Desert Spirituality for the Emerging Church 1

Church life in America, borrowing from the culture around it, heavily emphasizes the new. The weight of history has no weight.

But Christianity is a historical religion; it is about God's faithful saving action in history, through Jesus Christ and his people. We can and must learn from the great Christian movements of the past. To borrow Leonard Sweet's image of the porch swing, we must lean back in order to move forward.

In the next few blog posts I will trace connections between monastic spirituality and our own present-day context. I will be observing both differences and similarities, and proposing ways in which these ancient voices can be a resource for today, particularly for churches or individuals that are part of the emerging/missional church conversation.

I will focus especially on three areas of monasticism: emphasis on the Eucharist, commitment to living in community and simplicity, and the Jesus Prayer.

Up next: Eucharist.

The Pillars of the Earth and the Legitimacy of Hell

I'm about halfway through the Starz! miniseries of The Pillars of the Earth, based on the book of the same title by Ken Follett. The story is takes place during medieval times, and is about the events surrounding the building of a cathedral. Trust me, it's more interesting than it sounds.

As is usual, the book was better. But once you get past the exposition-heavy first episode, the series isn't bad. The cast is well chosen, and though the production values are spotty in places (this is no Lord of the Rings), they're pretty good for television (it's also no Xena: Warrior Princess).

The interesting thing for me is how both series and book demonstrate the uses of the idea of hell. The main villain character, a nobleman who does the usual rape/pillage/oppression thing, is occasionally kept at bay by the good guy (a priest/monk) using the fear of hell and damnation. This in a book written by an atheist.

The specific question of hell aside (especially since I'm not sure how much it was actually historically used to afflict the powerful and comfort the afflicted), thinking about it this way can show us something about judgment. We normally think judgment is inherently bad, but in the Bible it is basically synonymous with justice. For oppressed people, the idea that someone is going to rout the bad guys and make things right is a very good thing.

Is judgment bad? If we fear judgment/justice, is it possibly because we might find ourselves among those first who will be last?

For further thought: David Opderbeck posted some very interesting thoughts in regard to justice, the coming of the Lord, and child sexual abuse here.

Quote: The Neighborly Love of God

This love, moreover, counts every human being as a neighbor. The Lord, after all, censured on man on this very score, a man who held that a righteous soul does not owe the duties of a neighbor to a soul that is entangled in wickedness. For this very reason, moreover, he constructed the parable that tells how a certain man fell among thieves while going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he blames the priest and the Levite who passed him by when they saw him lying half-dead, but he approves of the Samaritan who had compassion; and by the response of the man who had asked the question he established that the Samaritan was a neighbor to the victim, and said, "Go, and do thou likewise" (Luke 10:37).

For by nature we are neighbors to one another; but by works of love a person who can do good to one who is unable to do so becomes a neighbor. Hence too our Savior became a neighbor to us. He did not pass us by while we were lying half-dead from wounds inflicted by thieves. So it must be understood that love directed to God is always moving toward God, from whom it takes its origin; and it has regard for its neighbor, to whom it is akin as being similarly created...

-- Origen

Quote: N.T. Wright on Church

...the task of the church can't be attempted without the Spirit. I have sometimes heard Christian people talk as though God, having done what he's done in Jesus, now wants us to do our part by getting on with things under our own steam. But that is a tragic misunderstanding. It leads to arrogance. burnout, or both. Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply can't be the church.

I use the word "church here with a somewhat heavy heart. I know that for many of my readers that very word will carry the overtones of large, dark buildings, pompous religious pronouncements, false solemnity, and rank hypocrisy...

But there is another side to it...For many, "church" means just the opposite of that negative image. It's a place of welcome and laughter, of healing and hope, of friends and family and justice and new life. It's where the homeless drop in for a bowl fo soup and the elderly stop by for a chat. It's where on group is working to help drug addicts and another is campaigning for global justice. It's where you'll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose, and getting in touch with a new power to carry that purpose out. It's where people bring their own small faith and discover, in getting together with others to worship the one true God, that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. No church is like this all the time. But a remarkable number of churches are partly like that for quite a lot of the time...

I would rather rehabilitate the word "church" than beat about the bush with long-winded phrases like "the family of God's people" or "all those who believe in and follow Jesus" or "the company of those who, in the power of the Spirit, are bringing God's new creation to brith." But I mean all those things when I say "church".

N.T. Wright

Simply Christian

Review: Inception

My review of Inception is up at Jesus Creed. Check it out.

Women in Ministry

Kurt Willems at Groans from Within has begun a series on women in ministry which I plan to follow closely. He begins with the basic questions:

Can women serve in any role within the church? If so, how does this compare to most modern evangelical churches? If not, what are the boundaries for women in ministry? How does the New Testament serve as a guide on this issue?

This was, in part, my response:

I am a proponent of full inclusion of women in all areas of ministry and leadership...I became an egalitarian (really, I’m what Scot McKnight calls a mutualist; I believe in male/female complementarity without hierarchy) when I realized:

• The overwhelming majority of churches would shut down, today, if not for the involvement, including leadership and teaching, of women. This includes churches that claim women cannot lead or teach. It is particularly maddening when churches allow women to hold positions like “Director of XYZ” when they clearly have the same status as any (male) “Minister of ABC”. This is just hypocrisy and cowardice. I try to maintain the point of view that complementarians are genuinely following what they believe the teaching of Scripture to be, but it is hard in the face of such cognitive dissonance.
• It’s far from clear that Jesus and Paul held to some kind of hard complementarianism. There is the oft-quoted verse mentioned here, but Paul also frequently alludes to women prophesying, leading churches, and so on, and the gospels are full of images of women as leaders in Jesus’ movement, like the first witnesses of the Resurrection, and Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet in the posture of a rabbi’s disciple.
• Even if Jesus, Paul, and the early church were indeed hard complementarians who would have restricted women from certain roles, that does not in any way make those sorts of gender relations normative for all time. The NT also implicitly accepts slavery. The Bible is not a book of rules that we just have to follow blindly. We are called to ethical discernment. I am persuaded by the redemptive movement hermeneutic that, like with slavery, the overall thrust of Scripture’s narrative is firmly in favor of emancipation.

What do you think?

Quote - Incarnation

We are invited to trust, to trust this one human being with our pain and suffering, our dreams and hopes. Only when trust has been established can there be a joining to his flesh, a sharing in his mission and ministry, and a participating in his life. For those who would follow him, this is indeed entrance into the saving action of the triune God in Jesus. In order for salvation to be made real, those who would follow Jesus must trust fallen human flesh, flesh fully human, weak and vulnerable. There is no way around it -- both with Jesus himself, and with his company of disciples -- there is a priority of trust. And what will bind them together as a community of believers and as those sent into a world will be this same trust.

Willie James Jennings

"He Became Truly Human": Incarnation, Emancipation, and Authentic Identity