We've moved

ST. PETER'S [BLOG] IS DONE AT BLOGGER. WE ARE NOW ON-BOARD AT THE NEW WWW.KCSPUCC.ORG -

DIRECT LINK TO ST. PETER'S [BLOG]: http://kcspucc.org/wordpress/?cat=2

SEE MY NEW POST THERE TODAY, "HEDGES ON DEMOCRACY NOW!" LONG LIVE WORDPRESS. UPDATE YOUR "FAVORITES" AND FOLLOW US OVER THERE.

-h

Rehearsing the Kingdom and Saint Peter's Keys

On my drive out to Pilgrimage worship* last night, I was running on empty in terms of blogging ideas and thoughts to bring to our Discernment Circle. I expected one of those nights that really feel like "practice" - willing my way through an experience when I'd rather be working on music or reading the Brin blog or eating popcorn in a hoodie and track pants. I didn't get what I expected. A couple of bits worth sharing emerged from the group.

Last (because it's shorter), we have started talking about being "Kingdom-rehearsers" or "Realm-practicers" in reference to the way we try to "live into" God's Kingdom through worship and everything else. This is just a slightly different way to talk about our role as "stewards," which we focus on. Being a steward is much more than making a tithe, and much more than being stewards of our non-monetary gifts; it is full caretaking of Creation in the Master's absence. It is rehearsing the Kingdom until it arrives.

First, our reflections on Luke's Transfiguration story (this past Sunday's lectionary text) led us to talk about Peter, and specifically when Jesus entrusts Peter with "the keys to the Kingdom." A pilgrim noticed that, in light of everything Jesus has taught and embodied about God's Kingdom, Peter is being given the keys so that he can open the Kingdom's gates. This is in contrast with the Saint Peter of a thousand jokes, who sits at the gates of an afterlife-heaven and excludes everyone who doesn't measure up to a certain moral standard.

I think we learn a lot from jokes; too often I don't laugh at jokes, because I'm aware of the kernel of truth that makes them funny. But I think that for many people, Christian and non-Christian, the Saint-Peter-of-jokes is an image that is taken to be true.

(This is of particular local concern; my congregation is St. Peter's UCC of Kansas City.)

So the wider discussion turned towards Christian imagery, the broad and narrow paths described lately by Marcus Borg **, and the need for the broad powers of empire, economy, and elites to twist and pervert Christian images in an attempt to take away their power. For example, the radically inclusive and "narrow" image of Peter being given the keys to the Kingdom in order that he might unlock the gates is twisted into an exclusive, afterlife-based, moral-code-enforcing "broad" image - not only that, it comes packaged in a Trojan horse of humor. Of course, the cross is huge; I think of the Crusaders hacking their way through the Holy Land, apparently oblivious to the irony of being agents of empire and carrying the quintessential image of Christ, crucified by empire, as their standard.

The whole story of Jesus has been through this process too, and it's the reason CrossWalk America exists; to witness to our hearing of this Word. Jesus' story - in its subversiveness, critique of the "broad" status quo, ambiguity, and openness - must be twisted, perverted, and domesticated by the powers of empire, economy, and elite precisely because it is a powerful story. What might people do, if they hear this story of unconditional eternal love, of communities built on rehearsing God's Kingdom? For those in "broad" power, this story is a real threat. If you wanted to keep your power, you'd probably turn it back into legalistic, other-worldly religion as fast as you could.

The good news is that in every case, even the presentation of the twisted version of the image carries with it the seeds of the true one. The cross on the Crusaders' shields and armor was already a critique of their deeds. The jokes about Saint Peter point back towards the story of Peter, the keys to the Kingdom, and their real purpose. The story of Jesus - even when it is told as a form of exclusion, graceless judgment, or moral condemnation - turns readers back to the gospels, where the Good News waits for them. Amen. -h

* The Pilgrimage is a house-church worship experience my congregation holds on Sunday nights. I've talked about it from time to time, but if you've discovered this blog in the past six weeks, click here for the "order of worship", here for my "Primer" post., and by starting here and reading forward, you'll catch most of what I've written about the story so far.

** Are you tired of me linking Borg's new book yet?!? Well, have you read it yet?!?

You would not believe...

that the last time I log in to Blogger to save my template (why? No reason.) before moving this blog to the new St. Peter's [blog] location on-board at kcspucc.org is the last time I'm allowed in to Old Blogger before making the migration over to new Google-Blogger. OMG.

I could throw the internet off the belfry right now.

WordPress doesn't import from new (stupid) Google-Blogger yet. OMG. I have to hope the open-source community is on top of this (bless you all and all the work you've put in to WordPress so far).

Well, I did write a post I liked a lot at the CWA blog this morning. So enjoy that, and I'll keep working on this puppy. -h

PS OMG I hate the INTERNETS BLOGGER!

Static Reverb

See my post at the CW blog from yesterday; http://blog.crosswalkamerica.org/2007/02/05/some-patterns-in-the-static/

Big changes are underway for the St. Peter's [blog] - stay tuned. -h

Life's eternal transience

Republished from the CrossWalk America blog.

Just one week after starting my new discipline of listening to Democracy Now!, I have two blog-worthy items to report. First, Thursday's show touched on my own church, the UCC, and a lawsuit filed (and won!) in Jackson, MS by UCC members against a radio station's license renewal. Friday's show included an in-depth look at Blackwater, a company that has profitted immensely from the Iraq War. Eric Prince, founder and CEO of Blackwater, is a fundamentalist Christian seems to see his company, its role, and war in religious terms; for those of us trying to articulate a more compassionate vision for Christianity, this is a topic of concern I think we will want to address.

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In Gregory Benford's novel "Eater," he describes a character who lives "as a passionate vehicle of life's eternal transience."

"Life's eternal transience." There's a mantra for the week (or a lifetime). As I read the sentence, I momentarily brushed up against something of God.

I'm fine with transience.* Even with being transient, should things turn out that way in "afterlife" terms. Even so; simply by Being, I have become a part of, and affected, the eternal Life that transcends my transience.

My friend Nick and I saw Will Ferrell's "Stranger Than Fiction" this weekend. I can't remember if that was before or after I was reading Benford, but they intertwined for me. Ferrell's character, Harold Crick, is faced with certain knowledge that he is going to die. (His comes in a unique form... but it's a bit of truth that we all share, don't we?) Poignant awareness of his own transience. He has to decide how he's going to live once he knows he's going to die; after he looks mortality in the eye, he is transformed. He chooses consciously and intentionally what role he wants to play in the larger (eternal) Story he's a (transient) part of.

Check it out. Take a loved one (it's in the $2 theaters now!). Look at it from a faith-perspective. **End of recommendation**

I see my self, as a Jesus-follower, as a transient spike in an eternal story of Life. I found a couple of interesting reflections this week that echoed this view but also revealed new angles and contours. That's what this blog was about (I wasn't really sure until now).

-h

* Really, a person kind of has to be; transience is pretty much what we are and have. We hope for, think about, talk about, and make decisions in light of the eternal, but transience is all we can truly grip. I'm saying the same thing over and over now; I value the eternal, but it's slippery. Stretching beyond our grasp is good, I like to do it, but it's also... beyond my grasp. :-) I hope you get what I'm failing to verbally express to my satisfaction.

You Can't Kill the Story

Republished from the CrossWalk America blog. There, you can also read "Musings on McGrath," my promised reflections on last week's post. -h

The quote below is from Bill Moyers, a speech on America's corporate media system called "Life on the Plantation."

The question of whether our political and economic system is truly just or not is off the table for investigation and discussion by most journalists. Alternative ideas, alternative critiques, alternative visions rarely get a hearing, and uncomfortable realities are obscured, such as growing inequality, the re-segregation of our public schools, the devastating onward march of environmental deregulation– all examples of what happens when independent sources of knowledge and analysis are so few and far between on the plantation.

So if we need to know what is happening, and big media won’t tell us; if we need to know why it matters, and big media won’t tell us; if we need to know what to do about it, and big media won’t tell us – it’s clear what we have to do: we have to tell the story ourselves.

And this is what the plantation owners fear most of all. Over all those decades here in the South when they used human beings as chattel and quoted scripture to justify it (property rights over human rights was God’s way), they secretly lived in fear that one day instead of saying, “Yes, Massa,” those gaunt, weary sweat-soaked field hands bending low over the cotton under the burning sun would suddenly stand up straight, look around at their stooped and sweltering kin, and announce: “This can’t be the product of intelligent design. The bossman’s been lying to me. Something is wrong with this system.” This is the moment freedom begins – the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story and it’s time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself. When the garbage workers struck here in 1968, and the walls of these buildings echoed with the cry “I am a man,” they were writing their own story. Martin Luther King, Jr. came here to help them tell it, only to die on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. The bullet killed him, but it couldn’t kill the story. You can’t kill the story once the people start writing it.

- from "Life on the Plantation," delivered by Bill Moyers to the Media Reform Conference in Memphis, TN, 12 January 2007

This week that's my hope for not just our mass media, but Christianity. "You can't kill the story once the people start writing it."

Media first; Moyers recommends a single, simple, meaningful step of action. I am, here and now, making a personal committment to take it and hope you'll consider the same. It's this; make Democracy Now! a primary news source in your household. Many of you can pick up the program on your TV or radio already; for the rest of us, the radio show is freely available every weekday here in English and Spanish - I use the daily "show page at archive.org" to stream the show while I'm making dinner. You can also sign up for the podcast.

What makes this a Jesus-following issue for me? Not politics. Even as a guest representative of CrossWalk America, I cannot stress that enough.

In Marcus Borg's new Jesus book, he makes two relevant moves. First, he thinks that following Jesus is first and foremost about a new way of looking at the world; for example, seeing that in God's Kingdom "the last shall be first," and understanding that "what you have done to the least of these, you have done to me (Jesus)." Second, this new way of seeing is the "narrow path" Jesus speaks of. "Narrow" does not mean "exclusive" or "judgmental," it means counter-cultural, against the status quo, subverting accepted norms and wisdom in favor of God's passion for love and justice.

My friends, in reading this book it is entirely clear to me that our corporate media establishment reflects, and reinforces, the "broad way" of our culture. The way we get our news has a huge impact on our way of seeing. You can bet I'll still check NYTimes.com often enough, but please consider how your practices of consuming information affect your way of seeing. And consider the alternative that Bill Moyers, a man of impeccable journalistic experience and, I believe, of great faith, has suggested as the best available source of a different way of seeing.

Of course, you have not missed the wider implications of "You can't kill the story once the people start writing it." Jesus proclaimed to the poor peasants of Galilee that God was calling them to begin writing their own story, instead of letting the priests write it exclusively. He was killed for it, but the people had already started writing, and the Story could not be killed. Over two thousand years and it has not yet been killed. We see common people in Africa and Asia and America picking Jesus' story up and adding chapters up to this very second. It's dangerous business; it makes the Powers of the Broad Way quite uneasy when the people Write. So we must. In the news and in Christ, we must listen and write not to the powers, but to the people.

-h

McGrath's Open Forum on "The God Delusion"

http://blog.crosswalkamerica.org/2007/01/15/mcgraths-open-forum-on-the-god-delusion/

Republished from the CrossWalk America blog; http://blog.crosswalkamerica.org

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Alister McGrath, theologian and scientist, responds to biologist Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics;

http://www.citychurchsf.org/openforum/Audio/OF_Alister_McGrath.mp3 (direct link - click to listen to mp3 right now, or right-click and "save as" to download)

Dawkins' book is one in a series of recent volumes by "new atheists," including Sam Harris' "Letter to a Christian Nation" and Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell." As a person who is very interested in the philosophy of science, it's fun and fruitful to be in conversation with these voices. They've had an impact on me as a Christian, and I think it matters for people of faith to spend some time in this discussion. Below is a revised version of my personal notes, which mostly summarize but also include a couple significant comments/ideas I'll mark with (h:) . McGrath's talk at times took the form of apologetics, a point-by-point defense of his Christian worldview, which can feel argumentative but in this situation may be helpful in adding a different kind of light to the territory Dawkins covers. -howie

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Dawkins assumes there are three possible explanations for people of faith: they are stupid ("fools"), deluded ("mad"), or evil ("bad"). He describes faith as an "infantile" "process of non-thinking," comparing belief in God with belief in Santa Claus. McGrath points out that Dawkins does not converse authentically with the many studied, reflective, intelligent people of faith, including many scientists. Dawkins does not account for or discuss adults who come to faith (adults don't come to believe in Santa), suggesting that his analogy is not valid.

McGrath points out that all people live by certain assumptions that cannot be proven (i.e., there is no worldview that can be constructed without some assumption, that is entirely a priori). Challenges to our assumptions are always disconcerting, but we can respond differently (transformation - embrace - active fear - passive suppression). (h: I've found that seeking and thinking about the assumptions I live by has been a freeing process of self-discovery and then choosing what I will assume.)

"Delusion" is defined as "a belief held in the face of evidence." There is a long history, stretching back to Freud, of explaining religion naturally as a form of wish-fulfillment. Dawkins takes this point to imply that the human wish for God's existence is a delusion; McGrath points out that we often wish for things that are possible and real. For example, I might wish right now for someone to watch a movie with tonight. Later, a friend calls me, and we end up seeing "The Last Waltz."

Dawkins created the concept of a "meme" in 1976. His analogy is that memes are to human culture what genes are to human bodies; a way of encoding and transmitting information, loosely an "idea." He disparages belief in God as a "virus of the mind." McGrath points out that if you accept the concept/image of "memes," all ideas have that status and it does not affect their correspondence to reality and truth.

"Real scientists are atheists" and "science disproves God" are further assumptions Dawkins makes, against the witness of such scientists as Stephen Jay Gould, Francis Collins, and Paul Davies. McGrath asserts that science, by its legitimate methods, cannot judge or comment on the issue. "Are there limits of science?" Dawkins' book answers "Yes, but given enough time science will explain everything, become omnicompetent." McGrath agrees that science has unlimited potential regarding the material world, but cannot address "meaning" and "purpose," which he insists are real, legitimate questions. (h: Dawkins' argument reminds me of Goedel's incompleteness theorems; that any system of truth-expression (such as science) will generate true statements that cannot be proven within the system; such systems are inherently incomplete.)

Dawkins claims that religion leads to violence, ignoring the example of the officially atheistic USSR. McGrath counters with the insight that human nature is potentially violent; we tend to transcendentalize divisions, whether they are religious, tribal, racial, economic, or something else. (h: Though history is full of people using religion as a means for violence, our great religious leaders have shown us the way of transforming our nature towards universal compassion. Jesus is a perfect example, and there is no shortage of others, thinking today especially of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

The last point Alister McGrath makes is to point how "terribly modern" Dawkins' argument is, meaning that it is thoroughly embedded in a modernist worldview that sees reason as the only way of knowing truth and the one way to do things properly. Dawkins seems like a scientific/logical positivist of the 19th century in this way, taking on a posture of certainty that is characteristically modernist (before physicists discovered uncertainty) but rather un-scientific. We are now in a post-modern period, open to many different possibilities and most importantly, to more-than-material forms of truth, information, knowledge, and being.

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Thanks for making it this far. I'll ponder and reflect for the coming week, and strike back with some conversation-starters about what it all might mean Monday next. -h