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Emergent Village

November 18, 2011
11:52
Emergent Village Theological Conversation 2012
» ‎ Emergent Village

........................................................................................................

Announcing the 2012 Emergent Village Theological Conversation

Registration is open.
Click HERE.

Nancy Murphy, Dallas Willard, Jurgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, Walter Brueggemann, John Caputo, Stanley Hauerwas. In the past decade the Emergent Village Theological Conversation has been held with the world’s foremost theologians, bringing robust conversation alongside the practice of ministry and the work of the church. This year, we are thrilled to partner with the Claremont School of Theology and Process and Faith to add to that list process theologians John Cobb, Philip Clayton, and others. We will engage and explore the dynamic conception of the living and life-giving God and it is our belief that a progressive, missional, holistic, and radically relational theology with legs will emerge. As always, we will partner these theologians with on-the-ground pastors and practitioners to ensure a fruitful and helpful dialogue for those of us in the trenches.

As always, SPACE IS LIMITED. You won’t want to miss this conversation, so register soon!

Click HERE to register.

When:
Jan 30 – Feb 2, 2012

Where:
Claremont School of Theology
1325 N. College Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
Map

Price:
$99 until 12/31/11
$119 after that
November 05, 2011
17:25
Theological Conversation
» ‎ Emergent Village

........................................................................................................

Announcing the 2012 Emergent Village Theological Conversation

Registration is open.
Click HERE.

Nancy Murphy, Dallas Willard, Jurgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, Walter Brueggemann, John Caputo, Stanley Hauerwas. In the past decade the Emergent Village Theological Conversation has been held with the world’s foremost theologians, bringing robust conversation alongside the practice of ministry and the work of the church. This year, we are thrilled to partner with the Claremont School of Theology and Process and Faith to add to that list process theologians John Cobb, Philip Clayton, and others. We will engage and explore the dynamic conception of the living and life-giving God and it is our belief that a progressive, missional, holistic, and radically relational theology with legs will emerge. As always, we will partner these theologians with on-the-ground pastors and practitioners to ensure a fruitful and helpful dialogue for those of us in the trenches.

As always, SPACE IS LIMITED. You won’t want to miss this conversation, so register soon!

Click HERE to register.

When:
Jan 30 – Feb 2, 2012

Where:
Claremont School of Theology
1325 N. College Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
Map

Price:
$99 until 12/31/11
$119 after that
12:50
Emergent Village Theological Conversation 2012
» ‎ Emergent Village

........................................................................................................

Announcing the 2012 Emergent Village Theological Conversation

Registration is open.
Click HERE.

Nancy Murphy, Dallas Willard, Jurgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, Walter Brueggemann, John Caputo, Stanley Hauerwas. In the past decade the Emergent Village Theological Conversation has been held with the world’s foremost theologians, bringing robust conversation alongside the practice of ministry and the work of the church. This year, we are thrilled to partner with the Claremont School of Theology and Process and Faith to add to that list process theologians John Cobb, Philip Clayton, and others. We will engage and explore the dynamic conception of the living and life-giving God and it is our belief that a progressive, missional, holistic, and radically relational theology with legs will emerge. As always, we will partner these theologians with on-the-ground pastors and practitioners to ensure a fruitful and helpful dialogue for those of us in the trenches.

As always, SPACE IS LIMITED. You won’t want to miss this conversation, so register soon!

Click HERE to register.

When:
Jan 30 – Feb 2, 2012

Where:
Claremont School of Theology
1325 N. College Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
Map

Price:
$99 until 12/31/11
$119 after that
12:20
Theological Conversation
» ‎ Emergent Village

........................................................................................................

Announcing the 2012 Emergent Village Theological Conversation

Registration is open.
Click HERE.

Nancy Murphy, Dallas Willard, Jurgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, Walter Brueggemann, John Caputo, Stanley Hauerwas. In the past decade the Emergent Village Theological Conversation has been held with the world’s foremost theologians, bringing robust conversation alongside the practice of ministry and the work of the church. This year, we are thrilled to partner with the Claremont School of Theology and Process and Faith to add to that list process theologians John Cobb, Philip Clayton, and others. We will engage and explore the dynamic conception of the living and life-giving God and it is our belief that a progressive, missional, holistic, and radically relational theology with legs will emerge. As always, we will partner these theologians with on-the-ground pastors and practitioners to ensure a fruitful and helpful dialogue for those of us in the trenches.

As always, SPACE IS LIMITED. You won’t want to miss this conversation, so register soon!

Click HERE to register.

When:
Jan 30 – Feb 2, 2012

Where:
Claremont School of Theology
1325 N. College Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
Map

Price:
$99 until 12/31/11
$119 after that
September 25, 2011
9:20
Christians Care about Science and Theology
» ‎ Emergent Village

By Thomas Jay Oord

....................................

For some Christians, the science-and-theology dialogue is peripheral to their faith. The heat from disagreement, conflict, and unresolved questions repels them. By contrast, I think Christians should care deeply about science. And they should intentionally engage the theology-and-science dialogue.

Here are ten reasons Christians should care deeply about issues emerging from the science-and-theology interface. These reasons, together, comprise my argument for why engagement in the dialogue is fundamental, not peripheral, for Christians interested in an intellectually responsible faith.

1. Knowing God: We cannot know God as well as we otherwise might if we fail to study creation’s witness to its Creator. The Apostle Paul puts it this way, “Since the creation of the world, God invisible attributes – God’s eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made” (Rm. 1:20).

Christians throughout history have appealed to two “books” as providing knowledge of God: the book of scripture and the book of nature. Neglecting either is detrimental. Deeper knowledge of God requires engagement with both theology and science.

2. Biblical Interpretation: Christians cherish the Bible. It provides the primary – but not only – resource for knowing God, knowing how humans ought to live, and knowing some things about the universe. But Christians also know biblical texts can be interpreted in diverse ways.

Discussion about scientific theories – e.g., evolution – should prompt Christians to ask about the Bible’s basic purpose. Christians should reflect together on how best to interpret biblical passages in light of established scientific theories, including theories opposed to biblical texts when such texts are interpreted literally.

3. The Human Person: Science strongly influences how Christians think about human anatomy and human nature. And yet few ponder what scientific views of sexual reproduction, circumcision, epilepsy, menstruation, neurology, health care, etc., mean for thinking about the human person today.

Developments in contemporary psychology and sociology are also important for Christians to consider when accounting well for what it means to be human. Both ancient Christian wisdom and contemporary science must be brought to bear on what it means to be human.

4. Creation Care: In the first two chapters of Genesis, God gives humans a special task: care for creation. Taking care takes many forms, depending on the contexts. At their best, Christians draw from science when considering how to be care-full toward all God’s creatures.

For instance, Christians should respond appropriately to the overwhelming evidence for global warming when considering how best to fulfill the call God has given them. They must also heed ecological research on species conservation, even when conservation means changing the way they play, farm, hunt, or develop the land.

While Christians may not agree on how best to proceed in response to difficult issues such as these, science should play a central role for finding better ways to care for the world God creates.

5. Cultural Engagement: Christians do not live in isolation. They exist in communities, societies, and cultures. In fact, a huge part of Christian theology emphasizes the relationship Christians have with broader culture.

Science has a loud voice in the public square today. The Christian ignorant about science is easily sidelined or even cut off from cultural conversations about the common good. To be loving citizens who care about God’s work in the world includes conversing with and learning from scientific communities.

6. Christian Scientists: Too often, Christians think scientists are people outside the church. But many scientists are active church members, and many feel ostracized. Too often, for instance, preachers make comments such as, “scientists say,” and then proceed to characterize science negatively. Too often, scientists are looked at suspiciously when it becomes known they affirm evolution, the big bang, the latest in neuroscience, or evidence for human contribution to global warming. Too often, young scientists in the Church feel forced to choose between the best in science and Christian faith.

Although the old saying is simplistic, we need to revive the notion that scientists can “think God’s thoughts after Him.”

7. What Can We Know? A perennial issue for humans is the question, “What can we truly know?” Both theology and science wrestle with it. Unfortunately, both Christian theologians and scientists can sound as if they have obtained absolute certainty. And yet, both theology and science live by faith.

The theology-and-science discussion can help all involved avoid one extreme that says we can know with absolute certainty. And the discussion can help avoid the other extreme that says we know nothing or truth is only private. The goal is greater plausibility for theories in both theology and science.

8. Conflict and Reconciliation: Nearly one hundred years ago, the great philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote in the Atlantic Monthly, “When we consider what religion is for mankind, and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relations between them.”

In that same article, Whitehead talks about the conflicts – both apparent and real – nearly a century ago. Today, conflict remains. Dealing with this conflict in a responsible way can develop positively the character of those in the discussion. And it can provide insights for dealing with conflicts in other domains of human existence.

9. The Big Questions: Religion and philosophy are generally known for dealing with the biggest questions of life. Questions such as “Why is there anything rather than nothing?” and “What is the ultimate source of right and wrong?” have traditionally been given religious and/or philosophical answers.

But many today argue that science should also play a role in answering these questions. And this argument should carry weight for Christians, because they think the revelation God has given in Jesus Christ and all creation helps answer the biggest questions humans face. Science can help in understanding better the various ways God is revealed to us.

10. Creator and Co-creators: Christians insist that God is the creative source of all that exists: God is Creator. But the Bible also says creatures play a role in the creating process. Genesis says, “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air” (Gen 2:19). But Genesis also says God calls upon the ground to “put forth vegetation” (Gen 1:11), calls upon the waters to “bring forth swarms of living creatures” (Gen. 1:20), calls upon the earth to “bring forth living creatures of every kind” (1:25). Creatures are created co-creators.

The idea that God is the ultimate source of creation and creatures joining the creative process is present in other places in the Bible. And God desires that we join in God’s work in our becoming what the Apostle Paul called “new creation.”

Am I missing something?

These are ten reasons why Christians should engage in the science-and-theology dialogue. I doubt it’s an exhaustive list, however.

I’m interested in hearing others. If you have a suggestion, please post it…

___________________________________________________

Thomas Oord... Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. He is the author or editor of a dozen books and professor at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho. To find more go to thomasjayoord.com
9:20
Christians Care about Science and Theology
» ‎ Emergent Village

By Thomas Jay Oord

....................................

For some Christians, the science-and-theology dialogue is peripheral to their faith. The heat from disagreement, conflict, and unresolved questions repels them. By contrast, I think Christians should care deeply about science. And they should intentionally engage the theology-and-science dialogue.

Here are ten reasons Christians should care deeply about issues emerging from the science-and-theology interface. These reasons, together, comprise my argument for why engagement in the dialogue is fundamental, not peripheral, for Christians interested in an intellectually responsible faith.

1. Knowing God: We cannot know God as well as we otherwise might if we fail to study creation’s witness to its Creator. The Apostle Paul puts it this way, “Since the creation of the world, God invisible attributes – God’s eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made” (Rm. 1:20).

Christians throughout history have appealed to two “books” as providing knowledge of God: the book of scripture and the book of nature. Neglecting either is detrimental. Deeper knowledge of God requires engagement with both theology and science.

2. Biblical Interpretation: Christians cherish the Bible. It provides the primary – but not only – resource for knowing God, knowing how humans ought to live, and knowing some things about the universe. But Christians also know biblical texts can be interpreted in diverse ways.

Discussion about scientific theories – e.g., evolution – should prompt Christians to ask about the Bible’s basic purpose. Christians should reflect together on how best to interpret biblical passages in light of established scientific theories, including theories opposed to biblical texts when such texts are interpreted literally.

3. The Human Person: Science strongly influences how Christians think about human anatomy and human nature. And yet few ponder what scientific views of sexual reproduction, circumcision, epilepsy, menstruation, neurology, health care, etc., mean for thinking about the human person today.

Developments in contemporary psychology and sociology are also important for Christians to consider when accounting well for what it means to be human. Both ancient Christian wisdom and contemporary science must be brought to bear on what it means to be human.

4. Creation Care: In the first two chapters of Genesis, God gives humans a special task: care for creation. Taking care takes many forms, depending on the contexts. At their best, Christians draw from science when considering how to be care-full toward all God’s creatures.

For instance, Christians should respond appropriately to the overwhelming evidence for global warming when considering how best to fulfill the call God has given them. They must also heed ecological research on species conservation, even when conservation means changing the way they play, farm, hunt, or develop the land.

While Christians may not agree on how best to proceed in response to difficult issues such as these, science should play a central role for finding better ways to care for the world God creates.

5. Cultural Engagement: Christians do not live in isolation. They exist in communities, societies, and cultures. In fact, a huge part of Christian theology emphasizes the relationship Christians have with broader culture.

Science has a loud voice in the public square today. The Christian ignorant about science is easily sidelined or even cut off from cultural conversations about the common good. To be loving citizens who care about God’s work in the world includes conversing with and learning from scientific communities.

6. Christian Scientists: Too often, Christians think scientists are people outside the church. But many scientists are active church members, and many feel ostracized. Too often, for instance, preachers make comments such as, “scientists say,” and then proceed to characterize science negatively. Too often, scientists are looked at suspiciously when it becomes known they affirm evolution, the big bang, the latest in neuroscience, or evidence for human contribution to global warming. Too often, young scientists in the Church feel forced to choose between the best in science and Christian faith.

Although the old saying is simplistic, we need to revive the notion that scientists can “think God’s thoughts after Him.”

7. What Can We Know? A perennial issue for humans is the question, “What can we truly know?” Both theology and science wrestle with it. Unfortunately, both Christian theologians and scientists can sound as if they have obtained absolute certainty. And yet, both theology and science live by faith.

The theology-and-science discussion can help all involved avoid one extreme that says we can know with absolute certainty. And the discussion can help avoid the other extreme that says we know nothing or truth is only private. The goal is greater plausibility for theories in both theology and science.

8. Conflict and Reconciliation: Nearly one hundred years ago, the great philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote in the Atlantic Monthly, “When we consider what religion is for mankind, and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relations between them.”

In that same article, Whitehead talks about the conflicts – both apparent and real – nearly a century ago. Today, conflict remains. Dealing with this conflict in a responsible way can develop positively the character of those in the discussion. And it can provide insights for dealing with conflicts in other domains of human existence.

9. The Big Questions: Religion and philosophy are generally known for dealing with the biggest questions of life. Questions such as “Why is there anything rather than nothing?” and “What is the ultimate source of right and wrong?” have traditionally been given religious and/or philosophical answers.

But many today argue that science should also play a role in answering these questions. And this argument should carry weight for Christians, because they think the revelation God has given in Jesus Christ and all creation helps answer the biggest questions humans face. Science can help in understanding better the various ways God is revealed to us.

10. Creator and Co-creators: Christians insist that God is the creative source of all that exists: God is Creator. But the Bible also says creatures play a role in the creating process. Genesis says, “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air” (Gen 2:19). But Genesis also says God calls upon the ground to “put forth vegetation” (Gen 1:11), calls upon the waters to “bring forth swarms of living creatures” (Gen. 1:20), calls upon the earth to “bring forth living creatures of every kind” (1:25). Creatures are created co-creators.

The idea that God is the ultimate source of creation and creatures joining the creative process is present in other places in the Bible. And God desires that we join in God’s work in our becoming what the Apostle Paul called “new creation.”

Am I missing something?

These are ten reasons why Christians should engage in the science-and-theology dialogue. I doubt it’s an exhaustive list, however.

I’m interested in hearing others. If you have a suggestion, please post it…

___________________________________________________

Thomas Oord... Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. He is the author or editor of a dozen books and professor at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho. To find more go to thomasjayoord.com
September 08, 2011
2:43
2010 Emergent Village Theological Coversation, Episode 4
» ‎ Emergent Village

....................

Here’s the mp3 file for download

Add to iTunes | XML Feed

The fourth session of the 2010 Emergent Village Theological Conversation is a dialogue in response to Musa’s postcolonial feminist interpretation of the Bible from session three. It is with Musa, Richard and Colin together and includes questions from the audience.

Follow us on Twitter @emergentvillage

Like us on Facebook EmergentVillage

If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to info@emergentvillage.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.
2:43
2010 Emergent Village Theological Coversation, Episode 4 [2]
» ‎ Emergent Village

....................

Here’s the mp3 file for download

Add to iTunes | XML Feed

The fourth session of the 2010 Emergent Village Theological Conversation is a dialogue in response to Musa’s postcolonial feminist interpretation of the Bible from session three. It is with Musa, Richard and Colin together and includes questions from the audience.

Follow us on Twitter @emergentvillage

Like us on Facebook EmergentVillage

If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to info@emergentvillage.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.
August 20, 2011
6:35
Coming Out of the Theological Closet [4]
» ‎ Emergent Village
by Kurt Willems

......................................................................................................................................

I’m told that coming out of the closet involves risk on the part of someone who identifies with the LGBTIQ community. How will my family and friends respond? Will I be labeled as an outsider? When people choose to love these folks, no matter one’s convictions about sexuality, I believe that God is honored. The center of Jesus’ teaching was love of God and love of neighbor. To love one’s neighbor is to foster safety. When our actions, words, or cultural setting forces people into hiding, something needs to be overhauled by love.

I’ve blogged now for about 3 years (off and on) and for about 1.5 years with a bit of intentionality. My first site, Groans From Within, began the writing journey.

An early post I wrote raised concerns. I provocatively titled it: My Evolution Towards Theistic Evolution.* When a couple friends read this, I was accused of being an atheist. Someone then forwarded that article to my senior pastor at the time, attempting to get me fired from my youth pastor position. Luckily, my leader had an open mind on this particular issue. Yet, this incident drove me into theological hiding, with a determination to prevent this from happening again.

Then, about a year later, I left that church and moved to a new community. Up to that point, my site only displayed my first name out of fear that I would create “church problems.” I did everything in my power to keep my online life completely separate from my ministry. Essentially, I hid. I even created a separate Facebook page for church members (masking it by moving family and close friends over there as well) and a second Twitter account. Convinced of the separation between these two parts of my life, I decided to add my last name to the site and took blogging to a new level of seriousness. The crazy thing was… people actually started reading it! This still blows my mind.

Then, it happened. I received the following comment on the Groans From Within contact page:
After checking the name, email, and IP address, I knew exactly who left the comment. The following week, this person sent a five-page email to the pastoral staff and church board about why his family was no longer attending the church. And guess what, half-a-page was devoted to my “liberal” blog with the final sentence quoting a passage about false teachers being in danger of destruction. My guess is that they found my site through a Google search, in hopes to find dirt on leaders in the church. That week, I made the painful decision to set the blog to private and announced that I would be fasting from blogging indefinitely. This was a spiritually rewarding time, but in all honesty, the blog shutdown was mostly driven by an impulse to hide.

After a few months of fasting, I reinvented my site and moved to a new domain. This time I determined to keep church and social media separate. Google search engines couldn’t find my new site, The Pangea Blog, and I chose to only use my first name. These steps certainly would hide my identity enough so that I wouldn’t get outed. But no such luck. Someone on my email update list was a spy and sent word to all the people who were angry at the church I worked at. Tensions rose among the more conservative crowd, but luckily at the close of the fiscal year, my “church planter residency” came to an end. The timing of this prevented greater dissension in the church. My attempts to hide didn’t work. Instead, hiding held back a part of who God designed me to be.

At the end of April I decided that I wouldn’t live in the theological closet any longer. First, I changed the settings on my site to be findable by search engines. Then, I added my last name and pictures of myself to the blog. Within two weeks, I was invited to write for Emergent Village, Tony Campolo’s Red Letter Christians, and Patheos.** The month of May quadrupled my all time page-view record and suddenly people started stopping me in grocery stores and through random situations, telling me that they read my site on a regular basis. Emails began flooding in, and opportunities to write and do ministry emerged. When God took me out of hiding he led me into situations I never thought possible. All this happened when I took the risk of “coming out of the theological closet.”

So, I ask you: Are you in hiding? Do you feel that if you were authentic about your convictions that you would be rejected? Is there a part of your soul that feels like it’s deteriorating as you hide who you really are? If so, I understand, and want you to know that you don’t have to hide any longer. I’m not suggesting that you make any rash decisions, but rather invite you to consider that hiding might be holding you back from your kingdom potential. My prayer is that you will find freedom from your theological closet and that a community of radical Christ-followers will surround you with support.

————————————————————–

*To learn about my views on Evolutionary biology and the Scriptures, go here.

**At Patheos, I’m listed as both an evangelical and progressive Christian blogger.

___________________________________________________

Kurt Willems... is an Anabaptist writer and pastor who is preparing for church planting next year by finishing work towards a Master of Divinity degree at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary. He writes at: the Pangea Blog and is also on Twitter and Facebook.
August 06, 2011
7:35
EMERGENT VILLAGE GATHERING
» ‎ Emergent Village
October 5-7, 2011 Glorieta, New Mexico

Cost: FREE

Registration is closed.

What can happen when 200 people converge for three days to relax, feast and talk about the things that matter most to us? Friendships are deepened. Memories are made. Imaginations are awakened. Hope and a sense of solidarity are rediscovered. New projects and collaborations get instigated.

The Emergent Village Gathering is a 10 year-long annual event for the Emergent Village community near Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is one of the events sponsored by Emergent Village that best embodies our commitment to generative friendship. The Emergent Gathering is a participatory “happening,” where we conspire and collaborate together to create hospitality, conversations and common action. An advanced planning team sets up basic logistics like housing, food, and a daily rhythm. But beyond this participants are invited to host conversations and activities each day.

There is no cost to register or attend, but we do require that you register your attendance for our planning purposes.

Restaurant and food options are available in Santa Fe but If you’d like to be a part of the collaborative cooking, you can add the $60 Fresh Food Fest cost to your registration.

3 types of housing are available and you will also be asked to indicate your housing preference. Here are the options:
Housing Details and Camp site/RV registration here.

Talking is one of the rhythms that helps us discover what it means to seek the kingdom of God in the times and places where we live. We like to say that the Emergent Gathering is a “for-us-by-us” advanced conversation where we learn from one another. We especially welcome voices from vocations that are not primarily “pastoral” or academic to encourage cross-pollination among life disciplines.

Emergent Gathering is the intensive experience of community that is facilitated by sharing life together over 48 hours. The relaxed atmosphere and beautiful surroundings allow us to have integrative encounters: hearing each other’s stories while preparing a meal; hiking or gallery-hopping while talking about issues of faith, ecology or spiritual leadership; discussing theology or the new sciences while sitting in the sun down by a lake; Learning and practicing healthful life skills like yoga, meditative prayer, cooking, poetry and song writing, textile design or how to taste the nuances of coffees from around the world.

If you have been around emergent village and the emerging church conversation for awhile and are looking for a way to become more relationally connected, the Emergent Gathering is a great place to transition from observer to participant. It is also a good space to meet and talk with people face-to-face that you may know through books or blogs. Consider joining us this October.

This year the Emergent Gathering is October 5-7 at Glorietta Conference Center near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Gathering will begin on Wednesday afternoon at 1 P.M. and conclude on Friday before three. The cost for this event is free, but if you would like to be included in the made fresh food fest the cost is $60, which includes all meals and organizing expenses. Housing is a two step process, the first step will take place in the the registration process at EmergentVillage.com/gathering

We hope to see you in Santa Fe this October!!!
July 24, 2011
19:29
A Trinitarian Re-Imagination of Theodicy in Ministry [1]
» ‎ Emergent Village
by Rebecca Tucker

___________________________________________________
Editor’s note: Rebecca wrote this article back in 2006, in the wake of the massacre in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, yet with the recent events in Oslo, Norway this topic proves to be an ever relevant one.
___________________________________________________

The Named God and Massacre on Capitol Hill

(this article owes pretty much everything to one of the greatest theologians ever, stanley grenz – who now gets to hang out with Jesus in person!)

God exists and this happened. God exists. This happened. Looking at those two sentences, though I oft reconciled them before, lost all of its easy escapism on the morning of Sunday, March 26th, 2006. When I arrived at church, I was met with the news that one of the young people in our church was murdered. What is worse, he was one of six, plus the murderer’s own suicide. The massacre in Seattle’s Capitol Hill had, and still has, no explanation. It appears to be a random act of evil. I thought to myself, “God exists. This happened. These two sentences are at odds.” Is this not the age-old question? It is the question at the heart of the oldest book in the Bible: Job. Often, before this event, when my students would ask me about suffering and the existence of God, I would reply, “We don’t get to know.” Somehow, now drawn into one of the greatest tragedies in Seattle’s history, this was trite. Is that really the best answer we can give “We don’t get to know?”

I come to a place where I review every event in my life and even in the history of the world and hear the words “I am” pounding in my head. The holocaust happened; “I am.” My cousin was murdered; “I am.” My family fell apart; “I am.” 911; “I am.” Darfur; “I am.” AIDS pandemic; “I am.” Stanley Grenz died; “I am.” In the present, the Capitol Hill Massacre happened; it happened to someone I know and care for; “I am.” In the face of every evil, the voice booms; “I exist.” At this point, I want to destroy the voice. I don’t care if it is God; it is absent, authoritative, unapologetic, and untrustable.

However, the question dawns, what if I have not heard the voice right? What if I have not listened well because of so much background noise? What if the voice does not say, “I exist,” “I am,” but rather “I am with.” What would this mean to me in my suffering and loneliness? What would it mean for my identity as one in the image of God? What would the calling be as a leader in mourning?

Same Old Theodicy

The problem I found myself tenaciously wrestling with, in the days and weeks following the massacre, was the problem of evil, or the problem of pain. Essentially, this theologically ancient issue asks the question: How do God and evil co-exist? This is the problem pastors often theorize about and plan out our reactions. We write and deliver sermons to prepare and aid our communities through mourning. However, when tragedy strikes, none of these answers, strategies, or sermons holds water. There is no explanation, no words to enable a person to hold the depth of evil in one hand and the existence of a perfect God in the other. “I Am,” indeed, seems to be a taunt rather than an invitation to worship and relationship.

The deeper problem of suffering is suffering alone. The bind we end up in is that we want desperately not to be alone in such an evil world or in the depths of such suffering. And, having narrowly defined God as self-existent, omnipotent, and good, we cannot stand for that God to be with us. What is worse, this God feels distant. We laugh at the lyrics, “God is watching us from a distance,” but where else can God be watching from if God is impassible (or unchangeable and essentially incapable of emotion). So, we are at a standstill because of God’s name: I AM. Or, we would be, but for God’s name: I AM with.

Theodicy Re-Visioned

The answer to these two tragic problems of pain, suffering and suffering alone, comes not through more philosophy, but through stripping away Greek definitions to Hebrew ideals and reclaiming the essence and story God gives us. In short, Stan Grenz’s last work The Named God and the Question of Being invites us to a new question: how do a relational God and God’s relational image-bearers together exist in the face of evil?, in light of an ancient name I AM with. Through the following journey into both the old question: how do God and evil co-exist, and the new question: how do a relational God and God’s relational image-bearers together exist in the face of evil, we will explore many faces to these deep questions.

As we explore these questions, we will first briefly survey the problem of evil, then transition to the theo-anthropology of relational humanity imaging a perichoretic God. From the vantage point of a relational God and relationally suffering people, we will explore the Greek ontological captivity of God’s name. Here we will fully see the beauty Grenz re-captures in his exploration of God’s self-revealed name and explore the story that fills the vast space of I am, especially regarding tragedy. Finally, with a new understanding of who our relational God is in the face of tragedy, we will explore what it means that God shares God’s name with us. That is, we will begin to ask what it means to become Christ-like – to become human – in tragedy and will re-imagine the role of pastor in the face of suffering, as we learn to say, “I am with” even as our Creator has said to us.

The Problem of Suffering

We begin with the presenting problem: theodicy. Basically, this question asks, if God is good, why is there suffering in the world? More simply put, theodicy asks, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” There are two aspects to the problem of evil: 1) the question of sin. 2) the problem of suffering. Both of these fit under the heading theodicy (or the problem of evil). Both of these also bear on the types of evil discussed in the opening of our discussion. However, for the sake of this paper, we will focus on the latter: How do we say, “God exists and this tragedy happened?” How can we speak of a good God and good creation when evil enters our lives? More practically, what does the church offer those suffering the effects of evil? Pannenberg summarizes this age-old difficulty:
Lewis Smedes speaks of this in more personal terms as he recalls interacting with God after the death of his son:
In response to this, many arguments can be made. Pannenberg suggests that Christian theology does not necessitate an original state of perfection but an eventual one [4]. Job tells us evil happens without reason. Whatever the answer, philosophical postulations to a hurting heart are like spitting on a bleeding wound, believing there is some healing to be had through bacteria-ridden saliva, but ultimately only adding infection to hurt. It is here, in response to this wound, as we genuinely seek healing, that The Named God and the Question of Being takes on new importance and we begin to ask the new question: how do a relational God and God’s relational image-bearers together exist in the face of evil.

Trinitarian Theology of Imago Dei & Relationality

As we examine relational beings, caught in the problems of evil and pain, we need to understand who we are. Primarily this question is answered as God answers it: we are in God’s image and likeness. This can be interpreted many different ways. In his previous book, Grenz suggests a deep integration of relationship and imago dei or personhood; “Triune life becomes the final touchstone for speaking about personhood.”[5] Barth similarly sees Imago Dei as capacity for relationship:
Looking at Grenz’s posthumous work, our main text, The Named God and the Question of Being, we see a forming philosophical dichotomy in the understanding of being. As Grenz explores this dichotomy in the first chapter of our text, he summarizes Plato’s theory of the world of being and of becoming. Everything in the world of being reflects something intangible in the world of becoming. Within this framework, a thing is good in so much as it reflects that which it represents. Grenz connects Plato’s understanding of being to his understanding of good and wisely applies it to the human condition:
If, as thought at the time and often since, humanity is intellect and God’s logos – God’s intellect – is theimage we are in, then the sharper the mind, the more developed the philosophy, the more human and the more good we become. However, if God is primarily relational, eternally co-existing with God’s triune self, then we, as image bearers are not good in so much as we are intelligent, but are good, in so much as we are relational. Can this engrained desire and hardwiring for relationship be diminished in suffering? No! It can be heightened no more than when evil and the depth of relational disharmony and separation from our relational God is made inescapably clear through the depths of evil. In these times, we long for the two relationships mandated by the two great commandments – the two relationships given at the dawn of time: relationship with God and relationship with humanity. So, the nature of the God whose image we bear and to whom we cry out in times of suffering, is the relational God who created us to be relational. In this understanding, of God theodicy is re-invented. In this view of ourselves, we begin to re-vision our response to evil.

Ontology’s Captivity of I AM

Our assumed and to-be-developed understanding of a relational God is not historically – or even currently – a theological given. As our subtitle suggests, ontology has held God’s name captive, changing our perception of an intimate and self-named God. Grenz begins his discourse on the topic of God’s being by exploring the Greek captivity of God’s name. Ontology – or the philosophy of being (or existence) – was birthed as an alternative to a superstitious understanding of life at the whim of multiple Gods. Grenz explains,
As the importance of being – of ego, of the statement: I am – grew, the connection to God’s self-given name, I AM, became clear. Here was a natural bridge to join Greek philosophy to Christian theology. Grenz astutely bears witness to this phenomenon:
Grenz continues, naming some of the conceptual implications this has brought to Christian theology:
Further, Grenz cites George Rowlinson and John J. Davis who both – in contemporary times – highlight the ontological implications of God’s eternal existence in the name, I AM. Here, the import of God’s name is God’s independence (as dramatically opposed to our thesis of God’s relationality or inter-dependence). So it is that the God, self-named I AM, became distant and unchangeable. So it is that we can sing, “God is watching us from a distance.” So is created the God who the mourning soul questions and shrinks from relationship with.

I AM With

What, though, if this is a misinterpretation of I AM? What if we have missed something in God’s self-given name? The voices explored above paint an ontological God. Other voices, Grenz included, stand against this strictly ontological and inherently Greek understanding of this Hebrew theological term: I AM. Noth, Von Rad, and Hyatt see a dramatically different interpretation of I AM. It does not mean I exist, instead, its implication is I AM with. As Grenz states,
What is more, this name invites story and development,
Further, Grenz expands I AM to “I am [I will be] there (for you).” This, as Grenz proposes, suggests God’s covenant and faithful presence.

In our suffering, then, as much as we appreciate the warm embrace of a friend who says, “In this, I will be there for you.” So much more, the very voice of God supports our shaking hearts as God speaks, “I AM there for you.” Somehow, in God’s embrace, theodicy fades to the pale background of relationship.

What’s in a Name?

Were God’s name, in itself, not relational, the mere act of God’s self-naming would yet reveal God’s relationality. This begs the question: What’s in a name? Grenz asks this obvious question and answers it with Ernst Pulgrum’s words:
Names are used for reference. They are, therefore, relational. God’s self-naming is God’s moving toward us. As Pulgrum suggests, the need of a name revokes a solitary existence and reaches out for something different: for relationship. Thus, as Grenz suggests, the weight is in God’s self-naming act;
As we enter into our suffering, then, the God who speaks I AM is not the distant God who watches from a distance. This God is the God who took a name for the sake of relationship, and who, in that name, covenanted to be with as our journey unfolds. The God whose name is I AM with waits in our suffering to say I am with you.

The Saga of the Weeping God

Grenz’s text takes the reader through three sagas. The first is the saga of being, or the story of the ontology and its heavy-handed union with theology. The second saga is the Saga of the I AM. Here Grenz interprets the name and moves further to interpret the story of this name. In this section of our discussion, we will trace this named God’s presence in the saga of suffering. First, we know that God is relationally grieved. We know that Jesus weeps. In Job, the theodicy of scripture, God weeps for the troubled. Perhaps the most tender and explicit interaction between God and a mourning soul comes in John 11, when Jesus comes to raise Lazarus. Jesus knows that Lazarus will rise. Still, as he sees Mary’s grief, the God-Man is moved and troubled. It is here that Jesus weeps. [16][17]

This same God, who says I am there for you, is also the God of tragic abandonment in the darkest time of suffering in the history of the world: on the cross. [18] As Jesus, God and God’s Son, hung, punished for our sins, he cried out the saddest words ever uttered, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The Greek word translated forsaken is egkataleipo (eng-kat-al-i’-po). This means to abandon or desert. It connotes that Jesus is left helpless and totally abandoned; he is left in straights. This term is unseen until this moment. After this, it is used to describe what I AM with will not do. Previously, we examined how God’s act of self-naming was a movement toward relationship. Here, the God whose nature is bound up in being with abandons God’s own Son – even God’s own self – in order that because of this desperately dark moment of abandonment in suffering, God might be united to us. So it is that, in our suffering, we look to the cross and know that. It is because of this scandalously exquisite abandonment that we are not alone in our suffering. While we find no clear answers to the question of theodicy in scripture, we do find that God sacrifices all in order that God might be with us. This, then, is how we re-vision theodicy.

Conclusion: Becoming Human in Tragedy

So it is that we enter into the world where “this happened” and “God exists.” We do not have an answer to the problem of evil. We have not, in anyway, engaged theodicy. Then again, if the height of being human is Jesus – the relational I AM, then work becoming human is becoming with – with God and with humanity. Where the Greek understanding of humanity was based on intellect and the problem of evil requires intellectual engagement, we have chosen a different path. We have, instead, sought out a relational God to be with in suffering. We have sought to share a name, and therefore a calling, with the Jesus who is with both God and humanity. To become human, then, is to enter into that eternal being present of the sovereign God. We are human as we inhabit our suffering and do so relationally, sorrowfully and gladly sharing that divine name – the glorious I AM.

My story revisited

From this vantage point, let’s revisit that dark day. Let’s return to the moment I found out about the murders and began to ask how God and evil can co-exist and what my calling might be as a minister in this dark time. In the midst of the tragedy that faced my church, I began to wonder how to lead in mourning. I struggled, as our discussion has revealed, with God’s goodness and existence. I searched for God’s words in this time of suffering. When I let go of debate and propositional definitions of God, when I stopped searching for God’s words and began to long for God’s presence, I remembered Grenz’s work and opened my heart to the God named: I am with. When I gave up piety and the pastor’s role in order to be and to be in search of God’s communal presence, I was met as I was: a little girl, lost and fearful in an evil world:
So, I was met, not only as a little girl longing for her Father, but also as one with a calling to be withGod and with humanity, drawing them into the intimate union of the God whose name is I AM with. And so is our calling – to lead as children – to grieve and wail and to invite all God’s children to be bathed in God’s tears and clothed in God’s embrace. If we believe I AM means so much more than I exist, if we hold that we are in the image of the God who is named I AM with, then we become humanas we share Christ’s name. Our answer, in the face of suffering, is to be with the God who is with. We share our tears with God. Then we wear God’s tears as our glorious crown as we are with our brothers and sisters in humanity, inviting them also to mourn with the God who is with.

sources:
(the foot notes got messed up when i copied and pasted this…and i don’t have time to fix it…sorry)

[1]Ricoeur, Paul. “Evil, a challenge to philosophy and theology” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 53.4, Dec 1985, p 635-648. p 636

[2]Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Systematische Theologie: Vol 2. trans Geoffrey W. Bromiley. (International: London) 2004; p 162;

[3]Smedes, Lewis. “What’s God up to? A father grieves the loss of a child.” Christian Century. May 2003, p 38-39.

[4]Job 2:3

[5]Grenz, Stanley. The social God and the relational self : a trinitarian theology of the imago Dei. (Louisville, KY : Westminster John Knox Press): 2001 p. 57

[6]Barth, Karl. (1958). Church Dogmatics: vol. III.1. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark): 1858 p 196

[7]Grenz, Stanley J.The named God and the question of being : a trinitarian theo-ontology. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox): 2005 p. 27

[8]ibid 16

[9]ibid 133

[10]ibid 133

[11]ibid 142

[12]ibid 142-143

[13]ibid 282

[14]ibid 144

[15]ibid 271

[16]Gen 6:6-7, 1 Sam 15:11, 35, 1 Chr 21:15, Job 30:25, Is 63:10, Ek 6:9,

[17]Jn 11:35

[18]Mat 27:64, Mk 15:34 NASB

[19]Blue letter bible.com

[20]Acts 20:27, 2 Cor 4:9
July 21, 2011
12:03
EMERGENT GATHERING - INTRO LETTER 2011
» ‎ Emergent Village

A GATHERING OF THOSE PURSUING ADVANCED CONVERSATIONS AND DEEPENING RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN EMERGENT VILLAGE

Click here to REGISTER.

Since ancient times tribes of people have gathered to tabernacle – to rest, celebrate and feast together – with a sense of expectancy and awareness of the Maker’s presence.

What can happen when 200 people converge for three days to relax, feast and talk about the things that matter most to us? Friendships are deepened. Memories are made. Imaginations are awakened. Hope and a sense of solidarity are rediscovered. New projects and collaborations get instigated.

The Emergent Village Gathering is a 10 year-long annual event for the Emergent Village community near Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is one of the events sponsored by Emergent Village that best embodies our commitment to generative friendship. The Emergent Gathering is a participatory “happening,” where we conspire and collaborate together to create hospitality, conversations and common action. An advanced planning team sets up basic logistics like housing, food, and a daily rhythm. But beyond this participants are invited to host conversations and activities each day.

Talking is one of the rhythms that helps us discover what it means to seek the kingdom of God in the times and places where we live. We like to say that the Emergent Gathering is a “for-us-by-us” advanced conversation where we learn from one another. We especially welcome voices from vocations that are not primarily “pastoral” or academic to encourage cross-pollination among life disciplines.

What I love most about the Emergent Gathering is the intensive experience of community that is facilitated by sharing life together over 48 hours. The relaxed atmosphere and beautiful surroundings allow us to have integrative encounters: hearing each other’s stories while preparing a meal; hiking or gallery-hopping while talking about issues of faith, ecology or spiritual leadership; discussing theology or the new sciences while sitting in the sun down by a lake; Learning and practicing healthful life skills like yoga, meditative prayer, cooking, poetry and song writing, textile design or how to taste the nuances of coffees from around the world.

If you have been around emergent village and the emerging church conversation for awhile and are looking for a way to become more relationally connected, the Emergent Gathering is a great place to transition from observer to participant. It is also a good space to meet and talk with people face-to-face that you may know through books or blogs. I encourage you to consider joining us this October.

This year the Emergent Gathering is October 5-7 at Glorietta Conference Center near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Gathering will begin on Wednesday afternoon at 1 P.M. and conclude on Friday before three. The cost for this event is free, but if you would like to be included in the made fresh food fest the cost is $60, which includes all meals and organizing expenses. Housing is a two step process, the first step will take place in the the registration process at EmergentVillage.com/gathering.

Spaces for this event will fill up fast, so I encourage you to register early.

Check back for further details.

We hope to see you in Santa Fe this October!!!
July 07, 2011
6:18
2010 Emergent Village Theological Coversation, Episode 3
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This is the third session of the Emergent Village Theological Conversation. In this session we’ll hear from Musa Dube, as she shares her history and describes how she engages theology through the lens of a post-colonial, feminist interpretation of the Bible. This session is facilitated by Melvin Bray and Daniel Fan.

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If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to emergentstuff@gmail.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.
July 01, 2011
7:35
Just Jesus and Unjust July 4th – Why I Don’t Celebrate Independence Day [1]
» ‎ Emergent Village
by Kurt Willems

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Guys can be stupid. Add explosives to the equation and the idiocy quotient increases exponentially. Such was the case every 4th of July during High school. A group of about 20 guys would get together to BBQ and play with illegal fireworks. At any unsuspected moment while taking a bite out of a burger, an M-80 could be lit under your seat, a sparkler thrown at your bare chest like a dart, or a mortar could be shot like a bazooka, catching bushes on fire.

Then, there was the “bottle rocket game.” Us guys would stand in a circle with our arms locked in a tight circle. Following this precise formation, the bottle rocket was lit and dropped in the middle of the circle. Adrenaline pumping and terrified adolescents jumping, we’d pray like heck that the flying explosive wouldn’t impact and explode on our legs … and yes, some jeans did catch on fire. These chaotically stupid memories simultaneously serve as some of the most fun I can recall experiencing. So, for me, Independence Day equals fun.

However, there’s a deeper reality to which this holiday points. Only about three years ago did I realize that in celebrating Independence Day I’m also glorifying the pagan roots on which this nation was founded: an unjust war. The “rockets red glare” and “the bombs bursting in air” remind us not of the day God liberated the colonies, but of the moment in history when our forefathers stole the rhetoric of God from authentic Christianity to justify killing fellow Christians. There’s two reasons I’m convinced that celebrating Independence Day celebrates an unjust war.

2 Reasons: Unjust Cause & Hypocrisy

First, nonviolence was normative prior to Constantine. However, even if you believe that there are moments when violence is justifiable by classical “just war” criteria, the Revolutionary War does not meet those standards.[1] Consider this summary: “Wars, to be just, must be fought under established governments, they must restore justice or preserve peace, they must be a last resort after exhausting peaceful means to solve a conflict, and they must be fought with the minimum of violence necessary and with proper safeguards for noncombatants.”[2]

The Declaration states that “when a long train of abuses and usurpations… design to reduce them under absolute despotism …” it’s right to “throw off such a government.” [3] The document goes on to list about twenty grievances including: frustrations with taxation, troops quartered, ignoring murder, lack of Parliamentary representation, and more. Most historians agree that the Revolution was a “tax revolt, first and foremost.”[4]

.................................................

In regards to taxes, the mantra “no taxation without representation” rings in our social studies books. The question to ask is the nature of the taxes leading up to the war. These taxes are connected to another war: the French and Indian War (1754-1763). When the colonists were threatened in conflict, who came to save the day??? The British!!! So much, that the debt of England had increased by £130,000,000 during the war.

To alleviate the heavy burden, Parliament passed the Stamp Act. Later, the Tea tax was added to help the importer who was facing financial difficulties. Oddly enough, even during the events leading up to the Revolution taxes were significantly lower and tea cheaper in the Colonies than in England! “The tax burden of the nearly two million colonists was per capita only one twenty-fifth of the roughly 8.5 million residents of Britain.”[5] Does that change your view of taxation and the Revolution?[6]

Unfortunately, the reality that Parliament could impose taxes, led the colonists to fear that further controls would be taken. This led the famous Boston Tea Party, which then led England sending troops to regulate the lawlessness.[7] Sadly, as history shows, some colonists believed that this was all part of some conspiracy to eventually eliminate all liberty, so they took up arms and fired the first shot at Lexington. No such thing was ever discussed by Parliament. Not only so, but the relationship between the Colonies and England were no different than modern U.S. policy in Puerto Rico – who get taxed without representation.

....................

The second reason that the Revolution clearly doesn’t fit the category of “just war” is hypocrisy. Instead of going into details, let’s go to one of the most credible Christian voices in history, John Wesley:
The very men that worried about becoming the slaves of ol’ King George, perpetuated the worst system of slavery in the world! Consider the words of historian, Mark Noll:
Just Jesus

If ever there was a situation that called for “just war,” it was the first century. The Roman Empire oppressed and killed people in Israel. There was no liberty for the Jewish people. Yet, Jesus taught the exact opposite of revolution – “But I say to you: don’t use violence to resist evil!” (Matthew 5.39, Kingdom New Testament).[10] Even if one holds to the possibility of a “just war,” historically, the victory we celebrate as Americans every 4th of July, does not count. May we quit appealing to pseudo “just war” theories and start appealing to just Jesus, because the only Independence Day worth celebrating is Easter – which reminds us that violence doesn’t win because the tomb is empty!

.................................................

________________________________________________

[1] 1) Just Cause: War is allowed only “to protect innocent life, to preserve conditions necessary for decent human existence, and basic human rights.” 2) Proportionate Cause: Damage inflicted must be proportionate to the good of the outcome. 3) Right Intention: “Requires the pursuit of peace and reconciliation.” 4) Competent Authority: War is “declared by those with responsibility for public order, not by private groups or individuals.” 5)Probability of Success: “Serious prospects of success” that violence will be worth it. 6) Last Resort: “All peaceful alternatives must [be] exhausted.” 7)Comparative Justice: “No state should act on the basis that it has absolute justice on its side.”

[2] The Search For Christian America by Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and George M. Marsden, 95.

[3] All facts come from the following source or the previous one: America’s War for Independence: Just or Unjust? by John Keown of Georgetown University.

[4] Keown, 288.

[5] Keown, 285.

[6] Interestingly, taxes went up by nearly 300% shortly after the close of the War. (see: Keown, 286).

[7] It’s worth noting that England could have been better at diplomacy. The confusion caused by their poor response certainly added to the conspiracy theories.

[8] Keown, 292.

[9] Direction: Was the Revolutionary War Justified? (Christianity Today, 1999), Mark Noll.

[10] For more on this passage and nonviolence in general, go here.

___________________________________________________

Kurt Willems... is an Anabaptist writer and pastor who is preparing for church planting next year by finishing work towards a Master of Divinity degree at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary. He writes at: the Pangea Blog and is also on Twitter and Facebook.
June 16, 2011
4:25
2010 Emergent Village Theological Coversation, Episode 2
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This is the second session of the 2010 Emergent Village Theological Conversation: Creating Liberated Spaces in a Post-Colonial World. In this session you’ll hear a dialogue between Richard, Musa and Colin generated by comments and questions from Richard’s conversation starter in session one.

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If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to podcast@emergentvillage.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.
June 15, 2011
8:04
Process Theology [1]
» ‎ Emergent Village

By Doug Pagitt

Over the centuries Christians have organized their thoughts and beliefs in patterns. None of these patters have been exhaustive. None have answered all the questions. None have settled matters for all times.
Some have caused more trouble than made things better.
Some of these patterns have come at just the right time in the history. Some of these patterns have helped people to see entire new ways of understanding God, humanity and all things.

Process theology is a system of thought that I was introduced to in the early 1990’s. The people who told me about Process Theology only did so to warn me about it.

Process Theology was the dead-end of a slippery slope of liberalism.
I can see why the idea of Process Theology were scary to the people who told me about it. Most of the assumptions in the Augustinian Theology I was taught are not present in Process Theology. The language of Process Theology seeks to describe entirely other topics.

If I were comfortable with aligning myself with a system of theology I would pick Process Theology.

So, my conversation with Bruce Epperly, my Process Theology mentor, was a real treat.
Here are three recordings of our conversation from my radio show. Audio podcast of this show and all past shows can be found at www.DougPagittRadio.com.
May 22, 2011
17:29
WHY I BELIEVE IN HELL AND I AM NOT A UNIVERSALIST
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Florin Paladie

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Words are fluid. They have meaning ONLY in a context (when paired with other words) and so don’t have a universal meaning applying in all contexts. The current conversation on Hell (and Heaven) and universalism has turned into controversy and debate precisely because of this. When someone uses the word hell it is assumed, wrongly, it has one meaning, an obvious one. Now, I am not going to go into an analysis of the various meanings of hell, both in Scriptures and various writings from the far past to the current ones. I am making this remark just to stop you from drawing a conclusion on what I MUST mean by the title. I ask you to read on and see where I am coming from and what it is that I am trying to say. I promise I will not be vague and I will be straight to the point.

Let me start right away with what’s informing my theology. I believe God infused freedom in the creation process, freedom defined as God contracting to allow for something outside God to exist. In essence God created the space for a Non-God reality, I am guessing, with the hope “it” will side with God or turn to God force – to use Star Wars verbiage. I consider this freedom to be sacred and eternal.

The odd thing is that while this freedom is necessary in giving birth to authentic love (true love is a choice afterall), it also brings about, well, ... What is that when we experience deep hurt, loneliness, rejection, desperation, sense of hopelessness, fear, longings that can’t seem to be satisfied? What is this sense of being out of sync with life and so instead of living life you seem to fight it? It doesn’t take too long to figure that freedom while a great blessing is a great curse. It creates, for lack of a better word, HELL. It seems no one argues with the hell we experience here and now (how can we, unless we’re just choosing to turn a blind eye to reality around us). The debate is about what happens after this life, in the next one.

The talk about hell, heaven, universalism and all the things in between implies a bizarre dichotomy of God’s working in time. Building on the framework of there’s this age and the age to come, or the end of this world and the beginning of a new world, this life or life after death, strikingly similar to Dispensationalism (the theology that God works/deals differently in different dispensations of time), God is viewed as dealing dramatically different with his creation at different times. God is merciful and forgiving NOW, but judging and wrathful THEN. God has created this world allowing for suffering and pain (sin) NOW, but THEN God will have figured a world without sin and all its consequences. God will accept a murderer who turns to him on his death bed NOW, but will forever say no to anyone who might want to turn to him THEN. God essentially gives us freedom NOW (granted a limited one), but will take it away THEN.

Herein lies my issue. If God has created the best possible scenario (which is how I imagine God operates) with freedom/choice imbedded in it, why would He change that at a later time? If freedom is so critical to how God does things, why would He take it away? The reason I can’t believe in hell as an eternal state (or place if you like) of torment where – attention – there’s no turning back and I can’t believe in Universalism that says that God will draw (against its will) all creation to himself eventually, is that it implies the existence of a creation (human beings included) devoid of freedom. And yet, this is precisely the reason I also believe in hell, that it exists and it will in whatever iteration of existence. It must exist as an eternal possibility for anyone not wanting to choose God, his reality, his ecosystem. Although, personally … I can’t see anyone choosing anything but God and his things once they really get to know Him and what he is about. I believe people refuse God and his way because of misconceptions and distorted understandings. But that’s the topic of another post.

I do believe in hell as a necessary choice for people to experience the state of separation from what is God and, as Jonathan Brink calls it, God’s imagination. I see hell as the painful school of learning about life and its ways. As always, some get it sooner, some get it later and for some it takes an eternity to deconstruct and break through the web of lies and distortions. Like for Adam and Eve, our very freedom pushes us to experience the darker side; we want to have the knowledge of good and evil. But like the father of the runaway son in Jesus parable, God is waiting and willing to receive us back when our time comes. His story is the story of redemption, afterall he is in the restoration business, and the capital it runs on – mercy, love and justice – thank God they last FOREVER!!!
May 19, 2011
7:46
2010 Emergent Village Theological Coversation, Episode 1
» ‎ Emergent Village

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Here’s the mp3 file for download

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Our first session is a conversation starter with Richard Twiss, who is a member of the Rosebud Lakota/Sioux tribe. During this session, Richard shares some of his personal history and describes how he engages post-colonial theology from a Native American context.

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April 30, 2011
3:24
SEVEN REASONS WHY I DON'T BELIEVE IN HELL
» ‎ Emergent Village

By Crystal Lewis

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I find that people are utterly puzzled when I tell them I don’t believe in hell, and over the past few weeks it has become increasingly evident to me that I need to flesh out my position on this topic. So if you’ll indulge me for a few minutes, I’d like to lay out the information I learned which caused me to abandon my former belief in a fiery afterlife.

1. We tend to think of the underworld as an Israelite or Jewish “revelation” that was passed on to Christianity during the first century, however this is not true. The concept of an “underworld” existed long before the dawn of the Israelites’ religion and is also found in ancient Mesopotamia, Zoroastrianism and Greek myth. When people buried their deceased loved ones, they often wondered what happened “down there” under the dirt. This concern and curiosity caused people to theorize, and even prompted the development of such intricate afterlife companions as the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Humankind has always developed ideas about the next “life” or “world(s)” to help cope with the uncertainty involved in death and dying.

2. The concept of the afterlife (Sheol) that has been recorded in Jewish/Christian scripture probably emerged from the Israelites’ contact with the ancient Babylonians. This would not be the first religious concept to be borrowed from their neighbors. It is widely known that the Ten Commandments, the Genesis creation account, the story of Noah, and other things were heavily influenced by the culture in which the Israelites lived. Furthermore, Sheol is not “hell.” In fact, it is a shadowy pit without fire or demons… It’s a place where everyone went upon death. (Click here to read a rabbi’s exploration of this topic.)

3. In the New Testament, the word hell masks a ton of metaphor. We are often unable to see this because we have been so thoroughly indoctrinated by a literal/traditional reading of the text. I wrote about this last summer, so instead of rehashing it all here, I’ll suggest that you read how the concepts of fire, Hades (which is a product of Greek myth), and weeping/gnashing of teeth can be alternatively understood.

4. Torturing someone for eternity is not “justice.” Neither is “banishing them from God’s presence forever.” In fact, I like Rabbi Max Weiman’s observation that in true justice, the punishment fits the crime. The punishment for a human moral infraction could never logically be “eternal” because we are not capable of commiting “eternal sins.” And, Jesus (a Jew) made reference to an ancient concept of justice that involved “an eye for an eye”, which brings to mind the degree to which many (but obviously not all) Jewish people believed that the “scales” should be balanced in the process whenever possible. What’s most interesting is that Jesus went on to teach that holy justice meant abandoning even the eye-for-an-eye idea because in his mind, God would be much more gracious than that—and would expect the same from us.

5. The concept of an all-powerful deity who expects me to forgive 70X7 times when he clearly is unable to do the same is simply beyond my imagination. Frankly, I just can’t believe it. If you read my blog, you know I’m no theologian, so I’m not interested in stringing together a bunch of patristic theory and half-hacked scripture to prove that God tortures people. If there is a God, then surely, his ability to reason, carry out justice, and love us will far exceed any theory or practice we can concoct in this life. And, I don’t think we need a torture theory in order to highlight the beauty of forgiveness.

6. I’ve become convinced that we are attached to the hell doctrine because we don’t know what else to believe. However, from my view that’s not a good enough reason to promote a co-opted theory about an abuser in an underworld that is highly unlikely to exist.

7. Finally—telling someone to worship their torturer is abuse. I don’t care how you slice it and dice it. It doesn’t matter what kind of package you wrap it in or what kinds of pretty songs you sing about it. There is something unhealthy about a religious experience that has fear at its center. There is something wrong with a religion whose adherents are afraid to leave it because their deity might torture them. And there’s something equally wrong when it isn’t okay to come out and say that to people without being afraid of the consequences. I think we should re-examine the religious construct we’re offering to people and question whether it’s healthy… whether it’s something we truly want the next generation to believe… and whether we believe it because we want to—or because we’re afraid not to.

So that’s it y’all. These are the reasons why I’m a proud, card-carrying, hell-free heretic and proud of it. I hope it clarifies my position on this topic. Thanks for reading.

Find out more of Crystal Lewis here
April 20, 2011
6:20
Fighting for the soul of evangelicalism
» ‎ Emergent Village

By Jonathan Brink

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I’ve come to believe that much of the backlash towards Rob Bell is not against actually against the Gospel. It’s a fight for the identity and very soul of evangelicalism, which is much smaller. But if you live exclusively in that bubble, it’s really easy to think it’s the only thing that exists.

This video is interesting. (Todd, please fire your camera guy. Shaky came went out when MTV stopped playing music videos.) It’s really long, but it’s interesting to watch Todd defend his approach to the Gospel, which is based on an old penal substitutionary methodology. This is decent example of the historical, evangelical way of thinking, and what I grew up in. It’s rigorous, demanding, in-your-face, and completely bent towards a punitive justice approach. As Todd’s shows name reveals, everyone is a wretch. And it completely centers on a works theology, which demands a mental assent to that theory to then change God’s opinion, which is then defined by really smart, white guys. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one.) We don’t like to admit that but mental ascent is still a work if it changes cosmology. What Todd misses is that grace is not dependent upon human interaction. It existed before time, not upon our acceptance.

Todd spends a lot of time defending the concept of justification, which depends upon an angry God. At 9:00 he even suggests his bent when he says, “Then he needs to apologize alone for questioning of justification.” This, I would suggest, is the real fight. It’s a fight for long held (actually not that long) beliefs that a few are trying to control. My friend Doug paints it in even harder tones.

It was this framework that I deconstructed in my book. Todd makes a classic case for the basis of entrance to heaven, using human goodness as that basis. Rob doesn’t make that argument. (Todd hasn’t read the book, oh my.) Todd asks the traditional question, which is, “whose standard can we use to judge?” And historically we always revert to human subjective standard. I agree Todd. It doesn’t work. It’s the original root problem. The problem is Todd misses the Scriptural basis for an objective standard in Scripture.

Gen 1:31. – God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

God establishes a basis for reality that includes everything. And it’s all good. There is no exception. It even includes the serpent and the tree. That declaration is not dependent upon humanity interactivity or circumstance. God doesn’t wait until we show up and then judge after we act. God judges before. So to operate counter to this original judgment is the true basis for understanding both original sin, and the problem God is solving in the story.

Much of the criticism against Rob Bell comes from the neo-conservative Calvin crowd (Piper, Carson, Challies, DeYoung) such as Friel. It’s a very conservative group attempting to establish the basis for what is an evangelical. The problem is that people like Bell come from that crowd. So when one of their (our) own breaks line, all hell breaks loose (pun intended). Todd even states at 11:25, as he points towards a table of historical and dead theologians.

“My question is, ‘Fellas, where have you been? Where have you been?’ You see five years ago, seven years ago, you would have been dealing with a sappling in Rob Bell. Now he’s literally a mighty oak. Now they’re coming out and saying, ‘We gotta chop this thing down. This thing is dangerous.’”

What always surprises me is how much people like Friel tend to bash love, as though it comes at the expense of justice. I would suggest justice is deeply informed by love, but not in the way Friel holds it. Justice can never be served at the expense of someone. It must always include everyone, because all of creation is good, which is why the mission of God is relentless to restore all of creation. And what God is restoring is our perception of reality, not reality.

What’s interesting to me is something my friend Bill Kinnon suggested a while ago. Even if Rob Bell is wrong, why are Friel/Piper/DeYoung/Carson so worried. Isn’t their concern diametrically opposed to their own Calvinistic belief system, which suggests God is sovereign, so they have no real choice anyway? God only lets in the elect…right?!?

It will be interesting to see how long this approach lasts because at some point, people like Todd are going to discover there is a much better approach.
April 14, 2011
2:17
The Runaways and Their Loving Mom [6]
» ‎ Emergent Village

By Jeromy Johnson

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What is the Kingdom of God like, you ask?

A woman lived in rural central California. She was known for her kindness, generosity and love, but she was also fair and just. Her five children were normal kids, but the four youngest were known around town for their rebellious streaks. As a single mom, she did the best she could to establish both love and rules in the house, but four of her kids desired freedom over relationship. So one evening, the four youngest filled their backpacks and ran away.

The mom woke up and, finding four of her children’s beds empty, began to weep. She would not rest until her children returned home or she found them. Being a farm owner, she had plenty of hired hands to help in her search. She put the farm’s business on hold and sent her workers out to search for her lost darlings. She spent every last dime printing pamphlets, recording radio spots and inundating the TV with ads exclaiming her love for her children and her pleas for them to return home into her loving arms. All that she had, was and would be theirs.

Then one day, it happened. One of her runaways returned home. Seeing and hearing her message, his heart melted and he came back. She embraced him, welcoming him home. She turned to her eldest son (the one that never ran away) and asked if he would help find and bring back the others. He set out with a mission and a message. When he found two of the three, he told them of their mom’s love for them and how badly she missed them and her relentless desire for all of them to come home. He also reminded them of the Great Rule, but they refused to come back with him. He never did find the forth lost one.

Years passed and no sign of her kids. Regardless, a great rule had been violated. So she climbed into her pickup truck with a few hired hands and set out to bring her children home. On May 17, she found them.

All three were huddled up near a dumpster, clutching a worn blanket. They saw her truck approach and, too tired to run, they just sat with terror I their eyes. See, while away, they had been told countless lies by countless people that their mom was not a kind woman, that she did not love them and that she was mad-as-hell at them. Added to this were their incredible loneliness, shame and feelings of worthlessness. Living on the street—isolated from love—can do this to anyone, and it certainly did them. Seeing her children and hearing about their condition, the mother reassured them of her love. But despite her undying, never-ending motherly love for her children, she knew that the Great Rule had been violated and she must act accordingly.

They pulled up into the driveway and the truck came to a dusty halt. The hired hands helped the kids climb out of the back of the truck. As the mom walked to the house she looked back one last time at her kids. Motioning to the hired hands, she firmly declared, “Take them away. They violated the Great Rule and did not return to me on their own.”

“But mom….!?”

“Not another word,” she interrupted. “Whether you knew it or not, The Great Rule says that my children shall not run away and that if they do, they are to return on their own within three years. If they do not, I will find them and the Great Punishment must be inflicted. I even sent my oldest son for you, but you did not believe him.”

“Mom, we are sorry. We were scared, hurting and full of shame. We did things we are not proud of and that you would not approve of. Deep inside, when the nights were the quietest, we knew you loved us but we were afraid that you would have nothing to do with us after all we had done.”

With tears in her eyes she slowly replied, “I understand, I see you are truly sorry and I love you. But there is nothing I can do; I am powerless against the Great Rule. Three years have passed, you did not return and the Rule is the Rule.” With that, she turned and walked towards the house where her returning-son stood on the porch, watching.

The hired hands, still clutching the children by the arms, took them away to the barn…even the fourth child who never heard the eldest son’s message. As directed by the Great Punishment, they entered the barn, tied the children to the posts and began beating them. Next came the kerosene. Then, in the midst of their screams and under the watchful eye of their loving mom, they and the barn were set ablaze.

The loving, kind, full-of-mercy, just and righteous mom, turning from the window overlooking the burning barn, looked at her oldest son and the child who returned to her, wiped the tear from her eye and smiled. She motioned once more to her hired hands and—with the other children still burning and screaming outside—the feast of feasts, the party of parties, began. The mom, her eldest son, her returning-on-his-own child, and even her hired hands lived, feasted, and partied…happily…ever…after.

The End.

Now go, and share this GOOD NEWS of the Kingdom. Praise be to God.

(And, if you’ll excuse me, I need to throw up and hug my kids; as a father of three kids, I feel sick and suddenly have a restless desire to love-on ‘em).
April 12, 2011
15:08
Do Christians exist? [6]
» ‎ Emergent Village

By George Elerick

Why Christians Don’t Exist – George Elerick from Bubble Up TV on Vimeo.

cogito, ergo sum’ ubi cogito, ibi non sum – Lacan
once you label me, you negate me – Kierkegaard

There is no such thing as Christian.

Let me explain. Philosopher Rene Descartes once posited the renowned phrase, “I think therefore I am”, and more recently Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan reformed this philosophy by adding that Where I think “I think, therefore I am”, that is where I am not. Whatever is the representation of something else is negation of that very reality. Theology tends to be the fantasy behind our representations of God, so the fantasy claims to be true, all the while is still itself, nothing more than a fantasmagorical spectre of reality.

Essentially what we think isn’t who we are, rather what we think is itself an element of fantasy and our beliefs are framed by this fantasy rather than our beliefs framing the fantasy itself. Some Christians define themselves by certain criteria of belief or doctrinal adherence, but this itself is not a Christian. Lacan takes this notion a step further and proclaims that our alliance to what is represented by our thoughts & definitions are not true about ourselves.

The very claim that we are any type of Christian is the negation of that very claim.

The reality is that the only way to discover Christianity is to dismantle the perverse historical narrative we have adopted as the very framework for our identity. The very idea of ‘Christian’ must itself come to a place ideological atheism to re-discover itself in light of its inherent negation.

Christianity isn’t meant to fulfill us, it’s meant to remind us of our lack, the thing we desire isn’t fullness, there is tendency to define fullness in some sort of heavenly end or utopian socialist ideal where everyone will get along and we will forget the sins behind us.

Christianity is meant to scandalize our very existence. It’s meant to destroy the very presumptious foundations of our identities. This is the very place of discovery we see Jacob come to when he wrestles with the Angel.

The Angel represents God, the transcendental signifier, and it is only when Jacob chooses to wrestle with a representation of the divine that he begins to find who he himself is meant to be. Christianity isnt meant to be a faith of acceptance, but a religion of ideological denial and self-nihilism. When I use the word ‘I’ I am aligning a part of myself with the concept I choose to follow such a claim. For example, when I claim ‘I believe that the sky is blue’ – I am making an objective statement about something I believe in.

‘I’ then am in two places, ‘I’ as a subjective (experiential) person am making a objective truth claim. These are the very things we must wrestle with when encountering a representation of God. We must not merely wrestle with the theology of God, but with the very representations that these theologies claim, and even at times, we must be willing to come to a point of nihilistic optimism, which I claim is the hope that something much more positive will eventually take the place of the theological idea we gave up. Jacob discovers this, when he in a moment of full deconstitution, encounters another reality where Israel is his new identity and Jacob is no more. Being a Christian is this very encounter suspended in infinite animation. The core of Christianity and the representations within must die so resurrection can embody itself with those kernels and allow for new transformation.

It is not we who embody Christ but rather Christ who embodies up.

It is not that we embody truth but rather truth that embodies. It is not that the we exist in the saviour but rather the saviour exists in up all. Explain:) Paul and the new humanity. Jacob is attempting to embody something he is not:) he is claiming something not true about himself and the divine injunction is to wrestle with this. It is in the grappling that we began to discover the inherent emergence of our identity already present in us. To be a Christian is to allow the Christ element to emerge from a place of nowhere.

Paul expands this dichotomy of embodiment by explaining that the second Adam is Christ (Romans 5:12-6:5). The name Adam is of Hebrew origin which is fundamentally defined as the plural of mankind, or modernised, humanity. Paul is doing something revolutionary and inclusive here, he is making the assertion that Christ is embodied in humanity. That the whole of humanity already is embodied with the attributes of Christ. Jesus claims the similar idea when he utters the words, ‘The Kingdom of God is near’, the Hebrew word for near means within or inside. Jesus doesn’t presume that people have to earn this or even attempt to label themselves something else, he simply assumes that the Christ element is already within them. This is why the Christ element is so revolutionary because it is something already true of humanity: past, present and future.

George Elerick is an author and speaker. Find more about him at theloverevolution.org.uk
April 08, 2011
1:54
In praise of an unfaithful God
» ‎ Emergent Village

By David Henson

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If Hosea were written today, God should be the harlot, and Hosea the church, with God forever slipping out at night, undressing in the alleys and making holy love in hell to the beggars, infidels and outcasts. God is a street walker, with too heavy mascara and the smell of a thousand lovers on those divine lips, a clandestine whore who returns home at sunrise, sneaking back into bed without a shower but with a lingering wine-soaked kiss on the sleeping bride, their toes touching until morning, unashamed. And God whispers the divine confession, but only while Hosea slumbers.

While you were sleeping, I loved, where there is pain, and joy, and transgressions. I loved and I loved and I loved.

If I were to write Hosea today, God would be the harlot whose infidelity knows know bounds in this, the grand corruption of love. And Hosea, the church, forever doomed to forgive God of those transgressions, time and again; Hosea forced to turn a blind eye to those infidelities with infidels, to turn a deaf ear to the gossips who speak of the harlotry of God, that boundless love of the night, to fool himself into believing that God only loves him.

My beloved is mine, and I am my beloved’s. All else is untrue unless that love is made for me.

God the Harlot invites us to be corrupted by love but is content to let the bride sleep, whispering reality only within the realm of deepest dreams. But God waits, hoping all things, for Hosea to be awakened from the myth of God’s monogamous love for the Church, the bride.
April 03, 2011
9:37
One Hell of a God
» ‎ Emergent Village

By Jeromy Johnson

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How can we say God is good? How can we say God is love? How can we say God is just? How can we say God is righteous?

How can we say any of that if we believe in a God who 1) created hell, 2) wrote the rules of how to go there or avoid it, 3) then creates millions of souls that God knows will never “make the cut”, 4) then implements the judgment that sends the majority of those God-created souls to a God-created place of eternal, conscious torment via fire, worms, darkness, etc?

How is that good, love, just, righteous, or even fair judgment?

In that sense, Hitler—and others of the like — far more loving, just, righteous, good and fair than that God: at least Hitler killed the people he “loved”. No court, no man, no woman, no mom would ever look at those actions or that God as good, loving, just, righteous, or fair.

And yet, a lot do.

This is what makes no sense to me anymore. I cannot picture a mom punishing her kids—even despite her many warnings to them!—by water boarding them in the garage for the rest of their lives (which is 1,000,000,000 times more merciful than the traditional notion of hell). Even more insane would be a court honoring her for her good, loving, just, righteous, and fair course of action. And yet, this is a picture of God that a lot traditionally serve (or fear or “love’).

Perhaps God hasn’t suddenly changed or revealed a “new” message. Perhaps the picture of God we’ve been handed is skewed. Cause if God behaves, and thinks and is like that, that is not a God worthy of my—nor anyone else’s!—worship or love or even respect. This God would be deemed as evil, hating, unjust, and demented. No Glory would be decreed upon or earned by such a God. Logically thinking, Hitler’s actions should earn him a place at this God’s right-hand side.

A God that ultimately reconciles and restores all through love and justice, is worthy of all praise, honor, and glory. That God is worthy of my devotion, love and respect. That is the God of both testaments. That is a God of goodness, love, justice and righteousness. That is the heaven where the lion sleeps with the lamb and all things are indeed made new.

To read more from Jeromy Johnson click here.
March 14, 2011
3:45
I May Be Right But I Hope I'm Wrong [36]
» ‎ Emergent Village

By Jonathan Brink

The other night I got together with my pub group, which is an extension of my house church. The pub group is four guys that talk about anything. We laugh more than we should because nothing is off limits. We’re irreverent and sarcastic about everything, because we’ve established a culture that allows us to talk about anything. We don’t take ourselves too seriously because at the end of the day we all recognize we could likely be wrong.

But this week we all talked about how different our lives were. We had become the people we used to talk about ten years ago. We had the people we would have considered to be reprobates, and no longer Christians because we didn’t hold to a strict understanding of orthodoxy. We laughed about the reality that the slippery slope had given us a strange freedom to live in the tension of faith. We no longer trusted our own capacity to construct a strict belief system. Instead, we were living in the reality of Jesus being faith for us.

And then the conversation turned to Rob Bell’s Love Wins. What had it meant to let go of hell as a future reality and see it very differently. Could love actually win in the end. And then one of my friends said:

“You know what I don’t understand. I have a lot of friends who are strict fundamentalists, and I’m okay with that. It’s what they want to believe and I don’t want to change that. But what gets me is that none of them say, ‘I may be right, but I hope I’m wrong.’“

The entire table just sat silent for a couple of seconds. He had called out the primary tension embedded in the conflict. It’s not that hell didn’t exist, or that someone could go there. We had all met a LOT of people who had experienced hell. It was that orthodoxy had defined this narrow structure of belief that precluded anyone from ever questioning it’s legitimacy. No one had spoken up and said, “I hope I’m wrong.” And when Rob Bell finally stood up publicly and asked the question, his critics discounted it before anyone could read it, suggesting it wasn’t even on the table.

Are we so afraid of hell that it’s banned from conversation and questioning?

Why are we so quick to throw people in hell? Why are we so quick to defend a proposition that sends the majority of God’s creation to eternal torment? Why don’t we hope we’re wrong?

I long for these types of conversations, not because they are fun (conversations about hell usually aren’t), but because they are restorative. They require me to step into faith and work it out. To engage the possibility that love wins in the end gives me hope in a God that is bigger than anything we can imagine. It doesn’t mean hell goes away, or that it is no longer a possibility. It means that my definition of God expands. And if that gets me sent to hell, well then I guess I’ll just have to live with that.
March 11, 2011
6:18
2009 Emergent Village Theological Coversation, Episode 6
» ‎ Emergent Village

Here’s the mp3 file for download

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On this final episode of conversations with Jurgen Moltmann, the professor explores a wide range of topics from the church’s responsibility to the disabled to his view of cyber-community and many things in between. Next episode we will begin to revisit the EVTC2010 .

This week we are inviting all listeners to join us in a Lenten cooperative project at faithcollaboratory.com. We would like you to share the ways in which your faith community has experienced or reimagine the Stations of the Cross.

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If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to podcast@emergentvillage.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.
March 09, 2011
11:16
What I Gained Losing Hell [2]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Chad Holtz

Last week I wrote a note titled “What I Lost Losing Hell.” The discussion both there and on my page has been fantastic and I appreciate everyone’s contributions. Keep them coming! In that note I said I’d jot down some thoughts about what I gained by losing hell. Here are those thoughts. What are yours?

1. I gained a more profound faith

As I reflect on the years when I believed in a literal, eternal, tormenting hell I have to confess that I was a pathetic witness. While I claimed to believe in hell and that it would be quite full of people and I would happily make this belief known in my “holy huddle” (church), this belief did not translate to my every day life. For had I truly believed it, and had I truly loved my neighbor, I would have been telling every person I ever passed on the streets that hell was in their eternal future if they did not repent. So I have to conclude that at least one of two things was true about my belief in hell:
> I didn’t really believe it and
> I didn’t really love my neighbor (let alone my enemy).

As you might imagine, this tied me up in knots with guilt and anxiety. I worried all the time about all the billions who never would hear the name “Jesus” in their lifetime. I worried all the time about my friends and loved ones who believed differently from I because they were not fortunate enough to be born in my family. And I even worried about the people who claimed to be Christians but they didn’t act like it or they didn’t believe quite like I did (for instance, they didn’t believe in a literal, eternal hell). My anxiety over the future state of their souls, while doing nothing to really compel me to warn them incessantly, seemed to serve as a sense of assurance about my own eternal destiny. If I am concerned about you burning for eternity than I must be OK.

What I gained when I lost hell was a profound sense of trust that God, in Christ, has “all things,” including all the people I once worried about. I gained freedom from worry. After all, didn’t Jesus teach us not to worry? (Matt. 6). If I could trust God with my own eternal fate, perhaps I could trust God with the fate of all of Creation. For the first time in my life, I began to experience what I think is real trust. I no longer trusted my faith to set me free but I trusted in Christ and Christ alone to set us all free.

2. I gained a new boldness in evangelism/preaching.

When I lost hell, the Gospel became not just potential Good News for some but radical, scandalous Good News for all of God’s Creation! This gave me a boldness in my preaching and interactions with other people that before I did not have. It is a powerful thing to come to the realization that my arguments about God, my beliefs about God, or my ability to conjure the right amount of fear in the hearer or my well articulated and rehearsed presentation of the “Way of the Master” did not matter one iota. It was all skubalon.

Instead, I could preach grace. I could say to someone along with Saint Paul, “You ARE reconciled to God in Christ, therefore, BE reconciled!” (2 Cor. 5:12-21). Salvation was no longer reduced to fire insurance in the afterlife but became Good News to the oppressed, the broken, the sick, the poor, the sinner and the saint. The Gospel took on a power that I had never known before. No longer did it tell me and others what you could be if X, Y and Z are done but rather, it told us the truth about ourselves – it tells us whose and who we are! Rejection of this truth is not a sentence to hell in the afterlife but a denial of who you already are. In other words, to reject Christ is to live a lie today. Paul said, “Today is the day of your salvation! So….wake up!” I am far more motivated to tell people to wake up to what is already real today than I am of trying to convince them to believe in X or pray this prayer so that they can eat cake after they die.

3. I gained a new found humility

Yes, I am aware of the joke, “I’m the most humble person here.” What I am attempting to say here is that losing hell helped me recognize a profound truth about myself and every human alive: We are contingent beings relying solely on the grace and mercy of God.

Before I lost hell I thought my beliefs or actions somehow secured, for good or ill, my eternal fate. Yes, Jesus did something 2000 years ago that was important, but my belief about that event was even more important. My faith or lack thereof unlocked the doors to either heaven or hell. Because of this bedrock belief, it is easy to see why belief itself became everything (and Jesus became the object of belief to haggle over).

But Paul says something in Romans 11:32 that levels all of us. He makes the outrageous claim that God has imprisoned ALL in disobedience so that God may have mercy on ALL. Not some – ALL. This included even me with my “right” beliefs. I am just as disobedient and in dire need of mercy as the person who never heard of Jesus. Disagreements today became less about a judgment from the Sorting Hat for eternity and more about appreciating the multiple flavors we all bring to God’s table.

That being said, I fully acknowledge that I could be wrong about every thing I believe. We all live into a story, however. My beliefs are not what earn me merit with God but rather enable me to live either well or poorly into the story God is already writing, with or without me. My future, my very breath, is entirely a gift from God.

4. I gained a new motivation: Love.

I was once asked by a friend, “If you take hell out of the picture, why follow Jesus? Why not just live however you want?” I responded with a question of my own: “Do you serve and honor your wife because you fear divorce?”

When I realized that it was not my beliefs about Jesus but Jesus himself who has saved and is saving the world, I began to fall in love with a person and began to release the idol of my ideas. I do not serve and honor Jesus as my Lord because I fear an eternity in hell. I love him because he first loved me. Period. No agenda.

When I loved Jesus for an agenda (getting out of hell) I found that I also loved people with an agenda (getting them out of hell). My love for them was conditional. When they rejected my agenda I rejected them (“Farewell, Rob Bell”).

God loves because this is who God is. God does this perfectly, and perfect love casts out all fear. I’m called by my Lord, whom I love, to be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect. While I stumble and fall more times than I care to admit, I’m thankful that it is into my Father’s arms I fall and not a fiery pit.
March 02, 2011
12:40
What I Lost Losing Hell [5]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Chad Holtz

While surfing through the deluge of posts and comments surrounding Bell’s approaching apocalyptic book, Love Wins, I started to think about the fears that are present on both sides of the conversation. Those defending the more traditional view of hell do so because they care very much about something they are convinced is true. I do not doubt their sincerity. Nor do I doubt the reality that whenever we shift paradigms with our beliefs, we lose something. It may be things we did not know we had.

I was raised in the church. From the time I could talk I believed in an eternal hell and that it would be full of people. This all changed about 3 years ago for me for a variety of reasons. But for 33 years I knew nothing else.

For the past few years I have given some thought to what I lost by losing hell. No doubt, there have been some major casualties. Here is a brief list of the big ones for me along with a description.

1. I lost the idol of belief.

Most of my Christian life I believed that I was saved because of what I believed. Yes, of course, I knew it was Jesus that made it possible for me to believe what I believed, but at the end of the day it was my good fortune (to be born a pastor’s kid in a predominately Christian culture) and my good sense that assured me a place in heaven versus hell. While I could not and would not have named it as such at the time, I idolized my belief of belief. When I lost hell, I also lost the the notion that I could secure anything about God’s future for myself through right (or wrong!) doctrine.

2. I lost a very powerful and useful motivator: Fear.

This was one of the hardest loses for me. Fear operated not only on others but on myself. No longer could I motivate myself to do good, to pray more, to go to church more, to be more charitable, etc., because a tormented eternity awaited me if I did not. I admit, for a long time that was a compelling motivator. It’s one I use on my kids probably far too often (not hell, although the fear of losing their Wii rights is a form of hell for my boys).

I also lost the ability to use fear as a tool to manipulate others to believe as I did. No longer could I get the satisfaction of seeing a crowded altar full of fearful, repentant sinners because I delivered a sermon that painted a picture of a very hot, miserable eternity if they died tonight without a belief in Jesus. Fear has worked wonders for getting people saved. It worked for me when I was 12 (and 13, and 14, and 15, and 16…). I had to find another motivator.

3. I lost the right to hate my enemy.

Yes, it’s true. Yes, I am well aware that Christians are supposed to love their enemies and pray for them. I’m aware that we are to love others as ourselves. But I have to confess that in my heart of hearts, that place where I worshiped a God whom I knew would send all His enemies to an everlasting hell, I really hated my enemies. Yes, I said with my lips that I “loved the sinner but hated their sin” (forget for the moment that our sinfulness is so ingrained in our person-hood that I, a sinner, am terrible at separating the sinner from the sin) and that I loved them with Christ’s love, but deep down I had a smug satisfaction that one day they would get theirs. This gave me comfort. And I can’t imagine that this deeply ingrained attitude of condescension was not obvious to those I sought to convert.

4. I lost my place in a tribe.

This is probably obvious given the many smear-blogs happening today. John Piper’s flippant, “Farewell, Rob Bell,” says it all. When I lost hell I lost my place in a “holy huddle” where I felt safe, secure and respected because I believed just like everyone else in the huddle. Losing hell made me an outcast to the sort of places I called “church” for 33 years, making me more like a nomad among Christiandom, with no real place to lay my head.

These are some of the things I have lost losing hell. I’m sure there are more. There are also some things I have gained, which perhaps I will write about at another time.

In the meantime, what have you lost when you lost hell? OR, what are you afraid of losing if you did?
February 24, 2011
14:19
2009 Emergent Village Theological Coversation, Episode 5
» ‎ Emergent Village

Here’s the mp3 file for download

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This week Jurgen Moltmann talks about the deeply embedded implications in our theological forms.

We want to invite you to share your experiences with Prof. Moltmann’s theology at FaithCollaboratory.com

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Like our Facebook page EmergentVillage

If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to podcast@emergentvillage.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.
February 20, 2011
3:30
A Big Tent for Big Dreamers
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Tia Lynn Lecorchick

A group of justice-seeking Christians have started “pitching tents” around the country in an effort to bring together the diverse, and often conflicting, traditions within Christianity. At these conferences, panels of theological thinkers gather to publicly dialogue about pressing issues facing the church today, such as justice, poverty, sexuality, faith, doubt, community, science, biblical interpretation, spiritual formation, and how to live out the gospel in the here and now. The church hasn’t always agreed on these big issues, but under a Big Tent, can diverse Christians listen to each other, learn from each other, and even work together? I hope so.

The most recent Big Tent Christianity event was held in Phoenix, Arizona on February 9th-10, bringing together Progressive Christians, Emergent Christians and even a few Evangelicals. Featured speakers included Brian McLaren, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Marcus Borg, Richard Rohr, Rachel Held Evans, Carol Howard Mertitt, Brian Ammons, Anthony Smith, Shane Hipps, Philip Clayton, Spencer Burke, Tripp Fuller Gary Kinnaman, Eliacin Rosario-Cruz and Mark Scandrette.

The event featured two jammed-packed days of speakers wrestling together over complex issues surrounding faith. The conversations were fascinating, provocative, and controversial. Aching questions hung thickly in the air, causing some to squirm in their seats, as we collectively grasped for elusive answers. But bigger than these stimulating and honest conversations, was the challenging work of unity taking place. Over and over in the Scriptures, we see Jesus pleading with His followers to love each other. I imagine this was particularly challenging for Matthew the tax collector, Peter the fisherman, and Simon the zealot—natural enemies with seemingly
incompatible world-views. Yet, they were all welcomed at Christ’s Table and worked together for God’s Kingdom. Under the the Big Tent, I hope to see the table constantly extending and
expanding, welcoming more and more to the table to walk with each other on this crazy faith journey of following Jesus in the here and now. For it is efforts like this, bringing diverse streams together, that opens the door for partnering with unlikely allies in the pursuit of loving kindness, doing justice and walking humbly with our God.

Separation is easy. It is far easier to divide over and over again until we form our specialized camps made up of people “just like us.” The work of unity in the face of glaring differences is a much more complicated and arduos task. It’s easy for us to limit ourselves and faith communities by only huddling with those who think just like us. Big Tent Christianity, an inclusive call to civil dialogue and diverse unity,is laying the foundation for a broader movement of people of faith to huddle together in the same tent.

For a girl like me, who came from a church tradition obsessed with who’s in and who’s out, who’s “safe” to hear from and whose voices must be silenced, the Big Tent is a beautiful space where we can differ dramatically, even challenge and argue with each other, but share the same table as a family. We can learn from each other and move forward as friends and allies. There will always be big questions and answers in need of a reformation for every generation, but if the Big Tent continues to foster unity within the Church, this will surely be the greatest achievement a Big Tent could offer.
February 11, 2011
14:43
2009 Emergent Village Theological Coversation, Episode 4
» ‎ Emergent Village

2009 Emergent Village Theological Coversation, Episode 4

Here’s the mp3 file for download

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In this fourth episode of the EV 2009 Theological Conversation, Professor Jurgen Moltmann discusses how one might embody a theology of hope. He emphasizes the importance of community. He explores the dual posture of a Christian witness. And he implies there might be somethings even pacifists should be willing to kill to protect.

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Like our Facebook page EmergentVillage

If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to podcast@emergentvillage.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.
February 09, 2011
0:58
MinEmergent - daily email
» ‎ Emergent Village
Emergent Village is planning to launch a daily email communique on Monday, February 14th.

We are very excited to have an avenue through which we can communicate with Villagers on a regular basis about issues of leadership, theology, worship, faith and world events.

This daily email will be brief and concise – a few sentences or a short paragraph, 100-250 words. And the goal, simply, is to get people thinking. And talking. And connecting with other people who are doing and thinking similar things.

We’d like your voice to be part of this. As a FB Page fan we think you have something worthwhile and interesting to say, and we’d love it if you’d be willing to share some of your thoughts with fellow Villagers.

As for content, you are free to do a number of things, but to give you a jumping off point, you could:
- Write a few sentences about something you’ve really been thinking about lately that you think would be worth sharing- about running a church, about the church in general, about a theological matter…
- Share a quote or quotes from a book, article, or other publication you’ve written
- Share a quote from a book, article or other publication written by someone you think needs to be heard and would be relevant to EV people
- Send us an excerpt of your sermon, or your latest song, or poem
No promises can be made at this point as to what submissions will make the MinEmergent, but we will do what we can to include as many as possible.

Email your submission to MinEmergent@Gmail.com
January 27, 2011
17:30
2009 Emergent Village Theological Conversation, Episode 3
» ‎ Emergent Village
2009 Emergent Village Theological Conversation, Episode 3
- Danielle Shroyer
- Don Heatley
- Mike Stavlund
- Ann Pitman
- Tony Jones
- 64 minutes
Here’s the mp3 file for download

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This week we have posted the third installment of Moltmann in conversation with Danielle Shroyer, Don Heatley, Ann Pitman, Mike Stavlund and Tony Jones.

This episode focuses on the themes of Moltmann’s The Crucified God in which he explores a theology of the cross. It is a session feeled with deep emotion. Moltmann deconstructs traditional interpretations of the impassibility and omnipotence of God. He then reframes the love of God in a way that breaths new meaning into the way one might approach concepts of attonement, hell and salvation.

For the sake of sequential continuity, you can find below re-posts of the preamble and episodes 1 and 2 of the conversations with Jurgen Moltmann.

2009 Emergent Village Theological Conversation, Preamble

2009 Emergent Theological Conversation, Episode 1

2009 Emergent Theological Conversation, Episode 2

Follow us on Twitter @emergentvillage

If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to podcast@emergentvillage.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.
January 24, 2011
14:10
TransFORM West Coast
» ‎ Emergent Village

TransFORM Network and The Parish Collective are partnering together to host a West Coast regional gathering on missional community formation, Friday-Saturday, April 29-30, 2011, at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, Washington.

Launched in Fall 2009, TransFORM held its first regional gathering in spring 2010 in Washington, D.C., which was attended by around 250 people. Participants in that gathering took up an impromptu collection to help fund a similar West Coast Gathering, which yielded $1,000 to help get this April 2011 event off the ground.

The Parish Collective, which began in Fall 2008, held a series of city-wide gatherings (in conjunction with Forge Canada) in June 2010 in four Pacific Northwest cities — Edmonton, Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland.

Visit the Inhabit Conference website for more details and to register online
13:58
Wild Goose Festival
» ‎ Emergent Village

The Wild Goose Festival is a music, art and conversation festival at the intersection of justice and spirituality. It is rooted in the Christian tradition seeking to welcome all regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, background or belief.

Why Wild Goose?
In the Celtic Church the image of the Wild Goose has long been held as a symbol for the wild, unpredictable, and untamable nature of the Holy Spirit.

The Wild Goose Festival, in adopting the image of the goose, recognizes that MYSTERY is at the heart of the experience of all peoples of faith. It also recognizes that in the face of social, political, or religious conflict mystery is often first to be sacrificed for the sake of security and control.

The Wild Goose Festival believes that in the current climate of social and political cynicism, embracing the mystery of the spirit is perhaps our greatest tool for re-building and strengthening relationships between human beings, and between human beings and the divine. In that spirit Wild Goose seeks to create a safe and respectful space for contentious conversations in a fun and festive setting in an atmosphere open and welcoming to all.

For more information, visit WildGooseFestival.com.
13:43
Big Tent Christianity: Being and Becoming the Church
» ‎ Emergent Village

Big Tent Christianity (BTX) is the convergence of new and old ways of being and becoming the Church:

Progressive and Emergent
Denominational and Non-denominational
Large and Small Faith Communities
Describable and Undescribable

BTX brings people together from across the country to proclaim what unites us as followers of Jesus in this modern world. More than a dozen leading Christian voices will break through boundaries to share new and innovative forms of ministry and renewal. You will be inspired by their visions of how we can speak even more powerfully in and to the world of the 21st century.

The gathering will include presentations, responses and discussion with speakers and with each other. There will be a Big Tent of music with creative versions of traditional music along with contemporary music – myriad ways that reflect our common ground.

Location:
The Church of the Beatitudes
555 Glendale Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85021

Registration: $89 ($99 after 1/21/2011), $59 students

For more info, visit bigtentchristianity.com
January 13, 2011
16:55
2009 Emergent Village Theological Conversation, Preamble
» ‎ Emergent Village
2009 Emergent Village Theological Conversation, Preamble
- John Franke
- Tony Jones
- 38 Minutes
Here’s the mp3 file for download

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Author and professor John Franke was invited to set the stage for EVTC 2009, which featured Jurgen Moltmann. In his comments, Franke suggested that Moltman was precisely the theologian to converse with at the start of EV’s second decade because of his understanding of the theological necessity of making room for a “manifold witness” to truth. Franke’s thoughts were chosen for this first post of 2011 in hopes that they might help us think through our societal propensities toward theological, ideological and political partisanship in the wake of the recent shootings of US Representative Gabrielle Gifford (Arizona) and several of her supporters.

Listen to the following two podcasts (previously published) in the 2009 Emergent Village Theological Conversation podcast series:

2009 Emergent Theological Conversation, Episode 1

2009 Emergent Theological Conversation, Episode 2

Follow us on Twitter @emergentvillage

If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to podcast@emergentvillage.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.
December 30, 2010
1:45
A Brief Goodbye
» ‎ Emergent Village

As the year 2010 ends, so does my (Amy Moffitt’s) time as editor of the Emergent Village blog. Since November 2009, I have been privileged to read, edit and post so many wonderful stories and articles, and to “meet” so many people who are letting the Spirit lead them into wild and sometimes uncomfortable places. Thanks to EV for allowing me to do this, and thanks to all of you for sharing so generously of your ideas and your stories!

Anyone with inquiries regarding writing for Emergent Village (including anyone who has sent me material that has not been published) should watch this space for more information on where to submit your ideas and/or writing. I will do my level best to pass on all pending articles to my successor once that person is identified.

May God bless you richly and the Spirit’s voice speak clearly to your heart in this New Year!
December 29, 2010
14:45
A State of Emergence 2010
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Jonathan Brink

Something has to die before something can be reborn.

For the last two years I’ve had the privilege of sharing a State of Emergence. 2008 saw some significant changes to Emergent Village, and 2009 saw those who identify with the emerging church begin to walk away from the conversation. 2010 turned out to be the year something died and something new emerged from the grave, perhaps a renewed spirit of enthusiasm.

2010 kicked off with an interesting post in World Mag’s Farewell Emerging Church. Anthony Bradley publicly declared the end of emergence as we know it. And in many ways, this public declaration of death was needed. What arguably died was a perception of the slick marketing model aimed at middle class, white, hipsters saddled in the corner of Starbucks with their Macs. This stereotype had run its course and grown out of favor. It had to die. What didn’t die were the underlying questions that fueled the movement in the first place. People were still gathering together in pubs, coffee houses and homes, wrestling with questions of faith, reformation, atonement, the goodness of God, what it means to follow Jesus, and how to live in a post-Christian culture.

The North American movement that would eventually be called the emerging church arguably came out of the dialog that was the Young Leaders Network formed by The Leadership Network. This group was formed to address the growing concern with the GenX leaving the church. Well the underlying problems creating this rift didn’t go away. And just last month Christianity Today released a blog post that could have been written in 2001, The Leavers: Young Doubters Exit the Church. I’ve long argued that the concept of “emergence” will never go away until we’ve addressed the underlying tensions, questions and concerned that have fueled it, namely our tension with the historical meaning of the Gospel. If its real, why isn’t it producing more of transformation in the church?

While the publishing world walked away from the emerging church, it is fair to say writers didn’t. 2010 saw the release of one of Brian McLaren’s more important works, A New Kind Of Christianity. Brian’s book answered some of the deeper questions that many of his critics have asked for a long time. Yet 2010 also saw a great selection of authors wrestling with these deeper questions, including Dan Brennan’s Sacred Unions, Julie Clawson’s Everyday Justice, Doug Pagitt’s Church In The Inventive Age, my own work Discovering The God Imagination, John O’Keefe’s Boneyard, Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola’s Jesus Manifesto, Diana Butler Bass’ People’s History Of Christianity, Becky Garrison’s Jesus Died For This, Carol Howard Merritt’s Reframing Hope, and Nick Fiedler’s Hopeful Skeptic. The conversations didn’t die. They just flew under the marketing radar.

If 2010 marked anything, it was the growing awareness that following in the footsteps of Jesus and gathering together in community is hard. People were tired of talking about it and just wanted to do it. Bradley pins the death of the emerging church to this awareness. Rob Bell, arguably one of the more important but undeclared voices in the emerging church recognized that he had become that big Mega-church. What was once cool had now become mainstream. And in losing its luster, the real work of ministry began to emerge.

And its fair to say that the conversations didn’t die either. 2010 saw its biggest year yet in terms of conferences and gatherings. Transform held it’s East Coast Gathering in April. Big Tent Christianity in Raleigh NC saw some of the better theological and practical dialogs of the year. Emergent Village took a huge risk to explore post-colonial thought at the Emergent Village Theological Conversation in November. Reflection from Michael Toy, Mike Stavlund, Julie Clawson revealed it was better than anyone expected. Richard Rohr continued to host the Emerging Christianity Conference December 3-4 in Fort Worth TX. The Outlaw Preachers held its first Outlaw Preachers Re-Union this December in Memphis TN.

Next year promises to be just as good with Convergence Mar 11-13 in Troutdale, OR, Wild Goose Festival June 23-26 in Shakori Hills, NC, Transform’s West Coast Gathering in April in partnership with Mars Hill Graduate School and Parish Collective, and Big Tent’s Second Conference in Phoenix.

The media also began to see renewed interest. Jay Bakker was featured in The New Yorker. Next Wave decided to reissue its 10 Year Emerging Church Retrospective. Generate Magazine released its second issue. Emergent Village and ECW Media Society launched Faithcollaboratory.com, and Civitas Press launched its first community project called The Practice Of Love. Spencer Burke almost placed TheOoze.com into the archives, instead choosing to reinvent the portal in a fresh new way.

The emerging church isn’t dead. It’s just finally wrestled with the angel and won. It’s shedding it old image, the one that got people so riled up in the first place. The conversations won’t ever go away because in the end, we’re looking for what it means to be human. We’re looking to discover the reality that Jesus was trying to present, one of infinite grace and beauty, stark reality of the kingdom of God in our midst, and a renewed sense of possibility for the restoration of the world.

Here’s to 2011 and a renewed sense of faith, hope and love. Because the greatest of these is love.

Jonathan Brink is a blogger and author of Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity (CreateSpace, 2010).
November 29, 2010
15:47
RE-IMAGINING RELATIONSHIPS in Youth Ministry
» ‎ Emergent Village

Registration is now open!

Youth Pastors, Workers, and Leaders—Join us on February 5, 2011 as Mars Hill Student ministries presents Re-imagining Relationships in Youth Ministry, a collaborative youth ministry event, featuring presentations by professor, author, speaker and thinker, Dr. Andy Root.

During this interactive one-day event, youth pastors, workers, and volunteers from across the country will gather to learn with and from each other. Together, we’ll re-visit how and why relationships with students are so essential, as well as brainstorm how we can make these relationships deeper and more meaningful.

Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with other youth pastors on key topics and issues.

Learn more by visiting our website.

Log in and register here.
October 20, 2010
16:43
Convergence 2011
» ‎ Emergent Village

Women Leaders Connecting.

Connect, encourage, and empower one another. We lead in a variety of ways, in a variety of settings, from a variety of theological traditions. We come together to learn from one another, build friendships, and explore our experiences as women leaders together.
Visit the event website here.
October 18, 2010
6:04
Lifting the Silence [1]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Brittany Ouchida-Walsh

In “Teaching a Stone to Talk,” Annie Dillard writes of a human calling – to take walks, and keep an eye on things, especially the silence. (1) Despite the whispers of falling leaves and the songs of birds, it can seem that God’s voice in Creation has fallen still. The stone won’t talk. The cadence of the waves never quite makes a discernible phrase. For Dillard, the silence brings to mind the story of God’s consent to the people when they cried at Sinai, “Let not God speak with us, lest we die.” (2) What a tragic thing to ask for! What a sad wish to grant: the silence of God.

Our request for God to please keep quiet has been streaming through the centuries, and we find ourselves in a conundrum. “It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave,” Dillard reflects. (1) How do we welcome back a voice that we have asked to leave? What could possibly feel longer than those three days between silencing God’s presence among us and the hoped for resurrection?

The silence of God and the silence of people who carry God’s image beg the question: How do we warmly welcome the voices of those who have been asked to keep quiet? I see this question lying at the heart of ministry and discipleship. We learn to welcome the voice of Christ. We creatively and humbly find ways to welcome the voices of all people. We welcome the voices of Earth and all our God has created. We welcome the voices of suffering and of joy and healing. We live toward the resurrection of all things silent and hidden. This is the struggle of repentance and justice.

The words of God’s people at Sinai were spoken with the fear that the world-as-they-know-it might die. That is often the fear behind asking for silence. The request feels to me like a familiar memory. Similar words have been addressed to women throughout space and time, “Keep quiet, so things can stay how they are.” But in the name of wholeness and resurrection, it’s a request that we as a community cannot grant. If we’re called to walk and keep an eye on resurrection, we find a divine calling here. The warm welcoming of women’s voices to lead us, teach us and reorder us is holy work. It’s been a long three days for women throughout history. And thankfully, resurrection is underway.

Voicelessness and hiddenness are only a part of women’s collective experience throughout history and in today’s misordered world. They don’t say anything about our bravery, creativity, laughter and healing touch. They forget to mention what great pastors and theologians we make, what dynamic lives we live as mothers, teachers, organizers, writers and leaders. The silence has tried to keep it a secret. Yet, as the light continues to break through, the truth is getting out with a groundswell of hope.

I encountered this truth for the first time in 2005. Knowing that I was called to pastor and having met a grand total of one female pastor in my entire life, I joined in at one of Convergence’s first gatherings. During a break between sessions I took a long slow walk. I’m not much of a crier, yet the only reasonable response to what I had just seen was to let the tears stream down my cheeks. It would have felt less miraculous to me to have walked into a gathering of talking stones. I had encountered women leaders for the first time, and the lie of my life was revealed. Silence might have been our heritage, but it is certainly not our destiny.

I’m no longer in the same place as I was when I first encountered those remarkable women. Today I am witness to many astounding women leaders and hold a deep, unshakable hope in what God is cultivating through them. Our conversations have formed me into a wiser leader. I have experienced the profound healing brought by equality and camaraderie with others who join in the struggle to bring back voice to the silent places. Along the way, I have also been introduced to the pain of these places. While each woman’s struggle is unique, the interconnecting strands are hard to miss. We all hope for a warm welcome to greet the next generation of women leaders. We lean into the possibility that they will know earlier on that silence is not our destiny. We pray and struggle for a better world and a better church for our daughters and our sons. We walk, and keep an eye out for resurrection.

This year I’m joining again with my brilliant collaborators Kelly Bean, Karlene Clark and Deborah Loyd to gather women leaders to cultivate the possibilities of this kind of future. Our annual Convergence gathering is a connecting space for women who lead others in the way of Jesus. We lead in a variety of ways and from diverse theological traditions. We come together to build friendships, learn from one another and explore our experiences as women leaders. We share stories and wisdom, grieve, sing, eat good food, rest and celebrate what God is birthing all around us. We leave renewed, and as better leaders.

Convergence 2011, Living Leadership: Be Well, See Well, Branch Out, will be held March 11-13, 2011 at the picturesque McMenamin’s Edgefield in Troutdale, Oregon. Women leaders of all walks, we sincerely hope you join us. Men, we invite you to join in by doing what you can to make it possible for the women leaders in your life to be a part of Convergence 2011. Lifting the silence, celebrating God’s presence among us, and leading vibrant communities of equality are team projects. We’re in this together, and are thankful for the grace of each friend and encourager we have along the way.

Convergence 2011
Living Leadership: Be Well, See Well, Branch Out
March 11-13, 2011
McMenamin’s Edgefield, Troutdale, OR
Register by 1-1-11 for the early bird price!

(1) Dillard, Annie. TEACHING A STONE TO TALK. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992.
(2) Exodus 20:19

Brittany Ouchida-Walsh is finishing her MA in Theological Studies at George Fox University and leads a spiritual community in Portland, Oregon. She blogs at brittany ow.
5:59
Inventive Church [2]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Mike Stavlund

I got a call the other morning on the church cell phone. These telemarketing calls come all of the time, requiring me to constantly guide the inquirer around their assumptions about our church. Helping them with their expectation about our office (we don’t have one), our building (likewise), our janitorial needs (ditto), and our pastoral staff (nada, neither). And maybe these folks are getting more savvy in our day and age—or perhaps our file is flagged—but I was intrigued this morning when the friendly woman asked a carefully phrased question: “Is there a person there of religious authority?”. I happily answered ‘no’, though should probably have answered, ‘yes, everyone’.

Like a lot of churches, ours doesn’t fit the telemarketer’s script, the larger ecclesial paradigm, or the average person’s expectation. We’re doing things a bit differently.

Doug Pagitt’s recent book Church in the Inventive Age is not a clarion call for change. Rather, it assumes that change is normative, and that innovation is in fact a way of life. Moreover, it contends that younger generations are trending away from resistance to change, and are in fact embracing it. That there is a shift from the ‘information age’ toward something that is more about discovery, creativity, and collaboration. What Doug terms the ‘inventive age’ is one where churches need to decide how they will relate to this shift in culture—will they get on the change train, or will they stay put? Pagitt is remarkably charitable to those who would choose the latter, arguing that they provide an essential function in a changing world, too. And while I might quibble with Pagitt as he argues that such shifts are largely demographic—rather than, as my friend Deanna Doan has put it, ‘psychographic’—I understand that more younger people will experience this psychographic shift, so it’s actually both. Fair enough.

It’s a short book that means to make its points succinctly, with money quotes like this one:

“The ability to teach and preach and lead is taking a backseat to the pastor’s capacity to create and facilitate open-source faith experiences for the people of the church.” (p. 33)

I wholeheartedly agree with this call for leaders who stop parroting the party line and repeating conventional wisdom, and who choose instead to open the door to let in the heat and cold, the light and darkness, the hope and doubt. And to, in equal measure, let that same stuff go out the same door and into the larger world.

Which got me thinking about my experience over the past 6 years as a participant in an open source Christian collective outside of Washington, DC. A group that got its start as a textbook ‘Emergent Church’ (i.e., there were literally books about these things, complete with diagrams and seating charts). But shortly before I began to attend, the founding pastor left to return to his previous denominational Christianity, leaving the group without a rudder, an executive board, or a contingency plan. Which might have been a recipe for disaster, except that the group that remained had the good sense to embrace their leaderlessness and to let something truly organic emerge from the mess. And it did. Shepherded (and at times pointedly not shepherded) by several systems engineers familiar with chaos theory, uncertainty, and emergence systems, the group stripped down their assumptions, reconsidered their practices, and pointedly decided that they didn’t need another ‘pastor’, thankyouverymuch. So when I slunk in the door, mourning the loss of my previous church plant and hiding my seminary credentials, I fit right in. When asked if I’d talk about Constantine in an upcoming investigation of church history, I was flattered at the opportunity, though a bit chagrined at the thought of ruining the smooth trajectory of their series. Grimacing,vI said, “Well, I’d love to, but you should know that I happen to think that Constantine’s legitimizing efforts were one of the worst things to happen to the church.” What I got in return was not a scowl, but a smile: “Yeah, I think so too. Let’s see what people think about that!”

Still, it took years of patient coaching for me to unlearn my sermonizing ways and become comfortable and skilled enough to walk into the room with a few ideas (I still write mine down, though) and to see where the conversation led. To learn that good ideas will be perceived as such by the capable people who hear them, and that crazy ideas will fall to the floor without seriously injuring anyone. We can trust the people who gather in our religious communities, because most of them are practically experts in the field of Christianity—they’ve been going to school for most of their lives, but no one has ever asked them what they think. One way to look at what has happened at Common Table is to see it as the freeing up of the entire group to lead the church. So that our Sunday mornings have become, over many years and myriad iterations, a place of the many and not the few. Where a select group formerly offered a production to everyone else (who, to their credit, engaged wholeheartedly), it has become a place where everyone arrives ready to do the hard work and heavy lifting required to make the concept of the day come to life.

Along the way, we’ve experienced a lot together. From high-concept, high-production services that dazed and dazzled the participants to quiet prayer services. From philosophical discussions to a simple circle where long sections of Scripture are read without comment. From solitary leaders laying down their smack to entire groups freed up to offer myriad midrashes on the text. From clay figures to poetry. From live music to mp3s. From show-and-tell to movies. Proving that true learning does not happen in isolation, but in community. Not in a vacuum, but in the honest give-and-take of real life lived with real people.

This new way of doing church was perhaps most exemplified a couple of weeks ago when a member of our community led by referencing his year-long struggle with bipolar disorder, then invited everyone else to make the service happen, saying, “I’ve got nuthin’.”

Halfway through his invitation, my friend leaned over to me and said, “This is such a great intro!”. I nodded and reveled in this unique sandbox in which we play. And, true enough, the service was packed tight with many great insights by many people, and we couldn’t finish before a visitor who unapologetically said she “hadn’t been to church in a very long time” stood up to share about her struggle with depression and to celebrate an unconventional group that makes room for everyone.

I should hasten to add that it’s not a bed of roses, though. There are occasional power struggles, which tend to be protracted because everyone is carefully insisting that there are no real power structures. There’s the ongoing, low-grade worry that comes with never being quite sure what is coming next year, next month, or even next week. There are those who grow weary of the constant questioning and uncertainty and head for surer pastures. And there are what many Christians would consider to be ‘unfortunate outcomes’ (for every 5 people who enter such a group to find new passion and excitement about living out their faith, there is one person who realizes in this open environment that they would just as soon jettison their faith. This is disappointing to me, too, though I know that such outcomes are fair enough) if we’re going to make room for some to embrace a new iteration of faith, we’re going to have others who realize that their heart was never in this in the first place. (But what is remarkable about the latter group is their continued faithful attendance, and their continued insistence that ours be a community of Christian practice. That, and the fact that their shift from an external ethical authority toward a more internal one often makes them much more pleasant company!)

In all of this, I realize that this group has been intuitively engaging in something that Pagitt identifies more explicitly:

“The challenge for churches in the inventive age is to respond to the rise of a creative, participatory, inclusive culture” (p. 54).

We haven’t always done this consciously, or carefully, or efficiently. Yet communities like ours live and move and have our being in this ‘inventive age’, making it up as we go along, striving to live out of the Kingdom about which Jesus spoke while simultaneously living into the culture all around us. Forming free-lance faith collectives who are much less about building religious institutions, and much more about curating a religious experience. Rooted in some ancient creeds and practices, but uncertainly making our way across the faith frontier of our times. It’s not for everyone, but this adventure pays big dividends for those willing to try it.

Mike Stavlund lives with his wife and 3 daughters just outside Washington, DC. He’s a part of an innovative emergence Christian community called Common Table, a co-conspirator with Relational Tithe, and a proud part of the collective called Emergent Village. He keeps his corner of the web at Awakening.
5:49
Toward an Incarnational Orthodoxy: A Radical Middle Way Beyond “Us and Them” [1]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Ken Howard

If memory serves, it was about 20 years ago that I first began to ponder whether our current concepts of orthodoxy were sufficiently encompassing of the reality they were meant to convey. I was in seminary at the time, faced with choosing a topic for a thesis. As a Christian of Jewish origins, I was curious how within a few centuries the Church had been transformed from its beginnings as an entirely Jewish movement into an entirely Gentile institution – one which by the end of the fourth century had excommunicated the last of those whom they called Jewish Christian heretics. My curiosity lead to an amazing discovery. I was able to determine that at least one of groups that had been excommunicated – those who called themselves Nazarenes – had been as orthodox in their beliefs as those who had pronounced their excommunication. They were cast out not on the basis of belief, but practice: because they insisted that they be allowed to worship Jesus Christ in a Jewish fashion (not because they thought it would endure their salvation but simply to be imitators of Jesus [Y’shua], who himself worshipped in this way). In the end, they were given a choice, abandon their practice of celebrating Pasha (Easter) on the date of the Jewish Pesach (Passover), or face excommunication. The rest, as they say, is history: church history, to be exact.

It became clear to me at that time that neither orthodoxy based on belief, nor orthodoxy based on practice was sufficient. Unless the Church could discover some sort of middle way that both transcended and encompassed both belief-based orthodoxy and practice-based orthodoxy, it would be doomed to repeat this kind of tragic mistake throughout its history. But it took two decades of pasturing congregations before I was able to put this conceptual epiphany into practical words.

Navigating the Coming Religious Realignment

By that time, the Church would be entering what Phyllis Tickle would call the Great Emergence.

Commenting on her recently-published book by the same name – The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why – Phyllis offered a prognosis about Western institutional Christianity that soon became known as the “18-Month Window.” Western churches had about a year and a half in which to determine whether they were ready, willing, and able to take the risks and make the changes necessary to participate in what the Holy Spirit was bringing forth from the body of Christ. Failure to engage this window of opportunity would be a de facto decision in favor of irrelevance, stagnation, and death.

For obvious reasons Tickle’s observation immediately caught my attention. In addition to my earlier research in early Church history, subsequent research on social impact of major paradigms shifts led me to believe that Christianity is accelerating rapidly into a vast religious realignment. Multiple paradigms that had guided the Church for centuries were collapsing: theological concepts of Christian unity and community grounded in certainty, uniformity, and organizational preservation (i.e., religion). Once begun, such epochal shifts are like a great wave moving toward the shore. We don’t know exactly when it will break or exactly what it will look like when it does. Yet break it will. Ignoring it will not make it go away, nor will fighting it stop its advance. Our hope lies in readying ourselves for its arrival, so that when the moment arrives we will be position to ride it. To put it another way, the church as we know it is beyond repair, though not beyond re-paradigming.

Yet even re-paradigming is a task easier said than done, because it is possible only if we are prepared to allow our familiar paradigms of church to undergo death and resurrection, which is itself a turbulent experience at best. Yet there may be hidden blessings in the turbulence of such transitions. Even such reputedly change-accepting communities of practice like science react to paradigm shifts with anxiety and reactivity, forming into conservative and liberal camps to fight or advanced the perceived changes. Knowing this may allow us to recognize these tendencies in ourselves and understand them in each other. And we may be a little less fearful of the emerging paradigm, and those who oppose how we feel about it, if we recognize that such paradigms have never been exactly what conservatives have feared nor what liberals have longed for.

Beyond Emergent – The Shape (and Shaping) of Things to Come

The question is: When the emerging is all said and done, what will have emerged? Is there an as yet undiscovered country – a place in which conservative and liberal Christians can co-exist as brothers and sisters in one family – one body of Christ? And if there is, how might we map out its boundaries? I believe there is such a place. But to find it we have sail beyond the shores of our familiar concepts of orthodoxy.

In the late 19th century, William Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, when asked the difference between “orthodoxy” and “heterodoxy,” replied, “Orthodoxy is my doxy—heterodoxy is another man’s doxy.”

The term “orthodox” has lost its clarity of meaning, having been appropriated by various groups to mean different things. The public tends to think of “orthodoxy” as the generally accepted way of thinking or acting. Eastern Christians use it as a term to refer to any member church of the branch of churches of which they are a part.

In Western Christianity, conservative Christians tend to use the term to describe a broad spectrum of doctrines that they consider to be the traditionally accepted views of the church, and to describe those who share their particular constellation of doctrines and teachings. Liberal Christians generally shy away from using the term to describe themselves, yet the vast majority believes their theology to be within the borders of the Nicene Creed and certainly not heretical. To (over)simplify, the conservative definition of orthodoxy would be “right doctrine,” while the liberal definition of orthodoxy would be “right action.” For the sake of discussion – and to treat them with equal respect – let’s call the conservative approach Doctrinal-Propositional Orthodoxy (or Orthoproxy) and the liberal approach call Ethical-Practical Orthodoxy (or Orthopraxy). Yet the ancient and literal definition of orthodoxy was actually “right praise” or less literally, “appropriate praise in response to God.” And I believe that herein lies the key to unlocking the emerging paradigm, one which I have called Incarnational-Relational Orthodoxy (or Paradoxy).

There are many ways in which we could compare these approaches (which I have described in greater detail in my new book, Paradoxy: Creating Christian Community Beyond Us and Them). But given the limited space of a blog post, suffice it to say that the difference lies in the last three words of the title. In creating Christian community, neither Orthoproxy nor Orthopraxy can avoid creating an “Us” and a “Them,” because neither can conceive of Christian unity without some kind of uniformity. Orthoproxy seeks unity in uniformity of doctrine. Orthopraxy seeks unity in uniformity of practice.

To put it in logical, mathematical terms, community in both Orthoproxy and Orthopraxy is defined as a “bounded set.” Both describe an outer boundary of US, outside of which lies THEM. The difference between the two lies in what constitutes the boundary. Orthoproxy locates the boundary in common doctrine; Orthopraxy in common practice. But Paradoxy defines community in a way that doesn’t depend on boundaries, and so doesn’t require an US and a THEM. As a “centered set,” it finds its unity in the extent to which the people which make up the set are oriented with respect to that which (or rather he who) lies at the center of the set – Jesus Christ – and the extent to which they are in relationship with the One at the center.

This is not to say that Orthoproxy and Orthopraxy do not have Christ at the center, or that communities practicing Paradoxy can totally avoid the human (and fallen) tendency toward thinking in terms of boundaries. It is to say that for communities practicing Incarnational Orthodoxy – or Paradoxy – it is relationship with the incarnate Center is considered the primary source of unity.

Paradoxy comes from the Greek word paradoxos, a near-literal translation of which would be “things which, placed in relationship to each other, inspire awe and praise.” Paradoxy, then, represents an approach to orthodoxy that comes closer to the literal meaning of the word than either the conservative or liberal approach. It means embracing and celebrating relationship with Jesus Christ, realizing and accepting that the incarnate Truth will always be greater than we can understand or imagine. It is centered on being in right relationship with Christ and celebrating, embracing, and living into the power of the paradoxical reality of the Incarnation and all its implications.

It is a tricky business exploring the boundaries of an emerging paradigm. In large part, the difficulty arises from the fact that we are still operating within the boundaries of the prevailing paradigms which, while they are failing, still force us to look through mental spectacles whose lenses cannot focus outside their rims. It is also complicated by the fact that we are trying to see into our own future, and the future of people and institution we hold dear. As Master Yoda said with such great wisdom in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, “Hard it is to see the future…so much emotion there is.”

Yet look we must. As if our very existence depended upon it…

A Christian of Jewish origins, Ken Howard has been an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church since 1993, focusing on church planting and congregational vitality. Prior to ordination, Ken was a consultant in organizational development, strategic planning, and conflict resolution. Respected and trusted for his expertise in conflict resolution and consensus building among groups with opposing theological and political views, Ken has been called upon to facilitate dialogs on issues ranging from human sexuality to interfaith relations. When not occupied with the business of pastoring and growing the theologically diverse congregation he helped plant, Ken is available for presentations, workshops, and coaching on the concepts outlined in Paradoxy: Creating Christian Community beyond Us and Them.
September 12, 2010
10:15
Rice, Reversion and Reductio ad Individualism [4]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Geoff Mackey

After years of public atheism, Anne Rice made headlines with the publication, in 2005, of her first novel about Jesus and her announcement that henceforth she would write only for Christ. The Christian world was captivated. The secular media ran stories about it. Evangelicals were so glad to have a convert that they were even willing to forgive her for being Roman Catholic. And Catholics were willing to forgive her liberal political leanings. Her faith, as attested to by many interviews of the time and her later writings, is a wholehearted devotion to Jesus Christ – the Jesus Christ of the canonical gospels and historic, Christian orthodoxy. Her political stance distanced her, perhaps, from many American Catholics. But she was in. She was “home.”

I’ve always loved conversion stories; probably because I am a prodigal and a convert myself. Rice’s memoir, Called Out of Darkness, is a wonderful confession, simply written. Without putting on airs, without super-spirituality, matter-of-factly. Her faith – indeed her whole pilgrimage – is intensely incarnational, sacramental, even iconographic. Jesus is, for her, real. He’s real and he’s ultimately important. He’s the Son of God. There’s no demythologizing here. And this supernatural Jesus seeks us.

So it was surprising to find, via Facebook, that she “quit being a Christian.” “In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

And then, a few days later she explained that she “quit Christianity in the name of Christ on this page so that [she] could tell [her] readers [she] was not complicit in the things that organized religion does.”

These are, I think, all understandable sentiments. And they are not surprising. She deals with many of these issues in her memoir and yet seems to transcend them in a way that is admirable. She was willing to sign on with this crazy bunch of disciples anyway. “If one becomes too involved with doctrinal arguments and sexual and gender controversies,” she explains, “one can be alienated from the Lord. I can’t allow that to happen.” (239)

Of her leaving the faith as a college student, she writes, “The church had become for me anti-art and anti-mind. No longer was there a blending of the aesthetic and the religious as there had been throughout my childhood… I could not separate my personal relationship with God, and with Jesus Christ, from my relationship with the church.” (124)

So it only makes sense that, when she returned to the faith, she returned to the church. “And so I went back to God through the doors of that church…I went back to the ancient Roman Catholic Church…” (187)

Now, it seems that Rice has finally been able to distinguish her faith in Christ from membership in the church. The Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of the church have become distinct for her. Indeed, it seems that her faith in Christ has actually led her to reject organized religion. For a believer so intensely Catholic, this is a surprising turn. Her memoir is full of positive recollections of the sacred places of her youth, the art and architecture of the ritualistic Latin tradition. And her call back to faith was through the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist. “I didn’t care about the framing of the doctrine. I cared about Him. And He was calling me back through His Presence on the altar.” (182)

And yet, ultimately, despite her best efforts at transcending the negative things that Christians have done or stood for, she has decided to walk away, not just from the Catholic Church, but from “organized religion” as a whole. “Can a follower of Christ exist in a world without ties to organized Christianity?” she wrote on her facebook. “I say yes, but others say no.”

Catholic theologian Robert Barron responded to Rice on his video blog:

The followers of Jesus are related to their Lord as the members of a body are related to the head, for Christ and his church form together, not a society, but a living organism. To say, therefore, that one loves Christ but has given up on his church is precisely equivalent to saying “I love you, but I just can’t be around your body!”

To which Rice responded:

But I would argue that the Body of Christ is infinitely bigger than organized religion, that Christ cannot be limited and owned by organized religion, that He offers His Body and Blood to all individual believers in spite of organized religion, and they will continue to come to Him, each in his or her own way.

What Rice and Barron have here, then, is a disagreement about what the “church” is. Is it a “visible” Body or an “invisible” one? Historically, this has been an argument between Catholics (“it is visible, and let me show you where it is”) and Protestants (“it is invisible, and transcends denominations”). Rice, it appears, has become Protestant. But even Protestants, of course, have churches.

I find myself in sympathy with Rice in many ways. The church is a mess. At any given time in any given place, members – even high-ranking members; even a majority of adherents – of the church can make enormous, unethical blunders. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the church. The human element of the church can and does fall into hurting people far too often. And I sympathize with Rice’s desire to tell her readership that she is not “complicit in the things that organized religion does.” But, as Flannery O’Connor wrote: “It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.”

Anne Rice takes the Scriptures seriously. She writes, “to accept the canon means to accept all of the canon.” (226) And that seriousness is evident in her Christ the Lord novels. But what of the rest of scripture? What of the Acts of the Apostles, the teachings of Paul? Here is “organized” Christianity in its infancy. To be sure, it’s a mish-mash of people – some malicious and some inspired – with competing agendas, varied histories and differences of opinion. Some of it is a mess. Some of it is an inspiration. But, among the other things that these writings tell me is this: I can’t do it alone. I need a community – indeed a communion – in order to make this discipleship work. A disciple alone is no disciple at all.

Communion, which rightly seems to be at the heart of Rice’s faith, is not just a spiritual union of disparate individuals with God through Christ. It is a communion of persons growing toward each other in Christ as well. And communion implies community. How are we to serve, and love, and be challenged and stretched by one another, if we are not in community? And how are we to have a community without – on some level – organization? Whether it’s the complex Catholic system or a plain Quaker Meeting, we meet Christ in one another.

Rice’s recent move puts the question before us all: where do we locate the Body of Christ?

Geoff Mackey is the Director of Distance Learning at Trinity School for Ministry and a grad student in liturgical theology at Byzantine Catholic Seminary. He has been described as “Byzmergent”, which Amy Moffitt thinks is the coolest thing she’s heard in a while.
10:10
Rural Renewal? [6]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Sarah Monroe

As I have followed the emergent conversation over the years, I have wondered how rural churches and emergent voices might have a dialogue. Having grown up most of my life in rural Washington state and having studied rural sociology in college, I am well aware of the challenges facing rural churches and their communities. I wonder if the emergent conversation could help renew struggling churches in the American countryside.

Rural areas are places of declining church membership, economic slump, growing poverty and drug use, and a breeding ground for the rise of hate groups appealing to an already disenfranchised people. What if there was a way to address all of these problems? What if a new model of being church could be applied to declining rural churches? What if, in turn, rural churches could stand with their communities as they face the many challenges of the 21st century?

Rural areas have their own culture. The emergent church model of the urban context—with theology pubs and funky art spaces—contextualizes the church’s message for an urban, youthful culture. But rural culture is different—it is the place of wide open fields and towering forests, Native American reservations, cabins in the forest, farmers barely making a living, county fairs and greasy taverns on the way to a national park. More than that, it is also a disenfranchised culture on the edge of empire, cut off from the rest of American life and barely able to feed its kids and keep them out of trouble or pay the rent on substandard housing. Rural Americans face growing poverty and domestic violence, closing farms and ranches, and large corporations that take local natural resources but leave little for the local community. They also lose an increasing number of sons and daughters in foreign wars that have less and less meaning. Understandably, rural Americans are bitter and tired of being ignored. As David Neiwert points out, the astounding rise in local militias, hate groups and anti-immigrant sentiment in rural areas is only one symptom of a people at their wits end.

Rural churches have been a landmark for a long time, a part of rural life that prioritizes God, country, and family. But the pews become increasingly empty and the services continue as they have for the last hundred years. The church seems to have lost its way—desperately wanting to increase membership and at a loss for how to do so. Is it because the church is offering no answers to an increasingly desperate rural society? Is it because we continue to do church in the same way it is done everywhere else, ignoring the local circumstances?

What if churches became centers of community and organizing again? What if local rural churches opened their doors an evening a week and hosted community discussion on what local people could do to improve their own lives? Maybe they could discuss how to reduce pollutants that are destroying rivers. Maybe they could ask how to revitalize the local economy and study why it continues to decline. Or they could organize coops to exchange goods locally or have swap meets to help reduce extreme poverty. The church could again assert that God is just as concerned with the body as God is with the soul. At the same time, the church would be instrumental in counteracting the effects of growing local hate groups with the development of constructive solutions.

Most of all, could the church muster the resources to let people believe in their own worth again? The people could develop their own theologies, based on their local circumstances. We might not have theology pubs, but maybe we would have tavern talks or town hall chats, and instead of art venues, the county fair might be a perfect space to express local theology with community theater or quilt exhibits. Maybe this is what emergent might look like in rural places. People could ask what the Bible means here and now, in 21st century rural America, and how that impacts their everyday lives. And then they could claim their God-given dignity to revitalize their communities.

Efforts like this have been done—from rural Appalachia to rural Latin America. Could the rest of rural America learn from the people who have done it before us? Could we develop a movement for change in rural areas that goes beyond hateful rhetoric and sullen acquiescence and instead mobilizes people to recognize their own worth and the worth of others? The rural church has the potential to play a role as a catalyst in such an effort. Perhaps it must if it is going to survive.

Sarah Monroe is a seminarian at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. She grew up in rural Washington state on a small farm, where she grew to love the land and the people who work it. She is an activist for immigrant rights and food sovereignty and blogs about life and seminary at tangledcircumstances.blogspot.com.

Resources:

•Hinsdale, Mary Ann, Helen Matthews Lewis, and S. Maxine Waller. It Comes from the People: Community Development and Local Theology. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.
This book chronicles the story of Ivanhoe, VA, a small Appalachian community, who sought to develop its own localized theology and to save its community.

•Gutierrez, Gustavo. We Drink From Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 3rd ed. 2008.
The classic book detailing the philosophy behind the Latin American Christian base communities that revolutionized the Latin American countryside.

•Neiwert, David. In God’s Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest. Washington State University, 1999.
A native of Idaho, Neiwert takes a closer look at radical right-wing groups in the Pacific Northwest and asks why rural dwellers join them, all the while exploring the marginalization of rural communities.
10:05
Post-Colonial Theology [12]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Brian McLaren

Call me cynical, but here’s my suspicion: adjectives in front of theology are deceptive. Yes, they’re needed; no, I’m not against them, but still, they’re deceptive. Here’s how.

By distinguishing some theology with a modifier – feminist, black, Latin American, eco-, post-colonial, or indigenous, we are playing into the idea that these theologies are special, different – boutique theologies if you will.

Meanwhile, unmodified theology – theology without adjectives – thus retains its privileged position as normative. Unmodified theology is accepted as Christian theology, or orthodox theology, or important, normal, basic, real, historic theology.

But what if we tried to subvert this deception? What if we started calling standard, unmodified theology chauvinist theology, or white theology, or consumerist or colonial or Greco-Roman theology?

The covert assumption behind the modifier post-colonial thus becomes overt, although it is generally more obliquely and politely stated than this:
Standard, normative, historic, so-called orthodox Christian theology has been a theology of empire, a theology of colonialism, a theology that powerful people used as a tool to achieve and defend land theft, exploitation, domination, superiority, and privilege.

If that doesn’t sound disturbing, I’m not writing well or you’re not reading well.

Of course, it may be a false accusation. But it may not. And determining the degree to which it is or is not is part of the work of postcolonial theology.

I was involved for several years in “the postmodern conversation” before I realized that it was only one side of the coin. It took place largely among the former colonizers. Meanwhile, the post-colonial conversation had arisen among the formerly colonized. While the postmodern conversation focused on important intellectual issues like the objectivity and absoluteness of statements, the interpretation of texts, the limitations and biases of language, and so on, the postcolonial conversation focused on how those intellectual issues were playing out in history, especially during and since the era of the Conquistadors. The former was largely about knowledge, and the latter largely about how knowledge became a tool of power. So the two conversations were inter-related, and the latter in some ways enfolded and extended the former from the realm of theory to the realm of practice, from philosophy to ethics.

As I expanded my own considerations in these directions, important words in the postmodern conversation suddenly made more sense to me. I realized that deconstruction, for example, was specifically (even if unconsciously at times) focused on dismantling the foundations of colonialism. Metanarratives weren’t simply big stories – they were the stories that fueled colonialism. In this light, the moral arc of the postmodern conversation—which was understated by its advocates and invisible to its critics—started to shine through for me.

If standard Christian theology has indeed been colonial, then we would expect it to have certain characteristics, perhaps including these:
A. It would explain – historically or theologically – why the colonizers deserve to be in power – sustained in the position of hegemony.
B. It would similarly explain why the colonized deserve to be dominated – maintained in the subaltern or subservient position.
C. It would provide ethical justification for the phases and functions of colonization – from exploration to settlements to land acquisition to minority marginalization to segregation to hegemony-maintenance, even to ethnic cleansing.
D. It would bolster the sense of entitlement and motivation among the colonizers.
E. It would embed the sense of submission and docility among the colonized.
F. It would facilitate alliances with political and economic systems that were supportive of or inherent to colonialism.
G. It would camouflage or cosmetically enhance its ugly aspects and pre-empt attempts to expose them.

If standard Christian theology were determined to be essentially colonial by these and other standards, a natural question would arise: must the Christianity of the future forever maintain this colonial bias? Is an imperial or dominating mindset inherent to Christian faith, for better or worse – or can there be a new and different kind of Christianity?

In answering that question, other questions would arise. Is a colonial mindset resonant with or in conflict with the life and teaching of Jesus? Is it resonant with or in conflict with the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures? Is it resonant with or in conflict with the life and teachings of the apostles and early church?

These are exactly the kinds of questions raised by a postcolonial theology.

It’s commonplace to talk about the extinction or evaporation of Christian faith in Europe, and in the US, we see this as a sad and tragic thing. But could it be that the faith that has been rejected in Europe is not the essential and original Christian faith, but rather the colonial Christian faith – the chauvinistic, Greco-Roman, consumerist, white-man’s Christian faith? And could it be that this faith should be rejected so something better can emerge in the void it leaves behind?

Could it be that our various modifiers these days signal parallel quests to rediscover – or create, or both – an authentic Christian faith, rooted in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, informed by the Scriptures, instructed by Christian tradition and history – and purged of longstanding and deeply embedded patterns of injustice? Could it be that diverse adjectives that have arisen – modifiers like emergent Christianity, big tent Christianity, missional Christianity, not to mention feminist, eco-, Latin American, black, and otherwise modified Christianity – are signs of diverse expressions of the same underlying impulse, or parallel mini-movements that will someday become one integrated movement?

You can see why growing numbers of us think that this postmodern, postcolonial conversation is terribly important and worth having.

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among innovative Christian leaders, thinkers, and activists. He’s also just a really neat person. You can find out a lot more information about him at the “About Brian” section of his website.
August 30, 2010
2:11
2010 Emergent Village Theological Conversation Synchroblog [1]
» ‎ Emergent Village

“Creating Liberated Spaces in a Post-Colonial World”

During the week of August 30 through September 3, a group of people from a variety of perspectives will blog on the topic for this year’s Emergent Village Theological Conversation: “Creating Liberated Spaces in a Post-Colonial World”. The bloggers have been given the topic and asked to give their honest reaction.

Bloggers include:

– Jonathan Brink at jonathanbrink.com/blog

– Annie Bullock at Marginal Theology marginaltheology.wordpress.com

– Julie Clawson at onehandclapping julieclawson.com

– Nelson Costa (in Portuguese and English) at www.nelsoncostajr.com

– Natanael Disla (in Spanish) at karmatarsis.wordpress.com

– Mihee Kim-Kort at first day walking miheekimkort.com

– Crystal Lewis at Jesus Was A Heretic, Too. jesuswasaheretictoo.blogspot.com

– Danielle Shroyer at danielleshroyer.com

Registration for the Theological Conversation is still open! Find out more information and register here.
August 21, 2010
19:05
Reflections on God, Nine Months After Cara's Birth and Death [3]
» ‎ Emergent Village

By Laryn Kragt Bakker

To say that our world has been altered since our daughter Caritas died nine months ago would be an understatement. I see that in physical details like our two-year old continuing to reenact with dolls a baby in her tummy who is “so sick” and ends up dying, but also in my daily thoughts and feelings and in the way I view God and the world around us.

In a strange way, I ended up with more questions but my faith feels stronger on a fundamental level. A friend of mine coined the phrase “faith-infused agnostic” and that term has grown on me. It reminds me of Meister Eckhart’s famous prayer that God would rid him of God. Our perceptions of God are always incomplete, and trying to force God into terms we can understand can become a form of idolatry. (1) It seems that humility dictates that we acknowledge our own fallibility and finitude with respect to a God that cannot be contained by any concept within our grasp.

At the same time, I can’t help but continue to wrestle with the events of my life, the kind of world we live in, and God’s role in both. Many of the issues I find myself mulling are not unique to me – most of them have been asked since ancient times and none of them have definitive answers. Knowing this reminds me that I shouldn’t be surprised that I haven’t solved life’s most profound mysteries, and I suspect that my thoughts may continue to change over time.

The world in which we live

Before tragedy struck home, many of these issues were intellectual problems that I could consider and then set aside again without answers. They’ve become much more visceral and harder to ignore. I find myself feeling other tragedies in a deeper way, and theodicy has become very personal.

The boundaries of involvement in the cosmos for a God who values free will are hard to draw or imagine. This is part of a standard defense of God. How can we blame God when we’re the ones who commit so much violence and make such poor choices regarding those around us? There’s truth to that line of thought. But violence and pain are built into this world in such a deep way that the age-old questions rise again: exactly how is God working in the midst of all of this, and how did a world like this come to be?
Earthquakes, floods and other so-called “acts of God”. Sickness, disease, death. Survival of the fittest in the natural world. Where is God? Granted, the free-will debate leaches into even these as we, by our choices, wreak havoc on the climate, pollute air and earth and water, or perpetuate poverty and unjust social conditions which can exacerbate many of these “natural” problems.

I think many Christians would agree that the cosmos is broken, that it is not now as it is intended to be. The fact that all of creation is groaning with us for the day when all things will be renewed does not make it any easier to live surrounded by brokenness. I’m not privy to the hows and whys of the rupture in creation. And while I find theorizing about it to be an interesting side project (2), I am more interested in how God is working in the midst of it.

God’s way of working in the world

As I have thought about this over the last months, I’ve had to deal with some common ideas that come up repeatedly in conversations and the media. Much of my processing has been in relation to these phrases and to the underlying assumptions behind them. I’ll jot some of them below, followed by some questions that are raised in my mind by these concepts.

“God is all powerful” followed closely by “God is all loving”

It’s difficult to square these two affirmations, taken at face value. If you are all powerful but don’t intervene when someone you love is being abused, are you all loving? And if God does intervene, why in some cases and not others? Selective intervention seems capricious. The traditional line seems to say “God has all the power but is not responsible for how God uses it.” To say “you need to take the long view” resonates on a certain level but also smacks of “pie in the sky when you die” and a devaluing of the here-and-now, which it seems to me God cares about very much.

“God is in control” and “God must have had a reason for doing this” and we have to trust “God’s will” and it must be part of “God’s plan for your life”

Is God really a control freak? I wrote in our reflections during the days following Cara’s death that it didn’t seem to me that God “was sacrificing pawns in a cosmic chess game that was going perfectly according to plan.” Instrumentalizing an innocent person does not fit into my (admittedly incomplete) concept of God. This raises the question of whether God always gets God’s way. It seems to me that the answer is no.

I am even less comfortable than before with language like “God told me” or even “God has really blessed me”

Speaking with certainty about what God is doing seems naïve (3), and the language of God’s blessing can unintentionally suggest that if God didn’t do the same for you, God has instead singled you out for cursing or for the withholding of blessings, giving you stones when you asked for bread.

These types of clichés leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, but they seem to have wide circulation. Many folks hold these beliefs sincerely but sometimes it seems people haven’t really thought about what they are saying. I’ve been trying to find another way of thinking about this that makes sense to me, and have identified a few concepts that have been somewhat helpful.

God suffers with us

This was the strong sense we had during our experience with Cara and it still rings true. Rather than a God who is without emotion, detached from our existence, I sensed a God who is intimately involved with us and who suffers with us.

There are various types of power and control, and God works in surprising ways

God’s power in our world seems to be primarily through weakness — an unpredictable, slow-moving, “underneath” power that turns traditional power against itself, gently pushing tendrils of life up in the midst of death, as opposed to an external force exerting itself to bend everything to fit into an intractable plan (4). Rather than dictating specific actions or events, God’s power is nourishing and sustaining life from below; allowing, inviting, and encouraging good to result from the things that happen despite themselves (and despite the fact that they may not be a part of “God’s will”).

I don’t say that it’s easy or even possible to imagine what God is up to, but these metaphors provide me with the hope that God’s work in the world continues, and that the act of believing in redemption despite the evidence of this moment can be a radical protest against the darkness.

I was talking to one of my brothers recently and he mentioned the concepts of “right-handed power” and “left-handed power”, which were explored in a book he is reading by Robert Farrar Capon. Capon describes right-handed power as the kind of power we expect, the kind of power we think of as the very definition of power, forcing itself in some way into a bad situation to straighten it out by might. Left-handed power, on the other hand, is “power that looks for all the world like weakness, intervention that seems indistinguishable from nonintervention.” (5) Weakness and nonintervention describes quite well my experience of God in the midst of Cara’s life and death.

I am reminded that Jesus’ disciples were expecting their Messiah to swoop in, gather an army and usher in a new kingdom by the sword. But Jesus’ method of overthrowing empire involved the empire having its way with him, torturing him, killing him. I find myself frustrated that God hasn’t swooped in and set things right, or surprised that the brokenness is allowed to have its way with us, forgetting that this radical vulnerability and weakness is exactly the kind of power Jesus exhibits. Not only do we worship a God we can beat up, we worship a God we do beat up and one who allows us to get beat up, too.

Conclusion: Ubi caritas

While it makes sense in a certain way that God would use “left-handed power” in situations in which people are making decisions, it is harder to swallow in situations in which human decisions don’t seem to be at play. Why no right-handed power to protect innocent lives in the midst of earthquakes and lightning strikes? Would it be so bad to impose some force to protect children from cancer and disease and random accidents? But as near as I can tell, God’s power consistently shows up as weakness, whether humans appear to be the root cause of the problem or not. We’re planted here among the tares, the cancers, the diseases that were sown among us by an enemy, and apparently we’re too enmeshed with each other to come apart cleanly. Somehow pulling them up would uproot us as well.

I don’t claim that the “answers” I have been pondering are fully satisfying, and much remains outside of my grasp. But I do know that my experience has stripped a lot of periphery from the way I see the world, and given me a new appreciation for the mystery of God and of God’s way of working in the world. With so many unknowns and unanswerables, I can only throw myself and the world on God’s mercy and let the chips fall as they may. In the meantime, I will continue trying to live into the coming kingdom knowing I’m going to continue to fail. It isn’t easy trying to live as though God’s kingdom is here now when it is so clearly is not.

I think Janel and I each felt betrayed and abandoned by God in many ways, but we still loved Cara deeply, which was an indicator to me that God was still profoundly present. That tension between God’s presence and God’s absence continues for me, but the phrase that Cara’s name was taken from (and which I’ve since had tattooed on my arm) has become a mantra of sorts: Ubi Caritas, Deus Ibi Est.

Where love exists, God is present. It seems a strange learning to take from a tragedy and the heartbreaking loss of a daughter, but for all the questions that have been raised in me, the one thing I am more confident of than ever is that love is the core of our calling. If we want to participate in whatever the hell God is up to, love has to be our guide. Or, to put it another way, if it doesn’t involve love, religion is worthless.
References
1“The only significant difference between the aesthetic idol and the conceptual idol lies in the fact that the former reduces God to a physical object while the latter reduces God to an intellectual object.” (Peter Rollins, How (not) to speak of God, p. 12)

2 Examples of theories to this effect include:
The fall into sin caused a rupture within creation and now God is trying to restore us and all things.

Evolution is cosmic warfare; there is a battle going on in creation itself. (Greg Boyd has explored this idea.)

God had to “pull back” God’s self to allow room for creation, causing a rift, which God now seeks to heal.

God’s creation was more of an organization of chaos rather than a creation ‘ex nihilo.’ (e.g. See John Caputo’s recent short piece in Tikkun: “God is not a warranty for a well-run world, but the name of a promise, an unkept promise, where every promise is also a risk, a flicker of hope on a suffering planet.”)

3 Quoting Frederick Buechner, Philip Yancey writes,“Some [evangelical Christians], he told me, reminded him of American tourists in Europe who, not knowing the language of their listeners, simply raise their voices. Such Christians spoke confidently about matters Buechner thought veiled in mystery, and their certitude both fascinated and alarmed him. ‘I was astonished to hear students shift casually from small talk about the weather and movies to a discussion of what God was doing in their lives. They spoke of ‘prayer diaries’ and used phrases like ‘God told me…’ If anybody said anything like that in my part of the world, the ceiling would fall in, the house would catch fire, and people’s eyes would roll up in their heads.’” (Soul Survivor, p.251)

4 Peter Rollins describes something similar when he claims that ”...the message of Jesus introduces us to a different way of approaching God—not as a violent power imposed from above, but rather as a powerless presence entering our world from below. This powerless God still instigates a revolution against the powers of this world. However, this revolution is not won through brute strength, but through weakness.” (Orthodox Heretic, p. 141)

5 Capon continues, “More than that, it is guaranteed to stop no determined evildoers whatsoever. It might, of course, touch and soften their hearts. But then again, it might not. It certainly didn’t for Jesus; and if you decide to use it, you should be quite clear that it probably won’t for you either.” (Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage and Vindication in the Parables, pg. 19)

(This article was originally featured at Laryn’s blog here)

Laryn Kragt Bakker is a graphic designer and author currently living in Atlanta with his wife and daughter.
18:59
Strange Awakenings: A Call to Faithful Vocation
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Mihee Kim-Kort

Moments of irony hit me hard…I think it’s because I subconsciously hold up my worldview like a blanket wrapped around me, these expectations and preconceived notions woven together tightly in my brain, so when something outside of my usual assumptions happens to me, it knocks me out cold and stays with me for awhile.

I grew up in a traditional Presbyterian home…culturally Korean on the inside, culturally attempting-to-be-American (whatever that means) on the outside. But, no doubt there was an undeniable hierarchy in the house, as well as at our church home. My father was the bread-winner, and my mother the homemaker, while at the church, only men were the elders, the leaders of the church, and certainly the pastor and any visiting preacher during the yearly weekend revivals. The women were always deacons, literally servants of compassion and hospitality for the church, which essentially meant they rotated bringing food, washing dishes, and cleaning the kitchen every Sunday after the fellowship lunch, and heading up the church bazaar fundraisers. This was my world, and I never gave it any thought until my dad attended seminary while I was beginning my undergraduate studies.

At the same time, as I reflect back, I remember there were moments it wasn’t so black-and-white, and there were little moments of contradiction that I brushed off, but kept on the back burner. Our Korean faith community adhered to a very “Biblical” understanding of males and females and their specific roles. The Presbyterian “system” of community seemed to naturally fit the Confucianist philosophy of these same roles. However, there were some subtle inconsistencies.

My mother, solely responsible for taking care of the home, also managed a few stores; that is, businesses that my parents attempted to start up in various parts of the city during various parts of my childhood. Over and over again they would tell me their dreams for me were to enter into some kind of successful, public profession (medicine, law, education), but very little mention of marriage, family, and a home life. At one point I went to a church service where a woman preached that Sunday morning, and I was shocked, but simultaneously repelled and enthralled by it.

Perhaps these moments caused the little rips and tears that would make my entire blanketing worldview almost completely unravel at the seams during one pivotal conversation with my Father.

When I started my undergraduate studies, I had planned on going pre-med (I know, so stereotypical of Asian Americans, though a number of my Asian American friends are actually in medicine). But I fell in love with the humanities courses I was taking, particularly in the religion, English, history and philosophy departments. I was also involved in various ministries to high school and college students, and felt a tug towards church and ministry. But I would never have considered it in a million years until that one conversation with my father in the middle of my freshman year. He was attending Princeton Seminary at the time and enjoying the classes and community with numerous women who were studying to also become…pastors. “Pastors??? But the Bible says that women are supposed to submit to men…and church leaders are just supposed to be only men; I can’t imagine a woman being able to do it!!!” I argued with him over the phone, citing Pauline scripture, passage after passage, and evidence from our own faith community. We went back and forth.

And there’s the irony.

My father, the symbol of Asian patriarchy, was trying to persuade me, a woman (but a young girl at the time), that women could and should do much more in the church. My father argued for an egalitarian view on the role of men and women in the church, especially in the Korean church. He told me stories of how women had been leaders of the church for a long time, and many were elders in the Presbyterian church, and also becoming pastors all around him…and he admired and respected them, in fact, supported them. He reminded me that the first people to preach the gospel after Jesus’ resurrection were women, and that the early church would not have survived without the faithful leadership of women. Even though it was a little over the top for him at times, he was even taking a class on feminist/womanist theologies…the same class that would impact me deeply some years later during my own seminary coursework.

“And, you can be a leader, too, an elder, a pastor, anything you believe God is calling you to be in your own life…” he said to me, citing the parable of the ten talents.

That one conversation, and my Dad’s support, stayed with me throughout my entire call process until today. I will never forget the look on my parents’ faces at my ordination service, when during the charge to the minister, I saw tears of joy streaming down their faces – I had never seen my father cry before that moment.

I know it seems a little cliché, a little after-school special, like too “you can be anything you want to be.” But for me, moments like the conversation with my Dad or seeing my parents cry at my ordination were truly radical. They turned everything upside down, in a frightening, but truly redemptive way…one of the first few tastes of grace for me. The whole universe opened up for me through those moments.

I can’t help but remember the words to a Christian song called Add to the Beauty by Sara Groves: Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces calling out the best of who we are…I look back and see that was certainly the case here. While I was left with bits and pieces of yarn, string, remnants of my blanketing worldview… a shroud I had hung onto for so long… I realized that these pieces were an invitation to create and make something new. I was given the ability, power, and freedom to do and be something more… This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful…This is grace, an invitation…So here I am on the other side thankful for that one moment, and all the small invitations and inspirations in this journey that have helped me become more of me, a more faithful me, encouraging me to respond to God’s call courageously, and most of all, to share it…And I want to add to the beauty…to tell a better story…

Mihee Kim-Kort is an associate pastor at a Presbyterian church for youth and children in Pennsylvania. Previously, she worked at churches in Flanders, Palisades Park, and Somerset, NJ as well as a volunteer in various para-church youth ministries during her undergraduate studies in Colorado. She enjoys the outdoors, books, farmers’ markets, and journeying with young people. She blogs at www.miheekimkort.com.
18:35
Women and Men As Corn: Campesino Gathering in Nicaragua
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Natanael Disla

In October of 2008, I was sent to Nicaragua by the Dominican Republic Baptist Seminary (where I study) to participate in a campesino gathering organized by the Latin American and Caribbean Community of Ecumenical Theological Education (CETELA). The purpose of these campesino gatherings is to visit environmental projects and take the principles back home.

Corn is the main ingredient of the Mesoamerican diet. It is said that women and men came from corn seeds, growing straight out of the earth. Therefore, it is important to take care of the soil that produces corn, wheat, and other components of the daily diet.

The first part of our trip, we went to Loma de Viento, a community in the hills of Nicaragua where they have an eco-friendly community-operated hotel. There is no electricity, but they have managed to build a solar power system. Tourists come there to explore the hills and swim in the Acayo River. Agriculture there is sustained by the farmers and community. Hotel bookings supply funds required to buy seed and instruments to work the land. Turtles and iguanas are also raised there to maintain a proper balance of fauna.

The project has been very successful, and more and more communities have requested workshops to learn the principles behind Loma de Viento. They hope to repeat the same experience from Loma de Viento and promote a sustainable lifestyle in a rural context without electricity.

Ten water springs have been found again that were buried by deforestation and soil mismanagement, restoring hope and water supplies for the forty families that live there. The community planted trees around the river basins in order to protect the springs from further contamination. “Discovering these water springs again brings new life to this community. We never imagined that this could happen again,” said Jáenz Marcial Umaña, the manager of the community rural project.

Churches have been an important part of this new life. After beginning to work on restoring the land, the Loma de Viento community partnered with the Inter-Church Center for Social and Theological Studies in Managua. The center came with their Agro-Ecological Formation and Community Development Program to train some of the farmers in agro-ecological techniques. These farmers then served as catalysts for engaging the entire community in this process of change. Since then, they have become a successful communitarian tourism project.

But in most parts of Nicaragua, things have not been like in Loma de Viento. Rampant deforestation and limited knowledge of soil cultivation have led farmers to grow crops unsuitable for these types of soil, causing resource waste and poverty among families. Land contamination is a big issue in Nicaragua. Many farmers and their families suffer from diseases caused by improper use of pesticides. Many initiatives have been formed to help the farmers to discontinue pesticide use, but many parts of the land are still contaminated, causing thousands of people to suffer from indirect exposure for the rest of their lives. Every three days a person in Nicaragua dies from Nemagon, a dangerous pesticide, one of the so-called “dirty dozen,” the twelve most hazardous pesticide products in the world.

There is a great need to rediscover ancient wisdom on the use of land and soil. Technology has permeated rural techniques and management of nature resources and become a way to gain money for a few rather than a resource for the common good, which should demand all respect from us. When ancient Mayan people needed to work the land, they lifted up prayers to Mother Earth, asking for forgiveness: for them, to respect the environment was at the core of social organization.

When the last river has been drowned…
When the last tree has been cut down…
When there were no fishes to eat…
Then you will realize that even money can’t feed. (indigenous quote)

During the gathering, fellow theologians from across Latin America talked about the challenges their communities are facing.

– Claudia Tron from Argentina presented a paper about the work the Waldensian Church of Argentina is doing with farmers in the Entre Ríos province.

– Álvaro Pérez from Guatemala talked about the colonial mindset that continues today in the paradigms of rural people that sometimes makes their claims go unheard by the oligarchic government.

– I talked about the Dominican utopia of the areíto and batey as new words of encounter with a new imagination, and the work theological institutions are doing with impoverished Dominican-Haitian communities in rural areas.

– Roberto Zwetsch from Brazil talked about how through the years CETELA has worked to encourage Latin American theological institutions to include environment care-related courses in their educational programs.

– One of the most beautiful moments of the gathering was when Brazilian pastor and poet Louraini Christmann read some of her poems that were inspired by the work she is doing with farmer women groups.

There is a great need today for people who love the land and its people to engage and incarnate initiatives that can bring change where change is most needed. There is a need of more people who were willing to promote communitarian life where everyone cares for everyone, where creation is respected like another human being; where the earth, animals, and trees dance with people in a dance that never ends. Another world is possible if we care for Mother Earth, ask her forgiveness, and ask her, as our sister—Madre Tierra, Pachamama—to bind us together in this dance called life.

This article was originally posted at Mustard Seed Associates website here.

Natanael Disla holds a Licenciate in Business Administration from the Pedro Henríquez Ureña National University and is studying for the Bachelor in Theological Sciences in the Baptist Seminary of Dominican Republic. He is a member of the Latin American Theological Fraternity (LATF) and Coordinator of the Dominican Republic LATF cohort. Natanael ives in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

July 18, 2010

14:10
A Time To Reconstruct [80]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Jonathan Brink

Over the last decade, many of us who have participated in what some call “the conversation” have been engaging a deconstruction process of our faith. In many ways this leaving was liberation from an old story. The traditional way of seeing the story in the Gospel just didn’t work anymore. The conversation became a place to share our fears, our stories, and our liberation.

One of the real, valid criticisms of this process is that much of the conversation was a deconstruction process. In other words, we were tearing down an old story but nothing new was offered to take its place. I get that concern. It’s easy to criticize what’s wrong with something and never offer something different. But I would also offer that the removing the old story was necessary for us to see something new.

The primary concern for me within this space was our historical understanding of the Gospel. I could no longer ignore the inherent conflicts with our traditional stories, specifically in terms of the atonement. The atonement captured my attention in the conversation because it is the linchpin in the story. It informs us of both the problem and the solution.

Why were there several atonement theories? Why did they fundamentally conflict with each other? Why had the Eastern Church settled on Ransom theory and the Western church settle on Penal Substitution? Wrestling with these theories was important because they were our framing story for the Gospel. I never stopped believing in Jesus. I just stopped believing in the story people were telling me about him.

As a western evangelical, I had reached a point where I could no longer live with what had been handed down to me. Yet the alternative (Ransom Theory) had too many problems. As I voiced my concerns I found a community willing to ask the same questions and wrestle through the possibilities. Had my Catholic friends done one better by simply calling it a mystery? So over a three-year period I simply went back to the original story. I opened myself to the possibility that another way of seeing the Gospel was already present, embedded in the text.

The one obvious piece of evidence I observed was that our historical assumptions conflicted in where they located the problem. Ransom theory assumed we were being held captive to Satan. Penal Substitution theory assumed we were being held captive to God’s justice. Both had enough evidence to suggest they were true, but enough problems to cast doubt that they were true.

At some point though, we can only deconstruct so far without falling into a sense of void. I’m just not that good at sitting with nothing, yet the more I examined the theories, the deeper the tension grew. This exploration process eventually led me to a retreat in the beautiful Lake Tahoe area. I felt compelled to spend time alone with God, wrestling with the tension that was brewing to full steam.

As I stood in my cheap motel room pouring over the evidence one more time, I felt a strange question arise in my Spirit. “Who else is in the Garden?” At that moment I happened to be standing in front of a mirror, and I caught my own reflection. “Who else is in the Garden?”

“We are,” I said out loud, and mirrors don’t lie. Had we located the problem incorrectly? Did the story present another possibility? The answer was a resounding, “Yes.”

Where the traditional theories had always pointed outward, casting the problem away from humanity, the story actually pointed the problem back at us. The key phrase in the story was, “And they realized they were naked.” Naked was always true but their judgment of it had changed. Created in the image of God, humanity held the capacity to construct a reality different from God’s. We held the capacity to judge the self in a way that was untrue. How then does God convince humanity it is good, when it has convinced itself it is not good?

This new possibility opened up an entirely new way of seeing the story. The problem wasn’t with God. The problem was in me. I need evidence to the contrary. I needed evidence that would release me from my own captive judgments. I needed someone to take my place in my own retributive form of justice, one that could only see guilt.

The cross was not God sending his Son to satisfy the demands of Satan, or to appease his own sense of justice. The cross was God lifting his arms to the world and saying, “This is how far I will go to show you that my original judgment of you was true.” For the first time the Gospel could be framed as a ferocious love. God’s justice was found in the act of mercy. It made sense in a way that seemed to redeem the Gospel. And it was so simple.

Seeing this new possibility changed everything. It informed both my sense of pain and suffering, justice and reconciliation. It gave me a sense of compassion that was overwhelming. It gave new meaning to God’s invitation to love my neighbor as myself. Salvation was no longer release from something out there, but from something within. Redemption was about me trading in my false judgment for God’s.

Seeing the new story invited me into God’s mission. We can’t participate in God’s mission unless we know what problem God is actually solving. Could the problem actually keep us from seeing what problem God was solving in the story? Could the problem literally blind us to seeing what I would call the God Imagination, a way of seeing reality from God’s perspective?

As I shared my discoveries with both my evangelical, Catholic and even atheist friends, I was surprised by the response. Most suggested I was on to something. And let me be the first to say, I don’t think I’m discovering anything new. I think the followers of Jesus got it. But over time this Way of seeing got lost. All we’re doing is simply rediscovering it again.

Jonathan Brink is a blogger and author of Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity (CreateSpace, 2010).

14:05
Real Austin: Theology on a Downtown Bus [11]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Annie Bullock

Since moving to Austin just two years ago, I’ve had my share of encounters with Leslie Cochran, almost all of them on the 1L/1M bus through downtown. Leslie is a homeless transvestite and a beloved Austin institution. I saw him for the first time on my very first visit to Austin. He was standing on the curb looking bewildered in a purple mini-skirt and pumps. He crossed the street halfway, paused, and then abruptly returned to the curb he’d just left, slinging his skirt over his hips as he went, revealing a leopard print thong. Between his flamboyant fashion sense and his proclivity for public semi-nudity, he’s hard to miss if you spend any time downtown.

Leslie is a one of a kind weird guy and yet in many ways, he’s emblematic of the Austin homeless community: harmless, eccentric, and not looking for a way back into ordinary society.

Austin’s homeless community is remarkably cohesive in some ways. Leslie Cochran ran for mayor in 2000, capturing nearly 8% of the vote. Jennifer Gale, a transgendered woman who ran for a range of public offices, from mayor to city council to a place on the board of the Austin Independent School District, was another fixture in Austin politics. At her peak, she could be counted on to garner 5-8% of the total vote in a given race. Her campaign slogan modified the popular “Keep Austin Weird,” promising instead to “Keep Austin, Austin.” Both understood themselves as representatives of a legitimate community. The next logical step was to run for public office. And both were emphatically part of what some call the real Austin.

I met Jennifer on the bus shortly after I came to Austin. She was wearing a worn blue sweatshirt, white polyester culottes, and a dingy visor. She carried her belongings in a plastic sack. I’m just coming from a city council meeting, she said breathlessly as she sat down. I’m Jennifer Gale. She shook my hand. I’m running for mayor. You’ll vote for me, won’t you? I thought she might be crazy but I liked her, so I smiled and said I would. As we rode, she told me about her vision for improving Austin, which sounded remarkably sane. A pair of tourists boarded the bus. They were from Oregon—Salem, not Portland, which explains their wary, wide-eyed first reaction to Jennifer. Within three blocks, they had warmed up to her as she told them a series of groan-worthy puns and jokes. Before she got off, she reminded me of my promise to vote for her and gave the tourists a restaurant recommendation. Gatti’s, she said. I go there all the time.

Six months later, I was in the car when I heard the local NPR station report that Jennifer had been found dead on the steps of First English Lutheran Church. She died of heart failure sometime during the night. It was December and they honored her by playing a recording of her singing “Silent Night” at a city council meeting. She was only 48. I burst into tears. I only met her once but she was my friend.

The homeless community isn’t a utopia by any means. There are real problems that come with living on the streets. Jennifer Gale’s death is a painful illustration. Jennifer’s heart condition was aggravated by the physical strain of sleeping outside. A 2009 attack on Leslie Cochran makes the same point. Leslie was hospitalized after he was beaten. He had warned a group of addicts about the dangers of drug abuse. The homeless suffer. Some suffer from mental illnesses. Others suffer from addiction. They all suffer the physical and mental exhaustion that characterizes life on the streets.

Waiting at a downtown bus stop recently, I encountered a man who wore long, shaggy dreadlocks, an ankle length leather coat, and a straw cowboy hat. I just got my guitar back, he shouted. Austin, I am going off! He was drunk or high and a passing cop stopped to run him off. There was a dog sitting in the passenger seat of a sports car stopped at the light. You see that dog, the hobo said as he looked me straight in the eye. That dog is treated like a person. He paused dramatically. You get it? Yeah, I said. I do. He nodded and went on his way. I didn’t do nothing, he threw over his shoulder at the hovering cop. Half a block up the street, I saw him pass a hunched man with a facial tic, shuffling and muttering his way down the street. They paused long enough to share a fist bump.

It’s not a utopia, but it is a community. And there’s a difference between a flawed community of suffering people and an issue, a problem to be solved, or a mess to be cleaned up.

Duane Severance understood this difference. He understood the lives of the homeless because he spent his days with them. Duane was at the beginning of a promising career as a chef when he started reading his bible. When he read that Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell everything he had and give it to the poor, Duane took the advice to heart. He sold what he had, sought out the most destitute folk he could find, and made them his friends. He eventually ended up in Austin, where he prayed for God to give him a corner of his own. As Duane told the story, God told him to go down to 6th and Congress—Leslie Cochran’s corner. He staked his claim there and became a part of the community: Brother Duane, pastor to the homeless. On Sundays, he preached at the Church Under the Bridge, which meets under the I-35 overpass at 7th Street. Duane eventually married but even as the married father of three, ministry on the streets of Austin was his primary occupation.

Duane didn’t set out to address homelessness. He went looking for people. In January of 2010, Duane was killed in a single car accident in Seward Junction, northwest of Austin. Mission Possible, the organization that sponsors Church Under the Bridge, held a memorial service for him that went for hours as a stream of men and women shared the many ways Brother Duane had touched their lives. His funeral was held a few days later at a local church. It was standing room only. For the second time, people were lined up to speak about how Duane had changed things for them. Love is a precious commodity in a world that treats you like something less than human.

To paraphrase Sarah Miles, author of Take This Bread: The Spiritual Autobiography of a 21st Century Christian, this is hardly what George Bush had in mind when he talked about faith based initiatives. The recent surge of public progressive religiosity prompted Glenn Beck’s ill-fated advice to his audience that they should leave their churches if their leaders talked about social justice. Critics rightly replied that the commitment to social justice is in fact biblical. Miles makes the same observation. She converted when she discovered that the radical commitment to solidarity with the poor that she had always associated with progressive values was perfectly consonant with Christianity. And from the Eucharistic table, she took an imperative to go into the world and feed the hungry.

Duane Severance lived that kind of solidarity with the poor and his impact among Austin’s homeless is a testament to the transformative power of compassion. The difference is that Duane was not a progressive—far from it, in fact. His faith was radical, though, and that’s where the real power for transformation—and the possibility of cooperation—lies. He lived among the poor as one of them because that’s what he thought God wanted from him. Like Sarah Miles, he took the gospel command to go and do likewise to heart. Both embraced a radical, kenotic faith. Both were utterly changed by it. Both were agents for change in their communities.

The last several years have seen a palpable shift in public discourses. But we should take care before we find ourselves divided into new camps, religious right and religious left in place of religious right and secular left. We have a new opportunity to seek the common good, not as a replacement for our theological commitments but as the result of them. This is an important distinction. It does not threaten my theological traditionalism to embrace the poor and to work for their elevation. On the contrary, my faith demands throwing my hand in with the outcast and the stranger, just as the faith of so many of my theologically liberal friends and colleagues demands the same thing.

What I’m suggesting isn’t easy. I’ve lost more friends over my religious and political views than I care to recall. I am too liberal for some and not liberal enough for others. It takes courage to stay when it’s uncomfortable. It takes patience to listen when you dislike what you’re hearing. It takes confidence to like people who don’t see things your way. And it takes humility to admit you might be wrong. Growth is painful. But as long as we isolate ourselves from one another, as long as we stay in churches with like-minded people, populate our social circles with our own kind, and fill our theology schools with homogeneous communities of professors and students, we lose the opportunity to mature.

To draw the conversation back to Austin, we lose the opportunity to be real. In the logic of Christian theology, Jesus was a new Adam, the new head of a human race in desperate need of restoration. Jesus restores our vision of what is possible for a human being, fully realized and fully reflecting the image of God. This image is part of every human person. It is obscured by our common captivity to sin and death, but it is there. Our work—which is the work of the Holy Spirit—is to seek what is damaged and restore it, in ourselves and others. Redemption means becoming more whole and therefore ever more fully and truly human. We become ever more real.

The image of God is present in every human being, no matter how addicted, unruly, or unwashed, no matter how unlike us. As I board the 1L/1M every day, I look for the image of God in the people around me. I acknowledge them. I treat them with dignity. I look for signs of life. Above all, I am not afraid to hope in their redemption. In the possibility of their redemption, I see the possibility of my own. And I pray with anyone who will pray with me: Keep Austin real, make Austin human.

Annie Bullock recently received her PhD in Religion from Emory University, with a specialization in the religions of the Roman Empire in postcolonial perspective. She is an adjunct instructor at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX, where she teaches both church history and New Testament.

14:00
Unstudying God: Finding God in the Barren Land [78]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by George Elerick

Theology is the study of God… more specifically of any deity. It is a place where we come and try to understand God, where we attempt to bring our scalpels and scientifically assess if God makes sense to us. We bring our history, environments, fears and dreams all to this one place to find the God that exists beyond God. We are affected by all of our past, present and future when we step into the realm of studying God.

Studying God presupposes that God desires us to deconstruct Him. That somehow God wants to be found. In our studying, deep down where the subconscious lies, we want to save God from those around us. Theology has evolved into a practice where we get to be the demi-gods of development. Theology has deformed itself into something that deforms its followers irreparably into people who desire to only make sense of a being beyond our senses. What we have come to understand about God has been formed by thousands of years of interpretations. We tend to align ourselves alongside these interpretations and deem them as theology.

Theology is the practice and study of God as share above, but our discoveries are the fruit of that study. Fruit can rot, get old and die. We need new fruit, at the risk of leaving some of the old fruit behind. There were thousands of years of scholars, linguists, historians, anthropologists and archaeologists who came together to piece together information about Jesus, God, Torah and the New Testament. A lot of our theology is fruit of their labor. A lot of what we know about God derives from their discoveries. But what about the undiscovered country? What about what lies beyond all those fields of study? What about the gaps in between those studies? Is God there, stripped bare of all that we have to offer him? Can God still be found in the barren land?

We need a change.

We need to race like madmen and strip off all of our clothes …those things we’ve made ourselves to hide behind… and find God in the barren wilderness, in the barren place where the death of theology is nothing more than a whisper in our history books. Where God is shouting louder than all the things we have come to call home. The barren land is a place where we come to find healing, to find the shalom we all crave from the storms of our mind. The barren land is a place where we come to deny God to find Him. The barren land is a place where the broken become more broken to find that it’s truly finished. The barren land is the place we all come and lie in the tomb waiting for our rescue.
The place where theology and no-theology meet is the place where God resides.
God resides in the gap.

The barren land calls us to lay down our books, our paradigms, our presuppositions, along with our fear of the unknown and find that God lives in the gaps between them all. The barren land is stripped of all study, for God lies beyond it. The barren land is a place that calls to us out from the darkness into the light. The barren land is stripped of all light. It is a secluded place where God digs through his treasures like an old man rifling through his collection of knick-knacks. He calls like John the Baptist in the wilderness. It’s in the barren land where his must be done.

The barren land is a place where we might leave our answers behind and find a God who is ready for the taking. Rather than theology, we need to chase God in the wilderness of our ambiguity. Rather than worldviews, we need to find God in the place where He resides, outside of our worldviews… outside of our religious divisions and denominational trappings… outside of our spiritual enquiry. When we give them all up, when we are ready to divorce ourselves from all we think we need to grasp the Divine, God will be present in the gaps. We come into the barren land as participator rather than observer.

It is possible to enter the barren land without anything but is a personal journey each must take, as we all have our own theological baggage to leave behind. The barren land is a place of divorce and confusion, a place where only God can breathe. God is in the place where we are learning to believe and un-believe in Him. The barren land is a place that calls the dry and weary soul to maintain its dryness and embrace its weariness and see the God who has been with them in the Garden all this time. The barren land is devoid of historical contingencies, creeds, bibles and truth. God quietly resides in the gap between them.

George Elerick is an author, blogger, speaker and founder of Chairs for Dialogue, an interfaith initiative that unites people from different faith traditions, no faith traditions, and different lifestyle backgrounds to work together to find relevant, creative, and practical ways to respond to global issues such as poverty, sex trafficking, debt, war, intolerance, and injustice.

June 17, 2010

17:30
2009 Emergent Theological Conversation, Episode 2 [1]
» ‎ Emergent Village

2009 Emergent Theological Conversation, Episode 2

Jurgen Moltmann

Tripp Fuller

Tony Jones

63 Minutes

Here’s the mp3 file for download

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In this second episode, Tony Jones is joined by Tripp Fuller as we again join in conversation with Professor Moltmann. Hear about Moltmann’s theological method — or how he thinks theologically and how his way of doing theology has been called “unhindered dialogue.” Important conversations are raised around denominationalism, theology in a post-September 11th world, and the diversity of ways we, as Christians, read the Bible. The conversation for this week ends with Moltmann on important philosophers, thinkers, and theologians.

Find out more about the upcoming 2010 Emergent Village Theological Conversation, November 1-3 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Follow us on Twitter @emergentvillage

If you have questions, comments, concerns, ideas, or suggestions about the Emergent Village Podcast, please send an email to podcast@emergentvillage.com. Or leave a comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.

June 12, 2010

9:30
Where the Edges Meet: What Emergents Can Learn from the New Mystics [13]
» ‎ Emergent Village

by Dave T. Brown

”...The fingers and the thumb have a certain separateness. They have grown out of, and belong to, something larger than any one of them alone…the palm of the hand. The same pulse in the wrist brings the life blood to each of them. ...The basic truth which unites [different churches] is far bigger and more important than the things which separate them, and love for Christ pulses through them all and gives life, power and unity to them all.”—Leslie Weatherhead

I grew up speaking in tongues, getting slain in the spirit, and witnessing healings and exorcisms. As disciples of the Charismatic movement, my parents frequently held prayer meetings in our home, and such events became particularly intense when their evangelist, missionary, and prophet friends came to town. Those were interesting times to say the least, especially when I was placed in the “hot seat” for deliverance or healing.

To some, this type of spirituality is all fine and dandy, while to others it has the stench of a cult. Regardless, leaving theology and eccentricities aside, one of the things I appreciate about my Charismatic upbringing is the deep desire to get beyond dry intellectual debate to experience the divine, instead of just talking about it. And while I think back and cringe at some of my memories, I also have affection for some of the things I experienced. So I wasn’t surprised when, about a year ago, I stumbled on some YouTube videos of a group known as the New Mystics.

The New Mystics is a rapidly growing segment on the fringe of the Charismatic movement. It’s characterized by its emphasis on ecstatic experiences of God. Considered leaders of the movement, speaker John Crowder, who CurrentTV called “the YouTube Prophet,” and musician Ben Dunn often get “whacked up” in the “drunken glory” of God and stumble around mumbling like they’re flat-out wasted. They have raves during which hundreds of people, young and old alike, don whimsical attire and gather to trance out with trippy worship music and stumble and crawl around just like they’re completely fried. I’ve also seen them pray for people who then apparently get healed, like one man did in what they call the “pee pee miracle.”

And while I have to say that I view much of their stuff as freakish, what interests me the most about the people in this movement is their determination to experience God with wild abandon. These new Jesus freaks just don’t care what people think because, as they might say, they are tired of dry religion and seek to experience God without the chains of religious decorum.

They travel the world to bring a message of freedom from oppressive religion and a hope for a new way, and encourage Christians to lighten up. There’s a New Mystics-related festival in the UK called Sloshfest, put on by a group called Emerge Wales (led by a drunk monk and a Doug Pagitt look-alike). During the 2010 Sloshfest rave, the crowd sang a rowdy, pirate-style chorus with anti-imperialist lyrics that caught my ear:

It’s over, it’s over, it’s over…The Empire is over!
But it’s growing, it’s growing, it’s growing…The Kingdom is growing!

And that’s when I realized some of the common ground that Emergent has with the New Mystics, Charismania, and other nontraditional Christian religious movements: For one, we’re all often described by others as being fringe movements. And sometimes, including Emergent, we’re called cults as groups and heretics as individuals. But besides this, and more importantly, many of us within these movements seek an end to imperialistic domination of Christianity. We seek freedom from dogmatic tyranny. And I think it would be helpful (ecumenically at least) for Emergents to appreciate the common ground we have with other movements that have started on the edge of the establishment. Not just for historical interest or nostalgia, but to share stories and really learn some things from each other.

For instance, as I said, I admire the New Mystics’ determination to experience God’s power with wild abandon, to get beyond the tired, ivory-tower discussions about Church past and future, to open their eyes to the Kingdom that is here and now, and to get out and do something. I sometimes feel the Emergent movement seems stuck in a cycle of cerebral discussion. Sharing stories of experiences is what conversation is all about, and sometimes I feel like what we call a “conversation” is more like an intellectual debate that’s open mainly to the scholarly. Although movements need discussion and debate to strengthen their core, others involved can’t survive only on the orations of talking-head representatives.

Of course, I’m certainly not suggesting that we can best prove our connection with God by acting like we’re drunk all the time, nor am I suggesting that we can’t find heart-felt meaning in theological discussion. But I know that I have often felt more comfortable swapping big words like “eschatological” and “ekklesia” when I could have been swapping personal stories. Like how I’ve felt detached from the larger Church because, as an agnostic Christian, I don’t have any idea what I believe anymore but I still seek to experience God’s power in a very real way. Or instead of discussing the finer points of how Jung’s collective unconscious applies to atonement theory, I could have shared how I sometimes still find contentment when praying in tongues. I could have held hands in public, prayed with, and cried with my friend who was feeling lonely, instead of distancing myself from an unhip situation by casually helping him psychoanalyze himself. I could have thrown back my head and wailed or at least pumped my fists because of the joy I felt when singing a song about grace, but instead my hands found more comfort in the restriction of my pockets.

None of us on the fringes want to be held down by spiritual tyranny. That’s why we’ve voluntarily exiled ourselves to the desert of edge-pushing spirituality. And that was one of the things that attracted people like my parents to the Charismatic movement. They wanted more than establishment-friendly religion. And while Charismania has frequently (and often rightly) been criticized as all emotion and no substance, I think it’s unwise to adhere to the opposite extreme of all head and no heart. More specifically, I think we all could handle a little more emotion in our spiritual regimen. It’s okay to cry or laugh in church. It’s okay to express our passion with boisterous antics…or weepy, knees-on-floor reverence.

It’s okay to come out from behind the mask of objective distance. Because sometimes life sucks and we need to share the burden with somebody. And sometimes God has worked a miracle and we need to shout it from the rooftops. Sometimes we’re pissed off and it does more harm to hold it in. And sometimes we’ve experienced a hit of holy joy and freedom that we can’t explain, and we should share these things because that’s what community is for.

I don’t want this precious movement of the emerging church to end up as just another dry, debate-filled clique that gradually becomes the empire it set out to avoid. But I have enormous hope that that will never be the case. Because we are all part of a bigger story that will continue to evolve. Even as we sometimes try to distance ourselves from the label, we on the fringes are still an integral part of the larger Christian movement that’s been rolling on for millennia, and it always will be bigger than any one empire that tries to lay claim to it.

In context with the quote I put at the beginning of my rant, Leslie Weatherhead also wrote that “Christianity must have a marvelous inherent power, or the churches would have killed it long ago.” And although I no longer know exactly what my theology is concerning that “inherent power,” I choose to believe that it is indeed marvelous. It’s also wild, untamable, and often unexplainable, and I think it would be good for us to set it free.

Dave Brown is a writer living in Austin, TX. He blogs at TheAgnosticPentecostal.com.

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