Apologies for the lack of engagement as of late. Still fighting the flu and cold, so mainly resting reading and listening. A podcast I've been listening to for awhile is "God Complex Radio ", if you're looking for gracious hosts, an open table of stimulating conversation...I encourage you to pull up a chair and join in.
This week they invite Brian McLaren to pull up a chair where Carol engages him in questions around future church, the role of women in church leadership. Jesus said, a grain of wheat must die in order for there to be life and abundant growth. Carol and Brian ask a more profound question...maybe some churches must die, in order for the church be vibrant?
Anyway...tune in, turn it up, listen, think...engage them with your questions here...
In a cafe' in London in late June, Ian Mobsby of Moot Community sat down with Brian McLaren. In this podcast interview, Brian McLaren dialogues with Ian Mobsby exploring the future of church and mission. In conversation, a wide range of issues are discussed including new monasticism, mission to spiritual seekers, and the challenge of church in the twenty first century.
Progressive Christian theologians have some vitally important things to say, things that both the church and society desperately need to hear. The trouble is, we tend to deliver our message using technologies that date back to Gutenberg: books, academic articles, sermons, and so forth. We aren't making effective use of the new technologies, social media, and social networking. When it comes to effective communication of message, the Religious Right is running circles around us.
Hence the urgent need for a conference to empower pastors, laypeople, and the up-and-coming theologians of the next generation to do “theology after Google,” theology for a Google-shaped world. Thanks to the Ford funding, we’ve been able to assemble a stellar team of cultural creatives and experts in the new modes of communication. We are also inviting a selection of senior theologians, and well as some of the younger theologians (call them “theobloggers”) whose use of the new media (blogging, podcasts, YouTube posts) is already earning them large followings and high levels of influence. For two and a half days, in workshops and in hands-on sessions, in lectures and over drinks, these leading figures will be at your disposal to teach you everything they know.
The Theology After Google conference is coming up this week, and Callid thought that folks might be interested in some of his contributions there. (They're bringing Callid in as one of those theobloggers) Particularly: Members of the Religious Society of Friends, folks interested in theopoetics, and hermeneutics nerds. The full schedule is here, and is all set to Pacific Standard Time.
The main setup is like TED talks, and will all be live streaming here: tinyurl.com/tag10stream .
Be sure to check it out a great line up of speakers...should be some great conversation.
A man I have really grown to appreciate, and respect over the past 10 years or so is Bishop Graham Cray of the Church of England, and his tireless work around Fresh Expressions that evolved from the Missional Shaped Church document.
He's got a great personality, a contagious imagination, humble...and a fantastic sense of humor. There is a glimpse of his funny side on the video at the end of the post.
At 62 years old, a lot of clergy would be in their retirement slump, but, Graham has a passion for the church and the gospel. He is on the go constantly encouraging new pioneers and entrepreneurs to build something on the fringe that will spark the imagination of a disengaged culture.
There are many folks involved in Fresh Expressions, but, Graham from an idea that evolved out of the ( Missional Church Document ), ( Download Mission_shaped_church-1 , ) has, and continues to nurture the culture from which it's embryonic growth started.
But, to live with risk like this, we need to have a clear and robust understanding of what the Church really is. It is not, in the New Testament, a carefully constructed human society, organizing itself in local branches, with members signing up to a constitution. Instead, it is what happens when the news and the presence of Jesus, raised from the dead, impact upon the human scene, drawing people together in a relationship that changes everyone involved, a relationship which means that each person involved with Jesus is now involved with all others who have answered his invitation, in ways that can be painful and demanding but are also life giving and transforming beyond imagination.
The ’strength’ of the Church is never anything other than the strength of the presence of the Risen Jesus. And one thing this means is that, once we are convinced that God in Jesus Christ is indeed committed to us and present with us, there is a certain freedom to risk everything except those things that hold us to the truth of his presence – Word and sacrament and the journey into holiness. These will survive, whatever happens to this or that style of worship, this or that bit of local Christian culture, because the presence of Jesus in the community will survive.
Fresh Expressions, I’ve suggested, has helped us see something of this liberating vision. It’s true, from one point of view, that this takes us beyond a concern with denominational identity; and for some this is worrying. Is it really Anglican, or Methodist, or Baptist? What I hope is that, in the next phase of the work of Fresh Expressions, as it continues to enter more fully into the bloodstream of the churches, we start asking instead – of Fresh Expressions, but also of some of our inherited patterns – ‘Is it really Church?’
In the most recent podcast of Fresh Expressions (UK), Graham Cray has some sofa time sitting down in conversation with others talking about Fresh expressions...its' beginnings, present and future.
Without a doubt we know in post-Christendom, things are not the same, nor can the stay the same. " Church ", is in decline, especially in North America, and Europe. We've hit the ice berg! We can continue to rearrange the deck chairs, and have the worship team play on...or.
More than ever for the church to survive it will need to be sustainable, fluid and missional. Some ships, churches may survive the collision with the ice berg. But, many won't and perhaps it's time to put out some life boats, filled with dreamers, visionaries, entrepreneurs, pioneers and explorers into the changing waters of to day to explore and experiment to build in different landscapes.
I encourage you to listen to the podcast, it is filled with great questions and answers. But, most...I encourage you to dream, not to get lost in your dreams...but to build your dreams.
You can listen to the podcast ( HERE ), click ( 1. December 2009 podcast extra ). Also in the sidebar of my blog, under the heading of Bill Kinnon's Missional Videos, there are 2 excellent videos of Graham Cray in an interview at Wycliffe College in Toronto talking about Fresh Expressions.
James K.A. Smith is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Congregational and Ministry Studies at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He also serves as Executive Director of the Society of Christian Philosophers.
In a podcast from a few years ago in an interview with Krista Tippett at NPR's Speaking of Faith, he talks about "Evangelicals Out of the Box." An absolutely fascinating, and encouraging podcast. In this climate of extreme polarities, of conservative and liberal, where the Christian faith seems to be clenched in the fists of religious, and political fundamentalism. James talks with a humility of an evangelism of hope, of a way forward that loosens the grip of Christianity from these extremes. I wonder what it would be like now, if we could visit with James, and re-visit, if evangelicals have in fact moved out of the box? My sense is, maybe, if we have, we haven't wandered far, outside with anxiety, hanging on to its edge. Do yourself a favor, and have a listen, and come back...I'd love to here your comments. Below I've included some sound bytes from the interview.
An Intellectual and Spiritual Faith ( @ 9min.38sec )
Jamie
Smith describes his discovery of the intellectual rigor of the
Christian Reformed tradition, and how he has found this to be holistic,
especially as practiced together with Pentecostal spirituality.
Christian Reformed theology provides deep resources for "thinking about
the hard things," he says, and this draws many Evangelicals. In
Charismatic tradition, he values a "radical openness" to mystery and
surprise.
Radical Orthodoxy ( @ 3min.18 sec )
Jamie
Smith describes "radical orthodoxy" in more detail, including how this
sensibility is helping him think about the core question of his
identity in the contemporary situation. Specifically: what does it mean
to be an Evangelical after 9/11 in the United States in the second Bush
Administration?
The Fundamentalism of the Left ( @ 5min.50 sec )
Jamie
Smith's observations on "fundamentalist Leftists" as well as an
evolving "progressive Third Way" within the Evangelical and larger
Christian world.
The Post Secular World ( @ 6min.23 sec )
Smith
defines the post-modern observation that the idea of a neutral public
sphere, governed by reason alone, is no longer tenable. The public
sphere now is pluralist, governed by a broad range of commitments and
agendas both religious and secular.
One of the podcasts I subscribe to is Radio National Australia's " Encounters. Always, great content, guests and interviews. Recently, they had on the renouned Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor as a guest, talking about is book " A Secular Age." Guests in the conversation include, Ruth Abbey is a political scientist who runs an ever-growing web-based bibliography of Taylor related material, and James McEvoy is a theologian who appreciates the way Taylor's analysis of our age opens up possibilities for dialogue and for religious faith.
For those of us really trying to understand post-modernity, and engage it, this is an absolutely fascinating interview. The thing I like about Charles Taylor is, he's a man of faith. He comes from a catholic background, and is able to bridge religion, faith and philosophy into his writing and conversation. In this podcast, Charles shows us the challenge of this age. He doesn't leave us tangling there in dispair, he also shows us hope. Below I've included some sound bytes from the conversation, but, do yourself a favor...listen to the whole interview.
In the conversation, James McEvoy, says this to Charles Taylor, " Another implication just from a religious perspective is that there is a tendency in many religious thinkers to think of modernity as something that has happened to the churches and if only we could only get back to prior to that we'd get rid ourselves of this godless world, you know, whereas this picture of the effect of reform makes it very clear that secularisation is something that is brought about by the drive to reform itself." And Charles responds;
Yes, the splitting off of a set of unbelieving outlooks on the world from this is a kind of own goal in a certain sense of the Christian drive to reform. You see, when one really successfully managed to, supposedly anyway, integrate the demands of the gospel right though ordinary life, right through the life of people in their families, in their productive lives and so on, you made this what looked like a kind of perfect system, the kind of thing that the Enlightenment eventually referred to, a kind of perfect system of behaviour, the perfect system in which everyone operates as a good citizen and equally with others and so on. Once you create this sense it can go along with the notion that, hey, we can do this. we human beings can do this, we don't necessarily need grace or some power from above—the whole 18th century is full of this, you find among elites the idea that, hey, we can do certain things, for instance we don't need to suffer these regular plagues which kill off I don't know what percentage of the population, we have ways of organising, quarantine. But the sense that we can do this—that human beings can do this alone, can play into a sense that we don't need the church, we don't need God. So in a certain sense as it were the bases for it were laid by the actual reform movements in the church.
Later in the conversation, James McEvoy says, " One sentence that I am very fond of in A Secular Age describes the place of religion in the age of authenticity. You say the religious life or practice that I become part of must not only be my choice but it must speak to me, it must make sense in terms of my spiritual development as I understand this. But it seems to me that it captures the perspective of a wide range of believers. It reminds me of perhaps Augustine's most famous line, 'You've made us for yourself O God and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.' Perhaps the most liberal and the most conservative believer would see their faith as making sense of their spiritual development. Do you see this understanding as a gain?" Charles Taylor responds;
Absolutely. You know, 'cause I mean your quote from Augustine really I think points that up. It touches something very deep in the whole Christian revelation—that it's not about conformity to a single model but it is about communion between people who come to God and to each other through very different paths. This sense of course was always there in the church: you think of all the strange offbeat saints, St Francis, St Ignatius Loyola, and so on who went through extraordinary itinerary including sometimes a very important itinerary in their lives before they became followers of Christ. And you see these itineraries in all their difference converging and somehow these converging but different paths get canonised afterwards. But then the same church that canonises them very often wants to impose total conformity, a single path, on people today. Now, you can open this up in a much more creative way I think if you take the step into an ethic of authenticity—in that sense there is a fuller living of this feature of the Christian tradition. Obviously there are also losses, that lots of people go off in other directions. Now, that's path of the package, but this positive side of the package from a Christian point of view is that this very, very important feature of the whole Christian vision which I try to sum up with the notion of communion of saints, people coming through different itineraries, is finally given its full force, it can finally breath fully in a certain sense in the life of Christians today.
James McEvoy, " You've already said that the age of authenticity has a down side for religious traditions, or at least makes some things difficult. I think in the book you say that it can easily lead to trivial spiritual options. I was presenting this picture of religion in the age of authenticity to a staff of a large Catholic school in the West of Adelaide and in response to your sentence about faith making sense of my spiritual development, one very talented and also very committed teacher said some of my students turn to Madonna for spiritual nourishment and they are not thinking about the mother of Jesus. I wonder how you would respond to her." Charles Taylor ressponds;
I mean I think two thoughts on that question. Number one, there are gains and losses and this gain is very important. But number two, when you have this kind of real civilisational shift, in which the mindset in which everybody lives changes, you just can't go back to the older forms and the creative response of Christians and of the Church to this is to be part of the process of searchers, sharing their search, to show how much Christian faith is a kind of set of paths of search, as against a set of already given answers before you even ask a question, right? What we have to take from this is a way of speaking to this world rather than trying to roll it back to what it was before 1800, which apart from the fact that it would forgo the important gains, is actually utterly impossible.
James McEvoy then remarks to Charles Taylor, " It seems to me an implication of that is that it's not that you are implying that the Gospel is any less important or that we have to shear off different aspects of it, but that we have to find a new way to proclaim it in this age. " Charles reponds;
This is something that again points up what was always there, that is that there are all these different paths. Astonishingly enough in a very early part of the modern period before the West got really arrogant in the 19th century, there were missionaries, Jesuit missionaries for instance Matteo Ricci in China and De'Nobili in India, in China, who had this idea, well, that the faith is not something that belongs to western civilisation, it is something, people come at it from all these different directions, and we have to help the people here find their own very different path. Now in a certain sense that is already multiculturalism and in a certain sense it is the same spirit behind the notion of authenticity. So, a germ that was there has now really flourished in the 20th and 21st century in the west. This is not to say that we are compromising or shearing off parts of the Christian faith but we are finding a way for very different people to come together in it.
For a long time now words like orthodoxy and apologetics have really bothered me. It's not because I don't believe in their validity, it's more how modernity has attached so much baggage to the words it makes them difficult to drag across the threshold of post-modernity with new meaning. Orthodoxy is from the Greek orthodoxos ( having right opinion ), orthos ( right, true, straight ), and doxa ( praise, opinion, or to think ). And apologetics could defined as the defending the true faith.
So I can not deny their importance. But what bothers me is, if this makes sense, is that we have made them to static.
Before I get side tracked here, do your self a favor. Head on over to " The Place " website, subscribe or download the communities latest podcast. Randy Hein talking about their community's core value of " orthodoxy ." Wow! what a beautiful description...that's all I'm telling you. Go listen.
Here's something to ponder, if Jesus is the fulfillment of the law...he is the poster boy for orthodoxy. When we think orthodoxy, we need to think " Jesus." Not our theological statements of faith. If orthodoxy can only be put into words, it is rather useless. It's like owning a bike without the wheels. And not really worth defending...or riding.
I can't really put my orthodoxy into words. If I could, I would be more apt to say, read the four gospels, and then live them out, and in that you will discover the true faith of Jesus. I mean when Jesus chose his first followers he could have head for the first temple and spent three years in classroom reinforcing who he was, and what he was about through critical thinking. He didn't.
The first stop, a wedding in Cana. An incredible first step into a journey of orthodox faith. From there, a three year journey with Jesus in the midst of all the messy complexities of life, wealth, poverty, political power, religious pluralism, sickness, good, evil, injustice, oppression, racism and injustice.
The closest thing I find to a statement of faith is when Jesus and the disciples are in the region of Caesarea Philippi a cross road of multiculturalism and religion, it's here, Jesus asks his disciples, " who do people say the Son of Man is? The answers waver between prophet, rabbi, and teacher. Finally, Peter gets it...then only to not get it minutes later. Shockingly, it seems they have failed a test of orthodoxy, or at least 99% of the community has. And more shocking, Jesus doesn't seen that upset.
Jesus knows as this small community continues to follow him, living out his teachings faith amidst everyday life, they will discover orthodox faith. I love these words from Mike Morrell talking about apologetics...
‘apologetics’ is
more like creating a sweet and savory aroma of the divine, inculcating
a Godward hunger. It emphasizes a multi-layered approach, the power of
narrative, the authority of the community of faith and of the
subversive Holy Spirit, of belonging before believing, and of faith
experiments to try and validate certain spiritual notions as true (or
not) in the seeker’s own life. The postmodern approach sees the Gospel
as a grace-filled, centered-set journey toward Jesus, not a bounded set
who’s in/who’s out delineation based on saying the right prayers or
believing the right things. And faith is seen as personal, but never
private – having social, political, and ecological consequences as we
learn to live well together in God’s good earth.
I think that is the beauty, and simplicity of the gospels...we see that orthodoxy speaks the truth of Jesus when we live it, in community, centered in " ALL " that Jesus is. And, apologetics is not a verbal argument, it is simply living it out together. The more the community becomes Jesus, the gospel...the more the world sees Jesus. His orthodox truth becomes tangible, we won't have to defend it, it will be contagious.
As a musician on a worship team, I share Brian McLaren's
frustration. How often do we prepare something for a Sunday morning,
that is nothing more than an appetizing meal for the hungry consumer.
Why do we avoid the tough stuff? When it comes to pain, sorrow and the
utter mystery that sometimes surrounds us...where are the
lamentations...songs and cries from the valley? Where is the worship,
that comes from the imagination of Jesus?
American Public Radio's , Speaking of Faith has an interesting program, Krista Tippet interviewing Shane Claibourne around the movement of New Monasticism. The program is just over 53 minutes and the conversation covers a broad spectrum of topics...The community " The Simple Way " he co-founded with 6 friends, social justice, evangelicalism, faith and politics, violence, community living, rhythms of life...and more. Interesting faith conversation weaved with a tapestry of great music of redemptive justice.
photo...Robert Terrell
In sort of a response to the podcast Mark Van Steenwykwrites an interesting post, " If you meet Christ on the Road, Kill him." He reflects on the idea of sort of christian cult heroes, what happens when we try and emulate them...instead the fullness of Christ and the Gospel. Again, I don't think Shane sees himself this way...more, I think Shane seeks to stretch small groups of passionate followers to live out the gospel in the poverty that surrounds them.
For those not familiar with Dick Staub, he hails out of the Pacific Northwest in the Seattle area. He has been engaged in the conversation of faith and culture for years. He does a live podcast from Hales Ales Brewery & Pub , Seattle’s Fremont District, every Monday night at 7pm. After years of interviewing the shapers of American culture-authors, business leaders, educators, politicians, futurists, theologians, filmmakers, musicians and trend-watchers - Dick Staub is emerging as one of today’s most experienced and thoughtful observers of ideas in contemporary culture.
I'm barely in Dick's new book," The Culturally Saavy Christian ", and from the small bytes I've tasted...I'm ready to digest a whole more. Bill Hogg is doing the first of a three part interview around the book, and you can listen to it ...click <here>.
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