The Road Goes On

sorting hat

2005-07-15T08:38:00.000-05:00

I'm a Ravenclaw!

(courtesy, The Ivy Bush)

Who creates all these quizzes? (Does anyone actually score as a Slytherin? Do they admit it?)

My wife and I bought The Half-blood Prince last Sunday and we both finished it within the week. I re-read The Order of the Phoenix (book 5) while I waited my turn. I had forgotten a lot about the last book -- the longest, and most frustrating (for the reader and Harry) of the series.

My take? Good stuff -- if you're already a fan. I think you either respond pretty strongly to the characters and world Rowling's created (especially the characters!) or you don't. I doubt Harry Potter will attain classic status, but there's an innocent fun about it all that I really enjoy -- not that these last few books haven't been dark in their own way; it's just that Rowling obviously cares and enjoys writing these immensely. The moral framework is so straighforwardly about responsibility, discernment and goodness -- that's what I find so refreshing.

Not again . . . .

2005-07-07T15:49:00.000-05:00

Lord, have mercy.

How horribly ironic that this morning's attacks came right after I wrote about our recent addiction to a TV show driven by various terrorist threats.

I'm in shock, and very sad. It's easy to say or think: "I need to be praying for everyone directly impacted by these attacks." It's much harder to quiet myself enough to do so.

I spent six months in London in the Spring of 1998 -- one of the best times of my life. John Britt, a retired, semi-deaf widower (and one of the most unforgettable characters I've ever met) graciously opened up his little home to me, even offering to take me siteseeing on weekends in his car, so we could venture further out into the countryside than most tourists. He was an anglophile's dream: a quirky, slightly eccentric older gentleman always wanting to be the charming and witty companion. My British friends closer to my age all got a kick out of him, too. He was a relic, in many ways. He would say things like, "Cheerio!" in all sincerity, and would at times feel the urge to give the bartender at the pub a pound or two, saying "and one for yourself . . " I was fascinated to hear his stories of the Blitz -- the last time London withstood an attack of this magnitude.

He's the first image that comes to mind when I think of London. Next is Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church in Covent Garden and all my friends there (many of whom no longer live in London, but I'm still going to try and find out if they're alright).

All this is to say, even though it's an ocean away, my personal and emotional ties to London are much greater than to New York, and today's events hit home in a different way than the TV images of the catasrophe there four years ago.

I have yet to watch any footage; I've just listened to the radio. But I did see this:

King's Cross station is not only where aspiring witches and wizards catch the train to Hogwarts (at platform 9 3/4, I believe), I walked through the area in the center of this map nearly each day going to and from work. It was about a 3-4 mile trek, but I loved it. There were so many alternate routes and interesting things to see on each of them.

This is not a time to be preachy (in the pejorative sense), but ever since 9-11 these words have held my attention. It would be a mistake to leap directly from them to a Christian theory of statecraft and a detailed counter-terrorist policy, but by no means is that because Jesus' concern was with individuals and their internal dispositions.

Luke 6
20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

27 "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

You can call it a self-loathing liberal guilt complex if you like, but I hear Jesus' woes addressed to me. And I hear them not merely as curses against the haves in the name of the have-nots. I hear them as a realistic assessment of the way the world works.

So the question is, will I be among those who are willing to listen? What will that mean? What kind of witness will give others the chance to hear this call as an invitation to life, to the father's reward, instead of utter foolishness?

You're going to have to trust me . . . .

2005-07-06T21:13:00.000-05:00

Forty-Eight hours of my life that I'll never get back . . . .

I admit it. My wife and I have watched the DVDs of Seasons One and Two of "24" in the last three weeks.

I haven't lounged in front of the TV this much in a long time. And I generally maintain an attitude of smug superiority toward prime-time TV, making this a pretty humbling confession.

In our defense:

It's July in Central Texas. Cold-climate folks are driven indoors for long stretches of virtual inactivity in mid-winter, the same happens here in mid-summer. You reach the point where leaving the house to run errands takes an effort of will and you'd better take care of all those errands in one trip: you (or, at least, I) won't want to go back out again. If there's ever a good time of year to get addicted to a cliffhanger network series, this would be it.

It's always great to find something both of us enjoy watching together. I was lucky the Lord of the Rings films were released in the early stages of our relationship when my wife was more interested in watching movies with me than being vocal about her true viewing preferences. On the other hand, I quickly began a habit of falling asleep just as many of her favorite movies shift gears and the comedic portion of the "romantic comedy" gives way to the tragic near-miss and its eventual happy resolution. (Could we be more stereotypical?)

It's just fun TV. The storylines waver between riveting and silly, but the intensity rarely drops. The acting and casting for the most part make up for those ventures into the ludicrous. (Not just Kiefer Sutherland. It's the supporting cast that really makes the show such quality viewing.) The whole real-time thing is well done, using split-screens to remind us of all the simultaneous crises. I think some of the annoying storylines (like random kidnappings with no connection to the central plot) are there to maintain the real-time intensity while other characters elsewhere move on to another scene. (I suppose that's when these folks go to the bathroom, grab a bite to eat, etc. -- all the things you'd surely try to do at some point in a 24-hour period.)

No doubt, it's an extremely violent show, particularly for network TV. As an almost-convinced pacifist, I have to at least wonder if watching a parade of killings and violent interrogations can be merely mindless diversion. So I can understand the inspriation for Camassia's recent reflections on playing Risk with Mennonites.

Book by Book

2005-06-28T14:33:00.000-05:00

I’m s-l-o-w-l-y working my way through reviews of books I’ve read since Christmas. My plan – and I still hope to head this direction – was to blog summaries and responses to much of what I read (usually about three books at once).

It’s not a natural habit for me. I enjoy reading for its own sake and I often convince myself that even when I don’t do the hard work of summarizing and responding in words, the book has become a part of the ongoing conversation in my head and I’ll remember enough to return if needed. I can think of at least one seminary course in which my grade was slightly lower, not because I didn’t read (it was historical theology, I loved the stuff), but because I would only grudgingly write the required daily reading reports and often blew them off.

I no longer think that’s good enough. I want to ensure that I don’t simply consume books for an aesthetic buzz or to lift my thoughts out of everyday anxieties and ambiguities through abstract reflection. More importantly, too much non-stop reading without engagement and response on my part is detrimental to my spiritual and mental health. For someone who loves words and aspires to be reflective and purposeful, I’m a terrible journaler and an excruciatingly slow writer.

So, here’s what I want to comment on before returning to grad school for the first time in two years next month:

Eric Jacobsen, Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and Christian Faith

Albert Borgmann, Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

J.H. Yoder, The Jewish Christian-Schism Revisited

Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer

James Wm. McClendon, Jr. Ethics and Witness (Systematic Theology Vols. I, III)

Brad Kallenberg, Ethics as Grammar

Chris Anderson, Teaching as Believing: Faith in the University

C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia (I’m just finishing something like my 8th read through the entire series. This time I’m reading them in chronological (not publication) order.

I'm not sure who, if anyone, checks this blog anymore. If you're reading this, and you have any words of wisdom on developing a discipline of regular writing, let me know (and yes, I have read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird).

Wise Guys

2005-06-03T09:31:00.000-05:00

Robert Parham at Ethics Daily has an interesting and funny column on vanity. He starts off quoting Ecclesiastes, but then spends most of his time talking about hair, taking some funny shots at notable 'dos within the Baptist world.

Best pithy summary of the differences between strands in the Biblical Wisdom Literature:

Proverbs: "The Early Bird Gets the Worm"

Job/Ecclesiastes: "Ah, but the second mouse gets the cheese . . . ." (to be said with the same Yiddish accent Eddie Murphy used at the end of Coming to America (or did Arsenio play that guy?).

Regime Change

2005-06-01T16:38:00.000-05:00

HoustonChronicle.com - Baylor's interim chief hopes to heal the wounds

Yesterday was Robert Sloan's last day as President of Baylor University. After a bitter and divisive last few years, he resigned back in February.

I've written about this whole deal elsewhere, believing that Sloan's controversial attempt to make Baylor a legitimate top-tier research university thoroughly grounded in Christian convictions is an important story worth watching -- even if you otherwise wouldn't have any interest in the fortunes of a Baptist school in Waco, TX.

I still have greatly mixed feelings. I can see the argument that a lot of this mess has been caused by relationally tone-deaf ideologues who've run over people in the service of noble ideals. Yet on the other side, I simply hear people for whom Christian convictions really don't mean anything other than being nice and preserving the status quo.

How do you strike the balance between wanting a community, congregation, etc. to have a healthy sense of defining (and true!) convictions and not running roughshod over people in the name of those convictions?

Garry Wills has argued that Robert E. Lee is the prime example of one who, when forced with a difficult decision, chose community over principle: better to remain loyal to one's own (staying with Virginia) than cut yourself off from the roots that nourish you (accepting leadership of the Union Army). Do I love Baylor enough to accept that the Texas Baptist old guard for the time being still makes up the majority of Baylor's constituency -- even if that means that the primary theological stance of the institution (to the extent there is one) will be a negative one: "We're not mean, intolerant, in-your-face fundies . . . that's our unifying confession."

Soldiers of Christ I (Harpers.org)

2005-05-31T16:27:00.000-05:00

Jeff Sharlet of The Revealer investigates one of the lesser-known power-centers of conservative evangelicalism for the May issue of Harper's. It's a lengthy close-up of Colorado Springs' New Life Church and Pastor Ted Haggard (also current president of the National Association of Evangelicals).

Yes, Sharlet is no unbiased observer, but I know the world he's describing, even though it's been a while since I've really been a part of it -- and he pretty much hits the mark.

Re-acquainting myself with this wing of the American church really stretches my commitment to ecumenism. Even though I'm by affiliation a low-church protestant I really do feel a closer spiritual kinship with folks on the opposite end of the Christian spectrum and even members of other religions than this wing of American Christianity. I say that with deep regret.

I also think I'm realizing that the biggest source of my discomfort with much of the praise & worship musical genre is its close affiliation with churches like this.

Here's a section:

In Pastor Ted’s book Dog Training, Fly Fishing, & Sharing Christ in the 21st Century, he describes the church he thinks good Christians want. “I want my finances in order, my kids trained, and my wife to love life. I want good friends who are a delight and who provide protection for my family and me should life become difficult someday . . . I don’t want surprises, scandals, or secrets . . . I want stability and, at the same time, steady, forward movement. I want the church to help me live life well, not exhaust me with endless ‘worthwhile’ projects.” By “worthwhile projects” Ted means building funds and soup kitchens alike. It’s not that he opposes these; it’s just that he is sick of hearing about them and believes that other Christians are, too. He knows that for Christianity to prosper in the free market, it needs more than “moral values”—it needs customer value.

New Lifers, Pastor Ted writes with evident pride, “like the benefits, risks, and maybe above all, the excitement of a free-market society.” They like the stimulation of a new brand. “Have you ever switched your toothpaste brand, just for the fun of it?” Pastor Ted asks. Admit it, he insists. All the way home, you felt a “secret little thrill,” as excited questions ran through your mind: “Will it make my teeth whiter? My breath fresher?” This is the sensation Ted wants pastors to bring to the Christian experience. He believes it is time “to harness the forces of free-market capitalism in our ministry.” Once a pastor does that, his flock can start organizing itself according to each member’s abilities and tastes.

. . . Free-market economics is a “truth” Ted says he learned in his first job in professional Christendom, as a Bible smuggler in Eastern Europe. Globalization, he believes, is merely a vehicle for the spread of Christianity. He means Protestantism in particular; Catholics, he said, “constantly look back.” He went on: “And the nations dominated by Catholicism look back. They don’t tend to create our greatest entrepreneurs, inventors, research and development. Typically, Catholic nations aren’t shooting people into space. Protestantism, though, always looks to the future. A typical kid raised in Protestantism dreams about the future. A typical kid raised in Catholicism values and relishes the past, the saints, the history. That is one of the changes that is happening in America. In America the descendants of the Protestants, the Puritan descendants, we want to create a better future, and our speakers say that sort of thing. But with the influx of people from Mexico, they don’t tend to be the ones that go to universities and become our research-and-development people. And so in that way I see a little clash of civilizations.”

So the Catholics are out, and the battle boils down to evangelicals versus Islam. “My fear,” he says, “is that my children will grow up in an Islamic state.”

And that is why he believes spiritual war requires a virile, worldly counterpart. “I teach a strong ideology of the use of power,” he says, “of military might, as a public service.” He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible’s exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because “the Bible’s bloody. There’s a lot about blood.”

I realize Sharlet seized upon particularly juicy quotes that Haggard would no doubt soften or place in a more palatable context. My bigger problem is the shallow historical optimism and neophilia. If (as the article says earlier), Haggard is a big fan of Tom Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he seems to have no grasp of what "Olive Trees" are (those things and traditions that touch the deepest needs of human lives and cultures that seem threatened by globalism/hyper-capitalism/modernity) and why so many are willing to do just about anything to prevent their extinction.

Take a Look

2005-05-31T10:26:00.000-05:00

I've added some new links to the blogroll:

Musings of an Emergent Postmodern Negro: I discovered Anthony and his blog via Steve at Harbinger.

You can read Anthony's quick sketch of his spiritual and theological pilgrimage in the comments to this post at another interesting new blog. We seem to come at things from a very similar perspective: we both have academic backgrounds in history and we've both been drawn into the emergent/radical-orthodoxy/post-liberal theological orbit in part by reading books on Christian mission (Newbigin, for my part; David Bosch, for his) and historical studies of Jesus.

I doubt Anthony wants to become the African-American voice in the emergent "conversation", but I'll join all those who are tremendously thankful to have a dialogue partner in these discussions who comes out of the black church tradition.

The Parish. I don't really know all that much about this guy, but I'm looking forward to reading more because 1) He's a good writer and extremely theologically literate, and 2) He's from Oklahoma City, a city I know and love very well, even though I haven't lived there too much since my early years (I just spent the weekend there, as a matter of fact). It greatly encourages me to hear thoughts like his coming from OKC.

The Stumbling Runner is a friend who says a great deal in his beautifully written reflections on life and ministry. He has a solid grasp on how and why narrative, metaphor and artistic description can capture things that can't be expressed otherwise. (I think the metaphors are used to preserve some online anonymity, as well.)

I should mention that I have also have a history with Spring . She has meant a lot to me and I continue to keep up with her, but our relationship was not as intimate as the one TSR had.

I have a bad feeling about this . . .

2005-05-25T13:59:00.000-05:00

Not really. I'm just a little sentimental as I realize that that line won't be spoken in any more new Star Wars movies.

I don't know if the pope was sentimental as he watched it, but he clearly had the best seat in the house for this showing at the Vatican:

(Just kidding . . . . via Scandal of Particularity, via Amy Wellborn).

My wife and I saw Episode III Saturday. I was going to have to wait longer than that. We had plans to go camping that night at a state park about an hour away. When I walked outside about noon, summer had all of a sudden arrived with a vengeance in Central Texas (high 90s and high humidity). So we decided to spend the afternoon at the movies and leave for the campsite a few hours later.

Our first married camping trip was a success, but I don't think I'll want to go again (at least not in Texas) until October.

I've never been able to decide if this recent trilogy is that lame, or if I'm just not a kid anymore. I like them mainly for the nostalgia: hearing the John Williams soundtrack, watching the opening text float across the screen, seeing amazing special effects and remembering how much I was enthralled by the starfighter battle scenes twenty years ago.

I enjoyed watching this one. Since all the groundwork had essentially been laid, there was nothing left but for the plot to unfold, with mostly fast-paced action. I appreciated that John Williams was able to work in just about every major musical motif from the original trilogy, including "Leia's theme" at the very end.

In the end, though, I can't say I really cared for any of the characters in these movies. Nothing and no one was extremely compelling. I know I'm just adding to the dogpile when I moan about the acting and script. (I actually think the acting was alright -- esp. the Brits. They just didn't have much to work with. As for Anakin/Christensen, that's a different story).

That's not to say that the themes weren't there to make it something really memorable. Lee responds to those who didn't see sufficient reason for Anakin's dramatic turn by showing how it can be viewed from a very traditional Christian perspective (see George Lucas, Augustinian?). Anakin's fall is not so much succumbing to evil itself than it is the consequence of disordered loves.

I would've liked to have seen something similar portrayed with the rise of the empire. If Lucas really wanted to make a point about the current U.S. administration or simply the precariousness of liberty generally, he could have tried to show us in a personal and compelling way why more average people (aliens, whatever) really feared the trade federations/separatists and thought acquiescing with the rise of the empire was the only way to protect something good and dear to them. Instead, most of the large-scale battles in this recent trilogy are largely between two sides that have no strong pull on our sympathies (especially when you know it's all orchestrated by Palpatine, anyway).

Nothing Else Like It

2005-05-25T11:15:00.000-05:00

Travis Kroeker and Bruce Ward, Remembering the End: Dostoevsky as Prophet to Modernity

I read this book in part because I had hope of entering doctoral studies this fall to study under one of the authors (a hope that, alas, is not to be -- at least not for a while).

Dostoevsky is frequently pegged as a key existentialist figure and thus thoroughly "modern." (I won't attempt here to define those last two dense terms and disentangle the relationship between them). Kroeker and Ward try to describe what they see as Dostoevsky's impassioned plea for repentance (a reversal from the current course) from his beloved Russia -- and ultimately, the West.

Ivan Karamazov famously claimed that if God no longer exists in any meaningful way -- as all would-be enlightened and progressive Westerners were presumably believed -- then "everything is permitted."

While Crime and Punishment is Dostoevsky's most focused meditation on that nihilistic creed and its dehumanizing implications through dramatic narrative, Kroeker and Ward spend the majority of their discussion on The Brothers Karamazov and its most famous segment: "The Grand Inquisitor": Ivan's fable about the brief return of Christ to Earth during the Spanish Inquisition. Wading into deep waters of critical discussion, they portray the Grand Inquisitor as Dostoyevsky's supreme artistic achievement, as he gives different and powerful perspectives their integrity while raising profound questions to both the modern West and Christianity. However, the authors argue that Dostoyevsky intended the last word on the subject to be the response given by the pious and mystical monastic, Elder Zosima.

This is a dense text, and I read it much too quickly to cite authoritatively in building some kind of analytic case. But these were my major impressions:

Dostoyevsky was in many ways an arch-conservative in the context of 19th-century Russian political and social views. His devastating critique of progressive, idealistic social theories and their inhumane consequences proved prophetic. So he was then and can today be viewed as another social conservative and/or political quietist who emphasizes individual compassion, and personal responsibility but remains aloof from attempts to change the social institutions that contribute to mass suffering.

What I now find most interesting about Dostoyevsky, and what this book goes a long way to demonstrate, is that his vision of Christianity and the Christian's responsibility to and for our neighbor and all humanity is much more radical than what I sketched above. The trick is to show how that can be. For Kroeker and Ward, the key is in Dostoyevsky's appropriation of Orthodox mystical and ascetic spirituality.

I hope to return to this book at some point. I was deeply moved by their unfolding of the positive Christian vision of humble love Dostoyevsky provides through the Elder Zosima. Their exposition of this theme (no doubt owing to Dostoyevsky's own profound artistry) accomplished the difficult task of making holiness seem profound and vastly powerful, rather than escapist and sentimental.

At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men's sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvellously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.

Losing Our Religion?

2005-05-23T15:39:00.000-05:00

I recently wrote, in a fairly detached and abstract way, about those times when we can no longer repeat, without substantial qualifications, phrases that once defined Christian faithfulness for our predecessors. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (and Soren Kierkegaard before him) experienced this with regard to Martin Luther, arguing that if Luther were alive in their day he would have uttered "Here I stand" after taking up a very different position.

In many ways, this is the situation in which the “emergent” movement (and other Christians with sympathy for its themes) finds itself. At one level, there is a desire to replace key phrases and practices of 20th-century evangelicalism like “personal relationship with Jesus”, “quiet time”, “spiritual walk”, with a language more in tune with the emergent/postmodern zeitgeist and less stale and off-putting. This is done, in part and in some cases, by stressing the role of the church in our relationship with Christ, delving into ancient contemplative spiritual practices and adopting a more sacramental approach to the faith that rejects stark sacred/secular and spiritual/physical dichotomies. At a more explicitly theological level there is a profound sense of the need for a fresh re-hearing of the gospel and the length and breadth of its meaning for all of life, particularly the social and material aspects of our existence.

I'm on board with all of this. But there are a few reasons I haven't jumped into the "emergent" movement with both feet. First, I'm just a cranky contrarian. When I want to be lazy and rely on stereotypes, I see "emergent" as a label signalling that one has trendy and cool spiritual sensibilities. Just as I held out for years before buying a cell phone, priding myself in my refusal to follow the herd; just as I took years to read Stanley Hauerwas because it just seemed too much like the thing to do in some of my circles; I'm skeptical just to the extent that the emergent phenomenon gives off the vibe that it's simply the "cutting-edge, postmodern" version of Christianity. (The flip side of this, of course, is the fear that I'm ultimately not cool enough to mesh with the "emergent" folks and churches I've known, when it's all said and done. I've never seriously considered getting a tattoo or anything pierced. I know (and rejoice!) that Van Morrison has just released his 37th(?) album, but I'll rarely know about the hottest new guitar-oriented singer-songwriter or alt-rock group until they're passe. I wasn't hip in high school either, unless Paul Simon, Wynton Marsalis and Boyz II Men are your idea of hip.)

The thing is, I know there's a lot more to emergent than that, and I appreciate Brian McLaren's attempts to clarify what's going on by insisting that this is a conversation, not a "movement."

I find myself somewhat in agreement with Andy Crouch's "The Emergent Mystique" -- an article that stirred up quite a bit of discussion and understandable defensiveness on some emergent blogs I visited a few months ago. Crouch is a free-lance writer who does a lot of work for Christianity Today. Here's one of his opening 'graphs:

Gentlemen, start your hair dryers—not since the Jesus Movement of the early
1970s has a Christian phenomenon been so closely entangled with the
self-conscious cutting edge of U.S. culture. Frequently urban,
disproportionately young, overwhelmingly white, and very new—few have been
in existence for more than five years—a growing number of churches are
joining the ranks of the “emerging church.”

Crouch frequently notes that most of the prominent "emergent" folks he encountered or interviewed were distinguised by their carefully textured and often colored or bleached hair (thus the reference to hair dryers). I thought his use of this feature was funny and was primarily tongue-in-cheek. (I forgot to include my woeful ignorance of the proper use of hair product on my list of reasons for keeping me off the hip list.)

Crouch was editor of Re:Generation Quarterly -- a magazine started in the late 1990s featuring thoughtful writing by and for young Christian professionals. (Unfortunately, RQ folded when the economy tanked after 9-11. A group of the regulars from its message boards -- along with a few friends -- started the online journal The New Pantagruel.) RQ's vision statement was "communities transforming culture" and its content echoed many of the concerns of the emergent conversation: frustration with the predominance of individualistic Christianity and its domestication of the gospel and discipleship; a desire to see Christianity have as much to do with our neighborhoods, with the way we consume (or don't consume) pop culture and all the other items of our society, as with interior spiritual matters.

The tone of RQ was a bit more highbrow and contrarian, more inclined toward making careful distinctions and emphasizing the importance of historical perspective and tradition. In short, it was more "conservative", but not in the sense of right-wing politics or economics. RQ's readers shared the deep sense that Christianity in Western modernity is in need of great reform but were more likely to look to older traditions for an alternative. It frequently featured articles from Catholics and Orthodox.

There was and is some overlap between these groups. My sense, though, is that the defining feature of someone who unabashedly identifies with the "emergent conversation" is that they're someone who's emerging from evangelicalism. I suppose I fit that description, but I'm also convinced of the importance of institutionally embodied expressions of Christianity that self-consciously place themselves within a particular sub-tradition of the larger Christian tradition of teaching, thinking, and mission (tradition= an argument extended through time). At some point in my journey, I made the fateful step of trying to see from the inside what it means to be Christian from a non-evangelical perspective (i.e. when Christianity doesn't reduce at its heart to when I, or you, "got saved"). My life as a Christian hasn't been the same since.

In other words, I'm not yet convinced that what's needed is some entirely new form of Christianity to emerge in contempoary America, but that we already have many of the resources at hand -- especially as we see members of various historic Christian groups joining together in things like the Ekklesia Project .

Crouch concludes his piece with similar comments and a very positive statement about why emergent is worth watching.

Catholic journalist Colleen Carroll Campbell has documented the rise of “the new
faithful,” a growing group of young Americans, often drawn from the same
locations and vocations as the emerging church, who are embracing orthodoxy
without McLaren’s qualifiers.

Implicitly responding to Emergent’s disaffection with modern evangelicalism, in March the National Association of Evangelicals attracted more than 200 “young evangelicals” to the inaugural meeting of a network led by Carolyn Haggard, the niece of NAE president Ted Haggard.
The 23-year-old Wellesley College graduate says, “The Bible has been
relevant for 2,000 years, and popular culture isn’t really going to change that.
Saying that we’re cooler than the generation before, we’re more savvy, and we’re
obviously more intellectual than the generation before—that’s not something we’d
be at all interested in promoting.”
So Emergent has no lock on the next generation. In this respect it may prove no different from the previous Christian movement characterized by male hair, the Jesus Movement. It coexisted, often uneasily, with more cautious expressions of church, was animated by a combination of beautiful ideals and foolish ideas, and ultimately merged into an evangelical mainstream that had adapted to its presence.
But the Jesus Movement, largely composed of converts, was generally unconcerned with theology. Emergent, whose leaders are evangelicalism’s own sons and daughters, may yet contribute something more profound than one more fleeting form of cultural relevance.

At least that’s what Rob Bell hopes. “People don’t get it,” he
told me. “They think it’s about style. But the real question is: What is the
gospel?”
That question, of course, is not new. It was asked by, among
others, a devout young German monk named Martin Luther who found church
increasingly dissatisfying. His answer, rooted in Scripture, changed the
direction of Christian history at a moment of epochal cultural change.

I agree that the general discontent with contemporary evangelicalism as expressed by Emergent represents much more than simply generational conflict and signals possible major changes on the ecclesial horizon. As I said in a previous post, I feel this same sense with regard to my own Baptist tradition -- another important aspect of my heritage.

BTW, Brian McLaren's annotated version of Crouch's article is here. I enjoy reading both Crouch and McLaren's writing and his response is a definitely worth a look.

Come to think of it, if I had the means, I would probably try to attend some of the emergent gatherings. I think I'd have a place at that table, and I believe in much of what they're doing.

Deception Pass II

2005-05-20T16:22:00.000-05:00

Deception Pass, Washington -- connecting Fidalgo and Whitbey Islands.

I thought I'd break up all the text with a picture.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Timeless Truths?

2005-05-13T14:40:00.000-05:00

"Kierkegaard said that today Luther would say the opposite of what he said then. I think he was right -- with some reservations."
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison.

Yes, this this a dangerous sentiment if pressed very far and turned into a foundational principle:

"If Jesus was here today, he'd tell us, 'Forgive your enemies, but take preemptive action against them, if you think they might possibly someday attack you.'"
"If James Madison were here today, he'd say 'civil rights and the checks and balances of government are a luxury for times of peace, prosperity and high standards of shared morality.'"
"If Paul was here today, he'd say 'When I talked about the sinfulness of homosexuality I thought it was simply a choice made by deviants, prostitutes and pederasts. Now I know better."

(Please don't try to discover my biases from these examples. I tried to cover the spectrum . . . .)

I love this quote because it speaks to the deep tension that results from attempting to honor the wisdom of your heritage while keeping eyes and ears open to present realities that will inevitably call for new forms of faithfulness.

By calling this a "tension" I don't mean to imply that it's a matter of deciding which authoritative voices from the past are relevant or obsolete at particular points. I simply mean that living in faithful dialogue with these voices is a much more complex task than restating and/or applying certain phrases or "timeless" principles.

It would take a book to reflect fully on what Bonhoeffer and Kierkegaard were and weren't saying (and to discuss B.'s possible "reservations"). Clearly the President would never consider either as judicial nominess.

Because Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer refer to Luther, I'm immediately reminded of N.T. Wright and the other biblical scholars who in recent years have come under scathing criticism for daring to question key aspects of Luther's interpretation of Paul (and thus seeming to shake the foundations of traditional reformed/evangelical Bible reading, theology, and piety). "How can you call yourself Protestant, and say that Romans isn't primarily about "justification by faith alone?" This is a large and fascinating debate I won't engage here, but it's a very important one for the years to come. It will be interesting to see the impact of this perspective on church life as it continues to move from being simply an academic trend and is absorbed into the lives of individual churches and Christians.

Thinking about this theme has spurred me on to two other subjects I'll address in subsequent posts: 1) How this quote sheds light on what I see as the struggle for younger baptists to be faithful to their heritage when they identify with neither agressive, narrow fundamentalism or an excessively individualistic notion of "freedom" that has no means or desire for conceiving "orthodoxy" in a positive sense; and 2) How this quote helps me understand and explain the significance and thrust of "virtue" and/or "narrative" ethics -- at least I think I'm beginning to grasp this better.

Here's some other great thoughts on being faithful to the major voices of our Christian past, from Karl Barth in the introduction to his "Lectures on Calvin":

. . . [W]e do not have teaching by repeating Calvin's words as our own or making his views ours. . . . those who simply echo Calvin are not good Calvinists, that is, they are not really taught by Calvin. Being taught by Calvin means entering into dialogue with him, with Calvin as the teacher and ourselves as the students, he speaking, we doing our best to follow him and then -- this is the
crux of the matter -- making our own response to what he says. If that does not happen we might just as well be listening to Chinese; the historical Calvin is not present. For that [historical] Calvin wants to teach and not just to say something that we will repeat.

I've (not) Been Everywhere

2005-05-13T09:22:00.000-05:00

These are all the states I've visited:

Create your own personalized map of the USA or check out our California travel guide

I think it's no coincidence that nearly all the doctoral programs I considered were in the Midwest and Northeast.

I have only a very tiny claim to visiting Montana (the northern tip of Yellowstone) and West Virginia (Harper's Ferry -- just over the border). I'm surprised I never made it up more to Montana or over to S. Dakota while I lived in Wyoming.

(Courtesy of Lee.)

A further mystery

2005-04-21T08:48:00.000-05:00

Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

Berry has written several novels about the fictional community of Port William, Kentucky. This was my first, but I’ll definitely be reading others. Jayber is a memorable character-narrator: an orphan-turned-seminary dropout-turned-village barber and grave digger.

Berry is a beautiful writer. Reading this tale and meeting Jayber and the people of the rural community he loves was a great experience. It’s also a powerful, though unique, love story – bittersweet, compelling and believable all at once (not an easy combination for any writer to pull off).

I sympathize with those who say that Berry just makes us nostalgic for a form of life that's now practically inaccessible. After all, he's able to remain on his family's land because of the extra income he gets from his writing. But I'm grateful to Berry for reminding us of what it could mean and must mean to be truly conservative -- to care deeply about stewardship of the good things that have been entrusted to us, realizing that the best gifts require cultivation, cooperation, and sacrifice.

I know extended block quotes can get tedious, but this needs to be shared.

As a teenager Jayber is living in a church-sponsored orphanage. He’s mainly a loner and misfit. All this changes when he responds affirmatively to one of the many invitations for students to announce that they’ve received a “call to ministry.” Jayber definitely hears something and assumes that’s what it must be – a call to preach. He then becomes a golden boy of sorts and is ushered off to the denomination’s seminary after graduation.

At seminary, Jayber’s mind will not stop asking questions about the Bible that deeply unsettle him. He first approaches several professors who kindly but bluntly tell him he needs to have more faith. He next decides to visit the most intimidating faculty member:

And so finally, late one afternoon, I went to see the professor I was afraid to go to, old Dr. Ardmire. I was afraid to go to him because I knew he was going to tell me the truth. Dr. Ardmire was a feared man. He was a master of the Greek New Testament, a hard student and a hard teacher. We believed that he had never given but one A in his entire life. The number of students in his class in New Testament Greek, which he taught every fall, varied from twenty to maybe three or four, as the horror died away and was renewed. He was known, behind his back, as Old Grit.

I knocked at his door and waited until he read to a stopping place and looked up from his book.

“Come in, Mr. J. Crow.” He didn’t like it that I went by my initial.

I went in.

He said, “Have a seat, please.”

I sat down.

Customarily, when I came to see him I would be bringing him work that he had required me to come talk with him about. That day I was empty handed.

Seeing that I was, he said, “What have you got in mind?”

“Well,” I said, “I’ve got a lot of questions.”

He said, “Perhaps you would like to say what they are?”

“Well, for instance,” I said, “if Jesus said for us to love our enemies – and He did say that, didn’t He?—how can it ever be right to kill our enemies? And if He said not to pray in public, how come we’re all the time praying in public? And if Jesus’ own prayer in the garden wasn’t granted, what is there for us to pray, except ‘thy will be done,’ which there’s no use in praying because is will be done anyhow?”

I sort of ran down. He didn’t say anything. He was looking straight at me. And then I realized that he wasn’t looking at me the way he usually did. I seemed to see way back in his eyes a little gleam of light. It was a light of kindness and (as I now think) of amusement.

He said, “Have you any more?”

“Well, for instance,” I said, for it had just occurred to me, “suppose you prayed for something and you got it, how do you know how you got it? How do you know you didn’t get it because you were going to get it whether you prayed for it or not? So how do you know it does any good to pray? You would need proof, wouldn’t you?

He nodded.

“But there’s no way to get any proof.”

He shook his head. We looked at each other.

He said, “Do you have any answers?”

“No,” I said. I was concentrating so hard, looking at him, you could have nailed my foot to the floor and I wouldn’t have felt it.

“So,” I said, “I reckon what it all comes down to is, how can I preach if I don’t have any answers?”

“Yes, Mr. Crow,” he said. “How can you?” He was not one of your frying-size chickens.

“I don’t believe I can,” I said, and I felt my skin turn cold, for I had not even thought that until then.

He said, “No, I don’t believe you can.” And we sat there and looked at each other again while he waited for me to see the next thing, so he wouldn’t have to tell me: I oughtn’t to waste any time resigning my scholarship and leaving Pigeonville. I saw it soon enough.

I said, “Well,” for now I was ashamed. “I had this feeling maybe I had been called.”

“And you may have been right. But not to what you thought. Not to what you think. You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out – perhaps a little at a time.”

“And how long is that going to take?”

“I don’t know. As long as you live, perhaps.”

“That could be a long time.”

“I will tell you a further mystery,” he said. “It may take longer.”

He held out his hand to me and I shook it. As I started to leave, it came to me that of all the teachers I’d had in school he was the kindest, and I turned around. I was going to thank him, but he had gone back to his book.

Faith is on the way: Good Friday

2005-03-24T23:52:00.000-05:00

I've already posted excerpts from this interview with Romanian playwright Andras Visky.

Here is some really inspirational and thought-provoking reading for Holy Week and Good Friday.

ANDRÁS VISKY:
[T]here is a short – very short! – period in history where I like to stop, to linger. This is Good Friday. Only at this point can the work of art and the interpretation of the scripture come into existence, come alive, in order to force the hand of God – there is no other possibility – to contact God, the personally existent, and to entrust the work of resurrection to Him.

The New Pantagruel:
How do you mean, to force the hand of God?

ANDRÁS VISKY:
Because, look at the disciples on Good Friday. The Messiah is gone. And they don’t know what to do, they hide. Because Friday afternoon, the afternoon of the crucifixion, all of our thoughts are about death and we forget every promise about the resurrection. It is unbelievable.

The New Pantagruel:
That we forget the promises about the resurrection or that the resurrection happened?

ANDRÁS VISKY:
That we forget the promises. It is unbelievable but this is our life, to forget all the promises. Those three chapters from John where He talks about His departure and return – how can they forget this? They forget because the death is so obvious, so real, so natural, so present, that you can feel it. It seems that we, today, don’t feel the death. And the question is, if we don’t feel the death, do we feel the resurrection?

It seems to me that we, the church today, have forgotten those three days in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We never speak about those three days because the Gospels are mainly silent about them. As if to cut out from the history of the cosmos those three days. And it seems that we today have forgotten them totally. But from my perspective, a good and accurate representation of the already-not-yet could be that period. To touch with one hand, if you want, Good Friday and to touch with the other hand, Easter Sunday.

The New Pantagruel:
To touch with faith or belief, or with what?

ANDRÁS VISKY:
To touch with our hand (laughs), because these other words are too nice. Faith is a good word but we have to add something to it. In this period, in these hours after the crucifixion and before the resurrection, there is no faith. There is a coming faith. Faith is on the way. But it’s not there yet. There’s a secret in this disciples story. Why, for example, do they stay together? It is not a logical thing to do, to remain together when you are being persecuted. I remember during the time of persecution in Romania, the worst situation always was to be found together. Because this was seen as a conspiracy by the authorities.

I just want to underline something. It seems that we, the church, know very well the end of the story and this is very suspicious to me. To know very well the end of the story is to forget the beginning of the story. To focus so much on the end of the story, is to consider myself as a natural partner in, or character of, the end of the story. But according to our doctrines, this is known only by God.
. . . .

ANDRÁS VISKY:
You know, we are so superior. We see someone living in a sort of fear, or angst, and tell them it’s because of sin, because of their sin. Which is not sure – maybe it’s because of my sin. We don’t share our fears with the world. We share only our triumphs. And for me, this is suspicious. I don’t see in our church life that there are so many reasons to not go out and represent in the life of the world this journey in the wilderness. We are living in a desert and the church is a representation of the journey, of the exile, of in-between-ness. It’s a representation of going out and maybe that’s why the church in this age or in the age of classical modernity had or has big problems with art in general. Because the work of art represents this in-between-ness always. Always.

THE NEW PANTAGRUEL:
Okay, I want to go back to Good Friday.

ANDRÁS VISKY:
And this is what we always have to come back to. You know, we are living in the period between Good Friday and the day of resurrection. I’ve come to the conclusion that the theatre, the work of art in the largest sense of the word, knows something about Good Friday which we have forgotten. Samuel Beckett, who was perhaps the only Christian writer of the second half of the last century, speaks very much about this place. He reformulated Christian eschatology, our hopeless hope of waiting, and he did this with unbelievable sharpness and objectivity.

I had a commission from a State Theatre in Hungary a few years ago to write a play about Easter. And this idea came to me to write a play about the disciples in this period between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. [Disciples.] The Messiah has gone, they don’t know where, and they are very scared and confused and they are waiting for something or someone. They have some memories of things Jesus said and did, but these memories seem meaningless now. They have to re-begin.

The New Pantagruel:
Re-begin their faith life – or what?

ANDRÁS VISKY:
Their life, their whole life. You know, they had suffered some things when they were with Jesus, when He was still with them, and He had taken care of them but this is all in the past. They have to convince God to enter into this present moment with them. So they try to piece together what happened, to try to understand how they got to this place. And they stage a series of little plays inside the main play as they try to reconstruct their life with Jesus. Was He real or not? Was He who they thought He was or not? Did any of the things they remembered actually happen? And retelling their stories to one another, they realize, “This was very real. This actually happened with me. I can’t deny this. But He is dead. We saw Him die. What to do now?”

Good Friday is the place where we should return, again and again, so as to depend only on God, letting all knowledge and all stories go. This is the place and the state that invites God to act, to intervene in our lives. Good Friday is the best time for this meeting in history which shows God as an acting, active God.

The New Pantagruel:
I can see why Good Friday can be a “good” place to be, but why should we purposely go back there?

ANDRÁS VISKY:
You know, Jesus is resurrected, yes, but Jesus is also still on the cross. And if I want to be with Him, I have to go where He is. To arrive at a Good Friday is a gift from God, an invitation from God to re-begin my life with Him. It’s a big gift from God if I realize that I have to re-begin my life. God is so rich that He doesn’t permit us to use blessings from the past. He wants to share with us blessings from the present. His presence is out of time, which means it is a continuous presence. He overcomes time in this way. And even those experiences of past blessing are nothing when you are in a new trouble. It doesn’t help. You have to tell God, these past experiences are not tools in my hand. My hands are empty again and again and again. Why doesn’t God speak to us through the Bible? Because we know everything and our hands are not empty. We cannot listen to His voice because between Him and me there is a Bible passage. My hands have to be empty. To say to God at the beginning of the day, I will open the Bible and I want to be taught by You, not by my knowledge about the Bible.

Reading these thoughts on the importance of returning to Good Friday reminds me of the phrase from the Catholic prayer of Marian devotion, Salve Regina ("Hail Queen"): "To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears."

I hadn't heard this until I worked with a Catholic seminarian while doing hospital chaplaincy. The phrase "vale of tears" has always grabbed me: what would it be like to be formed by praying something like this over the years?

Sweet Sixteen again . . . . .

2005-03-24T02:33:00.000-05:00

Good luck in Tempe, ladies!

How we're all connected

2005-03-24T02:00:00.000-05:00

In 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention revised its statement of faith, "The Baptist Faith and Message", for the first time in nearly 40 years. Among the controversial changes -- controversial, but not seriously challenged, since the SBC was firmly in conservative hands by this point -- was the insertion of language about the submission of wives to their husbands (Camassia has some intriguing reflections on this topic here and here) and the deletion of a phrase stating that "the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ."

I'll skip over the gender roles debate for now. I've been thinking about how my response to that debate over the Jesus criteria four years ago helped pull me in a significant direction.

The SBC conservatives (I'll refrain from using the "f" word) saw the "Jesus criterion" as a vague and slippery principle that could be -- and had been -- used to sanction unorthodox stances (e.g., appealing to Jesus' recorded silence on the matter or a generalized sense of his "love ethic" to trump passages declaring homosexual activity to be sinful).

The moderates believed the removal of the phrase to be a clear step toward bibliolatry. I especially agreed with those who argued that this step simply flattens the Bible and clears the way for reckless prooftexting (salvation through childbearing, anyone?).

What I remember most about the debate, and what really started me thinking is that conservatives kept insisting that Jesus and the Bible could not be separated from or opposed to each other; our only normative access to Jesus is in scripture.

There are a couple of different responses to this claim. The one I heard most often from traditional Baptist moderates is that we know Jesus through our personal encounter with him. That carries a lot of weight in Baptist circles, with our traditional pietism and classic hymnology ("You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart . . .").

My response was somewhat different -- and no doubt influenced by the fact that I was just beginning to study theology formally and had the author of this book as a professor (a Catholic, no less!).

I knew Jesus because I was told his story by people who believed in him and prayed that he would even live through them. I knew Jesus because I knew his love through those people (especially my parents) in my relationships with them, and through their quiet acts of service -- like my Dad taking a homeless man and his son home to stay with us for a few weeks when I was in Junior High.

I knew about Jesus because most of these people were part of a historical community that -- despite all kinds of divisions, dialects, and scandals -- had never stopped telling his story. I increasingly saw Christ in the story of the people -- his body -- who carried his name (sometimes shamefully) throughout history. (I'm pretty sure Barth had something good to say about this in his lectures on Calvin . . . I'll have to look it up).

This debate in Baptist life occurred at the same time I first studied church history formally. I had also been reading Lesslie Newbigin, who introduced me -- albeit briefly -- to folks like Alasdair MacIntyre, George Lindbeck, and others. I began having moments when I'd be filled with a keen awareness of the communion of saints, past and present, and a deep sense that I was part of the same story as Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Menno Simons, Roger Williams, et al-- even within this very distant branch of the church with little consciousness of or concern for its connection to the historic church universal.

It hit me that my Baptist ancestors owed the scriptures so absolutely central to our tradition to all these others who passed it along -- during all those centuries when copies were scarce and often incomplete and illiteracy was the norm (for more info on all this, check out this fascinating post). Like it or not, we were deeply indebted to all those superstitious medieval papists and others (tic).

I studied Early Christian thought with two professors who began every class session by having us sing "Gimme that Old Time Religion." They had us insert the names of the figures we'd study that day:

Gimme that old time religion
Gimme that old time religion
Gimme that old time religion
It's good enough for me

It was good enough for Irenaeus (Justin, Cyprian, Chrystostom . . .)
It was good enough for Irenaeus
It was good enough for Irenaeus
It's good enough for me . . . .

Of course, I loved the delicious irony that most of the Christians who know and regularly sing this song would hardly recognize anything resembling their version of "that old time religion" in these patristic figures.

* * * * *

Neither of the major solutions to the Jesus vs. Scripture debate satisfied me because I could no longer sit easy with the notion that I can or should have an unmediated, disembodied personal encounter with Jesus (or the Bible).

My knowledge of Jesus is complex -- I could summarize it in traditional terms by saying it combined elements of scripture, experience and tradition. Yet the terminology gives the misleading impression that these sources can legitimately separated and compared (or even placed in competition). For me the element that gives these their unity is the church -- the community who shaped and is shaped by scripture, who gives me the story and stories with which I interpret my experience in liturgy and teaching and who has an ongoing conversation about what it means to be Jesus' people.

Camassia has given us a good series of reflections (here, here, here and here) on her reading of James Ault's sociological study of a small fundamentalist Baptist church in Massachusetts.

This post was inspired by her thoughts and has turned out to be more confessional and stream-of-consciousness than I'd like, but at least I'm writing.

In the last few years I've probably said several hundred times that I have lots of days when I think I'm eventually going to become Catholic or Orthodox. A big part of this is my (surely romanticized) notion that the authority and stability of the liturgy and tradition make room for someone like me who genuinely finds such abstract reflections meaningful and necessary as well as your average salt of the earth believer who thinks and feels much more concretely. In most low-church protestant churches, there's so little space for this kind of reflection because we're inundated with words -- words that I'm often having to deconstruct to make peace with, which is exhausting.

"I took a walk alone last night
I looked up at the stars
To try and find an answer in my life
I chose a star for me
I chose a star for him
I chose two stars for my kids and one star for my wife
Something made me smile
Something seemed to ease the pain
Something about the universe and how it's all connected"

-Sting, I'm So Happy that I Can't Stop Crying

I'm not completely sure why this post has me thinking of a Sting faux-country song, but there it is.

Fond memories

2005-03-15T12:09:00.000-05:00

I have several posts in the works. I'm trying to break free of my tendency to let wanting to say everything keep me from saying anything worthwhile. I sit down to write a post and shortly realize I've strayed into trying to define my current political philosophy, Christology, understanding of the Bible, etc.

Thanks to any of you who stop in here. I hope you'll continue . . I really do intend to make it worth your while -- eventually.

In the meantime, I really enjoyed finding this photo of my old hometown: Evanston, Wyoming. I'm glad I had the chance to spend nearly ten years there.

Myles recently wrote a series of short narratives about major steps along his journey to loving the church. Perhaps I'll write sometime -- when some fairly major career decisions are made -- about those places that have most shaped me: Oklahoma City; Jackson, MS; Evanston (and Wyoming generally); Waco; Richmond, VA; Washington, D.C.; London, Dallas and Atlanta.

Some of those places have almost no authentic sense of place, but this absence is partly how I've come to know what it means to have one.

Spirituality for All the Wrong Reasons

2005-03-08T22:19:00.000-05:00

I'm going to join the numerous bloggers who've noted this Christianity Today interview with Eugene Peterson.

Many people assume that spirituality is about becoming emotionally intimate with God.
That's a naïve view of spirituality. What we're talking about is the Christian life. It's following Jesus. Spirituality is no different from what we've been doing for two thousand years just by going to church and receiving the sacraments, being baptized, learning to pray, and reading Scriptures rightly. It's just ordinary stuff.

This promise of intimacy is both right and wrong. There is an intimacy with God, but it's like any other intimacy; it's part of the fabric of your life. In marriage you don't feel intimate most of the time. Nor with a friend. Intimacy isn't primarily a mystical emotion. It's a way of life, a life of openness, honesty, a certain transparency.

Doesn't the mystical tradition suggest otherwise?
One of my favorite stories is of Teresa of Avila. She's sitting in the kitchen with a roasted chicken. And she's got it with both hands, and she's gnawing on it, just devouring this chicken. One of the nuns comes in shocked that she's doing this, behaving this way. She said, "When I eat chicken, I eat chicken; when I pray, I pray."

If you read the saints, they're pretty ordinary people. There are moments of rapture and ecstasy, but once every 10 years. And even then it's a surprise to them. They didn't do anything. We've got to disabuse people of these illusions of what the Christian life is. It's a wonderful life, but it's not wonderful in the way a lot of people want it to be.

Yet evangelicals rightly tell people they can have a "personal relationship with God." That suggests a certain type of spiritual intimacy.
All these words get so screwed up in our society. If intimacy means being open and honest and authentic, so I don't have veils, or I don't have to be defensive or in denial of who I am, that's wonderful. But in our culture, intimacy usually has sexual connotations, with some kind of completion. So I want intimacy because I want more out of life. Very seldom does it have the sense of sacrifice or giving or being vulnerable. Those are two different ways of being intimate. And in our American vocabulary intimacy usually has to do with getting something from the other. That just screws the whole thing up.

It's very dangerous to use the language of the culture to interpret the gospel. Our vocabulary has to be chastened and tested by revelation, by the Scriptures. We've got a pretty good vocabulary and syntax, and we'd better start paying attention to it because the way we grab words here and there to appeal to unbelievers is not very good.

I confess I've developed an allergy to almost all talk about an intimate "personal relationship with Jesus." Some of my reasons for this are legitimate, and others are an unhealthy reaction -- maybe even a way of excusing the fact that I too often talk about God in the third person much more than with direct address.

I should probably ease up and not get on the defensive when nearly every praise chorus I hear and sing is steeped in this stuff. Yet it's refreshing to have help from Peterson in articulating the legitimate reasons to take issue with this pervasive theme of contemporary evangelicalism.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God

2005-03-06T22:43:00.000-05:00

Like many Americans, I was assigned Jonathan Edwards' sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" during high school English. I suppose the standard anthologies include the sermon so students can sample the stern Puritan ethos -- or perhaps just catch a glimpse of a bygone era when talk about heaven and hell featured prominently in Americans' public discussions.

I think I only read it that one time . . . . I remember the image of us suspended like spiders hanging by a thread over the fiery abyss. What fun!

I've since learned that Edwards was so much more than a hell-fire and brimstone revival preacher. A noted contemporary theologian argues that Edwards uniquely yet critically absorbed the best of his Enlightened contemporaries' (Newton, Locke) insights while refusing to domesticate Christian faith within mechanistic and individualistic assumptions about God, ourselves, and the world (and the relationships between all of these). He laments that Edwards' significant achievements along did not have a lasting influence on the subsequent American theological tradition.

I started thinking about Edwards earlier today after reading selected quotes of Scottish pastor George McDonald edited by C.S. Lewis.

Like most Christians I know, I rarely speak or hear about the wrath or fear of God. There are legitimate reasons for this, rooted in a rejection of hideous portraits of a divine personification of our own darkest attributes. Also, I have serious biblical and theological concerns about most standard versions of the substitutionary atonement theory, which depend on assumptions about the wrath of God for their logic. Yet, I know that to rule out this language is to be dishonest with the biblical witness and Christian theological tradition and to domesticate the divine.

With that said, these thoughts from George McDonald may potentially help give me new ears to hear:

"Sinai"

And is not God ready to do unto them even as they fear, though with another feeling and a different end from any which they are capable of supposing? He is against sin: insofar as, and while, they and sin are one, He is against them -- against their desires, their aims, their fears, and their hopes; and thus He is altogether and always for them. That thunder and lightening and tempest, that blackness torn with the sound of a trumpet, that visible horror billowed withthe voice of words was all but a faint image . . . of what God thinks and feels against vileness and selfishness, of the unrest of unassuageable repulsion with which He regards such conditions.

"No"

When we say that God is Love, do we teach [people] that their fear of Him is groundless? No. As much as they fear will come upon them, possibly far more. . . . The wrath will consume what they call themselves; so that the selves God made shall appear.

FYI

2005-03-01T23:25:00.000-05:00

The new pic at the top of the site is of Rannoch Moor, along Scotland's West Highland Way. One of my dreams is to walk the entire 100-mile route someday.

Madrona Tree

2005-02-26T14:15:00.000-05:00

I submitted my final doctoral application yesterday. Since I turned in four others 2-3 months ago, I should be finding out quite a bit in the next few weeks.

I simply don't have the motivation for a significant blog post today, but I've been learning how to post pictures from a Mac.

This picture is of a Madrona Tree on Orcas Island, Washington -- taken during our honeymoon last summer. I loved these trees and their orange-ish bark. On a cloudy day they create the optical illusion that the sun has just peeked outside the clouds.

It's a rainy, lazy day here in Waco. The water hasn't quite risen to this level, however:

Perfect Clumsiness

2005-02-17T22:24:00.000-05:00

That's the title of this amazing interview with Romanian playwright Andras Visky in the most recent issue of The New Pantagruel.

I really appreciated this section. I'm quoting at length so his statements have a bit more context:

ANDRÁS VISKY:
In the theatre, or more generally speaking, in our encounter with art – or let’s take my earlier example: during the sermon that happens to us – we have the possibility of sharing in the gift of the present time. We become contemporaries of God and of Creation. That is to say, we suddenly feel our everyday life, which is so fragmentary and fragile and exposed to suffering and death, to be eternal. For me, the “Christ-event” is also a kind of experiment by God to make His people and of course, the whole creation, His contemporaries. The Hungarian word “contemporary” is a compound word in which time and fellowship are joined together. The gift of the present. If we are brave enough and afraid in the proper way, we can see that His grace means that we become fellows of God in Christ who showed us His humanity in His suffering and weakness.
The New Pantagruel:
How does this inform our interaction with the secular world?
ANDRÁS VISKY:
Well, the repeated appeal of Christian theology and mission is that we should exercise an influence on non-Christian and secularized culture and art. Some of my English speaking friends are using a very strong word for this: we are supposed to impact the culture. But if we take a work of art for what it is, that is, simply a work of art and not for, let’s say, a kind of tactical weapon, like a Trojan horse, then we must admit that we as Christian people have rejected the aesthetic understanding of the world. Or we might say that we have become rather abstinent, aesthetically, for the sake of our false comfort.

My experience is that if theological and aesthetical ways of speaking come into conflict with each other, nothing good results. They become enemies and, what’s more, they censor each other. I am convinced that Christianity or Christian faith should expose itself to be impacted by the surrounding world and culture. If God is almighty, we don’t experience this the most in the church, but in such places where there is no room for Him. Where His almightiness shines through the events like a flash of lightning. You know, the church is not God’s censor, but it seems to me that nowadays, this is how it acts. It behaves as if it is God’s censor. So we say that art outside of the church is not art for a Christian. But inside the church you cannot find art. You cannot, for the most part, find art. Christian culture is simply not present in the contemporary artistic or literary scene so one cannot expect to exercise an influence on it like, let’s say, with a bomb. According to the English-Hungarian dictionary, to impact means to hit, like with a bomb, for example. To hit with a bomb! (laughs)
The New Pantagruel:
So you think this idea of impacting the culture doesn’t work?

ANDRÁS VISKY:
You know, I believe that when Jesus is present, the world is not divided in two, we here, together with Jesus, and those people over there who don’t believe in Him. It’s divided in two in a different way. Jesus is here and all of us we are on the other side and it’s His grace to invite us to be with Him. This is the Gospel. The Gospel speaks about this. It’s not my idea. If you are invited by Him, by Jesus, I am sure that you would not be prepared and you would not believe that He invited you. “Me? I visited You as a prisoner? I don’t remember this.” In other words, the church life has to speak about this, that I don’t believe that I believe. And to “impact the culture” – this is not a real issue now for Christianity. My message to Christianity now is not to impact the culture. My message to Christianity is to be impacted by the culture, to offer itself a little bit to be impacted. How can we impact the culture without ourselves creating a valuable culture, without having valuable artists? How can we impact the culture by just reacting to Derrida and Levinas? First of all, we need to read them and understand them in a deep way, to put them in the tradition of their narrative and try to understand them. It’s not the time to impact the culture. We would impact the culture only if we would accept to be impacted by the culture. And in being open to being impacted by the non-Christian culture, there is a possibility that we can meet the almighty God. You know, I am sure that if Mozart was our contemporary we would keep his music out of the reach of our children, we would surely not play his songs in our churches. Are we ready to receive from a modern day Mozart?
The New Pantagruel:
To receive what?
ANDRÁS VISKY:
The sovereignty of God. God gives talent where He wills. Do we have a sovereign God? If we do have a sovereign God, we can see very well that this sovereign God creates amazing works of art through uncommitted Christians or through those who are not members of my church. And? And I can’t be the censor of God. The whole church was a censorship of Jesus. All the people around Jesus were His censors, except those who were blind, who were lepers. Who are those who don’t censor Jesus? Only the blind, the lepers, the mute, the prostitutes, because they have no reason to do so. But we do.
The New Pantagruel:
They have no reasons?
ANDRÁS VISKY:
They have no reasons because they are at the edge of their lives, the edge of their existence. Help my unbelief. I believe, but help my unbelief. Do we believe? Help my unbelief.

We shouldn’t think for a moment that if Christ was our contemporary we wouldn’t censor Him or we wouldn’t kill Him. Especially since we know that we did kill Him, and not only on the cross, but in Auschwitz, in the death camps that are patented as products of the industrial development, of the modern, civilized society. I will not talk about the Romanian gulag because that was an atheist experiment. But Auschwitz was a Christian “experiment” and more than that, as the archives show, it was an ecumenical one. To kill the chosen people is a clear sign that we would kill Jesus. The church is not the club of those who would not kill Jesus. Our instinctive identification, as Christians, is always with the disciples and not with the betrayer. But no one betrays Jesus but the church. A non-Christian doesn’t betray Jesus. A non-believer doesn’t. It’s not possible. Logically, it’s not possible. Who betrays Jesus? The church betrays Him. The church is Judas.

Barth on Faith -- part 1

2005-02-09T21:14:00.000-05:00

Back while Among the Ruins was active, Keith once mentioned that he re-reads Karl Barth when he senses he’s lost his theological bearings. I have read Barth embarrassingly little. He was required reading for only one seminary course, and we didn’t get to him until the end of the semester when we were rushing to cover lots of stuff.

Because I definitely need to regain my bearings, and because what I have read of Barth has always been worthwhile, I’ve started Barth’s Dogmatics in Outline (read the Stanley Hauerwas review of it in this First Things column.)

It’s a series of lectures Barth gave at the University of Bonn in 1946, delivered as the students and city were struggling to climb out of the post-war rubble. Barth expounds on the articles of the Apostle’s Creed in succession, beginning with credo itself (“I believe”). To lay the foundation for all that follows, Barth takes three chapters to describe the contours of Christian faith: faith as trust, faith as knowledge and faith as confession.

Faith as Trust

Where the gospel is proclaimed, there too of necessity the fact will be proclaimed along with it that there are men [and women] who have heard and accepted the gospel. But the fact that we believe can only be, a priori, a secondary matter, becoming small and unimportant in face of the outstanding and real thing involved in the Christian proclamation – what the Christian believes . . .

This isn’t too controversial; few Christians would explicitly disagree with Barth’s claim. Although, I think many would prefer to say that it’s a both/and matter: what we believe is of little importance if we ignore who is doing the believing, and how our beliefs affect our lives – otherwise we’re just dealing with sterile intellectual propositions.

But Barth will have none of that, and that’s a reason I appreciate him so much. It’s refreshing to be challenged with either/or alternatives.

It is noteworthy that, apart from this first expression ‘I believe’, the Confession is silent upon the subjective fact of faith. Nor was it a good time when this relationship was reversed, when Christians grew eloquent over their action, over the uplift and emotion of the experience of the thing, which took place in [human beings], and when they became speechless as to what we may believe. By the silence of the Confession on the subjective side, by its speaking only of the objective Creed, it also speaks at its best, deepest and completest about what happens to us men [and women], about what we may be, do, and experience. Here too it is true that whoso would keep his life shall lose it; but whoso shall lose it for My sake shall gain his life. Whoso means to rescue and preserve the subjective element shall lose it; but whoso gives it up for the sake of the objective, shall save it [final italics mine].

I can testify to the truth of that last claim from personal experience (and yes, I appreciate the irony). I struggle mightily when I seek to live up to some vague and unspecified ideal of “intimacy” with God (intended or not, this is the message I often hear). The more I focus on my “personal relationship” with God per se, the more I descend into almost morbid introspection. Yet when I struggle to understand better God and God’s ways – and try to live in light of this – the problem is removed.

I’m reminded of how N.T. Wright has had to respond many times to attacks from fellow Protestants accusing him of outright heresy and of undermining the very heart of the gospel. Wright – a biblical scholar, first and foremost – has stirred up a firestorm by claiming that much of Protestant biblical exegesis (starting with Luther himself) has incorrectly read Paul as concerned primarily with a message of individual, post-mortem salvation:

By 'the gospel' Paul does not mean 'justification by faith' itself. He means the announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord. To believe this message, to give believing allegiance to Jesus as Messiah and Lord, is to be justified in the present by faith (whether or not one has even heard of justification by faith). Justification by faith itself is a second-order doctrine: to believe it is both to have assurance (believing that one will be vindicated on the last day [Rom. 5.1-5]) and to know that one belongs in the single family of God, called to share table-fellowship without distinction with all other believers (Gal. 2.11-21). But one is not justified by faith by believing in justification by faith (this, I think, is what Newman thought Protestants believed), but by believing in Jesus.

(excerpted from this essay from the N.T. Wright page).

I am not saved by believing in a specific way to be saved, but in a personal confession that the news of the Christian gospel is true -- and that this truth has personal, social and cosmic consequences to which my confession ties me.

Here’s Barth again:

I believe – of course! It is my, it is a human, experience and action, that is, a human form of existence.

But this ‘I believe’ is consummated in a meeting with One who is not [hu]man but God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and by my believing I see myself completely filled and determined by this object of my faith. And what interests me is not myself with my faith, but He in whom I believe.

I believe in, credo in, means that I am not alone. In our glory and in our misery we men [and women] are not alone. God comes to meet us . . .

I’m sympathetic to those (often conservative Calvinists) who lament the prominence within evangelicalism of therapeutic individualistic spirituality. But the responses often emphasize “doctrine” as a system of religious ideas that seem to just hang in the air somewhere.

Barth’s concluding comments on faith as trust are a good lead-in to what I want to write about soon: faith as confession – the public aspect of Christian faith.

Faith is not concerned with a special realm, that of religion, say, but with real life in its totality, the outward as well as the inward questions, that which is bodily as well as that which is spiritual, the brightness as well as the gloom in our life. Faith is concerned with our being permitted to rely on God as regards ourselves and also as regards what moves us on behalf of others, of the whole of humanity; it is concerned with the whole of living and the whole of dying. The freedom to have this trust (understood in this comprehensive way) is faith.

Yes -- we're still here

2005-02-05T11:26:00.000-05:00

I am an excruciatingly slow writer and I’m starting a blog in part to work on that. I recently read some good advice that urged bloggers to connect their blogging with something they do already, unless they’re willing to carve out some significant time for a new hobby.

So, for the time being, I’m primarily going to blog my way through the books I’m reading. I just finished Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow and may go back to it to highlight some amazing passages and distill what I’ll take away from it. This week I’ve been reading Karl Barth’s Dogmatics in Outline and Remembering the End: Dostoyevsky as Prophet to Modernity by Travis Kroeker and Bruce Ward. Both are pretty dense – especially the one on Dostoyevsky,

“Andy’s Book Reports and Favorite Quotes” may not be riveting reading, or the best way to build up regular readers, but hopefully it will help me establish some kind of writing rhythm.

The Baylor Saga

2005-01-26T10:05:00.000-05:00

Get Religion has this great post criticizing the inadequate press coverage of the conflict at Baylor that led to President Robert Sloan's resignation last week.

Fr. Jape, resident blogger for The New Pantagruel , has this recent commentary which links to an article I wrote last Spring about the dynamics shaping the fight over Baylor.

I'm not religious, I just love the Lord

2005-01-20T20:56:00.000-05:00

(I finally downloaded Firefox, which makes blogging via Mac much easier.)

Coleman posted the text of an L.A. Times column (Jan. 12) by Stephen Prothero, a professor at Boston University. (I tried to link to it, but it's no longer available for free).

Here's the lead:

The sociologist Peter Berger once remarked that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. Not anymore. With a Jesus lover in the Oval Office and a faith-based party in control of both houses of Congress, the United States is undeniably a nation of believers ruled by the same.

Things are different in Europe, and not just in Sweden. The Dutch are
four times less likely than Americans to believe in miracles, hell and biblical
inerrancy. The euro does not trust in God. But here is the paradox: Although
Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about
religion.

While Prothero can be read as nothing more than an elitist liberal trying to show that "good" religion most definitely did not come out a winner in November's election, his point is broader and deeper than a critique of right-wing American Christianity. . . .

U.S. Catholics, evangelicals and Jews have been lamenting for some time a crisis
of religious literacy in their ranks. But the dangers of religious ignorance are
by no means confined to those worried about catechizing their children or
cultivating the next generation of clergy.
When Americans debated slavery, almost exclusively on the basis of the Bible, people of all races and classes could follow the debate. They could make sense of its references to the runaway slave in the New Testament book of Philemon and to the year of jubilee, when slaves could be freed, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Today it is a rare American who can engage with any sophistication in biblically inflected arguments about gay marriage, abortion or stem cell research.
Since 9/11, President Bush has been telling us that "Islam is a religion of peace," while evangelist Franklin Graham (Billy's son) has insisted otherwise. Who is right?
Americans have no way to tell because they know virtually nothing about Islam.
Such ignorance imperils our public life, putting citizens in the thrall of talking heads.

An interesting angle on this is the common evangelical refrain: "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship." I know the well-intentioned sentiment usually behind this statement (we're about grace, not legalism), but it also sounds suspiciously like Christian exceptionalism ("I can say all sorts of bad things about 'religion' because I'm not really part of one. . . . the rules don't apply here.")

"Religion" is such a vague and slippery term. I'm sure members of any religious tradition can express similar sentiments ("Judaism isn't a religion (believing certain "spiritual" notions), it's being part of a people and their way of life" -- Come to think of it, I'm more drawn to that one . . . . .).

The argument against learning about religion and theology from this direction seems to be: "Why study "religion" if you don't belong to one, and if religions are all about strict moral demands, arcane rituals, institutions and authorities, and impersonal, abstruse doctrines anyway? Becoming knowledgeable about religion does nothing but hinder your spiritual growth . . . . "

Maybe Americans are actually (in the sense above), the "least religious" developed nation, in that our predominant form of religion is rooted in this pietist, individualistic rejection of organized religion. At any rate, it does make us ill-equipped to engage those parts of the world in which the aspects of religion most repugnant to secular modernity are held with deathly seriousness.

New Year, New Blog

2005-01-07T18:40:00.000-05:00

For the last few months I was an (unfortunately infrequent) contributor to Among the Ruins, a nifty-looking and all-around quality blog. My friend Keith created ATR and was its primary writer.

For a variety of reasons, most beyond Keith's control, "The Ruins" is now in ruins.

More precisely, it vanished from cyberspace. An archive of interesting posts, a great list of other blogs, and some cool links to national park webcams are gone.

I had a few weeks' warning that the site was coming to an end, but it still caught me by surprise. I wanted to write a farewell post, thanking Keith publicly for the opportunity and for the way he's gone way above and beyond the call of duty in helping me with doctoral applications -- but I had little time online over the holidays (which itself wasn't a bad thing). So I'll say it now: thanks, Keith.

At any rate, I've got the itch to blog. I've enjoyed finding so many great theologically informed blogs out there and I want to participate in the conversation.

I also have a sense that blogging will be an important way to keep in touch with friends now that so many of those I've shared the past few years with have left or are leaving Waco (something my wife and I hope and plan to do soon as well).

* * * * * * * *

As for the title, it's from a nice little poem J.R.R. Tolkien penned through Bilbo Baggins.

Since I'm launching this blog, I'll start with just the first verse:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

I'm eager to get back on the road. For some time I've felt mired in the Slough of Despond (switching allusions now). I sense that this will end soon. I pray for the perseverance to keep on until it does.

The novelist Walker Percy was the patron saint of Among the Ruins. I consider Percy a kindred spirit (due in part to neurotic delusions of grandeur, no doubt) -- even more so after I recently read Jay Tolson's Percy biography, A Pilgrim in the Ruins.

I frequently return to the notion of life as pilgrimage to remind myself of who I am, where I'm headed and why all that lies in between has purpose -- even if much of that meaning won't be clear until the end.

A forum like this is probably too public for a pilgrim's journal, and I'll probably keep the personal stuff to a minimum. But I expect that theme to be in the background of much of what I write.

(On a lighter note, I suppose I can eventually post verses from Robert Earl Keen's "The Road Goes on Forever . . . and the Party Never Ends.")

Cheers, everyone.