Review: Understanding Spiritual Gifts

I need to start by saying that I am not a big fan of this kind of "Bible study". It is not that I haven't used them in my years pastoring, but I find that they tend to be quite directive in their approach and assume that scripture readings will present self-evident and uniform truths. Despite my misgivings about the format, I thought it would be interesting to look at popular Evangelical Kay Arthur's offering on spiritual gifts called Understanding Spiritual Gifts.

This book is intended for a small group with a facilitator (she calls this a leader). I'm not sure why she makes the assumption that there needs to be a single facilitator, but I'm not that familiar with the structural paradigm in which Arthur ministers. The lessons are pithy and focus heavily on working through various texts that Arthur feels will illuminate her topic. To her credit Arthur recognizes that spiritual gifts are not a major theme in scripture so she does not have a huge range of text to draw from. (p.37) And she does ask good contextual framing questions about the passages she highlights - following the five Ws sometimes called the journalism method. (p.4) Also her subject matter is one that I, as a neo-pentecostal minister and theologian, can appreciate: the role of spiritual gifts in the life of the believer.

The book falls into several traps that are common with this format. It shows a poor understanding of Scripture and Scripture studies. It fights against foes, such as cessationism, which it does not directly name. It has shallow theology, especially in this case her pneumatology. Let us look at each of these.

The history of Christianity, even just of modern Evangelicalism, shows that Scripture is always read contextually. Any adequate method of Biblical study must bring our attention to the biases that shape our readings and expectations on the text. What really is being done here is a devotional reading, not a Bible study, and as such it can be a valid tool for developing faith shaping insights. But such readings need to always be done with a critical eye - lest our particular personal insights are elevated to being the direct communication of God. On page 3 Arthur makes the claim that by reading Scripture, following her methodology, we are letting God "explain the gifts." This is highly uncritical and such methodology has been used to support horrendous heretical claims. A better approach is to hold these things lightly, allowing God to continue to lead us into truth but recognizing that our grasp on truth is always provisional because it is mediated through our expectations and desires. The idea of "straight-forward truths of the Bible" is a myth that Biblical study must always be wary of. (p.3)

Part of the context in which we read scripture are those assumptions to which we want to counter. Arthur begins the study with an odd attack on "seeker-friendly" churches. (p.1) She at least names this foe, but quickly shifts into her topic leaving the reader to wonder what the point of her jab was? Does she see these churches as abandoning spiritual gifts? I'm not sure such a generalization will hold up and it is really quite puzzling how her study seeks to address this initial attack? A foe more directly related to her task is cessationism, or the belief that the spiritual gifts are no longer functioning in the church or that if they do function it is not a normative feature of the modern church. She would be right to tackle this theology as it opposes her thesis. But, while she does address the fundamental complaint of cessationism, she does not really address it, instead she relies on the supposed straight-forward interpretation of the text to show the validity of spiritual gifts for the church today. (p.12) She might have been well served to at least point the readers to resources that do diligent and critical work on dismantling the arguments of cessationists. She also would have been better off leaving out the initial jab against the seeker-sensitive movement and started instead on a positive note and affirmation of the validity of spiritual gifts for the church today.

Theologically Arthur presents only one view of the passages on her subject. Her view is quite mechanistic and depicts a God who deposits specific gift mixings (she will further dichotamize these into serving and speaking packages) into individuals and that our role is to figure out what package we have and walk that out. The problem I have with this is that it conflates the gifts with the giver. Another view of the same readings she proposes is that the gift is the Spirit and that we should not expect that the Spirit will act uniformly through each of us, but, rather we would, by partnering with the Spirit, do amazing things to the glory of God. I am sure there are other readings as well, but why does Arthur favour her simple compartmentalized view? and what kind of Spirit is at work in her view of spiritual gifts? These are important questions. Arthur seems to have an operative structural expectation on the text even though the very passages she has chosen show that Paul saw different structural realities for different ministry contexts. There is no uniform view presented, they cannot be harmonized without doing violence to the texts. Arthur would have done well to recognize that 1 Cor 12:1 does not use the word Charisma but a word that might be better translated as matters of the Spirit. It is not the gifts we need to focus on - but the character and working of God, by God's Spirit, with and through the church.

I have other concerns with the content and structure of this book, but this analysis is enough for my evaluation. While I do think that such books can be useful for small groups, they must not be equated with Biblical study. Rather, they can provide a springboard into wonderful discussions about our interpretations of Scripture. They can let us question that perhaps the apostles in Acts 6:2 were simply abusing their authority and creating the same problematic dichotomy of serving vs. speaking that Arthur seems to promote. (p.7) After all Stephen did turn out to be quite a gifted orator. If a group is willing to do the work, this kind of study can be beneficial. But not in the form we are given here. I'm not sure what Kay Arthur's credentials are, but it is evident she is doing a simplistic reading of scripture to advance her particular read of that same Scripture. I believe her topic is worth pursuing, but I do not buy her way of framing her findings. But, as I stated in the beginning, I am not a fan of this type of "Bible study" and this study did little to change my attitude.

Theological Space and Grace

I have been thinking a lot recently about notions of grace. I had browsed through a book on John Wesley's theology and the author, Collins, used the term cooperative grace. I'm going to have to spend some time and see if there are correlations for me and my thinking on grace. Grace, in my understanding, is about an invitation. It is God's invitation to participate in the redemptive activity of God throughout the world. But two things have malformed this aspect of grace in many evangelical theologies. First the Reformed penchant for defending the sovereignty of God. (I think this is at the heart of the critique of open theism, I'm not completely sold on open theism but I do think it is worth reflecting on.) I find this all the time in Reformed thought, it is often characterized by a very deterministic worldview. The epitome of such a notion would be predestination, but even where predestination (and its bastard child double predestination) is challenged there still remains this concern over presenting a supposedly diminished view of God as sovereign. For me this kind of thinking flies in the face of God's kenotic self-revelation - God does not seem so worried about God's reputation or sovereignty. In fact that isn't where the risk is; I believe kenosis is by necessity a risk. The risk is not that God would (as if this were possible) somehow cease to be God. The risk is that we might choose to not accept the invitation God presents. For me the kind of God who is willing to risk it all on love is so worthy of worshipping with my whole life, the God who needs our defense is not. Such a God is simply insecure, and ceases to be God.

The second aspect that deforms this is the way we Westerner evangelicals have personalized sin. We have focused on spirituality as the private domain of the individual. This privatization gives theology no room to meet the needs of a world being destroyed by sin. Further, this way of viewing spirituality shows that not only is God insecure (as if that were possible) but that we are insecure in God's love. Grace should overcome all these insecurities (perfect love should cast out fear if we are to believe the scriptures). Grace is a self-revelation of God that evokes faith. Grace doesn't lose its sovereign dimension - because it is God's gift demonstrated by God's self-emptying, self-sacrificing holy gamble on humanity - as only a sovereign and completely secure God could ever make such a demonstration of grace. A God this gracious could not but be faithful to accomplish all that has been promised, therefore, our security is sure. But that isn't really the point.

The point is that grace opens up the possibility for so much more that merely our confidence in salvation. This kind of grace, that I'm describing, says that God continues to want to take a risk on us. Risking that we would keep saying yes to participating in God's redemptive work throughout creation. That we would participate in all that God continues to do in our world to defeat the power of sin and undo its terrible effects. This kind of invitation goes well beyond any personalized notions of me and my best friend Jesus hanging out for some supposed escape from this world. Rather, it is God saying, "This is the extent to which I'm willing to go with my love - so too are you called to participate with Me as we take My love to the whole world." I can get on board with that kind of grace, I can give my life for that kind of God.

What kind of God do we want to worship? What kind of God would it take for us to take up our crosses and follow?

Waiting at the Bus Stop

I was waiting for my youngest to come home on the bus and opening my mail. Yet another book had arrived. As I tore into the wrapping, the young gal sitting a neighbour's kid asked me what book it was. She seemed all excited, guess she doesn't order as many books as I do. I got into it enough to tell her the title and said I need to figure out what the book was - I had ordered a lot of used books recently. Then I placed it, it was a book by Ralph Reed called Active Faith. I told her it was part of my research into how evangelical Christians understand their connection between faith and politics. She said she hoped it would be good. I told her that I was pretty sure it would not be very good - and that I'm quite certain I will have a very different view from Reed. This got a puzzled look and the conversation turned to the validity of Shakespeare for contemporary high school students??? But it struck me that part of being an academic is reading the books you don't necessarily want to read - but know you need to read if you are to understand the contours of your topic. I'm probably going to find something in there worthwhile - I noticed he does a critique of liberal theologies which might prove interesting. My interest is in how he structures his arguments - what does he draw on and how, who is he speaking to, and more specifically can I find his eschatological views anywhere in the text? Happy reading.

Mean People Suck

And Fred Phelps surely ranks among the meanest. I am once again reminded of the depravity of his sect as they took to protesting the Comic-Con in San Diego last Thursday. What is frustrating is that this kind of ass-ianity is actually not too far from the attitudes of many actual Christians who somehow haven't had their inhibitions lobotomized out of them like Phelps and his family (literally). While it is often covered up with a rhetoric of "love", far too many who claim the name of Christian act far too unChrist-like in this world. Persecuting, bullying and vilifying anyone who dares to be different than their expected norms is common place. To do it in the name of God is blasphemous.

Who would Jesus have at his table? Seriously. Do Christians even read their Bibles anymore? As our lectional reading for Thursday stated - Jesus even included those who would betray him amongst his apostles??? So how do we get from that kind of Jesus to one that would endorse a message of hate - implicit or explicit? It is too big a leap. Watch the video on the link - I love the guy dressed as Jesus' explanation. "Fred has issues." Unfortunately so do many of us. And the only way forward is to start saying no to hate. Why? Cause mean people suck.

Spirituality

I'm in the midst of preparing a short course on Christian spirituality for the university. I loaned out the primary go to texts for such a course - which turns out to be a great thing as I've pulled a few unusual suspects from my shelves to read. One that I've had for a while is Michael Downey's Understanding Christian Spirituality. What a great little book! Downey is clear and the text moves along nicely. The guidelines for developing the course were to stay within the parameters of David Perrin's Studying Christian Spirituality, which is also a great undergrad level book on the subject. I just finished reading that one. But I've also pulled down books on spirituality from evangelical, feminist, liturgical, liberationist, and historical perspectives. A lot of this I've read before - but it has been great to refresh my relationship with each of these books. I've been thinking a lot about the problem of defining spirituality. Downey does a great job of showing how we get to our very broad and often religion-phobic definitions of spirituality. But I seem to think that we are looking for new referents to spirituality. One of the exercises I plan on doing with my students is to have them write out how they would define spirituality at the beginning of the course - and then to revisit this at the end and see what, if anything, has shifted. I'd love to hear how you define spirituality too. I wonder what things you want to make spirituality refer to in your definition? Is it your religious tradition or your experiences? Is it historical forms or perhaps a perceived horizon of meaning that you value? If nothing else - it is worth reflecting on.

Sad News at my University

This week I attended the funeral for one of my professors, John Kevin Coyle. We knew him as Kevin, he taught Church history and the PhD seminar in my first year (among other courses in the Theology department). He used to always call me Francis, and coming from him it felt like a term of endearment so I never complained. He always seemed happy and content (never anxious or impatient), even the Friday before his passing we chatted in the hall and he seemed like he'd had a long week and was looking forward to the weekend. I do not think anyone knew it would be his last.

Two things will always stick with me about Kevin, both come from my first experience with him in the undergrad programme taking his Early Church History course. Prof. Coyle had given us free range to find topic for our research papers. As a neo-Pentecostal and a bit of a trouble maker I thought I'd look at the role of the prophet in the early church. When I presented the topic he got me to follow him into his office and there dug out a single article on the decline of the ecstatic prophet in the early church. He told me that I needed to interact with this article - and he was right. I was struck by how he knew exactly where to point me so that I could actually move beyond my preconceptions about the early church. It was a brilliant move on his part - I'm not sure if he realized how that would foster a hunger in me to dig as far beyond my preconceptions as possible. It also taught me the joy of research - and this has served me well throughout my academic work.

The second thing I will always remember is seeing Kevin in the library with a stack of student essays - diligently bringing books out of the stacks to check the work. This was a common sight for me in my ten years at Saint Paul, Prof. Coyle in the library with a stack of research papers. This was a man who cared about academic excellence. To be honest it also scared the crap out of me, I knew that any mark I got from him would be what I deserved. Kevin set a high standard for me to follow - I hope I do his memory proud.

I am going to miss our chats in the halls. Prof. Coyle was a fixture at Saint Paul, always around in the "rarified air" (as he would call it) of the third floor. It is not going to be the same without him.

[In the picture Kevin is the second person from the left, wearing his trademark jeans no doubt.]

What's It All About?

“The Christian faith isn’t about getting to heaven. It isn’t all about the church. It isn’t all about the individual spiritual life or “personal relationship with God.” It is about all of these things, but they aren’t the whole point, or even the main point. The main point is God’s saving love for creation, God’s faithfulness to all of creation, God’s ongoing mission of healing a world torn by human injustice so that it can fulfill God’s original dream. It is about God’s kingdom coming to earth, it is about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Brian McLaren from the Introduction to The Justice Project(2009).

Rathbone... for kids!

Rathbone is the name of a land I created for a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. It has been around for quite a while, we started in 2E, moved to 3.5E, and am currently running an adult game in 4E, but on the other side of the globe. I've been trying to couple my love of gaming with the interest my very creative daughter has shown in playing the game. In fact she's sat in on some adult games with us to try it out. But I wanted something for her. So tonight we started a new campaign in the land of Rathbone called the Faerie Champions.

We are using the 4E rules (with a few house rules) cause it is simple enough for kids. In fact, it was the one adult (I'll explain the makeup of the group in a sec) who took the most time performing actions. The kids need a bit of help, but once they get started they do come up with creative solutions. And I'm trying to make at least equal time for role playing in this one.

I had a few dads in mind, my idea was father-child pairs. And I wanted to keep the numbers down (sorry Richard). Both of the other kids are around Elyssa's age, one girl and one boy. Both of their dads play in one of my adult games, so one of them is actually familiar with the land of Rathbone. So we have a party of five characters, an ideal number, and I had the adults play characters that will compliment the party, keeping the kids free to play whatever they wanted.

We ended up with two strikers (ranger and sorcerer) and one of each controller (wizard), leader (cleric), and defender(fighter). I made cards for my daughter and the other girl - I highly recommend using power cards. And we spent a lot of time making my daughter's character just the way she wanted - including an orange dragonling familiar (I painted a pseudodragon orange and her mini has one on its shoulder already). I was pretty excited when she solved the problem of where they were by having the dragonling fly above the tree tops to help direct them.

Because I am encouraging role playing, I decided to keep track of role playing experience. I was going to give according to each person's contribution, but thought better of it and gave them all whatever the best result was. I will explain this to them, so that they will be encouraged to do as much acting and problem solving as fighting.

The faerie champions theme gives them each a free minor power - gossamer wings that can't lift much more than their body weight, pixie dust that can be used to gain a turn of veritable invisibility, or the ability to become a small woodland creature (my daughter's half-elf sorcerer can become a chipmunk!). The only other house rule is to only allow the original magic missile.

I had the party come together in a faerie grove, fight a few spiders and talk with some sprites. It was lots of fun. We allotted only an hour and a half for the game - which I think was enough - as the kids tend to lose focus after about an hour. The two girls were off to see the rats we are sitting during the last half hour, we kept having to call them back when it was their turns.

All in all it should be fun, and a great way to spend some time with my girl.

Church People and Kingdom People

“Church people think about how to get people into the church; kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; kingdom people work to see the church change the world.”

Howard Snyder, Liberating the Church.

Question....Can evangelism include...

I want to push the last post a bit. I wonder what folks who read this blog consider to be the contours of evangelism.

So, for instance, I would include calling people to live faithful to their religious convictions part of the project of evangelism. I know that is controversial because Christianity has been seen so often as a dominating religion. While I definitely would, and do, engage in apologetic discussions about the specifics of various religions (I think it is healthy for us to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of all our religions), I have come to abhor evangelism that begins with the arrogant assumption that "I am right and you are wrong and I have nothing to learn from you." Evangelism that is just a battle about who's ideology is best has little to do with the gospel, in my opinion. But I am also committed to the notion that we are all growing towards better understandings of God's heart for us.

So how about you? What would you include in your understanding of evangelism?

Individual or Society - Having Cake That You Eat

I am trying to work through the notion of tension, that is holding two seemingly opposed ideas/views as mutually true, as a help for the problem of individual and social sin. Typically evangelicals have a high value on the belief that individuals need redemption from their sins. That they are in need of salvation that at the very least removes the guilt over personal sinfulness and in the very best cases calls the individual to move towards a more just (that is less sinful) way of living. What this focus has led to is the belief that societal problems are ultimately addressed by individual conversions to Christianity. While there is something profoundly true about conversion opening up the possibility of a more morally beautiful way of living - it is not evidently true that every Christian convert chooses to move away from sin and sinful patterns.

On the other side there are schools of thought that want to locate sin entirely in social contexts. That is sinfulness is injustice that affects us all. While this also is true, movements towards a more just society - especially those without explicit Christian roots - are often viewed with suspicion by evangelicals who feel such an emphasis undermines the goal of individual religious conversion. The evangelical vision of a more just world then is a world with more Christians. This seems inescapable for an evangelical theology, but is it?

Certainly it is true that individuals need to change for society to become less sin-filled. And it is equally true that individuals often participate in patterns of sinfulness that exceed their own culpability - what is often called structural sin. Therefore, can it not also be true that society needs to change for society to become less sin-filled? I am convinced that it is so. And this is the classic problem for evangelical theologies of social engagement - how and when do we participate in social movements?

I think tension, holding both individual and social sin as in need of attention, is a helpful way forward. It keeps us from the fundamentalist trap of exclusively focusing on the individual, as if the individual is all that God is concerned for. And it also keeps us from the classically liberal trap of minimizing the need for individual salvation. Tension is also an apt term in that tension seldom leaves us settled, and I think that to default on either side leaves us settled in ways that hinder the move towards justice and righteousness.

If we reconcile the tension in the need for individual conversion as the primary and only means of social transformation then we can easily care little about other measures of this project. This is a classic evangelical problem. When evangelism becomes our ultimate concern we can even develop responses to injustice that amount to little more than hypocrisy, such as engaging in eco-justice as a means of having a better witness amongst the growing public awareness of our current ecological disaster. (I think we need to shift our view from converting individuals to Christianity, to converting them to a particular view of the Kingdom. But that is beyond the scope of this post.)

If we reconcile the other way, that social movements are the primary and only means of social transformation then we can easily miss the individual's role in all of this. Evangelicals, like Carl Henry, bemoaned the insufficiency of the social gospel to promote individual conversion. Indeed the social gospel, as a good example of a social reconciliation of this tension, sets out to build the Kingdom through social projects. While these are definitely necessary - it cannot be ignored that social structures are ultimately populated by people. So we risk the Augustinian crisis of doing the good we think we know, yet making matters worse in our doing. What is needed is a conversion at the individual level - towards justice and righteousness - that awakens us to the need for conversion at a societal level towards the same goals.

Toward a Theology of Marriage - Interlude

I began this series a while ago and realized that I bit off more than I could chew (given the time constraints of my life!) So, while I do want to look at biblical models of marriage, I am going to jump ahead a bit. I've been thinking lots about marriage lately. I am more and more convinced that the problem is one of language. The problem I see is that words like vow, covenant, and even to some extent the word promise, are not functional in modern vocabulary. Partly because they aren't part of our language of commerce - you don't vow to do anything with retailers, and while you might promise that promise is based on a contract which is specifically designed to deal with the failure of meeting those promises. So in our culture marriage is envisioned in more contractual terms than covenantial terms. The promises have a different character in covenant.

I am thinking about how God treats covenant. It seems to me that our theology of Israel has a lot to do with the shift in thinking about covenant. If we feel that God simply gave up on the covenant with Israel then it is really just a contract that failed. But the first testament seems to show God patiently renewing covenant, over and over again. So if we instead interpret Jesus' as both heightening and widening the covenant to include all those who would place their trust in God, then we have a God who takes covenant a lot more seriously than a contract.

Certainly, there are benefits to the covenant being intact, just as there are problems when that covenant is ignored or taken for granted. Just take your spouse for granted a bit and see if this isn't true! But that doesn't necessarily break the covenant. One party needs to necessarily opt out of the covenant for that to happen - and if the prodigal son story tells us anything it seems that even this does not deny that covenant becomes the most desired state of relationship between God and humanity - so why not also with those who are married?

I am musing here. Rambling theologically. But it gives you a sense of what my mind has been wrestling with. At some point I will take up this series again and dig into the textual examples. Not in a Grudemesque manner, lining them up to try and figure out what God definitively says about marriage, but in a search for wisdom. How have the people of God wrestled with the formation of families.

Yesterday I had the awesome privilege of marrying a couple from our church. It was an amazing service. Many asked me where we got the service from. Really I work with the couple and put together something that will call them to a covenant relationship, declare God's blessing and allow all who have come to stand with the couple with the common desire that they can and will make it in a world where marriage has taken on an air of convenience. One lady told me the service brought her to tears. When I heard the vows that the couple had prepared I almost ended up in tears! It was that good. I'm including a picture for your enjoyment.

Review: Kindle 3

I've been interested in the Kindle since I first heard about them. But up until the latest model it has been missing some key features that would allow me to justify the price tag. Improved pdf handling is what really sold me on this product. I read a lot of dissertations and articles, which has meant a tonne of printing. The Kindle solves this problem and it has a lot more to offer as well.

My new toy/tool arrived Monday to a very excited customer. I immediately charged it up and put to use my obsessive information gathering about how to be a Kindle power user. Some of the things didn't work the same as the Kindle 2, so information on changing the screen saver images was not helpful. But in no time I had a pile of pdfs on there and started harvesting classics from the various sites (manybooks, project gutenberg, etc.) that cater to eReaders. Happily I even found Harnack's History of Dogma and a pile of H. P. Lovecraft to enjoy. I wanted to give the device a good workout before typing up a review.

First the good bits.

The screen is amazing! When I pulled it out of the box there was plastic on the front and back, I thought surely the plastic had an image on it. No, the screen looks like it is the display sticker they put on things to make it look better than it actually does. And the screen looks even better in full sunlight! Now they say it is 50% better than the Kindle 2's screen, but my neighbour has a Kindle 2 and her screen is pretty sweet too. Regardless of how much better the screen is, what is important is that I can read this thing all day long and no headaches or fatigue (other than what is normal when you get to the boring bits in books - someday they will invent a reader that has a needle to inject you with adrenaline to get through such parts!). In fact I did one full day. I read a full novel, a few chapters from a book on ADHD, and various pdf articles. I stopped because Sharon turned out the light. I would love to hear if such sustained reading is possible on the iPad? (The iPad had the features I wanted but price, too much functionality, and back-lit screen kept me away).

The big reason I wanted the Kindle over other electronic readers is the ability to annotate texts. I write in my books. I know that shocks people, but it is how I process them. I read a lot of books too. So annotation was a pre-requisite for me. The full keyboard (QWERTY) is excellent. It is not too big to get in the way, but not too small that it is impossible to type on. I thought I would fat finger a lot more too, I think I've fat fingered twice since I bought it so the spacing is great for my big hands even. What was a delight is that that I can even annotate text based pdfs. I am highlighting and annotating a dissertation on Progressive Evangelicals and it works fine. There are some problems with pdfs, but so far the functionality I need is all there.

For a reader I want to keep it simple, I am easily distracted. So I had considered just getting the wifi version. But the 3G comes in quite handy. I love to tweet great passages, so Kindle makes that easy. I can even select the text and tweet from right in the document! That produces a link, but I can just as easily pop open the web browser and put it in that way too. It is also easy to look up stuff without the urge to check email. This is a problem for me, so limited web access is a boon. There are work around to get more functionality in to the device - but why? If I wanted more distraction I would have bought an iPad or a mini-laptop. BTW I am not going to connect my facebook to the device, it does allow for that though.

Finally, it is super easy to transfer documents to my Kindle. They provide a translation service, look for the free one, so you can just mail a variety of formats to yourself and they are converted to something the Kindle can read (mobi). For pdfs you have to specify if you want them to convert the file or just send it as is. I have some of both, but I can't remember always which is which. The biggest problem for me is that some of my documents are larger (even compressed) than my service provider will let mail out. :-( So for those I need to USB into my laptop and send them over.

Now the bad.

As an academic I need to cite documents. The native book format for the Kindle actually strips out page numbers and replaces it with locations. That is a huge problem. There are work arounds, like searching for a unique phrase on Google books, but that is a hassle. Bookmonk also has some web accessible help for this problem. But this is a serious problem that Amazon should fix. In addition to making citing books harder, it also make navigation of a document that much harder.

Another problem is that the book selection is still growing. I read very specific books, some of which I can find, but the majority are not in Kindle format yet. This doesn't bug me too much though because the last problem makes me hesitant at buying a lot of books for my research work. I think if the solved that problem I'd get the Pokemon syndrome and need to fill the device with tonnes of my favourite theology and philosophy texts. For what it is worth, I did buy Moltmann's Theology of Hope as I know that text very well and was amazed that they even got the font right! That might seem odd, but it helps navigate the text.

Scanned pdfs require a bit of fiddling to make readable. I get a lot of scanned articles (images) from ATLA. You can zoom, but that sometimes makes the document unreadable because you need to scroll constantly. The zoom ratios are pre-set, unfortunately. But often with rotating and playing you can find a readable mode for each document - it is a good thing I have great eyes though. And pdfs maintain page numbering which is super awesome!

A related problem is that pdfs are large. Four gigs is not enough, I'm just getting started and I have filled over half of that already. What would be excellent would be a SD slot (even microSD) so I can have cards full of pdfs arranged by topics. Speaking of arranging books, the Collections feature is really great, I can't imagine what it was like in previous versions.

The last thing, and it is just something that makes me nervous, is the Kindle Big Brother control of your device. It is wonderful that they offer to back up my annotations. But I'm not sure I want those out there. And the stories of Amazon neutering your device are not fun to hear. I'm not sure what provocation is needed, but I also hope I never find out.

Final thoughts.

All in all, I am loving the new Kindle. It does all that I need it to do and more. It is really easy on the eyes. And a lot better on my shoulders than carrying around tonnes of printouts! Now I just hope Moleskine makes a case for the Kindle 3!

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

Wednesday was the celebration of the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows which comes right on the heels of the Exaltation of the Cross. It is an interesting moment in the liturgical year as it is a moment of Marian devotion that seems to betray an exalted view of Mary. In other words, I think I got something from the texts that seems to make it not about Mary at all, but that Mary simply becomes a player in something about Jesus we are supposed to take note of. But perhaps this is hinted at when the readings turn early to Hebrews where a Jesus prays to the God who can deliver him from death only to realize suffering and death on the cross.

The gospel reading is from John's gospel, the crucifixion narrative. John 19:25-27:

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother
and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved
he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son."
Then he said to the disciple,
"Behold, your mother."
And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

And often our first inkling is that this is super nice of Jesus. Maybe Jesus is trying to alleviate the sword that is piercing his mother's heart? Of course this is not necessary for a couple of reasons: 1) Jesus is not an only child, so she has other options for the extended family (where is Joseph these days?) Even if you don't buy that one 2) it wasn't like Jesus had a home to bring her into in the first place. So perhaps there is an element of providing for his mother's needs - but what of the odd, but not uncommon, phrase he uses - "woman"?

John's gospel though is deliberately constructed. There is something profoundly theological about what John chooses to include and where. So when we back up a bit and look at the concept, I think a different story emerges here. One where Mary is not so much the favoured recipient of Jesus' attention, but she represents a moment in the kenosis, of self-emptying, of our Lord. Let's back up the the episode with Pilate.

Jesus' interaction with Pilate has some fascinating moments. The one John draws out attention to is where Jesus informs Pilate who really is in control. Jesus' silence is met in verse 10 with ""Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"" To which Jesus replies, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above." (v.11a) John makes it clear that Jesus is in control here. He is submitting his will to the Father, modelling obedience. And so it is not long after this that we find Jesus lifted up onto the cross (to borrow the language of the Exaltation of the Cross).

On the cross Jesus is first stripped of the last of his material goods. His garments are gambled over by the soldiers. If Jesus is freely going to the cross, then he is effectively allowing the soldiers to take all of his possessions.

Immediately after, in John's careful narrative, we have the passage that is our concern. Already having given up all material possessions, Jesus now lays down his relationships. He gives up being a son of Mary. So great is his obedience to the Father, he is not willing to let love of mother, father, sister or even brother prevent him from obeying God's will.

This continues, because the next thing Jesus lays down is his self-control. He cries out his thirst and is given vinegar. Here is the one who freely offer himself, completely submitting his life, relationships and self-will to the Father. It is after these three things are released that Jesus says those ominous words: "It is finished." He bows his head and gives up his spirit.

I was reflecting on this and it hit me afresh just how costly the cross is. It is easy to gloss over this and rush right to the resurrection - but the cross is definitely worth pondering. What are we willing to lay down in our pursuit of the will of the Father? The more I reflect on the cross, the more I realize that Jesus' challenge for us to take up our crosses is not about being willing to be made fun of because we read our bibles in public or actually want to sing love songs to our Savior. No the gospel is costly. It is not what others will take from you - in terms of social standing or respect - but in terms of what you will give your life for.

The interesting conclusion of the reading from Hebrews (The reading was Hebrews 5:7-9) is that Jesus became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. I'll leave you to work out the implications of that, but I wonder if we often take that all too lightly. I hope you will join me in meditating on the costly cross and that we will take it up to follow Christ into this world to do the will of the Father.

Thoughts on Unity

My neighbour asked me to share my thoughts on unity with her. She is preparing a worship service for her church and had recently discovered that I am a theologian. So far our efforts to connect to have the actual conversation hasn't panned out but I've been thinking and thought I'd share some of my thoughts here. I also think that it fits into the theme of the day.

The first thing I think about for unity is that it is not uniformity. This is foundational. Uniformity is, in my thinking, the opposite of unity. It is the inability to recognize others as others but to insist on conformity. In a real sense this represents the devaluing of the human spirit/potential, the inability to allow each of us to explore our unique journeys, or at least to not explore them in the company of those who insist on uniformity. Unity can only occur when there is real difference and a choice to live with the tensions that such differences might produce.

I will take a step further and say that unity, ideally speaking, celebrates difference. Unity is the overcoming of the tensions difference create not by subsuming all differences into some indefinite slurry, but rather by recognizing that we are not all identical and that our dissimilarities are often the sources of our strengths. These strengths are the contribution that makes unity desirable. When we bring our unique selves to the community we enrich the whole. (The opposite is when we force conformity then we rob the community of its ability to act/create.) So, religiously speaking, when I come to community I bring my whole identity with me.

In a very real sense there is a notion of tolerance implicit in unity. Not the kind of tolerance that forces differences to be understated, but the sort that is willing to explore the differences in others to understand why those differences matter to the other. Tolerance means we accept the other as the other truly is, even if we disagree with the position of the other. As a second step we try to understand the other on their own terms. Paying attention to how their difference(s) contribute to a stronger community.

It might be easy to see how this unity, that I describe, can take us beyond even our own religious identities. This is what makes hatred so offensive to me. It is a violence against difference, an intolerance of difference and an enemy of unity.

A Great Alternative

Thank you James McGrath! Over at his blog, the good doctor has suggested a great protest to the Burn a Koran day - Read a Qu'ran day! I'm in. Of course my Arabic is a bit non-existent so I'll be reading a translation. I urge you to join in as well. The reality is that many North American evangelicals have been brought up in a culture of fear. We are taught, sometimes explicitly, to fear the Catholics, Jews, Blacks, Mormons, Asians, Pentecostals, gays, academics, and the list could go on and on. So in some ways fear comes natural to us. There is a solution though. Perfect love, the Bible claims, casts out all fear. So why do we love fear so much? Fear is control. In fact fear is quite a powerful political tool, having a common enemy allows a government to focus the attention of the masses onto the object of fear instead of their poor performance at home. Pastors use it to keep people in pews. But, let me be bold here, fear is quite anti-Christian. Fear is the product of regulated ignorance. Fear is the tool of manipulation, the classic definition of witchcraft. So let's look fear right in the face and choose instead to read for understanding and love. On 9/11 read the Qu'ran.

Being and Asshole is Not a Prerequisite to Christianity

Terry Jones is an asshole. There is no way to sugarcoat it. I vacillate between sad and mad over the plans to burn Qu'rans on the anniversary of 9/11. I realize that Dove World Outreach Center represents a small ignorant minority, but what bothers me is that it does so in the name of Christianity. What also bothers me is that the problem many people seem to have with this is that it will incite violence against Americans? That is a huge disconnect. We should be bothered first of all because this "church" is going to commit a hate crime. In fact it already has, repeatedly. I'm not unsympathetic towards the ways this might incite more violence - violence always begets violence. What of those Muslims who no longer feel safe in America? When will someone say enough is enough and refuse to continue the cycle of violence? When will someone have the courage to say no to religious intolerance and hate crimes?

Here is a video that tries to cast it in a more humorous light, but it really only just makes me madder.

In my humble opinion, if Jones actually goes through with this evil plan then he not only commits a crime against humanity, he desecrates the memory of those who lost their lives on 9/11. If Dove World Outreach Center sins in this way then they are giving the victory to the terrorists. Let me go on record as being opposed to anyone inciting hatred, and as vehemently opposed to the evil plans of this "church".

Review: Chronological Study Bible (NKJV)

I was sent this bible for the purpose of reviewing it on my blog. The agreement was that I would read the whole thing. Well, this book is a monster. The NKJV text is not a problem, I spent a few years carrying around a NKJV (pocket size) as my general reading bible. So I'm already ahead of the game that way. It is the notes, tonnes of notes, that I am supposed to have read all of. I've probably not read them all, but I've tried a few tactics with this bible.

First I tried to read them from first to last. The notes are good but it is like trying to read an encyclopedia straight through - after a while you are overloaded with often interesting bits of data. Then I tried just working through sections of text, augmenting it with the notes. A bit better but eventually I realized that if this bible is going to have any value to me it will be as a reference book and not as a devotional bible.

The reason for this is that there is something Canonical about the order of text that is lost when you try to put it in some sort of chronological order. Mashing the gospels together, for instance, is not a new idea. I have and regularly use a Synoptic Parallels, it is a great tool for Bible study. But when you start mashing you take text out of the gospeler's intended context. And based on what? At least the harmonized gospels is based on pericopes. Mashing John in there is interesting, but at what cost? The re-ordering of the text is the part that makes me most nervous of this bible. So now it is a reference only text.

As a reference it is ok. But I'm left with the conundrum of when I would actually use it. Sure I might want to see where they placed certain events in a historical timeline. But I'm always a bit skeptical of the picking and choosing that this implies. And I think that the notes are helpful in terms of situating the text a bit. But, and here is the big reason I don't pull it down very often, it is really hard to find texts in this version. (I think in about a years worth of sermon prep I've pulled it out only once to see what it did with the text! The rest of the time I kept it where it would get thumbed through.)

With a traditional bible you gain a familiarity with where things are. At least I have. It is entirely reasonable to navigate it by feel. And the concordance that has become almost standard to contemporary bibles is useful for remembering where those great passages are. But with the Chronological Study Bible you have to add a step - after you locate the verse you then have to look in the index to figure out where they have hidden that particular section of scripture. If you are doing a word study, this is almost impossible. So even if the notes are good, it takes so long to get there that the value of the notes is diminished.

Where I can see this being useful is if you were doing a bible study where you wanted to look at a particular moment in time and read the texts that possibly surround/describe that moment. But in quite a few years of pastoral work, I've not had that sort of study come up.

So my verdict is that the Chronological Study Bible is a neat idea, but in the end it is not very practical.

Getting Ready for School

OK this was a much better day. Productive too. We put my daughter's room back together and I set up a laptop for her to use - it doesn't do much more than word process so it should be fine, at least until they try and hook it up to the network! Yikes.

I have been thinking more about what I can do job-wise, while still maintaining a good pace on my PhD and at the same time not imploding my family. For sure I won't be adding anything new to my schedule, which saddens me because for a while there I was thinking it could be time to launch out on a new service with Freedom. I'm hoping we can keep the main group, book club and monthly theology pub all in place. With a couple of weddings coming up there won't be a theology pub until at least October. So that makes life a bit easier. Right now the big stress is finances so barring a benevolent contribution I need to find some way of bringing in some money.

Tomorrow will also be the first day with kids in school, so I need to make good use of the time reading. During the day I need to be very disciplined and either stick to my work or go job hunting.

I also ordered a Kindle 3 (3G) for reading. I know there is a problem with page numbers. What I want it for is pdfs actually. I have to read a tonne of theses and articles which I can get via ATLA and other sources, but it is really expensive to have them printed and bound (which is what I was doing). I'm hoping that the kindle format will be workable so I can annotate right in the file, but either way it will be nice to have them all on a reader. I can't stare at my screen that long to read straight text. I was thinking of the iPad (not that I could afford one) but what I want is a reader and the iPad is yet another computer screen. I'll post my review after I've used it for a while. It wasn't cheap, but I think it might pay for itself and prevent me from breaking my back lugging around piles of spiral bound books!

The Day Begins With Blah...

Not sure why but I'm in a funk today. Could be that my kids are fighting since they got up! So glad school is about to start again - they are done. Could be that I stayed up way too late last two nights - and still got up at normal times. Grrrr. It could be that it is sinking in that I am trying to find work to supplement our income while not losing sight of a doctoral thesis. That last one scares me the most. I have skills which I could use, I had a career in IT and it was a good one. I just got to the point where I didn't believe in what I was doing. The idea of going back to that terrifies me. But the reality is that it is too much strain on the family to not have a break from almost 7 years on one income. My wife is amazing, but even she has her limits - and I've been pushing them since before the Masters.

On the plus side, last night was highly productive. I managed to put together a couple of wedding services and read a huge chunk of Bernard Ramm's Barthian project for evangelical theology. He is one of the best writers I've read in a while, but I still find Barth too Calvinistic for my liking.

OK, off to buy school supplies for the little one.

Review: Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites... and Other Lies You've Been Told

This is a very helpful book. Prof. Wright has presented something that I strongly believe we need to sit down and think about. As an academic who studies evangelicals I am constantly weighing through alarmist self-condemnation and finally someone has had the guts to say that it simply isn't true. Whatever else I say about this book, I think it needs to be read and taken very seriously. Wright calls us to love the truth and be suspicious of statistics, especially when someone is trying to sell you something.

Wright wades through a variety of claims made about Christians, with careful attention to Evangelical Christians. He shows how these claims are often based on erroneous, suspicious or poorly interpreted statistics. He draws on large sample statistics to try and get at what the real situation might be. To his credit this could be very tedious writing, but Wright moves us along at a pace that avoids bogging us down in the details but gives us enough information to see whether or not there is any substance to the claims. I find he is fair. He doesn't paint an overly rosy picture, but he also doesn't paint the doom and gloom we often hear from pulpits.

Wright could have spent a bit more time on the disconnection between his statistically measurable aspects of Christian action and morality. The reality is that the agendas for negative publicity are often filled with strong assumptions about the nature of Christian action and morality. This isn't as much a critique of Wright's choices here as it is of the ideologies behind the internal negative reports on Christian morality. He does get at this with his lovely term "cranky nostalgia", I would simply call it ideologically driven romanticism.

For me the litmus test in terms of bias came when Wright addressed the powder-keg issue of homosexuality. I felt he was very focused, not presenting his own bias but sticking to his task of evaluating Christian attitudes, as measured by the statistics, towards gay individuals. I wonder if he could have been as unbiased towards Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses as well - he seems to lump them in with other religions despite the fact that they are Christian sects which emerged around the same time as many other "evangelical" sects. Historically it is more helpful to lump them in with the groups they are most related to, regardless of their adherence to classical categories of orthodoxy. The only reason I point this out is that it is a place where Wright's bias does show through.

All in all this is an excellent book. Wright punctuates it with humour (albeit fairly geeky humour) and keeps his analysis succinct and relevant. I highly recommend this book.

Dishonesty is Not a Virtue

I'm reading a fascinating book (review to follow) that maps out the abuses of statistics Christians use to engender fears that sell products. Seriously. It is a bit depressing in terms of the moral integrity of evangelicals, but optimistic about the future of religion in society. A strange mixture. Josh McDowell comes off as one of the offenders here, that shouldn't surprise me as that guy is also dishonest about history (Evidence that Demands a Verdict provides some horribly skewed views of history and scripture). I'm not sure he does this intentionally, but is probably caught up in the apologetic culture that uses alarmism as a tool. More evidence, to me, that we evangelicals who purport to be lovers of the truth are actually not that honest to begin with. God help us.

Artist Draws Cross-eyed Jesus!

My friend David, aka NakedPastor, often posts his art. Recently he posted a picture of Jesus as a youth (with a very modern haircut - must be prophetic!) I couldn't help thinking of the pun, cross-eyed Jesus, when I saw it. But there is something about making the cross central to our theology that is very Jesus-like. Just saying. BTW David's blogs is one of the ones I frequent the most, very thought provoking conversations. Give it a look, I'm sure you will agree.

Piles and Piles of Reading

I'll probably be sporadic for a while yet. I am working my way through a pile of material for chapter one of my thesis. So far I've completed a pile of books and articles that deal with boundaries around the term evangelical. I think it was McGrath who said that those who give you tight definitions of evangelicalism usually have an ax to grind. But there are certain contours of evangelicalism that are helpful to recognize, especially for me when I am trying to say that the theology I'm developing is in some way an evangelical theology. Something important for me to be able to say about my work.

The nice find in this was George Rawlyk's (editor) collection of essays by many big hitters called Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience. Not only does it help set out the differences (as well as similarities) between the American and Canadian evangelical experience, it helped me understand some of my own orientations being a Canadian.

To finish up that section I have found a copy (used) of Harvey Cox's Fire from Heaven. I should really just tear through it but it is delicious to read. I also have Stackhouse's Evangelical Futures on the way - this is my third try at procuring a copy of that book! For the record Stackhouse's article "Who Whom?" in Aspects was really good.

The last two nights I transferred my copious notes (from the margins of these books - I write in the books I own, I know horror of horrors!) to Nota Bene. I have a bunch of longer notes in my journal to transfer yet, but the process of revisiting the material is helpful for my brain.

The next pile of books has to do with evangelicals engaged in projects of social transformation, critiquing evangelical social engagement or discussing the relationships between evangelicals and culture. Everything from Gushee to McLaren! This is the section with some of the least academic books in it - but those will probably not take long to read. I weeded it out quite a bit before starting as I tend to read a lot of these 'practical' type books anyway. I hope I can find a few gems amidst the rubble.

Ground Zero Mosque

US politics is often just at the periphery of what I pay attention to. But this one sorta bugs me. From a Christian ethic it seems pretty clear that supporting the building of a mosque and Islamic information center would be the right thing to do. It would be a turning of the other cheek, that is a strong message that the views of a few religious extremists will not win the day but where hatred has been sown we will extend grace. Not that everyone responding is a Christian. But supporting the mosque strikes me as the opposite response to that of Bush - which was blow the "enemy" up. Violence never solves problems - just look at the mess we are in overseas to see what the fruit of violence really is. Someone must stand up and say no more.

I get that people lost loved ones. I had a friend working not far from ground zero myself and felt the angst of not knowing, though that is but a taste of what I'm sure folks went through on the day. Even if you lost loved ones is an eye for an eye really a good response? Should we hate non-Europeans because of the actions of a few? And where is the repentance from the US on the part they played in building the culture of fear that was such fertile ground for the terrorists? And how about the loss of the parents and friends of those terrorists? Or worse, the subsequent innocents killed by Bushes retaliation? Violence begets violence. None of us are innocent. None of us deserves to be the object of terrorism. And, most importantly, none of us deserves to be the object of hatred and marginalization. So why is this issue not clearer? Why can't we see a glowing example of the principles of tolerance and good will that countries like the US say they have enshrined?

What is the difference between opposing this mosque and Jihad?

Thinking it Through

If you are like me then sometimes you don't think things through fully before you launch into them. I'm getting better as I age, but can I tell you stories. For me this is one of the reasons that I'm so passionate about precision and clarity in evangelical terminology. Not only is it so that we can have better interface with those beyond our religious community, thinking it through allows us to better understand the implications of our own doctrinal assertions. I feel like too many evangelicals (and other religious folk) think that doctrines, theologies, understandings just drop out of heaven fully formed and completely obvious to everyone else. This is probably one of the best lies the 20th century evangelical church has swallowed (as if lies could be good). We might chuckle at the above post. But how often does our misunderstanding of the gospel lead to bait and switch (ie. dishonest) practices? Just saying.

National Gathering Speakers

We had some really interesting speakers at the Vineyard National Gathering this year. I think there are going to be podcasts up at some point. Gary Best introduced the speakers and talked about how all of them were calling us forward as a movement. Considering the transition we are in, from a couple leading us (Gary and Joy Best) to a team leading us, I think it was a good call. Most of the speakers made no bones about their specific agendas. Wess Stafford called us to not miss the children from his intense passion to see children come into the Kingdom. Sam Owusu was passionate about the need to address our white ghetto reality, because he is passionate about tackling racial boundaries in our churches. And Christy Wimber, in her uncareful way, called us to not forget our roots as a movement of risk, betting it all on the Kingdom time after time. (I had a love hate relationship with her talk, but that is similar to how I feel about John Wimber's theology.)

Probably the most balanced voice we heard from (apart from Gary who is such an excellent communicator) was Terry LeBlanc. You would think that Terry would call us to not ignoring the natives in our churches - that'd be in keeping with the rest of the speakers - but instead he showed us how to walk our path with wisdom, paying careful attention to the past as we move into the future. His reading of the Creation stories reminded me of Paul Ricoeur's treatment of the Adamic myth in Thinking Biblically. It was excellent.

All in all the speakers gave us a lot to think through. I know I came away encouraged and ready again to take some risks for the Kingdom.

BC and Back Again

Just got back from our vacation in BC. I presented two workshops at the Vineyard National Gathering - The Ladd Who Lit the Fire and Theology Pubs: Postmodern Hermeneutics. Both went really well and there will be slides up (at some point) on our new Thoughtworks website. In the first session I presented on Wimber's read of Ladd's Kingdom Theology. The big insight for me was how Wimber saw our relationship to God's reign as one of obedience. Obedience is a huge cornerstone in Wimber's theology and I think it is a brilliant approach to understanding the Kingdom of God as a dynamic expressed reign. Of course you can't spend an hour talking about the Kingdom without doing Kingdom ministry - so we spent the last half hour practicing our obedience, listening and responding to the King. The second session was different. I did a short presentation on Theology Pubs and how they work, then as a workshop we had one... actually two. Mark Taverner of North Langley Vineyard helped me out by leading a second group due to the large number of participants (Mark is a pastor and thinker I really respect, and he has a huge passion for our topic - Post-Modern Hermeneutics). I set up the pub by talking about how we would discuss Post-Modern Hermeneutics, including my own suspicions about the term post-modern. Then we made circles and chatted. What I had hoped for happened in my group - we had folks with completely different ideas able to have a conversation which didn't devolve into a debate. I was really happy with how it went. Also I was happy that the model seemed to strike a chord with many of the participants, they saw how it could open up conversations that are no longer possible with traditional evangelism approaches. Not that these theology pubs are overtly or even covertly evangelism outreaches, except that they allow us to engage in public theology, that is theology in a public venue where we don't expect to have all the answers. The evangelistic thrust is in the fact that it presents a face of the church that evangelicals haven't been good at showing - letting our faith seek understanding. I think such conversations actually lay aside the modernist quest for certainty that has been so problematic.

For our vacation we camped around the province in an old '77 camper van. It was totally Scooby Doo. At one gas station I emerged to have folks flashing me the peace symbol! Nice. We saw tonnes of deer (a few dead ones too unfortunately) and even a black bear on Vancouver Island. We marveled at Cathedral Grove. My wife and oldest daughter learned to surf. We swam in many rivers and lakes - some quite frigid. We bathed in hot springs, that was really nice. And we roasted hot dogs (gluten and dairy free was not easy to find!) over camp fires. So much fun.

Despite all this, I'm happy to be in my own bed again. Just wish I could get to sleep tonight.

Vineyard Family

We were at the Vineyard National Gathering in Penticton, BC. Such an awesome time! I love gatherings like this, it reminds me again why I love my Vineyard family so much. I was asked to teach a couple of workshops - one on Wimber's reading of Ladd and another modelling theology pubs using the topic of post-modern hermeneutics. Both were very well attended and really went well. I loved the experimental worship night we did, I think Dan Wilt started a tradition for us four years ago, thanks Dan. And when we left the park Larry Levy was announcing a baptism. So cool. I made lots of connections that I will treasure, and lots that I will continue through the web. There are so many cool God hungry people in this movement, it is a privilege to be a part of it!

Review: The Holy Spirit is Not for Sale

J. Lee Grady is not, by his own admission, a theologian. But he is an observer from within a movement and his observations are worth engaging with. The reason I start where I did is that his theological analysis is not very well done. This leads to some problems in his suggested solutions to the problems that his beloved Pentecostal movement faces. Despite the lack of a compelling self-critical analysis - he does make a good case that something has shifted and allowed the movement to be characterized by what Grady might call false spiritualities. He is calling for a reformation of sorts, part return to the first passions of Pentecostalism and part new passion for personal piety.

A couple notable new ideas, at least for old school Pentecostals, are the recognition that the Spirit's activity is not restricted to the Pentecostals and the ways in which even Pentecostal practice/theology has pandered to enlightenment individualistic ideas. His critiques are often good. Where he goes with them, not always so. He seems to hold the same fear of intellectualism that prevents Pentecostal theology from improving (thank God that there are so many great Pentecostal intellectuals coming on the scene these days - there is much to be encouraged about in this area) and he also seems to hold a truncated version of the gospel missing that this individualistic gospel is part of the problem that he has noticed.

On another side of it, I come from Pentecostal roots. There are things that I really love about my Pentecostally-formed spirituality. Grady's stories reminded me some of what I loved about that. The passion for God's presence. The desire for a holy life in God. The passion to see God's love transform people all around me. These are good things. Grady is right to lament their weakening in Pentecostal experience. I think some of his suggestions are worth a deeper reflection. Perhaps that is the best place to put this book - Grady starts an honest and hard conversation that Pentecostals must have to move forward. In this he does a real service to the Body of Christ.

Line Between Fatalism and Trust

I'm more and more convinced that the line between these two needs to be participation. We participate in what we are convinced God alone can/will do. And we trust that God will do more than we could ever do on our own. If we lose that edge of participation then we easily slip into pessimism and fatalism. Neither of which are sufficient responses to the great needs of our times - including the need for folks to encounter God's expressed reign.

World of the Text

Just an additional thought. I find that Ladd, along with a lot of biblical scholars, gets lost in the world of the text. Text is prime and the real world is secondary. At least that is how it feels to me. All this talk of what the text really asserts or clearly shows feels to me like it is an inside conversation. The problem I have with this is that it is micro thinking, that is thinking so focused on a narrow scope that it easily becomes oblivious to its presuppositions. I also feel like it needs to have references outside of the text. The real world must have some say, because it does have a say even if we do not acknowledge it. For me the Bible must be in dialogue with real life or it is of no value (and can even be part of the problem). The one biblical scholar I find who does not do this (at least in what little I've read from him) is Brueggemann. Maybe I want a Ladd who is more like Brueggemann?

Dismantling Based on Wrong Criteria

I must admit my bias is that apocalyptic scenarios are largely constructed. Reading historically it seems that the content of apocalyptic scenarios shifts as time marches on unapologetically ignoring the scenario. At a certain moment the US was ripe for a new scenario and in came pre-trib rapture, fine. But as long as the criteria for dismantling the previous scenario (or existing scenarios) is our own construction, we will just be adding to the mess. This is what Ladd does in Blessed Hope. He takes on pre-trib rapture and while he does a good job dismantling it he replaces it with another construct sometime using the same inferential methodology he complains about from the pre-tribbers. I want something that lands outside the scenarios and then can come back to assess the scenario we like best (if we feel compelled to impose a scenario, I'm not convinced that we need to).

So what are the core eschatological notions? Ladd insists that they must culminate with the return of Jesus. I can appreciate that - if we have a Christian hope that is rooted in incarnation/advent then a God who buggers off completely is not an option. God must have the last word in history. Where this becomes a problem is when we flesh this out with gritty details about how this coming will happen. Confession time - I've dreamt several times of Jesus' return, profound dreams that in all cases were answers to prayers regarding what direction I should take next. In one I found myself with a great mass of people dropping everything and heading off to meet the Lord. In another I ran out onto the lawn to see the skies split open. I could easily construct something from these - but then I'd miss the point. I was working through my options trying to find the way my journey could continue to partner with God. Ultimately, God will have the last word, but my conviction (through study, prayers and experience) is that we work towards making that last word manifest even though we only see it dimly, with humility to adjust as God makes it clearer.

All that to say that it is not the clearest thing in my experience - I'm implicated. Yet I still dislike the way we construct end time scenarios. We need a criteria that stands up better than our biased reading of complicated texts. I say this as someone who loves the coming of God, but also someone who has seen how some of these scenarios render the church unable to cope with real life. Pre-trib rapture is a prime example of how destructive a scenario can be.

So here is where I turn to hope. Whatever we say about the future must be said for us here now. It must enable us to navigate the complexities of life, while giving hope for the betterment of society. Scenarios that don't care about society, environment, and the cosmos really will not work in an age where our vision encompasses all of these. To think that the ancient scenarios are sufficient misses that they have always been re-interpreted based on social location and scope of worldview and that they serve higher purposes than laying out a supposed road map to Armageddon. If such a road map were easily constructed there would not be such endless variance in these scenarios. And to be honest, I can construct some pretty Earth friendly readings of scripture if I wanted to (and have in the past).

Does this mean we discard the scenarios in the biblical texts? Not at all. In fact they give us hope that these scenarios can be constructed in ways that give constructive hope to a people. They themselves are often packaged in helpfully complex language allowing each generation to take up the Blessed Hope as a navigating principle leading towards the ultimate salvation of the world. What is even better is that we get to use the energy of such scenarios in our participation in God's work in the world, leading to the day when God will be all in all - the eschatological fulfillment.

Just some thoughts as I process Ladd.

Game Summit is a Hit!

Look out CanGames, Game Summit is here. It is well organized, kid friendly, located in excellent facilities with plenty of parking, and quite a bit cheaper. Colour me impressed. They started these things in 2008 and a lot of the same wargamers go to both cons. However, a live DJ, hourly prizes, vendors all around the perimeter, carpeted floors that don't suck the very life out of you, and art/painting workshops - I think GS will give CanGames a run for the money. Plus, I ran games at both events this year. As a game master they really took care of me, I felt valued. Lots of volunteers made sure I had everything I needed to run my games and helped me get the players I needed even though I signed up late and didn't make it to any of their pre-meetings for ambassadors. When I registered I also noted some deficiencies in their GM sign-up material - while I was there Marquis, one of the main organizers, came up to me and, without my prodding, explained how they were going to make that sign up process better for next year. That is pretty sweet.

The pic shows some of the folks who played my Injurius Games scenario. My oldest also played as we demoed the game. Next year I'll try to run a full day of IG demos, maybe even their new pirate game if they have it ready. My daughter also played in a Monopoly tournament (me too) and won a copy of Monopoly City. She was over the moon. I also sold a pile of old games, which cleans up my shelves a bit. I wonder if it is time to sell off my D&D 3.5 - 4E has me sold completely. I don't expect I'll bother going back to 3.5.

Lies Christians Love

I think about a lot of troubling things. I was speaking to a class last night and defined my motivating theological impulse as a conviction that evangelical Christians can do much better than we are doing. I mean this in a lot of ways: how we treat people, how we think about social injustice, how we read scripture, how we worship, how we love, even how we work towards social transformation. Fortunately, I do find a lot of sites of hope in the world of evangelicals, even in the North American context which is my object of study. But one of the more disheartening things I run into is the love of lies that evangelicals have. I'm not saying this lightly. I first ran into it when I came to Christ from quite a bit of involvement in New Age spirituality. Some of the first books handed to me were by the cult sensationalists throwing out all kinds of matter-of-fact (and unsubstantiated) claims about the New Age being a highly organized out-to-get all Christians organization. While I'm not in any way endorsing New Age philosophy or spirituality - but the idea that this was a hyper-organized, actively anti-Christian organization was laughable. What I was part of was quite disorganized, multi-faceted and more concerned with its own spiritual insights than attacking Christianity.

Some of the lies that I keep hearing Christians tell are as follows:
- there is a gay agenda that is anti-Christian (I think my gay Christian friends would have a lot of trouble with this one)
- there is a gay agenda that wants to convert our kids to homosexuality (I think this fear is based on the realization that evangelicals want to convert kids so why wouldn't everyone else?)
- Dungeons and Dragons was created by Satanists to recruit kids to the occult (Actually it was created by a JW and a Baptist and a central idea for them was the epic battle between good and evil)
- Catholics (by which they mean Roman Catholics) can't be saved (that lie makes me want to cry actually)
- Pentecostals and Charismatics are so much closer to God than other Christians because they have the Holy Ghost (another one that makes me want to cry, seriously there are Christians who love lies about each other and not just about those outside of their religion)
- The slogan love the sinner and hate the sin isn't just an excuse to exclude people who aren't like us (I've come to detest most Christian platitudes)
- That their 'literal' reading of scripture is not actually another picking and choosing (this one goes out to all you shellfish loving homophobic literalists)
- That the King James bible is the only legitimate English translation (I'm being kind, I've run into KJ only folk who literally think it was the version Jesus used???)
- That it is ok to condemn sinners and sit around on their arses waiting for a rapture. (What makes you sure you'd qualify for a rapture?)

I could go one, but not without getting depressed. The thing is I'm convinced Christians should be lovers of truth. So the need of our day is to get off our complacent backsides and seek the Truth. I recently had a Christian minister send me a raft of homophobic hate articles telling me that if I was really interested in the TRUTH (her emphasis) then I should read these. I read three of the four - and all I found were lies. Maddening lies that were meant to dehumanize and justify hatred. Enough, this love of lies should really tell us something. The biblical father of lies is not God. Lies are not good. If you claim to have the Holy Spirit and are loving lies - well you would be the one I question if you really have the Spirit. I've spoken in the past of how certainty is the idol that has seduced modern North American evangelicals. That idol is entrenched in a fortress of lies. If we listen perhaps we'll hear another voice, "come out of her my beloved." And turn from the lies we love to tell.

Great Quote!

In discussing the problems with biblical propositions for premillinialist variations, Ladd says this: "Our problems arise when we begin to ask questions which were not in the minds of the authors." (The Blessed Hope, 13) So true. And it is compounded by modern views of Scripture that treat it like an answer or rule book for life. So what happens is that any marginal reference to an issue is grasped at, uncritically I hasten to add, and used to support our ideological stances. For me this is epitomized in the conversation about homosexuality. A scant few references are used to hastily bring the supposed judgment of scripture onto an issue that does not inhabit the same social import then as it does today. The good test of this is to ask, where does Paul ponder whether or not God would bless the lifelong marriage of a homosexual couple? Or where does Jesus ever ask if homosexuals should not be permitted at his table fellowship? Nowhere. In fact we could probably infer that Jesus' table was wide open. So far from saying the scriptures are unable to help us develop a response to the questions of our day - we need to approach them differently and let that question be asked of the Scriptures. The more I do that the less I can find reasons for closing my table, my church and my life to all. About the only ones I'm finding legitimate grounds to critique and condemn are those who behave like the Pharisees of Jesus' time. The ones who want to close the tables, keep their comfortable little religion and pretend the world around them has no relevance to their lives (and as a result participate in the systemic injustice of society, which was very much part of Jesus' critique).

Healing Leprechauns!

Now I already knew Jesus rocked, but in a little known reading of the gospels we find out that Jesus was rockin' the Irish long before Patrick! Thanks Scott for this exegetical wonder and your deft commentary.

Apocalyptic Constructs in Eschatology

I'm spending the next few weeks working my way through some of Ladd's key texts (plus a few that I just have on my shelf!): Blessed Hope, Gospel of the Kingdom, Presence of the Future, NT Theology, & the Last Things. I have some key questions as this is not the first time I've read most of these. However, as I launched into it I find myself wrestling through the apocalyptic scenarios that we attach to eschatology via the book of Revelation (and I would argue some gospel passages we interpret via Revelation). Ladd certainly picks and chooses his way through these - dropping things like the supposed rapture. But still he has a specific end time scenario laid out. For me the essentials are the eschaton in Christ's return - but I'm flexible in how this all plays out. I'm not so sure his discount of immanence based on a literal yet-to-come anti-Christ is solid. I get that this focus on eschatology through narrative does certain things for Ladd - but I'm wondering if the particular narrative that takes Revelation as a sort of timetable to destruction is helpful or even correct.

Maybe part of this is a knee jerk on my part against dispensational narratives that I find dangerous to Christian witness. But I think there needs to be a way to wisely navigate texts which have been the source of huge division and even undermining the mission of the Church (this is how I see it). I'm not willing to throw out the text of Revelation (nor would I propose that), but I think that there have to be other ways to read it - as a fifth gospel perhaps? After all the title is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Much as I talk about not being a biblical scholar - I guess I have some biblical work ahead of me here.

thoughts?

Injurius Games - Gauntlet

Every year for CanGames I come up with some crazy new Injurious scenario, based on the conference theme. This year I came up with Gauntlet. This one was a lot of fun. There were two types of squads - runners (human marines or orx both with augmented speed) and blockers (mechs, humans or orx). The blockers started up high and the runners had to navigate a valley towards the finish line. Once at the finish line they could turn around and rain steel and energy blasts on whoever they liked. So much chaos, so much fun.

The first running didn't see any runners on the finish line. So I upped their speed for the second go. My buddy Jason took the trophy with his running orx! The second running saw a surprise at the end as a marine seemingly came out of nowhere to take the finish line and set up a defense. In that game one of the new players took it, I hope he found a nice place to show off his trophy. I'm hoping to run a simplified version at Game Summit this month, care to join in the mayhem?


(BTW Firefox is behaving again!)

Firefox Woes....

I've actually tried to do a few blog posts recently but keep forgetting that Firefox crashes when it opens up a file dialogue box! Not fun. I am usually well into the post before I remember and I rarely use Window's Exploder. Sucks because I finally get Firefox working the way I like and this happens. I'm suspicious of AdBlock Plus and Zotero - both of which I use. I'll figure it out and get back to posting more often.

D12 Pirate Game

The boys at Red Shirt Games have a new pirate game. It is pretty sweet. As with their other games, it scales to whatever miniatures (toys) you have on hand. But their presentation with Wizkids boats, foamcore ship record sheets (complete with coloured stickpins) and a gorgeous map and terrain made for a great gaming experience.

The big difference from other D12 games is the hex map, but things ran pretty smoothly. The core mechanic is the same, determine the target number and roll a D12. Easy peasy, as my kids would say. The game moves along pretty nicely and we had a big group of players. Everyone moves at the same time, explores at the same time and resolves combat at the same time. I wrestled with the wind a lot of the time, but did have the satisfaction of messing up a few ships with my cannons! Oh, and I can't not mention rum. Rum is great in this game, keeps the ship running smooth. You don't want to run out though, the after effects are not pleasant. But there is a simple cure - more rum! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I think they still need an official name. I'm thinking of calling it D12 Scurvy Dogs, just cause I like that name and D12 Piratey Smash is not much of a name, even though it is similar to another game they like to run.

History is Fun

Fundamentalist Crisis

I delivered my paper at the AAR this past weekend. I was looking at the early 20th century Fundamentalist movement as a self-exile. In the process I've been listening to Randall Balmer, who is an Episcopal historian. He has a very interesting take on the history of evangelicalism in the US. The more I read the more I see how serious an undertaking Fundamentalism was - and the more I see why it is so hard for us to climb out of its shadow. That's the analogy that fits - Fundamentalism was a dark shadow, we welcomed because we thought it solved our immediate problem, but like any dark shadow we realized too late it was sapping our life. I feel like we've been trying to crawl out from under this shadow since the 60s (if not from earlier).

But the other side is that this particular shadow is attractive. In a "the devil you know" sort of way. That is why we got there in the first place. It was not a naive, anti-intellectual movement in the beginning. It was calculated and meant to address a host of anxiety creating problems for evangelicals. Not the least of which were the move towards social sciences and the traction of the social gospel. The Fundamentalist provided an inner logic that seemed to hold up, at least for a while. Shift happened in the mid-20s, but by then the Fundamentalist movement had given itself over to dispensationalism and uncritical literalism. Those two things are a plight still in evangelical culture.

Restore Josh Whedon!

For those of you who cringed at the ass-ianity of Restore Stephen Baldwin - redemption is nigh.

Evangelism

Over on facebook I was asked to clarify my self-identification as an evangelical. It is something I think about a lot. Mostly because I believe there is something amazing about Christianity that I would love to invite everyone into. However, I know that evangelism is often seen as a dirty word. In fact I find most forms of evangelism to be troubling, especially the manipulative hell talk that was common in my street preaching Pentecostal roots.

So what does evangelism mean to me?

When I go to a yoga class I expect my instructor/guide to extol the virtues of yoga. When I visit the place of worship for another religion, such as a Sikh temple where they give you suji and feed you, I expect to hear the virtues of that religion. So if you come to a Christian church then expect to hear about the virtues of following Jesus. That part makes sense and I think won't offend anyone. But if any of these groups begins to speak at a public level then it is a different story. But for me that is exactly where religion needs to be seen and heard. I'm not advocating a return to the fire and brimstone street preacher - in fact I struggled even then with the turn-or-burn type message. But it does need to work its way into our public lives, that is what makes it evangelism. So here are three guidelines that I would impose on my own understanding of evangelism.

It has to be invitational: This is the best attitude I know of. It is not confronting individuals, but giving them opportunity to journey with Jesus. Actually I'm quite convinced that the work of an evangelist is to partner with what Christ is already doing in peoples lives. Sometimes we think God has wholesale abandoned folks and it is up to us to rescue them. This is mostly because we don't care enough about people to listen. We would rather chalk up another convert than actually walk people towards God in patient, wholistic ways. The problem is that those few easy converts either fall away (one pastor recently said to me they fall off the hook? what a horrible image that is) or become similarly uncaring convert seekers themselves.

It has to practice what it preaches: The best evangelism comes from living out loud. This is the part that I think many evangelicals miss. The Fundamentalist movement, for instance, presented an unlivable message. Do we do the same? If we preach a message of God's love then how can we live in ways that exclude, condemn and marginalize others?

It also has to be honest: The other side of this is that we can't be selling something. I know, we are always selling something, but what I mean is that we need to be honest. Following Jesus is not a panacea for all of life's problems. Far from it. Following Jesus demands everything. The problem with the bridge gospel message is that it is only a small piece of the story. Following Jesus is not about some eternal reward, but about a way of living here and now. It is costly and we need to tell people that. It is hard and we need to make that clear as well. This is one of the reasons I'd rather have people walk with me before I ever make a direct invitation - I want them to see that I'm a real person, with real struggles. I also want them to see how my faith helps me navigate those things. How following Jesus leads me to make amends when I screw up, how it helps me to be better than I could be on my own. How prayer is like breathing for me, and how when I don't pray as I should I find myself resting too much on my own strength and knowledge. From my experience, people are open to being invited into something that is evidently real.

It has to have a notion of gospel that matches what Jesus used: Here is where modern apologetics fails us. Modern evangelism methods are about proving that we are right. My big problem is that Jesus never did this. In fact what I see Jesus doing in his cultural context is a far easier way of being in our cultural context. Jesus walked with the ones that society shunned. He was hard on the religious who made it hard on others. But with others he lived his life in such a way that they wanted to be part of that life. Jesus always encouraged those who got the insight to keep running with it, as opposed to those who preach eternal assurances resting on some faith commitment. Jesus knew that life was going to be complicated - he never glossed that over. He declared that the Kingdom had come, broken into the world in a way that would eventually transform all of history. He called us to look for the Kingdom, to watch and be ready. He spoke in aphorisms instead of dogmatics. So my question is how we can transform that into simplistic messages of atonement and eternal destination? This was not Jesus' pre-occupation. Neither should it be ours.

The option I'm presenting is not easy. There is a lot of simplistic religion in evangelical Christianity. A lot of easy methods, methods that frankly do not yield fruit that lasts (at least not fruit that looks much different than the Pharisees of Jesus' time). But it is also not as hard as we might think. What I'm saying is that we should think deeply about our faith. We should live it everywhere we go. We should also look for opportunities to share that faith perspective with others. And we should encourage them right where they are at (trusting God).