CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

I continued my reading of Nora Gallagher’s Practicing Resurrection and only got about five pages in when I a quote that brought the rest of the day rushing back to me.
A spiritual director told me once that God is found on the edge of things, in the margins. About a drunk who sleeps on Trinity’s porch he said, “You can ask him not to drink on the porch but you can’t ask him to leave. He lives in the part that makes the church uncomfortable and that’s where Jesus lives.”We had a workshop on stewardship this morning at church. Eighteen of us gathered around the tables in the Fellowship Hall to listen to Jena Roy, a friend from Massachusetts, as she challenged us to look at how we see ourselves, who we wish we could become, what we worry about when it comes to our church, and what we would change. The group was engaged and engaging, working hard to listen to one another and to share honestly, and the morning was full of good things that left us with even more questions. And that’s a good thing.

We are a relatively small church (about a hundred and fifty active members), and we are a theologically liberal church that works hard to put hands and feet to our faith: we would be one of those “social justice” churches that frightens Glen Beck. As we listed the things that we saw as strengths of our congregation and then moved on to “stumbling blocks” and “opportunities,” we didn’t come up with three distinct lists. What were strengths to some were the stuff stumbling blocks were made of, and most everything provided the opportunity to make ourselves uncomfortable, which is where Gallagher’s words took me even though she was talking about something completely different.

The limits of our language come into play when we talk about our relationship to church because we use the same word for the physical building and geographical location that we use for the spiritual community we call the Body of Christ. We don’t have another way to describe what we do on Sunday morning other than to say, “I’m going to church,” but the separation in that sentence makes it problematic, at some level, when we want to say (0r sing), “We are the church.” When we talk about going to church, we think of it as a place of comfort and warmth, which is right and good, but when we talk about being the church we have to be willing to be uncomfortable.

As the conversation moved around the table, one person commented that we didn’t do our members a favor by suggesting they give two percent of their income to the church. “We’re letting ourselves off easy,” she said. Another, who is currently looking for work, said she has realized in the midst of her job search that, for the first time, she is taking into account the effect the job will have on the time on her life in church. “I’ve never thought of things this way before,” she said. The two comments came together for me in that being the church means we are willing to change the way we live to be a part: the way we spend money, the way we use our time, and even what we do for a job.

Part of the life of any institution is a push for self-perpetuation. The church is not exempt from falling into the pattern of using most of our energy to “keeping the doors open.” The call of the gospel is not to self-perpetuation, however, but to spend ourselves in the present, to not hold back. (Consider the lilies.) Our assembling ourselves together is, almost by definition, at cross-purposes with itself, pun intended. (Lose your life to find it.) And we haven’t even gotten to the relational energy it takes to be with one another. Most all of the epistles that make up the last half of the New Testament were written to deal with problems in the early church, with the questions and quagmires that grew out of trying to live together in Jesus’ name. The issues we raised around the table this morning were ours, but they were by no means original. This is the part of the church where drunks sleep and Jesus lives, where getting together matters more that getting my way, listening is a crucial incarnation of love, giving our offering is an act of discipleship and not a charitable donation, and committing ourselves to one another is more important that getting our way. After all, we are not a civic organization or a book club; we are the church.

Tomorrow night marks the last night of this particular menu at the Durham restaurant. Those who come to dinner on Tuesday will get a whole new menu of offerings. For those of us in the kitchen, it means coming into the same room to prep and cook, but to do so with new ingredients and new recipes, to set up the line differently, and to learn new patterns of cooperation with each other. The change is good, important, and uncomfortable work, and it’s the way the restaurant stays fresh. The church, like the restaurant, has its seasons, whether we’re talking about the liturgical calendar or the ebb and flow of life, and might do well to appropriate the metaphor. We might not have to ditch the whole menu, but we need a steady diet of change and choices that challenge us to see with fresh eyes and learn new patterns of faithfulness and compassion.

Our workshop this weekend was a new item on our church menu. I’m grateful for the work that went into making it happen, for those who gave their time to be together, and for the freedom we gave each other to made uncomfortable that we might see with fresh eyes where Jesus lives among us.

Peace,
Milton

This morning my family had a large and leisurely breakfast sitting on the lanai of our apartment. The sea lapped at the wall within spitting distance, the waves broke on the reef about 100 metres away and beyond them the spouts of a large pod of whales shot periodically up into the morning sunshine. We ate eggs and bacon, or at least some of us did, and fruit and porridge and muffins and coffee, just the six of us and Clemency's two sisters. Later in the day our family increases: the boundaries break to enlarge and enfold themselves again around the beautiful young woman who has chosen to spend the rest of her life with my son Nick. This is one more of those life changing events which have happened in our family on about a monthly basis for the last couple of years.
We arrived here last Monday. We picked up a big black vehicle of the type the Americans call a minivan, although there is nothing vanlike or mini about it, and drove out of Honolulu to Hau'ulu, about 40 minutes north on the windward coast. Here we have a three bedroom apartment above an artist's studio, everything fresh and neat and comfortable and spacious. Over the course of the last week I and my son in law Scott have taken turns to drive the big black Dodge completely around the island of Oahu and more times than I can remember into Honolulu. We have been to the memorial at Pearl Harbour and to a good number of palm fringed beaches. We have been to a luau where Nick performed a hula solo in front of about 500 people. Some of us have snorkelled amongst the turtles in the open ocean. We went to one of the restaurants owned by Robert De Niro, Nobu in Waikiki, where I ate what is very possibly the best meal of my life. And yesterday all this activity found a focus when we stood on a lawn beside a beach and rehearsed the ceremony which will occur in just a few hours time.
This wedding has been a long time in the making: Nick and Charmayne have planned every detail meticulously. The clothing and food and music are all prepared. The form of service was long ago thought about and selected and committed to paper; but yesterday when the words were said aloud for the first time was a hearty stopping moment.
After the rehearsal we retired to a lovely restaurant set right on the beach for an institution as American as the minivan: a rehearsal dinner. We had another great meal, before Nick, Charmayne and the two fathers spoke. It was simple and sincere. Nick and Charms gave carefully selected gifts to the two people, both friends of many years standing, who will support them by acting as attendants. Then we retired home to sleep and prepare. Today the sky is cloudless and the wind has faded to nothingness. Catherine is singing scales to prepare for the song she will sing, and soon I will go over, one more time, the intricacies of a Hawaiian wedding license. We move about, ironing, blogging, cleaning, talking. We can mask the tide of emotion by laughter and jokes and activity, at least to some extent, but there is no escaping the seriousness of what we will all commit ourselves to today, or the joy with which we will do it.

“Habits create necessities through which imagination is required to do something different than you thought you were doing in the past. The developments of the virtues, and the discovery of virtues that we didn’t know we had, are a real resource for development of institutions that hopefully have promise for the future. Universities, for example, are constantly recreating themselves through basic habits”. – Stanley Hauerwas

How many years should a seminary training be?  And what, again, are we trying to do by sending families and individuals off to seminary?  What kind of people are we attempting to create?

Because it is a myth that schools and institutions and social webs of relations can rise above the reality that we are always being shaped; for better and worse; by subtle and not so subtle ways; by our practices and interactions with our environments.  I recently had a disagreement with a professor who denied that the public university system had an goal of shaping people the way that say a private Christian school does.  I take this opinion to be understandable but wrong in a terrible way and it’s naivity to demonstrate that we aren’t often aware of the way that exchanges of power work.

Just as the public university acts to enhance and sustain the American narrative, the Seminary should act to enhance and sustain the Christian narrative.  The advantage of admitting this telos is that the Seminary need not hide the reality that it is trying to make people other than they are.  It is trying to prepare priests and pastors to serve the Church according the tasks and skills the Spirit has given them.  It also ought to train people in the Tradition that they represent.

The idea of forming people into something other than they are grates against our public understandings of what a person is and what education should do.  “The rights-bearing-cogito/individual has intrinsic qualities that it is born with.  These qualities need only freedom to become more fully itself. “Democracy” and the “free market” are aids in making room for this individual to come into being.”

That quite frankly is not what a Christian believes about what a human being is or is meant to be(come).

But as the modern seminary has based itself largely on the secular university system, it should be of little wonder that many seminarians come out looking not unlike a student of a public university,

only instead of knowing a little bit about a lot of natural science, math, history, etc…., the seminary grad knows a little bit about a lot of theology.

The many quests for the historical Jesus, as Albert Schweitzer pointed out more than a century ago, usually end up with a Jesus that looks like us or at least thinks like us.  Therefore, you have the radical Jesus, the revolutionary Jesus, the liberationist Jesus, the Gentle Jesus, the divine Jesus and the oh so human Jesus.  Critical scholarship has helped us uncover much about Jesus that is helpful, especially in the ways in which it puts Jesus into context.  But at the end of the day we don't have a full picture of Jesus.   We have four (or more if you move beyond the canonical texts) accounts, which at points agree with each other, and at other points do not. 
William Brosend, whom I quoted in an earlier post, writing for preachers primarily, suggests in The Preaching Of Jesus, that this idea of the "historical Jesus" isn't all that helpful.  Thus, he posits a "Jesus within History."  This is, more recoverable, less definitive, recognizes the distinction between the biblical witness and the historical, and ultimately more helpful to the preaching task.  He writes:
The former formulation ["Jesus within history'] admits to a distinction between the biblical and historical without claims to whole or simple truths.  All believers have to varying degrees, some idea or a set of ideas about who Jesus was and is for them.  This is espeically true for preachers.  To speak and write of Jesus "witnin history" is to make explicit that understanding without making claims for Jesus "as he actually was," which is unrecoverable reality from a historical perspective, and not necessarily a helpful one from a homiletical perspective.  (Brosend, p. 3).One of the concerns Brosend has is that we've blunted our messages because we've not paid attention to how Jesus is depicted in Scripture, and more specifically how he is depicted as a preacher.  This is what he seeks to recover -- not the Jesus that can be somehow recovered historically underneath the layers of interpretation, but the Jesus who is depicted in the Synoptics, preaching the reign of God.

Around here, March and April are for getting your wood pile into shape for next winter. All across the harbour we hear the chainsaws buzzing away.I can hear Greg's chainsaw, too, down near the fish house, where most days now he is out felling spruce. He cuts the trunks into logs and loads them onto his cart and pulls them up to the wood pile, where he splits them and stacks them.
So far he has stacked between one and two cords. Only eight or so cords to go. Not bad, really, since he is providing all the heat for the house.Nova Scotia Island Journal

It has been a great three days, sharing together at Theology after Google in a conversation about how the internet and other technologies are driving our faith conversations and practices.  The project was born of Philip Clayton's desire to see the theological conversation become more democratized.  Philip was aided in this venture by a number of people, but especially Tripp Fuller and Tony Jones.  I appreciate the efforts of all involved -- from the grad students who ferried us around to the presenters and on to the rest of the participants.  I'm greatly appreciative of the invitation and the good care taken of me while at the conference!
We focused our attention in the conference on the the technologies than on the theology in the conversation.  We talked social networking, blogging, film, podcasts and more.  We were pressed to consider whether the current structures, whether the Academy and the church as we know it, are going to be useful in the future to transform the world.  In my own presentation I offered a cautionary note, reminding the community that we need to remember those who came before us (and some who live now) who have lived faithfully and pass on to us a legacy of faith.  Must all change?  That is my question!
One of the observations that came at the end of the day concerned the lack of diversity among the presenters.  Most of us are white males.  That may be due in part to our dominance of the blogosphere, but we are pushed to consider how to expand the conversation partners.  If we're going to democratize the conversation, it needs to be more than inviting white lay folk into the conversation.
All in all, it was a great conference, but one that requires a lot of thought as to where the conversation goes next.  So we begin the journey into the unknown -- seeking to understand what it means to live theologically in the shadow of Google!

Abel spent the afternoon
prepping the vegetable plate:
slicing shiitakes and scallions,
reducing the risotto, and
spreading the mixture on
sheet pans to let it cool.
Then he enlisted me to make
the rice balls and roll them
in Japanese breadcrumbs.
He cut sweet potatoes,
blanched greens, and
roasted garlic to make
the cream sauce.

The thirty-seven people
who ordered the dish were
offered both a visual and
culinary treat: the sauté
of spinach and sweets
on one side of the plate;
the small swatch of sauce
creating a bed for the three
golden crusted arancini;
the last ladle of cream
draped across the top,
with a sprinkle of scallions.

But only those relegated to
the kitchen were fortunate
enough to see how tenderly
Abel stacked the sauté;
how he nestled the small orbs
on their side of the plate as
though they were as fragile
as they were flavorful;
and the affection with which
he baptized them with the
puree of garlic and goat cheese;
the smile that sent the dish
to the diners. Thirty-seven times.

Peace,
Milton

Who is Jesus?  What does history tell us?  What does faith require of us?  Oh, there are a few folks who would say that Jesus never existed -- but they are few in number.  But, there are significant questions that bedevil both scholar and non-scholar, believer and non-believer.  One of the problems is that folks tend to absolutize (or at least sound as if they're absolutizing) their viewpoints.
As a preacher I am called to proclaim the gospel of the reign of God, a gospel both preached and lived by Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus is, for the preacher the focus of preaching, but according to William Brosend, a preaching professor at the School of Theology at Sewanee, Jesus can be our model of preaching.  Before I get to the preaching of Jesus, it would be important to look at the question of Jesus' identity.
Brosend speaks of a contrast between the "historical Jesus" and the "Jesus within history."  He prefers the latter, because it allows us to break free of unfortunate pursuit of a precise definition of Jesus' identity.  He writes of our dilema in the current debate:
As soon as someone says, "the historical Jesus," someone else says "the Christ of faith"; then the debate, at least since Bultmann, is on.  As far as I have been able to tell, it rarelyk gets anywhere.  Because the distinction, and many others like it (Borg's "pre" and "post"-Easter Jesus, for example), are overwhelmed by the formulations, and by the implications read into them by frequently unsypathetic audiences.  What was intended as a designation for the sake of precision becomes a label for use in political/religious/theological debates.  The "historical jesus" was, in the foundational uses by those engaged in the renewed quest, meant to disgtinguish at least the following:  Jesus as he could be known from multiply attested sources, biblical and otherwise (Crossan); Jesus as he could be known "scientifically" by reliable and otherwise (Wright and Meier); jesus as he can be known to believers before and after Easter (Borg); Jesus as he "really" was (Johnson). Brosend admits that these are characterizations, but he means this not in a polemical way, but instead, wants to underline the problem that exists when the conversation moves from "the 'real' Jesus to the 'only' Jesus, when reconstructions of Jesus of within history are presented as historical and/or biblical absolutes, that a line has been crossed" (William Brosend, The Preaching of Jesus, WJK 2010, pp. 2-3).  Unfortunately, says Brosend, that line has been crossed and the conversation has begun missing the point! So, the question remains -- who is Jesus?  

Check out Mike Todd's recent post, responding to my sojo post on immigration ... here.

by Steve ThorngateWill Rep. Bart Stupak and his gang of anti-abortion House Democrats derail health-insurance reform?Stupak’s been talking tough and pushing for a deal that would go farther in restricting abortion funding than the current language of the Senate bill does. But the House leadership concluded that it can’t change the Senate’s abortion language via budget reconciliation, the only Steve Thorngatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06010733362797501049noreply@blogger.com0http://theolog.org/2010/03/im-with-stupak-redux.html

Listening to Barry Taylor of Fuller Seminary -- and question is raised about what it means to be human in the 21st century.  Genesis speaks of humanity created in the image of God, but we're moving toward what he's calling (at this moment) the "techno-self."  We're moving in a direction where the line between human and technological is being blurred.

As a Star Trek fan, I'm reminded of the Borg (not Marcus).  With that image, what do we make of this question of our existence as humans?

So, how do we, as we do theology after google, how do we reflect theologically on humanity when this line is blurred? 

I was listening to the radio this morning.  I was happy, I was sipping my coffee, and I was looking forward to a leisurely day.  Then Jim Wallis came on the radio to discuss the latest antics of our national “village idiot,” Glenn Beck.  apparently, Glenn Beck has taken it upon himself to out all of those heretical Christians that are perverting the Gospel with messages of social justice.  In what has apparently become a personal vendetta against Jim Wallis and ministries like Sojourners,

“Glenn Beck recently told his listeners to leave any church that teaches social justice, and to report its pastor to church authorities.”

Clearly what the church needs is more of Beck’s feel good, watered down, Christmas sweater wearing, capitalism in a “Christian wrapper” spirituality.  My morning is shot.  I spat my coffee at the radio in disgust, leisure as been replaced with indignation at Beck’s blatant and rampant misuse of the Evangelical right, and I am now irritated at how obnoxiously misdirected Beck really is (for the record, he may have overshot his religious base on this one – I know quite a few conservative Evangelicals that hold Wallis in high esteem).

Here is how Wallis suggests we respond to Beck.  He wants you to go to his site and mail a personal message to Beck outing yourself.  It reads:

Dear Mr. Beck,

I’m a Christian who believes in the biblical call to social justice.

I stand in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets and the teachings of Jesus that demonstrate God’s will for justice in every aspect of our individual, social, and economic lives.

I hereby “report” myself to you, and promise to report myself to the appropriate church authorities. I hope you’ll be hearing from them as well.

I usually don’t get fired up about pundits, especially not provocateurs like Beck.  Nonetheless, the man is a disease infiltrating the Christian “right.”  I have signed the petition, and so should you.  Sign It, Sign It Now! (please)  :0)

Take action against Glenn  Beck

Joshua 5:9-12  •  Psalm 32  •  2 Corinthians 5:16-21  •  Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

It is hard to look at ourselves and to look at others as God does.

From what we read in scriptures we see that God views each of us as a
loved, valued, cherished, forgiven, special Creation.

It is hard to look at ourselves and to look at others as God does.

It's not even just hard to look at ourselves that way - it's hard to
imagine anyone can look at us that way.

Any ideas why that is?

The lectionary this week begins with a reading from Joshua. This
continues to follow the story we have been reading the last few weeks.
Joshua has led the people of Israel across the Jordan in to the
Promised Land that would develop in to the Land of Israel. As they are
settling in to their new home, God says to Joshua "Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt." Suddenly they are truly "in the land," living on what is produced there with their own hands.  They are living into what had been promised to a previous generation, in spite of all that had happened to that point.
Wow. That is a lot. There is plenty of disgrace that the people of
Israel built up during their time in (and flight from) Egypt. What do
you think it took for Joshua and the people to really take that in and
appreciate it?  To know that their slates were wiped clean and that
God loved them for who they are and not what they have done? Wow.

This really speaks to what it means to be in relationship with
God--honestly living and being in relationship with our Creator.

Next we have the Psalmist showing us another step in this process. He
opens Psalm 32 with "Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered." And then goes on to talk about how he
understood his transgression to be forgiven. The writer says, "I
acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I
will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the guilt
of my sin."

The Psalmist took a chance to see and acknowledge himself as God sees and knows. Wow. That takes a lot of courage to be that honest. We aren't often very willing to look at both our flaws and our perfection.  They both seem to cause us to avert our eyes.
In the second letter to the followers of Jesus in Corinth, we see Paul
addressing this directly.  He says, "from now on, we regard no one
from a human point of view...if anyone is in Christ, there is a new
creation: everything old has passed away; everything has become new!"
Imagine it...what if we were all able to view ourselves and to view
one another as if we were loved and forgiven Creations of God.

And in Luke we see the classic story of the prodigal son.  You all
know the story. Look at the love of this father for his son. He does
not spend a lot of time offering criticism about who his son was, he
rejoices at who his son is in that present moment.

Wow.What does it mean to truly look at ourselves and others as the beautiful, beloved and forgiven creation of God? What is necessary for you to see others in this way?  What is necessary for you to see yourself in this way? What changes?

God,
Thank you for a stunning, complicated creation.
Thank you for loving me.
Thank you for loving me in spite of my bumps and warts.
Thank you for creating me so beautifully for this world.
Help me to see with your eyes
myself and those around me.
And help me help others
to see with your eyes as well.
Strengthen me to bear what it is that I see
and move forward toward your Kingdom.
Amen.

© matt & laura norvell 2010 www.settingourstones.org
we want to share this with you and hope you'll share with the world; we simply ask that you let people know where you found these words. May Grace & Peace be with you.

by Steve ThorngateThis week the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships delivered its recommendations to the federal government—164 pages of them. While the council’s role is purely advisory, Adelle Banks quotes Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius as promising the recommendations “won’t just be a document on a shelf” but will form an “active Steve Thorngatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06010733362797501049noreply@blogger.com0http://theolog.org/2010/03/faith-based-council-submits_12.html

The March crescent moon, rising with the dawn. A small but sturdy dawn chorus was tuning up in the nearby trees. Nova Scotia Island Journal

People like the idea of getting to the bottom of things. It suits our human desire for stability. We don’t like floundering in high water or high ideals without some purchase we can feel with our feet or hands or minds. Worldviews and paintings should be hung on strong nails sunk deep into the meat of a 2x4 stud, don’t you think?

There are people who will stand up in a meeting that isn’t really going anywhere and say, “Okay now, let’s get to the bottom of this.” These people often call themselves, “No nonsense people,” meaning when it comes to nonsense, they won’t put up with any of it. I like no nonsense people. They’re good to have around if you’re discussing a budget or how many gallons of paint you should buy.

But if we think of nonsense as all the stuff we can’t make sense of, there is an awful lot of it out there. There are a lot of things in the world that don’t make sense. Sometimes there isn’t a bottom to get to. Or if there is, it’s so far down and back that we simply won’t live long enough to find it.

Listen to me now.

There is no bottom to your mind. None that you can find anyway. Most of what’s in your mind is in the unconscious. You can spend hours in therapy and diligently record your dreams for analysis, or you can just play it straight and try to pay attention to yourself as best you can. But either way, you aren’t going to get to the bottom of yourself. You will not know what makes you think and feel and act the way you do. The mystery of your own soul is beyond your comprehension.

I don’t even know why I bite the skin around my fingernails. I’m not getting to the bottom of anything.

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There is no bottom to this world. You will never know how life got started or how human beings developed the stunning idea of our own existence. It happened too long ago, and they weren’t keeping good records.

And there is certainly no getting to the bottom of the God question. That might seem obvious, but I’ve been dealing with religious people all of my life. And though most would say that God is beyond all understanding, they act as though they’ve got God pretty well figured out.

Well enough to tell you - for a fact - that God exists.

Well enough to tell you - exactly - what God’s opinions are on a number of issues.

Well enough to tell you - with stunning boldness - what is going to happen to people after they die.

Well enough to be mean about it.

That last one really gets me. You’d think some kind of advanced enlightenment about God would gentle a person. But I meet people all the time who are mean when they talk about God. Angry, short-tempered, irritable, intolerant, and downright nasty if anyone suggests there might be a different way of thinking about God.

You don’t believe me? Go ahead and type “Christian discussion forum” into Google. Visit a few sites. Here’s a hint: look for anything having to do with Calvinism and Arminianism. Go ahead. I’ll wait till you get back.

<Whistling and looking at the tattered skin around my fingernails>

You’re back? Yeah, see what I mean? Horrible. I can’t go to those places anymore. I don’t think there is a single theological or Biblical issue that matters enough to me that I would seek insight in a Christian discussion forum.

Okay, so here’s the deal:

I’m 48 years old. I have been a Christian since I was 9. I’ve been to seminary. I’ve been a conservative, then a liberal, then kind of a conservative again, then even more of a liberal, and finally I don’t know if there’s a label that even fits me. I’ve been all over the map. I’ve been looking for God in the scriptures, in the heavens, in the world, in my mind, and in thousands of conversations with as many people.

And I don’t know anything about God.

I don’t mean that in the good way, like when people say that someone is wise because he admits that he doesn’t know something. No. Seriously. I just don’t know shit about God. Period.

I don’t know if God exists or not.

I don’t know what the Bible says about God. The more I read and study those books, the more confused I become.

I don’t know how much God cares about how we live our lives.

I don’t know if God answers prayers or what it would even mean for a prayer to be answered.

I don’t know how we should worship God. I don’t know if sticking to ancient traditions is good because they have survived some kind of religious natural selection process, or if we should just sit in silence like the Quakers. Maybe we should get guitars and cookies and sing prayers that 5-year-olds can understand. I don’t know.

I just don’t know.

There is a story from the book of Exodus that comforts me greatly. In the third chapter of Exodus, Moses is insanely bold enough to ask God to tell him God’s name. God does, and God’s name looks like this:

It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? I mean, you can see that even if you don’t know Hebrew. Don’t bother trying to pronounce it. No one knows how it’s pronounced. And those who are smart enough to have a rough idea are wise enough not to even think of it. But it might be a cool thing for you to know that it is the Hebrew word for being.

Maybe the best way to think about it is to say that God’s first name is “IS.”

Moses found that out over 3,000 years ago, and people are still mulling over the implications of it. I don’t think anyone has asked about God’s last name.

About 30 chapters later, maybe feeling cocky because he was on a first name basis with God, Moses asked if he could see God when God walked by. This God could not do. The idea was that a mortal could not look upon the face of God and live. So God took Moses in God’s giant God-hand and put him into a cleft between two rocks. When God walked by, God put God’s hand up so that Moses would not see God by accident. Then, just as God was leaving, God pulled God’s hand away so that Moses could catch a small glimpse of God’s back.

Which was enough, because Moses’ face was glowing after that, so that people were afraid to look at him.

This story appeals to me, because I have less than half of my life left. And considering that I don’t know anything about God or why I bite the skin around my fingernails, it seems obvious I’m going to die without knowing all that much.

But I think this story might have the ring of truth to it. If so, it becomes like the voice of God speaking to me. And the voice of God says,

“Talk to the hand, preacher. The cleft and the hand are good enough for you.”

rlp

The whole scene arrived in the middle of a week when the story of the Prodigal Son is the lectionary passage, about as gift wrapped as a sermon illustration could be. Nomar Garciaparra, longtime and well-loved shortstop for the Boston Red Sox who was traded away, came home day before last, to retire. Though the terms under which he left in the summer of 1974 were not good at all, and it was the October that followed – and perhaps, in part, because of the trade – that the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in eighty-six years.

He has traveled to California and Chicago and back to California, trying to find his place. I must also say, for the record, that the Sox haven’t had a steady shortstop since. Every time Nomar came back to Boston, regardless of the colors he was wearing, the Fenway Faithful gave him a long standing ovation. We loved Nomar, even from afar. Besides, he was the only player we ever had whose name rhymed with homer, as in, “Come in Nomar, hit a homer.” (It has to be done in a heavy Boston accent – “Come on, Nomah, hit a homah” – and it rhymes the same way country singers think rain rhymes with string.)

Nomar knew it was time to retire and he also wished he could retire in his Red Sox uniform. Spring training is in full swing, and he is not playing for anyone. So the Sox offered him a contract: a one day, minor league contract that allowed him to become a part of the organization once again, and then he retired, at home. He’s happy and all those folks (like Ginger) who still have their Garciaparra t-shirts can wear them again. Nomar belongs to us. Period.

"The dream to play baseball in the big leagues started here," he said at his news conference held at City of Palms Park before the Red Sox played a spring training game. "I really wanted to have that be the last uniform I ever put on.”

As I was walking home tonight from the restaurant, I found myself humming a soundtrack to my thoughts about Nomar’s last homestand:
and I see your true colors shining through
I see your true colors and that’s why I love you
so don’t be afraid to let them show
you true colors true colors
are beautiful like the rainbowIn the King James version of the story in Luke, it says the prodigal son “came to himself” as he was feeding the pigs and realized it was time to go home for good. He realized he was prodigal, as in wastefully extravagant, and he had used himself all up, along with his possessions. The dictionary offers a second definition for prodigal: “giving in abundance; lavish or profuse.” We might also use the same adjective for the father, who welcomed his son home with extravagant forgiveness and a barbeque to boot. They shared a propensity for extravagance; the father, however, knew how to spend himself in love. Such were his true colors.

Yes, I’m a Sox fan and I know I might be stretching the story a bit here, still I’m willing to stretch because one of ours that got lost has come home. He was humble enough to ask and the Red Sox ownership were generous enough to find a way to make it work. What it means for Red Sox Nation is, when we tell our stories (and we do tell stories), we can say he is one of us. Whatever happened between 2004 and now is what happened, but the real story is he came home. And my guess is it was no different at the Prodigal Household in the parable. As they bit into the brisket, they told stories, too, of how the boy had run away, and how the father had pined at the front door day after day. “And then you came home,” someone said. And they laughed and cried and told the story again, talking, I’m sure, with their mouths full.

We are at our best with our arms wide open. It’s true for both Bible and baseball.

Peace,
Milton

In a previous posting, I asked the question of the goodness of a democratized theology.  This is the sense of what theology after Google.    Emergent Christianity is seen as a deconstruction of the old boundaries and rules -- including the clergy system.  That is a church that is guided or perhaps ruled by the clergy.  Anti-clericalism, of course, has long been with us. 

But there is a question that has been raised about the conversation that is going on here in Claremont.  In our embrace of democratization are we giving way to a rather undisciplined conversation.  That is, should we be more concerned about what the Reformed tradition calls doing things "decently and in order"?  Or, to put it another way, should we be concerned about "appropriateness" of our conversation? 

Last night the Theology after Google event began.  We heard from several theologians of the academic kind, including our host Philip Clayton.  Tony Jones and Tripp Fuller guided our conversation as to where the new medias are taking the theological conversation.
The overall message is simple, the new media is allowing for the theological conversation to leave the ivory towers of academia and get taken up by the people.  No longer can the experts be the arbitrers of truth.  Now this is very post modern and attractive, and while I'm on board to a great extent, I'm wondering where this leads.  How democratic should this be, and should we jettison all expertise?  I don't think that's the intent, but in our excitement, can this not be the message that gets caught.
So, in a few minutes we enter a new day, with new presentations, creating new conversations.  Therefore, to my TAG participants and to the blogosphere in general -- how democratic should it get?  And, to what extent should we bring in the voices of the "experts?"  I look forward to your thoughts!

Faithful Reader reviews ANKoCy here.

Mike Clawson's last installment of our interview is available here. I'll reply to a follow-up question about Plato and Aristotle after the jump.

The Jazztheologian offers an interview about the book here, and here.

Bishop Alan Wilson from England reviews the book here.

Nic Paton from South Africa focuses on the issue of "the fall."

More after the jump ...

Continue reading Reviews and interviews: A New Kind of Christianity ... round-up...