[REV] From Eden to Exile

I was tickled pink to get a review copy of Eric Cline's From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible. Those who know me know that I'm not usually drawn to Biblical studies as a field, but I do like to know what is going on in a field that is important to any Christian theology. Cline did not let me down. This is an engaging read.

The first thing that grabbed my attention was Cline's project. He is not trying to shoulder up some agenda of proving or disproving the historicity of the Bible, rather he provides a frank look at the Biblical, extra-biblical and archeological evidence (or lack thereof) for several fascinating Biblical mysteries. These mysteries include such favourites as the location of Eden and Noah's ark, as well as finding the lost tribes of Israel. If you are looking for someone to tell you that there are clear answers for any of these mysteries you probably want a different book.

While the whole book is quite engaging and accessible, it was his concluding chapter that really shined. Here Cline urges us not to give up our various positions on the historicity of the various early Biblical accounts, but rather to take seriously all the data. To avoid speculating and going beyond the evidence. But remember that the Biblical narratives are about something more important than a verifiable history. "People read the Bible to find themselves in it, and many people don't just read the story, they live it." (p.185)

[LIF] CanGames

This was CanGames weekend! Lots of fun, but very tiring. You know you are getting old when... I usually run three events, two Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures (DDM) tournaments and an Injurius Games tournament. Because DDM has changed rules, and I am really too invested in the original rules to migrate, I ended up cancelling the first game and only one player showed up for the second DDM event. We played Sword and Skull, a really good Avalon Hill game that is much like the classic game Talisman. We played two player and it went very well. Lots of board games really suffer with just two players. After we played a game of Star Munchkin, but that is a game that really needs more than two players.

The Injurius tournament was really well attended. Lots of fun and we found a new player to join our IG League nights. I also played D12 Fantasy, another Red Shirt game, today and was part of the customized DDM Monster Mash game Saturday night. As you can imagine, I'm dog tired! BTW we have a facebook group for announcing local IG and D12 fantasy games in the area. If you want to join a growing community playing this home grown game, just let me know.

It was nice to see old friends and make a few new ones too. Gamers can be a really strange bunch. The highlight though had to be the shirt that a gamer girl was wearing. It simply said: "This is what a feminist geek looks like." Nice. Oh, some of you will appreciate the obligatory Jesus shirt, on one side it says, "Jesus saves" On the back is a stylized picture of Buddy Jesus and the words, "but everyone else takes full damage!" Such fun.

Well it is back to the grindstone.

[LIF] Dexter

Yeah, I know it is really screwed up. But what an awesome series. It has the suspense of Prison Break, but is also an incredibly twisted character study. For those of you who haven't seen it, Dexter is a serial killer who also happens to work for the police helping them catch serial killers. Dexter is a self confessed neat monster and the show explores both the making of this particular monster and the inner life of a serial killer.

Now this is fiction. In real life serial killers tend to not be the masterminds we like to see brought down in movies. In real life serial killers are often the most pathetic of individuals. But that sort of villian is not very appealing to the masses. This is an interesting commentary on our perceptions about those things that are well beyond our control, that is the evil in our world. We like to think that evil is incredibly intelligent because that makes us feel a little better about our inability to conquer evil in our society. Just like we have convinced ourselves that terrorists are fine tuned organizations masterminding our destruction. We love a conspiracy.

The making of Dexter is incredibly interesting. Early on in the series we learn about the Code of Harry, Dexter's adoptive father. A cop who felt he could channel Dexter's murderous instincts into a force for good. Yup, it is good and twisted. The series really challenges notions we have about good and evil as well as moral responsibility. Plus it is just so darn creepy.

Just a bit of warning, I watched the Showcase episodes online so they have course language and occasional brief nudity. But to be honest, the gore is much worse. Watch at your own risk.

[LIF] China

As I heard the reports on CBC of how the death toll is climbing, the thought of entire towns being reduced to rubble and schools collapsing essentially wiping out an entire generation saddens me deeply. My thoughts, tears and prayers are with the Chinese today.

[THO] Building a Church?

I have come to realize something: I don't really want to build a church. Now that sounds like an odd statement, even dead wrong if you know how passionate I am about church planting. But what I realized is that I am less concerned with building a church than I am with building THE CHURCH.

Now I'm not saying that Freedom is THE CHURCH, but I sure do believe that we are a part of THE CHURCH.

But where this really makes sense for me is in the fact that I'm not really that passionate about my church being any more or less than what God wants. I'm really quite happy with doing what we did tonight (we had an awesome service, tonnes of prayer and just a sweet presence of God's Spirit) if that is what it is that is our gift to THE CHURCH.

Building a church only makes sense if we are building THE CHURCH. I think that this is a key issue for pastors today. We have this sort of success mentality that says building a church proves I'm useful and valuable. Really it only proves we have the ability to make a church. I can't help thinking of Wimber hearing God say, "I've seen your ministry John, meh. Now let me show you mine." I wonder how many of us would hear that same thing if we stopped long enough to listen.

[THO] AAR-EIR

Montreal was a lot of fun. My main objective was to just see what is expected in presenting a paper at an academic conference. I'm quite confident that I can do a great job of this. I think my strategy will be to write for print and prepare a presentation, rather than write to read. This will work when the papers do not need to be submitted before hand and will facilitate the process of prepping the papers for subsequent publication. Something I am hoping to do a fair bit of.

I met quite a few really helpful and friendly scholars. They seemed genuinely interested in my work. Of note Scott Kline was a real treat to meet. I actually hung out with his better half, Megan Shore, who is great friends with my partner in crime for the weekend, Jessica Fraser (her work on consummerism is something to keep an eye out for.) I skipped one session to sneak off with Jessica to the bookstore. We were a bit dissappointed that the bookstore with the good discount was more general than we had hoped, but I did find a few books. I actually bought a few books for my girls, but I'm sure the Mole Sisters isn't what you want to read about.

I picked up Vanier's collection of letters, Our Life Together. I couldn't resist this massive hardcover at $5.99! But related to my research I picked up Jim Wallis' God's Politics for a mere $4.99. And I took advantage of the 20% off to pick up Heidegger's Poetry, Language, Thought. Overall I was hoping to score more bookage, but it is probably a good thing. What they had for cheap was academic journals from McGill and Concordia. I picked up about five of these, anything really that had an article that was relevant to my research.

At the closing BBQ I was told that I'm no longer an AAR virgin. But then that was retracted with the notion that I still have to present. Next time for sure. Now I can't wait for Chicago.

[THO] AAR Newbie

Tomorrow I hop in my Vue with my friend Jessica (we have the same research director) and drive to Montreal. It will be my first experience of the American Academy of Religion. Of course this is a regional event, the full meal deal is in Chicago in November. But I'm really looking forward to it.

I was too overwhelmed with courses this year to respond to the call for papers. Too bad, I understand it is easier to break in through the regionals. My attempt to find a place to present in Chicago was not even acknowledged? Oh well, it was a bit close to the first deadline. What I need to do is a bit of networking and figure out where I fit into this wacky world of academic theology.

I was able to find at least one interesting session in each time slot, hopefully I'll make some new friends. I really don't know too much what to expect. Tomorrow evening I am staying with some dear friends in the city, so if it is too crazy, I have at least that refuge.

I return Saturday, just in time to compose myself for preaching on Sunday. I'm guest speaker at another local Vineyard. I'm planning on talking about being a missional community. We'll see.

I'll be sure to let you know my book finds at the conference.

[THO] Let the Scriptures Live

Jim West pointed out this interesting post at James McGrath's blog. It raises the question of if/when it is appropriate to question the Bible. This is a really important question. If the Bible is just to be accepted carte blanche then there are several problems that rear their ugly heads.

First this turns the scriptures into a tyrrant, or at least it turns them into a powerful tool for tyrrants to dominate the Church of the ignorant. This is part in parcel of any religion/faith that discourages us to think. The problem is who's interpretation is untouchable? And the bigger question of Why?

Second it reduces what should be living scriptures to dead words on a page. The scriptures are meant to live in our community. They are meant to be polysemic, a locus of revelation. But revelation where we are fully readers and fully interpreters. That can only happen if we have the guts to question scripture. When we take that away we rob the church of her greatest physical asset.

Third, and finally, and I think probably the most important: the scriptures are not honoured. Seriously, how is it honouring to the scriptures to never raise questions? When I honour something in my life I don't make it into an idol, never to be touched or questioned. No, I engage with, learn everything I can from and embrace all I can get from the object of my honour. To honour the scriptures is to ask deep questions and even to be open to answers that I didn't expect. To honour the scriptures I don't make them into what I want them to be, but I embrace them for what they are. I don't turn them into a trite love letter, but treat them as the Word of God. I don't use the scriptures to assert power over others, but allow them to shape me into a servant for all.

Something to think about.

[THO] True Value of Prophecy Books

“This dismal record has inspired the witticism known as “Murphy’s Armageddon Observation: Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to write end-times books. Corollary: God doesn't read prophecy books.” The sad fact remains that an awfullot of evangelicals still do.”

Mark Noll, Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, 174.

[THO] Should be Expelled.

This is a great little video. It is interesting though that Stein, who is making a case for Intelligent Design (ID) is called a Creationist. I would make that connection, but I'd be more careful with my terms. Creationists, I find, have both bad science and bad theology. ID proponents are marginally better, but could improve if they would move beyond their obvious critique of reductionist mechanistic science. Come on guys, there is a lot better science out there than Dawkins.

[LIF] Full Moon

Wow it has been an interesting day. I was supposed to be studying, after all I have two exams tomorrow! But a dear friend called and needed me, so off I went. There is always something awkward but precious about being there for someone. So dinner rolls around and it turns out Elyssa is sick, poor girl. So her mom took care of her while I took our friend home. When we got the kids settled another friend called, this time needing my excellent wife's ear. Sharon comes down after a tiring day and says, "full moon." If only it were that easy.

Despite this I do feel ready for tomorrow. I'd like to have prepared a bit more for the study group in the afternoon, but I did a fair bit last night. I actually got quite a surprising amount of work done and still make it to my friend Poulsen's going away party. You will be missed my friend. For those who don't know, Poulsen has a pro-hockey playing brother (CHL I think, I am not a sports person) and told us to youtube his brother's name. Chris Poulsen is way cooler than that!

I begin the morning with my von Balthasar exam. At the party I was chatting with a friend who is swaying from Moltmann to Balthasar? I don't get that switch. There are things about Balthasar I like, but I don't find him near as challenging as Moltmann. I think it is because he doesn't hit me where I live ecclesially. I'm not Barth and apparently if I was that'd make a big difference!

I get a break, probably a nap, and then meet up with my director for her exam. My topic is why theology needs evolution. That is sweet because I actually think that it does. Last time I brought the subject up Kenny threw out Gould's NOMA (non-overlapping magesterial authority), which is a notion that science and religion/theology are two completely seperate spheres of knowledge/inquiry. My big issue with NOMA is that if we are dealing with the same reality, that is reality as it presents itself to us, then this sort of division is false. Various disciplines definitely ask different questions, but they cannot ignore one another. Evolution has serious implications on theology. To ignore it is to not allow science to have a fair voice in the conversation, the same thing we complain science does to religion. It doesn't wash for me.

After that I have a study group for my last exam. I am hoping it is mostly in English because it is the French that was tripping me up. My next project is to take a two week immersion programme!

[THO] Meaning Making

First off, my official acceptance letter finally arrived. And as an exciting extra, I think I'm going to do both my core courses in the second semester, both very cool courses with Susan Roll and Ken Melchin (both in my list a favourite profs at St. Paul).

I took an oral exam today for my course on Theological Hermeneutics. We studied through the perspective of Paul Ricoeur, I'm a big fan of Ricoeur especially after his excellent book with Andre LaCoque - Thinking Biblically. I was asked to choose a topic and basically we had a conversation. I chose to look at Ricoeur's contribution to our understanding of meaning making. I made a special appeal to his threefold mimesis.

What was interesting was to begin with a connection to my own moment of crisis - the bursting of the high-tech bubble. It was a moment when I began to reflect on the meaning of my efforts as an IT consultant, especially the failed promises (paperless office is the primary one) that I had worked hard towards. My confidence in IT collapsed. I know others who have come to the same conclusions, but I am also confident that many have discovered meaning within IT that sustains them. I did not. So I began a quest for meaning.

That was eight years ago when I entered St. Paul University. What happened is a series of ever unfolding horizon shifts that have affects not just the meaning I craft out of my occupation, but also how I view community, faith, God and especially myself.

Ricoeur draws our attention to narrative texts, especially those meant to challenge us. The example par excellence are the Biblical narratives. These are texts that continue to unfold possibilities in the life of the believer. Of course this pre-supposes that the believer is open to such experiences. (I've been chatting recently with a Fundamentalist friend who is definitely not open to such a relationship with the Scriptures. That has been quite frustrating.)

The encounter begins with a crisis. The world of the author and the world of the reader clash. We bring ourselves to the text and the text challenges our notions of self, they even unhinge us. This is akin to the encounter of the radical other, but in this case Ricoeur insists the author is dead. No further inquiry is possible, we are left with the text and we stand exposed before it. This is mimesis 1 aka pre-configuration.

Mimesis 2 (Configuration) is a process of action and reflection. Ricoeur uses the term mimesis to tie these moments to the examination of action. Within this moment possibilities (interpretations) open up for the reader. The text which often surprises us, like the alterity of a parable, pushes us to open possibilities.

The tension of mimesis 2 is not sustainable. We must move on to a newely configured reality, an appropriation. This is mimesis 3. At this point we have settled on meaning, that is we have made a claim on truth. What is interesting is that Ricoeur raises the question of how new this truth really is. The reality is that we rarely land far from where we started, so in a best case scenario we continue to enter into this process over and over allowing our horizons to shift, thus the notion of spiritual growth.

I know I've personally grown a lot through this educative adventure. But in an essence I am not that far from the conservative evangelical that began this journey. But I am glad to say that I have discovered, in this journey, meaning that sustains me. Will it be enough to sustain me through a PhD? We'll have to see. I'm really just looking forward to the joy of learning and actually giving something back to the academic community that has given so much to me.

[LIF] Next stop... PhD

I'm really excited, my application for the PhD programme at St. Paul University was accepted. This is the last step in a long process. The good thing is that I can teach with a Masters (at an undergrad level) and PhD students do have opportunities to teach at my school. Also there are not too many of us, which is helpful. I'm also planning on pitching my services to the various satellite schools in Ottawa. I'd love to land a course each semester (except the semester I do my reading course). We'll see what happens.

I'm trying to piece together an academic resume. The problem is I have tonnes of experience that doesn't translate into my new career. That sucks. I think I can work in my teaching experience and some of the articles I've had published. I really need to get something into a peer reviewed journal though. I have an angle to work on for that though. Because I am working on the theology of the Evangelical Emerging Church, I think there is an interest in some academic material on the subject. I miss Robert Webber, the more I read the more I think he was just getting started.

In the meantime I'm almost through exams and I have a tight schedule to get my research paper out by the end of June!

[THO] Oh Hell

We finished off my Hans Urs von Balthasar course with a discussion of hell and Christian hope. It was fascinating. Balthasar, as some of you know, faced Rome over his views on hell. Nothing stuck, but the reason he ended up there is because he dared wrestle with the same issues that come up for me when you talk about hell. I know that some of my brothers and sisters take hell very seriously, for them the bad news of Tertulian and Augustine has won the day. But does it need to be so?

My big concern with contemporary views on hell is that it gets interpreted as a dualistic opposite to heaven. God is depicted as creating two options and arbitrarily tossing folks in one or the other. Theologically this is the problem of double-predestination. Personally I think this is a bigger heresay than apokatastasis, but lets drill in before we get to my own views. Suffice it to say that I think the whole issue of hell is too quickly simplified. When we do that we often violate the character of God as revealed through the Scriptures.

Apokatastasis is also a victim of easy reduction. The best way to understand it is as an insistance that all of creation will participate in the grace of God. But more often it is reduced to a simple universalism. I would insist it is much bigger than everyone is saved. But I'm not going argue for a condemned heresay, I don't believe you need to resort to apokatastasis to deal with the issue of hell in a way that refuses to violate the character of God.

Where we need to begin is with the character of hell. Moltmann tells us that anything we say about death is for the living, not the dead. Indeed this holds true for the classic passages in the Bible that speak of the afterlife. Job reminds us that the dead do not praise God. And if you have read here for any length of time you will know that my hope is in the resurrection, not some otherworld. But when I go down that road people assume that I don't believe in heaven or hell. The fact is that we really know nothing for certain of the afterlife. Even when a mystic has a vision of hell, who is that vision for? What is the purpose of that vision? The danger is that we become necrophobic and paint these comforting pictures around the whole idea of what comes after death. Death is a natural part of life. My hope is not that I won't die (Jesus is clear on this), but that God will have the last word, even over death.

When we try to describe hell it is most often in spatial and temporal terms. You might have heard the tapes of hell deep beneath Siberia. Oblate missionaries regularily used Dantian images of hell to try and convert the native North Americans - that worked well didn't it? And of course there are the Ray Comforts of this world who have a hell obsession and assault anyone not smart enough to just walk away. Hell as a physicality has to do with human perceptions of judgement. When salvation is reduced to a simple matter of justice then it becomes necessary to have two options - right and wrong. My contention is that justice is only a part of salvation and such a view overlooks the notion of freedom.

Is hell a place of devils and pitchforks? Or is hell the rejection of God's salvation?

There isn't a consistent picture of hell in scripture. Jesus draws on several images, enough that there is a reality He is trying to describe, but also enough to be certain this is more complicated than say an everburning hotel at the center of the Earth. Hell has to be a choice. If we make a strong causal connection between God and hell, then what sort of God do we have? Hell has to do with preserving our freedom. Hell has to be a real possibility if we are able to really reject God. To understand God in these terms we have to reflect on the gift that God offers. (Likewise, my argument for not using hell in evangelism rests here. The good news is what God offers.)

If hell is a choice, then it is a choice to alienate ourselves from God. God does not punish sinners in hell. Rather it is our rejection of the mercy of God. This is important because if we imagine a God who is punishing sinners for eternity, then is that consistent with the God revealed in scripture? I have a hard time supporting a petty God eternally prodding toasty sinners with the Crucified God. That kind of God does not inspire obedience (Romans 12:1-2) but rather apathy and fear.

Just to finish up, Balathasar insists on something that I think is beautiful. Balthasar insists that as Christians it is our obligation to hope for the Salvation of All. What an interesting take. I really believe that anything we say about hell must consider God's desire for all to be saved. Personally I think rejecting God is a freedom we have in Christ. It is consistent with God's expression of solidarity with humanity. It is consistent with the pains by which God wrought salvation. But another consistency is that, as Christians especially, we believe God has the last word.

[LIF] Earth Hour

It is now 9:15PM and Earth Hour has moved on to another time zone. I was happy to hear my wife tell me that the businesses around her store were reducing their lighting and that every second street light seemed to be off! Nice. Her store reduced lighting too. But here at home we went to candles. The candles reminded my oldest of church so she wanted to turn it into a time of worship! So she decided to write prayers on scraps of paper and put them into a box, apparently this was to help her younger sister participate. I led a few worship choruses and the girls danced all around the livingroom in the candle light. It was really nice until it denegrated into a circular chase and several near misses of a table edge! I put a stop to that. As a parent you learn to enjoy moments within moments, it's a skill.

After our dancing came to an end the kids pulled out the prayers. I was asked to read one for Chelsea. It read:

God we love you.
God we know you.
love us.

I was impressed.

After a few of these were read out (they were all pretty similar with love and safety as the main themes) we started up the laptop (on batteries of course). I put on some instrumental music and we laughed to the visualization of a wacky snowman! It was getting close to the end of the hour anyway. So after a few songs we went up to brush our teeth in the candle light. Elyssa wanted to turn the lights on to go pee, but I asked her to wait and turned it into a teaching moment around the purpose of Earth Day. I told her that if we don't do something now her generation is going to really have a hard go of it. We talked about being conscious of the energy we use. At 9:01 she was able to turn the lights on, I had them in bed right away (the agreement for letting them stay up through Earth Hour) and came down to settle and work on papers.

Hope you had an equally pleasant experience of Earth Hour.

[THO] Vineyard Stance

We had a really nice meal with some old friends over the holidays. I hadn't seen Denise and Terry since, I don't know when. We have some odd connections. I got chatting with Denise who is picking away at a BA in theology from Tyndale. She mentioned that in the Alliance (we met in the Pentecostal church and she was instrumental in my coming to Christ) church where her family calls home, she has heard a fairly consistant complaint that the Vineyard believes in adding to the Word of God. She wanted to hear my take. I think it is a good question and I imagine that you could accuse a lot of pentecostal/charismatic groups of the same thing. But I'm not convinced it sticks.

There are two sense of this that need to be dealt with: 1) relationship to Scripture and 2) the practice of prophetic giftings. The first is easy for the Vineyard. If you read our statement of faith it is pretty clear that we affirm a closed canon of scripture. So if the concern is adding to the Scriptures then it is unfounded.

The second is a bit harder to pin down. I know there are Vineyards (and other churches) that hold prophetic utterances, especially public utterances, as at least equal with scripture. This might not be official but it is done in practice. But overall the theology of the Vineyard isn't very favourable to this stance.

One of the key distinctives about the Vineyard is a notion that everybody plays. What is meant by that slogan is that we try not to elevate offices in a way that they lord it over the church. In fact we regularely discourage giving directional words to other people. The reason is that we believe each of us hears from God in our own ways and that the gift of prophecy is really a gift of hearing the Shepherd's voice. Further, the office of prophet has more to do with equipping the church to better hear for herself as well as helping the church become equipped to discern (test) prophetic words. In this process of testing prophecy is first of all rooted in a trust of the authority of scripture.

John Wimber would tell us that the Bible contains the Word of God, but not every Word of God is in the Bible. I find this is actually a good balance to the biblolatry that is part of the evangelical culture. It is silly to think that the Bible covers in a plain way all the situtations that life will throw at us. It is always helpful, but this is also a discernment process. The easy test case is slavery, at one point slavery was thought quite compatable with the Biblical texts. This does not mean we have a flexible canon, but rather a maturing relationship to scripture. We read it in our context and find the Bible a faithful witness in our day. For me this is a high value of scripture (much higher than forms like literalism that insist on hammering the scriptures into pseudo-static categories). It values the relationship that the church has with scripture and recognizes that this is process that belongs to the church herself.

[THO] Good Friday Sensory Service

One of my favourite liturgical celebrations is our Good Friday ceremony. We started doing it as a sensory service a few years back and it makes for a really nice service. Especially considering the somber nature of Good Friday. It takes a good day to prepare for what ends up being an hour and a half, but it is definitely worth it. A sensory service is meant to engage all of your senses, allowing you to worship in tactile and imaginative ways. This year we had the following stations (descriptions from the order of service):

The Cross – 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. At the front door is a small vessel of holy water; 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.

Prayer Station – 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.

The Garden – 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 Passion – 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, 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.

Stations of the Cross (I-XIV) – 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.

Object of Christ’s Joy – For the joy set before Him, Christ endured the cross (Heb 12:1-2). Paul tells us that the only reasonable response to Christ’s overwhelming act of love is to offer ourselves as living sacrifices (Rom 12:1-2). Above the mirror are the words: "Whom Christ loved".

Reflect: No greater love is there than to lay down your life for your friends (John 15:15).

The Eucharist – 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.

This year we began with a short community celebration including prayers, songs and some scripture readings. My seven year old read the ancient hymn from Phillipians 2! Then we opend the stations (I opened the Eucharistic table with my daughter assisting me, that was really nice). After a while we came back into the main room to prepare for Holy Saturday, I closed the Eucharistic table and we covered the cross. We concluded with a benediction, it was a really nice service.

Next stop Easter Sunday brunch! Have a great Easter all.

[THO] Train Up a Child

I overheard my youngest ask this deeply theological question.

"Are there poor people in outer space?"

[DDM] It's All Over

Yeah. I just pulled up the pre-release schedule for the lastest D&D Minis installment and no Montreal. I can't say I'm too shocked, but I do feel sad. See this is the pre-cursor to D&D 4th Edition and they changed the rules. My buddy Richard put it this way, "I read the new rules and got dumber." I want to try them out but I think the interest just isn't there. I did download the new cards for the last set, but something about them leaves me less than thrilled. Maybe I'm just not ready to move on?

I'm not saying the old rules are perfect, but I am saying that I am not as adaptable as I was in my youth. The old rules are familiar, like an old shoe. And if you are like me then you want that old shoe to literally fall apart before you buy another one - as the perfectly fine new set of Dr. Martins in my closet will attest.

But maybe there is more to it. I've been playing DDM for long enough that I can't easily store my miniatures. It is ridiculous to drag them all out for D&D let alone pull a warband of only 12. Having a ba-zillion little plastic critters does not incite me to start a whole new collection of plastic crack! In that sense I definitely feel done. But, to their credit, Wizards of the Coast is updating all the old minis to the new stats. Awesome job guys. But I'm still sad.

Not like I've had time to run DDM in a while. But I did love DDM nights. And taking a van load of boyz to Montreal for the pre-release was always a good time.

I hope the new game attracts a lot of new players. I hope there will always still be veterans playing the old rules too. And I do hope one day I'll try out the new game. But for right now it is time to mourn the passing of a game.

[FUN] Answer to an Age Old Question

This film answers that age old question: "what is it good for?"



Post when you clued in to what is going on. Byron deserves the credit for pointing this gem out.

[LIF] Sick...oh pooh.

We've had a flu go through our house. First my youngest had it for 5 days! Then I had an off day along with my oldest. My wife caught it next and then it overtook my oldest again. She's had a fever for 6 days now. I'm on day two of shakes.

It could not have come at a worse time in my course. I took class off today (I'm super anal about that, I don't even like to be late for a class!) and I'm likely staying in bed tomorrow too. Most of this morning my brain was mush. I crashed early and woke up with severe joint pain tonight. Hence the incoherent ramble on my blog.

If you pray, please do.

[LIF] Holy Snowfall Batman!

Our playstructure has a sandbox under it and ladders to climb up! Ow my aching back!

[LIF] Gamers Lost a Dear Friend Today

I just heard the news that E. Gary Gygax (69) passed away today. I've been having a really wierd day so this just makes it wierder. For those who don't know, Gary and Dave Arneson created the granddaddy of RPGS - Dungeons and Dragons. I knew that Gary has had health issues for a while, he had posted a beautiful prayer request about a year ago that I remember responding to. Gary you will definitely be missed.

EDIT: a fitting memorial from the Order of the Stick.

[THO] Canon Follows Use

In liturgical theology is has long been acknowledged that what we believe is determined by how we worship. As Prosper of Aquitaine put it lex orandi, lex credendi (order of worship goes before order of belief (creed)). So it should not surprise us that canon follows use. By canon I am not just referring to scripture, but of course the canon of scripture is a part of the canon of the majority of Christian communities. I am using canon in a broader sense to delimit those documents (scriptures, traditions, creeds, etc.) that are considered by the community as worthy of being read and pondered. In the Vineyard we have the Bible but we also have a canon of worship music, a statement of faith, values and priorities. We also have a number of books that are important to our movement (Quest for the Radical Middle leaps to mind here). This body or corpus of material is in a very real sense canon for our movement.

Now to clarify I am not trying at all to argue that these constitute divinely inspired writings. That is not the sense of canon I am picking up here. Canon can include (and in this case does include) material of various levels of inspiration. What I am keen to discuss in this post is how do items make it into the canon?
We might think that the Bible is a gimme. Of course if we consider the Bible God’s Word and the authority in our denomination then it is pretty much guaranteed a place in our canon. But I think we jump a step to make such an assumption. Why do we consider the Bible with such esteem? I would say that the Bible isn’t a priori but the experience of our founders with the Bible is a priori to inclusion in the canon of our community. It is because our founders, like so many other Christians before, found the scriptures to be a faithful and trustworthy foundation for faith, for this reason it was adopted into the canon. Canon follows use.

Canon, in the large sense that I am intending, is very specific to each particular gathering of people. It can be incredibly granular. For instance one group might really find Graham Cooke’s Developing Your Prophetic Gifting so helpful that they encourage everyone to read it. Another group might find Tony Campolo the thinker they think everyone should read and engage with. This doesn’t say either of these authors has a more inspired or inspiring read – but it does say something about the group. It says that someone within that group, at least one person, found that work so helpful that it was entered into the canon. I could easily do a similar comparison with worship songs; we have one group who love the song Dwell and another who are deeply moved by Sweetly Broken. They might use each others favourite songs, but it is when the song becomes a part of influencing the theological bias of the group that we can say it has entered the canon.

The key is that canon follows use. When, in 359, the semi-Arians added ‘descended’ into the creed it is because this resonated deeply with the communities they pastored. It resonated enough that it needed to become normative. The canon is what is normative for a community, what is expected will help everyone to understand and live as faithful Christians. The community always adopts that which it finds most trustworthy and beneficial. Canon is never accidental.

There are some real implications here.

First we can learn a lot about a community by looking at that community’s canon. What is key to their faith lives? What is animating them theologically? What makes them tick? As a pastor it can be incredibly helpful to work with the consensus of the group. How I pastor a group that includes Graham Cooke in their canon is quite different than how I pastor the group that does not.

The second implication is that we can begin to see how a community develops theologically. Sometimes we want to believe that this process is mystical in nature. That God has led that community to a hard and fast canon. But the reality is that we pick and choose among the many options available to us. This does not deny that God’s Spirit is involved in this process. But it recognizes that canon is something we can adjust and tweak as we go along. It is something that can and should grow with a community. It becomes a living part of the community.

[THO] Vineyard and the Bible

I'm having an odd conversation with a Vineyard guy in the States. In light of the test Hank pointed to I am wondering a few things. Where do you lean in regards to the Bible? My score on the test was 70, but like Byron I really didn't find that the alternatives were that satisfactory. Take the test and see what I mean. Post your results and lets chat.

For me a fundamental concern is that no matter where we land (conservative through to progressive) it is important that we learn to respect and honour each others views. I'm not sure I've done that real well in my discussion with Evan (the Vineyard guy), and I know I haven't felt like I've recieved respect either.

Funny sidenote, I just exchanged emails with the author Scot McKnight a few days before Hank posted the link. Hope your vacation was grand Scot!

[THO] von Balthasar on the Encounter of Absolute Love

"The majesty of absolute love, which is the most fundamental phenomenon of revelation, is the source of any authority human mediators may possess.The original authorityis possessed neither by the Bible (as the written "Word of God") nor by the kerygma (as the living proclamation of the "Word of God") nor by ecclesial office (as official representation of the "Word of God"): all three are "merely" word, and thus not yet flesh. The Old Testament too, as "Word", is merely advancing toward ultimate authority. The sole authority is the Son, who interprets the Father in the Holy Spirit as divine Love. For it is only here, at the source of revelation, that authority (or majesty) and love can - and necessarily do - coincide. All that the demand for obedient faith to revelation can do is thus prepare man [sic] to perceive the manifestation of God's love and to give it its due. Divine Love can appear in such an overwhelming way that its glorious majesty throws one to the ground; it shines out as the last word and leaves one no choice but to respond to the mode of pure, blind obedience. Nevertheless, both the word and the response acquire their meaning only through a gift from the eternal Person to the finite person, a gift that includes the ability to respond as a finite creature to the infinite, and whose heart and essence is love."

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible (Ignatius, 2004), 56-57.

There is something scary and beautiful in the way Balthasar describes love. Interesting enough he refuses to accept that fear is the opposite of love, but sees that there is a fear that is a constituent part of our response to Love (the fear of God) (p.59). I'm really enjoying his theological aesthetic, I think he demonstrates what he is trying to describe.

[LIF] Rest in Peace Larry

I had a few brushes with Larry Norman over the years. He is a veritable legend in contemporary Christianity. Larry will be forever remebered for not letting the devil have all the good music. Thank's Larry. I hope your embrace of eternity is sweet.

Larry helped me through a tough breakup, my friend Adam loaned me Only Visiting and I played it over and over letting Larry name my pain. Ironically I recently reconnected with Denise through facebook, both of us have new families of our own and it is nice to reconnect as friends after so long.

Larry came to the Vineyard in Ottawa and put on a great concert. Larry had the kind of stage persona you either loved or hated. It seemed like he was the eternal hippy on stage. It was loads of fun. If I hadn't run into him in any other setting I might have always thought that was the only face of Larry. I would have been wrong.

The last time I ran into Larry in the flesh was in Toronto. They had him doing worship at a conference??? Larry is great and all but his choice of songs for worship was interesting. I enjoyed the concert, but what really blew me away was the session he ran. There I discovered Larry as a deep thinker. He cut right through some of the flippancy that charismatics seem to revel in. I left that session with a tonne of respect for this legend.

The last time I brushed paths with Larry was in a dream. He showed me around the music scene in New York city and called me to embrace my fears. I wonder if now he knows he had a big impact on me. Larry I appreciate you.

You will be missed. Rest in peace my brother, rest in peace.

Larry Norman (1947 - 2008)

[LIF] Sujet aux Rhumes de Cerveau

Just reading the last of Philippe Bordeyne's L'homme et son angoisse and came across this neat little saying. "sujet aux rhumes de cerveau" (p.314) I read it as being subject to being sick in the head! It made me chuckle.

[LIF] Trying to Choose

Well I did it. I sent a first draft of my intended research proposal to my director. There are so many ways I could go with this. I could go old school and work with a single theologian (maybe a Moltmann, Volf or even an NT Wright). Or I could take up Brian McLaren's challenge and try to find a better language for Kingdom Theology. Heck I could also do Brian McLaren - I think it is really high time for someone to do an academic analysis on such an influential thinker. I'm trying to word it in such a way as to leave myself open for any of these possibilities. We'll see what Prof. Eaton says. It is a big step. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel already on my MATh, boy this year is flying by. I'm even semi-competant reading french now!

Once I get my paper in - in need to find me a beach! Get sand in my toes and have my kids bury me up to the chin and frolic with my lovely wife in the ocean. Then I'll be ready for the PhD.

[THO] The Secret Message of Jesus

I finally finished McLaren's "The Secret Message of Jesus". As a primer on Kingdom theology it is amazing. In fact I think it is a lot more accessible than Derek Morphew's "Breakthrough". And McLaren does cover a lot of ground. The chapter on reading Revelation was particularily good and very strongly influenced by N. T. Wright. It is the kind of book I will recommend to my parishoners. But it is not the book I was hoping for.

McLaren is not really writing in an academic way. He is proposing a lot and following some ideas to great conclusions. I can tell there are a good number of influences that have gone into his insights, but I really want these to be spelled out so that I can trace them. But, I have a particular need for works that do this and Brian didn't write this book to help an academic understand the Kingdom. He wrote this so that a popular audience can wrestle with the implications of a Kingdom message.

McLaren is candid and a decent story teller. He approaches these ideas in a very practical way, which makes this book a very valuable contribution to the Church.

[THO] Witchcraft

Witchcraft is best defined as seeking to manipulate a situation to a desired end. This is especially apt when we take it in a spiritual sense. To manipulate spiritual forces or energies to align to a desired pattern and produce a desired effect. So for instance if you create a love potion with the intention of winning the affections of another, you are engaging in a manipulation of spiritual energies.

At this point I have not made a judgement about if this manipulation is good or bad. I imagine a good number of you have already gone to that place. The word manipulate is one of those words that has a very negative semantic range. Add to that the preconceptions of witchcraft and no one would blame you from heading to those negative conclusions. But I want to pull you back, at least long enough to make my argument. Then when you have the insight feel free to move to judgement - I know I will.

Manipulation is not necessarily a negative word. It simply means to adjust or rearrange. We spend a lot of time an energy manipulating objects in our worlds. In fact I'm manipulating words right now to type this message. So it is possible that what I have described as witchcraft can have a wider field of meaning. Which will be helpful because my main argument is that many Christians fall into the practice of witchcraft all the time.

What do we manipulate? Well the fact is we try to manipulate God.

The biggest example I can think of is the way we manipulate the biblical narrative to escape from the discomforts of real life. We love to craft grand decline narratives about how the world is heading to hell in a hand basket, while Christians just have to wait for God to pluck them up into the clouds so that they can enjoy the morbid apocalypse below. We love to create steps and rituals with the guarentee of success (if followed exactly right, a great out for the inevitable failures) for healing, deliverance and even finding a spouse. We do these things because we have a strong aversion to facing live on lifes terms, and above all we do them because we do not truly believe in the goodness of God.

Now the goodness of God is not a magic cure all for whatever ails and discomforts. It is a reality that is only fully encountered in the midst of adversity, discomfort and even suffering. I'm not glorifying suffering, but I'm acknowledging that the human situation is one of great anxiety and great hope. God is found in between these two, right smack dab in the midst of real life. This is the God who enters into the suffering of humanity to speak a word of hope - the gospel.

So why do we not trust this God? Well, the reality is that God is not our personal Santa Claus. If you are looking for a God who can be manipulated to do exactly what you want all the time - don't look to the Christian God. Don't look to the God of the Cross who was completely obedient to the will of the Father. If you do you will find that this God is not trustworthy in the way you want. Simply because this God, the God of the Cross, does not submit to the manipulations of humans.

You show your trust by giving yourself as completely as God gives God's self to you.

See I believe in healing; I believe in deliverance and I even believe that God will help you in major life decisions. But these things happen on God's terms, not ours. There is no magic formula that will make any of these things happen. God is not even bound by the Law, something us non-Jewish believers are especially grateful for.

Now that's my insight. I ask you is the witchcraft that Christians practice good or bad?

God have mercy and help us to respond appropriately.

[THO] The Supposed Crisis of Faith

I've been thinking about this a fair bit. One of my profs insists that there is no such thing as a crisis of faith, but what is often called a crisis of faith is really a crisis of beliefs. The root of a crisis of beliefs is when we discover that we don't really believe in what we say we believe in. It follows then that a large reason we defend our tautologies so intensely is to avoid the uncomfortableness of facing our own beliefs and sorting through them. And at a certain point, academically, it is frustrating to encounter this kind of defensiveness.

Pastorally, this is the water you carefully swim in all the time. Around you are people who come to faith in a modern church that is very inadequate at giving us tools to really think through and own our beliefs. The Church has lots of ways to reinforce dogma and even well developed systems of apologetics which help the "faithful" to defend the beliefs they are supposed to hold. But I'm convinced this is not good enough.

But it is uncomfortable to walk in the valley of the shadow of unbelief. It is hard to not be hounded by your own unreflected beliefs when you are walking through another persons crisis. What is left is a culture of desperate clinging often to quite proposterous "faith" positions. Pastorally this is distracting from the real work of the gospel - and in fact it often replaces the real work of the gospel.*

Academically, and this is where I reflect from for this blog, the notion of defending a tight system for the sake of feeding a culture that idolizes its beliefs is not at all attractive. It is better to work on the distinction between what we really believe and what we have assented to and work from there. This prof. offered a course on Spirituality that I took about 6 years ago, in it you took apart your core of faith, you probed and dissected, and then you put it all back together. That course was incredible hard, but it was also incredibly rewarding. When you believe what you believe, even if it is just a bit of what you are "supposed" to believe, there is nothing you can't face. Reality can be embraced on realities terms and the work of finding a coherent whole is a real work and not a defensive posturing.

The best case example is what a lot of local evangelical pastors fear about my university. From their perspective a few folks have gone to St. Paul and "lost their faith". Not really, but when you get into an academic environment the concern isn't to nurture that core of belief, but to teach you how to think. What falls off are the pretenses and the person is freed from the bonds that kept them from actually coming to believe. Externally that looks like they lost their faith. But I invite you to see the other side that this actually opens them up to the possibility of real faith.

I never really faced this sort of crisis at school, and I would insist that I don't see it as that prevelant (and personally know folks who have had similar experiences at evangelical and reformed schools). But it is a possibility. For me I'd had my beliefs kicked around before I landed in school. What was left was a pretty coherent core. But shaking off the need to defend that core lets me navigate a much deeper ocean of religious theory and beliefs.

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* By real work of the gospel I am contending that the gospel is about proclaiming the Kingdom in the world. This was Jesus' gospel and it is what Jesus left the Church. We believe when we see this, not because we've been convinced by the propositions and tautological arguments. Also the message of the Kingdom is inseperable from the encounter of the King. I still owe this blog a series on the Kingdom of God, but I've been reflecting on Kingdom theology a lot lately and decided that it is just not time.

[THO] The Evolution of Man

Spent the morning at the Museum of Nature with Dr. Stephen Cumbaa, a palaeontologist at the museum. It was really amazing to have such a detailed tour. I was completely blown away by the giant turtle skeleton, it was seriously big, I think I could almost crawl inside it (except it was hung from the ceiling). I hadn't been to the museum in quite a while and they have done a lot to fix the place up. The whole thing should be open by 2010, but you can bet I'll be taking the kids there lots before then.

We were there as part of our class on the dialogue between religion and science. We are actually getting quite comfortable with the issues around evolution. And we've spent a lot of time discussing the problems with approaches like Creationism. Creationists, and by that I mean the folks who hold to a young earth, literal reading of Genesis, are really not interested in having a conversation with science. But I can appreciate that these folks have a lot at stake, their beliefs (or should I say their idols) are inflexible propositions and really their priviliged place in the cosmos is at stake. Rather than face reality on its own terms they would rather superimpose a more acceptable vision despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Intelligent Design (ID) is a bit more compelling, but it also has some serious methodological problems. The primary argument, that of irriducable complexity, is not based on anything concrete. Yes it is a reading of the world we find, but in essence it is really a game that says we will permit the data as long as it is read from these presuppositions. That is not good science and it is actually not good theology either. Theology should wrestle with reality as it presents itself, not try to bend the rules to make it work. Besides that speciation, the evolution of one species into another, is quite widely accepted as fact (not theory) in the scientific community. ID isn't happy with speciation because once again our place of privilege is at stake.

So here if the issue of our privileged place is dependent on our species being something other than animal, yes we have a problem. But if our privileged place is the emergence of self-reflection then I fail to see the problem with embracing reality as it presents itself, especially in terms of the amazing process by which Creation has unfolded since the Big Bang. There are implications if we are to take this seriously. First of all we must face the fact that we are not necessarily the sum of all creation. Where we go is largely in our hands. Our treatment of the environment out of an arrogant sense that this is ours to dominate is proof to me that we have a lot to learn yet about responsibility. And this carries over to our relationship to the natural world. Are we willing to see this world as the arena of God's activity or are we holding out for some Platonic otherworld? But more to the point are we willing to see an intrinsic value in the whole realm of creation? I am convinced that the commodification of nature has led directly to the commodification of humans - we need to find a better way to relate to the natural world.

[LIF] PhD Here We Come

My plate is full this week. I actually made it through my readings relatively quickly. But I'm in the process of gathering the pieces for my PhD(Th) application. I have my reference letter lined up, my marks already in their system and my French competency tests are on file. What is left is to craft my proposed area of research carefully and fill out a basic application form - oh and hand over $60! Nothing too difficult, but it does take time.

This week I also found out about a writing project which I can be involved in, so 4000ish words by this time next week - no problem. It is about my ecclesial community so I don't have to do a tonne of research to write this up, just sit down and type. I have already outlined my chapter.

I also met with my research director for the Masters and we found a viable approach to my research that will be doable and will not require me going through an ethics board. Yikes. My target is to have a fully detailed work plan and outline by the end of my courses, that way when the exams are done I put my head down and write. I want to get it done as soon as possible to make sure there are readers for my work, also so I can start the PhD right away. In order to make that happen I have to go through all the books I have gathered on the Emerging Church and see what is actually going to be academically reliable. I was sad to see so few peer reviewed articles available on the movement, I am going to have to do some more digging. There are a fair number of articles out there, it is finding ones in academically respected journals that is the problem. In some ways I am breaking new ground here, but I am trying to do it in a way that is conservative enough to keep the readers happy. This isn't about the paper I want to write as much as the paper that will a) get me my Masters and b) open up the conversation for further work on my own.

I know last week I was really feeling that I needed to have more free time with my family. Sharon and I are going to play a game of Ticket to Ride tonight, that is a great train game BTW. It will be great to just relax. I got a fair bit of work done already today. I am also really looking forward to celebrating Ash Wednesday with my community, this year I'm going to give up potatoe chips for Lent.

[THO] Hymn to Matter

In one of my courses we closed the class with Teilhard de Chardin's Hymn to Matter. I think for too many of us matter does not matter and that makes this hymn unnerving. So grab a rock, read the hymn and post your reflections.

HYMN TO MATTER

Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock: you who yield only to violence, you who force us to work if we would eat.

Blessed be you, perilous matter, violent sea, untameable passion: you who unless we fetter you will devour us.

Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth.

Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations: you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards or measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God.

Blessed be you, impenetrable matter: you who, interposed between our minds and the world of essences, cause us to languish with the desire to pierce through the seamless veil of phenomena.

Blessed be you, mortal matter: you who one day will undergo the process of dissolution within us and will thereby take us forcibly into the very heart of that which exists.

Without you, without your onslaughts, without your uprootings of us, we should remain all our lives inert, stagnant, puerile, ignorant both of ourselves and of God. You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ: it is you, matter, that I bless.

I bless you, matter, and you I acclaim: not as the pontiffs of science or the moralizing preachers depict you, debased, disfigured — a mass of brute forces and base appetites — but as you reveal yourself to mc today, in your totality and your true nature.

You I acclaim as the inexhaustible potentiality for existence and transformation wherein the predestined substance germinates and grows.

I acclaim you as the universal power which brings together and unites, through which the multitudinous monads are bound together and in which they all converge on the way of the spirit.

I acclaim you as the melodious fountain of water whence spring the souls of men2 and as the limpid crystal whereof is fashioned the new Jerusalem.

I acclaim you as the divine milieu, charged with creative power, as the ocean stirred by the Spirit, as the clay moulded and infused with life by the incarnate Word.

Sometimes, thinking they are responding to your irresistible appeal, men will hurl themselves for love of you into the exterior abyss of selfish pleasure-seeking: they are deceived by a reflection or by an echo.

This I now understand.

If we are ever to reach you, matter, we must, having first established contact with the totality of all that lives and moves here below, come little by little to feel that the individual shapes of all we have laid hold on are melting away in our hands, until finally we are at grips with the single essence of all subsistencies and all unions.

If we are ever to possess you, having taken you rapturously in our arms, we must then go on to sublimate you through sorrow.

Your realm comprises those serene heights where saints think to avoid you — but where your flesh is so transparent and so agile as to be no longer distinguishable from spirit.

Raise me up then, matter, to those heights, through struggle and separation and death; raise me up until, at long last, it becomes possible for me in perfect chastity to embrace the universe.

Down below on the desert sands, now tranquil again, someone was weeping and calling out: ‘My Father, my Father! What wild wind can this be that has borne him away?’

And on the ground there lay a cloak.

Jersey, 8th August 1919

[THO] Can't Go Back and the Future Is Up For Grabs

I'm struggling to read french this semester, it is tiring. I read about 8-10 pages per hour (I can read about 10 times as fast in English!). I liked this quote concernign the development of Gaudium et Spes:

[I]l qualifie l’inquiètude modern en l’attribuant à une «accélération de l’histoire qui impose la présence envahissante de l’avenir avec ses angoisses» : dans la modernité technicienne, «l’homme est engagé dans un progrès irréversible» et en même temps «imprévisible».

Philippe Bordeyne, L'homme et son angoisse, 2004.

There is hope when we recognize that we are part of a motion of history and that we can't turn back the hands of time no matter what romantic notions we have. When I hear about the return to pre-Vatican II rites and the undoing of the liturgical reforms that led to Vatican II I think they should go back and read the documents of Vatican II. In some ways these documents hardly go far enough to address the issues of our day, but if you look at their context, they are incredible advances in maturing the Roman Catholic Church.

[THO] Something to Ponder

[THO] Suspicious About the Wrong Thing

I had an interesting conversation recently. It got me thinking. This person proposed that creationists (by that I mean biblical literalists) are really wrestling with the concern that God has not lied to us through the biblical accounts of creation. To me this is the suspicion in the wrong place, because if we follow that logic then God lied to us in the fossil records as well as genetics, biology, etc. If God didn't lie then for some reason God found it amusing to put an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary of Genesis in the natural world. And why does that not arouse our suspicion of the way we are reading Genesis at least as much as our suspicion of how we read the natural world? See I'm convinced that these two books belong together, both declare to us the glory of God. But also they provide a powerful check and bounds. Einstein reminds us that science and religion need each other as the head needs the heart. It is time we turn our suspicions back on ourselves and face reality on reality's terms. The Bible states that God is not the author of confusion, but from what I've seen a heck of a lot of humans are.

[LIF] It's Complicated, Like Usual

That last post was a bit sloppy, but that is stream of consciousness writing for you. I have been wanting to put something more coherent up ever since, but life took a turn for the complicated (again). Sharon called me last Thursday to tell me that she took a tumble snowboarding, yup she broke her wrist. It has been insane here since. I have tonnes of reading to do for my courses. A chunk of photocopying too. And I decided to take a safer tack on my research - which means more work but it is more conventional. So somehow I need to get a survey together, something compact enough that I can convince a good sample of Canadian Emerging Church leaders to respond, yet complete enough to give me usable data.

I attended a doctoral defence today, yikes. I didn't read the thesis, but from the conversation I could tell that the defender didn't have a sufficient theology of suffering for what she was doing. My understanding is that only once in the history of my school has a dissertation been rejected at this point (interrogation is always expected though) and that the deliberation after the examination is about 5-10 minutes. 40 minutes later I could sense that she was in trouble. About 50 minutes later a hesitant acceptance provided the document was revised was announced. I felt bad for her, but I was thinking that it is really important to work with you director to avoid that kind of stress. The defender was really calm until the deliberation dragged on and on. Six years of work is a long time, and she did take a quite adventurous approach. But it was her methodology, or rather lack thereof, that tripped her up. I learned a lot.

First I learned that it is extremely important to deal with all of the main themes a theologian you engage uses. Even if you don't think their other key themes are important to your thesis. This will get called out. This doctoral candidate used a feminist liberationist theologian (Ivona Gebera) without engaging Gebara's redemptive theme of justice. I know that the candidate was trying to do something else, but you need to at least acknowledge why you left off such a major theme.

Second I learned that you need to be clear about what you are doing each step of the way. The criticism that was given explicitely and implicitely was that the readers had to guess at how the research connected to the conclusions. That hurt her and I'm sure by her answers that this is not going to be an easy fix.

And finally I learned that it is good to listen to the wisdom of your supervisor. I know that this will be hard. Not that I don't have tonnes of respect for Prof. Eaton, I certainly do. But it is that I am interested in some radical ideas and I'm not afraid to take radical routes to get to it. But I have to be able to satisfy the examiners. There will be time enough to be a maverick theologian later. I can even take risks in the work provided I use established means to back up my choices. But if it is too far out then I could be number two to not make it through.

Please pray for us. I'm doing almost everything around the home as well as my studies and pastoring. There is a lot on my plate.

[THO] Pope Paul VI on Power Evangelism

"Recognizing that the Spirit also works outside the visible confines of the Mystical Body, Dialogue and Mission argues that the Church is impelled to discern the signs of the Spirit's presence and to serve as its humble and discreet collaborator through a committment to dialogue in its many forms. (#24)"

Gregory Baum, Amazing Church, p.114.

Those familiar with Wimber's concept of Power Evangelism might seem a bit put out by the connection here. Likely not a lot of us who know Wimber's theology have also read too many Vatican documents. I oft times find the Vatican documents lacking and even frustrating. But there are some brilliant insights here. And while this document is about interreligious dialogue, I think there is a place to extend the insights of Wimber to this arena. In Power Evangelism we are called into a partnership with the Holy Spirit in our efforts to bring the gospel to the world. Over the years I have had my understanding of the arena of this work expand to include the whole world. I have also come to realize, as did Wimber, that God is already at work in the lives of people. The best thing we can do as evangelists is watch for the signs of the Spirit's already present work and partner with what we already see God doing.

This is not that attractive for those wanting quick and clean conversions. There is a false expectation in the evangelical church that folks should "clean up" nice for Christ. But life rarely works out in nice tidy ways, so why should we expect that from conversion.

I think the term Power Evangelism is a misnomer. Yes it is a powerful mode of evangelism and yes it does make room for a real power encounter with God. But this isn't the heart of it. The heart is God is at work, so why are we working against God?

My experience of conversion has been messy. I have seen lots of folks come to Christ, but that is really where the work just starts. It isn't about cleaning them up as much as protecting them from all the BS expectation that will let the already "saved" continue to feel comfortable in their places of worship. I would prefer to call it Messy Evangelism. Messy in that it has no pretense that this is easy, quick or even going to work out. Rather it is entirely dependent on God and it calls us to watch carefully for what the Spirit is doing and work there. Even if that isn't sharing a message that they need Jesus (or whatever is the evangelical message of the month these days).

Recently a fellow pastor emailed me about his understanding of the number one priority of God, that is saving folks from eternal damnation. I understood his heart, and I think we end up much in the same place. But this eternal language really misses that God wants to get into the mess of our lives now. God is a redeemer not a benchwarmer. God hasn't prepared a place on the bench for us to sit on an wait out the pre-show. That kind of thinking can maybe justify the horrid expectations placed on those interested in Christianity. This is the real show - and God wants in on it. In fact God wants in so much that the Spirit is already here at work.

Baum brilliantly draws this out of Dialogue and Mission, the Church is called to recognize that God isn't boxed in by "visible" boundaries of Church. God doesn't somehow give up when we screw up. But God continues to work by redeeming our failings, drawing us towards wholeness, showing us love and meeting us in the midst of all life throws at us. And what is most brilliant is that God most often does this through our participation as we look for and cooperate with the Spirit in the lives of others.

[THO] God, History and Evil

'God is not a heavenly sovereign who rules human history and who, while not wanting evil things to happen, nonetheless gives permission for them. No, events such as the Holocaust are totally against God's will. God gives no welcome to the evil powers in history. Evil is purely and simply against the divine will. "God is light and in him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5) There is a radical opposition between God and evil. God does not permit evil; God stands against evil, condemns it and transcends it. God is constantly at work among humans, summoning them and strengthening them to discern evil, wrestle against it, be converted away from it, co-operate with others to overcome it, and if so called, to sacrifice their lives as a witness in opposition to it. I conclude that not all events of history belong to divine providence, but only those that are the fruit of divine grace. Providential are the series of events that manifest divine mercy and divine rescue, culminating in Jesus' fidelity to his mission on the cross and his glorious resurrection rehabilitating all the victims of history. God's coming is always rescuing, healing, lifting up and embracing.'

Gregory Baum, Amazing Church, p.50-51.

[THO] Evolution

I'm reading Mayr's "What Evolution Is" and I'm realizing that despite being a book for non-biologists, there is a lot of technical language to get through. It is tough slogging. I have Baum's "Amazing Church" as a sort of comfort food to read in tandem, but the book on Evolution is the starting point for a course I asked for. It got me thinking about what are the legitimate responses to evolution. I'm careful not to call it a theory because I think that for someone taking natural sciences seriously the idea of theory just muddies the water - you either believe it based on the overwhelming evidence or you reject because of another set of overwhelming evidence (although not the sort of evidence that would ever fly in a scientific arena).

There are three real responses I can see, I would venture to say that each has its own validity (even when we disagree with other positions) but the more important thing is to understand our stance including the limitations and opportunities that stance brings. I'm thinking this is a better way to go than to debate whether or not evolution is a reality. And I would again cautiously note that differentiation between interspecial and special evolution is irrelevant - I'm talking here about a full on understanding that life all evolves from a common base and that the movement towards complexity, as a branching, is a life process of our planet. In light of that understanding of evolution here are the options for a person of faith:

a) One can reject the evidence for evolution in favour of a creationist stand point. This does not at all imply that other approaches have to forfeit or compromise a belief in a Creator. This response says that the literal reading of our creation story is more valid than the witness of the earth to its own processes. This position presents a definite and clear bias towards any evidence that is presented - if it supports the thesis it is embraced/acknowledged and if it defies the thesis then it is rejected/ignored and even sometimes discredited falsely. I've read a lot of this position in the past and it can be sensational and also quite intellectually dishonest. Not that this is the intention of the proponents, but it is the reality of where they have invested their time and energy. Another drawback is that it creates an antagonism between the creationists and the world/Earth as well as an antagonism between creationists and scientists. On the other hand it is a paradigm that will always take seriously the need for a Creator, as people of faith this is incredibly attractive. But it is also a product of embracing enlightenment reasoning (and "common sense") as a mode of ascertaining truth. This unlikely bedfellow in Christianity has meant the crippling of religious imagination.

b) One can develop a notion of God in the gaps. This is a trick we can play on the scriptures, we can read evolution into the gaps that exist in the creation stories. I remember a physicist friend who had become a Christian and had concluded that God created the earth complete with the evidence trail for evolution, although he had no idea why God would do such a thing. But for him it was the only way to reconcile to overwhelming bodies of evidence. In this way he is really tricking himself. Trick is the unfortunate word here, I do not mean that in a bad way. We preachers do this all the time - when we are not careful that is - and it is not bad. When we read scripture we need to take into consideration the other ways that reality is revealed. But this position places the two descriptions of reality in conflict with each other - meaning they bash it out until something sort of makes sense. The bias is still in favour of a Creator, but there is a willingness to compromise on the less clear aspects of scripture to make sense of the evidences.

c) One can take evolution on its own terms. The Copernican revolution really upset a balance that once existed between the "book of revelation" (i.e. the Bible) and the "book of nature". This position has a distinctly different relationship to scripture. That relationship is often skewed by enlightenment thinking, but if we were to extract a 'best of' scenario, then we might find a restoration of the medieval synthesis. For people of faith, evolution does not preclude God's involvement with creation, but it does colour how that involvment is seen. I'm not convinced that the ways that this colours seeing divine action are all good. But some are quite helpful. What is the bias is that scripture does not trump science. There are two ways I see this done:

c.1) First there is a notion of compartmentalization. I'm hopeful that this will fade (my own bias). The notion that science is scientific knowledge seperate and apart from religion which is religious knowledge. Both are valid and should be kept seperate. What this leaves is little more than the tricks of b). A creationist will get antsy because this says that there is another truth. In reality this is too passive a position - I think the creationists who critique this are right in that it fails to recognize that God is either God of all or God is not God at all. If God indeed created then there is something of God in creation so that creation reveals the Creator.

c.2) A better option is the notion of a divine mileau. That God who created all is also intimately involved in all creation. Teilhard de Chardin troubled the world with this notion, but at least he took both evolution and the Bible seriously. Thomas Berry is someone in this line of thinking that has really impressed me as well. Here the bias is that the Bible is not teaching us the science of creation - but that doesn't mean its insights are wrong. The Bible reveals the divine relationship between creation and Creator. It is not that God works through evolution as in working through the gaps - rather God is drawing life in a particular direction. Ricoeur talks about this in "Thinking Biblically" as a trajectory towards freedom found in a Adamic myth.

I should say that there is also an option to reject faith altogether. But I'm not really good at that option. I like what my friend Katherine says on her facebook profile - for religion she wrote she is a failed atheist. But I'm certain there are many who out of frustration with the above possibilities default to an atheism (not that I would say by any means that all atheists are so because of this issue). My reason for posting this is that I really believe we need more understanding of each others positions in this issue. I've seen so much fighting over evolution that it sickens me. I am convinced that there are great women and men of faith in all three positions.

[THO] And It Begins

I'm not impressed with the keyboard on this laptop, I seem to have worn it out in a single semester! Yikes.

Yesterday I was back in class. Theological Hermeneutics with John van den Hengel. John rocks as a professor, he studied under Schillibeeckx and did his PhD on Ricoeur. This course is on Ricoeur and I couldn't be happier. Ricoeur also rocks. The reading is pretty heavy, but we each present once in the course and write an exam. They have tried to make the workload more reading than writing to allow us to also work on our research thesis.

Today I had a class with my director. I'm the only real student in the course! Of course that course is going to be intense, Heather Eaton is big on readings. This week I am reading Ernst Mayr's "What Evolution Is", and really looking forward to it. This is a course on the various ways the conversation between science and theology takes place. Our focus will be on those who take evolution seriously, and because it is a reading course we basically wrote the curriculum today. There are two students auditing so I'm not alone, but I am the only one with an obligation to actually do the work! The last thing we will look at is the Intelligent Design conversation which is something that really bugs me - bad science and bad theology put together really irritate me. I had lunch with Prof. Eaton to kick off this semester in terms of my research, unfortunately I'm not sure I have enough support to break new ground methodologically - that means I won't be developing ways to find evidence trails through Emerging Church blogs. But I have some alternate ideas to get at the same information in more "traditional" ways. There will be plenty of time to be a maverick later. ;-)

My afternoon was spent in a class with Carolyn Sharp. The course is a theology and ethics course en francais. I'm actually going to enjoy the class despite the large amount of reading in french that is required. Prof. Sharp was a lot more generous linguistically than I had expected.

I have one more class to experience, it will happen on monday. I am studying von Balthasar with Prof. Peelman. The lectures are likely in french, but the good professor has agreed to let me record the lectures into my notes. MS One Note is great for this, it syncs the recording to your typing! That makes finding critical moments so much easier. I am looking forward to that one too.

I'm not sure the impact on my posting. But I'll try to keep you all up on the evolution of my thought.

[LIF] Golden Compass Points to Spoilers

I went to see the Golden Compass tonight with a friend of mine. He is a Baptist chaplin so I figured we'd have a good conversation on the movie after. Actually I was disappointed, so we just talked about life after. I'm not sure I'd pay to see other installments of this series on the big screen. There are some cool things about the movie (apart from it getting under the skin of religious folks), such as battling polar bears. What is not to love about bears in armour kicking butt! And the concepts are kind of neat, I think that a Magesterium is a great idea for an overarching enemy (sorry Benedict). But there is a lot I didn't like.

I did not like the fact that this film overemphasised a Platonic notion of soul and body. That kind of crap is the bane of good theology. Not that Pullman is concerned with good theology. Also the choice to call these souls demons just opens up too many questions for me to want to take my daughter to see this film (and she has asked to see it). I'm still Pentecostal enough to teach my kids that demons are bad things. However, I did like the fact that if the soul was hurt, that also hurt the body.

Also I think I am impressed that Pullman avoided telling the gospel story, at least so far. Most movies do not do so well. But then again this might be coming later in the story. My buddy Brad has a theory that if you tell stories long enough, you have to tell the story. But what we have instead is a Gnostic sort of story where knowledge equals freedom. Truth plays a role, but the compass is more of a prophetic tool guiding the characters, liberating in a way, but also the author seems to want us to believe that truth is suppressed by the institution/church. I think it is a good critique to make, but I'm not sure that the same can't be said for Gnosticism.

What I liked least is the main character. What was her name? Started with an L. She makes Harry Potter seem well behaved! Her rebellious impertinance is glorified in this movie. I think the actor, Dakota Blue, did a great job, but the character is not one I enjoyed. She didn't win me over to her side. Her demon did a better job actually. And I still can't remember her name - shows you how much I bonded to this character.

This is probably worth renting on a lazy Friday night. But you might want to preview it before showing the kids. Figure out what you will say about the demons and the dust, cause you know those questions are coming. And if they aren't? Well, I think I'd be more worried.