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December Blog Index
Ray Levesque on the "casino sensitive" approach, or how to follow the money in church planting...The Lucky Salmon Casion Revival Center.
* * *
I have this overwhelming sense of glory in my soul the past few days. I can't explain it. Probably wouldn't be worth much if I could.
Have you ever felt overwhelmed with gratitude at the goodness of God? Overwhelmed means I walk around the house not knowing how to give enough thanks, wanting to continually break into song.
"Like a pearl in a sea of liquid jade,
* * *
John 5:39 (TMNT)
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:25 AM
Benny Hinn (at his crusade): “Only those who have been giving to God’s work will be spared.”
But Benny Hinn’s followers may not know about how all of their donations are spent. For example there’s Hinn’s palatial new home, now being built for $3.5 million in an exclusive gated community overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
The plans call for more than 6,000 square feet — 7 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms and a basement garage with enough space for ten cars.
Since February of 2001, the Hinn Web site has been soliciting donations for a new orphanage to be built in this little town outside Mexico City saying it would be finished “soon.”
But when we checked in Mexico, more than a year-and-a-half later, we could find no sign of any construction. But the Hinn web site kept promising that construction would be finished in, “a few short months.”
Dateline. An inside look at the ministry of Benny Hinn
The amount of money taken in by Hinn's ministry is estimated at $100 million a year. Think if that money went into church planting instead of hero worship. Think if all who were giving were connected to a vital church instead of following the ministry of their hero..
A few may question my posting a link like this. I have never thought twice about the authenticity of this televangelist's ministry. I have, however, for a long time questioned the divorce of this kind of ministry from the context of accountable community. Anyone who is raking in millions in this type of ministry, with little or no accountability, and the constant temptation to hype a single gift, is on dangerous ground. Personally, I'm not convinced it is a biblical ministry.
Ok, that's depressing. Here is the good stuff: The British Schindler
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:20 AM
I finished it this morning. This is one book that was very much worth the work of reviewing.
Review: The Younger Evangelicals
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:30 AM
"One of the things I've thought a lot about recently is gift-giving and the hyper-consumeristic habits that come out during this time of year. As I've read blogs and message boards I've seen a very anti-consumer mentality emerging lately that purposely or unintentionally comes across as anti-gift-giving. I think this is a bit short sighted.
"My concern is that relating consumption to gift-giving is to completely miss the point. Yes, they can seem very connected, especially during this time of year but true consumer habits are at the core rooted in selfishness and true gift-giving is at the core rooted in selflessness. If we deny the right to give gifts, or in an effort to curb materialism paint it badly, then we completly miss the point of the Christian life. Read the stories of Jesus' life, or the early church or even the beautiful heritage throughout the Old Testament and you will find the power and history of selfless gift-giving."
Good thoughts, but one of the things that bothers me is the oppressive and religious nature of gift giving during the Christmas season. Do we give because we want to give, or because it is expected.. a kind of duty? If so, if we aren't giving from the heart, aren't we participating in a religious ritual?
So.. what's wrong with ritual? Nothing, if we can connect it to the heart...
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:20 AM
"Joseph Clair... rejects the modern notion that "what can be known must be validated with scientific objectivity." He suggests a postmodern apologetic must return to the ancient tradition where "faith was found by an individual in connection to the church." Historically, because the church was the guardian and chief interpreter of Scripture and beacuse it was guided by leaders in apostolic succession, a person was regarded as Christian because of his or her "participation in the community of faith." In other words, faith is participation in truth embodied by the community. To "know" truth, one needs to step inside the community and into the stream of its interpretation and experience of reality." Webber, "The Young Evangelicals," p. 104
And herein lies a great difficulty. If we reject the established and institutional church as faithful guardian of the truth (in its close alliance with modernity and all that entails), but we affirm that the Christian life is a communal affair (incarnational), how do we "leave the church" yet move forward apart from it?
I never saw this problem so clearly before. But of course we lived in the tension of it for over a year. We knew and understood implicitly that our covenant was not only to the Lord but to His people. But we broke that covenant in some sense when we abandoned the church on the corner. True, we didn't ungraft ourselves from the body of Christ... but the body is meant to be a visible and historical and fleshly reality.
I believe and have long believed that we need to be committed to a visible and real people on the move.. and not only to the church universal or invisible. So much of the tension we experienced, partly unconscious at the time, was the tension of divorcing the visible church from the invisible. We left what we saw as a highly compromised church in order to seek a more faithful expression. But like many, we had to live in a liminal space for a time.. until we could build and grasp something new.
* * *
Is the Pope the Antichrist? Is Brian McLaren a resurrected Martin Luther? ;)
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:44 AM
I read this astonishing post yesterday. I can't believe I completely missed this...
"saw two towers yesterday with my two oldest daughters and my 15 year old son, it was his birthday. great movie, not as good as the first for me. a few things bothered me about this one. it seems the troops coming to support saron where all people of color, or appeared that way, from exotic places etc and all the good people where white. the second thing was the use of gimli the dwarf as humor, always making fun of his height or his inability to do things "normal" people do. maybe iam just overly sensitive about it becuase of my kids but i struggle with the whole dark is always bad message. for me it reinforces the stereotypes that demand all of us to fall into the proper place i would love to know what any of you think so let me know."
Ok. Sure. Saruman was white. And Wormtongue.. more or less. Can you think of anyone else?
And from Alan Creech..
"OK, every time I see one of these Lord of The Rings movies I feel like God lays something prophetic down inside me - wow. Liz and I saw The Two Towers last night. It was, to say the least, amazing."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:40 AM
Those of you who visit my blog frequently are part of my extended family. I'd like to find a way to have some of you share from your own context what God is doing, what He is teaching you, where He is taking you.
One simple way to do this is to ask you to share what you have been reading this last year, or what other websites you visit. If you would like to drop me a note with a short list of books or websites, I'll find a way to gather those and share them here. If you have a website be sure to include the address. Write me at next1@nextreformation.com .
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:40 AM
I sometimes pray this prayer in the morning as I sit with the Lord. I find it empties my thoughts of all the busyness of the coming day, and opens my spirit to the Lord.
Christ before me, Christ behind me.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:30 AM
THUS says the Lord,
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:30 AM
“We started out as a few friends hanging out in a living room, and now we’re more friends hanging out in more living rooms (and coffee houses and pubs and art studios). We always share a meal together and we always talk about Jesus and the teachings of the Apostles,” says Mark. “The arts also usually manifest themselves somehow in worship.”
As a community, The Landing Place is very decentralized. The goal is to grow gatherings until they are uncomfortably large (about 10 people) and then send people out to reproduce them. It’s about starting a movement of churches more than building any particular church.
“Sometimes we gather together as one big group in one place, but not too often,” says Mark. “Maybe once a month on average. When we do get together, it’s almost always really eclectic and really creative. Most of us live in or near the Arts District in Columbus, so most of the folks in our spiritual community are artists. It makes for some pretty amazing worship experiences because everyone is turned loose and given the freedom to help create something beautiful to offer to God.”
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:00 AM
In.Out.Together.
"No, they're not random words from the dictionary, or even lyrics from "The Hokey Pokey." They're actually key ideas from the current church conversation. Answers, perhaps, to the often nebulous "What's it all about?" question."
Years ago, 1981 or so, I read an "Equipping Bulletin" put out by a group of Plymouth Brethren renewal leaders in Vancouver. One of the articles in the series compared the rhythm of the blood flow in the body to the rhythm of corporate life in Christ. The analogy was helpful.
The blood goes to the center, to the heart, heart to receive oxygen, which is life for the body. Then it is pumped outward to do its work, carrying that life to all the parts. Later when the oxygen has been absorbed and when the blood has picked up various contaminants, it flows back inward to be cleansed and then to receive new life. Then the cycle begins again.
I like Spencer's simple take on all this. We need to reach inward with one hand and outward with the other. We have many groups which are good at mission, and some which are good at community. But we need both: we need to build missional communities.
We need churches which are true communities.. where we know and love one another as families; where there is honesty and vulnerability; where we share resources and bear one another's burdens... where we can grow together as disciples in the kingdom and no one is excluded, all feel they have found home.
We need churches which are true missions.. where there is a vision to reach the lost and include them in our new family. We need to see ourselves as missionaries in our culture, and truly become light and salt. Jean Vanier writes this about mission,
"The mission of a community is to give life to others, that is to say, to transmit new hope and new meaning to them. Mission is revealing to others their fundamental beauty, value and importance in the universe, their capacity to love, to grow and to do beautiful things and to meet God. Mission is transmitting to people a new inner freedom and hope; it is unlocking the doors of their being so that new energies can flow; it is taking away from their shoulders the terrible yoke of guilt and fear. To give life to people is to reveal to them that they are loved just as they are by God, with the mixture of good and evil, light and darkness that is in them; that the stone in front of their tomb in which all the dirt of their lives has been hidden can be rooled away. They are forgiven; they can live in freedom." Jean Vanier, Community and Growth.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:50 AM
We had our big gathering in our home on December 22nd. These seven images represent something of our time together.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
2:20 PM
Apologetics Revisited
Back in October a friend forwarded a long article on apologetics. The sections in red italics are by the author arguing for traditional apologetics. My responses follow ...
"The best apology of the Christian religion is its proclamation." Let the Gospel be made known, and it will of itself prove its divine character" (J. T. Mueller, Christian Dogmatics).
I wonder if this statement was ever accurate? It seemed to work ok in the modern world, a world which no longer really exists in North America or Europe. So I find that I am an evidentialist, but not in the classical sense.
The best apology is a life lived in the grace of Christ. But unless that life has a strong relational dimension, it remains private.. love is relational by definition. We must demonstrate in renewed communities that the Gospel is true. Today the greatest hindrance to the Gospel is faith communities that are not transformed communities or are based almost solely on Sunday relationships.
St. Francis wrote, "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." The witness to the power of the early church was not just the signs done by the apostles but the surrounding community looking on and saying, "See how they love one another!" The Spirit makes us One. When those around SEE the truth in flesh, they will believe it. Isn't this the very heart of the meaning of the incarnation? God could have lectured us as to His caring for us, His presence with us.. instead, He demonstrated love in his life by living among us, and by dying for us.
Postmodern spirituality is an eastern spirituality. Classic Christianity is western in the sense that truth is objective. It is outside of you.
It's true that postmodern spirituality is more eastern than western, or as some might point out, more Celtic than American. But Christian spirituality was BORN in the east, and was Hebrew and holistic. When it moved to the west it became Greek, dualistic and eventually "objectified." When the church built on Descartes during the Age of Reason and we began to answer the arguments of the culture IN THEIR TERMS we lost the holistic and incarnational essence of the Gospel.
So what do we do? We have to move back to the personal level ("personal" knowledge, not merely subjective) and away from dichotomies of sacred and secular. Embracing a Celtic and holistic approach to faith and life is one way of moving toward a biblical spirituality. Maybe that's why the Catholic contemplatives are so attractive to many of us since they preserve an older perspective on inner life and inner knowing. Marx may have given us a sociology of knowledge, but it took the mystics (Bernard) and the Pietists to give us a way to talk about "knowing" that didn't fall into the trap of subjectivity or rationalistic objectivity.
[truth] is outside of you.
Yes, but... if it remains there, what use is it? We aren't saved by acknowledging truth, we aren't saved by "the facts," we are saved by relationship with a Person.
Truth has to be internalized, "written on our hearts." The Spirit must indwell us. Until then, our knowledge is merely cognitive, private and propositional, and not transforming.
So, while it may be accurate to argue that truth is "out there" whether we believe it or not, it is not an argument that is useful in our culture, and it pushes us toward the rationalist and dualistic distortion. Postmoderns want to SEE the truth. And they are right to ask for this in the context of a market culture where everything is "spin."
Then what about the big debate around "absolutes?" The concept comes from Greek philosophy, not from Hebraic thought or biblical wisdom. I no longer understand that question. It makes a whole bunch of assumptions about the nature of truth and knowledge that don't make sense to me. Let's not let modern thought dominate the debate. As soon as we fix the categories in terms of modern thought, we lose the argument. Instead, let's push for a biblical perspective.
I don't believe in "absolutes," and I don't follow "absolutes" and my life is not transformed by knowledge of the absolutes. I believe in a CENTER in the Person and work of Jesus. He is the truth. If the practical question is a witness to truth, then let's witness to a truth that is practical (transforming) and personal (relational knowledge) and verifiable (we can see it demonstrated before our eyes). The apologetic we need now is truth embodied in a faithful community.
"In this world we will witness the struggle among conflicting narratives and interpretations of reality. But we add that while all interpretations are in some sense invalid, they cannot all be equally invalid. We believe that conflicting interpretations can be evaluated according to a criterion that in some sense transcends them all. Because we believe that "the word became flesh" in Jesus Christ, this criterion is the story of God's action in Jesus of Nazareth." Stanley Grenz in "A Primer on Postmodernism."
Postmodern spirituality does include Jesus, but he is not the Jesus of Scripture. He is another Jesus who is appreciated by postmodern people. This Jesus was a great teacher, an enlightened spiritual master, but not the Son of God, Savior of the world, and only way to the Father.
But the same could be said of modern spirituality. The church worships Jesus, but he is a tame God, rarely the Jesus of Scripture. Instead, he seems like a successful capitalist or corporate CEO at the head of a large marketing program.
Jesus was poor, surrounded himself with uneducated fishermen and questionable characters, and spent most of his time among the common people.
We pursue wealth, position and success, surround ourselves with successful and educated people, and spend most of our time with religious people.
Jesus took 12 with him and showed them day by day how to live the kingdom. We gather in lecture halls talking about "truth." Hmmm. That's why I think Halverson's quote is so cogent..
"Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship. Then it moved to Greece and became a philosophy, then it went to Rome and became an institution, and then it went to Europe and became a government. Finally it came to America where we made it an enterprise." Richard Halverson, while he was US Senate Chaplain
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
11:20 AM
Merry Christmas from my family to yours! May the God of grace multiply your peace and your joy this season.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:30 AM
I was thinking last night that I'm tired. Do you ever just want to be a normal person? If you immediately "get" what I'm talking about, then you're who I'm talking to. Sometimes it would just be nice not to have some kind of vision floating around inside you and haunting your life. Just to live and be and do whatever - that seems like it would be nice.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:30 AM
A sister wrote:
I grew up in the kind of church where, if someone noticed a need/problem, a committee was formed, a program was developed in hopes to do something to meet that need. I grew up with that kind of behavior modeled to me. That may not be so bad, and some people may have been reached in that way. But now I am struggling with re-learning behaviors and habit patterns. Subconsciously I find that I wait for someone else to do the things I need to take responsibility for on my own. Now I see that in many situations I need to just step out and do things...without depending on some organization to do it with me or for me!
I appreciate your approach and desire to invite people in...this is just the kind of thing I want to be doing. But I struggle. It's difficult to do on my own. I feel isolated and alone and without support. I feel that the Christian community around me is not "there" for me to lend a hand. I don't know how to go about following through with the vision I have. This may just be me--my struggle and difficulty may all be in my head--but I find I want to blame my inability to act on some deficiency in the local church.
So...the challenge for local churches today may be to model this behavior of caring and supporting one another--in prayer and in action--on more of a personal level (without feeling we need to develop programs and have committees!). I have, for some reason, begun to reach out online to get some of that support. And there is some there...through prayer and ideas and so on. But how do I get my local Christian community to be *there* for me, when I feel they aren't? I NEED TO BE THERE FOR THEM!
I responded:
I read your post and it brought me to tears.. Not exactly a solution, but I want you to know that the heart of the Lord is broken for you and for so many because we have strayed so far from the most basic definition of Christian living.. "See how they love one another!"
I hear your heart to be in real community.. a people on a journey, and committed to one another and to being the church together.. a community of life, light and love and in that light a witness to the darkness around them.
The modern church is really all but incapable of such a thing. And so there are many of us.. you would probably be surprised just how many... beginning to build something new.
It is about making a new start.. and not merely new paint for the old thing. No one puts new wine into old skins...
So my encouragement to you.. and my prayer for you.. is to find just a few others who are trying to be the church for one another.. and then in that growing strength to begin to reach out with that love. One hand reaching in.. and one hand reaching out.
It's hard to make that new beginning. Why? Because we have all died trying to renew the old thing.. and now we have less faith and less strength for a new venture.
And even rebuilding means some simple structures.. and we have lost our faith in structures.
So it takes a kind of leap of faith into newness. And maybe that leap is truly a faith leap... a divine spark and a gift from above. And, as you point out.. you can't make that leap alone. The leap is made relationally not only individually. So the divine gift is first a gift of community.
So Lord of the church, connect my sister with the few who are going to new places, and walking hand in hand, knowing themselves and their own weakness, but trusting the God who transforms weakness into strength.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:30 AM
It's been an amazing year. Last night we held our end of the year gathering, with a lot of turkey and gifts. We had expected nearly forty people in our small home, but in the mercy of God only about 25 came :) We'll catch up with the others this next week.
To all those who have been journeying along this less travelled road, who have become friends via email, and who are otherwise brothers and sisters around the world.. a merry Christmas -- a Christ filled, joyful, peaceful Christmas. May the Lord continue to lead you, teach you, and use you. May you know Him among you and in the faces of the poor.
And as a great Canadian poet once wrote, may you hear and respond to the call of the wild.
They have cradled you in custom,
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
11:15 AM
Of the Father's Love Begotten
Corde natus ex parentis ante mundi exordium
A et O cognominatus, ipse fons et clausula
Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt, quaeque post futura sunt.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:55 AM
An excerpt from the Postmodern Blog...
Len wrote
Interesting debate re: living in the community where we are connected and serve. I think we have made it workable to not do so, but I think there are many things we do much less well when we don't live in close proximity.
Let's face it.. we just don't take the physical reality of teh community we serve as seriously when we drive 10, 20 or 30 miles to our home. I assume that we have to know and love the physical community we live in.. get involved in issues critical to its life, and not just the inner llife of the church but the physical life of the community where that church is rooted.
But if there are riots or death in the streets.. and we can drive 30 miles away and forget about it..
Andrew responded
We associate postmodernism with a high level of diversity, fragmentation and complexity. I suppose a pastor will feel strongly connected to one particular expression of Christian community. But surely for most people now the experience of community is far from straightforward. As a family we have the community of people in our flats, our neighbours, we are part of a loose network of friends in the area, most of them parents of our children's friends, we belong to a conventional church fellowship, we are part of a church-planting core group which I hope will develop into a rather extensive cross-border community, we also feel connected to a genuinely global community of friends that we have met in various parts of the world and try to keep in touch with.
For me the challenge at the moment is how do we sustain and influence this diversified, multilayered network, and in particular how do we reconnect the Christian components with the non-Christian components. But I think it has a bearing on the preceding discussions in that it suggests that a much more integrated, interlinked, networked approach is needed - at least, this is where 'postmodernism' is leading us. Perhaps in the long run we will have to break apart the close-knit, consolidated traditional church communities so that people can make new connections. Maybe, then, the real problem is not the distance of the pastor from the church but the distance of the church from the world.
Len wrote
"Maybe, then, the real problem is not the distance of the pastor from the church but the distance of the church from the world."
Interesting rephrase.. but I don't think the two can be separated.
I agree that we participate in more than one community. Anyone who is on the net much and is serious about their relationships will soon be connected to a broader network of relationships.
But we all have limited time and energy. Our most significant opportunities to share the gospel are where people can see us living the gospel; and that witness was never meant to be an individual one.. it was meant to be corporate. So, while its important and significant for my family to connect personally with our physical neighbors, its even more important that we witness in our relationships to a different way of life, different priorities, and real caring for one another.
That means we need a community base. It's very difficult to build a community base of witness if we are spread through a 15 mile radius.
My point is incarnation.. a physical, historical and fleshly manifestation of the truth. Lacking this we only have a modern propositional apologetic and reasonable sounding excuses about truth and witness. The church must be an embodied presence, and faith is participation in truth embodied in a faithful community.
So, I am not arguing that we abandon our multiple or electronic communities. I am arguing for a center of embodied presence. If we fail in that one, the others wont' be worth much.
Then this morning as I reread Andrew's post I wrote..
Andrew,
as I reread your post this morning I see a lot more there. Good stuff. Our networks are diverse and multilayer. I guess I would restate the challenge like this:
"How do we sustain and influence this diverse and multiplayer network, reconnecting Christian and non-Christian elements, while maintaining a real and incarnational presense in embodied communities of faith?"
My wife and I have to date taken the approach of simply inviting people into our home on Sundays. Then during the week we connect with individuals who need our time and attention primarily, and then as we have time and energy with others. And we encourage those connections randomly within the community also.. though to date we still are the center of that initiative. This needs to change.. but because our group is mostly needy and only about 30% Christian, it's a challenge to build that kind of caring.
It's an issue of culture and paradigms also. We are experimenting.. tinkering.. because we have no models of how this works in our world, and we are in the process of forming a new micro culture in the macro one.
Furthermore, we have people coming from as far as ten miles away. This isn't ideal. We would much prefer to have a tighter physical community. It could be that that is less a concern for the Lord than it is to us.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:55 AM
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:55 AM
"But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes..."
I love Christmas songs. The depth of understanding that many of them display... insight into the nature of God and the incredible and startling reality of redemption.. with many there is a beautiful integration. But then there are others like "Away in a Manger," which display a gnostic ignorance toward Jesus' humanity.
All this came up on the "Postmodern List" recently, but it started by a comment Chris made about the messiness of God.. John O'Keefe responded with some questions..
"When Jesus was a baby, did he ever make a mess? How about ever make a mess in his pants? :-) When Jesus was a boy, did he ever drop something and make a mess? Did he ever trip and make a mess? Jesus the teacher in the temple, when he drove the money changers out, did he leave the temple in a mess????"
"In the evangelical culture we did not want to see Jesus in his full humanity. To see him in full humanity means we need to see him in ways that expand our theology and bring views that seem to offend some religious positions. Yet seeing him as "perfect" means he has no value to me."
Indeed.. if Jesus was God but not man then he can't take my place on the Cross.. He is only a God who pretends to identify with the fallen world. John says more..
"The evangelical view is that jesus is "superman" - but superman is no hero - if you know nothing can harm you, and nothing can kill you, how much of a hero are you if you go into a burning building? You see, spiderman is a hero - he can be killed and still he risks it all to save people - same with Jesus. Knowing that in his humanity Jesus is tempted, and struggles with those tempations, I find comfort and believe I too can over come temptations - and that rocks!"
Rubem Alves, author of The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet......
" ....So when we consider redrawing the ministry of the Church today it
not just because we have a "problem" of some kind which we have to fix by
finding an easy solution for all cases. Rubem Alves in his 1990 Edward
Cadbury Lectures reminds us that living with questions, mystery, darkness,
poetry and silence can be a surer guide to truth than reaching out to
direct, control, force, create rigid lines and the illusion of strong, clear
defining words. The vast majority of people in our society have no use for a
smooth God, a smart God, an efficient, all-knowing, all-powerful God, who
benignly congratulates our success and hard-won status, who knows the
answers before we've stammered out the flicker of a question."
Mess and imperfection are not related... we experience God as chaotic because our ideas of order are incorrect. If order is self-generating out of chaos, as a response to divine design, messy is confusing, but good.
In "Recovering the Power of the Word" I wrote,
The Lord of the Rings is a dark story. It is filled with violence. There are dark and twisted creatures who do evil things. There are sorcerers who dabble in the powers of Satan. There are demons and demon-spawn.
Who can justify the journey into darkness that is The Lord of the Rings? Surely this much violence is gratuitous? That is the conclusion of Focus on the Family magazine.
If they are wrong, then our very perceptions of reality are twisted. Either Tolkien is twisted or we are: it's not a difficult choice, is it?
The world of the New Testament is also a dark world. Imagine the scene in Bethlehem around the time of Jesus birth… soldiers racing through the streets, knocking on doors and seizing infants. Soldiers, in Roman armor with swords drawn, knocking down mothers, cutting down fathers, breaking down
Doors: blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke.
Ah, but we are moderns. Look how far we have come from the dark days. Look at our machines, our laws, our clean streets. Thank God we have left violence and darkness far behind us. Thank God for the Christmas season, the peaceful presence of the baby in the manger.
"Truth became legend, and legend became myth…" So we hear in the introduction to the movie version of Tolkien's epic story.
In a world where we are flooded with words, and where symbols have lost their meaning, how can we touch the truth that words represent? Has a deeper narrative been lost behind the Story?
What gives words their meaning, and what gives meaning its power?
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:35 AM
That's Canada for you.... from The Ottawa Citizen
Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 300
employees and has the following statistics:
It is the 301 MPs in the Canadian Parliament. The same group that cranks out
hundreds of brilliant new laws like the one currently in consideration to ban the word "Christmas."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:25 AM
More from "Cadences of Home"
I've added some more material at the end of the excerpt. I know this is challenging reading for some.. but it's worth the time :)
"There is no doubt, on the one had, that the late community went back to the early community (Italics Mine). It in fact jumped over the monarchical period to find resources in the early sources that could sustain it. It did not find in the period of the establishment what it needed, but was driven back to more primitive and less stable models. This is poignantly evident in Ezra, the founder of Judaism, who is the second Moses and who replicated the early Moses."
Rethinking Church Models Through Scripture
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:05 AM
More Christmas Poetry
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:25 AM
Ebert reviews FOTR: Two Towers
Plugged In reviews The Two Towers
What? You haven't seen it yet?
No spoilers here, but be forewarned that there are some serious departures from the book. I think Producer Peter Jackson was interested in creating broader appeal, and broader appeal in our culture means tension. The hobbits are less at the center than they were in the first film, and Aragorn, the bold hero, is thrust more into the spotlight.
I'm disappointed at the changes, but perhaps that's the price we have to pay to see the creation of such an epic. At least we still have the books :)
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:10 AM
Cadences of Home
Walter Brueggemann is an outstanding old testament scholar, and his recent work on interpretation, faithfulness and context is excellent. I've thrown a few quotes up here in the past month, but this time I want to print an excerpt.
It isn't easy reading, but it's worthwhile, and here is why...
That upheaval is not unlike that which we are experiencing in our own time. Similarly, the model that has dominated during the 21st century, a time of the rule of a Christian ethos, is now being swept away. There are signs of collapse everywhere. Even those who are not theologically reflective feel the tension and the "cognitive dissonance...." The dominant model of the western church in our western culture no longer connects with the culture. Worse, it has accommodated itself to culture to the point of idolatry and irrelevance.
But what will replace that model? Brueggemann finds other models in the Old Testament, rooted in times of exile and transition. "How will we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" Even our familiar lands are rapidly becoming foreign to us. But this is a time to rediscover that "we are strangers and aliens here..." Brueggemann's work is quite exciting...
Rethinking Church Models Through Scripture
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
4:35 PM
Earlier this fall, as was our habit and also fulfilled the requirements of truancy law, I was walking my youngest daughter to her elementary school. It was a classic fall day that reminds me why I love living in Winnipeg. The trees on our streets, all well over 100 feet high, were still clad in their green, gold, and red beauty, and it was a warm, sunny September day.
About halfway to the school, my daughter suddenly blurts, ³Daddy, I think God is really nice.²
I look down at her petite little self, big brown eyes and engaging smile, and reply, ³I think so too. What makes you say that, just now?²
She gestures expansively at the scenery around us. ³The trees are so green. The sky is a boo-tiful blue, and the clouds are so pretty-ful.²
Her gaze returns to mine. ³God is really nice, isn¹t He, Daddy?²
And I can only marvel at the incredible spiritual depths in such a tiny little girl.
As we walked to the same school this morning, enjoying the fresh blanket of snow that seems to indicate that our worst fears of a brown Christmas are over, I remembered that day a few months ago.
And I am glad that God has given us reminders in nature that He is still on His throne, that His Kingdom is advancing and unending, and that He is a master artist who desires relationship with his created ones.
And I¹m doubly glad that he gives us kindergarten daughters to point out to their busy dads the very things that we often forget to notice as we try to solve the problems of the postmodern world.
God is really nice, isn¹t He?
posted by Rob McAlpine |
9:25 AM
"Can I make you understand, I wonder? Have you ever had this happen to you? .. little by little, you begin to come to, and all of a sudden you find out you've been looking at something the whole time except it's only now you really see it .."
"That's how it was this night, anyway. Like finally coming to-not things coming out of nowhere that had never been there before, but things just coming into focus that had been there always. And such things! The air wasn't just emptiness any more. It was alive. Brightness everywhere, dipping and wheeling like a flock of birds. And what you always thought was silence stopped being silent and turned into the beating of wings, thousands and thousands of them."
The Shepherd, by Frederick Buechner
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:22 AM
Mary's song, by Luci Shaw
Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
His breath (so slight it seems
Older than eternity, now he
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
11:33 AM
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:33 AM
"God designed men to be dangerous, says John Eldredge. Simply look at the dreams and desires written in the heart of every boy: To be a hero, to be a warrior, to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men abandon those dreams and desires--aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a nice guy. It is no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death."
"...in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue." John Eldredge, "Wild at Heart"
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:30 AM
More on Robert Webber (you knew I was going there, didn't you?)..
As I thought about his quoting me and some of my friends from Next-Wave, I realized that he really needn't have done so. The things he quoted, at least in my case, are not revolutionary to him and not new. He could have simply said the same things in his own words.
So.. why did he quote us nobodies?
I realized that he had his own agenda in doing so.. it was a very strategic act.
Webber is quoting from some of us as an act of empowerment. He knows that this action is powerfully validating, and he knows that many of us.. all of us really.. need and desire that validation.
Furthermore, he is quoting us as a way of lending his own established authority to our common agenda. He knows that many of us will not be heard unless someone from his generation lends their stamp of approval. And he wants us to be heard. His agenda is clearly to give a voice to an emerging generation of leaders.
Finally, he is quoting us because he genuinely wants to forge a link.. he wants to participate in and affirm the younger evangelical community. He has already done so for many years, and this is further evidence of his heart to participate in renewal, reform and revolution.
As I realized that this was true, I felt very warm toward father Webber. May the Lord bless this fatherly gentleman, and may his tribe increase!
* * *
As all this rolled through my head last night, I realized something else, something that is probably even more important. Internet authors are being quoted in a significant evangelical work. And not just once.
My friend David Hopkins is quoted twice. There are numerous citations from correspondence, and even telephone conversations and classroom surveys. This is fascinating.. what's happening here?
It has often struck me that many of the brightest thinkers are not published. They haven't the time or inclination to write lengthy works. Others who might have the inclination or motivation are writing material that the publishers won't touch. I know of one case personally, and the authors are careful thinkers and committed Christians. But the material they are writing is too cutting edge. The publishers don't want to risk the ire of the powers that be in evangelical circles.
But perhaps it really doesn't matter anymore. You can read the writings of these brothers and sisters every day on the Internet. You can read their material free of charge, and you can even interact with them on mailing lists or via email.
What a revolution!
No longer do we have to wait two or three years to hear what the Lord is releasing to His church. No longer do we have to pay $30 to walk alongside the bravest brothers and sisters as they risk untried waters. Webber clearly recognizes this, and he quotes the best and most recent sources he can find. In fact, some of his Internet quotes date from April, 2002. For a book released in November, 2002 this is astonishingly recent material.
I was a bit disappointed not to see any quotes from Ginkworld. But perhaps he was concerned that some would follow that link and react in fear; the material on Ginkworld is more on the edge that most of the material at places like Next Wave. But I have a feeling that it won't be long before we see quotes from Ginkworld and other postmodern sites appearing in main stream works. Webber's book may be the first of a series of such works, and it is likely they will tread on increasingly unbroken ground.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:10 AM
Foundationalism and Hermeneutics oh joy, now I know that I must be postfoundational...
This afternoon I braved a trip to CHAPTERS to pick up my copy of "The Younger Evangelicals," Webber's latest book. Honestly.. this looks excellent! The print is small, however, and the book is thick, at 45 years old I may have to invest in reading glasses and or a few bottles of Tylenol to make my way to the end..
The big SHOCK occurred as I drifted through the footnotes at the back..
"WOW.. there must be a dozen quotes from NeXt Wave in here! Hey.. there's my friend David Hopkins.. and WHAAAAAAAA ..? Ain't that ME????"
Sure enough.. this Webber guy has no taste at all.. he quoted my first article to appear at Next Wave back in 1999. Er.. page 150 in case you want to know ;)
I was equally glad too see Dan Pantoja quoted on page 151.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:40 PM
From the inside, as a journalist, I have watched a disturbing pattern in what we do to religious leaders today. We reward them with applause, fame, enticing new contracts, and a flurry of requests for speaking engagements and media appearances. We push our pastors to function as psychotherapists, orators, priests, and chief executive officers. When a leader shows unusual ability, we dangle the temptation of a radio show or TV program, coplete with a fund-raising machine to float the organization. In short, we in the church slavishly copy the secular model of media hype and corporate growth. I wonder how much more effective our spiritual leaders would be if we encouraged them to take Monday as a day of silence for reflection, meditation and personal study?
Philip Yancey, "Soul Survivor," P. 167
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:30 AM
"The pragmatic churches have become institutionalized - with some exceptions. They responded to the sixties and seventies, created a culture-driven church and don't get that the world has changed again. Pragmatics, being fixed, have little room for those who are shaped by the postmodern revolution. A clash is emerging. The younger evangelicals will not have a voice in the pragmatic, fixed mentality. Stay there and your spirit will die (there are some exceptions, pray for discernment). Many pragmatic churches, like old shopping malls are dying. Very few people under 30 are in pragmatic churches. The handwriting is on the wall. Leave. Do a start up church. Be a tentmaker. Build communities. Small groups. Neighborhood churches. Be willing to let your life die for Jesus as you break with the market driven, culture shaped, numbers oriented, "Wal-Mart-something-for-everyone church." Be an Abraham and take a risk. God will show up and lead the way.
"The Constantinian church is beholden to civil religion. It acts as the chaplain to society. It's quite dull and doesn't have much to offer by way of radical commitment to community, relationship and counter-cultural values. The Ecclesial church seeks to be incarnational - the presence of Jesus in the world. It's emerging primarily in the city - reclaiming the neighborhoods through neighborhood house churches. Think of planting a church in the neighborhood where Eminem grew up. This is where the younger evangelicals are headed. Most suburban churches are either traditional or pragmatic and serve the middle and upper class. There is a place for that, of course."
Robert Webber, from
An Interview with Robert Webber at THE OOZE.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:15 AM
When the Church is its Own Worst Enemy
A Response to Stephen
It seems to me that the dance between the individual and the group, the community and the corporation, and the loss of our awareness of what we lost as we increasingly gave ownership and identity to the institution, is at the heart of the issue of change and transformation... because, let's face it, we can't transform alone and have a "church" because the church is a body. So we are stuck with the necessity of a communal faith, but often the corporate aspect and "lowest common denominator" entropy drains the life from even committed individuals.
It also seems to me that we got stuck in the organic vs organization metaphor as a focus for the problem and lost the perspective on the dynamic nature of this enterprise. The modern mindset has given us grief.. we feel out of control of this monster, but can't analyze these complex interactions as a means of greater control..that's the modern technological reaction that brought us to this place. We have to somehow learn to SURRENDER at the same time as we wrestle with the issues, a dynamic Stephen identifies in his article and which we attribute in part to the work of the Spirit.
Suggestions for a Part II..
* Explore the dynamic of weakness and strength some more. I think that is fruitful territory and very tough to integrate as a spiritual understanding within a system because systems push for efficiency, but love is not efficient (turn the other cheek, give away the extra shirt, go the extra mile etc). Eugene Peterson put this in a striking way when he suggested that,
"Wherever you are, pick five people in your congregation who might be considered 'losers.' They don't contribute anything to the church. They are apathetic. They are eccentric. Nobody particularly likes them. Now make them your best friends. Spend a lot of time with them. Get to know those people as children of God. They are not going to help you build your church. They are not going to give you any emotional gratification. That is your training ground for paying attention without a reward. Actually, it doesn't cost anything. It's not a huge expenditure of time. You visit these people once every two weeks. But your view of what a congregation is changes radically when you do that.
"Our culture says you go after the winners. You get the glamorous people. You find the people who are going to help you develop a church. So spend your time with the leaders. That is a basic leadership thing in our country. But what did Jesus do? He hung out with the losers." (Interview with Eugene Peterson in Cutting Edge Magazine, 2002)
* Related, the specific question of efficiency, ends and means. Nature is notoriously inefficient and wasteful, yet it seems to get along pretty well. Wheatley hits at this in her book and does a great job. Community dynamics are notoriously wasteful also.. of time and resources.. but maybe in order to move toward a more God honoring environment we have to learn to be "friends of time" (Quaker expression).
Ok, some specifics from Wheatley that hit at these issues. She proposes these elements of logic:
*Everything is in a constant process of discovery and creating. Everything is changing all the time: individuals, systems, environments, the rules, the processes. Even change changes.
"We have focused too long on right answers. We have taken things apart in an attempt to build the better mousetrap. But it is all falling apart." (A Simpler Way)
There are some more directions for fruitful thought and exploration. Senge talks about the dynamics of self-ordering systems.. Everytime I read this or references to chaos theory and fractals, I think about the network of relationships I am currently involved in, and how powerful it is for transformation. Self-ordering systems and their dynamics deserve more attention and hold great promise for the postmodern church.
Another direction that seems only partially explored, and mostly prior to 1990, is the "fallen powers" that Paul references in Colossians. Churchill wrote, "We create our buildings and then our buildings create us." How is it that institutions gain such a life of their own? We all observe this. Is there a neglected dynamic of spiritual warfare here? Ot is it just that individuals give away power to the system (or collective) and then lose consciousness of their own responsibility to continue to critique the system? I think the truth is both/and.
Religious Renaissance in Canada?
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:05 AM
Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave. But the first extraordinary fact which marks this history is this: that Europe has been turned upside down over and over again; and that at the end of each of these revolutions the same religion has again been found on top. The Faith is always converting the age, not as an old religion but as a new religion. GK Chesterton, "The Everlasting Man," Chapter VI
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:54 AM
A postmodern sermon.. "My Glorious Mamzer" at Mars Hill bible church plus a listing of many other talks..
Mars Hill
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:44 AM
An Interview with Robert Webber, author of "The Young Evangelicals."
We were visiting at the home of a friend and saw a painting on the wall that stunned us. It is a recent work by Rik Berry, a Vineyard pastor in Nova Scotia. The title is "Come."
The painting was striking for its tone, but also because it represents the feast in our own experience. The Lord invites all to come to His supper, and many of those invited are too busy with their own concerns. Our experience in our own home most Sundays is much like this painting.
For more of Rik's work visit his site at Embers
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:00 AM
When does passion turn into anger? When does holy dissatisfaction become unholy zealotry?
What happens if the angry young radicals never get over their anger, but instead enshrine it, develop a theology that allows and even expects it, and then attempts to pass these anger-birthed values on to the next generation?
No, I¹m not talking about politics. Or fringe radicals. I¹m talking about the resurgence of Christian activism. And I¹m seeing many people who I love and respect falling into it without so much as a second thought.
Don¹t get me wrong -- I¹m hugely in favour of Christians getting involved in society, be it through politics, protest, or whatever. What I¹m frightened by is the number of Christians that I see that appear to have decided that "they will know we are Christians if we¹re really really angry."
I¹ve heard people teach that you can never know the love of God if you don¹t first understand the wrath of God. They might have a point somewhere in that teaching, but the fruit as I¹ve observed it is a lot of angry Christians pointing fingers at corporations, companies, and any church or Christian who doesn¹t get as angry as they are.
Passion is highly desirable and commendable. Being passionately angry isn¹t the same thing. Somwhow, we must learn how to hold the tension of being upset at the effects of evil in the world, and yet walk and talk in a humble, gracious love.
I¹ve been the angry young radical at one time. I was (in my own mind) very gifted at seeing all the flaws of church structure, could point out all the antiquated methods and mindsets and their negative effect on Christians, and thought I was quite justified in my angry, critical appraisals of anyone who (let¹s be honest) didn¹t think like I did.
But in the summer of 1984, God spoke to me powerfully, and it changed my life -- pretty much immediately. I was talking to a guy named Paul, a teenager in our youth group that I was a leader of. He¹d just made some naive, wide-eyed wonder kind of a comment about churches, and I was just about to unload some of my enlightened and sarcastic "reality and wisdom" on him, when the Spirit spoke loudly to me:
"How is what you are about to say going to spur him on to love and good deeds?"
I don¹t remember what I actually ended up saying to Paul, but I know it wasn¹t what I had originally intended. And in the weeks that followed, it seemed God was working a profound change in my approach to ministry. I began to love the church again. I re-discovered my original gifts of encouragement, and the people around me benefited from my exercise of it.
And I began to discover that it is virtually impossible to be an angry young radical AND a lover of God and a lover of people at the same time.
Ironicly, I¹m probably far MORE radical now than I was at that time. But I refuse to pretend that being passionately angry and being a radical are the same thing. Kevin Prosch once wrote "whoever heard of an army advancing on its knees?" I¹d love to hang out with more Christians with that kind of understanding.
An advancing army -- that moves in humility. Cool.
posted by Rob McAlpine |
8:50 AM
Andrew Jones gripes about the house church movement...
With Christmas a-coming, don't forget to give where it counts.. World Vision and Worldserve and Amnesty International
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
2:40 PM
Ottawa to urge Saudis not to execute Canadian
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Canada plans to ask Saudi Arabia to review the case of a Vancouver man sentenced to beheading for his alleged role in a fatal bombing, officials said Sunday.
Sampson, 42, was videotaped confessing to the crime, but his family and lawyer insist he was tortured into making false statements. No motive for the murder was ever given. The confession was later withdrawn.
The men were arrested after a British hospital worker was killed in an explosion on a road in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in November 2000. A second blast a few days later injured two men and a woman.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
2:40 PM
Gun Control: $1 Billion and Counting...
This fiasco really burns me.. Here is some information from the CBC..
"The Conservatives released records of a cabinet committee authorizing at least five payments of up to $40 million each since 1996.
"Conservative Leader Joe Clark says the deeper the opposition digs, the higher up the involvement in trying to cover up the true costs of gun control. "On at least five occasions, this government secretly shifted money to the firearms registry through the Treasury Board contingency fund," said Clark.
"The cost of the firearms registry will rise from initial estimates of $2 million in 1995, to more than $1 billion by 2004, once all government spending on the program is included.
"Most of the blame for the cost overruns has been pinned on former justice ministers Allan Rock and Anne McLellan. But on Friday, Clark released copies of payments totalling almost $150 million approved by Paul Martin and other members of the Treasury Board committee of cabinet."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:00 AM
"Our churches should be FEDEX churches, not CLUB MED
churches. Club Med builds fine resorts and develops programs and
events for people to come to. FEDEX's goal is to keep the parking
lot empty while the trucks are out delivering." Jim Henderson, "Off the Map"
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:00 AM
"After assessing results, we must be willing to abandon what doesn't work. Abandonment often preceeds innovation. It clears the decks for trying something new...
"The first step in abandonment is openness--creating an environment in which, at a critical moment, somebody with lots at stake can tell a boss, "This is not working." Building a culture in which people can express their views without fear of reprisal is a huge challenge for most organizations.
"The litmus test for openness is simple: How fast does bad news travel upward? In most organizations good news travels upward faster than the speed of light. But failure is denied before the word can be spoken: "Whose failure? What failure? That wasn't a failure, we just didn't have enough funding." Make no mistake, the process of innovation is a process of failure. By nature innovation is a continual learning process. You must experiemnt, assess, reflect on mission, identify results, experiment some more. Yet from an early age in school, and continuing in work, we have been trained to avoid failure, and this avoid real learning..."
Peter Senge, "The Practice of Innovation," in Leader to Leader, Jossey-Bass: The Drucker Foundation, 1999.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
11:35 AM
Why is being mission based so powerful, yet so difficult? Peter Senge comments:
"Being mission based.. gets to the core of power and authority. It is profoundly radical. It says, in essence, that those in positions of authority are not the SOURCE of authority. It says, rather, that the source of legitimate power in the organization is its guiding ideas. Remember "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."? The cornerstone of a democratic system of governance is not voting or any other particular mechanism. It is the belief that power ultimately flows from ideas, not from people. To be truly mission-based is to be democratic in this way, to make the mission more important than the boss, something that not too many corporations have yet demonstrated an ability to do."
Peter Senge, "The Practice of Innovation," in Leader to Leader, Jossey-Bass: The Drucker Foundation, 1999.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
11:35 AM
What is Wrong with Contemporary Worship?
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:40 AM
"We have known for nearly half a century that self-managed teams are far more productive than any other form of organizing. There is a clear correlation between participation and productivity; in fact, productivity gains in self-managed work environments are at minimum 35 percent higher than in traditionally managed organizations. And in all forms of institutions, [people] are asking for more autonomy, insisting that they, at their own level, can do it better than the huge structures of organizations now in place.
"With so much evidence supporting pariticipation, why isn't everyone working in a self-managed environment right now? This is a very bothersome question because it points to the fact that over the years leaders have consistently chosen control rather than productivity. Rather than rethinking our fundamental assumptions about organizational effectiveness, we have stayed preoccupied with charts and plans and designs. We have hoped they would yield the results we needed-- but when they have failed consistently, we still haven't stopped to question whether such charts and plans are the real route to productive work. We just continue to adjust and tweak the various control measures, still hoping to find the one plan or design that will give us what we need.
"Organizations of all kinds are cluttered with control mechanisms that paralyze employees and leaders alike.."
Margaret Wheatley, "Good-bye, Command and Control," in Leader to Leader, Jossey Bass: The Drucker Foundation, 1999
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:35 AM
Saturday was the yearly "raise the tree" ritual, wherein we trek out to a nearby hillside and tramp around in the snow debating which tree to ceremoniously hack from the mountain. Yes.. it's true. Yearly we end the life of a young pine, fir, or hemlock conifer so that it may grace our living room. I might actually feel bad about this tradition except that I have already planted more trees than I can possibly cut in a single lifetime. This picture was taken Saturday night in our living room...
* * *
Darren writes in his living room blog..
"Last Sunday afternoon I visited the local Mosque.
"No I’m not considering a change of vocation or religion, rather it was an open day where people were invited to come to see, listen to and meet Moslems in their place of worship. I came away feeling warmly welcomed, better informed and rather pleased with myself at having played a small part in developing relationships between this sometimes ostracized group and the community at large. What a great personal illustration I had as I preached this Sunday about following Jesus example of caring for the outcast and identifying with the rejected!
"On Wednesday I received a friendly email from a church elder. It read, ‘Did you know you were on the ABC News (Aussie National TV Network) at 7pm last Sunday wandering through the mosque?’
"The array of thoughts that proceeded to flash through my mind shocked me. After an initial chuckle at the thought of the mix matched outfit I was wearing in my fleeting national television exposure, my first thought was one of horror at the implications of being seen ‘in such a place’! What could this do to my career? What if some of my more conservative friends saw me chatting to and shaking hands with ‘those people’?
"Jesus took ‘inclusivity’ to a whole new level. To agree with his teaching on the topic is a relatively simple thing. But to follow his example in action sometimes means facing some deeply ingrained beliefs, views and attitudes."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:55 PM
"I THINK TURKEY'S SUCCESS, BOTH ECONOMICALLY AND POLITICALLY, ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT FOR ALL OF HER ISLAMIC NEIGHBORS. TO THE EXTENT THAT TURKEY SHOWS THAT SECULARISM, DEMOCRACY AND WESTERNIZATION ARE FULLY PRACTICAL IN A SOCIETY WHOSE POPULATION IS 99 PERCENT MUSLIM, I THINK THAT THIS CAN ONLY BE A VERY USEFUL MODEL FOR ALL OF THE ISLAMIC COUNTRIES IN THE REGION." From "Turkey: A Geopolitical Crossroads.
It feels very strange to be hopeful in the process of secularization. But now that Miss World 2003 is from Turkey.. I am wondering, perhaps the process of secularization isn't always bad?
Imagine the scenario for 2010.. "INTRODUCING.. Miss World, 2010.. Miss Iraq, Behorah Mohammed!"
Ok, an unlikely scenario. And who would be cheering anyway? On the one hand, if it happened it would indicate a huge process of secularization, maybe even Americanization, in Iraq. It would mean that the tensions had become history.
But it would also mean that Iraq had adopted largely western values. It would mean that they have moved from one kind of fundamentalism into another.. the fundamentalism that continues to politicize gender, and in particular worships beauty as an end in itself.
Walter Brueggemann in "Cadences of Home" says that "The Enlightenment text, as practiced in the Euro-American world, provides an unchallenged rationale for privilege and advantage in the world in every zone of life. It means not only polical ascendancy and economic domination, but it also makes its adherents the norm for virtue.." (p. 28).
Brueggemann goes on to quote from Marx (oh great, now I have to quote from Marx), who "understood well that in the end, the dominant class does not need to exercise force, but holds sway by 'hegemonic theatre.'"
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:55 AM
MRI and Neuro-Marketing
Last week CBC reported that researchers are using MRI to scan the brain and report on responses to various marketing methods. This "new" science is an attempt to shape more effective marketing tools, of course.
Project Ploughshares monitors Canadian military spending. CBC did an excellent report on the roughly 1 billion dollars of weapon sales from Canada each year. 1 billion dollars is only about 3% of the world market for military products each year, but what surprised me and the interviewer was where some of this equipment ends up.
Canada's Pratney and Whitney jet engines, for example, have ended up, via Switzerland I think, in jets in Iraq and Saudi-Arabia. Apparently there are loopholes in government regulations that control sales, the largest one being that sales of military equipment to the US are not tracked at all.
For those who thought Canada had a squeaky clean record in terms of the world production and distribution of weapons of war, Project Ploughshares offers an eye opener.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:15 AM
This morning, as happens every morning Monday to Friday, I walked my youngest daughter to her kindergarten class. There are 31 kids in her class -- it's huge, but she has a lot of fun with six other kids from the Vineyard also being in her class.
This morning, the temperature in Winnipeg (with the wind chill) was -37C (-32F), and as has been true since two weeks ago, the roads and sidewalks are slick with glare ice. Our neighbourhood seems to be near the bottom of the city's list for sanding the roads.
After dropping my daughter off, I exited the school building and immediately noticed, about ten houses down the street, that a child was lying half on the sidewalk, and half into somebody's front lawn. As I made my way towards the child, I quickly realized that there wasn't anything wrong, because I could see four or five adults who also walk their kindergarten children to school, and they were passing the child by without any sign of concern.
By the time I reached the child, I could see that she hadn't moved since I first sighted her, and that her fingers (devoid of gloves or mitts) were exposed to the extreme cold. Kneeling down beside her, I discovered that she was unconscious, but began to rouse slowly when I kept asking her who she was and if she was okay.
The crossing guards from the school (all grade five & six students) were returning to school by this time, and one of them identified the girl as being from his class -- I sent them to the school with instructions to get the principal immediately. He came running, pulling his jacket on as he came.
By this time the little girl (she was in grade four, and in my son's class, as it turned out), was coherent enough to sit and then get to her feet. She told me that she'd slipped on the ice and hit her head on the fence post next to where she had been lying. The principal took over and with the aid of one of the crossing guards who had stayed with me, escorted the girl into the school, where the school nurse would have a look at her.
As I made my way home, I was in shock over two very disturbing things:
At least four adults that I see everyday all walked past this unconscious child as she lay on the ground in extreme winter conditions, obviously in need of immediate intervention, and ignored her.
The girl, all of nine years old, was aboriginal.
We have a long way to go to bridge the gap between the story of the Good Samaritan and life in the north end of Winnipeg.
May God have mercy on this city.
posted by Rob McAlpine |
12:45 AM
King: No, there are a lot of people with money that don't do what you do.
BONO: No, no, I'm sure that -- you know, I remember after Live Aid, I got kind of caught up in Live Aid, and it was Bob Geldof, an Irish guy, that kicked the "We are the World," "Do They Know It's Christmas?" thing. And myself -- my wife and I went out to Africa. I mean, what -- I didn't tell anyone. We just went off for a month, and because we could. You know, we could afford to take the time.
And kind of my life changed really there, and I saw things that you shouldn't ever see in your life. And we stayed in this -- north of Ethiopia. I used to get up in the mornings. We slept in a tent. And as the mist would lift, you know, over the hills, you would see tens of thousands of people who had been walking all night to get food. They were coming to this camp.
And sometimes, they would leave children there and walk away from them. And we would get to the children, and those children would be dead. And sometimes even worse things would happen, like a man came to me with his beautiful, beautiful boy, and said, "Please, here is my child, I can't look after him. Will you take my child? Because I know my child will live in your hands and not in mine." And...
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:45 AM
A Walk Through History
I have five file cabinets in my office, and in the back of two of them I toss old cards.. birthday cards, Christmas cards, father's day cards. I decided to clean out the drawers yesterday and I dug through about fifty old cards...
It gets a bit challenging after a while as I'm looking at cards I received from my two teen girls when they were four and five years old. Hard to read these scribbled cards through teary eyes!
Later in the day we were sitting around the supper table and my fifteen year old daughter asked, "Dad, do you think there is "A" Christian worldview?" Whew... what a big question. We had a great discussion talking about perspective, culture and change. She has been quite disappointed in the limited perspective in her Christian school, suspecting that the party line on postmodernity is far too black and white.
All this left me reflecting on how far ahead my children are. They have more experience, and deeper experience, than I had when I was 21. They are asking questions I never thought of. And they are both more aware of the failings of the church, and more prepared to work for change.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
3:40 PM
Cadbury Schweppes and the global cocoa alliance
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
3:35 PM
Northrop Frye,
Phony Transcendence in an Age of Media,
Computers and Fabricated Environments
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:55 AM
Facts You Don't Want to Know
Child slaves may be making your chocolate..
"Children's charity fights child slavery."
This isn't good news for those who love chocolate. But then, it's not great news for the children either.
My daughter is in the process of research and we plan to choose a half dozen companies to write for more information, and to call them to account. When we draft the letters we'll make them available here in case you want to join the cause....
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:20 AM
The Great Move of God
I spent most of the weekend, along with my family, moving a single mom and her family. I also spent the weekend ill with the flu.
I dislike being ill. I have learned to endure physical labor. But put them together and I don't have a great time. Add to this that our single friend was a pack rat living in a full sized home with a sentimental attachment to almost everything she ever owned, and there was a LOT to move with only a few to help.
On the third day of the move (Sunday afternoon, no less) we were helping another single friend collect some of the cast offs for his own use, and Nick looked across to me on the other end of a small table and said, "This reminds me of my YWAM days.. YWAM "you will always move..." Every three months we helped some move in and others move out.. "
.. and then..
"Maybe this is the great "move" of God," he chuckled.
Nick has always been very prophetic.
Somewhere Jesus comments on the kingdom that "They will say, "Lo, here it is," or "Lo, there it is," but don't believe them..." We get caught looking for the kingdom of God in the great and dramatic events of our time.. those "kairos" moments. But thank God also for the chairos moments.. the moments in real time where we care in simple ways for real people. It's at those points... when we are tired, and don't want to help anymore... that we are carrying our own small cross for the sake of Jesus.
The "great" move of God will always be rooted in love. And what does the Lord require of you?
"To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:20 AM
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Ok, neither have I.. but I have tickets for Saturday evening. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately), I already know a good deal about the plot since my daughter Elise saw it on opening night.
In chapter 7 Brueggemann examines models of the church in Scripture. He concludes that the model that dominates our experience is that which arose during the Israelite monarchy, a 400 year period in Israel's history. The conditions that produced that model and made it workable were swept away in a cultural geo-political upheaval.
Poised at the millennium, we confront two critical challenges: how to address deep problems for which hierarchical leadership alone is insufficient and how to harness the intelligence and spirit of people at all levels of an organization to continually build and share knowledge. Our responses may lead us, ironically, to a future based on more ancient -- and more natural -- ways of organizing: communities of diverse and effective leaders who empower their organizations to learn with head, heart, and hand. -- Peter Senge, Author of The Fifth Discipline.
A court is believed to have ordered William Sampson and a British man executed, but defence lawyers complain that the case has been blanketed in secrecy.
