Let me start off by saying that I am a person in transition. I was raised in a fundamentalist dispensational post-Mennonite evangelical church, throughout college and seminary I shifted to a more reformed position, and now I am finding myself in transition again.
Any one who has ever looked at Calvinism has at some point wrestled with the question of “why pray?” If God not only knows but has preordained each aspect of my today and tomorrow. What difference will prayer make?
Of course we tell ourselves that prayer is about the conversation, about the relationship, some will even go so far as to say that prayer is more about changing us than about changing God. That is fine to a point. But think of your conversations and your relationships. Imagine if every conversation you have had or will have was just about changing you. Interaction would not exist. There could be no exchange of ideas, teaching would be impossible, and relating would not happen at a deep or soul level. In a Calvinistic worldview there is no need for prayer – other then the personal therapy of talking to a wall, because God can not act in response to your prayer. Of course God will have predestined you to pray for the things that you are to pray for, so God was going to do them anyway. So maybe if you sense God nudging you to pray the best thing you could do is not pray so as to impact God – oh yeah – God would have predestinated that too.
In any reformed position the ultimate question is little more than are you in or are you out. This is a “closed set.” This does not compel a person to communion deeply with God. The primary concern is am I elect or am I not. Fortunately being one of the elect is fairly easy – just sign at the bottom of this Creed.
Relational theology is never static in/out, it is developmental, process, narrative. All relationships grow and develop over time. Relationships always move either closer together or further apart. The Christ-follower is moving closer to Christ, “Centered set”.
In relational theology God has entered into time and space for the sake of relating with humanity. God has emptied himself for the sake of dynamic relationship. However if prayer is genuine dialogue, than it seems a genuine give/take of relationship exists. God listens and responds, he walks with us and God chooses to lead from a place of closeness (like lovers dancing) rather then from a top down, hierarchical form of leadership. Relational theology is very dangerous, because it suggests that Christ-followers and Christ-communities are vital partners with God in the birth and growth of his kingdom. And would suggest a fundamentally organic essence not something which can be either systematized nor institutionalized. Again this is very dangerous to any of us (myself included) who believe that Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life. Because the continuity of the church is not in the hands of a trusted institution but is in the hands of indigenous and unpredictable Christ-communities of Christ-followers.
That is incredible. Surely God would not trust his gospel into the hands of fickle people? God wouldn’t expect the “average” person to so incarnate the life of Christ that radical love and ruthless trust would be our hallmark. No that bar of discipleship is way too high.
As you can sense I believe that most if not all Relational theology is rooted in Arminian theology (I’m not 100% sure on this, so sharpen me).
Peace, dwight
