How not to Campaign

This is the second time I've seen Baird's signs torn down. I was able to snap a picture. Much as I want to see Baird defeated in my riding (and ultimately Harper), I cannot approve of tearing down each others signs. It is almost as bad as the hateful attack ads that Harper's Conservatives have been using. Seriously, this is not the US people.

Now this is more like it - my buddy Richard made me a shirt with this logo on it. How long would I last at a Conservative rally with this bad boy on? Would I even get in? I am appreciating that this current election seems to have motivated folks to reflect and hopefully act! I am also encouraged that the Green party is doing well in several ridings - I really believe we need this important voice in the mix. Frankly I'd like to see even more options enter the fray. I'm hoping for another minority or even a coalition. I want to see politicians govern democratically, not dictatorially. That is what my country is made for (despite the lies Harper spins about our government structures).

Preparation Thursday

Tomorrow is a PD day - which means I will have to keep the kids from messing up all the cleaning I do today to prepare for our annual Good Friday Sensory Service (7PM @ 122 Pinetrail Cres, all are welcome). Click here for a sample of what we've done in the past. This is one of the high points in our communities liturgical year. I am hoping this will not be an exception.

We've had a bit of a turbulent year, both personally and as a community. Last year we celebrated quite a few highs which is always encouraging - but since Christmas there have been quite a few unexpected twists for us. Recently I announced that I would be stepping back from leading kinships (small groups) until at least September. In a sense I feel like this Good Friday we will reflect on the end of one season and prepare our hearts for what comes next. I feel like the contemplation in the garden will have a new significance for us, as well as the reflection on the tomb.

I am hoping to do six stations this year: The Stations of the Cross (hall), the tomb (laundry room), the cross (dining room), the passion (living room), the garden (kitchen), the Eucharist (dining room), and prayer (living room). The tomb is a new one that I'm hoping will work. I am going to blanket off part of our laundry room so that it makes a small closet. I found a website that plays white, pink, and brown noise - I'm hoping that this will allow me to create a sound barrier so that when you go inside this make-shift closet and close the door - you are in the dark of the tomb. I will put a chair in there for those with mobility issues and a small table with aromatic oil (probably oregano). I'm hoping to get the kids to make a huge picture of a stone to cover the outside of the door.

This year I'll be switching out the clay for a cross craft that Sarah put together. I'll leave the mirror intact. She has been good at making little take aways for these services, the belonging book marks from a few years ago were awesome.

If you are free Friday night and want to experience something a little different - please join us.

Getting my Head Around Complicated History

I'm prepping a course for May on Pentecostal/Charismatic movements in the 20th century. The frustrating thing is that I'm not sure I'll get the numbers I need to run it. I need 10 students minimum and am pretty close. The thing is I've spent most of this week intensely preparing for the course and will probably use most of next week doing the same. It is fascinating and all - but if I end up not teaching the course then I basically wasted a lot of time prepping something that isn't going to run. And it is complicated - just getting my head around all the different holiness groups that predate classic Pentecostalism is a job and a half.

I did try to choose something strategic in proposing this course - but I might have had an easier time putting together something I've been researching recently. Over the years I've tried to keep up on Pentecostal scholarship - and there is some good scholarship to keep abreast of - and I do take a particular eschatological focus in my own theology that I owe in part to my own Pentecostal heritage. But it is one thing to read Dayton's Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (for instance, it's one of the many I've been re-reading) for interest and quite another thing to read it to flesh out lecture material.

Hopefully I'll find out soon if the course will go or not. What to take a history course May-June? It is going to be a lot of fun. If I don't then maybe I can pitch the course to another school. Hmmmmmm.

Voting - Green and Proud

I'm thinking a lot about the election this year. It is another chance for us Greens to get some representation. I am convinced, especially talking with young people, that it will be a watershed moment. Even if we just get one in - it will give a sense of legitimacy to the party for those on the fence about voting Green. I keep hearing the tired old - you are going to waste your vote speech, and it is simply untrue. First off, much as I think Harper is a slimy PM - voting to get someone out is irresponsible. We should take democracy much more seriously. Weigh the issues and vote someone in who represents our views. If no one matches - do what I did and join the party you most align with and be party of their policy development. Second, our system might not be proportional representation but it does reward every vote with money to improve the parties chances on the next election. And finally it sends a message - the more votes that your party gains the more people will realize that any party can make it. Heck if the Alliance party can make it (devouring the Conservative party in the process) then why not Greens?

Much as I dislike the idea of Harper anywhere near the Hill - I'm voting Green because I still believe in democracy.

Whoever, you decide to vote for - I encourage you to vote.

Shifting Priorities

It has been a year since I left seminar to write my doctoral thesis. I know that some people take many years to do it, but I need to get it done fast. But a year later and I had not even finished my first chapter. My director kicked my butt a bit and I made some hard decisions.

First I took a sabbatical from the church. I broke the news last night and it seemed to go ok. I know that once the kids get out of school then my time to work will become much more precious. Family has to be a priority - my goal is not just to get a PhD, but to do it and still have my family at the end. Both of those take time and with Sharon working it means that we'll have to keep to a schedule. I also think it will be a good experience for the church. I've been at this for ten years now, without a break. The church needs to see if they want to be church enough to do it without me. My intention is that in September I'll gather whoever wants to come over to my place and pray about what God might want to do next with us. It is also a good chance for those who are struggling with the Vineyard aspect of our church to pray about whether or not they belong in Freedom Vineyard. I am proud of my denomination and so whatever the community that forms around me looks like, it will be in relationship with the Vineyard.

The other thing I have done is cut my gaming in half. I was DMing every week and it was getting to be a bit much. It is fine when I have lots of material to use, but when they start getting through it I can lose up to a day getting the next bit prepared. Richard is going to take over DMing in one of my groups so I will get to play for a change. Best thing about that is I just have to show up with my character (and it will still be at my place).

On the more busy side though - I am prepping my first full course. What a lot of work! I have a literal pile of books to read and I've got slides ready for the first two lectures. Only nine more!

And the best news is that yesterday morning I mailed a complete draft of my first chapter to my director! It was a great feeling, I know now this is doable. I also was able to map out the work ahead of me - which is helpful. Chapter 3 is the only one right now that I have a lot of reading for. I'm going to read Tim Harvie's Ethics of Hope for that one - I'll definitely post a review.

Ubuntu FTW!

What a frustrating day! We've been having a string of things breaking. Our car's tensioner rod broke (as if I know what that is, it has to do with the belt and costs way too much!) One of my kids broke the stair railing, I fixed that already. And I suspect it was also one of the kids that has broken the back of one of our dining room chairs??? This is all on top of Sharon's mom still not healing properly from her hip operation. I wee bit stressful here. Oh and my parents are coming tomorrow so we've been cleaning up a storm - you should see how tidy my office is!

With all of that I was not prepared for today. Actually it started last night. Sharon called me in because the computer would boot just so far into WinXP and then the whole machine would reboot. In safe mode it kept dying on the same .sys file - so I thought I'd just kill that file and see if that helped. Of course I can't find a way to get onto the computer because it will not boot. I found a bootable disk image with all kinds of rescue tools - $10US. An hour or so later I am ready to get the machine up. Only problem is that the files I want to save are all on an NTFS partition. OK so NTFS4DOS to the rescue and I manage to move them to the partition that I know is good. But I still cant get anything off the computer??? I think it was 1:30 when Sharon came down not able to sleep - I was a zombie so I shuffled off to bed.

Soon as I get the kids off I go to work. I have a few IDE drives around, but again NTFS and I realize the xcopy is not doing more than one file at a time - even with wildcards. Thus my backup? Who knows how effective it was. This is when my friend Becky tells me she has a SATA/IDE to USB device I can borrow. It is a pretty cool tool. Too bad neither WinXP nor Win 7 would mount the drives properly. So I need more options.

I was looking at Ubuntu the night before, but thought this could be a lot of time for nothing. I downloaded the .iso for a bootable CD and what do you know - I waste my only 700MB CD-R and about 8 DVD-Rs before giving up. I couldn't get the faulty machine to boot off a USB key, so I formatted an SD card. It was an option. But it wouldn't actually boot from it??? In fact after the first failure the machine refused to boot at all! So I brought the thumb drive into the office, loaded Ubuntu onto my netbook. Plugged in the hard drive with Becky's gadget and managed to copy the church financial records and music database. I even snag mine and Sharon's doc folders! But then the drives crashed and I couldn't remount them??? Oh well, at least I had the most important stuff.

Relieved to get that much I packed everything up and went to make supper. That was my whole day. So much for getting work done on my thesis.

After supper I tried the evil machine again and managed to get Ubuntu up and running. I even have full access to the hard drive! I am letting people check their mail.

Down to Business

I know I've been very slow at posting here lately. In addition to trying to stay on task with my thesis I also have been experiencing a fair number of crises lately. The one most pressing on our family is with my mother-in-law who broke her hip almost a month ago. Three surgeries later and she is doing much better, but it has been a long hard run. Lots of thinking, tears and anxiety have been met with prayers, perseverance and the comforting wishes of friends. But I have accomplished a few things in the meanwhile.

I posted about my struggles with adult ADHD recently and have since managed to see a psychiatrist who seems well versed on the matter. I'm very hopeful that this will work. He also was clear that diet and exercise are critical to dealing with ADHD. Stuff I knew but didn't want to have to deal with. Sugar is your enemy. I decided to leverage Lent and give up candy - which is sort of my thesis writing comfort food. I'm also trying to limit other sources of sugar, but it is not always easy. He wanted me to give up alcohol too, but considering I have maybe a beer a week and the odd glass of wine with a meal I decided to not do that one. But I have managed to get back to the yoga mat more consistently. It is important to take care of yourself when you are doing hard mental work.

So if you don't see me posting all the time you will know why. I hope to return to posting soon, especially as I begin prepping my summer course on Pentecostal/Charismatic movements in the 20th Century.

Mourning the Loss of Another Friend

I've been really swamped with stuff in our community and just plain living of life. This week brought some more sad news as an old friend passed away. Brian and I shared a house when I first moved back to Ottawa. He was house sitting and I got to stay when I left Mississauga. Mississauga was a hard time for me and having a safe haven in Ottawa let me get back on my feet again. I loved that we prayed and worshipped together in that house. I know I was a frustrating roommate, pretty naive about a lot of things. Brian letting me stay with him was a real provision from God.

I lost touch with Brian over the years. I would get updates from our mutual friend Joyce. Joyce even arranged the one dinner where Brian met my wife Sharon and I got to meet his wife Cindy. I always felt like I would reconnect with him at some point, but that will not happen now. Brian is leaving behind a wife and three children (the youngest is 7) and there is a funeral tomorrow. If you are the praying type comfort is my heart for his family.

THO 2176: Thinking in Tongues

I now have copies of the Summer evening course schedule for Saint Paul. Despite having my last name misspelled, I am so excited. The course is primarily historical in content. It will begin with the classic Pentecostal movement, looking at its roots and manifestations. Then we will look at the Charismatic movements with a special focus on the Catholic Charismatic movement. Lastly we will look at the neo-pentecostal movements and what I would like to call Pentecostal futures. Pentecostalism is growing and pervasive, it really needs to be examined seriously. I'm excited to have an opportunity to do so with a class this summer. Students and auditors are welcome and you can beat the end of term rush by signing up now with the faculty of theology at Saint Paul University.

HT to James K. A. Smith for the course title - this is the title of his book which is part of the excellent Pentecostal Manifestos series put out by Eerdmans.

Still Foundational

I was asked to speak at Dominion-Chalmers United Church yesterday. They are doing a Thursday noon devotional series for Lent. The question they asked me to speak on was what difference does the call to be a disciple of Jesus make to my ministry/vocation. What a great question. It is very similar to my buddy Mike's recent question about why I felt I needed to be a pastor. Mike is quick to call me on magic words like feeling called, those words really don't get at the heart of what is really being asked. And really, vocational callings, if they are really callings and not simply aspiration, can bear the scrutiny that is required to fulfill them wisely. So I've been thinking of this quite a bit recently. What difference does it make? Why is Jesus so important? And what does it mean to be a disciple? It didn't surprise me that exploring this took me right back to the story of how I ended up on this Christian journey - what evangelicals like to call their testimony.

I don't like telling my testimony. My issue is that I'm a fairly dramatic crisis oriented person (a la William James) so many evangelicals think I have a great testimony. But I get concerned that we evangelicals can fall in love with the dramatic stories and miss that God meets us all uniquely. The worst case is when evangelicals feel compelled to embellish their stories - that makes me sad. Our culture can be quite elitist and does not value the experience of the prodigal's older brother who loved God from early on. I know some of those people and that they are often made to feel quite inadequate in evangelical conversations. So I just stopped. So it was with a bit of fear and trepidation that I shared some of those stories with the DC crowd yesterday. And thankfully it seemed to really hit a good chord with the folks who shared with me after the talk.

The thing that connects for me is that in my story I see a repeated motif. The motif is that I find myself confronted with a choice between a life that is meaningless, merely going through the motions, and a life that makes a difference in the world beyond my self. In one my response has always been to seek escape, but in the other I feel compelled to put my hands to the work that is before me and not look back. And always in my life, at the center of these moments of decision, is the person of Jesus Christ.

Some of that centering on Jesus has to be attributed to growing up in the United Church in Truro, going to Sunday school and, as I discovered later on in life, having people praying over me and my family throughout my whole life. So it shouldn't be surprising, in my case, that Jesus would figure large in the critical decisions of my life. But for me it is not only a sense of Jesus asking me to choose to be a disciple, it also means that in my effort to walk that out I have found it most meaningful when I turn to Jesus as the author and perfecter of my faith.

When I try to center my life around Jesus I find that there are things I naturally want to do. Two in particular form the basis of my vocational choice: community and encouragement.

In terms of community, I don't think I'm particularly good at building community, but I love it. And I love that Jesus continually welcome people to the table. I see in Jesus a passion for community, hanging out with people, engaging in the messiness that is relationship. And even though I'm really an introvert - I crave this enough that I go about creating it wherever I can. So if you ever wondered why I love this so much - blame Jesus. But seriously, this part is the challenge for me. And I still have tonnes to learn about community, but as a vocation it is something I'm ready to devote my life to.

The second is why I have spent so much time, energy and even money, becoming a theologian. I love to see people come alive in their lives. I love to see them connect how their lives can make a difference in this world. I love to encourage people. Now, I'm not a big yes man. I'm particularly hard on spiritualities that are so inward focuses they are merely masking an effort to escape meaninglessness. And part of encouragement is pushing people to be better. I take that seriously. If I were to say what I am called to it would be to help people engage in their spirituality better. And the reason for that is rooted in a lot of things - but probably most significantly in the fact that this is what people who loved me did for me.

When I put Jesus at the center of the second vocational choice I am constantly reminded of how uniquely he treated every situation/person that came across his path. Jesus had an amazing ability to draw people to think about things better. People made radical decisions when Jesus was around. They stepped out and did things that really bugged those who loved the status quo. I aspire to that. It gives me hope that this choice is a good way to imitate Jesus, after all at the core of being a disciple is being more like Jesus.

I'm glad the talk went well. Even traveling in there I thought it could go either way. I took a risk, and am glad it struck a chord. I hope that chord keeps resonating throughout this Lenten season.

Book of the People and People of the Book

As promised I wanted to blog a bit about the sessions I did for Knox Presbyterian here in Ottawa. First off I really enjoyed the engaged conversation we had the last night, what a great group of people. I hope that I was able to stir up a dynamic conversation around our relationship to and with the Bible. I think this is one of the more important areas for contemporary Christians to wrestle with.

My strategy was to spend the first night deconstructing how we understand our relationship with the Bible and then the second night reconstructing it, hopefully with a better understanding of what we desire Scripture to do in our faith and communities and with a better understanding of how we might have placed restraints on the text. Both are needed to make this work, so I was quite happy with the number of folk who took in both sessions.

In terms of deconstruction I went about turning the assumptions we often make about the Bible into the questions we should be asking. So when we assert that the Bible is authoritative we need to ask in what way is the Bible authoritative? These are not natural questions to ask of our primary, as Protestant Christians, symbol. In fact when we look at our feelings we can often find ourselves wanting to defend our claims rather than examine them. This actually shows us how foundational the Bible is to our spirituality and even identity. The fear is that if we begin to dig deeply into those foundations our whole sense of self might come tumbling down. I think in some ways that fear is true. But there is a risk in not doing it - the risk is that we will discover eventually that we might be building on those foundations in ways that actually are not faithful to our claims about the Bible being foundational to our lives and communities. It is not pretty when folks make this realization on their own.

At the end of the first night we left presented two questions to mull over until the second session. First, how does the Bible shape us? Which is the safe question in some ways - but I think it can help reveal the ways in which we resist having our lives shaped by the Bible. And second, how do we shape the Bible? I love the anecdote from Free for All (Conder and Rhodes) about the biblical scholar who is asked to tell a congregation what the Bible says about homosexuality. He sits the Bible on the pulpit and waits. When nothing happens he declares that the Bible doesn't say anything about homosexuality on its own - it needs to be read and reading is an act of interpretation. This is the piece the seems to bug us most - when we challenge the myth that the Bible somehow mediates itself. Which, if this were actually a quality of Scripture, would not result in the vast array of interpretations that Christians hold onto. The hard part about this is to know what we are bringing to the text when we read it. Sometimes we don't even know. Both of these questions are ones we can return to over and over again. But where deconstruction is helpful to reveal the true character of our existing relationship with/to the Bible - the reality is that a spirituality without the Bible really has a tenuous claim to being Christian.

When we are rebuilding our relationship - we need to pay attention to what we expect and desire from a relationship with Scripture. For many of us that encounter with Scripture was the place of encountering the Word behind the word. In fact the way it is described is transformative, and I think that aspect of the relationship is always worth preserving. The genius of the devotional reading of Scripture captures this aspect nicely. While it is not the same thing as Biblical Criticism (or even Bible study for that matter) it serves a valuable function because it insists that the text remain dangerous. By dangerous I am referring to capacity of this encounter with the content of the text as challenging to our own ideas and views. It is exactly the opposite of what is practiced so much in preaching - where the text is used to support our ideas. The devotional reading is meant to confront us, challenge us, and spur us on towards love an good works.

The other problem with devotional readings though is that it is an intuitive process. We often do not reflect on how much we bring to the spiritual practice of devotional reading, so like Augustine, we can find ourselves doing what we think is the right thing but in actuality is not right at all. Think about slavery for instance - both sides of the slavery debate rested on the foundation of the Bible. Today, I'm certain, most of us would hold slavery to be unconscionable. But this is a relatively new development. And what shaped the position for the stakeholders was their presuppositions about the humanity of the people who were being trafficked as slaves. While we cannot know what we don't know - in terms of all our assumptions - we can find help in a second way of relating to the Bible - Biblical study.

Bible study should not be conflated with devotional reading. If we can make this distinction then I think we can ease a lot of the fears about Biblical criticism. We can also insist that more critical Biblical study needs to be in conversation with the devotional reading that animates the community. In our example of slavery it wasn't Biblical study that changed hearts and minds - it was a shift in the assumptions that were being brought to Scripture. But Biblical study can then take up its task in light of both the contemporary situation and the historical witness of text and tradition. Often a process that strengthens our capacity to relate to the Bible in a healthy way.

In our talks we took this conversation one other place. The remaining problem is where this conversation is worked out. I proposed a reflection on the community as the place of interpretation. Certainly we are not all accomplished Biblical Scholars, but some in our communities do possess such skills. What we can do is wrestle together. We can draw on whatever depths there are in our communities - but also with the understandings of those who are interacting with the needs of the community and society. We can foster conversations that challenge us as the people of the Book to live out what we discover in the Book of the people.

Game Summit 2011 - So Good!

I wanted to post this right after the Summit but life took a strange turn. I think it is important that I share a bit about the conference and how it worked so well for our family this year. As I mentioned before Sharon took the kids over on the Friday night while I DMed my regular D&D game. What I didn't expect was that Sharon would be stoked to go back the next morning. She had a great time. Saturday we all went over and played Kinder Bunnies, gave up on a pirate game and played a doodle game with Ken and Aeron. So much fun. Sharon and Chelsea left around 2PM so Elyssa and I ate hot dogs for lunch while playing giant chess! She found her groove painting minis - she is really good - and I played Alien Frontiers with some of my friends. Not a bad game, but a bit on the geeky side. They dug into a version of Powergrid after that but I wanted to do some shopping - both box sets of Killer Bunnies Ultimate Odyssey for $40 (that is six decks and goodies). Sharon came and picked us up a bit after 5PM so she could go snowboarding with our friend Cindy. BTW KB Ultimate Odyssey is not bad.

The next morning Sharon wanted to come again! But she had to work and it was better for her to rest up after a string of very busy days. I took off with the kids for a final day of gaming (and yes I did make my speaking engagement at Knox that night, I'll blog about that soon). The kids started out painting, Chelsea got cut off early as she is fast and not near as meticulous as Elyssa. I jumped into a demo of Small World - such an awesome game. At first the mechanics seem a bit Risk-like (I'm not a big fan of Risk) but way better. And the game is also somewhat friendlier - a person is going to get a new race anyway so it is not as bad when you go after their territories. I thought Elyssa might like this game and with Chelsea playing Carcassonne, Jenga and Guess Who? with a new friend, we had enough time to start a second game. The picture above is from that game. Sunday is also the garage sale, I bought Pipework which is a cute little card game - we have a tonne of these card games and they get a fair bit of play in our house - and Khronos which was $20. Haven't tried it yet, it is too geeky for Sharon.

Now I can't wait until next year. The only complaint I heard was the registration system on-site did not seem secure (credit cards). We had pre-paid so it didn't effect us but one of my tech savvy friends was a bit shocked. I would definitely encourage you to go next year - pre-register so you can pay in cash at the door (or better yer purchase you passes online before the event! Game Summit is definitely worth it. I can definitely see it outgrowing the Nepean Sportsplex.

Saddened by the Loss of a Friend

I still am having trouble believing the news, Rob Hall was killed in a tragic accident Monday. I got to know Rob through the regional Vineyard leadership gatherings. He was a leader that many of us highly respected and valued. I was really excited when Rob announced their plans to travel the world with kids in tow. Sounded so amazing, no one expected it would be so costly. Rob leaves behind his wife Kate and three young children. I can't imagine how they are dealing with the situation. They are still in Africa where the accident happened, and Rob died serving people. My prayers will be with Kate and the kids and my heart feels broken for the loss of a friend.

Game Summit this Weekend!

I'm pretty stoked for Game Summit this weekend. I was hoping to actually put something together, maybe run a game or help my daughter run one, but not this time. However, it seems that we might all go over as a family for some of it and try out some new games together. One of the things I love to do with my family is play games - the kids are finally old enough to play fairly complex games, for instance my 8 year old loves Killer Bunnies!

Tomorrow is a PD day, so the kids are off. Game Summit starts in the evening, but I have my regular D&D (Rathbone) game. Sharon might take the girls over though which will be very cool. We are hoping to find something to do Monday too (Family Day), last year we went ice fishing but I don't think that will work this year - too warm.

Sunday night I'm delivering part two of my series on our relationship with Scripture called the Book of the People. The group at Knox Presbyterian were really engaged with the topic two weeks ago, I think we will have a great conversation this Sunday night too. Speaking of Presbyterians, my buddy Wayne is presenting his thesis proposal tomorrow morning. Another one from my seminar is about to launch out into the deep waters of writing a thesis.

A Perspective Worth Thinking About

I understand this brave woman was asked to remove this video to retain her good standing with her church (LDS) that makes me sad. I am often frustrated by the ridiculous argument that same-sex marriage will somehow undermine the legitimacy of heterosexual marriage.

Cyborgs are Coming

It has been very eventful these last few weeks. The first talk at Knox went quite well and I'm still putting together the second one. Unfortunately though, my mother-in-law took a tumble and is now a cyborg. Having a close family member in the hospital means a lot more organizing. I think every one of us is tired out. In the midst of this there is so much to be grateful for. Sharon's mom actually managed to crawl to a phone with a broken hip! (Yeah I had been after her to wear an alert device already) I gave up on the ADHD treatment about a month ago, the cost wasn't worth the benefits, but am working through some cognitive stuff with a counselor. And despite a few days of unwriting (trimming the extraneous bits from my thesis) I'm making good progress on it - my goal is chapter one by the end of the month! Also our friends' two year old is making a miraculous recovery from a horrible car accident - he's got a long road ahead of him but it has been amazing to hear the reports. And Egypt, holy mackerel. We are going to celebrate with some Egyptian friends this afternoon. Lots to be thankful for.

Upcoming Talks @ Knox Presbyterian

In February I've been asked to come and speak to the congregation of Knox Presbyterian in Ottawa. I will be sharing for two nights, Feb. 6th and 20th, on the relationship we have with scripture. The official title is The Book of the People, which is a shortened from what I was originally thinking: The Book of the People; the People of the Book. The phrase People of the Book comes from my Muslim friends, it is a way I've heard them describe Christians and Jews. But what strikes me about it is that I am convinced that Christians are becoming less and less the People of the Book - meaning that the importance of scripture is waning. It isn't that there are less appeals to scripture, it has to do with the role of scripture in our midst. Scripture is not seen as the authority, but is used to validate authority. What I mean by that is that scripture is used to bolster our pet ideas and make our ideological stances with little regard for the text itself. It is used as a tool. I think this is backwards. Scripture isn't a tool. Scripture is much more dangerous than that. It's authority should come not from our ability to bolster our pet ideas with proof texts (often torn out of context) it should come from scriptures ability to transform our thoughts and actions. Book of the People should not mean that Scripture is at our mercy, but that we should be the people who are shaped by the book. But we do this by relating to the Book - so ironically it never stops being the book of the people (which it always has been - even when it was written it was written as the book of the people) provided that we always remain the people of the book (the people who's identity and orientation are shaped by the Bible).

Join us, I'll spend the first night talking about what has happened that has shaped our relationship to scripture as it is today. The second night I want to look at at least two strategies that folks are using to challenge the form our relationship with text has taken. Those two are a return to text as story and a return to the notion of communities of interpretation. These are not the only strategies, but they open up hope for new shapes of our relationship with scripture.

Game Summit!

Last year I took my daughter and her friend for a whole day of gaming. So much fun. My daughter even won a copy of Monopoly City. This is a very friendly atmosphere, which is different for a gaming conference. Consider hanging out with us this Family Day Weekend!

HP Lovecraft

I recently gave a very brief review of my pick for book of the year. Of course I had to pick an unusual suspect cause this year I've been jazzing on Cthulu Mythos by the creator himself - Howard Phillips Lovecraft. HP died 30 years before I made my entrance onto the stage called life, but his work really resonates with me. First of all he writes horror when horror wasn't about slashers and gore and gross out factor. Rather, HP writes in layers, layers of "I don't dare continue the story ... but I must!" It is, as I said at Julies blog, delicious. I think the reason it resonates so strongly with me is that as a theologian I have the inquisitive nature of the academics in Lovecraft's novels and I traffic in the world of mystery, depth and even the unthinkable things that keep me up at night. I know the drive of not being able to let go of an idea even if it challenged the very foundations of the beliefs I hold so dear.

Longing for Middle Ground

I've been thinking a lot lately about how easy it is to polarize issues. A recent blog post over at the Ontario ThoughtWorks blog has sparked a conversation regarding the content of one of our courses. I had to admit that the course was not one I'd investigated much - I know the couple that developed it and appreciate them greatly. For me the thing that comes out strongly is that I really believe there can be a middle ground - a place where a variety of approaches and views and actually sharpen each other and bring out the best in each other. So I'm reticent to speak ill of any contribution that seems to be bearing good fruit - and even to struggle to find the fruit that its participants claim to see.

My buddy Mike came over and we were talking along similar lines. To paraphrase one of his observations, it is easy to employ cynicism to tear apart views we dislike, but harder to find out what it is in those views that is compelling. For me the compelling aspect is much more interesting than whether a view is right or wrong - and I am less and less convinced that right and wrong exist outside of contextual realities. Sorta like when Scot McKnight says that God's wisdom led God to inspire misogynistic scriptural texts - it is equally plausible that this is mere cultural capitulation and not a product of God's inspiration at all. (See Blue Parakeet, p.157.) But then we get into the whole debate about different views of inspiration and fall into that same trap of needing the one right thing instead of living in the tension of a reality that is much more messy than black and white will ever convey. What is compelling to me is why McKnight wants to frame it the way he does - and I think that has something to do with the way he understands tradition.

The reality is that sometimes the fruit isn't worth the cost. At some point that needs to be faced - but I think it can only humbly be reached when both sides are fairly heard. And I think that good methods and views can be horribly used - so having the high ground in a debate does not imply responsible application. Life gets pretty messy - which I why I long for the middle ground, the radical middle as some have called it. I know it is not always a realistic position - but it is where I feel the conversation needs to rest at least long enough for the polarized positions to be shaped by the other views.