Tag: Tripp Fuller

In Which A World-Renowned Theologian Says Exactly What I Was Thinking

Review of last week:

Posted this on Monday, asking, “Where are the adults in our young peoples’ lives who care about them for their own sake and not for some alterior, career-advancing motive?”

Went to the Emergent Theological Conversation on Wednesday to hear the likes of Tripp Fuller, Philip Clayton, and John Cobb talk about process theology. Clayton I found particularly compelling.Bought Kindle version of Clayton’s latest book, “The Predicament of Belief,” in which I discovered this quote while reading on Thursday:

One cannot assume, after all, that the mere fact of an agent’s taking an interest in the existence of other beings is morally admirable, even if it entails a certain amount of self-limitation on that agent’s part. One thinks of numerous mundane analogs: the farmer who shows concern for the well-being of his livestock only for the sake of maximizing his own financial gain; the would-be father who works long hours so he can start a family but who mainly wants children out of loneliness or for any of a host of social or cultural reasons; the teacher who pours her life into the minds of her students because she sees them as a way of establishing her career and exerting influence over the future of her profession. The motives involved in each of these cases are not obviously evil and do not involve any sort of deception; but neither are they altruistic.

Thought, “Hmmmm.”

Wondered if I could get Philip Clayton to be a volunteer leader of my youth group.

Tony Jones on Theology after Google

Tony Jones has a quick nod to Tripp Fuller and Philip Clayton for their work on Theology after Google, even as he acknowledges some of the events frustrations:

. . . because of that quality, the participants walked away somewhat disappointed.  That’s because this was a demanding group, and because events, by their nature are bound to disappoint.  Someone’s constituency is always underrepresented; someone else’s ego not sufficiently stroked; and someone else is convinced they could have given a superior presentation (which surely they could have).

Tony’s right about this. It’s one of the liabilities of “progressive-ism” and its attendant diversity that several agendas are operating at once.

Conservative evangelical Christianity in the United States has done its work largely by flattening out the message and limiting the participants (and therefore the views).

That’s bad theology and bad church practice.

But it works better to create a movement.