Interventionist History And Theodicy

A key aspect of the Theology of Hope is their theory of history. In many of the Pentecostal/Charismatic communities I've been part of, an interventionist view of history prevails. That is a view where God intervenes in history from another place, often bending the natural order. This view of God as miracle worker is often questioned by those who wrestle with theodicy, specifically why does God seemingly intervene in some situations and not in others? While this denotes an underlying karmic expectation of God, it is a legitimate complaint. If God is so fickle as to pander to the cause of just those who (especially in affluent countries) pray the "right" way, then is that a God worth worshipping? I think not. Fortunately, Theology of Hope offers a different, and I think more satisfactory, approach.

It is important to note that Theology of Hope has its roots in WWII. It is theology after Auschwitz and Hiroshima. And it is theology that is convinced that hope for the world has to be hope for the victims of these tragedies. These events can lead one to think that God is distant from and unconcerned with the follies of humans. But neither the deist clockmaker or the fickle interventionist will do as God - both should die.

Theology of Hope places history as the main place of God's activity. But not as a puppeteer pulling strings from the outside, rather as an actor who has entered into our history with us. This theology takes a distinctly incarnational view of God's relationship with history. But it also takes very seriously an idea the aforementioned views of God reject - God is a passable participant in history. God doesn't enter history to eradicate the mess carte blanche, God enters into history to live our suffering with us. This notion of historical solidarity is not passive. It comes as a response of God to the cries of God's people - just as in the story of the Exodus. But also like the Exodus we learn that God's people undergo the journey of hope, even though they may never see the final destination (and like the Exodus the journey continues to unfold).

History is not some preview to the "real" show. At the heart of interventionist notions (and its only response to theodicy) of history is the idea that ultimately this world does not matter. Theology of Hope rejects this view of history. History is where God meets us. God's action in history opens up possibilities for the future of this world. It is hope that says all the deaths and suffering of this world is not in vane, it is not just to be endured until the real show begins. It means our lives count - or should count! It calls us to act and gives us the resources to act beyond our assumed capacities, simply because we act with God. (Implicit in Theology of Hope are theologies of Grace and Christology, I will turn to those in further posts.)

This view of history is also the proof against a reason controlled deistic world of laws. If God works outside of laws then God is guilty of failing to intervene in the most horrific situations. If God is restricted by the laws then God is simply a functionary and probably no more than a construct of our minds. But God who meets us in the midst of life, where life is a dynamic range of possibilities (grace) opens a place for God's activity in history. An activity that does not violate our freedom, yet calls us to a deeper freedom that involves our conscious participation in God's project of undoing the ravages of what might easily be called our sinful acts of freedom in this world.

Hope as a Neglected Category

Kant presents three questions that should direct the inquiry of reason:

1) What can I know?
2) What ought I to do?
3) What may I hope?

I find that Evangelical theology has beat the first one to death. Despite the fact that there are still lots of diverse understandings of God, life and humanity. We tend to focus on the knowing as the prime mode of becoming. It is knowing the right thing (such as your sinfulness and need for Jesus) that matters. If you get it right then you can rest assured.

The second question has really animated what we call our liberal sisters and brothers. I really dislike the liberal/conservative dichotomy, especially when it is used to paint everything we distrust as evil. But there definitely are streams of Christian thoughts that are all about action, doing. The moral imperatives of the faith are the substance for these folks. And while they tend to do great things, they are in just as much danger of missing the boat as those who focus exclusively on the first question.

See it is not what you know or even what you do that matters. But it is about why you do what you do. The third question takes us into the realm of why. But the funny thing is that this third question is not taken up a lot. And when it is taken up it is perverted into otherworldly categories that are more about our comfort than about hope (which is a main theme of The Future of Hope edited by Volf and Katerberg). Taking up this question is the main theme of Hope Theology.

I find that the third question guides the other two. If our hope is based on a way of knowing and being in this world, then we have a context. Dogma, in that context, matters. If there is no hope implicated in dogma then it matters not what you believe. But belief and hope are dialectic with each other - hope keeps us from endless genealogies, that is theology with no practical impact on anything. And hope is also dialectic on how we live, move and have our beings in this world. Hope prevents us from simple charity meant to assuage our consciences. It calls us to action that brings justice, life and freedom to this world. It believes that this world is the object of God's love and that we participate in God's redemptive thrust in history.

Hope is an important category. What may I hope? It is a good question.

Fresh and Re:Fresh

OK it is finally out! At least there is a website for the book. Published by Allelon Publishing, whose website has been not working for ages now. I should have a book in my hands soon, they have been printed. But I really hope that it ends up on indigo and amazon so folks can actually get a copy in their hands too. These stories are important. I don't think this is an earth shattering theological book (in fact I'd say it isn't) but it does give a good Canadian sense of what is happening at the edges of our traditional church communities. For me this is my first published chapter in a book, really it is an essay and Freedom Vineyard is the focus. I look at how we are wrestling with the term missional in our context. Would love to hear comments from any of you who read it.

Thomas Berry

This month started with the very sad news that Thomas Berry had passed. He went peacefully surrounded by family. His impact on me, and many others, is hard to measure. I find Berry incredibly challenging and actually often wonder how he'd approach the issues and challenges that I run into. The earlier material I've read and watched was filled with a sense of optimism - but the realist that his later material conveyed confirmed the gravity of our future on this planet. Thursday, June 26th there will be a remembrance ceremony at Saint Paul University. I am hoping to put together a bit of a tribute in the form of a slide show depicting the wonderful story of our universe. Berry helped so many of us see that it is the arrogance of our species that has led to the toxification of our planet. In telling the universe story we see that no matter how significant, our species is but the briefest of blips in this story. As Moltmann said in "Progress and Abyss", this planet can easily go on without us, but we are utterly dependent on this planet for our survival. May Berry's life continue to foster a humble attitude towards the Earth and a sense of wonder in this amazing universe!

4E Gameplay

We had our first session of the Dungeon Crawl scenario. It was quite fun. Whole new group of players too! 4E plays quite differently than previous versions. Of course role playing is the same, I had a lively bunch so that was quite entertaining (especially Malcolm's acrobatic shenanigans!) Despite the lack of experience with 4E (and in one case with the tabletop RPG) we navigated things quite well. The odd incredulous eyebrow was raised, which is often entertaining. Here are a few of the notable differences, good and bad:

Powers Are Really Different
I love power cards, that is a great innovation. We've used something like that in 3.5 and it means my frustrations with characters not knowing their spells (I even ended up making a spellbook for one player!) are potentially over. Only one player chose not to use the cards and it slowed down their gameplay considerably. But the other thing about powers is that this is a completely different way of doing things. Powers interact (marking) and allow some pretty cool maneuvers. Powers also gives the players a nice way to make their characters unique, so big thumbs up. The only reservation I have is that now every character plays the same - they all have powers. This makes wizards more useful, although with a low BAB they are still quite useless in combat once their auto-damage spells (flaming sphere is quite nice in this edition) are used up.

Movement and Freaking Squares

Ok so I'm still not sold on diagonals counting the same as straight movements, I'll live. But now all the effects are squares?

Wizard "Watch me cast a fire cube!"
Fighter "A what?"
Wizard "A firecube, you know to avoid pesky pixelation."
Fighter "Pixie-whation?"
Rogue "My mother was killed by damn pixies!"
Frustrated Wizard "No! Pixelation. It is when..."
Party is eaten by monsters annoyed by their debate.

Squares? Really?

New Math

Remember THAC0? What a great innovation. Then D20 made things even more simple by making all the math move in the same direction! Yay! In every version it takes a while to get used to the math. Last night we discovered the addition of variables. Now weapons do damage based on interesting algebra: 2(W)+STR+WIS = ???? It is actually quite elegant when you get your head around it. But there are a lot of fun little numbers to calculate - best to do these before hand. Passive checks (nice!), Surge values (Surges are actually quite interesting. We had some fun with those in the first encounters!), attack bonus', etc. What I would say is that this is quite doable, once you have your head around the crunch of the system you are golden. Now what was W again?

Got Rid of Skill Creep

The last one I'll look at is a big Kudo. They got rid of skill creep. By combining skills into categories (and killed the ability to max these out) skill become a lot more playable. DCs are simplified as well, based on the tier you are playing at you have a baseline DC value that you can fudge around. As a DM it is nice to have a baseline.

I had a lot of fun DMing the new version. I think it is quite playable. I ditched a few things - milestones? meh. I'd rather award things like that in a more arbitrary fashion. The scenario we are running does have a boss on each level so that warrants an Action Point. I'll have to give milestones some more thought later. BTW for the DMs out there, nothing beats a creepy tapestry to cause the players to waste an hour in an empty room.

D&D 4E Initial Thoughts

Ok, so colour me skeptical. Part of my problem was that I had spent so much money already on 3.5E and you know that game works. We've house ruled it just the way we like it and so why would I want another version of the game? Well a couple of factors led to my purchase. First, there is no denying that the game is, at least in some ways, simplified. So when we hatched the idea of running a game for kids 4E seemed like an option worth looking at. Second, I did a bit of work for Wizards of the Coast and they paid me enough to pick up the new set (plus an extra book). I like to support the company that produces such a fine game so in went my Chapters order.

The books have mostly sat on my shelf since then. My local barista, Ric, has been after me to run a game for him and his boys. He plays 4E, being a young'un, and has this silly notion that writing the odd piece for Wizards gives me some DMing cred. I would say that I do have some DMing cred, but only because I've got quite a few years DMing under my belt. So I pitched the idea of running a 4E version of Richard Dufault's thoroughly enjoyable Dungeon Crawl. In that game I played a Warpriest named Marvin. It is a pure dungeon crawl, so the DM is free to level the dungeon appropriately.

Well, one of the biggest hassles for a DM is all the preparation she/he has to make before running the game. I know back in my own youth filled days Advanced D&D had rules for random dungeon generation - 4E brings some of that back but I find it isn't that good for spontaneous sessions as the original. But I'm not sure I'd find those random sessions fun anymore - I sometimes use randomly generated dungeons in my 3.5 game, but with heavy modifications. (My players like to tease me about the infintely thin walls!) But here is where 4E really delights me - it is very easy to put together.

The hurdles first, there are a few. I use DM Genie for 3.5 to create stat blocks, it is amazing. There are tools for this in 4E, but you have to pay a subscription for them and they are online. I am sure DM Genie will have something, if it hasn't already. But until then it is not easy to customize monster stat blocks. How the designers compensate for this is to have lots of examples in the Monster Manuals. For now that is a great option, but it means buying more books - something I'd rather spend money on than a subscription! The other hurdle is that everything in the rule books seems to lean towards highly leveled encounters that favour the players reliance on combat to solve problems - an experienced DM can easily recognize and reject this ideology. Part of the fun of D&D is creating a role playing environment where all different types of gamers can have their moment to shine - not just the combat tacticians.

So the boon is that putting together adventure materials is so easy. It took me no time to understand what was required for an encounter to function. Monster stat blocks are actually quite impressive, and so is the emphasis on tactics for each particular foe. I made up a MS Word template for the stat blocks, believe me I tried to find something useful online - if you know of anything that isn't subscription based please let me know. And then I banged out a quick and dirty process. Create a random encounter chart - I actually didn't like the way they do this, encounter decks are something I liked for a while, but not flexible enough on the fly. So I created 12 variable (in numbers of critters) encounters that are ordered based on XP ranges.

Second step is to create the treasure parcels. I was skeptical of this, but it is really an improvement. Treasure is tied to a particular level and not a specific monster. This way I can spread it out or even pile it up with just the level boss! As treasure is placed in rooms, with encounters, it simply gets scratched off the list. Nice.

Third step is to map out and populate the dungeon. I stuck to the 8-12 room range, the theory is that 10 rooms should be a level. That's a good ballpark for what I am doing in the dungeon crawl - each level ends with a boss (usually a dragon). Populating the rooms is then quite simple. I write a bit of flavour text about the level in general (halls, doors, etc.) then I list the rooms. I've named each one, but that is just for my own amusement - Layover at the Roxbury is one of my rooms - and each one has a bit of readable flavour text. Then I list the Features of the room, including Perception and Thievery DCs needed as well as gp values for items that the party might take the time to remove. The next step is to list the monsters present (if any) and then the treasure (if any). Voila you have a dungeon!

After I have a list of all the possible monsters, both random and pre-planned, I then create a second file that is the stat blocks. Keeping these handy for fights is my main concern. A level works out to two pages of text, a map and 3-5 pages of stat blocks. Now that I have a bunch of blocks done it is pretty easy to put that part together. I just wish I had better action symbols! Anyone got a font out there? I found a nice font for re-charge dice.

The next step is to see how this plays. I am thinking Saturday night at my place. I want to limit it to six players, there might still be space if you are interested in a bi-weekly dungeon crawl - 4E style! I'll let you know how it goes.

Missional

I was recently in a conversation where the word missional was being thrown around. At least three different church leaders used this term in describing their own church, and all of them meant something different by it. A couple years back a number of my emerging church friends ditched emerging/emergent for this term. While emerging/emergent can mean everything you like or dislike about modern Christianity - missional has a root that is harder to deny. For many of us in the evangelical world, missional sounds like it should be a definitive word for what we are doing - after all isn't our role to treat the world like a mission field? I'll let you mull that over.

The idea of missional needs some qualifiers though. Do you mean missional in terms of a general disposition of your congregation to support traditional missions abroad and maybe even at home? That is one way I hear it being used. Or do you mean missional in terms of an orientation of your congregation towards bringing people into your church - by whatever means you feel God has led you to employ of course? I hear that a lot too - it is basically using missional to describe what others have named attractional. Or do you mean missional as a means of saying that your congregation is embedded in the cultures they are trying to reach - implicated in their very lives? This is where some would get antsy - but this is another way this term is being used.

One of the problems is that these terms represent ecclesiologies that are often contrasted against each other, somehow captured up in one little word. I have two problems with this. First evangelicals have a weakness for words, we love to use them but we are less enamoured with precisely defining them. This is actually a liberal impulse that is meant to preserve religious diversity, but it leads rather to a relativistic use of words and impoverishes the majority of evangelical writing. (I know that is a judgment, one shared by others frustrated with the lack of precision and unpacking of assumptions in evangelical literature.) The second problem is that this word is skirting a battle that needs to be had. This one might surprise you.

Watching folks throw the word missional around uncarefully leads to some interesting situations. I can see how the other views of missional are looking for ways to express their paradigm but with a sense that their knees have been knocked out. The attractional-incarnational battle is still there beneath the surface. This actually creates a distrust that festers beneath the surface and prevents folks from connecting and understanding where the other is coming from. I think those things need to battle it out - and with the traditionalists thrown in the mix. And not because I think one is better than the other - I don't. I think they are simply different. And the only way to hold difference in tension and unity is to acknowledge it and commit to mutual understanding. One question I never hear is why does that person/group gravitate to that paradigm? I think about that in these conversations - and it amazes me how little we actually know ourselves let alone each other. This reality compounds the problem. The less we know why something appeals to us, the more afraid we will be of losing it.

In the end I'm wondering if we haven't just wrecked yet another word. Missional? What is missional?

Busy Week

Monday I drove to Bancroft to hang out with leaders from the various Vineyards in Ontario. I always appreciate those gatherings. Larry Levy (Halifax Metro Vineyard) came up from the Atlantic region to bless us. Larry is an amazing guy and we love visiting his church when we are down East visiting my family. I really felt affirmed amongst my peers, I have taken over as the regional representative for Thoughtworks. Thoughtworks is the theological development group for the Vineyard in Canada and I am hoping to find some ways to do theological mentoring of our Ontario pastors and leaders in a way that will work for folks already very busy. Ontario is a funny place that way. The reality is that there is a lot of work that could/should be done but most pastors are so busy that their own personal development is low on the priority chart. I think most of us know the value of continuing to grow, but it is easier said than done. The other focus I'm going to bring is trying to connect and encourage our Vineyard folks in formal theological education. I have seen many students trashed by their local churches (not in the Vineyard so far, but I bet they have been) because they started to push questions that make many evangelicals uncomfortable.

I'm back from the conference and scrambling for CanGames this weekend. This year I'm running just one game! Tomorrow morning I have a custom scenario for Injurious Games called Gatecrasher! Basically it is capture the flag, but with rocket launchers! I have the glue setting on my last piece - a robot with a heavy laser and a huge fist (the technical name is the Nut Crusher). That guy speeds after the flag and pummels anyone who dares capture it. It is going to be a lot of fun. I'll spend the whole day at the con tomorrow and at least the morning session on Sunday. Monday, I'm going to Star Trek. So much to do.

Yoga as a Spiritual Practice

One of the things that detractors of yoga get right is that it isn't just an exercise programme. Yoga is a spiritual, even a devotional, practice. Many Christians who want some of the benefits of yoga will go to great lengths to isolate the yoga from its true nature. The fear is, as we discussed in the last post, syncretism. The error is that spiritual practices are conflated with religious contexts. It comes from a very surface analysis of religious groupings - where we identify various groups on the basis of their devotional/spiritual practices rather than the content of their religion (such as truth claims). In our worst efforts we conflate truth claims with the practices. Hence, Yoga becomes yoked to Hinduism.

Indeed we owe Hinduism a debt for the development of yoga. Just as we owe any religion for the practices that it introduces into the world that make the world a better place. Practices such as Christian peacekeeping or even creation care, Buddhist and Hindu non-violence, Charity, Love, Reconciliation, Forgiveness, and the list goes on. When we start to look at individual religions, including Christianity, we find the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Unfortunately when it is something that develops in a religion that is not our own chosen religion, then we tend to lump it all in with the ugly. Christians are so good at this they can even do it from denomination to denomination.

So lets start with the assumption that yoga is also part of this good, bad and ugly mix. I think that is a fair assessment. Knowing people involved in the TM movement there are aspects that many Christians would/should be extremely uncomfortable with and there is a naivety in some of the assumptions about personal peace and world peace that would give many Christian incipient theologies a run for their monies. Starting with this assumption lets draw a clear line between devotional practices and the object of devotion.

This assumption is at the heart of the PraiseMoves effort. Let's leave aside how arrogant and offensive I think this proposal (PraiseMoves) really is. Willis is speaking out of her inability to separate the devotional practice with the practice of yoga. But she also outlines her considerable baggage in this enterprise - classic Starbuck twice-born thinking. She also can't deny the benefits of yoga especially as a spiritual practice. Christians, BTW, are good at spiritual practices - rosaries, fasts, retreats, pilgrimages, initiation rites, etc. So Willis has two core ideas in conflict - so she basically steals yoga and re-appropriates it into a context that she is more comfortable. Although renaming classic yoga poses probably is still a tough sell for her market demographic. (BTW the part I find offensive is the dishonesty in all of this, on one hand she trashes another religion and then unashamedly rips them off.)

A big problem here is that now we have yet another subculture that has severed its ties to reality. It loses its redemptive potential as well as its voice in the practice of yoga. It is also counter-intuitive for Christians who are the great adaptors - Eucharist being the primary example. Cut off from the world out of which yoga comes we are unable to assess properly the purpose and learn the techniques which make yoga so great. Just read Willis' exposition on the namaste (prayer) pose - complete with scriptural proof-texting. Actually namaste has a lot of similarities to shalom, although it has a different purpose. She is right that it implies an honouring of the light we see in another. But as Christians we believe the true light of the world is Jesus and we honour Jesus in others knowing that it is the work of Jesus in the other that draws her or him to the Father. In fact we look for that light to help us show them more of God. Yet, if we become convinced that light can only mean something other than the obvious - we cannot appropriate its meaning. (And we should probably drop a lot of other borrowed practices too!)

So, to sum it up, I want to understand what is going on for the Hindu practitioner of yoga. I want it to be a spiritual practice. It is of more value if it is integrated into my whole devotional life. When there is, in yoga, an opening to the divine - why would I fear that? In fact I say come Holy Spirit. God is not afraid of yoga, in fact I know for certain that God longs for us to be truly open and receptive. Our Western minds love to separate the spiritual from the secular, we love to compartmentalize God out of the picture. But yoga is about integration, yoking oneself to the divine. Didn't Jesus talk about yoking somewhere.

I think a quick caution is needed here. Certainly there are those who will find this hard to get their heads around. If that is you, bless you, you might want to avoid yoga. What I'm calling for requires more than just participation in yoga as an exercise. It means navigating, often with great difficulty, the integration of a new spiritual practice into your devotional life. That should always be done with care and great thought. Look for the fruit. Yoga is embedded in a whole worldview and way of life, that needs to be unpacked and valued if it is to be truly helpful in developing a Christian devotional practice. You are bound to make mistakes so look for the fruit, especially the fruit of God's presence.

Namaste

[note this has been edited, thanks Marnie]

Syncretism and the Combative Gospel

Paul Knitter defines syncretism as a distilling of "all historical differences between religions in order to institutionalize their common core." (No Other Name? p.9) I start with Knitter because I think if anyone flirts too much with syncretism it is he. Be that as it may, I think he understands the feared subject quite well. (I much prefer McDermott's approach.) I will start with an assumption that syncretism is not a desired response to religious pluralism. If you have religious commitments then why should/would anyone expect you to lay down your distinctives? To stand on religious ground is to claim that there is something distinct (even good) about your religion. Syncretism really cuts to the heart of that and leaves us only with a relativism. To take such a position really counters the claims of Christ and thousands of years of Christianity.

However, much of the distrust of pluralism (the reality we live in) has fostered a fear of syncretism in the contemporary North American evangelical church. Some blame Barth, but I think really this is a cultural phenomenon. I am more convinced that it is an evolution of any religion that adopts a combative stance towards culture. And some of that combative stance is the honest product of dealing with the tension of plurality. But I'll leave that to Charles Taylor - I want to zone in on how we have structured the gospel as warfare in a way that is guaranteed to never win.

We Blew Up the Bridges!

We love to use the bridge illustration, but we are convinced that the gospel is really only an escape route. This is only really good news for those who buy the bill of goods. In fact it really isn't that good of news for those folks either, because they have to tough it out in the "battle zone" until the final extraction. Moltmann points out that this sort of religion is unable to present any hope to the world (which is ironic because it is billed as hope).

This is the form of Christianity that I first encountered. It is the same form that had me burn my Peter Gabriel albums even though Peter is largely responsible for my turn to Christ. It says that there is nothing good in this world, especially in your life before you said that magic prayer. It tells you to isolate and settle into the cult of mediocrity (a play on Schaeffer), biding your time until the real show comes. It misses completely the whole point of the resurrection - that God is doing a new thing in God's object of love - the world.

So where are the Christians who bought into this gospel of battle? Outside not looking in. Actually they are looking up and desperate for anything that will dispel the hell they know the world is becoming - why? because they have turned their backs on the core call of the gospel - to be in this world (not of it) as agents of Christ, looking for what God is doing and partnering up with it in every way they can. That is not syncretism - that is bringing the full force of your Christian identity to the world that so desperately needs it.

We Dehumanized the So-Called Enemies

In order to get people to kill other people, we must first dehumanize the others we wish to eliminate. It is one of the saddest things about military structures. It might be necessary for the military to do its job - but I often wonder if we really need a military in the first place. But I am certain we do not need warfare mentality in the Church - at least not towards other people. Yet, over and over, I encounter a sense of willingness to trash the beliefs of others for the sake of the "gospel". Think about the absurdity of that. If you don't believe me go watch Ray Comfort's street preaching videos.

The fear of syncretism has become the fear of infection. If we listen to the other then we might catch what they have. There are two problems with that. First, if you are afraid of losing what you have got then maybe you haven't got what you think you have in the first place. If your faith is never challenged, then it isn't faith it is a desperate clinging to an ideology that makes you feel good and might not necessarily be true. The problem is we are addicted to surity in the West and not enamoured with God.

Second, what makes you think that you have the market on the truth? There is a real arrogance to any religion that writes off the spiritual journeys of others. Any God who is able to speak through an ass (I mean the animals, but this also applies to the Ray Comforts of the world) can also speak to and through any person regardless of his or her religion. Actually read the bible and note how often God works through the gentiles. Yet, the arrogance of modern evangelicalism is such that we would have nothing to do with these voices of God. We miss the strands of eternity that God has patiently woven in the lives of every man, woman and child. We devalue our brothers and sisters - so it should not surprise us that we easily kill them off (their voices anyway).

I think there is a caution to be made about sycretism. Relativism is not a helpful response to pluralism. In fact it is not even a necessary response. What I hope is becoming clear is that there is another way. We can value the journeys of everyone. We can realize that we are in this world together. We can look for common strategies. We can encourage the strands of God's grace when we see them, and in so doing even reveal to people the way to Christ. But we need to see that the cross is not an exit, but an entrance into our world. It is the event that changes everything. It is an event that is planted deep into the world and through resurrection hope brings transformation to everything. We aren't called to wait - we are called to love, that is give of ourselves until we bleed and share in the power and joy of that resurrected life both here and now. Something to think about.

Yoga and Christianity

I am in the midst of a really interesting conversation about yoga and syncretism. I have been exploring yoga as a way of strengthening my neck and back, as well as introducing some physical exercise into my bookish existence. Tomorrow it will be three weeks of about an hour a day. I'm really impressed, right from the start I could feel the difference. My body felt great, I've had constant body pain for years now, and my mind felt clearer. The first few days I was simply doing yoga for dummies, which is North American mass market yoga. Sure, it has a component of slowing down and becoming more attentive to the self. But really it is devoid of the spiritual references that some expect from yoga. I moved from there to some more mass market yoga routines, finding a nice 1 hour session called I Love My Yoga. Still no spiritual references but I'm already seeing possibilities - and so my searching on the internet turns up some interesting stuff. But just like Christians who have their own takes on everything, so do the yogis have their own takes on yoga. Some tie it in quite strongly to their Hindu meditation. Others capitalize on questionable assumptions about the spirit. But most seem to shy away from the extremes. So just as I shy away from the Christian extremes I think it is safe to stick with the main and plain for our analysis.

About finding potential, well it really came in the closing meditation. This is called Shavasana and consists of laying in the corpse pose and reflecting on the good your session has done to your body and mind. It is about bringing your presence/attention to what is happening in your own body. Something Westerners are not that good at. During Shavasana there is a moment where the instructor on I Love My Yoge encourages you to thank yourself for spending this time on yourself. Well, as soon as I started to think about thankfulness my mind turned to all that God has done and a prayer of thanksgiving was instantly filling my mind. That moment has become a time of grounding prayer for my day. It is when my attention is turned to the Spirit whose temple I have just been preparing, a time when I can say come. It is interesting that after this we return to a seated prayer position and pronounce peace on all around us - namaste (a word that means greeting of peace and a recognition of the light - I see Jesus all over that!) So I'm capturing some of the spirituality of yoga, but appropriating it into a Christian spiritual foundation. The question is: is this legitimate?

I have some thoughts, love to hear yours.

Rik Leaf - Tribe of One - Buy This Album!

Rik Leaf sent me his latest album and it is really good. I have been hesitant to bring it in from the car to do a review, simply because I am enjoying listening to it. This album seems more straight forward lyrically than his last album, but at the same time he is venturing out into new styles. I love Je Me Souviens, and yup this album has some french content including the wicked french verse of this song. The sense of multiculturalism is foreshadowed by track 1: The Maple Leaf. Seriously how could a truly Canadian album ever not be an eclectic mix of languages and styles? Above all my favourite track is Lonely. If I'm in the car for a short drive that is the track I turn to. It reminds me of Leaving on a Jet Plane, but in a haunting way. Rik, I just have to say thanks. Not just for the CD, but for the music. I look forward to hearing some of this stuff live, until then I'm keeping it in my car. You, well, I recommend you buy your own copy.

Christian History Eddie Izzard Style

Love the Scooby-Doo line!

Review: The Immigration Crisis by James Hoffmeier

I liked this book. Now considering it is really more of a Biblical study than an indepth analysis of the issue of immigration, that is saying something. No one can accuse Hoffmeier of not being thorough in his examination of the texts. I was really impressed at how he laid out his assumptions regarding the text and carried that throughout the whole book. He has some good critiques of the ways that social justice advocates treat the texts of scripture, and while he deconstructs their proof texting he does not trash their projects - rather he simply points out where their projects extend beyond the reasonable application of the texts. I think this is a very healthy approach to the issue.

My opening statement about the focus of this text, as a biblical study, does not mean that Hoffmeier fails to tackle the issue of immigration. In fact the opening chapters show an intimate connection to the issue as well as outlining what is at stake. His discussion of illegal versus legal aliens is worth pondering. But even more attention should be paid to his discussions of how we treat the aliens in our midst. I wish he had spent more time on his treatment of Christians as aliens. But still this book is a solid work and a very worthwhile read.

The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible, James K. Hoffmeier (Crossway books - out April 30th, 2009)

Detoxifing the Body and Mind

I started yoga yesterday. Yeah, I know I don't have a good track record with exercise routines. But it is just about an hour since I did my second session (about 45 minutes) and I can't remember when my body has felt this good before. Now I'm taking it easy, using a yoga for dummies video I found online (plus trying to find poses and neck exercises to help me out). Anyway, it is really good so far. Gentle and I actually feel it - especially in my hamstrings. (I think that's what they are called).

So I'm thinking about yoga and the claims that it detoxifies the body. And I make a connection with how Len's post got my brain spinning. Which really was an extension of a webinar session I attended yesterday afternoon. But my thought is this: the way we read scripture and inoculate us against scripture. Let me unpack that a bit.

I lament the teaching mode of protestant churches. Our liturgy is really centered around a sermon. There have been some great efforts to counter this, personally I think Wimber was on this track. But the problem with the sermon is that it might have had an ideal cultural moment - but this isn't it. People aren't engaged in long narratives. And most sermons cater to this shift - they string together proof texts into a mish-mash of irrelevance and downright heresy. I often cringe in services that I'm subjected to sermons.

Now don't get me wrong. I am a preacher at heart. I love to teach from the pulpit. That is probably the irony of my realization. But I recognize that we need a more wholistic approach to both scripture and to liturgy. I'm going to focus on detoxing from scripture in this post.

The problem I see with scripture is the assumptions we bring to scripture. First we have a false notion that scripture is simple. In my response to Len I say we treat it like a how-to book. If you are looking for simple answers to specific life problems then back away from the bible. Seriously. You can make the bible say just about anything you want. That is a low value of scripture. That toxin kills scripture in your life. Scripture is not a random assortment of promises just for arrogant you (me). It is a drama. It is the ultimate drama. The story of a people wrestling with who they are as the people of God. It is the straining to appreciate what possibilities open up in light of the Christ event. It is a story that lives with us and should grow to be our story. It is patient, wise and available - yes. But its wisdom is never trite, it never panders to our ignorance and it is always more than we give it credit for.

The second false notion is that all scripture has the same weight. This is our erroneous notion of infallibility. We've actually turned scripture into our idol. Scripture is meant to fit in a context. One of the worst innovations applied to scripture has been chapters and verses. Dividing it us has made us lazy and leads to the false assumption that we can lift snippets out and apply them however we like. Look at the great arguments within Christianity - how many of them are over particular readings with the assumption on each side that they are correctly dividing the Word of Truth? It boggles my mind. This toxin leads to what my Baptist friends used to call lucky dipping! Context is not the enemy - wanting a quick fix is.

See the remedy is having a high view of scripture. Not idolizing it, but really embracing it. Bringing your life to it as a whole. Resisting the urge to skip around, but sticking with a book until the story becomes our story. This might mean putting it aside for a bit - seeking God and then starting over. But detoxification is a good process. Toxins destroy life. We do well to get rid of them.

What is Christian faith?

"Christian faith is not a set of ethical principles, nor is it a compelling logical syllogism that leads all rational persons to necessary conclusions. Rather, at its centre lies an event or an experience that occurs in life. Faith is the testimony of persons who have encountered the power of God who is forever at work in human history, breaking the bonds of evil and restoring hope when hope has been lost. Christian faith is the attitude of confident expectation that, in some mysterious way, God is at work both personally and socially and that we can experience this activity time and again through our lives. This faith restores our commitment to responsibility when evidence would incline us otherwise. The most critical effect of this faith is to halt the radical acceleration of evil that occurs when we give up on the possibility of the good." Ken Melchin, Living with Other People, 97.

Quotes like this affirm my call to study theology, so full of life and challenge. God must become more and I must become less.
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Arneson Failed his Last Save

I heard the news Good Friday. We lost Gygax last year so now both of the creators of Dungeons and Dragons have gone on to roll dice with the Big Guy. Here is the OOTS tribute. Over on the Christian Gamer's Guild Alex posted a snip from an email conversation he had with Dave Arneson. In it Arneson recounts what happened when a new pastor came to serve his church and spoke out to the elders against Dungeons and Dragons. Arneson (long time elder) wasn't even there and they basically came to Arneson's defense. The pastor realized that he was speaking from the hearsay. It is unfortunate that so many Christians bought into the BS spread about the game. Both of the founders came from religious homes and if they had any ulterior motives it was to create a game that depicted the epic battle of good against evil. Their only crime really was to teach a generation that it was ok to use their imaginations - imaginations that God gave them. If you think about people who did something that touched a whole culture - it is gonna be a pretty short list. The influence of Arneson and Gygax's creation is still playing out today (pun intended). Thanks for the game Dave. You will be missed.

Modified Eucharistic Prayer (St. John Chrysostom)

This is the prayers I will be using to open the table for the sensory service. Thought you might like to comment on it.

[Wash hands in personal penitential reflection; arrange the elements, pouring the wine into the decanter along with 3 drops of water]

It is fitting and right to bless and praise you, to give you thanks, to worship in all places of your dominion. For you are God, ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, existing always and in the same way, you and your only-begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit.

You brought us out of non-existence into existence; and when we had fallen, you raised us up again, and did not cease to do everything until you had brought us up to heaven, and granted us the kingdom that is to come.

For all these things we give thanks to you and to your only-begotten Son and to your Holy Spirit, for all that we know and do not know, your seen and unseen benefits that have come upon us.

We give thanks also for this ministry; vouchsafe to receive it from our hands, even though thousands of archangels and ten thousands of angels stand before you, cherubim and seraphim, with six wings and many eyes, flying high, [aloud] singing the triumphal hymn crying:

Holy, holy, holy Lord; Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

[Softly] With these powers, Master, lover of humanity, we also cry and say: holy are you and all-holy, and your only-begotten Son, and your Holy Spirit; holy are you and all-holy and magnificent is your glory; for you so loved the world that you gave your only-begotten Son that all who believe in him may not perish, but have eternal life.
 
When he had come and fulfilled all the dispensation for us, on the night in which he handed himself over, he took bread in his holy and undefiled and blameless hands, gave thanks, blessed, broke and gave it to his disciples and apostles, saying, [aloud] “Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you for forgiveness of sins.”

[softly] Likewise the cup also after supper, saying, [aloud] “Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

[softly] We therefore, remembering this saving commandment and all the things that were done for us: the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the session at the right hand, the second and glorious coming again; [aloud] offering you your own from your own, in all and for all, we give you thanks, Lord, and pray to you, our God.

[softly] We offer you this reasonable service also for those who rest in faith, Fathers, patriarchs, matriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics, and all the righteous perfected in faith; look on us, O God.

And remember all those who have fallen asleep in hope of resurrection to eternal life, and grant them rest where the light of your own countenance looks upon them.

Again we beseech you, remember, Lord, all the faithful servants who rightly divide the word of your truth, all the ministers and priests, all who serve your Church.

We offer you this reasonable service also for the whole world, for the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, for those who govern our land and keep the peace, may you through them fill our land with peaceful life in all godliness and honesty.

Remember, Lord, the city in which we dwell, and all the cities and lands, and all who dwell in them in faith.

Remember, Lord, those who bring forth fruit and do good works in your holy churches and remember the poor; and send out your mercies upon us all, [aloud] and grant us with one mouth and one heart to glorify your all-honourable and magnificent name, [sign] the Father, [sign] the Son, and [sign] the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the end of ages. Amen.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever. Amen.

[softly] O LORD, may all your graces and blessings and gifts be showered upon your Church, upon the sheep of your flock, that we may offer unto [sign] you praise and thanksgiving and to you only-begotten Son and to your Holy Spirit, One God, in all worlds unto the end of ages. Amen.

Behold the mystery of God in the sacrament which Christ has commanded.

[Fill the chalice; raise the bread and say aloud] The holy things for the holy people.

[Break bread and place on plate] One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father.

Come, for all has been made ready.

Holy Week

Liturgically this is my favourite time of the year. It is a bit exhausting though. We had our regular service last night, but now the special services begin. This year we are doing our annual Good Friday sensory service. Sharon and I have planned out 6 stations on the theme of Christ's Passion - Our Redemption. They include:
redeeming our relationship with God, redeeming our relationship with our selves, redeeming our relationship with each other, redeeming our relationship to the world, redeeming our relationship to time, and redeeming our relationship to money. I only have to get some thin ribbon, bread and wine yet. I usually get the bread the day of if I can't convinced someone to bake it fresh. I still have a lot of work to do to get this service ready.

Also we are having an Easter vigil. Andrew and Lori are hosting a midnight candle mass. I love this service, for some reason it didn't happen last year. We really need it because I left the corporate candle in the car too much last summer - it is very warped. Did you know those thick candles could get warped? We have been using the same candle for two years now - every Eucharist and special service. Those candles are like energizer bunnies! Good thing. What I love about the Easter vigil is that the primary liturgical feature is the community reading scripture to each other, at least how we do it. This is the first time we've done it so late, so I'm not expecting a large turnout.

All Comes Tumbling Out

Last week was like a wave crashing through my life. So much to get done and between life, sickness and the unexpected I wasn't sure I'd get it done. But Thursday I handed in my paper on Wimber's liturgical spirituality. Friday I handed in my last progress report for the academic year. And then came home to crash.

What was cool is that after I finally dragged myself off the couch I realized that I had all this pent up creative energy. Great because I needed to get something ready for my D&D game that night. So now I have a clear sense of the next 95+ days (game time) and I have some really cool base story to work with. To top that off we had a great game session.

But today is the real stop.

I went out to buy something I've wanted for a while - flying bases to make some custom miniatures for my game. Sounds simple, I've even seen them. But I could only find Warhammer bases that were quite a bit too big. No thanks. So I tried the second thing I was out to buy today - a hypoallergenic cook book. I got to a very busy Chapters only to remember that I had a few websites of recipes to look at first. It is one of those kinds of days. So I kicked around there a few minutes and headed home. Just feeling like something that washed up on shore. I know this will pass, probably sooner now that I've acknowledged it.

Hi Mom!

So my mom actually reads my blog. What do you know.

Just a bit of an update. My presentation in Montreal went very well, but I woke up the next day not feeling so good. Hope I didn't leave anything for Matte and Dean! I'm going to spend a bit of time tuning up the paper and then see if I can't find a journal to be its new home. If I was feeling better I'd be ready to get on that - but alas being sick has meant my brain feels cloudy. It is worse when I take anti-histamines, which I've had to do a few times. At least I'm able to sleep.

I'm winding up the semester. A few odds and ends to clean up for the courses. I am so glad this is it for courses. I have my comp list finalized (I think, the email from the faculty came and I gave it my approval) and so for the next five months I will be reading, making notes and researching the background for the 20 core books on my list. I also want to do the following:

* build an academic resume
* prepare my SHRC/OGS applications
* write my paper for the CTS (Congress 2009)
* clean my office (maybe streamline my library)
* start up a new house group (Freedom style)
* write a custom scenario for Injurious Games
* prepare a bunch of my D&D campaign - I'm dipping into really old material these days.
* install a flood light
* paint a window frame
* take a vacation

Not so bad a list. I have 5 months to prep for my comps - should be enough time to do those things too.

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.