Taken - Holy Crap!

OK as if life is not complicated enough. Rememer the Aussie I mentioned. Yup, turned out he was scamming us. Left us with a $1200 hotel bill, took one of our people for $160 and just all around played on our generosity. Please keep an eye out for an Irish lad travelling in Canada (claimed to be heading to Vancouver next) from Australia. He did make calls to Australia so I am hoping to at least track it back to the last folks he scammed. He went by the name Robert Michaels, claimed his wallet (money, passport, credit cards) were stolen.

You know the money doesn't matter. Sure it sucks, but it is only money. What hurts is that we spent a lot of time (something we don't have a lot of) with him this week. Drove him all over. Shared our lives. Introduced him to our trusting community. And then this. I feel like I lost a friend. I feel deeply sad. (I would understand feeling angry, but anger is the furthest emotion from me). I feel like if he came here I'd want to just hold him and ask why? I want to understand.

One Down, one to go

Wow! What a wild week. I met this crazy Aussie (actually a displaced Irish lad) and we've been on a roller coaster ride. Gotta love divine encounters. Looks like I might actually end up at the U2 concert this weekend - sweetness! Let you know how it goes ;-)

I am busy working on my second paper (taking a break actually), should have it done tonight. I eneded up working on the whole notion of freedom in Paul Ricoeur's work (dropped the theme of seperation). It was a hard one to write because pulling out what I wanted in a manner that made sense was the equivelant of sorting spaghetti. The one I am working on deals with sacramentalism in the emergent movement. I am trying to get to the roots of this rather than just comment on the practices. My question is this: Why is there such an interest in sacramental life in the emergent church? I am having fun with that but it is hard to avoid complex subjects like meta-narratives and incarnationality. I am finging a lot of great resources tracking back the references in A Generous Orthodoxy as well as Scot McKnights articles.

The funnest part is that I get to present this so I've already lined up my slide show, just need to populate it with lots of images swiped from my emergent friend's sites. Thanks guys and gals!

Hopefully I'll have more time for verbosity next week. Until then, blessings.

Yup, it is true, I am a Moltmannian!

You scored as Jurgen Moltmann. The problem of evil is central to your thought, and only a crucified God can show that God is not indifferent to human suffering. Christian discipleship means identifying with suffering but also anticipating the new creation of all things that God will bring about.

Jurgen Moltmann 80%
Martin Luther 53%
Karl Barth 53%
John Calvin 40%
Friedrich Schleiermacher 40%
Charles Finney 33%
Paul Tillich 33%
Anselm 20%
Jonathan Edwards 13%
Augustine 7%

Which theologian are you?
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Trajectory of Freedom in the Adamic Myth

Hope I don't scare too many people away with the title. I am re-reading Paul Ricoeur's analysis of what he calls the myth par excellance - Gen 2 and 3. It is brilliant and insightful, and I need to write a paper on it (hopefully today). I have pulled out one theme that of a trajectory of seperation as a way of speaking of the anthropology of sin. But one other thing that is spinning around in my head is this whole notion of freedom.

As you might know freedom is a topic I enjoy musing upon. I think we have some pretty screwed up notions of freedom operating in our society - and the Adamic Myth, to borrow Ricoeur's term, gives us a sense of how the gift of freedom has become for humanity something completely other than it was intended.

Freedom is a big part of the theology of hope in Christianity. If freedom isn't part of what we are moving towards, then what is it? And just maybe that freedom, the gift of God, is still held out to us awaiting for our embrace of it. For freedom's sake Christ has set us free.

Freedom from what? I think the root of the problem lies in an inability to seperate freedom from bondage. Meaning that if there is a trajectory of freedom, then logic demands a current state of bondage. But freedom, as seen in the Adamic Myth, pre-exists bondage.

Freedom as what? Well freedom doesn't exist in the absence of limitations. You shall eat of every tree in the garden except..." The notion of freedom as anarchy is not a biblical notion of freedom. The command was not meant to enslave humanity in a state of limitation even though that is what the serpent made it out to be. Limitations are only limitations when we percieve them as a threat to our freedom. Therein lies the conundrum of the Adamaic Myth, and the crack in the wall, Andre LeCocque's term, for the wedge of fear to be placed.

So how do we envision freedom?

I think this is the challenge for modern barstool theologians - the ones actually talking to the masses. If Christianity is a story of freedom, then we will have to understand the vision of freedom that God has for us. We will have to offer hope, inspite of the fear of limitations that is still woven into the metanarrative of our society. To stave off anarchy we will have to envision something more than a tree and a command. I think we can only do it in light of a tree and a Saviour.

Who shall deliver me from this body of sin? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ!

Things that make you go hmmmmm

Ok, don't download this unless you want to convince yourself that all gamers are complete freaks of nature.

Unicorns L. A.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Emergent DTS

OK now a buddy of mine is running a very cool YWAM DTS and they are looking for a few more people. This is going to be a bit different as it is an Emergent DTS focusing on the missional and I bet it will have a bit more theological depth to it. I did a DTS type programme almost 20 years ago and it really changed my life - for the good. So if you know someone who this might be good for - let em know asap. Click on YWAM DTS to get the details.

Paper crunch

My last two papers are looming so I won't be posting as much until they are out of the way. One is on the sacramental thrust within the Emergent church movement - I have a couple of books I'm dissecting for that one. And the second is on a re-reading of the second creation narrative by Paul Ricoeur - I have three papers that I am working with on this one and two of them are quite packed. If you have any great stories about sacramental encounters or awakenings please leave them in the comments - you might even make my footnotes!

Random Stuff

I have been making little tiny model trees. It is very therapeutic. I am not that good at fine detail work, but it is fun to at least give it a try. I bought some flock (clumped stuff too) and got some twigs as well as wires to wrap around and around. This is in preperation for our D&D game tomorrow night - silly players set fire to the woods - the woods isn't going to like that. At the very least Smokey the bear needs to show up ;-)

I am also waiting for some new books to come: Thinking Biblically, Ancient-Future Faith and Streams of Living Water. These are the books for my two final papers, I am excited about Thinking Biblically because there is a Paul Ricoeur article in there. And my case of Underdark miniatures. I was hoping that one would arrive today and the other tomorrow, but it looks like both will arrive tomorrow. My oldest wants to open the minis with me so I will likely not get to see them until she gets home from school.

BTW my friends are doing something very cool in the UK. It is the Vineyard School of Discipleship. You should check them out.

I'll let you know when my packages arrive. And remember, don't set fire to a forest!