New Blog

I'm about to migrate most of my public blogging life over to a new and fascinating land. As with so much that I've done in the last few weeks, I am starting to make the transition from (generally) private citizen to public figure in the form of pastor. New-form blog is likely to be a bit more engaged, a bit more exegetical, a bit more rockstar. A bit more often updated. That kind of thing.

People have been asking me the last few weeks: "I hear you're not doing the Gospel thing anymore." It's true - that's a part of the move. I am taking on the form of a person whose nickname will be slightly less arrogant. There will always be a portion of my life - college and seminary, mostly, which will be grounded in my time as Gospel. But it's a new era, a new day - I am called to still be Gospel, to live out the Gospel, but not to be called by that name.

The purpose of this post, was, of course, to get me blogging while I thought about a name for the new blog, which I think I've now done. I'll have a weekly alarm, to be sure I get one a week out at least (something to do while I'm not doing job-search things), and I'll pop a link up here when it's ready. But for now, loyal readers (there are none of you, I know, but still), think on this - we are not always who we once were. We will be who we will be. We are who we are.

Brueggemann

The MRT and I were chatting through our homework for Isaiah class, and particularly going over our Brueggemann intro to Second Isaiah. She was distraught by an equation Brueggemann drew between Babylon and our modern consumer culture, and it took us a while to nail down why. Finally, it came down to the fact that we, as putative members of Brueggemann's Israel are also culpable in our exile. We were not captured - we have marched ourselves into captivity with shouts and singing. It does not necessarily change the responsibility of the Lord towards us - but it does mean that we cannot condemn Babylon with quite such vigor as the Israelites had some right to do - we took ourselves there.

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Job Search, Meet Bible

As I've been working on all of this job search nuttiness, I've been finding that I keep coming back to Philippians to talk about my ideal work environment. I keep catching myself writing stuff like "I would like to work in an environment in which we all go about 'of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind' " (Philippians 2:2). I want co-workers who aren't just co-workers, but someone who is "my brother and co-worker and fellow-soldier, your messenger and minister to my need" (Phil. 2:25). I want to work someplace where we all rejoice, just as Paul does in prison.

Now, luckily, I am looking for church jobs, so I can sort of get away with it. And there are worse places to look for models for Christian fellowship and fellow-work than Philippians, so it's not really bad news. Just intriguing.

Where do y'all like to quote in your resumes?

Planning

I've been planning services an awful lot lately. I volunteered to do monthly Taize services at Smirk Church for the year - I also have monthly preludes for Sunday worship there. I'm preaching there next month. And I find that every worship experience I encounter, I analyze and pick it apart - the benefits of taking a series of worship classes.

So when I had a skull session with the Seminary chaplain and music director this afternoon, it was surprising to me that I still had a little bit of a thrill making all the pieces fit - the anthem, the psalm, the hymns...the whole array just sort of collapsed into place.

That gratitude post - the key theme of the service - will wait for another day, but suffice it to say, as I struggle to revive this blog...it's always a blessing to recall that I was called to this crazy job.

Graven Images

I love when smart people ask pointed questions about emotionally charged claims that other people make. It's fun to watch - fun to read, and it's good for America.

It's troubling, though, when they do it badly. When i found this one on HuffPost, I had high hopes. Let's talk about idolatry, I thought. Unfortunately, the author blew it, giving up on the gentle condemnations we need, and lifting up "freedom" as our new God...yet another idol, carved from our own social ideology.

This is the real message of the Second Commandment for our lawmakers and our society: God is God. Whatever else you'd like to pretend is God is not. Not the free market. Not the environment. Not even the Bible is God. God is God, and we are not. Humility is the true message of the commandment, and it's one I think we could all use as a reminder now and again.

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Back in Gear

So. I'm vacuuming at work, just as we're closing. And I'm thinking, for whatever reason, about my customers that day. Many nations. Many cultures. Many ways of thinking, each of which is represented and explored by some of my product (I sell videogames now, parttime). But, I think with a rush of pride, this is what's cool about America. Room for every culture, and room for every gens on earth. And we (the "old" Americans, be they black, white, or brown), lap it up. People go out for pho and Thai noodles and Ethiopian food, and we celebrate the best elements (in food especially, but in philosophy as well) of every culture that has taken up residence in this great nation of ours.

And then I wonder. What are the "best" elements? Are they inherently good? Or are they situationally good? That seems sensible. Culture responds to environment and need. If you can't get just the stuff you need for the religious festival, you make do with what you have. Eventually, that becomes the tradition - culture is adaptive. So the "best" elements that America absorbs are those that function best, and for which there is most need. From there it's easy to extrapolate - the only inherently "good" thing about the American cultural ethos is its willingness to adapt (read: steal) culture from other peoples. There is no really "worthy" or "precious" American value (which is completely uniquely American) except the pursuit of the useful value.

Well, I thought, how does this apply to religion? Religion is the corporate or communal response to the experience of the divine (Johnstone, under Creative Commons). And our religion is shaped by the corporation or community in which we find ourselves worshipping. I worship quite differently from Christians in Zambia or in India or in China...but we are all responding to that divine experience. And all of us have worship quite distinct from that which obtained in the past - or which will in the future - but the response of religion, (even aside from your particular faith background) is common to all cultures.

All of that, however - the adaptability of culture, and the synchronicity of religious expression, seems to me quite distinct from faith (the daily actions we undertake on the basis of our beliefs) and from gospel (the universal message of divine reconciliation shared by the Incarnate Word).

Gospel knows no bounds of culture - it is as true in deepest darkest Antarctica as on the plana of Mars. God loves us and wants to be in true relationship with us. That can be true whether you worship with guitar or with organ or in silence or in scientific exploration.

Faith, our continuous response to the wondrous message, is likewise the same, however it is expressed. That we love our neighbours, and that we seek to be in that right relationship with each other and with God, and that we act that way is a constant, even if one culture's deep insult is another's highest revelation of love.

Faith and gospel transcend (and transform) culture. They surely are not isolated from it, and they are also not fundamentally altered by that relationship, just as the Immutable God can weep for His dead Son (more on this later).

Long story short is this:

I'm back, baby.

Pro tip: upcoming post, on how we interpret sacraments in light of the above.

Holiday

It is that time of year again. Good, harvest food - gourds and root vegetables. Through the falling leaves, and into the first sounding of the trumpets of winter. It's a season when we consider our own gratitude - we give thanks for food, for our lives, for our families.

We give thanks for superheroes.

Thanksgiving of my sophomore year of college, I couldn't afford to fly home, so I just parked myself in my dorm room with supplies, and books. Everything I needed. I got bored out of my mind. I went to the video store. I rented something like six movies. By chance, they all happened to be superhero movies. And thus began one of my favorite holiday traditions. Every Thanksgiving, I rent or buy superhero movies, and pay particular attention to the philosophy, the literary implications, and (especially this year) the theology of superheroes.

Apologies to the uninitiated as it concerns superheroes - I'm about to get very specific in my examples. I invite you to look these cats up on Wikipedia, if you don't know who they are already. Suppose, for just a moment, that you live in the Marvel Universe (copyright the Disney Corporation, 2009). Where is the church? What sorts of sermons do you hear about those with special powers? How does the presence of truly exceptional people affect your understanding of, say, Romans? Is there a religious contingent speaking out against the Nephilim of Genesis? Do the sorts of hatred and fear that characterize the X-Men series spring not from political pressures, as the movies depict, but from the church? How does the church receive Iron Man? What about Spiderman? Colossus? The Beast?

There are, then, two sorts of questions that we can immediately apply, here. One is the question of power - a central issue in the comic book genre, and a concern of our churches everywhere. How do we integrate and accept the powerful into our churches - the wise, the strong, the brave, the influential, the rich? How do we preach the saving and humbling gospel of Jesus Christ to those who think that they have no reason to be humble, and feel that they have no need to be saved? How do we evangelize the Fantastic Four?

Second, and even more worrying to me, is the question of difference. I can see churches not having a problem with (and some churches being very excited about) having Tony Stark (Iron Man) in the pews. Likewise, out of costume, Peter Parker (Spiderman) poses no problems. But Bruce Banner (Hulk) in his more verdant state? Johnny Storm (Human Torch), in need of an asbestos pew? On the other end of the thermometer, is Iceman going to be able to take communion without a) freezing his grape juice or b) causing quite a stir? Can we, as church, truly be open and accepting of everyone - everyone - even if they are visibly different? Can we preach the good news to all, be church for all those baptized, administer our sacraments and truly engage discipline, even to the exceptional among us?

I'm not sure, yet. But Lord, do I hope so.