Metamodern Spirituality | God After Deconstruction (w/ Thomas Jay Oord)

Theologian and philosopher Thomas Jay Oord joins me to discuss God after deconstruction, a topic important to metamodern Christianity as well as the title of his new book with Tripp Fuller. We talk about the relationship of deconstruction and postmodernism, Tom's personal story of multiple deconstructions, and the path beyond deconstruction through open and relational theology.

0:00 Introduction
2:08 Meanings of Deconstruction: Relationship with Postmodernism
12:10 Reconstruction, Not Return: Towards a God "After Deconstruction"
15:55 Tom's Deconstruction Story: Moving through the Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern
25:54 Stages of Faith and Unfaith: The Direction of Growth as the Movement towards God
33:48 Reconstructing Christianity: Love beyond Certainty and Definitions
43:45 Open and Relational Theology
47:48 A Living, Changing God
55:27 An Evolving, Learning God
1:02:14 Jesus after Deconstruction
1:04:05 Relating across the Deconstructive Divide
1:11:42 Going Deeper

[RichardCosci]

Great conversation! Two of my favorite Christian thinkers. Tom mentioned Hans Kung’s “Does God Exist”. That was a book that also helped bring me back from agnosticism about 20 years ago. I appreciate Tom’s emphasis on “Love”, after all, the Bible says God is Love. I am encouraged to see metamodern Christianity and Process Christianity hanging out together like this. This is the future I hope for.

[KollarConsulting]

49:54 - all do sincere respect to Brendan and Thomas, this is where I’d have to say I diverge in resonance. That binate nature of God idea sounds to me too Cartesian and like it has to be either objective (infinite) or subjective (finite) and I don’t think takes into account the transjective aspect of a triune God that exists both outside of AND inside of time through the different natures. Just because one part of the nature is within time does not mean that the whole is within time, imho. Further, the transjective nature of the Holy Spirit and the physical and time-bound representation of God provided to us by Jesus helps me to relate to that abstract and infinite God, or Good if you will. Please correct me if I’m off here or misunderstanding… I am for sure a layman.🙏🏼📈

[autismfromtheInside]

46:00 - God is 'in time'?!... That's where you lost me. Everything up to that point was really good and solid and then suddenly this radical departure from the Judeo Christian tradition?

For thousands of years Christians the world over have had, and continue to have, an intimate personal relationship with an eternal God. How can you then say that God 'must' be in time for us to have a relationship?

This sounds like an intellectual exercise. Trying to anthropomorphize God into a belief that's easier to wrap our heads around. Whereas the Christian tradition has been very clear, that we cannot fully understand God (who is love) with our intellect. Instead, we experience God, we experience love, through relationship. (Which is exactly where I thought you were going with 'open and relational theology', until this mind blowing deviation)

I could go on at length... with issues with this belief from my perspective, but.. that's actually not my main observation...

My main surprise, was not that someone believes this (there are lots of similar beliefs around), but that it was mentioned so casually as if it were the 'obvious next step'. And to still call this next step Christian? (Again as if that should be obvious?) God being eternal and outside time is one of the key things that separate Judeo-Christian belief from many others. Surely a theologian would appreciate the gravity of a statement of this magnitude.

[FootnotesPlato]

Really lovely and important conversation. Glad to see it getting clicks!

I especially want to amplify Tom’s point at the end about small groups. That’s the OG Christianity and we should bring it back! The UU minister Thandeka also advocates for the value of small groups. So key. And if it caught on I think it would have surprisingly large positive social consequences.

[ParsonsGeist]

open and relational OG. Oord uncontolling love of God was beautiful work

[FootnotesPlato]

Oh, awesome! So glad you got Tom on. 👋 Listening now.

[ZacParsonsProjects]

I keep wrestling with this contrast of "return" vs. "through and beyond" in terms of a foundational faith. Have you ever contrasted your own spiritual journey's "shape" to the Hero's Journey or T.S. Eliot's words around arriving where you started and knowing the place for the first time? Appreciate your continuing exploration on this BGD.

[RandyAndy]

I loved it❤. Two things in special. Thomas read H. Kueng, a man that has more relgious and philosophical power than most of what I experience on YouTube, including B. Ehrman. Also the matter of certainty. Its not on the offer Thomas stated rightlx. If only 250 years after Kant and Humes people would get that one fact. There is no certainty!! The other person might be right😮 It seems most Christians always know better. Their ego is not strong enough to endure reality, they rather live their little lies and impose it on others. The less they know the more certain they are (B. Russel thought this to be one of the biggest problems for humanity). Good luck within the 30.000 different kind of Christianities🎉😂

[briancredo]

I feel I'm the target audience! Brendan would call my views an incompletely deconstructed "neo-orthodoxy, " and Tom would call me a "3. narrativist" postmodern. I guess I identify more with Tom's second deconstruction than with his first. Things like the problem of evil, learning Greek for my Classics PhD, and Biblical conundra never quite plunged me into a crisis of faith.

[KollarConsulting]

23:52 - love the idea here of iterative development cycles for our faith. It just makes sense from the perspective of how nature/evolution works and, in my line of work, developing technology through iteration rather than just a one and done approach.

That said, the one and done approach is typically still used for large projects like civil engineering, medical devices, etc. and things where the end product has intolerable risk if it fails. Does this constraint apply to the concept of faith and religion? How can we properly conserve and progress not just one or the other?

on the ground problem with deconstructing: as a deconstructed/reconstructed Christian, where is a church or at least a space that I can physically embody and grow my faith in communion with others who are on a similar path? 👀😕

[amurdo]

Interesting that he ended up with a view of God that is very similar to many LDS conceptions especially considering his story of opposing his Mormon friend as a young man.

[tylerdavis]

I would have to think long and hard about what “Christianity” is but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the resurrection would be a necessary “essential”. Anyone who thinks otherwise is suspect

Christianity has to mean something in relation to history and the real world or it’s a completely useless word

[ZacParsonsProjects]

I wonder if @whitestonename has caught this one yet. Incredible.

[Consciousnesstransformation]

It would've been great if Brendan would've talked less and allowed the guest to talk more.

[alansteeler]

Inspirational. Please continue this dialogue in the future.

[StevenPetermann]

First, let me say that I think process philosophy has some great insights into the nature of reality. I also think that God is evolving with the cosmos but that requires some considerable unpacking of the theistic ontology. To unpack that a bit I use the terms God-as-transcendent which represents the unchanging "essence" or nature of God and God-as-living to represent the changing and evolving God that takes on finitude and lives lives (incarnated in everything, not just humans). The problem I have with Process and Open and Relational thought is with their theology of God. First, they say God is a creature — a creation of creativity. Lots of problems with that, in my view. But from a practical and devotional lens, the problem in this view is that God *can't* actualize anything in this reality. God's role in how reality evolves and unfolds is limited to "influence" or lure. Now, I'm not denying the important role of divine influence but that is too limited. Also since God is a different type of creature, God doesn't have any ontological skin in the game. If there is a change in God it might be thought of as a mind like change and not an embodied change. An example where I think this really shows up as an existential problem is in the idea of prayers of supplication. Here think of an addict struggling with their addiction and at their wit's end. What would an addict's process or open theology prayer look like? Since God can't make any actualize change in this reality perhaps it would be "God, please lure me harder". For me, a God concept like that is a total nonstarter. However, if God is a living God (embodied, finite incarnations in the living aspect of God), then God-as-living (with finite freedom) and God-as-transcendent are partners (collaborators) in how reality gets constituted and evolves. Prayers of supplication *can* then cause actualized changes in this reality.

[rogersacco]

If Jesus was resurrected and his brain also then he is in time and space and with new information chsnged his mind about things he believed like a hell myth, etc.Bad Jesus by Hector Avalos shows an imperfect human

[EmJay]

What would you say distinguishes your concept of Metamodern spirituality from New Age spirituality beyond its intellectual framework and sophisticated language? How does it differ in application? Or would you say New Ageism is compatible because of its inherent fluidity and lack of rigidity toward sacred traditions?

[miguelbinha]

Please do one with Jay Dyer! How God views Himself from the Orthodox perspective is crucial.

[SacraTessan]

Grateful I found this 🙏🧡a lot of claryfying meaningful explanations, illustrated with .. connected to the personal experienses about those essentials ..comparing the18 year old Tom with the 58 year old one . The deconstructive phases ..relational theologi.. pragmatic experienses.... creative transformation what if we also investigate when "the elephant is running too"😂❤🐘😅