Table Of ContentRADICAL PROCESS ECCLESIOLOGY:
AFFIRMING PLANETARY VALUE, PRACTICING DIFFERENTIATED
SOLIDARITY, AND RESISTING EMPIRE
A Dissertation
presented to
the Faculty of
Claremont School of Theology
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Timothy Charles Murphy
May 2014
©2014
Timothy Charles Murphy
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This dissertation completed by
TIMOTHY CHARLES MURPHY
has been presented to and accepted by the
faculty of Claremont School of Theology in
partial fulfillment of the requirements of the
Doctor of Philosophy
Faculty Committee
Philip Clayton, Chairperson
Monica A. Coleman
Helene Slessarev-Jamir
Dean of the Faculty
Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook
May 2014
ABSTRACT
A RADICAL PROCESS ECCLESIOLOGY:
AFFIRMING PLANETARY VALUE. PRACTICING DIFFERENTIATED
SOLIDARITY. AND RESISTING EMPIRE
Timothy Charles Murphy
This dissertation calls into question the dominant way that American mainline
Protestants have defined church institutionally, socially, and culturally. Neo-liberal
globalization, with its idolatrous values, is the primary challenge to which this
ecclesiology responds. This project also critiques church structures that are internally
fixated as representing a cultural imperialism of internalized domination, the preservation
of unjust privilege, and the inability to communicate constructively through conflict. It
deconstructs self-enclosed church structures into the reconstruction of churching as a way
of life using the Christian themes of kerygma. koinonia. and diukoniu. The original
contribution of this project is in its conception of church that exists for addressing the
most urgent planetary problems but subsists within a situated knowledge and faith
tradition: its Christian particularity serves a universal function. This project mimics
process thought methodologically by weaving together many diverse voices into a
dynamically intense contrast instead of relating them oppositionally. By applying process
thought, this dissertation's proclamation is the affirmation of a cosmology of
interrelationship and value-production. It understands ecclesial fellowship through a
social ontology of mutual interest and encountering the other as a form of relational
difference. It interprets service through a network of counter-imperial, justice-seeking,
and capability-producing political practices. By reviewing missional. processual. and
indecent ecclesiologies, this project subverts the traditional orthodox marks of the church
as normative and shows their mutual relationship with alternative counter-marks.
Ultimately, churching becomes a decentralized yet organized, spiritual and activist, local
and planetary, missional and solidarity-driven yet celebratory-of-diversity movement of
social and interpersonal transformation: it is a radical process ecclesiology.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements
Chapter 1:
The Mainline Church in its Planetary Context
Globalizing Empire
Mainline Malaise
Case Studies
The Way Towards Churching
Chapter-by-Chapter Outline
Chapter 2:
A Process Cosmology and Theory of Value
The Process of Concrescence
Mutual Immanence as Divine Matrix
A Theory of Value Worth Proclaiming
Planetary Love
Chapter 3:
Social Ontology. Mutual Interest, and Encounter
Catherine Keller's (Trans)Feminist Self-Becoming
Mutual Interest and Differentiated Solidarity
Encountering the Other
Chapter 4:
Political Influences in the Struggle for (and Struggles of) a Radical Ecclesiology
John Rawls's Liberalism
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Theory of Empire and the Multitude
Amartya Sen's Capabilities Approach
Iris Marion Young's Postmodern Feminism
Implications of Political Theology
Chapter 5:
Prehending Missional. Processual, and Indecent Ecclesiologies
Jurgen Moltmann's Missional Ecclesiology
Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki's Institutional Process Ecclesiology
Marcella Althaus-Reid's Indecent Church
Ecclesial Marks as Contrasts
Chapter 6:
Living Out a Counter-imperial Ecclesiology
Weaving the Strands
Concrete Recommendations to Actualize
Conclusions
Bibliography
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work functions as a concrescence or “growing together" of many different
influences, both practical and academic, in my life. One might question whether this is an
ecclesiology at all. As it dismantles orthodox constructions of church, one may wonder
whether perhaps it is an anti-ecclesiology? It certainly does not conform to traditional
debates on the nature and work of the church, and it rejects traditional approaches to
kerygmu, koinonia. and diakonia for a much more radical trajectory. From the outset, a
tension is apparent: I love the church, though I hate the phrase “the church." As you will
see as you read this dissertation. I believe that it is impossible to write a universal
ecclesiology. This is not a project about the nature and work of the church universal. This
is a particular project, in a particular location, with particular problems that it seeks to
address. That said, it is not a work of sectarianism or isolationism, either.
In another way, this project could very well be considered a radical missiology as
it explores the mission and calling to which church-life responds. It thinks about the
witness of Christians as a way of living, acting, and interacting with the world around us.
A church that develops out of this paradigm could just as readily be called a mission
center, and from a sociological perspective it might feel more like a social movement.
But it would be a movement rooted in spirituality and a sense of the divine moving within
and between us.
Even as we each come into the world from a specific frame of reference, we are
accountable to each other in what we do. say, and affirm. While this project comes out of
a very specific context, weaving together many different thinkers, experiences, and
insights, it does not remain as an isolated monad. Rather, like the very process of
becoming that it seeks to ecclesially unfold, it is offered back into a world of infinitely
diverse and singular perspectives. Because of this approach, it is entirely fitting and
appropriate that the reader should know a bit more about the location from which 1 enter
into this work.
My personal background has been shaped by church communities, and I have
many clear memories of those experiences, from “Time for Children" lessons at the
Presbyterian Church of my grandparents to Easter 1993 when 1 was baptized for a second
time (that I was baptized as an infant was unbeknownst to me as my mom thought it
should be my decision). I have been an ordained minister for over six years, have served
as an associate pastor for three years, and have been a student ministry intern in three
different congregational settings (not including my time as a chaplain at an HIV/AlDs
housing center, chaplain at a homeless shelter, and summer intern for the Disciples Peace
Fellowship and Disciples Home Missions in Yakama. WA and San Antonio. TX).
Surviving cancer in college clearly accentuated my radicalizing trajectory both
politically and theologically. Questions of divine power and providence and an implicit
process theology of divine persuasive power that works with the wreckage of life were
born within me. as well as a commitment to using the one life 1 had to further respond to
my calling to faith-based social justice ministries to the greatest extent possible. If my
ecclesial project at times feels impatient about the state of church communities and their
weak witness, it is doubly true for how I hold myself accountable.
My home congregation of First Christian Church of Paducah. KY was an early
context for thinking about how our faith is public as well as how it is discussed (or
avoided) internally. The Rev. Dann Masden was an early mentor who encouraged my
questions and never once told me to not raise them in church, even if larger church-wide
discussions rarely materialized. Anecdotes, observations, and reflections come from this
congregation, as well as from my time participating at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in
Carlsbad. CA; All Peoples Christian Church in Los Angeles. CA; (a)Spire Ministry in
Pasadena. CA; Webster Groves Christian Church in Webster Groves. MO; Compton
Heights Christian Church in Saint Louis. MO; and visits to dozens of other Disciples.
UCC, and mainline congregations over the past fifteen years.
There are many apparent tensions inherent within this project. It is skeptical of
current institutional configurations of church but respects the need for institutional
organizations. There are strong undercurrents of liberationist and postcolonial theology,
but is often directed at relatively privileged persons within the United States. It is
incredibly, even at times mind-numbingly theoretical, but is written with the express
intent of making practical changes to the way of Christian faithfulness. Some might see it
as a classic calling back to the original Jesus Movement (and in this way repeat its
thoroughly Protestant roots), but it also does not seek to imitate the past as it attempts to
push church into a radically different context of planetary globalization and
interdependence. It is post-Christian in its use of philosophical and political sources and
the trajectory of some of its conclusions, but it is written out of an intense love and
commitment to the way of Jesus. At its best, it attempts to transform such tensions from
oppositions into mutually enriching contrasts, increasing the potential for a more dynamic
and just flourishing of life in our world.
This project is not a description of a church as it exists, but it hopefully functions
as a “real potential" that can be actualized, particularly for those who like myself desire
to hold together as inseparable both spirituality and social commitments. They are not
merely two things that are held in tension or as a paradox. Rather, they are inextricably
bound together. Yet they are not identical. This basic premise, that things are interwoven
without becoming the same thing or subsumed within an overarching superstructure,
undergirds the way that this dissertation is written. One finds many voices in close
proximity together in each chapter, sometimes of people who would not be interested in
each other's projects. Yet somehow, there is the sense that these thinkers need each other,
that what they are saying is connected so thoroughly and yet they are offering different
insights. This project seeks the maximization of different experiences and perspectives
for potential incorporation into an intense and harmonious whole, which is then offered
for others to feel and respond to. either positively or negatively—this is my method of
engagement with authors in these chapters.
The same could be said for the general contents of the chapters: one finds
theology, political thought, and process philosophy as the threefold elements 1 attempt to
hold together amidst my wrestling. Ever since the time that I was an undergraduate
double major in Religion and Government, people have often commented how these are
such a strange or contradictory set of fields to study together. Yet the relationship of
religion and politics is deeply embedded within me. something that for years 1 have
sought a way to weave together: this project is by far the most extensive weaving of the
two.
Likewise, it is very easy to think about process thought without so much as a nod
to what it means to exist as church, or what (if any) ecclesial or political implications are
within process thinking. All three are held together, but this is not done in the abstract.
