Moments of Crisis

One more week until I start my comps! It has been a long and stressful run. It is not so much the material, although there is a lot of it, but it is all the life that constantly gets in the way. I'm sure I'm not the only one who experiences this. It seems that there is always some sort of crisis in my life, either with me or someone I love. But life is like that, if it was smooth sailing then it wouldn't be that interesting. And actually I'm wired for crisis anyway. I tend to excel when faced with considerable challenges and when those challenges are not around I have motivational problems. I'm working on that. In the meantime I'm trying to make it through my notes one more time before I write. If you are the praying type, I'd appreciate prayers for grace with my family - I'm not the easiest of people to live with at the best of times.

Vineyard Days!

I just returned from the Ontario Vineyard Days conference. Daniel Schuster (Calgary) was our keynote speaker - well if you can call it that, cause what happened was way more awesome than some speaker sharing something they found important. Daniel helped lead us through some significant heart work as a region. It was amazing. I came away with renewed hope for our churches, I know a lot of them have been struggling for a long time. But what really got me was I was completely unaware of how much my own heart had been tied up in all that went down in the 90s (that's when the Airport Vineyard was asked to leave). I have done a lot of reflecting on that time, trying to understand what happened. But it really wasn't about understanding, it was about what that did to our hearts. I think what God was doing this past weekend makes it possible for us to find a new center in our identity and I'm extremely hopeful that we'll follow God in this unfolding work of absolute grace. My friend Ahren (Ottawa Valley Vineyard) put it well in our last session - it isn't about having a response at the end of our service - indeed no response is adequate to this - but it is about letting it bug us cause burying it (what we've been doing) hasn't worked.

During the gathering I got to present a Thoughtworks workshop on the theology of grace. Actually I was doing two things: 1) demonstrating how important theology is to us as God's people - you do it anyway, wouldn't it be better to do it well? and 2) showing how working within a methodological framework opens up meaning we might not otherwise see. I used Ventor's proposed threefold approach: Bible, Tradition (and history), and Holy Spirit. I looked at grace three ways drawing us to a richer understanding than the truncated Reformed position that is primarily about personal salvation. Not that the truncated understanding is wrong - it just is not the whole story.

My big concern was if anyone would come to a workshop on theology like that - especially so many other cool options (I really wanted to go to the worship workshops). But I had a pretty big group and they were engaged. Maybe we are asking the right questions after all. I was encouraged. I know that despite Wimber's commitment to lifelong learning, continuing education is not always the easiest sell in our churches. Not the kind of learning that I think is needed - there is always a market for pop psychology and simple teachings. But those things are not adequate to the challenges of our time. One of my biggest passions is that we've created a form of Christianity that can't bear academic inquiry because it is based on weak methods and a lack of trust in the experience of God. In fact lots of Christians have an experience with rhetoric and not an experience with God - so their trust can't bear any kind of challenge to their truth claims. We really need to reclaim an academic excellence that comes out of our quest to understand the faith that our experience of God evokes.

I skipped the AAR. I wanted to go tonight to a session on the origins of Pentecostal identity in Canada. Would have been great. But I needed a day to rest. Tomorrow I'm back at studies, my big exam is on the 18th. If you are the praying type, I can use all the encouragement I can get.

Chirp Chirp

So what do Christians banned for being idiots on Twitter do? Yup they start their own separate twitter wannabe. Thanks for the heads up Jim. Why do such antics make me so sad inside? Curse of being an optimist and always expecting more from my fellow Christians.

Gervais the Exegete

Not for the kids, but a very entertaining read of the two creation stories.

Review: A Climate for Change

I actually have a bit of a backlog on books I'm supposed to be reviewing. But when A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith Based Decisions (Katharine HayHoe, Andrew Farley, Faith Words, 2009) arrived, I had to take a gander. In fact I had to read the whole thing. The first 3/4s, or more, of the book is an apologetic for climate change, specifically that climate change is happening and that humans are the source. This part is ok, except that the quotes that start off a chapter usually have much more depth than the chapters themselves. I chalked this up to how volatile this debate has become South of the border (in the United States), and how careful the authors wanted to be. Unfortunately, nowhere in the book does it state that we need the Earth and not the other way around. I suppose such a fact would not sit well with the intended audience of this book. But knowing that is my bias, it is not surprising that the last few chapters made me want to throw the book at the wall. If you spend that much time outlining a real problem then you would think you could at least propose a stewardship approach (even though I am convinced stewardship is not near an adequate response to the ecological crisis we are facing.) Actually, the response section begins with an affirmation of the pessimistic claim that God will yank us out of here anyway, or at least destroy the Earth and create something new. They even quote Revelation, but not the parts about the new coming down to the old or that God will return to destroy those who destroy the earth. So after discounting the possibility that anything we could ever do to respond to the ecological crisis is useless, they propose another reason. It makes a good witness??? Actually, I think if you motivation is to look good to maybe win people - is that not hypocritical? Seriously, if I got excited about Jesus through someone doing something they didn't believe in I think I'd probably not be too excited about that person's religion when I figured it out. This is what I would call a bad witness. Color me frustrated at this point.

They actually end on a good point. It is true that none of us can do it all. And the best place to start is with small steps having the goal of changing our lifestyle (especially our dependence on non-renewable sources of energy). And for all I complained about lack of depth, the chapters do cover off the majority of falsehoods I've heard from folks who deny the ecological crisis. Not sure how convincing their arguments are, I was convinced from the beginning. And the quotes, many of them are really good.

I'm not sure I could recommend this book. I really want to. This is an area that evangelicals really need to think deeply about. But I would want a response that includes faithfulness to God, particularly God's love for this whole world. I want something that challenges anthropocentrism, the arrogance of our species. And if this is part of our witness, and I believe it should be, then I want something that engages the issue on the issues terms, not as a smokescreen for evangelistic motives with no real desire to make a real difference for our planet. Bottom line is, we screwed this planet up, we can't fix it (despite a few hints in this book that there is still time to fix the problems, they waffled on this point though) but we have to do something, if for no other reason, the ones who suffer the most are the ones least able to do anything about climate change. But, I'd add, that as Christian we also need to have hope that through God we can do more than is humanly possible and maybe through God's grace give our kids a planet that will be livable.

Today it Arrived!

I have been waiting a long time for fresh + re:fresh to come. I was really excited when Len emailed me to say they had finally landed with him, and still it took over a week to arrive. Canada Post battered the spine up a bit, but not to let that squash the extreme joy of seeing my article actually in print! Wahoo! I instantly added it to LibraryThing and I'm wondering if a single chapter qualifies me for a LibraryThing author badge. Ah, but I'm gushing. I read my article sitting in the parking lot of my regular grocery store, and it is pretty good. I've spent a bit of time with the book, taking breaks from my work, and I think it is a great addition to the growing body of literature on emerging/missional church. Some of the best stuff coming out is descriptive, it is an important place to start. As Noll says, evangelicalism at its best is a blending of innovation and tradition and this book certainly represents that (Noll, American Evangelical Christianity, 15). Thanks Len for letting me contribute to this project, I hope it brings out the best in evangelicals all across this wonderful country of ours.

Back but still busy!

The Theology Intensive at Dominion Hill was excellent. It was great to get to meet theologians and pastors that I didn't know and hang out with a few that I did (and really like!) I was really encouraged that the Vineyard, in Canada, is wrestling with the important issues of our time. I think about four years back I got the impression that we were in a holding pattern, which I found a bit frustrating. But that is definitely not my impression after this past week. I was also really encouraged with an insight of David's about the mode of deconstruction that many people are engaging in these days - at the end of ourselves what we really need is an encounter with God. In fact the whole mystic thrust is that we stand before the unknown and are undone. The Vineyard is good at that, we have a long tradition of experiencing God. This is something we need to celebrate and look for as a way forward into the future. To that I say "Come, Holy Spirit!" David wasn't suggesting we somehow disconnect our brains. While we engage with the issues to the fullest of our capacities - there is always something more than what we can do on our own. The wonderful insight of Kingdom Theology is that the Kingdom is God's, not ours. And while we love to partner with God in the stuff of the Kingdom, it is God who leads and reigns.

I wish I had time to properly capture the rich discussions of this past week, but alas it is back to the grind for me.