sustain:if:able kiwi

Sacred texts in a secular world

Sacred Texts in a secular world: How should we teach sacred texts in a pluralistic, multi-faith, modern university?

(Full PDF is here)

Dr Stephen Garner from the University of Auckland (blog here) will give the 2011 Annual Theology lecture on Thursday 25 August at 8 pm, at Flinders University in North Lecture Theatre 2.

With a number of years teaching Bible and Popular Culture and various courses on ethics and spirituality, with a PhD in public theology, particularly the relationship between artificial intelligence and Christian understandings of being human, and given the complex contemporary relationship between sacred texts and religious expression, this promises to be a timely and important occasion.

missiology in the Uniting Church Preamble

Uniting Church in Australia has over the last few years, moved through a process. the outcome of which has been the addition of a new ‘Preamble’ to its Constitution. It emerged from discussion with indigenous folk (UAICC -Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress), and extensive discussion a various church gatherings

The new Preamble offers 10 paragraphs. They include a brief account of the role of the church in Australian (settlement/invasion) and then makes some declarations of the Indigenous experience of God. (The complete document is here. )

Here is paragraph 3:

“The First Peoples had already encountered the Creator God before the arrival of the colonisers; the Spirit was already in the land revealing God to the people through law, custom and ceremony. The same love and grace that was fully and finally revealed in Jesus Christ sustained the First Peoples and gave them particular insights into God’s ways.”

I have been sitting with these words and phrases over the last few months. What does it say about the mission of God? What does is say about the activity of the Trinity (Creator, Spirit, Jesus) in mission? What does it say for those who want to be participants in God’s mission today? What might we learn from the past, for a mission (especially when that mission includes talk of fresh expressions) going forward?

Warning: I am working on a journal article on this, so comments you make might (properly cited of course) be used in my research 🙂

real hospitality: their place not ours

I blogged this back in April. I stumbled across it again last night and thought it was rather good. So at the risk of self-promotion, and in honour of the mission-shaped ministry course, which is starting tonight (40 folk registered, woop woop), I’m putting it up again.

Welcome Home is a Dave Dobbyn special, the first song on his 2005 Available Light. It was reputed to be written in response to a racist incident, in which a far-right group suggested Chinese migrants were not welcome in New Zealand.

The chorus is gorgeous: “Welcome home from the bottom of our hearts/from the bottom of our hearts.” It song then offers a number of important insights in regard to hospitality and welcoming the stranger.

1 – Honouring of migrant story

Tonight I am feeling for you/under the state of a strange land
You have sacrificed much to be here

These are the first words and in doing so, the song begins in a listening posture. It starts with the migrant, and desire to empathise. This leads to an honouring of the migrant journey, the recognition of sacrifice, that no matter how good it might be to move, it still means homesickness and breaking of relationship, of missing out of change, and not seeing parents grow old and children grow..

2 – Offering fresh possibilities

Out here on the edge/the empire is fading by the day/
And the world is so weary in war/maybe we’ll find that new way

This is quite profound, for it suggests that the current state of the “home” is not the best. It needs a new way. And thus the migrant is framed as a gift. With their coming, their might actually be a new way by which the old country might live, might learn, might grow.

3 – Suggesting a new practices

So welcome home, see i made a space for you now

And here the rubber hits the road. It’s one thing to say welcome. Some words.

It’s quite another whole set of realities to make a space. Space making is physical. Space making means the welcomer must move, must let themselves be disturbed in this act of space making.

Part of the difficulty is that different cultures perceive space making differently. A comment about an accent might be a joke one day, but on another day it can be perceived as a reminder of difference, an exclusive gesture.

Nevertheless it suggests that welcome is never just words. It must include the welcomer being willing to move, to deliberately enact gestures that the migrant understands as space making.

But at the root of this is the question of who owns, who defines “home.” The danger is that “home” means that relationships are always defined in binary

• home-visitor
• local-foreigner
• mine-not yours

Theologically, it seems to me that Jesus left “home” in the Incarnation. Much ministry was done not at his home, in his place, but only as he experienced the “other” saying “welcome home.” – At Matthew’s house, in Zacchaues’s place, at Mary and Martha’s. But on the other hand, this was always done in Jesus home tongue, his language and his culture.

Should the church say “welcome home”? This has been the dominant ministry posture in Christendom. We are the host and we expect the world to come to us.

Then in a post-Christendom world I hear people rifting off the Prodigal Son, the church becomes the father, waiting for the culture, which has stomped off, getting ready to welcome the returning. “Welcome home.” The Luke 15 parables cluster around this theme. As I’ve written elsewhere, the lost sheep assumes the shepherd will bring the sheep home. But what would happen if the shepherd decided to make a new home, in the place where the lost sheep was? What happens if the Christ is not saying “welcome home” inside our buildings?

(Cartoon from asboJesus).

So perhaps, if the church seeks Incarnation as a way of being, it is time for the church to become alien, migrant. To give up saying welcome and go looking for welcome. To wonder who, if any, will make space for it? This is certainly the heart of Luke 10:1-12, in which the disciples are sent, speaking peace, to be reliant on the welcome and hospitality of another.

For further on this:
When home is a pain

can there be good without God? here’s what I said

On Tuesday I was part of a team of 3, debating a team of 3 atheists, at Flinders University, between 3 -5 pm. According to one promotional flyer, “Come and watch a fantastic exchange on one of the most important questions ..The Atheist Foundation of Australia will be debating some of the State’s finest Christian thinkers.” (Finest! LOL)

Each side had 10 minutes per speaker. Each side was then invited to ask one question per speaker. General questions were then invited for 45 minutes, followed by closing arguments of 10 minutes maximum. Here’s what I said in my 10 minutes. Tomorrow I’ll post a few post-debate reflections.

Can there be good without God? My interest is ethical. How should we live if God is good; How would we live if good and God are separated? (more…)

If you’re a Christian and you support violence, you need to find a new name for yourself

Some great soundbites:

• If you’re a Christian and you support violence, you need to find a new name for yourself.
• Ghandi is so Christian he’s a Hindu.
• It’s in the book you hold when you yell at gay people.
• Nonviolence is Jesus trademark.
• It’s like joining greenpeace and hating whales.

at one with water: a theology for church as fully human

Colin Gunton, On Being the Church: Essays on the Christian Community has a wonderful chapter on the church. It includes an exploration of church as fully human. His argument is that if Christ is fully human, fully divine, then to be the body of Christ includes the invitation to explore being fully human.

Walking through Perth streets earlier this week, I noticed a billboard, a sign on a car advertising a business.

And some things clicked for me. A danger of mission is the fear of syncretism, of becoming the same as the culture. The sign “At one with water” got me thinking about swimming – in water, yet still truely, uniquely, human.

At one with water.
Immersed yet distinct.
Playful yet expecting wisdom.
A way of being church. Not to gather but scatter to be playfully,
humanly,
earth on heaven

Earlier this year I wrote a number of posts about church as scattered (here and here). The goal was missional life. The “At one with water” slogan expands my thinking. The goal of church scattered is fully human life. If so, the church gathered needs to includes the resourcing of life as fully human.

Which becomes a challenging question. In what ways does our worship fully humanise, acknowledge all of being human, in order that church scattered might be fully human?

A post made all the more appropriate because the day I walked happened to be Ascension Day, in which the church celebrates the return of Jesus, human body and all, to the Triune God. (for more of an Ascension Day theology see here; while for some creative ascension day worship, see here).

film review of Never let me go: atonement theology at it’s worst and best

A 500 word (monthly) film review by Steve Taylor (for Touchstone magazine). Film reviews of the most common contemporary films, each with a theological perspective, (over 60) back to 2005 can be found here.

Never let me go
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

This is a haunting movie. Directed by Mark Romanek it remains deeply disturbing long after the credits roll. The film is based on a novel by Japanese-born British author Kazuo Ishiguro. Short listed for the 2005 Booker, adapted for the big screen by Alex Garland, it provides some profound questions about being human and the person and work of Jesus.

The movie begins with Ruth (Carey Mulligan) watching her lover, Tommy (Andrew Garfield), preparing to be anesthetised on an operating table.

What follows is a cinematic triptych, elegantly woven together by the evolving love triangle between three friends, Ruth, Tommy and Kathy (Keira Knightley).

The year is 1978 and the friends are children (convincingly played by Ella Purnell, Charlie Rowe, Isobel Meikle-Small) at Hailsham School. What seems sheltered increasingly grows sinister, innocence hemmed by stories of dismembered bodies and evidence of repressed emotions.

Next, the year is 1985 and the children emerge into adolescence. The tension in the love triangle escalates and a sinister future becomes frightfully clearer. The three have been bred as organ donors, born to be broken apart in adulthood, spare lungs and limbs to ensure other humans are healthy.

Finally, the year is 1994 and in adulthood the three friends become re-entangled, each forced to confront their past and future.

Much of this makes little logical sense. Why don’t these three fight or flee? What events have breed a society in which humans exchange organs? Unnervingly, these unexplained absences, while perplexing, serve to make a plot simply more haunting.

In the final scene Ruth is alone. She contemplates her death, facing a fence on which pieces of plastic flap emptily on the wind. A chilling and senseless isolation is complete. All that remain are Ruth’s final words.

“Do we feel life so differently from the people we save?”

The word “save” jumped out, the idea that hunks of flesh ripped from one person’s body might prove essential to the salvation of another. Which brought to mind the Passion of Holy Week and the Christian gospels, which describe a body whipped and pierced. And the claim that such an act of brutality was essential to human redemption.

Are we really catching a glimpse of the Christian understanding of the person and work of Jesus?

Perhaps a difference is that of choice. Ruth, Kathy and Tommy are born to die, the days of their lives based on the whim of another. In contrast, in the Garden of Gethsemane we glimpse a Christ choosing to drink from the cup of human suffering.

While at Hailsham, Tommy gives Kathy a cassette tape of a (fictional) singer Judy Bridgewater. Kathy grows to treasure one song in particular, titled, appropriately, “Never let me go.” She grasps it not as a love song, but as a mother’s plea to her baby. The song, a recurring musical note running the length of the movie, offers another way to understand the Easter experience. That in and through acts of perverse human brutality is the reality that in Jesus, we realise that God will “never let us go.”

laughing Jesus: essential in the post-resurrection creationary

A creationary: a space to be creative with the lectionary. For more resources go here.

Just came across an Australian art exhibition with the theme laughing Jesus. This is a piece by Lindena Robb, titled Behold the Joy of Jesus.

The representations of a tortured Jesus were crowded in my mind, so the thought of painting a joyous Jesus delighted me. I was reflecting on the words: “being held” and “behold”. I noticed how we support each other by witnessing our experiences. Through witnessing, we are affirming, and also sharing the human expression of life. We are being held by those who witness our lives. We are also being held by God witnessing our lives. We behold others, as the women in this painting behold Jesus, each with her own personality and expression of delight, humour, compassion, admiration, and possibly desire.

There is a range of pieces, from a range of cultures (16). They note that images of Jesus often make suffering central and so miss a laughing, loving Jesus who is a living presence. Well worth reflection, whether in corporate gathered worship, or private reflection. I will be using them over the Grow and go weekend.

Jesus washes Osama’s feet

Just saw this picture, Lars Justinen from the Justinen Creative Group, who painted the above picture to use on posters advertising a conference. It was from 2007, so I’m a bit slow.

After some of my posts this week (Augustine, Bono, Revelation on Osama), does someone need to now paint a picture of Jesus preparing Osama’s body for burial, according to Muslim custom, weeping for the state of our world today?

Jesus today at Grow and go 2011

Grow and go is one of those joyful surprises you stumble across when you move to a new place. A weekend dedicated to learning. An invitation to the whole church across South Australia. Some shared input and worship. A whole lot of streams, so that a team can pursue different learnings.

If I was a minister, I’d use it as a key part of my leadership development. I’d ask my leaders team to commit to a retreat once a year, and a Grow and go learning experience once a year. One a chance to focus on the church, the other a chance to upskill.

It’s happening again May 13-14. The theme is God@earth: being present, real, local. There are 8 streams – on faith sharing, working with families, preaching, understanding Uniting church, pastoral care, preaching Matthew, creative worship and understanding Jesus.

I am doing a keynote address on the Friday evening. It will include stations and input exploring feelings, colour and the mission of God. I’m then doing the understanding Jesus learning stream over Saturday and Sunday, exploring more deeply how life can be shaped by Jesus as sufferer, liberator, culture-crosser, cosmic healer, reconciler.

For more details Grow and Go 2011.

Revelation’s White Horse Warrior on Obama/Osama bin Laden?

Following on from what Augustine and Bono might say to Osama bin Laden, I think for the sake of honesty, Christians must also ask what Revelation’s White Horse Warrior might say to Osama/Obama?

The Bible book of Revelation ends with the Rider on the White horse, who comes to pour out God’s wrath (Revelation 19:15). In response, the saints gleefully cheer (Rev 18:20). It is easy to claim an Old Testament God of vengeance and a New Testament God of love. Revelation refuses to allow us this luxury.

What to do with these Bible texts in Revelation? What to do with those who suffer violence in the name of Divine? Miroslav Volf, theologian at Yale and native born Croatian, puts the question this way: “Why must God say the unrelenting “no” to a world of injustive, deception and violence in such a violent way?” (Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (See all Christianity Books) 296)

Volf argues that much talk of non-violence has “the sweet aroma of a suburban ideology” (296).

“A “nice” God is a figment of liberal imagination, a projection onto the sky of the inability to give up cherished illusions about goodness, freedom, and the rationality of social actors. (298)”

Ouch! Volf argues that in reality, patient appeals to reason do not always work. Thus the texts of Revelation are, in my words, reality texts. That some people and situations will not change. They refuse to “shy away from the unpleasant and deeply tragic possibility that there might be human beings, created in the image of God, who, through the practices of evil, have immunised themselves from all attempts at their redemption.” (297)

Obama and religious fundamentalism (of any persuasion) become contemporary examples of this.

In such reality, the White Rider in Revelation functions to keep open a God who is indignant at injustice, deception and violence. This does not mean that God is schizophrenic, a wierd mix of suffering Messiah and justice-seeker. Rather it is the preserver of true and radical human freedom, that people have the choice to say no to redemption and reconcilation – whether a fundamentalist or a Christian refusing to face their sin.

These are tough things to consider. But it does provide a way to understand what Volf calls “the symbolic portrayal of the final exclusion of everything that refuses to be redeemed by God’s suffering love … not because God is too eager to pull the trigger, but because every day of patience in a world of violence means more violence and every postponement of vindication means letting insult accompany injury.” (299)

To be honest, part of this makes my blood chill.

But another part warms toward a God who cares enough about justice to engage the world in reality, in truth, in freedom whether in good or bad.

Volf has not finished. He then asks “who” – who can enact such justice? Can Obama and a group of US Seals? Volf notes that in the New Testament, the “who” is the suffering God and the White horse rider, “partners in promoting nonviolence.” (302) Humans are freed to renounce violence because of future hope in God’s passionate justice.

“the only way in which nonviolence and forgiveness will be possible in a world of violence is through displacement or transference of violence, not through its complete relinquishment.” (302)

Further posts:
see Christian Jihad or what sort of God killed the Canaanites?

Saint Augustine and Saint Bono on Osama Bin Laden?

“Let your desire for him [your enemy] be that together with you he may have eternal life: let your desire for him be that he may be your brother. And if that is what you desire in loving your enemy (that he may be your brother) when you love him, you love a brother. You love in him, not what he is, but what you would have him be.” (Augustine, Eighth Homily, in Homilies on the First Epistle of St John)

And even more clearly, “You are to love all men, even your enemies – not because they are your brothers, but in order that they may be.” (Augustine, Tenth Homily, in Homilies on the First Epistle of St John).

Thus the death of Osama is a tragedy, for in a sinful world, we are facing the fact that “Your Kingdom” has not come, that an enemy has not (yet) become a brother.

Two further things I find intriguing in these quotes. First, I would want to interpret the phrase “eternal life” through the lens of John 10:10, abundant life to the full, as both a current hope and a future reality. In other words, the (costly) call to love our enemies must start now.

Second, “not because they are your brothers” suggests a theology of difference, that the love of others does not start by expecting them to be like us. Or in the words of Charles Taylor (in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (See all Cultural Anthropology Books)), a politics of recognition in which the distinctiveness is appreciated rather than homogenised and unified (rather than a politics of equality).

And finally, a line from Bono, in the song Cedars of Lebanon, from the No Line on the Horizon album.

Choose your enemies carefully
Cos in time they will define you.

For further posts:
see Revelation’s White Horse Rider on Osama?

Resurrection: today

“It’s easy to be cynical”

finding your theological rut

1. How do you do theology?
2. How does your church do theology?

These are the questions by which we concluded our (post-graduate Master/Doctor of Ministry) Program Seminar yesterday. The post-graduate Master/Doctor of Ministry can only be taken by folk in ministry and by folk doing it part=time. In other words, folk a few years into ministry.  And I have this hunch that after a few years in ministry, a few years beyond formal training, it’s easy to settle into a rut.

Recent events in Australia and in the world – floods, fires, earthquakes, nuclear fear – make important the genre of lament. So that was focus of the class. We explored lament – in contemporary culture like U2 and Sound relief concerts, at nuclear disarmament protest marches and in the Biblical tradition.

Then at the very end we introduced the work of John O’Malley, Four Cultures of the West. He traces the history of Western thought and identifies four ways by which we can engage

• the prophetic culture that proclaims the need for radical change in the structures of society (represented by, for example, Jeremiah, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King, Jr.)
• the philosophical culture that seeks to understand those structures (Aristotle, Aquinas, the modern university)
• the poetic culture that addresses fundamental human issues and works for the common good of society (Cicero, Erasmus, and Eleanor Roosevelt);
• and the performance culture that celebrates the mystery of the human condition (Phidias, Michelangelo, Balanchine).

We invited people to look in the mirror. To think about the latest tragedy they had encountered in ministry and to identity the main way they had responded. Did they engage in prophetic action, or want to think through the issues, or seek poetry or metaphor by which to name the suffering, or the liturgy they might have written? To group together with like-minded people.

And then to consider if that is a repeated pattern. Are we simply going to where we feel most comfortable? Where does the community we serve tend to go? Are they in a comfortable pattern? What might it look like for us to engage in a way of doing theology that is more unfamiliar to us, or to our community?

Because it’s easy to get in a rut. And part of our growth as leaders come as we push ourselves into different spaces and places.