In the mood for love

we should maybe watch that tommorrow. i would really like to see it and it may need to be given back in sometime. ryan may have said that kiah was house sitting or something so it may work out. thanks

The Weakness of God

Reading this review of The Weakness of God by John D. Caputo was simply amazing. I was struck with many different thoughts of how Caputo's theology changes problems I have reluctantly held onto for awhile now and reinforces those aspects of theology and philosophy that have lit my heart recently. It seems Caputo inverts the Problem of Evil and the pervasive (perhaps modern?) definition of Power, emphasizes the feminine nature of God and incorporates the theme of God as Event rather than being or substance in his theology - all things I am already trying to sort out in my own head as I walk to get the mail or mow the lawn.

They are also things I have already had conversations with friends about and would like to return to. Daniel, can you give us an idea of what Barthe (or some kind of bionic Neo-Barthian) would add to/correct Caputo? Steve and Tyler (Steven Tyler), remember that Problem of Evil phase I went through awhile ago and how there seemed to be nothing close to an answer? Does the weakness of God present a solution or at least eradicate the question or is it simply rephrasing the Free Will response? Does anyone think this Caputo guy is completely out of his tree and that the omnipotence of God is something very necessary for a proper theology? Then lend me your ears!

According to our political discussion on Tuesday, here is a link to Jim Wallis' blog and here is an article by him. He is the editor of Sojourner's magazine, the big alternative news and political voice to Dobson and the Religious Right crew. Yet all is not quiet on the Wallis front, from Tlery's alma, James K. A. Smith has had some beef with Wallis in the past but focuses more generally on the tendencies of the religious left rather than the prolific and diverse Kruse Kronicle in this supes-long-but-well-thought post concerning specific arguments in Wallis' book. *(notice I put cartoons for the religious right references because I think alot of it is just silliness but for the religious left the problems are more subtle and, although still problems, cannot be narrowed into exaggeratory cartoon form.)*

Finally, in regards to looking back as we move forward (Charlie and Daniel), David Finch writes about Brian McLaren and Ancient-Future Faith. Lander, as you will be going into the trenches of Calvinist theology (with the already fully Calvinized tlery as your guide, no less) Scot McKnight might help with some pretty unbiased distinctions. And for all the rest, I don't know where Kim Fabricius came from but all these are glorious...and this...and this.

(again, sorry for the long and dry theology post. can we get some more music, film and book recommendations - spice things up a bit?)

seth

Dear Lander,

On one of my favorite sites ever, I found this review of thy movie.

I think we should watch it soon.

love, Ryan

It worked

I think this might work. I have just started Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig, and it is presenting some interest. I spoke to a girl who said that you could sit and think about each paragraph for a while. Anyways it does seem to be a good book, but one part stuck out to me. The selection is kind of long, but it works.
Its about a dad and a son, and a couple traveling on motorcycles. The dad is the narrator. They are at a motel when Chris, the son, says;
"Let's tell stories then," Chris says. He thinks for a while. "Do you know any good ghost stories? All the kids in our cabin used to tell ghost stories at night."
"You tell us some," John says.
And he does. They are kind of fun to hear. Some of them I haven't heard since I was his age. I tell him so, and Chris wants to hear some of mine, but I can't remember any.
After a while he says, "Do you believe in ghosts?"
"No," I say
"Why not?"
"Because they are un-sci-en-ti-fic."
The way I say this makes John smile. "They contain no matter," I continue, "and have no energy and therefore, according to the laws of science, do not exist except in people's minds."
The whiskey, the fatigue and the wind in the trees start mixing in my mind. "Of course," I add, "the laws of science contain no matter and have no energy either and therefore do not exist except in people's minds. It's best to be completely scientific about the whole thing and refuse to believe in either ghosts or the laws of science. That way you're safe. That doesn't leave you very much to believe in, but that's scientific too."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Chris says.
"I'm being kind of facetious."
Chris gets frustrated when I talk like this, but I don't think it hurts him.
"One of the kids at YMCA camp says he believes in ghosts."
"He was just spoofing you."
"No, he wasn't. He said that when people haven't been buried right, their ghosts come back to haunt people. He really believes in that."
"He was just spoofing you," I repeat.
"What's his name?" Sylvia says.
"Tom White Bear."
John and I exchange looks, suddenly recognizing the same thing.
"Ohhh, Indian!" he says.
I laugh. "I guess I'm going to have to take that back a little," I say. "I was thinking of European ghosts."
"What's the difference?"
John roars with laughter. "He's got you," he says.
I think a little and say, "Well, Indians sometimes have a different way of looking at things, which I'm not saying is completely wrong. Science isn't part of the Indian tradition."
"Tom White Bear said his mother and dad told him not to believe all that stuff. But he said his grandmother whispered it was true anyway, so he believes it."
He looks at me pleadingly. He really does want to know things sometimes. Being facetious is not being a very good father. "Sure," I say, reversing myself, "I believe in ghosts too."
Now John and Sylvia look at me peculiarly. I see I'm not going to get out of this one easily and brace myself for a long explanation.
"It's completely natural," I say, "to think of Europeans who believed in ghosts or Indians who believed in ghosts as ignorant. The scientific point of view has wiped out every other view to a point where they all seem primitive, so that if a person today talks about ghosts or spirits he is considered ignorant or maybe nutty. It's just all but completely impossible to imagine a world where ghosts can actually exist."
John nods affirmatively and I continue.
"My own opinion is that the intellect of modern man isn't that superior. IQs aren't that much different. Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which they thought was completely different. Within that context of thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, particles, photons and quants are to a modern man. In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know."
"What?"
"Oh, the laws of physics and of logic -- the number system -- the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.
"They seem real to me," John says.
"I don't get it," says Chris.
So I go on. "For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity."
"Of course."
"So when did this law start? Has it always existed?"
John is frowning, wondering what I am getting at.
"What I'm driving at," I say, "is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed."
"Sure."
"Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere...this law of gravity still existed?"
Now John seems not so sure.
"If that law of gravity existed," I say, "I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistence that that law of gravity didn't have. Or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. And yet it is still `common sense' to believe that it existed."
John says, "I guess I'd have to think about it."
"Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense.
"And what that means," I say before he can interrupt, "and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It's a ghost! We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running down other people's ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own."
"Why does everybody believe in the law of gravity then?"
"Mass hypnosis. In a very orthodox form known as `education."'
"You mean the teacher is hypnotizing the kids into believing the law of gravity?"
"Sure."
"That's absurd."
"You've heard of the importance of eye contact in the classroom? Every educationist emphasizes it. No educationist explains it."
John shakes his head and pours me another drink. He puts his hand over his mouth and in a mock aside says to Sylvia, "You know, most of the time he seems like such a normal guy."
I counter, "That's the first normal thing I've said in weeks. The rest of the time I'm feigning twentieth-
century lunacy just like you are. So as not to draw attention to myself.
"But I'll repeat it for you," I say. "We believe the disembodied words of Sir Isaac Newton were sitting in the middle of nowhere billions of years before he was born and that magically he discovered these words. They were always there, even when they applied to nothing. Gradually the world came into being and then they applied to it. In fact, those words themselves were what formed the world. That, John, is ridiculous.
"The problem, the contradiction the scientists are stuck with, is that of mind. Mind has no matter or energy but they can't escape its predominance over everything they do. Logic exists in the mind. Numbers exist only in the mind. I don't get upset when scientists say that ghosts exist in the mind. It's that only that gets me. Science is only in your mind too, it's just that that doesn't make it bad. Or ghosts either."
They are just looking at me so I continue: "Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn't a human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It's all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. It's run by ghosts. We see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts and more ghosts. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living."
John looks too much in thought to speak. But Sylvia is excited. "Where do you get all these ideas?" she asks.
I am about to answer them but then do not. I have a feeling of having already pushed it to the limit, maybe beyond, and it is time to drop it. "

What interests me, is that while i was reading I obviously thought about religion and the idea of God. I was wondering how could this idea be disproved or at the least how could God not be a simple discovery that isn't really true. But I soon realized that it was the wrong approach. I feel that this selection should and does prove or encourage the idea of such a being, idea, as God. I might have a hard time articulating but, what I enjoyed was the fact that all the things were of or in the mind. So our perception and understanding is from the mind. So when the Bible, jesus' life, or other things challenge our thinking we use our minds. The laws of nature he talks about are gravity, math, and maybe even laws of morality and thinking. However, I don't think God can be viewed in this context, as a document, or a simple statement or idea. He is constantly mysterious and draws us further in. And at least in the laws of physics people have found this out. Einstein's law of relativity is being challenged by modern physics with such ideas as the string theory. And yet in my small observation of these scientists they still proclaim that they may have the final answer. But anyways, we have seen in life that "discoveries" or answers really lead to more thinking, researching, living . . .okay i think i got most of this out. I guess my main point is that we don't have to defend God,Jesus, and maybe religion, in its truer form, as a law or a human invention, but rather that these things were always there and our interpretations, distortions, portrayls, and even names are the inventions. I should've made paragraphs. sorry first time. stupid.

The Real Mary by Scot McKnight

Here is the first and second chapter of Scot Mcknight's forthcoming book, The Real Mary. We'll be given three copies so those that are interested in reading the entire thing should start calling dibs with stampies and no reversies.


Charlie and I briefly talked about this article at one of my favorite blogs and, lo, I found the same discussion at Scot McKnight's great blog here. So the topic is going around in several other places and I thought I'd mention it because the subject might come back around after Chocolat and heck, we are at least near 20-somethings and we all are having an internet informed faith to some degree, so this is largely talking about us.

and lastly, tonight at Melissa's, 7:00.

I liked to read this.

http://thinkerup.blogspot.com/2006/09/brian-mclarens-unorthodox-quotes_07.html

Coemerge Tonight

Everyday Joe's tonight.

let's try to make it a little earlier if we can...how about trying for 7 - 7:15.

Picking Up a Piece of Orange-hot Space Tile

Where is melissa's house????

love,

Kay and Ryan stranded at Joe's

Nevermind I checked my "E-mail"

da dot

give me fuel, give me fire, give me double chai desire

I think we need to focus a little bit, or at least think about focusing our little bloc so that we don't just fall into reactionary bitching (a little bitching can be like chicken soup to the soul though). Perhaps we don't need a doctrinal statement about what we believe (which we don't) but some group affirmations that we love and are committed to/aspire to, I think would be a very good exercise and a step towards forming a group identity.

Here's mine:

I love the crucifixion, contemplating it keeps Christianity rooted in the beautifully messy gospel story.

I love and value (though I'm sorely lacking in systematic practice) discipleship to Jesus. Talking to him, trying to be like him, contemplating his parables and stories, and learning how to be a good 'questioner'.

I love meaningful conversations with people, when the outter shell is broken and when I can lead or be lead into a more meaningful and expanded encounter/view of Christianity/Christ.

I love ancient spiritual practices that are deep, meaningful and mysterious.

I love learning about ancient Christianity, whose practices are the antithesis to the pop and pulp consumeristic Christianity.

I love get-togethers(I was going to say fellowship but that word sucks) that have no other reason/value then in the getting together. Fine i'll use it - i place a high value on fellowship and friendships.

I love lamp

~Steve/Brick

I met death today. We are playing chess.

Det Sjunde inseglet, (aka The Seventh Seal), Ingmar Bergman, 1957.

I think a few of you would find this film very worthwhile. I didn't give it proper press a few nights ago, so this is in an effort to articulate to you how rad it is.

Revelation 8:1-2 opens the film, as the crusading knight, Antonius Block, arrives home to Sweeden. On the ocean's shore, he is greeted by Death, with whom he begins a to play a game of chess...

There is an excellent descriptive comment on the imdb page which goes into far greater detail.

If anyone would like to watch the film, you may borrow it, or perhaps we may opt to view it collectively sometime.

technoati tags: foriegn films

Post on the night of the 13th of September, Year of Our Lord 2006.

I finished the slauterhouse 5 quote below; under the post "what? what? what? what?".

Also, I have something to write that I got from thinking about myself and I feel good about it. It's that in the lives of the very Blessed (bless-id), there comes a point where Providential Gifts are withheld, so they are not imediately exchanged for drugs or other bad things. There came a point in my life where money, education, and fruitful environment have been withheld, so that I may not trade them for drugs and other things leading to death. During this time of withholding, I can either earn those gifts--which will mean preparing for their indended use-- or I can take those gifts and exchange them for drugs and bad things. I thank my friends and family for their help with this. Of those in this group Seth has dedicated a lot.

Also, Daniel, I feel that we should share--in theory--our experience from the community group. Did you find it inspirational? Bye Bye.

TylXer T. GaXul

A Prayer for the Presence of Christ

Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know thee as thou art revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of thy love. Amen.
~from the Book of Common Prayer

for those who work with jr. high, or

for everyone,
Dr. Strangelove - How to stop being a suburban turd and love the God.

In an email conversation with Deb, I've been thinking through what makes youth group more than a social get together. My first email to her was this:

"Grant and Deb,

http://firecracker8489.blogs.com/blog/2006/08/why_ive_given_u.html

Above is a girl that honestly expresses her dissatisfaction with her youth group. I am not making a single parallel with the youth group she went to and ours but I think that her post and the comments that follow are an interesting conversation about a very important distinction between a social club and a youth group (hopefully without overcorrecting into a boring bible study or strict sermon time). Let me know what you think of it.

Seth"

This is my second email to her, I believe in the subject bar is,
"Yikes. If you keep listening, I'll keep sending...

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/ruin-the-ski-retreat-for-jesus#more-680

I automatically balked against his argument because of all the good I have seen ski retreats in the lives of keeping kids connected to the church(I know that at least Jerome and Ryan have fond memories from these) but I like where he ends - where he sees his ideas going, "They need a passionate vision and opportunity to give till it hurts, to sacrifice, to connect with the cause of Christ. They want the church in America to stop being a joke and to become the asset to world missions and church planting movements that it can be." and ending up here, "...the parents are afraid you’ll spend your college money starting churches in Mongolia or building clinics in Appalachia or tutoring in the inner city." That is a faith that postmodern kids long for, something way bigger than they can even make it something that has hijacked their life instead of accomodated it and doing something that leaves the world a completely different place.

I don't like looking at these kinds of changes because, at least for me, I kinda like just showing up and hanging out with kids or going to the mountains to run around with them. But we are responsible, way more responsible than I think we even know, to lift up those kids who desire more out of life and want Jesus to provide that and to challenge those who are complacent and comfortable with an apathetic role in building the Kingdom of God. Again, I must repeat, Yikes.

seth"

So, this can also be charged against the church as a whole. But are there limits to the application? A church is not simply a community service organization or a board of world releif. How does spiritual developement fit in? Can we justify a retreat for its balm of silence and reflection on a frayed and ragged soul? Are there creative ideas for merging a spiritual retreat and meeting a global need together? And most importantly, does the subject matter really justify seth's bastardization of a classic movie title? Wait...most importantly, what the heck are we going to do about it in our church?

seth

(sorry for the long post and for the monopoly I feel I have on this blog. the only cure is to have an uprising of people drowning out my voice with tons of beautiful posts and only then will I be put in my place and subjected to say, "thank you sir, may I have another.")

technocrati tags: youth ministry, missional church

Maunderings

In effort to simply keep this train a-movin' I present a few items that caught my eye this week:

• I found a little bit of conversation over at open source theology about the charismatic/emergent interplay. There are some good questions and some different perspectives to look at Jesus' miracles through,

"How much is Jesus’ healing ministry a prophetic sign of the renewal of the covenant (a reversal of the curse of the covenant) rather than a normative expression of faith?" and later, "Wright shows that Jesus’ working of miracles should be seen as the breaking in of the new order of the Kingdom of the creator God. The healings performed among Israel are a sign of what will happen for the whole world. This is highlighted particularly in his demonstrations of power over nature. His miracles then are to be seen as lived stories of the kingdom, which are stories of true exodus, and some in particular, such as the exorcisms, articulate the true exodus clearly as a deliverance from the oppression of Satan rather than deliverance from the oppression of Rome."

but the comments turn to eschatology which certainly does have an important role in talking about healing, exorcism, miracles and whatnot but it wasn't really a part of our conversation and has a vocabulary of its own (parousia, preterism, etc) which might not be accessible.

• What Jerry Falwell, Zizek and Obesity Can Teach us About Our Evangelical Holiness Codes

David Fitch rolled so many issues and ideas that I think are important into one piece and then mentioned Zizek in light of them that I don't want to even try pimping this to anyone - read it or don't - I think it hits a damn sight close to a root hypocrisy in evangelicalism.

• I struggle often with staying at the big Faith E. Free (one of the main reasons I do stay is because of the coemergentco chums that I regularly see there) and this post about converting to catholicism caught me,

"To me, to convert now would be a very Protestant thing to do; that is, as an individual I'd be picking my favorite denomination. To quote Dorothy Day (quoting Peguy, I believe): "Somehow we must be saved together." I see my calling as one of teaching Baptists and other free churchers to be more catholic and to work for the unity of the church, not, as Kaspar says, by a simple return to Rome, but by mutual conversion to Christ."

I don't know if the dots exactly connect, but I felt encouraged to struggle with some of the backwards theology for the sake of the entire body of Christ rather than bail out and shake the dust off my feet as I leave.

• I like the concept of this and I think it's the artist that did the GY!BE, formerly GYBE!, art on LYSFLAH (or for Ryan - the Oct.31st Record).

• If any of these are tongue-in-cheek I think they are brilliant.

• And finally...W...T...F...I love christian music.

The Big Time!

It's official! We are now an official Emergent cohort.

Emergent Village, one of the hubs for the ongoing national and global conversation about the emerging church, has listed us on their cohorts page.<---click on other cohorts to see what they're up to!!! Our new online status will alert anyone in our area of our presence, and hopefully our tuesday nights will become a bit bigger, more diverse, and unltimately more effective in impacting the community and connecting with others who have joined God in saving the world. Also, click here to read what cohorts are all about.

-ryan