[THO] Ray makes me UnComfortable

What follows is the first of a four part guest post on the evangelism strategies of Ray Comfort. These posts are by my friend Mike Samson, someone who lived in the evangelical world before finding his home in Rome. I know this came at a great cost to Mike and I really thought this story was worth sharing. He gave me permission to repost, I haven't seen the rest of the series yet, but I thought that it would get better visibility here than as a series of Facebook notes. Hope you enjoy the series and I do hope Mike will take the time to see our comments.

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Part I: Ray makes me UnComfortable


It was a bright and sunny August day in 2005. Myself, along with a whole group of "street preachers" were heading out to down town Ottawa for a day of "seed sowing" as we liked to call it. I'm sure as she began her day it would have never even entered into her mind what we were going to do to her. We started by passing out tracts and even using a microphone and amplifier to preach our peculier version of the Gospel. We liked to set up near patio restaurants because we figured people couldn't just up and leave. Whenever the owners of these establishments would "shoo" us away or call the police, we were sure it had nothing to do with our uninvited intrusion. It had nothing to do with the fact that they were simply trying to run a business and cater to their clientel. No, NO!!! It was persecution for righteousness sake aimed directly at us. We were the victims here. The devil himself was moving in and through these people to quiet our preaching. Yeah, OH YEAH!!! That was it for sure.

Late in the morning we launched our first campaign. Through a series of trivia questions with 1$ rewards for correct answers, we lured in our unsuspecting targets. Once we had a crowd, with a 20$ bill as reward, we got a volunteer to undergo the "Good Person Test." I never will forget that young lady standing there in front of everyone. Cornered...Thinking she was participating in some kind of street drama or something like that. Her face quickly changed though. It wasn't long before she began to sense that all was not on the level so to speak. She began to get very uncomfortable. It didn't stop us though. Through a despicable and deluded use of God's Holy Word and the Ten Commandments we proceeded to humiliate this young woman in front of a crowd of people in broad daylight on Sparks Street. "Have you ever lied?", "Have you ever lusted?", "Have you ever stolen?", and on and on it went. When we finally got to the part about grace, (strange grace this is indeed) it turned out that she didn't want the 20$. You see, even though you fail Ray Comfort's Good Person Test you still get the reward promised should you pass. This shows how Good God really is!! Looking back, the tears rolling down her face said it all. Her friends there with her were urging her to just "come on, let's get out of here." But in order for us to finish our little drama we needed her to take the money. Looking back, I'm glad I can say with honesty that I never administered a "Good Person Test" to anyone. I was never comfortable with the whole thing. Little did I know though that our encounter with this young woman wasn't over, at least not for me.

Later in the day, late afternoon to be exact, I saw her walking downtown. I felt terribly about what had happened that morning and wanted to let her know how sorry I was for the way we had treated her. As I approached her though, she spotted me. She stuck her arm out at me showing me her palm as if to say "stop right there." I did of course. What she said next I was not prepared for. She said,

"You stay the f#*k away from me! You people are sick in the head!"

WOW... There wasn't anything I could say. So ......I walked away. Later I recounted this turn of events to some of the team members in the group. To my surprise they seemed rather pleased!? "The Good Person Test had done it's work," I was told. "This was obviously the conviction of the Holy Spirit at work in her life." "She is on her way to 'gettin' saved'!!!" It suffices to say I wasn't convinced of that. In fact I thought we had accomplished little except to convince her that religious fanaticism was alive and well. Fanaticism of the undesirable kind. Does it make any sense to believe that she is out there now 'saved' and administering good person tests of her own to all her family and friends?

I have thought alot about that day. I have thought alot about that poor woman we abused so freely. We were so self righteousness in and through it all as well. To think that by intruding into people's lives and insulting them to no end we were doing something good for God. We were fulfilling the "Great Commission." Or were we?

This note will appear in 4 parts. Part 2 will be a brief examination of the 10 Commandments, their true application and how Ray Comfort abuses them. Part 3 will ask the question whether it is possible that Christ was punished by God His Father on the Cross, Ray Comfort's mistaken idea of the Gospel. Part 4 will be an invitation to engage in real evangelism, and all that it entails.

I won't apologize for this note. My prayer is that it will challenge the hearts and minds of those who engage in these types of practices.

As always, your comments are welcomed, whether sympathetic or critical. I will not delete any of them. :-)

To Be Continued...

[LIF] I Passed My Exam!!!!!

Just got the results. The requirement of passive French comprehension has been met! Wow, I am so relieved. Thursday I go in to complete the enrollment and in two weeks I'll be starting classes. I've still a long way to go, two of my classes this semester are in French! That is going to be crazy. I still struggle with spoken French, but it is coming along. Watching the news helps.

I've started a new experimental blog. One of the things that I've found helpful in my Christian walk is randomly showing up at a church and praying in the sanctuary. Most churches are tickled pink to have someone come in off the street to pray. I usually poke my head in the office and ask if it is ok, then go and enjoy God in their place. I love that about St. Paul, there are a few great chapels to use in this way. Often I'll go into one and pray through the daily office, out loud if I'm alone. I'm looking for ways to replicate such experiences online. So I created a blog a while ago called the Praying Pastor. Then I thought, "what an arrogant name for a blog."

Well, it might be, but my disclaimer is that I'm not a super prayer, or even a consistant prayer. But I do believe in praying and I thought that I could create a space for public prayer online. So this is my space. But like any good chapel, I'm opening it up. You can join in the prayers through comments. Or even become a member of that blog (Blogger) to just pray out your own prayers as you feel fit.

Who knows, maybe it will fizzle as an experiment? But it is worth a try. Please be respectful that it is a prayer room and not a conversation room. If I get questions or comments, I'll likely port them to this blog for discussion.

[LIF] Gone Marrying

It is not for lack of things to say that I've been silent. I'm about to perform my very first marriage tomorrow and have been a bit busy learning the chops. I'm joining two dear friends from my gaming community and I'm really stoked. Plus we are doing it at some really spiffy digs - the National Arts Centre. Not bad for my first eh? Anyway, in case you missed me, I'm hoping to get back to a sanity sometime next week.

[THO] Otherworldly Antics

I heard about this Heaven's Rehearsal event and couldn't believe it. I've heard of some pretty arrogant Christian ideas but this just takes the cake. Although the idea of worshipping with a massive number of people has a great appeal to me. There are some real issues that need to be addressed with the way this event is being billed.

First it is based on a flawed eschatology. This escapist notion misses completely that the Kingdom of God is Heaven. Heaven is not some far off spatial reality to which we are all Hoovered away. Heaven is the presence of the fullness of the Kingdom of God. So instead of playing out some otherworldly drama in a fit of narcissism, worship is meant to orient us towards the world that God so loved. It turns our heart to God to get ahold of what God loves. God came here and sent us here. Why do we somehow think our lot is to simply hold the fort until we go off to some literalized hyper-Eden. Meanwhile, leaving the real object of God's love to suffer the grossness of our sin. It doesn't add up.

They opening page says that the purpose is to pollinate the Kingdom. What it pollinates is this narcissistic notion that God loves those who bury themselves in the ground until God's return. Have we even listened to Jesus at all? If you really want to see the Kingdom of God, get your arse out of the Church and go where God is. Visit those in prison, offer help to the poor, embrace those with aids, heal the sick, love the lost and do something worthy of the Kingdom of God.

The idea that this is a rehearsal is so deeply offensive. We are living the real deal folks. Life is not just some practice session that doesn't matter. God returns to destroy those who destroy the earth! For the love God stop living in a fantasy world and realize that what God created is very good, and God longs to restore that goodness. You want to practice for heaven - then learn to love justice. Worship and justice are meant to kiss - this event sounds like worship is kissing off justice.

I hope they have a good time at this one. In fact I hope God shows up and blows the whole thing onto the street where it might actually do some good. Me, I'm going to invest my talent in the world and see what returns I might get. I know my God is a tough task master who will not look favourably on those who simply buried their talents in fear. I urge you to do the same.

[LIF] Summertime

I wrote my french exam yesterday. What a relief. I'm sure I bombed the grammer section, and when he asked me to speak about the article I read en francais I choked at first. He said, it's ok so I plowed into it. Badly, but I did it. All in all the article was not too hard to read, knowing scriptures really well helped me immensly though, and I was able to respond fairly well to the questions he asked me about it in french. (I answered in English BTW). He told me my passive comprehension was good. This is the same guy who told me on my first visit that I had very basic french. Having a tutor was the best decision for me, thanks Franck! Plus now I need to continue so that by the time I'm ready to teach I am fluently bi-lingual. I think I'll enroll in some conversational groups though, now that the pressure is gone.

Over the long weekend, instead of cramming, we went camping with our friend Kurt. It was an amazing time. Charleston Lake near Kingston, I highly recommend it. The highlight was Sunday morning, Sharon took all the kids to a park activity and Kurt went back to bed. I had my Sunday lectionary and a french bible. What was funny was I didn't know what Sunday we were on, so I decided to have a personal service with somewhat random readings. I went and stood looking out over the calm, sparkling lake and began the service. It was calming and wonderful. When I got to the readings I sat down at the picnic table and read John 3, Psalm 1 and Ephesians 1. All texts I know fairly well. Then I returned to the lake for my general intercessions. If I had elements handy I would have done a Eucharist, but instead I returned to the picnic table and just listened for the voice of the Spirit. Soon I was led to open up another chapter of John, the french was not hard as I read how God had chosen me be bear fruit that lasts. I was greatly encouraged and thanked God as Sharon pulled up with the kids.

Nature is such the perfect cathedral. I always think that when I get a chance to do a liturgy in the midst of creation, I wish I did that more often.

[LIF] Moi, je parle en francais...sort of

Learning a langauge in a short amount of time is hard. Doing it when your family expects you to be on vacation with them is even harder. I'm pretty happy with my progress, but I am cramming a lot at night trying to make the most of internet and film resources. When I listent to french I no longer feel like I have no clue what is going on, but I still know that I don't understand that much. It is like the feeling I get listening to spoken German, I feel like I should understand it but it is just outside of my grasp. I'm taking that as progress. However, the real test is coming, literally. I write a comprehensive french competency test on Tuesday at 1PM. The school only cares about reading and passive listening. I've been focusing on these two things more than writing or speaking. In fact I have a lot of hesitation in speaking. Sure I can fumble together crude thoughts but maybe it is my pride that keeps me from stepping out. It will come though.

[THO] Your Church Good?

My buddy Joe on mySpace started a discussion on what is the most important aspect of church to start with. He listed what he distilled from Rick Warren's mechanistic view of church: fellowship, worship, discipleship, service and evangelism. I think a compartmentalized view like that is just plain screwed up, but I wanted to go in a different, but related, direction with this post.

What is the most important thing about your church to you?

My experience in asking such a question, and as a church planter you ask this one a lot of people, is that every one of us will answer that question differently at different times. I suspect that our churches meet certain conscious and unconscious needs for us, and that depending on what need is operative we will answer in a particular way.

I think this quesiton is good for two reasons:

1) It gives us an insight into what needs are animating us.

This is a question we ask so that we can hear our own answer. What is the reason worship in song is so elevated for us at that moment? Why isn't it the community? Why isn't it the encouragement to maturity? It is good to acknowledge and even understand our own needs. I think we hesitate because of the myth that we should be self-sufficient.

2) It gives the minister an insight into what is working well in the church.

When I asked this question recently to our group I phrased it like this: What does Freedom mean to you? I was given answers of relationality, encouragement, community and caring, prayer and the like. It showed me that there is something special about the community we have at Freedom Vineyard. It lets me ask why other aspects were missing, perhaps they are not functioning as well as they should be. This helps to shape the direction in which I pray and move as the pastor. I need that kind of feedback.

So here it is, I put the question to you. You can share in the comment or just ponder it. What is the most important thing about your church to you? I would love to hear some of your responses.

[THO] Bible Verse Meme

Paul tagged me to continue this one. I instantly knew what to do.

Not because there is a verse that is my favourite, I'm really quite partial to many assorted verses and stories in the Bible. But there is one that I think God would want to make one of my favourites, at least that is the conclusion I draw from ending up on that verse so often when I practice unstructured devotions.

This is a funny verse for me too, I am always surprised when I end up there. It is a verse loved by the advocates of a pie-in-the-sky ideal of heaven, you know that notion of heaven that is divorced from creation in which many suppose we will be yanked away while God sorts out the cosmic mistake of the universe. The more I've studied, prayed and lived my Christian walk the more I find reasons to reject that sort of eschatological nightmare. So perhaps it is God's infinite wisdom that this verse would continue to dog me, a balancing perhaps.

The verse is found in my second favourite gospel - John. In one of my favourite sections of John, which is why I'm always surprised to end up here in the oddest ways. The verse is found in chapter 14 right at the beginning:

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you. I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also." John 14:1-3 NKJV

What I love most is that this passage is far from clear, far from simple. For instance, the word mansions is really a word for dwelling places. I remember the first chink in the otherworldly heaven proposition was realizing that scripturally God's dwelling isn't a building or a temple - it is us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. So this verse is primarily for and about us.

When I read this verse I remember that this is Jesus encouraging his disciples in the face of what is to come - the cross. He isn't trying to prepare them for their deaths, but rather for their lives as Christians in light of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. This passage is about orientation before it could ever be construed as being about destination. That orientation is invitational and rooted in a mutual indwelling - which of course Jesus expounds on in the same set of talks.

The invitation is that what Jesus goes to do (mission) becomes our mission. Jesus is making it so that his promise of "I am with you always" will become the abiding reality for the missional Church. He is dealing with all that stands in the way of making the indwelling of God in us a frustrated reality, namely our sin. And he is opening wide the conversation - many dwelling places implies that what we are called to missionally is huge and is for all of humanity (or at least a large portion of humanity). It also implies that it is uncomplete without this mutual indwelling, that God invites us into our role in the mission of Jesus.

This mutual indwelling means that not only does God come to dwell within us, but we too dwell in God. That might seem a stretch from this verse, but I think the rest of John bears it out. The importance here though is that it is God's initiated movement towards us in history that makes it all possible. We can be with Jesus because Jesus is with us. In fact Jesus continually breaks into history to be with us, receiving us to himself so that we can be in God and God in us (and so that God can be All in All).

Just marvel at how imminent that is. Creator God, the Father and Mother of all that is, chooses to dwell in us. The Holy God sends his only Son to deal with our seperation from God, in a way that invites, and never forces, us to respond to God's love. God accepts and receives us because of the accomplished work of Jesus. When we live in the light of that we too receive the mission of making that love apparent to the whole world. This verse is too important to be swallowed up by some fantasy rapture scenario.

Hmmm, who to tag. Let's see: Chris, Byron, Kenny, Len and David.

I didn't do my research well enough - two of those blokes are already tagged (Byron and Chris). So please add: Steve and Jamie

[LIF] Home from Vacation

It was later than we expected that we arrived home last night. We left Hamilton fairly early but found out the hard way that some of the early VUE Hybrids have a problem that only occurs when they overheat. We have been having some wierd sensor issues since we got it, but never when I could get it to the dealer in time to fix it. But yesterday we made it to Newmarket, to visit my grandmother, and the car wouldn't restart. We had Roadside coming and everything when the car cooled down enough to start. That is sort of frustrating actually.

We let it cool while we had a visit and then head out, zig-zaging so as to miss the growing Toronto rush hour traffic. We were almost to Whitby when all the electrical shut down. You don't know how nice power steering is until it is suddenly gone! The gas engine worked but all the guages froze so I didn't know how fast I was going. We made it to a parking lot (outside a Tim Hortons) and I called to locate the nearest Saturn dealer. They knew what the problem was and told me I'd make it home (once the car cooled down) and should get it fixed at our dealer (which is where I took it this morning). I found a car wash actually helped, plus the kids love car washes!

Other than that, we had an excellent vacation. I bought many books. We stayed with some very cool friends, both in Cambridge and Hamilton. Thanks Brad and Mary! Thanks Peter and Cindy! Got to talk a lot, pray a bit and I even saw the new Harry Potter movie (they cut out too much book though). The kids got to go to Ontario Place as well as many water parks and playgrounds. We played a few games. Drove to visit dear friends. Even saw a newborn baby (congrats again grampa George and grandma Janet!) fresh out of the proverbial oven (arrived about the same time we did in Sarnia). Probably one of our most enjoyable vacations yet.

Well got to see if we can't track down a car to go up to a cottage with.

[THO] Fellowship on the Underside of History

Underside of History is a term I'm adapting, it usually refers to the poor, but I'm convinced that it should also refer to those who really live in solidarity with life on the margins. Regardless, there is something special that happens on the margins, on the underside of history. That is what I felt we experienced with our dear friends in Cambridge this past weekend.

It is rare to feel so loved, so accepted and welcomed into a place. But when you are amongst those who live on the margins should we expect anything less. For that matter why are the margins so special? I guess it takes some special folk to tackle the margins of society and thrive there. Not because of an incapacity, but because of a deep cultural selfishness and unChristlikeness. This weekend was an image of heaven for me - being with Brad and Mary was like being with Jesus.

The funny thing is we went to church that Sunday, we like to visit churches when we are on vacation, but you know the few days we spent with Brad and Mary, drinking wine, sharing life, chasing books and praying felt more like church than the service we went to on Sunday.

The reason I wanted to say this was an underside story, is that this is so rare an experience. Mary and Brad didn't care if dishes got cleaned on time, they cared about us. This is the same care I know, cause I have seen glimpses of it, they give to those they mentor and love. They simply opened their homes and lives to us and it was wonderful.

Ironically that church service was on hospitality. Not that they weren't hospitable, but the young preacher was calling people to live what Mary and Brad do so naturally. The preacher encouraged Christians to welcome the strangers and to remove the blinders of prejudice from our eyes. I would add that we need to always hope and see others through the eyes of hope instead of the eyes of negative expectations. When you are with folks who see you this way you can't help but feel loved. I know I felt loved with Brad and Mary.

So thanks guys for opening your home and heart to us. You have inspired us.

[LIF] Book Finds in Cambridge Area

We spent a few days in Cambridge with our friends Brad and Mary, and while we were there Brad took me to some awesome book stores. I found some real treasures:

Herbert Butterfield - Christianity and History

Paul Knitter - No Other Name

D. Gareth Jones - Teilhard de Chardin

Barnstone, ed. - The Other Bible

Dorothee Soelle - The Silent Cry

Thomas Cahill - Desire of the Everlasting Hills

Gerald McDermott - Can Evangelicals Learn from World Religions?

Martin Buber - I and Thou

Soren Kierkegaard - Purity of Heart

Sallie McFague - Methaphorical Theology

Hans Kung - On Being a Christian

Only Soelle and McDermott were new, I grabbed them at Pandora's Box in Kitchner, you have to visit that store!

[LIF] Reverend Frank :-)

One of the interesting things about being in the Vineyard is how laid back everything is. One of the contentions with the term ordination is that it implies a lifelong ministry that travels with the person rather than what we want which is leadership called out of a congregation and recognized by the congregation. But in order to get your license to marry easily, in Ontario at least, the easiest way is to "ordain" the minister and then send in the government paperwork. So today I was ordained. Here is the liturgy.

We arrived in Sarnia to meet with George, who is our sending Pastor as well as the Pastoral Governing Official for Vineyard in Ontario. George ordered the ribs, I followed suit, but with the honey garlic sauce reserved for the not yet ordained. An envelope was handed to me containing the government forms. George solemnly says, "oh let me see that for a minute." Then realizing I needed the ordination certificate we finish the formal liturgy of chowing down and proceed to his place.

At Georges house a baby had just been born - congrats Lynette! Still tasting the pre-ordained honey garlic ribs George fired up the laser printer and spits out two copies of my certificate of ordination! It reads: This certifies that The Reverend Frank Emanuel Was ordained as a pastor of the association of Vineyard Churches Ontario Region on the 6th day of May, 2007. It is retroactive even! Then we followed the ancient ceremony of finding an envelope for said certificate. A done deal.

Actually in all seriousness ordination is a formality. What we take seriously is what we call releasing. That happens in two stages: so you feel led to start a church, go for it. In our case George and Janet Esser took us on as our mentors and sending church, they beleived in us which was and is awesome! Then when we had a chance to do something formal George and Janet laid hands on us to release us into the leadership of Freedom Vineyard. No fancy liturgy, but it sure did feel good and right. For me that was the ordination that we needed. But unfortunately the governement wanted a bit more - hence the certificate today. Gonna put it up on my wall though.

Personally I think George should have given me a purple collar to wear, what do you think?

[THO] Pastor's Praying for Each Other

When I first started planting I did a really smart thing, I sought out a bunch of other planters and potential planters and invited them to meet in a Tim Hortons for prayer once a week. We actually saw a plant get birthed out of those times from one of the potential folks, very cool. But what often happens is that life crams in and these things become less of a priority. I remember fighting hard to keep this, it was a powerful blessing to my own ministry, but eventually it went to the wayside.

I have been without a regular pastoral gathering for quite a while now, not for lack of interest or the odd attempt to restart this, just I've had little time that works well with other peers. Most of us are bi-vocational in some way and pastoral ministry can be very time demanding. The last connection like this was a one-on-one session with a fellow pastor who used to also be an accountability partner. I would like for that relationship to restart, and perhaps it will. But he's pastoring, teaching at two Universities and has two kids! And I think I'm busy.

Today though, I met with three other planting pastors and a wonderful facilitator, Alison Johnson. These meetings have been going on for a few years now and I've only made maybe two other meetings. They often happen when I have classes or other committments. But today I was available and boy was it a good time.

Just like those early meetings I held, we were a mixed bag of evangelicals. Andy from Calvary Chapel, Chris from the Mennonite Brethren and Mark from SoulNet. Andy ran us through a series of questions that helped us frame where we were at devotionally and ministerially. Then we prayed for each other. Man I miss that.

I love prayer at our church, but it dawned on me just how much I need to have prayerful connections outside of our small community. I need those I can bounce my crazy ideas off of. It was good.

I'm hoping to continue, they only meet like that monthly. It might not work too well with my schedule, but one can hope.

A while back I grabbed the name for a second blog, the Praying Pastor. I had the idea of posting prayers as blog content. Now I'm hoping it will have another meaning, that I'm connecting well with my peers and praying with them to see God's glory more and more in my city. After all isn't that what we are doing this for in the first place?

[THO] Theology vs. Biblical Studies

I often run into a notion that theology and Biblical studies are/should be synonymous. This is a rather alarming notion. If I believed it I would likely go find a school more focused on Biblical studies to study at. I think both are distinct and both are necessary.

In Biblical Studies the only starting place has to be the Scriptures. While I love the Scriptures, they are far too narrow a place for us to do all theology from. Hence I would consider Biblical studies a narrow subset of theology. Theology has much broader starting points.

Just to clarify I am interested primarily in Christian theology, and because of that Biblical studies will always play a strong role in my work of theology. But it isn't the only starting point. More it is one conversation amongst many that are important.

So does this mean I value scripture less? I think that is probably a valid criticism. But my committment to the Bible doesn't come out of my theological studies, it comes out of my passion to know the God of the Bible more. So there is a devotional committment to scripture that is part of who I am - and this does influence my theology.

Theology engages Scripture, history, tradition, dogma, hagiography, philosophy, mysticism, spirituality, cosmology, social sciences, ethics, economics, science, etc. There are a few starting points - such as the notion that theology is essentially the convesation about God/Man relationship in light of these broad dialogue partners, but you can start from almost any of these and do theology - even Christian theology.

That is why I find theology so fascinating. The Bible is a wonderful expression of God to Christians. But it is not the only book God has given us. And it is not the only voice in the conversation of theology.

[FV] Teaser

I just finished the last bit of animation for our Church information video. Each of the Ontario Vineyards were asked to submit a short video, two or three minutes long, telling about the church. This short video can be played in other Vineyards to help us know one another more and pray for each other a little better. Cool idea and of course we couldn't truly express who we were without doing something a little different.

Six of us represented 8 of our people and a dog! We scripted, created the scenes and produced all the base collatoral for our film tonight, in lieu of a regular kinship. It was fun, but boy did it go late. We finished all the parts with dialogue up so that the bulk of folks could head out, then Sharon and I animated the rest which uses already recorded background tracks. I'm sure you will really enjoy this video when I get it all edited together. Give me a week or so and I'll post a link.

There is a teaser on my Facebook page, for those facebook keeners. You need to add the video applet to watch it though, oh and be my friend. But hey, I'm a pretty friendly guy.

[LIF] Something Naked

I really enjoy David's Naked Pastor Blog. Every now and then his irreverent comics really hit the spot. I feel like it is too often than I deal with folks like this bloke in the blindfold. So incredibly painful too, I just can't ignore them. Thanks Dave for making me feel not so alone.

[LIF] Happy Canada Day!

Despite some of my frustrations with our politics, I am very proud to be a Canadian! Hope you all have a great Canada day. With any luck my girls will be awake to see fireworks this evening.

[LIF] RPG Article

Hey all, a friend over at the Christian Gamer's Guild posted a link to this article. I always appreciate articles like this. I still run into Christians who bought the lies from the 80s about games like Dungeons & Dragons.

Just got back from Fantastic Four II, it wasn't that good. Better than the first FF, but that isn't hard to accomplish.

[LIF] It is finished!

I just got back from the University. I dropped off my final paper - Bottled Water: An Ethical Inquiry. I get a bit preachy towards the end (and I bit Berryian). That is the final work left in my Bachelors of Theology degree! What an amazing feeling.

[THO] What is Sacred?

I've heard the critique of the sacred/secular split like this, "how dare we call our shit holy?" I understand that this sacred/secular notion has been used to entrench and justify a lot of liturgical insanity. We sometimes call this playing the God card, "well God gave it to me, so it has to be holy." I think this is a valid critique but it is far from sufficient. There is a deeper issue with maintaining a sacred/secular split.

The way we interact with the world, our elements and each other reveals a disturbing feature of the sacred/secular split. That of devaluation. We have devalued the earth and raped the planet. We have devalued humanity and sold our daughters into prostitution. Some might jump up at this point to protest their complicity. Before you do, I am not pointing fingers at any one of us - it is a problem of how we see things. And until we remove this false notion of sacred/secular we will always have the capacity to take our children, families, neighbours and world for granted. As long as we relegate those interactions to the realm of the secular we will have this problem, and we will be part of the problem.

For God there is no sacred/secular split in creation. Creation is at its most basic moment - very good. In fact the project of humanity is also part of that which is very good. There is an incredible potential locked within our species, it is so sad that we so rarely see it in full blossom.

Potential is always a double edged sword, and we demonstrate our understanding of this truth through the Adamic story. Sin is originary with humanity. Seen positively it shows the incredible capacity of humanity. In fact the curse turns this around and says that salvation will come out of humanity, or do we think that the incarnation of Christ was insignificant?

What we have done with the story of Adam's fall is to take all of creation down with him. Instead of seeing creation as full of potential, we have vilified creation. The more we submitted to this paradigm, the more we envisioned salvation as an escape from this "fallen" world. No longer were we able to recognize that all of creation declares the glory of God. We literally ripped heaven out of the earth and with it we sacrificed our souls on the altar of fear.

This leads us to an intense devaluation of creation. We see our world and humanity as something to struggle against as we reach for some celestial pie in the sky. We are desperate for something holy and so we fill that void with our ability to symbolically name our own constructs, created from our wants, desires and likes, as holy. And like good humans, we differentiate. Differentiation is a safetly reflex, we use it to determine good and bad, right and wrong. We use it to protect our own interests. So we lose our ability to see in creation many wonderful modes of divine mediation. We are empoverished. We are lost.

How can we turn this around? Well we need to change the way we tell the story. Instead of a flight from this world, we need to understand creation as God sees it. Living, holy, suffuced with God's presence, in God, held together by God's very Word, alive and full of life, good and full of potential. We need to recognize that we are home and our prayer is always to bring heaven to Earth, not the other way around (check out the Lord's Prayer).

Here are a few things worth meditating on:
1) God thought we were worth redemption - so why don't we see anything good in humanity?
2) God sees creation as very good, this is the first thing we learn from our Bible.
3) Jesus sent us to the world, just as he was sent to the world - God isn't joking about so loving the world.
4) Why do we live like God is something we claw our way to when Jesus promised to always be with us no matter where we are?

[LIF] Games Galore

I showed up at my bi-weekly dungeon crawl to find an awesome surprise. The DM was parting with a boatload of games, IIRC he is downsizing the house since retiring. Now this wasn't just a few games, there were 6 or 7 players and we rolled off to see who got to pick when, we each had 10 rolls and that still wasn't enough! So I walked out of there with more than a dozen new-to-me games! My best score has to be RoboRally, the previous owner had wonderfully painted the robots too. This is a game simple enough to play with my daughters, and I tried it tonight, it is fun.

I got a number of what are called book shelf games, mostly military simulations. I'll probably not keep too many of those, finding a good home shouldn't be hard. I'm just not into recreating war - we have enough of the real thing already! I like short skirmish games a lot though, and adventure type games. Two of the games I picked up are the board game version of Civilization (with the Advanced set too) and the basic set of Talisman. Rich says Talisman is a great game, so I'm looking forward to trying that one with the kids when they are older.

I also picked up two from the Axis and Allies series. I remember playing these as a teen and liking them, at least the original. I'll probably not bother playing the Fortress America version as I heard it is hard for the US to lose, that sounds too rah rah America for my liking. Besides the US needs to have their arse kicked a bit.

I'd say that there were as many computer games to be given away, but thankfully I dodged that bullet. I find computer games far too addictive, my quality of life is much better without them. Oh and I picked up Trivial Pursuit with an expansion. Sharon wasn't as interested as I thought she'd be so I'll probably just find a new home for that one too. I'm going through the games we have and ditching those we never play. We are a family that loves games, all sorts of games. So it is nice to have a few new ones to throw in the mix. Thanks Ross!

[THO] Paved Paradise

I have that old Joni Mitchell song playing in my head ever since reading about the ways we are destroying our last fresh water supplies. Probably a good thing, I need to have reminders like this to remember that warm water pouring over my head in the shower comes at a greater cost then the pittance we pay for it represents. Yet, let's be certain that the major players in water waste has to be industry, especially the agricultural industry.

Yeah, I've been reading Blue Gold (Maude Barlow & Toni Clark) in preparation for a paper I'm doing on the ethics of bottled water. It is so easy to ignore the basic facts of our situation. We simply don't want to think about it. Like Joni says, "you don't know what you've got til its gone." This makes me both sad and angry, especially at my complicity in this whole mess.

Studies have shown that simply by laying down pavement we are depleting the total sum of available fresh water on our planet. Water is not able to trickle down into the aquifers, instead we redirect it into rivers which take it out to sea where it becomes salinated, usable only at great energy cost which compounds the problems. Energy use is implicated in the overall warming of our planet which is decimating the great polar caps and glaciers at an alarming rate. For those who think the water levels won't rise, remember much of this mass of ice is over land (Greenland for instance) and will affect the sea level - don't take my word ask a Vanuatian. Sea water also intrudes on the sea coast aquifers we are draining faster than nature can replenish, this is a big problem because we absolutely need fresh water to survive.

So as I dried off from my costly shower, I made myself a coffee and came down to type this up on a computer (the IT industry is very water wasteful) and remember that my body is mostly made up of water! Something to think about.

[THO] Guest Post at Theology and Faith

My contribution to Ben Meyers' recent series on transitions from one faith tradition to another is up. Check it out!

[LIF] Party Review - 5 out of 5 stars!

I have the most awesome wife ever! And I have some very incredible friends! Sharon invited a cross section of my friends, which was amazing. And Bergen and Anastasia helped her serve up an awesome dinner party, one that I'm sure we all will remember for a long time to come. Many, many thanks!

My night started when John and Mari showed up in their orange Element. John came in to get me and Mari wouldn't tell me where we were going. Sharon had left a earlier in the day to make ready at some unknown location. When we finally got there I recognized it was at Bergen and Anastasia's place, a para-transport was parked up ahead and I was excited because that meant my friends Andrew and Lori would be there as well! But alas the bus was there to pick up someone else.

We started into their building and missed the Diagon Alley sign Sharon had put up. But we didn't miss the Leaky Cauldron sign on the door to Bergen's place. So I knew it was a theme. When we went in Anastasia had her shirt on funny, she said it was to dress like the muggles who might show up. Sharon and Bergen also had some interesting arrangements to their outfits. Just inside I instantly saw Andrew! Yay. Andrew and Lori were there as well as Timo and Leah and Jeff and Melanie. This was going to be good. We started chatting and finding our places, the tables all had these amazing name tags on them - Sharon had worked hard! Soon Byron, the best next door neighbour in the world, came holding a beautiful wine box spouting Wild Thing! He had rigged it with a Hallmark gift thing and had a nice bottle of chilled sparking wine inside. Steve came and then my friend Richard to finish the even dozen dinner guests.

Gifts came out, including an expansion to Space Munchkin, a bottle of Port, a beautiful leather bound NET Bible and a copy of Dale Carnegie's Pathways to Success in hard cover. This was really cool because at Chapter six "How to make people like you instantly" there was a surprise! Let's just say you can't read anything past that point until page 535 which has the heading "I Found the Answer". Mari and John really know how to make Carnagie useful.

We were seated and the fun really got underway when out came a cake, black icing, huge candy cockroaches and enough candles to start a serious housefire! It was awesome, I did manage to blow them all out but just barely. I bet there were actually 40 candles on it!

Next the menus magically multiplied for our tables. They consisted of a list of Harry Potter references: Gillyweed Goop, Holly and Pheonix, Firebolts, Puffskein, etc. You got to pick three things and hope that one was a drink and the other utensils, you had three chances in this nine course meal. Timo's table found no cutlery the first go around, but they found out that the Daily Special was messy ice cream cake - fun to eat with your hands!

We figured out the beer was Boarshead (Moosehead beer) so we were set after that. The meal was awesome! We finished the courses, laughing up a storm. After the kitchen was opened up and we all ate our fill.

The best part though had to be surrounded with so many good friends from all over the landscape of my life. Bergen I met at St. Paul, Rich online as a fellow gamer, Steve I've known forever and he stood with me at my wedding, Timo was part of the old Vineyard and has been a good friend for years, Leah was part of the original Freedom Vineyard team, Lori was my friend at St. Paul and the Vineyard, Andrew was my pal from when I taught computer stuff, Jeff is my gamer buddy, Melanie I met through Jeff and is quite a poker player, Byron was the best nextdoor neighbour ever, Anastasia was part of my original D&D group, Mari is a really cool neighbour who became friends with Sharon and her hubby John is a gamer buddy playing in my current D&D campaign. And of course my dear wife Sharon is the best wife in the whole world!!!!!

[THO] Anticipation

Sharon is planning a party for me tonight but there is a lot of secrecy on her part as to what it will entail. I am not even sure who is coming. The feeling is actually quite exciting and it reminds me of the anticipation of the Kingdom*.

Recently I've been chatting with a few folks about the misunderstandings of heaven. In our reading last Wednesday night Mark's gospel tells of an encounter with Jesus and the Sadducees where they try to trip him up over the issue of the resurrection. See the Sadducees didn't really believe in the resurrection, so they thought for sure they were going to nail this would-be prophet. But one phrase catches them and most of us, "You are badly mistaken!" (Mk 12:27b) A lot of us have our ideas of heaven so packaged up that we too are badly mistaken.

Heaven is not a straight forward concept in the New Testament. It exists in the beyond and the unknown. Someone asked if I believe in heaven, and I do. But I think we are often badly mistaken about the nature of heaven.

The primary reason is that we recognize the groaning of this world and it incites our flight response. Wouldn't it be great if we just got to completely start again? I think many of us are convinced that is exactly what will happen. There is a level on which this is true, but there is also the reality of this life that we need to take seriously. In fact it is this reality we should be committed to, because it is the only one we are fortunate enough to have agency in and towards. God knows that. He sent Jesus because of that. He sends us because of that.

Heaven is part of the hope package, but not in terms of a pie in the sky where someday we'll fly pipedream. No it is grounded in something imminently more real than that, and I find even more compelling. Heaven is part of the hope of the Kingdom. It is the utopian edge to this reality. Heaven for the OT prophets is the restoration of the goodness of the whole created order. When we see the Kingdom come, we see heaven break into our time healing, righting, loving and restoring! So indeed we taste the future that is coming in the present that is groaning, longing for the manifestation of all that is hoped to be. Unfortunately we live in the neverland of being badly mistaken and miss the fact that the gospel is supposed to be good news and not a story of destruction, decline and suffering.

In this sense Heaven, and the anticipation of heaven, is very much like me waiting for my party tonight. In some ways I can't wait. In others I am frustrated because it is not yet, which is so evident by my struggle with keeping the kids occupied while I await the promised event (they are mercifully eating lunch right now). Not that I don't enjoy this time right now, the time when the kids are doing things that grab my heart in a good way. Much like we should enjoy this life and the fundamental prelapsarian goodness that creeps around the edges of life. People are amazing. I spent last night with two of my dearest friends, and it was a really good time. But good as those things are the reminders are constant that we are only seeing in part. Injustice abounds at all levels of life. Including my own lack of patience with my kids. But I have hope, heavenly hope.

I have hope that tonight will be another night where the Kingdom of Heaven will shine in around the edges. But my anticipation is the edge that I want to focus on. We want to know who is in, who is out, who is coming, who is not. We want to know what it will be like, just like those Sadducees, we want to know who's wife she will be. But it is the unknowing anticipation that fills us with expectation of the goodness of God pouring forth. It is that sense that anything is possible, especially with God, that God calls us to live in. Not a waiting around for wings and a harp, but a looking for and forward to the Kingdom of Heaven breaking into the now with a taste of the future. We should stop pretending we know what beyond is like and enjoy the now God has graciously given us.

Otherwise we are just badly mistaken. I'm hoping you are not badly mistaken. God is good. We need to live like we really believe that. I'll try if you will? Let you know how the party tonight goes, and I hope to see you in the final party still to come!


* I know I promised a series on the Kingdom of God, and I will get around to it. But at this point things are just too hectic.

[THO] Antichrist

I spent yesterday reading Nietzsche's Antichrist, let me tell you he doesn't pull out any punches! I am giving a short presentation on Nietzsche's critique of Christianity Monday morning. I read a bit more than Antichrist, but the bulk of my analysis is from this work. I pulled out three key criticisms:

1) Christianity precludes the more rational atheism of Schopenheaur and Feuerbach.

This is interesting because from my reading on these young Hegelians, the Christian God is God in man's image. In fact Nietzsche's project seems to be a positive one of trying to adopt Schopenheaur's atheism without also taking up Schopenheaur's pessimism. But apart from my obvious objections to claiming atheism is the only rational option there is something valid about Nietzsche's critique. Christianity hasn't played well with the other disciplines, especially science. While we shouldn't have to sacrifice our theism to engage with science and philosophy, it seems that even in Nietzsche's day fear ruled this crucial relationship. Thank God there are those who have decided to broaden the dialogue partners of theology in our day.

2) Christianity focuses on an otherworld and ignores the natural world.

I've echoed this criticism many times on this blog. I don't buy Nietzsche's efforts to connect this to the slave morality of a vengeful priestly class, but it is an important criticism to consider. Are we too heavenly minded to be any earthly good? I think so. The track record of Christians in response to the environmental crisis is the strongest affirmation of this indictment. There is obviously a need for understanding the Kingdom of God, but it is too easy to miss that the Kingdom is a reality that breaks into the natural reality. It is too easy for talk of heaven to be a lotus causing us to miss the call of the prophets for justice and mercy.

3) The doctrine of sin prevents Christians from growing as moral individuals.

Nietzsche rails against the idea of pity. His concern is that this idea is used to make the claim of equality. Hence the slave morality is enforced and Christians remain content with their lot in life. While Nietzsche takes this in some bizarre directions, he is right that Christianity hasn't been good at developing whole, mature moral individuals. The problem is that we focus so much on personal sin that we miss that there is so much more to life. Nietzsche is heir to the Lutheran emphasis on personal sin, he knows what he is talking about here. We need to be careful not to miss the great themes of life and scripture, yes sin is part of that, but it is not all there is to the Christian life.

Nietzsche is a hard read, like I said earlier he doesn't pull his punches. While I am not convinced by his philosophy of morality, I do find his critiques worth wrestling with. Maybe I'll try something a little less inciting next time though.

[LIF] Eco Tip #1

One of the things that has been frustrating has been finding eco-friendly alternatives for products we use frequently in our home. We are a busy family and it so unfortunately we rely on things like our dishwasher and our vehicle. I posted a while back that we managed to lease a VUE hybrid, and although it is probably the worst of the hybrids, it is better than nothing. Next time we are hoping the plug-in hybrids will be out!

On the cleaning product front we had found one product we really liked and then it was discontinued in Canada. Imagine how frustrating that is. It was a People Against Dirty product, not sure why Shoppers kept their spray products and dropped the dishwasher soap, but they did in Ontario at least. Sharon works for Shoppers and still couldn't get it. The problem with a lot of eco-friendly stuff is that it just does not work as well. It isn't like we can use extra elbow grease in the dishwasher, so I am ecstatic to tell you about our find!

Seventh Generation makes a dishwasher detergent that is non-toxic, chlorine and phosphate free, not tested on animals, free of perfumes and dyes, and get this - it works! In fact it is probably one to the best dishwasher detergents I've used!

We picked it up at Rainbow Foods, it is a bit more expensive than your typical dishwasher detergent, but personally I think having a home planet is worth more than the added cost!

BTW if you have found other really good solutions for the toxic products we keep putting into our drinking water, please let us know.

[THO] Inconvenient or Irrelevant Truth?

We watched Gore's An Inconvenient Truth tonight in class, I've wanted to see that one for a while now. Gore does a pretty good job, although he speaks primarily out of a stewardship paradigm, that is the Earth is up to us to manage so that we have something for our children to inherit. He is also quite anthropocentric in his approach, dealing primarily with the potential impact on humanity. But that aside it is a good assessment of the ecological crisis.

But there is one assumption that I think is flawed. He calls us to a moral judgement of our ecological impact. He says that we have a moral obligation to this world, and assumes that the reason we don't respond is because it is highly inconvenient. He is right it is highly inconvenient, but I think there is a worse reason why so many turn a deaf ear to the ecological crisis. Too many see it as simply irrelevant.

Our culture gorges on decline narratives, we love to look at the signs of the times like the ecological crisis and imagine they are speeding along the demise of this fallen world. Why would we want to stop that? This is the danger of the otherworldly view we have of ourselves. We don't see ourselves as residents, but as aliens waiting for the real show to start. This is so incredibly sad.

The reasons for this are quite complex. The mechanised view of the world, the misplaced confidence in our ability to force our way through any situation and other ideologies have overwhelmed our sensibilities. They have blinded us from even getting to the point of inconvenience, we are still stuck on Gore's vision as an irrelevant truth.

[LIF] Busy, busy, busy

I imagine a number of you are wondering where all the posts have gone, I have been really busy lately. CanGames last weekend, exams this week and next, papers to write and a blog post for Ben Meyers to finish. But more importantly I have had to carve out time in there to be with my family. It is so easy to let the busyness of life override what is most important. So the other day when Chelsea asked me to pick her up from daycare early - I jumped at it. We went grocery shopping together and had a great time. Those moments are too few in life, I'm better one on one than with the whole group of us. So while it meant not getting a paper in this week, I think it was worth it. I hope you all don't forget the important things this week. No worries, I'll be my usual prolific posting self soon enough.

[LIF] Hockey and Church

Normally I don't follow sports, but when you pick up your four year old from pre-school only to hear, "Go Sens Go!", you realize that this is really big for your city. Last night was our service, but also it was the chance for the Senators to shut out Buffalo! I knew I was in for a competition, our hosts are really into the game.

I arrived late because one of the people I pick up was stuck waiting for her employer (she's a nanny). We arrived at church to find only a few brave souls risked missing the game to come out. And they were sitting, eyes glued to the game! Michelle asked me how churchy I felt tonight. I smiled and said we'll have worship at intermission, watch the second period (a really good one!) and then I'll give short message at the second intermission. And it was a lovely evening. Too bad the Sens lost, but they sure played a good game. The first period was sort of lazy, they were dancing around but not making any real progress. But something happened in the second period that energized them - perhaps it was the wonderful worship time we had (we missed some of the start of the second period, but the Sens waited for us to start scoring). I really enjoyed my own message, but perhaps it was a little flat for the Sens who couldn't overcome the one point lead of Buffalo. I'll try better next time lads.

Church is something that happens in the midst of life, so often we think that it is a separate event. This leads to a whole notion of separation that neuters our witness in the world. If we really believe that God loves the world, then we need to be like Jesus, right there in the thick of it. Sharing the triumphs and disappointments of life with all of humanity. Last night was a great lesson for me, not that I want to do intermission church again anytime soon, but that our lives are one, not two: one in the church and one in the world. But one and that glorifies God even when the Senators don't win.

Go Sens Go!

[THO] Good News on the Activist Front

Sometimes the state of our world can be pretty overwhelming. Illegal armed conflicts (yeah I'm talking to you G W Bush), ecological ruin, HIV/AID pandemic, oppressive systemic poverty, a culture that has sacrificed morals on the altar of Capitalism, so much in this world just makes you want to throw up your arms and quit. Once one gets past the initial shock a realistic view of the world affords, there comes a second realization: either we find some hope or we plug our ears and hope this is all just a bad dream. As a Christian, I believe hope is the order of the day. So I try to do my part. We replaced our van with a fuel efficient hybrid, we have been trying to eat locally, including buying local, organic meat. We have been ridding our selves of some of the nastier plastics, especially the ones we place our food and drink into. We don't drink bottled water. We have been opting not to use grocery bags (I always have a bin or two in the trunk) and I insist on ceremac cups for coffee - I've walked away from places that do not provide a reusable option.

But the other thing that I've gotten excited about is writing companies and the government on issues that I take seriously. I recently received a very encouraging response from the Environment Minister, John Baird, which echoes my concern over cluster bombs, now if we could only get him to be as concerned about the environment! Also a very quick response from Petro-Canada that since April 2004 none of their gasolines contain the neurotoxin MMT. I know where I am buying my gas from now on. All this reinforces my hope that even a single voice, like my own, can make a difference. For those that don't know MMT is used to increase the octane of gasoline and is one of the cheapest alternatives for that process - and the Canadian government was sued by big corporations whey they tried to ban it! We paid out something like $16million (tax payers dollars) to the companies we inconvenienced by telling them not to f^%& up our brains with toxins! MMT gets into our water and our air and causes Parkinson's like symptoms! I have been fuming ever since I heard that my taxes went to pay this fine. At least I know there is an alternative. The best I have been able to determine there is a bill to ban MMT going through the house - you better believe I will travel to protest if big corporations try to sue us over that one.

The state of our world should make us angry. Angry enough to do something about it. And our hope comes from a conviction that God works with us to make change happen. God longs for the liberation of all of creation. God cares about the world we leave our children. God is with us in the project of saving the world. That gives me great hope. The only throwing up of my arms will be to worship such a great and wonderful Saviour!

[LIF] House Concert

Last night Rik Leaf and Tina Newlove came to share their art with us. It was a really great evening and Rik, as you can see here, sang his heart out! Our church hosted a house concert, which is an idea Rik introduced us to way back when we were first starting out as a church. A house concert is friends getting together with an artist for an evening of stories and songs. Last night Rik graced us with poetry as well, and Tina painted the whole while.
I'm not sure what Tina was trying to paint (that doesn't sound right - I mean I am not sure I am interpreting this painting the same way Tina intended), but several things really struck me as the image developed. First was the variety of stances and ethnicity of the people in her image. One is turned away, one is very ceremonially dressed (ornate kimono, so beautiful BTW), and even one Christlike figure was looking out from around a big stone, which spoke to me of Resurrection as just being a normal part of this scene. Also earlier there was a face that emerged from the crowd looking up, it was in profile in the upper right hand corner. I kept seeing that as an image of the Body of Christ (the Church or the crowd!) looking up towards God. There was a sense of longing and expectation there. But then almost at the end of the night this face was swallowed up by houses. And even more startling, the stone of resurrection seemed to morph into a highrise apartment. I found this so encouraging, especially considering words that were given to me in Montreal and in a recent email.

After the concert we just hung out and chatted. It was pretty nice to just share a slice of life with these two travelling artists. Rik and Tina, you are both welcome at Freedom anytime!

[THO] EcoFraud

I keep finding myself more and more upset with our present government in Canada. Of course my current readings aren't helping! This semester I'm doing two courses in Ethics, one is a history of ethics and the other is more of a liberationist course on ethics and economy in a globalized world. Personally I find much of what happens in classic moral philosophy (ethics) becomes so focused on a particular ideology (deontology, teleology, etc.) that it is unable to cope adequately with the complexity of life. But that is to be expected from my background in liberation theology.

What kills me is that we continually work for solutions that are potentially worse than the problems! Take the new light bulb plan of the Harpur government. I haven't found any of these new light bulbs that do not contain mercury. Mercury is nasty shit! So how about one of these lights breaking in your kids room? It happens. Plus they might last a long time, but what do we do with burnt out mercury filled lights? I agree that we need to cut our power consumption, in fact I am planning on doing all I can to ensure we cut our usage at least by 10% this summer. But we have to step back and really think through the problems. That is where the liberation theology methodology really helps.

An easy way to understand LT methodology is with the slogan: see - judge - act. But this is not to be mistaken with an immediate response to a percieved need. LT is self-critical of its own responses. The problem with shortsighted responses is that they come back to bite us in the future - like those mercury filled bulbs! See is the most important part of this, you need to understand, really understand what is going on, what are the implications and who stands where in the situation. Obviously the government has a lot of balls to keep balanced in the air. I appreciate that, and that is why we elect a government. But we also expect them to think it through. It isn't about trying to make the least amount of voters pissed so you can get re-elected. It is about doing what it right for Canada and the world. Harpur and his Conservatives fail on both accounts.

LT methodology also adds another component. There is no LT without action, and we realize that actions sometimes create different injustices. That is why the cycle starts again and again. I wish our government would be more self-critical than trying to tread water until the poles seem to be in their favour. I really want a government that is willing to do what is right instead of what they can get away with.

I offer you the site EcoFraud, the Suzuki video alone is worth the browse.

[LIF] Dimanche du Bon Berger

Hey all, I have been enjoying my one week off immensly. I started by guest worship leading at Hosanna and ended yesterday guest speaking in Montreal. It was a hoot to have a translator and what a great congregation they have at Vineyard House X! If you live in Montreal I heartily recommend checking out this church. We went to Bofingers after for ribs, holy mackeral they were the best ribs I've ever had!

I have been reading Peter Singer's One World and it isn't helping my "America love" any. Singer can be a bit on the radical edge, but he makes very good points about the importance of Kyoto. I am still upset at my own governments half-ass efforts on issues of the environment. We really need a change politically. Thank God for David Suzuki who has the nuts to stand up against our environment "minister".

I have also been trying to get ready for CanGames which is next month. I am really excited because this year I am running five game sessions (D&D minis and Injurious). I'm still making terrain for our uber match, and I should have enough terrain at the end of this to last me a lifetime.

Classes start again for me tomorrow. I only have two left, History of Philosophy and the Ethics of Globalization (hence the Singer book). I am so stoked for the Ethic course as the prof. is a friend of mine from the school, she just finished her doctorate in Feminist Economics. I have a lot of respect for her work. Should be awesome.

My French studies are progressing, slowely but they are coming. I used powerpoint slides in Montreal and did most of the translation, with corrections from my friend Gabriel. I was happy that I did as well as I did on them. It is really painful trying to articulate something in a language that you have limited vocabulary with. I'm confident I'll get there by the end of the summer, I won't be conversational but I will be able to read. There is a lot of French radio for me to semi-immerse myself here in Ottawa. I just have to make the plunge into conversational French at home and with my francophone friends.

That's what has been keeping me from posting. I still have lots to do before I go back to school tomorrow night.

[THO] Worship Postlude - The Church in Worship

Some of you will remember the series I did on worship a while back. I explored a lot of different aspects of worship, from very practical to semi-theological vantages. And this past Sunday I was guest worship leader* for a local Vineyard. In fact my friend Tim was guest speaker and it was interesting the role the worship in song played in that service.

I had a wonderful backup musician, Nathan, playing djembe with me. We did a simple guitar/djembe combo for the music. That's the second time I've worked with Nathan and he is very nice to work with. In Hosanna's liturgy, the open with the singing but I had a sense in the prayer room that God was standing in front of the congregation with his arms stretched towards them - a sense of blessing. So I strummed a chord to get their attention, called the people to order and then prayed into that over them. Then we launched into our worship set. I punctuated it with the days reading from Revelation, however I'm not sure anyone but me knew it was the lectional verse. And we started very up and moved into some fairly intimate worship. I usually like to bring the congregation back to an up place before the next part of the liturgy (announcements in this case). But I had a sense we were going to rest for a while in intimate worship singing my friend Andy Winmill's song I Want To Be.

There was a word of encouragement spontaneously shared from the congregation and we moved into the song I thought we'd use for outro singing: Lord, Come Now. That one modulates a bit and I started it in G, so I had to distance myself from the mic on the chorus (such fun). And we finished up with some ad lib stuff based around the chorus from The Wall (not Pink Floyd). A nice place to end and 5 minutes early (I like to be on time).

So the pastor, Jimmy, got up and had some short announcements. But then one of the elders got up and shared his heart on some stuff the church has been going through. It was good, but long and heavy. During that time I'm praying for Tim because I didn't know if he knew this was on the agenda. Turns out he did, but it was an interesting space to start speaking from. So sensing this Tim asked me to come do another song - it was interesting how this made the shift that was needed. Roger the elder was basically calling the Church to turn to God in this time, and Tim would do the same in his message, but sometimes you need to transition and that is where worship in song can really help. So I came up with Nathan and we re-did a song from early in our opening set: More Than Anything. It was a new song, but being simple I noticed a high degree of congregational participation before, making it an obvious choice. It was really nice and this also allowed me to pull out Dwell for the outro worship (which it turned out fit beautifully with Tim's message).

The worship in song was weaved all through the service. I think that is so important for this congregation. When we are faced with difficult times, that is when we need the comfort that comes from God's presence. And singing is one of the easiest ways to mediate that presence. Well, at least in this church - they love to engage with worship. I think that is one the things I like best about going there to lead, I am always blessed by how much the congregation just wants to abandon themselves to worship.

When we are planning worship for our liturgies (services), one of the most important things is to be flexible. It is important to have that stability of structure, but some of the most important moments happen when we break out of the structure just a bit and make room for something fresh to happen. I've seen this in the celebration of the Eucharist where there is this sense to add or shift things just a bit, and those become so special and intimate times. Without the structure it is easy to get caught up in muddling through, but the structure gives us room to break out and open ourselves up to recognizing God in whole new ways.

Thanks Hosanna for letting me come share my gifts with you. I think I get the better deal cause I always walk away blessed.

*note: I am primarily referring to worship in song in this post.

[THO] Finally Done!

I'm looking down at my last exam. Don't worry it was a takehome, due tomorrow. I wrote in less than eight pages (Prof. Eaton appreciates brevity) a primer to Liberation Theology and a short essay on how we could do Liberation Theology from a priveleged society like Canada. The first essay is better, but I'm happy with them both. It sure feels great to be done. The second essay included a rant over the schenanigans our conservative government is pulling to try and bail on Kyoto. No kidding it will impact the economy, but I'd rather wrestle with the economy in my lifetime than leave a burnt out husk of a planet for my kids. Liberation Theology begins from righteous indignation, and that is right where I started today after hearing the news. Ok, got to get this to the school.

[THO] Our Debt to Humanism

I posted the following over on MySpace, mainly because of an ongoing conversation I have with some friends there. I often get called a humanist and a liberal over there which bugs me when it is done in a derogatory way. But actually I'm convinced we wouldn't have had a Reformation without Humanism. So here is a little piece to that effect. Love to hear your comments.

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This semester I took a wonderful course in Early Modern Church History, which is the period of Reformations in the Church. Some of it is very frustrating, especially how railroaded Luther gets (from all sides) and how short sighted a lot of the Reformers were (I have even less respect for Calvin after this course). But what is probably the most suprising insight is the debt those of us who come from Protestant traditions have to Humanism. I know this is a derogative name for some, but in reality there would never have been a Protestant Reformation if it hadn't been for Humanism.

Luther was a Nominalist, a school of thought that emerges from Humanism in response to Aristotelian Scholasticism. His Augustinian roots really forshadow this as the Augustinians tended towards Nominalism and the Dominicans were stuck on Aristotle via Aquinas. I'm not so comfortable picking sides, but I do live in a much different age. We have the advantage of hindsight with regards to some of the more regretable aspects of the reformations - especially the constant schisming that still occurs.

Also Zwingli was influenced by Erasmus. Erasmus, the father of Humanism, was the driving force behind vernacular Bible translations from the Greek, as opposed to the troublesome Vulgate. This led to insights like repentence being about metenoia not pennance, Luther made great use of this too. If you enjoy having a Bible in your own language then you need to tip your hat to Erasmus.

Calvin was also a Humanist, much as I am not a fan of Calvin, we do come by our solid pastoral formation practices from him. Even Trent follows Calvin's lead in this regard.

So next time you want to dismiss the Humanists, remember they are an integral part of our history. They made us think in new ways about the role of religion in the world. Sometimes we might not like where that landed us, but we would not have many of the things we take for granted if it were not for the Humanists in history.

[FUN] Birthyday Party

Each year the girls are allowed to invite one friend for each year old they are. For some reason my oldest is turning seven and having eight kids over (oh yeah, Chelsea didn't count - that makes sense). Because it can be quite a game keeping up with inviting who you are socially supposed to, we decided to opt out of that and let our kids decide. For the most part it works well. Elyssa has invited almost all classmates, including two boys!

We also try to do something really fun for the kids. So this one is a cat show. Each kid brings a stuffed cat and they are going to have games. I am so happy with the main game - a hunt for Peanuts. Peanuts is Elyssa's favourite stuffed animal, a white (used to be anyway) cat! Well Peanuts is going to disappear just before the party and when Elyssa asks for her we will tell her Peanuts is preparing a big surprise for her and hand her a DVD that she can watch with her friends. I'll post the video I made, it is hilarious. Basically Peanuts says for her birthday surprise she is playing her favourite game with all the kids - hide and seek. She gives a clue to lead them to the first egg, inside is a clue that leads to the next one. They aren't too hard, but full of flavour (Peanuts says Meow-pad all the time, that is in there!). I have five clue eggs hidden that lead to Peanuts.

Once they find her we will take polaroids of the kids with cats that they can stick on their Cat Show Registration forms. Then the pageant begins! It is going to be great fun. Now I'm off to carefully place the eggs.

[LIF] Plastic Nightmare

Recently we have been concerned about the amount of plastics in our diet. Rather the amount of and types of plastics that we surround our selves with, especially our food! There was a scary article in the Globe and Mail (Saturday, April 7, p.10-11) on the leeching of bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic esterogen, into food and drink that is stored in it. The main culprit is primarily #7 plastics, there are exceptions in the #7 world but there is no easy way to determine that. BPA is a hormone so it doesn't behanve like other toxins where you need quantity to kill, hormones are best active at miniscule doses when they don't overwhelm the receptors in your body. They have been linked to breast cancer, prostate cancer, early signs of puberty, declined testicular testosterone and damaged eggs.

We decided to rid ourselves of this pesky plastic and do some more research. Well, almost anything hard and clear is a #7, including the big water jug that we use as a reservoir for our Britta water cooler! That sucks, because you don't want to get me going on the evils of bottled water. Our kids cried when we told them we were no longer going to be using the cooler, they were equally upset when some of their favourite bowls and cups were also culled from the shelf. We are phasing out all the plastics on our shelves because of what our further research revealed.

Turns out #1, #3 and #6 plastics are also all bad! That included the bottle our organic ketchup comes in, other soft plastic containers and the fleece blankets our daughters sleep with every night!!! It is completely overwhelming. I realized through our children's tears that the reason we continue in this madness is that we have immersed ourselves in plastic, become so dependant on it, that we can't face that it is slowly killing us as a species.

While not all plastics are bad, and it is really hard to tell the difference right now. It is also almost impossible to imagine life without plastics. A lot of the convenience foods we eat (even canned food sits in a plastic barrier waiting for consumption) are housed in plastic of some sort. We are finding out how expensive it is to replace our containers with glass and stainless steel. But for me the health of my kids is worth it.

The most bizarre thing about this is that BPA is part of the hardening agency in these plastics, creating strong plastics that don't transfer any plastic taste to the products (those 'nice' Nalgene bottles are #7 for this reason). So we don't taste what is killing us. The Romans did a similar thing by transferring water through lead pipes, it might have been delicious but that doesn't mean it isn't deadly! Just a little food for though.

[LIF] Good Friday Sensory Service

Just put the finishing touches on this one. Should have a nice little group (8 or so) come and celebrate the passion of our Lord. As part of our service there are six sensory stations set up for folks to interact with. I'll have to post some pics of the stations later, but here is the flip side of our order of service sheet. I'm playing Peter Gabriel's Passion (soundtrack for the Last Temptation) in the background, that CD is contemplative and eerie all at the same time.

The Cross (mantle) – this cruel instrument of torture has become one of the most recognizable religious symbols. Often crosses are worn or carried by the faithful as a personal reminder of their faith in the crucified God. A small vessel of holy water rests at the foot of the cross; traditionally the holy water is used to mark your forehead with the sign of the cross.
Reflect: Jesus’ asks you to take up your own cross and follow him.

The Passion (tv) – soundless this film provides a visual depiction of the Stations of the Cross. This film gives a strong sense of the depth of suffering Jesus bore for us. Luther was very disturbed by the tendency, in his day, to beautify the cross (rosy cross, where we get Rosicrucianism), it is important that we never forget that the death of Jesus is an absolute scandal. Yet, Jesus willingly bore all the indignity of his passion for us.
Reflect: Jesus was willing to suffer the scandal of the cross for you.

Prayer Station (living room) – from the Eastern tradition, a small candle represents our prayers ascending towards heaven. Please light a small candle and melt the bottom of that candle to stick it to the board. Please make sure the candle is firmly attached before leaving this station. A pillow below the table serves as a kneeler for those who so desire.
Reflect: Jesus faced the suffering of the passion strengthened by a life of prayer.

Stations of the Cross (I-XIV) – for most of us a yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem is not feasible. The tradition of the Stations of the Cross comes out of a desire for the faithful to walk the Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows). In many traditional churches the stations are sculpted into the walls of the sanctuary, seven on each side. The pilgrim is encouraged to stop at each station and reflect on the long and painful journey Christ made to the tomb.

The Garden (dining room) – Matthew, Mark and Luke each give us a rich narrative of night of our Lord’s betrayal. In this blended reading, we are encouraged to reflect on Jesus’ struggle with all that was ahead. Interestingly, only Luke adds the dramatic angelic visitation and “sweat as great drops of blood.” But this is fitting imagery for Jesus’ preparing to enter the God forsakenness of the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)
Reflect: Christ knows intimately the struggle to do the right thing, no matter the cost.

The Eucharist (dining room) – The Lord’s Table is central to our Christian faith, it is also where the passion narratives start. For those wishing to participate in common cup, please use the provided clothe to wipe the rim of the cup. Other cups are provided for those who wish their own.
Reflect: Jesus’ longs to share this meal with you.

[LIF] End of Semester

Things are wrapping up, I wrote my last non-exam paper of the semester tonight. I have a bit over a week before my first exam is due. This is the time of the semester when the stress on my family is the greatest. Sharon hasn't seen much of me since the paper crunch and the times we have had together have been really catching up on what's going on in each others lives. That is freaky considering we sleep in the same bed every night. I really need to hire a sitter and take her out for dinner or something, just the two of us.

Today we went to buy me some much needed pants - a lot of my clothes are getting worn out simply because I don't have the time to buy new ones. I bought three pairs of jeans, good ones that will last a while. I need desperately to replace my orange GAP sweater, but they don't make the pullovers like that anymore. Sharon needs to get out shopping too, but our lives are pretty packed.

I have two weeks off after exams and then I take on two summer intensives. Good news is that will complete my degree, bad news is it will be June before I get a real breather. I'm just glad I don't have another year of my undergrad left.

J’ai faire bien progrès en français. Je pourrai pour comprendre la français. Bientôt, j'espérer. As you can tell it is still pretty bad, but a few weeks ago I wouldn't even know where to look to try and figure out to say that (whatever I said in them there words, Steve help me out buddy.) It is going to be an intense Summer. If I don't post so much it is because my head is buried in a book.

[LIF] Kenny!!!!

Yes, I blame Kenny. As if I didn't have enough ways to procrastinate.

[REV] Little Mosque on the Prairie

I heard about this show on CBC radio one day, the interview was hilarious. So I've been wanting to catch a few episodes. Holy Mackeral it is a great show! Little Mosque on the Prairie is one of the best sitcoms I've seen in a long time. Not only is the show a brilliant expose on ridiculous Moslem stereotypes it occasionally makes a wonderful and playful jab at Christianity. Personally I think humour is one of the best entrance points for ecumenism, we take ourselves far too seriously too often. The other wonderful aspect is the absolute diversity of the Moslem community. It reminds me all too much of about every local church I've ever been a part of. I highly recommend it.

[THO] Moltmann and the Resurrection of Christ

I'm just about to write my Christology paper on Resurrection in Moltmann's Theology of Hope. Not just the book of that title, but that is what I would label his whole theology. Moltmann read Bloch's The Principles of Hope and realized that the category of hope had been lost to Christianity. In fact we were discussing in Liberation Theology class today how the early church practiced hope, yet we tend to practice systems of belief (dogma). Moltmann's response was his groundbreaking book The Theology of Hope, which is a profound read that I've worked with the last two semesters (last semester as a critique for the evangelical vision of grace). This time I did a survey of Moltmann's major works (Crucified God, Coming of God, Church in the Power of the Spirit, The Way of Jesus Christ, etc.) as well as some of his applications of the Theology of Hope (In the End...the Beginning, Future of Creation, etc.) Honestly I think I overdid it, but it isn't that easy to stop once you get started. I found that Moltmann is consistant all through this theology, at least in terms of the Resurrection. He brilliantly exposes why this foolishness about the Platonic Immortality of the Soul is a blight on modern Christianity and how the remedy is Resurrection faith. And Moltmann masterfully exposes the whole understanding of Resurrection in the langauge of promise, that is enough to give me goosepimples! But the best is his understanding of Resurrection as the inbreaking of the future into history in a way that re-makes history! This is such a profound insight that almost every text I looked at tried to unpack this idea. Just as Volf [Correction: it was Geiko Muller-Fahrenholz not Volf] says the theology of the Resurrection is the hinge on which the Theology of Hope turns, this understanding of the Resurrection builds the anticipation of Kingdom Inbreaking in the believer and becomes the imperative for our lived faith in this world. It is just so good.

Well I better get writing.

[LIF] Küng Foo

I went to hear Hans Küng last night. It was a bilingual event, which apparently means something other than parallel translation, doh! But thankfully Hans made some comments about his French in French and continued almost exclusively in English. I still have a long way to go this summer to pass the French competancy. I was struggling with only getting the smallest bits of the spoken French, so frustrating. Küng was very interesting, it was basically his life's work in brief. I think if I were Roman Catholic I would have appreciated it more, he talked about the issues post-Vatican II of only instituting 'yes' men bishops and of refusing to deal with the law of celibacy. I didn't see a lot of recognizable clergy though, so I suspect Hans is a Catholic Theologian for the lay person who longs for semper reformation in the Catholic Church.

[THO] Ceci n'est pas une pipe

Working hard on my papers I decided my light break reading would be Michel Foucault's little book "This is Not a Pipe". I barely broke the second chapter and I am struck by how well he describes the power of the aphorism. We go to such great lengths to reconcile discrepancies in our minds, we don't let them hang out in their paradoxical way and work their magic on us. We instantly say, of course this is not a pipe! It is a picture of a pipe, then we are done and can walk away undisturbed. Unfortunately we've completely missed the point and robbed the aphorism of its real meaning. I think this is why we can create such comfortable messages from the word of Jesus.

Jesus spoke often in aphorisms. Disconnected word pictures designed to shake us up and reveal the Kingdom. But when Jesus tells us the mustard seed grows into the biggest tree we don't cry out "bullshit!" we accept it and somehow construe that in Jesus day they must have desired these plants. But the reality is mustard is a weed. It spreads easy and grows into a shrub. But we don't like that kind of disconnect. It makes us uncomfortable (probably as uncomfortable as my use of the BS phrase made some of you).

I am often asked why people just don't get Jesus' message. We try to break it into simple moralisms or truisms. We want it to all match reality in a "reasonable" way. In doing so we rob the gospel of its power, a power to reorient us and break us out of the patterns of thinking that frankly no longer function for our good. The gospel is powerful if we are willing to let it linger untamed in our midst. Like any untame beast it will tear us apart, ripping away all that ultimately holds us back. We will stuff it into a cage, we always do, but the longer we can hold the tension, the longer we can allow the fangs of scripture to tear away our false ideas, the more transformative it will be. If someone told you God was safe, don't buy it. God is as dangerous as his Word, and the Kingdom of God advances with violence!

[THO] Boehme's Panentheism

In preparing my paper on Jacob Boehme I have run into the pantheism/panentheism debate. Pantheism is pretty easy to understand, it is the idea that God is the sum of all that is. But panentheism is often confused with the heterodox pantheism even though nothing could be further from the truth.

For Boehme there is a wisdom (word) present in all things which has two functions. First it is the suffucing of nature with the divine giving the potential for salvation to all of creation, this he gets at using hermetic philosophy. But more importantly for Boehme, and others who take panentheism seriously, creation itself is able to convey understanding about God and life. Creation becomes a book of God. These ideas also come out in a panentheistic reading of the New Testament.

Boehme lived in the time when the Medieval Synthesis was crumbling. We were moving from a geocentric view of creation to a heliocentric view. And everything needed to be rethought. From a 21st century perspective many of Boehme's ideas seem quite profound and orthodox, but in his time cages were being rattled.

[THO] Jacob Boehme Redux

I can't imagine a more complicated time to be writing about than turn of the 17th century Upper Lusatia. Religiously you have the enforced Lutheranism (house by house baby!), duplicitious Crypto-Calvinists and Phillipists, wandering Anabaptists, entrenched Catholics, artillery inventing Hussites, hopeful Humanists and enough Silisian mystics to fill a large bathtub! Politically it is even more of a mess, the Turks at Europes doors, the inability of the Protestants to get along with each other, let alone the Catholic. This is the time of rising German nation states and the decline of the Holy Roman Empire. It is also a time of apocalyptic expectation, what Luther had done for the Gospel, science would soon do for philosophy, or so they though (Weeks, Boehme, 48). Now throw into this mix a self-taught cobbler mystic who felt compelled to put his thoughts to paper. At least I have no shortage of things to write about for this paper - the hard part is trying to tame this unruly beast!

[THO] The Problem with Personal Salvation

I wrote a paper last year which uses Moltmann's theology as a critique of the Evangelical vision of grace. I did really well on it and the professor, Ken Melchin, agreed to help me work on it some more in hopes of finding it a home in a scholarly journal of some sort. I just finished reading it and it was really encouraging. If I were to nutshell my argument I would say that Evangelicals consistantly have an orientation towards personal salvation that blinds them to constructive participation in the world. The hard part is that this insight of personal salvation is important and worth protecting. But when our focus on personal salvation becomes an escapist philosophy then we miss the incarnational insight of Christ's life. I tackle some of the issues that flow out of this like the breakdown of medieval synthesis and the prevalence of apocalyptic decline narratives in the article, I think it will be a worthwhile read if I can find it a home.

[THO] Jacob Boehme

I'm really enjoying Andrew Weeks book Boehme. He does a great job of surveying the theology of this influential mystic. The more I get a handle on Boehme's ideas the more of his influence I can see in philosophy and theology. Not bad for a cobbler with no formal theological education. Perhaps that is exactly why he dared integrate theosophy, alchemy and mysticism into his ecstatic influenced theologizings. Boehme took chances with mixed results. After reading the Confessions of Jacob Boehme I was struck by just how devotional his text was, not at all what I expected after reading snippets of the Aurora. Especially towards the end Boehme called the Christian to integrity and piety, lest they bring upon themselves condemnation (wrath is one of the two experiences of God, love is the other). At the same time this text offers some interesting views of God (borrowing from his three principles of God) including a denial of creation from nothing (Boehme discards this idea as foolish) and a careful tread along the edge of pantheism. I appreciated the trip along that edge though as this is the insight that mystics often bring us back to - God is closer than you think!

I've almost compiled enough data, I'm just reading a few great articles Kenny's buddy pointed me to regarding 16th Century German socio-economic situations. Sometime this weekend I'll sketch out my paper and identify the missing holes in my research. I haven't decided if I will read a substantial portion of Aurora or not. At this point I have a pretty good sense of Boehme's theology, confusing though it is. And I am missing more mundane information like the name of his wife? Ah the joys of preparing papers.