CollideOScope

Books Read in 2011

2011-12-31T19:00:00.003-06:00

At the end of the year for the last few years, I've recapped the books I've read in the past year. Mostly this is one way for me to keep track of what I've read. This may be the most fiction (I know, it's embarrassing) I've read in a year, which was one of my goals. Not only did I finish the Harry Potter series before the final movie came out I also really enjoyed the Hunger Games. I'd really love to create a youth ministry curriculum exploring empire, consumerism, and faith utilizing the Hunger Games.

This past year in theology was really a discovering and delving into process and weak theology which has been very intriguing and helpful for me. I kept putting off reading Barth's Dogmatics, one of my resolutions from last year, until I didn't read them at all. I may find a resource to read the more important and interesting parts.

Anyways here's my list of books that I finished in 2011. If you have any recommendations or comments I'd love to hear them.

1. Sustainable Youth Ministry- Mark Devries. 1/1
2. Practicing Passion: Youth & the Quest for a Passionate Church - Kenda Creasy Dean 1/6
3. Out Of Babylon - Walter Brueggemann 1/19
4. Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream - David Platt 1/23
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling 1/25
6. The Next Christians- Gabe Lyons
7. The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation- Jurgen Moltmann 2/2
8. Fall to Grace- Jay Bakker 2/9
9. When Helping Hurts- Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert 2/17
10. The Nature of Love: A Theology- Thomas Jay Oord- 3/22
11. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince- Rowling 3/27
12. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling 4/6
13. Velvet Elvis- Rob Bell 4/11
14. The New Christians- Tony Jones 4/12
15. Transforming Christian Theology - Phillip Clayton 4/25
16. Ishmael- Daniel Quinn 4/28
17. After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters- NT Wright 5/15
18. One Fine Potion- The Literary Magic of Harry Potter- Greg Garrett 5/25
19. The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event- John Caputo 5/24
20. Almost Christian: What the Faith of our Teenagers is Telling the American Church- Kenda Creasy Dean 5/25
21. Christ of the Celts: the Healing of Creation - Philip Newell 5/25
22. The Knight & The Gardener: Worldview makes worlds- Cassidy Dale 5/26
23. Welcoming Justice: God's Movement Toward Beloved community - John Perkins 5/30
24. Quantum Physics and Theology - John Polkinghorne 6/10
25. Presence Centered Youth Ministry: Guiding Students into Spiritual Formation- Mike King 6/17
26. The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing and Practicing the Primitive Christianity of The Ancient Didache Community - Tony Jones 6/22
27. Gilead. Marilynn Robinson 6/22
28. Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political meaning of the church- William T. Cavanaugh 7/5
29. Cat's Cradle- Kurt Vonnegut 7/15
30. On the Mystery: Discerning God in Process- Catherine Keller 8/29
31. Invitation to the Great Experiment: Exploring the possibility that God cam be known- Thomas E. Powers 9/2
32. Christ the Key - Kathryn Tanner 10/17
33. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke 10/17
34. missional youth ministry: moving from gathering teenagers to scattering disciples - Brian Kirk & Jacob Thorne 10/30/11
35. Love Wins- Rob Bell 11/07/11
36. King Jesus Gospel: The Original Gospel Revisited- Scot McKinght 11/10/11
37. Difference Heaven Makes: Rehearing the Gospel as News- Christopher Morse 11/16/11
38. Disgrace: A Novel- J.M. Coetzee 11/17/11
39. Hunger Games- Suzann Collins 11/26/11
40. Catching Fire- Suzanne Collins 11/29/11
41. Mockingjay- Suzanne Collins 12/05/11
42. The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture- Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove 12/23/11
43. Exiles:Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture- Michael Frost 12/27/11
44. Insurrection: To Believe is Human, To Doubt is Divine- Peter Rollins 12/31/11

Advent and Zombies

2011-12-07T16:49:00.005-06:00

What do you call it when a person dies right before they become a zombie? You know, that part right after they've breathed their last (human) breath and before they resuscitate and you have to take a pitch fork or shot gun to them. For one brief moment the (bitten or scratched) pre-zombie corpse is allowed rest, to die, and be dead. Is there a word for that moment?

Strange question for a post about Advent? We'll see.

Zombies are all the rage. If you have a Netflix account you can stream limitless hours of zombie movies and shows, many of which are made in garages but others made with esteemed actors or networks known for good writing.

If you're a Jane Austen fan you may be completely dissatisfied or (maybe) elated to know that Pride and Prejudice was given new life (pun intended) when in 2009 Seth Grahame-Smith interwove zombies into the Bennett family's story. Continuing with the Lit nerd theme, maybe you'd enjoy a zombie Haiku:

My rigor mortis
is mainly why I'm slower
and the severed foot.

Needless to say, the zombie craze is an epidemic (so punny) of vast proportions, but mostly in 1st world countries like the USA, Europe, & Japan. Why?

Like all monsters, zombies reveal our culture's deepest fears. And what do 1st world countries have to be afraid of? Do you think it's a coincidence that people often hide out in malls in zombie movies and throngs of zombies push through the glass doors to wade through merchandise to get to their prey?

On the-day-after-the-day we celebrate being thankful and content with what we have, Thanksgiving, we celebrate another holiday known as Black Friday. Of course Thanksgiving is a holiday, while Black Friday more akin to a religious experience.

Religion comes from a word that originally meant "binding" which brings to mind practices of discipline. Like all religions, a good "Black Fridayist" must have disciplines which shape people's imaginations (thus making them spiritual disciplines akin). Beginning weeks in advance as well throughout the evening of Thanksgiving (I'm thinking we should rename this day to Black Friday Eve), families spend hours reading the holy scripture: ads. Then they must expose themselves to the bitter cold elements, stand in long lines, and prioritize possessions more than people (sometimes to the point of pepper spraying or stepping on someone's face).

Of course there are other people, who turn a smug nose to those that participate in the holy feast day that pushes the market into the black. But they (me?) are no different than the shoppers. Sure one is up at the crack of dawn (or midnight) shopping while the other remains in the warmth of their bed, nevertheless they/we are the same. We are all trapped (possessed?) in this economic system of consumption. No one's more guilty then another, it's just some have the comfort of being able to afford what they want with or without Black Friday sales.

Much like a zombie stuck in a catatonic state of unquenchable hunger for flesh, we are raised by our televisions and omnipresent ad agencies to consume mindlessly with a never ending hunger for more: more stuff, more bandwidth, more entertainment, more gadgets, more cars, more houses, more decorations and lights, more of just about everything.

I'm as guilty as the person who slept outside Best Buy for 30 hours to get a deal. We all are for no one can escape the ubiquity of consumer culture.

Advent is a reminder that our hope in God's-coming-to-us isn't hope simply for the afterlife, an escape to heaven. Advent hope recognizes that in Jesus heaven is breaking into earth. In God's incarnation these two realities, heaven and earth coalesce or collide.

These two infinitely-apart spaces are being intimately intertwined. Never the same, never separate.

At hand, but not in hand.

The good news of Jesus is more than "getting to heaven when we die," it's "getting heaven into us" before we die...heaven, the place where God's will is done on earth and in us. With God's reign or will or heaven breaking into our midst, the "schemas/forms' of the world are passing away" as Paul states in 1 Cor. 7:31. Passing away. Fading.

Maybe this is what that moment in zombie movies is called when one moves or passes or fades into the walking dead. But in Jesus we find the exact inverse, so that it is us who is awakening from our media induced sleep (another word used for death) into life lived in the fullness.

May we find in this Advent season our stress fading and our hunger for more passing while we ourselves become signs of heaven on earth.

Traders for or Traitors of the Kingdom, A Sermon

2011-04-19T11:43:00.003-05:00

Here's a sermon I preached during FBC's noon day Holy Week services, reflecting on the "Parable of the Talents."

As we explore the theme this week, , “Give Me Jesus [Question Mark],” I’m reminded that we needed to be unsettled in our faith journey, in order to ask hard questions.

“Is it Jesus that I really want or do I prefer the Jesus who helps me feel self-fulfilled, the Jesus I use to make me feel good.”

And in order to unsettle us this afternoon, I want to offer up, what some may consider to be an uncommon reading of this common parable about talents. I want to explore a different interpretation that steers us directly into the heart of: “Give Me Jesus?”

Just in case you’re unfamiliar with the common interpretation of this parable, it goes something like this. Everyone has God-given talents or abilities, and what this parable teaches us is that God wants us to use our “spiritual gifts” or talent to grow his kingdom while we wait for Christ to return.

But the more I studied this parable, the more I became uncomfortable with this way of reading it. And so, I ask you to listen again as I offer up a modern reading that I hope will make the meaning plain.

He stumbled into the room, resting on the door frame in his usual drunken stupor. The Owner of the land, or Lord has he liked to be called, eyed his workers with hopeful greed and piercing hate. It had been several months since the Owner left, leaving these three day-laborers in charge of his estate.

As migrant workers with no papers, and thus no rights, these three men were no better than slaves to their Lord. They were hostages to this life now. If they’d known what kind of man he was, maybe they wouldn’t have jumped into his truck to work for him.

He is known among many of the migrant workers for his cruel spirit. On several occasions he has been known to deliver his workers to the border patrol if they anger him or try to leave.

Among the day laborers, who live in daily fear, the border patrol is commonly referred to as the dark place, or the “place of weeping and gnashing of teeth,” because it is there families are torn apart, forced from the country, forced from their wives and children.

Yet, the Owner was very wealthy and could offer work, which was hard to come by these days as families grew hungrier. So, these three men remained, unable to leave because of their own need for work, and their fear of the Owner.

Disappearing for months was a common affair for their Master. They had grown used to being left to manage the fields and estate while he lived a life they couldn’t imagine, one of luxury and extravagance. But this time was different. Before wandering off, the Owner, probably as a cruel trick, left each of the workers an inexplicably large amount of money.

To one worker, he gave five talents, to another two talents and to the third he gave one talent. One talent. These men knew, a single talent was enough to feed one of their family’s for 20 years. It represented lavish wealth, almost an entire life’s worth of work balled up into one, large piece of metal.

Familiar with their Lord’s avarice, they inferred his intent.

It was his common practice, without a blink of an eye, for the Owner to cheat people. Anyone. Everyone. His singular goal was to build his wealth, and of course that meant building on the backs of others. His practices were harsh, always reaping where he did not sow, making money off of his neighbor’s crops, and gathering where he did not scatter seed.

Uncertain what the reward would be, if there would even be a reward, these three men knew the Master would arrive expecting a plentiful return, reaping where he had not sown. It was a perfect plan, for the Master at least. Go on vacation, live it up, and come back to an even larger amount of money or talents.

With the fear of their Master’s cruelness haunting them in his absence, two of the workers fought diligently to make his money grow, allowing theirs hearts to grow cold long enough, hopefully just long enough, to make it past this malicious ordeal. They only wanted to work. Their families needed them to work. What choice did they have? And so, for week after tireless week, they scraped, stole, created false investments schemes, ponzi schemes, triangle schemes, whatever it would take to make the money grow.

But the third, who was given 20 years worth of wages instead of 40 years or 100 years like the other two, went off early one morning and found a safe place in a field and buried the talent. He was there to live and help his family live. But he knew, life could not be found in this injustice. There was simply no excuse to do his living off the backs of others, and so he buried the treacherous demand of the Master.

Holding himself up on the doorframe, the drunken Master waited perversely to hear the news of how the workers had carried out his longing for gain. When the first two told him how they’d made to make his money expand, he grew elated. No longer needing the door frame to hold himself up, he declared just how much Joy they had given him and they would both be given even more responsibility than they already had, of course, more responsibility, but not more pay.

Then he noticed the third worker, sitting in silence. He demanded to know how he made the Owner richer. The meek man rose to his feet and clearly said, “I know you reap where you do not sow. You take from the poor and live like you’re the only one that matters. You cheat, you steal, and you harvest where you don’t plant seeds. I was afraid of losing the talent due to your harshness, but I was more afraid of becoming like you because of your harshness. So, I didn’t steal or cheat, but merely hid the money.”

“Don’t you understand boy,” raged the Owner, “this is how the world works. Those that have will be given more, even in abundance. But the “have-nots,” like you, they’ll be stripped what little they do have, because they’re not even worthy of that tiny amount. You’re type don’t deserve the scraps from my table.”

With vile, the Master loaded the single, resolute worker in his truck and drove to the place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” sending him away from his loved ones and their only source of life and income.

Well, I’ll be the first to admit this reading of the parable isn’t very warm or fuzzy, but it is certainly more unsettling. And it needs to be unsettling, because the older, more common interpretation, for me at least, is too comfortable, too self-fulfilling. “God gives to those that help themselves.” But As Walter Wink and other Biblical scholars have noted, this way of thinking, this older interpretation, goes against the social conventions of Jesus’ time.

Jesus’ audience in the Gospel of Matthew was comprised mostly of those at the margins of society. They were familiar with the practices that profited the prosperous, as they were the victim’s of fraud, exorbitant rates with ambiguous contracts (much akin to predatory lending in our time), and sidebar taxes that allowed the collector to skim off the top.

Moreover, in first century Jewish culture, individual pursuit of wealth, especially at the cost of others members of society, was looked down upon as a violating communal and religious loyalty. Therefore, to even be able to own a single talent, much less several, was seen as anathema, a sinful cheat among Jesus’ audience. Thus, for the villain in this story to represent God, wouldn’t have made any sense to the first century listener.

Besides the common interpretation being nonsensical to its audience, another reason I think we should read this parable in this new way is that it fits with the larger picture of Jesus’ agenda. Unlike some theologians who would have us believe that God sent Jesus to earth for the sole purpose of being a divine punching bag, or the only reason Jesus was sent to earth was to die, we must remember that Jesus had an agenda, in other words, Jesus had a mission.

Sewn throughout the Garment of Matthew’s Gospel is Jesus’ mission. And this thread of mission is that Jesus is bringing about a movement of God’s justice and love here among us now through costly follower-ship.

Jesus came proclaiming the good news, “the Kingdom of God is near, repent and come join the movement.”

And the readers of Matthew knew that Jesus’ kingdom proclamation was being united with a very powerful, hebrew concept: tsedawkaw translated to greek, dikaiosune.

Dikaios and dikaiosune are the Jewish and Christian answer to the perennial human question, “what does it mean to live a full, and good, and righteous life before one dies? What does it mean to live life eternally beginning now? What does it mean to be truly human?”

If there was ever a word appropriate enough for something as mysterious and beautiful as God’s kingdom, Dikaiosune is that word.

In the greek, dikaios or dikaiosune is a word so pregnant with meaning that if it were to inhabit the heart, it would birth God’s kingdom. You see, dikaios is one of those words that’s hard to render into English because it’s so full of meaning.

Often interpreted in the New Testament as “Righteousness”, Dikaiosune means three things all at once, never mutually exclusive: justification, righteousness, and justice. In Jesus’ dikaiosune movement, we find that God is restoring our relationship with him (justification), restoring our inner selves as God’s image bearers (righteousness), and the restoring human relationships/community through equity (justice).

So we see in Jesus, that God is setting and restoring our humanity in righteousness in order that humanity can be restored to itself through justice.

In the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, we read in Genesis that “Abraham believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as dikiaosune.”

In Isaiah we find that “all our dikiaosune is like filthy rags.

And in Amos, the verse forever heard in my head through the voice of Martin Luther King Jr, “But let our justice roll down as water, and dikaisune as an ever flowing stream.”

Thus, Jesus’ mission was to establish God’s dikaiosune among us now. And he expected this endeavor to be costly.

In the beatitudes Jesus declared, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for dikaiosune for the will be filled.”

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for dikaiosune’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The kingdom belongs to those who like the third servant in the parable object to unjust practices that destroy justice even to the point of being persecuted or cast from society. And certainly the persecution Jesus is talking about here isn’t when we don’t get along with go workers or when we suffer some illness, but persecution is being marginalized and force to live uncomfortably because of our faith in this Jesus way of restoration.

But of course we shouldn’t seek out suffering for suffering’s sake, but rather we should seek out life and justice for God’s sake.

In the parable directly following this one in Matt 25, we learn that God hides himself among the poor and the forgotten, those who will never make history books. Thus we must stand for dikaiosune’s sake and resist evil practices that misuse and abuse God’s very self found in the thirsty and oppressed.

This week we need to be unsettled, because the injustices born on the backs of the poor are unsettling. And what is even more unsettling is these injustices are born on the back of God’s very self.

Jesus was and is the embodiment of God’s kingdom come. To meet Jesus, means to bump into God’s Kingdom. Thus, we have to remember that the cross wasn’t God’s sadistic torturing of his Son, but it was the ultimate cost of Jesus’ mission. Jesus was crucified for bringing a new way, God’s way of life on earth, because when God’s kingdom of dikaiosune confronts the evils and injustices of our world, the world convulses and pushes it out to the margins, even to death.

But as Jesus said, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

So, Dikaiosune is the unsettling vision that all might not be well with the way the world works, the way we live, the lives we exploit, the poor we neglect, the voiceless we hush, the enemies we murder, and the pain we hide our faces from.

Dikaiosune is the unsettling vision that all are created equal and deserve a chance to live while we go on living lavishly and not just beyond our own means, but the very means of the our earth.

Dikaisune is the unsettling vision that we may stand alone, and be cast aside, we may be put to death, but at the core of following Jesus is a vision for restoring the world until dikaiosune flows down as an ever flowing stream.

The answer to the perennial question for all of humanity, “what must I do to be good and live the fullest possible life now,” is found in Jesus’ Kingdom of dikaiosune and a life devoted to bringing it about no matter the cost.

So may today be about coming to Jesus in a new way, and giving up our pretenses, declaring our desire for him not because of what he can give us, whether earthly or heavenly rewards; but rather may we learn to desire Jesus in our lives for our own restoration as well as the restoration of the world. May we desire Jesus, because this dikaiosune vision is the hope of the world, and there is nothing, not even death that can conquer this Kingdom.

May we be like the third servant, knowing this is a kingdom worth being put to shame for, worth being marginalized for, and worth being persecuted for, knowing that in the end it is not death that prevails, but life everlasting.

Benediction:

Here these words from Jesus,

Matt. 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his dikaiosune, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Lent Practice

2011-03-09T11:23:00.002-06:00

Today is my first blog post in a long time. This is my Lent commitment, to write more. First my plan is to journal for myself 2-3 times a week. Second, I'm going to be posting here once a week. I find writing a good enterprise for myself. I can't say I love it. It takes a lot of work, especially when I know someone might read it. My brains doesn't work in such a way that I can just sit down and spew out my thoughts in order and have them make sense much less sound a bit better than elementary or grating to the learned reader. But I still enjoy the practice. I enjoy working through my thoughts, intentionally forcing myself to reflect and think through problems, and having a focused conversation.

Tonight, at a worship gathering among some of my community we'll be marked by Ashes. So I'm working on what I'll say tonight. Once that's done, I'll post that reflection. As I'm preparing my thoughts for tonight's Ash Wednesday service, I've discovered a community online talking about this season of Ash. I thought about tweeting each link, but I try my best not to utilize my social tools to annoy folks. So here's a link from Joan Chittester, a reflection on Ash Wed, one from an anglobaptist, another baptist,a reading list for Lent, thoughts from Tony Campolo, a great reflection from pastor Eugene Cho, giving up social networking, and a beautiful post from Sarah Miles.

2010 in Books, What I read last year

2011-01-01T22:30:00.003-06:00

Though 2010 only consisted of 11 blog posts, I find posting up what I've read the past year a good practice for myself to look over what I've read, reflected upon, and found new friends among. So, in order to continue this practice, here's my "books read" list from 2010.

The Myth of Religious Violence, William Cavanuagh

In the Name of Jesus, Henry Nouwen

Christianity and Capitalism, American Style, William Connolly

Turtles all the Way Down, Gordon Atkinson RLP

Can these Bones Live? A Catholic Baptist Engagement with Ecclesiology, Hermeneutics, and Social Theory- Barry Harvey

A New Kind of Christianity, Bryan McLaren

An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible, Walter Brueggemann

The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity, Slavoj Zizek

On Theology, John Caputo

Deep Church, Jim Belcher

Flawed Families of the Bible, the Garland's

Better Hope, A Resource for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy and Postmodernity, Stanley Hauerwas

What Would Jesus Deconstruct, John Caputo

Practicing Discernment with Youtht: A Transformative Youth Ministry Approach, David White

All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy

Transforming Bible Study, Walter Wink

Moral Vision of the New Testament, Richard Hays

Introduction to the Missional Church, Alan Roxburough

For the Nations: Essays Evangelical and Public, John Howard Yoder

OMG: A Youth Ministry Handbook, Kenda Creasy Dean

Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel, John Howard Yoder

Outliers: the Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell

Sun of Righteousness, Arise! God's future Humanity and the Earth, Jurgen Moltmann

Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry, Andrew Root

Signs of Emergence, Kester Brewin

On Monsters: An Unnatural History of our Worst Fears, Stephen T. Asma

The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Para church Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and other Modern Maladies, David Fitch

The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race, Willie James Jennings

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling

Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable, Patrick Lencioni

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling

Messy Spirituality, Mark Yaconelli

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, R.K. Rowling

Atheism is therapeutic

2010-07-06T14:52:00.004-05:00

The church in the West is raising functional atheists (those who confess with their mouths but live as if there is no God) because they have capitulated to late capitalism. Thus, we're impotent to engage the material world in meaningful ways. So what is the church ministry about if we're raising functional atheists? "Therapeutic, consumer deism." Ministry tends to imbibe (especially liberal Christianity) therapy, consolation (to the point that suffering from illness or grief is picking up and carrying one's cross), and maybe even passion for "issues" with no depth of engaging those issues. We love the idea of love, but do not actually love. We think that reading a book in a class means having done what the book talks about (whether contemplative prayer, social justice, or living simply). Thus, our essential action is apathy produced by consumerism that pacifies us and aids in the essential goal of self-actualization: the realization that the individual is all that matters. Atheism declares there is no god. So does the church if the church will not begin to live alternatively in dominant story of late capitalism.

Consuming Jesus: A Sermon on Being Church

2010-04-19T10:53:00.003-05:00

Well, here is my first consecutive sermon, or first sermon to have preached directly after preaching another. This last Sunday the student ministry at First led us in worship and we ended in Communion. You can listen to the sermon from last week or yesterday on our website or download fbcaustin's podcast.

Get Lost: A Sermon on Finding the Way

2010-04-13T10:56:00.003-05:00

Well, here's the sermon I preached last Sunday. I think it's also available in iTunes as a podcast under First Baptist Austin. Give it a listen, let me know what you think.

"Knowing God" - the Problem of Humanity

2010-03-06T10:49:00.004-06:00

Well in answering one of my good friend's questions to my post below on Brian McLaren's book and doctrine I basically wrote a long enough answer to put it up as a new post. So here's the context. In the review I wrote:

Bonhoeffer wrote, “it is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ” Thus what we DO know about God is that ultimately God is unknowable. So doctrine is not an end in itself, thus aNKoC is not an end in itself.

Seth has some other good questions which you can read in the post below, but here's the heart of what he's saying:

But I don't get from that quote (and again I don't know the whole context behind the quote from Bonhoeffer) is that God is unknowable. Jesus seems to say the exact opposite. He identifies himself with the Father, and says several times that if you know me, you know the Father; if you see me, you have seen the Father, etc. It seems that God is knowable, but ultimately he is known through the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Here's my response:
Well, I want to be careful because there's this strange dialectic I'm trying to walk here (creating a both/and or neither/nor category). In some ways I want to say what you are saying about Jesus, but in a more or differently nuanced way.

First, in regards to JC's words about knowing the Father. Thomas asks Jesus to show them the Father and the way to get where JC is going. I think we can agree that this passage isn't about doctrine (as if Thomas is saying, so is God eternal or everlasting?), knowing God categorically, conceptually, or perceptually. Instead, what Jesus is talking about is "the Way," the life and person that best reflects God on earth (himself). These verses in Jn 14 seem to point more toward relationships, allegiances, and ways of life (or mission) more than doctrinal statements about God.

There are many different ways of "knowing" in the Bible, but I think of the most metaphorical, physical way..."knowing" as sex. This knowing is about something deeper and more personal then concepts. It seems that "knowing" in the Scripture is almost always a deeply human, physical, and relational term as opposed to abstract, categorical.

Second, and ultimately I believe the greater truth is that God is unknowable. What I mean (not sure about Bonhof) is that we cannot use scientific reasoning and the 5 senses to create concepts that tell us "what" God is, God is neither provable or disprovable. We cannot point to God and say, "see God suffers or no God is immutable."

Language about God is tricky, but I don't think our words or categories ever fully satisfy the reality of what God is in his being. It's very important to say, or maybe admit (since there have been many abuses) that what we can know about God is that God is unknowable, un"what"able. But while our language, concepts, and perceptions of God always fall short of his Being that doesn't mean they aren't important. While we cannot say "what" God is, we can say "that" God is...that God is loving, good, infinite, simple, just, faithful, unified, etc. Now do these words describe God metaphysically, ontologically? No, but they do give us categories to understand how God can be the way he is, and relate the way he does (and possibly just as important it helps us understand how we should relate to God and each other).

Since we cannot claim what God is, but only what God is not (Bonhof's Christology) we can speak doctrines without fear of logical incoherence...like the idea that Christ is fully God and fully human (real logical right?). And that bring us back to Bonhoeffer, where he is saying that this way of talking about God (the "that," not "what") allows us to speak logically and coherently about the existence of God while being able to make statements about the incarnation.

I agree that we do know God through Christ, but I cannot say that doctrinally speaking I better understand God's being because of Jesus. Actually, because of Jesus I am a little more confused about God's existence. Did God die on the cross? Does he suffer? 3 and 1, 3 in 1, 3 = 1?

God is knowable, as in we can relate to and be in relationship to God. God is unknowable as in, I cannot point to and make conceptual statements that exactly describe the reality of God's being. Jesus leads us to what is really important, a life giving relationship with God; but after that we are stuck in our limited human categories to think about ways of describing conceptually and perceptually this reality. And that is theology in a nutshell, the aftermath of being swoon by God.

Not an acceptable Christ

2010-03-04T14:41:00.002-06:00

It is not that a "Christian culture" must make the name of Jesus Christ acceptable to the world; but the crucified Christ has become the refuge and the justification, the protection and the claim for the higher values and their defenders that have fallen victim to suffering. It is with Christ who is persecuted and who suffers in his Church that justice, truth, humanity, and freedom now seek refuge; it is with the Christ who found no shelter in the world, the Christ who was cast out from the world, the Christ of the crib and of the cross, under whose protection they now seek sanctuary, and who thereby for the first time displays the full extent of his power. The cross of Christ makes both sayings true: "He that is not with me is against me" and "He that is not against us is for us."

-Bonhoeffer, Ethics.

A New Kind of Christianity: Too far, not far enough...or is that even the point? a book review

2010-02-24T12:28:00.000-06:00

Stones have been cast. “Too far!” “Not far enough!” Love him or hate him, Brian McLaren shows in his newest book that he is willing to be a prophetic pastor, a figure representative of a conversation and movement (which means people are way too harsh and unloving to him). Book reviews are floating all over the internet dealing explicitly and directly with A New Kind of Christianity’s (aNKoC) content. For years as most know, McLaren has been in the messiest and necessary business of asking hard questions of the church, Christianity, and cultural changes. But aNKoC deals with creating and coming to answers to ten of the most important questions being asked within and of Christianity worldwide according to McLaren:

• The Narrative Question: What Is the Overarching Storyline of the Bible?
• The Authority Question: How Should the Bible Be Understood?
• The God Question: Is God Violent?
• The Jesus Question: Who is Jesus and Why is He Important?
• The Gospel Question: What Is the Gospel?
• The Church Question: What Do We Do About the Church?
• The Sex Question: Can We Find a Way to Address Sexuality Without Fighting About It?
• The Future Question: Can We Find a Better Way of View the Future?
• The Pluralism Question: How Should Followers of Jesus Relate to People of Other Religions?
• The What Do We Do Now Question: How Can We Translate Our Quest into Action?

You can read the book or the reviews to find out the “what” that Brian is trying to say, but aNKoC’s true importance lies not in what Brian is saying but what he is doing with aNKoC. The real point of this book is to (1) recognize the real need to find language that is contextual yet faithful to Scripture & our deeper Christian tradition and (2) to guide actions into the kingdom/ethics/mission.

So what is Brian doing in aNKoC? He is giving Christians permission to reformulate doctrines in light of recent scholarship, conversations, cultural changes and most importantly mission. This book is both emergent and doctrinally focused (insert gasps here). And now more then ever with the growth of world Christianity and emerging, late capitalistic culture the church must learn to talk about doctrine in a healthy and humble way.

Bonhoeffer wrote, “it is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ” Thus what we DO know about God is that ultimately God is unknowable. So doctrine is not an end in itself, thus aNKoC is not an end in itself.

But the reaction and conversation on the blogosphere revolving around this emergent book of somewhat systematized theology of doctrines is symptomatic of the state of the church. First, these reactions reveal that doctrine is very important (it has fallen on hard times with all this pomo talk). In WWII, the Barmen declaration which deeply affirmed Trinitarian and Christological doctrines were used to attack the Nazi funded state church. Embedded in Walter Rauschenbusch’s theology are manifest destiny and nationalism. More recently, John Stackhouse has (wrongly) affirmed that God is in globalization. Doctrines are necessary for they reveal our convictions and ethics.

Second, doctrine is very important but we don’t know why. Liberals focus on the experiential kernel of doctrine, that we form beliefs off of hidden individual experiences. Conservatives focus on propositional, abstract truths that correlate to our doctrines, thus they believe what we say equals what is real. Both are wrong.

Doctrine is not an end in itself, but always exists to serve the mission of God. As Robert Louis Wilken writes, “Doctrines or theoretical concepts are never ends in themselves but always at service of a deeper immersion in the res, the thing itself, the mystery of Christ and of the practice of the Christian life.”

This week while at ChurchWorks (or does it? as Bass reflected), Diana Butler Bass spoke to a group of Cooperative Baptists and said “Historians know that people only argue about something when it’s going away,” in reference to the national debate around the identity of the USA as a Christian nation. We argue about being a “Christian nation” exactly because we are no longer a Christian nation (as if we ever were…thanks Rauschenbusch). In this same way, we argue about doctrine because as McLaren writes, “the bad news: the Christian faith in all its forms is in trouble. The good news: the Christian faith in all its forms is pregnant with new possibilities (aNKoC, xi). “

The “doctrine police” would do well to hear Martin Kähler, “Mission is the mother of theology.” Why did Peter find transformation and new doctrine at Cornelius’ house? Mission. Why did Nicaea, Gregory, and the early church struggle with Christology and the Trinity? Mission. Why is the church in the Western context finding new doctrine? Mission. Why is world Christianity growing and creating new doctrine? Mission. Why is Brian McLaren writing a book called A New Kind of Christianity? Mission.

Mission serves the kingdom of God that Jesus was crucified for proclaiming and doctrine serves mission and the one who was crucified by pointing toward the significance of Jesus’ life, not the life itself. It is the Scripture and Holy Spirit’s work in community to reveal the life of Christ and doctrine’s work to witness to that significance.

Our cultural context is one of great upheaval and change for several reasons. Not least of these are the effects of globalized late consumer capitalism creating a homogenous experience of liberal individuals who simply do not experience the world the same way people did 100, 50, or even 10 years ago did. In this globalized world the church, especially in the West, must be faithful to God’s mission by allowing the gospel to sprout new life, language, and doctrine in its new setting. The church exists not for itself (just like doctrine), but must exist for the other, for mission encapsulated by hope, justice, and love.

Language is a tricky thing, but best understand by its performative intent. Does this statement mean you are grieving, want me to do something, rejoicing, sarcasm, asking for help, etc? In understanding what you mean by your words’ performative function, I can truly grasp what you are saying, what you mean.

Doctrine’s performative action is witness. It exists to point to God, the unknowable.

While I do not agree with many of Brian’s methods or assumptions behind the doctrine’s formulated in aNKoC like the recasting of church history as negative (Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, the Pope, etc) or his simplistic “bad guy:” the “Greco-Roman” reading of the Bible; I do find great hope in aNKoC. Let us remember that Brian IS NOT seminary trained. Brian is a Jesus follower with a heart for God’s mission and in wrestling with this mission he is forming doctrines in service of the church…not vice versa. The world will not be saved by the few elite, seminary trained professionals for God’s mission is too vast, wide, and deep to be limited to experts.

In the West, atheism is growing in interest, pluralism and “therapeutic, consumer deism” is on the rise. The church in the West is in decline. Doctrines serve mission and right now that mission is failing because we are not believing rightly.

As Catholic Baptist theologian Barry Harvey of Baylor says, “doctrines order our transactions.” People are turning away from the church because our actions and transaction are not rightly ordered. We need new doctrines birthed out of the deep and rich traditions of Christianity. We are wealthy with theological reflection, but we must mine the wells and give to those who are willing to give their life to God’s mission the freedom and space to create new doctrines, just as Peter did, just as Paul did, and as Brian is doing (hey, it’s a biblical idea).

In so doing the church will find the “crucial difference…between telling us a story differently and telling a different story.” (Nicholas Lash).

I highly praise Brian as a brother in Christ willing to be a scapegoat for many and a refreshing voice for others. A New Kind of Christianity only deepens my belief and hope for giving people the space to discover new language and ways of putting together our story of God’s great redemption of the world in Jesus Christ. Brian is a mentor and friend to those who are tired of the conversation and Christianity as only thoughts/ideals/belief, old doing things the way they’ve always been done (badly and often without civility), and ready to give their life to a Kingdom come, but not yet. aNKoC is not the last word or the word after that, but gives permission to live into Christ and rethink that which is trying to be born. So quit throwing stones and go do it, be it, live it, and order yourself and God’s people back into love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control so that God may be in all and known by all.

Preparation for Ash Wed & Prayer

2010-02-18T13:45:00.002-06:00

Last night at First Baptist Austin, we inaugurated the Christian season of Lent with an Ash Wednesday service. I had the opportunity to open the service with these words and prayer:

As we all know, tonight is not our common Wednesday night Midweek Mooring service, but like Advent, Christmas, Pentecost, Lent, Good Friday, and Easter…today is a note worthy day in the Christian calendar: Ash Wednesday. For myself, having grown up outside of the church, spending much of my time as an atheist, and then becoming a Christian in a very fundamental Baptist church, most of these words: Advent, Lent; much less Ash Wed. were and are still somewhat foreign and mysterious to me.

If you’d ask me five years ago, I would have said “I have no idea what Ash wed is about, but its probably heretical.” My reasoning: it’s a Catholic thing. I mean, didn’t the Reformation save us from all this Catholic ritualism, salvation by works stuff.

If you’d ask me about 3 years ago, I still would have said I don’t really know what Ash Wed is, but I would like to know. For what I had learned, is that of all the good things that came out of the Reformation, many good things were lost too. As the saying goes: the baby was tossed with the bath water.

If you’d ask me today, I’d say something like this. I’ve only experienced Ash Wed once, last year at a Baptist Retreat. In the past, for the most part the only preparation I made for Easter was to buy new clothes. In the last few years I’ve taken to this time called Lent to prepare myself for Resurrection. I mean, shouldn’t’ something as awe-inspiring and somewhat terrifying as Resurrection be prepared for.

And we begin this journey of new life by making room, getting rid of distractions and sins and awakening to our own mortality. I’ve learned a lot in my time with you here at First Baptist, but one of the things I’ve seen time after time is how alive some people become when they are close to death. Ash Wed. marks the first day of this season of drawing near to death, giving us permission to grieve our weakness and sin; and instead of buying more clutter for our lives we are invited to toss some of the mess. So you and I are invited tonight to reflect on what keeps us from living close to our mortality, our fragility of life so that we may live every day fully alive as if it’s our last.

You are invited to identify yourself with Christ who was given the marks of suffering in his body, by receiving the sign of mortality on yours in the form of ashes. So that is Ash wed, not some rote ritual to gain God’s favor, but an invitation to God’s faithfulness by physically identifying yourself with his gift.

Prayer

Faithful, life-giving Creator, there is nothing and no one you have made that you despise.

And though, you call us to life, we close our ears.

You welcome us home, and we desert your hospitality.

You breath on us Spirit, and we prefer the stench of sin.

From your never ending, loving faithfulness, we ask for sorrow for our individual and collective brokenness, isolation, hate, and neglect; to make us new in your mercy; and to bring us to death so we may find life.

We desire and ask these things in the creative energies of your Spirit, the faithful suffering of your Son, and the nurturing guidance of the one God, forever and ever. Amen.

He doesn't like it...

2010-02-10T11:04:00.002-06:00

So, I'm almost done with Brian McLaren's newest book and will have my thoughts on it up soon. But I thought I'd post this guy's review, because it is very different from what mine will be. I mean, I do not agree with McLaren 100% and think "A New Kind of Christianity" leads to a dangerous place at times, but I'm generally sympathetic to the project. Also, I like a lot of what he says thus far. So, before I get my thoughts up here's a tidbit from someone who wouldn't agree with my take on McLaren:

Finally – and most importantly – this is not a minor tweak of Christianity. It is a repudiation of the church’s understanding of God and the gospel. It really is tearing up the contract and starting all over again. McLaren says we’ve got the whole Biblical storyline, as well as our ideas of God and Scripture, all wrong. He’d rather be an atheist, he says, than believe in the God that many of us think is found in the Bible. You don’t get any more basic. We are talking about two fundamentally different versions of Christianity and the gospel.

and you can read the rest here.

A New Kind Of Christianity, McLaren's Newest Book

2010-02-04T20:18:00.003-06:00

As part of the ViralBloggers network, I have the honor of being one of the few (elite?) people to receive author, speaker, pastor, and networker Brian McLaren's newest book "A New Kind of Christianity (browse inside it)," which hits the store shelves, as well as virtual shelves on Feb. 9th. HarperCollins is publishing Brian's newest quest

Brian has been a faithful friend, I mean that's what books are written to be right, along my pilgrimage. I haven't read much by him but in seminary I read A Generous Orthodoxy after reading Richard Foster's Streams of Living Water. These two pilgrims helped me move away from the strictness of fundamentalism wrapped tightly in denominationalism and see truth in the many doctrines, dogmas, and denom's of Christianity. Needless to say when I was deconstructing and struggling to find words and new ways of viewing the church, God, and my own faith McLaren gave me the gift of perspective. Later in seminary one of my night stand books became More Ready Than You Realize in which again Brian aided my perspective in reinventing evangelism away from the evange-cube/tract/guilt tactics toward befriending those were are different from me. Thus, began my conversation. These two themes play strongly in my faith still: the necessity of bearing and seeking truth in its many forms as well as the need (for myself) to be converted (continually) as well as love others toward Christ.

Then last year at First Baptist Austin, our Easter Tide (that's the time after Easter before Pentecost on the church calendar that lasts about 7 or 8 Sundays) we studied in small groups Everything Must Change. For myself, while not groundbreaking or even really new, this book guided me in leading "real" people, nonseminarians in the conversations that I found so important and true. Moreover, before leading these groups my wife and I as well as a bunch of other CBF baptists heard McLaren speak at Current retreat. So, in ways I feel like Brian and I are friends. We talked...at the conference...in his books...on the web...blogs...facebook...I'm not sure he'd know who I am, but way I feel towards my friends is the way I feel toward this newest book by McLaren.

I get excited about my friend's stuff, tweets, etc; but I'm also familiar with them. It's not that I'm bored, complacent, or even contempt (familiarity breeds what?) with Brian's work, but more...familiar...comfortable...I don't know how to describe it. But the reason I enjoy genuine friends so much is the same reason I'm looking forward to breaking open "A New Kind of Christianity," friends make you remember: remember who you are, where you came from, what the questions are, what makes life worth the living. While I'm not expecting to have my mind blown away in amazing revelations (though it could happen), I'm expecting to be reminded. Was it Augustine who said prayer is learning deep memory?

If you are still reading and haven't perused the book yet, here are the ten questions Brian seeks to answer in this newest book. These ten questions seek to unite our inner lives with our outer lives in a search for a "faith for tomorrow:"

The Authority Question: How Should the Bible Be Understood?
The God Question: Is God Violent?
The Jesus Question: Who is Jesus and Why is He Important?
The Gospel Question: What Is the Gospel?
The Church Question: What Do We Do About the Church?
The Sex Question: Can We Find a Way to Address Sexuality Without Fighting About It?
The Future Question: Can We Find a Better Way of View the Future?
The Pluralism Question: How Should Followers of Jesus Relate to People of Other Religions?
The What Do We Do Now Question: How Can We Translate Our Quest into Action?

As you can see, these questions are seemingly perennial questions to confront in our context. Hope you find room on your shelf or IPad or Kindle for

Also, check out the video (and all of Ooze.Tv's stuff) below of Spencer Burke driving Brian McLaren around talking about the power of questions to produce a new journey, a conversation driven by questions asked all around the world of people seeking to follow Jesus.

Unbelievable

2010-01-29T11:41:00.000-06:00

A (Half) Year in Books: 2009ish

2010-01-25T11:43:00.005-06:00

Here's a look at some books I read last year. I only posted the ones I finished starting in June or July, I can't remember. The only book I read last summer was Dostoevsky's beautiful (and thick) Brothers Karamazov. I definitely slacked off in posting up what I was reading throughout the year and giving feedback, reviews, and thoughts...but I'm hoping to do more of that this year. There were several books I didn't finish, read in a group, or am not remembering right now, but we won't count those. So starting with the most recently finished, here's a look at the book I've read this month and the second half of 2009.

Desiring the Kingdom, James K.A. Smith - A Book Review

2009-12-31T17:26:00.001-06:00

Why is it that the everydayness of many Western Christians' lifestyles often reflect the values of their culture instead of Christ? How do our ways of engaging and teaching discipleship often leave our actions thin but our heads heavy? What is it that our actions betray our words or beliefs so that we proclaim God as highest but pay homage to the other gods of entertainment, consumerism, or nationalism? James K.A. Smith's newest reflection on education at its core is a reflection on discipleship. In this quest, he gives a fuller and more correct understanding of humans as affective, desiring animals in able to work towards a deeper discipleship, but fails to go beyond classical liturgical practices. This book is valuable to many: students, teachers, Sunday Schools, professors, preachers, and academics.

While I'll hold off on a full review I will say that he takes off better than he lands. Part I of the book is devoted to constructing a deeper philosophical anthropology than the anthropology modernity or romanticism. The core argument of Desiring the Kingdom is that humans at their core are not thinking or even believing animals, but rather are precognitive, pre-rationalist lovers. We are what we love, we are what we worship. Furthermore, the first part of the book reflects upon the power of "secular" liturgies that form and shape human desire and love, so that our love is misdirected. Much of my aggravation from my own as well the discipleship of the Western church, is that the true formative practices of our daily lives come less from the church than the mall, White House, flag, Jerry World (the newest Mecca of entertainment and competition: the Dallas Cowboys Stadium). While these things are not evil in themselves, they should not be the focus of our desire as they tend to claim.

Overall, the power of Part I is Smith's aim is to unveil the truth that behind every pedagogy or practice for teaching is a philosophical anthropology, or understanding of human existence. I fully appreciate Smith's understanding of human anthropology: "loving, desiring, affective, liturgical animals who, for the most part, don't inhabit the world as thinkers or cognitive machines."
So, instead of being pushed by our beliefs, we are "pulled by a telos that we desire."

Part II builds off of the anthropology of humans as "fundamentally and primordially- lovers," to instill worship as the creation of habits that "constitute the fulcrum of our desires." Smith claims rightly that instead of focusing on changing beliefs or worldviews, the church or particularly the Christian university must inculcate habits that counter the cultural practices that are "thick"- or powerful enough to (mis)guide human desire. The final section of Desiring the Kingdom reflects on the worship practices in the Christian tradition that are "formative for identity, that inculcate particular visions of the good life." Possibly the most important piece in this section for myself is Smith's argument that the imago die is basically the participation of humans in the missio dei, but not in those words.

This is where Smith gets closest to being right. The practices that will ultimately guide human desire lie with and beyond the Sunday morning worship service. "[T]he image of God is a task, a mission," writes Smith. Thus, beyond classical liturgical practices found in "worship," the church must create an ethos and ethic of participation in the mission of God. It is only by moving from doing mission and worship, to being mission and worship through ministering, living among, and fighting for caught up in God's mission of redemptive love that the church will claim once again the hearts of the church with "thick" practices. Counter-formation must occur beyond the walls of Sunday morning.

Sermon: Hope and Advent

2009-12-10T21:18:00.001-06:00

Hope:
Text:Revelation 21:22-22:5

If you had asked me when I first became a Christian, moving from atheism to Christianity, what THE Christian hope was…I’d probably have said something along the lines of “heaven.” Jesus died on the cross for me, so that when I die I’ll go to heaven. As Charlotte my wife likes to recount, when we first started dating, I was often quoted as saying such things as “I think only the right Baptists are going to heaven” and other things like “this world is not my home.”

See, I had met the grace of God in the muck of a legalistic tradition, a tradition that taught me all the right words and gave me all the right answers.

So at odds with my introduction to faith, a few summers back I went on a pilgrimage to India…the land of openness and difference. Landing first in the Western capitalist landscape of Hong Kong, I decided everything was up for grabs. The question I needed answered for myself was…

so what am I hoping for, what do I place my hope in? Do I believe in Jesus so I can go to heaven? So I can be a nice or good person? Do I believe in Jesus because I was born in the USA had no other choice?

Certainly my earlier faith had outlined it simply enough: Believe in Jesus, get to heaven. My hope was not of this world. But this was no longer enough.

The final book in our sacred Scriptures, the Book of Revelation may be the most popular book in all of the Bible…at least, the most popular to misinterpret and misread. Certainly much of my own shortsighted hope, my fire insurance Jesus, came from a different emphases found in Revelation.

Revelation I was taught, gives us a picture of what the last days, the end times will be like. Ultimately the picture I was given was one of separation: people like me and with my beliefs on the inside, those without my beliefs on the outside.

Here is where hope is often confused. We oftentimes confuse hope, with anticipation. We’ve all anticipated something: anticipation means an expectation within the realm of possibilities, anticipating what we can already see and know, what we can enact and bring about. Anticipation- centers on our human activity, and because of that anticipation often reflects human belief.

“God created man in his image and then man returned the favor.” Reflected Voltaire.

Anticipation is the creation of God in our own image, created by our own expectations and wishes. Even in my early stages of faith, my anticipation of the afterlife was a wish to be free from the cares of this world and to be separated from all those I disliked: all the sinners, drinkers, smokers, etc.

But the Christian hope weaved throughout the narrative of Genesis to Revelation, is a radically different hope: the hope of resurrection.

Unlike expecting something within the realm of possibilities, within what I can do as a human…hope is something new, hope creates new possibilities within my realm because it relies on God’s coming to us.

Many have written off the historical possibility of Christ’s Resurrection or the idea that God came down as a baby as ill-logical…not fitting within the realm of rational possibilities.

But this misses the point of resurrection and incarnation: this is God’s action toward us, this is a new possibility in the realm of possibilities. And so we see in this final picture of Revelation, a restored creation, everything resurrected and made new. The hope laying not in some ethereal heaven, but the hope laying in God’s newly created world, where those whom Christ has died for gather to worship.

To be honest, I still struggle with this idea of hope at times. I remember standing in the halls of an amazing Hindu temple, irreverently gawking at statue after statue of Krishna, Ganesh, Ram, and many more in the form of their avatars: elephants, turtles, boars, and many more.

And while as an outsider I cannot pretend to value or understand the truth of Hinduism or any other culture or religion, I encountered God in the streets of India more than it’s majestic temples. I experienced God more in the lives of men and women who devoted their lives to serving the HIV positive, considered dalits and untouchables in that culture, and in the lives of the sisters at Mother Teresa’s home of the dying.

And the place I learned to see God among the untouchables, the experience that gave me eyes to see and ears to hear God among the cast out and nameless, was in the unique person of Jesus Christ. And while I consider the conversation of world religions, universalism, pluralism, truth, and God in many forms valuable, and there’s certainly not sufficient time to cover that subject tonight, I walked away from the land of difference and otherness with a fresh grasp on Resurrection: hope: the person of Jesus Christ.

So what I learned from the sisters who served the poor in the streets of Calcutta, what I’ve learned from people in our church that adopt and work with the homeless in our own city is that Christ died, as NT Wright likes to say:

To give - Hope for life before death, not life after death.
And this for me is what changes. What is Christian hope, what does it mean to put your hope in Christ.

It is significant that the author of revelation ties the new creation to the city of Jerusalem, and certainly this a metaphorical city pertaining not to the actual city, but rather it could be any city where God resides.

Aristotle once wrote that “people come together in the city to live; they remain there in order to live the good life.”

Hope is a learned activity, and the question is, who is teaching us? We find throughout the world cities that capture the imagination in their ability to transcend time and space, their ability to be more than national, but international. Cities like Hong Kong, London, New York, and possibly even Austin.

It’s now the cities that are informing rural youth how to live and dress, college students what to dream for and where to live. Billboards, flashing lights, and larger than life ads distract us into what to hope for…the good life.

Thus, we are taught the good life, lies in the realm of human possibilities, that we can act and achieve happiness if we live right, get the best education, reside in the best part of town, drive the newest car, own the newest device, wear the hippest clothes…hope becomes the anticipation of the good life.

The Christian season of Advent is a season pregnant with hope, as sacred and sacred as the virgin Mary. The Incarnation, God with us points us to the reality that God is active and working in the world and the Resurrection is teaching hope for the good life.

What will give the church, Christians the ability to resist the manipulation by the international city, in hopes of God’s resurrected city? The same thing that gave Mother Teresa and the many nameless sisters serving the nameless the ability to live in poverty, the same thing that gave Martin Luther King strength and endurance as he nonviolently worked toward racial reconciliation, and the same thing that gives people all throughout the world the ability to suffer for another’s sake: the hope of the good life.

To be able to dream and end when all will gather and worship God, when every person, no matter of color or creed will have enough to eat, have choices beyond menial tasks, and been given a place at the table of dignity- the good life of resurrection, the good life found in the counter-cultural Resurrection and Incarnation of God.

So while our cities of glitz and glamor, celebrity and wealth may capture our eyes…it’s the hope of new life for all, worshiping the true God that gives us the ability to here and now embrace an alternative future. For what we do now, whether painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, caring for the earth, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself- will last into God’s future.

So the invitation this Advent is to reflect resurrection, to work alongside God who is here and now in the midst of our busy lives, and bring the future hope into the present.

My Second Sunday AM to Preach

2009-12-07T16:43:00.002-06:00

Well, I recently had the opportunity to preach my 2nd Sunday morning worship service at First Baptist. While I definitely felt more comfortable in the pulpit, I wasn't overly excited about the sermon itself. If you want, here's a link to listen to it here and click on 2009-11-29 or click here for the Itunes link.

Here's the sermon:

I’m very fortunate in that my sister and I have almost always had a good relationship. Separated by 3 years in age, and probably 6 years in maturity levels we hardly ever fought, only because I knew who would win…and I hated to lose. The only fight I may have ever won was well, do you remember the hot-wheels airplanes? Unlike the hot-wheels cars, these little planes were akin to weapons, in that their wings were very pointy. And in the intensity of an argument, I chunked one at her face. She still wears the scars of that battle.

Besides those few fights, we mostly played, colored, and laughed together. Certainly one of our favorite times of the year was Christmas. Not having a grown up in the church, this time of the year held a certain mysticism, it was a magical time. Every December, we’d load up as a family in my dad’s old, Ford pickup and drive down to the Rotary Club Tree Lot and spend about hour finding the right tree. Then we’d toss it in the back of the yellow truck, drive home, and with Alvin and the Chipmunks playing on 13” vinyl, we’d adorn the house and tree in glitter and gold…all in anticipation of Christmas morning.

Slowly over the next few weeks, we’d watch as the Christmas tree’s skirt filled with gifts of all shapes and sizes, waiting for mom and dad to leave the room so we could shake and hold the wrapped gifts guessing and hoping for what lay inside.

But one year, I noticed that the house adorned and lit, filled with a decorated tree …was missing on element: gifts. Unlike all my previous experience with Christmas, no presents magically appeared under the tree, the few gifts were to be found were for aunts and uncles, but where were my family’s gifts? more importantly, where were my gifts?

Unbeknownst to me, my parents decided to hide them a few weeks longer seeing that my sister and I..mostly me…would shake and really try to figure out all the presents. By the time the last week before Christmas came, I was getting nervous. How would I celebrate Christmas morning with nothing under the tree for me?

Distinctly I remember one night my father had returned from work and all of us were sitting in the living room, I began to inquire about the lack of what obviously we all had known. And so I just asked, innocently and nicely, “But where are my gifts?”

You have to understand, my dad has always been a bit of a prankster, so his quip back to us was, “well, this year things are different. Since you’re sister got braces just a few months ago, we weren’t able to get you anything. Maybe next year.” I forgot to mention, but sister had just gotten braces.

I didn’t know what to think…“Maybe next year…nothing” I remember being dumbfounded, certainly my dad was mistaken…could we get a refund on all that metal in my sisters mouth…my sister…it’s her fault. So I turned to my sister, who to this day says that was the meanest look she has ever received from anyone, even more than the time she had a toy airplane thrown at her face and scowled.

Once my dad realized how well I was taking to this joke, he sprung up and left the room into the garage. I was sure we had checked all the hiding places in the house, but I guess we hadn’t discovered the garage. And within seconds, there standing in the living room was my dad with a big box of presents with my sister’s and my name on them.

Well, we are once again into this time of year we call Christmas. Unlike my childhood anxiety and angst over what I would or wouldn’t get under the tree, my anticipation of this Holiday has greatly changed in the last 5 years or so.

This morning is the first morning in something I never knew existed growing up: the Christian season of Advent: the intentional weeks leading up to and preparing us for the most radical interruption in human life and history: the Incarnation: God with us.

The Gospel reading from Luke paints for us a picture. He begins with a name, Herod, King of Judea, or Herod, King of the Jews. It’s easy to overlook this name and go straight into the story, but Luke makes sure Herod’s name stands at the top of story, as his name often stood at the top of Jewish life.

Herod’s job, procured at the hands of Roman authority was first and foremost to keep the peace for Rome. Thus, for 34 years he ruled Israel, manipulating everyone from Rome, to the many Jewish insurrectionists.

Everyone in Israel knew the name, and many shuttered with detest for his unscrupulous ways, murdering his favorite wife, his uncle, mother-in-law, and at least 3 of his sons as well as countless slaves.

Yet many in the area couldn’t help but be in awe.

For Herod’s way of creating and sustaining peace occurred through captivating the imagination with large building projects, structures strewn throughout major cities-amphitheaters, hippodromes, palaces, shrines, fortifications, aqueducts, forums, roads, new and restored cities, foundations, and of course his pinnacle of success…the rebuilt Jerusalem temple. It was as if Herod was trying to out-Rome, Rome. At every turn in Israel, one found reminders of the “King of the Jews.”

What captures our imaginations as a collective group of people, as Americans, as Christians, as mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons? As the church? Certainly as a church in downtown it’s not hard to see the pinnacles of architecture meant to grab at our attention and inform us who’s in charge or who really matters. We know what matters according to our culture: it’s easy to label those things: money, power, sex, influence, and fame.

But what is your imagination held captive to, what does your life reflect? This may be as simple as looking into your checkbooks…looking at your computer’s history or bookmarks…reflecting upon time spent or not spent with loved ones, hurting ones, and forgotten ones.

What is holding your imagination captive as to prevent you from asking those around you hard questions, or keeping your children or spouse accountable? What’s keeping you from having deep and meaningful relationships? Where do you spend your life?

Ivan Illich was once asked, how do you change the world? Revolution or gradual reform?

After thinking for a few seconds, he replied neither, you must change the world by telling a alternative story.

At face value this story of Zachariah and Elizabeth’s visitation and pregnancy seems simple enough, but Luke is a master storyteller, interweaving the thick narrative of God’s history found in the Jewish Scriptures.

Luke writing to a predominantly gentile, non-Jewish audience, and probably a gentile himself sets out to write a history of Jesus’ birth…therefore he makes the story very Jewish. I’m not sure if he expected his audience to know the history and stories from the Law, the Prophets, and Apocalyptic literature, but we see in this story several flashbacks to these things. Did you catch them all?

There’s the obvious illusion to the elderly barren couple: Abraham and Sarah. The couple that God gave the promise to bless the entire world through. The couple with whom God’s mission of love and movement toward humanity found its inception.

Then there’s a hint in Luke’s writing to another couple: Elkanah and Hannah- parents of Samuel, the last judge, the pre-cursor to Saul, the King. Samuel, debatably the best ruler and judge of the OT.

And finally, with the appearance of the angel Gabriel, Luke’s technique becomes more dominant. He not only ties the story he is writing to the Law and Prophets represented by Abraham and Samuel, he’s ties it to the last part of the Jewish Scriptures: the writings. The book of Daniel mentions Gabriel, the angel of the end times.

So as you can see, Luke is very purposefully writing in such a way to say that God is once again acting in continuation this story, but at the same time this is new and unique.

For every good Jew knew what the end times in biblical history meant, and it’s not the oft-portrayed destruction of apocalyptic movies like 2012 or the Day after Tomorrow. Rather, the eschatological end time meant that God would act in a new way, and this new age would be an age of mission, where every nation would gather in praise to God’s kingdom. Where the promise conceived in Abraham would be born into the world.

Thus for Luke, this age of mission began long ago with God’s promise to Abraham, but would be enacted in a promise to this elderly, barren couple: righteous before God, but without child…a curse in that culture.

And so I hope the foolishness of the story is obvious: on one hand there is this very powerful and fertile man who holds everyone in Israel captive with pomp: Herod who has built the magnificent temple, the place where God dwells. And instead of talking to Herod, God’s messenger comes down and gives a promise to Zachariah and Elizabeth, nobody’s in the grand scheme of things: righteous and holy, but impotent and barren.

From my understanding, the church is this couple. We stand before God’s promise, chosen to be the parents of the one who prepares the way for God Incarnate. Not the hope itself, but to be witnesses to the Hope of the world.

But like Zachariah and Elizabeth, we must learn to listen in silence and wait until our hope is born.

This Advent, as we move toward Christ’s coming to us to redeem and make the entire creation new; let us wait and listen. In these two practices we will find that God equips us to Incarnate Hope in the midst of alternative stories, even in the Temple itself.

As Zachariah’s ourselves, it’s important to see that God placed a silence over him, so he wasn’t able to speak until he worshipped God at the birth of his Son, John.

The study of linguistics, how we communicate, reveals that we communicate more in silence than we do in words. Confucious says language is like a wheel: spokes centralize it, but the spaces make the wheel.

Anyone who has ever learned to speak a foreign language knows that it takes much more delicate understanding and listening to learn the silence of a language than its words.

First, we must become silenced in order to open ourselves to God’s conception of hope. We must be deep listener’s of God’s movement in us and around us. It’s easy to allow ourselves to get caught up in the Herodian structures and influences surrounding us, so we laugh at God’s way of working: coming down in human flesh, among the weak and forgotten, using the barren and impotent.

Of course, There is a silence that threatens true listening: this is a silence of apathy. The silence of a wife who tunes out her husband, the silence of a father who would prefer not intervene and correct his child, the silence of a friend who would rather let you hurt then hear the truth. This is the silence of someone who comes to church week in and week out, never committing to anything, as if perfection or conversion has been reached. This is the silence that allows for anger in the home to dwell, giving importance to the trivial matters of this world. This is the silence that moves people toward isolation and loneliness.

True silence, silence that opens one person to another for listening is never easy. It’s even harder when a greater difference in relationship exists: such as between a busy working father and a homeless mother, or a confused parent and hurting child. –but the greater the distance, the greater the sign of love and opportunity for God to work… for it’s much more difficult to listen someone’s deep passions than to talk about football or TV, or whatever we are comfortable talking about.

This silent listening must not only be practiced among those whom we are different from and called to love; but must also occur in prayer for no greater difference occurs than in the relationship between a person and God.

Only in silence is Zachariah prepared to make the faithful proclamation, and in silence we will learn to listen to and prepare ourselves to Incarnate hope.

After the silence of conception, allowing ourselves to become aware of others’ needs and God’s action; comes the silence of nurture. This is silently waiting for the right moment for hope to be born into the word; not forcing ourselves into situations, but working with God.

But this silence of acting in the right moment is threatened by our busy lives.

It’s ironic that there may not be a harder time in the year to make room for others and act patiently then the Christmas time. We run about shopping, cooking, decorating, working longer hours to pay for things unneeded, filling our hours with busyness.

We also jump past this prudence of acting with God, by short-circuiting his ways for the sake of our own efficiency, and speed.

G.k. Chesterton, one of the most influential writers of the 20^th century wrote this about our his time, which is a greater reflection upon our own:

“the chief mark of our time is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle. Take one quite external case; the streets are noisy with taxicabs and motorcars; but this is not due to human activity but to human repose…Our world would be more silent if it were more strenuous.”

All those years ago, God acted in one of the most strenuous of human activities to bring hope ..real hope ..the very definition of hope: new life…into the world not by acting according to the measures and expectations laid out by Rome or Herod; but rather by giving new life to an old, barren couple.

The church in the United States, Texas, and Austin is in the midst of change, we are finding ourselves less and less relevant or important to the pomp and power of our culture.

Much like this couple, the church, we at FBC have been given a promise and mission: to give our lives to the service of God acting in the world.

God is acting in the streets of Austin…are you listening?

God is alive in the conversations with your children…are you listening?

God is working on the hearts of your neighbors, coworkers, and family…are you listening?

God is calling you to listen…are you listening?

This Advent, make room for God in the world by setting aside time and energy to be silent and listen, nurturing the hard labor of hope, and getting out of the way, so God can get in the way.

Pastoral Blessing:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships,

so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people,

so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war,

so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world,

so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

I should like to make a remark to him...

2009-11-06T12:33:00.001-06:00

Soren Kierkegaard

One sticks one's finger into the soil to tell by the smell in what land one is: I stick my finger in existence---it smells of nothing.

Where am I?
Who am I?
How came I here?
What is this thing called the world?
What does this world mean?
Who is it that has lured me into the world?
Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls?
How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality?
Why should I have an interest in it?
Is it not a voluntary concern?
And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director?
I should like to make a remark to him.

via.

The Long Silence

2009-10-27T18:13:00.002-05:00

It's been mighty silent over here, I know. I have some many thoughts rolling around in my head I'd love to write about and talk about even more. But, as some of you know, I preparing to transition into a new phase of life. My residency at First Baptist Austin ends this May and so deadlines are rearing their ugly heads. Immediate goals are two fold and coalesce into what I'd love to do next. The most time consuming suck on my life right as of the last month and will continue until Nov. 23rd at 8am is preparation for the GRE. The reason...well, to apply to doctoral programs at various schools focusing mostly on political theology, ethics, missional theology, ecclesiology, economics, and the like. PhD app's to the schools I'm looking at are Dec. 15 and Jan. 15. Thus, trying to prepare for the GRE as well as research the schools and applications, has taken most of my blogging time.

Also, some exciting opportunities are happening around my residency come November. Besides the loathed aforementioned test, I am sharing my formation story with my church community Nov. 8th Agape meal, where we gather to eat together and worship Christ in our presence. Also, on the first Sunday of Advent, Nov. 29 I am preaching. The lectionary Gospel text is apocalyptic, and since I like a good challenge, I think I'm sticking with it, Luke 21:25-36. If I can manage to make the sermon accessible, I'll title it, "Living Violently in a Peaceful World," but we'll see.

So, I promise I'll return to this place for some rejoinder on the relationship to faith and science, on epistemological humility, Zizek, Bonhoeffer, politics, and maybe even why I'd title a sermon, "Living Violently in a Peaceful World."

Religious Flowchart

2009-10-27T15:02:00.002-05:00

I thought this was too good not to share. Enjoy:

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The World Exhausts its Rage

2009-10-21T00:12:00.003-05:00

This love of God for the world does not withdraw from reality into noble souls detached from the world, but experiences and suffers the reality of the world at its worst. The world exhausts its rage on the body of Jesus Christ.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics.

Evangelical & Mainline Culture Shock

2009-10-18T14:22:00.002-05:00

Here's a funny look at the culture shock, from both sides in ways that's a little snarky but light hearted, on the divide between evangelicals and mainlines. What would you add? via Tribal Church.

•Even though they love the environmental aspects of the screen, they might break out into a bit of a cold sweat when they see it in the sanctuary.

•They might bring their Bibles to church. Do not be alarmed when you see the book. Try not to stare. And don’t worry. They will figure out quickly that they’re not supposed to bring it.

•Their personal Bible in their pew does give them a little comfort because they can’t immediately tell the difference between hymnal, prayer book, and Bible in the pew. They will pick up the wrong one. At least until they figure out that no one else really follows along with the readings, because they are the only ones who know how to look them up.

•If they’re particularly moved by a solo, they will clap following it. Once. Until they figure out that it’s not okay. Then they will die a little bit inside.

•They never missed a Sunday at church growing up, but they don’t know the Apostle’s Creed. They are the ones mumbling “watermelon” when the rest of the congregation is proudly articulating every word.

•They might say “Amen” after the pastor says it. It’s just a reflex. And don’t laugh at them if they use “just” in their prayers. At least they know how to pray in public.

•They are the people who would rather leave their right arm than leave their email address.

•They may not have been going to church for the last ten years, because they were afraid that they couldn’t afford it.

•If they happen into a denominational church during Stewardship Sunday, they may never come back. Only because, in their mind, asking for money is what church is about every Sunday.

•If they hear how much your church is involved with helping the homeless and poor, then they will start to breathe. And they might be able to leave something in the offering.

•If you mention that your church supports LGBTs, then the muscles in their neck will loosen. They will be utterly confused, but very relieved.

•They are confused by communion. They might not have even ever participated in communion before.

•If someone tries to hug during the passing of the peace, they will have finely-developed defense mechanisms in order to shield themselves from the Holy Spirit chest crunch.

•If the pastor learns their name after a couple of weeks, they just might faint dead away.

•If the church has a discussion about having a “contemporary” worship service in order to reach out to more people, they will assume that you’re trying to get their parents to come to your church.

Columbus Day, a Hard Pill to Swallow

2009-10-12T12:00:00.003-05:00

From the journal of Christopher Columbus:

In all the world, there is no better people nor better country. They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and are always laughing.

They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned … They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance … They would make fine servants … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

As an explorer, Columbus was not the first to reach the Western Hemisphere. Native Americans had been here for 10,000-20,000 years, and Vikings and Chinese are among those others who hold prior claims. Even after four attempts, Columbus never realized his goal of finding a western ocean route to Asia. As a “founding father type figure” he never set foot in what is now considered America but landed in the present day Bahamas, Cuba, and Haiti. As a Christian example he enacted terrible cruelties to friendly natives: assuming unlawful rights of authority; robbing and subjugating whole nations of their freedom and entire capital; allowing his men to rape, murder and pillage at will; and deliberately leading the way for the genocide of millions, considered by many to be the worst demographic catastrophe in recorded history.

So why do Americans celebrate Columbus Day?

Read the rest.

For a fuller history lesson on Columbus and the atrocities committed by him and his voyagers, see Eliacin's blog for a longer passage from a A People' History of The United States.

Everything is OK

2009-10-06T16:18:00.001-05:00

Interesting indirect communication, I liked it.

Some Banksy Animations

2009-10-01T14:04:00.002-05:00

Pete Rollins posted these over at this blog, and I found his reflection true. The true power and beauty of Banksy, a Christian anarchist, is his anti-celebrity, his anonymity, and his powerful artwork...which is more powerful because of the first two things. To quote Rollins:

In a world where, to quote Kierkegaard, leadership so often reflects the tyrant (the one who leads from their ego) it is rare to find leaders who are martyrs (who have laid down their ego and are driven by something greater).

Pass this on!

Torturing Reality

2009-09-28T13:01:00.002-05:00

Since switching over to Netflix from Blockbuster I've only received one movie through the mail, a movie every American should watch: Taxi to the Dark Side. My first reactions were the feeling of being crushed, angered, and a desire to change change the status quo for politics. Often I get so frustrated with my fellow compatriots and myself for our short memory. With a new president to distract us, all the talk about torture and these secret war prisons have in the least subsided to a whisper.

Torture is disgusting in every form and should be regarded as an enemy of humanity, an unnecessary evil. It transforms our imaginations as US citizens (35% of the population sanctioned torture AFTER seeing pic's from Gitmo).

Politics has become a matter of using and manipulating language to create a reality so that people remain ignorant about reality. As I've mentioned before, I believe the most patriotic act a person can do in this climate of phobia and manipulated reality is to call awareness and repentance to our country's ills and brokenness. Torture is a crime against all of humanity, even the perpetrators.

Something I've been wrestling with since I've began to understand Political theology and Slavoj Zizek is the pressing question, how do you bring about a new political order within the old politic? As the documentary I just watched points to, the Cheney/Bush administration seems to have done this in eight years to an extent. Under this administration the US defied the Geneva Convention and the USA Constitution by (re)defining the terms and at other times propping security and safety over against "the self-evident truth that all men are created equal."

So is this the best way to bring in a new political order? Having a powerful administration that manipulates the people through false records and ambiguous language?

I would hope that this isn't the only answer. It could be the real solution is found in the cross, in the broken body of Christ that recreates humans in the image of a given and estranged God, uniting the isolated and creating a body given to all. The church is a political body by its very existence, thus it must be first faithful to its calling to serve and suffer, while bending reality toward God's love and justice.

Pirates, Orthodox Heretics, & the Betrayal of Betrayal

2009-09-28T12:54:00.001-05:00

Probably the most interesting conversation on the emerging church/theology blogosphere right now: Pirates, Orthodox Heretics, and the Betrayal of Betrayal (thanks Kester for rounding up all the links).

Moltmann & Homosexuality: A Bit Disappointing & Not in that Way

2009-09-24T21:49:00.002-05:00

From everything I've read, I don't think Moltmann explicitly addresses homoseuality. I've had lots of theoretical conversations and hypothesis on what he "might" say about it, even at the Emergent Conversation over lunch. Over at the Moltmann Yahoo group, there was a discussion on what Moltmann would say about it, but since it was merely speculative it shows that he doesn't talk about it in his works clearly or directly.

So when at the Emergent Moltmann Conversation when Tony Jones put the questin to him, I was excited. Yet, I found his answer rather disappointing. Moltmann answered, "The church in Germany doesn't struggle with the problem (referring to the schismatic nature of ordaining homosexuals or blessing partnerships in the USA), because we are about the Gospel and not about sex. We believe in justification by God's work, not human work."

Some other things he said that I thought were provoking were that gay or straight can be ordained to ministry. Also, he wouldn't say (and this is what I thought most interesting) that a gay partnership is equal to marriage between a man and woman, since "marriage is to further children." Yet he would have no problems blessing such a partnership, "why not bless a partnership? Homosexuality is neither a sin or a crime, like near-sightedness is neither a sin or crime. I don't understand the schism or heat of the debate."

For such a deeper thinker, I was somewhat surprised how surface level and simplistic his answer was even though it was simply a conversational format. Yet, to say that Germany is worried about the Gospel and the church in the USA is not is overly simplistic and not a valid depiction of cultural realities. Germany carried(ies) a national guilt so intense that Moltmann himself says many of his comrades in POW camps didn't survive the shame. It makes sense that Since WWII, Germany would be intentional, even overly intentional to be very inclusive and not prejudice. America doesn't have this cultural history, but a very different story. So, I felt like this statement was simply unfair and unrealistic.

Also, he's okay with ordaining gay ministers and blessing partnerships, but he never called the partnerships marriages and actually compared homosexuality to a physical defect. Obviously he sees homosexuality as being less than a healthy (read: normal) human. Will the resurrection, the New Creation where all physical defects will be healed have homosexuals? Why not if this is truly who they are? Is homosexuality simply a distortion of the created order? Is homosexuality an illness, sickness, or defect that should be "fixed" by genetics manipulation if possible? This is where I find his words to lead.

Furthermore, since marriage is intended to further children and for that reason homosexual partnership is less valuable or "not equal," does that make a marriage between a man and woman with no children less than equal to a marriage with children?

Is marriage simply about furthering children, or is this a proof text from Israel's creation story that is irresponsible in a world of almost 7 billion people?

Overall, I was excited to hear Moltmann's thoughts about this issue that has become so divisive in the USA and across the world in many denominations, but I left disappointed and unchallenged. What do you think about Moltmann's assessment and thoughts?

How about something funny

2009-09-19T14:20:00.003-05:00

80's video dating montage...or "yay for self (lack of) awareness"

I'm Twittering, or Tweeting, or whatever's hip

2009-09-18T18:52:00.002-05:00

So I haven't necessarily "given" in to twitter as if I was actively trying to stay away from it, but it has been on my mind for some time now. Of course Lucas introduced me to it and has had an account for some time, so I didn't want to follow suit too soon. But at the Emerging/Moltmann Conference twitter was really integrated into the conversation, so I decided to create an account.

So follow me, if you dare... @joebumbulis

Constantine's Christianity & POW's

2009-09-18T14:04:00.002-05:00

For my second reflection I want to mix two things Moltmann said. One of them is his beautiful story as a POW as a youth, overwhelmed with grief and shame, and the grace he received at the hands the British.

The second is a quote in reference to the cross, where Moltmann said that there are two crosses in Christianity, the cross of Golgotha and the cross of Constantine's dream. One is about resisting the polity of society for the horizon of hope. The other is based upon a sword, power, and is what we call Christendom.

While I agree that the usurpation of the cross and Christianity by the Romans was a tragedy and since then we have had a very imperial form of Christianity in the West, I think Moltmann's story itself reveals the tragedy and irony between these two crosses. First, we must approach Moltmann's story.

Understanding Moltmann really helps to understand his theology, because instead of a system he is creating reflections and contributions based on his life journey and conversation with those he encounters along the way. Moltmann's theology didn't in his home where he was born into a secularist family reading Goethe and Nietzsche. At 16, Moltmann unwittingly joined the Hitler Youth Movement and went to war, the front lines I believe at age 17.

Moltmann never once fired a shot, but when the opportunity came he surrendered himself to the Ally forces. His life in Germany was surrounded by firestorms, bombings, and death. The question for him became not so much "Where is God," but "Why am I still alive and not dead like the others." Or, "is there any meaning to life?"

As a prisoner in war camps in the UK, Moltmann found that no only was his body, but his very soul was imprisoned. Like I said before, Moltmann had no idea what was happening pertaining to the concentration camps. In prison, pictures were posted in their stalls so as to realize what was happening in Germany under Hitler. Moltmann says his life was almost suffocated with the guilt of his people and nation. Many Germans in POW camps didn't recover hope or the will to live after learning about such shameful acts under Nazi Germany.

There are a mixture of two events that recovered Moltmann's will to life. The first was a blooming cherry blossom tree where he was overwhelmed for the "blooming of life." This gave him some hope for new life. But in the camp, his old affection for Goethe and Schilling waned as he didn't find words for his experience. Rather, his captures treated him with grace. One day a young minister gave him a Bible where he began to read it and found the words for his experience in the Psalms of Lament (esp. Ps. 39) and the words of Christ in Mark, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

The crucified and forsaken Christ resonated with Moltmann. "Christ found me in the dark pit of my soul," forsaken behind the barbed wire of the camp. Moltmann was later given more grace upon grace by his captors, being transferred to a YMCA camp, trained in Greek and Hebrew while a prisoner, and read his first theological book: the Nature and Destiny of Man by Niebuhr.

So here's the amazing part of this entire story. 10 years after the war, Moltmann and some others returned to their place of imprisonment to the astonishment of the British. Who goes back to their place of imprisonment, especially during a time of war? For Moltmann and many others, they received so much grace at the hand of their captures, that grace was their salvation. They returned because of the amazing gift of grace they received while imprisoned.

Of course in reference to this gift of grace at the hands of the British soldiers..."the enemy, Moltmann quipped prompted by a question that he cannot understand the atrocities of the US prison camps like Abu Grahb, etc. "It's more convincing to love your enemy than to hate and kill your enemy. so what happened in the prisons in Iraq is outrageous and I cannot understand an administration that allows that to happen. To give grace is wiser policy than so called enemies."

Now, if you are still following me, here's the point I wanted to make: the irony of Christendom is that grace and God worked and work within it. It has become normative to run from, critique, and vehemently oppose anything attached to Christianity under Christendom. The "holy era" was the first 3 centuries of Christianity, the rest has some bright spots but for the most part is covered in blood and a church co-opted for imperialism.

In no way do I want to defend the Christendom church, but I do think it's important to embrace the ironies here. It was under Christendom Christianity that Nazi Germany and concentration camps happened, but it was also under this same Christianity that British soldiers treated their enemies with so much grace that is was salvation for them, so much so that one of the greatest theologians of our time was born out of their gift. There is no broad and simple divide between Christendom= bad; everything Christian= good. The two bleed into one another and it is not fair to only treat Christian history in light of the imperialism, sword, and death.

Moltmann was saved under the shadow of the cross of Constantine's dream, or was that simply the cross of Golgotha breaking through the dream? What do you think? Is it realistic to bifurcate the cross, imperial Christianity and suffering Christianity? Do they mix like water and oil, or more like milk and chocolate?

Closing the book on the Bush Legacy

2009-09-17T15:09:00.000-05:00

"Thursday's annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau's principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.

It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially."

via.

Science...based on faith

2009-09-16T15:37:00.004-05:00

Dan Brown, author of the Da Vince Code thinks so,

Are you religious?
I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, "I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?" Unfortunately, the response I got was, "Nice boys don't ask that question." A light went off, and I said, "The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me." And I just gravitated away from religion.

Where are you now?
The irony is that I've really come full circle. The more science I studied, the more I saw that physics becomes metaphysics and numbers become imaginary numbers. The farther you go into science, the mushier the ground gets. You start to say, "Oh, there is an order and a spiritual aspect to science."

via the Parade interview.

I don't believe Science does what it presupposes it does. I believe as much as religion is a value system, science too is a value system and not merely as objective as it claims. Yet, I don't believe the world is 3000 or 4000 thousand years old, nor that it was created in 6 days. I'm neither against science (creationists) nor for science (Dawkins, Harris, etc). Science has a role, yet it is reductionistic and faults when it doesn't admit that it is by nature limiting and reductionistic.

Top 10 Reasons Men Shouldn't be Ordained

2009-09-16T15:37:00.001-05:00

I love this.

10. A man’s place is in the army.

9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.

8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.

7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.

5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.

4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.

3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.

2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, change the oil in the church vans, and maybe even lead the singing on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.

1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.

Whose Right(s)?

2009-09-14T23:29:00.000-05:00

I'm offering some reflections on the Moltmann conversation an Emergent gathering held by JoPa. Moltmann in many ways has given me hope and grace for the journey, especially when I was in need of reconstructing my faith in seminary. I've several of his works and often return to his books for centering.

My first reflection comes from a mixture of statements from Moltmann:

In a "lightning round" Moltmann had to sum up a person in one sentence, ie "John Paul II"..."Good Pope."

In reference to Derrida, Moltmann only stopped after one paragraph saying, "Postmodernism is another form of modernity. Universal dangers exist toward humaity that we must meet united; so we cannot split up and everyone go in relative direction. whether we live in big or small narratives we all live under the threat of atomic bombs, ecolocial crisis; so extinciton of all is a possibility for all. So I don't see why we have to up universal questions or problems."

Also, in reference to the question of universal human rights, whether they exist or are unicorns; Moltmann answered in the affirmative. They are true, "this is good, for the growing world community based in human rights- or there will be no world community at all."

One of the things I truly appreciate about Moltmann's theology is that it is grounded in reality. His focus is less about the ontological reality of inalienable rights, but rather the need for justice and human dignity. Moltmann does not want people in any cirucmstance to suffer under the hands of dictators (his story is good cause...serving ignorantly under Hitler's Youth).

But, I am not sold on the modern idea of universal human rights, nor their ability to bring justice to peoples, nations, or even individuals. Instead of give my arguments, I thought I'd start with this issue because a good debate is already taking place online. Ben Myers argues against them here, Cynthia R. Nielsen responds, before Ben answers.

So, while I immensely respect Moltmann's theology and understanding of the world, it seems he is still conditioned to to embrace very modern ideals that simply don't exist and can't prove what they contend to prove: that apart from community humans have innate rights. I'm not sure I'm ready to locate universal realities outside of human reality, for then can be used as imperial weapons.

Some more blogs with reflections from the Moltmann Convo: TheSuburbanPastor and TwoEmptyHands. And Julie Clawson has her second reflection up.

Powerful, Pointed reflection on 9/11

2009-09-14T22:38:00.001-05:00

As today, is September 11th, I thought I would engage in a bit of remembering — it is, after all, important to recall moments of our history, for this is the story in which we live.

On this day in 1973, Augusto Pinochet’s American-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. This resulted in seventeen years of torture, terror, and disappearances in Chile, and (according to people like Milton Friedman, who saw Chile as a textbook example of the type of world he wished to create) set a precedent for the way in which the United States acted in Latin America (particularly in the ’70s and ’80s… although they are at it again, as Obama’s government backed the Honduran coup which overthrew the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya in June of this year).

Sponsoring terror, imposing military rule, depriving local populations of their rights, their food, their land, their livelihood, their health, their children and their lives… this is the way that the US continues to engage with the world at large. It is enough to make some people want to fly planes into buildings. Which, not altogether surprisingly, is what happened on another September 11th.

from Dan at powerorprophet.

Listening to the Victims in a Recession's Racial Dvide

2009-09-13T21:32:00.007-05:00

One of the greatest perversities growing out of our recent economic collapse and recession has been this ever growing sense of reverse racism. This idea that blacks voted Obama into office as some sort of savior, to rid the USA of white power and replace it with black power, and open the gates to illegal immigrants by providing them a free ride on the backs of white business and money. One naturally thinks of the republican congressman Joe Wilson's outburst last Thursday during Obama's health care reform speech when Obama stated that no illegal immigrants would be provided coverage under the bills in question.

Well, since this recession that inevitably happened under a black president, many Americans who have held power in this country ever since their distant family stripped (read: raped) the natives of it have felt threatened. What's at stake for white culture is the false dream and comfort of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" given to them (us) by powerful corporations with little to no disregard for human life. Wealth built off the backs of others, just like the olden days...but exported of course.

In a NYTimes op-ed piece writers Barbara Ehrenreich and Dedrick Muhammad named The Recession's Racial Divide, illuminate the reality behind the fear that the black community has won a "dictator and, in one image circulated among the anti-tax, anti-health reform “tea parties,” he is depicted as a befeathered African witch doctor with little tusks coming out of his nostrils. When you’re going down, as the white middle class has been doing for several years now, it’s all too easy to imagine that it’s because someone else is climbing up over your back."

At the Moltmann/Emergent conversation I just came back from one of the quotes that has stuck with me was something like, "those guilty of oppression, but want to enter into the truth of life must listen to their victims, because they can tell you who you truly are."

Never mind the fact the loan offices were encouraged by certain lending institutions to persuade black preachers to hold wealth seminars by providing a small donation to churches who did so, never mind that these same employees often referred to subprime loans as "ghetto loans" and minority customers as "mud people." We could talk about how it was the white culture that sold the black culture a false bill of goods, or that black unemployment is 8.2% higher than white unemployment.

Instead hear the words of the oppressed who have fallen on inexcusably hard time:

“There is no middle class anymore,” ... “just a top and a bottom.”
It’s not easy to get people to talk about their subprime experiences. There’s the humiliation of having been “played” by distant, mysterious forces. “I don’t feel very good about myself,” says the teacher in “American Casino.” “I kind of feel like a failure.”

The conclusion is poignant yet lacking:

So despite the right-wing perception of black power grabs, this recession is on track to leave blacks even more economically disadvantaged than they were. Does a black president who is inclined toward bipartisanship dare address this destruction of the black middle class? Probably not. But if Americans of all races don’t get some economic relief soon, the pain will only increase and with it, perversely, the unfounded sense of white racial grievance.

Is all this article is is a call for economic relief? While this is an important and worthwhile conversation what we need is call away from fear politics and a culture obsessed with power, driven by bigotry, and that has no place for real, constructive dialogue. What we need is to confront this unfounded sense of racial grievance and quit scapegoating Obama, the poor, and the "other."

What we very well need is a call to the cross, to suffer and give up our American dreams of power and wealth for American dreams of a society of care and responsibility for one another, a society of real democracy and pluralism, and society founded in the reality that "truth is found in unhindered dialogue (Moltmann)."

Until Reflection Come

2009-09-12T15:58:00.014-05:00

In the following days I'll be posting some reflections up of the Moltmann/Emergent Conversation. I hope the live blog notes are helpful. I'm somewhat familiar with Moltmann having read 8 of his works and returning very often to them to reorient myself in the "Spirit of Life." My hope with the notes was to help those who couldn't physically be at the Conversation and to give those who were there something to refer back to and read or check their notes against.

I'd love dialogue on any of these ideas that you don't quite "get" or may need clarification as questions and my modest attempt to answer them tend to push me to reflect and think more clearly about theology and Moltmann.

I really enjoyed getting to meet some really good folks who are willing to ask hard questions and engage ministry, church, and culture in new ways. I also was able to connect with some great people who I've followed on the blogosphere like (in no particular order, but you should check out as they post Moltmann stuff too):

Frank Emannuel
Bob Cornwall
SalvagedFaith
Tim Snyder
Danielle Shroyer
Ann Pittmann (who I already knew, but blogged it too)
Tripp Fuller
JP Bohanan
Eliacin Rosario-Cruz
Tony Jones
I know I've missed a few, sorry.

I also created a Twitter because as you'll see so much of this conference was routed through twitter. Check out this link for post, comments, and even audio snippets.

So until further reflection, I've attached a few pic's from my time in Chi-town and from the conference.
Me explaining what BFF meant as Dr. Moltmann signed my book, bff:

Historic Wrigley Field

I loved the intimate feel of the park (not to mention the hot dogs).

Second City Comedy Club, hilarious.

Billy Goat Tavern, infamous.
Navy Pier.

Sears (Willis) Tower...108 Stories tall, tallest building in Western Hemisphere, second tallest in the world and first tallest structure in the world.

Chicago is a prospect city for 2012 Olympics.

View on the 103 floor of the Sears Tower.

Me standing on the clear bottom, sides, top viewing deck.

Moltmann, Session II, Day 3

2009-09-11T10:52:00.003-05:00

Tony Jones on Moltmann:

Disability, Homosexuality, & Church in Mission (or the church only in mission)

from Diane, a disabled person who found language to see herself as God does in crucfed God...how does a person with disabilities- how do they have accsss to the church in power of HS?
JM- a disability concerned him, b/c older bro had severe disability. I think the church must be, consistent of disabled, not abled person. congregation w/o disabled persons is a disabled congregation.
TJ- rational beings as humans- imago dei, but there are humans w/o ability to reason. we wouldn't say they are not created in image of God. how does disability of reason effect idea of imago dei
JM- imago dei- not of qualification of human, but of relationships of God toward human, which human is image, resonance of God. relationships of God to every human being, this cannot be destroyed by disability nor by sin.
simile tuo?- response to God, our relationship to God. life, faith, and responsibility and conformity of our life to will of god. first relationship in regard to humans, is in every human being be a Xn or muslim or atheist, every single person without qualification. so you m ust respect God in every person we meet. the second, the simile...our relationship to god, God crated all man equal, free..so we must respect image of God in every person.
TJ- you bring up Constitution, who are influenced by John Locke- theory of inalienable human rights. some theo and philo (macintyre, haeurwas, etc say they are unicorns)- they say these are made up. no inalienable rights. we determine the rights, but there is no such thing as transcendence universal inalienable right. what do you think about universal rights?
JM- praise doc of independence for saying this. 1978- wrote doc- God's rights and Human rights. adopted by denom bodies.
Unfortunately, dictatorial gov't denied citizens human rights according to the same line of thought. But every person has inalienable rights. you can commit crimes against humanity. there is an implementation of human rights united nations. US didn't sign the doc for int'l trials according to human rights.
this is good, for the growing world community based in human rights- or there will be no world community at all.
So, it is true.
TJ- Rowan Williams- proposed b/c of growing proportion of Muslims in GB, there should be pluralization of law to reflect the Shari'a law.
JM- This was not good for Muslim women, who said, do we not have rights like veryone else? I do not understand Williams on this point, or the maybe the British system.
You cannot relative th rights of everyone, b/c no one can be brought to court. This is an impossibility.
TJ- you've referred to God as he and HS as she in our conversation. coming up with pronouns appropriately intimate and personal for god, but don't anthropomorphize god with gender identity, is difficult for describing god in finite language
JM- god it not he, she, or it. god is god. we should not use god's divinity to justify a gender role, etc.
image can be described as Trinity is neither Father, Son, or HS: but a community. this can be reflected in human community. need united community.
TJ- filioque clause - lead to monarchical theism or trinity. rely on eastern theology.
Great schism brought filioque clause
JM- practical side- 1985- conf. in Rome. on Holy Spirit. john Pope II, read and when came to Nicene creed, read it in Greek where there is no filioque.
TJ- you've really made strong point of how esoteric theology has consequences for our world...like idea of Father, Son, SPirit can serve for King ad surfs, master slave, etc. Maybe monarchial theism is supported to hold onto authority. So the filioque leads to subordination of Spirit, thus the surfs, humans, oppressed.
JM_ criticism of Barth- in trinity there is community of commanding father and obedient Son. So heaven is above, earth below. soul above, body below. man above, woman below.
SEX!
TJ- Paul, Augustine, all talked about sex. Sexuality is a schismatic topic and many have withdrawn from denom fights, b/c of schismatic nature. May have been filioque 1000 yrs ago, btu now it is who can be ordained
JM- first let me say...this is no problem in germany. no struggle about homosexuality
Tj why?
JM
because church in germany is about gospel not about sex.
we believe in justification not by human work, but by God's work.
homosexual, heterosexual, whoever believes in faith alone is saved and certainly abled to be ordained in community.
would not say that a gay partnership is equal, for a marriage between man and owmen is to further children,
but have no problems blessing such a partnership.
why not bless a partnership.
homosexuality is neither a sin or crime, like near-sightedness is neither a sin or crime.
don't understand schism or heat of debate.
Questions:
TJ- eschatology and what happens after this existence. - in face of many deaths, am i right to trust community in future...jesus' saying that there will be no marriage in that experience of life.
JM-I don't want to get into this dispute with Jesus.
But i trust that those who died are not dead, they are with us, watching over us and we live in their presence and can feel occasionally their presence. according to Calvin, they are growing until they reach the destiny for which they were created. if life was cut short, God will bring what he had begun to its intended end. death cannot end God to do this, but God cannot be overcome by death. He will bring life to fruition.
Barth was once asked by woman- do you think we'll see beloved again. and Barth answered yes, and the others too.
Fuzz goes on stage.
TJ- church is agent of God's mission world.
ECCLESIOLOGY:
What is the church?
JM- there are many perspectives on it. For a long time we've said its a body of risen Christ, after vatican II, catholics spoke of people OF god. if you say this, you must also say that God has 2 parts of his people: Israel and the church.
and the mission agency is not only through the church of hte people's but also Israel. so we must take care of both sides, not only looking after poor and sick, but also the Jews, elected people of God.
Understanding of mission of church-
nowadays we have dialogue everywhere but this is not good, for it has no goal. if dialogue is to convert, there is an end, a goal and you can dialogue. it is good to know other religion communities. dialogue need common ground. so we have special relatipnship- partner in mission.
Fuzz- church consultant, collects stories and spreading rumors of hope. indebted to Moltmann. you say in books, not so much question of what is teh church, but where is the church. where have you seen, the where is now that we havent traditionally seen in the orthodoxy of the past?
JM_ one hand, mission of risen Christ. who is in me, i am in him... other hand, the inviting voice of Christ. whoever visits them visits me. they- the hungry, poor, ochlos, etc in the world.
invitation of Christ on the outside. church must be present in special places and special way.
Fuzz- changing forms of inside outside, new communities ..not geographical..etc. what is future of congregation
JM- believe in face to face community. cyberspace may be nice for communication, but a cyber church is a church w.o the Eucharist.
in this new media, you can see and listen, but you cannot feel, taste, smell. only two of sense are engaged, other senses are diminished and no longer developed. make test in school, where children already have iphones, etc. let them close eyes and feel, tehy can't differentiate between wood and plastic- b/c no education of emotion, feelings.
baby develops first with feeling senses, then get misdeveloped with emphasis on seeing and hearing.
belive strongly in face to face communities, see each other, talk, eat, drink togehter and be a community of FULL senses.
TJ- Eucharist- seems we call it so many names. RO proposes church should live by Eucharistic rationality, center point. Zwingilian experience moves toward communion like agape meal, less sacramental, but communal gathering and foretaste of coming kingdom. you used Eucharist, ...how do you see role of communion in church?
JM- hot point or most difficult ecumenical point. believes very strongly, that we dont celebrate in Lord's table in our theories. we may have different theories in the way he is present. but let's celebrate his presence first. so after the eating and drinking at lord's table, thhhen we talk about different theories. dont start with theories, or will nover come to the table. we will have an empty stomach. go to any invitation we hear the inviting words of X. I dont care where I'm at, I take it.
Jesus invites all those who are weary, not just Catholics or presbys, but all.
Fuzz- thinking eschatology- to spend eternity together, we should now each other now. SO
JM- transubstantiation- evil theory. we believe as Lutherans or reformed as real presence of Christ, whether is transformed, etc. what is important is that we believe in presence of Christ in both forms: bread and wine. and we reject Catholic tradition of wine for priest and bread for people.
Fuzz- go back to understanding of church. cyber reality is one form. but more and more as churches are more missional, the focus is in community not gathering. church attendance is less frequent in west. partly so busy, stress of time as commodity, so spending time with neighbor is more important than gathering together of worship.
JM- this may be true of those who have a job, but not for the unemployed. those with a job, this is a question of priority. question of whether they should go to vacation, etc or more important to be part of congregation. they have no time..no question of priorities.
Fuzz- is church only church when gathered or scattered
JM- both sides. we gather them together and send them into teh world.
Fuzz- is there a weekly breathing, gathering and sending
JM- tradition of OT and NT-work day and divine day is good ecology. sabbath is good ecology, we move in and out of it.
JM- writing in ethics for concept of justice and righteousness according to biblical ideas.
TJ- who should we be reading?
what are you reading
JM- the BIBLE. depends on your eyes: curiosity to find new things in old book, you'll find it. but traditional understanding it may be boring. full of dangerous memories.
read: Volf, Phillip Clayton, tony jones, john cobb,
many good people coming up, so we can step down and have rest.

Afterward, they opened the floor for the crowd to reveal their gratefulness to Moltman. Several people were given the opportunity to say thank you for your work, life, thought, etc.
I was able to to stand up and give thanks to Moltmann for giving me the words in seminary to be able to keep my faith.

Thoughts to follow up later.

Moltmann, Session I, Day 3

2009-09-11T09:03:00.003-05:00

Tony Jones & Jurgen Moltmann: mano y mano

TJ begins with a bill board- "Unless you confess, you won't be blessed." TJ uncomfortable with this idea, b/c it seems God is a non-contigent being. whether or not god forgives me, god isnt sitting around waiting to forgive me.
JM responds- "you cannot make conditions to god, for this makes god an object, an idol. God will bless whoever he will bless whether we confess or not. initiative is God's. Once God forgives you, then you feel free to cnfess.
God is god not a bargain partner for a human and your religion. This is completely heathen.
Religions based on the idea of doing to receive blessing- but this isnt Xn at all, this is denial of godhead of god. i'm oppsing completely with this bargaining of destiny with God. this is pure capitalism!!!
TJ- "if go's activity is non contingent, yet JC teaching on prayer is almost unequivocally that if you're persistent, God'' give you what you want. keep bothering god and you'll get what you want.
JM- These aren't the only saying about prayer. When you pray, God already knows what you need. hearing of God precedes your prayer.
TJ- what does that mean for God's relationship to time as we experience it. can we pray for something that has already happened in past, since ogd is lord of time.
JM- "what do you want to pray for?" ....there is a long tradition of prayer for the dead. Luther said pray 3 or 4 times for the dead, then head over to god, b/c they are included in prayer of X. "I think i'm praying for ht dead. b.c the dead are not dead. they died, but we cannot say they are dead not. they are sleeping until day of resurrection. they are watching and with us in own way. truth of ancestor cult in asia, dead are not dead in modern sense. not annihilate, but present. Rom 13, X is lord of living and dead.
TJ- Zimzum, borrowed from kabbalah Judaism- propr to creation, all there was was God. in order to create something, God withdrew self to make space, a self limiting, to make space for a relation for object to have relationship with. two ?'s: how does that lead or what relationship relate to panentheism. Is part of god's self limitation, god volunatirily bound himself to time.
JM- I'm not first one to take up idea of Kabbalistic thinking. It can in 300 yrs.
points- Before god created world, he decided to become creator. inside, not outside action...decide to become creator. contracted himself from all other possibilities to this one, to be creator of world
2nd- created world in time and space, so before he created heaven and earth there must be room and place for heaven and earth to be placed. this is place of creation, due to contraction of God.
This is why there is freedom for all beings, there is room. example of a child, you must first take care of all things for them. then you must give space for them to develop themselves. this is very creative to retreat into yourself and let another being be. other side of creation. not just acts, but to let another being flourish is creative.
Zimzum- father son and HS are kenotic beings. they give and receive one another. they are a being of self giving: zimzum before zimzum? this is true essence of being. Kenosis is not just actin go fGod, but inward state of god giving self in inner trinitarian love.
TJ- in nature if god is timeless, but part of limitation, in this period of creation god has bound himself to time. is he experiencing time?
JM- yes, or he cannot he called living God. God has living relationships iwth abe, etc, Jesus, etc...these are all living relationship otherwise you have a dead God.
TJ- is this too hegelian, God is ismply unfolding of history? but you talk abotu cruc and res as an event in god and god as subject having relationship with reation, which is very diff from hegel.
JM- easy to accuse german theo hegelian. b/c all are lutheran and related to hegel
Hegel didnt have understanding of trinity, ut of history as autobio of god. this is not good theology. developed dialectical understanding of world history as history of god, out of self consciousness of divine subject. this has nothign to do with Jesus, father, adn HS. anotehr system. different from pannenburg on that point. Hegel had not eschatology.
Is this panentheistic- this terrible term brought into hegelian. means- everything, pan, is in God. but this is one sided of biblical understanding of God. for God is IN everything.
Shekinah- indwelling of God. God dwells in Israel, in terms of the cloud, Shekinah. Behind Covenant of God with israel, is intetnion to dweel among the Israelites. this is one sided. In NT, there is mutual indwelling. John and letters and gospel of JOhn reveal this...perichorisis: mutual indwelling. whoever remains in love remains in god and god in him...mutual indwelling, so much more than panentheism.
John Calvin- inst. bok 1- for Calvin glory of God is already reflecting self in all things. God is indwelling in all things, but we have no eyes to see him. in trinitarian terms makes sense, but in theistic terms you may end up in panentheism. avoid abstract philo theism.
TJ- do you embrace EO, theosis. BUt you turned that God became man, not that man became God. using Athanasius.
JM- Luther- God became human beings, so we might become truly human in the community of JC. God became human to liberate us from our god complex and hubris in playing god with god, making conditions with sovereignty of God. making bargains. that is to say, you are god, i'm not and you are okay, i'm okay.
TJ- 3 points of biblical narrative: creation, jesus, end times that you focus on. in west we have original sin, Judaism we who adopt the story doesn't have og sin.
JM- these ideas of Augustine, lead to a type of gnosticism. procreating is bad, ultimate sin is AIDS, we deliver from one gen to another. so we must stop procreating og sin, and this is gnosticism. this doesn't follow OT understanding of life and joy of life. we have received life and we should give life to another gen. So og sin has nothing to do with sex and procreation. idea is more collective guilt. understanding of Luther. everyone is guilty of everything in the world, b/c everything is related to everything. dosteyesky and EO believe this, there is collective destiny. everything shares in us, we share in everything. so we need collective guilt of mankind.
we can follow Jewish understanding, guilt came into world through Cain and Abel. since that time, it has been one against the other, war, murder. this is more realistic.
TJ- so much of the way we were reared in church, connected to og sin. thus connected to forensic action of Jesus on cross, the appeasing sacrifice of the innocent son transaction. Also, in NT there is alot of sacrificial language.
JM- between other peopel's religion idea of gift: i give so you may give. So you sacrifice so god may give blessing. if you dont give in right way or enough then gods are angry and experience punishment. so whenever bad things happen, you look for one who didnt sacrifce and then bring right offering. Jonah and thrown out of ship, example.
This is all not biblical. Scapegoat is given by god, not asking from Israel btu giving to Israel so all sins may be put on scapegoat so it can take sins away to desert. God is reconciling himself to the world, doesn't need sacrifice. himself giving own son to reconcile world to self. initiative is god's initiative.
they used old temple language, but something completely diff is meant. love of god reconciles whole cosmos, which includes all humans.
TJ- that' the reformed part of theo coming out strongly. God is always protagonist. how is god, in way of overflowing love fo trinity, protagonist
JM- old saying, love takes ...
he wants to communicate the joy of his love. so he craetes creatures that can resonate this joy and love of God. so he is not in need of recreation, recreation is result of overflowing joy and love.
TJ- Eschatology- you are an esch theo. liberals and conservatives don't like this talk. overwhelming consensus is that 2nd coming will be bad part.
JM- this will not be the end, but beginning of new creation, the eternal creation. world without end. must look forward not to the end, but the beginning, which is not behind us but before us. the best is yet to come. this is true also to certain types of dispensationalism, which is not Xn idea, but Jewish idea. God created world in 7 days, so history will follow 7 dispensations. earth will grow older and older and our time is running out.
you can think about this w/o mentioning Christ, for dispensationalists X has only one part. so what is lacking is the new beginning experienced in resu. of X. so there is new beginning in world history, the res. of X in anticipation of the general resurrection.
TJ- this ? is just for me, so you all can listen in. Heidegger and Moltmann, there is esch horizon approaching us. so there is phenomenological hermeneutic, and the eschaton is when two horizons meet.
JM- they've met already. horizing of jc escaton is open already b/c of resurrection of Christ.
TJ- do you think there will be a moment in time, a pariousia. humans will experience a moment in time of JC return
JM- Yes. linear concept of time, future, present, past. this is time of clock. in this linear time concept, JC will not come. otherwise, we say he may come tomorrow morning at 101 5 ona train from chicago. but time keeps going on.
other concept of time- kairos. good opportunity. our life experiences are not according to clock time, but more like kairos. this is a good time, good chance. anticipation of eschatolgoical moment. terms of fulfilled time. in fulfilled time or life, you dont care about the clock anymore. you live in the moment. so therefore, when you come into living, you take the clock away. clock time is not very good understanding of time.
"you have the clock and we have time" form a swami in India at the end of interview and western interviewer must leave.
Daniel goes onto stage. possibly talk about atonement theory
TJ- cooperation with God, part of pneumatolgy adopted from JM. A truly reformed person doesn't cooperate with anything with God. but JM writes of us being cocreateors and cooperating with God, esp in ecology theology. Is there where you part with reformed theo.
JM- Paul talked aobut his work as cooperation with god. don't see reason for putting everything on god. this is Xn understanding of gods presence world. not that god has no hands apart from ours, but god gives us chances and opportunities to work with his will, resonate to his tune. If God is all, then reformed is right. but god may not be all and all, so he wants responsibility.
he wants us to come of age, not as little children where he oes everything.
Daniel- been at every Emergent church conversation since beginning. Herold- park street church in boston. nature's witness: how evolution can inspire faith.
DH- question and interest- testimony of science. brings understanding of God. talk about trintiy in creation, since nature / science portrays for us is nature is ripe with death, disease, etc. Who is God, Trinity, in creation given what science portrays?
JM- fundamental question of natural sciences- do you understand what you know?
our knowledge is duplicating everything, but do we understand what we know. we need a hermeneutic of nature with the sciences, so we can interpret signs of nature, explained by natural sciences. sciences explains, but we need understanding and interpreting what we know.
DH- so go ahead-
JM- specific example- a doctor measures your blood pressure and temp ad takes all the data he can get from body if you don't feel well. So first takes all data, then takes data as symptoms, then understands symptoms as a certain illness, then therapy can begin. similar with natural science. we must understand the symptoms and interpret the data given. for example to understand the data we get from climate research, and economic research, to put together with data we must interpret as coming natural catastrophe, then we can react. hermeneutics of nature.
DH- what is moltmannian herm of nature? trinity interp of nature...
JM-fist of all- we put what we know of nature in transcendent dimension. evolution of life, we see all belong to same family. transcendence dimension, there is no progress.
second- we can see the working of the HS as the immanence of transcendence in everyting complicated being forming their ...transcendence. more complex life forms are open systems, transcending themselves. there can be no self organization or...but they need transcendence. like riding a bike w.o a bike.
DH- Darwinian evol through theo grid. problem of decay and death, deformity. how is that manifestation of HS, is that fall out from freedom?
JM- you must understand the HS and energies of HS. there are many gifts of HS.
DH- would you say necessary organic death of evolution epic, is that redemption which makes death a bad thing; or is it a positive energy of spirit?
JM- start from the final end. if death will be no more, there will be creation w.o organic death. it is not just death of sinner, but all death will disappear.
DH- so how does creation, how we experience it, if it is radically different
JM- difference is found in indwelling of God. we only have anticipatory of end time, the new everlasting creation where god is in all.
DH- kairos time and new expeirence; it must something so radically different we cant have an experience in current life that would approximate it. it seems to me that there is dramatic change
JM- is this different from "everything in X is a new creation."
TJ- is this a radical discontinuity.
JM- you cannot talk about discontinuity without presupposition continuity. but we have so many anticipatory changes form the old to new, that we can understand this quite easily. for Paul it was change of name, a new identity. now, it is not me who lives, it is X who lives in me. this is true for all Xns, whether conscious of it or not.
DH- so for scientists, such a discontinuity would defy everything for the created reality. how would you speak of the unfathomably.
JM- in biological terms. either have evolution cosmos, everything
somethign new will emerge within infinite possibilities of this. the whole is more than sum of parts. we cannot understand the whole from the parts. parts do no lead understanding of whole.
DH- given that this earth as we experience, it will certainly end if physics is correct. what do you anticipate regarding existence on other side of that.
JM- believe in theosis idea- that in end, God will be all in all. end is not annihilation of world, but deification of the world. we have diff concepts: Luther- annihilation of world, only god, angels, and saved souls will survive in heaven. reformed: not annihilation, but transformation of world, into new creation. EO: theosis, deification of world, indwelling of God in world.
so expect transform of everything and indwelling of God in all.
"This is how much I can see it.."
DH- don't see science embracing theology, but theo does give to science.
JM- the struggle is better than mutual science.
DH- biologos community

Moltmann, Session IIb, Day 2

2009-09-10T14:24:00.003-05:00

Political or Public Theology: A theology that effects the world.

Moderators: Eliacin, ___, DS, and TJ:

approaches to theology in public
1) Change swords into question thoughts. Become dragon killer, so the axis of evil is eliminated. Atomic bombs into question a bombs
2)leave swords of unbelievers, become Amish or Hudderite
3) Change swords into plowshares. change war and military complex, but a ecological complex
peaceable man- into peacemaking man.
we need communities that participate in peaceable kingdom and communities that work for peacemaking in the world.
Otherwise, peacemakers may become violent themselves with a peaceable people.
Eliacin- influenced by lib theolgians. seems to me, for most part, if we have emrbaced hope, we must live into resistance. examples of where are concnrete practices, rhtythms, values as we anticipate in global social movement for resistance. So we need to create alternatives. Concrete examples of church creating enclaves or the future:
JM- these movements are not always Xn churches, but many Xns take part in these movements. some are very effective. example- green party in europe, there were oppo. groups.
In Nicarague, to live a community life in the slums. Show how mutual help will bring htem out of misery. contrary of poverty is community. there is wealth in community, resources.
what is place of church in God's kingdom?
church has 2 tasks: diaconia- serving poor and sick and homeless in society/ 2- prophetic task to say ot the powerful, look to those in shadows of this empire. prophetic, diachronic service. need both, one is empty without the other.
we need a church that serves the sick and is prophetic against the illness of society.
"let's pray for prophets, who can speak in public and convince people."
Anticipation & resistance: Eliacin- are we co-creators, or should we just expect this to happen, resignation.
Kingdom is already there is the healing and stories of JC. We prepare the way for the KoG, by anticipating the righteousness and peace within our possibilities and potentialities which are certainly limited.
belief in progress collapsed in WWI. Belief in progress is returning in oidea of globalization, finances, goods, factories. Abyss is approaching with destruction of environment. we have globalization without the globe. the earth has nothing to say.
abu grahb- DS- moltmann experienced so much grace in hands of prison camps, YMCA, brit's, etc. presence of grace was salvation. (great ideas and question from Danielle)...(this reminds me of Dostoevsky and Bro Karam. where he appeals to mercy for criminals).
it's more convincing to love your enemy than to hate and kill your enemy. so what happened in prison in iraq is outrageous and cannot understand administration that allows that to happen.
Moltmann went back to his prison, afterward. the grace was such a grace and gift from british gov't and ymca to give former enemies, new chance of life. and we'll never forget that.
to give grace is wiser policy than so called enemies...the terrorists and anxiety of 9/11 is terrifying.
commitment to never serve in german army, but to kill the dictator. when he told this to the mennonites, said, "that's okay."

Moltmann, Session II, Day 2

2009-09-10T13:10:00.002-05:00

Crucified God:

Moderated by my friend Ann Pittman plus some other folks, Danielle Shroyer, John Eaton (vision community church, NY), (common table)

DS- life changing book, made sense of soteriology and what happened on the cross.
Perspectives for questions and moderation- pastoral & life
there is no answer to suffering, b/c we wont accept any explanation. Resurrection is the answer, but there is no explanation for why you must die or suffer. all explanations are wrong and unacceptable.
we don't want to have an answer that would bring us to peace with suffering, but if we feel the presence of suffering Christ next to us or in us that he shares; then we have a consolation that we are not alone.
God will bring to a good end what he has begun in the human person- i believe that. JM
How can God let these evil things happen?
Where is God? is God here. But people critique God. So do we blame this question on philosophy and Liebniz. "comes from stoic philo: if he is omnipotent and good, so he cant be both, only one." This comes from grk. philo, not from Israel or God of JC.
not only defend Jesus sympathy, but also the bereavement of the Father. If JC was true in saying my god, why have you forsaken me..then father is forsaken by Son. Two sides of triune one, suffers bereavement as we suffer forsakenness. this is a consolation.
vulnerability of God- teaching presence of JC, instead of a God apart from JC. All God talk must come from and be centered in JC.
"If it weren't for Jesus I would be an atheist like the other people in my family"
looking at history, not convinced that God has everything under control. but looking at nature, etc...would never have occurred to me that there is a loving being. ONly convinced that God is love through Jesus. Don't like talk about a god, there are so many evil gods.
people sometimes are disappointed by a God that suffers with them instead of pulling them out of the situation. how does the suffering God give us hope.
first suffering God is compassionate God. God is there in your distress, never far away, but suffering with you. On other hand, the consequence of death for Christ was new life, eternal life. So i trust that the God who bears and has compassion on me will bring resurrection and new life. Suffering on one hand, resurrecting, triumphal God.
Too make a point you must be one sided: in ongoing dialoguew ith others, you must be one-sided or you will kill the debate. so the more i think about, the theology of the cross must end with a theo of resurrection. i learned this with Paul...in Romans...how much more is grace than sin, resurrection than crucifixion.
TJ- continuing line of theodicy and questioning the validity of the theodicy question: "atheists are closer to god than most theists, b/c they are arguing with God constantly."- Volf. Did moltmann meet christ and back into theism.
JM- only believes in God of JC. His God becomes my God. theism is general understanding of transcendence that there is a higher being.
types of atheism:
Protest Atheism- Ivan Karamazov- Dost.- Bro Karamazov- "i have nothing in God in heaven, but I have rejected that there is no justice on earth." This type of atheism very pop. after war.
another type of atheism- banality- dawkins, etc.
the theodicy question is" if there is a god why is there evil." best answer is there is no god. then question of why is there evil collapses. So keeping god in question, keeps the conversation on evil alive.
you can live without God in your life, but you will miss out on a lot of the liveness of life.
Dawkins has another word. For him, genes. genes are not altruistic, or egoistic, but parts.
protest hope (DS)= anticipate, transcend the limits of reality into the realm of possibility, anticipate the earth on which righteousness will dwell. so every piece of righteousness now is an anticipation that forms a new earth, an everlasting earth.
how do we do this, resist and give hope: "one follows the sermon on the mount."
resist capital punishment,
the call is not only to pray, but to pray and watch. open your eyes to God and see what is a contradiction to God. and dont close your eyes and see the new world. pray with open eyes.
early Xns were called atheists for refusing to serve roman gods/polity.
two crosses in early Xnty: Golgotha of JC, one is a dream cross of Constantine. since that time we ahve had two crosses in beginning. Many crosses we see in Xn nations, buildings, etc is the cross of Const.
Saint George- changed from martyr to dragon killer. old symbolism of Xn empire that has worked until present day.
I agree with Anabaptist we must go back to origin to find new future of Xnty for the world, back past the Xn imperialism.
2 Pet. 3:13- HOPE
Atonement theories- substitionary? fuller? victor?
based on crucified God? not sure, identification theory, in that God identified with godless and forsaken aspact of humanity on the cross..so the atonement happens as we identity with Christ on the cross. Double, bilateral identification. Does this economic transaction takes place? Very appealing that God suffered and was tempted, not just nice tory, but walked in our shoes and when we identify we his suffering thats atonement - Tony Jones
Moltmann response-
Christology of solidarity. suffers with us// second- suffers for us, the guilty. both sides belong together. For us...reconciling suffering. but must see both sides together. given up for our sins and raised for our justification. whole process is justification.
forgiveness of sin on hand, resurrection into new life on the other. (justification is both)
another point- on one side- tradition of justification of sinner, forgive and reborn. BUT what about the victims of sin? God is righteous for giving justice to those who suffer. justification of victim is perhaps first act, in practical terms...sinners who've become guilty of their victim only have a sort memory if they have one at all. but those who've suffered always remember. so if you are guilty, and want to enter into truth of life, listen to victims b/c they can tell you who you really are.
sacrament of repentance: confess, change mind, then make good that you do good evil as much as evil that you've done. but there is no sacrament of justification for the victims for what they have felt. they must overcome the feelings of revenge, etc from suffering the evil at hands of others. Then they must be alleviated and given a new self confidence, which victims don't often have- then the end, they must have the divine key- to forgive.
Jail of Birminham- MLK= teaching the victims to forgive the perpetrators.
Love- helpful about your work, re-frames and thinking in new ways of old things: power struggles.
in love of life, you risk disappointment and be ready to suffer with and or for others, and be ready to feel them dying....to feel or bring in their dying inside of you.
"fear in west, we talk about the cross in a personalized way so that it is only FOR US. Jesus died just for me to get somewhere. IN CG- all creation finds a place for redemption." DS
talk to us about creation redemption- we lost cosmic dimensions found in Col and Phil. That christ died for redemption of universe. even cosmos needs salvation.
universal salavtion is about: not that all humans will be saved; but that the UNIVERSE will be saved.
Christ became human so humans and whole cosmos might become place where God dwells, and by this will be deified.
important to see that at end, all embracing power, not just only salvation of my soul or my personal salvation and rest of world can go to hell...but in the end there will be restoration of all things in Christ. this is according to pietist, german tradition...the restoration is bringing back all things in the end. resurrection is all about restoration of all things.
Modern experience of ecological crisis- we need this cosmic dimension.
are you a Xn universalism or would you rather be called something else
"im afraid 'im not a universalist, b/c there are perhaps some people i dont want to see again. but god may be a unversalist, b/c God created them and may want to see them again."
universalism is not about to speak about all humans, but all of the universe.
I don't want to go to heaven, angels have home in heaven. i want to be raised on earth and live on new earth where justice dwells. and in the end God will be all in all, that is heaven.
Luther once said, on treatise for preparing for dying...don't look at hell in destiny of others or for self...but look at hell in wounds of Christ, b/c Christ suffered. so in wounds of christ, you must look if you want to talk about hell.

Moltmann, Session Ib, Day 2

2009-09-10T11:02:00.006-05:00

Theological Method: the Creative Spirit of Play, Life, and Death:
moderated by Tony Jones & Tripp Fuller

Time to talk about Moltmann's methods "or lack thereof, as Moltmann said in the car."
why it's important he broke away from writing a 3 part systematic theology, etc:
truth is found in unhindered dialogue. fellowship is of mutual participation and unifinying sympathy
how is that different from barth or theo predecessors? Thomas Aquinas is single great theological thought, whether there is a god or not and found 5 ways for proving god, natural theology. then comes in church and talk about relation of God and Christ and HS, etc. "Then he died." and said
"I count this all straw"- Aquinas
All theo systems of medieval times, must have an open end b/c power of Christ they expect to come. similar to great
barth- writing 19th cent. theology while living in 20th century.
Barth begins with self revelation of God- dogmatic insight of church...that there is a church, so it is a thought for those in the inside. Barth was strong for developing Christian doctrines, predestination for example.
Barth was good at developing his own theology, but not working with others. over 8k pg's from Barth. "the truth can't be so long."
resist- temptation to write system, b/c not systematic person.
holds an idea, and sees how this ideas relates to everything: ie. Trinity. How does this fit with kingdom, church, etc. Before that...aware of ecological crisis...lectured on creation.
books are founded not in system, but a single idea or perspective. Trinity, ecology, resurrection, cross, etc.
truth is found like "headlights"- in nature are only reflection of light of Christ...they dont illuminate in themselves, but a reflection of Christ. like headlights reveal the road and trees, it is the light of the car, not of trees that reveal them.
spent a long time talking about the necessity of a theology of creation and nature, it is a Christian endeavor. Struggle between Yale (Barth, no nature & theo only for Xns.) and Chicago (for everyone who can listen or there can be no mission)
Starting point- JC and experience of HS and universal horizon which we can discover in NT.
God reconciles wholes cosmos to himself, and we are messengers to this reconcile. the gospel is universal b/c of the universal horizon of reconciliation
Barth- "hidden universalism"- reconcile, not the universe, but every person. that's trhe difference between Barth and JM- reconciliation for whole cosmos or just humans.
don't become narrow minded to only defend your own denom, christ is more than one's own denom.
TF- read JM in light of holocaust, in light of Amer. 9/11
Elie Wiesel- "night" JM was moved by it and his experiences in conc. camps.
God is not punishing New york homosexuals, as someone said at that time. God that uses terrorists is a monster, not a god.
rethink omnipotence- not in control, but caring and bearing everything. his Almighty power revealed when he destroyed pharaoh's army, but 3 or 4 phrases in that "you carry us, you are bearing us through the desert"- we are carried on eagle's wings.
patience, carrying of God...gives his word time and a chance and future. this is for me the omnipotence of God. his patience
Divine impassibility- inherited from Hellenistic phlio. God won't change b/c against nature of God. TJ- is there an epiphany moment when you rethought this, that this is not God...a god who is impassible. God must suffer for Moltmann, for only a God who can suffer can love.
Aristotle metaphysics, book 12- "the divine is apathetic" impassible? this comes against the many stories of greek mythologies who are angry and cheating, etc. So created idea that God must be apathetic.
learned form Abraham Heschel, that this God has pathos, not apathetic. God has sympathy, b/c if God is apathetic, then his image in us must be apathetic too. Apathy is in illness in the world.
passibilty of God- first idea- got in Scotland about the impassibility and passibility of God. written in 1926, listed the whole debate. completely bypassed German theology, this 60 yr old debate in Anglican church.
how was this perceived- "best sense of the word, I became controversial" "i like to be controversial"
TF- mystical experience and exercising doubt-
liked to bring life and death questions to theological questions. theological not related to life and death is an abstract theology, is a nice game but only for play.
book of his best theo student- Volf- reflected on his own experiences in Exclusion and Embrace- full of his own existential experiences.
life and death experiences are a source, of course, or its just a game of play
fav line- "theologians needs to read forward and backward in Scripture" (from TF)
talk about it: "i'm old enough not to be being called an heretic"
read bible with new supposition: meet divine word in human words. and whenever i meet divine word, which became incarnate in JC, his suffering death and res...then I feel truth.
Gal 3:28- christ is not male or female, etc- all are one. This is a phrase justified baptism of all equally. but then read Paul saying women should shut up in congregation. that closes to Christ. if women is all the time silent, we'd have no knowledge of resurrection of Christ.
co-missionary of Paul was female. So Xnty is full of women and they speak out to fulfill prophecy of Joel- your daughters will prophecy.
Criteria- incarnate word of God in Christ.
other point for reading Bible- we read "Jews crucified Christ"- this is wrong, tehy werent allowed to crucufy people. this was a roman affair. Jews aren't enemies of God. Rom 9-11: Paul writes about Israel. This is closer to teh truth, I think, JM says.
advocating biblical hermeneutic- reading closest to Christ- so how do you or by what do you determine what's closest to Christ? (good ? from TJ)
"The Reformed church is my origin. The ecumenical church is my future.
doesn't discount experience in truth
question to fundies: "do you really read the Bible" and do you "really understand what you read"
homosexuality in the Bible and fundies:
Shouldn't leave interp of Bible to fundies only
shaping of theology b/c of marriage: wife is most influential on his theo. she convinced him to sentences, that "I think this is the case..not this IS the case." not make objective statements for all to buy. If i say it this way, it provokes the subjectivity in others to make up their own mind, and not just quote me. (hey, that's what my wife says to me all the time)
"there is no theo dialogue in our house before breakfast."
poltical theo- insights into complicity in American foreign policy.
johannes baptist metz and JM developed political theol- to overcome Luther's 2 kingdoms, where you msutnt mix theo with politics. so leave politics to Nazi.
RC said better the Nazi's then the communists, so tehy supported them at first.
To overcome this hesitation of Xns to stand up against violence and injustice in country, they developed pol.theo.
reason for this- dead of Auschwitz was pressing on their conscience.
free market has a different definition of freedom.
lightning round: (one person, one sentence summary)-
brief reflection on what you think of these people:
john paul II- good pope
pannenburg- very dear friend and opponent
bonhof- died too early
whitehead- very complicated to read
derrida- pomo is another form of modernity. universal dangers which we can meet united, so we cannot split up and everyone go in relative direction. whether we live in big or small narratives we all live under atomic bombs, eco crisis, so extinction of all is possibility of all. so dont see why we have to give up universal questions or problems for
haeurwas- NT speaks not abut peaceable kingdom, but a peace making kingdom
luther- great german reformer, there too, ML and MLK whats difference
abraham ? - competition between two, barthian camp,
now retired, both friends. good friends on beer and wine
augustine- ask his wife about him. (he left both, b/c too close to mother monica)
freud- said you can freud only if you know austrians in viana. served in WWII, in austrian unit. only theme of austrialian soliders
marx- like early marx, not capital marx. influences of romanitc philo, humanization of nature. early writings, redisvoered in 1931. communist manifest is great doc of 19th cent.
nicholas cuso (?)- may have missed his classes
volf- very dear friend, gifted theologian, came to JM at tubingen- "concept of work in karl marx"- wrote great dissertation of work and theo of work. beginning, but drafted to yugoslavian army and returned and full of sign of suffering and resistance. so JM loved him very much when he returned from yugo wounded. wrote book on community. now he is going on writing, etc. go to eastern europe- either became influential in eastern europeans or go to yale and become american pomo theologians and unfortunately decided for Yale.
schleiermacher- both point to same future, coming of God. prob with creeds: Schle could affirm them as he dismissed the OT as foreign to Xnty as other religions are.
Pelagius- Patron Saint of American Xns.

Coffee Break 1: Blogs, Yahoo, & a Question

2009-09-10T10:49:00.005-05:00

Coffee Break:
So I got to meet up with some great folks from the yahoo Moltmann group.

Here's a question, maybe the only question I have right now for Moltmann is, "Do you or are you rooted in a community, church somewhere? How do they receive you?"

Over blogs covering the Moltmann Conversation:
Ann Pittman
Danielle Shroyer
SalvagedFaith
BobCornwall
Tripp York (edit: lol, I meant Fuller...not real sure where York came from, hah!)

I'll post others as I find them.

Moltmann, Session I, Day 2

2009-09-10T09:10:00.008-05:00

We begin this morning talking with arguably the premiere theologian of our time: Jurgen Moltmann. The conversation this morning turns to a quick overall look at Moltmann's autobiography and theological method and after the coffee break Tony Jones and Danielle Shroyer will talk to JM about his theological method. Here are some rough notes from the conversation.

Session 1a:

A Story of a Life after Auschwitz: "Where is God?"

1926 in Hamburg, secular family of teachers and schoolmasters
firestorms- a life surrounded by explosions, bombs, and death. - left with the burning question "where is God" and "why am i alive and not dead like the others" (is there any meaning to life)- "these questions followed me and tortured me for years."
As an imprisoned soldier, the soul became imprisoned.
blooming cherry tree- overwhelmed by blooming of life "still feel weakness in knees in remembrance of this and raised sparks of life in my heart."
Couldn't live with the guilt of his people as he saw pictures of camps.
Read Bible in camp and came upon Ps. of lament, esp. ps. 39 (or 79?). - found words to speak for his heart.
Lost interest in poems of Goethe and Schilling, but found himself in the Psalms b.c gave words to feelings of forsaken. Then read gosp. of Mark and read Christs "my god why have you forsaken me."
Felt close and understood by God forsaken Christ.
Christ found me in dark pit of my soul...and place behind barbed wire where we felt forsaken.
Felt presence of Jesus in life and felt like he was taking up...
"I was not seeking God if God was not already drawing me."
In 1946, special camp arranged by British YMCA, prison ministry, funded by american business man John ?...and he was accepted to camp.
1st book- Niebuhr- nature and destiny of man
studied and learned heb then greek in prison camps.
wasn't sure of what the church was about, but had his first encounter in YMCA prison camp.
soul was healed from wounds of war
felt like Jacob after wrestling with "dark sides of God."
Meet Elizabeth while studying theology
3 examinations in 2 weeks "doctoral, school, and wedding"
after Barth there could be no theology, b/c he has said everything.
pastor of rural congregation of about 300 people and 3000 cows. reformed congregation.
felt like a fool with his phd with the farmers and tried to preach life experience and not give lectures to them. b/c when he lectured to them they rolled their eyes. pastored for 5 yrs.
changed to seminary in wuppertal and felt impoverished b/c with the church he lived in the problems of life, but as a professor only saw the good educated students and in distance a distance.
saw black ghettos and huts of sharecroppers deep in woods and burned crosses of KKK in front in front of churches, and his "American dream was a little bit disappointed"
he liked America on the surface, but saw the misery of it too
American dreamed was almost lost at MLK's shooting, but was saved at Durham when 400 men and women of all colors sat in rain and shine for mourning. then they sang "we shall overcome"
first liked America, then disappointed, then i began to love america
Faust and Goethe: 20th century humanism summation: do good, love beauty, follow your instinct for life...humanism of free will and reason, good emotions.
there were no words in humanism to describe to pain of what I faced during the war with death and shame, but found it in lament psalm and cry of christ
do you to continue to draw on parish ministry for theology: "yes, what would the people think about it and make of it.
must listen to the people's questions and answers, and the people should not be shy and get away from prof theology but take responsibility for the education of theologians.
to most of things in life came by chance, so things in latin america, came by chance.
very moving story in '89: six jesuit bro's killed, in jesuit univ. in san salvador along with house keepers as an act of terrorism.
many liberation theologians were angry with him when he criticized the marxist lectures of liberation theology. "but where was karl marx born, here (latin amer.) or in godham, ga.)
jim cone stood up and went through the rows of liberation theologians and said "you are all whites and to my knowledge there are more blacks in ...were are tehy blacks in lib. theology
then dorethee soelle stood up and went through the rows: "to my knowledge, more than half of theologians are female, but there are no women lib. theogians."
Tones fav moltmann work: preface to "Trinity and kingdom of God" b/c it's about a change or transition and move toward contributions to systematic theology. realized who he was as a theologians and what he is not.
started with Theo of Hope...resurrection; then toward perichoritsm to Theo of Cross; social doctrine of trinity bc since auagustine we have had psychological account of trinity: god has two images, father and son (two subjects) and hs comes out of that. there is no need for the HS if he is relation between two subjects. HS is no subject.
there are icons of two subjects and an animals, the dove.
EO: icons- 3 angels sitting around table.
So EO has complete doctrine of Trin. where we have a shattered doctrine.
So best idea is social doctrine...perichorises: Son, Spirit, Father indwell in one another and they interpenetrate.
From that, concludes that the congregation is a good image of Trinity, that they all maybe one. Prayer in John: "I am in you, so they may be in me"
Leo Boff tells story: communities in Brazil come together in one place, sign "holy trinity is best ...of trinity"
simple terms "doctrine of trinity, is not part of mystery, very simple, if you come into notion of Jesus, you come into fellowship of God who he called Father; and in fellowship with Jesus, surrounded by God, you feel life giving energies of Spirit." Christian phase has a triadic state already, so we already live in God, surrounded by God.
We don't believe in the trinity, we live in the Trinity. We live in God. There's an indwelling of trinity in us, as there is an indwelling in God.
Shroyer- unity with Trinity as three in one. as pastor that helps b/c they're not doctrine based church and there's a lot of beliefs. unity comes not from doctrine, but from Christ who is above that. Talk about gift of unity of trinity that doesn't have to be sameness.
Jesus addressed his God as abba, the father. Paul heard this prayer in Galatia and Rome. But this prayer disappeared in 1st century and replaced by "our father in heaven." far distance. misunderstanding of patriarchalism, father in family is distanced.
re-introduced the Abba, prayer..we'll feel nearness of JC.
not just 3 persons, but 3 rooms: they give for the two others to dwell in one another. to give room to each other means what we are doing, when we accept others in loving friendship, we give them life space.
benediction: read Ps. 39.

Emergent Village Gathering, Day 1

2009-09-09T19:42:00.004-05:00

Tonight, we began the Emergent Village proper (Danielle Shroyer of Journey Church in Dallas introduced the key note? speaker...Jurgen Moltmann...she did just write a book along those lines) with the professor of Missional Theology at Biblical Seminary, John Franke.

The main thrust of John's time was spent summarizing his main idea from his newest book, that truth is found in pluralization. While I'd like to press him some on this and get a better understanding of this (not because I don't think that truth exists in a plural world or that there is one way to truth, but because I'm not sure pluralism leads to meaningful community and truth exists in community or maybe I should say I don't think we (I) know how to engage difference or pluralism right and in a way that allows for true conversation to happen).

Tripp has some good notes on John's talk.

I'm excited about being here. I've already enjoyed some food and sights in Chi-town. I can't tell you how excited I am about Moltmann tomorrow (more on this later). I get to meet some really cool people, some I only know on the interwebs, so putting so flesh on them is nice. Plus worship tonight was meaningful. It was lead by a local Emergent church, Wicker Park Grace. The music was all home grown, and there was an artist who painted with pastels (i think) during the entire event. Plus, I never miss a chance to take communion, hopefully finding myself, a baptist transformed by God's grace in the sacrament of becoming the body broken for the world.

I'll hopefully get some more posts up during this gathering (coming out of hiatus...uhm, make that: blogging sabbatical).

BTW: I created a Twitter account since so much of this conversation is held in this space. So follow me if you'd like.

Defeating Hate, with the Head and Heart not Fists

2009-08-28T09:54:00.001-05:00

Is God shaken?

2009-06-27T11:31:00.000-05:00

via.

RIP King of Pop

2009-06-25T19:20:00.001-05:00

As you know, ambiguous pop legend and music icon Michael Jackson died today. RIP.

Listen to my Sermon

2009-06-17T17:02:00.003-05:00

I preached my first Sunday morning at First Baptist Church this last Sunday. It was a wonderful experience.

You can listen to my sermon, "Sowing Seeds of Doubt" here. Check it out!

Sowing Seeds of Doubt, A sermon on Mark 4:26-32

2009-06-17T17:00:00.000-05:00

Once long ago, a carpenter was born into a tribe of farmers, merchants, and shepherds. As the carpenter grew into a boy then a man, people in his area began to get suspicious of him. See, these people had long ago settled into the land and they survived by studying, listening to, and living off the soil, trees, and grass.

But this young carpenter came with a new vision for life, a vision of casting out and sailing the deep blue sea.

Everywhere this carpenter went crowds gathered around him. He often spoke in healing ways and told strange stories about life on the water. Crowds would disperse after hearing the carpenter speak with newfound hope and sense of life because of his beautiful visions and stories about the sea.

The carpenter continued his life going from village to village proclaiming life on the salty sea. He even began to draw up blueprints and make notes about his vision for sailing, a vision for a completely new way of life.

Along with a few faithful followers this carpenter began to build a ship on the sands of the sea. But like Moses who didn’t get to cross into the promised land, the carpenter died before ever setting sail. So his followers continued the good work and finished the boat and eventually cast out to sea.

Time passes and soon people are born on the ship who never knew the carpenter. It seems that life on the sea is as beautiful and wondrous as the carpenter ever spoke of, yet everyone still desires the land. Running deep within their veins is the soil of their ancestry, while the salt of the sea continues to burn their lungs.

Time passes and new generations come along and fortify the ship for fear of the sea. All windows are boarded up and no one is allowed on deck. The dream and vision of life on the sea is soon replaced with life in the ship. Most everyone’s effort was put forth in maintaining the vessel. Of course, once every week everyone on board would gather to read and talk about the carpenter and his notes, some even sang songs in praise of the carpenter.

Others dedicated themselves to the study of the carpenter and tried to figure out exactly what he really said, and what earlier generations might have added to his notes. Others found this study frivolous and decided to make the ship hospitable by using all their energy to adorn the vessel.

Times passes and people continue to desire the land while still revisiting the need to be on the sea at least according to the readings from the carpenter’s work. The ship is maintained and people bicker and argue about what the carpenter really meant and said. Vision for life on the sea is all but lost.

Then one day some children were playing in the hull of the ship and a mother noticed the wood beginning to crack. By this time the ship had seen hundreds and hundreds of years of service. Everyone’s minds were filled with images of the children being violently swept out to sea. Fear filled the air of the hull with the anticipation that drowning water would soon follow.

And before anyone could get to the children one child broke through the wood. But something surprising happened. Instead of a great splash of water bursting into the ship, a great cloud of dust puffed through the hole.

To their bewilderment, the sea had long ago dried up and the ship laid not in the midst of water, but rather in the midst of land and the civilization they had originally deserted all those years ago. And it wasn’t until they began to go forth from the vessel that the teachings of the carpenter began to make sense.

_________
This story of course, is my own parable, if you will. As we saw from the reading this morning, this was Jesus preferred way of teaching, in stories or parables. Not that I pretend to have special insider knowledge or even that a parable simply has one single, once for all time meaning, but with the gap between Jesus’s time and now, I wonder if we lose some of what Jesus meant with these simple, yet complex stories.

See,

Many of the commentaries and a few sermons I read on this text always pointed to one theme: faith. They say, Jesus was teaching about the power of a little, mustard seed-like faith or the power of God's word to plant itself mysteriously in faith. But I wonder if these parables are less about the need for faith, and more about the need for doubt.

Is Jesus sowing seeds of doubt?

Under roman occupation and a history of oppression, the Jews of the 1st century long awaited the appearance of the Messiah. This day was the eschatological day of the Lord, the day when God would come with a sword and bring vengeance to Israel’s enemies and restore the Davidic kingdom.

But we know when Jesus came on the scene; he compelled people to believe that God’s Kingdom of peace & reconciliation was right in front of them.

And this is what Jesus was focusing in on when he says: “The Kingdom of God is like”. With those words, he began to rock the religious system of every 1st century listener. Jesus spoke these words not only so people would believe toward the Kingdom, BUT so they would believe away from a religious system, doubting the very thing they measured life by.

And
This was the exact problem of Jesus: he wasn’t quite the Messiah people were expecting. Even Peter, the unshakable rock, the guy who walked on water questioned Jesus’ way of bringing in the kingdom. Not only was it not violent, but it reversed violence and called those who would follow Jesus to die with him.

Jesus still seems to defy the categories we place on him.

So,
What we find in these parables of Jesus is a call to put the primary things first and secondary things second. Or, by doubting what we place as primary, we can become people of peace, reconciliation, and love.
________

Did you know Google has the power to transform how we think and read?

At least this is what social science researcher Katie McGowan writes in her article, “Does Google (re)Make Us?

McGowan writes that “we are not only what we read…we are how we read it.”

She likens this shift in thinking to the effects of the clock on humans. Before the clock was invented people measured the day, went to sleep and woke up according to the sun. But with the invention of the clock we began to change our internal habits of eating and sleeping.

So, in our search for knowledge Google and the internet has given us something no civilization on earth has experienced before: instant knowledge at our finger tips. McGowan makes this poignant observation: as humans use technology, technology begins to use us.

Thus, Deep textual readings and analysis are replaced by sound bytes; the discipline for concentrating is replaced by short attention spans.

According to this researcher the primary search for knowledge and study, is actually replaced by the secondary methods: research using Google, reducing the human ability to reflect, think, and analyze what is being read.
________
Jesus spoke in parables because his listeners were entrenched, entrenched in their system of thought that made Jesus’ call to the Kingdom sound silly, for they all knew the Kingdom and it’s Messiah would come with force and power.

The very thing that made Jesus’ crowd “holy” kept them from Jesus & a life of peace & reconciliation.

So, what he is saying in these two parables is that despite appearances, despite our tendency to measure and control; it is not the KoG which is here and coming that should be doubted, but our religious systems that give us the appearance of goodness and righteousness.

Yet, because it’s easier to doubt the power of God’s mysterious rule than our religious life, we often approach Jesus like those on boat from my earlier story.

First, we make the voyage not about actually sailing and living according to what the carpenter taught, but about studying sailing and the carpenter’s teaching.

These Christians are like soldiers who sit in a foxhole and when the captain commands them to charge, they all remain seated. One soldier remarks on the tenor of the captains voice, another parses the words of the captain, while another argues if it was even the captain’s voice at all…all the while the front closes in on them.

It’s as if we think that thinking is doing something. As if the call of Jesus is to think about Jesus.

And
Before we know it, we think we can consume our way into following Christ.
“If I read one more book, go to one more conference, join a Bible study, then I’m more of a Christian. If I can recite to you Marcus Borg or NT Wright, Brian McLaren or whatever new curriculum, then I’m following Jesus.”
_____

Of course, there are others that find this way of being a Christian as frivolous.
These Christians are those of us, who spend all our energy on the life in the ship.

Much like the power of Google to shape how we think and read, making church or life in the ship primary can shape you into thinking you are a person of peace and reconciliation. But sometimes the truth is, some of the most bitter, power hungry, and angry people I’ve ever met have been people in the church.

Missiologist and church planter Alan Hirsch is right when he says:
It is theologically correct to say that the church IS NOT the kingdom. The church serves as a sign, a symbol, a foretaste of the Kingdom of God. The kingdom can express itself in and through the church in powerful ways, but the Kingdom extends to God’s rule everywhere.

Or as one of my favorite theologians says: “It is not that the church has a mission, rather it is God’s mission that has a church.”

Now, I’m not saying these things aren’t important. Of course studying and reflecting upon faith, Scripture, and history are important. Of course, church work and programs are necessary. But neither are primary.

In allowing Jesus to sow seeds of doubt, we may find that we've allowed secondary things to become primary!

We make going to church, more important than being church. We make being entertained more important than being formed. We make committees more important than forgiveness. We make amassing knowledge more important than the doing of that knowledge. We board up our windows and make our life central; over against the life of God, who as Bono says “is playing house among the poor, the forgotten, and marginalized.”

These stories of insignificant seeds point back to one thing: In Jesus’ words and work, the Kingdom had made its entrance.

Tony Campolo says, "I wish [Jesus] would ask, 'Virgin Birth: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree? Check one.' But those are not the questions. [The questions are] 'I was hungry, did you feed me? I was a stranger, did you make room for me?"

Faced with the decision to continue the beautiful and wondrous life on the sea, the people on the ship gave up in the face of the discomforts and growth pains of transformation. All the while life around them shifted and changed.
______
It was about my sophomore year of college when I all but lost my faith. As a religion major at a small Christian University: Mary Hardin-Baylor, I entered into a second and continual transformation.

My first big transformation came when I became a Christian, swinging far from being an atheist at the age of 17 to hard, fundamentalist faith as a senior in high school. For the first two years of my new life as a Christian, Christ radically transformed me with the power of forgiveness, but as this experience past away I soon replaced that vision of love and forgiveness with religious measurements for my faith as well as others.

Doing church, being a “holy” person, and closing myself off from the world became central. But in my struggle to reconnect with God, I found God planting seeds of doubt.

See, in the fall of my second year, I took two classes with Dr. Carol Holcomb, a brilliant woman theologian, a feminist and a deacon (of course in my early faith, all these things were contradictory to me, at least in the same sentence). Through her teaching and this new relationship, I internally began to question everything I had grown to know, everything that kept my faith safe.

So, my faith began to shrivel and die. I had become a judgmental, closed off person; fooled into thinking that I was righteous b/c I studied the Bible, worked at a church, and supposedly knew who was holy and who wasn’t.

It wasn’t until I learned through some mentors and friends that following Christ into the margins, actually doing forgiveness, and living love instead of just talking about them, that I again met God.

It was then I learned that meeting God and following Christ, finding love and peace were made real by giving love and peace, by following God found in the margins and often outside the walls of church.

As the world, our culture shifts around us, we, the church, are called to be a sign, a foretaste of God’s hope by going out into the world, to Austin, your neighborhood, or maybe even in this church and really doing the hard work of peace, love, and reconciliation….by making following Christ primary and real, thus realizing what has been true all along, in Christ you are a new Creation.

[God, you have loved us and been patient with your people. Holy Spirit, awaken us to your activity in us, around us, and through us. May we know you more by following you in the difficult and narrow path of reconciliation. We ask God, in your goodness that you’d give us the faith to doubt what we place over our lives and over you, relinquishing control and efficiency for the messiness of forgiveness and love. Truly in you we are already a New Creation, so we ask for faithfulness in making your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.]

Despite all appearances, trust that the Kingdom of reconciliation and peace is here among you. Leave this place as a servants to God’s causes, finding patience for love in the face of hate; justice in the face of oppression; and new life in the face of brokenness. May you, in the imitation of Christ, incarnate hope to the hopeless, light to the darkness, and water to the thirsty. Go now embodying a new way of life, go now sharing the gift of reconciliation, go now in peace.

Is USA moving towards socialism? Not likely.

2009-06-05T17:06:00.006-05:00

With all the bailouts and concerns from those on the right of the dem's expanding the USA government into a socialist state, here's a great reminder of REALITY.

via

Rollins' Interview with CC

2009-06-01T21:43:00.003-05:00

If you haven't heard of Pete Rollins, you should get acquainted soon. He's a writer, thinker, and story teller from Ireland wrestling with ideas from apophaticism, Lacan, Zizek, and postmodern philosophy/Christianity. He's one of the key ingredients to IKON in Belfast, the inspiration for VOID in Waco created by my friend Adam Moore.

Here's an interview in Christian Century. Beyond that I recommend his books (1st & 2nd), especially his newest one, Orthodox Heretic, which I think will become a very valuable teaching tool for myself and Christians in the West. Paraclete is providing the first story in the book at their site. Check it out.

Awkward Questions about Jesus

2009-05-28T17:46:00.000-05:00

Blessed are the Poor, Who Give out of Less

2009-05-25T10:54:00.002-05:00

Self Forgiveness: A Sermon

2009-05-22T10:36:00.000-05:00

In a recent “This American Life,” a NPR show covering stories from ordinary Americans, the entire hour was devoted to Scott Carrier, a former radio producer for the show. Scott began his career in radio shortly after losing his family to divorce, quitting his steady job as a painter, and hitchhiking across the nation to NPR’s headquarters with nothing but a tape recorder and tapes of interviews he had conducted along the way with the people who picked him up.

Scott’s stories are haunting and beautiful. One story that has really stuck with me is about one of his early jobs in radio working with a nationally known and widely loved public radio host who he simply calls “The Friendly Man.” Weekly, over 12 million listeners tune in to “The Friendly Man’s” 5 minute show. Such a large audience is drawn to the Friendly Man’s always positive and upbeat stories with one general theme: America keeps getting better and better.

Being an incredibly busy man, the “Friendly Man” stays in NY and his executive producer in LA wrangles stories from researchers. Daily researchers all throughout the nation score the internet and papers looking for positive stories for the show, then they write up a synopsis for approval by the executive producer and the Friendly Man.

Once a story is approved, than people like Scott Carrier, radio show producers are sent to produce interviews and compile stories for the Friendly Man to use. Of course, its important that one sticks to the story approved in the synopsis. In Scott’s earliest gig he found this out quickly when an irate executive producer yelled at him over the phone for making small changes to the story, that Scott saw as improvements.

And so, loaded with this knowledge and his gear, Scott traveled to Kansas City Missouri to conduct interviews. The theme of this story was about young poor, black people lifting themselves out of their current state and making things better. The focus of the story was on the black mayor and the midnight basketball program he began, to give the community hope and lower crime rates.

Scott conducted the interview with the major, then attended one of the basketball games where he found it packed with people watching 9 and 10 year playing as Scott said, “really good games”. After interviewing coaches, parents, and kids Scott began to think to himself, “things really are getting better and better in America.”

Feeling good, Scott got in his car to head to St. Louis to produce the next show, but he realized someone, probably a kid at the game had stolen some expensive batteries but more importantly they had taken the irreplaceable tape with the mayor’s interview.

The story he was sent to write was that America was getting better and better, but he wondered about the fact that he got robbed while reporting on a basketball program intended to prevent and lower crime. The way he saw it was these people had been poor for a long time, and things weren’t getting better.

He left a message with the executive producer and drove for St. Louis to produce a story again about poor, black people; but this time it was old poor, black people in a nursing home who had supposedly created their own economy and support system based on time-share dollars.

Upon arrival, he eventually spoke to two women who participated in the time-share program that evidently had made their nursing home a happier and better place. These women called neighbors to see if they were sick or not, cleaned clothes for neighbors, and even read to others for time-share dollars just like how several others in the home helped one another. Now, the purpose of these time-dollars is that they could trade among themselves for services and according to the synopsis, they than could go buy general necessities from a local community store.

After listening to the women, it sounded just like the synopsis, “Neighbors helping neighbors and getting paid to do it.”

Since the store of course was in the synopsis, Scott began to inquire about it to no avail. After several failed attempts to get the women to show him the store, he began to get worried. Finally, after begging them, the two women lead him down to a one story warehouse made of brick with a few windows. After walking down a long, narrow hallway in a building Scott describes “very suspicious” they arrived at the end of the long dark hall to find a metal cabinet with two large doors locked by a padlock.

Unlocking the lock revealed four shelves: the top littered with bottles of fabric softener; the next with baby wipes; the other had paper plates and plastic silver ware; and the bottom was filled with bathroom deodorizer. That was it. That was the store.

The story had disintegrated right there, so he called the executive to see if he could leave the store out of the story and just make it about neighbors helping neighbors. Of course, before he could get a word in, she began to yell at him about how he had ruined her weekend over the lost tape and, and how it was his fault, and that he needed to go back and interview the mayor again.

His only hope of keeping his job was to go back and interview the mayor, to do as he was told. According to Scott, he says “my job is to do what I was told, just as their job is to do what they were told, just as the friendly man’s job was to do what he was told, because the audience, the 12 million listeners had something they wanted to be told: that America is a good place with decent people, never mind the screaming coming from the basement.”

Tonight’s theme, as some of you know, is “self forgiveness.” When I first learned this was our theme tonight, I thought, what are we?…Joel Osteen’s ministry, building a better you.

Is that what we’re here for tonight, to learn what we are told all the time, that we can be better and better just like America is getting better and better?

I find it ironic that most of the commercials and ads that try to sell us products on the basis that we can be better or get more out of life are implicitly saying that without those products we aren’t good enough. So I want to reject the idea of self forgiveness for the purpose of building a better you, and rather address the story we really, implicitly live with and are told: that you aren’t good enough, that you must live with your guilt and shame.

It seems according the story given to us in the Scripture, self forgiveness is paradoxical to the nature of our cultural story where things simply seem to be getting better and better.

See, in our culture of over emphasized individualism, it seems the appropriate thing to do is actually to NOT forgive yourself. We are often taught that the only thing you have control over is yourself, so somehow the responsible thing is to not forgive yourself.

And so we make claims on ourselves. Impossible claims. We carry our guilt and shame, our burdens by ourselves because we feel we must until we reach some impossible goal or feel bad enough or deny our self through guilt or something to that effect.

Did you hear that? Yes, sometimes we even cloak the claims we make on ourselves in God talk…we say that this is our cross, we are just denying ourselves for the wrongs we have done or even that we deserve to be punished. So we punish ourselves.

But the reality is that to deny yourself forgiveness is to deny God. To deny yourself forgiveness, is to deny God.

Spiritual writer, Henry Nouwen says it this way: “forgiveness is allowing other people, not to be God.” This works in the reverse, self forgiveness is allowing yourself, not to be God.

So Paul, writing to one of his most problematic churches in Corinth says…”If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation!” or literally, “If anyone in Christ, New Creation!”

Paul knew and had experienced the reality that forgiveness had come into the world in Jesus Christ and God had begun the great reconciliation of all things to himself. So we deny God when we don’t forgive ourselves, because only God forgives. God, in Jesus Christ, declared you free from sin and guilt and has made you NEW! It was God who has done it and it is God who is doing it.

The story of God is the story that says you are forgiven, and to live otherwise is to deny reality. You ARE a new creation in Christ, stop listening to those other stories that are telling you that you can’t forgive yourself or you must feel guilty.

But of course this doesn’t deny the reality of the hurt or deep pain we feel, the reasons we so often can’t forgive ourselves. We say, “yeah, but if you really knew me…if you knew just what I’ve done…if only I had been a better person, spouse, father, daughter, son, coworker, if only, then….”

The writer of 1 John says in chapter 3, verse 20 that “whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”

When we can’t forgive ourselves we often have a conflated self identity and a deflated relationship and view of God. We relate to God disproportionally and place ourselves and our guilt above him or think very little of him.

God knows everything, all that we are and all that we try to hide…yet God is greater than our heart. While we may try and condemn ourselves, with God there is no condemnation.
So the call is to be in Christ, where we find ourselves as new creation…to place ourselves under the Cross and find God greater than any of our failures or imperfections!

Nouwen says this beautifully when he writes:

“Is there a way out? I don’t think there is- at least not on my side. It often seems that the more I try to disentangle myself from the darkness, the darker it becomes. I need the light, but the light has to conquer my darkness and that I cannot bring about myself. I cannot forgive myself. I cannot make myself feel loved. By myself I cannot leave the land of my anger. I cannot bring myself home nor can I create communion on my own. I can desire it, hope for it, wait for it, yes pray for it. But my true freedom I cannot fabricate for myself. That must be given to me. I am lost. I must be found and brought home by the shepherd who goes out to me.”

If denying self-forgiveness is denying God, then accepting God is accepting self forgiveness. Consequently, bringing God more and more into your life, focusing not on yourself or your regrets or your failures but seeking and searching for God who loves you, brings about self forgiveness, and healing.

By focusing more on God we find that we are capable of treating ourselves better, we realize that no one not even ourselves, except Christ, can love and live perfectly so we can have compassion on ourselves, we can let go of these claims or false stories we make about ourselves and live into the true story of God’s forgiveness for all, even you.

In a conversation I had with Marshall Smith who preached a few weeks ago here in Beresheth, we were talking about this theme of self forgiveness and he said, “You know Joe, I don’t think it was until I began actually forgiving others that I was able to learn how to forgive myself.”

In that passage in 2 Cor. Paul doesn’t stop with the declaration that we are a new creation in Christ, but continues saying:

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The paradox of self forgiveness is that it comes not by trying to better yourself and become a better you; rather self forgiveness comes by learning to live for others, by learning to serve and love, by being an ambassador of reconciliation, by following Christ.

Another way of saying this is that self forgiveness comes by way of transformation and transformation by way of mission.

May you listen for the story God is writing in your life. May you learn to give up yourself for the sake of love and find yourself more capable of loving yourself. and May you awaken to the reality, that you are forgiven, that you are loved and lovable and that you are a New Creation!

The US & Torture

2009-05-11T23:17:00.003-05:00

The power of torture is not so much that it gathers info or intel for the CIA. Rather the true power is that it creates a viewpoint within the American nation. Torture is the power of imagining ourselves as so righteous that we must allow our leaders to do the dirty work of torture to uphold our rightness, democracy, and exceptionalism ( or "the last great hope of the world"-Obama). Torture also creates enemies. Of course these aren't your run of the mill bad guys either for torture allows us to imagine that the enemies are so vile they must deserve it, subhuman. This of course leaks down to the power of punishing innocents (which has been widely the practice and mostly the case in the "enhanced interogation methods" used in the War on Terror), so we believe that if they are being tortured or treated so inhumanly, they must be guilty.

Torture is disugsting in every form. The solution?
Absorb it through the Eucharist or in other words allow the sacrifice or torture of Christ to become the once for all declaration that we all sinful, that we are all loved, and in Christ we are all redeemed. Or as William Cavanaugh says,

If the Eucharist is a participation in the sacrifice of Christ, if we become the Body of Christ, then we too are called not just to minister to the victims of this world but to identify with them. The opposition of them and us, friend and enemy, even victim and helper, is overcome. Violence against the enemy is unthinkable, because we are the enemy. Raniero Cantalamessa says “the modern debate on violence and the sacred thus helps us to accept a new dimension of the Eucharist,” thanks to which “God’s absolute ‘no’ to violence, pronounced on the cross, is kept alive through the centuries. The Eucharist is the sacrament of non-violence!

Check out Cavanaugh's entire article at the Other Journal, the journal of Mars Hill Graduate School.

This is my Public Service for the Day

2009-04-30T18:02:00.002-05:00

You are welcome.

CLICK TO FIND OUT IF YOU HAVE THE SWINE FLU!

And the man was very happy

2009-04-30T10:08:00.003-05:00

For the Ooze Viral Bloggers, I am reviewing "Enough: Contentment in an Age of Excess" by Will Samson. Though only 1/3 of the way through (I just began it yesterday), the parts that have stuck out the most to me is Samson's introductions to the each chapter with a midrash-like paragraph on Jesus and the "rich young ruler." I'll be posting my review in the days to come, but here's a few of the said paragraphs:

One day Jesus was walking down Main Street on his way out of town, and a rich and influential lawyer came up to hima nd asked: "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
And Jesus replied, "Give what you can to the synagogue. Ten percent is a good rule of thumb, but whatever you do, don't be a legalist about it. And make sure you have enough left over to contribute to the economy. You know, 'Give to Caesar...'"
And the man went away very happy, because that was exactly what he was already doing..

..."what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
And Jesus replied, "Become a better you. Awaken to your life's purpose. Be a good person. Eat what I eat. And vote right."
And the man went away very happy, because that sounded exactly like the kind of life he had been seeking.

...
And Jesus replied, "Great question! I've never thought of that before. Give me time to get back to you on that one."
And the man was pleased, because he really wasn't ready for any big changes at thi point in his life.

...
And Jesus replied, "Don't marry someone of the same gender, and don't allow someone you have gotten pregnant to have an abortion."
And the man went away very hapy, because he was already doing these things.

Homebrewed Christianity

2009-04-28T21:36:00.006-05:00

Last week I got one of my teeth drilled out, otherwise known as a root canal. For me, the worst part of the dentist are the sounds. Naturally I popped in my headphones and was taken to a different place, a place of "religionless Christianity."

For some time now I've been enjoying what I believe to be one of the best podcasts out there coming from one of my ole' friends from undergrad, Chad Crawford and his bud Tripp Fuller, a Phd. candidate at Claremont Graduate U. Both of them are graduates of Wake Forest Divinity School.

Between the witty banter and pedantic sarcasm, these two brewers gather together some amazing voices in theology and the church today and talk brew. While getting my tooth drilled hollow, I enjoyed the episode about Bonhoeffer's religionless Christianity and the interview with Jeffrey Pugh who has recently published a new book on the aforementioned material. They also let the likes of emerging heretic Tony Jones interview New Testament scholar turned atheist heretic Bart Erhmam on his new book, Jesus Interrupted.

But of course the depth of only 51 episodes provide so much more than those two gems with interviews with great thinkers like Diana Butler Bass, Brian McLaren, Richard Rohr, John Cobb, John Dominic Crossan, Phyllis Tyckle, Walter Brueggemann, Mark Scandrette, and many more.

As if anything else needs to be said: GO CHECK IT OUT! These guys will have you thinking each week about important theological issues for the church.

There is a War Going on for Your Mind

2009-04-27T23:21:00.001-05:00

Yearning and Discipleship

2009-04-24T18:42:00.003-05:00

"If you want to build a ship, don't summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organize the work, rather teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless sea."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Proper Role of Anger in Love

2009-04-23T21:23:00.004-05:00

"The opposite of love is not anger, the opposite of love is apathy."

-Roger Paynter, pastor of First Baptist Church Austin (my community of faith)

Reading Log

2009-04-23T15:47:00.000-05:00

Back on the book shelf
Consuming Faith: Integrating who we are with what we buy by Tom Beaudoin
Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
Beyond Homelessness: Christian faith in a culture of displacement by Bouma-Prediger & Walsh
Body Politics: Five practices of the Christian community before the watching world by John Howard Yoder
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sitting in the just finished stack:
Becoming a Thinking Christian by John Cobb
The Way of a Pilgrim
The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the ways Jesus is the Way by Eugene Peterson
Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

In my backpack, on the table, on my nightstand, and on my Iphone's Kindle:
The God of Hope and the End of the World by John Polkinghorne
The Way of Jesus Christ by Jurgen Moltmann
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren

In the soon to be read stack:
Original Sin by Alan Jacob
Subverting Global Myths by Vinoth Ramachandra

Texas Secede...ask Colbert

2009-04-21T11:17:00.000-05:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Tip/Wag - Texas Secession & MACA

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

The Reality of the Poor

2009-04-20T13:25:00.000-05:00

The question posed by the reality of the poor is no rhetorical question. It is a reality that calls on men and women not only to recognize and acknowledge it, but to take a primary, basic position regarding it. Outwardly, this reality demands that it be stated for what it is, and denounced. This is the stage of prophetic denunciation.

But inwardly, this same reality is a question for human beings as themselves participants in this sin of humankind. It is the call for their first great conversion. Men and women are being served notice here. They are being warned that the poor of this world are not the casual products of history. No, poverty results from the actions of other human beings.

from Getting the Poor Down From the Cross: Christology of Liberation, Jon Sobrino

The Slow Church & Spirit Time

2009-04-18T00:03:00.003-05:00

RealLivePreacher has written a wonderful post about Slow Church. He opens with the Carthusian monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery in France who allowed themselves to be filmed for the documentary: Into Great Silence. Of course, it only took them 16 years to get an answer back to the director.

I can remember in seminary that I was frustrated, frustrated beyond belief. The world was changing and the church was dragging its feet to catch up. Everyone knows that the culture, technology, ideology of the church is at least ten years behind if not a few centuries. Change couldn't come soon enough. Shortfalls are the easiest to spot in almost every scenario and belief, thus I wanted to change all things that I didn't like about the church. Certainly some of things were more noble than others. Certainly the church does need to change. But at the same time, I can't help but wonder if there is something right about slow change.

It could be that my frustration grew out of my own postmodern expediencies for instant change and the unsatiable desire for the new. Of course who wouldn't living in a culture full of instant meals, coffee, community (internet), and artificial desires created by marketing geniuses to trick us into simpy wanting the new car, house, phone, book series, shoes, etc)

I wonder if the many friends I have who are in that same place of frustration with the church are there because of the culture we live in. Certainly I believe they, as I did and still do, had good if not the best intentions for the church, the gospel, and engaging the world, but often our best intentions go awry due to the impervious nature of being honest and truthful with ourselves.

We live in a culture of instant change and insatiable desire for the new. It could be best that the church operates on a different timeline. Communities of faith, theology lived and believed, and transformation are all best served over time.

Here are some quotes from RLP that were beautiful in proving the rightness of the Slow Church:

People tell me that the average stay for a pastor in an American church is 18 months. That astounds me. We might have a stack of rocks on our back porch for 18 months while we talk about what we should do with them. Most of our best stories span 5 or 6 years at least. It takes about a decade just to figure out what’s going on at our church.

If you are thinking we don’t get anything done, nothing could be further from the truth. We do things. We just do them slowly. With time as no burden or constraint, we find we can do a lot with our bare hands. Children built our rock-lined path through the woods. Children working with their hands the last Sunday morning of each month. It took 2 years, but why should that matter? I watched a lot of the construction process. The man who guided them was in no hurry and didn’t mind if they lengthened the path only a few feet a month. The children were laughing. They had fun. And they built something our community loves.

Things are settled into the ground and beautiful. These things exist because we’ve chosen to live our lives slowly and deliberately in this community. We’re living on Spirit time, not clock time.

Don't hear me as swinging the pendulum as if the church doesn't need to change some things, certainly it must to survive and to communicate in the 21st Century. What needs to change along with the church though is our expectations for change. The new life so many of my frustrated friends, including myself, occurs within the slowing moving structures of the established and institutionalized, but it seems to me that too often we pull out of the farming business thinking it a failure long before seasons of harvest arise.

Patience is a virtue my momma always told me. Indeed, patience is essential for meaningful life in the church.

This is a Story about a Story: Lazarus & Abraham's Bosom

2009-04-16T07:26:00.001-05:00

This is a story about a story.

There once was a special ship designed for a singular purpose. This craft was unlike any previous and any to follow it. In ways, this space craft was irreproducible for never had humankind seen the likes of cooperation and never again would humankind see the likes of cooperation that it took to manufacture such an incredible vessel. All, yes, all of the world’s nations came together to build the ship that would become named Lazarus.

Yet, it was not just the cooperation that afforded the uniqueness of this event. As you'll soon understand, no two Lazarus’ could exist, for that would mean earth’s resources would have been completely depleted. Yes, that’s right. It took half of the world’s natural resources and all of the earth’s human resources to create and build such a thing. It was actually because of the depletion of natural resources that Lazarus was dreamt up. The skies were all fouled up, the water (at least the potable water) had been mixed with death, and the earth injected with venom.

So, all had a dream, a dream of hope. Hope misdirected. Hope nevertheless.

Lazarus was created for a single mission: “Abraham’s Bosom.” Because humanity had become too "rich" in existence on earth, the only way to continue such lifestyles was of course to escape the place humans had called home since the beginning. Abraham’s Bosom is code for Mars' colonization. Lazarus was created for a single journey to Mars. There would be no return trips, for there was not enough fuel or resources.

Although only half of the world’s population (which had become ever shrinking due to the inhospitable planet (due to the richness of life I might add)) were allowed to escape. The journey to “Abraham’s Bosom,” the gathered coalition of a new world consisted mostly of the "have nots." It only seemed most appropriate that it be the poorest of the poor, those who had suffered at the hands of rich who created such a beautiful, full, and dying earth home be the beneficiaries of Lazarus' journey.

Why should those who scourged the earth with their brilliance, comfort, and technological advancement be allowed to leave their own gift: earth uninhabitable? Well, because they are the ones who came together with this plan to escape it all, to leave the poor behind, and create new life somewhere else. Why hope for a better earth when you can create one on a different planet? A reset button. So, as too often is the case, the powerful and rich misdirected the homeless and increasingly earthless.

For you see, Lazarus was hardly created to make it to Mars. Rather, the vessel's design and nature was to launch into the void of space as a giant, sealed casket, leaving enough people on earth to start all ever again. Lazarus would never make it to Mars, yet the earth would never be restored pristine. The latter group whose richness of life had conquered the grass, soil, and sea wailed out for their injustice through the silent voice of depression and loneliness. Life on earth would be lost not to polluted skies or seas, but to polluted hearts and souls. The former group, though the sacrifice of the first, found ill pleasure in this hope away from hope, hope against the odds of the universe. Maybe Lazarus would arrive to its destination.

But, this is a story about a story.

The real story is what happened thousands of years after this most inhumane and dreadful occurrence. Although the Lazarus and Abraham’s Bosom parable was passed around as a reminder to care for the earth initially, although the writer of this tale meant to call people’s minds to justice, creation care, and love, although the point was to never really say that such things had happened, but rather to point to the realities of ecological and economical crises; somehow humans missed the point.

Hope misdirected and hoping against all odds, all began to read the story of Lazarus as history. Some asked if there were records of the enormous ship. Others pondered the realities of life on Mars. Still others couldn’t figure out what ever happened to the people aboard Lazarus. Somehow, all had missed the point and covered their responsibilities of new life and care with befuddling questions and stark facts about what had "actually happened."

Inspired by Luke 16:19-31 (and N.T. Wright's interpretation of it found in Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church).

My God, my God why have you forsaken me

2009-04-12T19:50:00.002-05:00

Here's a video I created for our Good Friday worship service that centered on the 7 last sayings of Christ from the cross. My text comes from Matthew 27:46. Although it's not necessarily Resurrection appropriate, Happy Easter nevertheless! Maranatha!

Methods Changes But the Message Stays the Same

2009-04-04T09:36:00.001-05:00

if Atheists Ruled the World

2009-04-02T23:01:00.002-05:00

Jonathan Brink posted this up and I have to follow in step here. You must watch this to the end...it will be offensive for those who don't care for "language."

What Got Jesus Killed: The Kingdom of God

2009-03-26T21:39:00.001-05:00

A sermon for Lent:

What Got Jesus Killed: The Kingdom of God

Tonight we continue to explore what I believe to be one of the most important questions for us during the season of Lent-

Why did Jesus die on the Cross?

A few weeks ago Ann preached how Jesus was killed for equating himself with God: “I and the Father are one.”

While it is true that Jesus made these claims, Rome could have cared less about the theological quarrels and quibbles of the Jews. As a matter of fact, Rome was more concerned with political zealots like Judas Maccabeus. The time of Jesus had grown increasingly volatile, the Jews hungry for justice and freedom from 500 years of oppression.

There were rumors the Messiah was on his way, meaning Jews everywhere on the edge of their seat waiting for his call to overthrow the hands of its current oppressor: Rome.

The cross was not only reserved for guys like Barabbas, remember the violent, political traitor Pilate released instead of Jesus, but the cross was invented as a means of control, a reminder that Caesar was Lord, the Prince of Peace and if you didn’t like his Pax Romana then crucifixion was your fate..

Jesus died then, the death of a political traitor, someone forming a movement that countered the ways of Israel and Rome.

So, I want to begin with the end, I’ll give my answer for Why Jesus died on the cross, then work from there. So my answer to this central question is: “The Cross is the unavoidable cost of God’s mission.”

So what was this mission that got Jesus killed?

IN our reading from the Gospel of Luke, we find Jesus’ mission statement. Jesus, like every Jew of his time, read and reread the prophet Isaiah, because this was a prophet pregnant with hope, much like the nation of Israel.
As a matter of fact these words in Luke 4 came directly from Isaiah 61. Yet Isaiah didn’t invent these words or concepts. Rather, the mission of God found in Isaiah, quoted by Jesus come to us all the way from Leviticus 25: the year of Jubilee.

Jesus arrived in the first century scene with this message and mission: I am the jubilee.

Jubilee was the sort of hope every Israelites’ imagination was full of. Under Roman occupation, Jews throughout the Empire dreamed of Jubilee. Established under Moses, Jubilee was created as an economic institution within Israel where all debt was forgiven and every slave released on the 50th year.

In the very simplest of terms, Jubilee can be described as God’s holistic mission. The Jubilee revealed that nothing, absolutely nothing was more important than humans created in the dignity and image of their Creator, no economics system, debt, or injustice could hold people under oppression. Israel was to be a witness to God’s restoring justice by instituting the Jubilee.

And under the vicious violence of the Romans, freedom and restoration is exactly what Israel longed for. So, when Jesus came making this claim that in him, God’s rule was coming on earth, just like he had taught the disciples to pray, “Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” Jesus wasn’t making mere spiritual statement about the state of your soul when you die, he was making political pronouncements:
In me God’s restoration is occurring, the hope that you wait for is now in your midst.

Basically, Jesus was making the claim that exile was over and God’s kingdom, his rule of was present among them.

Now that’s good news to captive Israel, right?

From some Jewish writers from the 1st and 2nd century, we find that “repent and believe,” terms Jesus used to build this Kingdom movement, meant he was asking for nothing less than full allegiance, allegiance to himself as the way of Jubilee.

But every group found something didn’t like & wanted Jesus dead over. He was either too radical or he wasn’t radical enough.

This last week, I heard a condemning statement that said, “if Jesus came down and lived among us now, we wouldn’t crucify him, we’d laugh at him.” For the same reasons those in the 1st century killed him, we in the 21st century mock him.

One such group, is the ever recognizable Pharisees.

For the Pharisees, what got Jesus killed was their religion. Now I know everyone gives these guys a bad wrap, but I think if we were being honest ourselves then we’d most likely identify with them. See, the Pharisees were the common people who preferred the familial and communal worship of the synagogue to the Temple. These were the guys who worked hard to keep their faith intact while the Greeks propagated their culture everywhere. If it wasn’t for the Pharisees, who knows, orthodox Judaism may have been lost to Hellenism.

Eugene Peterson, the author of the Message Bible says that if Jesus was looking to align himself with a group, it would have been the Pharisees, grassroots, common people.

Where the Pharisees wanted to divide and define life by what was sacred and what was not, Jesus’ very presence collapsed their system of religious boundaries. The sacred became the secular and vice versa.

Jesus makes this claim on our lives: to follow Jesus means to give your life in every way. There is no part of you or your life that is separate from God. Yet, we still like to exclude God from our daily lives.

The same as the Pharisees, we hide behind our religion.

We think as long we go to church, serve on a committee, teach Sunday school, sing in the choir; we’ve fulfilled our allegiance to Jesus.

Jesus’ call to put our allegiance in God’s Kingdom means orienting our entire lives, our jobs, families, and careers, and even our church around him. It’s not the separate and definable Law that interests Jesus, but the living relationships of loving God and neighbor.

Does your life reflect the Kingdom of love and justice?

Another group that murdered Jesus was the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the affluent and aristocratic types, they were the priestly class.

For the Sadducees, what got Jesus killed was their nationalism. Because of bad theology, the Temple had become the single sign of God’s presence for Israel, therefore God was on their side. It was the Jewish hope that the Messiah would come and destroy all of Israel’s opponents.

Somehow Gods kingdom had become reduced to a single location, a single theology. The Sadducees forgot that Israel’s existence was not for themselves, but for others, for God to bless the world through.

A few weeks ago, one of our countries most important leaders said:
“The United States is the Last Great Hope of the World.”

The same as Caesar’s claim as Prince of Peace and Lord of Lord, and the Temple’s claim on God’s presence, we tend to make nationalistic claims reserved only for Jesus.

And the reason we do this is we don’t trust that Jesus’ ways are the best ways. We say we believe in Jesus as our Savior and Lord bringing in Jubilee, but we trust our nation for our salvation and freedom.

For Jesus, the means did not justify the ends because in God’s Kingdom, the means become the End. The final eschatological hope, the hope Israel had been waiting for, of God’s final Jubilee came through Jesus’ ministry of healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, enemy love, service, and self denial.

To follow Jesus means pledging allegiance first and foremost to God’s kingdom: a Kingdom here but not yet. We tend to put our trust and salvation not in Jesus’ ways (which by the way we’d rather ridicule), but in our nation’s way, the pursuit of the American dream.

Which last great hope of the world do you truly trust?

Another group couldn’t stand the means of Jesus. This group always justified their means with their ends.

For the Zealots, what got Jesus killed was their propensity toward violence. This was the group, inspired by the Maccabean revolution and filled with deep passion for the Jubilee -for freedom and restoration, that fervently worked to bring in God’s reign by overthrowing Rome.

Jesus’ mission statement from Isaiah 61 is remarkable for not only what it includes, but also what it excludes. Jesus says the Spirit is on him to preach the Gospel, proclaim freedom to the captives and release the oppressed (important to the zealots), and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Then he stops, and rolls up the scroll, certainly stealing the thunder from anyone with a tendency toward violence in the room. See in Isaiah, that final sentence reads:

To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD
And the day of vengeance of our God;

Obvious enemy love and forgiveness wouldn’t go over to well with this crowd, it may even get you thrown off a cliff. Jesus trusted this commitment to nonviolence all the way to the cross.

Do you pledge allegiance to a Kingdom where the means are the ends?

Many other names and ways of approaching life could be mentioned, both 1st century and 21st. Ultimately though what lead to the cross was Jesus’ ways for bringing about the Way.

For Jesus, the means are the ends. The kingdom had come and is coming. NO nation, church, or religion has the absolute right to claim God on their side.

The Kingdom shows up in glimpses when we feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison. The Kingdom reveals itself when we find our lives intersecting with God’s life in the world.

Jesus was killed for fulfilling his mission statement- for creating a movement of people within Israel and beyond who trusted his ways over the worlds.

What got Jesus killed was his call for allegiance not to God’s Kingdom, but God’s way of bringing about that Kingdom:
For the same reasons Jesus was killed in the 1st century, we mock him in the 21st-

“If anyone wants to follow me, he must pick up his cross and deny himself.”

A Culture of Anti-Materialism

2009-03-25T12:53:00.001-05:00

The problem with our culture of consumerism is that it leans toward the power of docetism. Consumerism is never the drive to gather and store up our goods, it is the drive to replace our current goods with something else. Consumerism in essence denies material reality by always pointing beyond the product toward images and the insatiable desire to be clean, fresh, new, healthy, young, bold, smart, funny or whatever else we are told we are lacking.

Hear Rowan Williams', Archbishop of Canterbury's words (go here to listen or read in full):
'..... far from being a materialist culture, we are a culture that is resentful about material reality, hungry for anything and everything that distances us from the constraints of being a physical animal subject to temporal processes, to uncontrollable changes and to sheer accident.''
The economics of consumption are based on a belief in progress. Thus, for example, when our country and world face the first shrinking global market since WWII, we must realize that this is inevitable and necessary. Do you really believe that we can create a market that will be ever increasing, ever profitable, ever growing?

There seems to be an ontology based on the myth of progress that produces the epistemology that says we can overcome aging, dying, sickness, disease, poverty, etc. Sure these are all well and noble pursuits (obviously some more than others), but reality doesn't seem to work this way. We must work toward solutions to the above mentioned problems, not by trying to defy the reality of the world and ecological economics, but by living faithfully within the means given to us on this planet. An ever expanding market is unsustainable. Rising tides raises all boats, good for the boat owners, and drowns all boat builders.

For every summer there must be a winter, for every birth a death. The market must shrink, it must go up and down in ways that are meaningful. Shrinking is part of the ontology of earth, the seasons, the tide, the ebb and flow. Markets, governments, and people die to make room for new ones.

Other notables from Rowan Williams "Ethics, Economics, and Global Justice:"

We are delivered or converted not simply by resolving in a vacuum to be less greedy, but by understanding what it is to live as an organism which grows and changes and thus is involved in risk. We change because our minds or mindsets are changed and steered away from certain powerful but toxic myths. ...the state that promises maximised choice and minimal risk, is in serious danger of encouraging people to forget two fundamentals of economic reality – scarcity as an inexorable truth about a materially limited world, and concrete productivity and added value as the condition for increasing purchasing power or liberty, and thus sustaining any kind of market. The tension between these two things is, of course, at the heart of economic theory, and imbalance in economic reality arises when one or the other dominates for too long, producing an unhealthily controlled economy (scarcity-driven) or an unhealthily hyperactive and ill-regulated economy (based on the simple expansion of purchasing power). But forget that tension and what happens is not stability but plain confusion and fantasy. We have woken up belatedly to the results of behaving as though scarcity could be indefinitely deferred: the ecological crisis makes this painfully clear. Implied in what has just been said is a recognition of the dangers of 'growth' as an unexamined good. Growth out of poverty, growth towards a degree of intelligent control of one's circumstances, growth towards maturity of perception and sympathy – all these are manifestly good and ethically serious goals, and, as has already been suggested, there are ways of conducting our economic business that could honour and promote these. A goal of growth simply as an indefinite expansion of purchasing power is either vacuous or malign – malign to the extent that it inevitably implies the diminution of the capacity of others in a world of limited resource. Remember the significance of scarcity and vulnerability in shaping a sense of what ethical behaviour looks like.

Patience, trust and the acceptance of a world of real limitation are all hard work; yet the only liberation that is truly worth while is the liberation to be where we are and who we are as human beings, to be anchored in the reality that is properly ours. Other less serious and less risky enterprises may appear to promise a power that exceeds our limitations – but it is at the expense of truth, and so, ultimately at the expense of human life itself. Perhaps the very heart of the current challenge is the invitation to discover a little more deeply what is involved in human freedom – not the illusory freedom of some fantasy of control.

A Society Controlled By Google?

2009-03-23T12:10:00.000-05:00

In some wonderfully illuminating writing, Katie McGowan reflects on Google's ability to reshape or (re)Make the human ability to think. We use our technology, then our technology uses us. Using Foucault and Lyotard, she wades through the value claimsto get to the internet's ability to supposedly offer up unlimited (and correct) information at our finger tips. The article is worth reading in its entirety, but I've collected some quotes I thought were interesting:

In the instance of the Internet and Google’s search engines, it is our minds that are up for grabs on the auction block.

...‘we are not only what we read…we are how we read’, and is concerned about the Internet’s preference for quick and efficient information gathering at the cost of deep textual analysis and attention spans.

Such shifts in the way we think are not new phenomenon, says Carr. When humans began using the clock on a wide-scale basis, we began to change our internal habits of eating and sleeping based around the times of the clock.

Do these systems of knowledge transmission reflect systems of power and control, or is the Internet as we know it truly a semiotic democracy?

Carr points to this tension between the economics of the mind and that of the Internet. He argues, “The faster we surf across the Web — the more links we click and pages we view — the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements

The relationship between knowledge and power then is “indispensable” in their relationship to systems of production. Google’s ability to increase production of knowledge through scientific and mathematic experimentation and algorithms creates a system of power, control, and knowledge in the image of its creators.

According to Lyotard, such “administrative procedures should make individuals ‘want’ what the system needs in order to perform well” (62). By giving us what we “want” through individualization via isolated and controlled environments, we are supporting the performance and economies of the Internet.

How about a Sweet Video

2009-03-21T12:24:00.002-05:00

Left last week for Beaumont with some students from my faith community and have been vacationing from here for the last week, so to excuse the silence here's a great rendition of "Little Ride Riding Hood." Oh, by the way we dry walls an entire house in 2.5 days and got to see just how great our students are.

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

This Ain't Your Momma's Christianity...

2009-03-13T18:49:00.000-05:00

Merehope posts up some interesting research from church historian, Mark Noll:

First, the magnitude. In order to grasp the current situation of world Christianity concretely, consider what went on last Sunday. More Roman Catholics attended church in the Philippines than in any single country of Europe. In China, where in 1970 there were no legally functioning churches at all, more believers probably gathered for worship than in all of so-called “Christian Europe.” And in Europe (as reported by Philip Jenkins) the church with the largest attendance last Sunday was in Kiev, and it is a church of Nigerian Pentecostals. Last Sunday, more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the U.S. combined. And several times more Anglicans attended church in Nigeria than in these other African countries. In Korea, where a century ago there existed only a bare handful of Christian believers, more people attended the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul than all of the churches in significant American denominations like the Christian Reformed Church. In the United States, Roman Catholic mass was said in more languages than ever in American history. Last Sunday many of the churches with the largest congregations in England and France were filled with African or Caribbean faces. As a final indication of global trends, as of 1999 the largest chapter of the Jesuits was in India, and not as in the United States as had been the case for many decades before.

In a word, the world Christian situation is not what it was when your grandparents were born, or even when you were born.

Googling the Bible- De-Signs of the Times

2009-03-12T11:05:00.000-05:00

In staff meeting a few days ago, we were talking about the lectionary reading for the fourth Sunday in Lent, which contains John 3:16. So I shared the story about Tim Tebow, the QB for the national champions Florida who put John 3:16 under his eyes, and that day "John 3:16" was the top Google search. Check it out yourself here and here. The implications being that enough people, in fact several thousand people didn't know and had to google John 3:16 to find out what it means. Yes, the staple verse that every person slightly familiar with the church knows had to be googled.

I think I was more surprised that the staff was surprised that so many people didn't know what John 3:16 means. I posted a few days ago about this study which revealed the fastest growing religious population in the USA are the "Nones" (see CNN"s coverage here).. Via Alan Hirsch's blog post on this subject, I was tuned into some interesting thoughts by a missional leader:

In sum, the findings show or lead to the conclusion that:
1) Religion and Christianity are on the decline in the US;
2) Protestantism is doing worse than Catholicism due to Catholic immigrants;
3) Mormonism is keeping up with population growth, and Islam and New Age/Wicca are exceeding it;
4) Atheism, while still a small percentage of the population, is on the rise; and
5) "Spirituality,"--or non-organized belief in God--is still vibrant in the US.

What implications does this have for the church in the US?
- Attractional methods alone will have decreasing effectiveness, though they will reach some.-
- Not only theologically, but pragmatically, we must make the structure of the church be missional in nature and make dramatic changes in how we allocate our resources. This might mean moving all "Bible studies" off site, in coffee shops, Starbucks, homes, schools, etc.to meet people where they are. With antagonism and apathy towards religion, fewer will show up because we have better programs. And those that do will already be Christians.
- We need to train our members in knowledge of other faiths and resurgent atheism and methods to reach these adherents.

We must make dramatic changes. Sadly, however, most churches will do almost nothing to respond to these cultural changes. Those that do respond will respond incrementally only. With a shrinking pool of Christians, there will be an increasing competition amongst churches for members. This will, ironically, put more pressure upon church leaders to shore up "programs" to attract church members to shore up the decreasing member base.

In the midst of all of this, it is unbelievable to me that our fellowship is consumed on all sides with "doctrinal issues"--meanwhile our nation is hopelessly lost. And the resistance to making practical, methodological changes, such as replacing Sunday night worship or Wed. night classes with outreach and service, moving "classes" off site, planting new churches, changing times, making budgets missional, etc., is quite simply, absurd.

What do you think of these findings? How should the church respond to the changing (a)religious landscape of the US so that we can reach people today?

These are great thoughts and questions to ponder honestly in our cultural climate of religious change. There are doctrinal issues that are important, like how we read the Bible when dealing with women or homosexuals; but the church must start asking questions about true change. Yet, I wonder as I reflect upon my experience in staff meeting, if the church is capable of asking these questions. It seems, at least in my context, that the anomalies are just arising and when anomalies first pop their ugly heads our paradigms and plausibility structures have ways of ignoring them. What are the methodological, ecclesiological, budget, staff, small group, community development, worship, discipleship...what are the changes you see that we need to make?

Oh, and here are some other good thoughts on this article.

Who's the Fastest Growing Religious Group in the US?

2009-03-11T13:20:00.001-05:00

Would you have guessed Mormons?

Mormons have increased in numbers enough to hold their own proportionally, at 1.4 percent of the population.

What about Muslims?

The Muslim proportion of the population continues to grow, from .3 percent in 1990 to .5 percent in 2001 to .6 percent in 2008.

Baptists, of course?

Baptists, who constitute the largest non-Catholic Christian tradition, have increased their numbers by two million since 2001, but continue to decline as a proportion of the population.

Then it must be the New Age folks, like the Wiccans?

Adherents of New Religious movements, inc luding Wiccans and self-described pagans, have grown faster this decade than in the 1990s.

“The percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent. Given the estimated growth of the American adult population since the last census from 207 million to 228 million, that reflects an additional 4.7 million ‘Nones.’ Northern New England has now taken over from the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the country, with Vermont, at 34 percent ‘Nones,’ leading all other states by a full 9 points.

‘Many people thought our 2001 finding was an anomaly,’ [Ariela] Keysar said. We now know it wasn’t. The ‘Nones’ are the only group to have grown in every state of the Union.’”

The Nones? Yes, that's right, the Nones according to the American Religious Identification Survey from only a few days ago . So it could be very possible that:

"It looks like the two-party system of American Protestantism--mainline versus evangelical--is collapsing," said Mark Silk, director of the Public Values Program. "A generic form of evangelicalism is emerging as the normative form of non-Catholic Christianity in the United State s."

What to do in the flood of change, abandon the sinking ship, repair the ship, or build something else that'll float in the flood waters?

Supercessionism Revisited

2009-03-09T21:20:00.002-05:00

C. Orthodoxy has a great post for revisiting supercessionism, and it makes me wonder if the church isn't in the same boat as we wait upon the coming Christ. Israel was no more the telos or goal of God on earth than the church. The purpose or goal is always Christ and the reconciliation he brings to earth.

More Funny Truthtelling

2009-03-08T15:28:00.002-05:00

Lent & Globalization

2009-03-06T10:28:00.001-06:00

Lent is a refreshing time, refreshing in the sense that we are driven back, reminded, and disciplined toward that which gives us life: God. Traditionally, Christians practice a certain discipline that removes one activity, not because it is necessarily "bad," but because that activity or thing distracts us from the real source of abundant life. Fasting gives us time to feast, as WWJE (What Would Jesus Eat) reminds us here and here,

Lent always awakens my imagination. What can or do I need to fast from? What would be meaningful? What can I focus or feast on: prayer, Bible memorization, service? Much of my thought as of late as been on economics, consumerism, and globalization. Today I thought, "what would it look like to fast from globalization, and what would I feast on?"

In case your unsure what that -ization word means, here's Gerald Daly's definition that sums it up well: globalization "is characterized by the concentration of economic control in multinational firms and financial institutions, worldwide networks of production, exchange, communication and knowldge, transnational capital, and a freer flow of labor, goods, services, and information."

So, as I was pondering what it would look like to fast from the above, I thought...it's inescapable. I can't fast from globalization, it's not simply a personal choice but rather a national way of doing life. I could not buy any new consumer products and buy all my food local, but realistically this is not disengaging completely from globalization. All my past commodities, my car, the house I rent, the clothes I wear, the roads I drive on, the places I shop, the building I work in, everything has been produced my the grand narrative of globilization.

Driving this narrative is the myth of progress. With the crises of ecological disasters, global economic breakdown, exclusion of the poor, and the rise of conflicts because of resources we've seen that "progress" is unsustainable. Our markets, businesses, churches, communities, the "American Dream' is about sustaining the unsustainable all for the myth of progress.

As my Lenten reflection has lead me, the solution to globalized progress cannot simply leave behind the system, it's inescapable. Even my quest for a solution is driven by the narrative of progress..."what's next, how do we solve this problem?"

Maybe the recent economic meltdown is a reminder of how life actually works, not in progressive steps but in seasons, cyclical seasons of life and death, joy and pain, ups and downs. A civilization, a global village cannot exist on a story that does not embrace life through death, but rather does all that it can to ignore death, aging, and anything non-young.

My Lenten reflection leads me to think that solutions to globalization and a culture of progress cannot be as simple as "dumping" the system, but must provide real world answers in real world economics. This may mean compromising for the best possible solution at the time. Whatever it means, it means feasting on a God who invites us into seasons, Lent, Advent, Death, Resurrection. Truly the only way to live alternatively is to live within a different narrative, thus for Lent we should fast from progress and feast on reality.

Everything is Amazing yet Nobody is Happy

2009-03-02T12:51:00.001-06:00

Comedy seems to one of the amazing ways of truthtelling.

Crisis of Credit Visualized

2009-02-26T17:46:00.000-06:00

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Current Retreat 2009: McLaren, Butler, Yee

2009-02-21T20:28:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow after worship at First Baptist, my fellowship and faith family, my beautiful wife and I fly out to Orlando to spend 3 or so days at the Current Retreat. Current is a young leaders retreat put on annually for Baptists by Baptists...Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. I'm excited about the keynote speaker, Brian McLaren as well as Amy Butler (pastor of Calvary Baptist in D.C) and Joy Yee (from San Fran's 19th Ave. Bapt.).

I'm pretty pumped about simply getting away to have this intentional time to be with young leaders...I'll finally get to meet the many other residents in the CBF pastoral resident program I'm in...and to be with Charlotte for a few days. Plus, CBF put us up in a hotel in down town Orlando. I won't be able to tell if I'm excited about Brian too much, until I figure out what he's speaking on. There are some things I'm sure he'll bring up, but hopefully he'll have some fresh perspectives and there will be oppurtunities for good dialogue.

Depending on wifi access at the church Current is being hosted at, I may or may not be blogging through McLaren's, Yee's, and Butler's presentations.

And by the way, FBC now has a blog.

True Intimacy

2009-02-21T09:51:00.001-06:00

Human relationships easily become possessive. Our hearts so much desire to be loved that we are inclined to cling to the person who offers us love, affection, friendship, care, or support. Once we have seen or felt a hint of love, we want more of it. That explains why lovers so often bicker with each other. Lovers' quarrels are quarrels between people who want more of each other than they are able or willing to give.

It is very hard for love not to become possessive because our hearts look for perfect love and no human being is capable of that. Only God can offer perfect love. Therefore, the art of loving includes the art of giving one another space. When we invade one another's space and do not allow the other to be his or her own free person, we cause great suffering in our relationships. But when we give another space to move and share our gifts, true intimacy becomes possible.
-Henri Nouwen

via.

Bad Day? Watch this...

2009-02-18T23:56:00.000-06:00

to at least the 4:30 mark...

Not Violent Enough?

2009-02-15T14:00:00.004-06:00

I recently had a very interesting and thought provoking day listening to Pete Rollins, hosted by an interesting faith community, Journey Imperfect Faith Community. In two sessions, Pete laid out theoretical and philosophical approaches to doubt and community than he talked about practicing those thoughts.

There were several and very intelligent insights Rollins talked about, some which can be found in his books or blog. Rollins argues for a constant place of doubting God, an a/theistic approach to faith which bends toward the Christian tradition. In ways I think Rollins is capturing a faith hermeneutic of suspicion that is 1) very contextual to Ireland, 2) intrinsic to who he is and how is approaches faith, 3) important for the Church at large, especially in the West, 4) not for everyone, and 4) still in the process of being understood.

With that last note, something I really appreciate about his thought and practice is that Rollins doesn't need to have everything theologized and figured out before acting, but instead acts and than creates a theology around those actions in retrospect. Why I think this is important is because Rollins and this approach really allows people to participate in creating culture, community, and faith or non-faith.

The talk he gave is also a blog title, "Fundamentalism isn't too violent, It isn't violent enough." I do not like his use of the term "violent," but this post is well worth the read. Maybe his use of "violence" is right in the context of changing social structures, yet I still want to steer clear of the term "violence." The post is full of great thoughts, check it out.

Shenk & a missional ecclesiology

2009-02-09T12:57:00.000-06:00

Wilbert Shenk asks, “What can we say are the main features of a missional ecclesiology? At least five things will characterize a missional church:
• The missional church is intensely aware that its priority is to witness to the kingdom of God so that people are being liberated from the oppressive power of idols. The church is consciously discerning and naming the idols.
• The church is deeply committed to the world but is not controlled by the world. In other words, the church knows that it has been placed in the world but is never to be subservient to the world. The absence of this tension indicates that the church has made its peace with the world.
• Mission is patterned after the example of Jesus the Messiah; that is, mission is cruciform. The vision of Isaiah 53 is being fulfilled as God’s people serve and witness. The cross is central.
• The missional church has a keen awareness of the eschaton. In Jesus Christ the kingdom has been inaugurated, but the people of God eagerly await the consummation of the kingdom.
• Church structures will serve and support its mission to the world. Human cultures inevitably change over time. The church must stay abreast of its changing cultural context, which will require the dismantling of archaic forms that impede missionary witness and the devising of new structures that support the mission
New Wineskins for New Wine: Toward a Post-Christendom Ecclesiology
via.