Good interview. Can they be twice as long?

Love it!

Me thinks Scriven reveals his true motives of conversation toward the end of his interview with Alex. He says, "Conversation is not Discipleship." If I am not mistaken that is a way of saying lets converse so I can understand your position so I can better disciple you with the "truth". Any thoughts on that observation?

RDS,
If The Transformation of Culture: Christian Social Ethics After H. Richard Niebuhr is indicative of where the forthcoming book will take us, yes- your observation is wrong.
Thanks!

Thanks Johnny for the reference! It's just great to see actual books read and referenced in conversation, not just folks pulling stuff out of the air.

The brain trust is everyone?
If the principal is true and always has been how would it apply to the exodus and onward? To Korah ect? Why have prophets ect.

Michael.

The Bible is at once a revelation and a...burden. There are lots of difficulties.

I resolve problems like the one you mention, Michael, by invoking Hebrews 1:1-4 (numerous other passages could be cited).

The passage says clearly that the revelation of God through Christ is the one "exact imprint" of God's true being. This helps us deal with poetry and stories, in both testaments, where the ideals Jesus stood for seem not to hold sway.

A "doctrine of biblical inspiration" that brings in this insight is wonderfully liberating. And it is fully compatible, I believe, with serious embrace of the Original Testament as well as the New Testament.

It's just that nuanced reading is required.

Chuck

Thanks Chuck

I understand what your saying as far as it goes and I understand the benefit. I am looking for or wondering about practical applications hence the questions I put forward.

Can you give me a better sense of when or how far the braintrust of everyone should go before it degenerates into theology by concensus?

I had a Senior Pastor come into a new Church and at the first nominating committee meeting other people suggested certain names for certain things. Some conversation ensued among the members and one said to the other, may be we should consider someone else for this particular position because of ....... to which he heard the response, Oh, we voted in this church that, that is not an issue in this church.
The associate Pastor then asked why didnt the church vote to change a certain one way street in town into a 2 way street. And the person responded that was not their capacity and the city wouldnt listen to them anyway. To which he responded, Exactally!

It will be interesting to see how Scriven handles the "misleading" traditions of SDAism with the totally "illuminating" part of SDAism. Maybe he could give some preview of that, without "stealing the thunder" of his book.

Re the RDS comment above:

I'll send anyone who asks (e-mail address charles.scriven@kcma.edu)the chapter, near the book's beginning, where I tell the Adventist story.

It's chapter length, of course, and it would open many doors for conversation among savvy Adventists. The story is re-told as part of an ARGUMENT. And it would give you some clue about what I consider "illuminating." (I am electing NOT to get into heavy-handed trashing of the things that are "misleading." I mainly ignore them--as my purpose is to nudge people in a direction, not browbeat them.)

We know, of course, that all history is argument. The picking and choosing is itself reflective of the author's point of view.

Why the fixation on "proving" or "improving" on denominational veracity? Isn't the task of theologians and subsequently church administrators and educators to get the Christ event and its consequences as precis as possible. What eternal value is there in "proving" the prophetic voice of E.G.White or any post-canonical writer. Is the Sabbath, or
vegans more important than the resurrection? The Lord should be praised for the cadre of health care professionals provided by the forth rightness of SDA pioneers. But the triumphalism of the current Amazing Facts throws it all to the winds. Just because a minor voice in the great American
opiate of eschatology is a money maker doesn't make it God's gift to the world. That gift was made 2000 years ago. The amazing fact is that that gift continues to be either ignored or abused. Kettering is doing a great job. Certainly some of that success must be attributed to Chuck and his predecessors. Never-the-less the remaking of Adventism is not out shouting or out eyebrow raising the Pat Roberston's et al. Nor is it becoming more ego centric the virtueous Bennett/Goldstein threads. The Truth remains in the still small voice of a God who invites us to come and reason together. Christianity is about publishing a done deal! Tom

By Maggie:

Chuck said, "The Bible is at once a revelation and a...burden. There are lots of difficulties."

The same could be said about Adventism, which seems to wear like a hair shirt for many on both ends of the spectrum, as well as for those of us who fell off the spectrum altogether.

The difficulty in "publishing a done deal," as Tom put it, is that there is not a lot of consensus about what, exactly, that "done deal" actually is.

So Adventism sort of ends up being about, well, Adventism. A mobius strip. A full time job in itself.

http://stereogrammes.org/v/Escher_s+Moebius+Ring+-+Ants.jpg.html

I just e-mailed Chuck for the book chapter he offered. I like the idea that we can argue for what our story is, and that we can retell our story for our time.

Arguing for our story is different than just arguing on our endless Adventist mind-loop.

Arguing for our story involves our personal and collective histories, our flesh-and-blood experiences with the Bible, the church, the world and each other, and not just our disembodied concepts.

The Word became flesh among us, and so must our story.

The Brain Trust is everyone.

By Maggie:

Chuck was kind enough to e-mail me chapter 2 of his book, Promise of Peace this morning, and these phrases stood out in a signal way to me:

"We are nobody's and everybody's."

We "belong to the region, but not the conflict."

"...hope beginning to fuse with the honoring of God's creation and concern for fullness of life on earth.

"...you should no more postpone a slave's freedom until the Second Coming than postpone your breakfast until then."

"...harness a sense of Christ's soon coming to a vision of human participation in the divine renewing of the world."

"...radical hope required attention to the needs of the day."

"...'sit in deliberative and legislative councils' helping to enact the nation's laws."

"...the church would come to the aid of persecuted people of any race, color or creed."

"...focus on the practice of hope...."

"...degradation of a single individual means loss to everyone...."

"...hope framed by the festival of Sabbath...."

"...searching always for new vision and deeper authenticity...."

"Those who call for disengagement from social concerns are 'purveyors of misery' and 'are not the servants of God.'"

"...under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, new understanding could be 'expected.'"

"...after protracted and difficult conversation, they responded with an official statement of confession...."

"If at first [the early Adventists' eyes] could not see the fusing of hope with the fullness of life, our eyes can."

"...a hope lived out against convention, a hope lived out on earth."

I sense a very powerful vision here, and I also sense that George Knight's and Alden Thompson's recent books, discussed here on Spectrum, are flowing in this same powerful vision-stream.

"Alive in thought and hope," as Chuck Scriven puts it, is surely the essence of Adventism.

And as Alden Thomson said, "...while we live in the hope of that better world, I believe we can begin to craft such a world in the here and now."

Inspiring quotes, Maggie.

Thank you, Chuck. You bring urgent resonance to the "now and not yet" realities of Christian faith, and have for decades.

By Maggie:

Chris, here's another good one:

"But what is desperately needed are people who speak distinctively and movingly from within Adventism to the larger community; voices who, from the core of Adventist particularity, express a universal message for our time; people who allow the power of the gospel to challenge those who oppress the vulnerable."
--Charles Scriven
http://spectrummagazine.typepad.com/the_spectrum_blog/discussing_spectru...

...“just when your hope for a new world is most intense, you engage the present world.