video: "Changing Signs of Truth: A Christian Introduction to Semiotics" (Crystal Downing)

Faculty Scholarship: Crystal Downing "Changing Signs of Truth" from Messiah Humanities on Vimeo.

"The system is now the god that makes us mad"

A thirty-year old book that is quite timely today:

"Our speed is constantly increasing, and it does not matter where we are going. We are caught up in the madness and hubris of the dance of death: the important thing is the dance, the Saturnalia, the Bacchanalia, the Lupercalia. We are no longer worried about what will emerge from it or about the void it points to. We are content to die of dancing. Our generation is not even capable of cynicism, it take a kind of terrible greatness to say, “After me, the deluge.” No one says that today; on the contrary, everyone is glutted with promises and regards the mad dance as a way to authentic renewal. Yet there is no goal, nothing transcendent, no value to light the way; the movement is enough.

The nihilistic revolution has succeeded. Today’s political activists who still claim to be revolutionaries have nothing to put in nihilism’s place. Movement for movement’s sake, thorough study for study’s sake, the revolution for the revolution’s sake: that, they say, is the only way to escape the system. It is a remarkable thing, however, that this system renders mad not only those who are part of it but those who reject it as well. The system is now the god that makes us mad, but it is a god we have created with our won minds...

..Fragmentary theater and deciphered Moliere, poetry without words and music that is sheer noise, destructured language, Lacan, Derrida, and all their second-rate imitators who think that absolute incomprehensibility offers a way out, when in fact we have shut the door on all possibilities and hopes, and have sunk into a resignation that knows no future..


..The West has always claimed to be on the side of David against Goliath, and it continues to make this claim. The difficulty is that the West is now a Goliath, one of the might of the earth, yet it cannot but still judge itself according to its old values"
-Ellul, "The Betrayal of the West"

It's Advent in Lent at Fordham

Thanks to Beth for tipping us off to some amazing, multiplex posts from a Tom Beaudoin,
a theologian who "gets it"
( his "Rock and Theology" blog hosts categories likeSecular Liturgies and Music and the Brain).

Beaudoin comments on the theological connexion and liturgical contours of his campus preparing for a U2 "Good Morning America" concert filming.

Yesterday's post:

The rumored appearance of U2 this Friday here at Fordham seems to be taking flesh, mud, snow, and metal. On the steps of Keating Hall, facing out onto a large commons that is currently under several inches of snow, there is a group of some twenty men this morning, taking measurements and seemingly trying to conceptualize what must within 48 hours turn into an early-morning rock concert space.

Fordham officials in suits mingle with roadie-looking-types getting ready to “compose the place” — to steal a phrase from Ignatius Loyola (which is a poaching I learned from Michel de Certeau in his study of everyday life in the kitchen and elsewhere, his attention to the importance of the arrangements of domestic spaces to give a meaningful, even spiritually significant, contour to the everyday).

Square metal plates have already been placed across the top level of the steps here at Keating Hall, probably to anchor a stage, and one fellow who seems like he’s in charge was describing the need to build a wide path or ramp from the steps down to the commons.

I would be just as happy to pull up a chair and watch all day long as I would to prepare for my afternoon class discussing theologian Risto Saarinen’s God and the Gift: An Ecumenical Theology of Giving, and its travels through Mauss, Bourdieu, Derrida, Marion, Milbank, the New Testament, and Luther on multiple interpretations of what it means to give (and therefore to receive). These pleasures of rock-set-building and theology-set-building are almost fully equal for me in principle, if not equally possible on this particular day. Getting ready for concerts, from the initial reconnaissance of the site to the sound check, is a particular set of practices and rockish praeparatio that has always attracted me. I’ve snuck into load-ins and soundchecks many times just to allow the graces of that praeparatio to take hold, to allow the wider rock culture to teach me about adventum.

continued: Make Straight the Path: Learning to Get Ready

Today's post:

This morning, some hundred or so workers are milling around the Keating Hall steps and Edwards Parade, unloading crates full of electronics and cables, men with “Good Morning America / U2″ badges trying to keep some order in the setup as trucks back in, beeping, with more gear. Lots of sites of work are now happening at once, the controlled chaos that characterizes liturgy the practice of making a multipurpose “space” into an identifiably rockish concert “place.”
This morning I wandered around the site and through the buzz, taking in the expected consolation of these anonymous keepers of the rock flame, guys clad in jeans (women are, interestingly, very rare in “roadie culture”), black jackets, often leather, some concert shirts, the requisite “all access” lanyards, the rough and ready makers of the condition-of-possibility-of-elemental-rock-experience: the live (and outdoor!) show in its inevitable high-wire quality balancing of electronics, natural elements, rock’s established catalogue of gestures and sounds washing through the amplified joy-anger of containment-releasement in which rock seems to specialize, the experimenting with the power of what theologian and musician Don Saliers told me was rock’s extraordinary “somatic capital.”
And in the Blue Chapel, down the hall from the Graduate School of Religion offices here at third floor Keating, workers are in the hallway right now readying lights to shine through the stained glass onto the assembled tomorrow morning. In this..
continued: “I will make three booths here”: U2 Fordham Update

"A New Kind Of Conversation"

Even though young people hardly ever do email anymore;
they text
(see Leadership Journal 12/08, "Emailing is so 2006")..

And even though blogging is maybe "modern"
and perhaps past its peak;
it's Facebook or Twitter/micro-blogging
(see "Blogging? So 2006!"),


I obviously still believe in blogging...

and even recently read

"A New Kind Of Conversation: Blogging Toward a Postmodern Faith,"

an intriguing 2006 (!! (: ) book (orginally posted as a blog):

"While postmodernism is typically discussed in traditional book form--an edited volume with essays--the format of this book seeks to place the discussion in a form that is consistent with its content. Using the motif of the blog, A New Kind of Conversation is an experimental book that enters into this conversation with five evangelical leaders (Brian McLaren, Bruce Ellis Benson, Ellen Haroutunian, Mabiala Kenzon, and Myron Bradley Penner) acting as the primary bloggers."

A bit skeptical of the title (capitalizing on McLaren title similarity) and format at first, I really enjoyed the book and recommend it. Not just because the "bloggers" and "commenters" helpfully interact with each other..

...but because several times one of them suceeded wonderfully in the primary task of the book: helping us grasp what the postmodern shift means for the church.
I'll simply share some of my favorite moments where this happens
related to topics I believe are key to the shift:

metanarrative, simulacra, bibliotary and spiritual formation/education.

On metanarrative, Robinson addresses a huge misunderstanding of a phrase invoked as the very heart of postmodernity:

"So often one hears Lyotard's famous summary of postmodernity as "incredulity toward metanarratives" as postmoderns aren't interested in any grand metanarrative at all. ..The Bible of course is a grand metanarrative. What many Christians are reacting against in postmodernity is not Lyotard's definition of postmodernity, but a neo-Lyotardism that takes this rather complex understanding of 'metanarrative' and simplifies it to meaning 'we must be suspicious of all grand stories.' ..but let's get Lyotard right...(What he actually ) said is that postmodernity is ultimately skeptical when anybody presents a grand story and then sayts it is true because Reason proves it to be so."
-Bob Robinson, p, 20

Bruce Ellis Benson (pages 7-8) is also helpful clarifying the metannaratives issue (as is James K.A. Smith in "Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church"

On simulacra, Penner nails it:

"North American evangelical subculture--with its televised programs and church services, its theme parks and bumper stickers, and like paraphernalia; and its ability to turn anything remotely related to Christianity into a consumer product--is waiting for a sustained sociological-theological anaylsis in terms of Baudrillard's categories as a nihilistic fixation on simulacra and hyperreality."
(Mylon Bradley Penner, p.38)

I have written much on simulacra here.

I have also written much on biblolatry (here ),
but Penner says it more concisely and with a punch:

"We evangelicals often run perilously close to validating the charge from our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters who find the Protestant emphasis on Scripture a form of 'bibliolatry.'
We need, in other words, a view of Scripture that captures and embodies the truth that'The Holy Scriptures are the highway signs: Christ is the way.'"
-Penner, p. 90

Finally on spiritual formation/education...
I recently taught (if that is the right word anymore...that is precisely the point) a course on leadership for Latin American Bibkle Instiutiute; we used Leonard Sweet's postmodern-sensitive "Summoned to Lead,"
and I allowed "experimental" final projects: instead of a typical research paper or final exam, I allowed more creative projects.
They excelled (photo). It beat spitting out answers crammed into short term memory onto an exam sheet,
Instead, we were greatly impacted (and will remember our "finals" the rest if our lives as we were exposed to holy art..one brother even wrote a song). This was spiritual formation,
and academic integrity.

Which brings us to Scot McKnight's comments in the book:

"there has come in our day a new understanding of education, which is in part much of what is going on in all spiritual formation perceptions by Christians, and this new understanding of education is more after a holistic telos. In other words, we are no longer permitted as professors to 'inform' students simply by 'lecturing' to them and then 'testing' to see if they have 'learned' what they should know. More and more, the outcome-based educational theory asks us to decribe what we want our students to be able to 'do' when they finish our course or our major or school, and then everything has to be shaped to develop these outcomes if we wish to be genuinely an educational institution.

(p.91).

Check out this book; it will be of great use..in 2006 (:
....and beyond.

Context is Everything: Programmed by Books we haven't read

I am glad St. Mackan asked about my post a few days ago which consisted only of an out of context quote, I wanted to provide the context, and here it is.

As we say here in the States, Mackan: "My bad."

My amazing professor Bob Lyon always said, and the MacMan (who even put it on a T shirt...cool!) still doth say:

"Context is everything."

The paraphrased quote at hand(by another seminary professor of mine):

Most of us are programmed by books we never read.

George Hunter, Radical Outreach: The Recovery of Apostolic Ministry and Evangelism ,p. 105

The context:

He was specifically lamenting that so many pastors, without even knowing or reading the book that such theology was based on (Richard Baxter's 1656 classic, "The Reformed Pastor"), have adopted/been taught such theology. Namely, and stated extremely, the view is that pastors do all the work, and the laity are just there to listen to you. Hunter recommends that we take a page from another Book that we have hopefully read (The Bible, which makes the priesthood of all believers quite foundational) ; as well as John Wesley's books, which journal well what happens when the so-called "laity" are empowered.

He also applies the "Most of us are programmed by books we never read"principle to other disciplines. A most obvious example is physics: We are still informed by a Newtonian worldview, when Einstein/relativity/quantum theory/string theory has rocked that old mindset. To cross disciplines, this revolution/shift of wineskins in physics holds profound implications for theology , as Len sweet, Len Hjalmarson and Margaret Wheatley have creatively explored.

Every field of study has its seminal textbooks, some hundreds of years old; and most which have a lot to offer and are indeed classic (as Baxter..he got a lot beautifully right). But most have never literally read them; Just been"by default hugely influenced by them (trough their graduate school' s secondary source texts)

"Protestant Christianity's equivalent of Darwin's 'Origin of Species'-for understanding who we are--and Newton's 'Principia'--for understanding our place in the scheme of things,and how the (church) world works--is Baxter" (p.105)



Another way of saying this then, is "The mind can only take pictures using the film with which its been loaded." (quote by Richard Rohr, hat tip to Len).

Basic to a postmodern epistemology is a (healthy) questioning of our lenses and our "texts" (as Derrida used the term, a "text" could be anything, not just a literal book).

It's also a helpful question in overcoming ethnocentrism.

Lord, help us to know how we have been programmed. We may need deprogramming, deconstruction, or even a kick in the butt. Amen.

Ok, I bit..."People I Really Want to Meet"

(buy the shirt here...great for pastors)


Since I made Len's short list of "People I Really Want to Meet," I took up the meme-challenge of creating my own list. No surprise Len is on it (would've been in on it, anyway). Thanks, hat tip, and trace this to Pernell Goodyear (who I wasn't familiar with, but now may have to add!)

In typical fashion, I went overboard..and a few of the folks are dead (no prob..it's my party)...and I tried to keep it under fifty..(:

Like Len, I kept it pretty current...or I would've had to invite folk like Madame Guyon and Soren Kierkegaard to the bash..

Hot tip: If you'd like to read this same list, but have at soudtracked by Bono's recent speech to pastors (Interview w/Bill Hybels), read it here on my Myspace page...blog on upper right.

The Jacques Brothers: Jacques Ellul/Jacques Derrida
Margaret Wheatley
Len Hjalmarson
Earl Crepps...the Coffee Drinkin' Fool
Christopher MacDonald
Bob Hyatt
Abbess Karen Ward
Hirsch and Frost
Robert Farrar Capon
Shane Hipps
Walter J. Ong
Doug Paggitt
Both Steve Taylors (blogger-author and singer-producer)
Beth Maynard
Jack Heaslip
Bruce Cockburn
Eugene Peterson
Rich Nathan
Brian Greene
Mike Roe
E. Stanley Jones
Dallas Willard
David Ruis
Douglas Hofstadter
Wolfgang and Mercy Simson
Paul and Ali Hewson and Dave Evans (Mr. and Mrs. Bono, and the Edge)
Walter Brueggemann
Jurgen Moltmann
Annie Dillard
Lawrence Lessig
Brian Walsh
Steven Johnson
Cliff Pickover
Graham Cooke
Mr. and Mrs. David Dark
Richard Rohr
Carl Raschke
Brian Greene
The XXXChurch.com pastors
Wendell Berry
Me`self

spiritual formation interview

Len Hjalmarson

Len (www.nextreformation.com) honored me by sending me an email interview re: spiritual formation. Here's my stab:
----------------------





















LEN: what is spiritual formation to you?

DAVE: I might craft a working definition of spiritual formation as :

A Spiritaneous, yet intentional, detoxing and deconstructing of the ways I have been falsely formed....through sin, deceit (I have a tremendous capacity for self-deception), ethnocentrism, culture and (perhaps the most insidious culprit) church culture.....................and a rebuilding and remixing of my inner being through deep and often corporate listening to God through prayer, Scripture, community, and quite often through what are usually anathematized as "secular" sources, all towards the end that life of Jesus and the fruit of the Spirit is imparted to me so my gifts can flow as God intended; enabling me to simultaneously live within the community of the Trinity (see Volf on "Trinitarian church") and the "real world" streets of my city. My sense is that spiritual formation that doesn't lead me to to act like Jesus and go places Jesus would go, is just smoke and mirrors. I am probably sinning by not going to bars more often; by not meeting, let alone learning from prostitutes, outcasts and (gasp!) maybe even Pharisees. That mix is a key crucible for my formation."

The Scriptures that keynote this all too often quixotic quest are those that focus on the kenosis and self-emptying of Jesus; and are often used to suggest "Jesus did nothing on earth as God (though he was and is God)." Whether or not I buy a full-blown "Spirit Christology" or not, these Scriptures form, reform, chill, kill me:

-John 5: 19, 30: Jesus does/says nothing except what he sees/hears.

-Phil 2:5-11: Jesus complelely emptied himself of the rights of Godhood.
Did he volunatrily choose to not access the rights of his divinity and power?

-Acts 10:38: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and
power, and he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of
the devil, because God was with him. "

If Jesus did nothing out of his (albeit) divine identity and nature, how much more do I need to radically, prayerfully and carefully ensure that I am not living and (God forbid) ministering out of myself...

..even when I think "myself" is okay!

Watchman Nee's opening line in "The Release of the Spirit" is a line which needs to form me more: "We don't go far in the Christian life before we realize the biggest hindrance is not the world, the devil, but ourselves."

Yikes! Maybe I haven't yet "gone very far in the Christian life"!

And I need to be far enough along to be in the bars more consistently. Maybe the last five words of my seminary professor Robert Mulholland's conscise summary definition is "Being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others" are all I need to underline.

Assuming I am walking out of the first seven words.

Hope they are not my "seven last words."

Father, forgive me. I know not what I do.





LEN:how have your views evolved in the last ten years or so?

DAVE:Wow.. I love Bono's line, speaking to Christian journalists after preaching at the prayer breakfast: "If me 10 years ago had heard me saying this, I wouldn't have believed it." Ten years has changed everything and nothing at the same time. Maybe it's just the borders..or my vision that has expanded.

Maybe it's me needing to hear and heed the frightening and freeing words of Eugene Peterson:

It is common among people like us to look for ways to free ourselves from the
humdrum, escape as often as possible into ecstasy, devise ways to live separated
from the clamor of traffic and family, associate as far as possible only with
people of like mind, and engage in disciplines and ways of dress and speech that
set us apart from 'the others.'

           Scripture says:

Forget it."

I love and long for the "ecstatic experience"..and have had them...but am guessing those experiences in my next ten years will be few and far between unless I find them in the unexpected places...among "traffic and family,"..and especially among those whose "ways of dress" are not my own.

I think I have always been aware that God loves to embedded himself in culture..in sources we unfortunately desacralize (and limit liminality) by coining "secular." But in the last ten years, the Lord would seem to be upping the ante and stacking the deck..in a way that's not just about the "Passion" movie, and definitely not about the "Left Behind" phenomenon...maybe Len Sweet has not overspoken: "It could be for the first time in history, God is more active in the world than the church."

So in a way penultimate to the obvious (Scripture, prayer, community), I am formed and informed by such "secular" sources as the band Sigur Ros, philosophers like Derrida, magazines like WIRED. And the "purity" of the source is still a relevant question in some regards here, but not always. Bono says, "God is interested in truth, and only in truth. And that's why God is more interested in Rock & Roll music than Gospel... Many gospel musicians can't write about what's going on in their life, beacuse it's not allowed ..If you can't write about what's really going on in the world and your life, because it's all happy-clappy... Is God interested in that? I mean, 'Please, don't patronize Me! I want to go the Nine Inch Nails gig, they're talking the truth!"



LEN:what do you personally practice to be formed.. personally .. communally?

DAVE:

PERSONALLY:

My response to the "personal" component wants to be "My personal spiritual formation life sucks." Partly because it's partly true; and I'm guessing partly because I have been hoodwinked by (and not yet fully de-programmed from) the evangelical pressure to "have a quiet time" and "do my devotions" in a culturally-prescribed way. Again, Robert Mulholland was helpful in confirming that my personality/temperment, since it's the way God wired me, is the best place to start in formation..I am basically an INFP, so I need renewal time in the cave. Silent two day retreats, time alone on the beach or even driving, even if..maybe especially if.. I am not technically "praying". These are deeply formational times.

I love listening prayer...either as

>>a)a long period being literally still. I have no way to explain the paradoxical mystery of "knowing" that I have heard from God, but not knowing what it is. For Graham Cooke, a teacher noted for the prophetic, to say; (partly ins response to those too quick to claim they have heard..and speak for God) "God is always still and rarely speaks"...!! (That's not a kosher thing for a charismatic to say!..but ironically the quote itself may be an example of God actually speaking)

>>b)what David Hansen calls "Long wandering prayer": the more mobile, Spiritaneous long walk or drive (I love driving from Fresno to Los Angeles, on the way to speak at
a retreat...through the prayer, music to soundtrack the prayer...God refreshes me.

Hansen helpfully appropriates Tolkien's maxim,"Not all who wander (wonder) are lost."

When I wander and wonder in the wilderness (literally and constructively), I realize I have made an idolatry of planning, at the expense of praying, preparing and pruning (Then I wind up steering cats and driving sheep). Ironically, when I do get "the plan", it only emerges through "aimless" wandering and "wasting time for Christ's sake." Go figure.

I definitely need to detox..literally and spiritually...at regular inytervals. So I attempt to build in seasons of fasting. I find the unplugging from the matrix of fast food nation is revelatory enough the first few days; and as I move beyond the entry level days, I find each time (just as Richard Foster promises) the course of my life is significantly altered...whether it's new insight, freedom from a habit, direction, whatever.

I am thankful fo seminary professors who were not afraid of lectio divina, as it sounded "too Cathlolic." . I do practice, imperfectly and an eclectic hybrid with Celtic-Anabaptrist influence, lectio..

I want to "take my prayer closet with me, " though. One of the value statements of our congregation is "Being Engaged to Jesus, and Engaging Culture" I am fascinated by Matthew Fox's phrase "extroverted monasticism." I want a kind of a Brother Lawrence gift to be eternally present with God, but I want it to show up a the mall or St. Arbuck's...and not (just?)
in the monastery kitchen as I am washing dishes.

I guess I prefer washing feet to washing dishes.

As he washed my feet, my professor spoke/prophesied: "God has given you great compassion. Let it grow."

I have not always done that. But the professor who believed in me (Bob Lyon at Asbury Seminary) was washing not just my feel, but the feel of all in the "Loyal Oppostion Society" at the seminary: a group devoted to a Weslyan-Anabaptist pursuit of abandoning worldly power and methods. We were introduced to the writings of Brugegman, Ellul, Nouwen and others who affored windows into the self-emptied life that was not just empty of self but poured out for others. My spiritual formation is now only catching up to this call. I must become sensitive to says in which empire and power have seduced and co-opted my call to manifest compassion and wash feet.

All that to say, every time I hav recently washed someone's feet (or conscience or clothes), I have found myself being spirituall formed.

Without trying.

Without being engaged is some "obvious" spiritual formation discipline.

Or was I?



Also...The good and bad news: I love reading. Very often this is how God reaches and teaches me. More often than I care to admit it can be idolatry, escape, transfer to a "safe" addiction...or a way of keeping my life/faith intellectualized, compartmentalized, and in the ivory tower (thus not in the streets).

I remember you posting once something about this "too many books" dilemma.

People say I am a speed-reader. I don't know; I just know I do what I do. I can read whole books in the car, can, or waiting room.

But it is hard to imagine living without the insights of Eugene Peterson and others ( etc. etc. ...well, many of the books that you have noted in your blog)...and many others (see my eclectic list on MySpace here ).

As you might expect, I draw heavily from the masters and mystics (early church fathers/mothers, desert saints, classic commentators) as well as...uh, string theory.

COMMUNALLY:

Okay, I have already dealt with much of the "communal" answer under the "personal" heading. That in itself is a hugely tellling lesson in spiritual formation!

Butr here are three more tidily-outlined answers.

The first begins with a story I must tell. My favorite part is the first line.


I am the only white guy in the group. I love it..and need it. A group of local pastors: a Mexican-American, an African-American, a Guatemalan...and this gringo..were accepted by a Boston University School of Theology program for a spiritual formation/community transformation project. The Serendipity is that the main course has been our "get acquainted" meetings..

meetings where we didn't get any "goals"accomplished, and didn't even leave the brother's house we were meeting at (Of course, just visiting the other's "side of the tracks" is big enough!). We are learning to se ourselves, God, and culture from another person's point of view and culture. That's spiritual formation at it's core. The communal imago dei has
emerged befor our eyes and outed our worst ethnocentrisms and exceeeded our wildest expctations. Here's more on this holy experiment.

In the early days of my pastoral ministry, we had support groups for us younger pastors. They were good and God used them. One potential downfall was the focus on a Promise- Keepersmodel of what Dallas Willard has called the gospel of "sin management." If the only reason we were "not sinning" was knowing we would face the brothers at the meeting; that worked. But it was a bit gnostic of a starting point.

I find my growing edge for communal spiritual growth these days this intentionally cross-denominational, trans-generational and cross-racial group.

And, to my surprise, also:

The church I pastor.

Huh?

That ain't supposed to happen.

In this new...whatever one calls it..emerging, new wineskin, yada yad...kind of "church" we are doing in Fresno, I find it is ironic and wonderful that some of the most profound and confounding times of spiritual formation for me are when I let go of the "pastor" role...and attend a cell group not as the leader, or even as "the pastor" (whatver that means) of most of the folk there. But as an equal..or even lesser...member of the group, subitting to what God has to say through others.

Granted, we still must watch the roles and expectations deconstruct and disappear before our eyes.
 But it works.

I'll simply point to this post to elaborate a bit on what this may look like, and to this to note that it sometimes looks like a collage!


Thirdly: talking to kids!.

I love "interviewing" and honoring kids. Really listening. And believing.

I have been astounded at the response to one of my favorite questions: "Did Jesus make the stars?" One kid felt called to fine-tune my theology: "Well, it wsa kind of Jesus. But it was really God." But the question has a follow-up; "How did he do it?"
More than a few times...without the children overhearing or even knowing each other, they have anwered) matter-of factly (as in "Didn't you know?"): "He just snapped his fingers!"

We have also invited children to fully participate in worship gatherings, even lead in the time where desigated people will be up front to pray for people.

LEN:what further practices attract you, might you eventually add?

DAVE:I need more imagination here.

Maybe collaborative models. My wife, for example participates in a conference call prayer meeting which, far transcends the prayer chain/gossip chain. Several women are simply on the line at the same time from various homes throughout the city.

Also, I need to seek out more liturgical aids to spiritual formation. I am sure with my mainline background and having witnessed liturgy done poorly and lifelessly, I have thrown a few babies out with liturgy waters.

I am moved by John Doberstein's The Minister's Prayer Book, and need to break down and read C.S. Lewis's article on "formal worship."

I need to sneak down the street into mass more often.

Deconstructing Solomon's Box: Derrida and Paggit

As you can see, the last building we nomads of Third Day Fresno rented for a celebration center/HQ was a bit outta the box...so we winkingly nicknamed it "The Box". Designed by respected architect Arthur Dyson, it had won numerous architecture awards, was famous/infamous for it's completely (!) mirrored bathroom , and was a blast to meet in. It was recently bought ..believe it or not..by a dentist for his office, so we had to move out. We miss it. The real estate promo sheet called it's architectural style "whinsical" (perfect for church, eh?). Some neighbors called it the spaceship. We called it home.

So we took pains and steps to make it feel like home.

Physical set-up..especially of chairs/sofas has always been intentional and strategic for us. Not because we want to be hip or emerging or creative; not because we are pomo-driven, but simply because seating charts are theological; they preach just as much as I do. We want to sent a message (through the medium, which may be the message) that, a la 1 Corinthians, all are important; all can participate. I have often set up the space to send/incarnate the message that there is not one "professional" or "lecturer." Hence, though you see me here in a backsliding momement speaking from a music stand up front; we have no pulpit; let alone pews. Several times we have arranged the space so everyone is facing other folks, as in Jim Rutz's suggestion for "Open Church."

If you are familiar with Doug Paggit's Preaching ReImagined , and our church's DNA, you might guess taht this book has been huge and helpful in letting us know we are not alone in seeking to restructure and reimagine. Anyone that includes a chapter on "Physical Setup" in a preaching book...not to mention their church's "rule" about cell phones ("We say, 'Keep 'em on, something important might happen!'" p.130).... well, that's just gotta be a Kingdom thing! We're out of the same box!

Anyway, in the aforementioned chapter, he quotes the following blog post by Micahel Toy, relating the exeperience (medium and message) of watching the Derrida documentary:

there are a
couple of beautiful moments (in that documentary), and i thought
i would try to share one of
them here.

they try to do the normal
"sit the thinker down in a library
and have them pontificate" scene. as i
watched this scene, it was like derrida
vanished and i was listening to
Jesus:

Interviewer: "You're very well
known in the united states
for deconstruction. Can you talk a little bit about
the origins of that
idea?"

Derrida: "Before responding to this question,
I want to make
a preliminary remark on the completely artificial character of
this
situation. I don't know who's going to be watching this, but I want to
underline rather than efface our surrounding technical conditions, and not
feign
a "naturality" which does not exist".

I've already in a way
started to
respond to your question about deconstruction, because one of the
gestures of
deconstruction is not to naturalize what isn't natural – to not
assume that what
is conditioned by history, institutions, or society is
natural."

he is
refusing to pretend to have a philosophical
conversation in front of books, but
instead insists on beginning the
conversation with a recognition of how
unnatural it is to be sitting in
front of a camera, talking to people who aren't
there, and pretending not to
be talking the whole film crew, who is there.

i think people love
different things about jesus. some people love his
compassion for the poor,
others love him because he walked in power and could
turn water into wine.
listening to derrida i think i realized that i love jesus,
to a great
extent, because he was like this. you want to have one conversation
with
him, and he wants to have a deeper one with you. in order to invite you
into
the deeper conversation though, it is almost as if he has to destroy the
language you have used all your life before you can hear him.

Paggit sifts all the above, and concludes:

"This is a call to be prophetic in the deconstruction of systems of power. When we are willing to notice, point out and name the issues of power in our settings, we're creating a better situation in which the gospel can be preached." (210)

That is good news enough, but if Walter Wink is correct, there is also a deep dismantling and defanging of systemic evil in simply "naming the powers" and even noticing the systems that we can become embedded and enmeshed in. Even rearranging a few chairs can be strategic level spiritual warfare (as anyone who has messed with the seating chart in a traditional church has undoubtedly learned!).

A few years ago, my son, now 12, said "Daddy, what do you call those long, uncomfortable things we used tos it on in church?" I smiled as I brough the "pew" back to his memory. Then just last week, I mentioned the word "pulpit," and he quiized me "What's that?"

Hey, I am glad for churches that are blessed with pews and pulpits. It's just not us. It's just that for us, there is no going back. I might even buy an old pulpit one day just to chain-saw it (see this unforgettable account!).
But we also agrre that just monkeying with the chairs, and adding a few couches, doesn't bring the Kingdom down, and doesn't automatically demolish the strongholds Wink has identfied. Heck, it could even be just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

But it is one practical way we have found, in our exeperimental church, to facilite and foster a context where
we have powerfully heard the voice of the Lord through those that would never be allowed to speak in most churches, when we would have missed it if so-called "laypeople" were not given the floor, "pulpit"..and space to speak. The only alteranative would be what Paggit calls "sit there and take it" church. Paggit claims that, despite the fears of "This (letting the saints talk) will lead to more heresy," it leads to less. Our church can amen.

One church with a sense of humor (may that tribe increase), in their hilarious, tongue-in-cheek but dead-serious "bulletin" , feels the need to explain and justify this practice of "letting the unwashed masses actually say something in church":

We like to share the wealth. Seeing as most of our ministers with bible school
training got it via mail order, we don't feel that hearing from God is something
only one of them can do. Everyone in our church could potentially be sitting on
a great sermon, so we like to let everyone get a chance to speak. So we have a
five minute slot. Occasionally we get some weird discourse on helicopters and
UFO's, but 99.9% of the time or more it is a good message.

That's a good perecentage. And worth a little deconstructing, reconstructing... and thinking a bit outside the box. Even if its a Dentist Office Box that looks like a UFO.