Post Cogito (After-thought)

Musings

2008-09-04T03:14:00.000-07:00

1) Is Presbyteriansim really just grade b Anglicanism?

2) I often find myself appreciating conservative positions more than conservative persons. Did anyone see how bad the Hawaii governor's speech was? can we spell stilted or stiff?

3) Many Republicans don't seem to believe in corporate sin. Hello. We are our brother's keeper....no comments about collectivism/big gov't please.

4) Many Democrats don't seem to believe in origianl sin. Talking nice to everone won't eradicate the tainted Adamic blood coarsing through their veins.

5) "Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, ‘Hey man, this is what is.’ I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think, ‘God, it's got to be more than this.’ I mean this isn't, this can't be what it's all cracked up to be." — Tom Brady

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
- C.S. Lewis

Maybe I should become an NFL chaplain so I could tell these guys about that other world.

6) Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. - Anglican Book of Common Prayer

Is Presbyterianism really just grade b Anglicanism?

___ I'm testing the...

2008-05-08T16:16:00.001-07:00

___ I'm testing the coolest technology I think I've ever encounted. You guys have to try this. It's called jott.com, and I'm right speaking into my phone and should be or if you're reading this it's been delivered on the web. It's great, try it. listen

Powered by Jott

mutual defenestration means self-annihilation

2007-09-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

Boy, do I like this guy. I'm so glad to be in the same denomination with him.

"A minority of voices ask whether we in the Presbyterian Church of America (my denomination) ought to look more closely at whether our preaching adequately reflects the corporate nature of the apostle Paul's vision — they suggest even that our view of the unity of the covenant implies that perhaps it's worth considering whether our children belong with us at the Table (as Hebrew children did at Passover).

The answer: a study paper (passed — I note with chagrin — overwhelmingly) not on the biblical merits of the positions considered, but on whether they pass confessional standards (as interpreted by a tendentiously and carelessly written paper). When the point of the positions was never whether the standards were wrong, but whether more needed to be said than the standards say.

Suggest that we might do a better job representing Paul's view that the Body and Bride are elect as a whole, and get accused of denying that Paul teaches individual election.

Suggest that more could be said about the way Jew and Gentile oneness in the gospel demonstrates the righteousness of God than the Westminster Standards say, and get accused of denying justification by faith.

Suggest that all parties ought to be a part of this conversation, and receive a fluffy, but smugly cute repartee about the folly of inviting the accused to join the jury — have the derisiveness compounded by a disingenuous faux-rebuke of the "righteous applause" with which the vacuous remark is sycophantically met.

Battle as relentlessly and courageously as the Church of England's N.T. Wright does to champion the view that Paul's theology is animated by a comprehensive and integrated story of promise and fulfillment — scoring points against both the postmodern deconstruction of the biblical meta-narrative and the dispensational fracturing of the singular story of "the Israel of God" into dichotomous stories of "Israel" versus the "church" — and what do you get from your potential allies in the conservative reformed world? How about getting dismissed as importing an alien biblical theology into the established categories of systematic theology, as being vague about the atonement, and as compromising biblical authority? While we build careers at our potential friends' expense, the hostile armies and navies amass. Nice work.

Write courageously, as does Duke University's Richard Hays, into a most liberal Methodist environment about Paul's seeing in homosexuality the red light on the cultural dashboard, champion Paul's theological method as building upon Old Testament themes and texts and Jesus' ministry as being the embodiment of Israel's story, and get accused of Nestorianism because you believe that complementary to Paul's teaching that we are to believe "into Jesus" we are also supposed to have a faith that was like that of the incarnate Jesus? Puhleeze!"

(HT: Reggie Kidd)

Provoking our Collective Community Imagination II

2007-09-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

The prophets were more than purveyors of public doom and gloom. They sought to stir and rehabilitate the communal imagination of the people by painting pictures of gospel saturated community (i.e. times when lions and lambs would lie together and when corporate life together would be characterized by true gospel shalom). Provoking their collective community imagination was a key part in the prophetic program. Their imagination was the way in which they were to make connections between their visible social plight and the invisible possibilities for a renewed situation.

However, visionary awareness of group life is not enough. ‘Insight is not change’ is what a good counselor might say to a counselee who has rightly seen the way forward through a current issue. The new insight must lead to concrete fruits of change and renewal. So, it is with us. It is not enough to be stirred with a fresh vision of the necessity of small group life. The path to isolated individualism is paved with thoughts and desires for authentic rewarding community life. Inspiring insight into how one-anothering should look, quite simply, is not change. Having perceived the need, movement from a state of autonomy to participation in community must happen. Money magazine in surveying the principal reasons for the termination of fortune 500 ceo’s, cited lack of implementation/execution as the number one reason these high-powered execs were fired. These are intelligent, high capacity women and men full of inspiring ideas and visions for what the company could be and where it could go. Yet, they stumbled, not infrequently, at insuring that those fertile visions were translated into on-the-ground corporate realities.

The simple challenge is to step out courageously in faith and join a fellowship group. The call is to pursue a little safe place where you can know and be known by others, care and be cared for. In the context of a big church like Redeemer, this level of participation in the life of the church happens in small groups. They are perhaps the most high impact way that we live fruitfully and spiritually beneficially with one another.

Quite frankly, it is just plain fun to meet new people and to connect with fellow urbanites around things as diverse as Bible discussion and Brubeck, community service and Coltrane. Fellowship groups hold forth the prospect of enjoying God’s world with his people even as both are renewed and transformed in the process.

Many have experienced the surprises that gather at the intersection of an invigorated community imagination and humble risk-taking initiative to go join and or lead a fellowship group. Consider some of the experience of Bethany Jenkins, a fellowship group leader: “I talked with another friend who was already in a Redeemer group. Although neither of us had ever led a group before, we decided to try it out and knew, at least, we had one member - my roommate. We told a few people about the group, those people told their friends, and a month later, we had 15 people and were over capacity. Within a year, we separated into four groups to accommodate more people. Again, friends told friends and very shortly all four of those groups were full and had to turn people away.”

Now, this is not an attempt at crass triumphalism. Still less does it suggest that all groups have or will experience(d) such numerical quantitative ‘success’. It is one example of what can happen when faith risks for kingdom community purposes, when people desiring to realize the dream of genuine one-anothering, put feet on those desires and get involved. By her own admission Bethany admits that her testimony is “……nothing spectacular. I saw a need, I talked with a friend about it, and we took a risk……God loves it when we take risks that seek to love His people by meeting their needs.”

In the economy of the gospel, we are called to be more than an admirer of the idea of authentic community. We are called to be followers, followers of the Way, living out of the life of the One who is the Way and laid down His life so that we could find our own, even as we lay down our own lives for others, making room for them, and participating in new life together with them.

If you’ve had your imagination converted to see the call to real life together, then live into that renewed reality and join and/or lead a fellowship group.

Provoking our Collective Community Imagination I

2007-08-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

“Hey, we have a fellowship group that meets tonight……and would love it if you could join us”. It was with those words (or something close to it) I entered the world of Redeemer fellowship groups nine years ago. Though I was a believer, I was deeply discouraged by Christian community. Today, I participate in overseeing hundreds of groups here at Redeemer as a director of fellowship groups. That small encounter with a fellowship group leader served a very big purpose in my present vocational life.

Why have I become so heavily involved in fellowship groups? I could give a thick theological answer that includes talk of calling, providence, divine sovereignty, and the like, and that response would be correct. But the straight forward facts-on-the-ground answer is quite simply – someone asked me to visit their group. An unpretentiously courageous group leader extended an invitation to an unfamiliar newcomer.

To my surprise, joining that fellowship group, challenged and provoked my imagination about Christian community in fresh, exciting, and encouraging ways. That group experience was formative in helping me to think about (and experience) what small group community can be and also served as a helpful reminder of the prophetic wisdom of not ‘despising small things’.

So, how might others in Redeemer come to participate in a fellowship group and experience robust renewal in gospel community? What could substantially increase church wide participation in small groups thus transforming our big city? One way is to issue cattle calls to join and/or lead a group. This is a helpful and needful thing and usually works to a degree. One of the things that scripture does is convert our community imagination and then challenge us to live into that renewed vision.

Community imagination

Catching a vision of what can be is always deeply inspiring and motivating. When a person is provoked to imagine new possibilities, to see beyond present material circumstances, he/she will move confidently in the direction of seeing that new horizon realized. This is true regarding the dynamics of Christian community formation. When a believer catches a glimpse of what transforming community looks like, gets a taste of thick rich community life, they will seek more of it (and often invite others to do the same). We see this kind of vision casting and provocation to community imagination in the Biblical prophets in particular.

The OT prophets are commonly understood as a cranky community of grumpy divine spokesmen. They blow into town and, with bony pointed finger, announce doom and gloom on a community gone wild in sin. They blow in, blow up, and then blow out of town (if they don’t get beat up first!).

There is another (better) way to see what they’re doing. As Walter Brueggeman states, “The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us”.

That is, if Israel found itself in a state of disrepair and surrounded by hostile enemies, the prophets would provoke their collective imagination and expand their visionary awareness by painting pictures of a time when the community (particularly, the big city – Jerusalem) would flourish and its enemies would flock to it (cf. Isaiah 2).

Wherever there were pockets of darkness, the prophets would often inspire repentance by describing images of what an alternative community transformed by the light of the gospel would look like. They would inspire a people experiencing a failure of community imagination, with their words, giving them a window into the world to come.

This is what a fellowship group can do. When those members are together doing community group practices (praise, scripture study, prayer, fellowship, and mission) they are demonstrating and living out a taste of the world to come. An onlooker is getting a fresh little vista into life in the New city. This is attractive. Light, in the midst of darkness always is.

What is needed is people who will dream together with others about what gospel-driven group life can be and then will fund that vision by forming (or hosting) a fellowship group. What is always needed is people who’ve undergone (or are willing to undergo) a conversion of their community imagination and then challenge others to the same as well.

love's long resolution

2007-08-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

So I watched Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightly) the other night and let it percolate for a few days while I read about half of a critical essay on it, talked briefly with a couple women in the office, all the while doing a cursory comparison with Ang Lee’s rendering of ‘Sense and Sensibility’. After all, its summer, a time for cinematic exploration beyond that permitted by the rest of the year.

Here are just a few discursive thoughts.

I enjoyed it immensely. I find many of the 18th century social conventions, (to say nothing of the British accents), charming and engaging. There is just something about that era that appeals to my moral and social sensibilities in an interesting way. There is no uniform antiquarian delight here - the ‘soft’ caste hierarchy and classism are undesirable - but the defined parameters of social intercourse appeal to me. It seems that folks knew what was expected and how things (like marriage proposals) were to go down. In our own day, not knowing those things and consequently not having a generally well understood way/manner in which relating of all sorts happens, makes things awfully confusing in my opinion. I’m not hankering after the ‘good ‘ol days’. Still less, am I suggesting a social straight jacket be imposed on male/female relating….just think it would be nice to have more common cultural understanding in these matters.

Be that as it may. The aspect of Pride & Prejudice (and all of Austen's stuff) that I most enjoy is the insightful psychological interactions of the characters. The way she opens up human intentions (for all to see) and common ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, just leave me breathless. There are numerous 'ah ha' moments in listening to the exchanges, far too much to digest and process in one hearing (or reading). Darcy and Elizabeth's argument/misunderstanding after the first proposal was a study in the ways people misunderstand each other, a paradigmatic demo of ways in which out of 'pride', we show 'prejudice'. Elizabeth and Jane's discussion about Elizabeth’s initial would-be suitor was brilliant and so eloquently got to the heart of the oftimes abated approach and retreat of a man in the early phases of pursuit. So much of what she says rings so true and is so well put that I'm left in awe. I wish I could reproduce the insightfully precise phraseology of that exchange.

And of course, the way the meta-drama of love plays out drew me in. I was aching for love's long resolution! When Darcy finally called her....named her...had her hand in marriage....called her 'Mrs. Darcy' (not less than three increasingly intense times), a 1000 pound weight fell off of my shoulders. Finally, all was right in the romantic universe. Things were as they should be. And this was just the 2 hr version. I can't imagine the tension of watching the 6 hr BBC production. 'Hope deferred makes the heart sick' undoubtedly must take on new meaning.

Admittedly, I go about life with abstract notions of romantic love most of the time but when I watch something like p&p, enter into the sympathetic motions of heart vicariously with the characters (the initial rebuff of Darcy was oh so painful), I feel, hope, and long more than ever for what he eventually obtained - love. Isn't that the heart of the universe? Isn't love the way the world is made right ultimately (Richard Hays’ ‘moral vision’ notwithstanding)? "God so loved the world', 'Christ loved the church….'. This is a reality beautiful beyond belief!

In some ways, I found p&p more hopeful than s&s. Sense’s Colonel Brandon was just so perfect, so patiently persevering, so self-giving that it actually had the effect of discouraging me from romantic pursuits. He evinced no proclivities for ‘prejudice’. He showed no ‘pride’. Darcy, on the other hand, while fundamentally honorable, still found love in spite of his 'chinks in the armor'. I loved that. I see and feel the inner logic of gospel redemption in him. He embodies the hope that one must not be perfect to get the great woman in the end.

I wonder if so many of the frustrations, dashed hopes, deferred desires for marriage among so many Christian singles would be beneficially addressed by seeing the noble love embodied in the films of Jane Austen repeatedly. I mean, what would happen if men/women communally sat down and watched these films together over and over and over until they were compelled to walk away and imaginatively inhabit in real life, the relational grace so on display in this drama?

This movie was such a helpful hermeneutical tool in opening the deep structural vision of love in Ephesians 5.

……just some ramblings on p&p

"Sin is crouching at the door" and in the permutation

2007-02-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of Lent ...which is thinking like a good Anglican ....which is thinking like a Catholic ...which is to think of sin(s)...the deadly ones.....and a few of their permutations and extrapolations.

HT:BJ

Remember the Dream

2007-01-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

I forgot how near transcendent the eloquence, power, and truth of this speech is.

Listen.....Learn....and Remember.

Vanhoozer at the Vangard II

2006-12-05T09:33:00.000-08:00

Wow! This is such a fresh framing of things. I never thought of imagination as the faculty which supplies the conceptual glue for holding cognitive things together. You probably have to be a Myers-Briggs ‘N’-type data gatherer (as opposed to an ‘S’–type) though to appreciate the categories.

“[T]he imagination enables us to see the parts of the Bible as forming a meaningful whole. But we can go further still. The imagination also enables us to see our lives a[s] part of that same meaningful whole. This is absolutely crucial. Christians don't need more information about the Bible, trivial or otherwise. What the church needs today is the ability to indwell or inhabit the text, the ability to make the Bible serve as the framework through which we interpret God, the world, and ourselves.”

Never thought about it that way.

(HT: The Christian Mind)

Vanhoozer at the Vangard

2006-12-05T09:31:00.000-08:00

Don’t you just love hearing ridiculously intelligent people talk and speak? It gives me a rush. Check out this quote from an interview with Kevin Vanhoozer talking about his book, “The Drama of Doctrine”.

“Christianity is essentially about dramatic action, about what God has done in the history of Israel and especially in the person and work of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world. Drama means 'doing,' and the Bible is all about the 'doings' of the triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. Speaking is a form of doing, too; the action in some plays is largely dialogical. In Scripture, God gets the most important speaking and acting parts.

Doctrine directs disciples to act, yes, but to act not as hypocrites but according to their true natures and in accordance with the way things really are in Christ. Doctrine tells us not how to pretend to be something that we are not, but rather who we really are; the vanguard of a new creation. Doctrine defines me as a creature of God made in his image and as an adopted child into God's family. My true identity is ultimately a matter of my union with Christ. All other identity-markings-political affiliation, class, race, even gender-while important, are ultimately only secondary.”

(HT: The Christian Mind)

elegant eloquence

2006-10-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Some people have a gift for economy of expression. They are able to say a lot in a little. Far from using complex prose, they express themselves with plain language minimalist elegance. Their writing and speaking has an ‘E=MC2’–ishness about it that is just beautiful to behold. Often, their insights may appear deceptively simple but are in reality, subtle, sophisticated, and masks high octane reasoning – all marks of a supple mind capable of making foundational realities explicit without verbal clutter.

The following is a classic example of what I mean. It, so simply, yet in a sophisticated manner, articulates a framework of unity and diversity that doesn’t flatten one in the in the interests of the other, doesn’t let theological one-ness swallow up biblical many-ness:

“The full text of each gospel is what God says as well as what the Evangelist says. There is no tension here between divine speaking and human speaking, anymore than there is a tension between the fact that Christ’s speeches are God speaking and a human being speaking.

It follows, then, that the very diversity of the Gospels is a divine diversity. God intended that we should hear about the center of redemption in four symphoniously related accounts, not one. God is absolutely at home with this unity and diversity……And so we are driven back to ask what God’s view is of the historical events recorded in the Gospels. The surprising answer is simply that God’s view is the Gospels themselves in their unity and diversity.” (Symphonic Theology, p. 48-49)

Cognitive Dissonance, Clashing Orientations

2006-10-10T17:09:00.000-07:00

This quote is a very good summary explanation of why black and white folks so often do the dance of clashing cognitive orientations:

“[Concerning] the thought processes of people of African descent in Africa, the Caribbean and the United States. According to Matthews, blacks personalize their learning. Knowledge must be recognized as a personal human experience. The black person internalizes his thought. For him, knowledge is not an abstraction which stands on its own outside of the experienced reality. Knowledge passes through the human experience and is processed by the person with his whole being. Black thought is a lived event. Matthews quotes approvingly from the African philosopher, Leopold Senghor, who asserts that the African builds himself into the wholeness of reality by or through affective identification by means of imagery. This is thinking with soul. Hence the unusual manifestation of symbols and metaphors in black thought. According to Senghor we have here to do with the totalized or symbolic all-in-oneness of the African concept which emerges from the immediacy of the black affective intellectual perception. Matthews refers to this as cosmic thinking. He traces his thesis though black literature, especially speeches and sermons. His point is that we encounter a black cognitive process, a way of thinking and perceiving reality which is pan-African. This is to be contrasted with the one-thing-at-a-timeness, the fragmentation of the field of perception and the disruption of the rhythm of movement characteristic of much western analytic thought”.

There we have it. This explains why, for instance, when listening to sermons:

I want to rhapsodize and emote and my white brothers and sisters seemingly would rather rigorously explore the inner coherence of the preacher's arguments.

I feel soulful and want to shout out while many white folks are savoring the silence of introspective analysis.

Do you think the cultural shift to image-based secondary orality has/is changing this in dominant culture?

Pre-Cogitation

2006-10-10T16:00:00.000-07:00

OK, Apologies (to those who have some interest in the narrative of my existence) for not posting in a while. Life has radically changed, I have virtually no internet access at home, and frankly, I’m not sure what to write or whom to target these days. I’ve lost my blog bearings a bit. Often, I’ve thought about just posting a little quote appended with “Let the reader understand” but drive-by-blogging of that sort feels more lazy than anything and so is often better left unwritten in my estimation. So, I cogitated, “Before I blog again regularly, let me do some pre-cogitating by thinking beforehand where I want to go with this thing.” I haven’t answered it yet but I thought I’d at least let you in on the process.

That said, there have been lots of things theological and otherwise, swirling around in my head:

- Is there explicit theological value in having 3 (as opposed to 2 or 4) days between the Death and Resurrection of Jesus? I sense that there is some simple straightforward biblical answer that I am just totally missing.

- The flack I’ve heard N.T. Wright receive for positing the theme of ‘exile’ as often as he does has always surprised me. Isn’t he just putting sociological meat on the theological bones of ‘alienation’ from God from Eden onward? Kind of like the whole ‘history of redemption’ (abstract-theological) vs. ‘history of Israel’ (concrete-sociological) discussion. In any case, black folks get the whole ‘exile’ thing. We live with it everyday as a sub-dominant group trying to survive in the dominant culture. When a black person asked, “where will you be when the revolution happens?”, he/she was simply giving vent to a sense of social ‘alienation’(a feeling of 'exile') and desire for redress not wholly unlike the Jews must have experienced under Roman occupation. I guess the Sachari were the Jewish Black Panthers of their day.

- What happens when your ecclesiology functions as a subset of your systematic theology instead of the embodiment of it? You talk about regeneration almost wholly apart from baptism and justification without mention of covenant membership. On the whole, you get soteriology disjointed and abstracted from ecclesiology. Is this a new Gnosticism or am I missing something? Doesn’t physicality and embodiedness matter?

Incog-negro

2006-09-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry for going incog-negro during the last week and a half. I'm settling into a new job and apartment. Being terrible at moves and still worse at staying on top of correspondence, I probably haven't let many know that I'm now living in Jersey City, NJ and working at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan as one of the Fellowship group directors. Also, truth be told, I haven't wanted to sound pompous or anything, and I don't like being celebrated. It's painful....really. I don't know why but it is. It may seem weird to us on this side of the pond but I much prefer simple expressions of gratitude to God on my behalf (like the British) than the wild applause and clamor characteristic of we Americans at announcements and the like.

In any case, I am excited about this new chapter in my story. Existentially speaking, it feels right. Over the last few years, my ministerial vision and self-understanding has grown and developed such that I see myself as very suited for diverse global city ministry. Big, globalized, culturally diverse contexts just seem to bring something out of me emotionally, psychologically, and in other ways that other contexts simply don't. Being somewhat oriented toward contemplation and reflection, this surprises me a bit. Additionally, among many other things, you get more bang for your ministerial buck by serving the world's cultural centers. Your salt and light influence is potentially magnified exponentially. Why would I serve in Wheaton, Colorado Springs, or Orlando when I have New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, global cities all which affect world trends, etc.? I know...I know...Jesus is extending His Kingdom everywhere and those smaller places, as much as christendom has developed up around them et al, need the announcement of the good news still more. More city talk anon.

Random Cogitations

2006-08-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

Some random cogitations, not particularly related....

1) Moving is brutal. It just drains the life out of you and that lifeblood, having been drained, doesn't fully return for a while, until you get acclimated to the new environment, etc. That period of recovery may be 1 month, 1 year, or longer if it ever happens. It feels like a death and resurrection of sorts and seems to only get more painful as you get older.

2) Blogging is beautiful, well....at least, much of the time. For me, it has provided a salutary occasion for a little reflective critical distance each day. I interject my daily journey often with statements like, "I should blog about this!". This is good and sharpening. When I stop and focus on some aspect of my life and thought, with an eye to later recapturing it via this quasi e-journal, the contours of Christ's work in me become clearer I think. I walk a little more wisely when I do this.

3) Seminary can be a time of unruly intellectual ambition. This is not necessarily the fault of the seminary. It is the nature of the beast. The academy is a place of high level cognition among other things. So, people possessed of an intellectual/cognitive disposition are susceptible to the native idolatries endemic to academic seminary life. It is in this connection that the gracious testimony and classroom example of professors like Dr. Richard Gaffin, provided a valuable constraint on my unwieldy mental aims. He exemplified 'humble orthodoxy' before I ever heard that phrase. And even when his more precisionistic proclivities (commendably & ardently applied in the pursuit to not 'go beyond what is written' I might add) rubbed up against my own creative right-brained orientation, his manner invited me in. I saw Jesus in that man. I've been reminded of this as I've perused reviews & comments of his latest book.

4) Tim Keller is special. Hearing him preach the gospel from Mark 12 this past Sunday evening, I was struck again with his God given ability to expose the legal scrupulosity of the human heart and prescribe just how the work of Jesus, when applied, contravenes the legal frame at every turn. I got a fresh taste, yea....a drenching of the grace that is in the gospel. The everlasting surprise of hearing the good news is seldom more real than when I hear Dr. Keller.

5) Tiger Woods is a freak of the gene pool. period. Anyone who goes 14-0 (?) when he has a share of the lead (at least) entering into the final day of a PGA tournament is breathing something other than the oxygen down here. How can a human have that level of consistency and focus?

6) Moving is brutal!

Tagged!

2006-08-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

My good friend, brother, and fellow blogger, Xavier from RBA has tagged me. This is actually an interesting tag. What we read reveals the motions of our interiority. So, here is a little of my guts being spilled!

One book that changed your life: Oddly enough, Exegetical Fallacies by D.A. Carson. I read it as an undergrad in college and it forced me to face squarely the implications of Sola Scriptura. Was I going to continue to follow fundamentalist TRADITION(you know...don't drink....don't chew...don't go with girls that do kinda stuff) or Biblical TRUTH (which I knew would lead me out of fundamentalist ecclesiastical circles)?

One book you've read more than once: The Scarlet Letter. I read it twice in high school and once afterward. Hawthorne's unusal insight into the psychology of guilt blew me away. His descriptions of Rev. Dimmesdale's heart motions, as he labors under the complex tyrrany of a guilty conscience, are unparraleled in the literature I've read.

One book you'd want on a desert island, besides the Bible: The Complete works of Shakespeare. For brilliance of story, depth of insight into the human condition, worldly wisdom, mastery of language, mix of tragedy and comedy, poetry and prose, and general world literacy, no set of works compares. Others have said this. I really know what they mean.

One book that made you laugh: A Thousand Resurrections: An Urban Spiritual Journey by Maria Garriott. It is a serious and incisive book. But at parts, it is just hilarious to see the evolution of a suburban white girl into an urban pastor's wife. Instances where her soft suburban sensibilities were grated on by the rough and tumble of inner city life cracked me up often.

One book that made you cry: The Confessions of Augustine. It wasn't so much the speculative metaphysical stuff but the scenes where he laments the loss of family and friends that made me cry. Also, his salutary humble deportment throughout the book repeatedly melted me. Objects of His Affection by Scotty Smith. I repeatedly had a difficult time finishing the second chapter of this book because of the deep places it touched in me. The beauty of Christ's pursuit of us was brought home to me in a way that it never had before. (I know that this was 2 books. Sorry)

One book you wish had been written: Being a Hard Idealist in a Pragmatist World: A Survival Guide. I'm such an egghead-in-the-clouds kind of guy that the cold, concrete practicalities of life just about do me in at every turn.

One book you wish had never been written: The Bell Curve - In my lifetime, this book did more to reinforce and perpetuate painful race ideology than any other to my knowledge.

One book that you are currently reading: The Second Adam and the New Birth by M.F. Sadler. I'm trying to think more deeply and biblically about the meaning of baptism.

One book that you've been meaning to read: The Autobiography of Miles Davis To know Miles is to know the shape and history of jazz in the 2oth century (& it was a graduation gift :-).

You're it!: Rod Denise Anthony

'Mystery' of the Gospel = Multiethnic community?

2006-08-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

Eph. 3:3,6,9 seems to teach this. I'm wondering if the 'body' in view is the cosmic ecclesiastical community only or if particular local bodies are envisioned as well.

"Let me offer some discursive ramblings in favor of considering the racial composition of a church, of thinking about ‘races’ and not just ‘persons’ if I may. This statement stings me: '90 percent of congregations are at least 90 percent one race'. To my mind, this fact suggests that the Christian church, whatever else it is, is not less than racially/ethnically tribal. Empirically speaking, it says that race & ethnicity constitute as much a ground for inclusion in particular local churches as any other factor. We can look at that and say 'fine' I guess. But in light of increasing diversity in schools, neighborhoods, marriages, gov't, military etc., in the face of persistent monoethnicity in churches (still the most segregated hour of the week), many are provoked to ask, 'What's wrong with the church? If the 'mystery' of the gospel, (a la Eph 3:3, 9) is the bringing together into one body, Gentile and Jew (by extension gentile and gentile in our day) and the effect of the gospel mystery is to move us toward deep, self-donating one-anothering (regardless of race/class/gender), shall we be content to allow this mystery to play out at every level but the actual local church level? I’m inclined to answer in the negative. So, why talk about bringing other ‘races’ in to the church and not just ‘persons’? The working out of our new humanity within a new community demands a counter-cultural racial inclusion in the body. This inclusiveness, I would suggest, is more demonstrative within local assemblies than just between them. I am painfully aware of cultural clashing and can only say that patience, forbearance, and love have led to increasing oneness and unity with the racially ‘other’ in my life. I have a long way to go though. One can not be too prescriptive concerning exactly how this should look in every believer’s life of course. Callings are particular and varied. But at the global, north american ecclesiastical level - 90% of churches having 90% one race - is definitely not it wouldn’t you say? I don’t want to have an overly eschatological ecclesiology that insists on seeing the ‘not yet’ completely in the ‘already’. There are obviously limits and qualifications.

I suspect that the monolithic landscape is less a result of intentional exclusion (‘blacks are not welcome here!’) than the unintentional persistence of deeply formed patterns of social relating which we seldomly, self-consciously disrupt in the interest of inviting in the racially ‘other’. In fact, I rather suspect that most churches would welcome greater diversity, say they even want it, but do relatively little in the way of self-denying, discomforting social re-arrangement (again, in the interest of making room for the ‘other’) which might pave the way for inclusion. Would it look noticeably different within most churches if they were intentionally exclusive? 90% is A- grade de facto segregation (B+ at WTS ;-). So many things to say/discuss.........Please feel free to challenge this vigorously" (comments from a previous post)

"To sum up, we may say that 'the mystery of Christ' is the complete union of Jews and Gentiles with each other through the union of both with Christ[cf 3:6]. It is this double union, with Christ and with each other, which was the substance of the 'mystery'."
-Stott, BST, p. 117.

I never thought of union with Christ as having a racial component to it.

Majority-World Christianity Advances

2006-08-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

This was very encouraging to read:

"Long overdue is advent of the Africa Bible Commentary (ABC), the most important tool for African pastors who need biblical, relevant support. The ABC is the first one-volume Bible commentary to be produced in Africa, for Africa, by African scholars."

I suspect that traditional oral-story cultures aren't as fascinated by commentaries as modern text-contractual ones. "If it's in writing, its important" doesn't carry the same authority to oral oriented folk. Language is more dynamic and active for them, it seems to me. The West is catching up on this score though(Isn't this why we are so captivated by speech-act theory - the recogntion that words can enact new states of affairs?).

Perhaps the advent of this commentary is reflective of a growing recognition in Africa, that the new state of affairs, often enacted by our verbiage, should be written down. Majority-World Christianity Advances!

Ideology v. Geography

2006-08-22T05:08:00.000-07:00

By inclination, latte-sipping, left-leaning, intellectual Christian types are the people I tend to hang out with.....the kind of folks, who upon reading Jesus's great commandment, hear 'love...with all your MIND' in stereophonic and see it in bright neon lights. They love verbal banter, assiduously participate in the great continuing conversation about ideas, and will travel far and wide to hear, study with, or sit under the latest sage on the stage. For them, ideology drives their geography. The things swirling around in their heads are the engine of reality and they will move wherever their thinking leads them.

Mark Noll insightfully challenged my notions about the relationship between ideology and geography by suggesting ways in which geography shapes ideology/belief. In this 12 minute interview, he explains how the expansive landscape of America (as opposed to Europe) contributed to the formation of a tolerant, pluralistic, religous consciousness and an attendant proliferation of denominations/religions unparalleled in the world to this day. Physical space encouraged and fostered a tolerant mood in which ecclesiastical diversity could flourish. Geography influenced (drove?) religious ideology. Fascinating.

Hear the interview here.

Read the complete post.

A Word from The Bishop

2006-08-21T14:37:00.000-07:00

........no, not the white guy from Durham who lives in a castle but the dark-skinned brotha from Kampala, Uganda, Rt. Rev. Dr. David Zac Niringiye.

This interview is a prime example of the exegetical/hermeneutical payoff received by reading/listening to those inhabiting different social locations (particularly, the margins) and why we should sit at their feet a while.

"God very often is working most powerfully far from the center. Jesus is crucified outside Jerusalem—outside—with the very cynical sign over his head, "The King of the Jews." Surprise—he is the King of the Jews. "We had hoped … " say the disappointed disciples on the road to Emmaus, but he did not fulfill our criteria. In Acts, we read that the cross-cultural missionary thrust did not begin in Jerusalem. It began in Antioch, on the periphery, the margins. But Jerusalem is not ready for Antioch! In fact, even when they go to Antioch, it's just to check on what's happening.

I have come to the conclusion that the powerful, those at the center, must begin to realize that the future shape of things does not belong to them. The future shape of things is on the periphery. The future shape of things is not in Jerusalem, but outside. It is Nazareth. It is Antioch.

If you really want to understand the future of Christianity, go and see what is happening in Asia, Africa, Latin America. It's the periphery—but that's where the action is."

It is so refreshing to have highlighted for you, aspects of the biblical text to which we may be positively indisposed and prone to miss due to our different lenses/life questions et al.

(HT: Sibboleth)

Read the complete post.

The PCA: A Presbyterian Plantation?

2006-08-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

I love the PCA. I really do. And having committed to it, I've committed to take on the problems inherent to it, whether theological (most notably) or sociological(less seen and/or acknowledged).

So I just gotta know if some non-Latino, non-black folks see it this way.

To show my hand (as if it wasn't clearly seen), the comments of this Latin PCA brother resonate with me but I want to check it against other perspectives. His conclusion is sober and pointed:

"Now if the PCA doesn't change this mindset the local PCA churches in global cities with high populations of blacks and Hispanics will fade away as is the case in Miami FL."

Professor Anthony Bradley of Covenant Seminary, discussing some of the reasons for this type of thinking, offers some provocative post comments:

"many 'white Christians' are asking questions like 'what can we do to get more Asians' in our church, instead of asking 'what can we do to get more involved in the lives of Asians and join their churches, and submit to Asian leadership.' It's the whole 'come to us' attitude 'cause it's better for you (Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, etc.) to be with us instead of the other way around."

Even if race issues make your eyes glaze over with apathy/disinterest, or if you're saying, 'here Mark goes again with race stuff', help a brotha out. I don't want to apply a hermeneutic of suspicion where a hermeneutic of trust should be applied.

(HT:Anthony Bradley)

Gratia Ex Auditu

2006-08-16T21:26:00.000-07:00

Hope this ministers at least a little grace to some hearer(s).

"The Faith of Doubters"

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.....so we preach".

- What St. Paul really said for preacher-wanna-bes

De-historicized history

2006-08-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Reading and thinking through John's gospel, I'm struck afresh with some of the seemingly anachronistic statements on the lips of Jesus. In 3:13, Jesus seems to be speaking of His ascension as though it were already past, "No one has ascended into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of Man". Is this a Jewish aphoristic, proverb-like way of speaking which would have been easily undeerstood by Nicodemus? Is this a post-resurrection creedal affirmation in which the apostle is calling his readers to subscribe to the JCF (Johannine confession of faith)? It is as if he is saying, "Hey early church, the incarnation-death-resurrection-exaltation are true, so believe them". There may be other explanations.

In any case, assuming Jesus' ascension is in view, the statement seems to de-historicize history, if but for a moment. It transcends the particular moment in time of its utterance and speaks to all future horizons of readers. It has a patently 'confessional', atemporal feel to it, when seen in the context of the conversation with Nicodemus.

Of course, de-historicized, confessional statements are common to John. Notably in 7:37-38, Jesus speaks 'dogmatically' of Belief/Spirit-work, "Whoever believes in me.....out of his heart will flow rivers of living water", a creedal assertion made intelligible only in light of later redemptive-historical events (resurrection and ascension), "Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified".

Does this mean that these creedal affirmations - the JCF - though genetically related to, are a function and subset of, Redemptive History in John? His confessionalism seems situated within a larger historical framework. Still more, is there here, an implicit affirmation that future historical periods always hold the promise of greater doctrinal clarity - a 'progressive confessionalism' as it were? Ughh.....that may be stretching it a bit.

Let me stop before I try to squeeze any more doctrinal juice out of this textual orange.

Justification and Social Justice

2006-08-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

Does my reformed conceptual toolbox contain the theoretical/theological tools to relate these two? Or, do I have to go rummaging through the toolkits of other traditions to supplement my own? My gut says yes and yes.

I’m not minimizing the discussions going on in my circles these days. At some level, they are needed and necessary but this isn’t a speculative theological question for me, one that I leave at the presbytery floor. The issues surrounding this problem are what cause me, in private moments of despair, to want to throw in the towel. Thankfully, I haven’t and won’t though I’ve cried myself to sleep over this and related stuff as I've realized that I operate with a different social paradigm and a sometimes alien theological language game!

Maybe, this problem is a subset of the heaven-earth chasm – things on earth are just not like heaven, so, our indicatives and imperatives are painfully out of sync at times.

The following have been helpful by way of suggesting some potential angles for fresh exploration. They are good primers on probing the relationship between the two:

Nicholas Wolterstorff's "Justice and Justification” in Reformed Theology for the Third Christian Millennium: The 2001 Sprunt Lectures, 83-96.

Kathryn Tanner’s “Justification and Justice in a Theology of Grace” in Theology Today 55(1999), 510-23.

“Justification and Justice: The Promising Problematique of Protestant Ethics in the Work of Paul L. Lehmann” in Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates, 118-33.

I have a hunch that John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God would provide a robust reformed framework for addressing the question. I may be wrong though. If anyone knows of a work that speaks directly to this, please advise.

"This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one."

- Maltbie Babcock

Terrorism, Total Depravity, and Resurrection

2006-08-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

Can you believe this?

This is so scary. It's hard to believe that apparently, we were within days of another 9/11 or worse!

Anyone who doubts that Adamic blood coarses through our veins richly should be disabused of that notion immediately. Man, are we weak and wounded by the Fall!

......Deeply desiring our full new humanity within a completely new creation....longing for the 'not yet' of resurrection hope.....but realizing we have a job to do and the grace to do it in the 'already'.

"Easter is about the beginning of God's new world. John's Gospel stresses that Easter Day is the first day of the new week: not so much the end of the old story as the launch of the new one. The gospel resurrection stories end, not with “well, that's all right then,” nor with “Jesus is risen, therefore we will rise too,” but with “God's new world has begun, therefore we've got a job to do, and God's Spirit to help us do it.” That job is to plant the flags of resurrection—new life, new communities, new churches, new faith, new hope, new practical love—in amongst the tired slogans of idolatrous modernity and destructive postmodernity.It can happen. By God's grace it will happen. The fact that today we may not see it happening is neither here nor there. Sometimes it only takes three days."

- N.T. Wright

Fifth Day Morning Prayer

2006-08-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

"Make us willing to be saved in thy own way, perceiving nothing in ourselves but all in Jesus."

- The Valley of Vision

Justification & the World

2006-08-09T13:30:00.000-07:00

If (since) "The doctrine of justification by faith is in fact the great ecumenical doctrine" and a declaration that we are indeed forgiven. If it is also a statement that all people, thus justified, are part of the family of Abraham and therefore have a place at the ecclesial table, then doesn’t it stand to reason that everyone at the table should have a voice, especially if the topic is justification by faith (the great ecumenical doctrine)? Certainly, we don’t expect some to just sit there while others are permitted to speak? What is really going on here? O.....I think I get it…Some of us are now are allowed to get on the ecclesiastical bus but are expected to shut up and sit in the back (to change the metaphor)!

The whole doctrinal debate/discussion over Justification by faith smacks of Eurocentric hegemony. Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t hear the voice of the world, but white brothers only (as brilliant and needed as they are). Are there not just 'new perspectives' but other perspectives to be heard as well, ones that could inform and enrich current understandings?

It reminds me of the numerous incidents where little precocious and perceptive black kids have gone home and said, “Mommy, why does the teacher only pick the white kids for all the answers?” I feel their pain.

Maybe, we can listen and learn something about J by F from the following:

A Latin American voice
Tamez, Elsa. Amnesty of Grace: Justification by Faith From a Latin American Perspective. Nashville: Parthenon, 1993.

An Asian voice
Kim, Chang-Nack. "Justification by Faith--A Minjung Perspective." Chicago Theological Seminary Register 85 (1995): 14-23

An African voice
Maimela, Simon S. "Justification by Faith and Its Continuing Relevance for South Africa." In Theology and the Black Experience: The Lutheran Heritage Interpreted by African and African-American Theologians, ed. Albert Pero and Ambrose Moyo, 35-41. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1988.

Hear a prophet of your own:
“The [Two-]Third[s] world church will find its greatest struggle in learning to be a teacher of the West. The Western Church will find its agony in being taught to be a learner.” - Harvie Conn (italics mine)

Disclaimer: My tone is intended to be pointed not acrimonious. Those that know me, know that I’m really just a big, black teddy bear type. That being said, I really do mean what I say here.

Reformed Readers: Metaphysical and/or Physical?

2006-08-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

There are at least two types of readers of texts in the world. Let’s call them physical and metaphysical readers.

Physical readers are attentive to the very text themselves, particularly in its literary dimensions. It is the words, the grammatical constructions, syntax, etc. which are the principal conveyers of meaning. These types of readers evince very little concern for conceptual figurations which may lie beyond and above the text. But where their reading schemes inevitably lead them in that direction, they are less interested in adducing mathematical-like propositions than organic imaginative metaphorical relations. Quite simply, it is the contours and character of texts that capture their imaginations more than any deep structural content embedded in them. For them, the medium of the script is its message. They strike me as people whose cognitive orientation would lead them to study toward a B.A. in English, not a B.S. in engineering.

They are intrigued by the rough edges and odd shapes of texts and don’t feel too existentially driven to smooth out the ‘ill-formedness’. Again, they see meaning in the messy material of texts and delight to inhabit its rhetorical spaces.

Metaphysical readers are attuned to the conceptual content of texts. For them, words and syntax are merely the grammatical husks that must be shed in order to get to the real stuff underneath. These types of readers often have little literary sensibility and/or nuance and often are bad grammarians/spellers. Consequently, their papers/books need more editing than most. This is OK with them because the texts are just there to be mined for their truth value content in any case. And the truth data, having been thus mined, is then placed in its rightful propositional place. Reading is fundamentally an act of essence distillation in which essences are distilled from the coarse materiality of the written words on the page.

But for all of their love of the science of conceptual extraction, they quite often show an aversion to categorizing their findings under narrative, story, or drama. I’m not quite sure why but I suspect that these categories clash with their cognitive sensibilities concerning structure and order and don’t conform easily to certain processes of conventional logical rigor.

We reformed types are truth-value kind of readers on the whole I think. Yeah, we appreciate the literary sense types who root themselves in the actual phenomena of scripture. Our instincts tell us that this is a good and necessary first step. Deep down, we harbor a superiority complex though. We say, “If they were really good readers/thinkers, they’d get to the epiphenomenal stuff like us.” It’s good to be a textual technician but it is better to be a theologian.

Now of course, these are grossly exaggerated generalizations but I needed a little midsummer night’s humor of a reformed parody sort. That being said, something about this rings true at some level to me.

Blogging, The Fabric of Redemption, Little reflections scribbled down

2006-08-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

So I went and got co-opted by the cyberspace establishment (or joined the e-revolution. perspective and position in life is everything here). I always had the nagging feeling that I would dive in at some point and create one even though I harbored suspicions that the whole thing was one exceedingly narcissistic enterprise for those unable to get published in the real time world. After all, who has enough time (and hubris) to just write their discursive ramblings and expect a hearing (or reading)? A lot of people! Maybe I thought blogging functioned as a therapy of sorts, a new techno, post-modern way of just being. Come to think of it, it may just be the universal desire for personal story, to be let in on what people think and how they feel as they journey through the ebb and flow of life.Truth be told, right now I think that I'm just inspired at the end of a long summer work session and am just feeling a short-lived (hopefully not) burst of inspiration to just write some random piecemeal thoughts.

In any case, My view of blogs/blogging has definitely changed. As scary as it may sound, it appears that blogs have become a part of the fabric of redemptive work in my life. So often, they are a point where the large story of what God is doing in the world, the blogger’s story, and my story converge in just a few short paragraphs. I find grace for the journey in reading many blogs. As I read the honest intellectual grapplings and messy moral meanderings with which we deal in life and how they intersect with the transforming power of the gospel, I feel encouraged and invited to participate in the same type of gospel self-donation, in opening up my life in the interest of letting others in to see what Jesus can do with a person like me. I don’t know how many times my heart has been melted into tears with sorrow or driven to profound joy as I’ve read a post.

To be sure, I’ve performed my fair share of salacious searches for the latest on a brewing (or full blown) controversy. Lamentably, I’ve looked for the latest dirt on someone, usually just to confirm my already suspicious view of him/her. This just proves that Jesus’ work of redemptive renewal is not complete yet in me. ‘O Lord, come and make your blessings known far as the curse is found, especially in me’. But mostly, blogs are some channel of blessing to me. When so many of my brothers and sisters take time and interrupt the rushed rhythms of life with little reflections scribbled drown electronically, more times than not, redemptive work is served in my life and Jesus is honored. For all of your redemptive ramblings long and short, Thank you.