Words from Brennan Manning

I have seen Brennan Manning's The Ragamuffin Gospel in bookstores and on bookshelves for years. It is one of those few books that I have seen quoted all over the place - in academic books, among musicians, in devotional works, etc. For whatever reason, I have never had much interest in reading it. I found it at the incredible Goodwill in Lewisburg, TN last year (I've found lots of gems there the past few trips) and it's sat on my shelf since.

Last week, I met with one of the senior citizens who meets in our senior small group on Tuesdays, and we decided that we would study Manning's book. I took up chapter one this morning to prepare some opening thoughts for today's study before everyone has their copies. What a way to begin the morning! I can't believe I have waited so long to delve into this work. It has been a refreshing breath of air to my spirit. I am looking forward to reflecting on it in the coming weeks.


I have been busy working through several books lately and have had some blogging topics come to mind. I had planned to spend some time reflecting on a series of articles in this week's Columbus newspaper, following a priest through his seminary trainging at the local Pontifical College. I just finished reading Mike King's Presence-Centered Youth Ministry that had left an indelible mark on my understanding of youth ministry, and coupled with the articles reflecting on entering the priesthood: giving up a family, sex, ten years of your life to training, I started thinking about how seriously I have taken my role as minister/pastor/priest. King notes how when he is in the presence of a Hindu priest he feels like he is in the presence of a holy man, but in the presence of an evangelical minister he feels like he is in the presence of a car salesmen.

It seems to me The Ragamuffin Gospel is going to be just what I need to re-engage my spiritual fervor and remind me of what undergirds my purpose and my position. I found the ending of the first chapter especially compelling:

"Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing inf ront of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hand, I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the business-man besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate trasnactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from teh pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexuall-abused teen molested by his father and now sellign his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick,' whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school; the deathbed convert who for decades had his cake and ate it, broke every law of God and man, wallowed in lust and raped the earth.
"But how?" we ask. Then the voice says, "They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
They are there. There we are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to the faith.
My friends, if this is not good news to you,you have never understood the gospel of grace."
p. 32 - 33

That reminds me of something a friend told me last week that is especially convicting for my conservative friends, "If Jesus were here to today, you know the kind of people he's be with? He'd find a gay Latino who was in this country illegally, who was suffering from complications from an abortion she had, and had a rare disease that was only cureable by advances in stem-cell research.

Now . . . I must rush back to my suburban existence . . .

Necessitating an Egyptian/Roman Translation of the Bible

Earlier this year the Patriot's Bible hit the bookshelves of stores all across the country. There is an interesting video floating around from the editor explaining the rationale behind the compiling of this work, but in the end, I have to side with others who see this as perhaps the culmination of the patriotic idolatry of the American church. I feel this is an important teachable moment for people who may feel uncomfortable with this latest marketed Bible (which by the way, shouldn't we feel uncomfortable with all of these "specialized" and "marketed" Bibles?) thinking this may go too far. I don't want to dwell on critiquing this particular Bible here. The few folks that do come by here and read, have a pretty fair idea of the string of that argument. Instead, I'd like to propose another Bible that needs to be compiled.

Stephen Prothero has an interesting book entitled American Jesus: How the Son of God became a National Icon. While I haven't has a chance to read the book, the description on the back details an important element in American culture. "Our nation's changing images of Jesus, Stephen Prothero contends, are a kind of looking glass into the national character. Even as most Christians believers cleave to a traditional faith, other people give Jesus a leading role as folk hero, pitchman, or countercultural icon." (From Dan Cryer, Newsday). Prothero pursues something that consistently shows itself to be true: humans are most likely to worship a deity that looks most like us. Of course Jesus was white. Of course Jesus would be in favor of capitalism. Of course Jesus woudl be in favor of democratic governments. Of course Jesus would be an American patriot - he'd probably wear red, white, and blue to the fireworks. That's what we do . . . so it must be what he would do. Thus the Patriot's Bible.

Unfortunately, for us, the Bible was written from the perspective of the oppressed, not the oppressors; from the perspective of the poor, not the wealthy; from the perspective of the powerless, not the powerful. Yet in the halls of our churches and seminaries, the Bible has been slanted toward those perspectives. Jesus, like Bruce Barton's The Man Nobody Knew, becomes a mirror of successful Americana.

It seems to me we need to come up with a translation of the Bible that would have been read in Cairo and Rome. A Bible that would have stood to convict Pharaoh and Caeasar of their sins of oppression. I'm guessing we wouldn't particularly care for the language that it would contain, the acts of sacrifice it would require, or the life changes it would mandate. It would, once and for all, specifically address the problems of affluence and excess. Gluttony and abundance would be given more than the scant references contained in the Holy Scriptures.

Our leaders should be spending their time composing a work such as this instead of wasting our time wading through the references to Scripture in the founding documents of the United States as if that somehow makes their genocide of the Native Peoples less significant.

Sometimes

Sometimes I wonder if anything I believe is "true."
Sometimes I wonder if anything anyone believes is "true."
Sometimes I wonder why people try so hard to find what is "true."
Sometimes I wonder if there is more that is "true" outside of my church than inside.
Sometimes I wonder . . . what is the point?
Sometimes I wonder if Karl Marx was correct and I have spent my last decade doping up.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to be a Native American without so much blood on my hands.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to be ignorant and not ask so many questions.
Sometimes I wonder if that is exactly what other people wish that I would do.
Sometimes I wonder if I could possibly be a bigger hypocrite.
Sometimes I wonder why I find it so incredibly difficult to pray.
Sometimes I wonder why I find it so incredibly difficult to understand conservatives.
Sometimes I wonder why I find it so incredibly difficult to understand liberals.
Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to punch Rush Limbaugh.
Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to punch myself as hard as I could.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of person I would be if I wasn't an American.
Sometimes I wonder if I would be a better person if I had been raised in a different denomination.
Sometimes I wonder if I would be a better person if I had been raised in a different religion.
Sometimes I wonder why I can't shut my mouth.
Sometimes I wonder why I can't be sure about anything.
Sometimes I wonder why God has been so good to me.
Sometimes I wonder when He will choose to test me.
Sometimes I wonder if I should hold more principles at the center.
Sometimes I wonder why I hold so many there.
Sometimes I wonder why I sit before my computer at 1:00 am blogging.
Sometimes I think it is better to sleep than to wonder . . . especially at 1:00 am . . . time for bed.

Strange but Interesting

Yet another angle to the Michael Jackson story you may have not yet considered

Catching Up

Somehow I missed the month of June - skipped right over it. We had a great fifth work camp, painting 6 houses. Great to see how God has blessed our efforts there over the past several years. The following week I presented a paper entitled, "G.I. Joe and 'Bearded Lady Jesus: The Challenge of the Empire's Signs and Rituals to Christian Young People" at the Christian Scholars Conference in Nashville, TN. It was a neat experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed the conference. Heard a quite impressive presentation from Barbara Brown Taylor and definitely enjoyed a presentation entitled "Contesting the State's Narrative: Why Teaching U.S. History May be a Heresy" by Richard Goode. That fell quite in line with the work I had done. I've submitted my article to Restoration Quarterly, so hopefully I'll be able to reference the article in publication there soon. Had to hurry back for a wedding, then took a couple days off last week to recoup. Having trouble getting back after it this week . . . we'll be in Tennessee next week to visit Mary Beth's folks. Summer is always so scattered!

On the reading side of things, I have been digging into Nathan Hatch's classic: The Democratization of American Christianity, which directly addresses the political ethos underlying the American frontier Christian revival movements of the early 19th century - a designation my Churches of Christ background relates to directly. I'm just getting into it, but its a very interesting study. Also, each night I'm putting myself to sleep with one of Peter Rollin's parables in his The Orthodox Heretic. I love this book! I will be putting together a review of that one soon. (You can see my review of Hirsch & Frost's ReJesus at www.wineskins.org under reviews).


Over the next few weeks I want to be posting some thoughts on the sermon series my co-conspirator, Anthony, and I have been working on together. We kicked the series off this past Sunday with a message from Paul's experience in Athens. Many people have referenced Paul's actions in Athens as a guide for how Christians are to interact with American popular culture today. Never quoting Scripture, Paul utilizes themes and messages already present in culture that highlight the message of God, ("as some of your own poets have said . . . ") I'm going to try and get these messages added to the sermon player here and on the church's website. Hopefully Sunday's will be up later today.

Consequently, over the next two months we will be immersing ourselves into several movies searching for God in them. His nature and character and teachings are there, we just have to be able to watch with the eyes of an outsider instead of as an insider who is unable to examine the culture critically. It should be an interesting and challenging series as we are asking folks to do something pretty foreign to them. We kick things off this week with a look at the providence of God and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I Suppose Sometimes It's OK Just to Laugh

More funny videos like the "Jesus Sightings Montage" at Heavy.com
Do you think God ever just messes with us?

Readings off the Map

In researching for my upcoming paper, I'm reading through a lot of scholarly work on the periphery of theological scholarship. Most folks who check this blog out will probably be pretty unfamiliar with much of this work. I know some of you will have difficulty stomaching some of it, but I think there is great reward in exposure to things we have difficulty understanding and that offends. Stemming from a pacifist perspective, consider the following excerpt from Walter Wink's book, Unmasking the Powers. (By the way, this book is written with the Cold War as a backdrop, and it has been interesting for me to see the many parallels with today's works reflecting on the war on terror.)

“This is why the American abolitionist and founder of the Oneida Community, John Humphrey Noyes, could write to William Lloyd Garrison,
‘When I wish to form a conception of the government of the United States (using a personified representation), I picture to myself a bloated, swaggering libertine, trampling on the Bible – its own Constitution – its treaties to the Indians – the petitions of its citizens, with one hand whipping a negro tied to a liberty pole, and with the other dashing an emaciated Indian to the ground . . . The question urges itself upon me – “What Have I, as a Christian, to do with such a villain?”
‘My hope of the millennium begins where Dr. Beecher’s expires – namely, AT THE OVERTHROW OF THIS NATION.’
I have quoted such an extreme view because it helps place in relief the most radical challenge of Revelation 18: its celebration of the fall of the richest and most powerful empire of the time. Are we then to entertain the terrible possibility that the salvation of humanity depends somehow on the decline, destruction or transformation of the United States as a sign of God’s sovereignty over the nations? Rome, yes, but – America? Never! The very suggestion of such a thing will strike many Americans as subervsive. And that reaction itself is an index of our idolatry. A godly people would react ot the treat of God’s judgment with fear, awe, consternation. They would know that no person and no nation is righteous before God. They would say, with Jefferson, ‘I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just.’ But Americans do not, on the whole, think that way. To the degree that they are religious at all, they actually believe that God is pleased, beholden to, partial to, and identified with our land.
This is not to deny that, in many ways, our nation may be a more desirable place to live than some other countries. Nor do I wish to ignore the many positive contributions it has made to human society. My point is simply that these contributions in no way mitigate the objective state of idolatry that has been the price we have paid for nationhood.”

Many of us who speak against the perils of our country take great offense and quickly dismiss us as "haters" or the like. I think the merit in Wink's point here is that it must be possible for the Christian to live critically in the world she is a part embracing the good, but prophetically rebuking the evil.

Checking in

I'm entering that really busy time of the year over the next few weeks. We have our annual garage sale tomorrow, our first year of preschool is over this week at church, ending with a graduation ceremony and picnic (I am so proud of all that my wife has done to make this incredible year pass with few hiccups and a great program for our church), Work Camp starts two weeks from Sunday and there is still tons to do for that, I'm working on my paper for the Christian Scholar's Conference that I need to have into the moderator by two weeks from today, the conference is the last week of June, the week which I have a wedding ceremony to perform . . . so, yeah, lots coming up. Oh, and I turn 30 next Sunday . . I keep forgetting about that.

With the busy season, my reading slows as well, though I will be doing as much research as I can fit in for my paper on pacifism and children. Here's the abstract from the conference website:


Adam Metz, Alum Creek Church, Lewis Center, OH: “G. I. Joe and ‘Bearded-Lady Jesus’: The Challenge of the Empire’s Symbols and Rituals to Christian Young People”

Presupposing a position of pacifism, this paper examines the inherent tension existing between the symbols created by the state and conveyed through culture over against the antithetical parallels portrayed in Scripture and lived out through the church. Utilizing examples from popular culture, public school policies, and personal experience this paper extrapolates an inherent tension between Christian faith and patriotic loyalty. This tension has implications for Christian parents raising their children and ministers working with young people in a post-9/11 American empire that seeks to baptize them into an empire narrative at odds with the community of peace.

Before you go and think this is a big deal . . . it's such a big deal that I still have to pay to go to the conference :-) I am excited about the opportunity and will attempt to blog some reflections from my research. I would imagine it will evoke some discussion because it comes from the fringes of Christendom theology.

So . . . anyway, had a second at my lunch . . . looking ahead, I am very interested and working towards beginning my Doctorate of Ministry next fall ('10) and I keep coming back to Fuller's program on Missional Leadership. It'll take me three years, an incredibly loving and patient wife, and lovingly patient children. We'll see! Hopefully it will work out and God will continue to open doors to us. He's been better to us than we could have ever deserved.

Powers

Haven't posted here in a while . . . May - August tend to be a bit slow on the posting front, I guess that's when I actually get some work done :-) I wanted to provide a short book review of Walter Wink's Unmasking the Powers. It is the second volume of his trilogy on the powers. For a more accessible and shorter treatment of Wink's work he summarizes the trilogy in his more recent The Powers that Be.

Over the past ten years, I've read several books that have made an impact on me and have challenged me. However, most provide gentle prods and slight nudges forward in my thinking. Whereas those books can be likened to the aftershocks of an earthquake, there have been a handful that have proved to be the actual earthquake. Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian, Stanely Grenz & John Franke's Beyond Foundationalism, Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution, John Howard Yoder's The Potlics of Jesus . . . these all would fall into that category. Wink is one of those authors who is quoted over and over again in the books I have read to the point that I said to myself, "I need to read this guy!"

I found Unmasking the Powers at Half Price books for six bucks, so I bought it and read it first even though it is actually the second book in the trilogy. Even though the entire book fell apart while I read it, it still proved to be one of those "can't put down" kind of books. The book "unmasks" seven of the powers: the devil, demons, the angels of the churches, the angels of the nations, the gods, the elements of the universe, and the angels of nature. Wink challenges so much of what we think we know about the world around us. He forces us to wrestle with texts that we simply disregard, writing them off as a product of pre-intellectualism and pre-scientific age.

Wink profoundly, and cautiously, deals with issues that are often left to science fiction and esoteric spirituality asking more questions than giving answers and providing fascinating perspective on the difficult topic of "the spiritual realm." In reflecting on my first exposure to Walter Wink, I think there are two things that set him apart from others who spend time in the area of angels and demons.

First of all, Wink resists the temptation most authors cannot of limiting the powers interation to the personal level. One of the better known works among Churches of Christ in this area is Joe Beam's Seeing the Unseen. I haven't actually read the book myself, so I can't make any firsthand impressions, but the rhetoric it has spawned among the people I know who have read it seems largely limited to personal interaction with the spirits/powers. Just about anything you find on the matter on the shelves of a Christian bookstore share this. Wink, while acknowledging the personal dimension of the powers, emphasizes, instead, the powers at work in the world.

Secondly, Wink is academically respected and rooted. So often studies of the devil and angels get lost in fanaticalism and extremism born more out of Hollywood than history and the Bible. Here, Wink excells providing examples throughout church history, again asking more questions bore out of the halls of history than brought from the movies.

Wink provides a vocabulary and structure to discuss the unseen in a way that remains open to new revelations (he leaves open theology to enter the discovery of a new dimension) that is at the same time exciting and humbling.)

I would quickly recommend this book for anyone who is open to discovering new ways of thinking and new possibilities. It promises to stretch even the most open-minded theologian, but patient reflection on this work will provide a whole new door of discovery . . . one that is both exciting and frightening!

Torture

I have several topics of interest I hope to post about in the next week or so - health care being at the top of the list and what I had intended to blog about today, but then I read the editorial that Cal Thomas had in today's paper about torture. I have to be honest, I have been way out of touch with things in the media lately (that must account for the peace that I have felt over the past few days), and have just heard a piece here and there in regards to the big debate about torture and all that has come with that. Just another partisan battle for the ages.

I guess it's because I am a glutton for punishment, but for the most part, I expose myself to more conservative media personalities and outlets than liberal ones. It seems to me that listening to folks you agree with all the time doesn't do much to help your critical assessment of the world, so I listen to people who drives me nuts. In that spirit, I spent a few minutes over lunch a bit ago watching videos from conservative discussions on the topic of torture mainly from Fox News. I suppose what surprises me (and disappoints me) most in these discussions is to see publicly confessed Christians (Cal Thomas is a Presbyterian from Washington D.C., and I also saw Glenn Beck following his same lines of argument - he's a Mormon) offer the party byline when it comes to overt matters of morality.

It would be my hope that something like the possible torture by the United States government would help expose the idolatrous relationship that so many Christians have with their state. Much of the time the patriotism that has invaded the faith of so many Christ-followers sits idly by as they pledge allegiance to their flag, sing the National Anthem before their sporting events, and sport their "God Bless the USA" bumper stickers on the back of their SUVs - seemingly harmless events. I'm the first to say that seeing one's faith through the cataract of post-Constantinian Christendom, the aforementioned actions are difficult to give much critical attention to. This realm of life espouses such incredible passion and fervor that seldom do these issues ever leave the level of passion to a place where critical self-examination can take place.

Perhaps you don't see the harm in pledging your allegiance to a flag. Maybe you believe the United States is the great hope of the world (an aside note: I just finished reading Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil which does a great job of illustrating how the "Captain America complex" has dominated the pages of American history where her politicians, leaders, and public-at-large has seen the America in the role as super hero: never guilty, but falsely accused; never the provoker, but always the provoked; never fully appreciated for what she means to the world; always working from the omniscient presence - "I'll save you even though you don't realize you need saved." They do a fantastic job of showing how this fautly logic has driven the country's foreign policy since its inception and how the current chlallenges faced in the "war on terrorism" are the same challenges that faced the U.S. in the Cold War, Vietnam, and on back through history) but surely the sight or thought of your nation's government toturing criminals delivers you a bit of an ethical quandry.

Charles Sheldon suggested we ask, "What would Jesus do?" That, apparently, only applies to personal matters of morality. We allow governments to operate under their own rules of engagement. It's different for them, right? Well, that's the thing: a lot of folks are having to ask that question now. Is that right? Jesus would never torture anyone. Jesus was tortured. How can we sit back and, even for one moment, for one criminal, allow an exception? When does the Bible ever teach that the end justifies the means - especially when we are at war?

I'm tired of conservatives telling me that I just don't understand. Sean Hannity told me I suffer from a pre-September 11 mentality. I'm the dumb one. I'm the naive one. It's one thing for liberals and conservatives to banter this stuff back and forth. It's entirely something else when I Christian can idly stand by and join the conversation without maintaining their sense of uniqueness - holiness.

My plea for conservative Christians is to acknowledge that fighting violence with violence will not work - it never works. Our government has promised us that greater force is needed to fight off the enemies so that peace will prevail . . . again . . . even though it hasn't worked before . . . even when we dropped two atomic bombs and killed thousands of innocent people in Japan. The terrorists killed 3,000 people in the United States, and we have killed more than ten-fold in civilians in two other nations. When will it end? We should expect this faith in the empire from those without hope, but from people with faith in Jesus? Those pulling triggers and dropping bombs will always be closer to the soldiers killing Christ than the innocent one on the cross.