Prophetic imagination, or prophetic dreaming, keeping visions alive, is what stimulates diverse groups forming society into becoming a culture of life, a biophilic, life-loving culture, to use an ecological term. It is also an authentic dimension of being and becoming Church. Together with the power of dangerous memory, these two activities are at the heart of a theology of hope. For prophetic imagination is outrageous—not merely in dreaming the dream, but in already living out of the dream before it has come to pass, and in embodying this dream in concrete actions.
Source: The Outrageous Pursuit of Hope
Some say it is the end of Christendom, that the vessel we call " church " has been taking on water for years, and despite our attempts to bail and keep her afloat, she is sinking and being consumed by the world and culture she floats in.
I could make a list of the self-help projects we've done, and are still doing to make church attractive...but, I wonder. Have we as faith communities lost our power of dangerous memory. We've lost the reality, that our story is mysteriously weaved in the lines and between the lines of God's story. Somehow there is a disconnect, a radical editing, writing our own stories...more like a reality TV show as we fumble from episode. But it need not be that way.
How many churches spend time in the words of the Old Testament prophets? It's there we find our dangerous memory. It is dangerous because it always involved change, and because we have so much invested in the old way of life.
As faith communities we tend to live inside our comfort zones. We put our trust in what we've built, even sacred things like our faith communities. I'm not saying church is bad, I'm saying when we live in dangerous memory, we dream and live the prophetic and redemptive imagination of God. Ironically when Jesus first calls his disciples it wasn't away of something bad. They were probably family guys try to make an honest living. But Jesus calls them into the redemptive imagination of God's Kingdom.
So we return to the words of the prophet. Ultimately the prophet could be called God's decontructionists. So if we think about decontructing church, it might be wise to return to the dangerous memory of the prophets words. They had the uncanny ability to stand above the faith communities time line and see its past, present and future. Through the imagination of God, like radical street poets there words creatively revealed the communities life in the stories of the past, the darkness of the present, and the glory of a yet to be lived future. It leads the community into repentance, redirection, reconstruction...to let go of fear and find grace...and return.
More than ever faith communities need to recover their dangerous memory, reboot the hard drive and go back to the prophetic imagination of God. We can continue the crazy reality TV show of deconstruct and reconstruct, change for the sake of change...religion for religion's sake.
Recovering our dangerous memory will always lead us to the hope and reality of God's Kingdom. We become his people, heirs, the community that dreams and reveals, redeems, restores...and builds His kingdom on earth now.
Great post Ron. In my experience, there tends to be two reasons why we don't read the prophets nearly enough...
First, it is work. For most people acquainted with the Sunday School versions of the Gospels and Paul, the prophets seem almost nonsensical.
I think our second problem is with hermeneutics. The version we get of the prophets from Christian radio is often diced and sliced to point the finger at someone else. Recovering our dangerous memory will require us to read these rants of judgment and pleas for hope in a position of self and community examination.
Posted by: Randy Hein | February 09, 2009 at 10:11 AM