10.31.04
Posted in philosophy at 9:01 pm by
We spent the weekend with my Dad and Mom. We had a truly wonderful time. We let them just take care of us, make coffee for us when we needed coffee, paid for dinner, drove us around; it was wonderful. Jen and I needed a chance to reconnect.
It was nice to reconnect to my parents too. My dad especially. My dad is an interesting man. He’s a postmodern pastor of a stalwertly modern church. He’s also one of the wisest men I know. We agree on lots of things and disagree on lots as well. I love him. He really makes me think.
We talked today over lunch. We had a leg of lamb, garlic mashed potatoes, and a wonderful pinot noir from a local vineyard. We talked church. The topic drifted to homosexuality. I hate when it does that. I’m always uncomfortable when I get to the homosexuality topic. I really don’t like it because I don’t really have a position.
So often when we debate about that topic, we go back and forth on the issue. Both sides have such a firm Biblical position. I just don’t understand the Bible on the issue. I was actually pleased to hear that my dad, like I, is also uncertain. I told them, that they might not like it, but I just couldn’t in good conscience take a position about homosexual relationships in the church one way or the other. The only position I have is that I’m called to love God and my neighbor.
It was encouraging to me the response I got from my Mom and Dad. They’re conservative–in most of the popular senses of the word. But they loved me and didn’t degrade my position. In fact, my parents probably would fall conservatively on most issues that I can think of: literal six day creation, homosexual relationships, women in office of the Church, salvation issues (predestination, etc). But despite all of that, we never seem to have a knock down drag out fight.
I think it’s because I love my Dad first, and disagree with him second. He does the same to me. We don’t always do that so well in the online community. We’re so bent on arguing that we’re quick disagree. Perhaps if Christ said the first and greatest commandment is to love God and the second is to set your neighbor straight, then, maybe we’d be doing the right thing.
I’m guilty of this too, of course, you all know this if you’ve seen me in electronic action. I don’t claim not to be a hypocrite.
Perhaps, too, my Dad and I have something in common. We’ve got a mindset…that mindset that perhaps our two seemingly irreconcilable views aren’t really irreconcilable at all. Maybe they just seem irreconcilable because neither of us have big enough minds to understand how they reconcile. But that’s the magic of postmodernism, one understanding of it at least. We don’t need to understand HOW views can both be accurate (though imperfect) descriptors, we just need to believe that those views can help us to decrease the overall fuzziness of the puzzle.
I don’t have all the answers. I only hope to find a few more of those answers out as time goes on, but I’ll never get anywhere close to having all the answers. When it comes down to it, though, I think that one of the answers to one of the big questions is love.
I’m not really sure what the question is, but it seems clear that love is the answer. Perhaps the answer to many questions. If y’all figure out the questions to the answer, love…please feel free to act on that answer. And, while you’re at it. Let us know what the question was.
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10.29.04
Posted in culture at 12:18 pm by
A couple things I’ve been reading lately have given me pause. Namely, Maggi’s post about emergent, and asking questions about the US expression of emergent. I’m not trying to add fuel to the fire in the debate. I agree with Jay Voorhees. Enough is enough.
However, the (now deleted or raptured, either way it’s gone) post that sparked the debate raises serious questions in my mind. Something’s strange when people who are on the cutting edge of Church are so attached to an idea that they can’t take questioning.
When was it that questions attracted such negative fame? Why is it that our culture is so bent on having answers. True wisdom is seen has having more answers than questions. I don’t get it. They myth of certainty I suppose.
I do find it ironic that some folks on the forefront of the postmodern church movement should get so up in arms about questions being posed to their concept of what emergent is or should be. It seems that they more than anyone should understand the value of being questioned. Questioning leads to growth.
It seems to me that the emerging church could take a page out of academia’s playbook. See, in academia, though by no means without flaws, folks submit work to a firing squad essentially. What remains, sometimes tattered is often good stuff. If you can’t take getting a tattered peice of research back…you’re probably in the wrong line of work.
Jenell Paris says it nicely as she talks about the culture in her church of ’say anything’ and ‘ask anything.’ Perhaps if we were more intentional about adopting such a standpoint, our churches would be less plaugued with the fight we’ve witnessed.
Questioning is the last step before true discovery. Let’s welcome it! Pretty raw thoughts today, do forgive any huge flaws…feel free to shred this… 
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10.28.04
Posted in culture at 5:04 pm by
It would seem that we’re not the only ones chatting about the Christianity today article. In addition to my posts on the article, Maggi Dawn has received a firestorm of hate e-mail about the questions she posed to the article.
She even garnered some anonymous commenters. Great stuff, eh?
Go read a bit about the story, and show your support–even emotional support–to Maggi. A great voice, she has. It needs to be heard.
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Posted in politics at 11:02 am by
Wow. Unexpected turn of events. Michigan, a perennial democratic supporter in presidential elections, is now reported to be in a dead heat by both Strategic Vision and Zogby pollsters. Some outlets still hold that Michigan is still a 6 point Kerry favorite and conventional wisdom would hold that Kerry will likely win Michigan.
Tis a curious turn. I suppose both parties will use the opportunities to send out canvasers knocking on doors. Oh, the joy. I should get a Kerry sign out in the front lawn just to ward off Bush supporters who may try to ‘get me out to the polls’ next Tuesday. You see, I live in Republican-ville. I should be voting for Bush.
Now, I realize that Grand Rapids itself isn’t exactly a microcosm of West Michigan. Largely, the city (inside the city limits at least) is a bit more progressive than our suburban and rural neighbors. Nonetheless, I am a West Michigander. My East Lansing friends query how it is possible for such a liberal to survive in the bastion of conservativism that is West Michigan. I’ll survive, either way. Fear not friends.
I do start to wonder, though, what if we Michiganders DO turn into the next Florida 2000? It could be a mess. The city of Detroit is already prone to charges of discrimination as to the polling locations and availability. The vast majority of the state uses similar punchcard systems to those of Florida in the days of their debacle.
A sizeable African American population in our urban areas could prove a legal powderkeg if this election comes down to recounts. I’d prefer not to have to think about the ramifications. They make me shudder. God bless the lawyers, I say. I hope he blesses them because if they play a major role in the recounting of Michigan votes, I’m not sure anyone else will.
A short aside. My wife is a member of the Michigan Education Association–the state teacher’s union. She receives postcards from them telling her who they support and what ballot proposals to vote for. This year the MEA is endorsing Kerry–surprise, surprise,–a no vote on proposal 1, and a no vote on proposal 2. The first two endorsements don’t surprise me at all. They’re issues the MEA has a vested interest in–those interests being Kerry for president, and the privitisation of gambling choices. The logic is that Kerry will fund the federal mandates set forth by NCLB like W has not, and that the popular votes to determine where or where not to place casinos coud have unintended effects on things that education is dependent upon, like tax-revenues, state lottery, etc.
My question is what interest the MEA has in a constitutional amendment at the state level against gay marriage. I can’t fathom any reason the organization would want to oppose the ban. I can think of plenty of reasons for individuals to oppose the ban being made constitutional–but the MEA?
I just don’t get it?!?
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10.27.04
Posted in fun at 3:37 pm by
You know which wines go best with which foods, and you can make New York City’s finest sommalier feel like a kid at a keg party. You wanna take that Emeril guy and beat him with a stick, but really - you’ve got more class than that.
What people love: You know the best restaurants and what their specialties are.
What people hate: Every waiter in town wants to mangle your pretentious ass. What Kind of Elitist Are You?
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Posted in faith at 9:17 am by
I hate getting into arguments with good Christians. Bad Christians like myself really don’t stand a chance. Invariably, you’ll bump into the “support your argument with scripture” move. I submit that this move is a last gasp attempt to make others who don’t share your view look less like a Christian.
Back on the Relevant Boards, this was almost a mantra. It was typed disdainfully, “I’d like to see you try to support that with scripture.” They’d say. As if Scripture was THEIR weapon, for their eyes only. As if THEY had the perfect handle on God’s will for the world. The problem with getting into those arguments is that invariably they’d go like this.
1. “I’d like to see some scriptural support for that.”
2. I’ll post scriptural support.
3. “That’s a complete misreading of Scripture, you heretic.”
It’s almost like some folks think I’ve got some photographic memory picture of all of scripture and it’s all cross referenced to boot. The truth is I don’t. I have a pretty good idea of what is what and where it is, but as far as a perfect map, it’s not going to happen.
You’ve probably played one of those games where you have to guess what a picture is, but the part of the picture you’re shown is close up, or unclear. Only after we take a look at the whole picture are we able to make predictions and understand the picture. I think the Bible is like that. It’s just that lots of folks don’t use it that way.
Lots of people think that the Bible can be picked apart and used phrase by phrase to support a point. My framework is a bit different. I believe that if I understand the big messages of scripture–the really important and overarching ones–and then apply those messages, like justice, peace, kindness, patience, then I have scriptural support.
Still scriptural support is seen as being able to find one passage that verbatim (in english mind you) spells out that you are right and another person is wrong. I’m not saying that the specifics of the Bible don’t matter, but too often we interpret those specifics as though they were written just yesterday, the ink isn’t even dry. We conveniently forget that scripture was written thousands of years ago, half way around the world, and in an entirely different culture.
With all the best intentions the scriptural support argument isn’t very loving. Basically, it says this: I’m smart and you’re not. I’m a good Christian you’re a bad Christian. I don’t have a logic driven answer so I’ll just shed the responsibility on you to come up with evidence that your point is correct, rather than to actually be able to show support for my own point.
Scriptural support sometimes doesn’t come with Chapter and verse. Sometimes scriptural support comes from my heart. You know, the place where scripture itself claims that it’s been written.
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10.26.04
Posted in faith, culture at 10:43 am by
BigBrother0074 asked some good clarifying questions about the relevance post below. I’ll give you his comment here:
i’m curious as to what your thoughts are on relevant magazine. i was under the impression that they were attempting to bring a doctrinally sound message to those who don’t hear that. i like it because it is interesting to me (as it is geared to be, of course) but it doesn’t have all the junk in it the rest of pop-culture does. this is interesting to me: i guess i am morally opposed to viacom (mtv, vh1, com. central, BET, CBS, Showtime, etc…) because it seems everything they stand for i am morally opposed to. they seem to work to steer culture in a direction away from god, morality, and the like. but, at the same time, i am part of our culture, and am interested it. it is a strange idea that pretty much the only tv stations i watch are those owned by the corporation i abhor. i dislike my interests in it, yet satisfy them nonetheless.
He also asked for my thoughts, and, well, you know me, I’m always happy to oblige. I’m not going to focus on the Relevant Magazine question, however. I’m not a huge supporter, but truth be told, since I let my subscription expire (and I was banned from their message boards) I haven’t picked up a copy to give any of it a read. That said, any perspective I have isn’t really fair to the magazine.
I think the bigger question is WHY am I not a supporter. To the lay observer that should seem odd. I mean, I love pop-culture, U2 is my favourite band, I really dig Counting Crows, I’m a huge fan of cultural things. My problem with the Church’s desire to be culturally relevant is not that the church is being culturally relevant. Stay with me here.
My problem is this: In being so intent on cultural relevance, the Church is actually changing a cultural message. Many of you folks are screaming (I hear the voices in my head,) “But, isn’t that what the Church is SUPPOSED to do? Change/Transform culture?” Yes, they are. But, they’re also supposed to do it thoughtfully. Too many times people from the Church foray into a cultural realm and look for salvation and other messages that are imbedded into the messages of cultural icons. In the search for messages they understand, the Church misses the main point of much of what the world is telling us.
The Church looks for messages of “evangelicalese” in folks who are influent. It would be like me going to Mexico and trying to understand english words from spanish words. I might find an English word from time to time, but in translating it I do the Spanish message a disservice. If I really want to understand what the message means, I need to translate the spanish, understand the cultural context of that message, and then try to make sense of the meaning.
The Church looks for quick and easy cultural in-roads. We no longer take the time to really understand a cultural message. A great example is this: U2’s song, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” In Ireland, the lyrics of that song were so fragmented and misunderstood that the evangelical wing of the protestant church took it to mean that Bono et. al. were not Christians, because, after all, ALL Christians have found what they’re looking for in Jesus. They missed the point of the song. I really don’t do this story justice, if you want a better reading of the situation you NEED to read the book by Steve Stockman Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2.
If the Church would take the time it needs to REALLY listen to pop culture, it might find that the Church is exactly what many in that pop-culture world were looking for. My argument, in a nutshell: Pop-culture has much more to offer the Church than the Church even knows.
At its very core the notion of relevance is troublesome to me. Relevance implies that Christians need to ‘reshape’ the messages of culture to appeal to the unchurched so that we can get them into the Church. To me, this is an ignorant message. It allows the Church to believe that somehow it’s message is not tainted by the ‘junk’ of the world.
And that’s just it. The Church is tainted by the ‘junk’ out there just like pop-culture is tainted by ‘junk.’ In order to even begin to approach Truth (yes, capital ‘T’) the Church needs not only its traditional message. The Church needs the messages, the truth of pop-culture.
Just Pat said that cultural relevance has a place in the Church. I couldn’t agree more. I think the cultural relevance that she’s referring to, though, is a real and authentic relevance. My problem is that the Church is tossing around the word relevance without really being relevant or desiring to be relevant at all.
I’m not really sure that that was any more clear than post number one. At least I tried.
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Posted in culture at 12:03 am by
The emerging church movement is barely emerging and already I’m a skeptic. Greg pointed this article out to me. Christianity Today has an article in which they feature Mars Hill Bible Church of the Grand Rapids metropolitan area. Mars Hill is one of the newest mega-churches in our area. Christianity Today reports over 10,000 regular attenders.
Great right? A Church that seeks to be culturally relevant, enagage people, change the world. Theoretically, yes. In practice, I’m not so sure. The emergent mystique isn’t so mystical as it once was. The movement–though Brian McLaren will vehemently oppose the term movement–began in the 1970’s with the house church / Jesus people movement. (You’ll see a remnant of this if you visit the Mars Hill website in their logo.)
Is the emergent church really ONLY about cultural revolution? I was under the impression that it was actually about changing the church. I’m afraid that mainstream American evangelicalism has gotten its meat hooks into the emergent church. I’m afraid that “emergent” is becoming synonomous with that other overused word “relevant.” That can’t be ALL the emergent movement is about can it? Relevance?
To me, the problem with relevance is that it misses the point. It implies that same old ‘modernist’ mantra that our message–the message of Christianity–is so powerful, so wonderful, so convincing, that we merely need to be, well, cool, and all will be well. Folks will flock to churches everywhere, we’ll have a big ole’ tent gathering and do some baptisms and before you know it, BANG — the second coming.
But, despite our best attempts, this ‘moderinst’ gospel has seen the Christian Church in this country shrink rather than grow. To me, that’s what’s spawned this renewed interest in the emergent movement. The understanding that cultural relevance was really only a superficial attempt to further Christianity.
It seems, however, that the emerging church is a movement claimed now by the mainstream. Under the modernist belief that being relevant is some magic bullet that will change the world. To me, this emerging church has lost it’s postmodern bite. The post-modern message is not that the Church is dead. The post-modern message is that the church needs to rediscover its cultural roots.
We’ve become so entralled with the idea that culture is the enemy that even something as counter culture as the popular term ‘relevant’ is seen as cutting edge. The Church doesn’t need to be relevant. Culture isn’t what’s wrong with the church. Churches (little ‘c’) are what’s wrong with culture. Churches have attempted to redefine the culture of antiquity with an over emotionalized and just plain wrong understanding of the culture of the writers of the Bible.
Postmodernism is about rediscovering that culture. About turning everything we know upside down and letting the chips fall wherever. I don’t see that at Mars Hill. I can’t say that I know much about Rob Bell, he sounds like a great guy. But there’s something about the machineism of a mega-church that seems unwittingly ‘un-emergent’ to the likes of me.
I hold strongly that cultural relevance should not be the plight of the Church. Frankly, I wish we would ban the term relevant entirely from our vocabulary. The Church doesn’t need to be any more culturally relevant in the sense that it’s being batted around, at least not for the purposes that it is popularly doing so.
Instead, the church could spend a bit more time learning from culture than correcting it. Call me a heretic, a skeptic, or just a crusty old jerk, but I don’t think I can get on board with being emergent if all that really means is being relevant. There’s nothing particularly transformational about that.
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10.25.04
Posted in philosophy at 12:01 pm by
Preamble: A post over at Headless‘ place got my ruminating on this.
I like lots of social conservatives. My friends are mostly conservative. I love them dearly, even if they drive around with a “W ‘04″ sticker in the back of their truck. I was even one of them once. In high school, I taped a picture of Ronald Reagan to the outside of my locker that proclaimed that I was starting a Ronald Reagan Fan Club. 75% of my class signed up.
Now, admittedly, I had no idea about what being a conservative meant then. Not to say that if I did know I would’ve been any different. Conservatives can be really nice people. I’ll even still vote for some next Tuesday.
What I don’t get is what it is about politics that changes people. Those nice folks that I hang out with all the time, what is it about the topic of politics that causes civility to go out the window. I’m not claiming that they become trolls and I’m the nice liberal who they flame, if anything, it’s the other way around.
I’ll just say it. I get defensive. Many times, I think this is all because of where I am and where I’ve come from. I like to think that this liberal epiphany I’ve experienced is a discovery of universal unchangable absolute truth. But, how can I feel so right when others think I’m so wrong. I hate that.
Why is it that people believe what they believe. I mean, do we learn it from childhood? Is it somehow ingrained in our psyche that one day we’ll pop out of bed and be a bleeding heart liberal, or a conservative?
Is it possible that in politics, there just isn’t absolute truth…or at very least, that humans have no prayer of even dreaming to approach this truth. Perhaps we just disagree. It doesn’t seem that any amount of logic will ever convince us–regardless of our affiliations–otherwise. It all makes me think, should we even try?
Perhaps the liberal - conservative dichotomy isn’t really at the core of the disagreement at all. I think I’m right on this. I have no beef with a conservative viewpoint. It’s a belief, how can I a fallen person even proport to have a beef with a well thought out belief.
Maybe the issue is just that: well thought out, sound reasoning. I think that’s what I react so violently to. If an arguement is reasoned soundly, I’m much less likely to get emotional about the argument. But, that leads me to this. If an argument is unsoundly reasoned, is violent reaction the most effective form of persuasion.
Isn’t it more helpful to simply point out unsound reason and allow that person to find their own way to a particular belief? Of course, we have pretty shitty role-models here. The two men vying for the position that controls much of the free world are both using unsound reason to support their perspectives and denegrate their opponent. The whole of election rhetoric can largely be summed up by the term: Red Herring.
As humans who are perenially incapable of achieving certainty, I think it may be a bit rash to be quick to classify an opposing viewpoint as stupid. Now, unreasonable, perhaps this is a fair critique, but you’d better be doing it with grace, and so had I.
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10.24.04
Posted in faith at 4:24 pm by
Do you ever go to church and just not feel anything? I mean, you’ve all read my thoughts on not elevating feelings to the point of idolatry, but aren’t you supposed to feel SOMETHING? I think the point of contention is just what the “something” is supposed to be.
Some argue that that something is the divine influence of the Holy Spirit, others still say that the something is community. Some say that something is the disembodied presence of Jesus Christ. I just don’t get it.
It’s not that I’m against feeling any of those things. I guess, I just expect that the spriit of God will be present and offer me wisdom more than anything else. It all just makes me question the purpose of worship. So many different styles, so many different attempts to experience “something.”
Does it seem to anyone else that if we’re all pursuing different somethings, that while the somethings we pursue may be well and good, we’re ALL missing something?
I don’t need the perfect church. I just need a church that looks for everything that God offers to the Church. I guess that’s my esoteric reflection of the day: we’re missing the mark, we’re missing comprehensiveness in the church. Why? Because churches–unlike the Church–aren’t truly diverse. We look to hang out with those who are the same as ourselves, and we’re more likely to like those who are similar to us (see Uncertainty Reduction Theory, Charles Berger - UC Davis.)
The gigantic downfall in all of this is that we miss the mark. We sin, I guess. We fail to embrace the cultural, academic, emotional, and spiritual diversity that God blessed the Church with in individual churches. We have specialty churches. Churches that are “seeker sensitive,” churches that are liturgical, churches that are low-liturgy, churches that are academic, churches that are emotional. White churches, black churches, hispanic churches. We are divided. We explain it all away by saying, “this is good for us, we like to worship this way…and it’s fine that they do it their way and we do it ours, but we like ours.” That’s not the vision of the Church we’re given in the Bible though.
The Bible tells us that the church is to be ONE body. Not ONE body per belief or culture or style or intelligence level. Just one body.
It all makes me wonder if by fragmentation we’ve lost the Church in a tangle, a mishmosh of churches. That the SOMETHING that I’m supposed to feel, has been lost because churches have attempted to achieve unity by virtue of exclusion of diversity.
And, to me, that’s one fucked up version of unity. And though, fucked up, I cannot argue nor can I believe that it’s FUBARed. Which all leads to this question: How to proceed, gracefully?
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