"From Sex Addict to Saint": video

 A random episode from the long-ago KRDU video series, "Before They Were Saints."
 Apologies for the cheesy host.

Augustine and the prophetic nature of "producing stinkless musical sounds from your behind"

From "Jesus and the Grotesque," an excellent chapter in Tortured Wonder: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels (click that title for a review in the MB journal, Direction), here's Rodney Clapp:

St. Augustine  observes... there are those who “produce at will such musical sounds from their behind (without any stink) that they seem to be singing from that region" ...there are recurrent rumors of jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke's ability to pass gas in tune, or the historically documented showmanship of the “fartiste” Le Petomane a nineteenth-century cabaret performer who "could blow out candles with a well-aimed blast and break wind in tenor, baritone, and bass registers" ... (Who knew comedian Jim Carrey and his ventriloquized butt had such a venerable pedigree?)  -link, p. 186, most of the chapter readable between the pages here  and here

If you don't get the profound connections to a deep theology yet...(:
     ...read the chapter.

U2 devotionals: A Cheap Trick of a U2 midrash mashup: "Surrender...but don't give yourself away"

There are no lack of officially Christian songs with lyrics involving the call to surrender.

As I joked once in a Salt Fresno Magazine article on the topic of surrender:

As you may have noticed, the hymn isn’t called “I Surrender 87 percent.” (link)

But some days that's about the max percent Jesus is going to get from any of us.
I am sure there are many reasons for that...but do they all boil down to fear?:

Do you remember Jim Carrey’s character in the film “Bruce Almighty” finally getting to the point of radical repentance and deep desperation; kneeling down emotionally in the middle of the road and rainstorm, and praying with all his might,

“I surrender to Your will!”

He was promptly

 

run over by a truck!

Don’t we sometimes fear surrender?

Do you ever feel and fear that if you offer God a total surrender, He’ll take you up on it?

But the only thing to fear about surrender is fear of surrender itself. 
(link)

story here

To this day, many lampoon Bono for his "white flag of surrender" days.
Heck, you could even

 buy mini-surrender flags at the concerts!>>


Only two  U2 songs...decades and worlds apart... carry the word  "surrender" in the title:
1983's "Surrender"  and  from their most recent album: "Moment of Surrender."

But if as Bono freely admits, all their songs can be turned into prayer...then all their songs may well be about surrender; at least surrendering to surrender.

Ian Ryan recently wrote a fascinating column, suggesting that "Surrender" can be seen as sister song to  "City of Blinding Lights," as they are the " only  two  [U2] songs that I can think of about the city as a concept."  Fascinating insight, and a great read here.  To explore the city as a context for temptation and crucible for surrender, see  my thoughts on  another Mashup: "Walking in the City"/"Moment of Surrender", and the U2 song "New York."

Beth Maynard comments on Ryan's article,

Ian Ryan, the lyrics guru at @U2, has an interesting post up about "Surrender" in which he links it with "City of Blinding Lights." "Surrender" has long been a favorite U2 track of mine, one which I tend to pair in presentations with "Discotheque" as essentially treating the topic of true versus false surrender (in Bono's words, the fact that "there are two roads out of town.")   link

Hmmm, there are several great candidates for sister songs on surrender.

But my ultimate pairing, if I were the DJ for church Sunday..and I just might be...

might be a messianic mashup of:

U2's "Surrender" and (at least the chorus of ) Cheap Trick's "Surrender"

How obvious is that?(:


You can find some interesting debate on the meaning (or non-meaning, if it's just a fun throwaway song) of the Cheap Trick Song  on Song Meanings here (be sure to catch  how one interpreter  even brings Žižek to the table!)  and some thoughts on authorial intent on  a fan forum here.

One of the intriguing lines is the chorus; namely, what does it mean to "surrender, but don't give yourself away"?  I want it to mean,  "Surrender completely to God, but there's no need to surrender who you really are," in the sense of Larry Wood's book title, "Truly Ourselves, Truly The Spirit's."

But even that can be scary enough to postpone full surrender indefinitely!
Is that why the Christian uses of the "Bruce Almighty" clip  stop before the truck hits Bruce?

One of my favorite lines in the U2 song is the  also intriguing "If I want to live, I have to die to myself someday."
Like Beth, I have

 assumed that the "someday" of that dying to self was a bitter jab at the narrator's own apathy. (Like Augustine: Lord, give me chastity, but not yet.)  LINK

On that classic Augustinian prayer, see this:

"

So the U2 song in it's "someday"  and the Cheap Trick song's "don't give yourself away" may be more sisterly than previously seen: Both capture and subvert.. with humor, wink, and dead-on prophecy...our hesitance and reticence to  enter into "Abandonment to Divine Providence"
for fear we will  have to be chaste; or worse: be abandoned by God, not abandoned to God.

If only we realized that The Secret is Letting Go!

Even if it does hurt:

"God teaches the soul by pains and obstacles;

not by ideas."

"God teaches the heart not by ideas,
but by pain and contradiction."

-de Caussade, "Abandonment to Divine Providence  (PDF)

We fear the leap of faith, when we can and should yield to it "heartily",,,

Uh, "heartily"?




I cherish the “Covenant Prayer” from the 1700s; John Wesley suggested every congregation pray it corporately on New Year’s (Hmm, another potential U2 connection(: ):

I am no longer my own, but Thine.

Put me to what Thou wilt, rank me with whom Thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for Thee or laid aside for Thee,

exalted for Thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to Thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

Thou art mine, and I am Thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.  link

Technically, the word “surrender” doesn’t show up in that passionate, provocative prayer.

But it’s on and between every line.

And betwixt  and between every prayerline of my U2-Cheap Trick midrash and mashup.

As a bonus, to quote an actual devotional I found on the Cheap Trick song, surrender can be navigated even when I am in a crappy mood.  Thus I don't need to give myself away, only give myself over.

 

"Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works"

The second book in James K.A. Smith's Cultural Liturgies Series is out:

 "Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works"

(see video version of the first book here  and an excerpt at 

Why Victoria's In on the Secret")

 -----------

Books and Culture podcast about the book here

--

 Info from Baker Books:

About
How does worship work? How exactly does liturgical formation shape people? And how does the Spirit marshal the dynamics of such transformation? In the second of James K. A. Smith's three-volume theology of culture, the author expands and deepens the analysis of cultural liturgies and Christian worship he developed in his acclaimed Desiring the Kingdom. Drawing on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Pierre Bourdieu, this book helps readers understand and appreciate the bodily basis of habit formation and how liturgical formation--both "secular" and Christian--affects one's fundamental orientation to the world. Worship "works" by leveraging one's body to transform his or her imagination, and it does this through stories understood on a register that is closer to body than mind. This has critical implications for thinking about the nature of Christian formation and the role of the arts in Christian mission.
Students of philosophy, liturgical studies, and theology will welcome this work as will scholars, pastors, worship leaders, and Christian educators. Imagining the Kingdomincludes analyses of popular films, novels, and other cultural phenomena, such as The King's Speech, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, the iPhone, and Facebook.

Contents
How to Read This Book
Introduction: A Sentimental Education: On Christian Action
Part 1: Incarnate Significance: The Body as Background1. Erotic Comprehension
2. The Social Body
Part 2: Sanctified Perception3. "We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live": How Worship Works
4. Restor(y)ing the World: Christian Formation for Mission
Index

---

Endorsements
"This book is a thought-provoking, generative reflection on the imagination-shaping power of Christian worship practices. Smith describes and demonstrates how practices, perceptions, emotions, and thought interact and how together they can be shaped in cruciform ways. What an ideal book for crossing boundaries among academic disciplines and between the academy and the church."
John D. Witvliet, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Calvin College, and Calvin Theological Seminary
"Imagining the Kingdom is a fit successor to Jamie Smith's remarkable Desiring the Kingdom. The new book is, like its predecessor, learned but lively, provocative but warmhearted, a manifesto and a guide. Smith takes Christians deeper into the artistic, imaginative, and practical resources on which we must draw if we wish to renew not only our minds but also our whole beings in Christ."
Alan Jacobs, Clyde S. Kilby Chair Professor of English, Wheaton College
"In this wonderfully rich and engagingly readable book of 'liturgical anthropology,' Smith makes a persuasive case for the thesis that human beings are best understood as worshiping animals. It has important implications at once for practical theology's reflection on religious formation, liturgy, and pedagogy and for philosophical theorizing about just what religion is. And it develops as an engaging and lively conversation among an astonishing mix of people: imagine Calvin, Proust, Merleau-Ponty, Augustine, Wendell Berry, Bourdieu, and David Foster Wallace all in the same room really talking to each other about being human and how to think about it!"
David Kelsey, Luther A. Weigle Professor of Theology Emeritus, Yale Divinity School
"Jamie Smith shows us that the gospel does not primarily happen between our ears but in all the movements of the body by which we are formed and in turn form the world. I know of no more thorough and sophisticated account of how secular liturgies form and deform us and how Christian liturgies can help. Though sophisticated, Smith's book is also a delight. Its pages are filled with great poetry and insights from films, novels, and everyday life. Smith shows how we encounter God with our whole selves and how God carries us even when we don't know what is going on."
William T. Cavanaugh, senior research professor, DePaul University
"It is heartening to set one's eyes on Jamie Smith's bold and creative endeavor to awaken Christians, Protestants in particular, to the centrality of worship in even, nay especially, our moral lives. Smith's acute insight into the false and lying stories and liturgies generated by the dominant powers of our economy makes his case for a reclamation of worship within the churches compelling; for this thoughtful book is rightly concerned with a restoration of the Christian imagination rooted in habits of virtue."
Vigen Guroian, professor of religious studies, University of Virginia; author of The Melody of Faith

the godly idolatry of systematic theology... in 5 easy "R"s

Since all theologizing is

 God-inspired

 and

demonically infused..

                ... it's a tough  but necessary minefield to (circum)navigate.

In a way, it's our only job (we can't NOT theologize).
In  a way it's eventually ( inevitably?) idolatry.

It's a  Catch 22
(Numbers 22, perhaps...remember something in that chapter about talking asses?)


And if  theology is in essence  translation..

                                   then like translation, it can be messianic and betrayal.

Or worse: messianic betrayal.

But..

 if all theology is written by Judas anyway...

                       ...we might as well prayerfully and carefully take a stab at officially doing it.

But in what form/format?
How to do so in way that serves the present age...and  betrays it?

At risk of sounding like an annoying and alliterating preacherman...

If we had to write a systematic theology textbook..

How about starting with a chapter entitled one of the following:

•  Radiohead
•  Revelation
•  Redemption
•  Random
• Relevant

Heck, those might even be the only five chapter titles you  need!
(Sorry for the alliteration..but at least I didn't do three points...and a poem.
Scott the  Spy  noticed that even Mr. Emergent himself tends to write in threes..see here.
(I hadn't caught that..we need more spies in the Kingdom...who pro-phetically see what no one else sees).

Oops,  let's back up. It's all still too systematic...we need first and foremost to think systemic.

It's something we all naturally do, but we have been trained/brainwashed that systematic is the only way to fly.

Of course, systemic thinking can also lead  and breed to idolatry, but it is more innate, intuitive...and like life and like  Theos himself.
(Of course it opens a door to heresy...do it anyway!)


I DO love teaching "Systematic Theology"..had a great time with these tribesters at Latin American Bible Institute, for example.
We walked through the required systematic theology textbook..

But we walked  and talked in a way that was

                                                                   systemic,
          organic,
       interrelated,
\                                       networked,
 muliplex
                                                                                            and Venned.

As our churchthing family has  been  recently praying for our  Chilean member , the poeta Happy Lee,  who has started a seminary systematic theology course,  I thought to take these two photos to tease her a bit..

First photo came with the comment "Here's my systematic theology  bookshelf (look how it's literally so heavy, it's weighed down) If you need to borrow anything, I 'll be glad to email a book or three to you."

Then I caught the book title in the second photo.

Ideally it could replace and render obsolete all the more "theological" titles behind it.
(Though you'll notice it was written by Jerry Jenkins, so inevitably it must be left behind)

Of the making of books there is no end,
but if our end was to make ONE book on systemic theology

We must mess with the mold.

RADIOHEAD

Pick a lyric/line anywhere in their canon/cannon.
Or stick to one album..or one song..like "Airbag""

• "Like a jackknifed juggernaut, I am born  agaaaaaaaaaaaaaain" (salvation)
• "In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the uuuuuuuuuuuuuuniverse"  (Second Coming).

More?  See all my posts on Radiohead. or start here:

• The Crucifixion According to Radiohead:
• Radiohead on Romans 7 ("Creep") and 8 ("Lift)" 

Or...as my character said to Ken's character in the award-winning "Gaithers on Crack" film embedded below: "Radiohead!!  Any questions?"

REVELATION

Why do most books follow the nice and neat narrative:
God>humans> Jesus> end times  etc

And why can't the chapters be

 venned
              hyperlinked

                                       interlocked


.............not

sysetematic-ized:

segmented,
               cemented,
                                      walled off..
There are no chapter divisions in the Bible, so why book them for  a theology book?

I love how folks like Rob Bell and Len Sweet have put table of contents in the back, for example.
It helps us think from right to left...which is the right way, by the way.

I love how McLaren took on the Greco-Roman narrative that had held us captive.

(see "A New Kind of Christianity" McLaren  and holy heteroclite:: "A New Kind of Christianity" review part 2:).
His alternative flow is excellent and exhilirating..but also just as much a grid or system as any other!  (as is mine..or anyone's...How do we put a lock in grids..and gridlock? Awareness is half the battle..)

SOO...at great risk...why not start  at the beginning.
By that I mean with the book of  Revelation.. and work backwards (forwards and forewords) from there.
Not in the Left Behind way.
But in a way that gets the flow of Kingdom  and eschatology.
And that goes with that flow....and flows with the "go":


Try these links for starters (enders):

• THE KINGDOM’S RETROACTIVE RETROFUTURE: SEND ME MORE ARROWS
• end times as creation events
• the more we travel from the future, the more real we become
• all epistemology is eschatological : Resident Aliens with Visual Hearing
• Revelation resources that shouldn't be left behind
• Ellul: every moment of life= apocalyptic

REDEMPTION

Okay, I chose the R word, only to be consistent.
I mean atonement.

Rethink/dethink/atone for all atonement theories.

Abandon all atonement theories...theoretically.

There are no theories of atonement.
That's a good theory of atonement.

Or at least draw/systematize all such theories from Jesus' life as much as his death.

That includes his life before his life (preincarnate)
and his current life.

Ask 10 out of 10 Christians to fill in the blank:

"The Bible says we are saved by the ________ of Jesus."

11 out of 11 will say "death" (or resurrection.)
Romans 5:10 says...


 LIFE..

 I sometimes draw this chart to suggest that atonement theories
shouldn't just deal only with  Jesus' death and resurrection,  but also branch out to draw  from  his  birth, life and teaching on one end...

...and include  ascenscion and Pentecosting on the other end.
NT Wright has recently reminded us of the   ridicubulous lapses in the creeds:

The creeds were drafted in order to highlight points on which the church resolved major difficulties. But when the creeds began to be used as a teaching syllabus (as they often are to this day), then the problem begins, because of course the creeds jump straight from Jesus’ birth to his death … and I have a mental image at that point, of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John standing there saying ‘Excuse me, we spent a lot of time and effort telling you about all that stuff in between, and you just skip over it?  What’s that about?’

Now, I have nothing against the great creeds.  I love them, and I say them or sing them ex animo.  But they have accidentally encouraged—or the way they have been used has accidentally encouraged—a reading of the New Testament in which the main body of the four Gospels is not theologically load-bearing.  For many Christians, it would have been quite sufficient if Jesus of Nazareth had been born of a virgin, died on a cross, and never done anything in between except, perhaps, lived a sinless life.

The four Gospels then, function for many as the dispensible back story for the Gospel as preached by Paul … this is the de facto position of many Protestants and many Evangelicals—many conservativeEvangelicals—the irony being, of course, that it’s the exact same position as that of Rudolph Bultman, with the only difference being that Bultman thought most of the stories were pious fictions.  But the reason why most Evangelicals would differ is not that the stories are doing anything theologically, in themselves, but simply to shore up a view of the inspiration of Scripture.  Not for the only time, swaths of Evangelicals are more anxious to protect a theory of Scripture, than to hear what Scripture actually says.  LINk

RANDOM

Write that book.

BUT..

Subvert the dominant Greco-Roman narrative.

Start somewhere random...
as nothing is random...........and there is a  wholly and holy randomnity.

Heck, there may even be a  "Random Designer":reigning  randomly in  an ordered heaven.

How random is that?


RELEVANT

I hate that word.

Let's go with practical..

Remember that God loves donkeys, sweat, entrails and menstruation:

'Practical' Theology departments at seminaries do not make theology more practical. They ensure that theology, oustide the PT department, will remain practical--that it will remain theology..
..Theology is bad enough, but modern theology is theology cultivated into idolatry. Bowing before science, social science, or philosophy, modern theology has adjusted its distinctive language and insight to conform to the common sense of modernity. Metaphysics or evolutionary science or liberal political theory or whatever determines in advance what can be true of God and His ways. . .
Theology is a specialized, professional language, often employing obscure (Latin and Greek) terms that are never used by anyone but theologians, as if theologians live in and talk about a different world from the one mortals inhabit.
Theology functions sociologically like other professional languages - to keep people out and to help the members of the guild to identify with one another.
Whereas the Bible talks about trees and stars, about donkeys and barren women, about kings and queens and carpenters....
...Theology is a "Victorian" enterprise, neoclassically bright and neat and clean, nothing out of place.Whereas the Bible talks about hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation and genital emissions.
Here's an experiment you can do at any theological library. You even have my permission to try this at home..
Step 1: Check the indexes of any theologian you choose for any of the words mentioned above. (Augustine does not count. Augustines' theology is as big as reality. Or bigger.)
Step 2: Check the Bible concordance for the same words.
Step 2: Ponder these questions: Do theologians talk about the world the same way the Bibke does? Do theologians talk about the same world the Bible does?
Peter J. Leithart, Against Christianity, pp44ff

Of course...on the topic of keeping theology relevant/practical..

everyone should read a book with a terrible title that makes it sound heavy and heady.

It is.

But impossibly...it is also really real, relevant.

It's practical, actual and factual.

And the centerfolds rock.

----

Anyway, hope that made Happy happy.
Hope that messed up everyone's day, hair, and theology.

I hope we are all inspired to go forth and do what we shouldn't do but do do:

                                            Theologize.

Counter systemic evil with sytemic theology...and Theos.
Just make sure it all connects somewhere with the real world:
Jesus in/on the street corner.

If it stays in Ivory Tower, and never hits (or starts) with the man on the street, or the streetwalker..
..it's worse than a clanging cymbal/symbol....

"up till the time of Augustine, the church knew what Paul actually dealt with"

-Krister Stendahl:

“It has always been a puzzling fact that Paul meant so relatively little for the thinking of the church during the first 350 years of its history. 

To be sure, he is honoured and quoted, but – in the theological perspective of the west – it seems that Paul’s great insight into justification by faith was forgotten . . .

 A decisive reason for this state of affairs may well have been that up to the time of Augustine the Church was by and large under the impression that Paul dealt with those issues with which he actually deals: 

• 1) What happens to the Law (the Torah, the actual Law of Moses, not the principle of legalism) when the Messiah has come? 
•  2) What are the ramifications of the Messiah’s arrival for the relation between Jews and Gentiles?

-Krister Stendahl, "Paul Among Jews and Gentiles," 83-84.

sin at Niagara Falls overcome and dismantled by an atomic wiki- dance

I collect definitions of sin.

I know: some collect stamps.

But that would be sin for me if I'm called to collect definitions of sin.

And though it is a dusty academic job, it beats collecting dust.

Here's a definition: corporate mistrust.

If that's the definition, than it  can only be overcome by the Coroprate Truust in us which the  Shematic Trinity offers us in Jesus' death.

We'll get to that.

Joel Green and Mark Baker helpfully remind us  that even though we have been told that the key theory of the atonement is penal substitution, it is more helpful  and biblical to view and consider  a  "constellation of images."    And they remind us that if there is indeed a ":controlling metaphor,"  it may well  be a surprising  subversive one (like Christus Victor); one with biblical evidence; but one that most American Christians have never even heard of. (Better watch more Matrix and C.S. Lewis!)...



And so it is with definitions of sin.  Though  faithful and hugely helpful...and it will preach (this may be the problem, we are pastor types fall into the seduction of reductionism)...the  evangelical  definition of sin as "missing the mark/bullseye" (an archery image) ; that commonly-accepted sermon and sound byte   (see Stein's great section on the fallacy of interpreting biblical terms only by etymology.., in fact, "etymology of  a word is of little value in biblical interpretation"  p. 193')ay lead to us missing the multifaceted "constellation of images" for defining/picturing/seeing (ask Mark DeRaud about seeing) "sin."  And again, if a controlling metaphor  does emerge from a  holistic study of the text and context,  it may well be  a surprising one, subversive to eveverything we've learned in Sunday School.  Everything we know may be largely right; but radically wrong if seen in isolation.

Speaking of isolation, no one can sin in isolation.  All sin is relatio and relational, even if it is committed alone (lust, angry thoughts..etc).

It's corporate mistrust.

Using a gift ..or just my default modus operandi ..that Tim has identified in me.."pushing toward the unobvious"..let's push.  I will   integtrate  "obvious" arguments from "obviously" relatred sources as  we progress, such as the shocking story of Niagra Falls and dance theory..

..in addition to some more classically theological sources of course..

First up is Scot McKnight, in his penetrating book] "A Community Called Atonement."  As you can see by the title of the book, he winds up suggesting that what we have often seen as the ultimate individual act of God...the death of one person, alone on the cross..is actually instead/also the definitive act of community/communitas/communal act (he doesn't necessarily say all this directly, but I am drawing from his inspiration.

Could it be that all sin is "sinned" corporately, collectively..as part of a matrix/mileuex/machine and system/ systemic/syn?

With decades of research, Keith Sawyer ("Group Genius") has telliungly concluded that all acts of genius are corporate, relational, even/ especially the ones (Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb, etc).. This is just how the brain works, we are never alone...even in the lonely lab.

We are never alone.
    We never walk alone...and never sin alone,
                             and are never saved alone.

Walter Wink is insighful on systemic evil and "the powers."
And consider revisiting a scripture we know  (or not) too well:

Often, due to our Western/modernity/Christendom mindset-worldview,

we completely misunderstand ..and "misundertake" Scriptures..

especially in an individualistic (and dualistic) way.

(see "I am in sin if I 'avoid the appearance of evil'")


How many have heard a sermon on "our righteousness is like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6) which was all about our individual sins/filthy habits...

not grasping that it actually says "All of us (as one, together) have become like one who is unclean/Together, our (one, corporate) righteousness is like filthy rags. "

Sure, we were found individually unrighteousness; but the "more than the sum of its individual parts" corporate unrighteousness is what is primarily commented on here

As usual, the King James only trips us up even more:

"all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags"

Sounds like each individual has several "unrighteousnesses"...which of curse we read as bad habits..

But it's more akin to, we are a "committee of buzzards" (see "A Crash of Rhinos...a Committee of Buzzards"); or better yet one bad buzzard.

(Not to be confused with "One Bad Pig")

Sure, we go bowling and do "Judo Alone"...and that is sin, but we are worse off as "alone together."
Likewise, Isaiah 53:

" We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to their own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all."

..not fundamentally "the iniquity of each individual one," but "the one iniquity (and inequity) of us all as one."

 -LINK:   "We is one bad rag"

Let's take on the "corporate mistrust" definition.

 McKinght:

"Mark Biddle concludes that sin's essence is basic mistrust that manifests itself as pride and fear--as seeking to be both more than we are and less than we are.."  (p, 47)

Note this definition eschews a radically PealeSchuller/Osteenish definition of sin as sourced in low self esteem/low self-worth'; or in the prosperity gospel's "little gods" theology.  The definition is not complete with "less than we are" and "fear."

It is complete with the inclusion of "more than we are" and "pride."

And ironically, I am proud of my humility!  That's a pair of doxes.



And read on:

"Ted Peters sees sin as the 'human attempt to fixate the present and resist God's future--that is, to absolutize our own part and  sacrifice God's whole.'  Here again we have mistrust shaped by hubris.  p.47

And we might spotlight the corporate/community nature of mistrust and absolutization by coining a phrase hinted at it McKnight's title:

"A Community Called Sin."



If  sin is communal-collective-corporate.
  it must only be overcome by corporate re-demption and at-one-ment.

Green and Baker stress that we cannot subvert and individualistic gospel with an individualistic gospel (see All That Matters to Me is..._)

Which leads to a definition of sin I have stolen from the brilliant chef and prophetic provocateur
Robert Farrar Capon:

Sin is to not "get" Tr-Unity of The Trinity.

Capon:

In the Old Testament, the single sin most inveighed against isn't murder, adultery or theft.  It's idolatry.
the worship of any god or gods who aren't the one and only true God..it is the principal sin...And the doctrine of the Trinity stands as firmly against all such idolatries  as anything in the Old Testament.. The Trinity stands forth as one God..It's the coherence, the mutual indwelling... the dancing into relationships...Nothing in creation acts or exists by itself; everything interacr5s with everything else (p, 29, Genesis The Movie, emphasis mine)

Together, we fall into collective systeemic sin, Together, coropfrately we are  redeemed by Jesus, who is inevitably  interVenned and interconnected  (not intermeshed, see Len  and Rabbi Friedman on family systems theory and the Trinity)with the ultimate/intimate  corporate community of interrellationships:the Tri-unity.  And since  Trinty is intrinisically missional,   He/They are out tio rescue us from our sin and redeem our corporate rag.

That's something to dance about.
Dance is something we can't truly do alone.
And neither can the Godhead.
If you have never heard of perichoresis, get dancing and read  .
Read/dance.


And then dance all over death and destruction and dismantle a bomb or two at Niagara Falls.

Huh?

Every visitor to Niagara Falls notices the unexpected messiness of the US side, and the immaculateness of the Canadian side   I'm glad someone finally said it in orint: Ginger Strand, "Inventing Niagara"":

"McGeevy once suggested that for Canadians, Niagara Falls acted as a front door.  Thus, they landscaped and decorated it, the way you do your front walk, so that arriving guests get a good impression.  In contrast,for the United States, McGeevy proposed, Niagra Falls was a backyard: the place where you park your old bicycles, pasture your broken down couch, and stick your trash.  It's a nice, neat theory...But of course, America, no less than Canada, sees Niagra as an emblem of itself.  It's why we have spend so much effort 'remediating' it, disguising the effects of our use and abuse of the waterfall and its landscape  (p. 255)

An intriguing book, to say the least.  And especially when we consider how much atomic/nuclear waste is found in the (US) shadow  (see casting shadows on the city)
of the falls.  The city of Niagara Falls (and the Falls itself) are an amazing example of what the Bible calls "principalities" are often literal principalities of systemic and embedded evil

How does one subvert systemic evil of cities (cities as a symbol of corporateness).

Ask Bono:

Let’s rehearse the oft-repeated anecdote in which Bono, prior to the CD release, winkingly asked Christian musician Michael W. Smith, “How do you dismantle an atomic bomb, Michael?”. After a proper pause during which Smith admitted agnosticism about the answers, Bono replied “With love, with love.” (link)

If God isn't Love, who is.
If God isn;t a community of love, who is?

Augustine defined the Trinity as Lover, Beloved, and Love.


Bono, as itinerant pastor to various cities   (see U2 can pastor the city);
seems to know just what to say to the cities and principalities he visits
(note his words to Nashville; Bono acting all evangelical at the Nashville Revival ..
  Wonder what he said/sung to Niagara Falls? ...or Fresno?
)


Love that is  itself inherently Trinitarian  community, love that is fully  consummated on the  cross and its  Christus Victorious corporate (all membvers of tronty erespoind) prophetic act.

Doesn't that evoke a dance?
A dance among the communitas of God's people?
Like it did the first time the Kingdom of God landed on earth (see Exodus 15:18)?


Hate to end this post with the Bee Gees..but I gotta go.
And you get to dance.

You know you want to,
It might be a sin not to:

"feel like dancin..yeah!"

If the Bee Gees mess you, up, dance to this: dare you!

For Advent, I'm expecting what I desire and what I deserve! (Synchroblog)

Since someone asked, I will answer..

For Advent this year, I expect to get:


                                                what I desire and deserve.


Many reading that will say it sounds heretical;
          but I can back it up with sound theologians.

Some reading that statement will be incensed; saying it smells
counter-intuitive, paradoxical,  subversive and unobvious.
                                  Of course it does; all legitimate gospel must smell that way.  Such is incense.

First of all, note I didn't say, "For Christmas, I want.."
No... it reads,  "for  Advent."

How could I want anything amiss if I really believe it's Advent?
Advent is Christmas converted.
 ...Though inevitably, even Christmas and Advent wishes can be co-opted by culture (or worse, Christian culture L"Our making of images to present our work in ministry is not invulnerable to idolatry", John Tschetter remiinds).Thus,  the Advent Conspiracy is  recommended.

So, before I defend my thesis, let me reveal who commissioned it.
Christine Sine, on her Godspace blog, is seeking contributors to a  synchroblog on the question at hand  (Join us  here ;   or via the  facebook page):

 [The] topic  {is} Jesus is Coming: What Do We Expect? Christmas is probably the most widely celebrated Christian festival in the world.  Incredibly, the birth of a tiny baby two thousand years ago in an obscure village in Palestine still has the power to impact and transform lives.  Unfortunately it is also the most commercialized event on our calendars and even for many Christians is fast losing its religious significance. So what are we really expecting this Advent and Christmas season? Are we just waiting for a baby born in a stable or are we expecting a Saviour who will transform the world? This month’s synchroblog is centred around our expectations for the Advent and Christmas season. What are we expecting? How will it impact our lives and our faith?  -Christine Sine

Starting point is Psalm  37:4:

"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

We have all heard that all our desires are inherently depraved and evil.
But...

as we/if we/since we/when we  delight ourselves in the Lord  (which deep inside we desire to do; or at least desire to desire)..

...Then God is able to grant our desires, as they will he his.  We will will what he wills.

John 15:7: "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you...ask whatever you wish, and it will be done."

This is not "name it and claim it." It's claiming it, and then naming it.
It's claiming God's desires, and then finding that we agree with them as we name them.

Could there be a normative, formative place to live, where all our prayers are answered, and  answered "yes"?

Dare to believe so, if you believe Romans 8:26 about The Spirit praying for, and through, us...

So the various theologians I bring into the conversation..

• E Stanley Joines
• Fr. James Martin
• Madame Jeanne Guyon
• James K. A. Smith
• Robert Farrar Capon
• St. Paul Hewson (Bono)

...all speak into this; and address it from different angles.

E. Stanley Jones:

"At our 'Open Heart' meetings in the Christian Ashrams, we give four or five hours to this catharsis (Christians sharing honestly about three questions: 'Why have you come?' 'What do you want?" "What do you really need?') The reaction of one person, who listened to it for the first time, was: 'Good gracious, have we all the messed up people in the country here?' My reply was: 'No, you have a cross section of the church life honestly revealed.'

In the ordinary church, it is suppressed by respectability, by a desire to appear better than we really are.

Did you notice the word "desire" used there in the usual negative sense?  Only because desires rea off base in the "ordinary church."  But not when it is extraordinary, as it is called to be,

Every year at Christian Ashrams that I lead (join us), the responses blow us away with their honesty...and holiness.

Check out Christina (left in photo)'s experience:

At open heart I was able to stand up and without any reservations answer the three questions given me.

1. Why did I come here?

2. What do I want?

3. What do I need?

Even though I knew the answers to these questions at that moment they instantly changed. I was shown that why I came, what I wanted, and what I needed was not very important.

So my week at Ashram really began. I learned so many things from John McFarland. Like how to lead a person to Christ. Something I had never even bothered to learn before. He taught me the LOVE, SIN, JESUS, SURRENDER technique. We did an exercise to practice this technique and I was confronted with a situation that my own brother might put me through. He is not a Christian so leading him to the Lord is a dream I have had for a while. This exercise helped to better prepare for the day this comes. I now know what I need to do when he is ready to hear it.

Dave Wainscot, the bible teacher, taught me a new way to study the bible. This lesson helped me, later that week, to make a major decision in my life. Just the tools he gave me lead me to the answer the Lord wanted me to hear. I was inspired with the book of Jeremiah. By being led to this book I was able to problem solve my way through the decision I was facing. It was so awesome to take what I learned and put it into action so quickly.

I was given the opportunity to pray for some people who really needed it. I prayed in the prayer chapel and at the healing service. This was such a rewarding experience. I was just able to pray exactly what God lead me to pray, without any hesitations. The Lord helped me to reach out to people young and old and better understand their struggles in their walk with the Lord. My prayer life became more powerful than ever before. Prayer is now one of the most important things in my life. I used to pray about everything, but now I pray about everything for everyone. It makes a big difference in the relationships I have with other people.

The only way to describe what I actually experienced at Ashram is Kingdom Living. Two words that I don’t think I understood at the beginning of the week. But something that the Ashram experience brings to life..LINK

Maybe Augustine was right: "Love God and do  (and ask) what you want."

But in the process, even our wants become refined and realigned.


Fr. Martin (who to his credit, is chaplain to The Colbert Report):

Advent is a time of desire.  We desire the coming of Christ into our lives.  The readings from the Book of Isaiah, which we hear during the season, reveal even the earth desiring the presence of God.  The wonderful “O antiphons,” sung at evening prayer and during the Gospel acclamations towards the end of Advent, speak of Christ at the “King of Nations and their Desire.”


But desire has a disreputable reputation in religious circles. When most people hear the term, they think of two things: sexual desire or material

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wants, both of which are often condemned by some religious leaders. The first is one of the greatest gifts from God to humanity; without it the human race would cease to exist. The second is part of our natural desire for a healthy life--for food, shelter and clothing.




..Why all this emphasis on desire in Advent, or any other time?  Because desire is a key way that God speaks to us.


Holy desires are different than surface wants, like "I want a new car" or "I want a new computer."  Instead I'm talking about our deepest desires, the ones that shape our lives: desires that help us know who we are to become and what we are to do. Our deep desires help us know God’s desires for us, and how much God desire to be with us. And God, I believe, encourages us to "notice" and "name" these desires, in the same way that Jesus encouraged Bartimaeus, the blind beggar to articulate his desire. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.  Recognize our desires means recognizing God's desires for us.  Here's a dramatic story to illustrate this. At least it was dramatic for me.

           ...These are a few reasons why St. Ignatius asks us repeatedly in the Spiritual Exercises to pray for what we want. At the beginning of each prayer, Ignatius asks you to ask God "for what I want and desire."  For instance, if you are meditating on the life of Jesus, you ask for a deeper knowledge of Jesus. It reminds you of the importance of asking for things in the spiritual life, and of realizing that whatever we receive is a gift from God. 

...Some people find that their deep desires are difficult to identify. What then?   Margaret Silf, an English spiritual writer, retreat director and popular lecturer, provides one answer in her book Inner Compass: An Invitation to Ignatian Spirituality.  She suggests two ways that you may come to know your hidden desires. One is "Outside In" the other "Inside Out."  The "Outside-In" approach considers those desires already present, which may point to deeper ones. Desires like "I want a new job" or "I want to move" may signify a longing for greater overall freedom.
The "Inside-Out" approach uses archetypal stories as signposts to your desires. What fairy tales, myths, stories, films or novels appealed to you when you were young?  The same could be asked about stories from your sacred Scriptures. Are you drawn toward the story of Moses freeing the Hebrew slaves?  Or Jesus' healing the blind man? Why? Might these real-life stories hold clues about your holy desires?


Desire is a key part of Christian spirituality because desire is a key way that God's voice is heard in our lives. And our deepest desire, planted within us, is our desire for Christ, the Desire of the Nations.    LINK,
Advent: The Season of Desire

Madame Guyon:

"It is almost impossible for me not to desire all that God desires..

so one lets  their desires flow into God only in order to desire according to his movement,and to will through his will. :-Autobiography of Madame Guyon, Volume 2,. 93, 200

Smith:

" we are desiring agents with a passional orientation toward  the ultimate--to a vision of 'The Kingdom'"....though at times our desires need to be "redirected" as part as a  liturgical "pedagogy for

desire". - Chapter "Why Victoria's In on the Secret: Picturing Discipleship at The Moulin Rouge" in "Desiring the Kingdom




Capon:

Creation is a dance of desire.  In the long run, it hardly matters that creation's notion of what it desires is almost invarianly cockeyed.  The desireable and desiring  God is still in charge.  And when every last particle of Creation--including you, me, the lamppost and the church--ends up dead, gone, and at absolute zero, its heart will still leap up at the heart of the Beloved..
..The God incarnate in Jesus is an utterly DESIRABLE God. He runs the world from beginning to end by the radically astonishing device of ROMANCING it into being out of nothing.
Because the church is not a club; its is a divine Mystery-the body of Him who fills all in all and who, when He is lifted up, draws all to Himself. We are in a dance of desire over which we have no final power to throw in a wet blanket. The thirst of the astonished heart lies at the root of all thirsts, however trivial, and it is the THIRSTY, therefore-and the hungry, the last, the lost, the least, the little and the dead-who are the sacraments of the church's hope. Only fools, of course, willingly embrace these conditions. But the divine Fool who died and rose needs only one of them-Himself-to bring the dance to its wild conclusion. Even if all the rest of us are tripping over our feet to the end of time-even if we spend every one of our days trying to wallflower our way through the various models of the church-even if we never get the dance of desire right, God never gets it wrong.
Resurrection reigns wherever there is death; and with it comes the joy of the Really Good News: the dance into the New Creation in Christ will always be alive and well. DESIRE, however we manage it, can always explode into astonishment.  -link

St. Paul Hewson  (Bono) via three U2 songs)"

"Desire"

Bono comments: "On one level, I'm starting to criticize these lunatic fringe preachers, 'stealing hearts at a travelling show'_-but I'm also starting to realize that there is a real parallel between what I'm doing and what  they are" -

U2: into the heart : [the stories behind every song]

 By Niall Stokes, p. 81





"Elevation"

This song seems to be inspired by the rabbinic prayer technique of the same name, which encourages elevation (not sublimating or exorcising) sexual thoughts/base desires.  See Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen, quoted in

Elevation leads to Vertigo 2.0

20.

"I Believe in Father Christmas":


Granted, this is not a U2-penned song, but it became theirs when they subtly but profoundly converted and subverted  (better yet, "elevated") the original lyrics by Greg Lake:

I had to smile in admiration at the very minor but very thoughtful lyric changes that turn Lake's text into something not just potentially, but authentically, U2ey. Did you catch them? "They sold me a Merry Christmas, they sold me a Silent Night, they sold me a fairy story..." is transmuted into something more like Popmart's "I wanted to meet God but they sold me religion" by one little shift: no longer did "they" keep selling "till I believed in the Israelite"; no, they can try to sell such holiday fantasies all they want "but I believe in the Israelite."
And the end of the original second verse, one assumes the implication is that the once-hopeful little boy awakes, exhausted and bleary-eyed, to witness his father dressed as Santa and realize the whole thing's a shuck ("I awoke with a yawn in the first light of dawn and saw him -- and through his disguise.") But U2 create a whole different feel by taking out that one little "and," so that the narrator now says that he watched in hope, woke at dawn, and "I saw him through his disguise." Another idea that we've heard many times before from this band.Beth Maynard, link

For me, to claim "But I believe in the Israelite" is to desire Him. and to dare to believe that, as another lyric in the song offers: "On Christmas we get what we deserve."

I know, I know. We've been taught that the whole idea of grace is that it is undeserved.
True enough.  But hear out my thoughts on why Bono kept that apparent "works theology" in the lyric?  Here's a question I got on my blog:

Anonymous said...
Can you please explain that last "Christmas we get we deserve" bit a little more? I really love the song, but I don't understand how this is connected to God's grace. I thought grace was our getting what we don't deserve or earn.

11:56 AM, December 03, 2008 dave said.:
great question...that part wasn't clear.
Partly, I meant Bono can be seen as pushing grace over the top...making it "even better than the real thing."
Not that the old definition you quoted goes, but we realize in sense, even though we don't deserve grace, Jesus teats us as if we do.
I still like Ric Mullins line "Hell is better than we deserve."
And in a sense...sounds pretty Calvinist..and too close to karma, even"whatever kind of Christmas we get, we deserve it..
I take Bono to perhaps mean, "If you trust Jesus, you get what you technically don't deserve, but Jesus treats you as if you do.
If you don't..you still get what you deserve..."
Thus the heaven and hell line.
I dunno, it just feels like the last line is loaded.   LINK

Deep in my heart/soul/seat of desire; I want..dare I say "deserve"  what I don't deserve..that is, what believe  in .. the Israelite.


For Advent this year, I'll ask for what I desire (God's desires), and what I deserve to deserve (the desires of my heart.
--

Please enjoy the other synchroblogs on this question,  The posts so far are  listed here and below.
You have one more day to add yours.

You desire to, right?
You might even deserve to do it.

• ron cole at the weary pilgrim – advent: reimagining everything
• liz dyer at grace rules – expect the unexpected
• sarah styles bessey at emerging mummy – in which i’m expecting something from advent
• miz melly at perchance to dream – parousia
• kathy escobar at the carnival in my head – present, humble, vulnerable
• David Perry at Visual Theology – Advent As A Mirror of Possibility
• Christine Sine at Godspace – Jesus Is Coming What Do We Expect?
• Liz VerHage at Living Theology
• Sally Coleman at Sally’s Journey – Come Spirit of Advent
• Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes – Jesus Is Returning Today
• Glenn Hager – Antithetical Advent