(Ir)religiosity

Contrary to the plethora of blog reviews I’ve read, I don’t think Brian McLaren goes too far in his newest book.  I think he doesn’t go far enough.  I’ll explain.

One of McLaren’s major claims in the book — in fact, the claim on which the entire book rests — is that traditional biblical hermeneutics have been limited to what he calls the “six-line Greco-Roman narrative” which constructs the rigid dualisms and binaries with which we are all familiar: spirit/body, heaven/earth, form/substance, good/evil, etc.  When applied to Scripture, this interpretive lens results in the following trajectory that has prevailed in traditional, conventional Christianity for quite some time: (1) perfection in creation, (2) fall into sin, (3) condemnation, (4) the possibility of salvation, and either (5) eternal damnation or (6) a return to perfection in heaven.  The picture below gives you sense of the movement of the lines.

McLaren maintains that this Greco-Roman narrative has been transposed over Scripture as a narrative overlay.  As such it guides interpretation of the text and, in turn, the trajectory of theology.  For McLaren, this is the dominant way of reading and interpreting Scripture, it is, quite literally, the water in which every Christian swims.  The deeper question, though, is whether Scripture is being circumscribed and restricted by this narrative overlay.  That is, whether the arc of the Greco-Roman narrative is actually indicative of Scripture itself or whether it has been imported to the text.  McLaren thinks it has.  And he spends a good deal of time drawing comparisons between the six-line interpretation of Scripture and Platonism.  I’ll spare you that piece and simply throw up another picture that does the trick. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been reading more reviews of McLaren’s newest book and assessments of emergent, both positive and negative.  And still, I find myself a little disappointed with the tone, the rhetoric and the posturing coming from both sides.  For all its emphasis on “the postmodern” and getting beyond all the old binaries, it seems that, in some ways, the conversation is still beholden to modernist forms of thinking and theologizing.  Or maybe that’s just part of the human condition.

A I lecture attended last night at BUSTh sent me to some of John Wesley’s sermons (something I’m sorry to say I haven’t done in a while).  I guess I still had these latest developments on my mind because I found myself drawn to “The Catholic Spirit.” I almost feel like Wesley is commenting on the blogosphere. Here are a few choice quotes.

[A]lthough a difference in opinions or modes of worship may prevent an entire external union, yet need it prevent our union in affection? Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences. These remaining as they are, they may forward one another in love and in good works. [...] Every wise man, therefore, will allow others the same liberty of thinking which he desires they should allow him; and will no more insist on their embracing his opinions, than he would have them to insist on his embracing theirs. He bears with those who differ from him, and only asks him with whom he desires to unite in love that single question, “Is thy heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?”[...] And how shall we choose among so much variety [of opinion]? No man can choose for, or prescribe to, another. But every one must follow the dictates of his own conscience, in simplicity and godly sincerity. He must be fully persuaded in his own mind and then act according to the best light he has. Nor has any creature power to constrain another to walk by his own rule. God has given no right to any of the children of men thus to lord it over the conscience of his brethren; but every man must judge for himself, as every man must give an account of himself to God. [...] I dare not, therefore, presume to impose my mode of worship on any other.  I believe it is truly primitive and apostolical: but my belief is no rule for another.

[A] man of a catholic spirit is one who, in the manner above-mentioned, gives his hand to all whose hearts are right with his heart…one who, retaining [God's] blessings with the strictest care, keeping them as the apple of his eye, at the same time loves–as friends, as brethren in the Lord, as members of Christ and children of God, as joint partakers now of the present kingdom of God, and fellow heirs of his eternal kingdom–all, of whatever opinion or worship, or congregation, who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; who love God and man; who, rejoicing to please, and fearing to offend God, are careful to abstain from evil, and zealous of good works. He is the man of a truly catholic spirit, who bears all these continually upon his heart; who having an unspeakable tenderness for their persons, and longing for their welfare, does not cease to commend them to God in prayer, as well as to plead their cause before men; who speaks comfortably to them, and labours, by all his words, to strengthen their hands in God. He assists them to the uttermost of his power in all things, spiritual and temporal. He is ready “to spend and be spent for them;” yea, to lay down his life for their sake.

If you have had your finger to the pulse of the emergent conversation lately I would encourage you to read the whole sermon (it’s not too long) and I would submit it as a modest plea for more charitable and constructive dialogue.  As Wesley makes clear, this does not mean indifference of opinion nor does it require us to gloss over theological difference.  Critical theological engagement is a requirement — but it should be done with a catholic spirit.  And I find that lacking.  In many ways, social media and disembodied online communication only exacerbate the problem but I am confident that a more generous and mutually beneficial dialogue can take place.  And I hope it does.

The best example I have seen of this so far is Nathan Glimour’s review over at The Christian Humanist (also home of a podcast worth checking out).  Glimour raises so of the same issues I have wondered about in ANKOC, namely McLaren’s use of sources and his reading of history and the tradition.¹  But the point is he writes an critical evenhanded review that doesn’t fall into the various forms of rhetorical drama that seem to be popping up.

Emergent has always imbibed a catholic spirit.  I just hope it is not forsaken in favor of various dogmatisms.

1. For instance, I find McLaren’s description of Greco-Roman as a cultural monolith and his casting of Aristotle as some sort of Platonic heir rather than a supplanter a bit dubious.  I’m also beginning to wonder how useful it really is to place a narrative overlay on Scripture, whether it is the six-line Greco-Roman narrative McLaren castigates or his alternative.  What is lost when we circumscribe the entire canon to a singular arc?  Perhaps I’ll post on this soon. [↩]

“Emergent is dead” and emergent “break-up” posts seem to be in vogue lately.  The latest round have to do with the release of Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity.  In the eyes of some he’s gone way too far; for others he is finally clarifying his own positions.  I tend to fall in the latter category.  I am still a few chapters shy of finishing, but it seems to me that this book is the next logical step in the evolution of Brian’s work over time.  In other words, ten years later he is putting more substance to the wild ride he started with A New Kind of Christian.  And the result is the most cohesive and the “best ordered presentation to date of emergent theology.” That last statement has, quite frankly, pissed some people off because Brian hasn’t conformed to their expectations or notions of “orthodoxy”¹ (although I think the subtext to some of the more vitriolic reactions has to do with some built up disdain over the trajectory of the conversation for the past several years) .  Hence the eulogies and dear John letters. The problem, though, is that people had fixed expectations.  This isn’t that type of conversation.  I’m of the opinion that emergence isn’t dead, rather it is evolving and maturing.

Among the more charitable critiques are those offered by Jeremy Bouma who, along with bidding emergent goodbye, is submitting some of the thought to some much needed, though perhaps misguided, thoroughgoing theological critique.  I raised some issues on a few threads that I think are worth exploring here a bit more.

Bouma’s main issue that is that the trajectory of emergent in the past several years (he cites Doug Pagitt, Peter Rollins, and McLaren among others) has departed from “historic orthodox Christianity,” a monolith to be determined by “the rule of the faith.”  In other words, emergent fails the litmus test.  The real question, though, is what is this rule of the faith and who gets to be the arbiter of orthodoxy?  Here Bouma cites both the Nicene and Apostle’s Creed (which, for the purposes of this post, I have no qualms with) alongside his own constructive theological interpretation of them.  This is where we run into problems. Read the rest of this entry »

1. I’m not one to suggest issuing moratoriums on buzzwords, but if I were this word (along with maybe “biblical,” “scriptural” and “heretical”) would be one of them.  It has lost virtually all of its meaning and is only used as a rhetorical trump-card [↩]

Below is the manuscript — more or less, I tend to deviate quite a bit — of the sermon I will be preaching this morning, Transfiguration Sunday, at Quincy Community UMC.  It is based on the gospel text for this week (Luke 9:28-43).

In 1993, Greg Mortensen attempted to climb K2, the second highest mountain in the world.  For Greg, the way up was literally the way up the mountain, to the summit.  But Greg never made it to the top of K2.  There were problems with his crew and on the way back down the mountain Greg was separated from the rest of the group and wandered into a remote village in Pakistan called Korphe.  The people of the village cared for Greg and after spending time with them, Greg realized that the village had no school and no system of education for the children.  Once he returned to the States Greg decided to raise enough money to build a school for the children of Korphe.  This endeavor eventually grew into the Central Asia Institute, a non-profit organization which builds schools for remote villages in north-eastern Pakistan.  Greg recounts his journey in the best-selling book Three Cups of Tea which the Sunday School class has been reading over the past several months.  But these schools are only being built because Greg wasn’t able to reach the top of the mountain.  Three Cups of Tea was written because, in a sense, Greg failed.  Or did he succeed?  It seems that in the end Greg discovered that the way up, the real way up, was the way down — down into the village in Pakistan, down into a world were children had no access to education.  Down into the problems of the world where he could make a difference.

The way up is down.

We see a similar story in our text today.  In Luke’s gospel, Jesus takes three of his disciples — Peter, James, and John — to the top of a mountain to pray.  Now, I doubt that this mountain was as massive as K2 but it was high enough that Jesus felt he could be alone to pray.  This is something that Jesus does many times.  According to the Scriptures, Jesus would go alone, or sometimes with a few disciples, to a mountain or some other secluded place, to pray and mediate often.

But this time it was different, at least that is Luke’s version of the story.  According to Luke, while he is praying Jesus’ face begins to glow and his clothes begin to dazzle.  Then, suddenly, Moses and the prophet Elijah appear next to Jesus and Luke tells us that they begin to talk to Jesus about what he is to “accomplish in Jerusalem,” an obvious reference to Jesus’ passion and crucifixion.

Now, we have all been to the movies with all the new special effects, so let’s image what this scene might look like.  Jesus is on a mountain, his face and clothes are dazzling, and Moses and Elijah appear and start talking to him about his future trip to Jerusalem, the capital city.  Not exactly a calm, still event, right?  It seems to be pretty spectacular.  I mean, Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson could probably do quite a bit with that on the big screen and I imagine it would be pretty true to the story, at least that seems to be Luke’s version of the story.  But where are the disciples during all this?  Luke tells us that they are so weighed down with sleep that they can barely stay awake!  Really?  Barely stay awake?  How could they miss this?  Moses, one the great heroes of their history who led their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt, has just appeared and Elijah, one of the great prophets is with him.  I mean, these are famous people that Peter, James, and John would have heard about growing up.  And to top it all off Jesus’ clothes are dazzling.  But yet the disciples can barely stay awake.  I mean, imagine it — what would it be like if Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy suddenly appeared right now, right here in this church?  And what if Pastor Susan’s clothes started dazzling?  I think most of us would be wide awake.  But Luke tells us the disciples can barely stay awake.  In fact, they don’t even say anything until it is time to go back down the mountain and then Peter says something like, “Oh, but this is such a great experience, let’s stay.  And we’ll build a church here, in fact, we’ll build three churches, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  It’s almost like Peter has woke up and realized what’s going on and he doesn’t want the experience to end.  We all know what that’s like don’t we?  Have you ever been part of an experience that you didn’t want to end?  Something that you wanted to prolong as long as you could?  Almost as soon as Peter says this a cloud appears and a voice says, “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!”  And then, just as fast as they appeared, Moses and Elijah are gone and Jesus heads back down the mountain.

For Jesus, the way up is down. Read the rest of this entry »

I learned yesterday that Howard Zinn, long-time BU professor of history, radical activist, and one of my intellectual heroes, died of a heart attack while visiting family in California at the age of 87.  Oddly enough, I didn’t initially learn of this from Twitter, Facebook or even my Google Reader.  A lone comment on this video I posted a few years ago on Zinn’s political philosophy first alerted me.

It was a wide-eyed reading of  Zinn’s seminal A People’s History of the United States (among some others) that I was first awakened from my own dogmatic slumber and challenged to view history from the perspective of the those on the underside — indeed, the only proper way of reading history is by doing so, by listening to the voice of the other.  Since then I have found Zinn to be an inspiring, dynamic and prophetic figure.  I am proud to be attending the same institution where he spent most of his career and I hope that his legacy will live on through his writings and most of all in his exhortations to organize and renounce the status quo.

Interestingly, I ran across this passage the other night in Lenin’s “The State and Revolution“:

During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.

Indeed.  Many figures come to mind.  Martin King…Gandhi…Oscar Romero…Dorothy Day…Malcom X…César Chavéz…Che Guevara…Jesus.  And, today especially, Howard Zinn.  May we honor his work not by domesticating it but by taking it seriously.

In light of the SOTU yesterday his last short piece of public writing is worth reading.  It is a retrospective on Obama’s first year.

Finally, below is a video from one of Zinn’s most recent projects.

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I am taking a free, no-credit reading French course this semester.  The primary text is Karl Sandburg’s French for Reading.  Languages are not my strong suit, so I am hoping to obtain some French texts to begin working through on my own.  I am wondering if anyone might have some suggestions.  Obviously I am not looking for the complexity and difficulty of, say, Derrida (though I hope to get there at some point!).  Something relatively easy and straightforward would be best.  It would be even better if it were related to theological, biblical, or philosophical studies, but I doubt that those areas will be best to start with.

Thoughts?

I had every intention of finishing up my thoughts on Transforming Christian Theology and the series on constructive theology over the holidays.  So much for that.

Early tomorrow morning I will be flying to Havana, Cuba with a group from BU STh for a class on the Gospel and Empire and will be there for 10 days.  I won’t have cell service or internet access so my online thoughts will have to wait until I return.

Immediately following that trip I will be attending local pastor’s licensing school for the New England Conference.  Oh, and then school starts sometime.

So all of that is to say I am alive but will be very busy for the next several weeks.  Who knows how long it will before I have time to blog.

I ran across this quote from Jürgen Moltmann last night while doing some research for my last written statement in constructive theology for the semester.

Christian eschatology must separate itself from the messianism of the modern world, and out of this world’s ruins must rescue the categories of redemption.              God for a Secular Society, 220.

It seems to me that one of the biggest theological challenges facing us today is speaking of eschatology in light of postmodernism.  If Lyotard’s critique of metanarratives is correct it would seem to spell the end of eschatology broadly conceived.  For Moltmann, however, eschatology could not be more important as it is the very medium and content of all theological discourse.

So the question then becomes the following one:  what is the ultimate Christian hope in the face of the failed and indeed violent narratives of the modern world, how can the Christian narrative be freed from those totalizing narratives, and how does it, at its core, differ from them?  What is its good news?  I think Moltmann is on to something here.  Yet I wonder how or if it is even possible to distinguish the Christian narrative from these other stories ontologically.  That is, how to speak of the Christian narrative without totalization.  In many ways this gets back to the question I asked a few months ago about whether Christianity is intrinsically a metanarrative.  Or does it spell freedom from the metanarrative?

I’m still working out where I come down on this, but it seems to me that eschatology is where the rubber meets the road as far as the interface between theology and postmodernism is concerned.

Thoughts?

Chapter One:  Things Have Changed, or “Toto, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore”

In part one, Clayton comments a bit more on his introductory claims that the theological enterprise is in a crisis of language and content.  Chapter one tells the familiar but sobering story of the changing face of American religion — read the crumbling of Christendom — in the twentieth century.  Fifty or so years ago was, in Clayton’s words, “the Golden Age for the American Church” where “church social events stood at the center of [one's] social” and religious identity and was tantamount to one’s classification in larger society (12).  In other words, being Christian was the ultimate signifier of ‘being a good American.’

Of course, that began to fracture in the 60s and 70s as American culture began to radically change and disseminate into many different directions. No longer was there a single religious option which comprised one’s whole identity, now there was a smorgasbord of various options. Nevertheless, as Clayton claims, “all these options were options in organized religion” (13).

Today, standing at the cusp of a new century we see this cultural fragmentation and religious dissemination writ large. And the mainline decline that began in the 60s is reaching a disturbing rate for those interested in business as normal in the church.  Clayton cites a recent Pew Poll from just last year to draw attention to the ever-increasing number of the “religiously unaffiliated” and the shift from mainline Protestant dominance in the middle of the last century, to our current situation of widespread religious fragmentation.  Whereas the options 30-40 years ago were will situated within the confines of organized religion, the options today have literally “exploded” in our faces.  The free-market of religious ideas is alive and well.

All this presents an important and pressing problem for the church, a true crisis of identity.  Further, this explosion of religious variety is only the beginning and as far as Clayton is concerned technology will be the decisive factor in the future.  As he states toward the end of the chapter, “what it means to be the church today, and what it will mean over the coming two to three decades, is affected just as strongly by the explosion of new technologies and the radically new forms of social networking that they create” (15).  Indeed, the flattening of reality and the radical democratization of information that comes with technology is a direct challenge not only to the old forms of “doing church” (practitioners)  but the old forms of “doing theology” (academics) as well.  And if those forms are in decline now, the will be completely obsolete in the future.  As the decline of traditional denominations suggests, people simply aren’t interested in participating in forms of church rooted in a world that no longer exists.   As Clayton concludes:

No wonder people feel a little strange participating in a social arrangement called the “local congregation,” a structure designed for the world of the eighteenth century, before there were cars or even light bulbs! (15)

The good news, at least in my mind, is the Christianity — specifically the kingdom of God –  has always been flexible and adaptable to new cultural changes, in fact that may be intrinsic to its character.  The problem is that too often the church is reluctant and hesitant to do so.  Nevertheless, there are new forms taking shape and I believe that if we begin to provide persons with the tools to come up with new, creative ways of doing church and fresh, imaginative theological language that goes places we haven’t been before, then we will find those pockets of reality in which the kingdom is thriving in the future.

Be sure to check out these other theo-bloggers!

Joseph Weethee , Jonathan Bartlett, The Church Geek, Jacob’s Cafe, Reverend Mommy, Steve Knight, Todd Littleton, Christina Accornero, John David Ryan, LeAnn Gunter Johns, Chase Andre, Matt Moorman, Gideon Addington, Ryan Dueck, Rachel Marszalek, Amy Moffitt, Josh Wallace, Jonathan Dodson, Stephen Barkley, Monty Galloway, Colin McEnroe, Tad DeLay, David Mullens, Kimberly Roth, Tripp Hudgins, Tripp Fuller, Greg Horton, Andrew Tatum, Drew Tatusko, Sam Andress, Susan Barnes, Jared Enyart, Jake Bouma, Eliacin Rosario-Cruz, Blake Huggins, Lance Green, Scott Lenger, Dan Rose, Thomas Turner, Les Chatwin, Joseph Carson, Brian Brandsmeier, J. D. Allen, Greg Bolt, Tim Snyder, Matthew L. Kelley, Carl McLendon, Carter McNeese, David R. Gillespie, Arthur Stewart, Tim Thompson, Joe Bumbulis, Bob Cornwall

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Below is the manuscript — more or less, I tend to deviate quite a bit — of the sermon I will be preaching this morning, the first Sunday of Advent, at Quincy Community UMC.  It is based on the gospel text for this week (Luke 21:25-36)

There are probably two great “Fridays” people in the United States can readily identify.  Good Friday, of course, two days before Easter, marking the transition from one season to the next, and, perhaps even more popular, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year marking the beginning of the Holy season of Consumerism leading up to Christmas.  Today, we are in the midst of a transition, a cultural in-between time between the Fall season and the hectic Holiday season, the season of consumption where, if you are like me, you are tempted to spend money you don’t have, to buy things you don’t need, to impress people you may not even like.  We are in an in-between time:  between Black Friday, the biggest day of physical shopping, on the one hand, and Cyber Monday, the largest online shopping day, on the other.  Last year even amidst the growing economic crisis, on this same weekend, Americans managed to spend over $41 billion, an average of $373 per person.

We are in an in-between time.

Yet, as Christians, today marks another transition, another in-between time.  Today marks the end of ordinary time in the Christian year and the beginning of Advent, the beginning of our anticipation and celebration of God’s breaking into history through Jesus Christ.  This Sunday in particular, the first Sunday of Advent, we acknowledge a larger period of transition, between Christ’s humble coming in a manager in Bethlehem and God’s complete restoration of all creation in the future.  Today we celebrate God’s coming in Jesus so many years ago and at the same time we anticipate God’s breaking into history again, looking forward to the future redemption and salvation of all things.

So while the culture around us marks the transition into a time of unhealthy and unbridled consumption, we, as God’s people, celebrate and anticipate God’s liberating work in the world.  The question that I would ask all of us today, including myself, is whether we are marking God’s time today, or the time of Consumerism.  Do we look different from the rest of the world around us during this Advent season?  What are we celebrating?  Who are we celebrating? Read the rest of this entry »