sustain:if:able kiwi

Like the Wildeness of the sea, by Maggi Dawn – book review

Like the Wildeness of the Sea, by Maggi Dawn, Dean at Yale University, is a sobering reflection on gender and the church, more specifically, on being a female leader in the Church of England.

It is divided into three sections. First, it surveys developments in the Church of England in relation to the ordination of women. It seems logically inconsistent that a church can appoint a person to lead as a priest, yet make ineligible to lead as a bishop. In seeking to find a way beyond the current impasse, Maggi points out that within the polity of the Church of England is “the process of reception” in which, when unity cannot be found, a decision can be made, as a nonbinding experiment, as a way of testing the consequences.

She draws in the narrative of Gamaliel in Acts (although it also sounds like the Ignatian discernment process applied corporately, in which a group makes a decision and explores it prayerfully before actioning). At this point I would have liked more of a history of times in the Church of England when this has been applied and the consequences. I would have liked some reflection on the guiding principles with regard to application. Is it applied in any situation of disagreement, or only in unique circumstances? To put the question hermeneutically, is the approach of Gamaliel in Acts descriptive or prescriptive?

Second, she outlines a theology of waiting, as a spiritual discipline embedded in the life and liturgy of the church. She argues persuasively that waiting includes times when God waits for us to act. She mounts a cultural critique of English ‘niceness’ and the damage done when truth and justice are smothered in platitudes. In other words, at times waiting is the most sinful response to a situation of injustice.

Third, it tells a story, of being a woman in ministry. It is a story Maggi Dawn is eminently suited to write, being one of the first woman priests to train in the Church of England. It is harrowing to read, a story of a church that has found ways to behave badly, in deeply sexist patterns, and the damage this has, and is, causing. It made me ashamed to be a male and should mean some corporate Anglican work at Colleges and denominationally on safe workplace environments. One result is the loss of enormously gifted people from the church and the reduction of the full flourishing, both of individuals and churches. The body of Christ is being harmed.

It is wonderfully written, concise and cohesive. It moves smoothly between theology, literature, spirituality and experience. The title is a case in point, elegantly referencing the books key interpretive metaphor, the struggles in the Church of England, place in Maggi’s sense of call and her current location. It is very classy writing.

In one sense the audience is very limited – English Anglicans. Yet in the particularity of the narrative is an example and a warning that makes it worthwhile reading for anyone. A warning of the damage that happens when a part of the body is not honoured. This could be an angry book and that would be reasonable. Yet there is compassion for those who have caused damage, a passion for a broadly diverse church, a theological depth and rigour and a clear prophetic call to action. (Surely qualities needed for a bishop in the Church of England today). Hence it also becomes an example of how to write, how to speak for justice and write for truth. In that regard, I will be adding it to student reading lists in the area of ministry and giving it to male ministers.

Finally, it is an intriguing example of swift and contemporary theological reflection, with the book published some three months after the 2012 synod decision. Fast work, quality work, Maggi and Dalton, Longman, Todd.

Faith in the midst of violence: the La Faruk Madonna

In a side room at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, is placed the La Faruk Madonna. At first glance, it looks your standard religious fare, three paintings, an angel either side of a Madonna.

But the story behind the paintings is extraordinary, for they are painted on old flour bags in the middle of World War 2. The artist, Giuseppe Baldan, was by a prisoner of war. Hence the backdrop behind the angels and the Madonna is a prisoner of war camp, including the prison fence, the Sudanese desert, a washing line and the huts that held prisoners.

The story is that Italian prisoners of war, captured by the British in North Africa, sought permission in the camp to build a chapel. A chapel needs decoration and so the La Faruk Madonna was painted, an aid for prayer, a source of hope.

As the war ended, the paintings were saved from the camp and were given to the British commander for safe keeping. It was a mark of respect for the humane way he had treated the prisoners and honoured the art.

It is both comforting and disturbing. Comforting in the creativity of humans, even in bleak times. Disturbing in that here were British and Italians worshipping the same God, yet finding ways to kill each other. What did the British think as they saw the angels being painted and as they watched the prisoners turn up for worship week by week, as they heard the prayers to “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

the nativity as a theology for the differently abled: film review of Intouchables

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for December.

The Intouchables – A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

“That’s what I want. No pity” Philippe from his wheel chair

It is Christmas. In the next weeks many of us will find ourselves contemplating an image of the Nativity, the crib surrounded by adoring angels, bewildered shepherds and a prayerful Mary.

(from Metropolitan Museum , usage based on their fair use policy and from www.metmuseum.org.)

The Adoration of the Christ Child by Jan Joest (1515) is one such depiction. While not sited on contemporary Christmas cards, it has caught the eye of scientists, who have identified one angel and one shepherd as displaying the typical features of Down syndrome.

It raises an important theological question. When the Word became flesh, one with all humanity, how might this be good news for the differently abled? What does disability mean to a Christian understanding of being human?

French movie “The Intouchables,” written and directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, provides a delightfully comic, yet theologically thoughtful response.

Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is a tetraplegic, sentenced to life in a wheel chair as a result of a hang glider accident. Needing care, he hires Driss (Omar Sy), a Senegalese migrant, from a long list of applicants. They share little in common, separated by age, ethnicity, upbringing and social context.

Yet together this unlikely pairing help each become more fully human. Their journey is a delight. Those around me in the packed cinema found a shared laughter, an enjoyment with, never at, the differently abled.

The film was voted the cultural event of 2011 in France, enjoying number one at the box office for ten consecutive weeks, becoming the highest-grossing movie in a language other than English. It is easy to see why. The dialogue is deft. The acting is superb.

Some critics suggest easy stereotypes in the contrast between rich white man and poor black man. Yet “The Intouchables” uncovers the brokenness in both their worlds. For one, the relational sterility of wealth, for the other, the drug addicted violence of high-rise migrant housing.

Both Philippe and Driss must eventually find healing for disabilities not just physical, but relational.

Suggesting easy stereotypes also overlooks reality. “The Intouchables” is based on truth, the relationship of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and Algerian Abdel Sellou, spread over ten years. Their story is told in A Second Wind and they remain friends. Together their relationship offers a depth of insight into the task of being human.

“Pity is the last thing you need. Pity is hopeless. Pity is what someone gives you because he is afraid to take care of you. I didn’t need that. But compassion I don’t need also. It comes from Latin and means ‘suffering with’. I don’t want you to be suffering with me. I need consolation, which in Latin means keeping me as a whole person, respecting me as I am.” (Philippe in Daily Telegraph, 5/9/2012)

Christians can get good at pity. At Christmas we can face many calls for compassion. Might it be that Christ, surrounded by disabled angels and shepherds, calls us to neither pity nor compassion? Rather he invites consolation, the God who in Christ so loved the intouchables, all “the least of these.”

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Principal, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

Copyright note: Usage here based on the website. The Materials are made available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only…. Users may download these files for their own use, subject to any additional terms or restrictions which may be applicable to the individual file or program. Users must, however, cite the author and source of the Materials as they would material from any printed work, and the citations should include the URL “www.metmuseum.org.” By downloading, printing, or otherwise using Materials, whether accessed directly from this website or via other sites or mechanisms, users agree that they will limit their use of such files to non-commercial, educational, personal or for fair use, and will not violate the Museum’s or any other party’s proprietary rights.

Yoder (not Yoda) on church and society

John Howard Yoder popped up in a conversation this week. Yoder is an Anabaptist, so I always find myself doing a double take when he pops up in a Uniting Church context (which this conversation most definitely was). My surprise was quickly accompanied by the warm glow that happens as one finds one’s roots affirmed.

John Howard Yoder popped up again yesterday, in a footnote in John Swinton’s, Dementia: Living in the Memories of God

The distinction between church and the world is not a distinction between nature and grace. It is, instead, a distinction that denotes the basic personal postures of men [sic], some of whom confess and some of whom do not confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The distinction between church and the world is not something that God has imposed upon the world by prior metaphysical definition, nor is it only something which timid or pharisaical Christians have built up around themselves. It is all of that in creation that has taken the freedom not yet to believe.” (Yoder, The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism 116)

What is intriguing is the way that differences between gospel and culture, church and society, are located not in God, but in humans. People have choice.

What is also intriguing is how this allows creative conversations between church and society. Mutually learning is possible, discoveries of God in creation possible both inside and outside the church.

What is even more intriguing is how subversive this is of some expressions of Anabaptism, which very much focus on withdrawal from the world.

a woman on women bishops

Remarkable essay by Sarah Coakley, Anglican Priest and Systematic Theologian at Cambridge University on women bishops. (I’ve engaged with her work previously – When non-priests pray: A conversation between Sarah Coakley and Bono Vox regarding incorporative pneumatology and priestly prayer. And here in relation to indigenous relationships.) She points to the absurb lack of logic in ordaining priests while not allowing them to be bishops -“an offence to theological truth, a running sore of incoherence in our theological life-world without whose resolution and healing no other, related, theological project in our Church can I believe go forward and flourish.”

What is fascinating is her demand for theological rigour and depth with the tradition of the church, yet in a way that (to my reading) is still giving enormous permission to fresh expressions.

Hooker’s perspective does indeed allow for novelties in the rational reception of Bible and tradition: the plastic nature of Hooker’s conception of reason, and its deep understanding of historical embeddedness, does allow for creative development in response to the primacy of Scriptural authority and the deposit of tradition, without the danger of a merely historical or moral relativism. There is nothing in Hooker, then, that would give credence to the slogan that “nothing new is ever true.” But there is everything to suggest the possibility of hopes for future creativity and renewal.

In other words, (my words) being “traditional” is never an excuse to block innovation. Rather being “traditional” is to be innovative, to expect a great depth of creativity, that emerges from the hard work of understanding context and one’s roots.

throwing things at Jesus: Messy church worship at Adelaide Mission shaped ministry course

Messy church worship at Adelaide Mission shaped ministry course. Each week at the 2012 Adelaide Mission shaped ministry course, a different form of worship is introduced. As much as possible the team has been inviting local fresh expressions to share with us something of their worshipping life.

A few weeks ago, a local messy church group presented. They finished by inviting us to “throw” stuff at Jesus! On each table had been placed some wrapped up objects, newspaper held by tape. People were invited to take a ball and to imagine all their “stuff” – all their burdens and fears – were being placed in that ball. When they were ready, all the balls were placed in a central cloth. On the count of 1-2-3, these were thrown at the cross, with the shout “Thankyou Jesus.”

In some ways it was quite childish.

Yet I found it quite personally moving.

I realised I did have some stuff I was carrying. So to channel that into the paper, to have it move from internalised to externalised, and then have it released, thrown, at the cross of Jesus, was quite releasing.

And it is a way of understanding the atonement, the cross of Christ. As the One who catches all our stuff, takes all our sh*t, releases us, to be thankfully grateful.

fascinating art image ecological Christ, Colossians 1

I saw this on Facebook and have no idea of the original source, nor the artist’s intent. But to me it seemed a fascinating expression – in the colours of the rainbow, the dolphins, so often a sign of ecological harmony, rising – of Colossians 1:18-20 – the ecological Christ.

all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross

What is missiology?

I wrote this at the start of 2010, as the inaugural Director of Missiology, being asked to develop a new missiology stream at Uniting College, which included history and theology, but expected it to be taught out of a Missio Dei perspective. I came across it again this morning and wanted to note it here as placeholder.

“a time when missiology (reflection) is as important as mission (action)” – Ross Langmead

Missiology IS NOT Colonialisation-ology, although it has been and can still can be. Nor is it Growing churches-ology, although it has been and can still can be.

Missiology IS participation in God’s purposes in the world, with particular attention to the voice of the other.

It asks questions about God and humans: including “what is God up to in the world?” and “what does it mean for humans to participate in that activity?” It is aware that these questions have been asked before and in other cultures, and so looks to church history and theology for challenge and inspiration.

Missiology skills
1. Be able to articulate mission then, mission now, both in Australia and across history
2. Ability to read contemporary contexts, both local and in general popular culture
3. Experience cross-cultural
4. Be able to work with the theological tradition in light of contemporary questions
5. Demonstrate ability to connect Uniting Church practices with contemporary spiritual searchers
6. Be able to cultivate leadership – whether a mission hub, forming a new expression, community development, salt and light in workplace

artist shoots holes in her Bible

When I was doing a Master of Fine Art degree, I was required to present a paper about semiotics to a contemporary theory class …. I had procured a large, black Bible of my mother’s which she had ‘retired’ because it was so heavily annotated she wasn’t able to read it any more and I’d nailed it to a wooden target, of the type hunters shoot at for practice. I set these against a tree in my aunt’s orchard and shot at them three times with my father’s rifle, blasting the pages of the Bible apart … My (non-Christian) classmates were shocked when I showed them the results, as they knew I was a Christian … I learnt a great deal from it and it generated one of the most constructive dialogues in that class. I wanted to simply say that it is not the book that is sacred per se but the living word that is in me, that changes how I live and how I treat my neighbour. (Betty Spackman, A Profound Weakness: Christians & Kitsch, 35)

This is a fine example of the power of art to engage theology. The theme is so intellectual – semiotics and I would rush to footnote and read. Yet Betty places this within her lived experience, of nurture and growth. And in so doing, raises many important questions regarding a theology of revelation in regard to Scripture. Where is sacred found? In words of text or witness of life?

Slogans for the 21st century: cultural exegesis by Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland, who came to fame for his book, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture has an uncanny knack of providing acute descriptions of our contemporary world.

Three young adults who in the midst of this changing world, seek to find their voice,by telling stories.

“We know this is why the three of us left our lives behind us and came to the desert – to tell stories and to make our own lives worthwhile tales in the process.” (Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture)

Coupland has gone on to produce 12 books of fiction that seem to capture our changing culture – Microserfs: A Novel, about Microsoft Culture; Jpod, about life after the iPod; Hey Nostradamus!: A Novel, describes a fictitious high school shooting similar to the Columbine High School.

He’s currently working on an art project “Slogans for the Twenty-First Century,” in which he is seeking to “Try and isolate what is already different in the twenty-first century mind as opposed to the twentieth.” In other words, to do contemporary cultural analysis.

The exhibition is currently showing at the Daniel Faria Gallery.

Over recent years I have invited my classes to engage culture, to do “cultural exegesis” by using Third Way magazine’s Icon series, a monthly reflection on a contemporary cultural symbol. This series by Coupland would be another way of undertaking “cultural exegesis.”

For more see
– Coupland’s theologies of salvation here
– Coupland from X to A here

“The Cross is not enough” book review – Chapter 6

After a break, I’m back, reading my way through Cross Is Not Enough: Living as Witnesses to the Resurrection by Ross Clifford and Philip Johnson, Australian Baptist thinkers. The break is important. During the break I experienced this:

Overnight it had rained. Truth be told, overweek it has rained here in Adelaide, making the ground sodden and the trees laden with rain.

As I left the house, I noticed a flash of red and green. Our front yard is currently host to a pair of parrots, outrageous in their bright red crest, raucous in their squawks of delight as they place chase with each other from tree to tree.

As they landed, their weight caused branches, laden with rain, to shake vigorously. Water cascaded, sheets of white, unleashed from a branch of green, by these playful red crested visitors. A full immersion indeed.

In the Scriptures, so often birds are linked with the Spirit’s visit. Have I just participated in nature’s baptism – appreciated again her noise, colour and water? Heard afresh “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased”? Been invited anew to creation’s plays? (here)

An experience in which creation made connections with Christianity. Which is exactly what this chapter is about. It asks the question – Are we awake to the possibilities of making connections from the signs of resurrection in nature to general revelation? It is a point well made. Training for ministry, I was asked to connect a Christian theology of creation with a Christian theology of the cross. But what about creation to resurrection? For Clifford and Johnson

We believe that in this motif of resurrection the creation “speaks” to us: resurrection is an integral part of the natural order. It is an analogy, of course, because nature “dies” and “rises again,” and dying-and-rising in nature is not identical to the bodily resurrection of human beings; however, what we need to bring back into focus is that nature itself reveals a resurrection motif, and this motif should be appreciated as being part of general revelation.

What mission possibilities are intriguing:

• the place of analogies to resurrection in nature – in the cycles of birth and death, in metamorphosis of a butterly. “In today’s context where dolphins feature in alternative spiritualities we might consider reemphasizing the resurrection symbolism associated with these marvelous sea-mammals.”
• the growth of “the symbologist as a heroic character in fiction.” Dan Brown’s books are a great example, in which the hero is “the symbologist is someone who decodes and interprets the hidden messages of signs—signs and symbols that can carry spiritual messages.” I’ve never heard leader-as-minister described in this way – as a symbologist of the spirit. Although it does link so obviously with the command in Matthew to observe the signs of the times.
• the importance of thin spaces

“Some people who are highly intuitive are very responsive to encountering God in the world and feel a heightened sense of the divine in geophysical spots of transition—such as the borders where land and sea meet, where open fields become a forest, where mountaintops touch the sky. Such places of transition are often cal led “thin places” simply because the geophysical zones are wafer-thin and can be portals to spiritual encounters. So for people who are hardwired for the creative and intuitive and experiential, the resurrection analogies in nature can be connected to other kinds of thresholds or “thin places.””

Is this what is going on with the growth of walking church (here and here)?

I have some quibbles, but they seem petty when laid alongside the mission possibilities in this chapter and the practical earthing – in nature, in intrigue and in cultivating thin places.

The link from nature to analogies of the resurrection seems to move us from general to special revelation. The analogies seem to cry out at us to reflect: Has there been one who has indeed gone before all of us to die and rise again?

My review, chapter by chapter is as follows: Chapter one is here, Chapter two is here, Chapter three is here, Chapter four is here, a Hillsong excursus here

a faith shaped by art not words

What is the place of art in the church? Here’s a fascinating take by Peter Steele, Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne.

“there is no particular reason to suppose that the reading-off of God’s word to humanity had to take the form which, in the western world, it largely did – namely, via philosophically-based theology. The whole affair might have gone differently, so that, for instance, the figures in highest institutional esteem in the Christian community would be artists.” (Peter Steele, in Braiding the Rivers. Essays in Poetry (John Leonard Press, 2012), 33)

(We walked past his abode, Newman Hall, in Melbourne over the weekend). It is a fascinating suggestion – what would have happened to Christianity, if the Christian tradition had been given to artists, not word-smiths?

I think the same thing is being said in the following visual image, this stunning icon that Gary Rutter posted on twitter recently –

St Luke, the icon painter. Sketch for an icon [/caption]

In other words, in the trajectory of Peter Steele, imagine if the Gospels had come to us not as words, stories of Jesus and Mary, but as pictures, of Mary and Jesus.

Posted by steve at 07:58 PM

Mission, the end and indigenous dreamtime

I’m working my way through 2 Corinthians at the moment, reading it slowly, day by day, phrase by phrase, reflecting on the spirituality of missional leadership so evident in the words. As he struggles to plant communities of faith, be Christ-like in conflict, seek the inter-conciliar unity of the church. There are some gorgeous soundbites.

“Father of compassion” (1:3)

“we have conducted ourselves … in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity” (1:12)

On Saturday while speaking, I was asked about the relationship between mission and the end. If all things are to be reconciled in Christ, why bother now?

Another soundbite, which I’d read in 2 Corinthians that morning, sprung to mind.

“God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Christ the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20

God has promised a future which has an end in Christ. The church participates in that mission as an “Amen.” Our participation can be a fitting “Amen,” an expression of the self-giving, trusting, vulnerable, humble life that is Christ. Equally, it can be a poor “Amen”, a hubris that is simultaneously petulant, conflicted and shallow.

Mission is our Amen to God’s promised Yes.

At this point we are messing with time, and with our participation in time.

Which perhaps links with a perspective offered by an indigenous colleague a few weeks ago. Talking about the Spirit in global cultures, he noted that the Aboriginal dreamtime stories all share a similarity. They lack an end. They create a continuous now, which provides for him a wonderful beginning, but no promise of resolution. This has caused him to find comfort in the Christian story.

Their is an assurance that God is the beginning, the dreamtime. And that God is in the end, in the compassion of Christ, who is the promise that is the final “Yes.”

conversion and the Uniting Church Preamble

It was great to drop into one of our integrative classes today for a lecture on the Missiology of Conversion.

We have introduced two compulsory Integrative topics in our new Bachelor of Ministry. Rather than assume that by some sort of informal osmosis, students somehow miraculously become able to weave together theory and practice, Bible and ministry, leadership and theology, we’ve decided that we actually need to both model and expect integration.

So the two compulsory Integrative topics explores six models of theological reflection (from Theological Reflection: Methods).

To ground the models, each year a different theme is chosen. The four teaching streams at Uniting College – Bible, missiology, leadership, discipleship – speak to that theme, while the students workshop a case study from their ministry context, using one of the six suggested theological models.

The theme this year is conversion. So on behalf of the missiology stream I introduced a number of contemporary missiologies of conversion.

First, the Uniting Church Revised Preamble to the Constitution. I suggested the Preamble provided a fascinating approach to conversion – God is already present, faith must be embodied in just deeds, conversion invites all parties are in an ever-deepening Gospel process.

Second, we sat with an essay by Wilbert Shenk in Landmark Essays in Mission and World Christianity which outlines trends in mission in the non-Western world. What do we need to hear, to absorb, from all parts of the globe, not just the Western part, as we begin to think about conversion? What are the best practice insights regarding church, Spirit, Jesus, gospel and culture that need to be shaping us?

Third, a childrens story by Joy Cowley (Tarore and Her Book), which documents how indigenous people in New Zealand were the primary agents in the spread of the Gospel. Again, the story provides a fascinating approach to conversion – God is already present, faith must be embodied in just deeds, conversion invites all parties are in an ever-deepening Gospel process.

Fourth, we conversed

• What insights from the Preamble might guide conversion?
• What does “already encountered” (Para 3) mean for conversion?
• What practices would enable conversion to have a trajectory toward “same love and grace fully and finally revealed in Jesus Christ” (Para 3)?
• What does “integrity of the Gospel proclaimed” (Para 6) for the mission of the church, past and present?

It was a rich and energising discussion – of mission, of Uniting Church theology, of history.