Field notes on life and mission with God after Christendom
Overheard on the radio (via a blog):
"Evangelical Christianism."
It was unintentional, but I agree with Brother Maynard that this could be a great term to describe a commitment to and love for a kind of "Christian culture" (ala "Christian" bookstores and "Christian" radio) versus a commitment to and love for Christ himself.
What do you think?
"Getting saved is easy; becoming a community is difficult – damnably difficult."
– Eugene Peterson
I really love Eugene Peterson's recent writings (the above quote was in an old journal of mine, so I don't know what book it's from). He has really come into his own. He is either a sharp-eyed prophet or a crotchety old man, but either way I love to read his stuff.
A few pages later in the journal I found these words, perhaps inspired by whatever Eugene Peterson book I was reading at the time:
Community is not what happens to a group when they finally feel warm fuzzies toward each other. Community doesn't "happen" at all, but rather is, or is not. Community is a noun, and nouns don't happen, they are.
If I am in community with you, I may feel warmly toward you or I may be exasperated with you, but it does not change the fact of community. It seems to follow then, that we can never really "cultivate" community. We can only decide to be one, or not. Community is a question of ontology, not phenomenology.
Now what kind of community we become, that's where the cultivation comes in..
One of the things I was impressed with in this last presidential election is how badly people behaved toward those they disagreed with. Old friends would turn into spiteful enemies when talking about presidential candidates, almost as if possessed by demons (I say this mostly facetiously). It was remarkable how unchristlike people became when they felt passionately about something.
Part of the blame could probably be laid at the feet of the cable news shows, where the style of argument seems to consist of 1) belittling, dismissing and dehumanizing those you disagree with, 2) yelling louder than the other guy, 3) interrupting constantly and not actually listening to what the other person is saying.
The Internet Monk has a great post about some of these issues, the best part of which was near the end, where he laid out a picture of Jesus argued and disagreed with the Pharisees in the gospels (Matthew 23 notwithstanding, which I can trust Jesus to say, but probably not myself):
Did you ever notice how Jesus deals with those he has serious disagreements with?
Those Pharisees? Jesus had a lot in common with them. But at some of
those key points, there was serious division and disagreement.
So watch Jesus. Do what he does. Don’t do what Jesus doesn’t do.
He interacts with the Pharisees. He doesn’t avoid them.
He lets them finish their sentences.
He doesn’t yell at them.
He asks good, subversive, insightful questions.
He tells stories.
His “points” are simple and on target.
He understands how these differences arise, i.e. out of methodology or values.
He never compromises.
He leaves the conversation in the hands of the Holy Spirit.
We could probably stand to learn something from Jesus about how to talk with those we disagree with. (Go figure! Learning something from Jesus!)
I was doing some studying today for my Master’s degree (in Hermeneutics), and came across an article that talked about how the book of Job deconstructs itself. That is, the message it seems to espouse is undermined by the book itself.
I’ve always thought the book of Job was a bit of a large, sprawling, confusing beast. We like to take a few bits of it and sprinkle them into worship songs ("Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him…" – "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away: blessed be the name of the Lord") but what do you think is the message of the book of Job? What is its point? Are we supposed to emulate Job when we suffer? Does it explain the reason for suffering or just how to suffer? Or is all of this irrelevant and it’s just a story about one guy?
We could look at it as simply a curious story about an ancient rich guy, but since we view it as "Scripture" it seems like it ought to speak something to us today. What do you think that "something" is? How have you looked at the book in the past? What benefit have you gotten from reading it? What questions do you have about it?
Just curious.
Apparently Pope Benedict XVI will be visiting the States April 15 – 20. (New York, not Fort Wayne, for some reason). This pope fascinates me, because as an article in the NY Times says, "Benedict, a former professor, is a pope who cultivates words more than dramatic gestures…"
An Archbishop at the Vatican said this about the trip:
"The key to this trip will be to listen to Benedict’s speeches in their entirety. He is not a man of blah, blah, blah. He’s a
thinker, and before speaking, he thinks. And he prays a lot.”
That wouldn’t be too bad to have on your tombstone: "He was not a man of blah, blah, blah." May we all speak as carefully!
(ht: Scot)