saturday's gift

DonT Wait Too Long - Frank Sinatra

Find God Here, part 2

[DISCLAIMER: I know what is contained in part 2 to will no doubt be met with a negative response from the reader. I do not mean to dress down your church. I only mean to share what I have come to believe.]

let's continue our thoughts about our expressed desire to meet God in our churches, and the danger and presumptive expression contained within that desire.

to be honest, i have been in “exciting” church services, services that seemed to exude the presence of God (if you believe in such things), only to step back afterwards, wondering if what i really experienced was God at all. since i have already confessed my cynicism in the earlier post, i now would tell you that this is a cynicism i have never really attempted to overcome.

while i do enjoy a church service where there's a good spirit, where the worship leader and worship team or choir is inspired and uplifted -- because i usually walk away from that uplifted as well -- i do not presume to say that i have met God in such a service. let me tell you why. a good sociologist, using say the tools of the sociology of knowledge, can radically deconstruct everything we do on a sunday morning, explaining the social location of our practices, and by explaining them they explain them away.

read, for example, peter berger's book, the sacred canopy, one of the most challenging (though dated) works of this kind. one walks away from that read with acid wounds etched in the soul. (if it weren't for his second appendix it would have been over for me).

anyway, one walks away from such understanding with a marked sense of sobriety when confronted by all things marked holy, wondering which promises of the huckster contain the hidden hook. this has meant two things have stayed with me:

1) even though all we do has a sociological explanation, i have come to believe that there is more than sociology to all we do. that is, i still believe God is somehow present in this world, and may even work through the sociology of humanity;

2) which means i have come to believe that we must look for the presence of God as a communal reflection and not an individual one.

in this regard, dietrich bonhoeffer has a phrase from one of his writings that has kept me sane during this ongoing discussion: "christ exist as community." here we see the, “where two or more are gathered in my name...” statement by jesus teased out in full. then, to quote an earlier post that touches on the present topic as well, i share from walter brueggemann who was writing about israel's relationship with God:

"...Yahweh, as known, trusted, obeyed and feared in Israel, is there in Israel only because of the sustained mediations that incessantly focus on Yahweh's oddity. Without these sustained mediations, Yahweh, who is so odd and irascible, so wondrous and awesome, would disappear from the life of Israel and from the life of the world...The reality of Yahweh depends upon the compelling case made regularly by the witnesses. And the witness make their case in utterance and gestures of mediation." (which brueggemann footnotes that for us this is "Word and Sacrament")

taking bonhoeffer and brueggemann together, i believe the idea here is that, when we meet in congregation, when we meet together in the name of jesus, when we meet with “utterance and gestures of mediation,” we somehow invoke and summons the presence of the present expression of the christ, which we only really recognize by looking backward, over time (sometimes over a long accretion of time), to notice how we have changed. that is, as before, jesus does not swagger and envelope us. no, he is still incognito, and soft and silent as an evening snow.

John Updike, RIP

Acclaimed American Author John Updike Dies at Age 76...
that was the headline, but so much is left unsaid. this man of letters was a national treasure. may i recommend three of his books:

A Month of Sundays
Roger's Version
Couples

The news hour had this retrospective; don't miss the updike poem at the end:

Meet God Here

some wag has wisely said that a cynic is a disappointed idealist. if this is true then i'm a cynic. this is born out in my life in any number of ways, not the least of which is how i read church signs.

now, don’t get me wrong i love church signs, but i tend to read them almost exclusively from the rather cynical perspective of a pagan. that is, i always ask the question, "if i were one totally unfamiliar or even antagonistic to christianity, what would this sign cognitively mean to me?"

i know, i know, but i already told you i am a cynic. sometimes the result is lamentable and sometimes it is hysterical, but i came across a sign today that brought my revery to pause. it read: "Meet God Here."

my first thought was, really? is there truth in advertising here?

i am sorely tempted to attend just to see what's what, but i suspect that this is a sign of an offered hope instead of a settled reality. that is, they want to meet God in their church, and they hope God shows up and inhabits the praises of his people there, then the cynic asks, but does he?

no offense to the more charismatic inclined, but do all the sign-gift demonstrations merely show off a desire -- allbeit a fervent one -- to meet God and not an actually religious experience of the trinity. said another way neither bluster and ballyhoo or silence and sedation can assure a congregation has met with God.

what would a meeting with God look like then? a question which brings to mind annie dillard's famous quote:

"On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? .... It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return."

the human condition

tomorrow morning i will conduct the funeral of a sixty-four year old man. he was a husband and a church member, and he lived a troubled life, struggling with various physical and mental ailments. his wife came home from work last thursday and found him on the floor. the emergency technicians attempted to revive him, but she thinks he was probably already gone.

when she telephoned me, the emt's were still at work on him and she was hysterical -- who wouldn't be? but when i met her at the emergency room she had calmed down and was waiting to hear the inevitable. this er was the same place where i had my trouble last year. it was my first return, so it was very difficult for me to be there and to remember.

when the staff finally called her back to the "consultation" area, she asked me to go with her. the news was what we expected. we then went to the room where his body lay. she touched him and cried and so did i. he was my friend. after a few minutes she said something like, "no more suffering," and this thought seemed to encourage her.

later i began to think how this little incident in this little place is actually the way of all people. none of us will make it out of here alive, and some seem to even suffer acutely while they are here. this has caused me to always think of this life-soup that surrounds us as chaos. if you doubt this just take a walk through a children's cancer ward. if you’re like me the words, “God’s will,” sticks in your throat in those hallways.

anyway, if the human condition is chaos then the ways of the christ are not meant to sustain us in safety, but instead are meant to enable us to stand in the very midst of the hellish suffering we see everyday, both in the ones we love and in ourselves. another way to say this is to say that the kingdom of God is the fierce fight we wage against these forces of chaos. no single person prevails, but the king will see to it that all of us prevail, someday. this is the blessed hope, and without that hope there really isn't much to what we say we believe.

Amazing Future

i found this video on the Kruse Knronicle. it is amazing...

why i am a baptist (or, still crazy after all these years)

within the post-christian context, it is difficult to think of the word baptist and not think of words such as narrow, rigid and judgmental, but this was not always the case. at one time baptists stood for freedom in religious thinking, and believe it or not, some baptists even suffered for others because of their desire for liberty in religious thought. (for a concise history go here)

i must confess that i made a conscious decision to become a baptist as an adult.

of course, i clearly understand that this is not the only way to express our faith in the Christ, meaning that baptists are neither the oldest nor then most theologically developed christian persuasion, but it is the way i have chosen. i made this decision for several reasons, but primarily, because of the historic baptist freedoms. these are articulated well by walter shurden in his little book, the baptist identity, where he writes about:

• “bible freedom...the historic baptist affirmation that the bible, under the lordship of Christ, must be central in the life of the individual and church and that christians, with the best and most scholarly tools of inquiry, are both free and obligated to study and obey the scriptures.

• soul freedom...the historic affirmation o the inalienable right and responsibility of every person to deal with God without the imposition of creed, interference of clergy, or the intervention of the civil government.

• church freedom...the historic baptist affirmation that local churches are free, under the lordship of Christ, to determine their membership and leadership, to order their worship and work, to ordain whom they perceive as gifted for ministry, male or female, and to participate in the larger body of Christ, of whose unity and mission baptists are proudly a part.

• religious freedom...the historic baptist affirmation of freedom OF religion, freedom FOR religion and freedom FROM religion, insisting that caesar is not Christ and Christ is not caesar.”
  

doesn't much sound like the current crop of baptists, huh?

baylor university religion professor doug weaver in a recent interview placed an even finer point on the subject:

“what is essential to being baptists? it’s the freedom to read the Scriptures and to say God can give a fresh word -- not a new revelation contrary to the Bible, but a fresh understanding from the Bible...”

“the issue of conscience is crucial. the conscience of the individual has to be free to answer to God first and only secondarily to anyone else.... emphasis on individual conscience, alongside the search for the new testament church, is a distinctive way for us.”

in that same interview professor weaver also said:

“baptists have been dissenters. when we have been a dissenting minority, that has been the best of the baptist tradition...at their best, baptists have honored individual conscience, biblical authority and belief in Jesus Christ as Lord...for the unfettered conscience to remain a vital principle for baptists, we need to remember this dynamic of the individual and the church...freedom is messy...but that has been the Baptist tradition.”

communion

this sunday next our discipleship community will again partake of the LORD'S table. for us, the elements of the meal, the bread and the cup, are not the body or the blood, nor do they contain the presence of the Christ. still, the living and resurrected Christ will inhabit the ritual and the movement with us. as our deacons share the bread and the cup, the faithful will bow and remember. they will again chew, dissolve and swallow the gospel. they will open their mouths to the symbols and their memories to that moment in time when Jesus of nazareth became for them the savior & the Christ. in that meal we will once again identify with God's mission, we will once again reinterpret our own history to that which was before Christ and after, and we will once again offer the God-who-is-there our lives and loyalty, if even for just the moment.

friday's gift

from The Piano Style Of Nat King Cole...
Blue Note Records, 1956
Nat King Cole and Nelson Riddle and his orchestra.

I Get A Kick Out Of You - Nat King Cole

provoking thought

alan hirsch's blog had this thought provoking video in a post entitled, some pretty important issues for us to consider:

the new theology

tony jones has an interesting post on his blog entitled, "who decides orthodoxy?" in it he makes the argument that the theological conversations occurring on the new social-web & media will bypass the old keepers of orthodoxy and that a new theology will emerge.

he ends his post with this:
"But the social web promises to change all of that.  Christians are climbing out of their denominational silos and listening to Christians of other flavors.  Some are even (gasp!) listening to the wisdom of other religions. I really do think that we'll enter a new age of theological discussion and even consensus, and it will be made possible by new media."

this is a new approach for me. elsewhere (e.g. here) i have argued that our leaders and our gifted theologians must step up to the plate and lead us to a new reformation of theology. this is necessary because the new world has cracked open wide the christian consensus of christendom, splintering us into armed camps -- distrustful and sad. reading jones here, it may be true that i have underestimated the power of web 2.0 to bring change, and overestimated our theologians willingness to hear from the underside.

is jones actually telling us that we must rush the castle, pitchforks and torches in hand, and take-over? or do we merely by-pass the gate-keepers and reshape the content of truth on our own?

and here's the real question: is the Spirit still speaking to the churches, or was theology settled in the 16th and 17th century?

does the Spirit have more to say, and could it be that these small, fragile, distant voices echoing on the web are actually fueled by the Christ?

wow!

a church member sent me this. thanks gary.

who is Jesus?

leander keck (1955-1976), who in 1980 was appointed dean of the divinity school at yale university, asserts at the start of his book, who is Jesus?, that, while the question "who was Jesus?" asks us to identify a person who lived in the distant past by requesting information about him from his own time and place, the question "who is Jesus?" signals an interest in his current identity. the latter question, keck tells us, "would allow one to trace the continuing influence of Jesus in the religious and cultural history of the west, and in other parts of the world, as well."

but, this movement from was to is is a tricky one. on the one hand you have folks like bart ehrman and Jesus seminar and on the other you have the likes of n.t. wright and luke timothy johnson, all battling it out.

mike leaptrott writes about this divide in his blog, progression of faith. the post is called, Jesus in CGI –Incarnation and Cinematography, where he says that the miracles of Jesus are added to his life like special effects are added in the post-production of a movie. here's a taste:

"Modernity has left us feeling tired from the fight between secularists debunking the mythic CGI scenes in the Christian story and fundamentalists trying to blur lines with apologetic theological cinematography. Both sides of that battle have chosen a naive approach to studying myths. The postmodern response to this problem is to embrace the story without trying to defend its historicity. Postmodern responses transcend the modern era bible wars by seeking to make the values of Jesus more realistic now rather than insisting that the facts were real then. The result might mean fewer Christians waiting around to have our mistakes corrected in post-production and more Christians accurately portraying the values of Jesus in each scene of our lives."

but notice, at the end of the quote, leaptrott is attempting to assert his understanding of who is Jesus and not who was Jesus. this is important.

of course, this question is not new. i suppose the most famous incarnation of it comes from the prison writings of dietrich bonhoeffer, who asked, "who is Jesus for us today?" (i've talked about this elsewhere. go here).

the point here is that this question may be the most crucial facing the current discipleship community in the west, especially as it sits in exile in the ruins of christendom. therefore, it is a question from which we dare not shrink or shirk. our leaders, our gifted theologians, our deepest thinkers must respond to help us get beyond either a Jesus wrapped in an american flag, or a Jesus looking down from the high-towers of the academy.

to be sure, the hour is late.

continuing with the authority question

recently, i have been following a particularly interesting blog-post (go here) about biblical authority and homosexuality. in it bob cornwall quotes phyllis tickle (The Great Emergence) about the future of the church in regard to this issue. in part here’s the quote:

"To approach any of the arguments and questions surrounding homosexuality in the closing years of the twentieth century and the opening ones of the twenty-first is to approach a battle to the death. When it is all resolved -- and it most surely will be -- the Reformation's understanding of Scripture as it had been taught by Protestantism for almost five centuries will be dead."

so, will biblical authority be dead?

here is my response to the post in part:

"if we were to think of sola scriptura as a sociological issue, as well as a theological one, we might be led to think that the authority of scripture brings some sort of security to one’s thought & beliefs (irrespective of whether those beliefs are true or not)... biblical authority is dead...i think it died in the ovens of auschwitz. anyway, what we see now is biblical authority by inertia, and as soon as the next generation comes on the scene all things theological will be changed. that is, sociologically speaking, biblical authority is a sunset value -- the sun is always brightest just before it sets. until then, will there be war? sadly, yes."

this thinking about the future of biblical authority caused me to remember an essay in harper's magazine entitled, fighting for the supreme court: "how right-wing judges are transforming the constitution." the author is cass sunstein, professor of law at harvard law school.

of course, one can tell even from the title that what is in view here is the u.s. constitution and not the bible. however, what struck me when i first read it -- and what caused me to remember it -- was how if one were to change a few words, one could be talking about the bible and not the u.s. constitution. here’s the first paragraph:

“In the current political theater surrounding George W. Bush's judicial nominations, and the anxiety over the nomination of john G. Roberts as swing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's successor, there is surprisingly little discussion of what is actually at stake. For, in truth, the battle over the judiciary is part of a much larger political campaign to determine not only the constitutionality of abortion and the role of religion in public life but also the very character of our Constitution, and thus our national government. Many people assume (no doubt because this is what they are told) that the meaning of the Constitution is set in stone, and that the disputes raging in the Senate and on the Sunday talk shows are between liberal judicial activists and conservative "strict constructionists" who adhere to the letter of the text. In fact, the contest is much more complicated and interesting-and, in most important respects, this conventional view of the subject is badly wrong.”

the question is, if our culture is having the same question about the origin of constitutional authority that the christian faith is having about biblical authority, then is the struggle over biblical authority really sourced beyond theology and hermeneutics? that is, is the struggle for us actually sociological and that is why, therefore, the outcome is inevitable, as helen tickle says.

experiencing God, 3

to continue our thoughts on hearing God’s voice, i want to call on walter brueggemann again to let us know just what is at stake if we come to see the recognized authoritative scriptures, practices and people as the voice of God, or what william abraham calls canonical theism, and what brueggemann calls "utterance and gesture." that is, those things that have come out of the well-spring of the church's history.

brueggemann’s statement from his, Theology of the Old Testament (p.575) is poignant and powerful, and deepens the meaning of the word of God mediated, or the idea of canonical theism, to a most frightening moment.

brueggemann writes:
"...Yahweh, as known, trusted, obeyed and feared in Israel, is there in Israel only because of the sustained mediations that incessantly focus on Yahweh's oddity. Without these sustained mediations, Yahweh, who is so odd and irascible, so wondrous and awesome, would disappear from the life of Israel and from the life of the world...The reality of Yahweh depends upon the compelling case made regularly by the witnesses. And the witness make their case in utterance and gestures of mediation." (which brueggemann footnotes that for us this is "Word and Sacrament")

from this we could say that in the practice of word and sacrament we discover ourselves related to God. or we could say that in the utterance and gestures of mediation we hear the voice of God. of course, we could also say that to cease practicing the canonical theism of the church opens to us the possibility of losing the voice of God as well.

could the voice of God disappear? could the voice of God be lost? and could it be that christian communities have so move from utterance and gesture (in belief if not in practice) that God is silent? and could it be that all the scurried calls of, “i hear God’s voice,” or God said thus and so to me,” are little more than what the old timers called whistling pass the grave yard?

you will remember the ezekiel experience as he watches the presence of God leave the holy of holies, then the holy place, then the temple and then the city. don’t you wonder what the high priest thought when after that departure it was time for him to again enter the holy of holies. and what did he discover but an empty chamber where the ark lay dark and empty?

experiencing God, 2

to continue our thoughts on hearing the voice of God, we would say that the traditional way we think about hearing God's voice occurs when we say we hear God through the bible and other spiritual practices such as prayer and worship.

to this i would also add the church as mediating God’s voice. but, to say the church filters to us the voice of the LORD, even if it is true, is only ok as far as it goes. by this i mean there is much more content that needs to be poured into the word church.

there is a concept introduced to me by william j. abraham that will help us here. it's the catch-phrase: canonical theism. dr. abraham edited and contributed to a book by the same name. (go here) he defines canonical theism in 30 theses (go here). there are three of them i want to emphasize. i will quote a portion of #1 and all of #9, and i will end with #13:

Thesis I:
"Canonical theism is a term invented to capture the robust form of theism manifested, lived, and expressed in the canonical heritage of the Church. It is proposed as both a living form of theism and a substantial theological experiment for today..."

Thesis IX:
Canonical theism is intimately tied to the notion of the canonical heritage of the Church. The Church possesses not just a canon of books in its bible, but also a canon of doctrine, a canon of saints, a canon of Fathers, a canon of theologians, a canon of liturgy, a canon of bishops, a canon of councils, a canon of ecclesial regulations, a canon of icons, and the like. In short, the Church possesses a canonical heritage of persons, practices, and materials. Canonical theism is the theism expressed in and through the canonical heritage of the Church.

the word canon we take to mean the recognized, authoritative scriptures, practices and people coming out of the well-spring of the church's history.

one example will suffice. take the practice of what is called communion, or the mass, or the LORD'S supper -- the bread and the wine. to be sure, this practice means different things to different parts of the church, but all churches who practice this rite (sacred ceremony) also in some way experience the presence and the speech of God while doing so. in some parts of the church this is also called a sacrament, which means a practice where God is particularly present.

still another way to say this is to say that what activates the presence of God in the canonical practices of the church is the Holy Spirit. 

here, we close with dr. abraham again:

Thesis XIII:
The ongoing success of the canonical heritage of the Church depends on the continuing active presence of the Holy Spirit working through the relevant persons, practices, and materials.

experiencing God

often, i find myself in the chair of the christian skeptic. i have faith of a kind, but for some reason it does not allow me to believe there's an angel in every room or a demon behind every bush. i suppose i have been too deeply grounded in the school of the rational.

having said that, i would confess that my point of view could be wrong. it's happened many times before. so, when someone tells me, "the LORD said this-and-such to me," i try to be open minded. i mean, who am i to deny someone else's reality? but when they say, "the LORD told me to tell you to do thus-and-so (like send money), then they bury the peg on my skeptic meter.

so, how do you know when it is the LORD speaking or when it's a different voice. i used to be much more sure of this than i am now, but in the next few posts i'll give it a shot.

i do believe that the LORD still speaks to us today, but not as often or as clearly as say when moses was around. the burning bush experience, for example, was what walter brueggemann calls an "unmediated experience." that is, moses experienced the divine directly, while most of us experience the reality of the LORD through mediators such as the church, the bible and the experience of worship. another way to say this is to say that our experience of the Divine is real but filtered.

[MORE NEXT TIME]

blog group

hey gang:

i wanted everyone to know that i have joined a blogging/reading group called:

High Calling Blogs

this is a way to connect with others who read and write about faith. when you have the  opportunity check them out and read some of the content.

blessings, 

m

new year do-over, part 2

i want to continue with my thoughts on how the God who is there allows us to begin again.

as i re-read yesterday's post i was reminded that some are so wounded, so broken by life-events, that starting again may be a goal too far, and that they may only be able to just go on. that is, they are so wounded that putting one foot in front of the other constitutes true victory.

back in the day, when i directed an inner-city ministry, one time we would see this guy clean and sober, and the next day we would be fishing him out of the gutter. our goal was to treat each encounter like it was the first time we had met. that is, we could not allow our own expectations and life-experiences to dictate to him how he should be. we also had to remind ourselves that the God who is there loved the guy in the gutter just as much as he loved us. to remember this, all we needed to do was to remind ourselves of our own selfishness. evidence for that was always abundant...

new year do-over

new year remains my favorite holiday. the day contains symbolic food (for our family it was always corned beef and cabbage), worship at the shrine of college football, and the distinct feeling that i get to start all over. in fact, the opportunity to celebrate a day dedicated to do-overs offers a hope that the other holidays neglect.

of course, one cannot completely start again. if i could really do things over i would not eat my way to diabetes or a heart-attack. having said that, there is something cheerful about turning the page and starting a new calendar that presents us with a clearing of the head and heart.

taking the thought in an even deeper direction, i would say that new year may be the most spiritual of holidays (with the exception of mothers day & father's day) because the new year reminds us that it is the God who is there who gifts us with new beginnings and second chances. it is the God who is there whose grace opens to us new life and a new way to live, and no matter how badly we make a mess of it, he stands by us in love.