Seeking to Rise Above: Politicaly, Religiously

There’s this segment in Tony Jones’ new book where he makes note of the occasion when John Stewart went on one of these conservative vs. liberal talk shows- where the point is all about stirring up shouting matches between the hosts and guests alike- and said, “Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.” And Stewart was not being humorous. He deadpanned it because he meant it. Apparently CNN, and others, got the message. The show, that shall remain nameless, was cancelled shortly afterwards.

Good on John Stewart. I think that, regardless of how we lean politically, we have to stand up and denounce these kind of playground tactics when we hear them. We need to tell people who engage in such demonization of “the other side” that we’re tired of it. That regardless of their political persuasion, such tactics are childish and hurtful to the fabric of our society.

Last night on the campaign trail there was another such example where somebody resorted to playground bully tactics, and someone else put them in their place. At a John McCain rally a conservative talk show host was asked to “fire up the crowd” prior to the appearance of McCain. So this guy, Bill Cunningham, gets up and comes out guns a-blazing against “those evil democrats”. That’s not a direct quote- just a characterization. But, I think, a fair one. Cunningham then went on to directly mock Barack Obama. And with the attack came much use of Obama’s middle name, Hussein. Cunningham said, after the fact, when defending his behavior, that its just a name, don’t read into it. But, without assigning motive, you’ve got to wonder.

Anyway, regardless of what you think of McCain as a candidate, you’ve got to give him credit for what he did next. He apologized for the remarks of this conservative radio host whose role it was to introduce him, saying,

"I will not tolerate anything in this campaign that denigrates either Sen. Obama or Sen. (Hillary) Clinton.”

Good on ya, John McCain. Seriously. We need to stop with the playground bully tactics. Making “the other side” out to be the party of Satan just shouldn’t fly anymore. Again, I’m saying this regardless of which way you lean politically. Because, we all know, there’s plenty of smearing that goes both ways in this country.

It’s not helpful. It’s not mature. It’s certainly not “presidential”. And we should stand up and say so whenever circumstances permit.

And, it should be said, this is also true in our religious discourse. The 20th century was all about defining one's Christianity in contrast to other Christians- if one was even generous enough to call them that. But we should have no time of day for this kind of behavior anymore. Its just so rarely helpful. So often it comes much more from the commitment to being "right" (or at least appearing so) rather than the commitment to being good and Christlike.

Seriously. Enough already. Let's move on. And let's be intentional about doing so.

Supporting the Arpin-Ricci's in their Adoption Process

While there are myriad ways to give time, money and resources to worthy causes, sometimes you come across an opportunity that represents the proverbial no-brainer. I recently posted about Kiva, which is a non-profit organization which facilitates peer to peer loans between people in the developed and developing worlds.

Well, I recently came across another such opportunity. Jamie Arpin is a fellow blogger on the missional/emerging landscape. Jamie and his wife Kim, who live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, are in the process of trying to adopt a child from Ethiopia. And, with this being a bit of a cost prohibitive venture for support missionaries such as themselves, they have come up with a really simple, yet effective way for all of us to join with them in the endeavor. They’re site, Adopt-a-Pixel lets you donate towards the cause of adopting this child from Ethiopia. You can give as little or as much as you want. On their site, Jamie and Kim write,

This website is dedicated help raise the funds needed so that Jamie & Kim Arpin-Ricci are able to adopt their first child from Ethiopia. You can be a part of this exciting project by simply "adopting a pixel". Every donation, even as little as $1, will really help. As donations come in, we will keep you updated. Our goal is to raise $20,000 towards the process.

This is one of those situations where a trial can turn into a blessing that reaches literally right around the world. Listen to how Jamie and Kim came to the idea of adoption,

As many of you know, Kim & I are in the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia. After our devastating experience with miscarriage to our consistent and unexplained inability to conceive again, we decided to pursue this course. It took us many months of prayer and consideration, but we truly believe this is God’s plan for our family.

Again, to me, this seems like one of those situations where it just makes so much sense to get involved. And it represents yet another way that this Web revolution we’re all a part of can work towards forging real, meaningful community. So why not look into it? Again, Jamie and Kim’s website is Adopt-a-Pixel.


Frontline Insights: Tony Jones' The New Christians

The good books just keep a-comin’ these days. I was saying to Serena last night that I don’t remember another time in my life when I’ve read so many highly impacting, well-written, hugely significant books in such a short season of time. This short list began with Brian McLaren’s, Everything Must Change, just a few months ago. And then came N.T. Wright’s, Surprised by Hope. And now, to make it a trilogy of sorts, comes Tony Jones’, the New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.

Sometimes, having just finished an excellent book (or a good movie for that matter), one is almost inevitably set up for disappointment when the next one rolls along. But that’s definitely not the case on this occasion. After having recently finished Tom Wright’s excellence manifesto of Christian hope- and loving it, I find Tony’s, the New Christians is a really wonderful, really timely, really well-crafted assortment of emergent/emerging ideas, history, and frontline insights.

I dropped Tony a short note late last night to say that I am really enjoying his book. I made note of the fact that it’s not just the subject matter that moves me, but also the writing itself. I really resonate with this style of writing. For those hoping for a discussion of postmodern philosophy, Enlightenment project impact, the modernly-inspired religious right/left divide of the 20th century, its all here- in spades. But so too are plenty of on-the-ground antidotal tales and personal intuitions from a guy who has been living on the proverbial frontier of which he speaks, for over a decade now.

I will be blogging my way through the book over the next few days, with a full review to follow. Why not just cover it all in one article? Well because there are no simply too many points to touch on in one cogent, concise review.

One point I came across last night that caught my attention was this idea that emergenthood is not easily devoured in part. Tony writes,

…Many emergents will tell you that you can’t be “a little emergent” any more than you can be “kind of pregnant.” It’s an all-or-nothing state, and a half-hearted embrace of these dispatches from the frontier will inevitably lead to frustration.

It is a little bit of an all or nothing enterprise, isn't it. Oh certainly, some do try and use emergent/emerging terminology to gather postmoderns to their church. But these people use the ideas more as marketing slogans that they do as resonating, orienting schemas. Believe me, I come across such churches regularly. But the “emerging” term, to them, is really just another trick up their sleeve of seeker-sensitive tricks. And once you pull up the sleeve, you find a very conservative, Reformed package of theology lying in wait.

But for those of us involved in the conversation, we quickly realize that one really cannot look into new ways of “doing church” without simultaneously looking into new ways of understanding God/faith/spirituality. They really are two sides of the same taco. And you know how it is with tacos, they might look like they have two sides, but its really just one fabric bent in half- kind of like space/time. Anyway, if you can, pick up a copy of the New Christians. It’s well worth it.

Stay tuned for more thoughts in the days to come…




Reframing a Metaphor: Heaven, Earth, and String Theory

In my last post, speaking of  N.T. (Tom) Wright’s, Surprised by Joy, I made note of two kinds of hope, which to “the Bish”, are two sides of the same coin – so to speak. The first kind of hope has to do with what we can expect of life in the here and now, prior to bodily death. And the second kind of hope deals with life beyond the grave.

I mentioned that this issue of hope hinges largely upon our understanding of what Heaven is. The Bishop of Durham writes,

It comes as something of a shock, in fact, when people are told what is in fact the case: that there is very little in the Bible about “going to heaven when you die” and not a lot about a postmortem hell either… Many Christians grow up assuming that whenever the New Testament speaks of heaven it refers to the place to which the saved will go after death. In Mathew’s gospel, Jesus’s sayings in the other gospels about the “Kingdom of God” are rendered as “Kingdom of heaven”; since many read Mathew first, when they find Jesus talking about “entering the Kingdom of heaven,” they have their assumptions confirmed and suppose that he is indeed talking about how to go to heaven when you die, which is certainly not what either Jesus or Matthew had in mind.

So true. I’ve often had heard Christians - of a more conservative stripe - quote these very kinds of biblical passages to support their cause regarding their definition of the gospel. It never seems to occur to them that the issue is not that they rely on the Bible, while we emergents don’t, but perhaps that we have different understandings of what the passages are speaking of, or pointing towards in the first place. Like Wright says, when we go to scripture with a pre-existing notion, it is very difficult to see past it; especially when we’re reading metaphors, parables, apocalyptic language, etc…

So anyway, getting back to the issue at hand… If heaven is not a peaceful hereafter populated by puffy clouds and harps-a-plenty, then, what is it? According to Wright,

Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden, dimension of our ordinary life—God’s dimension, if you like. God made heaven and earth; at the last he will remake both and join them together forever. And when we come to the picture of the actual end in Revelation 21-22, we find not ransomed souls making their way to a disembodied heaven but rather the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, uniting the two in a lasting embrace.

Isn’t it interesting how different metaphors can seem, depending on what you assume them to be referring to? If one sees Heaven primarily as a “place”, then it seems rather bizarre to imagine some giant, golden city descending like some massive alien mother ship from the clouds. Well, maybe it doesn’t seem bizarre to some… But it does to me! But if, on the other hand, you see Heaven more as a co-existing dimension, then imagining a fusion of the two seems much more credible. And recent advances in subjects such as String Theory make this possible future seem only all the more plausible. Don’t you think?




Tom Wright on Why Hope Isn't What it Used to Be

Being that I so love to devour books, I am very blessed that most of the works I read and then review for Precipice are actually sent to me, free of charge, by way of the publisher. However, this is not the case with the book I have most recently begun to peruse through. N.T. Wright’s, Surprised by Hope marks my most recent literary journey. And when it comes to the work of “the Bish”, I am more than willing to slap down my own hard earned greenbacks to gather a copy.

Yes indeed, I am a huge fan of the Bishop of Durham. Undoubtedly he has had more influence on my thinking about theology than any other scholar- or for that matter, any other popular writer as well. Speaking of these two categories of writer (scholarly and popular), Tom’s most recent work is actually designed to be navigable by the general population, as well as to us theologs.

In many ways, Surprised by Hope is a reader’s digest version of some of Wright’s much more comprehensive works. Works that some might find a tad dense. Not me! But some. This book seems to especially draw from Wright’s incredible work of scholarship titled, the Resurrection of the Son of God, which is the third volume in Wright’s exhaustive Christian Origins and the Question of God series.

The Resurrection of the Son of God is as advertised. It’s all about resurrection. Or more specifically, the Christian concept of resurrection, rescued from the influx of many a dualistic, Pagan source. The subtitle of Surprised by Hope is Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. This subtitle certainly lends credence to the idea that this book is, in many ways, a summary of Wright’s earlier writing in TROTSOG. But the last bit in this subtitle hints at the other dimension this book touches on- that being the point of the exercise, the mission, for Christians- before they die.

And here Wright makes note of two distinct types of hope. One hope refers to what we can expect of this world- before we meet our initial bodily demise. The second kind of hope deals with what lies on the other side of this departure. Wright’s point, and here he seems to agree wholeheartedly with Brian McLaren in Everything Must Change, is that these two types of hope should not, cannot – be separated, not for the Christian.

Why not? Well, because only a dualistic and therefore unchristian perspective could look at this life as polluted and regrettable when compared with the supposed life of disembodied bliss to come. This disembodied bliss is not what the Bible teaches us to expect. Ironically, as Wright points out time and time again, many Christians, not to mention entire churches and branches of churches, seem largely oblivious of this fact.

On the issue of hope and its two dimensions, Wright says:

This book addresses two questions that have often been dealt with entirely separately but that, I passionately believe, belong tightly together. First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope if there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? And the main answer can be put like this. As long as we Christian hope in terms of “going to heaven,” of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated. Indeed, some insist angrily that to ask the second one at all is to ignore the first one, which is the really important one. This in turn makes some others get angry when people talk of resurrection, as if this might draw attention away from the really important and pressing matters of contemporary social concern. But if the Christian hope is for God’s new creation, for “new heavens and new earth,” and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together. And if that is so, we find that answering the one is also answering the other. I fine that to many – not least, many Christians—all this comes as a surprise: both that the Christian hope is surprisingly different from what they had assumed and that this same hope offers a coherent and energizing basis for work in today’s world.

Of course, central to this discussion is the question of what heaven is. From Wright’s perspective, many in popular culture (many Christians certainly included) are simply way off track in their conception of heaven. Tomorrow I’ll delve into this issue. So, stay tuned…

In the meantime, why not pick up a copy of Surprised by Hope for yourself? It’s well worth your hard-earned greenbacks too. Promise.

The Role of Spiritual Disciplines in Christlike Formation

Phyllis Tickle is someone who’s long been quoted, discussed, and involved when it comes to the emerging church. Not a long-time blogger, Phyllis has recently decided to blog through her experience of Lent. In contemplating the heartbeat of the emerging/emergent movement, Tickle had some interesting thoughts to share, following a conversation she had with Tony Jones (whose new book, the New Christians, by the way, is now available.  Stay tuned for a review of the book in the coming weeks!). Anyway, getting back to Tickle’s thoughts, she writes:

“I’ve known Tony [Jones] for a number of years and loved and admired him for every single one of those years, but never more than yesterday when we sat in that old and beautiful space and talked together about today’s Church and about its thirsty, hungry pursuit of what’s called ‘the ancient future.’ That expression was first coined by the late Robert Webber and means to name a number of things. But for me, the best summary of all those things is that in our most recent, heavily rational, heavily Enlightenment centuries of being Christian, we have somehow forgotten something. We have forgotten that there is more to saying, “I am Christian” than just believing some things. There is the business as well of being inside of a life that is sculpted and marked by the spiritual disciplines and practices of the faith.”

This little ramble reminded me of a friend’s comment about what evangelical Christianity has become for many people. He called it “beliefism”. Which I suppose one could define as the focus on a collection of abstract beliefs as a defining matrix. For Christians in centuries past, the endeavor was much less cerebral. And it was certainly most always a blend of belief and praxis. And this is what Tickle is touching upon here. Practices matter. They are not merely vain attempts at “posing holy”. They are a means to an end. They shape us, remind us of ultimate reality, and bring us into the actual presence of - rather than the mere cerebral knowledge of - God.

Personally I am very happy to hear that this is something that rings true for Tony as well. It’s something I plan to ask him about when I interview him later this month. To add further “cred” to the fact that these spiritual practices are considered essential to many of us involved in “the conversation”, Brian McLaren’s next book is apparently all about spiritual disciplines and practices. I look forward to it.

Spiritual practice/discipline/formation has always played a large role in my understanding of the Christian path- at least, that’s true ever since I first encountered Eastern Orthodoxy. For the Eastern Orthodox, while many experiences of faith may appear rather “surreal” and “mystical”, the actual process of becoming Christlike- which for them, is the whole purpose of the exercise, is accomplished through a structured, repetitive partaking of spiritually forming practices- plain and simple. For the Eastern Orthodox, our western focus on “beliefism”- to borrow that term again - appears not only bizarre, but actually also highly “unchristian”.

Word to the wise.

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