Last night I watched Bridge to Terabithia, the movie version of one of my all-time favorite books from childhood. I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't seen or read it (and there's a lot to spoil), but the very short version is that it's about friendship and imagination. A fifth-grade loner guy is befriended by the new girl in school and she leads him into creating a whole imaginary kingdom for just the two of them (aka Terabithia). As a kid, this book was my inspiration. Just like the main characters, Jess & Leslie, I created whole worlds in my head.

The cool thing watching the movie was how they depicted their imaginings becoming "real". They weren't just talking about what they were imagining, they actually saw it. And seeing this on the screen reminded me that when I was that age, my imginary worlds were every bit as real to me as they appeared on screen to Jess & Leslie. There were times when I really felt like I was only one small step away from physically seeing or hearing them in reality, not just in my mind's eye. And watching other kids today, I'd say that most children likewise have this ability to live in their fantasies, not just as games of make-believe, but as something that is almost real to them.

I also remember when that ability faded for me. I remember it was around seventh grade, and it seemed like all of a sudden that I couldn't quite imagine things in the same way anymore. I couldn't go out in the woods and play army the way I used to. I couldn't set up my action figures and watch whole stories unfold with them. It makes me wonder what happened. I know it wasn't a simple matter of losing interest, of becoming consumed with more "mature" interests like girls or school or whatever. I still wanted to go out and play, but I couldn't do it like I had before. It was like someone had flipped a switch. Maybe it was some hormonal/bio-chemical thing related to the onset of puberty, but for whatever reason, my day-dreams and fantasy worlds stopped being so real to me anymore.

I'm not saying I totally lost my sense of imagination. I still held onto it through my love of fantasy and sci-fi books. But reading about someone else's imaginary world in a book is not the same as creating an almost-tangible one of your own in your head on a daily basis. And I just wonder where it went. What happened to it? It makes me sad to think about it really. One day I was an imaginative little kid, and the next day my toy army men are lying in the dirt of my backyard, never to be played with again (literally... they're probably still there today covered with almost two decades worth of dirt and grass).

Where does the imagination go? I wonder if the best writers and story-tellers are the ones who somehow manage to hang onto it, keep that switch from being flipped, when everyone else is forced to enter the "real world" whether they want to or not.

Labels: personal

I watched Obama's speech last night and the Republican response by Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, and have to say that I'm just getting more and more fed up with the constant hypocrisy and seeming collective amnesia that comes through in all the Republican rhetoric. These past few weeks they've been continually criticizing Obama for things that they did themselves when their guy was in office. For instance:

1. They stonewalled Obama's stimulus package as profligate government spending, forgetting that they themselves approved similar bills (both the TARP bailout and the stimulus checks that were mailed out earlier last year) under Bush's leadership.

2. More generally, they criticize Obama for "big government" policies, ignoring that it was Republican controlled congress and Presidency that led to a massive expansion of the federal government and turned the surplus of the Clinton years into a trillion dollar deficit during the first six years of the Bush presidency.

3. And even on little things they seem to have amnesia about who is to blame. For instance, McCain tried to criticize Obama for the upgrade of the Presidential helicopter, which he claims cost more than Air Force One, conveniently forgetting that it was Bush who requisitioned this upgrade after 9/11. (Of course, given McCain's age, it may have very well been real amnesia.)

Republicans can go on trying to paint themselves as the party of "limited government" and "fiscal responsibility", but as it turns out, they only believe in those principles when they're not the ones in power. Until their actions match their words, I don't want to hear it anymore.

Labels: Obama, politics

An off-hand remark in my New Testament textbook got me thinking the other day. Speaking on the Gospel of Matthew, it noted that Matthew seems to have retrospected the conditions of late first-century Christianity into Christ's teachings. Specifically it notes that Matthew repeatedly has Jesus talking about "the church", and points out that the church didn't exist yet when Jesus was preaching, and thus these sayings couldn't have been authentic.

But is it a safe assumption that there were no "churches" in existence while Jesus was still preaching? What about people who responded positively to Jesus' message and yet didn't leave their homes to wander around with him? Wouldn't his ministry have resulted in clusters of disciples, or maybe even whole villages, that had committed themselves to Jesus as the messiah? (Richard Horsley agrees this is likely in his book Jesus and Empire.) And if so, did these people ever gather to discuss what they had received? Whether they gathered in the synagogue or elsewhere, wouldn't it be appropriate to consider these sedentary communities as a kind of "church"? And if such communities did exist, then why couldn't Jesus have had them in mind in those passages where he talks about how to conduct the communal life of the "church"? Sure, the term "church" itself may have been retrospected back by Matthew, but I'm not sure it's a safe assumption to think Jesus didn't plant stable communities of followers, or that his teachings would have never referred to such communities.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's very possible, even likely, that Jesus was a church-planter of sorts.

Labels: New Testament, theology

This is hilarious!

Labels: fun

Rick Bennett has a hilariously satirical post about the proliferation of -mergent hybrid groups recently (e.g. Anglimergent, Presbymergent, Queermergent, etc.). He describes a number of other -mergent groups that could exist, for instance:

Fundamergent

for emerging churchers that still like the KJV (or guys with tats of 1611 KJV on their backs, along with Celtic crosses).

Relevemergent

the fine line between Relevant magazine, cool churches with smoke machines, killer bands and hot java, but little theology and the Emerging church conversation. These guys like being cool, but they like poor people (kinda). They will do whatever it takes to make Emergent cooler (get rid of the theology, all the talk about post-Colonialism and start dressing better). These people like Rob Bell, but don't really get Rob Bell (they just like the glasses and video).

Emomergent

for those that cannot stop whining about how bad the local church is and how no one will ever understand how much pain and suffering they have incurred through Evangelicalism and fundamentalism (and their girlfriend) and how even the house church and Emergent worlds are hurtful. They are easy to spot because they never take off the hoodie and you cannot see their eyes.

Labels: emerging church, fun

Got to hang out with Peter Rollins this past weekend. I thought the best summary of one of his main points was in an article in the Baylor Lariat about Pete's visit to Waco the day before he came to Austin and the new "Void Collective" that has sprung out of it.

Rollins commonly speaks on 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal and his belief that we all have a void that is empty until God fills us...

"But what if it's the other way around, and we feel this void only when we've had some encounter with God. Maybe it's only then we realize the void."

BTW, you can also read a subsequent letter to the editor in the Lariat trashing this idea and the Void Collective.

Labels: Peter Rollins

As the pastor of a small emerging church, I often lamented the lack of practical resources out there for people like me. When preparing sermons and worship services I would often have to scour the internet for ideas that fit with our approach to faith and our practice of church. As many other emergent types can probably attest, as part of this movement you often feel caught in a sort of no-man’s land. Not quite evangelical, not quite mainline; not conservative, but not entirely liberal either; open to liturgy and historic traditions, but not bound to them. Our church also faced the additional complication that we didn’t do traditional sermons so much as interactive, guided discussions.

It's for this reason that I've decided to make available the sermons resources I created myself for this context. I've created an Emerging Sermons site where (over time) I will post all of my service and sermon outlines, including prayers, activities, readings, etc. as well as many of the powerpoint slides we used. My hope is that they will serve as an inspiration and tool for others.

Right now there are just a few sermons up, but I will continue to post more of them over the next few months until all of them are online. Feel free to make use of it.

Labels: emerging church, Emerging Sermons

Julie has redesigned and re-launched the Emerging Parents blog, which began following the 2007 Emergent Glorieta Gathering, but never really got very far for a number of reasons. Now it's got a new look and more complexity (thanks to WordPress) and a dedicated URL (www.emergingparents.com). She's also asked several other folks to help her moderate it, and invited anyone who wants to submit articles. (Send them to emergingparents(at)gmail(dot)com.)

As she says on the welcome page:

Emerging Parents is a safe place for those involved in the emerging church conversation to explore holistic parenting ideas. We seek to discuss how we can follow Christ as parents, integrating our emerging faith and practices in with how we raise our kids. This is a place to explore, to suggest, to share, to question, and to support. All are welcome (non-parents included!) to join the conversation here.

Go check it out.

Labels: emerging church, emerging parents

If you're anywhere in central Texas you'll want to come to this:



Journey Imperfect Faith Community will be hosting Peter Rollins, Irish philosopher of religion and a leading thinker in emergent christian theology. Pete is one of the most important voices speaking about where Christianity is heading in the 21st century. Come hear Peter speak and interact with him as he discusses ‘Lessons of Evandalism.’ A suggested donation of $20 is requested to support the event. All proceeds will go to Peter to assist his work with the IKON community in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Here is Pete’s summary of the Lessons of Evandalism tour:

The current religious landscape is cluttered with various expressions of faith that claim to rethink Christianity at the dawn of a new cultural epoch. However such groups often accomplish little more than the repackaging and redistribution of faith as we currently understand it. A repackaging that involves flashing lights, video projectors and ‘culturally sensitive’ leaders who can talk about the latest mediocre pop sensation.

Throughout his Spring 09 tour Peter will be arguing that, in the midst of this arid landscape, there exist small but fertile sites of resistance. Groups who offer a way of thinking that not only challenges the way we express faith but fundamentally ruptures the way we understand it. He will argue that these pockets of resistance represent a growing, organic movement that are proclaiming the death of God, church and religion as we know them in preparation for their resurrection in a radically different form.

Through a mix of parables, philosophy and discussion Peter will be exploring the theoretical kernel of this emerging movement and addressing its dangerous, revolutionary and transformative potential.

Labels: emerging church, events, Peter Rollins

Leaves don't drop they just let go,
And make a place for seeds to grow.
Every season brings a change,
A seed is what a tree contains,
To die and live is life's refrain.

This chorus from Carrie Newcomer's latest album The Geography of Light captures well the idea/philosophy/suggestion that perhaps death isn't entirely the evil that we often assume it to be. Maybe, just maybe, death is, as they say, a part of life, and can even be a beautiful part of it when seen as one generation making way for the next - giving of themselves, sacrificing themselves even, and thereby making space for their children to survive and thrive. It's an increasingly common point of view, especially among those attuned to the rhythms and necessities of the natural world (the whole "circle of life" thing). However, it can still be a difficult idea to swallow among those of us raised in those Christian backgrounds that unequivocally declare death to be an enemy - an unnatural result of sin, robbed of its sting by Christ's resurrection, and destined to be defeated once and for all at the end times. And certainly, on a more immediate and experiential level, to those who have lost friends, children, and other loved ones prematurely, death understandably appears as a great and terrible evil.

Nonetheless, Daniel M. Harrell's provocative new book, Nature's Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith, humbly suggests that, for those of us who take the revelations of science just as seriously as we do other sources of truth, evolution practically requires that biological death have been part of God's design for the universe since the beginning. Of course he recognizes the challenge this poses for traditional Christianity, but still believes that evolutionary theory is compatible with Christian faith, albeit as long as that faith is flexible and open to new revelations of God's truth.

What I appreciated most about this book is that it takes the conversation about Christianity and evolution to the next level. So many books out there on this topic never get past the basic level of trying to reconcile evolution with the first chapter of Genesis. Having dealt with this issue, to my own satisfaction at least, way back in high school, I am a little weary of this conversation and was ready for a book that would dig deeper. Harrell does exactly that. Rather than spending the bulk of his time on the worn-out question of "Can Bible-honoring Christians believe in evolution?" he simply gives a quick affirmation that since "all truth is God's truth", and since the Bible can obviously contain other literary genres besides historical narrative, the Bible can in fact make room for evolutionary science. He then raises his primary question, which is "If we assume that evolution is essentially true, and we also continue to maintain our faith in the God of the Bible, what then does evolution tell us about God?" In other words, if God is the author of all creation, then God created evolutionary processes along with everything else. So if creation reveals the glory of God, then what does evolution reveal?

Harrell then spends the bulk of the book raising a lot of really good and really difficult questions that too few theistic evolutionists (i.e. people who believe evolution is compatible with belief in God) really consider. For instance, in his chapter playfully titled "What Happens When I Think Too Much", he writes:

Theology teaches me that the character of creation reflects the character of the Creator - God's beauty and order and goodness and purposefulness. But as soon as you start thinking about what an evolving creation truly reveals - namely cruelty and disorder and indifference and randomness - you can't help but wonder about your faith and about the God to whom that faith points. (46)

I really appreciated that Harrell never shies away from these questions, nor does he settle for any easy answers. He considers all the possibilities, including the possibility that God doesn't exist and all of his theology is simply "made up". While he doesn't ultimately settle on that answer for himself, I loved that he admits his doubts, and was honest enough to admit that his faith is based not on scientific certainty, but on a choice to believe based on lived experiences and reasonable possibilities. Harrell in fact has an extended discussion about the epistemological compatibility of faith and science, and thoroughly rejects both any hint of a "God-of-the-gaps" approach (i.e. trying to fashion a proof for God out of the current gaps in our scientific knowledge), as well as the overreaching assumption that science is somehow able to disprove God. As I think Harrell rightly points out "A natural explanation is not a godless explanation because God made nature. The natural world is evidence of his mind-blowing skill." (70)

The problem then, once again, is not whether or not science allows for God's existence, but what kind of God science reveals, and whether that God is at all compatible with the God Christians claim to worship (or whether that God is the sort that anyone would even want to worship in the first place.) If evolution depends on random genetic mutations, most of which are harmful and even deadly to creatures, and on generation after generation of deaths and even extinction to even function properly, then does this mean God is wasteful and uninvolved and unmerciful? After all, it took a lot of evolutionary dead ends and a lot of death and suffering to produce the natural diversity we see today. What can we say about a God who puts a system like this in place?

My one complaint with the book was that Harrell waits until essentially the last chapter before offering his answer to these questions. However, when he does finally get there it basically boils down to two suggestions. The first, as I have said, is that perhaps we need to stop seeing death as always and only being an unnatural evil in the world. Instead, perhaps it is possible to see death as a reflection of God's own self-sacrificial nature, a giving of the self so that others may live. Or, as Carrie Newcomer put it, "Leaves don't drop they just let go/ And make a place for seeds to grow." To back this up theologically, Harrell points to Christ's own sacrifice, and thus speaks of the possibility of a "cross-shaped creation" as well. As he puts it:

Death is necessary for life to evolve and death is necessary for life to be redeemed into eternal life. It's the necessity of death in the handiwork of God that so strongly argues for the presence of sacrificial death within the character of God. (122)

His second suggestion is that evolution points us to a God who doesn't micromanage creation, nor a God who creates everything "perfect" (and therefore static) right from day one, but rather that evolution reveals a God who delights in a creation that is free to change and unfold. He suggests that "perhaps creation is not so much something good that went bad, but something started as good that just is not yet done." (118) And just as humans have free will to choose our own moral and spiritual path, so the rest of creation operates according to "free processes" which allow nature to develop along unique evolutionary paths, not merely according to a predetermined divine plan. For Harrell biological freedom, as with moral freedom, is an expression of God's relational nature. God creates a relational creation that can co-operate with her in its own self-creation. Because of God's love for creation, she in a sense "sets it free" to become what it will on its own.

Of course Harrell's answers may not satisfy everyone, and he admits that there are still unanswered questions (the Problem of Evil, for instance). And his answers do require a radical rethinking of certain traditional doctrines. For instance, it means that biological death didn't just enter into the world with Adam & Eve's sin. If evolution is true, then animals, including whichever animals eventually evolved into homo sapiens, were dying long before human beings came on the scene, and thus it is likely that the first humans would have died eventually as well, sin or no. In other words, evolution requires us to say that biological death is not necessarily the result of sin. Harrell instead proposes a distinction between biological death and spiritual death (i.e. a break in one's relationship to God), and points to the fact that Adam & Eve did not immediately keel over despite having been told by God that "on the day in which you eat of [the forbidden fruit], you shall surely die" as evidence that scripture is referring to something other than biological death.

It's an interesting possibility. I confess that in the past I have been torn between the stream of thought that sees death as an outrage and an enemy to be resisted at all costs, and the response which says that death is a reality to be accepted and even embraced at times. I think there is truth in both, and quite honestly I'm sure I might skew back towards the former option if I were to ever lose someone close to me (my life has been mercifully and somewhat unnervingly death-free so far), but for the moment I find myself more and more attracted to the latter possibility. I look at the frenetic unease of those who demand immortality, and seek it at any cost, however it is that they define it, and find myself not wanting to grasp life quite so tightly as that. And then I look at the serenity of those who accept death as a part of life and prepare themselves to let go with dignity and peace when the time comes and think "Yeah, I want that to be me." Finding that this approach also fits with an embrace of evolutionary science makes it all the more attractive.

Anyhow, I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to look at evolution as a source for Christian theology, not just a challenge to it. Whether you end up agreeing or no, at the very least, it will make you think.

Labels: book reviews, evolution

I just read Phyllis Tickle's The Great Emergence and thought it was a great outline of what is happening not just among explicitly "emerging" Christians, but among North American Christians across the board. However, I was disappointed at the lack of specific details. She describes things in broad strokes but rarely names names or illustrates her points. For instance, I would have loved a few detailed historical examples from the Great Reformation of when things like this have happened before, and some specific examples of where she sees the parallels these days. Sadly, there is very little of that in the book, which at times left me guessing about what kinds of things she was actually referring to.

Similarly, she often attributes her claims about broad trends to what "experts" or "scholars" or "some" or "many" are saying, but, as this is not an academic book, she almost never actually footnotes. I realize that she's been around a long time, and as a former religion editor for Publishers Weekly she's probably very well informed about what "they" have been saying, but perhaps can't pinpoint exactly where and when she read something. Nonetheless, as an aspiring scholar who wants to write on these topics for my dissertation, it would have been very helpful to know what her sources were. (Fortunately I'm Facebook friends with Phyllis, and I already warned her at the last speaking engagement I saw her at that I wanted to do my doctoral research on this stuff and that I'd be contacting her for some of these details.)

Anyhow, I wish this book had been about twice as long, with the extra space given entirely to specific illustrations of the broad trends she is describing, but I suppose that just leaves something for others like myself to come along and fill in later.

Labels: emerging church, Phyllis Tickle

Kellye Hancock-Phillips, one of the youth leaders at our church, Journey Imperfect Faith Community, had a good article in the Austin American-Statesman yesterday about her personal faith-transformations over the past decade or so. She does a good job of describing the kind of journey many of us have been on in regards to "authenticating" our faith, finding a bigger God, and learning what it means to really follow Jesus with our whole lives. She writes:

Christianity was simple with clear-cut answers. I believed that God didn't necessarily live at the church, but I could certainly find God there. Within a few short years of living outside this incubator, I began to learn that my God did exist in a box. By the time I graduated from college, God had begun a slow and steady dismantling of everything I thought I believed. I've come to call it the "authenticating of my faith."

Click here to read the rest.