pluralism and portable faith

There is a great post over on Pomomusings in Adam Walker Cleaveland's series on Pluralism 2.0 that has brought a host of great writers, thinkers, bloggers, theologians and more to discuss what it means to be in a Christian in a time of profound religious interaction and discussion amongst a variety of faith traditions in our country and world. And this post by Brian McLaren helps to ask some of the most important questions that I believe Christians should be asking today. The two paragraphs that I think if most of McLaren's critics read would settle a lot of the bickering, and also I think pointedly address faith in our current context:

"At the end of the day, I know myself to be an evangelist at heart. I believe the good news of Jesus Christ is good news for all people. I am eager to offer the gift of Jesus and his good news to all people, whatever their religion. I am eager to help all people, whatever their religious identity, to “taste and see” how good God is, and to take on Jesus’ yoke so we will experience together his meekness and gentleness of heart. I am not a relativist in the sense of believing that beliefs don’t matter and that all viewpoints are equally valid or invalid.

But my confidence is in Jesus and his gospel - my confidence is not in us and our religious systems or institutions. I don’t think any religion - including my own - “owns” Jesus or has proprietary rights on his gospel of the kingdom of God. The good news taught by and embodied in Jesus is, I am discovering, far better than the half-good/half-bad version many of us were taught."

So tonight the youth are meeting for a mini-retreat called "Creating a Portable Faith." We are keeping with the traditional get a new t-shirt at the retreat deal, but this time it is going to be simple and helpful. It is a simple charcoal colored shirt with a lime-green port-o-potty on the front. Our aim for this retreat is to help the students to develop a portable faith...a faith they can take on the road with them. So we are gathering around 5 practices: Story, Listening to God, Community, Exercise, and Conversation in which we help will begin and build on some tools that they need to have or need to sharpen to help them to explore questions of life, faith, God, relationships, theology, doubt, fear, and all that life throws at them. I couldn't be more excited for my good friend Stephen Gray to join us and lead us on this retreat and through not only the series of five mini-talks, but also through the experiential and applied learning exercises and practices to go with them. It's going to be a fantastic time and I'm really excited to see how this stuff gets fleshed out in student's lives.

You may be wondering why even do anything like this...and the truth is, we are seeing that in most faith traditions and parachurch organizations somewhere between 80-95% of students within one year of graduating high school are not part of any faith community be it church or otherwise. And we hope by giving the students the tools they need to navigate their faith or questions about faith, etc. that we are trusting God to continue to work and speak into their lives while also preparing them to think critically and significantly about the profound beauty and complex mysteries of life.

Tonight Stephen will invite students to hear the story of his life and how that has become included into the story of God's mission and love for the world, and will invite students to reflect on their life story and how that interacts with the story of God. Then after some grub, we will discuss how to listen to God, and talk about prayer as listening and creating space for God to speak...not just for us to speak. Then we will spend the night at some different students' houses and then meet for breakfast to talk about community and the importance of connecting and processing the story of God and the profound beauties and complex mysteries of life in a community. And also how the community is a community on mission that seeks to include others rather than exclude. Then we will talk about how exercise is important as it helps us to physically communicate with others, God, and also effects our self-image which in turn effects how we relate to God and others. Lastly we wil talk about conversation as a value, about the importance of relating and being in conversation with people who think, believe, and act differently than us, believing that by being in converation with others we will be able to hear God speak in new ways.

It is going to be a great and packed 20 hours, but I couldn't be more excited to flesh out and put into practice some of the conversations I've had with folks like Stephen, Tom Lynch, Chris McPeek, Chris Folmsbee, Seth, Todd Cullop, and others. Please pray for us, and I hope to share some reflections on this experience here on the blog and next Sunday, June 7th when I preach next!

Introduction to Part 1 of How (Not) to Speak of God

The introduction's title helps introduce us to the deep thread that ties the book together:

Heretical Orthodoxy: From Right Belief to Believing in the Right Way

This book is written in two parts. Part One is a collection of theological and philosophical reflections, riddled with parables, stories, quotes from other authors, mystics, philosophers, theologians, and Rollins' himself. Similar in how Brian McLaren makes the point that theological and philosophical ideas can be perhaps more subversive in parables and stories in The Secret Message of Jesus, Rollins employs this tactic throughout Part One of the book. The parables don't stop there however. Part Two of the book is a collection of 10 services that Rollins' has participated in and probably helped create with his community called Ikon in Ireland, that bring out the themes, theologies, and philosophies in the first part of the book, while stirring up our imagination with more stories and parables to illuminate, however darkly, the ideas from the first section of the book.

Today, I'd like to just begin conversing about the introduction to Part One...perhaps this will help others like me, I feel like I need to keep the ideas and notions in manageable chunks, both to be able to have conversation about them, and also to digest the rich thought in the book. So I thought I'd throw out another quote, that sticks out to me from the introduction to Part One (in which Rollins' is setting up his aims for this section of the book):


"Here I picture the emerging community as a significant part of a wider religious movement which rejects both absolutism and relativism as idolatrous positions which hide their human origins in the modern myth of pure reason. Instead of following the Greek-influenced idea of orthodoxy as right belief, these chapters show that the emerging community is helping us to rediscover the more Hebraic and mystical notion of the orthodox Christian as the one who believes in the right way--that is, believing in a loving, sacrificial and Christlike manner. The reversal from 'right belief' to 'believing in the right way' is in no way a move to some binary opposite of the first (for the opposite of right belief is simply wrong belief); rather, it is a way transcending the binary altogether. Thus orthodoxy is no longer (mis) understood as the opposite of heresy but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than a means of believing things about the world (Rollins, pgs. 2-3, italics and bold mine)."


I think that this notion of orthodoxy, as right way of living and believing hits at the heart of what I've thought for some time now. I have struggled a lot with Reformed theology and the whole predestination/free will thing for a long time, though it has become much easier in the last few years, largely because of this nagging suspicion that orthodoxy was never about having all the right beliefs lined up in a row to show God (or others). Rather, orthodoxy was the way in which we are called to live and love in the likeness of Christ. This helps to free us from the fear that if we don't believe all the right things, or are "led astray" on a certain doctrine, that we can find hope in that orthodoxy is rooted in the way we live and believe, rather than in what we believe, which bypasses the whole, "say the sinner's prayer" or before you can be saved you must believe 1, 2, and 3.

How does this sound to you? Orthodoxy as right living and believing rather than having a fixed or proper set of beliefs that are all "correct" (if we can even be perfect or correct in our doctrines about God)?

Wendell Berry and Theological Turnings...

I probably also should have titled this post: UNC came back and beat Duke last night, boo-ya. Anybody else see the heels come back and beat Duke at Cameron Indoor last night...that was awesome.

Well, there is so much stirring inside of me after reading Wendell Berry's collection of essays titled Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays that I feel like I could share a little from every essay and it could provide fodder for months of conversation. As I sit out on the balcony in Sand Diego on this cool night, with the palm trees near by and the hills around me, it is still amazing to think how timely and appropriate Berry's collection of essays are for today. One of the most interesting essay's of the bunch was called "Peaceableness Toward Enemies." Let me just quote the second idea, which it is important to note that Berry wrote this in 1991 after/during the Gulf War:

II. "This latest war has been justified on a number of grounds: that it was a war to liberate Kuwait; that it was a war to defend "the civilized world" against a dangerous maniac; that it was a war to preserve peace; that it was a war to inaugurate a "new world order"; that it was a war to defend the American Way of Life; that it was a war to defend our supply of cheap oil. These justifications are not satisfactory, even when one supposes that they are sincerely believed." (pg. 69-70)

and also in part III.: What can we mean by the statement that we were "liberating" Kuwait? Kuwait was not a democratic nation. If it was imperative to "liberate" Kuwait after Saddam's invasion, why was it not equally imperative to "liberate" it before?...

The similarity in language and rhetoric used by both Bush presidents to lead the country into war is kind of scary. Or maybe it is a good thing, I guess the son listened to the father? All this to say, I think Berry raises some interesting points, first in questioning the justifications for going to war and the motivation in timing. I think both justification and motivation are questions that should continue to be asked about the current "liberation" attempts by our government.

Today I went to a seminar led by Brian McLaren called: Theological Turnings: Profound Questions that Younger Leaders are Asking About Theology (that Go Deeper than Candles and Goatees). I always enjoy hearing Brian speak and it was interesting being in a room with a lot of older pastors and church leaders and hearing the questions and comments, and often doubts with the way in which my generation, and young leaders (like me, you know I'm only 24) are beginning to express some theological turns. Which again leads me back to the ideas of what i want to explore in my paper for this conference: How does eschatology and the theological system which it is situated within influence the spiritual formation of the community which holds to that theological vantage point? Brian mentioned that he believed that there are five significant theological shifts taking place with younger leaders, one of which is a change in eschatology which will influence ecclesiology and formation of community. What kind of relationship should take place with eschatology and spiritual formation? How should it change from its current situation (if it needs to change at all)?

New Monasticism, The Bible, and Pastors

Day #2 has come and gone at the NPC. first and foremost I have to say, that the Critical Concerns Course that Todd and I went to discussing a "Return to The Bible" has been really good. More than that, Brian McLaren is such an awesome guy. His humility and generosity never cease to amaze me...he told a story today that some of you may have heard, he shared it at the annual meeting for our association, and it may be on one of the emergent podcasts. it's the story about the pastor who is excitedly talking about how Jesus and the saints are going to come in with swords and kill those who are not Christians in ushering in the kingdom of God and heaven from Revelation, without taking into account the type of literature Revelation is.

one of the most moving parts of the course this morning was in our discussion of how we might learn to read Revelation missionally:

How to read Revelation missionally? We recall and stand up preaching the word of God, preaching the kingdom of God, believing that Christ is Lord and that though we may be killed today, we will join with God and participate with God in the redemption of creation, and in helping bring the coming New Jerusalem, the New City down to earth. Revelation ends with the New City coming down to earth, not in going to heaven.

secondly, i met Karen Ward today, the abbess of Church of The Apostles, who is a really cool woman who led a seminar called: The New Monks: “Whole-Life” Discipleship for Emerging Churches. as i mentioned before i'm at this conference partially for seminary, and one of the relationships that i have been thinking a lot about and am probably going to write my paper on is the relationship between eschatology and spiritual formation in the church. as both Karen mentioned in the conversation we had after the seminar and in the above example of how to read Revelation missionally, an eschatology that beckons us forward in hopeful redemption and co-creation in the world today, not just hope for a disembodied soul in some heavenly realm of existence, is essential in forming new practices and healthy practices in our churches. our eschatology informs so much of the way the church structures and organizes its spiritual and physical life together. i'm reading Doug Pagitt's Church Re-Imagined along with Andrew Perriman's The Coming of The Son of Man: New Testament Eschatology for The Emerging Church along with Peter Rollin's How (Not) to Speak of God in hopes to fuel this conversation of the influence of philosophy, culture, eschatology and spiritual formation upon one another. i find it to be a fascinating relationship that could influence a lot of the vision and life of churches. any thoughts on this relationship...?

With So Much Drama in the NPC...

Well, not really. Not much drama yet at the NPC (National Pastors Conference) which I'm currently attending for class and spiritual growth and training...etc. San Diego is cool, with a spring/fall type weather right now and I'm excited to be in Snoop Dogg's home state and bring some love from the East to the West.

I've nearly been up 24 hours as I write this, and I told a few people that I'd try to share some of the in's and out's and going-on's as I hung out in San Diego and got to be with some emergent type folks for a few days, and figured I better start today posting or the week will slip by.

honestly, with the last month off of school, and having finished a few books in the month off, I feel like i've had a lot i've wanted to share, yet haven't found the words for a lot of it. maybe part of it is that i'm still figuring out what is good for me to share on the blog. maybe part of it is that i've been taking pictures of birds? part of it is that i put a lot of pressure on myself to say something significant that will contribute to "the conversation" but sometimes i have some processing to do before i say anything out loud. and part of it is that i finished a collection of essays by Wendell Berry titled Sex, Economy, Community, and Freedom: Eight Essays that was humbling, convicting and contextually appropriate for much today's issues (war in Iraq, globalization, local economy, sustainability). all i'm saying is that if you haven't read any of Wendell Berry's stuff...you should start soon.

i'll post more on Berry maybe tomorrow, since i finished that book as the last of my "i'm not in school right now and can read whatever i want list" on the plane this morning. but tonight, i'd like to stir the pot a little with a metaphor from the critical concerns course i went to today and will finish tomorrow led by Brian McLaren and Richard Twiss called "Return to the Bible". Twiss, a Native American of the Sioux people is co-leading the seminar with Brian and the first 5 hours of the course have been great thus far. they started with taking questions and surveying the group to learn about where many of the people at the seminar were coming from and then went on to first describe the need to move out of a foundational epistemological system in a more post-modernist epistemology that constructs a web of knowledge and understanding rather than a wall or foundation.

beyond all that came what i thought was a profound missiological insight and metaphor recalled by Twiss and told by many as a Mission Legend: Bring the gospel as a seed into an indigenous culture, rather than as a potted plant, so that when the gospel which was planted as a seed begins to surface it will be expressed and understood as a manifestation of the indigenous culture. I think that this is a truly beautiful and wonderful metaphor, and offers profound insight into the necessity of preserving the relationship between culture, theology, and the gospel. this is especially true in light of Twiss' heritage and story riddled and tarnished with the story of "Christians" destroying much of his community and chance for redemption of Native American practices, not to mention the need for a contextually appropriate mission amongst the people first occupying the country to its own people without being oppressed. any thoughts?