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?