Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

Show me your truth

Paul writes – A couple of years ago I was speaking to a group of Anglican clergy, sharing my take on the UK alt-worship, ‘emerging’ church scene. Trying to highlight hope – creative signs of life, of Gospel and culture engagement along the edges of a largely declining mainstream Anglicanism. I was trying to highlight the parallels between our two contexts, and the hopeful possibilities that might be able to be explored in our own kiwi context(s).

Toward the end of the ‘conversation’ a priest asked me about the place of “truth” in these “alt,” “emerging” expressions of church. I responded with reference to the incarnation and to truth embodied; truth embodied and lived out in a person – Jesus! I talked about us needing to show truth. I felt we were too wedded to notions of “truth” and the “rational”; truth and words (or truths). Truth was more right doctrine and mental assent to supposed “truth” statements.

I kept coming back to Jesus – to truth embodied, embodied as love, peace, joy etc. People are looking to the church for embodiment, to our ‘acting out’ the truth we profess with our mouths. Sadly that search isn’t an easy one. Somehow, so many churches have become much less, and work for much less than an embodied and enacted bearing of the transformative “good news” of life, freedom, love and hope centered on Jesus Christ.

This was a memory that came back to me as I started to read the opening pages of Pete Rollins’ book, How (Not) to Speak for God.

Anyway, I want to capture something of those early pages by way of quotes from them; quotes that for me anyway, take me back to that night a couple of years ago:

Pete has a great expression, which I suspect is a neat summary of a central theme that the book unpacks and supports “…Heretical Orthodoxy: From right belief to believing in the right way.”

The emerging community “is a significant part of a wider religious movement that rejects both absolutism and relativism as idolatrous…”

“…The Orthodox Christian is one who believes in the right way – that is, believing in a loving, sacrificial and Christlike manner…”

“…Thus orthodoxy is no longer (mis)understood as the opposite of heresy but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than [solely] a means of believing things about the world…”

I’ve added “solely” (above) because I believe that in living into and out of the biblical narrative we do have a view (we do “believe” something) about the world, i.e. a worldview. We need both. Ways of being in the world are in an ongoing conversation with what we believe about the world. I think the world “rather” in the quote sets up an unhelpful polarity – “either / or”!

“Orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little; indeed it will allow is to sit back with our Pharisaic doctrines, guarding the ‘truth’ with the purity [and single-mindedness] of our interpretations. But orthodoxy, as believing the right way, as bringing love to the world around us [i.e. embodying love] and within us…that will cost us everything…”

The Trouble with Paris [Hilton]

Paul writes – I came across this really interesting DVD yesterday (via me old mate, entrepreneur Darren Rowse). It’s a very quirky, creative (I love the style and animation) and informative DVD titled: The Trouble with Paris. Darren tells us it started out as a series of talks by Mark Sayers titled “How Paris Hilton Made Me a Better Christian”. The promo says:

“… We live in incredible times. Western culture has taught us that our value and identity comes from the products, experiences and relationships that we consume. You can become a celebrity if you want it bad enough. Youth is worshipped and commitment to anything is uncool. But where do I find contentment and happiness? In a society where consumerism is god, how do Christians express their faith in a meaningful and relevant way? The Trouble With Paris takes you on a four-week journey exposing the myths of popular culture, whilst presenting a new lens by which to view Christianity in a consumer world…”

I might well get a copy. It would be a good resource, and has some great “mission-shaped” possibilities. You can get more information about it here. There are four QuickTime clips from the DVD here. I love them – my kind of style. Check them out, particularly the “Hyper Reality Introduction” – following Jesus.

A Spirituality to help us cope in the face of seeming death

Paul writes – Here’s a great quote from Gerald A. Arbuckle.

“The temptation is to be so overwhelmed by these losses [of members, traditions, the way church has always been done, ministers, the loss of dreams and hopes for a church, the draining away of life etc] that our communities become numb and our energies drained by the struggle, either to restore that which has been irretrievably lost, or deny that these losses have occurred at all.

Hence, the need for a spirituality to help us both to cope positively with the death of irrelevant structures and pastoral methods and to move forward with risk and hope into the future.”

I couldn’t agree more; it’s an area that interests me very much.

* Gerald Arbuckle is on the right in the picture.

The Local Congregation as the Primal Location of the Study of Theology

Paul writes – I’ve recently read an interesting article (pub. 2000) by Patrick Keifert

"The new era of mission in North American warrants the return of the CONGREGATION as the primal location of the study of theology at every level of theological education, including schools of theology..."

Patrick begins his essay:

“THE CONGREGATION HAS RETURNED TO THE STUDY OF THEOLOGY AND RELIGION.

The warrants for this return of the congregation include: (1) a major shift in scholarly canons for research; (2) the return of major premodern theological themes to theology, including and especially trinitarian theology and eschatology within an ecumenical and missional ecclesiology; (3) the growing sense that the moral life and ethical reflection come out of the particular, the local, the face-to-face engagement with the other in contrast to the abstract, universalistic moral theories of classic modernity; and (4) a growing sense of a new era of mission in North America and internationally. In this article, I explore a few themes of this fourth warrant, the growing sense of a new era of mission and its implications for the study of theology…”

It’s a useful article which highlights well, a number of the challenges and opportunities we find before us at the level of the local congregation; particularly as we work to reorientate these congregations for mission within their own post-Christendom contexts. Increasingly theology, theological reflection, and theological skills need to be recovered and grown in the midst of ordinary and everyday narratives, myths and symbols of our lives as congregations. We need to recover the practice of corporately inhabiting scripture in conversation with culture and our own stories as congregations. 

I agree wholeheartedly but as I reflect (and have been for quite some time) on a local, significantly aging,  mainline congregation, it seems easier said than done.

Have a read of Patrick’s essay and see what you think. You’ll find the PDF here. More from Patrick in the coming weeks.

How to Read Freud and Jung / Anabaptism - An Introduction

Paul writes - CBC, Canada recently produced a very informative radio broadcast (podcast available for the next three weeks – here) – How to Read Freud and Jung. I enjoyed (not uncritically) listening to it as I drove inter-city last night.

“Two giants of twentieth century psychology, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, mapped the unconscious in ways that still resonate today. IDEAS host Paul Kennedy interviews Josh Cohen and David Tacey, authors of books on Freud and Jung, respectively… [in the “how to read”] series.”

How to Read Freud.

How to Read Jung.

The podcast is well worth a listen.

Also, from Australia, a very good introduction to Anabaptism (again for a limited time) - The Anabaptist Vision - " Early Anabaptists were persecuted during the Reformation by both Catholics and Protestants. Today, Anabaptism is being rediscovered as a theological vision which can inform the practice and faith of Christians from many different traditions." It features commentary from Chris Marshall from Victoria University, Wellington. Podcast here.

Painful Church Experience Research Questionnaire

Paul writes – Barb Orlowski is doing a Doctor of Ministry degree in Canada, and her research deals with how people have recovered after a painful church experience.

This is an important area of research, research that will undoubtedly help nourish and fund a re::imagining of church as the kind of community amongst whom people will be healed, are freed, and amongst whom they will become more fully human and alive. I’m hoping Barb will make a copy of her thesis available in due course. I’ve certainly heard some very very sad stories over the years. PLEASE take the time to complete a questionnaire and send it to Barb. It’s important stuff.

So that she can complete her research she needs people like you and I to fill out questionnaires that communicate our experience.

There are two questionnaires, one includes questions relating to the painful church experience and recovery; the second includes questions for pastors who have sought to help people in recovery.

Also, if you are a blogger who is willing to post these questionnaires on your blog please leave a comment here so Barb can get in touch with you.

If you could, and I'd encourage you to do so, email Barb. Her address is churchexitersq@telus.net. She will e-mail you the questionnaires and will also forward to you a consent form.

You can read a little of Barb’s background by downloading the PDF below (updated since this post first went up)

Download who_is_barb_orlowski_the_researcher.pdf

MYSTIC STREET: Meditations on a Spiritual Path

Paul writes – My friend, Steve Georgiou (author of the excellent The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons With Robert Lax, Poet-Peacemaker-Sage) has new book out in September - MYSTIC STREET: Meditations on a Spiritual Path.

Life is a journey of faith and wonder, an odyssey of the heart… Mystic Street centers on the author’s spiritual experiences while pursuing his graduate degrees in theology.  He demonstrates how lessons of the heart are not only learned inside the classroom, but especially outside.

You can read more about the book on the publisher’s website. My review of The Way of the Dreamcatcher can be found here. My review of Steve’s latest book will be on this blogsite in due course.

Everyday Theologians – and Transhumanism

Paul writes – David Fitch usefully reviews Kevin Vanhoozer’s essay which is the first in a number of essays contained in the recently published book, Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends. You’ll find an excerpt below and the full review here. It connects well, for me anyway, with a couple of recent posts by Simon Carey Holt (here, here and here). I shall look forward to reading Everyday Theology in due course.

“…To understand this about culture reiterates some common themes for me about the failure of evangelical church. First, we evangelicals have not engaged culture enough to either inhabit it or speak from within it. Too often we have withdrawn. Neither have we paid attention to our own culture of Christianity sufficiently to realize we are failing miserably at shaping the imaginations of our own people to allow them to see the way God is working in our own lives and the world around us. We have in a sense opted out of the work of culture formation…”

A download of the introduction, how to read this book, contents page and chapter 9 (Human 2.0: Transhumanism as a Cultural Trend) is available here. Stephen, they must have been thinking of you when they included a free download of chapter 9.

What is the gospel?

Paul notes – “In the exploration of the missiological implications of reductionism, I have stressed that the reduction of the gospel to individual salvation…is the gravest and most influential expression of the human drive for control…a reduced gospel trivializes God as it makes God into a manageable deity.”
(Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church, 131)

Adam Walker Cleaveland reflects on the question, “What is gospel”…Well-supported by the Prof. Darrell Guder quote above (which is so sadly true), Adam makes some good points including this: “…The gospel is the uncontrollable & uncontainable in-breaking of God’s hopes and dreams for this world, and beyond…”

Read his whole post here.

This is one of the enduring questions that we have to grapple with, hearing, interpreting and communicating “gospel” in our own time and contexts. The lines of interpretation and “application” are not often straight lines between past contexts and our own.

A Myth

Paul writes – Ian Harris, writing in last weekends Dominion newspaper discussed myths under the heading “Exploring the relevance of myths and their influence in our lives.” It was an interesting column, drawing on the wonderful movie As it is in Heaven and Karen Armstrong’s little book A Short History of Myth.

Popularly, “myth” has been defined as a “made-up” story; a fiction, a fanciful tale. Armstrong, however, defines “myth” as “stories that enable us to place our lives in a larger setting, that reveal an underlying pattern, and give us a sense that, against all the chaotic and depressing evidence to the contrary, life has meaning and value.” Harris adds, “Myths, then, are not about opting out of the world, but living more intensely within it … they gave people their bearings within their culture.”

Armstrong again; a meaningful, a myth or narrative out of which we live, is one that “forces us to change our minds and hearts, gives us new hope, and compels us to live more fully”

Using this Armstrong’s descriptors, it becomes clear then, that we all live out of myths; we all live out of stories and narratives that both describe our world and help us name and orientate ourselves in that world. It might be the myths out of which business operates; the scriptural myth’s (i.e., stories and narratives) that gives a Jesus-following life “meaning and value. Some myths orientate us toward life, authenticity and what is deepest and most true about us; others don’t – the myth instead leaves us empty and life-less.

Within Christian ‘circles’ there are a range of competing myths, stories or ways of believing that attempt to orientate and settle us in the face of a lack of control, crises, chaos, uncertainty, unpredictability, transition and  discontinuous change more generally. There is the evangelical myth, the post-evangelical, the radical orthodox, Catholicism, progressive-Protestantism etc, etc.

Armstrong’s extended-reflection on myth is helpful in enabling us to listen for, recognise, and interact with myth, not as a fanciful tale, but as the stories, narratives and scripts into and out of which we live. Stories that provide identity, meaning and purpose.