STATURE, POWER, AND EVANGELISM: THE THEOLOGICAL LEGACY OF BERNARD LOOMER

Traditional evangelism tends to discourage the questions, skepticism, and intellectual challenges of non-Christians. In contrast, Loomer affirms Whitehead's recognition of the importance of contrasting viewpoints in promoting transformative experiences of beauty. Whitehead writes, "Progress is founded upon the experience of discordant feelings....The contribution to Beauty which can be supplied by Discord...is the positive feeling of a quick shift of aim from the lameness of outworn perfection to some other ideal with its freshness still upon it."27 In the interplay of giving and receiving, not unlike Jesus's dialogical experience in the Temple, Christians can grow in wisdom and stature. Christian witness that takes seriously the concreteness of its dialogue partners can, like God's own aim at wholeness and beauty, present ideals that address the other's unique life experience and encounter with the holy. Without challenging questions, contrasting experiences, and "active openness," Christian faith would remain simplistic and unreflective. In embracing the other's intellectual and personal challenges, the vision of Christianity evolves in stature, sensitivity, and beauty.

Truly relational evangelism seeks to do something beautiful for God. It embraces the beauty of the other by allowing the other to bring contrast and wonder to the evangelizer's own experience. It also confidently shares the good news of God's grace, without possessiveness or theological violence, as a means of awakening the highest good in the beneficiaries of Christian witness. As Christians learn to share their faith with genuine love and listening, they can begin to experience the personal transformation and beauty that adds to the beauty of the whole world.

1 Bernard M. Loomer, "S-I-Z-E Is the Measure," in Religious Experience and Process Theology, ed. Harry James Cargas and Bernard Lee (New York: Paulist Press, 1976), 70.

2 Although the term "New Age," like "liberal," is seldom claimed by its adherents today, this movement represents a lively, eclectic spiritual stream that embraces East and West in addition to high-tech and high-touch healing and spiritual formation. For a description of New Age spirituality, see Bruce Epperly, Crystal and Cross (Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-Third Publications, 1996).

3 I had the honor of studying with Loomer in the Advanced Seminar in Process Theology, taught in Spring 1978, at Claremont Graduate University. My classmates included Catherine Keller, Rita Nakashima Brock, and Rebecca Parker.

4 Loomer, "Two Conceptions of Power," Process Studies 6, no. 1 (Spring 1976): 6.

5 Loomer, "S-I-Z-E Is the Measure," 70.

6 Loomer, "Two Conceptions of Power," 16.

7 Ibid., 8.

8 Ibid., 16.

9 Ibid., 8.

10 Ibid., 9.

11 ibid., 17.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., 18.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., 32.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid., 19.

19 Loomer, "S-I-Z-E Is the Measure," 75.

20 The NRSV substitutes "years" for "stature." Although the latter is found in many other translations, the NRSV does note "stature" as an alternative translation for the Greek. I affirm the traditional term "stature" as reflective of a more holistic understanding of growth that includes not only chronology but spiritual maturity.