Day

I am sitting here in the Hartford airport and I am still thinking about what Miroslav Volf said this morning about “the God” Christians tend to create today and how that affects how we see ourselves in light of our own cultural and social contexts.

When speaking of free will and the alternative views, Volf said: “When we culturally and socially create a picture of a self-obsessed God, it is hard to motivate people to be different than that God.” That really stuck with me because as many know, there is a tendency within Preterism today to exclude anyone who fails a certain litmus test. But rather than focusing on giving the right answers to the questions, we should be asking asking: who is creating the litmus test in the backroom? And how far do we have to agree with each other in order for the embrace to be warm and real? Three points out of ten? Five? Ten out of ten?

The last day at Yale was very good. We’ve met both right-wing conservatives and bleeding heart liberals — theologically speaking — and I was very impressed with the respectful and conversational tone of the event. It is amazing how such a basic concept of “conversation” can reshape an event in such a way that it encourages dialogue and convergence. In fact, the very idea of a conversation dictates that there is both listening and speaking to do, with much of the listening to be done. If two or more individuals would fully agree on all issues, what would they have left to converse about? :)

In our minds, we often create a picture of God as a God who only is concerned with himself, his glory, his name, when in fact I see a picture of a God who is concerned with US, our wellbeing, our lives or safety. What does this do to any potential dialogue we may have with God himself? With each other?