(Ir)religiosity

I feel somewhat obligated to comment on the the latest “death of emergent” meme looping its way around the blogosphere. If you know what I’m talking about, you’re probably tried of hearing and talking about it — if you don’t, Tony has the most comprehensive link list I’ve seen. Just be sure you check out the post (and the comments) by Nick Fiedler that started it all, whether he wanted it too or not: “The Great Disappointment (A Post About Emergent). To be fair, Nick has further clarified his feeling in a later post, and perhaps best in a video chat with Zach Lind.

I’ve read/listened to all of these posts and commented on most of them, floating my thought on the whole thing. But after reading and commenting and re-reading and getting too upset and deleting comments I had typed up and ready to submit, I think I’m ready to publicly reflect.

I’ve expressed some of my own “disappointment” (as I originally called it) in some of my comments, but for different reasons. I said more than once and in a few different ways, that I’d like for the movement at large to move past a rejection of traditional Christianity and on to a different stage of the conversation. In other words, I’d like for us to get over the baggage that comes along with traditional evangelicalism and maybe even engage some fundamentalists from the other side of the spectrum who seem to think they have a monopoly on the prophetic voice.

Now I’m beginning to see that that’s not really disappointment at all. It’s my hope for the future of the conversation. That there is never any stasis in our dialogue and that we’re always pushing the envelope with a creative imagination.

And now you know where I stand. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t blogged much about politics since the election, mainly because I’ve lost some interest and grown a little tired, but I couldn’t help it after reading this.

Dick Cheney is now blaming former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke for the “failure” (seems more like suppression to me) in intelligence leading up to 9/11.  Here’s the exact quote: “You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it.”

That’s right.  This is the same Dick Clarke who issued at least seven memos earlier in 2001 to both the State Department and the White House, one coming less than a week before September 11, warning of potential and even imminent terrorist attacks.

When pushed about the memos Cheney tersely replied, “That’s not my recollection, but I haven’t read his [Clarke's] book.”

Seriously? Since the memos were a major part of the 9/11 Commission, an investigation under which Cheney was called to testify (and refused to do so under oath of course), I highly doubt that he “doesn’t recall” their subject matter.  Given their gravity that seems pretty ridiculous to me.

I just don’t get it.  Do they really think we are that stupid?  I am so sick of this passing-the-buck type mentality and I’m tired of career politicians placing blame on someone lower on the food chain in order to save their own asses (one of the many reasons why I don’t like food chains).  It’s disgusting.  And when it comes to something like 9/11 I find it particularly repugnant.

And, as usual, I agree with Jon Stewart‘s analysis (starts around 1:50):

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• Richard Clarke Reminds Cheney and Condi of Their Incompetence (emptywheel.firedoglake.com)
• Richard Clarke speaks the truth: ‘The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse’ (crooksandliars.com)
• Richard Clarke Slams Cheney, Rice: “The Trauma Of 9/11 Is No Excuse” (huffingtonpost.com)

Chris Hedges, one of my favorite journalists, describes it:

War comes wrapped in patriotic slogans, calls for sacrifice, honor and heroism and promises of glory. It comes wrapped in the claims of divine providence. It is what a grateful nation asks of its children. It is what is right and just. It is waged to make the nation and the world a better place, to cleanse evil. War is touted as the ultimate test of manhood, where the young can find out what they are made of. War, from a distance, seems noble. It gives us comrades and power and a chance to play a small bit in the great drama of history. It promises to give us an identity as a warrior, a patriot, as long as we go along with the myth, the one the war-makers need to wage wars and the defense contractors need to increase their profits.

But up close war is a soulless void. War is about barbarity, perversion and pain, an unchecked orgy of death. Human decency and tenderness are crushed. Those who make war work overtime to reduce love to smut, and all human beings become objects, pawns to use or kill. The noise, the stench, the fear, the scenes of eviscerated bodies and bloated corpses, the cries of the wounded, all combine to spin those in combat into another universe. In this moral void, naively blessed by secular and religious institutions at home, the hypocrisy of our social conventions, our strict adherence to moral precepts, come unglued. War, for all its horror, has the power to strip away the trivial and the banal, the empty chatter and foolish obsessions that fill our days. It lets us see, although the cost is tremendous.

And then there are the words of Jesus, “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.”

And then there is this.

Does. Not. Compute.

I’m pretty sure when Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers he wasn’t referring to the Colt variety.

The inaugural theme over at Open Table Theology is over the Imago dei.  Yesterday, thanks to Matt Scott, I kicked off the conversation this month with my post “The Relational Image of God:  Embracing the Other.” I am re-posting it here and I would invite you to visit Open Table Theology and join in our dialogical experiment.

“God created humankind in God’s image,” so the old aphorism goes, “and we returned the favor.”  No doubt it is true.  Appeals to God and God’s nature have been made to justify some of the most horrific atrocities and some of the most beautiful miracles.  “God” becomes the ultimate judo move, the Ace in the hole, the secret weapon that can be used to appeal to the better and worse angels of our finite human nature.  When you stop and think about it our view of God and God’s nature  and our ideas who or what God is have implications for everything.  Literally.  Everything.  Not to mention the Imago dei.  What does it mean to be created in the image of God?

We could phrase it in different way and ask the same question St. Augustine posed so long ago in his Confessions:  what is it that we love when we love our God?  Who is it that we love when we love our God?

Whatever our answer I think most of us will agree that whatever this image entails, it is common among all human beings.  That is to say, we are all created in God’s image. All.  The terrorist and the freedom fighter, the American and the Arab, the Muslim and the Christian, the homosexual and the heterosexual, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, progressive and evangelical — all share this common thread.  We all have something within us, call it a divine spark or our common humanity, we all share this essence, this characteristic, this divine stamp upon our being.  It is inescapable.

Torturing the Divine Image?

This raises some interesting questions.  A little over a month ago a Pew Poll revealed that most churchgoers — 54% to be exact — believe that torture can sometimes be justified.  Torture.  Torture?  Towards another human being created in the image of God?  What does that say about our view of God and God’s children?  A few days prior to reading the Pew Poll I stumbled across one of those “new” bibles that are all the rage these days.  This one was called The American Patriot’s Bible and it claimed to convey the ways in which “the story of the United States is wonderfully woven into the teachings of the Bible.”  What of other nations?  Are not citizens of every nation created in the image of God?  What kind of God privileges the United States over the rest of the world?  I wonder, what does this say about Americans’ view of the image of God when we publish jingoistic bibles and the majority of us support torturing others for the ‘good of our country?’  Is the Imago dei only valid if one is American?  Is particular only to us?

God is beginning to look more and more like Jack Bauer and Christians more and more like nationalistic Americans than we might care to admit. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I posted an article over at Emergent Village titled “What Happens After Sola Scriptura?” exploring what I believe is viable alternative to a traditional view of Scripture.  An alternative that maintains a deep respect for Scripture and takes it very seriously while admitting our limitations as human beings who cannot read Scripture (or anything for that matter) in a vacuum.  My contention was that reading is always already interpretation and interpretation is always already situational.  The history of hermeneutics is indicative of that and I think it demonstrative that Scripture is not infallible or inerrant.  Even if it was, our ability to read it without biases or prejudices is permanently inhibited — we are human after all.  And I believe that is part of the human condition.

The article received a quite a bit of feedback, some positive and some negative.  However, I great deal of the responses fell into one of two categories, both of which I feel missed the larger point I was trying to get across.  So I want to take a minute and address each of them.

First, the original post was not written from a historical perspective nor was it meant to evaluated as such.  I understand that Luther and other Reformers posited a different idea of Sola Scriptura than what I delineated.  I also understand that Luther lived in a different time than we do, more specifically a period prior to the Enlightenment.  I’m sure that Luther et al. meant well and I believe that Sola Scriptura was helpful and useful for them during the Reformation.  But as post-Enlightenment individuals, I don’t believe we can hold such ideas in the same manner as we once could.  And I think the various ways in which Sola Scriptura has been abused and misused since then are demonstrative of that fact.  We have a different type of consciousness and Sola Scriptura today means something wholly different than it did in the 16th century.  We can’t help that.  There is no going back in my view.  And because our understand has changed, so must our response.  Which is why I suggest Prima Scriptura as an alternative to Sola Scriptura as it has come to be understood.  I have no desire to take on the entire Reformation.  I believe it was helpful and I admire it, which is why I refuse to let it crust over into dogma.  I believe we must always be reforming.  For some of us who can no longer hold Sola Scriptura, I suggested a different alternative (an alternative that is by no means new by the way) as a means why which we can continue to reform.

Which leads me to the second point I want to make and one that may be the most important. I have absolutely no interest in imperialism of whatever form, be it cultural, historical, social, or theological.  I can say that without equivocation.  I find such an idea to be not only arrogant and destructive, but also decidedly un-Christians and completely counter-intuitive to the way of Jesus.  So when I privilege Prima Scriptura over Sola Scriptura I am by no means suggest that anyone who holds the latter dearly should immediately reject it for the sake of the former.  Not at all.  What I am trying to do is speak for those of us who can no longer hold Sola Scriptura and wish to explore another alternative.  I am not out to win everyone over to my side.  In my view, if Sola Scriptura works for you, if it helps you to better love God and neighbor in your context, if it helps you to participate in God’s kingdom of restoration and renewal, if it helps you bear witness to the good news, and if it helps you embody the fruits of the Spirit in your life, then I have no reason to dismantle it for you.  I would say the same of the alternative.  In the words of William Barclay, “No man can disregard a religion and a faith and a power which is able to make bad men good.”  If that involves Sola Scriptura, more power to you.  Go in peace to bear witness to God’s kingdom.  If it doesn’t, my hope in the original article was that I provide an alternative (again, not at all an original one!) that might you to do that.

My point here is that we should hold our views of Scripture, whatever they are, honestly understanding that they are only efficacious insofar as they push us toward transformation and restoration into the image of God.  If you can hold Sola Scriptura honestly and it does that, wonderful. Let us join together to do the work with which we have been charged.  Personally, I cannot hold Sola Scriptura in such a way.  And it is my hope that others who cannot will find a useful alternative.  For me, that alternative is Prima Scriptura, it is that sentiment that I sought to convey in the original post.