Advent 1

Some days what you see going on around you makes a person wonder. It has been an interesting couple of days. Again the stories of the people of God being attacked by the people we have entrusted to lead and care for them have come filtering down to me. The image which best describes it is of sharks, who smell the blood of the injured moving in for the kill.

I hear stories of leaders, dramatically shedding tears, over situations they have caused situations in which they had an opportunity to act with compassion but refused.

And again I hears stories, of church built will millions of dollars, who then make sure that the homeless and the poor are kept away and definitely not sleeping under their tree (which would have been a good story if they had invited them in to sleep inside instead).

And the Gospel this Sunday. It is of the end of time. I must admit I understand the yearning it expresses. Lets face it life is pretty good, and far from what the Gospel of Mark describes. We have it easy compared with so many others who truly suffer and are persecuted. Yet, I can’t help but identify with the yearning. Things just seem so broken. It even seems like the desolating sacrilege has been set up where it ought not to me, namely amongst God’s people. Having some revolutionary God showing up and setting things right sounds pretty good right now.

That’s when I trip over the gospel. “For the Kingdom of God is amongst you and within you.” Christ is already here. The revolution has already begun. Can’t we see it?

The Gospel lesson speaks of awakeness and awareness. Perhaps that is our current call. I know that God is here, and that God is moving. Perhaps, what we are now called to is a new awareness, and new wakefulness, so that we can see God moving and move with God.

I went to a lecture the other night. Tony Compelo, preaching about how God is a God of the poor, who calls us to serve the poor. I talked today with a pastor who brings people to Mexico, not to build a house and relieve some guilt, but rather to listen, and be transformed, and to come home and transform their community. A parishner came up to me this morning and encouraged me to have the congregation focus on trying Lectio Divina or the Jesus prayer for lent – so that we might experience God’s transformation.

I think I see glimpses of God, coming in glory these days.

Finding a new language.

Well I have let this blog go for a while. Life has been tumultuous. After much internal and external debate and searching, I have found my self again serving as a pastor. The congregation that called me has been very kind and loving towards me. They are also a congregation that, at least in what they tell me, yearns to be a part of the renewal of the Christian faith. The reality though is I just don’t quite know what that might look like.

It is true that I have many thoughts and ideas. The reality though is that renewal won’t happen from one person’s thoughts or ideas. Rather I believe that what is needed is a dialogue, a searching and a rediscovering. This will only be done together. I also believe that asking new questions will be a part of this process. So I have decided to start blogging again. In the hopes that perhaps others will join in the conversation.

So where to begin. Language. I was amazed today. I had two conversations in which a part of them was just retelling what our faith was about, but using new language. Both times the people seemed to light up a little, as if they were seeing something that they had not seen before. Perhaps this is a place to begin to seek our renewal. Perhaps we need new language to tell and see our faith by.

The reality is that all language is a lens. The words that we use allow us to see certain things more clearly, while also obscuring other things. It seems like our religious language has blinded us. Look at the simple langue of sin. For so many this language has become equivalent of beating ones self down or being beaten down. I think Luther’s comments about us being miserable worms fits in here. What a profound insult to God’s creativity (or perhaps not, especially if we see worms as they are, beautifully and wonderfully made). Luther though meant the insult. Sin is an old archery term for missing the mark. Mmmm have we all missed the mark in our life. Oh yea. Or Sin is much like describing our brokenness. Have we all experienced brokenness. Oh yea. And while much of the world teaches us either to cover this up, or to make it a public spectacle, here church is the one place where we invite people to be honest about the real brokenness of our life. Then we respond, with grace and love (in contrast to the temptation towards judgement). Mmmm. Honesty, grace, love. . . .sounds like what many of us need.

The question is how do we find a language, and create a space for these to be truly practiced and experienced. Or even better. What language do we need so that we can again discover THE WAY which early Christians saw as eternal life.

The Kingdom of God is Within and Amongst You

My apologies to anyone who has been looking for a blog entry and not seeing anything new in the last while. I have been in the midst of the madness of moving. Now that I am settled I was reminded by a friend to get back at this blog.

One of the things that has been on my find lately is that I think that Christianity has gotten its time frame all wrong, or at least significantly wrong.

When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, he spoke of it in the present, and as being within and amongst us. This changes things quite radically.

So often we have thought (and taught) that the focus of Christianity is on some future heaven. During periods of time, such as the reformation, when death was ever present and near this makes sense. It also makes sense if you are an empire that doesn’t want the implications of faith to effect its rule.

If we focus on the present though suddenly Christ’s teachings look very different. They are not about getting into heaven, rather they are about becoming a new and different sort of people here and how. Salvation is no longer about who gets through the pearly gates, but rather it is about our current healing.

Suddenly the many moral lists of the scriptures which are framed with “such as these will not enter the kingdom of God” are not a list of who is in and out, rather they are a list of those things that we do that prevent us and others from being healed and becoming the people of God. Instead of lists to scare they are a differential diagnosis, that is lists of things we may need to pay attention to and address if we want to experience healing.

If Christianity is about the present, then God’s grace is not just God’s final act in history, but rather it is God’s first and ongoing act of creation. Grace is the begining of all that we do. It defineds who we are, and it is God ongoing action to bring us to become who we are called to be.

When I look at the great harm done by the Christian church these days, again and again it goes back to its failure to be transformed and to live out the faith to which it is called. So often this is rooted in our failure to not just share our bread, but our failure to ask why we are not the ones both sharing our bread, and challenging the systems which produce hunger. The result is a religion, whose relevance has been often limited to its ability to scare people into morality, and provide comfort, but no healing. While this was convenient for the empires which Christianity served, and the Empire that Christianity has become. It has robed us of far too much of what faith has to offer.

For the kingdom of God is with within and amongst us. Let us no longer be distracted. The feast is set and we are invited to the table. Let us taste and share of God’s kingdom.

Getting Ready to Move

The boxes are piling. Pictures are about to come off the walls. We are deciding what to keep and what to give away. It makes me think about transitions. To say the least my life right now is in complete transition. As one person said, there is not an aspect of my life which has not been in flux in the last while. It is perhaps this which has made me sensitive to the many transitions that seem to face our world right now.

In many aspects of our world transition is precisely what is needed. These transitions are needed for the simple and down right spectacular reason that our current course is directing us towards disaster. One of my big interests is in the area of energy. Lets face it, whether we look at the rising price of crude which may lead to our economic collapse or climate change which will lead to ecological collapse. We desperately need a transition to a just and sustainable energy future. The question is what will it take?

Is it economic cost? That seems to be a real motivator as the current price of gasoline is now causing people to make changes that were once reserved for the “lunatic left” such as biking, or car pooling or even living closer to work. It is true that sheer cost does motivate, but does it do so too late? The reality is that it is a global demand surge coupled by a supply plateau that is putting the price of oil higher and higher. This will take fundamental economic shifts to address, which will likely not be made until the shock might be too much to recover from. The reality is that a new energy future is on the horizon, which will be solar, nuclear wind and electrically driven, but can it be implemented before the tata nanos hit the road? Too bad we didn’t start the shift a few years back.

So is government intervention the answer? Perhaps, but the reality is that both climate change and the rising cost of oil were both easily predicted. If someone like me, with a theology degree could have predicted this, I would think that the smart people governments hired could have also figured this out. Yet they didn’t act. In Canada, as one former government insider informed me, it was basically department infighting, and a lack of political will that killed any effective action. Now both in Canada and the US it is simply the political power of oil companies, and the sheer cost of change.

So with what are we left? That is a good question. My guess is that the answer is in between. With smart policies using markets, and planning combined to address these answers. I am not sure though. It is perhaps something important for each of us to answer.

The same things is also true for religion. Christianity in the west is crashing. There are signs of the future, but how will the transition happen? That is a question for all of us to not just answer but to live. á

What are we called to?

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. A church has expressed some interest in calling me and I am left debating. At the heart of my debate is the question of what is the church going to be? What it has been is clearly in the process of dieing. To be honest it is right that it should die. The question is what will the church look like which God is wanting to be born?

What I keep coming back to is the need for us to break out of the Constantine model of church. That is, as it has largely existed for 1700 years, as an instrument of empire. Just as we are largely still unaware the degree to which anti-semitism has corrupted Christianity, we are also painfully unaware how much are closeness to empire has led us to miss the point. It was after all a need of the empire that resulted in a church being built to ensure correct doctrine, correct structures, correct control. It was a need of the empire to have people focus on the after life instead of injustices of this life. It was the need of an empire to have religion not look to closely at its capacity for transformation. The result has been a church increasingly irrelevant, increasingly left to fight over scraps, increasingly empty.

So what are we called to? To me it seems like it is time to reclaim some of the ancient models of church, and to discover some new ones. We must learn to again be a community set apart, centered around Christ, a part, but not of the world. It seems we are being called to re-discover the transforming depths of prayer. We are called to live out prophetic action; To practice barrier bashing hospitality; compassion; simplicity; complete generosity; and to again walk into the mystery of God.

In short we are called to become communities which struggle to live out the gospel, and by living it out both proclaim and discover Christ.

The question is what will this take? How will we live this out?

The Future of Faith

I just heard an excellent program on the CBC show ideas. It was an interview with futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil (Most recent book: Singularity). What it did was provide an excellent glimpse into a future which the current rate of technological advance can predict. It is a fascinating picture. It is one where human life spans are dramatically increased. It is a future where computers not only become more powerful then the human brain, but also one in which we can tap directly into that computing power. Is religion ready for this?

I ask that question as a bit of a joke. I think that in many ways religion is not even ready for the technological revolution that has already happened. Now what I am not talking about is the use of LCD projectors or electric guitars in worship, or websites, podcasts or the many other ways that religious organizations have tacked on technology. What I am thinking about is how our technological advances have changed the place of religion in society.

Lets face it. The dominant forms of Christianity were largely produced out of a time in which Christianity could claim a degree of dominance. Thus for centuries you could have an organizational structure, the church, claim exclusive access to knowledge. By training their clergy and deciding who could be a part of that organization, religious knowledge was controlled and the church maintained almost complete monopolistic power. Sure there were many other voices that arose. Their ability to challenge the monopoly of the church was very limited. The most successful reform attempts where able to effect change largely by creating their own organizational and communal structures. Thus the reform movements were limited largely to monastic reform movements; first Cluny, Cistercians, latter Dominicans, Franciscans and interesting in response to the reformation the Jesuits. Then came the printing press.

Suddenly a monk from the relatively backwater town of Wittenberg was able to spread his ideas and unleash a torrent of reforming voices that tore through Western Christianity. What happened was that knowledge control shifted from a church to books. Key books became the point of both limiting and defining religious knowledge, whether those books were The Bible, Confessions, theological treatises, catechisms etc. Still organizational structures retained their importance, and the mode of the gathered community as the point of religious life continued.

Now we live in the days of the internet, greatly increased life expectancies, jet travel etc. It is clear that the question of control of religious knowledge has changed. I now have not only access to libraries of sacred books from almost every tradition. Any religious voice can have its voice heard, from radical fundamentalist terrorists to Jainists. In my own life I have had the opportunity to hear many of the most influential religious voices personally as well as on-line. The reality is that while many religious organizations still try to make their claim for exclusive religious knowledge. These claims increasingly fail. As many evangelical leaders report they may be coming in the front door quickly, but they are leaving out the back just as quick. (Most main line churches don’t even have them coming in the front door). The reality is that we are now in a diverse and competitive religious environment and that is here to stay. From now on if religious are not delivering the goods that people are searching for they will be gone.

Now many religious leaders start to complain that this shift to consumer religion is nothing but evil and a reflection on our selfishness. I am no longer so sure. I actually believe that there are lots of people searching for some real spiritual substance. Consumer glitz and marketing might get them in, but don’t expect them to stay.

Perhaps much more importantly, and perhaps why religious leaders are really so nervous, is that if you don’t have the goods, if you are not responding to real needs. Then your future is bleak.

This is an important reversal. Most pastors are trained as experts. That is they are representatives of a religious faith, which usually believes that it is the best and knows everything. So it trains people to simply recite “the truth.” The best critique for this came from a friend of mine, Joe, who basically said that Lutheranism has the best theology, . . . that is for 16th century questions. In other words if Lutherans keep answering 16th century questions, as an organization they get to hang out with the dodo. Every denomination or church better start asking which century’s question they are addressing. If it isn’t the 21st, yea sorry.

So what are the questions we need to pay attention to? Well the reality is that most people despite our massive technological advances still find themselves often in lives that are unhappy, lacking meaning, connection or a sense that they are actually making a difference. The reality is that our massive influx of knowledge also causes us to realize the world’s problems, realize how small we are, and also to ask the big question . . . what is this all about. Or perhaps more importantly where do I fit into this. The other reality is that people are going to live a lot longer. The other reality is that once people start getting older they start wanting to explore the spiritual dimensions of life.

Very large on the horizon is that with all these advances, the reality is that there are still billions who don’t even get enough food to eat or receive the most basic of education and healthcare. Who will make sure that the voices of the poor are heard and ensure creation is protected?

In other words, while most denominations like my own, have leaders who have deiced to steer themselves into inevitable demise. The reality is that the future of religion on the whole is that it is remarkably bright and important.

So what will it take for religion to thrive? The reality is a remarkably different sort of leadership. Out goes the excessive worries over organizational structure, policies, practices, preserving a culture or an identity (usually a code word for the club). We don’t need leaders who can simply recite. Instead what is needed is a leadership which can listen to the questions and concerns of people and be able to access the entire richness of the tradition. We need leaders who can walk with people into the depths of their questions. We need leadership who can respond to the realities of the world and shape the church so that it organizationally can give them a means of responding. In a world where people move more and more and become more and more fragments, we need leaders who can facilitate the formation of communities, where people can have a real sense of belonging. We need leaders who can walk into the rich diversity of life, and gather people together who can bring hope, meaning, purpose and real change.

Over the coming years it will be very interesting to see which communities will be able to follow the spirit enough to emerge as a meaningful community of faith in a rapidly transforming world.

The End of Climate Change – Potentially

Yesterday was perhaps one of the happier days of my life. Since high school I have been running around worrying about climate change (global warming back then). At that point it was already becoming quite clear that this was potentially the largest threat to our environment we have yet faced and that we needed to begin to act immediately to address this issues (that was in 1990). Since then I have been amazed at our inability to in any meaningful way make a dent in our greenhouse gas production. What I have come to realize is that despite the massive amount of moral imperative to address climate change – the power of economics has been too significant to over come. Basically if the economic incentive is to continue to produce greenhouse gases people will. If those economic incentives are changed so that people have to pay for their emissions, people will find ways to reduce their emissions.

The one way of addressing this is by changing the nature of our energy market so that there is an economic incentive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This can take the form of a cap and trade system or a carbon tax. These are clearly the smart way of addressing climate change. In effect they use our market mechanism to direct human creativity and energy towards addressing climate change. Despite the fact that this is the smartest way of addressing the problem there are few political jurisdictions that have implemented this.

The other option is to reduce the cost of alternatives to the point where they become the smart economic choice on their own. This is what made me so happy. Yesterday I heard about a company called Nanosolar (www.nanosolar.com). If their claims are correct they can produce solar systems at the price of $1-2 per watt of generation capacity. What is so significant about this is that coal cost on average $2.1 per watt of generation capacity. That’s right solar power that is cheaper then coal. Suddenly, almost everything that has changed.

I say almost because some of the same hurdles are still their. Solar still suffers from its intermittent nature (it works when the sun shines), which means that it needs to be matched with energy storage or other forms of generation. The biggest problem will be having the political will to implement policies that will insure the movement from carbon based power generation to non-carbon sources. Nanosolar’s technology makes the most sense is municipal scale products – so start talking to you city councils and local power generating companies. We still also need to convert our cars so that they run primarily not on gasoline (ie. plug-in-able hybrids). So there is still work to be done. With affordable solar now here a major step has been taken.

Its not yet time to break out the Champaign, but it may be time break out the glasses and fill them with water so that we can get to work and get this thing done.

Theology II

It is now time to dig a little deeper.

The last post in which I began to address the question of theology I did a quick run through of the history of theology (or perhaps some might think that ran over might be more appropriate). I ended both with a quick critique of modern theology and I began to hint at a different kind of theology. Now it is time to deepen that critique and to begin moving us towards where we might need to go. First we have to know where we are. More importantly, in theology, we have to begin by thinking about how we know anything in the first place.

One of the most important aspects which we need to understand about modern theology is its epistemology. Epistemology is basically the academic word which asks the question of how do we know what we know, how can we claim something is true? At its heart there are two questions. The first is simply the question of reality, simply put “what is the nature of reality” and the second is the question of truth which basically asks “what is our relationship and to that reality” especially in terms of what we say and do.

Science can provide a good example for this. Science begins by narrowing its epistemological interest to the physical world. This is important. It doesn’t say there isn’t a reality beyond the physical, it just says that it cannot look into that reality. So science begins by answering the reality question by saying that the reality it concerns itself with is something which is a part of our physical world. In contrast a neo-platonic (an old Greek world view) would see reality as a reality of forms, something separate from the physical world with the physical world being a poor reflection of REALITY. Science also begin by assuming that the physical world is relatively consistent and that since we are also physical beings we can interact with this physical world. This allows science to then go out and test the physical world to find these consistent patterns. This is science’s answer to the Truth question. Reason is used as a means of developing our ways of understanding what is discovered in our physical reality. What is important to note is the reason is always secondary and not the determiner of what is true. What is discovered in experiments, that is in our interaction with the physical world, is what determines what is true. This is what allows recent physics to hold as true an understanding of reality that defies reason and logic. Since experiments show that one thing, an electron, can be both a particle and a wave (two different things), through it defies reason, it is still considered true.

This scientific tangent is important as I will later explain in my next theology post. To begin with it is important to simply open up the question of epistemology for theology. In other words how does theology understand the reality it is trying to know (God and our relationship to God) and how does theology understand its relationship to this reality, in other words how does it claim to be true?

Modern theology has been largely shaped by two different epistemologies, coherence and correspondence epistemologies. A coherence epistemology is basically an epistemology of rational logic. It believes that reality (for theology the reality of God and our relationship to God) is a reality which exists as a rational whole. This view is deeply related to the world view of the Greeks and neo-Platonists who believed that reason or rationality is the underlying true reality of existence and thus reason is able to show the truth of existence including how the different aspects of reality connect and are related. So reality is a rational reality, and we can then know this reality through reason and thus know the truth. This is the basic epistemology of modern systematic theology which basically says that reason can help us to understand the different theological concepts and how they relate to each other, thus giving us the theological truth which is universal since it is based on a universal reason. Truth is then determined by the relationship between these concepts and how they correspond to each other. This is also the epistemology of many conservative/fundamentalist theologies which often rely on a very tight rational system to fortify their understanding of both scripture and God.

Correspondence epistemology basically sees reality as existing as a part of the world and a statement is considered true depending on how accurately it describes that reality or in terms of how that statement relates to that reality. The key questions, especially for theology is how does one know if one is describing that reality accurately and what is the relationship between a statement (or expression of truth) and that reality. In theology this has taken many different forms. Some have given it a ecclesiastical (church) spin by saying that what the church says is true. Some have given this an historical spin, basically if you can trace the line back, the farther back it goes the closer it is to the truth (both the historical critical folks and the traditionalist often fall into this category). Some give this a biblical spin and they claim that there is a simple correspondence between the words found in the bible and the reality of God. Others give this a confessional bend and say that the creeds or their church’s confessions are equivalent to the truth. Others give a special person bent, and they look up to some person who they see as specially endowed to know the truth, whether it is Martin Luther, or a Pope, or Calvin, some saint, theologian or their pastor and they say what ever that person says corresponds to the truth.

Increasingly I have come to believe that how both of these espistemologies have come to be used in modern theology, has caused profound damage to the Christian faith and simply no long can hold up to basic of scrutiny.

Theological a coherence epistemology just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because of two theological realities. One the one side God’s transcendence and on the other side rests God’s revelation, incarnation and imminence. For a coherence theology to work it has to fit together like a great system of tinker toys (Thanks Dian Butler-Bass for the illustration). You need concepts which are understood and you need clear ways of connecting them. This is a problem because one of the basic understanding of God is God’s transcendence. Namely God is a lot bigger then what any of our concepts can hold. This was demonstrated by Augustine when his best attempt at understanding the trinity was shown to him to be like holding the whole ocean in his hands. While the modern turn to the subject as knower tempts us to believe that our concepts can know the reality of God, this will always be idolatry, namely confusing something of creation as being the creator. What ever we can say of God, God will always be infinity more. This makes the building a system impossible, for if each concept is incomplete, how it connects or doesn’t connect will always be beyond our understanding. For what in our reason may appear incompatible (as an infinite God and a finite person once seemed) God might just bring together to be in fact one.

God’s incarnation takes the problem of systematic theology further. Secular philosophy has long since thrown coherence epistemologies on the trash heap unless one escapes into idealism (the realm of ideas is what is truly reality). This happened first through Kierkegaard who responded to Hegel’s great philosophical system with the critique that it left out the particularities of existence. In other words even the greatest of systems cannot account for the sheer multiplicity and the freedom present in the existence we encounter in actual lived lives.

The systematicians fell again, this time in their analytic form to the critique of Wittgenstein who saw that since their were systems to themselves, they could do little more then extrapolate from meanings that they already contained and follow rules made up by the society that created them or already assumed by the system. Basically to have a logical system, the system must rest on presumptions which form the building blocks of the system. The problem is that those assumption either be supported by the system itself (which means that you end up with a meaningless loop which in simple form is A→B→C→A). The other option is to have it rest on presumptions outside the system, which simply means that the question of what is true has been moved beyond the system and we are thrown into another epistemology anyways. Either way the most important questions, such as questions of ethics and for that matter theology, become simply things that coherence cannot answer.

The one way to escape this is to escape to the real of ideas and be a true idealist. Which means that it is not the reality of the world which is real, but rather the realm of ideas and pure reason is what is truly real, and thus where truth is found. For theology this is impossible, though it has tried. For centuries theology often sought to escape this world by adopting the neo-platonic view which saw the world as just corrupt, and something to be escaped. God was separate. God as a being of pure reason, and thus from rational contemplation the truth of God could be grasped. From this has flown many world hating, earth consuming and people destroying theologies. While philosophers might still flee to this ideal realm, theologians cannot because of God’s simple and devastating critique of it all, God being born as a baby named Jesus.

In Jesus God was not found in some separate world of ideas, God was born in the particularities of a baby. God is revealed not by escaping from this world, but by God’s creation of this world and God’s coming into the world and even God’s death in this world. And this same Jesus pronounced the Kingdom of God, not as something far off, but as something near, amongst us and within us. Lutherans call this the theology of the cross. It ties us forever to see God revealed in the midst of creation.

So for theology when the systematizes come with their systems of theology, their concepts are shown as empty idols in the face of a transcendent God. When they comes claiming an empire of universal truth, the voice of Kierkegaard is heard with so many others whether they are the poor of liberation theology, women, post-colonials or simply anyone who comes one by one and says I have seen God in my life and what you say doesn’t fit, the systems fall. God is revealed in God’s incarnation and imminence. When faced with the brokenness of our lives and our world their inability to transform is laid bare, while the ideas may cohere, what is needed is not logic but a love which can heal.

While studying theology systematically, that is taking the time to move through, study and question its many concepts has great merit as a practice, we should not confuse it with truth.

While correspondence theologies bring us much closer they too are also almost beyond repair.
Correspondence epistemology basically says that what is real is the world around us that we are a part of. Correspondence epistemology sees truth as existing when there is an equivalence between what is said about that world and the reality of the world that exists.

This is the epistemology that most modern people, and most modern religious people work from. We believe that our theology is true if what we say about God corresponds with the reality of God. The problem emerges in the details. These problems begin with the relationship between what we say and the reality of the world. Lets face it God is not something where we can sit back, take a look and simply describe. This raises for us the question of what is the relationship between what we say and the reality of God. In other words how do we know what we say accurately describes God?

There are several traditional answers. One answer simply says that it is the unbroken apostolic tradition which can give us these answers by providing an unbroken link from person to person back to Christ who is the full revelation of God. The very world apostolic makes this link problematic. We must remember that there was not just one apostle. It is clear that each of them had a different view and understanding of Christ. Thus not only our different books of scripture, but even the stories of Paul and Peter , amongst others disagreeing. There is also the telephone problem. Yep that game where one things is said and it is passed from person to person until everyone hears the what the last person hears and everyone laughs. Now imagine playing that game over 2000 years, over vastly different cultures, with some links being far from being beyond question (just Goggle the banquet of the chestnuts or perhaps ask Galileo). Do not get me wrong. The tradition which has been passed down has great capacity for expressing truth, where we fail is when we make it the determiner of Truth. Context changes the meaning of what is said. Yelling fire in a house caught on fire is very different from yelling fire to a firing squad, just as driving a car means something very different in 1908 and 2008 when we now face global climate change.

Another claims says that the words of the bible correspond to the truth of God. Once again I am quite convinced that the bible can reveal God, the question though is which words and how should I interpret them? The bible says many things. There are after all four Gospels, there are two stories of creation. Further since its very beginning it has been recognized that the bible should not be read just literally, rather in one passage there can be a moral metaphorical meaning and beyond that an allegorical reading that reveal the reality of God. To claim only a literal reading robs the bible of its depth. Further, as most people who have read the bible over time soon discover, a passage that at one point meant to them one thing, years later speaks to them quite differently. As we change, and as we learn and grow, what we can hear from scripture changes. Which version is true? Which version corresponds with God? What is even more interesting is that when someone claims to speak the bible’s truth, whether they are a Christian fundamentalist or a historical critic what often becomes clear is that in stead of some universal truth, what is more often shown is simply how their own methods, or personality has read scripture. Have you not noticed that the Jesus of the historical critic and the fundamentalist has a strange tendency to become quite similar to the preacher of truth. The reality is that as soon as we read it, as soon as we exegete it, as soon as we preach it, the bible becomes something of the person doing the reading. The truth that it claims is once again the truth of the subject who speaks. While God is often revealed in this, to confuse their or our speech with God’s is to again make the fatal mistake of turning God in to a human creation.

There is another theory of correspondence which is quite close to this. It occurs when in the face of the great unknowing of God we turn to a person who we trust to some how grasped a truth which we can not. Whether that person is Martin Luther or a Pope, a saint or a preacher or even a parent. Any version of this leaves one big question, how is it that this person has come to have this special access to truth that other have not? In other words it begs the question of epistemology . Once again we have moved truth from God to a person and slipped into idolatry.

All of these fall into a further problem. One that is imbedded in language itself which makes a simple correspondence an impossible dream. The nature of langue is that when a word is spoken it always acts to both reveal and conceal. When I say the word ocean whether it is out our window or in your imagination you are able to see a great body of water. At the same time though, in order for you to see that water the word ocean has had to conceal much more. The water invisibility rising and falling again on land, the many fish in it depth, the child playing on one of its distant beaches, the bacteria floating on its surface, the sense of peace (or great fear) it inspires, . . . each of these are a part of that great body of water. All together they are to overwhelming to understand. All language is an act to bring one aspect of reality into focus, by pushing into the background everything else. Language does not simply describe or correspond, rather language is always an act which, in its revealing and concealing, allows the reality of the world to appear and be meaningful.

With this we are pointed towards an epistemology much more appropriate for theology. Already this post is far to long. So you will have to wait for theology III.

The summary is simply this. Modern theology has deceived us. It has relied on an understanding of epistemology and the truth which believed that as humans (subjects) we can know the truth. In an age when people have yearned to know the truth, both liberal and conservative theologies have fought to make their claim to truth win out. The conservatives have one, largely because they have yelled their claim to truth most loudly with the greatest tone of certainty. Unfortunately all of this has slipped into idolatry. We have confused our knowledge with the truth of God and thus we have created an idol of God in our mind. Whether it is the reason of coherence’s systems or the church, scriptures, confessions or creeds of correspondence’s claims. We have missed the point. Theology is not about having the truth of God. Theology is about being guided and telling the story of our journey as God embraces us with God’s love and mystery. The Hebrew word for knowledge implies relationship. It is this ancient understanding of epistemology which is now our task to reclaim.

Yes, I know far too long for a blog post.

Washington

I have been walking around Washington DC for the last couple of days and it is an interesting experience. It was built, and it is lived in today, as the ruling capital of an empire. It is also a capital built out of a hope that a political system could be created that preserved and uplifted the dignity of all. It is an interesting, but profound difference.

Desmond Tutu once told the story about how when work was being done on drafting a new constitution for a post apartide South Africa. Inside they were studying the American Constitution as a guide for creating a more just society, while out side there were police ready to arrest, imprison and torture them, who were paid for and supported by the US. Empire – that which dominates and exploits; or Beacon of Hope? This seems to be the fundamental and ongoing question which faces the US.

Over the last many years it is the vision of the US as empire that has come to dominate. This extends before the reign of the Bush dynasties. Democrat and Republicans have for years been united in their shared belief that the US can exploit and dominate the world. We must remember that it was under Clinton that the US not only turned a blind eye to genocide in Rwanda but pushed forward structural adjustment programs that condemned millions to poverty and death. Even Al Gore when he was in office did curiously little in terms of making a concrete difference in addressing climate change. Under Bush, quite wars became active and more destructive, and the language which once at least acknowledged climate change became outright hostile.

The question is how can the shift towards being a beacon of hope occur? This is a question not just for Americans, but for all of us in the wealthy world. It is especially a question for people of faith.

Increasingly I believe that this is a question of vision. First of all there is a profound need to have a vision which can see the reality of the world as it is. Watching the news hear is disturbing. Flashing music, repeating stories, hyped up language all work for focus the attention, but in reality blind us from everything else going on in the world. From meeting with some advocacy folks here the Congress if putting finishing touches on a Farm Bill. Now will the growing global food crisis this is REALLY Important. It is after all subsidies and bio-fuels in the US and Europe that has devastated farming and caused hunger in the developing world. This is huge. We are talking about life and death for millions, but it doesn’t make the news. So the question is how can people of faith become a people of vision, who are not so distracted, but can see what is going on and help others to see as well?

The other side of vision is possibility. Again and again we are given a tale that tells us that this is simply the way of the world and it is naive to work for anything else. Ironic coming from a country which was born out of a dream for a different kind of social order. Dreaming of what is possible and then working towards it has been the heart of what has transformed our world. When the declaration of Human Rights was passed it was basically dismissed by the powers of the time as irrelevant and given not teeth to insure that it would remain so. Yet it created a vision of what is possible and people began to work to achieve it. While its vision is not yet realized, we have come along way. It continues to shape policies and it has become the standard by which countries are judged. Human Rights gained teeth because people believed in the vision it created.

So the question is what is our vision? How do we begin to unflinching see the world as it is? How can people of faith, of all faiths, create a vision of hope that we can give our lives towards achieving? How can our lives and community become a narrative which prophetically challenges the narrative of empire? This is our challenge, it is also or possibility. There are many to proclaim the story of an Empire. It is our task to proclaim the story of hope.

Eucharist and the Coming Food Crisis

After many years of slowly growing our current food/agricultural crisis is beginning to hit the news. Crisis is perhaps a bit too strong right now, because the reality is that we haven’t seen anything yet.

It is important to understand what is causing this crisis. There are many factors here are some of the key ones.

1. Growing population. Lets face it there is a lot of us humans on the planet. While the percentage rate of population is beginning to slow slightly the sheer number of us means that the overall number of people being added to the population is growing faster then ever. Every single one of us has both a need and a right to food.
2. Increased consumption per person. Basically the worst thing that could happen for the environment and for humanity as a whole is if the rest of the world begins to live like us in North America and Europe. Basically the amount of hectors of land needed to produce meat is much higher then such things as grains and plants. So as more people in China and India and begin to eat more eggs and meat the effects on the food chain are huge. Equally huge is the number of people who are moving from one meal a day to two. Once again largely due to the economic growth of India and China.
3. Loss of productive land. There are several factors here. Basically most cities are situated on some of the most productive land in the world. So with the raped growth of cities has come a rapid destruction of productive farm land. At the same time vast amounts of land which has been marginal has become unproductive due to erosion, desertification and the big one – climate change. As the globe warms it is the tropical areas, where most of humanity lives, that experiences the most amount of increased evaporation and drought. The result is crop failures and less food – and a few wars to boot (ie. Darfour).
4. Lack of agricultural investment. For decades now food prices have been so low that their has been a decrease in investment in agriculture. One major sign of this has been the vast number of people globally who have left rural areas for urban ones. It also means that improvements in land, farming techniques etc. that bought about the first green revolution have been severely lacking resulting in land productivity far below what it could be. Luckily this higher prices should reverse this. Unlucky many of the things which increase productivity the most (such as fertilizers) require fossil fuels and potash, things who’s price has skyrocketed.
5. BioFuels. The reality is that many bio-fuels simply do not give enough bang for the carbon impact to make them worth while (corn based ethanol at best provides a 30% CO2 reduction – at 5% in a tank it is just not significant). The cost though are massive. Basically large amounts of productive land, food and fertilizers are directed towards their production and away from food production. Also once the food-fuel link is made the fuel hungry west’s economic power will simply overwhelm the hungry people of the non-industrialized countries. Basically so we can drive people will starve. While other froms of biofuels such as switch grass, cellulous, and algae may be significant this is not how most biofuels are produced.

So how do we respond? – First as people of faith we need to go deeper. It is at our table of faith that we can begin to find this.
One aspect of liturgy (the work of the people) is that it is in liturgy that we practice how we are to live the rest of our life. It is at the communion table that the great economy of God is modeled.

Worship towards the Eucharist as the gifts of the community are brought to the table. As the ancient songs sings, as the grains of wheat once scattered on the hills are gathered into one to become our bread. So we bring what we are and what we have been given back to God. It is blessed and then we all together participate in the feast. Each person taking what they need and not more.

So we begin to address the food crisis by recognizing that all food is in fact a gift from God. Even if we work the fields, is it not God who give the sun, who first created the seed, who brings the rains and gave us the life needed to work and gather? It is God’s, given so that all may eat and have life?

Redistribution is also key. The reality is that there is still an over abundance of food in some areas and great lack in other areas. Now for some this will mean the simple movement of food from one place to another. This though is more of a rarity. The reality is that it is our current trade structures which prevent the movement and sale of agricultural products in the less-industrialized countries to the industrialized countries. This is what has caused not only great poverty, eroding the purchasing power of these countries, but also prevented the necessary investments in agriculture in the countries where most of humanity lives in threat of hunger. In other words, yes give to the Food Grains Bank, but also write your MP/Senator and give also to those who are helping rural communities invest in themselves. It is an aspect of the Eucharist that everyone brings something to the table. That means this crisis will not be addressed simply by some giving to others. Rather we must work with people so that through their work we can all feed each other.

There is also some major work that we in the west need to do. The problem with consumption per person is largely a problem for the developed world to face. Lets face it having people go from one to two meals a day is a wonderfully good thing. Having us eat hamburgers each day and fill up our SUV’s with corn is just plane gluttony. It is the equivalent of running up to the Eucharist table and grabbing half the bread, drinking half the wine and running out the door. Instead of using ethanol, use your bike, or public transit or those feet God gave you. Instead of meat each day, reduce it to at most once a week. If you want to cook more vegetarian I suggest the Moosewood cook books (just increase the flavorings I usually double the spices).

As far as climate change there is only one things that will make the difference needed now; massive advocacy efforts towards our governments. We are talking about big changes, not small ones to make a difference. Simply if your politician doesn’t commit to a plan to move us from a carbon based economy, don’t vote for them and ask others to do the same. Your vote will do far more then changing a light bulb can (though change the light bulb as well). And if the company that you buy something from doesn’t have a green house gas reduction plan that they are implementing, then don’t buy from them.

For all us urbanites. I also highly recommend planting a garden. Those seeds scattered on the hills can easily land in some of the backyard now covered with lawns. I have also managed to grow small gardens on numerous apartment balconies. More then anything, it gives us urbanites a chance to more intimately come to understand the cycles of nature by which our food is produced. No it won’t feed the world, but it is a small way that we can be a part of the solution. And even more exciting, it give a chance to be apart of the spiritual journey of gathering the grains and vegetables scattered on the hills, gathered so that we might be one in God, with everyone having enough to eat. We are each invited to the feast. Please pass the mashed potatoes to those who are hungry.

Eagles

I was out at the petroforms the other day. For those who don’t know in the Whiteshell provincial park there is this beautiful bare rock on which there are centuries old figures and shapes made from rocks. It is a sacred place for the native folks around here. My parents were visiting and my Dad was quite interested in these since he has seen similar things in the hills by where he grew up.

There is this one petroform in the shape of an eagle. It is tucked down below one of the central areas. It has been one of my favorites. As I stood there, with my parents and my wife, we suddenly heard this squawking and the sound of feathers. Behind us flew three bald eagles. One mature one and two immature eagles. Upon seeing us they flew apart. The mature one found a tree while the two younger ones flew around us. At times their were only twenty feet away. Then they would fly behind some trees and disappear and then reappear. Each one taking its turn. Then they began to soar. First a younger one began to circle higher and higher. Then after a while the older one began as well. We watched it for almost twenty minuets, until it was just a speck and until even that speck became to small to see. When I looked back down, something in my heart was healed.

Here I was. A searching Lutheran Pastor. A tourist (or perhaps a guest) in someone else’s sacred site. With an eagle of rocks at my feat and one of feathers and spirit soaring above my head, a part of me was healed.

I have also now heard from two Buddhist Monks. One in the midst of his meetings with the Dalai lama and with Popes took the time to search for my number and phoned me up to see how I was doing and invited me to come visit. Another in the midst of his own searching took the time to hunt down my address so he could write me a letter and send me cookies as a tangible sign of people's prayers for comfort, clarity and peace.

Is God present amongst other faiths. Here is a good question “what do you see?”

A Question of Justice

“What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God” Micah

It is one of the most basic element of the Christian faith, justice. Justice is a theme which echoes from Egypt, through the prophets, Christ to the present day. Yet why has it become the aspect of our faith so often abandoned and ignored?

Now most mainline churches have good language about justice. Yep they love to preach it, but in practice . . . Lets look at the facts. When the United Church needed to cut back recently it was their justice department that got the vast majority of the cuts. And for my own Lutheran church, who was the first to go, well the person working on our justice work. What is interesting is that this has been the reoccurring pattern. Consistently it has been the justice related work that is cut first, or the staff person working in that area is pushed out. . . .

Yet what is interesting is the need. Our world is facing some of the largest crisis in its history. Environmental degradation, never ending wars, HIV/AIDS, abandoning of human rights principles by former supporters, and our growing agricultural crisis, small arms sales and that is just the beginning of the list. What is equally interesting is the yearning to address these. There are so many people who are yearning to address these challenges. Lets face it most people are not dumb. They know the brokenness of our world, but as isolated individuals it is hard to do much beyond a token response.

This is precisely where churches could come in. For not only is justice a part of the deep belief system of Christianity, churches are also a point where people can join together, and take action together to transform theses crisis of the world. Governments or businesses take little notice of an individual letter or one person's refusal to buy a product. When thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people respond they take notice. Likewise it is very hard for me, on my own, to address poverty half-way around the world. When we join together we are able to send not just assistance, but develop relationships, work beside people and share with others almost anywhere.

This is the potential of the church. It could be a place where our invitation into the passion (suffering) of Christ and the world is combined with our ability to join, organize and work together to bring healing to the world. Churches could be the place where people are invited to take concrete action in their lives and in their community. Churches can also be a place where we develop a shared voice which can walk in and speak with world leaders and bring the voice of compassion and justice to those with power. Churches could be a place, where justice is lived out and shapes a community and in the process transforms the world around them. I know so many who yearn to be a part of such a church.

Yet when churches cut, they cut the justice work first. In their own practices, where there is the greatest opportunity to act with justice and compassion, so often they chose not to. This is not just a question of my dismissal, it is a question of a congregation which will spend over a million dollars on renovating a building, but not a few dollars on fair trade coffee. It is about churches which instead of inviting in the diversity of the world, lock their doors and keep leadership to the old boys and girls club. It is about churches which forget to preach about the children who die each day because we fail to act. It is about a future lost because we are too concerned about driving our own car to church instead of the air that others will one day breath. It is about the reality that 11:00 Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week. Where is justice?

First it is best to begin by explain a bit about the biblical notion of justice. Our understanding of justice has been quite coloured by our legal system in which justice has basically come to mean that people get what is coming to them. In the Christian scriptures justice is much more about restoration. Specifically justice is about the restoration of life and society to God’s intended fullness and wholeness. Something which is expressed by the word shalom or peace. It is also important to note that in the New Testament’s Greek there is one word which is translated both as justice and righteousness. Which means what we have separated out as personal vs. social is in the biblical view the same thing. So justice is just as much about the restoration of who we are to that original goodness of God’s intention as it is about social transformation. Likewise one cannot separate individual transformation from social transformation. If you want to be whole, you must also work to make our society and world whole.

So where do we begin? Like so many things of faith, it hard to point to a beginning point. We are already on the journey. We begin by asking where are you now. What are the needs of the people around you? Where is there a need for reconciliation and healing? Where have you or your community been given gifts to help others? Where does your passion guide you?

It also begins with perspective. It is one of the great practices of faith to look at people differently. To look at each person you come across, especially the least, the last and the lost, not as some bum, but rather as Christ. There is Christ sleeping on that bench. There is Christ going hungry, there is Christ holding her dead child with a bullet in his head. There is Christ. Then slowly we begin to see God. God in all creation, not brining forth destruction, but rather walking in our destruction urging and inviting us to healing and new life.

It begins in action. In having a cup of coffee with a person from the wrong side of what ever. It is in writing a letter, or even speaking with a person in power. It is in dancing and crying with people who suffer. It is about saying no and not buying. It is in voting and it is in giving and it is in walking and not driving. It is in us being called to be Christ to others, offering not just water and food, but a shared hand on a shared journey and standing together against the many who would rather destroy and consume.

There are so many who yearn for such healing. To be apart of that love which speak truth to power and greets the broken with healing. Many are in churches. There are so many, who work so hard to make a vision of justice the vision of the church. So often now though churches instead of enabling get in the way. They marginalize those who walk with the ones on the margins. They protect institutions over people, emphasize structures over compassion, and turn their heads and resources from what could transform. In the process what is forgotten is that salvation means healing and Jesus came “to bring good news to the poor. To proclaimed release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind and to let the oppressed go free” Maranatha.

Digging a Little Deeper – Theology I

The United Church of Canada did an interesting survey lately. They wanted to find out why people in their 20’s and 30’s weren’t going to church. So like any self-respecting large organization they responded with a survey. The responses they got are important. While I don’t have the survey, what I was told it said was that folks my age basically saw the church as arrogant, that it wouldn’t listen, excluded, it didn’t address relevant issues Etc. What shocked the United Church was that they found out that all churches were seen this way equally including the United Church. Now the quick church reaction is to start blaming society and their depiction of church. If we want to go deeper though we need to look at ourselves. An important place to start is how we do theology.

Theology is foundational to the church. Basically theology is how we understand God. Thus for a church almost everything else flows from this. Now what precisely theology is about and how theology has been done is something that has changed greatly over the history of Christianity. I would also argue that in modernity, with its systematic or Word of God theology, it has gone horribly wrong.

There are several ways of approaching this question. Today I will begin with a little bit of history, just so that we can get the framing of the question right. I will write more, and more constructively about the possibilities later.

The beginnings of a distinctly Christian theology began simply with Jesus’ life and teachings and the experience of his disciples that came out of their encounter with Christ. There is perhaps no more important point about how theology is to be done then what is wrapped up in this. Theology did not begin with doctrine. Jesus did not provide a treatise first, rather while walking along the Sea of Galilee he simply asked his first disciples to come and follow him. The encounter and the invitation to follow came first, in the context of which Jesus taught. Likewise one of the first great theologian writing mystics of the Christian faith, Paul, did not begin his Christian life by being convince by doctrine, no he got blinded and knocked off his horse by an encounter with Christ. The encounter came first. Paul’s theology then flowed from this encounter, not as some explication of eternal knowledge, but rather as proclamation of as well as pastoral guidance in the Gospel for specific communities.

While it was not long before early theologians began to adopt the universalizing tendencies of neo-platonic Greek philosophy. Early Christian theology retained the basic principles of proclamation of the Gospel and guidance. Many of the early theologians were engaged in apologetics, that is they were defending the faith and justifying it to their culture. Likewise much of what we have from the early theologians are in fact letters and sermons intended for the guidance of their flocks. While it was important to set limits to what the Christian faith said, at its heart early Christian theology was not about expounding a final truth (something almost unthinkable at the time), as it was about leading people into the mystery of God. It was one of the characteristics of the thought of the founders of early orthodoxy that deeper they went into their contemplation of their theology the more they encounter the unknowing of God. As Athanasius of Alexandria (one of the key founders of orthodoxy) wrote

“For the more I desire to write, and endeavored to force myself to understand the Divinity of the Word, so much the more did the knowledge thereof withdraw itself from me; and in proportion as I though that I apprehended it, in so much I perceived myself to fail in doing so. Moreover, I was also unable to express in writing even what I seemed to myself to understand; and what I wrote was unequal to the imperfect shadow of the truth which existed in my conception” (Against the Arians, Preface pg. 25, col.693B)

What is also important to note that early Christianity resisted the attempt to create one version of Christianity. One of the reasons for rejecting Gnosticism was precisely its claim that there was one version of the gospel that was only known by a select elite and even secret group. The early claims about the apostolicity of the church came long before Rome’s claim for a singular monopoly. The early claims, against Gnosticism, for the apostolicity were a argument for a faith that was publicly available to all through twelve different version and telling of the story instead of a faith which was in secrete revealed in its full truth to just one. Likewise attempts to harmonize the gospels into one consistent version was also strongly rejected with the result that Christianity still has four different and often conflicting versions of the gospels and it is still in the midst of this conflicting diversity that it is claimed God is revealed.

The desire to have one complete truth began to move from the margins of Christianity to its core with Emperor Constantine. Constantine has a serious problem. He has used his military might and political skill to unite what had become a divided Roman Empire racked by civil war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I). Military might can not rule a people alone, there needs to be a common ideology which can bind the mind and souls of people together. In the days before CNN and Fox news religions was the most powerful ideological force. Constantine chose Christianity to be that force for his empire. While I won’t question the sincerity of his own faith, it was his imperial needs and resources which brought about an important transformation.

Christianity at that time was both diverse and filled with internal debate. For it to be the imperial ideology that diversity needed to be over come. It was out of this need that Constantine used the resources of the empire to bring together the leaders of the Christian faith for the council of Niceae from which we get the Nicene creed. Now I have problems believing that the Nicene creed was a creation of the emperor. The reality was that the people Constantine gathered were people who had on countless times risked their own life and faced severe persecution for their faith. It is hard that when faced with the comforts of the empire they suddenly went, yea what ever that emperor guy says. In fact the stories of the council indicate it was a ruckus affair (my favorite story is of St. Nicolas (yep the Christmas guy) punching out one of the people he disagreed with (yea, not always so jolly)). What is also important is that the Nicene creed, while setting limits to what was to be considered orthodoxy, continued to allows a wide diversity of belief and understanding to exist within its broad confines. What was created though was the beginning of an understanding that the Christian church could name a singular truth with words. Instead of truth being in Christ and the Mystery of God, which our words proclaimed and guided people towards, what began to develop was the understanding that the words of the church were the truth. This concept was still in its infancy. It would take over a thousand years for this to develop.

So not to bore you, I will speed through a lot of history. Basically it would take the fall of Rome, the rise of the Roman pope, the Gregorian reforms and the great skims between West and East to begin to cement the understanding that the church as an institution held the truth (that was quick 700 years). Still what is important to note was that in the middle ages the main theological textbook remained (and studied by greats such as Aquinas and Luther) not a book of final official doctrine but rather Peter Lombard’s Sentences.

This is an ineradicably important book. Not only was it one of the first attempts to pull together the major topics of theology in to a systematic order it is important in how it did this. What Lombard did was simply bring together what scripture had to say along with what many of the Church Fathers had to say. Since these did not always agree, while occasionally giving his own resolution, most often he simply left the differences. What is also interesting is that this text is divided, first into books, but then subdivided under “questions”

It is also important that Thomas Aquinas, probably the first great systematic theologian wrote his work, not as a final answer to theology, but rather as an attempt to make theology easier to understand (yes I know ironic isn’t it). Then while saying the Mass during of the feast of St. Nicholas he had an experience of God which led him to tell his long time secretary that he could write no more “All that I have written seem like straw to me”. (perhaps one of his most profound theological insights – and his writings out class almost all).

With Luther, standing on the theological revival that grew out of the medieval universities, reach a new high of importance as his insight that we are justified by grace, through faith, and not by works, became the standard which both reformed and split the Western Church. What is important to note though is that Luther was not standing in the tradition of setting out the whole truth, rather his theological work was in the ancient tradition of setting the boundaries outside of which we have lost the core of the gospel. For Luther this core was the God of Love and Grace revealed at the heart of scripture. The rest of his writings, like Paul and many before, were not treatise of truth, but rather writings from a pastor seeking to guide and encourage his flock with every word he could muster both kind and brutal. As such they are wonderfully inconsistent, but deeply passionate.

Another movement was a foot at the time of Luther. Modernity had begun and with it, its turn towards the subject as knower. It is important to note that modernity is in many ways an outgrowth of the church’s own claim to knowledge. It is quite simple, when you have someone claiming that they have the truth, even if you wrap it up with armies, and spectacular architecture, instructions, liturgies (the ancient versions of ominous music and scary graphics) and claims to speak from the tradition and the apostles and Jesus himself, eventually someone is going to say to the persons in the funny hat proclaiming these things “I have read those fathers and scriptures” or “I actually took a look at those planets and moons” “I am quite sure that you are not saying the truth” And once someone has said they have the truth (even if they have a funny hat) it doesn’t take lone before someone else without the hat will start saying that they have the truth and we have the modern turn to the subject.

On one side we had those who didn’t quite turn to the subject, but instead began seeking a truth that seemed to be a part of the world and from that science arose. On the other hand we had those who thought that they themselves could know the truth. With that both modern philosophy but also in one of the great irony’s of Christian theology, something called protestant orthodoxy arose.

Instead of approaching the mystery of God, or guiding people as they walked with God, people began to claim that their understanding of God was in fact the truth. And as the reformers began fighting over who’s version of the truth was in fact THE TRUTH, the reformation began to tear itself apart and soon began adopting the practices of the Roman church which the reformation had fist sought to reform. You guessed it burnings, imprisonments war and the like – not very gospel like.

In theology a transformation happened. Folks started believing that they could know enough of the truth so that they could logically combine the elements of theology into a system whose coherence (it logical unity) would define its truth. Modern systematic theology was born. (Systematic philosophy soon followed but it largely collapsed after its height in Hegel in the 19th century). Others followed modernity’s correspondence epistemology and they began to say that their theology corresponded or was equivalent to God’s truth and The Word of God theologies flourished.

Now many of the masters of these forms of theology make no such claim. This is largely because it doesn’t take much depth of study to realize the foolishness of such claims. The popular impacts were vast though. Faith was transformed from being understood as trust in God, to instead meaning the belief in particular doctrines. Luther’s Justification by grace soon became in practice justification (salvation) by having the correct beliefs. To this day their remain churches which proclaim that if you don’t have the right beliefs you are going to hell. Similarly people also began to oddly proclaim the infallibility of the bible, which has always really been a claim of the infallibility of their particular understanding of the bible (the bible has too much depth for anyone to claim they have it right).

What is also important are the effects this has had on our clergy and our churches. Instead of training our pastors in the skills of being attentive to the presence and movement of God in people’s lives and how to guide both individuals and communities in this life of the spirit, we have taught them to know doctrines. While doctrine is important as a guide, the ability to quote an answer to any particular question is not theology, it is historical research. More importantly it has distracted our pastors and our churches from the needs and questions of people’s lives, and from developing skills in walking with them to instead spend most of their training memorizing history. I would even say that in re-orientating many people to a realm of theology that exists as a truth some how separate from the world, we crippled our ability to respond to the needs of the people and our communities right in front of us.

This perhaps can explain the strange spectacled that while our world face ecological disaster and a growing food crisis which could push hundreds of millions more in to hunger and even starvation, both of which have been fed by our consumerist culture, our churches spend massive amounts of their attention on whether to pray for God’s presence in the lives of two people who love each other.

Thank God that this is beginning to change. Contextual theology and classes in spirituality have returned again to the seminary. Still the basic structures of seminary education remain ones designed for memorization and reciting instead of practice of the art of walking with.

I also shudder to think about the confirmation classes and bible studies where the main task is still filling in pre-determined blanks, instead of walking into the questions.

Even with the signs of overcoming our modern self indulgence and once again discovering what theology is about we also stand at a point where many have been cut off from the deep tradition of theology, that is walking into the mystery of God. We have also forgotten that it is not the answers, but the questions which lead us into God.

No wonder people find the church arrogant and say that it doesn’t listen. For centuries now we have been quite assured that we have the truth and we have become very practiced at proclaiming it. It is time again to relearn the virtue of humility. Once again our challenge is to find ways of walking with people into our questions. We have to again learn that the deepening of theology leads us not to answers but encounters beyond words. Once again we have to learn how we can come to see and experience the grace and love of God which is already amongst us. We have to again learn how to truly do theology.

That will require that we come to a new/old understanding of what theology is about and how we come to know God. That though is for another day. I am amazed at anyone who read this far today – I know my own attention span on the web is rarely that long.

From Former to Searching

Many apologies to anyone who has tried to get on this lately and hasn’t been able to. After some advice that I needed to consider and with the need of finalizing some legalities I briefly restricted access to it. I will write about this later.

For now I want to write about a small change on this blog. I changed former pastor to a searching pastor. I must also admit that I really don’t know what word to use. People’s response to me over the last several days has encouraged me to reconsider whether I truly want to publish former, at least at this point. Also the reality is that calling is something deep, it is hard to just walk away even when almost every fiber of your being and many of the people who love you are wanting you to.

Don’t let anyone fool you. Each of us have a calling. Just take the time to look. What is it that when you do it, it most fully expresses who you are? What is the point where your deepest desires meet the world’s need? That would be your calling. And “your’s” isn’t quite right. Being called is not something private, it come from both God. I thought, and it was affirmed by many, that I had found that in the position I was terminated from. Mmmm . . .

For me thought whether I am called to the church is a serious question for me. The reality is that I have now been repeatedly beat up by the church. Each time those in power in the church protected my accusers and attackers. Each time those who made the accusations were protected from making them directly, each time the accusations were left vague and highly personal, each time when the accusers and accusations where invited to come into the open and be substantiated they melted away. Once the damage was done. Each time the church has protected my accusers and then told me how much they loved me. The nice thing about having a psychiatrist as a wife is that she will call things as they are. What she said to me was “You have to realized that this is an abusive relationship, and if you were one of my clients I would be working to help you see that you need to get out of this relationship.” What saddens me is that I know that I am not alone in my experience.

How many others are there lying around who have been deeply wounded, while the church protects those who wounded them? Just ask all the people in Boston about this, or anywhere else.

The proper answer is that "the church is a sinful institution like any other human institution." . . . I don’t think that this is an adequate answer any more. Much for the same reason I don’t like the answer that the church’s problems began with Constantine, it might express some truth, but its vagueness protects us from addressing the deeper issues and working to change what isn’t working. We must begin to seriously ask the question of why does the church actively hurt and destroy people while protecting the perpetrators? Why do people find the church blocking their encounter with God instead of facilitating it? Why does the church repeatedly become a place of oppression instead of liberation? Why do churches close their doors to the hurt of the world around them? Why does the church devour those called to serve it? What can we learn that which heals, builds faith, gives hopes, and realizes justice both in and outside of the church? There are no simple answers here.

This is why I am left searching. The quick answers are rarely complete. That is why there is a need for open dialogue, for probing questions, for creating a space where people can speak and freely be wrong. Instead of offering vague generalities, we need to search together. We need to gather and start digging together in the muck of what has crippled us. We need to keep at it. No nice set of strategic directions or mission statement developed over a weekend, no matter how eloquent will do. What we need are the shovels of open discourse, and deepening questions that will help us dig down to the roots of what has been choking us.

This is one reason for this bog. Please take nothing here as a final answer. I make no claims to be right, I am just searching, and I expect to be wrong. So if you see that I am wrong post a comment and let me know. It is not a monologue of perfect speech that will allow us to figure our way out of this mess, it is rather the conversation amongst friends, with all its imperfections, and misspeaking, need for apologies, but also moments of clarity and solidarity and insight that will help us not only get out of this mess, but figure out where God is calling.

As for me it is still an open question. Is it worthwhile any more to put one's life into serving the church?
As a friend of mine wrote (quite insightfully)

"those of us who've remained loyal to our institutions or denominations are putting our credibility on the line, by asking others to recognize the value of organizations that are so obviously dysfunctional, and often at cross-purposes with our Christian vocation."

Enough said, time for some searching.

Where Did It Go Wrong?

This is a question that has been following me lately. And I don’t just mean concerning my work. (I am still convinced that it was going pretty well, always in need of improvement, but pretty well). I am thinking much more about Christianity in the West.

Now the church has never been nor will it ever be perfect. It is a human institution. Yet these stories speak of an institution that has both in its history and in its current expression come to more often then not inflict pain instead of bring healing and destroy faith instead of build it up. What does it mean when, as one of my friends wrote “I am more moved by the people in and around me than I have ever been by any of the churches I have attended. In fact, when I attend a church, more often than not, I leave feeling lonely, frustrated, irritated and sometimes angry.”

Now I can tell you what the standard answer is. It is that when Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and as it became a religion of empire much of the core of Christianity was lost. It is a good answer. Like most answers that fit into a sentence, while expressing some truth, it also covers up most of the truth and distracts us from digging into the specifics.

After being tossed out like a piece of garbage by the “Bishop” and I was walking home one phrase kept running through my head so I will share it.

“To understand the end of something you must understand its beginning and growth. For our endings are often foreshadowed in our birth and growth. Like wise if you take the time to understand a things death. You have the chance to see the foreshadowing of its resurrection”

What does it mean? Good question, if you can tell me I would appreciate it. Christianity as it has been in the west is dieing. Perhaps if we look to its beginning we might begin to see more clearly why.

Over the last couple of days, as person after person has been phoning me and e-mailing me to offer their support and encouragement, I have been also been hearing something else from many of them, tale after tale about how the church had severely hurt them or someone they knew. It breaks my heart. It is also important because it tells us that people are not leaving the church from laziness or because they have become too materialistic (more standard answers usually given by church folks) many are leaving because they have been profoundly hurt by the very things which has been called to bring healing.

So often at the heart of these tales I have heard is that these people were not treated with the dignity they deserve. Treating peope with dignity was one of the truly amazing things about Christ. Jesus went along and made friends with anyone. I am sure you know the list, Fishermen, soldiers, beggars, Roman collaborators, prostitutes, the wealthy, revolutionaries and even religious folks. What was amazing, was that all of those things which socially defined people as social things, were striped away and instead the person was encountered as they were. They were treated not only with dignity, but a piece of healing occurred. What is amazing in reading the gospel is that it wasn’t just one way. In one of the most amazing stories of the Gospels, the story of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7) or its retelling as the Canaanite woman (Mathew 15) Jesus is actually taught by this foreign woman. Now the commentators have tried to cover this up, but the text makes it clear. The dignity each person has is not the dignity of one deserving help, no it is instead the dignity of one in whom God dwells and in whom God is revealed.

 

It is from this that the ancient tradition of hospitality grew. Each person, each stranger, was to be welcomed and treated as if they were angles, messengers from God. More importantly each person was to be treated, especially the least of these, as if they are Christ, the very coming of God into the world. These are not just pious words; rather this is a call to one of the deep practices of faith. It is one of the mysteries of faith, that Christ is not only present in those you least expect, but revealed and comes to us through those we least expect.

How have we responded?  We chase each other away. We dismiss people as thinking they are entitled, or ignorant or more likely we ignore them. More often then should ever be we reach out not to heal, but to hurt.  And perhaps one of our greatest crimes has been that we have placed our institutions and our rules and our policies ahead of people. We ignore the pain of those whom God brings to us and in the process we ignore the revelation of God they live.

And we are surprised that the church is dieing. God has come to us, walked in our midst, asked for our care and instead we held meetings and made motions, set policies and defended tradition and truth. In the process we have felt both right and righteous. Were we not defending the truth and good order?

With great wisdom, many are now looking for God. They have learned not to look amongst the right and the righteous. Their own souls bear the marks of the lashes, dare I say even the nails that have been used to defend and proclaim the truth. God is amongst the wounded. May we all learn to see God there. 

 

 

 

True Signs of Hope

I want to tell you about a few places where I have seen hope lately. The other day a friend of mine took me out for lunch and a beer. Sign of hope one, friends who will take you out for a beer when you are having a rough time. What amazed me though was what Tony was doing. Tony is supper busy. He works a job that is far more then full time. On top of that he is the youth worker at the church I attended. On top of that he helps out with the Lutheran Urban Mission and on top of that he is on his neighborhood board, and on top of that decided to start a volleyball league for inner-city kids. A few local pastors (nope, no Lutheran ones) gave him some money for uniforms etc. So he put up some posters. And guess what 26 kids showed up. Tony is a volleyball coach and so he put them through the ropes and he coached them like he would any one else. Guess what these kids, kids that I am sure other people write off or are even afraid of, loved it. Tony told me about how they worked and played and responded to his coaching like the best of them. Well because they were. Tony – another sign of hope.

 

After lunch with Tony I went to a coffee shop that I had been to once before. Mondragon. The last time I was there I stop off because it had the same name as a town where a friend of mine comes from in France. That time I had my head buried in our national convention docket. This time as I was walking in I had a great conversation with a man sitting on the steps. He was homeless, and sat there with his toothbrush in hand. He told me how he had come back to Winnipeg after the winter and how he love the place especially this coffee shop. He told me how great the people were. And one by one as people would come in they would greet this man by name. Something rarely seen in any church I have been in. Then inside it was equally fascinating. Mondragon is a workers co-op. In other words those people serving coffee, they owned the place together. My goodness the service was great. Better yet there was a book store at the back on about every justice issue you could think of. Talk about a fabulous resource center. The washrooms even had signs on them explaining why there weren’t the usual man and women signs. They reminded the person entering that people identify themselves in different ways, people understand themselves in different ways and if something small can be done like taking away those male and female stick people signs, well they didn’t have a committee, they simply removed them.  Then before I was going I struck up a conversation with a women reading a book on post-colonial theory. An interest of mine and I hadn’t seen the book before. It turns out she was doing her PhD in English. In that short conversation she even taught me a thing or too about early modern English.

 

So there is a sign of hope. A place where workers work together to create a just work environment where each person who works there is an owner and they cooperate. A place where the homeless man on the front step is not chased away but greeted by name while he proclaim the gospel of the place and welcomes people in. A place where brokenness of the world is given a place and knowledge about the issues and how to address it is there for people to learn. A place where not only are the homeless welcome but people working on the PhD’s as well and they are welcome to share the best of what they have learned. A place where even the bathrooms make sure that everyone feels welcome. If you want to see the kingdom of God, I found a coffee shop where it shimmers through. 

Oh and the "Signs of Hope" name, yep one more thing from the work I did. Taken and being used by the church that tossed me out.  

It Ends and it Begins

Like many new beginnings this one starts with an ending. Last Friday the Bishop walked into my office and she told me that she was letting me go.  I was told it was for financial reasons. The irony was that I and my team had just increased giving by over 12% or $130,000. There was more then enough room in the budget in many places.  In the past I had even tried repeatedly to tell her about ways that we could raise not just finances, but in the process communicate the mission of the church and invite people to be a part of it. Each time though I was shut down. Also ironically  just before the Bishop had come into my office I had been working with one of the people I supervised and she was telling me about how she was becoming passionate about the work of justice and caring for others. I was overjoyed. To add insult to injury I had just been reviewing the Bishop's presentation which she will be giving at our synod conventions which she had sent to us for feedback, it lifts up precisely what I taken the lead on developing a national homelessness initiative and our national Stewardship of Creation Initiative.  For years I have given my life to serve the church because I had faith that through it healing could come to our broken world. What I have seen over that time is a mixture of the sheer beauty of some of the loving and committed people who still dare to live in the hope of what the church could be. I have also seen so much which speaks of the churches utter corruption, its loss of vision and most sadly, it has forgotten at its very heart what God has called it to be. For the last year and a half I was invited to help one small church remember. Then I was viciously tossed away like a piece of garbage. I am left with unspeakable pain. 

I am also born to a reforming tradition. I am a person God has called and God's people have called me.  What I have seen leads me to honesty say, the church has lost its way. It has chosen again and again to destroy God's children instead of building them up. It has become for centuries now been not the liberator of the oppressed, but oh so often  the oppressor and that which distracts people from justice and their healing. Most importantly it is a church which has forgotten how to listen. 

Now I, like so many others of my generation, I am leaving the church. I am leaving not out of indifference, but because I have faith in God and because I not only believe that God is a God of justice and compassion I have walked with this God all my life. 

Now like may God has called in the past I have been called to wander. To seek God and to follow. This blog is my attempt to share the wandering with others, so that perhaps we might be able to wander together to find a place were we can again gather as a people; encounter the living God; to honestly talk of our journeys and shared God's healing love in the world.  God is around us, among us, and with in us.  Maranatha, Maranatha.