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December Blogs
"Is postmodernism -— the philosophy that claims there is no transcendent truth —- on life support?"
And Brian McLaren's response to Chuck:
"In your column, you pronounced postmodernism "dead," or on life support, or losing strength. You're kind of right, because the kind of postmodernism you describe -- "the philosophy that claims there is no transcendent truth" -- was never really alive. It's a straw man, Chuck, a bugaboo not unlike Hillary Clinton's "vast right wing conspiracy," used to create fear, galvanize sympathy and support, and perhaps raise money."
Brian McLaren writes A Letter to Breakpoint
In the closing days of 2003, I have reluctantly added a PAYPAL button at top right. This will make it simple for anyone who wants to support NextReformation to make a donation. The reality is that my debts are not going away and I am giving more of my time to Office Depot than I would like to do... I would rather write, read, and share with brothers and sisters over coffee and via email about kingdom, culture and the emerging church. In order to spend my time as I believe the Lord would have me do, I am looking for alternate ways to generate income.
Last night I watched Bruce Almighty with my family. I don't think my daughters have ever laughed so hard, and even though I saw the movie twice in theaters, I still found it both hilarious and profound. There is a single sexual scene near the beginning that could have been left out, so if you intend to watch this movie with your family you may want to have the remote nearby so you can skip forward.
One of the other great movies we saw this year is also now available for rent: Sea Biscuit. Tremendous story of redemption, great acting, great cinematography.
I wonder how many of you have read Oden's latest work, "The Rebirth of Orthodoxy." I am hearing that this is one of the best of 2003, and I hope to have my hands on it later today. Meantime I am finished with Houston's "The Mentored Life." A good read, though leaning toward the academic. There is one chapter I will reread today, then I'll post an excerpt from "Discipled by the Word of God."
"Is postmodernism—the philosophy that claims there is no transcendent truth—on life support?"
The Postmodern Crackup by Chuck Colson with Anne Morse
This article is proof that you can be intellectually acute, but completely miss the point.
The Return of the King
Random comments from friends:
"The greatest movie I have ever seen.. .bar none."
"What can Jackson do for a followup? He should retire, there is nowhere to go from here..."
And the reason why I haven't yet said a thing in writing about my two viewings.. I am intimidated. (You can read the article I wrote on the original release in 2001 HERE). What can one say about a project and triumph of this scope? Jackson has surpassed all our expectations, and brought an imaginative world to life. It's also terribly difficult to separate out any one movie.. the work, like all true art, should be taken in its entirety. And it is ... terrifying, blinding, bright, dark, beautiful, stunning .... Hmm.. while I am mustering my courage perhaps I can let JRR make his own comments:
JRR Tolkien, "On Fairey Stories"
"When Jesus says, "Make your home in me as I make mine in you" (Jn.15) he offers us an intimate place that we can call home. Home is that place or space where we do not have to be afraid but can let go of our defenses and be free, free from worries, free from tensions, free from pressures. Home is where we can laugh and cry, embarce and dance, sleep long and dream quietly, eat, read, play, watch the fire, listen to music, and be with a friend. Home is where we can rest and be healed.. a good place to be, it is the house of love.
"But in this world millions of people are homeless. Some are homeless because of their inner anguish, while others are homeless because they have been driven from their own towns and countries. In prisons, mental hosptials, refugee camps, in hidden-away apartments, in nursing homes and overnight shelters we get a glimpse of homelessness.
"Speaking of himself as the vine and of his disciples as the branches, Jesus says: "Make your home in me." This is an invitation to intimacy. Then he adds: "Those who remain in me with me in them, bear fruit in plenty." This is an invitation to fecundity. Finally, when he says, "I have told you this so that your joy may be full," he promises ecstasy.
"There are two houses in this world: the house of fear, and the house of love.
"Though we think of ourselves as followers of Jesus, we are often seduced by the fearful questions of the world. WIthout realizing it, we become anxious, nervous people, caught in the questions of survival: our own survival,the survival of our friends, of our church, our country and our world. Once these questions become the guiding questions of our lives, we tend to dismiss words spoken from the house of love as unrealistic, sentimental, or just useless. When love is offered as an alternative to fear we say, "Yes, that sounds beautiful, but..." The "but" reveals how much we live in the grip of the world..."
"We are so accustomed to fear that we do not hear the voice that says, "Do not be afraid..." Yet it is this voice that announces a whole new way of living..."
Henri Nouwen in "Lifesigns"
Seen on a large sign in Kelowna,
"Jesus came to earth to take us to heaven."
The reasons I dislike this sign are many, but are summed up well by Dallas Willard in "Renovation of the Heart."
The western church "takes as its basic goal to get as many people as possible into heaven. It aims to get people into heaven rather than to get heaven into people." He explains why this strategy is self-defeating:
".. it creates groups of people who may be ready to die, but clearly are not ready to live. They rarely can get along with one another, much less those "outside." Often their most intimate relations are tangles of reciprocal harm, coldness, and resentment. They have found ways of being Christian without being Christlike. As a result, they actually fall far short of getting as many people as possible ready to die, because the lives of the "converted" testify against the reality of "the life that is life indeed..."
Books I want to read or reread in 2004:
Renovation of the Heart, Willard
The best books I read and best movies I saw in 2003, in no particular order..
Movies - Return of the King, Bruce Almighty, Sea Biscuit, Spirit..
Books
Burke, Making Sense of Church
No, I still haven't seen the third Matrix movie.. maybe early in 2004..
The Mentored Life
Houston's book is a nice balance between academic and practical in style, warm hearted as is all Houston's writing. However, it leans toward the scholarly side and I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone who wasn't a serious reader and a serious student of life.
It is not a HOW TO guide but a book about the history and philosophies of mentoring. If, as Christians, we interpret mentoring to mean Christian discipleship, then we must move away from the formulas the world so easily abides by. The paradox then, is that the mentored life is one in which we constantly look to Christ for guidance, answers, and fulfillment. It is our heavenly Father who infinitely knows us, Houston says, which contrasts with worldly expressions of self-knowledge. Rather than trying to discover our self and reach our potential, we must come alongside the mentor who will help us be all we can be by Christ.
As Houston writes, "We can choose the pursuit of self-knowledge for enhancing one's professional ambitions, or we can go beyond ourselves in ever-living faith as disciples of the Word." The Mentored Life reveals that it isn't about making the individual better. Instead, through Christian discipleship, individuals must humbly seek Christ, who alone can lead us to whole personhood.
PART I
ch 1 The Natural Individual
PART II
ch 5 Mentored and Discipled for Christian Living
Some initial reflections.. I've gathered some great quotes. I was particularly intrigued by Houston's take on Freud and Jung and their influence on western thought and anthropology. I don't think Houston finds a single good thing in Freud, and few in Jung. Of Jung he comments that those enemies most like our friends are the most dangerous.. (paraphrase).
I very much like his analysis of mentorin models and our need to move from the heroic or psychotherapeutic model to the friendship model. Houston adds some meat to the bones of my own process in this area. We need something like a pre-modern pastoral conception, but we need to move it beyond leadership paradigms. Almost anyone can become a mentor, and by the time we are in our thirties we ought to be mentoring (discipling in spiritual friendship) someone else.
Houston is also jogging my thought about the process of moving outside the walls... a process and experience shared by so many of us. As a preliminary run through the grid he provides, I'll contrast the false and the true experience like this..
** shaped and discipled by the institution.. the call to conform
The first process actually supports the development of the false self. The institution encourages us to wear masks and deny our own shadow. Similarly, the institution calls for conformity and does not bless diversity; it encourages individual growth in very limited ways and by limiting the pastoral task to the few it does not facilitate mentoring relationships or true community. One could say the institution encourages the growth of the shadow because it is itself unreal, a thing created to help us avoid the pain of growth and insecurity.
The second process acknowledges and blesses diversity, something that perhaps can only be done in real communities (and not in audiences or congregations). In covenantal relationships we are called beyond our selves to the level of holy individuality and sacred personhood. Not merely a pleasant task, it is the journey Jesus spoke of when He said that "unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it will never bring forth fruit." Like bread.. individual grains are ground to powder, then their deaths are blended together to create a single loaf that gives life to the world. (These are my analogies and not Houston's).
A covenant is necessary for all true growth, because when we begin to encounter the false self our instinct is to run away. As in marriage, it is those who are closest to us who see us most clearly, and there we find the opportunity for grace and the dynamic of brokenness and renewal. Only those who love us can both accept us as we are and invite us to be transformed.
It's a paradox.. we only become ourselves when we lose ourselves for the sake of Christ. We find our individuality.. our hidden but true name.. written on His heart, and revealed in relationships.. the sacramental presence of Jesus in His body.
Ultimately our call to self-discovery and into Christ is a call to community.
Footnote: in all communities there exists a pull toward institutional dynamics; in all institutions there exist persons who invite community.
This year I am really feeling tired of the prevailing "Christian" slant on Christmas. One local church has hung the typical sign: "He came to earth to take us to heaven." Oh, it's true enough.. like the four spiritual laws are true, but a narrow distortion and simplification at the same time. Jesus' life and death and resurrection are SO MUCH MORE... God becomes poor, and identifies with weakness. God becomes flesh, and calls all things "VERY GOOD" in the ultimate affirmation of the physical world.
When Mary is filled with the Spirit and sings her song in the early chapters of Luke, we know that the descent of the King into our world has thrown the established order of things topsy-turvy. No longer will the strong rule; no longer will rich be on top and the poor on the bottom... now it is the poor who are blessed, the hungry who are filled, and the rich who are in trouble. This jarring message of justice and of transformation is at the heart of Christmas. To really hear that message we nearly have to step out of our own skins. Tom Sine comments,
"In other words, I believe, the established church has largely settled for a very compartmentalized faith in which we allow modern culture to define our sense of what is important and of value. For too many of us the real focus of our life has little to do with our faith and much more to do with getting ahead economically... getting ahead in our careers and in the suburbs. Too many of our churches tend to sanction this kind of compartmentalized accommodated faith and are content with discipleship on a two-legged stool. What kind of discipleship is taught in your church?"
Jean Vanier comments,
"Our society shuns weakness and glorifies strength. By embracing weakness, however, we learn new ways of living and discover greater compassion, trust and understanding." Becoming Human (New York: Paulist Press, 1998)
And does all this have implications for leadership? And how. As Mark Strom pointed out in "Reframing Paul,"
"Paul would not allow any human system or convention to hedge the communities against the risks of working out what it meant to live by the dying and rising of Christ. Such security would only throw the community back on their own resources and reinforce individual and communal boasting....
"Paul urged leaders to imitate his personal example of how the message of Jesus inverted status... He refused to show favouritism towards individuals or ekklesiai. The gospel offered him rights, but he refused them. Christ was not a means to a career. Yet the agendas and processes of maintaining and reforming evangelical life and thought remain the domain of professional scholars and clergy. Their ministry is their career.
"Dying and rising with Christ meant status reversal. In Paul's case, he deliberately stepped down in the world. We must not romanticize this choice. He felt the shame of it amongst his peers and potential patrons, yet held it as the mark of his sincerity. Moreover, it played a critical role in the interplay of his life and thought. Tentmaking was critical, even central, to his life and message. His labour and ministry were mutually explanatory. Yet, for most of us, 'tent-making' belongs in the realms of missionary journals and far-flung shores. As a model for ministry in the USA, Britain or Australia, it remains as unseemly to most of us as it did to the Corinthians. At best it is second best.
"Evangelicalism will not shake its abstraction, idealism and elitism until theologians and clergy are prepared to step down in their worlds. Some might argue that since the world often shows contempt for the pastoral role, then professional ministry is a step back. But that is to ignore the more pertinent set of social realities. Evangelicalism has its own ranks, careers, financial security, marks of prestige, and rewards. Within that world, professional ministry is rank and status.
"Ministry as profession feeds the pride that separates the seminary and the pulpit from the congregation. It makes Paul abstract."
Mark puts it better than anyone, but his insight is not new. I found this prophetic discussion from 1981 by Richard Quebedeaux. He wrote that,
"No medium or method of conveying the Christian gospel can meet people's basic needs for recognition, involvement, worthiness, growth, and indeed salvation itself without the loving give and take of person-to-person interaction over a long period of time. This is what community really means, and this is exactly where popular religion and its leaders are not successful.
"In a secular society, in a world where homelessness is the norm, the only way religion can really be "successful" is to provide a home for the homeless -- a family that includes not just my kind of people, but God's kind of people, who love him with everything they have, and who love their neighbor as much as they love themselves. The church does need to become God's ideal family, both in word and indeed. And its leaders will have to be heroic leaders ho really live and exemplify the life they preach and teach, whose authority is recognized in their nobility, in their concrete modeling of the love of God, the only force that can save and transform a world plagued with the consequences of sin. At this point we can say that the crisis of authority in our culture is ultimately a crisis caused by the lack of love, both on the part of leaders themselves and on the part of their followers….
"Like loving parents, heroic leaders will have no happiness or peace until their followers, and the rest of humanity as well, also have the same. Thus such leaders never rest in the face of suffering and tragedy. When others suffer, they suffer…
"In a word, the strongest heroic leaders are themselves servants, nay, the very servants of the servants of God. It is in the nobility of this strength - in servanthood - that their authority is both recognized and authenticated. But more than that, the truth of their teaching and their example is borne out in their fruits, in the quality of the character of their followers.
"What America - and the rest of the world - needs, then, is godly leaders who by the
discipline they impose on themselves and their followers, produce saints. If Christianity wishes to have a transformative impact on America - to speak with authority - its leaders will have to provide the one thing all modern Americans need most of all: a loving family and a home. And to do this it will have to have a new medium to bring the church home in a more substantial way than the electronic church has done… "
From By What Authority: the Rise of Personality Cults in American Christianity. HarperCollins, 1982. p. 177-183
The home I grew up in was a fairly closed system. We had only rare visitors, and my mother herself was mostly in her own world. She was diagnosed as both paranoid and schizophrenic when I was about five years old.
As a result, I grew up with a lot of solitude. I was often lonely, and I retreated into a world of my own making. I loved to read, I loved to invent and imagine. Naturally, I did have a few friends, and my three sisters, the youngest of whom was often my playmate.
To this day it is often easier for me to be alone than to be with others, though by the grace of God I have come to genuinely love small groups, and I love one on one dialogue with a friend or two.
But occasionally, I become aware of my own hunger for acceptance, and my fear or rejection. I want to move closer to people, but I fear giving up something essential of myself. I have grown to be a fairly confident person, and I mostly know who I am, but there are uncertain edges, and times when I let fear be my guide instead of love. Like many, I am on the road from the house of fear to the house of love. Some days it seems I have arrived.. on other days, I know I am not quite there.
It's encouraging to read that others share the journey, but have not arrived. It's encouraging to know my brokenness as well as my hope are shared by others. When I read these words by Henri Nouwen in "Reaching Out," I felt encouraged.
This morning I realized suddenly that ordinary things have become sacramental. Somewhere in the last few years my vision has changed.
I recall attending classes at Regent College in the early eighties, in particular those with Loren Wilkinson. I always admired Loren's vision of the world.. it was a sacred Universe because of the life and death of Jesus. I admired his ability to see the transcendent world in and through the everyday world... but somehow I couldn't quite get there.
But lately I've had numerous occasions when I have sensed the deep truth of ordinary objects. I look at a tree and feel like weeping. I pick up an apple and the glory seems to blaze out at me. I feel overwhelmed with the beauty and goodness of God I see in common things.
There are some things that can't be communicated with words alone, and even pictures don't convey an inner reality. But in an effort to share something of my experience, I photographed a Honeycrisp apple recently.. Here is the story of these incredible local fruit.
I discovered Honeycrisp apples one day this fall, quite accidentally. I drove up the hill to an orchard where I usually buy Creston and Delicious apples each year, and this year they had a large bin full of an unfamiliar apple. I asked about them, and the grower told me the story of discovering these apples in Minnesota some years back. He decided to try them as a project here, and they have flourished (though requiring more water than some varieties).
He sliced me a section of the large yellow and red fruit, and I was astonished. This was one of the best apples I have ever tasted. It was crispy and juicy and sweet. The core is smaller than that of Delicious, and the flesh more firm. They have a slightly greased feel, much like Jonagold, which increases over time but also helps preserve the apple in storage.
But the most delightful aspect of Honeycrisp revealed itself after six weeks of storage. I opened the box to bring up some apples from storage, and found what looked like a box full of autumn leaves. Every apple had deepened in color, with striations of red and yellow, until it looked like they had taken on the death of a Maple tree. I picked up a single apple to admire it, and felt as though I was contemplating biting into fall itself.
In truth, I was reluctant to eat the apple at all; it was simply too beautiful. Unfortunately, at this stage, it is either eat them or watch them wither away completely, until they are inedible. So.. thanks be to God ... and crunch away...
And now that we are celebrating creation, of which the Incarnation is the ultimate stamp of approval, you could read Why God Made the World.
"A new language really introduces a new heart. In his Gospel Jesus Christ gave us a sign by which to recognize those who have faith. "They will speak with new tongues." What happens is that a renewal of thoughts and desires brings about a renewal of language. Renewal is a constant necessity... The old man in us dies away, says St. Paul, and is renewed each day, and will only be perfectly new in eternity... It is certain that the graces God grants in this life are a sign of the glory which he prepares for us in the next." Blaise Pascal
I was fascinated by this comment from Pascal because of its reference to language. In these times of transition and change, when old structures are falling along with old and stale ways of thinking, we are looking for a new language to express new thoughts. But that new language must represent not only new ways of seeing the world, but something new that lives in our hearts...
In other words, first God births a new hunger in us.. and then a new language rises to express that hunger.
We hunger for a new world, and a new church. We hunger to see a new and more authentic expression of the kingdom. We hunger for justice and freedom.
We hunger to see the face of the Lord, and to see Him work among us. In all this there is a call to go deeper, and many of us have felt it. If we don't grow deeper as we expand our vision, we will not have the mettle needed to forge anything lasting or authentic.
Christmas reflections:
The Shepherd Frederick Buechner
The Innkeeper Frederick Buechner
I had a strange experience at work yesterday.. at Office Depot here in Kelowna...
I was wandering around the technology section during a lull in the action, and I stopped by the small book section. The books are primarily on leadership and corporate management issues.
I picked up one with a promising title: "Values Driven Leadership" or something like that. I paged through it, read a bit.. and found myself thinking about much of the leadership material I have read over the past few years.
As I was mulling over the need for change in leadership paradigms and our way of being communities together, the Lord suddenly stopped me with a single question: "What are you doing here?"
I thought the obvious answer probably wasn't it.. "Lord, you know I am here to support my family. And it's your fault those contracts didn't come through so...."
Yeah, that probably wasn't a helpful answer. I realized that the question was about life direction and passion, and about where I wanted to be. More of an "Adam, where are you?" redundant kind of question, and then more like, "where do you want to be" and "where have I called you to be" and "what are you doing to do to get there?"
Those are tougher questions in one sense, simpler in another. I have a passion to see a new church born; I have a passion to bring people on the edge into the center, to see others released in their passions; I have a passion to equip and mobilize leaders; I am passionate about learning and transformation. How best to accomplish this.. well, it doesn't have much to do with Office Depot, though this has already been a great way to learn about day to day life in the retail business.
In the end, the Lord will use this experience, but it feels like a diversion, and it is already limiting my time with people and time to write and reflect and dream...
Christmas is coming.. please, remember the poor. Find a way to connect with and assist a needy family in your neighborhood. Remember that Jesus "for our sakes became poor..."
I have come to realize that friendship alone will not bear the weight of the new paradigm we need in the western church... but it will bear much that was not carried by the old models.
What is needed is something more like the concept of the anamchara, the "soul friend" within the Celtic tradition. Maybe in the west we could think of this as "friendship on steroids."
James Houston writes that, "Activism that is devoted to a cause can also be a poor substitute for relationships, because it is too busy to cultivate friendship. The Greek philosophers were wiser when they stated that "thought is not meaningful without action; and action is not meaningful without friendship."
When someone of Jim's age, academic standing, and stature as a mentor and teacher can write these words, we know we have to pay attention. The church on the one hand has been activist, neglecting spiritual realities, on the other hand too spiritual, neglecting physical realities -- both aspects of gnosticism, divorced from the unity of life. We need a paradigm that can root us in the real human muck of the world, but also take us beyond to the level of faith and reaching for a city that is not yet seen. We need to be unafraid of structure and building communities with their own traditions, and equally willing to see old systems and traditions die as new ones are born.
Perhaps mentoring can be at the center of a new paradigm, but only if mentoring is not conceived as a new task and activity, but something that rises out of a shared covenantal life, the call of love and an inner work of the Spirit of God. All this must be rooted in community, which after all is the only way to manifest in a historical and visible way the real work of God in this world, breaking down walls that divide us and building a new humanity.
"During these years the Church has fought for self-preservation as though it were an end in itself, and has thereby lost its chance to speak a word of reconciliation to humanity and to the world at large. So our traditional language must perforce become powerless and remain silent, and our Christianity will be confined to praying and doing right to our human brothers and sisters. Christian thinking, speaking and organizing must be reborn out of this praying and this action.. It will be a new language.. the language of a new righteousness and truth, which proclaims the peace of God with humankind and the advent of his kingdom." Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Letters and Papers from Prison"
"When we are looking for help from the right kind of people, "teachers" are not enough... We forget that the nurturing and caring relationship is inherent in effective teaching. Wisdom, after all, is more than data processing. Activism that is devoted to a cause can also be a poor substitute for relationships, because it is too busy to cultivate friendship. The Greek philosophers were wiser when they stated that "thought is not meaningful without action; and action is not meaningful without friendship." James Houston, "The Mentored Life"
"Use knowledge as a kind of scaffold by which to erect the building of love, which remains forever, even while knowledge is torn down. Knowledge, as a means to love, is highly useful; in itself, not as a means to such end, it has proven not only unnecessary but even harmful. I know, however, how your holy meditation keeps you safe under the shadow of the wings of God." Augustine to Januarius
Mary's Song
Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
His breath (so slight it seems
Into the Darkest Hour
It was a time like this,
It was time like this
And in a time like this
from Winter Song, Christmas Readings by Madeleine L'Engle and Luci Shaw
"The news of Saddam Hussein's capture came as I was finishing preparations for a Christmas sermon. The text at the heart of my message was Mary's song of praise from the second chapter of Luke's gospel:
He has shown strength with his arm;
Last night I went with a friend to view "The Return of the King." I was half expecting to be disappointed. After two great films and a long wait, it's tough not to have unrealistic expectations.
While there are a few differences, and many omissions, over the original book, I wasn't disappointed. This film, like the first two, adheres to the spirit of Tolkien's masterpiece even when it doesn't represent the actual events he imagined. My largest objection is to the first few minutes of the film, a flash-back to Smeagol's obtaining the Ring. The piece feels out of place, and is not a great introduction to the third book.
That caveat aside.. what an incredible trilogy Peter Jackson and crew have given to the world. It is simply astonishing. I can't help but wonder if we won't see a few more 3 hour movies and perhaps some other trilogies in the coming years. Jackson has written outside the lines, and as a pioneer has blazed a trail that other creative geniuses are likely to follow.
The Return of the King is not an easy movie to take in, even in three and a half hours. If I had the freedom to do so, I would be back again today for a second viewing. As it is, I'll certainly see the film again over the holidays.
My inner responses are many, including a sharpened sense of the meaning of covenant and sacrifice, leadership and courage. While all these things can be misplaced or distorted, they are ideals that are at the heart of the message of the gospel and the example of Jesus.
Christmas: the Season of Death and Taxes
Nothing in life is ever certain, right? I was settled as a cabinet maker in my home town, and one morning I was listening to the technology news when the radio related a census project. Using the latest software, it would be a state-of-the-art, quick and painless registration process for our entire State. The problem was that registration was based on ancestry, so it meant travel, and the old mule wasn't what she used to be.
Worse, my wife was pregnant and due very shortly. Some things won't wait, you know?
SO here we were, destined to travel to a small town that was likely to be severely overcrowded. And the reason for all this? According to the spin, the State government would be much more efficient if they knew who was who and who was where. But we knew the real reason: money. It was always about money.. or power. And the Governor had some expansion projects in mind. Oh.. and he complained that he couldn't properly maintain the roads or the police force without more funds. So what else is new?
This was all two years ago, and looking back now, it feels like a dark dream. We got to Bethlehem ok, but Days Inn was packed to the nines. We finally found a spot near the town dump in one of those cardboard cities that spring up overnight when no one has any cash or credit, and jobs are in short supply.
How I recall it was like this... We were giving up, heading for the edge of town, dog tired and even the mule starting to complain, when this drunk stumbles out of a dark doorway and comes up to me, three sheets to the wind..
Ragged and teetering like he's on the edge of a cliff, he says to me, "Got any spare change mister?"
So there I am, starting to explain that I need to save my money for a room for me and my wife, when I realize that there aren't any rooms to be had, and I had to give what I had for taxes anyway. And I just suddenly feel generous, and I dump a couple of shiny dollars into his hand. He looks at me like I'm an angel from heaven, and the shadows lift from his face, and he says, clear as a bell, as if he hasn't had a drink in years.. "I know where you and your wife can spend the night."
The next thing I knew we were in a barn at the edge of town, next to the dump and the cardboard city, warm and well kept, and David and his wife Rebecca fussing over Mary and I. David retired early, or headed back to the bar, but it turned out that Rebecca was a passable midwife.. Praise Yahweh!
It was a strange night, though, with strange voices and strange stars and strange visitors. A couple of shepherds turned up, and three foreign dignitaries, with gifts fit for a king. The shepherds had heard strange voices, and the ambassadors had seen the star.
The part I haven't told you about is the dreams... and the star or comet or whatever it was... But nevermind about that for the moment. This prophetic stuff always feels a bit spooky to me.
The rest is a bit of a blur. We signed up at the registry, were assessed our taxes, and we paid what we had to pay.
We got back to Nazareth with a new son. The relatives all dropped by, and we had the usual party. But a couple of weeks later we were fleeing for our lives, leaving the safety of our home, friends and family for a strange land. It's a good thing for the gold the ambassadors left us, or we wouldn't have had the money for the trip.
See, not long after my son was born, the Governor of the State issued an order for an ethnic purge. The children of entire villages disappeared from the face of the earth. We heard the story from a travelling merchant within a few days of the sickening event. What had been for us a season of rejoicing became for our province a season of pain.. like the birth pangs my wife had experienced shortly before. Everywhere was weeping and wailing and grief. One of my own cousins lost a son barely three days old, and his wife's arm was broken by the para-military men as they broke down the door.
It all seems so senseless. I mean... if the Lord can guide us by dreams, provide a place of safety for us to stay, then protect us and send us from danger by means of an angel in the night... surely he could have prevented all the bloodshed? Surely my cousin Rachel didn't have to lose her son.. for the sake of my son? Surely the Lord could have warned them too? I just don't understand...
I'm writing this letter from a small city in Egypt. It isn't safe to return home just yet. My boy Josh turns two years old tomorrow. But while we celebrate his birthday, I'll always remember the mixture of light and darkness that surrounded his first birthday. Maybe someday the world will be different. Maybe someday, maybe when God's kingdom comes, there will be no more death or poverty or taxes. Maybe the Messiah will change everything.
Until then we wait.. like a woman in transition.. for the birth of a new world. We wait in hope and longing for a city of justice that we haven't seen. We wait for God to wipe away every tear. We wait, like a young man waits to find the girl of his dreams, we wait for our One true love...
"For it is written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer."
By now some of you who visit my blog will know that a major scandal has erupted here in Kelowna. New Life Church has been connected with a ponzi scheme and investors have lost millions. There have been several arrests in the US, and the Securities and Trade Commission as well as the FBI are involved.
I've known of this scheme for years, and I've known of the implosion for a month or so. I personally know one of those at the head, and I know many who have lost all their savings.
One of the principals, John Devries, is a big hearted man with a powerful anointing to lead. He is a local businessman who has made millions in software development. For a time he led New Life Church while it was in transition, and he has a reputation for integrity that seems deserved.
But John got involved in this mess, and encouraged investors to come along, because he believed that part of the call of the Third Day church was to build wealth for the sake of the kingdom. What John did not understand was that anytime we bless the mixing of motives.. accumulation of capital and kingdom building.. we create a hothouse for the operation of our sinful human nature.
Naturally, this seed bed was tilled with the best of intentions. Never mind that it encouraged tax dodging of all kinds via offshore investments, sometimes edgy stuff which likely included failure to declare offshore income (those laws all changed a few years ago, and Canadians must now declare offshore earnings). This edgy approach to finances can be easy to justify since we are "not of this world."
But the heart of the issue for me has always been boundaries.
The only time we see Jesus really angry in Scripture is when he cleanses the moneychangers from the temple. I can imagine what those guys must have thought..
"Hey.. doesn't Jesus know that all life is sacred? I need to earn a living.."
"What in the... The Priests said this was ok.. and how are people supposed to make sacrifices if they can't buy the animals nearby?"
"What's wrong with making money in the temple?"
For many years one of the tensions my wife and I have experienced was watching as various financial enterprises became entwined with the operation of local churches. We've watched the building of individual empires.. the sales of tapes and books.. the money coming in for conferences and special schools.. with sadness and sometimes with anger. We've seen many excluded from meetings because they could not afford the $20 entrance fee. We've wept as we've read the sign outside the building: "Healing Conference: $75."
There is little doubt that Jesus could have made a great business of the gospel. Instead, he doesn't seem to have encouraged his disciples to lay anything aside, and he himself appears to have preferred poverty. He appears to have been convinced that it made sense to give something for nothing. That is not an easy sell in our day.
Richard Halverson, while he was US Senate Chaplain
Money increasingly drives everything in the western church. Those with money can hire the best speakers, and bring in the latest "personality." Those with money can build the largest buildings.. so that they can bring in more money and hire more staff to impact the community.
The problem is.. communities don't seem to be impacted. And as Winston Churchill pointed out, "We create our buildings, then our buildings create us." We create institutions.. and lose any real sense of community. We build large theaters that create passive audiences while a few gain celebrity. But the question before the church in our age is, "will we be congregations, or communities?"
It's time to wake up. Who needs buildings? The church in nations like China thrives without buildings, and often without clergy. Buildings require mortgages, money that could be spent on meeting concrete human needs. Buildings require and thus create fundraiders and marketers, not pastors and teachers. And if we want to witness to the love of God, we are better spending our funds on the poor. James himself appears to recommend it (James 1, 2), and Jesus ministry is all about mercy and justice.
The Lord God said when time was full
"We have become very preoccupied people, afraid of unnamable emptiness and silent solitude. In fact, our preoccupations prevent our having new experiences and keep us hanging on to the familar ways. Preoccupations are our fearful ways of keeping things the same, and it often seems that we prefer a bad certainty to a good uncertainty. Our preoccupations help us to maintain the personal world we have created over the years and block the way to revolutionary change. Our fears, uncertainties and hostilities make us fill our inner world with ideas, opinions, judgments and values to which we cling as to a precious property. Instead of facing the challenge of new worlds opening themselves for us, and struggling in the open field, we hide behind the walls of our concerns holding on to the familiar life items we have collected in the past...
"One day Carlos Castenada asked Don Juan how he could better live in accordance with his teaching. Don Juan explained that we maintain our world by our inner talk, and that we talk to ourselves until everything is as it should be, repeating our inner choices over and over, stayings always on the same path. If we would stop telling ourselves that the world is such and so, it would cease to be so!
"Didn't Jesus say that our worries prevent us from letting the kingdom, that is, the new age, come?"
Henri Nouwen, "Reaching Out"
"Most financial discussions focus on blog content and explore donations, advertising, or some type of sponsorship/patronage model as the means to compensate bloggers. Very little progress has been made towards finding viable economic models because people still think of Weblogs as personal sites. If you aren't Andrew Sullivan (who purportedly makes $6,000 per month on his site through donations), it's hard to imagine how you'd get the traffic and donations to generate such revenue....
"By paying great bloggers to produce Weblogs, we remove economic constraints and enable them to devote their energies full-time to producing compelling content and creating outstanding Weblogs."
Blogging for dollars.. can or should blogging be a means of income?
"The mark of solitude is silence, as the mark of speech is community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech.
"The speech, the word which establishes and binds together the fellowship, is accompanied by silence. "There is a time to speak, and a time to keep silent." As there are definite hours in the Christian's day for the Word, particularly the time of common worship and prayer, so the day also needs definite times of silence, silence under the Word and silence that comes out of the Word. These will be especially times before and after hearing the Word. The Word comes not to the chatterer but to him who holds his tongue. The stillness of the temple is the sign of the Holy presence of God in His Word...
"Silence is nothing else but waiting for God's Word and coming from God's Word with a blessing..."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Life Together"
"It is exactly in this willingness to know the other fully that we can really reach out to him or hear and become healers. Therefore, healing means, first of all, the creation of an empty but friendly space where those who suffer can tell their story to someone who can listen with real attention. It is sad that often this listening is interpreted as technique. We say, "Give him a chance to talk it out, it will do him good." And we speak about the "cathartic" effect of listening [as if] it will have a purging effect. But listening is an art that must be developed, not a technique that can be applied as a monkey wrench to nuts and bolts. It needs the full and real presence of people to each other. It is indeed one of the highest forms of hospitality." Henri Nouwen, "Reaching Out"
"I had taken off my fancy winter clothes and was standing on the heat register, warming my shoe soles and my bare legs.
There was a commotion at the front door. It openned.
Everyone surrounded me: "Look who's here! look who's here!"
I looked.
It was Santa Claus, whom I never, never wanted to meet. Santa Claus was standing in the doorway,
looking right at me.
Santa Claus was standing in the doorway, whom you never saw, but who nevertheless saw you..."
Santa Claus by Annie Dillard.
"The first service that one owes to others in the community consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His word, so the beginning of love to the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that He not only gives us His word, but lends us His ear. So it is His work we do for our brethren when we listen to them. Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must contribute something when they are in the company of others, that that is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.
"Many people are looking for an ear that can listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking when they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will no longer be listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but chatter in the presence of God too..." Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Life Together"
FOUR days until "The Return of the King."
SG: Stating the matter simply, “community” is central to my theological thinking because I am convinced that it is both at the heart of the biblical narrative and speaks clearly to the contemporary context. More specifically, I would add that community is crucial because it arises out of the very essence of God.
Our emerging church coffee group met this morning at the Bean Scene. I had a strong sense of sitting with giants.. men with great heart and great insight... "men of whom the world is not worthy." I felt incredibly privileged to associate with such as these, and myself felt unworthy to be among them. These honest and vulnerable, wise and compassionate guys are completely committed to God's kingdom and to His people and to see a new church born for a new day.
I did more listening today than I generally do.. and it was completely worthwhile. When you sit with the wise, listening is a valuable pursuit and silence is a wise response.
Two of our group had been at the informal gathering last weekend when Jim Houston, Professor of Spiritual Theology from Regent College and himself a man of great wisdom and experience (at 81 years of age) shared some thoughts and insights about the kingdom of God, transformation, and becoming. I wish I had been there.. but hearing and seeing the effect of his sharing on Nick and Stan was an experience in itself. I walked away with a book under my arm.. "The Mentored Life," authored by Houston and published last year by NAV PRESS. I'll share some things from Houston's book as well as from his own sharing in the next few days.
I feel in a strange space, and maybe you can pick up some of those vibrations as you read this. I could wish to fast from words for a time... and become a better listener and observer of the ways of God around me. In particular, I would like to be a better listener to my friends. I fear I have been too full of myself.. my own thoughts and evaluation.. I'd like to escape that for a while and listen more closely to the Spirit of the Lord. May the Lord be our teacher, yours and mine, as we journey forward.
Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey, pp. 1,2
We had hoped to put up the tree tonight.. there are few traditions that are more sacred in Canada, I think, and also few stranger. But when you have done this every year of your life and have so many memories attached to the smell of pine, the sparkling lights and the tinsel, it would be hard to imagine a Christmas without a tree in the living room.
This ritual of cutting the tree, placing it, decorating it, watering it, and generally having a large piece of nature take up a quarter of the living room for a month in the winter, has got to be the source of great mirth among social psychologists. It is just plain weird. And it is just plain close to our hearts.
Maybe there isn't really any better way to link the reality of the incarnation to the Creation itself. We import a piece of nature, we gather our families together, we drink hot buttered rum and eat oranges and chocolates. Like the wise men, we give gifts. Since Jesus was born more-or-less out of doors, and since much of the action in the birth narratives is similarly out of doors, why not bring nature along for the ride? Now if we could only convert our ceiling into glass so the real stars could twinkle on the scene, we would really have something going...
The Shepherd by F. Buechner
Seven days until release of Return of the King..
Today I submitted the complete installation package for my first add-on for Forgotten Battles. Next week at the latest I will submit my installation package for D-Day, 1944 for Microsoft CFS 3. Exciting to finally have these out of my hands and to the publisher.
Now I have to organize a crew for the next projects. I have two in mind, and my current publisher has expressed interest in both of them. They would be D-Day, 1944 for Forgotten Battles, and an unnamed add-on for the latest jet simulation Lock-On.
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Reading randomly this morning, and ended up in the early chapters of Jeremiah. Yikes.. what a calling. There are times I have felt the same.. compelled to speak against certain issues, and reaping scorn as a result. Not long before we left our church in Kelowna in 2000 we started an "unauthorized" gathering which created a lot of bad feelings. We were accused of having no covering, among other things. But we felt compelled to do something to care for the wounded and battered bodies which were increasingly in evidence.
When we finally left the church the "presenting problem" was the tithing issue, of which we had heard too much, but too little of it with any biblical basis. Instead, the prophetic was trumpeted as a call to give, and even to tithe on income not yet received! Good grief.. it's hard for me to believe anyone can teach such a thing and call it biblical.
I wrestle with what a prophetic voice should look like in our time. Some of the most harsh words spoken in Scripture appear in the New Testament, and are spoken not to unbelievers but to the Church (Rev. 3:15-17). Maybe we need to be reminded that Jesus warned us, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you."
Obviously, we should strive to "live at peace with all men," and to love all. Anyone who strives for a reputation as a prophet is either completely crazy or a masochist. But it is heartbreaking to look clearly at the modern Church.
"For My people have committed two evils"
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns-- broken cisterns that hold no water." Jeremiah 2:13
For my daughters 16th birthday this year we bought her the guitar she wanted.. a lovely red Jackson electric. Unfortunately, she now has to save up for an amp...
But she is becoming quite a musician.. even impressing some fairly good musicians she knows. Elise now plays both guitar and piano quite well, but is more inspired by the guitar.
She has also managed to make friends with some other musicians who aren't yet believers. Typical parents, this worries us a bit, but we are also proud of her ability to take a loving stand, yet befriend those outside her own circles. It's pretty cool.
..and you've never even heard of St. Patrick's breastplate?
Unrelated, some of the writings of that incisive sociologist Jacques Ellul
"In the tradition of pilgrimage ... hardships are seen not as accidental but as integral to the journey itself. Treacherous terrain, bad weather, taking a fall, getting lost -- challenges of that sort, largely beyond our control, can strip the ego of the illusion that it is in charge and make space for true self to emerge. If that happens, the pilgrim has a better chance to find the sacred center he or she seeks. Disabused of our illusions by much travel and travail, we awaken one day to find that the sacred center is here and now -- in every moment of the journey, everywhere in the world around us, and deep within our own hearts."
Parker J. Palmer, from Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
Recent discoveries in the field of physics indicate that time travel may be possible. Hmm... better see "Back To The Future" again. I have a feeling that it may be possible, but that the Lord will bring us all home before we get there.
Nine days in the countdown to release of "The Return of the King." That means if you haven't read the books, there is still time :)
"If someone were to come to you and say, “I want to immerse myself in this way of pastoring and living—give me a way to start doing this,” how might you direct them?"
"There are basic things like developing a prayer life and keeping a Sabbath. I think keeping a Sabbath is a big thing, because it breaks the cycle of obsessiveness when, one day a week, you aren’t going to do anything.
"Here’s one thing that I’ve done with a few people and I think it’s worth thinking about. I tell these men and women, “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."
How so?
"Well, 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. I remember we had a financial campaign for our building. We went through three building campaigns while I was with this congregation. One of my elders came to me and said, “Now Eugene, this is really important. I want you to visit the people who have the capacity to give. I want you to really work with them. We’ve got to get this campaign going.” I went away from that and thought, “You know, I don’t think I’m going to do that.” So for the next six months I didn’t visit anybody who had any leadership ability or ability to give. I spent my time with the widows, the unemployed, just to break the seduction of that. It didn’t make any difference; we still got the money we needed. But I think it would have hurt me; every time I looked at somebody, I would have been thinking, “How much can we get from him?”
From an interview with Eugene Peterson in "Cutting Edge"
Orphan Project is thoroughly modern rock that grips the listener with it's emotionally charged lyrics, artistically intricate melodies, and unmatched musicianship.
In his latest project, Shane explores the topic of adoption from his very personal experience. Elements of longing for acceptance, desire to establish an identity, coupled with a real sense of peace that comes only from above, pervade the new lyrical verse entitled "Orphan Found". The depth of feeling and the joy of this story carry you from beginning to end of this amazing piece. He aims to make you laugh, break your heart, and let you take a glimpse of the pure joy that he has found in his search for his true Father.
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and found at "My Four Walls.."
The real fellowship of the ring, how J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis' all-night argument about God paved the way for both "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Chronicles of Narnia."
"No, these are not Jesus Christ's words to the Muslims, the Buddhists, the atheists or the new-age designer-religion peddlers. They are Jesus Christ's words to His church just prior to the end of the church age. Very likely, they are His words directed to the church you and I attend. They are his assessment that the church, which He loves and for whom He died, has lost its heart, mind, and soul even as it professes His words." McMillan at Worldnet Daily
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In a response in the comments, Casey reminded me of a good biblical word. It's the word katartidzo, and it is translated "equipped" in the NT. The word appears in interesting places, and is used for mending nets, repairing (healing and reconnecting) a broken limb, in 1 Timothy (fully equipped) as well as in the famous passage in Ephesians 4..
So I wonder.. we have tended to think of equipping as something that happens via teaching, and we tend to relate it to learning and to an individual process. But I think it is a communal and relational process and at the heart of community building. Until we are connected one to another Christ will not be formed in us. In Ephesians 4 it is at the point of connection that Christ is revealed.
"He was rejected and despised..."
What do you think.. did Jesus have a "spirit of rejection?" I can't imagine that being the case.. But living on the edge must have given Jesus a perspective not shared by those in the establishment.
Over the years in the repeated attempts I have made to connect with various churches, I've eventually found myself on the outside. I'm not too naive.. I know I could have done better in most situations. I could have done better communicating my frustration.. I could have done better communicating my own hopes and dreams. In many cases I could have been more patient and more gracious.
But in the end, I usually found I was talking a different language. I generally felt like I was speaking from one culture to another.. that the barrier was cross-cultural. The result was a huge communication challenge, and frustration. Generally, I was blamed for being.. you guessed it.. impatient and critical. There was generally some truth in the charge, but it was never the whole truth.
I can't help feeling that even when it was painful to live on the edge, there was redemptive value. Being on the outside looking in is a powerful motivator to identify with those on the edge. Many times my wife and I came to identify with those outside the system, those who were considered complainers, malcontents, and the walking wounded. The groups we had in our home were generally a mixture of those who did not fit in, those who could not fit in, and those who were tired of trying to fit in.
From that place on the edge of the camp the center looked very much different than it did from any place inside the camp. While we were often leaders, and so had some perspective of the "inner ring," we found ourselves attempting to build bridges from the outer circle to the inner one. Those busy in the inner ring had little understanding of "the view from the pew." Our success in trying to bring understanding was limited. Occasionally we felt the truth of the words of the aphorism, "Those who would be bridges will be walked on by both sides."
There is a call on us to build bridges. We build in faith and hope, and the reality we see expressed is limited. In this too, we live "between the times."
This website has been another way for me to build bridges.. between the modern church and the emerging church. Most of my encouragement and support to work at this task has been from you, the readers and writers and friends who share this same journey. I've taken the opportunity to thank some of you in person, and in the footnotes (GRIN), but I want to say it here also.. thanks for your encouragement. Thanks for your many notes of affirmation. Thanks for sharing your experiences and your questions.
Thanks for the work you yourselves do as bridge builders. Many of you have experienced similar rejection and trials to what we have experienced. Yet you keep on trying. You are gracious when criticized. You identify with the One who lived outside the camp. You encourage those around you to keep on following Jesus in their daily lives, to build the church and work for the coming kingdom in many small and unseen ways. You do this with little credit and perhaps little support or understanding.
But always there is One who sees and who knows, and who gives you strength to carry on. Together we work for the city we have not seen, whose builder is God.
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There must be some out there who are intercessors.. the experience is new to me. I have sat with others on a Sunday morning trying to hold back tears as I feel the stuff around me.. isolation and loneliness mostly... and I hardly know what to do with it. Even thinking about community building has me near to tears these days.
There is a huge cry from the heart of the Body of Christ for connection and for relationship. I don't believe it is really being heard; and where it is heard it is almost overwhelming. I find myself feeling very tender about these issues. Perhaps the Lord Himself is very tender about it.
My wife was an intercessor before me. It's not a gift I want. This past Sunday she left midway through the gathering to walk and pray. I probably should have done the same, but I was too curious to see what would be sensed and done in response to the feeling of disconnect.
It's a huge challenge.. what do you do in a gathering when the connection seems missing? Do you try to get even more spiritual, or do you just acknowledge the disconnect and open a dialogue about it? Do you break into groups so people can share their struggles and feel less alone (not all will be comfortable there either)... Do you scrap the sermon and go somewhere else?
Our tendency is to get more spiritual (more worship, more prayer), the theory being if we can connect people with God we have a solid foundation for community. The alternate theory is that people won't go there until they feel a personal connection with those around them.. that our heart hunger for connection with God will be met through His people first. I tend to the latter camp. What do you think?
In past years I have often thought how terrible it is that the world has commercialized Christmas. Oddly, this year it isn't hitting me that way. In fact, this year I am thinking.. O degenerate that I am.. how nice it is that the pagan world at least acknowledges Christmas.
True, the pagan world does not acknowledge the birthday of the Creator of the Universe. They don't acknowledge that "A Savior is born today.. even Christ the Lord."
Rather, the pagan world speaks of holy things in the only language it knows.. and that is in a "secular" language. But wait a minute.. if that language is the language of friendship... giving.. family.. and "good will toward men.." is their language really so secular? These are good ideals, and ones Christians also embrace.
You know, strange as it seems to me, I am turning around and recognizing the common ground. I am repenting of my previous attitude and seeing "common grace" around me. While on the one hand I decry the commercialism I see in the Church, I applaud the tiny glimmers of light I see in the world. I am no longer fish nor fowl. I no longer see the sharp distinction between the holiness of the Church and the profanity of the world.. both are a mixture of darkness and light.
And I wonder.. what would Jesus see? When the King of all Kings was born in a barn (likely a cave behind a tavern according to the scholars), when He awoke in the world, maybe a bit cold, in the smells of musty hay and cow dung... when the sacred welcomed the secular, when Spirit and flesh were joined.. "and the world that was lost in darkness saw a great light.." did not all the angels of heaven rejoice in the goodness of the common things.
I don't think Jesus has a problem with anything the world has done with His birthday. He simply invites them to a larger vision of its meaning, in the same way as He invites us all to embrace the meaning of His coming in our everyday lives.
PS.. the new issue of Next Wave is up.
PPS.. drop in potluck at our place in Kelowna Sunday, Dec.7th..
"My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not;
Out of strange strife thy peace is strangely wrought;
By loss on loss I have severely gained
Less hopeless far the miser man might try
"Yet hints come to me from the realm unknown;
from "Diary of an Old Soul," by George Herbert.
"I know a guy who is pretty smart. Here is a passing comment made as we were talking about church "growth."
"To be honest, I don't really think about it anymore. I've pretty much rejected the idea that I can "grow" anything, not just using marketing-driven approaches to growth. In plain english, I no longer consider how I can help ________ as an organization grow numerically in any shape or form. Having said that, I am intensely concerned for how the reign of God is being established in the lives and activities of the people around me.
"Here's an example: I have a friend who works for an inner-city youth ministry. He is coming out of the matrix (him and his wife may come in Feb.) and is wrestling with the competing values of his organization. He wants to see his kids discipled into Christlikeness, his organization wants a weekly report on the number of conversions.
"He cannot come to our gathering on Friday nights often and he's so busy he doesn't have time to just "hang out" informally like the rest of us. So in the classical church-growth sense, investing time in him is, well, a waste of time. He won't bring people into our community, he won't start a "normal" faith community like ours, he can't "add value" to our organization. But there is kingdom stuff happening all around him, and I want to help and support what he's doing. So, I'm helping him begin to ask the right questions in regards to inner city youth becoming disciples of Jesus.
"I think there are countless opportunities for "kingdom growth" like this literally right under our noses.
"Why don't we really get radical for once? Yes, I know it wasn't easy to get the word radical understood as an adjective appropriate to discipleship. And yes, it was even harder to get revolution and revolutionary so understood. But do you think it a bit more than the traffic can bear for me now to push on to anarchy? Do you see me going from bad to worse? Not so. I stand prepared to show that to go from revolution to anarchy is to go from wrong to right, from misunderstanding to understanding, from unbiblical to biblical, from world to gospel. And yes, it will take another transforming renewal of our minds to understand anarchy as the gospel, the good news it actually is.
"The word is ANARCHY. The prefix ("an-") is the equivalent of the English "un-," meaning "not"; it does not particularly mean "anti-" or against. Thus, we are speaking of that which is more not something than it is opposed to or against something. The "-archy" root (which I have made into an English term spelled a-r-k-y) is a common Greek word that means "priority," "primacy," "primordial," "principal," "prince," and the like. (Look at that last sentence and realize that "pri-" is simply the Latin equivalent of the Greek "arky.") The most frequent appearance of "arky" in the New Testament is translated as "beginning." Indeed, in Colossians 1:18 Paul actually identifies Jesus as "the beginning," "the prime," "THE ARKY." However, our particular concern with the word is in Paul's writings where it is translated "principalities." Clearly, the apostle assumes that we live in a world with arkys filled that threaten to undo us--and those constantly battling each other for primacy.
"For us, then, "arky" identifies any principle of governance claiming to be of primal value for society. "Government" (that which is determined to govern human action and events) is a good synonym--as long as we are clear, that political arkys are far from being the only "governments" around. Not at all; churches, schools, philosophies, social standards, peer pressures, fads and fashions, advertising, planning techniques, psychological and sociological theories--all are arkys out to govern us.
"Anarchy" ("unarkyness"), it follows, is simply the state of being unimpressed with, disinterested in, skeptical of; nonchalant toward, and uninfluenced by the highfalutin claims of any and all arkys. And "Christian Anarchy"--the special topic of this book--is a Christianly motivated "unarkyness." Precisely because Jesus is THE ARKY, the Prime of Creation, the Principal of All Good, the Prince of Peace and Everything Else, Christians dare never grant a human arky the primacy it claims for itself Precisely because God is the Lord of History we dare never grant that it is in the outcome of the human arky contest that the determination of history lies.
"Obviously, the idea of "power" goes hand in hand with "arky"; the two are inseparable. Indeed, every time Paul uses "arky" in the sense of "principalities," he couples it with one of the Greek "power" words. Yet regarding both "power" and "arky" we must make a crucial specification: we are always supposing a power or a government that is imposed upon its constituency. It is, of course, proper to speak of, say, "the power of love." Yet this is power in an entirely different sense of the word in that it carries no hint of imposition at all. Looking only at the phrase itself; "the kingdom of God" would appear to be an "arky" no different from the others. Yet we will come to see that this is not so. When Jesus said "My kingdom is not of this world," he was saying that, although all worldly arkys have to be impositional, his is radically different in that it does not have to be--and in fact is not.
"This matter of an arky's being imposed leads us to the helpful term "heteronomy"--namely, that law or rule which is "different from," "other than," or "extraneous to" whomever it would govern. All worldly arkys are by nature heteronomous--each is out to impose its idea of what is right upon whoever has any different idea.
"Consequently, for secular anarchists the solution is "autonomy"--the self being a law unto itself (which is what we customarily have understood "anarchy" to be). However, Christianity contends that autonomy is simply another form of heteronomy, that to use my own self-image as the arky governing myself is actually to impose a heteronomous arky upon me. The assumption that I am the one who best knows myself and knows what is best for myself is to forget that I am a creature (a sinful creature, even) and that there is a Creator who, being my Creator (and also being somewhat smarter than I am), knows me much better than I ever can know myself.
"For Christian anarchists, then, the goal of anarchy is "theonomy"--the rule, the ordering, the arky of God."
Christian Anarchy: Jesus Primacy Over the Powers
Vernard Eller on Christi-Anarchy.
"Community is the place of forgiveness. In spite of all the trust we may have in each other, there are always words that wound, self-promoting attitudes, situations where susceptibilities clash. That is why living together implies a cross, a constant effort, an acceptance which is daily, and mutual forgiveness.
"Too many people come into community to find something, to belong to a dynamic group, to discover a life which approaches the ideal. If we come into community without knowing the reason we come is to learn to forgive and be forgiven seven times seventy-seven times, we will soon be disappointed.
"But forgiveness is not simply saying to someone who has had a fit of anger, slammed the doors and behaved in an anti-social way: 'I forgive you.' When people have power and are well settled in community, it is easy to 'wield' forgiveness.
"To forgive is also to understand the cry behind the behavior. People are saying something through their anger and/or anti-social behavior. Perhaps they feel rejected. Perhaps they feel that no one is listening to what they have to say or maybe they feel incapable of expressing what is inside them. Perhaps the community is being too rigid or too legalistic and set in its ways; there may even be a lack of love and of truth. To forgive is also to look into oneself and to see where one should change, where one should also ask for forgiveness and make amends.
"To forgive is to recognize again -- after separation -- the covenant which binds us together with those we do not get along with well; it is to be open and listening to them once again. It is to give them space in our hearts. That is why it is never easy to forgive. We too must change. We must learn to forgive and forgive and forgive every day, day after day. We need the power of the Holy Spirit in order to open up like that." Jean Vanier, "Community and Growth"
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