The best laid plans...

I lectured last night at Ottawa U, sooo cool. A really great Evolutionary Psychology class. Engaged students are always more fun. I was pretty impressed with the professor. At the first of the semester she emailed the Theology department looking for someone who could talk about the relationship between evolution and religion. Her concern was that the students only work with a Darwinian assumption and she wanted them to know there were other approaches to this questions of human origins. We exchanged some emails and my not being a young earth Creationist probably helped. I was able to talk about some of the ways that Evangelicals deal with the issue - and why these are internally coherent comprehensive worldviews. And then spoke about the resources within sacramental traditions to approach it differently. I probably came off hard against the Fundamentalist positions, I tend to favour a sacramental approach. Once I laid out a grounding of these worldviews we discussed some of the theories of religion. Everything from religion as a survival trait in our species to religion as a commitment to an intelligibility and directionality in the universe. Is religion just a way of appeasing our fears of the unknown, or is it something that gives us the resources to stand before the unknown? As with any academic work, the goal is not to end up with a definitive answer, but to get the possibilities out on the table. I think we did a good job of that.

Now today I'm supposed to get up, buy some new shoes (I killed my feet last night!) and after class scoot off to Montreal. But Chelsea, my youngest, woke up with a fever. Looks like I'm home for the day. I might make the end of my class. So much for my well thought out plans.

Sensory Service Presentation Sneak Peek

I have this slide show embedded into my powerpoint presentation for Concordia (Friday). The photographers were so generous. In the powerpoint I also have a credit slide so here are the credits: Becomingfriendship, with permission; Adam Walker Cleaveland, pomomusings.com, with permission; Steve Collins (Small Ritual), with permission; Eric Coomer (thewellgathering), with permission; Jordan Cooper, with permission; Lars Hammar, Creative Commons; Martin Kelley & C. Wess Daniels, with permission; Cheryl Lawry, www.holdthisspace.org, with permission; Alan Rathe (Arathe), with permission; Robin (Robinsan), Creative Commons; Robert Terrell (ratterrell), Creative Commons. Thanks again! Enjoy the sneak peek. I'll send out a final paper to those who asked, just waiting on Prof. Susan Roll's feedback.

Pros and Cons of Saint Paul University

I've been asked to speak to the 3rd and 4th year undergrad students tomorrow. A number of profs are talking about what career opportunities await them as well as the potential for grad studies in the various faculties. I'm one of two PhD students to speak with them - I'm the anglophone. So what shall I tell them? Here are the pros and cons - I'll probably be more direct here than there.

• PRO + Saint Paul is a wonderfully ecumenical environment. Seriously I couldn't imagine a richer environment to study. The school may have Roman Catholic roots, but it is so much more. In addition to Anglican and Eastern Orthodox departments (official) I count Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Mainline Protestants, Jews, Atheists, Agnostics, non-descript Spiritual folk and Buddhists amongst my dialogue partners at Saint Paul. What is cool is that there is a strong mutual respect and a willingness for each of us to bring our whole selves to the conversations.


• CON - Saint Paul is known as a Roman Catholic school. Worse as a radical liberal school. This is really not a fair assessment, but I know too many evangelicals paranoid of Saint Paul.


• PRO + Degrees are jointly conferred with Ottawa U. At least the civil degrees, which are the ones you want if you are not Roman Catholic.


• PRO + The Library!!!!! Saint Paul has the holy grail of theological libraries. It is amazing. And it is not a lending library (I have a card that lets me in 24/7!) you are not wasting your time going there to find a book!


• CON - Funding sucks. Actually the Research Services department is not very good. I can't remember the last time I was notified of possible money that I remotely qualified for - and I had at least three useless emails today. But this is a well known problem and complaints are in.


• PRO + Tuition is quite reasonable. Heck parking is very affordable too. If you keep your marks up the faculty is quite generous too. I basically had a tuition free Masters! And I haven't had to pay for this whole first year of my PhD. And when I do it is soooo much lower than the other universities in Ottawa.


• PRO + The professors are amazing. I've been there ten years and taken a lot of courses (being a pastor I'm not very mobile) and in all that time I've had only two professors who were duds. And one of them everyone else seems to love??? So what do I know. Some shining examples are Walter Vogels (Semiotics), Ken Melchin (Ethics), Heather Eaton (Spirituality) and James Pambrun (Systematics).


• CON - Technologically the school is still in the stone ages. We finally have WiFi in the student lounge. I've been pushing for WiFi for at least 8 years now. I'm really hoping they get a signal in the library next and that they boost the bandwidth. Also they recently outfitted several of the main classrooms with fixed data projectors!


• CON - No gym. Well, there is a gym. But it is in an old part of the building and because it only has one exit, by firecode we cannot use it. Not that I am sports oriented but all study and no exercise makes for one fat pastor!


• PRO + Small classes. In my masters I had two classes that were turned into reading courses because there were only two students. Even in my undergrad the classes were so nice and interactive. Plus where else do you share coffee with the prof at break?


• PRO + Pool table. Yeah. I have cue and balls in my locker too. We even invented a perfectly scalable game called Whirly!

Well you get the picture. I do love it there and yet there is always room for improvement. I'd like to see the comprehensive exams structured differently but I'm not going to look that gift horse too closely in the mouth.

Sacramentals

One of the innovations that I argue as part of the emerging church is a multiplication of sacraments. By this I am drawing on Gibbs and Bolger's idea of transforming secular space. I would actually contest the notion of secular space as many evangelicals use it - being space that has no sacred purpose. But that comes out of my conviction that all space is intrinsically sacred. It might be better to speak of sacralized and unsacralized space - meaning that space can be permitted a sacrametal reality through our use. I hesitate to say that our use is the only way this can occur, but rather that one way the space is sacralized is through our use. But is the term sacrament the right one here?

The notion that I put forward is that some emerging church proponents are actually turning worship innovations into sacraments. Should sacraments have a special understanding? Should they be restricted to initiation and covenantial rites? Or should they be a rich tapestry of activities which express our relationality to the divine? I think the term sacramentals might give an alternate answer that will really be helpful.

I would affirm that there is something special in sacrament. Sacrament makes present a reality that has tremendous religious potential. Through sacrament we encounter the transcendent Other. It is a helpful term. However, Lombard realized that as a term it meant something specific but did not name the exact rite that enacted the sacrament. In fact there are many variations on the rites that we call sacraments. So he used the term sacramentals to catch the actions. And it implies something of the sacrament character while at the same time allowing sacrament to have a privileged place in our ecclesial vocabulary.

Now I would argue that there are a rich variety of sacramentals. That is actions in which the transformation or sacralization of space occurs. This could be as traditional as sprinkling holy water to as untraditional as creating spontaneous art as an act of worship.

Just something I've been thinking about.

March Break

But not for me. This week is going to be a challenge. If I didn't have so much lined up the following week I'd be tempted to take some of it off and just go hang with my kids. If I'm not around much this week, you know why.

Vivid Dreams and Catching Sleep

I have been having trouble sleeping ever since pulling a really late night to finish my project for Concordia. Now I'm actually going to leave after class Thursday so that I can take in the whole conference. Gonna stay with Matte and Dean! I love those guys. So I'm kinda excited about all that. Which is distracting. I managed to get a bit of research time in but Elyssa has been home sick this week (next week is March break so more kid time) and being over tired to begin with - I'm a bit of a mess.

No March break for me BTW - actually it is the opposite. When the kids are home they need attention. In fact I've been interrupted about 3 times already since I started this post! I enjoy my kids, don't get me wrong. I'm just trying to get a little break before I start in on lunch.

Currently I'm researching John Wimber's thoughts on worship to try and get insight into his liturgical spirituality (think worship spirituality, but I'm hoping to get a wholistic picture, not just about music but the whole service). John spoke a lot about worship as a lifestyle but what I'm interested for this paper is specifically his thoughts on the Christian worship service (liturgy). I'm going to review video footage next. My feeling is that there are a lot of stories that we just pass down, the hagiography of Wimber so to speak. I have to root my paper in John's own words not the anecdotes. Carol tells of the problem the best when she talks about a word God gave her and says John always talked about this as the night God gave him that word. (The Way in is the Way On, p.107) It is awesome to finally be doing some work directly on my own denomination.

Writing Less Than You Know

We had a guest speaker today in our PhD seminar. She made this interesting comment about writing, that you never really write everything you can about a subject. Boy an I feeling that trying to put this paper together for Concordia. I started out with about 8 sections and now I have 4! Not for lack of material. In fact one night I wrote a section out and then realized it was good, but didn't really help me make the points I chose to champion. So delete! Yup it is painful writing. Especially when you agonize over a paragraph and you know it is solid - but it just isn't the right one for that paper. I remember hammering away at my introduction doing my masters thesis, at one point my director looked at me and said, this is actually a good introductory paragraph but I don't think it is the introductory paragraph for this paper. If I had had hair! But she was right.

The thing is that doing the writing isn't wasted. I actually discover a lot in the writing process. Sometimes it isn't until you see a couple ideas on paper that you realize they connect well or do not connect at all. Sometimes I can get to that in conversations with friends - but not too many of my friends like theology as much as I do! Even my wife has learned to say when she's just not interested in a subject. So writing becomes that venue where the ideas can emerge and take form.

Sometimes I write too speculatively. I recently did this with a friend, I had to get the ideas out but they were not baked well and unfortunately it turned hurtful. But despite the painfulness I learned a lot from the conversation. Too bad I wasn't very pastoral in how I handled it. But I think the friendship is strong enough to recover, I hope anyway cause it is someone I love a lot. But I think I also recognize that I've done this in the past a lot - it is part of who I am I think. I like to push the boundaries and get hard questions out into the open. Maybe I like that too much. Maybe that is why I feel so led into academia - because that is what is expected there. But then again I've found some academics who can't bear big questions too.

I should update the disclaimer for this blog. I know that I already warn folks about the eclectic nature of this place. Yes I am an evangelical and yes I play dungeons and dragons and yes I collect stamps and yes I love weird music. But what I don't warn you about is that this is the place of half-baked ideas. I write stream of consciousness here. I just blurt it all out so that I can see my ideas. From time to time I do post a paper I've written. I think the style is quite evidently different. I hope it is. So buyer beware - you are entering the mind of Frank aka PoMoRev. I make no guarantees that I am right on anything here. And I make no guarantees that I am wrong either! I'm trowing up what is spinning around in my noodle, giving you all a chance to dig in and hopefully together we'll get some inkling about the life we have been gifted in this universe.

Pax!

What is the Church?

I've been having a difficult conversation with a friend and I mentioned the inconsistencies of the Church, his response was that the Church isn't inconsistent but the people who represent the Church are. That got me thinking. What is it that we think the Church is?

First off there is really no Church (Catholic/Universal/Transcendent) but there are traditions, lots of traditions. And each of them has distinctives that set it apart as well as ideas rooted in a consistent whole. There is some degree of similarity in doctrines, practices, values and structures. However, it would be hard to say that any of that is consistent. And this extends even within the tradition itself. Even traditions that hold a romantic notion of historical preservation cannot square that with the historical reality. But really that isn't the argument.

The argument is that the Church is something transcendent, immutable and unchangeable. In modern terms this is an assertion that the Church is an Ideal. But how does that stack with reality?

Part of the problem is that Church has an institutional reality. We could simply say that the Church is the people, period. And while our answer must never separate the notion of Church from the lived reality a Ecclesia, or the people called together, to miss the structural reality of Church as institution is to deny an aspect that is also a lived reality. Where we can challenge this idea is how we understand the institutional character of Church.

One common way that the Church is over Idealized (in its institutional form) is by conflating it with the Kingdom of God. If we say the Church is the Kingdom then we cannot permit anything but that it is a perfect institution - albeit imperfectly realized. But there is no real scriptural basis for such an assertion. A Kingdom implies the expressed reign of a monarch. The Church, as institution, hardly appeals, with any consistency, to the King in matters of structure. Rather the Church as institution has modeled governance on existing patterns in other, often dominant, communities. To the point where most modern churches value a democratic approach to governance. This is hardly consistent structurally, even within a single tradition. There is definitely a relationship between the Kingdom of God and the Church, but it is that the Church is called into existence by and for the Kingdom of God. In this sense the Church is the servant of the Kingdom, which allows us to acknowledge the human aspect of Church.

A larger issue with conflation is that if the Church becomes the transcendent ideal of the Christian hope - where does that leave the King? Much as many Protestants have made the Bible their idol, elevating it as the ideal, other Christians have made the Church their idol, elevating it as ideal. If the Church itself is untouchable and already perfect then why do we need anything else? This was the problem Jesus faced with the Jewish authorities - they had structures that gave them confidence and so had missed the heart of their religion - they no longer needed God. I think we should be wary of any assertion that salvation is secured through anything other than the work of Christ through Jesus' death and resurrection. If we learn anything from the First Testament it is that we love the surity of idols.

Does this mean though that the Church is necessarily inconsistent? I wouldn't assert that it is by necessity inconsistent, but that in reality it is inconsistent, and in every way we can imagine that word. But that shouldn't disrupt our faith and confidence in the Church as a profound work of God in and for the world. I would draw our attention to the idea of unity. If there is a consistent longing in Jesus' instructions for the Church it is unity.

Unity is not the same thing as uniformity. Uniformity is actually a form of oppression. Unity, on the other hand, is a form of community with diversity. Even if you have peaceful uniformity you cut off modes of expression. You impoverish the whole. And you do not have real community. Unity never requires consistency, nor does community for that matter. What is required is a desire to be something together that is great than is ever possible when we are alone. This is worth thinking through because it is counter-intuitive to the structures of society - many of which, as we already mentioned, are translated into the structure of the Church.

Unity also doesn't imply a soft-relativism. Unity requires the difficult task of working through difference to a better understanding. Unity only functions when we respect a high ideal of authenticity but reject the notion that we can ever escape our context and that context, those things that we respond uniquely and authentically too, can and should be challenged. Tradition, including structures can and should be challenged. And doing so is how we move towards a better vision of society and community. This must include such dominant structures as the Church. If we somehow exempt the Church from this, then our hopes for real unity will always be dashed.

I say this because as a theologian who has had influence in my denomination on structure - this is the serious consideration to be taken. When we build structures and traditions, we need to recognize that it is, and has always been, us who have created them. We do so to honour God. And we believe that God helps us in creating structures that touch the world in the contexts we build them. But the institution is always a human creation. And so we can always do it better.

That doesn't mean we ditch tradition, nor do we shatter the institutions. These are the historical building blocks of a true future. But when we rest on these structures, we run the risk of becoming captive to our ideals instead of letting ideals grow to meet the challenges of the future.

One More Book...

I'm working on a paper that I will be presenting in Montreal at the end of the month. It is interesting that there is always one more book I could have to make my bibliography zing! I went looking for that one more book yesterday, only to come up dry. I think it was Jim West who said that of the buying of books, there is no end. It is so true, whoever said it! But the bigger problem, and it is the demon I wrestle with every paper, is my tendency to go broad instead of deep. I love expanding the edges of any research project. I went into the stacks for just one book, the other day at the library, and returned with an armload. I quickly devoured these books and actually found a few things that help - but it is that staying with one idea and going deep that I have to put most of my energies on. My director says, if you are enjoying the writing, then you are not writing well, you are just having a good time writing. I enjoy the overall process a lot more than I do the actual activity - at least these days.

Speaking of books, I am getting impatient with waiting for the books I ordered for my comprehensive exams. I managed to find all of them through Amazon's partner used book stores! Well all except vol. 2. of Principle of Hope. This Friday I am presenting the list to our doctoral seminar. Not for their approval or even feedback at this point - the list was submitted from my committee to the faculty already. But this is the new progress reports that we are now doing monthly - it's kinda clunky to have them so often. I have to produce a two page report, but I'm thinking it will be a half page and my list (in small type!). The small mercy is that Saint Paul's philosophy on comps is not to make you responsible for massive reading lists (sorry Kenny) but for a few foundational texts on each theme. I think my largest theme is Hope Theology which is still less than 1000 pages! But it includes Moltmann, Bloch, Metz, Volf and others. I started with a list (one just this theme) as long as my arm! It was hard work to pare it down and decide just what would really let me get at that theme. I also ended up ditching a lot of the books I knew. It is not that I won't read broader - but for the comps I am responsible for precisely the texts on my list in relation to the theme that they are part of. Knowing my committee - less books is not going to make this any easier. But I'm thankful that I will still have some semblance of a summer this year!

Sexual Reality Check!

Ben posted a link to this great article on sex-positive evangelicals. Sex as a topic has come up quite a bit recently. Rob posted a challenge regarding pastoral talk about sex and money. The usual odd conversations have turned to this often avoided topic. And I've even recently been talking with a friend about a new ministry addressing human trafficking and the sex-slave industry.

The temptation is to jump into this with both feet. But Amanda Marcotte makes some excellent points - we have to consider out agenda. I agree with her that is our renewed interest in sex has an ulterior motive, and especially one we are willing to BS about, then we need to think twice about opening up the sex-talk conversation. Seriously, sex is not another tool in the arsenal of evangelism! Sex should be sacramental - making it instrumental simply further detracts from anything we've tried to say about the nature of marriage. Seriously.

There is a reality of frankness about sexuality that I do think we need to navigate. It is not easy to talk about sex in ways that we would not consider. But how much of that discomfort is because we have somehow internalized a warped understanding of sexuality. I'm not proposing that we should introduce the sex-talk into our ecclesial experience, far from it. In fact to address Rob's challenge, I'd rather never talk about money from the pulpit either! (That's not going to win me friends, doh!) But it does need to become a part of our community dialogue. We have to be able to walk through a very confusing minefield of sexual possibilities, and we have to have a good theology of sexuality to do this well. Hence, my insistence that sexuality should be sacramental.

I'd love to interact with your thoughts on Marcotte's piece. I think she makes some very good points.

Freedom and Individualism

Charles Taylor's Malaise of Modernity is an excellent critique of individualism. We have traded the values of community and belonging for the lure of a false freedom that we were convinced came from becoming less dependent and connected to everyone else. The liberal dream is really the American Dream - one that falsely promises anyone can be anything. But the reality is we have become a people desperate for identity and cut off from the ways that we really come to know ourselves - that is, through community and dependence. It should not surprise us that there is a passionate desire for people to return to roots, to ancient rituals within religions and to spiritualities from foreign contexts. That is a desperate move. One we've hard won the freedom to allow. And a move that disturbs modern church leaders even though they hardly seem to understand why.

Like Taylor, who contests the knockers and the boosters of individualism, I'm torn on the issue of retrieval within faith communities. On the positive side there is an influx of richness coming into our liturgical practices, and that is actually bringing some life to people. But it is a bit indiscriminate and unfocused. I think the answers are there, but at the same time not there. And what I mean by that is this: you can do all those nice things and still not find the identity you are looking for. Let me make a jump and come back to this point.

The primary means of defining oneself has shifted from our relationships to people to our relationships to economy. Society, despite the rhetoric of freedoms, really values only certain things. Productivity being one of them. But this is productivity measured in specific ways - it isn't about having healthy productivity, but about maximized financial profit potential. (My move from a high paying IT career to a questionable future in academics is very counter-cultural.) So we define ourselves in terms of our jobs, what we do and how "successful" we are at doing it. This is an unfortunate shift - because our occupations are hardly stable identities let alone meaningful in ultimate terms (with some exceptions of course).

Just look at the expansion of cyber-dating, we don't forge relationships in our work environments, and lets face it, we don't have that much other community. So we turn to the internet. I'm not against this, but it is symptomatic. Before, we would meet our mate in our communities - church, school, social clubs even the bars. But now those places represent, at best, truncated communities and in their current form we are unsatisfied because we expect them to form identity for us.

So here is where churches come in. And the move towards ancient-future practices is part of this quest for identity. In some sense it the church trying to validate its identity - I did a lot of work on how this dynamic functions in evangelical communities (and I dare say that ended up saying a lot of the same things Carl Henry said, but in a different context). But the church is also responding to the demands of a culture of individualism - when the adherents see the church only in terms of what it can do for them. This is exactly the attitude that turns ancient-future treasures into vacuous fad. It is precisely our attitude towards church that will determine how and if church can help us understand ourselves.

Individualism robs the church of its potential to help define a people (Imago Dei). But it also robs individuals of the real freedom of participation - being free to be part of something bigger than themselves, something which can truly give them/us/me a sense of identity. I long for that. I long for real freedom. Not the truncated, do what you will, swill liberal philosophy has offered us. Rather the grounded call to participate, to be dependent on, and to even be hurt by - the other. To be community. To break bread, not as an individual - but as a body. Incomplete without the whole. The trappings of the ancient must look so odd to those looking for fulfillment within individualism. It is not personal piety, it is corporate identity. It is not individuality, it is cooperation and belonging. It is body and community, Trinity and belonging. I hope that we retrieve these things - but we do it in the spirit in which they were forged, not twist them to the culture of individualism.

Goings On

Tracked down the rest of my comp. list books last night. I have books coming from three different used book stores in the States. I figure it is worth it, these are going to be books I live with all summer, and most of them will be core texts for my research and teaching. Saint Paul has a funny way of organizing their comps - they want a small set of foundational texts based on seven themes. My profs had less themes but tonnes more books! And huge texts too. The biggest text I have is Ernst Bloch's Principle of Hope - but I am only really responsible for about half of volume 1 and a section from volume 3. That's a relief, because volume 2 is really hard to find (if you have a spare one you'd like to part with, please let me know). I sent out a final list to my committee and am really just waiting on one reply to know it is going to the faculty head for approval. I think the count is 19 books, 6 essays, 2 articles and selections from Principle of Hope. In September they will meet to set up my exam question, my director wants me to go off and read until then (after this semester of course) and come back with my notes from the readings. Then we'll start working to prep for the exam. I'm actually quite excited about it all and we are thinking that an exam date in October will work fine.

Great News!

I already mentioned that I am doing Local Area Coordinator of the Canadian Theological Society work for Congress 2009 (formerly the Learneds). And I just received notice that the paper I proposed was accepted! That is so good. This one is similar to the paper I have accepted for Concordia's conference next month, but a bit of a twist. "Micro-Missional Ecclesial Identity" is the title, and I am exploring the way in which alternative forms, in this case deliberately small faith communities, are efforts to wrestle with what it means to be the church. In a sense it is about an incipient ecclesiology. But what is exciting is that now I am officially using a term - micro-missional - that my dear friend Brad coined, and using it in an academic setting. I think this term is important for a number of reasons.

1. It identifies that every effort of the church re-inventing itself can be named, can be a model. Now I'd be the first to say that a model doesn't help you, and in fact it is the following of models that is part of the reason that micro-missional options are emerging. But, never-the-less you can always determine bounds by which to describe a movement and this is helpful for academics who wish to understand a given model.


2. It situates the churches that have affinity with this model/tag as a response to the mega-church. I know that emerging church commentators have made this observation already, but here I'm naming the model in a way that directly confronts an alternate model which does not provide a satisfactory ecclesial identity to the micro-missional crowd. This is not a value judgment in my form, but an entrance into a conversation that might shed light on what kind of ecclesial identity micro-missional might describe.


3. It is a super cool way of describing a counter-cultural trend - the love of the small. As someone who has experienced both models, it is easy to describe the differences in terms of benefits (on both sides). But there is something that is unfortunately hip about being small that also allows us to bring to bear a critique.

I also situate this movement in what I call cycles of evangelicalism. Something that I have adapted from the historical work of Robert Webber, particularly his book The Younger Evangelicals. This allows me to ask questions that I know aren't in the immediate conscious of micro-missional leaders. Questions like: what will this look like when it integrates into the larger sense of evangelical identity?

A lot of work ahead of me. I'm excited to be bringing my questions and research into an ecumenical context and amongst academic theologians.

Bugs Me

I'm finding the continued talks of bailing the automotive industry so infuriating. A business that fails should be allowed to fail - no matter how many jobs it means are lost. That might sound heartless - but the help creates only an illusion of security. Plants will continue to close, people will continue to lose their jobs and we will be simply worse for it in the long run. The idea of an invisible hand is exactly that - an invisible hand not a government prop and prod. If we've changed systems then let's be upfront about it and try to figure out what the heck it is. Seriously I'm all for finding an alternative to capitalism, but not as a poorly conceived knee jerk reaction.

But I'm actually pleasantly surprised at some of the responses I've seen from evangelicals around the atheist bus ads. Bravo for not giving into the knee jerk reactions of Christians who somehow think that in their isolation they have maintained anything resembling a moral authority. Bring em on. Heck, if we really believe in the freedoms that allow us to practice our religions in relative peace then we should welcome any and all tests to those freedoms. Personally I think these ads are brilliant conversation starters, but hey I'm not known for being afraid of much.

For your amusement check out this awesome bus sign generator.

Concordia - Theology Beyond the Classroom

I am pretty stoked to announce that my paper "Sensory Services and Ecclesial Identity" has been accepted at the Theology Outside the Classroom: How Theology Mediates Between Religion and Culture conference, March 26-27 at Concordia in Montreal. I haven't all the details, but I did manage to get the word bricolage into my abstract! Just read an excellent article by Joshua Moritz (Dialog 47:1 Spring 2008) on the emerging church. I'm tempted to pour myself into this paper - but right now I have two papers due next week and I'm lecturing at Ottawa U (Christians and Evolution) two days before presenting in Montreal. Ok, got to get back to work!

Madam Guyon

OK, admittedly I read this book specifically for a project. I have had Madam Guyon's translated autobiography for years and years, having heard it was really good. Wrong! This was painful to read. She is so abused by just about everyone in her life. But she twists this abuse (crosses as she calls them) into the bases of a spirituality. So much so that while I'm with her on in some of the inner life - it is hard to distinguish what is the product of an imagination warped by glorifying her pain and suffering and that which is genuine mercy. Sometimes it is clear that she is spinning the situation - especially in the accounts of faltering conversions. But other times you are left wondering what the rest of the story really is. I have no doubt thought that this is how she sees the story - otherwise she would have been more careful with her words.

What really disturbs me is that the book jacket makes these insane promises about the contents: it will teach you have to deal with adversity, how to be a mature christian, blah blah blah. Bull. It is the story of how one woman copes with incredible abuse. How a brilliant mind denies the very mind that God gave her (and still it shines through at odd moments, likely what inspired Fenelon so much) because her ideal is to be the dumb servant, abused because it was "God's pleasure" to do so??? Guyon does not teach us to be mature, but to have a twisted view of God. In this she is a product of her times - at once resisting the enlightenment and also thrusting forward into an enlightenment mode of actualizing her faith. This book is a confusing tragedy and not a model of any sort of healthy spirituality.

Is there an Evangelical in the House?

I've mentioned before that the shortcoming of studying at a predominantly Roman Catholic Institution (there are many benefits mind you) is that I am not as exposed to Evangelical Theology as I would like. In fact I really resonate with Stackhouse's chapter in Evangelical Landscapes - "Why Johnny can't produce Christian Scholarship". Case in point, I recently ordered three promising (from the descriptions) evangelical texts on political engagement only to be most disappointed by two - the rare thing was that I was not disappointed by the third as well. Actually I'm sure these would be fine texts for folks in the pews who do not want to think too hard about their faith, but I'm less inclined to think that what we need is more light fluffy books. Seriously - look at the world around us. God loves that world. So you would think we would too. But enough about that.

My director has given me the delightful task of finding an evangelical dialogue partner. I made a short list and have handed the task over to my director with my suggestions. I have a certain trepidation about such a relationship though - in my current setting I am the authority on evangelicalism, pentecostalism and things charismatic. I am quick to identify both the strengths and weaknesses I see in the groups I identify most strongly with. But how many of those insights are based simply on my own assumptions - I guess it is time to find out. If I can complain about evangelicals wanting it light and fluffy then I better be willing to ditch the fluffy assumptions I have as well.

Should be a very interesting thesis project.

My Son is Giving Away a Book!

Ever since Jim introduced me to the son I had forgotten I had (apparently), I have treated Esteban like the long lost son he is. His mother and I (despite the problems regarding Esteban's age) are so proud that he is giving away a book. Unfortunately, he seems to want to exclude his dear old parents, yet again, from the gifts he knows he should be sending our way. He has only offered to ship this book to folks in the US. At least he isn't hitting us up for money - unlike his much younger sisters!

Feeling the Tidal Pull

There are times when I feel like I am firmly planted, things are organized and deadlines reasonable. But then there are moments when I get the sense that the tidal wash is eroding the sand I'm standing on. Soon I'll feel the tidal pull. Life, for me at least, is often like a tide. Sometimes it's high and threatens to pull me out to sea and other times it is low and I'm able to see with great clarity the path I'm on. I am not complaining, sometimes those tidal pulls have led me into some amazing waters. They are scary at first, especially when you recognize the hints between your toes, but in the midst of it I need always be grateful that I've learned how to swim. The ebbs and flows of life are not something you can control - but what you can control is how you respond. When I think it is too hard I just remember my many friends that have it worse than me yet still manage to find the sandbars when the waters recede - some of them are positively amazing swimmers too! Today, is one of those tingling in the toes days. I have reading week coming up - but I also realize that I need it and deadlines are looming large on my horizon.

From Random Mess to Collection - Theology of Collecting

As a stamp collector I take great joy in bringing order to random messes. Just tonight I took a couple envelopes of Dutch stamps and sorted them by stamp into a book so that I can fill up my album and trader cards. I am thinking about this as I recall a talk with my friend Sarah regarding methodology. One of my pet peeves with academic life has been the pervasive insistence that one have, name and know ones method. But I feel that no one really takes a methodological approach to helping one name, describe - heck even know ones method. I am pretty sure I have a handle on method (on good days I think that) but I still am wanting it to be neater, tight little defined categories into which I can bring order to the madness that is study.

Sarah was talking about this method of letting the data evolve its own categories. I forget what she called it, but one had to resist the urge to evaluate but rather let the categories emerge as one explored the material in a certain topic/genre. It sounds good for what she is doing - reclaiming the voices of a specific group of women. While it isn't exactly what I need, it does remind me of what happens so often in incipient theology, that is theology which emerges in the actual faith life of believers. The night before another friend commented on how in churches she had attended they had some good ideas they were working with theologically but no idea where those ideas came from let alone how to aptly evaluate those ideas. In fact I think that many Christians have quite naive ideas about where theology comes from which means it is even harder to address incipient theology in any sort of critical way. But theology evolves in communities - it doesn't drop down from heaven (unless you think God is the sort that likes to drop random and incompatible ideas into various religious communities just to see how screwed up they can get - my friend Lori would say that God's not an asshole like that) it rises up from the experiences, readings and traditions of people trying to live lives of fidelity and faithfulness to God. So in a sense the categories emerge for folks in their faith lives. That doesn't mean they don't have good insights or that there is really no true faith or doctrines. But it kills the presumption that we have the market on those things. Stumbling around we tend to get some things right. And if we believe that God is in this process then we should also be confident that stumbling around we get more right than we get wrong - even if sometimes we misconstrue some of our right assumptions.

So here we are back at a mess. And me, I like order. Perhaps that is why I love theology so much - it brings order to chaos. Not simple order by any stretch - and if you saw my stamp albums, you'd wonder why I have so many extras in there. Well order is complicated - it means taking on variance, respecting and even enjoying diversity, drawing lines as to what you will and will not keep, and what you will do with what you want to keep. It is a collection, and a collection follows internal and arbitrary rules - but that is its beauty. The collection is unique. It is wonderful and has an inner logic that brings joy to the one who organized it. Theology, that project I undertake, has that for me too. That is my method.

Working on Themes

I have a list of themes now - still a wee bit of tweaking though. One of the themes that I'm doing, this is a specific one, is Emerging Church. This was suggested by my director, but I'm thinking of changing it up a bit: Emerging Theologies in the Evangelical Church. I'm thinking that this formulation will let me catch a few influential innovations/ contextualizations in evangelical theology. Soooo I'm thinking a decent book on Open Theism (either Pinnock or Boyd), a text on Centrist Theology (Grenz Renewing the Center is my top choice here), Missional theology (I probably should do Guder's Missional Church, but I'm investigating Hirsch's Forgotten Ways). I have room for one more foundational type text.

The other general theme I have a bit of flexability with is Contextual Theologies which I might call Theological Methods and capture the following: Contextual Theology (Bevans for sure), Local Theologies (Schreiter), Incipient Theologies (Cochrane) and maybe something on Worldviews.

The rest of the themes are very specific and point to a set of books. One is on George Eldon Ladd, but I am toying with a cluster of Fuller thinkers on Kingdom Theology. I'll probably end up choosing three Ladd texts for that one: The Gospel of the Kingdom, The Blessed Hope and The Presence of the Future.

The other hard task is locating a copy of The Principle of Hope Vol. 2 Ernst Bloch - I have vol. 1, and vol. 3 is readily available but vol. 2 is hard to find online. Gotta love an atheist for the sake of God.

Brilliant Post!

Ben Meyers has provided a wonderful list of advice for budding theologians. Be sure to check it out. Warning: do not drink hot liquids while reading this most serious of lists, don't say I didn't warn you. :-)

Lot to do about Something

I'm really excited today. Had a great conversation with my friend I (that's what I call her). She never fails to jump into the deep end in our conversations. We have been conspiring to start up another Freedom Vineyard group with them too. But also I managed to connect with other Vineyard folk academically swimming in the deep waters of political theology (or at least thinking deeply about how the Vineyard's contextualization of kingdom theology leads to social engagement!). So stoked about that.

I also have some other cool happenings. This week I'm guest lecturer in a course on Music and Spirituality talking about how music is an anchor in liturgical practice. I'm taking my guitar for that! Also I've been asked to give a lecture to a psychology of evolution class on the belief side of the evolution/creation debate. This will be fun because I can examine some ideas of identity construction. The only snag there is that it is a French class and the prof needs buy in from the students for me to come, my expertise is a match. I really have to address my language deficit!

OK, back to work.

The Invisible Hand of Evangelicalism

I had a chance to hear Jan Jans (Tilburg University) this past week. There were several moments that caused synaptic firings in my wee brain, but one was a discussion on greed as the engine of capitalism. That individual greed, described as the individuals pursuit of maximized gains, is assumed to produce a corporate good by fueling the economy. The system goes terribly awry when it is divorced from ethical considerations on the functioning of this invisible hand. In fact the invisible hand is an assumed deus ex machina that follows the proper functioning of individualized action - if I pursue maximum profit, like everyone else, then the invisible hand will automagically cause the system to function in a way that we all benefit. Two big problems result: 1) there is no real way to connect the invisible hand to the individual actions, hence it is hard to critique the system when it fails as it has obviously done even in this current recession and 2) the system is based on a sin.

Ah, but that language of sin is outdated, outmoded and not useful. If we define sin as the adherence to naive religious edicts then it is hard to establish a case for using the language of sin here. But are these edicts really so naive? And is it not also possible to expose a core of humane expectations, sometimes called virtues, that animate most religious legal structures? If so then the language of sin indeed becomes highly useful in critiquing social (even economic) structures. I would argue that this is the case.

Sins fall into certain categories, for my purposes I will define them as actions that disadvantage a partner of a certain transaction. The Hebrew texts begin by establishing the nature of sin: first sin against the creator (Adam) and second sin against the other (Cain and Abel). Implicit in the second creation narrative is also a sinful transaction between Adam and Eve, these initial events serve as a means to explain how sin enters into creation as a distinctly human enterprise with dire consequences. So in this sense, and this continues throughout the first testament, sin is a uniquely human problem and robs at least one participant of the capacity for an ideal life. Adam and Eve are expelled, Cain is marked and Abel is dead. From the get go the notion of sin has tragic and serious consequences. Let us take that standard into our current problem.

In order to maximize profits it is necessary that we create a situation where there are winners and losers. Certainly there are degrees to which this is true. But it is not true that everyone equally participates, or even has the opportunity to participate, in a way that will make them winners. Contrary to the American Lie, uh I mean Dream. The ever growing disparity between haves and have nots, in affluent North America even, is undeniable proof that this is the case, despite the rants that exist about the poor simply being lazy. This is even more evident in the so-called third world which has for too long been the lap dog of the so-called first world.

The critique has to be what else can use as an engine for economy?

But this was all content of the discussion - the synaptic jump in my brain had to do with Evangelicals and how we have modelled our religion in the image and likeness of Capitalism. Let me explain...

We call people to individual salvation and we ask them to manage their own lives well. That is good, but it is not enough. We expect that through these individual actions a social reality will automagically be changed (bettered in the best cases of evangelicalism). We believe in an invisible hand, but one we cannot have direct influence over.

We are right to believe in an invisible hand - but as Christians we name this invisible hand the God of the first and second testaments. If that is the case then we must take seriously the instruction that those testaments provide. Specifically in relation to our interaction with the social aspect of real life. By de-politicizing religion, that is relegating it purely to the private sphere of life, we have literally rendered ourselves socially impotent. Yet, we are by nature political beings. Even in the garden it is recognized that humans do not function as they should in isolation - and this is given the weight of being the words of God. So if our call is to individuals, and I do not dispute that it is, it must be for individuals to become what they are capable of being - political, responsible and active.

This does not repute the invisible hand, rather it recognizes that we participate with God (invisible hand) in making this world a better place. Standing for justice as did the prophets. Working for peace as do the blessed. Speaking of hope as did the evangelists. I am not calling for something less than personal piety - but actually something more. Just as Jesus instructed the Pharisees to practice both their meticulous practice of tithing AND to regard the weightier issues of justice, this is the call we need today.

A system that focuses only on the individual is just as flawed as the system that is based on greed. Sin is overcome when we consider the cost to others (and ourselves). So in the words of Jesus, "go and sin no more."

Is the Emerging Church a Sexy Topic?

I'm just wondering.

Turns out panels work different than we thought, so I'm trying to cobble my piece together. Just sent it off to team Heather for feedback. We might have to host our own conference to do what we wanted. :-)

Anyway, thoughts on the sexiness of the Emerging Church?

I think that from a popular stand point, perhaps it is waning. But academically there is a fair bit of notice going on - but will it be sustained? For that matter what will be the emerging church that emerges next? Is it the Bruce Malone post-liberal stuff? Not quite sure but for sure it is coming.

Continuing my Studies

I made it through the week. My second course is on Liturgy and Spirituality with Prof. Susan Roll. I've known Prof. Roll since she landed at Saint Paul, and taken one or two courses from her already. She's a good professor. I am more interested in the later part of the course, the beginning is too much of a Cathlocentric beginning for me. I want a more flexible definition of liturgy, the class will do this but not the text that we are reading.

Last night I met with a couple other PhD students (we all have the same director) to discuss proposing a panel for an upcoming conference at Concordia University. I hope we do it, if we get accepted I'll share some of the details. I'm a bit wary of taking on too much - met with my director and we are hammering out my themes for the dreaded Comprehensive Exam!!!! One of my tasks is to actually read some respectable evangelical theologies - I did not really get that at Saint Paul. I'm trying to track down course descriptions from evangelical universities - but my problem is I don't know which ones are really good. I found Fuller and Regent so far (Regent needs to work on its site, it was hard to get course descriptions that included required reading texts). I'm open to suggestions.

The start of this process is basically to really think through what I want to spend the next three or so years of my life thinking about. It has to be narrow enough to fit into a 600 page max thesis and big enough to keep me interested long enough to finish it. I'm making progress, but I'm glad she framed it this way. It is making me pause. I am fairly impulsive so this is a good exercise.

Continuing my Research

I need to prepare a few paper proposals this week. One is actually a panel I would participate in and the other is for Congress 2009. I'm already doing work at that conference with the Canadian Theological Society so it makes sense to try and get a paper accepted as well. I want to tie it into my Master's research on the North American Evangelical Emerging Church as well as some work I'm doing for a book on Micro-Missional Faith Communities (co-authoring with Brad Culver). I think I found a niche in looking at the formation of ecclesial identity within such communities. I can root it in the theological insights of James Cochrane (incipient theology) and hopefully introduce a dialogue that has some hope of connecting local theological innovation with formal theological discussion. We'll see.

Had my first class yesterday, Methods and Approaches in Contemporary Ethics, with Ken Melchin. The course will focus on religion in the public space and dig into the thinking of Charles Taylor and Bernard Lonergan. I'm more interested in Taylor's thinking but I should get my head around Lonergan as well. We have a class of 8 students, that is not a bad size. I think they have a smaller masters programme this year. I'm the only PhD student in the class and I'm thinking the course as is will be good. We are starting with an intro to the conversation via Rawls and Habermas, now that will be a bit insane.

Packing up the Christmas Tree

All too soon the Christmas break has come to an end. I have just a few tasks left to do - store the tree that I just boxed up, get some groceries and vacuum the main floor. Sharon will be busy putting paint on a wall this afternoon. The house is much quieter with just Chelsea home in the morning. I'm finishing up some stamps today, Switzerland is my goal. I have half of a good sized stock book full to either mount in my album (not that many, I have a respectable Swiss collection) or sort into my trading boxes. I actually sort my traders onto dealer 102 cards. Not that I am pretending to be a stamp dealer, it is just easier that way. For me the relaxing is in the process, which is quite complex. When I get stamps I first sort the on-paper (meaning someone has carefully torn away the rest of the envelope and left the stamps stuck to the paper - I like this as often well meaning folks damage stamps trying to remove them for me!) into colours. Yup - that matters. It is the colour of the envelope that is a problem. White ones are great! But colours can bleed onto stamps in the soaking process. Then I soak them in three bowls: lukewarm water till then almost fall off the paper, water with a bit of salt and baking soda to neutralize acids, and finally a clean water rinse. I dry them on wax paper covering whatever surfaces my loving wife allows. This I call the soaking party - you should join me it is lots of fun!

Dry stamps and stamps already off paper get put into a tupperware container on my desk. This was overflowing at the start of my Christmas break (in fact I had a box beside it full too!). I tend to toss anything that is damaged and my oldest daughter has been playing with those stamps. I then sort the stamps from my bin into 12 boxes (of various sizes)each full of envelopes (almost one for each country). These boxes are labelled: Machins, Regional Machins, Europe Collected, Oceana Collected, South America (which is also Central America and the Caribbean), Great Britain, Europe, Africa, North America, Asia Collected, and Australasia. These boxes are always full of goodness, ready to sort.

From the boxes I sort the envelopes into stockbooks - one country at a time. Actually I only do this for countries I collect. The others get packaged into auction lots that I take to the club's auctions or sometimes put up on ebay. A few are accumulations that I plan on making into a collection at some point - Austria is one such culprit as I have two lovely full baggies of Austria in those boxes. In the stock book I end up with rows of the same stamp. This is important because often stamps have printing variations. Today I was looking for fibres embedded in Swiss stamps. The colour of little threads in the paper will tell me which printing a stamp is. Actually one stamp had an added feature of a pike (weapon) with either 3 or 4 lines left of the guys hand. I have a lovely little 10X loop with a light that I keep constantly at hand. The other thing I check a lot for is watermarks and the interval between perforations (along the edges of the stamp). Once I have identified just which stamp is which from a row, I see what I need in my album. I prefer postally used stamps (even when the mint, or unused, version is worth more) so I sometimes switch up a stamp in my album because I now have one with a much nicer cancellation. I then update my want list and find the appropriate section of my card files for the traders. If I don't have a 102 card for that stamp variation I make one and price it at 1/3rd the catalogue value (my catalogues are from 2001, but a trip down East should net me more recent ones! Thanks to my uncle-in-law Raymond). As you can imagine my file boxes of traders are quite full. I have been getting these nice red dealer boxes - I have three of those so far. But I also use the boxes the cards come in and kleenex boxes fit perfectly sans cover. I will take a box with me to the club or us it to easily find stamps my few penpal friends ask me to locate. Everything is Scott numbers except the UK used to be Gibbons numbers, now it is both. The reason for that is I have a full colour Stanley Gibbons checklist for my favourite country to collect. You might have guessed this from seeing 3 boxes just for the UK! I love Machins.

Alas, today I will clean up the last of the collection and get my desk ready for a semester of studies. Sharon asked me what I think about when I'm working on my stamps. I told her, 'nothing at all' as that is sort of the point. I'm one of those guys who is always thinking. Stamps distract me long enough to rest. Mental work is quite taxing - despite the way that society has devalued it.

This is a bit of how I spent my holiday. I hope yours was restful too. Now back to weightier things.

Charismatics

I had an awesome visit from an old friend last night. He was off interning with the now infamous Todd Bentley. The thing I like about him is that he has a good head on his shoulders, and he isn't afraid of critiquing a movement that he also deeply respects. I'd say that his challenge is getting appropriate critical distance, but who doesn't have that challenge? (if we are being honest) However, we had a wonderful talk about hermeneutics, presuppositions and dangerous tendencies within the Charismatic world. Now to be upfront - I felt a bit out of the loop as to the players in that world, but it is the world I come from too. We both agree that the deep need is for Charismatics to interface with theologians and for theologians to interface with Charismatics. As it is most Charismatics, and this is a judgment I am making, consider having the "Spirit" as mitigating their need to have anyone teach them anything. It should not surprise us then that Charismatics have a huge range of innovations functioning in their midst - both the truly horrid and the truly brilliant. But there are no real tools for assessing innovation or even correcting some of the more disturbing innovations.

I might take up this task in detail here on the blog. It is dear to my heart. I still know (sometimes personally) half of the players in the Charismatic world. And some I deeply respect. Others, not so much. But for this post I want to focus on this notion of having the "Spirit". Which at its worst is the same old elitism that erupts in every movement that thinks it has the "whole truth", and at its best is a cry for a deeper spiritual intimacy for all Christians.

My buddy would talk about this "having the Spirit" quite a bit in regards to the inability of Charismatics to learn from others. This notion, if I am reading him right, is not that only the Charismatics that have access to the Spirit of God (and by that I mean immediate, unmediated access) but that somehow only the Charismatics have somehow ascertained the true way to maintain that access. The problems with this sort of pneumatological proposition are what led to my exodus from Pentecostalism. But lets focus on what the implications are here.

If, as is proposed and often admitted, Charismatics have immediate and unmediated access to the Spirit, by which they can only mean direct communication from God, then there should be specific fruit evident. At least my critical mind would go looking for the fruit. What should/would that fruit be? Unity? Mercy? Justice? Restoration? Healing? Peace? Love? Joy? Fulfillment? I would think none of those should escape an assessment of any theological innovation. Of all those, I think only healing has had any sort of evaluation - and that is usually the more dubious emotive healing experience of the ecstatics and not the continual assessment that can only take place years after such events have occurred. (Even still has anyone compared ecstatic healings with long term prayerful healings?) As a close second perhaps joy is also looked at - but I'm not convinced that some of the ecstatics junkies I've met really qualify as having the type of deep joy I read about in scripture.

Now I'm not building this case to discard the innovations (even the ecstatics), but to say that there needs to be a way of assessing these phenomena and bringing some of the better innovations into prominence in the corporate ecclesial psyche. In other words what gift can these Charismatics make to Christ's Church?

I am suggesting that the notion of immediate and unmediated is deeply flawed.

It functions like this. Influential Charismatic X has an experience. They reveal this experience to other Charismatics. It is given the same weight as say scripture or tradition. Such experience becomes integrated into the normative spiritual experience without any real evaluation (innovation). Others have similar experiences (supposedly - that is they at least mediate them in the same way) and it becomes normative within an ever growing population. The late John White talked about the psychology of this in "When the Spirit Comes with Power" which I highly recommend.

In that scenario what is missed is that mediation happens all the way along. (That is it is neither immediate nor unmediated). The Influential Charismatic X interprets their experience, even if it is to put a narrative around it. Charles Parnham was talking about tongues long before Asuzu (and Seymour was sitting in the hall listening to those lectures). We all have theological assumptions operative, so experiences are instantly mediated through our assumptions and our worldview(s). Now there can be worldview changing experiences, this is well documented, but even these are mediated and reined in through our internal need for coherence. We never land far from where we start. In other words it is naive to assume immediate or unmediated access to the Spirit.

Does this invalidate our experiences of the Holy Spirit? Not at all. It simply contextualizes them and better it lets us critique the innovations they lead us to. So if flopping on the floor leads to the fruit we outlined earlier - I will be the first one joining you in flopping! But if it is really only a way for me to feel good about myself, then lets work together to something more mature and more beneficial for the Church and ultimately the world that God so loved.

New Year

Happy New Year everyone. May you find rich blessings in this new year.

Problems with Salvation Language

I've been reflecting a lot on how frustrating evangelical speak can be. There was a thread a while back on the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association's yahoo group that was dissecting the idea of "inviting Jesus into your heart". The consensus was that this is not a very helpful analogy. We love these quaint little sayings that actually say absolutely nothing. And we wonder why people outside of the evangelical world do not take us serious.

The one that really bugs me right now is the saying that God/Jesus "saves our souls". Think about that for a minute - what does it actually mean? After trying to tease some meaning out of that hopelessly Hellenistic slogan I had to conclude that unless one does a careful exposition of the concept of soul from scripture - this pretty much means God is only concerned with some disconnected part of me that can neither be proven or disproven, so is easily bifurcated from the tangible aspects of life. Let me explain.

Most Westerners think of soul as that part of us which lives on after death. I suspect that many think of it as a composite of our beings, sort of a seat of personality, but that is a much more lengthy study than I'm prepared to undertake in a blog post. The idea is that soul is related to heaven - it is what we rationally connect with an after-death experience. Death being the great bugbear against which a saved soul is the perfect ward - or is it. What it really boils down to is purely semantics, that is it is just words we use to comfort ourselves in the face of the inevitable unknown. If having my soul saved is nothing more than this then I think I'll pass. Fortunately, there is another way of approaching the soul issue.

In the Christian tradition the idea of resurrection should challenge Hellenistic notions of a separation of soul and body. Unfortunately this supposed separation has led to the vilification of the flesh, another thread for another time. But we must not be so quick to separate our realities, as if the body was just some disposable husk we can't wait to shirk off. This devaluation of the body has been employed to justify all kinds of injustice - slavery and human trafficking continue today because we can somehow commodify the body. In scripture soul and body are not so quickly isolated (if at all).

The second issue is that if Jesus came just to save an abstract part of our being, albeit one that seems quite important and possibly the animating aspect, then why incarnate? What model does condescending into bodily form produce? For Jesus it is all connected. Body, spirit, soul - however you want to slice it up, it is all met together in the person of Jesus. If it was only our souls then would not ecstatics suffice? In point of fact they do suffice for many and serve as convincing arguments for obscuring ones own hermeneutics.

The third issue is that if the soul is really our animating whole seat of personality - how can be excuse our bodily existence? How can we ever justify bodily actions that do not prove a change in our souls in the here and now? I guess this is what frustrates me most - that Christianity is reduced through popular images to a pie in the sky religion while the world goes to hell in a handbasket. That sort of Christianity is not worth participating in.

Not enough effort is given into the trite little sayings we Christians throw around. Less thought is given to the worldviews behind our sayings. When we do so we risk making God into a god of convenience and a god of escapism. Neither is the God who so loved the WORLD (COSMOS) that John's gospel speaks of. Let me quote a bit of proverbs by way of conclusion. Let me first affirm that God saves all of me(you) and that must mean everything or it means nothing at all.

Do not withhold discipline from a child;
if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.
Punish him with the rod
and save his soul from death.
My son, if your heart is wise,
then my heart will be glad;
my inmost being will rejoice
when your lips speak what is right.
Do not let your heart envy sinners,
but always be zealous for the fear of the LORD.
There is surely a future hope for you,
and your hope will not be cut off.
Listen, my son, and be wise,
and keep your heart on the right path. (Psalm 23:13-19, NIV)

Merry Christmas

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas day! I just popped onto the computer to send off an email, then I'm back to playing with my kids. Santa found me and dropped of a wonderful dice bag that came with a bonus bottle of rye! Soooooo sweet.

How I Relax

I just sorted out the state of my stamp collection, that is what albums have I actually put together to house the countries that I collect. While some of my collections are better than others, I do love putting my own personal touch on my collection. So for instance in my German collection I have several pages detailing both world wars as well as a section on hyperinflation. I incorporate philatelic pieces into these sections and it makes them a bit nicer than just stamps on a page. But there is nothing wrong with stamps on a page - especially the joy of filling a page with stamps! Here is what I have so far:

Canada - up to 2001 (when I got back into collecting) in really nice Unity albums (3), after that I collect the year sets from the post office. Also I have an album of provincial stamps.

Germany - a big album for German States, West Germany, early Germany and occupation stamps. I have a second album for East Germany (DDR) and another with Berlin, Saar and Danzig in it.

Great Britain - a big hand made album. I also have a second album for Machins. In other albums I have Ireland and the Channel Islands.

Apart from that, in various albums, I have:

Australia
Australian States
Brazil (some)
Ceylon (I only collect pre-Sri Lanka)
Chile
Columbia
Hong Kong
India & States
Malta
Netherlands (Holland)
New Zealand
Peru
Switzerland
United States
Uruguay
Vatican City

Eventually I will add the rest of South America, possibly Central America and Austria. Now that I have a good handle on what is made up I can dive back into sorting. Oh such fun.

Tis the Season...

I have Internet again, yay! Even though I was off I did have a new cell phone with free internet for three months. Of course that is super slow, but it let me keep up with Facebook. I finished off my coursework with a truly delightful read of Russell Moore's "The Kingdom of Christ". He is quite careful until the second to last chapter, but even there it is a very worthwhile read. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in the development of evangelical theology in North America. His proposal of a growing consensus amongst evangelicals based on a tensional (now/not yet) understanding of the Kingdom of God is intriguing. The only unfortunate thing is that this is pretty much the book I would have written for my PhD dissertation! Ah, well I think I have some outs yet.

Christmas Cake

Ingredients:

* 2 cups flour
* 1 stick butter
* 1 cup of water
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 cup of sugar
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 cup of brown sugar
* Lemon juice
* 4 large eggs
* Nuts
* 1 bottle wine
* 2 cups of dried fruit

Sample the wine to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the wine again. To be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point it's best to make sure the wine is still OK. Try another cup... Just in case. Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 eggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.

Pick the frigging fruit up off floor. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the wine to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something. Check the wine. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or some fink. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Finally, throw the bowl through the window. Finish the wine and wipe counter with the cat.

Bingle Jells!

===
Thanks Gabe, I thought this was quite cute.

Ugh. Still not Internet.

I'm at a hotspot, seems Sympatico will not have me up properly until the 18th!

I'll post something then.

No Internet

Somehow Sympatico deleted my internet service??? Anyway, I'm back up now. Did you miss me?

Great Post and Sad News

I meant to post a link to this post yesterday, Drew often tackles issues that others avoid. I think he makes some interesting points about the way we use scripture, it is worth thinking through.

But...

I got some really sad news today. The minister of my parent's church died suddenly today. He was with my dad at the time. I'm a bit shaken up. He was one of the good guys and it was just a few weeks ago that we had dinner together (in Truro). My prayers are with his wife and their children. I already miss him. I know my dad is really going to miss him too, they were really good friends.

Promise from Moltmann's Theology of Hope

I really enjoy this read. Moltmann is wonderfully engaging. If you haven't read any Moltmann - don't deprive yourself any longer. In Theology of Hope he builds a strong case for eschatology as the center of a Christian theology. Now, those of you who hear eschatology and start getting ruptured over the rapture - eschatology actually means last things and escapist notions like a rapture really don't cut it. His emphasis is that the 'not yet' opens up a future that is pregnant with possibility. Eschatology is about a particular view of history that is shaped by an understanding of God as revealed through promise. To get a handle on this Moltmann draws our several key ideas about promise from the First Testament:

1. "A promise is a declaration which announces the coming of a reality that does not yet exist." (103)


2. "The promise binds man to the future and gives him a sense of history." (103)


3. "The history which is initiated and determined by promise does not consist in cyclic recurrence, but has a definite trend towards the promised and outstanding fulfilment." (103)


4. "If the word is a word of promise, then that means that this word has not yet found a reality congruous with it, but that on the contrary it stands in contradition to the reality open to experience now and heretofore." (103)


5. "The word of promise therefore always creates an interval of tension between the uttering and the redeeming of the promise." (104) I really like this point, it is exemplified in the tension of the Kingdom as both 'now' and 'not yet', but more on that in another post.


6. "If they are God's promises, then God must also be regarded as the subject of their fulfilment." (104) God is not abstracted from the promises as a sort of deistic clockmaker god, yet at the same time this is not a fatalistic claim that God is the only actor in history. Earlier in the text Moltmann states clearly that our lives in this world are not adiaphorais, meaning having no good or bad effect on our world. Think tension and participation.


7. "The peculiar character of the Old Testament promises can be seen in the fact that the promises were not liquidated by the history of Israel - neither by disappointment nor by fulfilment - but that on the contrary Israel's experience of history gave them a constantly new and wider interpretation." (104) That is "[t]he 'not yet' of expectation surpasses every fulfilment that is already taking place now." (106)

Exciting Timesin Canadian Politics

This topic is generating a tonne of heat over on facebook. I thought I'd throw it out here as well. As you can see I am for the coalition, in fact I am ecstatic the the Bloc Quebecois has decided to support this coalition - they are working harder for national unity than the Federalists??? Harper has to be on the way out and I think he can kiss goodbye any gains the Conservatives have made in Quebec. I find it so offensive his attacks on the Bloc. Why he can't own up to his own culpability in engineering his downfall, is simply beyond me. His penchant for bullying and US style politics led to the last election. And contrary to the little dream world he has concocted, he did not get a mandate to rule like he has a majority. He won a minority, that means Canada expects him to behave himself and cooperate for the good of the country. Obviously he is incapable of this.

I'm probably biased though - I can't say that I've ever really trusted Harper. I just thought with all the rhetoric about a more civil parliament he would have at least tried. Enough is enough and I say Harper has to go. Obviously I would rather see the Green party represented, but at this point if we have elected leaders willing to lead through cooperation then by all means we need to let them. That is why I support the Liberal-NDP coalition.

Jesus and Repentance

"John was known for his practice of baptism, which was understood as a sign of repentance (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3); but Jesus, according to John's emphatic note (4:2), did not practice baptism himself. This corresponds to a notable absence of instruction on the need for formal repentance, restitution and sacrifice. St Luke emphasises this especially. Zacchaeus offers restitution spontaneously, after Jesus has entered his house and not as a condition (19:18). When the Prodigal Son tries to deliver a speech of penitence, it is brushed aside (15:20-4). If there is, in Jesus' teaching, anything like a condition for being forgiven other than faith itself, it is, as we find St Matthew emphasising, forgiving others. And this is a condition only because it shows we have taken God's act of forgiveness seriously as a world-changing event which leaves no relations in the state that they were. On this understanding, however, it is clear that faith implies a change of life. Repentance is included in, rather than excluded by, the priority of faith."
-- Oliver O'Donovan, The Desire of the Nations, p.113-114.

Consider the implications, if this is a valid position, on our understandings of evangelism.

Interesting Vid on Evangelism

Found this on Scott Paeth's blog and it raises some important questions about strategies of evangelism. I wonder if our strategies have become way too important to us. If we are committed to seeing people come into relationship with God, then why does that have to look one specific way? It was suggested to me that the dirty little secret of evangelicalism is that we don't really like to evangelize. By that it was meant that evangelism is an often long and messy process with no guaranteed payoff. Strategies are an easy substitute and almost guarantee that if someone becomes part of your church they will have a lot of the same values you have already formed and intact - they won't rock the boat.

Fun with Church Signs

I saw this sign on the way home from my own church service.


This church is notorious for signs that make me go, "huh?" This one got me thinking - what is it that Jesus doesn't. So I thought maybe you all could make some suggestions.

Very Important Video

Jamie had this posted. It is very worth watching.



In my experience 'stuff' is the most stressful aspect of my life. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Be Not Afraid

"The lover of truth has no truer friend that an intelligent critic."
- Oliver O'Donovan

Magisterium

In a recent conversation, over on facebook, my friend Cameron keeps invoking the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. I have been thinking about this. I know from discussions at Saint Paul that what actually constitutes this Magisterium is a bit of a debated topic. For instance there is the teaching office of the Bishops, but the concept of Magisterium includes other voices such as the Magisterium of the poor. The reality, as I understand it, is that this is not a concrete well defined body of teaching, but rather a charism possessed by the whole Church and brought to consciousness to lend weight to ecclesial decisions. Sort of like the tradition of pseudopigrapha in the writings of the early Church.

Regardless of how this charism is expressed, I am wondering if this is a useful concept. In the Protestant Evangelical world, the one with which I am most implicated, there is a resistance to a definitive body that imposes dogma on the rest of us. Yet, at the same time we can be some of the most dogmatic of Christians. I think the biggest roadblock to a Magisterium in the Prot-Evangelical world is our commitment to individualism and personal revelation. This is a debate for another thread, but it doesn't mean that a Magisterium is a bad thing, just not something that would readily fly for Prot-Evangelicals. Or would it?

There is a strong leader-follower mentality in the Prot-Evangelical world. This is most clearly seen in our Fundamentalist roots. Another way of naming it is cult of personality. In this model it is a few dominant voices, claiming unmediated access to revelation as support for their truth claims, who lead the majority of followers. There is little wrestling together for what might seem good to us and the Holy Spirit, rather it is presented as a propositional reality. At least in the idea (abstract as it is) of the Magisterium, there is an attempt to acknowledge this process. The Magisterium, as I understand it, is never a single individual and almost never a dominating subgroup. Although I think there are Roman Catholics who wish this were the case.

All I Can Say Is Amen

He ends with a quote from Clarence Darrow - how very fitting.

Jim West's Desktop Challenge

I had to respond immediately. I call this one - My Girls. They are truly my inspiration. BTW can you tell where I'm posting this from?

Smells and Bells

I had a great time preaching at First United in Truro. I always feel a bit clumbsy when I am in a highly structured service, but someone had placed a huge quilt (one that is touring Canada) so that it obstructed view from the guest preacher's chair. I was happy to not be the centre of attention for the whole service. I couldn't have put together a better service - the music and prayers were all themes that have become so close to my heart: unity, justice and faithfulness. But two things overwhelmed me. First, this is the church I spent my youngest years in. I was shocked to realize how commanding a view the preacher (and choir) get of the balcony seats where I used to hide out - Doh! But more than that I was flooded with memories and the memories triggered smells (or maybe vice versa, but as it is a scent free (practice) church I'm not sure). I could smell the pine of the great Christmas trees that the young people always used to gather beside before being dismissed for the children's programmes. I could smell the wood of the pews that was an anchoring presence in my early life. I even met with the couple who'se house always made me think of a shade tree - and they still sparkled.

As we were greeting folks leaving the church, a number of ladies told me they had had me for Sunday school - I apologized to them all. But one lady actually thanked me for apologizing, she said I would never do anything I was told. But she was very proud of me, I could see that in her eyes. For me that was worth the whole trip.

Well I'm back to Ottawa today, and back to the daily grind of my studies. Oh, I called this Smells and Bells because they had a wonderful bell choir playing throughout the service, when I realized this I was thinking my daughter (my oldest came with me) would just love how beautiful they sounded. It was quite something.

From Guest Lecture to Guest Speaker in Just One Week!

The lack of words here does not mean I've forgotten my regular readers. But merely that I have been busy. Yesterday I was guest lecturer at Saint Paul University. Prof. Heather Eaton is doing a course on Religion, Culture and Diversity and needed someone to tackle Evangelicalism. So I put together a lecture on contemporary Evangelical Identity. This included a look at the significant developments of Evangelical Identity in the 20th century - material from my masters work. But the big issue I wanted to cover was how the Evangelical self-identity creates barriers in academia. I found John Stackhouse's Evangelical Landscapes (especially "Why Can't Johnny Produce Christian Scholarship") especially helpful here. It seemed really well received.

I'm still putting my message together for this weekends anniversary celebration in Truro. Quite and eventful week for me.

Going Preaching

My mom sent me this blurb from their local newspaper. The worship committee of First United Church (Truro) has asked me to come and celebrate their 248th anniversary with them. I'm really excited.

My message will be called Honouring Our Journey, and I hope to encourage them to reflect on God's faithfulness as we travel through life by sharing a bit about my own journey. I am incredibly honoured to have been asked to speak at this church. I have a great deal of respect for Gordie the pastor there. However, I think they chose the wrong picture - wouldn't this glamour shot have been so much better.

Unfortunately this was taken much too late for the article. This is what PhD students do at their super secret seminars, or at least what they do when a classmate pulls out their crazy sunglasses at the end of the class!

Bad Posture

Went to see the doctor today. Seems years of sitting improperly in front of a laptop have taken their toll on my neck. I've had really bad neck pain for at least two years now. My wife was trying to scare me into seeing the doctor, she was worried I had done some serious damage, but the doctor gave me some exercises that he felt should help. I also need to think through my computer use habits (also my posture when reading is not so good). Habits are not easy to modify - I was trying to adjust just now on the computer and devolved into my usual slump with scary ease.

In other posture news, the markets are rallying today with the impending news of a new president to the South of us here in the Great White North. I am actually unimpressed with how much of a sense of importance my fellow Canadians are placing on this election as opposed to our own election. No I do not wish I could vote in the US election. I think it will be interesting to see how the Obamania pans out if he is elected tonight. I was saddened to hear of his Grandmother's passing though. Much as I'm unimpressed with national politics these days, I think this temporary optimism, sown in the markets, does not help with the realization that the world needs all of us to do our part if it is going to be a better place. I'm disturbed by any posture that surrenders that control to others in a sort of public fatalism. That is the posture that is really at the roots of our problems in North America. We are so self-absorbed and disconnected with a world that so desperately needs us - especially those of us who claim a religious orientation of hope.

If I do my exercises perhaps my pain will eventually give way to new muscular strength. Unless the world learns to exercise our public ability to act it will be more than our necks that are one the line. Something I'm thinking about.