Ron Cole : unplugged, unorthodox, heretic

I was once found...now I am lost

 

Until a few years ago I hadn't even heard of the term " Theopoetics " until I started reading Callid Keefe Perry, and being turned onto authors such as Stanley Hopper, David Leroy Miller, and Amos Niven. Todays explorers of theopoetics like Peter Rollins, Catherine Keller, John Caputo and Philip Clayton continue to stretch me, providing kindling, sparking and igniting my imagination to discover a langauge of theological mystery.

The word Theopoetics is derived from the Classic Greek noun poema and the verb poiein; "a created thing" and "to make," respectively. And " Theo " is Greek for God. 

The English author Samuel Johnson wrote, "The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new."  

Percy Shelley added, "Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world."

Theopoetics is to work in the intersection of these ideas: theopoetics is the theory and practice of making God known, particularly through language.  

I think it is easy to mix theopoetics up with " Negative Theology or Apophatic Theology." In negative theology, and I think we would a agree that God is ineffable, unknowable. In Jesus, we have seen, and heard God, but even in that we swim on the surface of the infinite mystery of God.

We wrestle with the existence or non-existence of God, but it takes us to the outer limits of our imagination where we are literally on the very edge of knowing, where we have to let go and reach for something beyond, something we can not confine and capture in human words. We can not say God exists in the usual sense that something exists.

Even with our Trinitarian theology, we can't confine God as one, or three...or really any type of being. It's like trying to stop an atom in motion to look at an one particle...as soon as that happens, the atom no longer exists. It is best to leave God as being simply divine.

Even the challenge of knowing the " Wisdom " of God...can we really claim to know what wisdom is on a divine scale. Maybe diving into the depths of Jobs story will remind we really are ignorant in terms of knowing God.

We can't say God is a creation, or is creation...but is much more. We wrestle, and reach to try and define how God exists and operates in the context of creation and humanity.

Can we really define God in terms of location and space. God lives in Heaven, and not hell. God is only seen in light, not dark. God only occupies the sacred space, and not the secular. 

For me, all this is where I've come to understand " Theopoetics." 'Once I was found...now I am lost' ;' Once I was blind...now I am blinder' ", could certainly sum up my faith journey. I think for many who are comfortable in " church " culture " Theopoetics " is dangerous. It is like lifting anchor, untying the rope from the dock and drifting into the profound mystery of the divine. But, I really believe if we want to engage the world in the new Millenium, we will have to loosen our grip on our " theology ." There is a spiritual hunger in the world...but we will not satisfy its craving with a language, and theological constructs from days gone by. We can tie more ropes to our ship, throw out heavier anchors...or we can drift, engage in a new kind of God Talk.

Jesus didn't die for sin...

 

" The End...or a New Beginning "

I am a " heretic "...for forty some years of reading the gospels ...Jesus consumes me. It's all I really think about. I continue to pick it apart like a mad man, a man possessed looking for a treasure. I know it is like the ocean, depths, fathoms of endless mystery. I dive off the edge of everything I know, holding my breath kicking pulling myself into it as far as I can go. I come up gasping for air drained by the experience...but excited to see something I hadn't seen before. 

Jesus did not die for sin and forgiveness. There you go, I said it...my bad. God, the infinitely divine creator knows the condition of the human heart. You would think this cosmic creator, author and director of the human play could have fixed that little glitch before he pushed the start button. He didn't, and we can assume " all knowing " he knew what the outcome was going to be. Or, was it more magic rather than being wonderfully made and now he's thrown his arms in the air consigned to say " shit happens." A thought that keeps coming into my my mind like someone waving their hand in my face is, Jesus had the same heart. We're told he was fully God, and fully human. Think about that...it was not Jesus with maybe a God brain, and a God heart...and maybe God feet because he walked on water. It wasn't Jesus with some human bits, and a whole lot of God bits. Ok, go look in the mirror. There, that's what Jesus looked like...the ethnicity, gender might be different, but Jesus was no less human than you.

So there you have it, shit happens...God knows my heart. I'm going to screw up, I'm going to sin sometime today, tomorrow, the next day. So " no " I'm not saved from sin. And for all you religious folk, this might be my biggest sin..." I don't think Jesus cares." 

Jesus was consumed with earth and all humanity...his did not come to turn us into some " pious and holier than thou gods ", and once we'd reached a certain level of sprituality we be ready to enter heaven's gates...which I believe is somewhere just left of " cloud nine."

In our world of sound bites, headlines, facebook status and tweets...today Jesus would likely post exactly what he did in the opening of Mark's Gospel ; "Time's up! God's kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message."

This post, proclamation did not come from the temple, the synogogue, the pulpit of a church, from the recliners of the philospohers den...it came into the midst of humanity. Jesus words engulfed all humanity, all religion and all philosphy. If Jesus the Word in Genesis spoke the embryonic beginnings of creation into existence, this was the Word with flesh and bones speaking a new creation into existence. It was all creation being re-iamgined in the profound mystery of " The Kingdom."

To change one's life is not to focus on sin. Remember, God knows the condition of the human heart, and shit does happen. But, when we constantly focus on sin, it is like being trapped in a spinning washer. It is a life constantly revolving around fear. It's feeling like dirt, guilty...to forgiveness, being momentarily clean...until the cycle repeats itself again, again and again. As much as you think it won't, it will, because that's life.

But something even more incideous is, you begin to think you got your shit together. Forget the log in your own eye, you begin to see with crystal clear clarity, the speck of saw dust in your brother's eye. Or in the context of religion, you really begin to think you've got this " God Thing " figured out. You own the story, the story is only about you and your people...truth has been formulated, you own it...and you have all the answers. And the greatest tragedy is, you really begin to believe God likes you more than everyone else...suddenly it is a world of us and them. It is the world of the sacred / secular divide, the world of boundaries, barriers...of black and white.

Jesus did not die for sin and forgiveness. What he died for( THE KINGDOM OF GOD ) was mind boggling, it was something so redemptively imaginative that rather than embracing the thought of re-creating humanity...we'll settle for the perpetual cycle of sin and forgiveness.

Jesus died because we caught him red handed, we caught him proclaiming the Kingdom with these crazy wild scandalous parables that began re-capture the mind, heart and soul of all humanity. We saw and caught him in the act of living out the Kingdom...eating with drunkards, prostitutes, loan sharks. We saw him heal the sick, we saw the lame walk...we saw an incredible multitude fed with five loaves of bread and two fish.

When you start to give humanity an alternative story to live by, the story of the Kingdom, of profound redemptive imagination, rather than the story of the prevailing world power that as enslaved humanity, that accepts the status quo...as " Life " as a whole lot less...the story of the Kingdom must be erased.

They say never mix religion and politics. The Kingdom confronts both. Jesus and his Kingdom pissed off the religious and political establishment of the day. That's who killed him...and that is why he died. The real sin for christians is...we're afraid to say that. The reality we've bought more into the story line, the philosophy, the ideologies of world power...than we have, the profound redemptive imagination of the Kingdom.

We might believe in Jesus dying for sin...but dying for the Kingdom...that's just crazy. Like I said earlier, I'm a heretic. You better grab a stake, rope, firewood and matches, because I'm not going to stop talking like this.

My imagination has always been captured by the scene in the upper room. This rag bag tag of raggamuffins has been hanging out with Jesus for three years wandering the countryside and sea shore. They've heard the insanely beautiful redemptive stories of the Kingdom in Jesus parables...of a world re-created. They have seen Jesus act out the Kingdom in his miracles. And yet, this night in the upper room just before Jesus death...I really don't think they get it.

Jesus and his friends gather around the Passover meal. This story would have been etched in their minds, as if carved in stone. I find it fascinating again, even here...we've turned it into a story about sin, rather than the redemptive beauty of the Kingdom.

The Passover was not about sin, It was not a lamb, slain for sin. It was a lamb slain for a journey in to the profound mystery of a promised land.

Jesus spoke of a new covenant for " all " humanity. He took bread, something that was very much a substance of everyday life. He took it, showing all life was in his hands...and broke it, revealing the brokenness of " all " humanity. His body broken, for the brokenness of " all " humanity. ( Jesus did not die just for Christians ) And he took wine, his blood poured into the midst of the brokeness, to bring healing and wholeness for " all " creation, and " all " humanity.

That night the Passover became a Kingdom story. Jesus would be the lamb slain for the journey. The cross would become the lintel, the door post on which is blood would be spread. This would be the threshold into which humanity would cross on a new journey. This would be the beginning of the new creation, the Kingdom that filled Jesus' divine redemptive imagination.

The world powers of the day thought they had erased the Kingdom. The worldly empire said a resounding death blowing, No! Three days later God said, yes to the Kingdom. That day the Spirit blew, and continues to blow across all creation, in the midst of all humanity...as in Genesis, the Spirit broods over all creation, ready to bring the Kingdom into being.

When we consume Jesus, the lamb of the Passover meal...we are consumed with a journey of bringing the fullness of the Kingdom to the world now.

Jesus did not die for sin and forgiveness. What he died for was mind boggling, it was something so redemptively imaginative that rather than embracing the thought of re-creating humanity...we'll settle for the perpetual cycle of sin and forgiveness.

faith-filled conversation...flying into the 21st century

(Artistry/Image above by Rob Woodrum with Bill Dahl: All Rights Reserved)

To say these are turbulent times would seem an under estimate...politics is becoming much more polarized than ever as left and right get deeper entrenched in their fundamentalist ideologies. The noise of religious fundamentalism has become a constant static drowning out those who would seek a place of open conversation. To put it mildly...creation and humanity are coming apart at the seams.

My dear friend Bill Dahl, prolific reader, commentator on culture, faith and economics is an imaginator. Bill constantly pushes the envelope of thought, and does it with a crystal clear voice of compassion and encouragement. In Bill's most recent article " Air God Flight # 21: or where is the plane of faith taking us in the 21st century ", he cut's through what's clouding our thinking, cuts through the noise of the sqeaky wheels revealing away of faithful conversation into the future.

I encourage you to read Bill Dahl's most recent article...read it again. Think about it, and pray about it. Re-post it, send the link to friends, tweet it, Facebook it. Bill Dahl has turned off all the warning lights in the cabin, he's asked us to unbuckle, get out of our seats, move around and get to know our fellow passengers.

If you read anything today...

read Bill Dahl.

more options please...to hell with heaven

 

Reggie McNeal clearly articulated the state of American Christianity. “The current church culture in North America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order.” Church decline is certainly not limited to recent history. American church attendance has lingered around forty percent since the late 1970’s. Even that number could be lower because it is believed that many Americans lie about their church participation. The fact that most towns do not have enough churches to accommodate forty percent of the population cannot be ignored. McNeal recalled a friend who contacted every church in his town following Easter Sunday 2001, and reported a mere twenty five percent attendance. The most disturbing information in McNeal’s work is the fact that five percent or 112 million Christians worldwide have left the institutional church to preserve their faith. These believers no longer consider the church relevant to their spiritual development.  Erwin McManus warned that just speaking of the decline or death of the church does not fully frame the grave nature of the problem. “This may seem strange, but the real tragedy is not that churches are dying but that churches have lost their reason to live!” ( Download Decline of North American Christianity )

So...what's the problem? Are believers opting for hell, instead of heaven? 

 

Practicing Resurrection...

From Brian Walsh, pastor, professor and practitioner and author of Colossians Remixed, a book the continues to challenge my faith. Recently, Brian Walsh mused on resurrection.

Thanks to Brian Walsh, for the profound mysterious reminder the " resurrection " is not the theological word to be theorized...it is the reality of a " risen life ." It's not a life lived in suspended animation waiting to be transported to an eternal resort when we've reached the " dead end " sign at the end of the corridor of history. It is about life " NOW ". It's about a life filled with the same Spirit that brooded over the dark mirky void of nothingness and brought creation into being. It's the Spirit that incarnated God into humanity. It is the same Spirit that blew open the door of the tomb, that rushed, that broods over humanity now...to bring about a " New Creation."

Resurrection means...I no longer live. But, it is the risen Jesus within me that lives. The question is...will we release ourselves in to the mysterious reality. It is only then, we discover the potential, and the truth that the Kingdom is truly among us.

        ("Resurrection" by Mattias Grunewald, Isenheim Alterpiece, 1515)

Practicing Resurrection

Practice resurrection
…in a world of quick profits
…and everything ready made.

Practice resurrection
…in a world of obligated consumption
…and generals and politicos.

Practice resurrection against all the odds.
“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

To practice resurrection, my friends,
…we need to be able to see just beyond the range of normal sight,
…we need to expect the end of the world … and laugh,
…we need to do something that will not compute,
…we need to love the Lord,
…love the world,
…work for nothing.

We come together at Practicing Resurrection because we have considered all of the facts,
…or at least enough of them.
We know what real profit is
…and we know enough to abandon that which does not profit.
We know that while sometimes wisdom cries out at the street corners,
…just as often she whispers in the carrion,
…sighs as wind blowing through trees,
…sings in the planting of crops and their harvest,
…rejoices when people break bread together.

We have come to practice resurrection.
…We have come to embrace the new birth,
…we have come to say to the darkness, “we beg to differ,”
…we have come to ask the important questions:
……Will this satisfy

 

 

Fierce Light : Spirit and Action

 

Velcrow Ripper began to look around and realize that his spirituality and activism had been so separated, it was almost a schizophrenia in his life, so he felt the need to bring that together. His films always come from a place of his own inner journey, and then what he sees happening in the global consciousness, and they often mirror each other.

To show what these two forces can look like when they are brought together, Ripper profiles political and ecological activists such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, civil-rights leader John Lewis, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, and tree sitter Julia Butterfly Hill. There is even a taste of Hollywood civil disobedience, as Daryl Hannah spends three weeks sitting in a tree on an urban farm slated for development.

Ripper’s quest intensified after his friend and fellow activist Brad Will was shot and killed in 2006 while videotaping protests in Oaxaca, Mexico. “The stakes feel so high,” Ripper says. “Dare I think about spirituality when people are actually dying? What I discovered in the course of making the film is that there is a kind of industrial-strength spirituality, a kind of industrial-strength hope, that is exactly what we need when times get tough.”

Activists need spirituality, Ripper says, partly because the process of change is at least as important as any of the outward results that it might achieve—and the process alone can guarantee a certain kind of success.

“When your process is one that’s founded on compassion and openheartedness and community and sustainability and unity, free from racism and sexism—all those things that are part of a society that many people are trying to work towards—you’re already living the change. So if you don’t succeed in a particular goal, if in your process you are living those truths, you’ve already won.”

But it is equally important, he says, that spirituality not become “overly transcendent, that it be balanced by a concern for the outside world."

“And when I talk about activism in the film and spirituality in the film, it doesn’t have to be in any way, shape, or form the more visible forms of activism. It can be just the way we live our lives, how we relate to people, coming from a place of compassion. And spirituality for me isn’t something that happens in church on Sunday. It’s about our day-to-day: how we move through our day, how present are we, how openhearted are we.”

I had an opportunity to watch this movie on the weekend...in the diverse collage of humanity, of culture, and of politics and faiths...this movie is extremely timely. As the pillars of the global economy continue teeter dangerously to the point of collapse; the chatter and noise continues around climate change all while little is being done; the voices of religious fundamentalism continue fight defending and proclaiming their brand of truth...unemployment continues as the industrial age seems to be coming to a grinding halt...but in this broken world, something is percolating from the cracks and fissures in the global village.

Mahatma Gandhi called it “soul force”. Martin Luther King had “love in action”. And now Velcrow Ripper calls it “fierce light.” We are living on a tipping point...it is a time of crisis. More than ever, it is time to move beyond politics, beyond religious isolationism, beyond race, geography, beyond ownership, beyond patriotism. It is the global village, there is no escaping that reality...there is no us, and them. We all, all humanity are in this together.  Whether we survive will depend on how well we take care of the weakest in the global village. Our health depends on everyone. Our wealth, our land is for the benifit of all humanity.  

The soul of humanity must become a force, not a thought, not just words...more than ever it must come to life. And, love must become action. Love your neighbor must become more than a prayer...it is the reality that a neighbor might be an enemy. The neighbor might be the homeless addict or the starving nomad in a third world country. In the global village we are all each others neighbor...boundaries and borders are erased. And in a world that is becoming seemingly darker, and fierce light can penetrate the gloom to reveal hope on the horizon of a new day.

A thought might be to order the movie, get together with friends of different faiths, neighbors, your church...watch it, and inspire, encourage one another to become Fierce Light.

 

Kingdom of God...go to hell

 

In Karen Spears Zacharias' book " Will Jesus buy me a Double Wide ", Hugh Hollowell is the marine in the book. Last week he was on the stage with Shane Claiborne and Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove at Big Tent Christianity. I think these words from Hugh are timely, and should greatly challenge us all...and the church.

The justice of Jesus is brought about by sacrifice, love and suffering. And to the extent that we do not exercise sacrificial love, suffering and proclaim the Reign of God, we are far from the way of Jesus.

Jesus calls us to serve, not lead. The way is not about political solutions – in fact, Jesus said political power would be used against us as we sought to bring about God’s justice. The way does not involve courting those in power – the Apostle Paul told us Jesus made a spectacle of the powers of this world.

There are any number of passages in both the Hebrew scriptures as well as the New Testament that speak of God’s love for the victims of injustice and our responsibility to work to bring that justice into fruition. The one I am thinking about right now, however, is Matthew 16:18, where Jesus tells Peter that …”I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it”.

I am not the first person to note that Jesus refers to the gates as a defense measure. Those gates are there to keep us out. Just what does Jesus expect of us?

Jesus expects us to storm down those gates and invade Hell itself. Jesus is telling us to go to Hell to be with the drug addict and the alcoholic. Go to Hell to be with the victims of abuse, and with the abusers. Go to hell and liberate the adulterer, the homeless man, the pornographer. In hell is where we will find the single mother and the embezzler, the pimps and the pimped, the hungry, the broken, the forgotten. We, you and I together, should be wading into hell itself and proclaiming that there is a new way to live and a new way to love, and that new way is bringing about the justice of God.

The justice of Jesus is a personal justice. It involves sacrificial, relational love. It involves dying to ourselves, our ambitions, our preconceived notions of how things work. The way of Jesus invites us to be the means by which God’s justice comes into being. It invites us to go to Hell, for the sake of those imprisoned there.

You can read Hugh's View on what he said, saying it's 95% accurate...here on Hugh's blog.  

Take me to the River...

 
 Here's the Dr. Bones Blues Project at the Saanich Fair in September...I've been blessed to be a part of this band playing for folks in the inner city and prisons on the island, and lower mainland.

You can listen to us playing a great gospel blues song

01 Tired Of Being Blind

The Good Life and Giving of the Qur'an...

It was around the time of the night of power - or Lailat al Kadr - but it seems Lailat is a bit of a secret. It's the night Muslims believe the Qu'ran was revealed in its entirety - but it seems no -one knows exactly what night it is.

 

Many Muslims believe that on the night of Lailat their fate for the next year is decided and therefore pray to God all night long and pray for mercy and salvation - and some of these students had slept on spare matresses in the mosque over the last 10 nights. It seemed to have been quite a religious and social week.

 

There was a friendly feeling in the room - and it seemed many friendships had been formed. I was struck by an unexpected similarity I noticed between this mosque gathering and quite a few Christian camps I had been on (like Evangelical Union) . Students and religious leaders shared the microphone, introductions were made - and interpersonal bonding took place - as well as religious observance.

I really enjoyed listening to this interview with Noel Debien in conversation with Imam Amin Hady talking about this beautiful night in he Islamic faith and the Qu'ran. It was great to see how they too struggle with the mystery of sacred scripture in our time and context. It's about 14 minutes long, and you can listen to it here. You might want to add John Cleary's Sunday Evenings to your podcast mix list.

unsettled...shifting to a Kingdom paradigm

The majority of people are settlers. They like to settle a land pioneered by others. There are fewer paradigm shifters and paradigm pioneers, those who are ready, and sometimes even eager, to enter the new. The biblical understanding is that the new is always beckoning us. God, by definition, is "One who does a new thing." And our desperate need is for the new. A new neighborhood. A new city. A new world which respects and honors and cares for all of its people. The paradigm shifters and the pioneers are the ones who lead us into that newness. ( Gordon Cosby )