Foundation, Empire -and the mission of the church

 I've been watching the TV series 'Foundation'. I read the books about 50 years ago (I know!) but scarcely now remember anything but an outline and some character names. A lot has happened in my life since I read the series and now watch it adapted to television. For one thing, I committed my ways to Christ and have a role which involves official ministry in the church's mission.

In the intervening years, a constant companion for me has been concern for ecology, for creation. Latterly this has become a more urgent concern and I have realised that we have collectively run out of time. We are living on borrowed time. In fact, some of us, globally speaking, are not even living on borrowed time. All through my adult life I have unconsciously (I now realise) assumed that we would have time, that there was time to persuade and to change and to head off the worst. That assumption, that naive hope, has now been stripped from me.

The situation of living on borrowed time  needs to be spelled out in greater detail. And this is where the connection in my mind with Hari Seldon and Foundation starts to kick in. In Foundation, the scenario is that the Empire is about to decline and collapse, giving way to a dark age, an age of vast human suffering and misery. For me that scenario has clicked with the likely paths our own current civilisation seems to be on. Whatever happens now, some global warming is 'baked in' and we have already seen the kinds of effects it is having. The prospect is that such effects will continue and worsen. How much worse is unknown. 

It seems likely that parts of the earth will become uninhabitable for humans. It seems that there will be greater extremes of weather, including drought and storms. It is inevitable that coastal and low-lying cities like London will have to find ways to cope with encroachment of tides or be abandoned in part or wholly. The clear implications of that basket of effects will be population movements, migration. We should also reckon on food supplies becoming erratic as land becomes unsuitable for cultivation. This "erratic" food supply will, as usual, be dire for the most vulnerable and stressful for those who are usually less vulnerable. More migration. These kinds of stresses in the past have exacerbated intercommunal and international tensions. We might be unsurprised to see wars or at least armed 'incidents' and also insurgencies, civil disorder and revolutions.

So, in many ways, it wouldn't be unfair to call what we are embarked upon, a "dark age". An age when more and more people die, suffer loss, are undernourished, unhoused and displaced, fall into servitude, are brutalised, exploited and traumatised.

None of this is to imply that things up to the moment have been idyllic (far from it), just to say that it could -probably will- get worse by a number of measures. This too reminds me of the Foundation story. The dark age is relative, the Empire is cruel and brutal in keeping order but one catches glimpses of many people living lives which are at least okay: materially speaking they are well fed, have homes and good things in their lives -provided they don't threaten Empire's power. However, the dark age multiplies the detriments. In both Foundation and in our real world trajectory now, the further dangers are that human collective knowledge and now-how are eroded making reconstruction harder. This can be further triangulated with the medieval period in western Europe -the so-called dark ages*- where the monasteries played a role in preserving information which could later be retrieved and added to. They also, let's note in passing, played a role in healthcare, agricultural know-how and sometimes, at their best, in protecting the interests of ordinary people or at least mitigating some of the worst effects of bad, venial, governance.

It has been interesting to note the portrayal of responses to the prognosis of Seldon and psychohistory in the Foundation story. Again, there are parallels. There is denial on the part of those in charge and a 'shoot the messenger' reaction. Tick: we are seeing that. There is a prioritising of dynastic concerns which minimises the responses. Tick. -Our billionaire overlords seem to be doing something rather like that, abetted (gaslit, cajoled, wealth-groomed) by those who hold the formal reins of governance.

As I've already nodded towards, there is a parallel too in the 'solution'. In the books and the TV series, the Foundation is set up to provide a repository of knowledge for reconstruction, and a means to help shorten the dark age. Interestingly, and making the parallel more visible, the Foundation spawns an order of monks, in effect, whose mission is to try to help shorten the period of darkness and to keep alive the 'light' of knowledge and humanity (in the sense of 'humane'). I can't help thinking that Asimov was giving a hat tip to the role of monastic communities in the European dark ages*.

This is what I think we need to take on board with regard to the mission of the churches in the coming century (or centuries). We need to be asking "what is God doing and calling us to collaborate with?" In answering that question, we may do well to consider the role of the churches (including monastic expressions) at their best during the 'dark ages' in western Europe. We would do well to consider also how they failed or fell short. In writing that, I'm also mindful that I have written 'western Europe' several times. I'm somewhat aware that we might also look at churches in other parts of the world during times of civilisational stress to learn from their experiences. And given that there are commonalities of desire for human flourishing and spiritual disciplines, it may be also that the experiences of people of other faiths can help us to consider our vocation as churches. And that's not to pass up that the encouragement to people of other faith traditions to similarly dig deep to retrieve their own resources to help human flourishing in such challenging circumstances. It wouldn't be the first time Christians have learned from other faiths. It is strongly arguable that the Renaissance was greatly indebted to the re-discovery of classical learning and manuscripts held and preserved by the Islamic nations which became available as a result of the Reconquista in the AD1400s.

We would do well also to consider the understandings we have amassed about sociology, economics, psychology as well as the physical sciences and their related technologies. It may be that capacity for advanced research in the latter is diminished but the ways of understanding and thinking can enable better adaptation for communities to changing conditions and harsher natural conditions. It is important also to consider that we have been coming to understand that some indigenous perspectives and accumulated understandings of biomes and skillful human living in them are worthy in seeking human flourishing. The collective wisdom and learning can inform people settling and/or adapting in new conditions. The attitude, at their best, of respect for natural process and reflexively understanding interconnection, an ecological instinct almost, is valuable. The attitude of considering how we might be good ancestors and trying to take the long view is one that we need to take on board. Not doing so is part of the reason why our civilisation is failing now.

As churches, then, we might consider our own part in Foundation. Not for a galactic empire, but for human flourishing in the long term on the only planet we have. The only planet we have been entrusted with. As churches, 'Foundation' means discovering together God's mission in the present keeping an eye on the likely future. It means adapting and renewing our discipling, our engagements with our communities, our structures (for surely we cannot continue as we are). We will need to listen to the Spirit and one another's discernments to "hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches". We will need to learn disciplines of simplicity of life, corporate discernment, and humble, patient learning. We will need to learn the discipline of sitting light to our preferences and to let of some, perhaps many, of the things we have grown attached to in the way that we 'do church together'. We will need to become peacemakers in earnest and set our hands to the plough of learning how to do that work (and find ourselves blessed in it!). We will need to face and process our own grief and bereavement of the kind of life we have come to expect and hope for, and our collective guilt in making the world worse for our afterbears (opposite of forebears). We will need to learn how to minister among the shocked and traumatised, the cynical and the dispirited (having faced those things ourselves).

I feel like this could be the introduction to a series of fuller considerations of those different dimensions to what I suspect we are called to. And probably some more too. Maybe I'll be able to do that. I'm sensing that the five marks of mission may be a helpful frame to hang some of that consideration on.

Well, a blog post is meant to be provisional, and that seems to be what this is! Let's see if I can pick up some of these strands in the coming weeks and months.

Footnote

*The term "dark ages" is contested by historians because there were at times some very good, hopeful and even progressive things occurred during the period often named such. However, as a label for a time when civilisational collapse, whether partial or more wholly, takes place, it serves. Especially as it is explicitly part of the Foundation storyline.

Contemporary Churches: a review

What attracted me to getting hold of this book and reading it was the prospectus that it would help '"to apply the insights of contemplative spirituality and spiritual direction to entire faith communities"

For me this is a really of the moment prospectus. Partly because for some time now I've been thinking that we should be discerning the way forward for churches by really listening to the vocations in formation of our members -a sort of corporate guidance exercise. And of course this means that we should be actually living our church lives, for want of a better way of describing it, contemplatively. Part of this is that I have been challenged in the past by the Quaker discernment process as a way of trying to take spiritual accompaniment to the next level which is corporate, congregational discernment. But I have also wanted to take seriously my Charismatic movement roots and the evangelical referencing to Scripture, not to mention taking seriously what we learn (positively and otherwise) from church history about how we do or don't discern good ways forward, or God's ways forward, in relation to our context and cultural milieu. So ... a few implicit expectations on this book; would it be as helpful, insightful and even exciting as I would hope? Was I going to find a book on my wavelength that pushed my thinking forward a bit or even a lot?

Well, yes to varying degrees. One of the unexpected things for me from this book was catching a glimpse of just how rapid and alarming is the decline of USAmerican institutional Christianity. However, this is good for reading in a British context as the stories of dealing with decline and institutional death are helpful. "At a time in Amerecan culture when more peolpe than ever are interested in spiritual practices and young people have a renewed interest in ussues of social justice, institutional religion is proving itself to be ill-equipped to respond." -quite so, it looks similar in Britain too.

In respect of decline and death, I found it particularly helpful to have a case-study of a church's good death and of the institutionally problematic but kingdom-serving resurrection. In relation to that case it was also helpful to have the author's (psychologically well -informed) psycho-spiritual reflection on the tasks ("stages") of grief and how these are important to be honoured in processes of reflection, church direction-setting and pastoral and missional work. It was good to see, too, the complexities of this named and recognised along with a basic strategy for approaching them. For example, "Some people are in denial, some are moving to acceptance; some are angry; others try to bargain for solutions. That is the state of the institutional church today." I particularly liked the way the tasks of grieving were seen also in Jesus' passion; "Even though he saw it coming, even though he spoke about it to his disciples, Jesus continued to wrestle with his fate and bargain for a different future in the garden of Gethsemane." I think that this is a very important permission-given thing to notice and draw into consideration. And a little further on, "Jesus himself worked through the denial, expressing anger at the religious authorities, bargaining in prayer for another way before accepting his fate." There is some useful reflection following that in how we do this corporately.

It was encouraging too to read of approaches to church life where a spiritual-accompaniment approach has been taken. Encouraging because this is what I think I'm finding myself increasingly drawn to. "Council meetings were transformed with the presence of a spiritual director whose function was to call the council together in prayer and reflect back on the process of the meeting from a spiritual perspective. Meetings became times of active discernment marked by the exploration of what it meant to live out the congregation's sense of mission."

And also to my liking, because it named where I've got to in my own reflections is this: "As Christians, it is the teachings of Jesus and the way of life he modeled for us that should be the center (sic) of our lives and not an institution. Churches are places where we gather, learn, share faith, and celebrate our way of life and beliefs. But the institution is not a substitute for the experience of leading a spiritual life which is primarily informed by the teachings of Jesus and the experience of God in our midst." And A few pages later we are helped o see the implications of this kind of approach for leadership: "In this model, the role of leadership is to equip people to respond in authentic ways to the stirrings of God's Spirit, to be always open to new possibilities and to use the resources of the church to translate the understanding of one's call into something tangible. To that end, leadership must be committed to ongoing prayer and discernment."

I also found helpful the insight about how communities of faith might approach things in our new spiritual context. "...communities of faith which are primarily spiritual centers don't limit spirituality to a program. Instead, spirituality, the experience of the Divine, the animation of the human spirit by the Divine Spirit, becomes the foundation upon with the church gathers ... the lesson of the sermon is put into practice more directly..." The kind of approach recommended is much like the principle that 'Sanctuary' in Bradford was constructed in the years of the early 2000s. Here there was a clear drive to build collective worship around responses in real time to the issues raised and discussed: acts of forgiveness, signing petitions, planning for actions. The founding insight in that case was seeing liturgy as repentance: a turning of ourselves to follow Christ -which meant embodying as best we could at that moment what it was we were sensing a call to. In both cases this involved "not viewing themselves as the hub or center of life in the community, members of post-modern congregations live out their faith and spiritual practice with others as equal partners to bring positive change in the world." In reading that I caught a resonance of the thinking in Raymond Fung's 'The Isaiah Vision' and Ann Morissey's 'Beyond the Good Samaritan'.

One of the other things I found myself reflecting on in reading this book is how useful the role if interim ministers can be. I think that this book could also be usefully added to interim ministers' reading lists.

Link-Love: 
Rev. Louis F. Kavar Ph.D. Website
Contemporary Churches on Amazon
Rev. Louis F. Kavar Ph.D. on Facebook

Please tag #ContemporaryChurchesSpeakeasy

Disclaimer: yes I got my e-copy of this book as a freebie in return for a promise to write a review of it. But that's as far as the deal went: I am not obliged to post a favourable review or to pull any punches. But I tend to be a generous sort and my way of appreciating a book is usually to find things that I have enjoyed thinking about or at least that have provoked my thinking further. Only after some thinking do I tend to get negatively critical. 

Blue Ocean Faith -book review and reflection.

I have to say that I'd never heard of the Blue Ocean network, and when I read what they were about I had a bit of a 'where have you been all my life?' moment.
So, what's the 'blue ocean' thing about then? Well, we're told neart the beginning that it's a way to describe churches who "fish where other churches don't and because it's the blue oceans that connect all people". I like the idea of fishing where other churches don't and I wonder how that really works out even while I recognise a real need to do so from a situation where I see rivalrous churches casting for the same kinds of people to form congregations of middle class soft-rock singing slightly multi-media soft-charismatic people. And while I get it that they'd want to pitch in where there is obviously some traction, I can't help wondering what about the huge number of people outside of that kind of demographic -is God's Spirit really not at work beyond it?

The movement is characterised by six things. First what they call a 'solus Jesus' framework and with that a centred-set mentality. They aim for a childlike faith approach to spiritual development and a third way for controversial issues. They aim to be ecumenical in relation to other churches and for joyful engagement with secular culture. All of these things I warm to and in many ways I would describe my own position in very similar terms. Of course those are the headers. What do the particulars look like?

Solus Jesus is looked at through a historical development lens, a trajectory from the Reformation (and worth thinking the more about given that we are in the 500th year since Luther's famous 95 theses) and in particular the Sola Scriptura approach that emerged from it. The point is well made that without inspired interpretation, it perhaps doesn't help us as much as we'd like to have a sola Scriptura thing going on. So the thought is to take our attention to the Jesus who speaks through scripture and to embrace the subjectivity involved in that. I found one quote intriguing and probably about right in this matter; "Neither Jesus nor Paul, nor Peter were sola scriptura people. Actually, their apponents better fit that description" (Loc.558)
I also liked the approach to subjectivity captured in this quote: "When Joan of Arc's opponents assert that what she calls the voice of God is in fact only her imagination, her response is 'Of course. How else can we hear God?' " Perhaps that is slightly undermined by the real doubtfulness of what she 'heard', but the point is well made that our human faculties are inevitably involved and interpreting scripture does not deliver us from that.

On the matter of childlike faith, it seems to me that the idea is to focus on faith as trust and counterbalance the inherited 'faith as propositional assent' that we seem to have got locked into in much of the west. There's a nice tour of scripture to show that this is really consonant with the experience of God's people and the thrust of a lot of scripture.

One of the things I'm left thinking about is the 'third way' approach to controversial subjects. It is based -rightly in my opinion- on Paul's approach to the meat offered to idols controversy and from that the basic approach of inclusion until clarity is found (and a historical point is made to say it takes a lot of patience and quite some time) is taken as well as the principle of respect for 'weaker' brothers and sisters -but the way that is done is worth considering. I'm not sure that it helps fully as the problem of identifying who is 'weaker' still complicates things -but the principle of inclusion as the default is definitely worth thinking about further as a principle based in a clear biblical strategy. For the record the 'weaker' here are identified as those who take the more restrictive role in a dispute. I think that this is probably right and a good way to approach things. However, it may just become a political football of a principle: I suspect we need to test it a bit more against some hard cases from history...

In some ways, apart from the third-way approach, I don't think there is anything radically new here, and that is fine. Similar things are said by others. But then they need to be said perhaps quite a lot to be heard: said by many people in many ways to get through (think advertising and political slogans). And not only said but, as we glimpse here, acted upon and made the heart of a curriculum of Christian formation. I think some of the ways these points are put over are likely to grab some people but maybe not others, but that's okay since the idea is to find somewhere to fish where others are not.

It's interesting to read too from the perspective of not being in the USA which is, of course, not nearly as far down the post-Christendom road as the UK and indeed western Europe. So I'm left musing about the fishing-where-others-don't motif. In England that probably means noting that the HTB church planting network will continue to do a good job of creating the kinds of church they tend to produce where there may be relatively good numbers for that expression of faith. However, there may also need to be room and encouragement given to those fishing in other waters where the results may be less spectacular and take longer (and indeed there are signs that the HTB folk are finding this at the edges).

I found, also, the question raised and partly answered here about how the hippy-like Jesus movement became entrapped by right-wing fundamentalism. I think that this book offers an intriguing answer to that but I suspect there is more to be said too. However, it is a question adjacent to my GB-centric question of how come the creative and radical Charismatic movement of the 70's in Britain became so influenced by fairly hardline and defensive approaches to Christian faith. Admittedly the GB scene has retained a great deal more openness to concern for the poor and for the environment, but still ...

There are some interesting glimpses of how this approach is fitted for engagement with post-modern culture. For example, "... what you're saying is that Jesus is for everyone, not just for Christians! I've never heard such a thing!" -Said by a previously-unchurched person wishing to bring similar friends to a set of workshops held at the church.

Link-Love: 
Blue Ocean Faith website
Blue Ocean Faith at Amazon
Blue Ocean Faith on Facebook
Blue Ocean World - Podcast
Hello Horatio - Website 

hashtag for this book is #BlueOceanSpeakeasy

I reckon it's only fair to let you know that I got an e-copy of this book as a deal: review within 30 days of receiving it. However, that is the full extent of the 'contract': I am not obliged to make the review favourable and there is no direction given to me whatsoever concerning the content of this review. the Only thing that is given is the 'Link-Love' bits above.

New Evangelical Manifesto [5] A story to challenge us.

Steve Martin writes a chapter called Kingdom Community. He begins with an appreciation of the hard work and prayerful care of thousands of pastors and for the work of the Holy Spirit in the church down the ages. He tells of leaving the pastorate having discovered that he could not be prophetically challenging -concretely in finding himself unable to challenge the Iraq war though convinced of its wrongness. It is from what he interprets as a wilderness perspective that he writes.

I liked his candour here though I retain my caution having seen too many 'prophetic' voices pouring forth their own dyspepsia rather than  what seems to be an authentic word from God. That said, the humility Martin's writing seems to show makes me less suspicious than in some other cases.

In considering the 'community' dimension of the title, he mentions the things that one would expect, but then adds a conclusion that a church worthy of the name and calling would be one that produces at least a few people capable of living out the most challenging of Christ's teachings, for instance 'love your enemy'.

I warm to this in the sense that there is an implicit recognition that discipleship is something we grow in and into; that people enter into discipleship with varying backgrounds and predispositions to different aspects of discipleship. The danger of that is to let some off the hook that require the challenge -indeed the potential is there for people to duck challenge on the basis that someone else is doing it.

There follows a discussion of enemy love moving beyond the personal to the corporate: loving those designated enemies of our society. And this moves into a look at the parable of the sheep and the goats, noting along the way that churches are not good at risking ministries of justice while ministries of pastoral care are relatively uncontroversial. Yet the message of the parable is clear enough: God wants us to care for others; for the strong to care for the weak. Illustrating this he tells the story of Elisabeth Schmitz who stood up for Jewish people in Nazi Germany, concerned that the Church was failing to do or say anything. She protested against the Kristallnacht violence, and resigned from her job teaching history, declaring that she could no longer teach according to the Nazi curriculum. She went on to be involved in rescuing Jews from the regime. She loved those her State declared enemies -at great cost. She fulfilled the implied agenda of the parable of sheep and goats.

I loved this chapter because that's where it ends: not with a blueprint for a church, just a reminder that loving neighbours and enemies is a radical act and that our churches need to be incubators of people who can do this.

Amen.

Shane Claiborne and New Monasticism

"Shane Claiborne discusses with Ian Mobsby, his insights around new monasticism as a particular model of ecclesial community, and how this important ancient future approach resonates with today." If you're coming at this in Facebook, you'll need to 'view original post' to get to the link, I think.
Shane Claiborne talks to Ian Mobsby about New Monasticism and new ways of being church - New Monasticism Network:

New Monasticism Consultation talks

In the Autumn I attended a consultation in London on New Monasticism. The sound filse are now available.

Session 1 New Monasticism Network

Questions from session 1 New Monasticism Network
You may hear my voice in the questions.


Session 2 New Monasticism Network


Session 3 New Monasticism Network


Session 4.1 New Monasticism Network


Session 4.2 New Monasticism Network


Final session New Monasticism Network


More at New Monasticism Network - A network of ecclesial communities arising out of contextual mission

Greenbelt ... - Brian McLaren

I have some friends in the USA, some of whom when they hear about Greenbelt wonder why the USA doesn't have something like it. Well, that may be about to change: Greenbelt ... - Brian McLaren: "There's a rumor spreading that a 'faith-art-justice' festival in the spirit of Greenbelt is being planned for the US. As someone involved in the dreaming and planning for this, I can tell you that the rumor is true ... stay tuned."
Having spent time with Brian at Greenbelt and asked about this and heard him talking with USAmerican friends and acquaintances, I can also say that they are hoping to develop something for 2010 probably to happen in July and initially in the geographical centre of the USA, I think that it might be a place to which red slippers might take you... but that's all in negotiation at the moment. The rest of us: pray!

Worship artisanship

I had a sense of recognition of a naming of an aspect of my vocation as I read this: DanWilt.com :: Conversations On Emerging Worship: There's a lot more but these words were helpful.

"A Worship Artisan is a vocational (meaning “called”) spiritual leader who evidences his or her primary leadership gifts through the creative arts.
A Worship Artisan is a trained spiritual leader, theologically, biblically, culturally and historically in the realm of worship activity in the wide range of transhistorical communities that have expressed the worship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit throughout history.
A Worship Artisan is an effective leader of corporate worship, understanding the vital role of creative expression (musical art, visual art, physical art, literary art and dramatic art) in renewing a corporate belief system, a corporate communality, and a cohesive and healthy spiritual formation life in a believing group.
A Worship Artisan is not limited in his or her creative expression to corporate worship expressions. A worship artisan is both comfortable with, and able to engage with, varying contexts in which the goal is to encounter God corporately through the vehicle of music and accessible creative expression. However, a worship artisan is also comfortable expressing very unique and possibly obscure forms of art that find their place in bars, pubs, galleries, the street, stages and many other places."

I had previously played with the term 'liturgical artist' ... more thought needed.

Everything Must Change: Part three.

Part three starts with chapter ten and contrasts a conventional view of Jesus with an emerging view. The former tends to be tightly focussed on personal salvation whereas the latter is more of a holistic view. McLaren takes a look at the downsides of the conventional view which tend to be about it being easy for it to acquiesce in the kinds of injustices and excesses which started the book mainly by defining primary duties to looking after our own 'in groups' of family and the saved.
McLaren then resituates Jesus in his earthly context by drawing out the implications of Empire in the Roman variety by focussing on how it only really worked well for well-connected males close to the heart of Empire. For everyone else there were various degrees of being exploited.

We are then invited to consider the cross as a symbol of coercive Roman power; the means of keeping people in place and a warning to those who might think of rebelling. This moves us into chapter 11 and the reflection that coercive power tends not to achieve a total degree of coercion but rather to breed rebellion and bitterness and, more significantly for the development of the argument, counter narratives: stories embodying self understandings in contrast and rebellion to the prevailing hegemonic ideological myths of Empire (my phraseology, McLaren doesn't frighten his readers with such stuff). He shows how the Jewish people in Palestine under Roman occupation tended to develop four basic counter-narratives exemplified by the stances respectively of the zealots, the Saducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes. These turn out to be the main logical positions of any counter-narrative. The analysis begins to bite when McLaren relates these to positions found in north America today among Evangelicals: those who like the Essenes draw into separated subcultures, Then there are the culture warriors who seem to resemble the zealots, then the holiness/purity people like the Pharisees, and the Saducees represented by those who pretty much adopt a 'my country/party right or wrong' approach.

We are then introduced to an analogy drawn from Steve Chalke where the message of Jesus is likened to a box containing a jigsaw puzzle, but where the wrong lid has been put on which tends to mislead in various ways: do we insist on the picture on the lid despite the evidence and even perhaps alter the pieces to fit the picture better, or give up on the whole thing because we can't get a match, or decide that the lid has been switched?

What if, we are invited to consider, Jesus was offering a different counter-narrative: a transformative reframing which relativises the claims of empire?

Chapter 12 is entitled 'No Junk DNA', and begins with an encounters with a genetic expert who ends up giving an expert opinion that,despite, a common misconception, there probably is no junk DNA, just DNA that we do not understand at this point. We then read about the possibility that in the view of many Christians there is, in effect, a lot of junk revelation which does not appear to contribute to the main conventional 'gospel' message. The rest of part three is given over to the task of testing whether, in fact, this junk revelation has more purpose than conventional evangelicalism had given it. McLaren does this by looking at twelve features of Jesus' ministry. One is the way that Jesus refuses to be co-opted by the counter-narratives of either the Sadducees or the Pharisees and seems to have people in his disciple band from different counter-narrative communities, and indeed imperial collaborators. His habit of table fellowship with the 'unholy' was not in the counter-narrative of the Pharisees. And note the way he sidesteps questions whose answers could place him in a particular counter-narrative box.

Incidentally, we can see the impact of seeing the Jesus events against the imperial background when McLaren invites us to re-consider the story of the rich young ruler: someone who has probably been profiting by the imperial system in which he is working as a ruler. Jesus' call to him is to serve those whom the system has been exploiting rather than being mainly an issue of whether he loves money. And the parables about stewards gain a new poignancy when we realise that stewards, as the managers of the estates of the elite would have been in a rather 'interesting' position especially in the story of the 'unjust' steward. Further examples are given of this kind of understanding. The next chapter continues the reflection on how reading the gospels against the Imperial narrative makes sense of the 'junk revelation': consider the gospel canticles in Luke. McLaren illustrates the 'problem' by rendering the magnificat into what it 'should' have been according to the kind of evangelicalism in which he was brought up. “The Mighty One has provided forgiveness, assurance and eternal security for me -an holy is his name”, “He has helped those with correct doctrinal understanding, remembering to be merciful to those who believe in the correct theories of the atonement ...”. Ouch! But, so true.

And yet we are also reminded of the way that Jesus handled the aftermath to his Isaianic manifesto which also was a big deceleration of the kinds of expectations of the more zealot sort. Chapter 14 opens by inviting us to consider the meaning in the wider context of Peter's confession of Christ at Caesarea Philippi and then onto Jesus before Pilate. It doesn't say anything that isn't said elsewhere but it does help to grasp more firmly the conceptual shift that many would have to make in their reading of these passages.
Amazon.co.uk: Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope: Books: Brian D. McLaren

Emerging Art

It needs saying a lot: the challenges the Churches face in western society in these post-secular times are not unique: many other institutions face them in different ways, partly or sometimes wholly. Take art, for example ...

Museums can themselves be strengthened by stretching to accommodate such art. Practices that perforate the boundary between the museum and the rest of the social sphere can make even the famously difficult white cube more responsive to current art and enticing to visitors of all kinds.

WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art:

The end of religion the beginning of faith

This is the point where the issue of religious pluralism founders ultimately. At least so I thought when I was reviewing a book advocating religious pluralism. The thing tends to want to accord religious institutions 'salvific' parity. But what if, as many Christian evangelicals do, you tend to think that religion is a flawed friend of faith, spirituality and salvation, at best?
It means that religious pluralism is flawed by the lack of means to critique religion.

Now this article is not about religious pluralism but rather non-religious Christianity. And it seems to me that such a thing could and should exist. I wonder whether the same shift is possible for other faiths?

What if “religion,” and by this I mean the institutional and organizational form around faith, is no longer necessary for the future of faith?
Religions exist in certainty and sanctity; faith lives in inquiry and fluidity. The reason traditional faiths are having a hard time of things is that the present situation is one in which certainty is suspect and sanctity is being redefined.

Actually, a very interesting mini article from Barry Taylor of Fuller. Another intriguing thing he writes is.

One of the most interesting dynamics of the present time is the collapse of distinction between the sacred and the profane. Contemporary society allows for the “holy” to be found in the most unexpected places. As Christopher Partridge writes, “The new spiritual awakening makes use of thought-forms, ideas and practices, which are not at all alien to the majority of Westerners. They emerge from an essentially non-Christian religio-cultural milieu, a milieu that both resources and is resourced by popular culture.” The future of Christian faith lies in its ability to inhabit this gray world, not attempting to “sort it out” as much as to be available to help others navigate and negotiate the complexities that such a dynamic raises. To “go with the flow” might seem a trite way of describing theological engagement, but a commitment to fluidity and a willingness to swim in the cultural waters rather than insisting on one’s own paddling pool is a necessary perspective.

The interesting thing is also the reactions to this opinion piece. Some people just don't seem to 'get' the idea of separating institution from faith, expression from basis...

Mission Shaped Church ebook -free

I hadn't realised that Mission-Shaped Church is available as a .pdf ebook. But now I do and so do you!


Sites Unseen - Earth's Mightiest Alternative Christian Link Portal

Technorati Tags: ebook, free, missional, emerging, CofE, Anglican, Christian

Guilt-felt and the gospel

Steve Hollinghurst is right. Well, I have to say that of this post of his; it's pretty much what I wrote in 1986 as part of a college study on how people came to Christian faith. My suspicion was that, although we preached forgiveness of sins and freedom from guilt, what people actually responded to was not that. In the course of my investigations I came to the conclusion that most people in the west were not coming to faith out of a conviction of sinfulness and so with a real sense of wanting forgiveness. But the problem is that our Evangelical gospel is focused on this idea and so the instinct has been to begin to preach guilt arousal, to create a need for forgiveness which our formula can then be applied to. Rather than actually find out how the gospel might address contemporary concerns, we have opted instead for the advertisers' way of stimulating 'need' for our product. Of course, given what that is, we come over therefore as pretty negative and moralistic in a bad sort of way.

Steve puts it into cultural analytic mode as he writes,

the idea of conversion as an individual decision based on a personal guilty conscience as a true guide is deeply dependent on a modernist view of humanity. this view both views me as an individual and secondly as a positive individual who is, if I can truly connect with myself , an individual whose reason and reaction will indeed be true. What if actually my conscience is false? What if I feel no guilt for that which God might condemn me, or feel guilt for that of which I should feel none? what if taking that into account, and in today's world both those seem to be true, my guilt was not a product of a divinely guided conscience but a product of a lapsed Christendom in which me guilt was induced by past church experience and thus able to be revived by contemporary church preaching? ... OK most people do suffer feelings of guilt, but they are both often different from what Christianity suggests we ought to feel guilty about, and increasingly assuaged by the sentiment 'well I’m only human' which in modernity and especially post modernity is a perfectly good justification (I don't think it is as a Christian by the way). further to this, as the power of Christendom guilt wears off, the preaching of a gospel geared to it leads to a rejection of the gospel, either as a crutch for the weak and guilty, that is people worse than me, or as something that is moralizing and guilt inducing when no guilt is due. The gospel becomes either at best good news for the truly bad (i.e. only a few) or bad news full stop.

Steve's tentative suggestion is

Might the gospel that frees us from sin and death be the gospel that says, actually you can be like Jesus? Might preaching what we could become, rather than seeking to make us feel guilty for what we are, be not only 'good news' for today?

I think he's onto something in the sense that much searching today is about how to become more than we sense or fear ourselves to be. There's an amazing amount of stuff going on in our culture that is about aspiring to be more, to unlock our potential, to develop the godlike within us. Perhaps we should be less frightened of this and look more fully at the idea of divinisation not as a prequel to a deficit view of humanity so much as to inviting us to partner with God in the big-picture and find our place in a potential that is not bought at the expense of others but for the welfare of all ...

A couple of us at our church have recently begun to wonder what outreach would look like if we based it on the idea that a foretaste of heaven would be to help people to explore and discover things about themselves, positively, that liberate their creativity and expand their /our range of abilities. We like the idea of basing a Christian 'message' on human potential not being left solely to heaven to develop but to begin the project in the here-and-now. This came out of a feeling that heaven might be a place where the many possibilities we each have could be explored because there is clearly more to each of us than the opportunities of this life can allow; surely heaven must be a place where such exploration could go on, and on ...

On Earth as in Heaven: a guilty conscience?

under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued

It's enough to warm the cockles of my heart: a list of "under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued" emerging church bloggers. And I made that list! I was just having to admit to myself the other day that my writing is unlikely to win me a wide readership: I suspect I'm far too eclectic and use a challenging range of vocab and draw from a wide range of subject areas to ever be 'popular'. So nice to have a little recognition. Anyway here's what it's about. Htt Matt Stone, The Blind Beggar and ultimately to Brother Maynard for starting it all off.

Brother Maynard has come up with the interesting suggestion of circulating a list of  under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued
emerging/missional blogs to help promote them in the wider blogosphere. Below is the list I picked up from The Blind Beggar.

• Emerging Grace



• Robbymac


• Lily


• Nathan Colquhoun


• John Smulo


• Todd Hiestand


• Theopraxis


• Chuck Warnock


• John Lunt


• Webb Kline


• Mark Wilson


• Rick Meigs


• Brother Maynard


• MakDaddy
  
  


• Glenn Hager


• Paul Mayers


• Jamie Swann


• Paul Walker


• Jerry Frear


• Phil Wyman


• Rainer Halonen


• Shannon


• Matt Stone


• Erika Haub


• John Santic


• Colin Lamm


• Julie Clawson


• Phil Johnson


• Andii Bowsher


• John Moorehead


• Paul Fromont & Alan Jamieson


• Steve Hollinghurst

To participate, copy this list into a new post on your own blog, and
add the names you have to the bottom of the list, and encourage others
to do the same. They should be people with under 150 links so we can truly scew the Technorati rankings. When you’ve done that, leave a
comment at Brother Maynard’s blog so he can keep track of who ends up participating.

Incidently, if you want to repro the list, you might want to view the source of the page and scroll down to the relevant bit to do a cut and paste. Certainly Firefox has that facility. Dunno about that other browser (ptui).

Technorati Tags: blogging, emerging-church, missional

training church leadership

I posted something a few days back that included a bit on training for ministry under the heading 'post academic training'. Well timely or what? Maggi [see header ref] and Jonny are now discussion how to train folk for emergin church leadership etc. Of course there is some appearance of disagreement but it does seem clear to me that there is both a need for church leadership that is theologically literate and also practically competant. CLearly too there is a perception that too much theology does not make connections with ministry. In actual fact these are cartoon positions. I'm married to someone currently being processed in a vicar factory. My reflection are in the earlier post though I would like to add a few things in the light of the current debate I've just referenced.

There is a trend in the training institutions for the CofE to try to develop skills of theological reflection; if I understand it aright the aim is to develop reflective practitioners of ministry. However there are countervailing forces, to some extent, in the form of the Church's ministry commissioners [ABM] who seem to have become fixated on more traditionally academic rigour. This wouldn't be so difficult an issue if this rigour could be applied n creative ways [and there is some good work being done on assesment related to creative and practical/vocational subjects]. However, man academics are reared scholastically in the old school and both harbour suspicion of stepping outside of what they know and also have not [yet!] developed the imaginitive purchase to 'see' how it might be done differently. All of which is not helped either by the cultural prejudices of our society which disparages non-traditional subjects, and this prejudice is often all to easily uncritically absorbed by academics cought up in the cut-throat business of defending their turf and prestige. So it is in the teeth of all this opposition and misunderstanding that we have to push forward the perfectly possible project of retrofitting training for ministry.

This is why I thinkit is important that we find helpful analogues o f what we are trying to do and I will say it again: the training of medics [including especially nurses, paramedics, physios etc]; the training of actors and artists; the training of post-compulsory teachers/lecturers all have academic rigour but a huge vocational and creative component. It can be done.

I reiterate too that I think that it is uefuyl for us to have in mind the idea of the 'scientist- practitioner'. This is a model that I uncovered while researching for my dissertation on Life Coaching and Spritual Direction in a paper on the professinalisation of life coaching. There's alot we can learn from reflection on this issue and perhaps when the dissertation is ready for publication you might read it [email me I hope to have pre-submission copy in the new year].

Let me quote a bit from this paper which I think is helpful in the debate.
Practitioners are trained within this framework to have a working understanding of the principles and methodology of research. This understanding then enable them to apply informed critical thought to the evaluation of their practice drawing on and being informed by the relevant academic literature to design and implement relevant evidence-based interventions evaluating client progress and adhering to relevant ethical practice.

Now it is not a direct analogy to ministry but there is enough to pursue, I think. The idea of enabling the application of 'informed critical thought' etc seeems fairly straightforward in thinking about pastoral care, leading worship, teaching the faith, developing and 'growing' people and facilitating mission. And in that sense 'evidence-based interventions' become understandable if we include in 'evidence' the data of biblical and theological reflection. 'Client progress' would be broadened to include 'church or project progress' or somesuch. Ethical consideration go almost without saying.

I still think that my suggestions earlier about the pattern of training could be a good way to develop this agenda, but I'm open to other ideas too.