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STATURE, POWER, AND EVANGELISM: THE THEOLOGICAL LEGACY OF BERNARD LOOMER
Encounter, Summer 2006 by Epperly, Bruce G
By size I mean the stature of a person's soul, the range and depth of his [or her] love, his [or her] capacity for relationships. I mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure. I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness. I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions. I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions to enable others to increase in stature.1
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Mainline and progressive Christians have struggled to articulate a convincing vision and methodology of evangelism and witness. Having largely abandoned the dualistic images of saved and unsaved and heaven and hell, many mainline and progressive Christians see the church's mission solely in terms of social justice and economic transformation. The wholeperson nature of salvation, grounded in the Hebraic and early Christian integration of the personal and the planetary and encompassing mind, body, and spirit as well as social structures, has been deemphasized in most mainline and progressive Christian congregations. Inviting persons to spiritual transformation is often an afterthought, the province of evangelical preachers and "New Age" spiritual guides.2
When the issue of evangelism comes up in many congregational settings, the response is typically negative among mainline and progressive Christians. Their understanding of Christian witness tends to be dominated by images of street-corner evangelists, manipulative techniques, displacement of native persons, and theological scare tactics. Still, since the faith of persons and congregations lives and grows by what persons believe rather than what they deny, the articulation of creative and positive theological visions and methodologies of evangelism is essential if mainline and progressive Christianity is to grow spiritually, numerically, and in its impact on the social order.
I believe that Bernard Loomer's understanding of the relationship of stature and power provides an insightful approach to whole-person witness and evangelism'in a postmodern and pluralistic context. Although he published only a handful of articles, Loomer inspired scores of progressive and process theologians, including this author, through his work as dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School and professor at the Graduate Theological Union.3 Indeed, Loomer is credited with first coining the term "process theology" and, later, suggesting "process-relational theology" as the best description for this creative stream of theological reflection.
Loomer believed that theology and practice are intimately related.4 Life-giving theology requires innovative images of value and relationship that can be embodied in the practices of individual Christians and their communities of faith. This is especially true in the interplay of theology and evangelism, in which the strategies employed by one's evangelistic program are almost entirely driven by the theological viewpoints behind them. Essential to his concept of the theological task, Loomer's positive vision of stature (or size) and relational power provides a lively and imaginative alternative to the theologies of exclusion and coercion that have motivated Christian witness to non-Christians. Loomer notes that "the one basic principle that I operate with is the principle of size. That is the category of largeness or smallness. If it is small, I am not interested in whether it is true; I do not care; it really is not worth bothering with. If the idea is fertile, if the person has stature, I am interested."5
Evangelism as Coercive and Unilateral Power
Loomer asserts that one's understanding of power shapes one's politics, economics, ethics, and theology.6 Loomer notes that most persons define power primarily as "linear in character."7 Linear, or unilateral, power is "the ability to produce intended or desired effects in our relationships to nature or other people. More specifically, linear power is the capacity to influence, guide, adjust, manipulate, shape, control, or transform the human or natural environment to advance one's purposes."8 Linear power is one-directional in goal and clear in purpose. As Loomer notes, "its aim is to create the largest effect on the other while being minimally influenced by the other."9
If power is seen in terms of shaping the other, then a person's sense of worth and meaning may well be found in the ability to influence the other to embrace that person's faith, values, politics, or philosophical position. According to Loomer, "Our more predominate power is our justification, our warrant, for our superior status and sense of importance."10 A person exercising linear power tends to view receptivity, mutuality, and willingness to change one's mind as signs of weakness, lack of resolve, and unbelief.
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