Emergent Church Conference

I am down in Albuquerque at the Emergent conference. I am doing this from my phone.... which is tedious. The speakers are challenging and the conversation at my table has been enlightening. I hope this becomes an annual event.

Meeting: March 25th

This is a reminder about our upcoming get together next week:

The usual time: 7pm, March 25th
The usual place: High Point Coffee, 1735 W 7800 S, West Jordan

Andrew will be fresh back from the emergent conference in Albuquerque that started today. I'm sure he will have a lot to share with us.

Also, there has been a lot of discussion going around the blogosphere as of late as to where things are going with the church. There were so many different articles posted, but here are a few good places to start: the immanent collapse of evangelicalism (imonk, Jesus Creed); the rise of New Calvinists, at least according to Time magazine's 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now; a call for a "theology of church extinction" as the church collapses in some regions, even as it rises in others (also see NYT's article Leaving Iraq: An Iraqi Christian); and thinking of the church rising, just what kind of church is rising in Africa today (some things to consider here and here); and then there is Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence. Maybe we can spend a little time discussing where you think things are going.

Meeting: February 25th

This is a reminder about our upcoming get together next week:

The usual time: 7pm, February 25th
The usual place: High Point Coffee, 1735 W 7800 S, West Jordan

Check this video of Brian McLaren's presentation, The Episcopal Moment, on faith-sharing and evangelism to the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington on Saturday, January 31, 2009. (Streaming video in Windows Media Player, just click on the link for the video. Note audio has some complications during the first 15 minutes or so, but it's fine after that.)

Really! It's worth your time.

Movie: Fireproof

I finally saw the “Christian” romance film Fireproof this last weekend for Valentines Day. My wife liked it… so did everyone else I saw it with at the little Valentines Day social that our local church put on (at least as far as I could tell). People were talking about buying it, that it was such a great film.

Me? Well… I watched the whole thing. But it seemed to me to be more-or-less just a Harlequin romance with an alter call, and a serious ideological bent. What I mean is this – there are several marriages either portrayed or mentioned in the film: there is the main character Kirk Cameron’s marriage, which is on the rocks, and heading for divorce, until he accepts Jesus; there is his parent’s marriage, which was on the rocks at one time, but then they accepted Jesus, and all is bliss; there are the two marriages of Kirk Cameron’s co-worker at the fire station, for the first one, he hadn’t accepted Jesus in time so it ended in divorce, the second was after he accepted Jesus, and was evidently blissful; finally, there is the doctor, who takes a romantic interest in Kirk Cameron’s wife, and who hides his wedding ring in his desk, obviously doesn’t have Jesus, and his marriage is heading for ruin. The message in the film is clear, if you accept Jesus your marriage will be bliss, if you don’t accept Jesus your marriage is destined for ruin and divorce.

The thing is actual life isn’t quite as idealistic as this film portrays. All marriages have problems. We’re all people, we’re all sinners, and we all make mistakes. But I’ve seen married couples who’ve not “accepted Jesus” that are doing just fine, moving right along with its bumps and occasional potholes, but far from ruin and divorce. More importantly though, I have also seen many couples throughout the years, who have “accepted Jesus” much like the film portrays, and whose marriages have not gone so well. Divorce still happens. And when real life doesn’t match the idealization that is promised, people lose faith.

But the thing that gets me about the film, it’s not just that we have imperfect married people, who still continue to sin, even after they have accepted Jesus, and they have to continually repent and overcome the effects of that sin that prevent it from being truly bliss. No, that’s not it. It’s that God doesn’t anywhere promise that your marriage will be bliss if you follow Jesus in the first place.

The film tries to say that if you do things Jesus’ way, if you follow the rules, and stick with it (kind of like the 40-day self-help challenge that Kirk Cameron’s father gives him), and this goes beyond just marriage, that things are going to be great, you are going to be blest. Now go read about Job and his three friends. Yup, that’s the same general message Job’s three friends gave him that God scolded them on at the end of the book. Now go read about Hosea, and how his biblically arranged marriage to that harlot went. Yup, I’d say the message this film is trying to say is the wrong message. God isn’t about the business of blessing your marriage just because you accepted Jesus. No, he has an altogether different idea in mind.

But besides all that… I guess I could say the film was kinda cute. My wife liked it. And the points in the self-help challenge are good advice. I think I’ll do them.

Mormergent

Rick, over on his blog Cheaper Than Therapy, takes a humorous look at the ever increasing number of hyphen-mergent groups popping up all the time, like Presbymergent, baptimergent, anglimergent (which I joined), more recently inclusivEmergent, and even queermergent. And he speculates on some others that may soon come along. This one I noted with a good laugh:

Mormergent
Were the teachings of Jospeh Smith meant to be taken literally? Was Moroni a literal angel or a guy in the woods? Should Mormons return to their ancient faith, but with more black people? Should their missionaries dress snazzier and what does Tony Jones have to say when he comes to BYU?

I look forward to the day! …but thinking about it… we may already have that here… it’s been around for a while, and goes by a different name, called Sunstone.

Happy Darwin Day!

Evolution is finally beginning to take hold in the churches, and Creationists are diminishing through the process of natural selection, or should I say de-selection in their case. Over the past few days its been good to see more church recognition of Charles Darwin’s achievements in science, and less talk of him “as some kind of anti-theologian”.

Happy 200th for Charles Darwin!
Video and article from Telegraph.co.uk
A site on Darwin by the Church of England
And from NPR: Darwin Finds Some Followers In The Pulpits

And Happy 150th for On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin!
Selections at the New York Times

NT Wright: What Is Hell Like? Does It Even Exist?

I'm with NT Wright on this topic, I don't know how many others of you are. What are your thoughts?

[HT: glocal christianity, also there are more videos in the series available from 100 Huntley Street on YouTube here.]

Learning from our faith's mistakes

In an article posted in USA Today, Stephen Prothero makes a point that got me thinking and that I'd like to highlight:

When I was a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, I required my students to read Nazi theology. I wanted them to understand how some Christians bent the words of the Bible into weapons aimed at Jews, and how those weapons found their mark in the concentration camps. My Christian students responded to these disturbing readings with one disturbing voice. The Nazis were not Christians, they said. Jesus was, after all, a Jew. This response was in many respects laudable. But in distancing their religion from the history of the Holocaust, my students absolved themselves of any responsibility for reckoning with how their religious tradition might have contributed to these horrors.

I think we do this with much of Christian history, not just the Nazi Holocaust. We hide the parts we disagree with, clean out the dark spots, and say to ourselves, "they weren't really Christians". We see only the "good" side of our faith, but not the "bad", and we don't really learn from our faith's mistakes.

Prothero mentioned to me that it was the book Theologians Under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus and Emanuel Hirsch, by Robert P. Ericksen, that he assigned to his students.

Some things for Sunday, January 25th

There are a couple of events going on tomorrow that some of you maybe interested in. I haven't decided which one, or even if, I'll go to. Let me know if any of you are interested and that may help me decide.

Most information came from the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune:

Aquinas lecture on Christians, Muslims

Sr. Marianne Farina, professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley, Calif,, will deliver the Annual Aquinas Lecture on "Is There Common ground for dialogue and interaction between Christians and Muslims?" at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center, 170 S. University St.

Farina's lecture, titled "Christian-Muslim Relations: A Peaceable Excellence," will address such questions as whether Christians and Muslims can find common ground for dialog and the extent to which they can work together on peace.

She will frame her answers around the tradition of social doctrine of the Catholic Church as well as Islamic scriptures' principles of the moral life, the news release said.

Farina also will compare theological writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali.

The Aquinas Lecture is free and open to the public.

Rev. Irish to speak at library in S.L.

The Rev. Carolyn Tanner Irish, Tenth Bishop of Utah, Episcopal Diocese of Utah, will speak at 2 p.m. Sunday as part of the 2008-09 "Religion, Culture and Nature" portion of the "Forum for Questioning Minds" series at the Salt Lake City Main Library Auditorium, 210 E. 400 South.

This lecture is free and open to the public.

Her presentation on Religion, Culture, and Nature will begin with some thoughts on the importance of 'questioning minds' to distinguish various elements of religion such as church, faith, and spirituality. In the same spirit of questioning, we'll also consider cultural elements such as politics and economics. We'll then reflect on how all these factors come together in the environmental concerns we face.

Meeting: January 28th

This is a reminder about our upcoming get together next week:

The usual time: 7pm, January 28th
The usual location: High Point Coffee, at 1735 West 7800 South, in West Jordan

I thought we might discuss a couple of things. First, since Bill has started going to seminary, we could talk about that. I think at least half of us have at one time or another thought about, or seriously considered, going to seminary or something like it.

Then there is the man of the hour, our new president, Obama. We can ask ourselves – What does Obama mean? What does he mean for Christianity in America, and in the world today?

I’ve been reading all sorts of things over the past couple of days that span the entire spectrum, from apocalyptic disaster, to messianic, and a lot in between. One of my conservative Christian facebook friends, who is from what I guess could be called the ‘show no mercy, compromise nothing’ crowd, was posting periodically throughout inauguration day that he…

...is sad to witness this horrific day in U.S. history as B. Hussein Obama who's a friend of terrorists and a baby-killer is unconstitutionally inaugurated! Sad!

...is watching with horror the beginning of communism in the U.S. and the nation's rapid downfall - the nightmare has begun.

...is looking at the continuation of the devastating Obama Crash in the stock market which has already erased trillions of dollars in wealth.

I most certainly DO NOT respect B. Hussein Obama for anything as his character, words and actions are Anti-God, Anti-American, Anti-Life and Anti-anything we Christians stand for and against the foundations this country (the USA) was founded on. But as we pray for Obama that he may accept the Lord Jesus Christ as His personal Savior which would be phenomenal, we must also understand and recognize that we will never ever respect a man, a group or an organization who has made a conscious decision to promote and legislate policies to destroy the people of God, to destroy innocent life, to destroy God's economic system, and who stands behind anything that's against God. Otherwise, we would need to respect Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Chavez, Castro, Saddam Hussein and every other evil vessel who yielded by their free will to the workings of Satan.

You have to blink in astonishment when you read this stuff. Andy over at our local HFTL was kind enough to post the new Christian music video that I guess is making the rounds that expresses a similar point of view, announcing that we as a nation have all committed – Obamacide!

And one really wacky “Christian” guy I found, who I think has completely lost it, stated on his blog that “I AM NOT praying for Obama to be blessed by God. I hope he dies quickly & another takes the office of the Presidency.”

Other voices, from a more “open minded” Christian Right, such as Jay Sekulow, of the American Center for Law and Justice, seems to be advocating things, now that Obama is president, that aren’t too dissimilar from what the Matthew 25 Network was advocating before the election, about reducing the number of abortions, rather than just hopelessly continue to pursue an outright ban. [Listen to NPR’s Talk of the Nation: What's Next For The Anti-Abortion Movement?]

On the other side of the spectrum we have folks with so much hope in Obama that Rev. Gene Robinson, first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, felt compelled to at least mention in his prayer the other day, “Bless us with patience… and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.”

And then in the midst of all this I find voices like this, which when you think about it, you’ll realize that this is something new. (HT: Burnside Writer's Blog)



So... What does Obama mean? What does he mean for Christianity in America, and in the world today?

Antony of Egypt Art Appreciation Day

It’s his feast day today, so I picked up my copy of Athanasius’s The Life of Antony to read up on him (Wikipedia bio). A short book, and well worth reading, of the saint battling the demons in a tomb and out in the desert, overcoming their attempts to break him through his discipline and faith in Christ. But I thought I’d surf the net for some other resources on him that might be interesting, and found some things I had not expected – some classic works of art that I’ve seen several times before but have never fully appreciated.

First, there is Hieronymus Bosch's triptych painting The Temptation of St. Anthony. Hieronymus Bosch’s artwork has always fascinated me, I used to spend time just looking through books in the library that showed all the weird details, but I never made the connection between this painting and the story of Antony. (I can’t post the painting here without dismembering it considerably so you’ll have to follow the link above for an image.)

Then there is The Temptation of St. Anthony, by Salvador Dalí. Now I’ve never really appreciated much the stuff by Salvador Dalí, I’ve always kind of found it a little too tripped out for me, but with now reading Athanasius’s book on Antony this painting has taken on a new meaning, and I think in many ways it captures the feeling of what I'm reading.

So, since it is Antony’s feast day, I think I’ll spend some time feasting and meditating on these paintings in relation to what I've been read from Athanasius. And I think I’ll try to find more detailed pictures of the paintings. Have fun viewing.

Comic: Jumpstart tells the truth

From: Yahoo Comics

Catholic-Emergent Conference

We have spoken about this before at our get together, but it is time to spread the word out more widely. There is a group rate available if we can get a group of ten put together. Those interested in possibly going to this conference post a comment below and let us know.


The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will be hosting the first-ever Catholic-Emergent conference, March 20-22, 2009.

According to the CAC, “The conversation about the emerging church has been attracting a broad array of Christians — progressive Evangelicals and mainline Protestants along with some Roman Catholics — but this will be the first gathering to be planned and hosted by a team of Catholic and Protestant leaders working together for the good of the church at large. There will also be a post-conference for those who want to develop vehicles for deepening and sustaining the emerging energy for Gospel-centered justice, contemplation, and community.”

The conference will feature:

• Richard Rohr, OFM (founding director of CAC)
  
• Brian McLaren
  
• Alexie Torres-Fleming
  
• Shane Claiborne
  
• Phyllis Tickle
  

The conference is being called “The Emerging Church: Conversations, Convergence and Action,” and the post-conference will take place March 22-23.

Crash-Helmet Christianity

Here's a thought I'd share with you all. A pithy little quote from Annie Dillard's book, Teaching a Stone to Talk:

"Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews."

I just love this picture...

I should do this, it's a classic idea.


Shawn Johnston of Kansas City, Kan. browses a newspaper while having a cappuccino at Homer's Coffee House in Overland Park, Kan. on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008. The member of Praise Chapel Christian Fellowship starting dressing as Jesus about two weeks ago to 'show people what Christmas is all about.' Many members of the congregation have been doing the same now since Thursday, Dec. 18. (Photo: AP Images / Reed Hoffmann)

Here's a related article: 400 dress as Jesus to put Christ back in Christmas

Just wishing you all a Merry Christmas!!!

Since Santa Claus will be swinging through town tonight, with all his reindeer and a sleigh full of products from China (or maybe you're right now looking at the mess left over from all that he brought). I though you might enjoy a little report on who old Saint Nick really was. Check out this short video over on Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, and this cool site dedicated to St. Nicholas.

Here's to hoping you have a safe and merry Christmas!

Tis the season, baby, yaa…

Here are a few things to put on your calendar. But first, we had talked about actually having a get together this December. Post a comment if you have an alternative idea to my proposal below, so we can discuss what we would like to do.

It has been revealed to me that a shopocalypse of a film, What Would Jesus Buy, will be showing on Wednesday, December 10th, 7pm, down at the Sorenson Unity Center, 1383 S 900 West. It’s free, and I propose that we make this event our get together for December. More information will be made available over at the SLC Film Center soon. (You can see the preview over on Andrew’s blog Hackman’s Musings)

Also, for those like me who want to celebrate Advent, but grew up in a church tradition that doesn’t pay any attention to it. The Catholic Diocesan Office of Liturgy has been kind enough to offer a series that “focuses on the theology, spirituality and symbolism of the advent season.” There will be three presentations, all held from 7 to 8 pm:

"Advent: A Season of Expectation", Thursday, December 4th, at St. Ann Parish, 450 E 2100 South.

"Our Lady of Guadalupe: Symbol of Hope", Tuesday, December 9th, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel at Juan Diego Catholic High School, 300 E 11800 South, Draper.

"What Child Is This: The Antiphons and the Coming Messiah", Wednesday, December 17th, at St. Ann Parish, 450 E 2100 South.

And last but not least, that nutty state senator of ours, Sen. Chris Butters, R-West Jordan, wants you to have a Merry Christmas, not a Happy Holiday’s, and is willing to waste your tax dollars to make sure you know that (In the papers here and here). So send him some of your love and wish him a Happy Holiday’s at: dbuttars@utahsenate.org

Some thoughts on Prop 8 in California

It was an interesting discussion on California’s passage of Prop 8 we had last night. It was the first time I think in which nobody agreed with anyone else completely on an issue. ‘Yes’ votes, ‘No’ votes, and empty boxes all round. (Andrew posts more on our discussion as well over on his blog.)

After the discussion I continued to think over things and decided I’d write down and post here some of my thoughts I've collected on the issue (and I'd like to say these are not the the thoughts of the cohort as a whole, but only my own):

The amount of money spent in this campaign by the conservative church community shows a severe sense of misplaced priorities. Those millions of dollars could have gone a long ways to helping out people in need or something, but all it was used for was to stop gay people from getting “married”. It didn’t stop them from “sinning”, it didn’t make homosexuals into heterosexuals, it didn’t end gay sex from happening, it didn’t stop people from talking about it, (nor does it stop them from protesting in the streets, yelling it from the rooftops, and all-round making a ruckus over the whole matter) all that is still there. All it did was stop gay people from getting “married”. That’s it. In short, the conservative church community spent millions of dollars just to prevent the gay community from using the word ‘marriage’ to describe the same basic thing they are apparently already doing in a ‘civil union’. (Now I’ve not studied it out in detail, but it appears to be that the only real practical difference between the two, ‘civil union’ and ‘marriage’, are the words – merely a difference in semantics, and maybe some rituals.) In other words, this doesn’t sound anything like ‘protecting marriage’ to me. It seems all rather anticlimactic and wasteful, at best it appears to be only protecting a word, for it solves nothing of what the churches really find so objectionable.

I agree with the reported comments that Tony Campolo made recently at the meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, from an article in the Baptist Press:

Campolo's remarks were notable for his criticism of the recently passed Proposition 8 in California which would amend the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Interpreting the meeting's theme "Who Is My Neighbor?" Campolo said, "The Samaritans were those who were considered spiritually unclean, abominations in the eyes of God." Some of today's "Samaritans," he said, are the poor, Muslims, illegal immigrants and gays.

Campolo called himself "a conservative on the issue" of homosexuality, but said he opposed Proposition 8. Describing homosexual behavior "contrary to the teaching of God," he nonetheless questioned what was gained in passing the ballot initiative.

"What did we win? ... I'll tell you what we won," he said. "We won tens of thousands of gays and lesbians parading up and down the streets of San Francisco and New York and L.A. screaming against the church, seeing the church as enemy.

"I don't know how we're going to reach these brothers and sisters," he said, "but I'm an evangelical and I'm going to win them to Christ.... And we're not going to win them to Christ if we keep sending them bad messages, and we've sent them a bad message. I think the decision in California was in agreement with how I believe, but sometimes you've got to consider the person before you bang them over the head with your principles."

To expand out on my own thoughts here, I think the churches made a really bad move with their push to pass Prop 8. In the Bible, Jesus says, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). Well we like to tell ourselves we love them, but that’s not what the churched community is known for in the gay community. Words like ‘hate’, ‘bigot’, and ‘homophobia’ are what they use to describe the disciples of Jesus. Instead of just saying, “well they’re just wrong, we love them, and they just aren’t recognizing our love for them”, I think the church needs to seriously reexamine what it sees as ‘loving one another’, and ‘love your enemies’, and recognize the fact that we really just aren’t all that loving toward the gay community, and that we need to repent in this.

In a statement released just after Proposition 8 passed, Ron Prentice, from the ProtectMarriage.com Yes on 8 Campaign, said,

This is a great day for marriage. The people of California stood up for traditional marriage and reclaimed this great institution. We are gratified that voters chose to protect traditional marriage and to enshrine its importance in the state constitution. We trust that this decision will be respected by all Californians.

I can’t help but see this as incredibly naïve. It’s as if conservative churches think they can pass some legislation and then expect people to submit to their will without changing the hearts and minds of people. Somewhere around 18,000 gay couples got married over the past six months or so, and they are not just going to kowtow and “respect” the annulment of their marriages just because some other people’s religious sensibilities are hurt.

This isn’t Christendom, this is not a Christian nation we live in, and passing “biblically wholesome” legislation doesn’t make us more righteous as a nation. If hearts and minds are not transformed nothing has actually been accomplished.

The ultimate end of this issue I think is obvious. Just because Prop 8 passed, nothing is written in stone. California voters will pass a new amendment in a few years changing their own state constitution back to what it was before, or some Supreme Court, state or federal, will eventually overturn this ban on gay marriage. Either way, all the money, time, and effort the churches have put into “protecting marriage” will be for nothing, and the churches will eventually have to stand up and be the church in a nation that accepts gay marriage.

Meeting: November 19th

Alright! This month’s meeting is happening on November 19th. We had to move it up a week because of Thanksgiving. Everyone is welcome. Meeting is at the usual place and time.

The time: 7pm, November 19th
The location: High Point Coffee, at 1735 West 7800 South, in West Jordan

We didn’t pick a specific topic so come prepared to discuss some of your favorite blog posts, and/or articles, that you've read this past month, or just to discuss whatever comes up.

Thinking about interesting blog posts – here’s one on Obama, our new president-elect, that seemed out of the ordinary and interesting (at least to me), posted earlier today on The Immanent Frame, A public theologian. “Americans have elected the most theologically astute president since Jimmy Carter.”

And finally, I thought I’d mention something about The Voice: New Testament, yet another new translation of the New Testament, has just been released (website & excerpt). I picked up a copy last week to test drive and so far it makes for a good flowing read. Brian McLaren worked on some parts of it and discusses the project here in this video:

What now for Christians in America?

Well, Obama has won and is now on his way to being our 44th president. In California, Proposition 8, is still very much up in the air as I post this, but appears to be leaning towards passage, ending gay marriage in that state. Christians in America, of all stripes, have played a significant role in these contests, having poured so much time and money into them. So, with the elections now over, what’s done is done, the votes have been cast, and the contests are now over. I was wondering: What now for Christians in America?