holy heteroclite:

church is not "called out ones," but "something tangible you can live in"

2012-01-30T22:13:00.000-08:00

Frank Viola ( see "Frank Viola impersonates Dirty Harry/talks community"), from the book on the left in this photo:

“Our English word church is translated from the
Greek word ekklesia. When we hear the word church, one of the following images usually pops into our heads: a building with a steeple on it; a Sunday morning service; a denomination; a pastor; a pulpit; pews; a worship team (or choir); and a sermon. Or we think of all the Christians in the entire world
.

Like ‘nice’ and ‘pagan,’ the word ekklesia has morphed since the first century. Back then, it did not mean “called out ones” as is sometimes taught. Consistently, the word meant a local community of people who assemble together regularly.

The word was used for the Greek assembly whereby those in the community were “called forth” from their private lives to meet (assemble) in the town forum to make decisions for their city. Consequently, the word also carries the flavor of every-member participation in decision-making. According to the New Testament, the church of Jesus Christ is not a place where one buries the dead and marries the living. It’s a community of people who gather together and who possess a shared life in Christ. As such, the ekklesia is visible, touchable, locatable, and tangible. You can visit it. You can observe it. And you can live in it.” -Frank Viola, “From Eternity to Here”, pp. 280-281

"the laws of remorse are restored..Vengeance belongs to the bored/Lord"

2012-01-30T22:02:00.000-08:00

Leonard Cohen, "Amen":

Tell me again when I've been to the river
And I've taken the edge off my thirst
Tell me again when we're alone and I'm listening Listening so hard that it hurts
Tell me again when I'm clean and
sober
Tell me again when I've been to the river
And I've taken the edge off my thirst
Tell me again when we're alone and I'm listening Listening so hard that it hurts
Tell me again when I'm clean and sober
Tell me again when I've seen through the horror Tell me again, tell me over and over
Tell me that you want me then
Amen, Amen, Amen... Amen

Tell me again when the victims are singing
And the laws of remorse are restored
Tell me again that you know what I'm thinking
But vengeance belongs to the lord
Tell me again when I'm clean and I'm sober
Tell me again when I've seen through the horror Tell me again, tell me over and over
Tell me that you love me then
Amen, Amen, Amen... Amen

Tell me again when the day has been ransomed And the night has no right to begin
Try me again when the angels are panting
And scratching at the door to come in
Tell me again when I'm clean and I'm sober
Tell me again when I've seen through the horror Tell me again, tell me over and over
Tell me again that you need me then
Amen, Amen, Amen... Amen

Tell me again when the filth of the butcher
Is washed in the blood of the lamb
Tell me again when the rest of the culture
Has passed through the eye of the cam
Tell me again when I'm clean and I'm sober
Tell me again when I've seen through the horror Tell me again, tell me over and over
Tell me that you love me then
Amen, Amen, Amen... Amen

Pretty hilarious: there's an online debate about whether the line is
"Vengeance belongs to the Lord"
or
"Vengeance belongs to the bored"

Thank God for the Evil Empire (Google)

2012-01-30T21:51:00.000-08:00

Google might indeed be partly evil...(like any system, or any big "brothr")..

....but for whatever reason they did this, celebrate!

"Google...is awarding grants of $8 million to two International Justice Mission [a Christian -based organization] -led coalitions in India to fight human trafficking. Most of IJM's funding comes from private donations; less than 1 percent of its $446 million budget in 2010 came from major corporations or their foundations"- Christianity Today, 2/12

don't seek first the Kingdom, and don't make God your top priority!

2012-01-26T20:51:00.000-08:00

If you think about it, and look at context, it's obvious that "seek first the Kingdom" cannot be what Jesus means.

"First" implies one would seek something second, third, etc. But he says "seek...the Kingdom, and all these things [food, clothes etc] will be added to you." Not: "seek the Kingdom, and then you can seek food , clothes." No, "all these things" are given you, without you seeking them at all. They are a by-product of seeking the one thing.

To seek them..even sincerely; even secondly... would be idolatry.
"Purity of heart," Kierkegaard said, "is to will one thing."
Christianity is seeking one thing: the Kingdom thing.

How often have you seen it suggested (here in the West, of course, that our priority list should follow this order:

God>family>church etc etc.

Give it up. Get your priorities right, and ditch the priority list.

Read Joel Green (below) carefully and carefully; and then check out Matthew 6 all over again:

When Jesus calls on would-be disciples to "seek first the Kingdom," is he thinking of a list of priorities with "my relationship with God" at the head? In fact, a closer reading of this part of the Sermon on the Mount may indicate that putting God at the top of our list of priorities is precisely what we must never do.

Some may take offense at this suggestion. After all, they may say, look at the passage! Doesn't Matthew 6:25-24 teach just this order of priorities? Doesn't it say, "Don't put food and drink first; don't put clothing concerns first; rather, out the Kingdom of God first'?" On the basis of this passage, should we not say that "seeking first God's kingdom" must occupy the top spot on our list of priorities? Is this not what Jesus is teaching?"

Maybe be can get closer to the meaning of this passage if we paraphrase Matthew 6:33 differently. Consider these alternatives: "Let the Kingdom of God be at the center of your life...not at the top."
"Let the Kingdom of God set the standards for your life." "Let the kingdom of God determine how you live, how you work, how you communicate, how you play." These alternative readings make good on the fact that the Greek word often translated "first" in this context, proton, is used in the gospels not only to denote "the first in a series," but also "that upon which everything hinges."

In other words, do not put the Kingdom of God first on your priority list; rather, let the Kingdom of God determine your priority list! [emphasis mine]

In order to measure our response to Jesus' message in Matthew 6:33, we must ask more than, have I prayed today, or have I read the Bible today? As important as those spiritual disciplines are, they are not the heart of Jesus' message here. We must go further, deeper. We must begin to ask: What had God's kingdom to do with the job I am doing? The way I drive? The church I attend? The friends I have? How I relate to my next-door neighbor. And so on. -Joel Green, The Kingdom of God: It's Meaning and Mandate, pp. 68-69 (review and summary here)

"the impeded stream is the one that sings"

2012-01-26T12:28:00.001-08:00

Wendell Berry:

"There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings."- Wendell Berry, "Marriage, Too, May Have Something to Teach Us"

can pastors also go with the flow....of the ringtone?

2012-01-24T13:10:00.000-08:00

Churches sure love/hate how they have to deal with cell phone interruptions of worship services.
Some amazing stories are out there.

Of course my favorite video that one church actually uses to enforce their cell phone policy (with some radical humor) is here.":one church's policy on cell phones in church."
(see also "No Cell Phones During Baptisms!!!"

You can probably guess what our church's policy is after a life may have been saved because a vistor took a call "in church."

There was a recent news story (I sure wish their was video about what the conductor of the NY Philharmonic did when interrupted by a call phone.

here: "Violinist interrupted by Nokia ringtone, plays the ringtone.
." But the real treat is the video below.

Which style pastor/conductor are you?

Google as jealous lover

2012-01-24T12:27:00.000-08:00

"Lay down your treasure
Lay it down now brother
You don't have time
For a jealous lover

As you enter this life
I pray you depart
With a wrinkled face
And a brand new heart"
-U2, "Love and Peace Or Else"
-"

Two good links

Why Google owes you nothing
Google swerves, allows nicknames on Google+

Jewish pros and cons: judging a book by its (back) cover as better than the swimsuit issue

2012-01-23T16:05:00.000-08:00

There is hardly any greater pleasure in life for an unrepentant bibliophile than to find a great book you didn't even know existed..

...and to find it at a thrift store (where theophanies happen) and thus the price is right.

This time the book that found me OK, there was more than one, you can stalk my stash here) was "Beyond the Graven Image: a Jewish View."

But this is not yet a review, as all I've read is the back cover and a bit of the index!

And that's what i'd like to comment on.
(By the way, check out this quick clip (and quip) if you hate it when people review books they haven't read!).

Here's what stands out.
It's not many books where I actually underline phrases on the back cover!
Here's the back cover summary:

The proscription against using images in worship sets Judaism, together with Islam, apart from all other religious systems. In Beyond the Graven Image, Lionel Kochan explains the reasons for this prohibition and demonstrates how influential this image-ban has been in determining key aspects of Jewish thinking. Has the Biblical prohibition made the Jews a people of the ear rather than of the eye? The attraction of idols stems from their physical imagery and visual appeal. What distinguishes God from the "other gods," Kochan argues, is God's invisibility. As God communicates directly with people through voice, material entities purporting to transmit divine messages are deemed false. The worship of idols is seen as the ultimate form of disobedience. Such tenets have profound ramifications for Jewish thinking. The denigration of idol worship leads within Judaism to an attempt to devalue the material world. Symbolism is viewed with skepticism, as is representational art. Kochan argues that the Jewish conceptions of holiness and symbolism, our relationship with God, and the role of memory in religion, as well as the preference for non-material arts such as music over visual modes of artistic expression within Judaism, have all been shaped by the prohibition against physical representations of God. link

So between that, and a brief look, here's my working list of potential pros and cons of a classic Jewish prespective (not to be confused with Jewish pros, as in professionals ( I do know one.) or Jewish cons (as in convicts or con men. I don't know any).

A Jewish worldview/hermeneutic may enable a natural propensity to (the "pro"s)" the following

a) intuit and "get"...epistemologically, hermeneutically, and midrashically speaking ...the following(the "pro"s):

The primacy of sound over sight ("people of the ear rather than the eye..", "preference for music", Shema etc.see posts below labeled sound theory, synesthesia, string theory, and readd Ong, Webb and Rabbi Jose Faur)
the power of symbol/semiotics/parable ('holiness and symbolism," see posts labeled: metaphor, parable)
holistic, Hebraic (of course) and kairotic view of time, as well as its arrow and arc (chapter 7, see posts labeled "time")
sensitivity to what Tschetter might call "the issue of the swimsuit issue"...(see posts labeled: images)
primacy of elevation over sublimation (see posts labeld: elevation, sexuality, especially this )

b)be "accidentally attracted to" (the "con"s):

gnosticism/dualism/bounede setness ("...denigate the material world")
fear of visual art and "image" ("symbolism is viewed with skepticism", see posts labeled "images")

All these tendencies, the author argues, are directly tied and tethered to the thoroughgoing "denigration of idol worship: inevitably built into (hardwired and heartwired) Judaism.

And the author wrestles with Maimonedes, Spinoza and Heschel.

I like it already..

the story of Dave the Just and the Am-Vet Thriift Store Theophany (with stunning non-Photoshopped evidence)

2012-01-23T14:57:00.000-08:00

See the shining Shekinah lights in this photo above?

Me, too...that's why I took it. I mean, how do you encounter a theophany and not snap a pic to tell and show?

Okay, kidding, sort of.

Sometimes shekinah-moments are more subtle (just hanging out eating a banana..ha, great Larry Randolph line )than that.

Actually when I snapped the pic, I didn't even notice the shining
glory.

I think it was more a product of me grabbing a photo before anyone thought I was a stalker, and thus before I worried about how the focus and light would look.

Then i sent it to Facebook mobile to remind me to upload it here. But on a whim, I added the comment:

"story behind this pic to follow..but feel free to make one up until i post it ."

I love the answer i got already:

Dick Grady Walk to the light.................

Lol..that ATM does look beckoning..but it's a siren..."Welcome to the Machine.."

But that's another post.

The backstory?

It's told in a post several years back, excerpted below.

But suffice to say I took the pic is hallowed and holy ground.

Jesus met me there.

In the for of a wonderful woman whose name I don't even know.

And that's the point, as you'll see.

We can all locate in our memory, history, and actual geography places where our life changed unexpectedly. Where were you on 9:11? When someone you loved said "I do"...or "I'm leaving.."

This serendipitous shake-up call began with two words which I hardly hear anymore, as I prefer

to be called "Dave" and not by any title that i may or may not be...well, entitled to (Which is funny, because sometimes when I tell our congregation, or classes and retreats I teach that I am "just Dave," they turn that into a title: "Just (as in "Righteouss" Dave."(:

At least it's not "Dave the Just."

On to the two words, and the source of the shekinah at the Shields Avenue Am-Vets Thrift Store,

I should call it Beth-El and build an altar there.

Instead I simply snapped a photo on my cell phone.

Same thing.

Not long ago, a woman...obviously from a previous (and much larger) church I pastored... came up to me in a store, "Hey, Pastor Dave! Long time, no see! Your sermons absolutely changed my life!" I was thrilled and honored; but I didn't have the heart to tell her the whole truth: Not only did I have no idea of who she was; she had no inkling that I would not know. We both knew we had never had a face-to-face conversation; that was not the issue. But in a larger church (too large for the senior pastor to know everyone's name), there is the "Johnny Carson" syndrome at work. Carson was swamped by people whenever he went out in public who called him by first name; after all he was in their bedroom every night (via "The Tonight Show"). The false intimacy that dogs media stars can be even more damaging in the church context. I could tell the woman would be crushed if I admitted I had no idea who she was...most likely a quiet there-every-Sunday "22nd pew" saint; but I had no memory of ever seeing her. The default church culture automatically attributes omniscience to the senior pastor (He or she will not only know my name, but know when/where I am in the hospital, etc.) . Of course this is impossible with thousands, even hundredes of attenders; but as skewed and doomed as this expectation is, it is originally based on a basic biblical truth: shepherds are supposed to know their sheep; even call them by name. Jesus flatly calls any other kind a thief. - Full article here

I can no longer imagine myself pastoring a church larger than...well, the number of names and peeps/sheeps I can truly know. I am glad when other pastors are called to shepherd larger flocks (and they know the secret is to become a "rancher" and to utilize "undershpherds."

So today and what may well be the tenth anniversary of that thrift store conversation..

I stopped on the way home to feed my addiction (used books, of course! Did you think I shop for used underwear.

So thanks to the nameless (to me) vets who benefited from my purchase.

Thanks to the nameless (to my shame) wonderful woman who felt compelled to thank me that day.

Thanks to her I stand on holy ground which can even include the 22nd pew) at the shiny shekinah thrift store on Shields.

Oh, here is today's stash below, but I took home something far more valuable..

"I Think I'm Going to Throw Up"

2012-01-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

Which would you choose: Jesus or heaven?

2012-01-19T17:43:00.000-08:00

Which would you choose? (Parable by Peter Rollins):

You sit in silence contemplating what has just taken place. Only moments ago you were alive and well, relaxing at home with friends. Then there was a deep, crushing pain in your chest that brought you crashing to the floor. The pain has now gone, but you are no longer in your home. Instead, you find yourself standing on the other side of death waiting to stand before the judgment seat and discover where you will spend eternity. As you reflect upon your life your name is called, and you are led down a long corridor into a majestic sanctuary with a throne located in its center. Sitting on this throne is a huge, breathtaking being who looks up at you and begins to speak.
“My name is Lucifer, and I am the angel of light.”
You are immediately filled with fear and trembling as you realize that you are face to face with the enemy of all that is true and good. Then the angel continues: “I have cast God down from his throne and banished Christ to the realm of eternal death. It is I who hold the keys to the kingdom. It is I who am the gatekeeper of paradise, and it is for me alone to decide who shall enter eternal joy and who shall be forsaken.”
After saying these words, he sits up and stretches out his vast arms. “In my right hand I hold eternal life and in my left hand eternal death. Those who would bow down and acknowledge me as their god shall pass through the gates of paradise and experience an eternity of bliss, but all those who refuse will be vanquished to the second death with their Christ.”
After a long pause he bends toward you and speaks, “Which will you choose?”-Peter Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales

"From Eternity To Here" by...huh?

2012-01-17T23:05:00.001-08:00

Two great books...but look carefully:

How in the world does this happen without copyright/lawsuit issues?
Identical title and color scheme.. Absolutely no accident. Both books came out about the same time, and are completely unrelated as far as content. Looks like the Christian one (l) came out first, and then the physics one, at least by copyright date and Amazon's listed date of publication. (I was hoping it wasn't the other way around. My fear was the Christian publisher had stolen the cover of the secular one)..

So I really wonder what the story is. It's crazy and must cause confusion., It did for me. When I saw the book on the right in the store, I thought "How funny, someone stuck Viola's Christian book under the science section." So I'll tag the. authors on Facebook: Frank Viola and Sean M. Carroll and see wbat happens.

Anyone know the story?
Both great books, btw.

Update: Frank Viola responded on Facebook:

Frank Viola Thanks for your inquiry and for copying me in. And more, for the kind words about the book. Yes, you are correct, my book came out first, some 8 or 9 months earlier as I recall. It was on Amazon (with the cover) many months before it releas...ed. I remember when a friend of mine found the other book almost a year later on another site. The publisher and I were amazed by the same title and similar cover. Nevertheless, I don't believe in judging motives and concluded that it was just a coincidence. So I applaud Mr. Carroll for a compelling title. And I do like his cover as well. :-) If the truth be told, James Jones stole our title some 50 years earlier . . . he just reversed two of the words ;-)See More

.Dave Wainscott Frank, thanks so much for filling us in. I love the way you handled it..you know this was no accident, even if it was subconscious. Will be interesting to hear what Sean Carroll or his publisher says. And yes, I do love the book, will post a review soon. Thanks so much for all you do in the Kingdom. Blessings!

"only two things that draw me back from evangelical celebrity"

2012-01-17T14:44:00.000-08:00

Rachel Held Evans:

When I feel that pull of evangelical celebrity, there are only two things that draw me back to center:

1) Friends and family who will call me on my crap
2) Structured prayer

-full post here

time travel by circling light

2012-01-17T14:32:00.000-08:00

"Ronald L. Mallett, PhD, is a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Connecticut. He discovered a possible way to travel in time by applying Einstein's theory of relativity to laser light moving in a circle. The program uses CGI to illustrate his theories. Mallett was one of the first African-Americans to obtain a PhD in theoretical physics. He was inspired to do so because he wished to travel back in time to visit his dead father, who died when Mallett was ten." link

-

James Jones: why does "no one ever explain" the temple tantrum?

2012-01-17T13:48:00.000-08:00

Some revolutionaries from all nations overlooking the Temple Mount, on our 2004 trip

From James Jones:

What came to my mind is that, for some time, I've believed that our exposition of the cleansing of the temple has missed the point. The cleansing of the temple was not a statement against capitalism. The cleansing of the temple was a statement against racism.

What was going on there was they had taken the Court of the Gentiles, the court of the other races, [which] allowed them to draw near to the God of Israel, to worship him, and they had filled that Court of the Gentiles with [commercial] stalls that prevented them from doing that. And Jesus clears the stalls out -- because they've denied the other races their sacred space to draw close to the God of Israel. If you think this is fanciful, then simply go to the two quotations that Jesus used from Jeremiah and Isaiah; the Isaiah quotation is all about the stranger in the land coming to the house of the Lord to worship him with joy.
Jesus says my house of prayer, should be a house of prayer for all races -- you've made it a "den of thieves". Why is it that in 2,000 years of Christian theology we've emphasized the "den of thieves" and not all races? My house should be a house of prayer for every race. And then in Mark's gospel there is a throwaway line which nobody ever explains, which gives the clue to what Jesus did. After having cleansed the temple, he then, we're told, lets nobody move through it. Why is that? Because he restores the sacredness of the space to the other races, so that they might draw near to worship the God of Israel. -LINK, James Jones , A House of Prayer for All Races

some of the best albums of 2011..including some I haven't heard yet

2012-01-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know #1 and #3 are cheating, but it's my list (:

Tim Wainscott: Love Songs (unreleased)
The Violet Burning: The Story of Our Lives
U2: Achtung Baby Super Deluxe
Bill Mallonee: The Power and the Glory
Radiohead: The King of Limbs
Wilco: The Whole Love
Switchfoot: Vice Verses
Florence and the Machine:Ceremonials
Coldplay:Mylo Xyloto
Wilco: The Whole Love
David Bazan - Strange Negotiations
Passion: Here for You
Derri Daughtery: Clouds Echo in Blue
Sigur Ros: Inni

Comments:

--Wish I could count the new David Crowder..it's 2012 by matter of days!:

Also:
Kerosene Halo: Kerosene Halo( "Three Legged Dog" concert video)

--I have got to get into Bon Iver, it's on the list of every genius I know (especially Ryan..and it's #1 on Paste list)

-I'll bet I'll add The Joy Formiddable: The Big Roar...but haven't heard it yet
How could this not be on my list when Rolling Stone said of them:

"We've seen rock's future, and it's Welsh, blond and has a drummer so badass he makes Keith Moon sound like your Mom playing Rock Band (Ghost of Keith Moon, pleas don;t haunt us!)"

-These may make my list later..haven't heard yet:

Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
Over The Rhine - The Laugh of Recognition, The Long Surrender
Josh Garrells: Love War & the Sea In Between
Paul Simon;So Beautiful or So What
Mumford and Sons: Live from Shepherd's, Bush Empire

Some great lists by others:

Sean Carroll on Colbert: eternity and time

2012-01-16T19:10:00.001-08:00

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

"Why I hate religion but love Jesus": five responses

2012-01-15T20:27:00.000-08:00

Since everyone on the planet has
seen the"Why I hate religion but love Jesus" by Jefferson Bethke, video already (It went more viral than "The Heat is On"),,,

here are five responses:

Tim Neufeld:

Why I think "Why I hate religion but love Jesus" is dangerous

Tall Skinny:

Religion: Love it and Hate it

Sarcastic Lutheran:

Why I hate Religion, But Love Jesus ]

Brambonius Cools:

part 1
(pt II)

Dave Schmelzer:

Your Thoughts on "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus"?

Bleed into One

2012-01-15T20:04:00.000-08:00

Mike Roe kicks off the new Kickstarter trailer!:
More info here and here
--
2007 promo:

Shane Claiborne at Asbury: Sermon on the Mount/ Bad Theology Kills

2012-01-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

Sermon on the Mount:

Bad Theology Kills (reminds me what Shane once told Ken and me: "Doctrines are hard things to love"):

Living as a Red Letter Christian:

Creig Keener at Asbury: on miracles and resurrections from the dead

2012-01-14T18:15:00.000-08:00

N.T. Wright at Asbury: what is justification and what is at stake?

2012-01-14T18:12:00.000-08:00

Turns out justification is far more centered set/temple tantrum related than folks give it credit for:

David Crowder: let me in the sound of light

2012-01-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

If you think David Crowder's a heretic, you'll enjoy this link

If you think's he's the Messiah, he's not.

But if you were wondering if the Christianity Today review of his band's new and final

project is hyperbole:

"epic..like watching all three Lord of the Rings films in one sitting..a Mount Everest of rock worship albums, never to be topped." -Christianity Today, print edition

...my very early hunch after only a few listens is:

Of course...but maybe not.

It probably tops "Church Music" and it's odd ancestor...combined.

Some helpful reviews:

I have long loved the liturgy and physics connections in the Crowder catalog (see more on Crowder and physics here),
but this time around, I pick up some "sound theory." Likely not a full-blown acoustemology, and decidedly not a commentary on string theory..

But in a way that reminds me of the "sound" theme of U2's No Line ("Let me in the sound sound," "grace inside a sound," etc )..

check out the new Crowder tracks, "The Sound of Light" (here I especially appreciate the synesthesia reference, and that it's also good physics)..and "There is a Sound."

Is the universe at base music/sound?
Or is it all light?

Perhaps the only sound answer is yes

Which might facilitate time travel: breaking the speed of sound or speed of light?

"Yep!"

More to come...this project will take awhile to listen up....I mean, sound out.

Bill Maher: "I'm a non-Christian, just like most Christians"

2012-01-12T20:49:00.000-08:00

Paul Simon on God

2012-01-12T18:54:00.003-08:00

Watch Paul Simon on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Preaching Against Evolution in Evangelical Churches Creates Atheists?

2012-01-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

Kurt Willems asks for your help with his homsework...all while making a salad:

Every Presentation Ever

2012-01-12T18:33:00.000-08:00

a "public interaction" sculpture: Freedom

2012-01-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

"Freedom," By Zenos Frudakis
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read all about it here (excerpt below)

Zenos’ statement about his vision of the sculpture

I wanted to create a sculpture almost anyone, regardless of their background, could look at and instantly recognize that it is about the idea of struggling to break free. This sculpture is about the struggle for achievement of freedom through the creative process.

Although for me, this feeling sprang from a particular personal situation, I was conscious that it was a universal desire with almost everyone; that need to escape from some situation – be it an internal struggle or an adversarial circumstance, and to be free from it.

I began this work in a very traditional sculptural manner by creating a small model in clay called a macquette. The purpose of beginning in this manner is to capture the large action and major proportions of the figure within the overall design without any details to detract from the big idea. Another reason for not having details and for working on a small model only a few inches in height is that the small armature within it, holding the clay, is more easily manipulated, allowing for much greater flexibility in developing a concept. For example, an arm, a leg or a head can be pushed around without any concern for obliterating details, such as a nose or a finger.

The macquette is the original mass of clay where a concept is born and from which it grows and develops. This was important later when I enlarged the sculpture from several inches long to 20 feet long, and I retained in the larger work a sense that all the conceptual material, its forms, focus and development sprang from this rough idea. The work metamorphosized, in the way that we do.

Although there are four figures represented, the work is really one figure moving from left to right. The composition develops from left to right beginning with a kind of mummy/death like captive figure locked into its background. In the second frame, the figure, reminiscent of Michaelangelo’s Rebellious Slave, begins to stir and struggle to escape. The figure in the third frame has torn himself from the wall that held him captive and is stepping out, reaching for freedom. In the fourth frame, the figure is entirely free, victorious, arms outstretched, completely away from the wall and from the grave space he left behind. He evokes an escape from his own mortality.

In working on the large scale sculpture, I was satisfied that those who drove by getting a quick look at it would see the big picture: that it was about escape. I was also concerned that those who worked in the building and who passed the sculpture frequently would have something more to see. There was a lot of empty space between the figures on the wall, which I saw as an opportunity to develop further ideas.

It was important to me that the sculpture have more than one theme going on at once. One of the other major ideas incorporated in the work is that the very process of creating the sculpture is clearly revealed in the work itself. The maquette is cast into the sculpture in the lower left hand corner. In the lower right corner is the cast of the sculptor’s hand holding the sculpture tool with two rolls of clay also cast in bronze. Throughout the background of the Wall, I have rolled out the clay and pressed it with my fingers so that my fingerprints are all over the sculpture. I have not hidden how I have made the piece. In fact, the whole idea of the macquette is enlarged so that all the figures in the background look like a giant macquette. And at the same time, as the figures move from left to right, I have shown how figures are developed when you are sculpting from the rough to the more finished product.

Elements of the sculpture trade beside the tools that are cast into the sculpture are calipers both for their use in measuring and their reference to Protagoras’ words “Man is the measure of all things.”

Also cast into the sculpture is an anatomical man, traditionally used as a reference by sculptors. Many of the heads and figures on the wall, some in the round and some in relief, are shown partially sculpted, revealing the process of creation.

Something else I have done with the sculpture is that I have created a one man show of my work. I have always admired Rodin’s Gates of Hell. I similarly thought I would incorporate many sculptures into the wall where it was suitable.

Like T.S. Eliot and other artists, I have put many personal elements in my work. My friend Philip, a sculptor who died of AIDS, created a work that I included in Freedom because he often expressed his wish to have it in a public space. He did not live long enough to accomplish this himself. My cat, who lived with me for 20 years, my mother, father, and my self portrait are in the work. It is obvious which face is mine because there is a ballooned phrase coming from my mouth with the word “freedom”, written backwards, making it clear that the face was sculpted in a mirror. I see the whole Wall sculpture as a kind of illusion akin to Alice’sThrough the Looking Glass.

The sculpture contains an original Duane Hanson -- a bronze cast of my own hands that Duane cast for me as a gift.

Much of what I did with this sculpture has to do with taking traditional forms and combining them in non-traditional ways, forming a postmodern sensibility. For example, I dropped a wax cast of my father’s bust from two or three feet in height so that it broke into large pieces. I cast those into the wall in a fractured manner over another face, an old work I found in a vat of clay purchased from a sculptor who had long ago died.

I have hidden many things in the background for people who see the sculpture more than once to discover, such as a cast of coins – a nickel and two pennies, another nickel and two pennies, and two quarters and a penny. These represent not only the relationship between money and art, but the numerals 7-7-51, my birth date.

It is important to me that the public interact with the sculpture, not just intellectually and emotionally but physically. I have created a space in which I have written“stand here” so that people can place themselves inside the sculpture and become part of the composition.

In the end, this sculpture is a statement about the artist’s attempt to free himself from the constraints of mortality through a long lasting creative form. LINK

fully human, imagination and memory

2012-01-12T14:55:00.000-08:00

Marlon Hall:

cathedral majesty and the architectural ‘least of these’

2012-01-09T14:22:00.000-08:00

by Will Braun:

Dethrone the cathedral majesty
The architectural ‘least of these’

see labels below

sheep without a shepherd/We don't know how to be alone

2012-01-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

"Learn To Be Still" The Eagles (w. Don Henley)

We are like sheep without a shepherd
We don't know how to be alone
So we wander 'round this desert
And wind up following the wrong gods home

quiz: how many times is 'pastor' mentioned in the NT?

2012-01-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

I love reminding peope of the community/communitas nature of the church by saying something like "Guess how many times the word 'pastor' shows up in the New Testament? Only once, and in passing: Ephesians 4, where is it mentioned only as part of the shared leadership the church is called to have."

BUT I was wrong! Thanks to Gary Amirault for straightening out my math and theology:

The word “pastor” doesn’t occur in the New Testament (KJV, NIV, NASK, NRSB) at all. Shocked? I was. The word “pastors” occurs ONCE in the N.T. in Ephesians 4:11 and NOT as a title. Gary Amirault

Okay, that may evoke a groan, and seem like only a technicality to you.

BUT, remember in a parallel way, "saint" also appears a total of ZERO times in the Bible.

It also only shows up in the plural.
And quite a few more times than "pastors."

It would seem the early church expectation was multiple saints with the gift of pastor are inevitably embedded in the local body. And this likely has nothing to do with multiple pastoral staff. It has to do with many "laypeople" (a word that shows up nowhere is scripture, singular OR plural...so glad Moltmann highlights this, "The Source," p. 95) walking in their gifts..
whether in the gathering, or (more importantly) in the "world" (I remember commissioning Regean as the "pastor to Jiffy Lube").

I realize one might count "shepherd" as the same biblical term as pastor, which opens up other references..but this gets just as subversive, if as in John 10, a "shepherd/pastor is to know all her/his sheep BY NAME."
All this might entail blowing up the 22nd row of pews (better yet all pews...is that word in the Book?).
More? Chain saw the pulpit..

Related:

A Crash of Rhinos...a Committee of Buzzards

--
Related..I often say this, too. Will I have to append or amend it?

"All American pastors know that the Bible knows nothing of a weekly meeting where a pastor preaches a sermon.

sexuality at the Wild Goose

2012-01-07T14:44:00.001-08:00

video platform video management video solutions video player

Paparazzi in the hands of an Angry God: Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and the Birth of American Celebrity Culture

2012-01-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

Moltmann on why he is not a universalist

2012-01-07T13:10:00.000-08:00

hilarious but profound answer at 62:35 mark:

(The intro also has an interview w/Moltmann about his first cry to God through watching the soldier next to him be blow apart, and the power of psalms of lament.."when i read the deathcry of Jesus...why have you forsaken me.. I knew this is someone who understands"..)

Moltmann: abandon the pastoral church

2012-01-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

"If Christianity
is to become aware of what it is,
we must abandon the pastoral church
which takes care of people,
which is the usual form
of the Western church.
Instead,
we have to call to life a
Christian community church."

-Jürgen Moltmann, "The Source of Life," p. 96

Pop Star's Single, 'Booty Wave', Most Likely Civilization's Downfall

2012-01-05T18:39:00.000-08:00

lll

D ownload K'Ronikka's Single 'Booty Wave' Now

the Skinny: 9 reasons NOT to plant a church in 2012

2012-01-05T18:31:00.000-08:00

Tall Skinny Kiwi on 9 reasons NOT to plant a church in 2012

NT Wright video from Moody:" Simply Jesus" and "How God Became King"

2012-01-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

N.T. WRIGHT part 1 from ETS Productions on Vimeo.

N.T. WRIGHT part 2 from ETS Productions on Vimeo.

N.T. WRIGHT part 3 from ETS Productions on Vimeo.

N.T. WRIGHT part 4 from ETS Productions on Vimeo.

pastors as sexperts, and our sexpectations of them...especially Driscoll

2012-01-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

From Rachel Held Evans:

Evangelicals expect too much of their pastors.

In addition to demanding they serve as nearly flawless leaders and teachers, many of us demand that our pastors serve as professional counselors and advisors, experts on everything from politics to science to sex to health to money to marriage to relationships.

As a result, some pastors simply crumble beneath the weight of the pressure, “faking it” for years and then burning out. Others develop a heightened sense of self-importance and arrogance, as they slap the word “biblical” in front of each of their opinions, claiming to speak on behalf of God on every given topic. Still others live complete lies, lecturing the congregation on the importance money management on Sunday while struggling to overcome secret credit card debt on Monday. Others project their insecurities and obsessions onto their followers and demand that everyone look just like them. Very few manage to remain humble, honest, and brave in the face of our unrealistic expectations.

And so I believe we all bear some responsibility for creating an environment in which controversial Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll can write a book about sex and marriage that tops the Amazon bestseller list.

Given Driscoll’s alarming preoccupation with sex and “masculinity,” and the immaturity with which he has addressed these subjects in the past, one would think Christians would approach this book the way they would approach a book about nutrition written by a pastor who struggles with obesity...(or a book about overcoming procrastination written by me!) But Pastor Mark continues to grow a..
-Rachel Held Evans, CONTINUED HERE

"What does it really mean to be lukewarm'"?

2012-01-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

As a follow-up to my post, "WWJP Why Would Jesus Puke?: let's be hot AND cold, as Jesus wants" ..
here is a helpful video by James-Michael Smith from his The Bible For the Rest of Us DVD series:

"For What It's Worth": "watch that sound" or "what's that sound"?

2012-01-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

My first thought:

How could I have misheard that lyric for forty-some years?

My second thought:

If this "new" reading is right, it's a classic example of a synesthesia reference.

My third thought:

After googling annd seeing that the 'new' interpretation is definitely a minority opinion, I am not convinced yet..but quite intrigued.

My fourth thought:

The source is quite credible: Daniel Levitin, someone who has met and interviewed the songwriters.

Hmm..what do you think?

I was reading along in Levitin's wonderful book, "The World in Six Songs," and hit page 70, where he matter- of-factly quoted the Buffalo Springfield classic, "For What It's Worth" as:

We gotta stop hey watch that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Huh? I had never considered the lyric was anything other than what I've always heard:
"what's that sound?"..

BUT if this reading is correct, it's yet another classic literary reference to "synesthesia"!
How do you WATCH a SOUND?
This of course connects to Revelation 1:8 where John turned to synesthetically SEE the VOICE of Jesus..

And note the song lyric makes sense, as the next line is "Everybody LOOK" (not "listen")..

Hmmm...what do YOU hear?

A quick googling suggests that Levitin's reading is far in the minority...but note when the Staple Singers covered the song, they actually had the "watch that sound" lyric printed on the label of their record...see fourth video below at the :14 and 1:37 mark (Note on the comments below that video on YouTube laugh at that obvious "mistake.')

But do Levitin and the Staples know something that most of the world doesn't?

I hope so..

Listen up, "watch for the sound" of the lyric and weigh in with what you hear/see.
To quote the song itself, "what it is ain't exactly clear"..

Anyone (like Levitin) know the songwriter Stephen Stills to verify?

Several videos and the usual lyrics below..

Note: the lyric jury is also still out on this Who song.
Note: And you might enjoy a list or two of funny misheard lyrics
Note: If the synsethesia line is correct, I have more reading on a sound-watchiing epistemology in rock music. Click, for example, U2's "No Line" part 5: a sound epistemology of faith in God, not in certainty, Furniture Music or posts tagged "synesthesia" below.
From Levitin: Writing a review of a documentary about the sixties (broadcast in 2007), New York Times critic Neil Genzlinger said, “That astonishing song came to encapsulate ‘60s turmoil so perfectly that resorting to it is a subconscious admission by a documentarian. 'I have nothing to say that Stephen Stills didn’t say better in 2 minutes, 41 seconds. Its instantly recognizable two-tone opening rings like an alarm bell.'” (p.70)

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

\

see :14 and 1:37here:

2010 reunion:

--

Meadowbig Church, Dr. Flockshorn and Berean Lionel

2012-01-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

From THE SHEEP COMIX:

STORY CONTINUED HERE.

Colbert on religion

2012-01-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

THE POWER & THE GLORY by Bill Mallonee

2012-01-02T17:16:00.000-08:00

play full album below, HT Ryan
&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://billmalloneemusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-power-the-glory-2"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;THE POWER &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; THE GLORY by Bill Mallonee&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;

"The Bible in Its Context: How to Improve Your Study of the Scriptures"

2012-01-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

"The Bible in Its Context: How to Improve Your Study of the Scriptures" by Craig Keener, free 82-page Word document,

here

WWJP Why Would Jesus Puke?: let's be hot AND cold, as Jesus wants

2012-01-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

Why WOULD Jesus puke, anyway?
(related, see "the call to go into ministry is a lot like throwing up")??

So many are baffled by why Jesus would seemingly rather have us be 'cold' than lukewarm..
makes for some bizarre and forced sermons.

This one on Revelation 3:
¹⁴ “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. ¹⁵ I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷ You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. ¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

¹⁹ Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. ²⁰ Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

²¹ To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. ²² Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Yet ANOTHER misunsderstood and eisegeted scripture (see: "Don't forget the assembling together.."
and I am in sin if I "avoid the appearance of evil" and "of course Christians will be left behind")... Verse-itis is deadly!

We just assume "cold water" obviously = bad, and "hot water" obviously = good." You can google a thousand sermons with that point. It's just too tempting to preach!

But they are likely well-meaning adventures in missing the meaning and point.

As usual, much of the answer is catching the historical context.

Maybe all along Jesus wanted us to be hot AND cold.

Two of the masters here are Craig Keener (who is behind the invaluable Bible Background Commentary on the NT ):

The one sphere of life in which Laodiceans could not pretend to be self-sufficient was their water supply! Laodicea had to pipe in its water from elsewhere, and by the time it arrived it was full of sediment; Laodicea actually acquired a bad reputation for its water supply. Jesus comments on the temperature of the water: they were lukewarm, neither cold nor hot. This does not mean, as some have suggested, that hot water was good but cold water was bad; Jesus would not want the Laodiceans “good or bad,” but only good.
Cold water was preferred for drinking, and hot water for bathing (also sometimes drunk at banquets), but the natural lukewarmness of local water (in contrast with the hot water available at nearby Hierapolis or cold water of nearby mountains) was undoubtedly a standard complaint of local residents, most of whom had an otherwise comfortable lifestyle. Jesus is saying: “Were you hot (i.e., for bathing) or cold (i.e., for drinking), you would be useful; but as it is, you are simply disgusting. I feel toward you the way you feel toward your water supply–you make me sick.”

- Link: Craig Keener

and Ray Van DerLaan, audio here, or read below:

Laodicea

During the first century, the city of Laodicea was the richest and most powerful of the three cities. Located in the Lycus River Valley on the main trade route between the Mediterranean region and Persia, Laodicea was known for its soft black wool that was appreciated throughout the Roman world; its healing eye salve; and its banking. In fact, an ancient writer recorded that the city of approximately 120,000 people refused an emperor?s offer to rebuild following an earthquake. The Laodiceans apparently told the emperor that they were rich and didn?t need his money.
Despite its prosperity, however, Laodicea had a serious problem. Its water, unlike the healing hot springs of Hierapolis or the fresh, cold mountain water of Colosse, was lukewarm and full of minerals. It tasted so bad that it made people sick.

Changing the World by Being Hot and Cold

In light of the water for which the cities of Hierapolis, Colosse and Laodicea were known, the apostle John might have been saying, ?If you were hot, like the springs of Hierapolis, you?d bring healing, restoration, and comfort to people who suffer. If you were cold, like the water in Colosse, you?d refresh and encourage people who are hurting. Instead, you are lukewarm. You don't do anyone any good and you make me sick-just like your own water. So he challenged Christians today to be hot and cold in our daily lives.. to bring people the healing, caring, encouraging touch of Jesus

-Link: Ray Van DerLaan

--

Later note: I found is a helpful video by James-Michael Smith from his The Bible For the Rest of Us DVD series, and posted it

HERE.

Moltmann: church marketing and practiced atheism

2012-01-01T14:08:00.000-08:00

Moltmann:

The privatization of religion has as its presupposition its de-politicization and as a consequence its marketing. What is called modern multifaith and multicultural society is nothing other than the total market society. Religions and cultures are on display in this market in just the same way as political options, commodities and services. Religions become the spiritual services on offer in the religious supermarket of the modern world. Individual religious liberty is certainly a powerful protection for every person’s own human dignity, but because of the typical Western concept of the consumer’s freedom to choose or dispose, that same freedom has turned religion into a commodity, where the customer is allegedly always right. Marketed religions take on the characterisitcs of goods on sale…
In the multifaith consumer society, peace reigns between the religious communities. That is a fact. But this religious peace is achieved through the political shut-down on religion, its privatization and marketing- not through recognition and esteem, but by reducing religion to insignificance. One does not have to be a fundamentalist to see this as practiced atheism.

-God for a Secular Society , Moltmann's chapter “Theology in the Modern University. "

"Heavy Theological Dude (N.T. Wright) Mistakenly Talks to Wittenburg Door"

2012-01-01T14:01:00.000-08:00

The Wittenburg Door is so cool..They gave us permission to reprint anything (with a link), so here is their 2007 interview with N.T. Wright (by the delightful Becky Garrison). Pray the Door opens again, btw.
--------------------------------------

Heavy Theological Dude Mistakenly Talks to Us

The Wittenburg Door Interview: N.T. “Tom” Wright

By Becky Garrison

link

N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham, England—the home of one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world.

He’s also the rare sort of theologian who attracts respect from both conservatives and liberals. Among his forty plus books include such provocative titles as Simply Christian, Judas and the Gospel of Jesus, The Last Word, Paul, and Evil and the Justice of God. He taught New Testament studies for twenty years at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford universities.

Wright became Bishop of Durham in 2003, and served on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Commission on Communion. (For our non-Anglican readers, this group crafted the Windsor Report, which is a document designed to help the Anglican Communion resolve its conflicts about homosexuality, ordination and pastoral blessings for gay couples.)

In short, Tom Wright is a big hitter in a big league. We grabbed him at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature (AAR/SBL) in Washington, D.C., where we were selling souvenir palm-buzzers in the lobby.

WITTENBURG DOOR: What does it mean for us to be living in the fifth act: the time of the church?

N.T. WRIGHT: In The Last Word, I explain that we can understand the Bible best if we read it as a five-act play, the five acts being Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus and Church. We are not living in an unfallen creation; or in a fallen world without promise; or in the time of Israel BC; or, indeed, in the time of Jesus himself. We are living in the fifth act, and have to improvise, under the guidance of the Spirit, in such a way as to bring this narrative—not some other one!—to its appointed and proper conclusion. In other words, to implement the achievement of Jesus and thus to anticipate the promise of new heavens and new earth.

DOOR: Why do we need the Bible?

WRIGHT: The Bible is here to equip God’s people to carry forward His purposes of new covenant and new creation. It is there to enable people to work for justice, to sustain their spirituality as they do so, to create and enhance relationships at every level, and to produce that new creation which will have something of the beauty of God himself. The Bible isn’t like an accurate description of how a car is made. It’s more like the mechanic who helps you fix it, the garage attendant who refuels it, and the guide who tells you how to get where you’re going. And where you’re going is to make God’s new creation happen in his world, not simply to find your own way unscathed through the old creation.

DOOR: So, how do we balance the experience of the church with the authority of scripture?

WRIGHT: Um, this is starting to sound like an oral exam.

DOOR: Sorry, but you did write a lot of books. There’s a lot of theological turf to cover here.

WRIGHT: As we read scripture, we struggle to understand what God is doing through the world and through us. The phrase “authority of scripture” can make Christian sense only if it is shorthand for “the authority of the triune God, exercised somehow through scripture.” When we examine what the authority of scripture means we’re talking about God’s authority which is invested in Jesus himself, who says “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18, NRSV)

DOOR: Of course, this “authority” phrase is one of the many scripture quotes that have been misused throughout history by those religious leaders who want to justify their stance on a given socio-political position.

WRIGHT: In Christian theology, such phrases regularly act as “portable stories”—that is, ways of packing up longer narratives about God, Jesus, the Church and the world, folding them away into convenient suitcases, and then carrying them about with us. Shorthands enable us to pick up lots of complicated things and carry them around all together. But we should never forget that the point in doing so, like the point of carrying belongings in a suitcase, is that what has been packed away can then be unpacked and put to use in the new location. Too much debate about scriptural authority has had the form of people hitting one another with locked suitcases. It is time to unpack our shorthand doctrines, to lay them out and inspect them. Long years in a suitcase may have made some of the contents go moldy. They will benefit from fresh air, and perhaps a hot iron.

DOOR: How do you respond to those who interpret scripture using the lens of personal experience?

WRIGHT: Experience is a slippery slope philosophically and spiritually. It’s a fog in which all sorts of worlds can bump together. Now, no one wants to go to extremes. Some lines are drawn in the sand. For example, no one in their right mind would endorse mass murder. But we need to follow a path of wisdom and have standards.
When you come into the life of the Church, there is a way of life followed there. There are codes of conduct. It’s like when you come into someone’s home. You take off your muddy boots when you enter the house.
You don’t take tea and pour it down someone’s back. There are standards in how we live together. Experience needs to be affirmed, redirected, and rebuked by God’s authority. Because of our propensity to self-deception, we constantly need to check against scripture, whether we are allowing the word of God’s grace in the gospel, and God’s reaffirmation of us as made in his image, to validate what is in fact an idolatrous and distorted form of humanness. When, through letting scripture be the vehicle of God’s judging and healing authority in our communities and individual lives, we really do “experience” God’s affirmation, then we shall know as we are known.

DOOR: That means that there are the inherent dangers in viewing, say, the Letters of Paul through the lens of contemporary culture.

WRIGHT: There are massive anachronisms when one makes assumptions about the things going on in this world that weren’t in his world. This requires that we read Paul faithfully and go between these two worlds. As I hinted earlier, the fifth act, in which the Church is called to live and work, is characterized by two things. First, it has firm and fixed foundations, including a definite closing scene which is already sketched in Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, Colossians 1 and Revelation 21 and 22.
Second, it has the command, under the spirit, to improvise through the unscripted period between the opening scenes and the closing one. No musician would ever suppose that improvising means playing out of tune or time. On the contrary, it means knowing extremely well whether one is in the implicit structure, and listening intently to the other players so that what we all do together, however, spontaneously, makes sense as a whole. That is the kind of hermeneutic I envisage as I read, and preach from, Paul’s letters today.

DOOR: Is that why you once described relationship between Jesus and Paul as that of composer and conductor, medical researcher and doctor, and architect and builder?

WRIGHT: The composer writers the music. If the conductor decides to write some on his own account, that would be a way of saying he didn’t want to play that composer’s music, but some of his own instead. His job is to play the music the original composer has written. The doctor takes the results of the research and applies them to the patient. Her job is not to do more research on the topic, or, if she thinks it is, it isn’t because she’s is being loyal to the original researcher but because she is being disloyal. The builder takes the plans drawn up by the architect and builds to that design. It isn’t his task to draw a new building; or, if he does, it’s not because he is filled with the admiration for the original design but because he isn’t.

DOOR: Got it. On the other extreme, how can stuff like The Gospel of Judas and The Da Vinci Code inform the Christian faith?

WRIGHT: What we can see in this current passion for Gnosticism is a hunger for spirituality and purpose. We have to ask why our culture is so hungry for different kinds of spirituality.
Also, the appeal of second century Gnosticism is that people in our culture are eager to find anything to rebuke or replace traditional Christianity. This myth—what I call “the new myth of Christian origins,” according to which Jesus was just an ordinary person who taught a new type of spirituality, that He didn’t die for our sins or rise again—is what’s lurking behind the Jesus Seminar. Many people in our culture don’t like traditional Christianity and are eager to find anything else at all to go with instead.

DOOR: You call the Jesus Seminar a “fantasyland.”

WRIGHT: They want to liberate the Bible from poor, oppressed fundamentalists. The Seminar has had to reinvent itself after the death of Robert Funk. Its new project is to tackle the origins of Christianity. But most scholars who have written about Jesus—whether they are Jewish, Christian, agnostic or whatever—never signed on to the Jesus Seminar in the first place. Most have held aloof, rightly seeing it as a wacky distraction from serious scholarship. Only a few great minds, like Dom Crossan, Marcus Borg and Walter Wink have stuck with it in the hopes of making something good out of it.

DOOR: Bless their little hearts. Moving on to your book Evil and the Justice of God, why do you say we’re facing a “new problem of evil?”

WRIGHT: We ignore evil when it doesn’t hit us in the face. Second, we are surprised by evil when it does, so, we then react in immature and dangerous ways as a result. For example, Western politicians knew perfectly well that Al-Qaeda was a force to be reckoned with; but nobody really wanted to take it too seriously until it was too late. But then the astonishing naiveté which decreed that the United States as a whole was a pure, innocent victim, so that the world could be neatly divided into evil people (particularly Arabs) and good people (particularly Americans and Israelis), and that the latter had a responsibility now to punish the former, is a large-scale example of what I’m talking about—just as it is immature and naïve to suggest the mirror image of this view, namely that the Western world is guilty on all respects, and that that protesters and terrorist are therefore completely justified in what they do.

DOOR: How do you balance these two extremes?

WRIGHT: We need to acknowledge that there are evil people out there who kill. People sometimes try to engage in “dialogue” as though nothing bad has really happened. But justice without forgiveness is revenge. And forgiveness without justice is appeasement.

DOOR: Please elaborate on the statement you made in this book that “the Gospels tell the story of how evil in the world reached its height and how God’s long term plan for Israel finally came to its glory?”

WRIGHT: The Gospels tell the story of the political powers of the world reaching their full, arrogant height. All early readers of the Gospels knew perfectly well that the word “gospel” itself—never mind any teaching about “God’s kingdom”—was a direct confrontation with the regime of Caesar, the news of whose rule was referred to in his empire as “good news.” Also, the Gospels tell the story of corruption within Israel itself, as the people who bear the solution have themselves become a central part of the problem. The Gospels then tell the story of the deeper, darker forces which operate at a suprapersonal level, forces for which the language of the demonic, despite all its problems, is still at the least inadequate. And the story the Gospels tell is a story about the downward spiral of evil.
These five points lead us to say that the story the Gospels are trying to tell us is the story of how the death of Jesus is the point at which evil in all its forms has come rushing together. Here I refer to the Christus Victor theory of the atonement, the belief that on the cross Jesus has won the victory over the powers of evil.

DOOR: Is that why you write that “the call of the Gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love?”

WRIGHT: The cross is not just an example to be followed; it is an achievement to be worked out, put into practice. But it is an example nonetheless, because it is the exemplar—the template, the model for what God now wants to do by his Spirit in the world, through his people. It is the start of the process of redemption, in which suffering and martyrdom are the paradoxical means by which victory is won.

DOOR: So where does forgiveness fit in?

WRIGHT: Some people believe that when it comes to forgiveness, you just draw a line and forget it even though it’s tough and messy. But this is too simple. In Miroslav Volf’s excellent book Exclusion and Embrace, his basic argument is this: Whether we are dealing with international relations or one-on-one personal relations, evil must be named and confronted. There must be no sliding around it, no attempt—whether for the sake of an easy life or in search of a quick fix—to present it as if it wasn’t so bad after all. Only when that has been done, when both the evil and the evil doer have been identified as what and who they are—this is what Volf means by “exclusion”—can there be the second move towards the “embrace” of the one who has deeply hurt and wounded us or me.
If I have named the evil, and done my best to offer genuine forgiveness and reconciliation, then I am free to love the person even if they don’t want to respond.

DOOR: Any examples of putting this into action?

WRIGHT: Two examples here. The first is Desmond Tutu and his work on the Commission on Truth and Reconciliation. I have no hesitation in saying that the fact of such a body even existing, let alone doing the work it has done, is the most extraordinary sign of the power of the Christian gospel in the world in my lifetime. We only have to think for a moment of how unthinkable such a thing would have been 25 years ago, or indeed how unthinkable such a thing would still be in Beirut, Belfast or—God help us—Jerusalem to see that something truly remarkable has taken place for which we should thank God in fear and trembling.
The second example is the killing of the Amish school children. The families of the girls who were killed extended forgiveness to the man and comforted the family. Also, these families insisted that some of the money raised by the Mennonites to support them be given to support the family of the shooter, who killed himself. These countercultural examples show how the Christian community can react.

DOOR: Finally, how do we reach people for whom church is not part of their vocabulary?

WRIGHT: All human beings are made in God’s image, and it is this image which is the bridgehead to God. People know this in their bones even if they don’t consider themselves to be religious. And let’s not forget that church wasn’t in people’s vocabulary when Christianity first started.

DOOR: Hmm. This doesn’t really fit with the majority of evangelicals who say that once you become a Christian, “the big issue” has been taken care of. Meaning, of course, that you’re assured a spot up in heaven and nothing else really matters.

WRIGHT: This is unfaithful to the Lord’s Prayer which states, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The point of following Jesus isn’t simply so that we can be sure of going to a better place than this after we die. Our future beyond death is enormously important, but the nature of the Christian hope is such that it plays back into the present life. We’re called, here and now, to be instruments of God’s new creation, the world-put-to-rights, which has already been launched in Jesus and of which Jesus’ followers are supposed to be not simply beneficiaries but also agents.

-link

"like watching all three Lord of the Rings films in one sitting.."

2012-01-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

Early review/preview of new and final David Crowder(double) album:

"epic..like watching all three Lord of the Rings films in one sitting..a Mount Everest of rock worship albums, never to be topped." -Christianity Today, print edition

real fake wrestling, cultural liturgy. and the narrative of Jesus

2012-01-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

From Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges:

The bouts are stylized rituals. They are public expressions of pain and a fervent longing for revenge. The lurid and detailed sagas behind each bout, rather than the wrestling matches themselves, are what drive crowds to a frenzy. These ritualized battles give those packed in the arenas a temporary, heady release from mundane lives. The burden of real problems is transformed into fodder for a high-energy pantomime. And the most potent story tonight, the most potent story across North America, is one of financial ruin, desperation, and enslavement of a frightened and abused working class to a heartless, tyrannical, corporate employer. For most, it is only in the illusion of the ring that they are able to rise above their small stations in life and engage in a heroic battle to fight back.

As the wrestlers appear and strut down the aisle, the crowd, mostly young, working-class males, knows by heart the long list of vendettas and betrayals being carried into the ring. The matches are always acts of retribution for a host of elaborate and fictional wrongs. The narratives of emotional wreckage reflected in the wrestlers’ stage biographies mirror the emotional wreckage of the fans. This is the deep appeal of professional wrestling. It is the appeal of much of popular culture, from Jerry Springer to “reality” television to Oprah Winfrey. The narratives expose the anxiety that we will die and never be recognized or acclaimed, that we will never be wealthy, that we are not among the chosen but remain part of the vast, anonymous masses. The ringside sagas are designed to reassure us. They hold out the hope that we, humble and unsung as these celebrities once were, will eventually be blessed with grace and fortune.

The success of professional wrestling, like most of the entertainment that envelops our culture, lies not in fooling us that these stories are real. Rather, it succeeds because we ask to be fooled. We happily pay for the chance to suspend reality. The wrestlers, like all celebrities, become our vicarious selves. They do what we cannot. They rise up from humble origins into a supernatural world of tyrants, divas, and fierce opponents who are huge and rippling with muscles–mythic in their size and power. They face momentous battles and epic struggles. They win great victories. They garner fame and vanquish their anonymity. And they return to befriend and confer some of their supernatural power on us. It is the stuff of classical myths, including the narrative of Jesus Christ. It is the yearning that life conform to a recognizable pattern and provide ultimate fulfillment before death.

“For the truth is,” wrote José Ortega y Gasset, “that life on the face of it is a chaos in which one finds oneself lost. The individual suspects as much but is terrified to encounter this frightening reality face to face, and so attempts to conceal it by drawing a curtain of fantasy over it, behind which he can make believe that everything is clear.”

Clashes in the professional wrestling ring from the 1950s to the 1980s hinged on a different narrative. The battle against the evil of communism and crude, racial stereotypes stoked the crowd. The bouts, which my grandfather religiously watched on Saturday afternoons, were raw, unvarnished expressions of the prejudices of the white working class from which he came. They appealed to nationalism and a dislike and distrust of all who were racially, ethnically, or religiously different. During these matches, some of which I watched as a boy, there was usually some huge hulk of a man, known invariably as “The Russian Bear,” who would say things like “Ve vill bury you.” Nikolai Volkoff, who wrestled during these years under the name Boris Breznikoff, used to sing the Soviet National Anthem and wave the Soviet flag before matches to bait the crowd. He eventually teamed up with an Iranian-born wrestler, Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, known as The Iron Sheik. In the midst of the Iranian hostage crisis, the Iron Sheik bragged in the ring about his devotion and friendship with Ayatollah Khomeini. The Iron Sheik was regularly pitted against a wrestler known as Sergeant Slaughter, All-American G. I. During the first Gulf War; the Iron Sheik reinvented himself, as often happens with wrestlers who shed one persona and name for another, as Colonel Mustafa, an Iraqi who was a close confidant of Saddam Hussein. In wrestling, villains were nearly always foreigners. They were people who wanted to destroy “our way of life.” They hated America. They spoke in strange accents and had swarthy skin.

But that hatred, once directed outward, has turned inward. Wrestling fans, whose numbers have been swelled by new immigrants and are no longer limited to the white working class, began to come in too many colors. The steady loss of manufacturing jobs and decline in social services meant that blue-collar workers–people like my grandparents–could no longer find jobs that provided a living wage, jobs with benefits, jobs that could support a family. The hulks of empty manufacturing centers began to dot the landscape, including the abandoned mills in Maine, where my family lived. The disparity between the elite, the rich, and the rest of the country grew obscenely. The growing class division and hopelessness triggered a mounting rage toward the elite, as well as a sense of powerlessness. Communities began to crumble. Downtown stores went out of business and were boarded up. Domestic abuse and drug and alcohol addiction began to plague working-class neighborhoods and towns.

The story line in professional wrestling evolved to fit the new era. It began to focus on the petty, cruel, psychological dramas and family dysfunction that come with social breakdown. The enemy became figures like Layfield, those who had everything and lorded it over those who did not. The anger unleashed by the crowd became the anger of people who, like the Heartbreak Kid, felt used, shamed, and trapped. It became the anger of class warfare. Figures such as Layfield–who arrives at professional matches in a giant white limousine with Texan “hook ’em” horns on the hood–are created by wrestling promoters to shove these social disparities in the faces of the audience, just as the Iron Sheik mocked the crowd with his hatred of America.

Wrestlers work in “stables,” or groups. These groups, all of which have managers, are at war with the other groups. This motif, too, is new. It represents a society that has less and less national cohesion, a society that has broken down into warlike and antagonistic tribes. The stables cheat, lie, steal one another’s women, and ignore all rules in the desperate scramble to win. Winning is all that matters. Morality is irrelevant. These wrestling clans have their own logos, uniforms, slogans, theme songs, cheerleaders, and other badges of communal identity. They do not, however, stay consistent in their “good guy” or “bad guy” status. A clan, like an individual wrestler, can be good one week and evil the next. All that matters is their own advancement. Week after week, they act out scenarios that are psychological windows into what has happened to our culture.

- Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges, pp. 5-8

Brian Walsh inteview about Bruce Cockburn book

2011-12-29T13:07:00.000-08:00

From Brazos:

"Brazos author Brian Walsh was recently interviewed on The Drew Marshall Show concerning his recent book Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination.

You can listen to the full (26 min) interview here".

--

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in Interpersonal Communication

2011-12-29T00:40:00.000-08:00

Video presentation for college Interpersonal Communication course by Assistant Professor Arnold, of the Communication Department at Sinclair Community College, Dayton, Ohio

Linear Reasoning, Cyclical reasoning ,Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

2011-12-29T00:35:00.000-08:00

by Aramaic 12

Luis von Ahn: Massive-scale online collaboration

2011-12-29T00:29:00.000-08:00

transcript or video:

"Funnyman Tim Allen: Serious About God"

2011-12-29T00:21:00.000-08:00

See "Funnyman Tim Allen: Serious About God"...and video below:
video platform video management video solutions video player

psalmart

2011-12-26T12:20:00.000-08:00

There;s something delightful in the juxtaposition in these works of art on the Psalms..from Jim Lepage's two-year project to create at least one image for each book of the Bible ( link, more)

"The Oblation of Things"

2011-12-26T12:08:00.000-08:00

Robert Farrar Capon, "The Oblation of Things":

I take my children to the beach. On the north shore of Long Island it is a pretty stony proposition. The mills of the gods grind coarsely here; but, in exchange for busied feet and a sore coccyx, they provide gravel for the foundation of the arts. Every year we hunt for perfect stones: ovals, spheroids, lozenges, eggs. By the end of the summer there are pebbles all over the house. They have no apparent use other than the delight that they provide to man, but that is the whole point of the collection. The very act of hunting them is an introduction to the oblation of things. Look at this one! Do you think it will split evenly enough for arrowheads? What color is that one when it's wet? Lick it and see. Daddy wants a big flat round one to hold the sauerkraut under the brine. Will this one do? We walk down the beach lifting stones into our history: we are collectors, ingatherers of being. Man is the lover of textures, colors and shapes – the only creature in the whole world who knows a good pickling stone when he sees one. The arts go way beyond that; but that is where they begin.

The child who runs the satin binding of his blanket between this fingers, the boy who carefully oils his collection of ball bearings so they will not rust, the woman who loves to handle thick braids, the man who opens his pocket-knife just to hear the satisfying click with which it closes – all these are priestly builders. It is in his simplest oblations that man is at his historical best. When he rises higher, he makes more mistakes – he diagrams and spiritualizes what should have been loved and offered as a thing; but at these low levels he is a success. The world has seen few badly offered blanket bindings, few profaned ball bearings. As long as man can hunt stones, he will know that the fire of his priesthood has not gone out.

But the oblation of things goes far beyond such simplicities. It is in the arts and the crafts that man most displays his priestliness and historicity. ...

It is a common error to suppose that the artist does what he does for himself – that he is a peculiar being who loves certain things in a way not open to others. It is also common to dismiss the craftsman as a fellow who does things for money. To some degree, of course, that is all true. Artists are usually a little odd; the laborer commonly, and legitimately, looks forward to his hire. But after that it falls short. For each is engaged in an offering of things not simply for his own benefit, but for the sake of the things themselves – and for the sake of other men. The painter paints because he loves the way things look and wants to offer his sight of them to others. The poet speaks because he loves words and longs for them to be heard as he hears them. And the cabinetmaker fashions and the joiner joins, and the chef cooks and the vintner toils because they love the conjunctions of things and will them to be moved into the weaving of the web. All arts come from having open eyes; and all arts are performing arts. Even the solitary artist in the cave draws to be seen, offers up what he looks at as a priest for other men. It is only in bad drawing, bad writing and bad woodwork that motives other than priestly ones become primary. It is when man stops loving what he does and stops caring whether others see that he becomes guilty of artistry that is not art and of craftsmanship that is only shoddy. ...

If speech is the crowning gift of man, then the arts of language probably qualify as the most nearly universal. Not all men can draw, many men cannot sing, and the world is full of cooks who ought to be allowed to rise no higher than the scullery; but all men speak, and practically no one is immune to the delights of rhyme and reason. The child, as soon as he learns words, plays with words. The teen-ager, with his stock of current clichés and his mercurial pattern of jargon, is a poet. He may recite only commercial slogans and comparable idiocies; but he recites them, at least partly, because he loves the way the words rattle. And somewhere along the line he will, unless he is starved to death, come to love some very grand rattles indeed.

I remember the first time I read Shakespeare's sonnets. "Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds" stuck in my head for weeks – not so much for its meaning as for its marvellous wordiness. The city of speech is old and new, and rich beyond counting. ...

That only a few have the craft to forge such words takes nothing off the edge of the marvel by which man can sense the priestliness of their oblation And it is not only the grand and the gorgeous that qualify. ...

Speech is no mere tool of communication; it is a joy in itself. ... Speech should indeed inform, as food should indeed nourish, but what sane man will let either subject go at that? ...

Man's failure in music is like his failure in all the arts – a failure to make them really priestly, a penchant for non-historical and irrelevant forms. Far too much of the music we now have is only heard, not played or sung. It makes no demands, does not ask to be lifted; it just hangs around. We have canned music, background music, and music to do everything but listen to music by. But music cannot be only entertainment any more than speech can be only communication. We aim too low. Both are major oblations, and they will settle for nothing less. Neither can be merely used: they must be played.

Thank God for wine. Without it we would have almost no singing at all. Practically the only place where men now sing when they are cold sober is in church; and, to tell the truth, it sounds like it. As a professional religionist, I wish I could make a more glowing report; but, by and large, it is wretched. It is a triumph of use, not play. And for every man in church who sings, there are five who stand aloof from the whole business as if it were faintly disreputable.

Why? Because they are embarrassed by the sound of their own voices: they are ashamed of their priesthood. The city of music, which fairly cries for lifting into their history, is firmly and permanently locked out. I think that secretly, in their heart of hearts, perhaps, they envy people who play. But they do not show it often. If only they would. It isn't a matter of working themselves into miniature Isaac Sterns; the harmonica will do if it comes to that – or even tenth-rate four-part harmony. They underestimate the power of the arts. A man can practice for weeks on the strength of one-chord progression. Even the smallest oblation will lift the priest as he makes it; even a little attention to what is really there will be a historical triumph.

from An Offering Of Uncles: The Priesthood of Adam and The Shape of the World
by Robert Farrar Capon, HT Ron

"neither grammar nor style are politically neutral"

2011-12-26T12:05:00.000-08:00

I love fellowdreamer's take on "TNIV and Gender Trouble," posted a couple years ago during the TNIV (click "TNIV" at bottom of this post for more info) craziness. Great example of how unexpected or "unrelated"..and especially "secular" (gasp!) sources can really help us see truth. I also appreciate the implications for Sapir-Whorf (click that title below): Here he is:

Recently, Christianity Today announced that the TNIV translation (an updated NIV) was being redone to fix some of the “mistakes” that the editing and translating board had perceived as dangerous and in need of repair.

One of the biggest reasons given was the original TNIV’s gender inclusive approach that had altered the grammar of many passages to include sisters, daughters and other (female) left out people groups.

Clearly, there is a great theological discussion to be had on personhood, equality, gender of God, etc., but my focus here is on the grammatical argument. The idea that these changes have made reading hard, obtuse and that the structure is now “wrong” according to the rules of language fails to truly interact with the reality of our gendered experience.
I’ve been reading Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble recently. An excellent little work that has nothing to do with biblical translation, but has a very powerful passage in the forward about language, grammar and gender.

She says, “moreover, neither grammar nor style are politically neutral… there is nothing radical about common sense. It would be a mistake to think that received grammar is the best vehicle for expressing radical views, given the constraints that grammar imposes upon thought, indeed, upon the thinkable itself” (xix). Her point is clear; if a thought, idea or text is radical it might, indeed must, mess with our common sense and break the rules. It seems that there are few Christians who would argue the radical nature of their precious Scriptures, so why neuter the message by constraining it to the rules of the English language, which is so clearly limited?

Butler continues, “formulations that twist grammar or that implicitly call into question the subject-verb requirements of propositional sense are clearly irritating for some. They produce more work for their readers, and sometimes their readers are offended by such demands. Are those who are offended making a legitimate request for “plain speaking” or does their complaint emerge from a consumer expectation of intellectual life?” (italics mine). To understand the point in our present circumstance: are those offended by the apparent literary heresy of the grammatical formulations of equality found in the TNIV really concerned with easy reading or are their interests in something much more perverse, the preservation of sexist orders and attitudes? Using gender inclusive language should be a given, should it not? Personally, I see women everywhere I go and I refer to them as such, not as brothers and fathers and men. Let me remind you, we are not talking about pronouns for God, but for the community of believers.....continued, link

one or two things about Christmas.

2011-12-26T11:54:00.000-08:00

Annie Dillard, "Feast Days":

Let me mention
one or two things about Christmas.
Of course you've all heard
that the animals talk
at midnight:a particular elk, for instance,
kneeling at night to drink, leaning tall to pull leaves
with his soft lips, says, alleluia.

That the soil and fresh water lakes
also rejoice,
as do products
such as sweaters
(nor are plastics excluded from grace),
is less well known.
Further:the reason for some silly looking fishes,
for the bizarre mating
of certain adult insects,
or the sprouting, say
in a snow tire
of a Rocky Mountain grass,
is that the universal
loves the particular,
that freedom loves to live
and live fleshed full,
intricate,
and in detail.

God empties himself
into the earth like a cloud.
God takes the substance, contours
of a man, and keeps them,
dying, rising, walking,
and still walking wherever there is motion.

from Tickets For A Prayer Wheel
by Annie Dillard

missional church in two minutes

2011-12-26T01:11:00.001-08:00

Retroactive Justification

2011-12-26T01:09:00.000-08:00

Peter Rollins video""Life is lived forwards and understood backwards":
:
Retroactive Justification from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.

Good Samaritan misunderstood

2011-12-21T18:24:00.000-08:00

We so often miss ( see "Parables and Misundertaking")
the point and punch of parables..

Good article in the new Biblical Archaeology by Amy-Jill Levine (emphasis mine):

In the parable, the priest and Levite signal not a concern for ritual purity; rather, in good storytelling fashion, these first two figures anticipate the third: the hero. Jews in the first century (and today) typically are either priests or Levites or Israelites. Thus the expected third figure, the hero, would be an Israelite. The parable shocks us when the third figure is not an Israelite, but a Samaritan.
But numerous interpreters, missing the full import of the shock, describe the Samaritan as the outcast. This approach, while prompting compelling sermons, is the fourth anachronism. Samaritans were not outcasts at the time of Jesus; they were enemies.
In the chapter before the parable (Luke 9:51–56) Luke depicts Samaritans as refusing Jesus hospitality; the apostles James and John suggest retaliation: “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54). John 4:9 states, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.” The Jewish historian Josephus reports that during the governorship of Cumanus, Samaritans killed “a great many” Galilean pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem (Antiquities 20.118–136). The first-century Jewish person hearing this parable might well think: There is no such thing as a “good Samaritan.” But unless that acknowledgment is made, and help from the Samaritan is accepted, the person in the ditch will die.
The parable offers another vision, a vision of life rather than death. It evokes 2 Chronicles 28, which recounts how the prophet Oded convinced the Samaritans to aid their Judean captives. It insists that enemies can prove to be neighbors, that compassion has no boundaries, and that judging people on the basis of their religion or ethnicity will leave us dying in a ditch. link

Levine: Good Samaritan parable teaches compassion for the enemy

And this video version:

Amy-Jill Levine: Dangers on the Road to Jericho from Chautauqua Institution on FORA.tv
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See a great, hilarious section by Capon:\

The defining character – the one to whom the other three respond by being non-neighbour or neighbour – is the man who fell among thieves. The actual Christ-figure in the story, therefore, is yet another loser, yet another down-and-outer who, by just lying there in his lostness and proximity to death, is in fact the closest thing to Jesus in the parable.

That runs counter, of course, to the better part of two thousand years’ worth of interpretation, but I shall insist on it. This parable, like so many of Jesus’ most telling ones, has been egregiously misnamed. It is not primarily about the Samaritan but about the man on the ground. This means, incidentally, that Good Samaritan Hospitals have been likewise misnamed. It is the suffering, dying patients in such institutions who look most like Jesus in his redeeming work, not the doctors with their authoritarian stethoscopes around their necks. Accordingly, it would have been much less misleading to have named them Man-Who-Fell-Among-Thieves Hospitals...{as if the doctors would stand for that} (p. 210ff, Kingdom, grace, judgment: paradox, outrage, and vindication in the parables of Jesus)

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P.S>:

Animated Parables: Gaga Samaritan

Rob Bell's farewell sermon at Mars Hill

2011-12-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

Of course, it ends with a little quantum entanglement.

Read or download here

shepherd/pastor rethought: ferocity, royalty, romance

2011-12-21T12:24:00.000-08:00

Joel Hoffman suggests that not only is "The Lord is my shepherd" not the best translation of o’eh,

but that the key biblical images of shepherd are:

ferocity,
royalty,
romance

Implications for pastors?

community hermeneutic

2011-12-21T02:11:00.000-08:00

"The meaning of Scripture is enacted in the Christian community, and only those who participate in the enactment can understand the text. Consequently, the transformation of the community is not the presupposition but also the result and proof of true interpretation. Where God’s spirit is at work, the community (“we all”) is being transformed into the image of Christ and liberated to see, when they read Scripture, that the old covenant prefigured precisely this transformation." -Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, p. 152)

centered set on the move..or a river?

2011-12-21T01:31:00.000-08:00

We've noted centered sets with moving centers here and here, but what if the whole set moves?:

...I think that the centered set idea is closer to how things work in practice, but still wonder if the idea of the “center” in the “centered set” is too static. Is there one core of doctrines or beliefs we are moving toward or away from? Perhaps. Perhaps we could call it something like “Christianity,” but what would we put there?
I prefer a metaphor in which the whole continues to move. For a long time I used the metaphor of rays or trajectories. If two rays start off half a degree separate from each other (i.e., there is some theological diversity from the very beginning in Christianity) then if they continue on their trajectories they will get farther and farther apart. The result? An increasingly large space between the vectors that constitutes Christianity within the tradition; i.e., an increasingly theologically and culturally diverse Christianity that all can lay claim to orthodoxy.
If that doesn’t work for you, perhaps the metaphor of a river.

Image: prozac1 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This one I stole from Joel Green. The idea is that a river flows between banks. It is a dynamic thing. It probably gets wider and wider the farther downstream it goes. It is always moving toward its end. Moving together. It’s that sense of unified motion I like: even as it gets wider, the whole is still in motion in the same direction–toward the eschaton.
Or perhaps there’s a little of all of this. Perhaps there is a “center,” and that would be the Christ in whom we all live, and this Christ is not standing still or defined by or bounded by the creeds of the church, but continuing to march through history, gaining followers, and manifesting all the while an ever richer embodiment of the diversity of God’s creation.
- J. R. Daniel Kirk

Centripetal/Centrifugal church

2011-12-21T00:53:00.000-08:00

Inspired by set theory...An article (here) and art (below) from "122 Witnesses": on Centripetal/Centrifugal church

Direction: Moving from Centrifugal to Centripetal (Direction Journal)

Are you Centripetal, Centrifugal, or BOTH?

Centripetal or Centrifugal?: Radio Control Cars, Israel & the Church

CENTRIFUGAL AND CENTRIPETAL CHURCHES

Centripetal Churches | Mark Batterson

Pastor Craig Gross of XXX Church Interviewed at Exxxotica Porn Show

2011-12-19T21:48:00.000-08:00

":How I read the Bible"-N.T. Wright

2011-12-19T21:37:00.001-08:00

"Revelation and Christian Hope"-NT Wright video:

2011-12-19T21:36:00.000-08:00

"Revelation and Christian Hope: Political Implications of the Revelation to John"-NT Wright video:

Alan Roxburgh: We Need Detectives of Divinity!

2011-12-19T21:26:00.000-08:00

Interview with Alan Roxburgh- video below by Chris Yaw of GrowMyChurch.com, synposis here, AR says to forget about your mission, and get outta the building:

Texting in Class and Church: Butt Cheeks and Fear of Hell

2011-12-19T13:53:00.000-08:00

Because several of the classes I teach have to do with how to read and interpret texts (particularly biblical texts) , contexts, and intertextuality...I actually encourage students to send me text messages in class.

They often look at me as if I am kidding, even afraid I will confiscate their phone if they do.

...Or worse! Check out this shocking video (HT Michael), revealing one professor's policy on texting :in class:

Here's one teacher who welcomes texting in class:

And how about church? Our friend and local pastor Kevin Foster responds to text message questions and comments as part of his sermon.. Kevin is the one who introduced me to Earl Creps and his quote, If they are not texting, they are not listening.

Compare that to one church's policy on cell phones (video below) Hell is pretty strict, huh?

FPU professor (and Textpert) Greg Camp introduced me to the brilliant idea of having students text me in class.

I ask them to send me a random text message (anything) or to forward me a text message from their inbox. These become our curriculum for the next few minutes as we interpret them.

This opens great discussion..sometimes even about topics discussed in " Is There a Meaning in This Text?: The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge."

And very often I get a text that says, "The university president just emailed, notifying that all classes get out early today."

I usually tell the "butt cheeks" story (inspired by Pastor John Christie's use of that text) in classes where students text, to illustrate context.

Suffice to say that's a different text than "but, cheeks."

Suffice to say the whole idea of texting in class has proven to be a fruitful means of discussing the only thing we ever engage in, and the only job we have:

interpreting text messages.

Huh?

Increasingly, the definition of text is becoming:

"any message, in any medium, intended to communicate anything"

Movies are texts; conversations at St. Arbuck's are texts. etc

So the primary discipline/skill/art we should cultivate is that of sending and interpreting text messages.

All of life is a text message.

Of course, when dealing with The Text (Scripture), how much more...

Text, subtext, and context is everything.

Text me..

-
Related, see my popular posts on "signs" (even though that is another class, namely "semiotics")...they, too, are text message and need to be interpreted.

Signs, album 1
Signs, album 2

we don’t know where we are going

2011-12-19T13:04:00.000-08:00

"There are no experts in the company of Jesus.
We are all beginners,
necessarily followers,
because we don’t know where we are going."
-Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way, p. 12

Note: if that last sentence doesn't ring true..consider the writer of Hebrews:

Knowing where you're going is overrrated

" I have no idea where I am going"

Alan Jacobs: 'The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction'

2011-12-19T08:52:00.001-08:00

Alan Jacobs discusses 'The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction' from The New Atlantis on Vimeo.

Nicholas Carr video on information overload

2011-12-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

Disembedding and Theosis

2011-12-18T22:47:00.000-08:00

Disembedding and Theosis (by Jack Whelan)

"Improv Eveywhere" documentary trailer

2011-12-18T22:30:00.001-08:00

More "Booty. God. Booty" webisodes

2011-12-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

Background and first episode here ,
and bottom video explains the provovative title of this series..

Briane Greene: Closing in on the God Particle

2011-12-16T15:52:00.000-08:00

Junia's sex change:female apostles lost in translation

2011-12-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

Let me come out of the closet to recommend Scot McKnight's E-book, Junia is Not Alone. If you don't have a Kindle, Amazon offers a free Kindle reader..
I wonder why an E Book? Too controversial for Christian bookstores?

Todd Littleton says:

Scot takes readers on a tour of how Junia has been treated in translation. Over the years the politics of interpretation created an occasion for Junia to have a sex-change. And then, and how the new Junias was killed off in the process of restoring Junia to her place in Scripture. If you would like an introduction into E.J. Epp’s, Junia: The First Woman Apostle, then Junia Is Not Alone is a good place to start.,,

Oh, and if this is not enough to prompt you to read Scot’s new book, Bill Kinnon said you should!

celtic prayer buys back the middle zone from the televangelistas

2011-12-16T14:30:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite teachers, George Hunter (had him at Asbury for MDiv communication classes) and another of my favorite teachers, Paul Hiebert (a weeklong missiology, worldview and spiritual warfare class on Yale Divinity School Campus) would have worked well together.

Hunter picks up Hiebert's "Flaw of the Excluded Middle," and suggests (with help from Ray SimpsonRichard Mouw) that Celtic contemplative prayer can buy back the middle zone from the televangelists and megachurch pastors..see pp 31-32 120 here.

Parker Palmer video; The Risk of Incarnation

2011-12-16T14:09:00.001-08:00

Parker Palmer here or below:

The Risk Of Incarnation from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.\\

The Revolutionary Potential of the Actually Existing Church

2011-12-16T13:29:00.000-08:00

The Revolutionary Potential of the Actually Existing Church
By Peter Rollins

I was recently reading Slavoj Zizek’s excellent essay “The Ambiguity of the Masochist Social Link” and was struck by his reflection on how symptoms can represent forgotten failures to act. I would like to reflect upon this in relation to what we see in so much of the actually existing church today.
In order to approach this subject let us begin by taking the example of a man who drinks to excess, neglects his children and mistreats his...continued

The Marker Trick: "YEP!"

2011-12-16T13:16:00.001-08:00

Rob Bell's "Marker Trick" always helps me illustrate thee concept of fuzzy sets:

http://davewainscott.blogspot.com/2010/01/is-church-bs-or-cs.html

"The King Will See You Now"

2011-12-15T17:45:00.000-08:00

New Christmas album from Bill Mallonee here (more Mallonee music here)
&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://billmalloneemusic.bandcamp.com/track/the-king-will-see-you-now-2"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;THE KING WILL SEE YOU NOW by Bill Mallonee &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; Muriah Rose&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;

hristmas...from the eyes of King Herod. The hands of the powerful will usually try and "hush up" truth. "Business as usual," is their mantra. Truth is often "inconvenient." Pilate's famous "What is truth?" maybe the most thoroughly "modern" phrase ever uttered by an ancient.
The Christ Child's salvation is peaceable, merciful and above all, lasting.

lyrics

THE KING WILL SEE YOU NOW words/music: bill mallonee

I heard you all came from pretty far
to grace our little old town
heard you saw some new bright stars
ah, the king will see you now

the king was pacing in his chambers
clearly a worried man
seems like for every neck ya’ gotta wring,
ah, ya’ get to wring two hands

ok, let’s put our cards on the table
let us be of the same mind
if you’d relay my goodwill
ah, if you’d be so kind

I’d welcome him in person if I could
but there’s this shakey lil' government
later on, I’ll bring the love in a motorcade
with all that pomp and circumstance

Chorus:
and the pattern, it repeats itself
when power is asked to bow
whenever truth gets ushered in
ah, the king will see you now

Oh, I’ll offer him my worship
my best wishes and bright hope
never mind the dagger
underneath my cloak

I hear new kings get born every day
So me? I don’t sweat it all that hard
Isn’t life just the funniest thing?
With all this changing of the guard?

Chorus

They say that patriotism is the last refuge
to which a scoundrel clings
I’ve seen that with my own two eyes
then I saw it in a dream

Must be time to guard your turf
must be time to guard your home
whenever the truth shows up drunk with love
and gets too close to the bone

Chorus:
and the pattern, it repeats itself
when power is asked to bow
whenever truth gets ushered in
ah, the king will see you now

there’s always a steel door to be slammed
when she gets a little loud
whenever truth gets outta hand
ah, the kind will see you now

credits

from WONDERLAND, track released 16 December 2011
Bill Mallonee: vocals, guitars, bass, drums

"When's the last time you heard this preached?: 'FOLLOW GOD! IT COULD END BADLY!'"

2011-12-15T07:04:00.000-08:00

"Addicted to Risk"

2011-12-15T06:59:00.000-08:00

Brian McLaren posts this TED Talk by Naomi Klein, with the question,,"When did you last hear a sermon offering this much wisdom?"

The One-Buttock Gospel According to Chopin

2011-12-15T06:53:00.000-08:00

MATT CLEAVER adds this:

Some intersections with the gospel & theology

Discipleship is more like teaching the piano than passing on information en masse. Think about how kids learn to play the piano: a parent or a teacher sits down on the bench next to them one-on-one. They aren’t invited into a class when they hit a certain age and are expected to learn to play the piano.
We can “live into” realities that are not present.
Vision must be big & not incremental. Moving from 3% to 4% is not visionary. We should strive for 100%.
Stop emphasizing every note, but think about the long line from b to e
When other people’s eyes are not shining, who am I being to cause that? Not, what is wrong with them?
Our job is to awaken the possibilities in others
The conductor never speaks but engages all
We must believe in the outcome
One-buttock playing = passionate, consuming, internalized
His face showed he cared and was passionate

-Matt Cleaver

"Love, Sex and the Sacred"

2011-12-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

'Most Christian books about sex are as unreal and abstract as pornography." --Tyler Blanksi

U2 - Who's gonna ride your wild horses (Baby Version)

2011-12-15T06:39:00.000-08:00

"I'm a sinner, you're the holy child
But your Sacred Heart is a savage scratching at my door
And your lips of blood have me screaming out
For more and more"/ -full lyrics

U2 - Who's gonna ride your wild horses (Baby Version) Kindergarten from Felicia Brundia on Vimeo.

U2: "Near the Island"

2011-12-15T06:36:00.000-08:00

U2 - Near The Island (Instrumental) from Spiros Papadatos on Vimeo.

Excerpt from "Like a Song" column at atu2:

LIKE A SONG: NEAR THE ISLAND

@U2,
By: Sherry Lawrence

As the quiet instrumental “Near The Island” filled the house, I felt like I was being transported out of my toy-filled living room and brought to some sort of tropical getaway or exclusive spa retreat. The peacefulness of this song felt out of place compared with all its Achtung Baby-era siblings. The piano and guitar seduced me in a way I didn’t expect. While the guitar provides the backbone, the piano presents an exploration of mood: steady, hushed, dance-like, stern (especially at the 1:08 mark), but mostly gentle. “Near The Island” has challenged me in ways I didn’t expect in that I realized that simplicity is underrated. Don’t get me wrong, as a U2 fan I do miss Adam and Larry’s touch in the song. Bono’s a great lyricist, but sometimes there’s more said when you say nothing at all.
After a day of loud toys and screaming children, I long for a change of pace. However, I know when this stage passes, I’ll long for the days of scattered Tinkertoys and puzzle pieces. “Near The Island” has allowed me to recognize that life passes quickly, and while it’s important to take a timeout to rejuvenate the soul, it’s important to cherish the precious moments each stage of life brings.
“Near The Island” has reinvigorated me as a U2 fan and has me very curious about the tracks that could make up Songs Of Ascent. The softer side of U2 is just as relevant, and as I’ve come to discover, it’s just as challenging as the punk side of the band. They continue to reinvent themselves to push the envelope more artistically. In a box set filled with rock ’n’ roll, club remixes, ballads, punk and electronica, a song like this may not be like the others, but it certainly does belong. As do the Legos on my kitchen table. c)@U2/Lawrence, 2011, link

Kurzweill: biological/technological evolution is "spiritual"..

2011-12-15T06:31:00.000-08:00

Watch Ray Kurzweil Extended Interview on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Peter Rollins interviewed By Kim and Ken

2011-12-14T14:46:00.000-08:00

What a catch! The Kim and (Keltic) Ken show scored an audio interview with Peter Rollins ..on his :"Insurrection" book and other subversionicities. Don't miss:

part 1 here
part 2 here