John Ernest Sanders"Sanders, John, 1956-" at Library of Congress Linked Data Service. (born 1956) is an American Christian theologian. He served as professor of religious studies at Hendrix College. Sanders is best known for his promotion of open theism but he has also written on religiious polarization, cognitive linguistics and religious pluralism (inclusivism).
Biography Sanders was born to Methodist parents in Central Illinois in 1956.Dave Schultz, "His philosophy is based on God's love," The Herald-Press (Huntington, IN), December 27, 1998. He earned a doctoral degree (Th.D.) at the University of South Africa in 1996, a Master of Arts degree in theology from Wartburg Theological Seminary in 1987, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Trinity College (Illinois) in 1979.Judy Williams, Provost announces faculty additions, promotions . (Hendrix College, July 6, 2006). He is professor emeritus of religious studies at Hendrix College in Arkansas and previously taught at Huntington University in Indiana and Oak Hills Christian College in Minnesota. He was the Frederick J. Crosson Fellow at The Center for Philosophy of Religion (1997–1998) at the University of Notre Dame. He and his wife have five children.Schultz, "His philosophy is based on God's love."
Sanders began to reflect on divine providence after one of his brothers died in an accident. He says he first wondered why God orchestrated his brother's death. Yet, later when some Christian friends suggested that God had ordained his brother's death so that Sanders would get closer to God, he rejected that idea. Additionally, in college he read some theology books which asserted that God was strongly immutable and impassible such that our prayers never affect God. This made Sanders wonder whether his understanding of prayer (prayers could affect God) was correct.Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, second edition (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 12-13. He spent a good portion of the next twenty years seeking to resolve such issues. Eventually, he became a proponent of open theism and contributed to the scholarship on the topic along with other open theists such as Clark Pinnock, Greg Boyd, and William Hasker.
His publications on both open theism and the destiny of the unevangelized were well received in some evangelical circles.For example, a couple of his books No Other Name and The Openness of God placed in Christianity Today magazine’s Book of the Year awards. However, conservative Calvinist evangelicals sharply criticized his work and he, along with Clark Pinnock, became controversial figures in evangelical theology.Burton Bollag, “Can God See the Future?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 26, 2004. Pinnock and Sanders sought to reform evangelical theology, advocating what Brian McLaren calls “a generous orthodoxy.” Some referred to them as “postconservative evangelicals” or “postmodern evangelicals.”Roger Olson, “Postconservative Evangelicals Greet the Postmodern Age,” Christian Century (May 3, 1995):480-483 and Stanley Grenz, Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2000), 134-150, 159-162 The lightning rod issue was Sanders’ and Pinnock's affirmation of “dynamic omniscience” which denies that God has exhaustive definite foreknowledge of future contingent events. In 2002 Roger Nicole, a conservative Calvinist and founding member of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), put forward a motion to expel Sanders and Pinnock from the Society on the grounds that their affirmation that God can change the divine mind is incompatible with doctrinal basis of the Society.Doug Koop, "Closing the Door on Open Theists? ETS to Examine Whether Clark Pinnock and John Sanders Can Remain Members," Christianity Today, Jan/Feb 2003, 24 and Sanders, John, “1994-2004: An Overview of the Debate on Open Theism in Evangelicalism,”
The executive committee of the ETS held formal hearings with Sanders and Pinnock and decided that they had no problems with Pinnock but said that they could not approve of Sanders’ belief in “probabilistic prophecy”, which claims that some biblical predictions about future events are not guaranteed since they are conditional upon what beings with free will decide to do. At issue here is the truth value of statements about the future actions of free creatures. At the 2003 annual ETS meeting the membership voted overwhelmingly to affirm Pinnock's inclusion but fell 25 votes short of the 2/3 majority necessary to expel Sanders.David Neff, "Open to Healing: Anxieties and Attack Turn to Grace and Truth at ETS Meeting," Christianity Today, Jan/Feb 2004, 21-22
Also in 2003 several Calvinist pastors in the tiny denomination which owned Huntington University put pressure on the Administration to remove Sanders from the faculty (he was professor of religion and philosophy). Even though William Hasker (one of the authors of The Openness of God with Sanders) had taught at Huntington for thirty years and some other faculty members affirmed open theism, only Sanders was examined by a “denominational commission.” In November 2004 the President of the university announced that the Board of Trustees had decided to dismiss Sanders. The President informed the faculty that the problem was not Sanders’ affirmation of open theism (since other open theists remain in the school's employ) but rather his notoriety in promoting them.John Dart, "College to Close out 'Open Theism' Scholar," Christian Century, December 28, 2004. See also, Burton Bollag, “Huntington College Offers Golden Parachute to Religion Professor,” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 18, 2005 and Stan Guthrie, "Open or Closed Case? Controversial Theologian John Sanders on Way out at Huntington," Christianity Today, December 22, 2004). Despite advocacy on his behalf by a Huntington student group called “Page 6” (referring to a statement on page 6 of the university catalog protecting academic freedom), Sanders was terminated from the university. Subsequently, he was hired at Hendrix College.
Religious Polarization Sanders’s book, Embracing Prodigals: Overcoming Authoritative Religion by Embodying Jesus’ Nurturing Grace (Cascade, 2020), uses the social sciences to explain why Christians are so polarized over politics, social issues, morality, and theological beliefs. Christians strongly disagree on religious beliefs such as how to understand the Bible, atonement, salvation of non-Christians, and hell. They are also polarized over issues such as same-gender marriage, income inequality, and health care.
Two social science models, Nurturant and Authoritative, explain this divide because each model emphasizes different values which are at the heart of our disagreements. Nurturants prize empathy and cooperation while Authoritatives cherish obedience to law and order. Each group has distinct core values and these values lead them to embrace different theological, moral, and political views. In addition, Nurturants and Authoritatives have vastly different understandings of love and justice which lead people to endorse divergent ways of parenting and teaching, as well as different views on incarceration and government programs.
The book explains the divide and makes the case that Jesus embodied the Nurturant way of life. He modeled empathy, grace, forgiveness, and care for those beyond his own tribe. The Nurturant and Authoritative approaches have competed for thousands of years but contemporary research shows that the Nurturant way of life produces better mental and spiritual health as well as superior communities in which to live.
Cognitive linguistics
His Theology in the Flesh: How Embodiment and Culture Shape the Way We Think about Truth, Morality, and God is the first book to apply the field of cognitive linguistics to theology. According to cognitive linguistics, the specific types of bodies humans have shape how we interact with and understand our world. We have concepts such as up/down and in/out because we have bodies that can experience these sorts of things. Embodied experience also gives rise much of our metaphorical thinking. For instance, we know what it is like to go on a journey in which we experience getting to a destination together and perhaps overcoming obstacles on the way. Many, but not all, languages use the experience physical journeys as the framework in which to understand the experience of love. We say, "Our relationship has come a long way together" and "We have overcome many bumps in the road." We reason about our love relationship in terms of a journey. Yet, in English, we also conceive of love in terms of strong physical forces ("He's blown away by love"), magnetism ("She is attracted to him"), and even insanity ("He is crazy about her"). That means that metaphors can be cognitive and not merely rhetorical. We actually think with metaphors.
Theology in the Flesh shows that biblical writers used a wide array of metaphors to understand topics such as sin, salvation, and God. Salvation, for example, is thought of in terms of release from slavery, as friendship with God, as healing, as returning from the dead, and as finding your way home to list but a few. No single metaphor says everything that we can say about salvation and so multiple metaphors are needed. There are often several legitimate ways, within constraints, for Christians to understand a topic. The book provides lots of examples of how different Christian communities, over time and across cultures, use different metaphors for salvation and so arrive at conflicting theological positions.
The book also emphasizes prototype theory, which says humans often define things in terms of a "best example" of a category rather than with necessary and sufficient conditions. For instance, Americans understand "bird" by thinking of an animal about the size of a robin that flies and has wings and feathers. Although penguins are birds, they are not the best examples or prototypes. Sanders applies that approach to definitions of God and Christianity and explains why Jesus is so central to Christian moral and spiritual formation.
In light of cognitive linguistics, Sanders discusses how we should understand God, the nature of objective truth, moral reasoning, and various other theological topics. He urges the need for humility in our claims to truth and explains why Christians should expect both agreement on a few general topics along with significant variation on beliefs and practices between Christian communities.
Sources and method