Missional Monday: Pseudo-Spirituality

I had been warned! I had been warned by many that seminary would kill my spiritual life. But it is not the only thing that can. There are numerous pseudo-spiritualities that lull us into a way of life that only mirrors a vibrant life with Christ, but is in reality only a dim reflection.

A friend recently reflected with me about his struggle with the pseudo-spirituality of seminary life, where it is easy to think that reading Genesis 1-50 (in one sitting!) is simultaneously homework and devotion. Where one reads Trinitarian theology for 5 hours and allows oneself to claim the time as also a contemplative practice of union with God. But sadly, this is not the case, and seminary life can all too easily fall into pseudo-spirituality.

But unfortunately seminary is not the only place this occurs. Parenting can turn into pseudo-spirituality as we think teaching our children about God, or living as examples of Christ can replace our own struggle and practices of living in Christ. Pastoral ministry of all kinds (vocational or not) can fall into pseudo-spirituality. Leadership meetings, discipleship times, counseling prayer, hospital visitations, or sermon preparation can all lend themselves as spiritual practices of a kind, and it is tempting to allow them to replace disciplined time with Christ. Likewise, social action and community service, with all the time it demands and the concerns it generates can function as a pseudo-spirituality. The list could go on.

Now I’m certainly not saying all the above have no part in forming a vibrant life with Christ. That would be absolutely wrong. But rather the reverse. That all these must be fundamentally connected to Christ, and should never act as a replacement, but rather as an extension of living with Christ.

Here at Life on the Vine, we seek to “live in Christ, with one another, for God’s mission in the world.” But I must remember that I can’t allow living in community or the practices of mission to become the center of my spiritual life because then caring for/being with other and living the gospel life transforms into a pseudo-spirituality. Rather, “living in Christ” is the center that is not a center, because it permeates all things, for it is only by His Spirit that I can do all the others.

So what other forms of Pseudo-Spirituality have you been tempted by?

Missional Monday: Don't Reify "Helping the Poor"

I know that I am guilty of this at some level. But I'm really stuck. I, and many at Life on the Vine, are both concerned for the poor locally and globally. And that is the rub. You see, I'm concerned about not participating in poverty creating or exploitative economic practices, and therefore try as best I can to purchase ethically manufactured clothes, shoes, food, etc. I believe that every dollar I use to purchase something is not only related to that product, but circulates far beyond through economic practices/companies/regimes that I may or may not want to be affiliated with. For those reasons I support places like No Sweat, Autonomie Project, and Toms.

Now I don't think that is missed placed concern at all, but I also know the temptation to reify my concern for the poor in these concerns for exploitation free economics. Being missional is certainly not to stand on the heads of global workers by buying designer jeans while we go out to a local coffee shops or bars and drink a designer coffee or beer. But that is not enough. We still need to seek out the poor locally and not congratulate ourselves merely for supporting local economics (as good and right as that is).

So, anyway, that is what I'm trying to remember here in the northwest suburbs of Chicago.

when pushing the envelope, don’t destroy the letter.

Many of us in the emerging church or missional conversations can become wary, disillusioned, and disappointed with the church. It moves so slowly. It changes imperceptibly. It squashed innovation ruthlessly (unless it is innovation of basically the same thing). Many times it seems that we can’t break out of the status quo without a serious jolt, a shock to the system, a dramatic upheaval.

And this is where we come in. The “we” of missional change. The “we” of emerging openness. The “we” of prophetic pronouncement. The “we” that wants to look back on our lives and know that “we” were on the side of history, of a great revolution, for God’s kingdom against the status quo of mere churchiness. And so “we” come to push the envelope. But often when “we” are pushing the envelope “we” end up destroying the letter. In the effort of tearing down walls we end up building new ones. Often we fail to accomplish what we set out to do, and lose ourselves and our relationships over an ideal.

But Paul, even in the midst of his immense frustration with the church in Corinth, needing to push all the envelopes and buttons to get them back in line, still could say and live:

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Cor. 3:2-3)

Because letters written on hearts are from Christ, the ministries and individual which pushes the envelop in the name of Christ must take care not to destroy those letters in the process. Our zeal is no excuse for running over people and communities. So, when you are pushing the envelope, be sure you don't destroy the letter.

Science Fiction Friday: How Will The World End?

So this summer I read A Canticle for Leibowitz, and loved it. It is a post-apocalypic novel about the monks of St. Leibowitz who preserve the "memorabilia" of the previous (our) lost civilization, destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. The novel works its way through three different time periods as new generations grapple with the lost sciences and their eventual recovery. It is just brilliant. When Walter E. Miller wrote the novel in 1960, the threat of nuclear war was on everyone's mind. But now, are we really going to blow everything to kingdom come, or will world end in a different manner?

I have a sense that it will end differently, and not out of fear of other humans. It no doubt will still be motivated out of fear. But fear of what?

Here is my idea. What if we immunized ourselves to death out of fear of some pandemic? Really, what if we, in trying to create a vaccine, for say the swine flu, we ended creating some killer strain that wipes out 3/4ths of the world population. I'm talking about the scale of 12 Monkeys (great movie!) or 28 Days Later. I'm just wondering because I have heard rumors that we are headed toward the possibility of forced vaccines if the swine flu truly does escalate (here, here, and a video here), and what if it backfires or instead causes the pandemic.

To add fuel to the fire, below is a hip-hop version of an anti-vaccine announcement. it is pretty fun and somewhat informative (well, maybe). But it still makes one think. Also, if you are interested, you can choose your own apocalypse (at least for America).




But let me know how you think the world will end. Or rather, what do the bowls and scrolls of Revelation contain?

On building walls

So I'm preaching this week on living together in Christ, and I need your help. What keeps us from living in the peace of Christ, the peace that IS Christ himself? What breaks up the unity of the Spirit in believers?

I'll be preaching on Eph. 2:11-22, of which 2:14 says, "For [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility." Compare it to Robert Frost's "Mending Wall", where the speaker acts like he is against walls, but still keeps mending them all the same (see commentary here, text below). But please let me know what you think is the reason for the Church to typically not live in the peace of Christ.

“Mending Wall”
by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Missional Mondays: On not being so bad at b-ball

So this Labor Day weekend was full of sports (no, not just watching them), which means I had a great time of it. I got several games of volleyball in (and found out my cousin has mad skills). Then I played a bunch of corn hole, or as the capitalist Man calls it, Baggo (trademark). But to top it off, a couple high school guys call up to see if I wanted to play basketball with them. And so I just go back from playing some pick up ball down at the local middle school.

I had mentioned earlier about it being good missionally to be bad at something, but thankfully tonight I wasn't so bad (even though one team of polish guys killed us!). But it was really great because I was able to meet this college student, Denis, who is studying philosophy and sociology at NIU. And it just happens that I also studied philosophy in undergrad, and so we were able to talked about philosophy and religion, and little about his aspiration for law school.

Anyway, just briefly, this is a reminder that hobbies in the flow of life are the great beginnings of a missional lifestyle...always getting in the way of people so that they might stumble into the Way. Here is a great summary about ways to get in the way: 8 Easy Way to Be Missional.

Sci-Fi Friday: Cybor-Pirate-Ninja Jesus

So it is the first week of school, and I didn't have time for a real post about compelling Science Fiction, so I went the Sci-Fi route of bad christian jokes.

For me, this is how not to engage middle school boys.

Aninalic Theology?

Ok, now I know this is a bit of a rant, but really, do we need to be SO ORGANIC, or rather ANIMALIC in our theology? We all want to exhibit Organic Leadership, but now we have jumped from biology to zoology. I starfish and spiders (the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations) have become all the rage. But do we really need to learn about The Monkey and the Fish, or The Rabbit and the Elephant. Sometimes a marketing ploy just gets out of control. And frankly, humans don't organize like animals (even if they are just used analogously).

Science Fiction Friday: Mourning the Loss of...

...my time, first of all, for having seen Knowing (2009) and totally regretted it. I never like Nicholas Cage (except in Next which was clever), so I should have known. But is wasn't so much the bad acting, but the totally contrived nature of the plot, attempting to pit faith against science, and then aliens who are really angels (?), and then them taking children to be a new Adam and Eve on another planet before Earth is consumed by fire. IT IS TERRIBLE!!! It is bad sci-fi which neither tells us anything meaningful about ourselves or the world, and baits Christians along the way (shame on followers of Christ if they get sucked in--Hollywood is just taking your money by putting a picture of Ezekiel into a poorly written script).


I'm also mourning the loss of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, a low budget Fox show that I was quite pleased with because it new what it was and didn't try to do too much. It raised more interesting questions about time travel, the inner life of a cyborg (Cameron, which Jon secretly loved, and Miss Weaver, a rouge T:1000 who seems to work against Skynet), and how one lives with knowing the future...it raise these better than the newest Terminator movie (which does not even deserve a link!). It was also very creative in its writing and plot development without over-extending itself like Lost. But alas, it is cancelled and now there is no good science fiction on TV (i don't have cable), and Heroes doesn't count even though I watch it. Perhaps I should watch the Dollhouse...

The Art of Losing

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like like disaster.

We are all marked by loss, by losing things, people, places. Humanity is marked by being able to lose things and yet not to forgotten them. The trick is to learn to lose well, to live well amid the losses.

Or perhaps the trick is to reverse the process so that it is not a disaster, but a movement to green pasture. From the loss of a world that won't stay to a journey to one that won't leave.

Missional Mondays: Radicals or Missionals

Now this is just a question, so please help me out. It seems to me that much of missional theology comes from a more evangelical background, and much of a radical theology comes from the anabaptists. is that right?

Missional theology tends toward equipping the church to participate in the Mission of God by help it shed its heirarchical and institutional baggage, and engage in cultural studies. Radical theology tends toward practicing resistance to an idolatrous culture in a more overtly political and economic manner.

It would seem they both would benefit from a better integration and cross-pollination of ideas and practices (notice how I resisted saying 'conversation') to mutually reinforce one another. It seemed that for a while over the last couple of years that these two streams were flowing together, but I'm not as certain now.

What do you all think?

Science Fiction Friday: Series Re-boot

Now that I am hoping to blog more often I would like to resurrect or re-boot an older blog series: Science Fiction Fridays. I don't promise to write something every Friday, but I will try (and some will be updated re-posts).

Science Fiction vs. Sci-Fi: So, what is the difference between Science Fiction and Sci-Fi? (I'm basically using a distinction my cousin, Kevin Reed, proposed to me.)

Science Fiction: A form of social critique or investigation set in the future (distant or near), or set in the present amid highly anomalous circumstances. Science Fiction is what you see in Cyber-Punk books, the Dune series, and Philip K. Dick (and the movies based on his stories).

Basically, science fiction offers a utopian/distopian vision of the future as a critique of the present, and therefore is not supportive of the status quo (I also also Fantasy but that was going to make my series name too long, and I don't read/view as much of it).

Sci-Fi: Roughly state, Sci-Fi is strictly entertainment of the futuristic type (somewhere in space) or concerning dangerous scientific research (think Mutant X or X-Men), and it is not different than the status quo. Just about everything is Sci-Fi now on film and the tv; there are few view science fiction movies or tv show which actually critique rather than support the current system of thought.

So, basically, I want to commit to a regular reading of the difference between Science Fiction and Sci-Fi, in literature and film. Through this series I'll engage in ideological and theological critiques of the consumer american lifestyle in which I live and minister.

I have recently just finished The Sparrow, A Canticle for Liebowitz, and a border book, Foucault's Pendulum, all of which will receive some reflection, as well as some recent films.

But to get started, and to add to my reading/viewing list, what are your favorite science fiction books or movies? And why?

Missional Gibberish: On learning German and leading.

"Learning to read German is like constructing a jigsaw puzzle: the more pieces you have in place, the easier it is to fit in the final pieces." German Quickly

That is so true it is ridiculous! I need to read German for my doctoral program, and I am having so much trouble with it. But now it is finally getting easier. Unlike English grammar which is relatively straight forward (linear day I say), German grammar is more intuitive and loose (the pic is not a joke, it is reality!).

The same goes for much of missional theology. It is a jigsaw puzzle, a gestalt of pieces placed together which become comprehensible only when nearly finished. It is often hard to know where to start when describing it to people: "It has to do with theology...but really missiology, or rather, what Christ has accomplished on the cross, so that is soteriology, but not merely in a substitutionary-individualist sense...well, what I mean is God gathers us into his mission to save all creation, but we can't really do that unless we are in a concrete community...so really God is calling a people and that is what the cross is about..." Ever had that conversation? And we are still not even talking about what a missional church might look like!

The problem, though, that I've noticed is that often we missional leaders are so steeped in the missional grammar that we don't think it is confusing to talk like this, to talk as if we were speaking German. But just as often we loss the people we are supposed to be leading and then get frustrated that they don't see the big picture.

We must get in the habit of going back to the missional basics. Just because we are in advanced missional linguistics doesn't mean we neglect teaching our young leaders the basic missional grammar in clear, compelling language. If we don't, many of our lay leaders will start off excited albeit confused, and then continue being confused without being excited.

On being missionally bad at basketball

Now, just image how good these two guys would likely be while playing some street ball at a local park with mostly Latinos. Now you know just how bad I played tonight. Really bad...blown 6 foot jumpers and missed layups. I was terrible. But I love it. Playing basketball, which I picked up just last winter, fulfills a triple function in my life.

The first is that I need to stay in shape, but I hate exercising. I have to be competing to stay motivated to run around.

Second, it works out great that I hate exercising alone because I end playing a team sport, which means I get to mix it up with people from my neighborhood. Which means staying in shape is one of my missional activities. I've met two high schoolers at the park across the street, a bunch of graduates just starting out in their careers, and I get to play with the hidden minority here in Chicago (i.e. the Latinos). Hopefully soon I'll be hanging out at the local pub after games.

And it works out great that I'm not very good (I'm a slow, skinny, tall guy...so at least I'm good for rebounding). But its great because if you are friendly you can just ask for pointers on how to get better, and people love to play coach and teach you stuff. One of the best missional activities is not to offer help, but to ask for help.

And lastly, I think everyone, but especially pastors, and especially missional pastors, should have something that they are getting better at. Anything will do, even if it is not ministry related. I think people in ministry should discipline themselves to grow and master something they love as part of their continuing development, as a means of sharpening their lives, as well as relieving stress. It could model train building for all I care. Basically a hobby of some sort (but watching movies or sports does not count!). It was and still is music for me, but now bodily health, missional relationships, and personal development are running through basketball for me. Even if I'm a skinny white guy.

Mission activities that you plan in advance to be with strangers to the gospel are good (going to a regular hangout, being part of a food co-op, or whatever), but when you really love something and share it, then that itself will become actively missional. For me that is what basketball is right now, even though I embarrassed myself tonight.

No Sweat on Public Radio

The New Hampshire Public Radio has just run a story about No Sweat Apparel. Check it out.

Cyd and I have been buying shoes ans shirts from them for a while. Quality, well made stuff. And responsible too.

Hum...Politics

I'm very much looking forward to Obama's acceptance speech tonight. And seeing the reaction from various fronts.

It is good to be living into these moments.

And as a contrast, living into the Russo-Georgian 'war' also seema to be a moment in 21st century global politics. America might get its first Black President, and Russia shows the world that it is liable to invade a sovereign country on the basis of humanitarian compulsion (even though some think it is to protect its oil interests in the region) Oops, that sounds like some else.

"This is my blood" and the fruit of the earth

"I think that any sermon on the salvation of the soul, on love of the poor, any so-called eucharistic ritual, any evangelical discourse that doesn't concern itself with saving the earth and its natural resources, is perverted. How can certain men and women repeat the words "This is my body, this is my blood" over the fruit of the earth with out worrying about how long that earth will remain fruitful? What are these men and women talking about?"- Luce Irigaray (1983)

Wow. This is great. Personal salvation, corporate worship, and social action must coordinate with preservation of creation or it all equals non-sense. I'm all about the Eucharist, but this really put it in a different frame. I think I really should become a farmer to understand the gospel (and why did Jesus pick fishermen anyway when he's always talking agriculture?)

Christian Politics?

Some great posts on christian politics, or on not always as christian as we might think.

"Not Voting" as an Act of Christian Discernment- by Dave Fitch
Changing the Wind?- over at Jesus Manifesto
Advise Everyone...Endorse No One- by Shane Claiborne

Summertimes

Posting these days gets more difficult, esp. with learning German and working on some articles. Although I have set up a facebook account, finally, and mostly living through that cyber-portal.

Christian Liturgy #1: reading notes

(these are my reading notes for my Christian Liturgy Class)

In his essay, Kevin Irwin notes two types of liturgical theology: first, reflection on the meaning/significance of the liturgy, particularly the sacraments; second, using liturgy as a principle source for systematic theology. This dialogue is noted in the reciprocal relationship between lex orandi and lex credendi, where the prayers of the church are the material for theology, and theology can be a corrective to deficient prayer. To these two, current liturgical theology has added lex agendi, which is the performative experience of liturgy. These three must always work in critical relation.

Kilmartin, Christian Liturgy: I Theology and Practice, sets the stage with the scholastic definition: a sacrament is a sign instituted by Christ to confer the grace with it signifies. But this definition only makes sense in the context of salvation history, addressing humanity’s problem. Therefore a theology of the sacraments must address God’s activity in the world, human sinfulness, and most of all, be linked to the incarnation and life of Christ and his Church (6). This leads to the questions of divine initiative and faithful response of the Church. Against the neo-scholastic separation of created and uncreated grace, recent theology affirms the original grace of God as always orienting humanity toward God, through the sacraments and elsewhere. Also, against the neo-scholastic orientation of a passive reception of the liturgy, there has been a turn to active participation in the sacraments. Also, from the scholastic understanding that the sacraments happen within the church by qualified minister, a turn to sacraments as acts of the Church itself. Conclusding, in the liturgy, God addresses his people through Christ, who is still proclaiming his gospel to all people. In the liturgy, the assembly hears, receives, and responds in faith to the call of God.

The article, "How to Receive a Sacrament and Mean It," Karl Rahner deepens this perspective by initiating a Copernican revolution in sacramental understanding as being not a movement from the world to God and then a return to the world, but rather as the movement of the world to God. He begins by moving beyond old understading of grace, as Kilmartin explained it, and also by outline the liturgy of the world as salvation history, which always situates the narrower conception of liturgy. From here Rahner unfold that the efficacy of the sacraments is not added to the sign-character, but rather is found within themselves. Or rather, the causality is internal to the sacrament itself. This return to ancient tradition of the ‘real symbol’ allow Rahner to then speak of the Church as the ‘sacrament of salvation’ of the world (via Vatican 2), linked with his articulation of anonymous Christians. In this way, as the Church celebrates the sacraments, it is as a sign to the world, even without their participation, of the redemption of Christ.

Analysis:
Rahner returns to patristic source of sacraments as unity of sign and reality, but then applies the latter shifts of the corpus mysticum to this recovery (i.e. anonymous redeemed). It is only a half-turn to patristic source because it doesn’t identify church with Christ as his body as an ‘ontological symbolism’ but only a ‘real symbol’ linking Christ and world through the church as a sign.

Questions:
- Is ‘real symbol’ related to performative action, the perlocutionary aspect of language?
-How does Rahner’s view relate to the secularization thesis of Christianity, or an understanding of the ‘kenotic’ emptying of the Church into Culture?
-If the ancient tradition affirmed the combination of sign and reality, sign and cause, in the sacraments, they also affirmed there was no salvation outside of the Church. How is it that by recovering the formed, Rahner still denies the latter?